Not Pioneers but Pawns

Michael Totten has some reflections on the Israeli settlers evacuated from Gaza, and he quotes Leon Wieseltier's TNR article at length. Michael compares and contrasts the twin irredentisms of Greater Palestine and Greater Israel. Money quote from Totten:

In a perfect world, both “greater” movement would be defeated simultaneously. But the world is far from perfect, as it always has been, and Palestinian society is more dysfunctional and corrupt than Israeli society. So the Greater Israel movement is being defeated before the Greater Palestine movement, if only because the intifada has been largely walled off from Israel proper.

Money quote from Wieseltier:

These settlers were not pioneers, they were pawns--the eager and fervid pawns of various Israeli governments acting on a grandiose geopolitical scheme whose futility has finally become apparent to a majority of the citizens of Israel. For a few decades the settlers seemed to be winning, and now, at least in Gaza, they have lost. That is all.

Unfortunately, Judaism is not devoid of the kind of "magical" thinking Wieseltier describes: If only enough Jews would keep the Sabbath, or live in the Land of Israel, or recite the right scriptural verses, then the Almighty would be compelled to bring in the Messianic Era - so the thinking goes. But there are also many devoutly religious Jews who reject these notions, and who do not believe that the mundane laws of cause and effect will be so lightly set aside. History seems to favor the Muggles.

Go read Michael's post at the link.

Basrawis Rock!

So says Queen Amidela, and Fayrouz concurs, in this post on clashes between Badr brigades and Sadr militia. A pox on both their houses, says Fay. On the darker side, QA reports on power outages in Basra. This is no joke, especially in the summer.

During the previous regime, we accused the government of deliberately wasting the electricity or not providing it to us. Why? Well, we knew that Saddam hated us. He called the three governorates -- Basrah, Nassriyah and Ammara -- "the black governorates" because of the 1991 incidents. Saddam is gone. What's happening now? The answer is it's worse, much more worse.

For the last 12 months, we've had electricity for 12 hours per day. For the last three weeks, we haven't had electricity at all. Is the government deliberately doing this? I say they are because there is a lot of aid coming from the coalition countries. God knows where this aid is going.

Read the full post to find out how Allawi lost the Basra vote.

Rebuilding the Spirit

Mino 19 at Friends of Democracy has some thoughts about rebuilding the Iraqi individual:

... Administrative and financial corruption is probably the most dangerous. It is obvious that corruption was the natural result of a devilish seed planted by the former regime. It was cleverly and deliberately watered later under the rule of civil administrator Paul Bremer, and it finally gave its fruits under Allawi's interim government. New thieves from abroad were imposed on the government, many of whom were experts not only in robbery but in creating an atmosphere of corruption to encourage others from inside and from abroad to plunder the country's riches.
Many of those expatriates became prominent leaders and officials as if Iraq were devoid of qualified honorable individuals from inside. This begs the question: when will the right person ever fill the right place in Iraq? One who will truly serve the people instead of those who seek power and positions for their own personal gain?
I have to say here that the reconstruction of the Iraqi psyche is far more important and urgent than the reconstruction of our infrastructure. What use is a prosperous country when it is governed by sick, greedy individuals looking for their own interests?
You can treat this as a call to return to our timeless, noble values and morals such as altruism, sacrifice for the sake of others, and other sacred values which have disappeared and are almost extinct in the new Iraq which is full of empty slogans such as transparency, accountability and democracy. ...

Read the full post at the link.

I hate being right ...

... about stuff like this. The other day I compared the anti-war moonbats to Fred Phelps. Well, take a look at this:

Fred Phelps gang protests at soldiers' funerals:

Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.

The church members were met with scorn from local residents. They chased the church members cars’ down a highway, waving flags and screaming “God bless America.”

“My husband is over there, so I’m here to show my support,” 41-year-old Connie Ditmore said as she waved and American flag and as tears came to her eyes. “To do this at a funeral is disrespectful of a family, no matter what your beliefs are.”

They're right in step with these left-wing creeps protesting at the Walter Reed military hospital:

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton."

The anti-war demonstrators, who obtain their protest permits from the Washington, D.C., police department, position themselves directly in front of the main entrance to the Army Medical Center, which is located in northwest D.C., about five miles from the White House.

Among the props used by the protesters are mock caskets, lined up on the sidewalk to represent the death toll in Iraq.

Code Pink Women for Peace, one of the groups backing anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford Texas, organizes the protests at Walter Reed as well.

Gay Patriot weighs in on Fred Phelps and Cindy Sheehan:

They are now inextricably linked together as radical nutcases masquerading as anti-war protestors but instead spouting similar deceitful, misleading, anti-American statements that will probably be used in an upcoming al-Qaeda recruiting video.

Read GP's whole post at the link.

New to Blogroll: Chantel

A fiery red-head [or fill in your own favorite redhead sterotype] talks about the life and times of Chantel. She's an amazing woman with incredible tales to tell. (Oh, and she's also an old pal from work.) Go check out her blog. (Hat tip: OrBlogs.)

Morning Report: August 26, 2005

Norway rated best place to live. According to news sources, the UN Development program (UNDP) rates Norway the best place to live for the fifth year in a row. 'Rich from North Sea oil and with a generous welfare state, Norway has led the world ranking since it ousted Canada from top spot in 2001. The annual list ranks countries by an index combining wealth, education and life expectancy.' (MSNBC)

Iran news roundup. An Iran Focus item posted at Free Iran highlights a ban on "Music Day", the brothers Mohsen and Parviz Esmaeili, street children in Tehran, and other issues: 'Iran’s Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, banned newspapers from declaring any day of the year as “Music Day”. Hard-liners consider music as un-Islamic. ... President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has chosen two ultra-Islamist brothers for two key government posts. Mohsen Esmaeili, a young jurist on the powerful Guardian Council, has been earmarked to become cabinet secretary and government spokesman. His brother, Parviz Esmaeili, will be the new head of Iran’s official news agency, IRNA. ... Tehran’s chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi announced that a new wave of crackdown would commence to root out “troublemakers”. The hard-line daily Kayhan earlier quoted Mortazavi as saying, “There are various methods to ensure public security and peace. Combating troublemakers is an important such method”. ... The semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami earlier quoted the director of the Social Ailments branch of the Tehran Mayor’s Office as saying that his organisation had rounded up 14,205 homeless children from the streets of Tehran over the past year. Oil-rich Iran has an estimated 100,000 street children.' (Iran Focus via Free Iran)

Equal rights, equal responsibilities. An AP item at the Washington Blade explores a California Supreme Court ruling on lesbian and gay couples: 'Same-sex couples who raise children are lawful parents and must provide for them if they break up, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. The precedent-setting decision puts former gay and lesbian couples on equal ground with unmarried heterosexual couples who break up and marks the latest decision by the court recognizing rights of same-sex couples.' (Washington Blade)

In brief. Kat at The Middle Ground reflects on the quiet majority; Sam at Hammorabi has an analysis of the silent war between Syria and America; Jane at Armies of Liberation blasts the Yemen regime's campaign of intimidation against Jamal Amer; and Imshin has a moving piece on the family of an innocent man named Osama who was murdered by a terrorist named ... well, just go read the article. (various)

Michael Yon: Gates of Fire

If you haven't already, please go read this extraordinary post from Michael Yon. After Ruiz is killed, Lieutenant Colonel Kurilla gets up close and personal with the terrorists (at the expense of his watch), and journalist Yon gets in some amazing shots ... not all of them with a camera. Read it all at the link.

Iranian Dissident Killed in Sweden

Via Free Iran:

ranian dissident killed in Sweden
SMCCDI (Information Service)
Aug 24, 2005
http://www.daneshjoo.org/publishers/currentnews/article_2527.shtml

An Iranian Kurd was murdered on Monday night in the Swedish City of Lindsborg by three unidentified individuals.

The victim's name is Kaveh Zare-i aged 25.

The spread of this news has increased the fear among many Iranian opponents on the resumption of the wave of extra-judicial killings made by Islamic regime's intelligence on foreign soils.

Over 200 Iranian dissidents, such as, the late Shahpoor Bakhtiar were murdered in the 80s and 90s in major European countries with a kind of impunity.

Here's hoping the EU will stand up against fascism and terrorism on its soil.

Lower than Low

Scum. Vermin. Swine. These much-too-kind words are what come to mind when I read about the self-absorbed halfwits protesting in front of a military hospital. You know who these slimeballs remind me of? Fred Phelps and his "God hates fags" goons doing their vile vaudeville act at the funerals of AIDS victims. They're right in the same class.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike.

Update

My DSL upgrade is now in effect (woo hoo) which means I can post even more often and more easily. Aren't you lucky.

And speaking of upgrades, Doctor Zin at Regime Change Iran has just ordered that new laptop! The good folks at Portable One were kind enough to give him a discount, too. Hopefully the machine will be delivered early next week. (Faster, please!)

My posting break doesn't officially end for another week, but I will probably yield to the temptation to post a few random thoughts before then.

Oh, and I'm now listed on OrBlogs.

Muqtada al-Sadr, Please Call Your Office

Muqty's political career is not going particularly well.

Iraq the Model reports:

Muqtada's office in Najaf is on fire.
Right now there are bloody clashes in Najaf between the supporters of Muqtada Al-Sadr and the residents of the city.
The clashes started after Al-Sadr men tried to reopen their office which has been closed for months but the locals attacked the office, set fire in it and clashed with Sadr's men.
The police forces intervened and the casualties till now are 7 killed and tens wounded.
I have received news saying that a curfew has been imposed in the city.

It's worth mentioning here that the governor prohibited demonstrations arranged by people from outside the city "who wants to demonstrate can go and do that in his own city" said the governor in a statement yesterday.

I was told in a phone call from a friend who lives there that gunfire can be heard right now in najaf.

As a reaction, a number of Sadrists suspended their membership in the National Assembly and warned from "serious consequences" accusing the governor and his party (the SCIRI) of being responsible for the tension in the city.

Update:

Al-Hurra just reported that the Najaf police force is exchanging gunfire with the followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr.
The militia men are now hiding and returning fire from the shrine of Imam Ali.

At the same time, the Badr organization (military wing of the SCIRI) denied connection with the conflict.

Update:

There are news about clashes extending to reach parts of Baghdad and apparently followers of Muqtada have attacked some offices tht belong to the Badr organization of the SCIRI while the news are confirming that the first clashes originated between the Sadrists and civilian residents.

On the other hand, the ministers of transport and health (both Sadrists) have suspended their membership in the government.

You might have heard something on the MSM about "clashes". This is what's happening. Stay tuned.

Watts at 40: John McWhorter on Rebellion

On the 40th anniversary of the Watts riots, John McWhorter has some reflections on the romance of rebellion in this Washington Post op-ed:

On Aug. 11, 1965, the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles broke out in flames on the nation's television screens. Many cherish the memory as the moment when the militant became mainstream in a "fed-up" black America, replacing the nonviolent, gradualist efforts of old-guard civil rights leaders. The Watts riot indeed shaped modern black American history more decisively than the Voting Rights Act. The question is whether it was in a good way.

In comparison with the polite sleeve-tugging and forms of nonviolent protest typical of the earlier civil rights generation, the sea change in 1965 may seem at first glance to have been an overdue response to the injustice that black America had endured for so long. But after researching the riot and the policies established in its aftermath, I have come to a different conclusion. In teaching poor blacks that picturesque battle poses were an "authentic" substitute for constructive intentions, the "Burn, Baby, Burn" ethos ultimately did more harm than good to a people who had already been through more than enough.
...
The Watts riot began when white police officers stopped an intoxicated black driver in South Central Los Angeles. He resisted arrest and was forcibly subdued. [Sounds awfully familiar. -aa] A rumor quickly spread that the officers had beaten a pregnant black woman, and a growing mob started throwing rocks and bottles at the cops. The incident snowballed into a five-day conflagration, with blacks destroying a thousand businesses. Thirty-four people died, more than 1,000 were hospitalized and nearly 4,000 were arrested.
...
The conventional wisdom at the time was that blacks were rebelling against the conditions they were forced to live in. I was born two months after Watts, but growing up, this was the justification I heard time and again.

But. There were a few things about the Watts riots, McWhorter says, that didn't quite add up. For starters, these were the first race riots instigated by blacks, and not by mobs of white bigots. And yet, "black rioters in Watts ruined black-owned businesses as lustily as white ones." Then there's another curious thing: "the worst riots happened in places where conditions for blacks were best" - nothing comparable to the Watts riots happened in Atlanta or Birmingham.

Not wishing to presume any further on the writings of a fellow word geek, I'll stop quoting here and let you go read the rest at the link. Pay attention as McWhorter describes the lethal mix of rebellion for its own sake and a carefully cultivated entitlement mentality, and the devastating effects this ideological "Molotov cocktail" had on African American society.

Revolution, Communism, and the legacy of racism are the subject of Neo's fascinating three-part study on Paul Robeson and his friendship with the ill-fated Russian Jewish poet Itzhak Feffer. Feffer - an early casualty of what probably would have become Stalin's "final solution" - desperately signaled his impending death to Robeson in their last meeting - but to no avail. Robeson kept quiet about Feffer, and - with the exception of a purely symbolic, and utterly useless, protest in the form of a Yiddish folksong he performed publicly - about Soviet Jewry in general. Some highlights from Neo's series:

The trajectory of Robeson's life is a highly cautionary tale of the ideological seduction of a gifted man by what was originally an idealistic dream, his failure to see the horror that dream had become, his severe moral compromise as a result, and the cost of that compromise to him and others. Robeson was a perfect example of just how very difficult it can be for a mind to change, no matter how insightful or otherwise intelligent that mind might be.

So it seems that Robeson's love for Communism was rooted in his idea that it was the antidote to the racism that had tormented this very proud man all his life. In this, of course, he was utterly mistaken, but it was a powerful dream that he could not relinquish: "Here, for the first time in my life...I walk in full human dignity." When push came to shove and Stalin's crimes became known, Robeson, like so many others, faced a choice between clinging to an ideal and rejecting that ideal because of the horrifically flawed reality that it had become. Like so many others, he clung to the power of the dream rather than face a harsh reality. (Once again, in describing this, I am not offering an excuse; merely an explanation. Robeson is responsible for his own moral failures.)

What is it that ultimately distinguishes those such as Robeson, who refuse to abandon the cause even in the face of incontrovertible evidence, from others who are able to renounce the cause in which they once believed? We cannot know for sure. But my guess would be that it depends partly on how deeply they need to believe (the deeper the need, the more difficult to face reality), and how much they have already compromised their own integrity in the service of that cause.

For some, perhaps the implications of having to face their own guilt are simply too great....

I'm not going to try to make a direct connection between Neo-Neocon's article on Robeson and John McWhorter's piece on the Watts riots; but I do think that they both provide insights into how the drive for justice and the quest for the greater, common good - both noble pursuits in themselves - can become distorted into an atavistic, destructive force that brings only destruction. Today's liberals would do well to pay attention.