Chesler: Arest Mother as Accomplice in Sarah and Amina Said Killing

Phyllis Chesler:

On January 1, 2008, two American teenager sisters, 17 year-old Amina Said, and 18 year-old Sarah Said, were shot to death by their Egyptian father, Yaser Said, in Irving, Texas. After a lifetime of being physically and sexually abused by their father, the girls had finally decided to run away.

Sarah had rejected an arranged marriage with a much-older friend of her father’s whom she had never met. Both Amina and Sarah had boyfriends—and thus, their father viewed them as “whores” who had disobeyed the rules and who therefore deserved to die. ...

DIL1 blogged about it here.
Now, Phyllis writes, based on her communications with the girls' great-aunt Jill

Abplanalp, she believes that
Texas-born Patricia (“Tissie”) Said, the mother of the two girls, should long ago have been charged as an accomplice in their honor killing. She is the one who tricked them, first by running away with them—and then by luring them back home in a series of phone calls. ...

According to great aunt Jill, there are three witnesses who can testify that, although Tissie ran away with her daughters, she did so in order to spy on them for Yaser; that all along, Tissie had planned to return to her husband—which she did. She knew that Yaser planned to kill his daughters. And nevertheless, upon her return, she started calling her daughters persistently.

Read the rest at the link.

Interview: 21 Years in Israel

During my visit to Israel last November, I met up with an old friend, Paula Gaon, who has been living in Israel for many years now. She kindly agreed to an interview.

-So, how long have you been living in Israel?

21 years in September.

-Where did you live when you first moved to Israel?

I lived on a kibbutz near Jerusalem while studying in a university level ulpan (intense Hebrew language course) and working part-time on the kibbutz. It was a very interesting experience since most of the students were from the former Soviet Union. After ulpan, I even spoke Hebrew with a Russian accent. At the time, I didn't have much confidence about speaking to Israelis. So I tended to speak only with Russian speakers, a more level playing field.

-How long were you on the kibbutz, and what were your impressions of it?

I was on that kibbutz for only six months. This kibbutz was one of the large, veteran, very successful, kibbutzim. It seemed to have been very well managed - nothing wasted & kibbutz members very settled into their jobs. But, as an ulpan student and temporary resident, most members didn't take much notice of us, nor were they interested in getting to know most of us. Of course ulpanistim were given the least desirable jobs - like employees from manpower agencies & regarded as pretty disposable. In general, kibbutz members, at least at that time on that kibbutz, were quite closed to most things outside their world - including the need for common courtesy. I don't want to sound too negative here. The day-to-day life was really quite pleasant & it was wonderful having so many chores, like laundry & meals taken care of and very well done.

-Where did you go after the kibbutz?

After ulpan on kibbutz, the story starts to get complicated, at least time-wise. But looking back on it, I realize that it was really more the same. So I'll stick to the essentials.

After ulpan, I spent the next two and a half years on two other kibbutzim in the north, southern part of the Galilee. Both were religious and newer. Neither remained kibbutzim. As far as I know, both are now yeshuvim, settlements. I was actually up for membership on the first of the two, but soon saw that this was not going to be. In any case, I managed to get the kind of work on both that allowed me to hone language skills. So from there, I moved to Beit El in the Shamron Sumaria. Beit El was a large National Religious (Dati Leumi) Settlement. Understand that religious communities do not typically like single people, especially single women. So it was somewhat rare that I moved there. But they did areas that single people live in.

OK, so to continue with the Beit El chapter. I had been in Israel just over three years at this point. In all honesty, this is the time that I probably should have returned to the USA. Beit El was a very nice place, but I really came to understand the differences in Israeli and Ameriican mentality. For example, I was always invited by friends for sabbath and holidays meals. Why? Because a single person can't possibly manage. Have to admit that I did resent the fact that people wanted to feel sorry for me because I was single - couldn't understand that I've been alone most of my adult life and had long, long ago realized that that was not likely to change. They just couldn't get it and somehow felt that thay had to be partly responsibe for my well-being and at the same time resented the responsibility.

With all that, the four years at Beit El were nice ones. I came to realize that religious people are people just like everyone else - with the same challenges and obligations. And the people there are kind & decent folks.

My challenge was having to fall back on teaching elementary school English to earn a living. At the time, the Ministry of Education was so desperate for elementary English teachers that they financed certification courses for English-speaking academics.

I had substituted some, so they begged me to sign up for the certification course and teach a few hours at an elementary school in Jerusalem. This is the time that I referred to earlier as the time I should have returned to the USA. In all honesty, have to admit that I was worried about finding my niche in the American workforce, and being able to manage health insurance. Nonetheless, teaching in the public school system was a disaster from the very beginning - talking about a square peg in a round hole! The seminar did put me on probation for awhile, but they were so desperate that they even asked me to continue when I offered to quit. In any case, I did leave. But wasn't the only one. Most of those who went through this course eventually left. Looks like every body learned something from this experience.

***

Egypt: A Faded, Burdened Country

Michael Totten:

I never believed the uprising and palace coup that overthrew Hosni Mubarak would lead to a liberal democracy in the land of the pharoahs. I doubt Ajami did either. It isn’t what most Egyptians are yearning for, not at this time. And if most Egyptians don’t want it, who could possibly build it? ...

Fouad Ajami has more.

We Interrupt This Broadcast

Here is what I learned from watching half an hour of news on CNN:

1. BARACK OBAMA WAS NOT BORN IN KENYA.
2. Marvel Comics is going to have a character come out of the closet as gay, a development for which BARACK OBAMA opened the door. And speaking of BARACK OBAMA,
3. Will Smith will soon be starring in a movie about BARACK OBAMA.
4. And finally, I got to watch two women talking about prostate cancer.

Obama the Cool

The sexual warmth is definitely there—but the rest of it has sharp edges. . . Tho he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also that coolness—and I begin to have an inkling of some things about him that could get to me.”

Vandals Trash Valencia Street

This happened last night, within about two to five blocks of my house. A gang of Occupiers / anarchists / thugs vandalized a section of Valencia Street in the Mission District, San Francisco. Here's more from Mission Loc@al:

A group of protesters vandalized dozens of businesses, cars and any property they came across as they marched through the Mission on Monday night. One person was arrested according to Sgt. Daryl Fong but no details about the arrest were made available yet.

The mile-long trek of vandalism began at 18th and Dolores streets, where a group of more than 100 protesters met as part of an early May Day march. The protesters walked east on 18th Street, turned left on Valencia Street, right on Duboce Avenue, and made a right on Mission Street before being confronted by riot police at 14th and Mission, according to Justin Beck, an independent journalist who followed the protesters.

Police dispersed the crowd in the area of 12th and Folsom streets, Fong said.

In a statement released early Tuesday morning, Occupy San Francisco said the vandals were not associated with the movement, but the statement was taken down shortly after. ...

The vandalism began almost immediately after the group took off from Dolores Park at around 9 p.m. The protesters paint-bombed Tartine Bakery on 18th and Guerrero streets. When they reached Farina, one protester grabbed a chair and attempted to break a window but was not successful, said police officer D. Daza. Several of the protesters, dressed in black clothing and with their faces covered, threw sacks filled with paint at the restaurant’s windows, drew anarchist symbols on them and spraypainted “Yuppies out!”

Police confronted the protesters in front of the restaurant and a small group of them dispersed, but the main crew continued along Valencia Street. ...

Read the rest at the link.

SFGate has more:

Broken glass littered several streets in San Francisco's Mission District after protesters vandalized cars and buildings Monday night, including a police station.

The vandals were in a group that marched from Dolores Park shortly after 9 p.m., following a rally in advance of Tuesday's planned Occupy general strike, police said. Traveling down 18th Street and onto Valencia Street, the black-clad, masked protesters smashed windows with crowbars and signs, threw paint on buildings and spray-painted anarchy symbols on the hoods of parked cars. ...

Go read it all.

ATM at 511/513 Valencia.

Farina, across the street from the Women's Building (where I go for Friday night services at the Mission Minyan) was hit hard. Graffiti included things like "Yuppies out!"

Windows were broken (not visible in this photo) at the Mission District police station.

Weston Wear clothing store.

Therapy.

Even this dog boarding service on Mission Street was not spared the paint gun. Die yuppie puppies!

Not pictured here, but the whole front of ArtZone 461 was smashed and defaced. When I walked by there this morning, workers were re-painting the facade, and the glass storefront was boarded up. There were tracks of orange paint on the sidewalk from last night.

I am beyond disgusted.

UPDATE: OccupySF condemns vandalism.

Jerusalem - 2

Israel Diary, part 9.

Jerusalem

Israel Diary, part 8.

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

In Judaism, Jerusalem has been the holiest city since, according to the Hebrew Bible, King David of Israel first established it as the capital of the united Kingdom of Israel in c.1000 BCE, and his son Solomon commissioned the building of the First Temple in the city.

You get off at the bus station in Jerusalem and you're on Jaffa Street. Head east on Jaffa and you're on your way to the Old City. That's about 30 to 40 minutes on foot. There's a brand-new light rail, too, that goes along Jaffa, but I haven't been on it.

From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is from one country to another; I'm tempted to say another planet. In Tel Aviv, you might have gotten used to advertising posters with pictures of scantily clad women; in Jerusalem, you'll be hard pressed to find pictures of women in any state of attire. That's a symptom of the growing clout of the haredi (ultra-orthodox) community, and it's been the subject of some controversy lately; more on that later. Men wearing black hats, and women wearing a skirt and a kisuy rosh (head covering) are the rule, not the exception here.

Just before reaching the Old City, I turned off Jaffa Street and followed the directions I'd been given to Salomon Street. It's the site of Tmol Shilshom, a delightful cafe/restaurant/bookstore run by a friend of a friend named David. The establishment's name derives from the novel by S. Y. Agnon. If you go to Jerusalem, you need to visit Tmol Shilshom.

David had to divide his time between working and chatting with me, but we had some great conversation. He is originally from Tel Aviv but has been living in Jerusalem for 30 years. I asked him what was on his mind these days; he mentioned Iran. He said, "If we attack Iran, we risk losing the support of the international community." (I refrained from asking, "WHAT support?") He added, "We risk losing the support of the United States."

David also talked about the disappearance of women from public spaces in Jerusalem. It was the left-leaning Ha'Aretz, he said, that blew the whistle on this some months ago. No pictures of women on advertising posters, and no female voices on public announcements - this was the new trend in Jerusalem, at the behest of the pious haredim. I do not know exactly where the matter stands now, but it's been in the news and it's an ongoing struggle.

The Old City has seven gates; the one you'll approach from Jaffa Street is the Jaffa Gate. I entered through here.

There's a tourist information office just inside. I thought it would be a good idea to stop in there before going on. I asked for a tourist map in English, and the man at the counter gave me one, but I ended up being happier with my more detailed, Hebrew-language map of Jerusalem that I'd bought from a stationery store in Tel Aviv. I kept the map as a souvenir, though.

I had just one question. "Are there any places I shouldn't go?"

He thought about it for a moment. "No," he said. "No, it's fine." I don't know much about Jerusalem, but I wanted to play it safe.

I took the tour guide's hesitation as an admonition not to push my luck, so I confined my visit to the Jewish Quarter for this trip. I found my way to the Kotel (the Western Wall) and made the obligatory pilgrimage to its smooth, stony surface. I'd visited just twice before - eighteen and 24 years ago.

The Western Wall, Jerusalem, June 1987

After the security checkpoint, there's a couple of people posted to make sure visitors are dressed properly, and, on the men's side, the usual gaggle of men coming and going, prayer congregations in various sizes and stages of completion of the daily prayers, individuals reciting psalms or speaking from the heart, and a whole bunch of tourists just milling about aimlessly.

Over toward the mechitsa (gender divider), though, there seemed to be quite a bit of friendly cross-border communication between the men and the women. The women were praying and singing with great gusto - perhaps pointedly so, as the arrangements for men's and women's services at the Wall have been the subject of a great deal of contention. There is an organized movement for women praying at the Western Wall. From where I stood (and I didn't get close to the group, so I don't know for sure) it appeared that the men in this group were generally sympathetic to the women's right to pray expressively. At any rate, there was a great deal of audible singing and chanting from the women's side, and much conversation across the divider.

I spent a good two hours just wandering the streets of the Jewish Quarter. The Old City is like Borges' Aleph: small on the outside, but of nearly infinite size inside. But the streets are narrow like a labyrinth: it occurred to me that notwithstanding my earlier misgivings, the greatest peril to life and limb in the Old City is probably the danger of being crushed against the side of a building by a motor vehicle.

The 1948 Defenders' Plaza is spacious and lovely; down an adjoining alley, there is a memorial to those who lost their lives defending the Jewish Quarter in that war, in which all of the Quarter's 2000 Jewish inhabitants were evicted or killed. Our side took it back in 1967.

1948 Defenders' Square. (The year 1948 is represented as "Tashach" in Hebrew.)



As I sat on a bench on the Plaza, a bar mitzvah celebration came slowly winding into view. There were musicians blowing horns and banging drums, dressed in white, and, but for their long sidelocks, looking for all the world like Hare Krishnas. The boy seemed to be having the time of his life.

South on Allenby - 3

Israel Diary, part 7.

South on Allenby - 2

Israel Diary, part 6.

South on Allenby

Israel Diary, part 5.

From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

Israel Diary, part 4.

In Jerusalem, the dominant architectural theme is limestone; in Tel Aviv, it's Bauhaus. If you like Bauhaus, you'll love Tel Aviv.

To get from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem you catch the Egged line 405 bus. Egged's logo is a green Hebrew letter Aleph with wings; you could be forgiven for mistaking it for an X because of the way it's drawn, but it's an Aleph. The 405 leaves Tel Aviv from the Tachana Merkazit (Central Bus Station) at Retsif (platform) 607. It leaves on the hour and every 20 minutes, and takes one hour to complete the trip, give or take depending on traffic.

The bus station in Tel Aviv is in the southern part of the city, at the end of Levinsky Street. I'm told the #4 bus will get you there but I like to walk it. It's about 45 minutes on foot; you go south on Ben Yehuda and Allenby, then take Ha'Aliyah and Levinsky all the way to the end. Beginning from the corner of Bograshov, where the Maxim is, you'll pass posters for nightclubs and flyers for adult services. There are clubs and restaurants (some kosher, most not) and souvenir shops and those Judaica stores I mentioned. As you go south you get into the less touristy and more working-class neigborhoods. There are strip clubs and head shops. You'll pass a lot of derelict storefronts, failed or failing furniture and hardware stores. The population here looks to be mainly African and Russian. Down near Levinsky I see quite a few black hats, almost unknown up around the hotel.

By now I can pride myself on having the backpack check down to an art; I sling the pack over one shoulder and open the top before I get to the security guard, offering a quick "B'seder? Todah!" as I pass, and I'm on my way into the station. I've got a couple of one-shekel coins in my pocket in case I have to pee; the sherutim near the outbound gates are fee, but elsewhere the toilets are pay-to-play.

Pulling out, you pass some run-down cinderblock housing. You'll see graffiti. Here you'll see the cryptic mantra "NA NACH NACHM NACHMAN NACHMAN ME'UMAN", the signature of an ecstatic sect of hasidim, followers of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Elsewhere you might see "MARTIN BUBER WAS RIGHT" accompanied by Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious symbols; it's a riposte to the original, less friendly slogan KAHANE WAS RIGHT. You'll see that one, too. And there are still those persistent posters proclaiming the late Lubavitch Rabbi the Messiah.

We are nothing if not colorful.

You get off at the bus station in Jerusalem and you're on Jaffa Street. Head east on Jaffa and you're on your way to the old city. That's about 30 to 40 minutes on foot. There's a brand-new light rail, too, that goes along Jaffa, but I haven't been on it.

From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is from one country to another; I'm tempted to say another planet. In Tel Aviv, you might have gotten used to advertising posters with pictures of scantily clad women; in Jerusalem, you'll be hard pressed to find pictures of women in any state of attire. That's a symptom of the growing clout of the haredi (ultra-orthodox) community, and it's been the subject of some controversy lately; more on that later. Men wearing black hats, and women wearing a skirt and a kisuy rosh (head covering) are the rule, not the exception here.

Holy Grail

Israel Diary, part 3.

Religious Jews have a custom of washing hands with a two-handled cup on certain occasions: on waking in the morning, before meals featuring bread, after using the bathroom, etc. Although I've lapsed since those days, I was for a few years a practicing Orthodox Jew, and I've never really been able to shake the hold of traditional observance. It had been years since I'd washed with a washing cup, and I found myself missing the experience. So I decided this was the time to buy a wash cup; after all, I was in Israel.

I was in Israel, but I was in Tel Aviv.

From my diary:

November 7, 2011
Monday

16:58 (06:58 Pacific). More knick-knacks and goodies: a bottle opener (almost as elusive as the power converter, but they had it at the hardware store) and a set of silverware (also from the hardware store). From the stationery store I got a calendar and a notebook, and some maps.

Try to find a friggin' wash cup, though, and you're out of luck. They don't have religious products stores here. They do have Judaica stores, and you could probably find a fancy, gold-and-jewel-encrusted wash cup fit for King Solomon XIV, but not an ordinary one that normal people would actually use. Because, of course, normal people here don't use wash cups!

I searched high and low in the touristy part of Tel Aviv, but I never did find those elusive wash cups. Two days later, though, I took the bus to Jerusalem. And the minute I got off at the Jerusalem bus station, what did I find?

Going to Tel Aviv

Israel Diary, part 2.

Seeing Tel Aviv was one of my main goals for this trip. I'd been to Israel just twice before - the last time was in 1993 - and those were mostly religiously-oriented tours. Jerusalem, Safed (pronounced "Tsfat" but inexplicably spelled "Safed" in English), the Tomb of the Patriarchs, that kind of thing. And that was great.

But I'd never seen Tel Aviv! And later when I would tell Israeli friends that I'd been to Israel, they would say "Did you see Tel Aviv?" And I'd have to say no, and their reaction was always, "WTF?!? How do you go to Israel and not see Tel Aviv?"

So, Tel Aviv it was. I wanted to focus more on the day-to-day, real-world Israel.

So, late last year, I booked a trip to Israel and stayed in Tel Aviv. I stayed at the Maxim Hotel, recommended to me by my friend Michael Totten. I recommend it too. It's comfortable, affordable, and right on the beach. (The name, Maxim, is one of those Hebrew/English puns - 'maqsim' means "enchanting" or "charming" in Hebrew.)

It's also smack in the center of the north/south axis of Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is not very big - it's around half the area and population of San Francisco. But unlike San Francisco, Tel Aviv is flat, and very walkable. If you are able-bodied you can reach almost any part of the city on foot.

As I mentioned, my previous visits to Israel had been religiously-oriented, and therefore did not include Tel Aviv. The city is Israel's famously secular, cosmopolitan stronghold.

Two views of the Dan Hotel, Tel Aviv. This isn't where I stayed, but it's a landmark. The rainbow facade of the Dan was designed by the famous Israeli artist Yaakov Agam. The bullseye-patterned walkway is the Lahat Promenade, named after Tel Aviv's longtime mayor Shlomo Lahat.

Joy Division tribute, and Pat Metheny. There is culture in Tel Aviv.

Eternal Light

Israel Diary, part 1.

"Ein menorah? Menorah lo nidleket?" the guy at the hardware store asked, turning the power adapter over.

"Lo nidleket," I agreed, in my broken Hebrew. No, the little light wasn't going on.

I'd stupidly forgotten to pack a power adapter for my trip to Israel. It was my first time traveling to Israel - or anywhere outside of the United States - in eighteen years, and I'd been a bit overwhelmed at the prospect; so my packing was somewhat haphazard. But what the heck, I'd thought, I can just pick up an adapter when I get there, right? They get lots of American tourists, they must sell American power adapters. So I'll just pick one up when I get to Tel Aviv.

Easier said than done. The first such device I bought burned out almost as soon as I plugged it into my laptop. I thought replacing the fuse in the adapter might help, but as it turned out the fuse was fine; it was the adapter itself that was fried. (What, I wondered, was the point of the fuse then?) The second device wouldn't even turn on - it was inoperative right out of the box. The third one suffered a fate similar to the first. Finally I shelled out 200 shekels (about $50) for a heavy-duty adapter and was rewarded with reliable service.

Great, I thought, I can use my laptop.

Now if only this nation of Nobel laureates could produce reliable internet service....

TO BE CONTINUED

No Justice for Zombie Mohammed

At first I thought this incident couldn't possibly be as bad as it sounded. But apparently, it is.

A Pennsylvania judge reportedly dismissed charges against a Muslim man accused of attacking an atheist dressed as "Zombie Muhammad" during a Halloween parade last year.

The Harrisburg Patriot-News reports that Cumberland County Magisterial District Judge Mark Martin said there wasn't enough evidence to convict Talaag Elbayomy of harrassment. Although there was grainy video of the incident, it was ruled inadmissible, leaving the case one man's word against another's, the judge said.

Elbayomy, 46, allegedly attacked Ernest Perce V, of the Parading Atheists of Central Pennsylvania, during the Oct. 11 parade in Mechanicsburg. Perce claimed Elbayomy tried to take his "Muhammad of Islam" sign and choked him, the newspaper reports. ...

It just gets worse:

... What transpired next was surreal. The Judge not only ruled in favor of the defendant, but called Mr. Perce a name and told him that if he were in a Muslim country, he’d be put to death. Judge Martin’s comments included,

“Having had the benefit of having spent over 2 and a half years in predominantly Muslim countries I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam. In fact I have a copy of the Koran here and I challenge you sir to show me where it says in the Koran that Mohammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted things. Before you start mocking someone else’s religion you may want to find out a little bit more about it it makes you look like a dufus and Mr. (Defendant) is correct. In many Arabic speaking countries something like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their society.

Go to the link for the rest of the judge's appalling comments. Andrew McCarthy has a transcript, and adds:

But one’s “attitude toward Muslims” is irrelevant to one’s right in America to walk the streets and express opinions people may find offensive without being physically attacked and intimidated. And the fact that sharia governments kill people over such expressions of opinion means that they are barbaric, not that we should tolerate additional constraints on our (diminishing) liberties. ...

Harry's Place has more.

Volokh has an analysis.

More at Hot Air.

Think I'm making this up? I wish I were. Faith Freedom links to the news story at ABC 27.

UPDATE: Some sources incorrectly reported that Martin was a Muslim, based on a statement of Martin's which was misheard. It's not really relevant what his religion is; it's his distorted beliefs about religion and freedom of expression that are the problem.

What Martin Luther King Did

Via Jeff Fecke at Alas, here's Hamden Rice at Angry Black Lady:

And yeah, I said for African Americans, not for Americans, because his main impact was his effect on the lives of African Americans, not on Americans in general. His main impact was not to make white people nicer or fairer. That’s why some of us who are African Americans get a bit possessive about his legacy. Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy, despite what our civil religion tells us, is not color blind.

And why should it be? The world he lived in was not color blind.

So anyway, I was having this argument with my father about Martin Luther King and how his message was too conservative compared to Malcolm X’s message. My father got really angry at me. It wasn’t that he disliked Malcolm X, but his point was that Malcolm X hadn’t accomplished anything as Dr. King had.

I was kind of sarcastic and asked something like, so what did Martin Luther King accomplish other than giving his “I have a dream speech.”

Before I tell you what my father told me ...

Go to the post to read what Hamden's father told him.

Defense Department Troubled by Leaks

The Number One problem for the Secretary of Defense, apparently, is the appearance of a video showing US Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters. Matters came to a head when the White House characterized the incident as "deplorable" and "reprehensible". The Taliban, for their part, are unimpressed.

Dear, dear. With all these pictures whizzing around the internet, will our battlefield superiority be rendered void? Robert Wright opines:

First, there's the new transparency of war. Infinitely more battlefield details get recorded, and everyone has the tools to broadcast these details. So it's just a matter of time before some outrageous image goes viral--pictures from Abu Ghraib, video from Afghanistan, whatever. These images will make you and your soldiers more hated by the enemy than ever--and hated by civilians who may identify with the enemy, whether because of national, ethnic, or religious kinship.

The second big change is that hatred is now a more dangerous thing. America faces no serious threat from any nation-state, but the more amorphous threat from radical Islam, if mishandled, could mushroom and, years from now, reach massively lethal proportions. And the lifeblood of radical Islam (like the lifeblood of many radical things) is hatred. The more Muslims there are who hate Americans, the easier life is for recruiters from al Qaeda or some other such terrorist group. ...

First, actually, there's the old transparency of open societies, and the opacity of dictatorships. This is what ensures that we know every piddling little detail of the doings of American fighting men in Afghanistan, but nothing of what goes on behind the lines on the other side.

Just as important as what gets recorded is what does not get recorded. That's why the Abu Ghraib prison that Wright and others are so fond of citing is known to the public as the place where Americans abused Iraqi prisoners and not for the torture and mass executions that occurred in Iraq's dark past under the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein.

This is a good place to quote Rep. Allen West: "I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah."

The second big non-change is that hatred by itself is not dangerous to anybody. People acting from hatred are dangerous, and they are more dangerous if they have better weapons. Wright actually says as much. Wright's worry is that the enemy might get access to "massively lethal technologies". Better, then, to yield to blackmail before it starts.

Robert Wright's conclusion is typical of the accommodationist, pro-appeasement plan favored by so many mild-mannered liberals:

In the old days national security could be had by making sure all foreign governments either liked you or feared you; now national security requires (among other things) that as few people as possible hate you.

Notice that the element of "fearing you" is eliminated from the equation. Robert Wright can't picture anybody being afraid of him. (Judging by the picture, neither can I.)

This is the old liberal hand-wringing mantra of "let's not do anything rash, because then we might make them even more angry". (You remember the fretting about "the Arab street" after 9/11.) It's as if the enemy's hatred is an inexhaustible resource that can always be dialed up another notch. But somehow this same principle doesn't seem to apply to our side.

Robert Wright can't picture anybody being in mortal fear of him, but fortunately for all of us the United States Marines don't have that problem. Nor, I think, do they have any shortage of hate and contempt for the enemy. And I'll bet they're plenty angry.

Because the Marines understand one simple, timeless truth:

It's better to be pissed off than to be pissed on.

1948 Defenders' Memorial, Old City, Jerusalem

Jerusalem

View from the Old City, overlooking the Kotel.

Iran: Nuclear Scientist Killed

Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan was killed in a bomb attack in Tehran the morning of January 11, Wednesday. The Iranian regime has urged the United Nations to condemn the attack. Tehran officials blamed the usual suspects - that'd be the US and the Israelis. Hillary Clinton denied any American involvement, but

Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said on his Facebook page Wednesday: "I have no idea who targeted the Iranian scientist but I certainly don't shed a tear."

Stratfor points out that this is the fifth successful assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in as many years. Additionally, according to Stratfor,

Beyond continuing a trend in assassinations, Ahmadi-Roshan's death revealed that the Iranians could be pursuing a method of uranium enrichment other than centrifuges. There are two main methods of uranium enrichment: gas centrifuges and gas diffusion. Al Jazeera reported that Ahmadi-Roshan was in charge of a project working on polymer membranes, which are necessary for gas diffusion but not for centrifuges. ...

Go to the link for the full article.

Tom the Redhunter has a valuable roundup of related events.

The MO is the similar in the targeted assassinations; two men on a motorcycle drive up next to the car while in traffic, the man on the back of the bike attaches a magnetic bomb to the car, they speed off, and a few seconds later the bomb explodes and the man inside is killed.

Iran is warning of a "cross-border, cross-regional strategy for striking back" according to the Jerusalem Post article.

Dizengoff

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Israel Trip

I visited Israel - mostly Tel Aviv, with a couple of trips to Jerusalem - for the first two weeks of November 2011. Very soon, I will be posting my impressions from that visit.

Meanwhile, I'll post a couple of selections from the pictures I took.

Phyllis Chesler on Charles Small, Subramanian Swamy

Phyllis Chesler at A7:

I am talking about the Islamic persecution of infidels on every continent—a persecution which is still ongoing; about forced conversions to Islam; and about the genocidal extermination of 80 million Hindus over a period of six centuries (1000-1500 CE).

What I’ve just written is historically true as is Islam’s history of anti-Black racism, slavery, and gender and religious apartheid. Ibn Warraq has a new and very important book just coming out on this very subject. It is titled: Why the West is Best. A Muslim Apostate’s Defense of Liberal Democracy.

But, it is a crime to say any of this. And, it is a crime to suggest that a liberal or constitutional democracy must defend itself against jihadic terrorism.

This is not true only in the Middle East or in Islamic central Asia. It is true in the major and most prestigious universities in the United States. ...

Read it all at the link.

French Kiss

"L'Amour Plus Forte que l'Haine"

Following the announcement that Islamic prophet Mohammed would be 'guest-editing' an issue of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, all hell broke loose.

Their offices were firebombed, its website taken offline, and huge protests broke out at the weekend.

So how does Charlie Hebdo respond? With the headline "Love is stronger than hate": ...

Go to the BI link for the whole works. Great cover.

Related: Make love, not jihad.

French Magazine Firebombed

Fox:

PARIS – French politicians and Muslim leaders denounced an arson attack early Wednesday that destroyed the offices of a satirical French newspaper after it "invited" the Prophet Muhammad as its guest editor this week.

No one was injured in the fire that started around 1 a.m. in the offices of Charlie Hebdo weekly in eastern Paris, hours before the current issue hit the newsstands.

"Everything will be done to find those behind this attack," said Interior Minister Claude Gueant ...

Time's Bruce Crumley says that the magazine is no free speech martyr. (What, exactly, does it take to be a "free speech martyr" then?)

Jill at Feministe responds:

Again: I agree that Islamophobic antics are “futile and childish;” I agree that they serve absolutely no common good. But they “bait” Muslim people into violence? They just make it too tempting to blow up a building? Nope! You don’t get to use violence in response to rhetoric, no matter how abhorrent the rhetoric.

And you know, the vast majority of Muslim people respond to bigotry by pushing back, or being disgusted, or voicing their disapproval, or being quietly angry, or organizing. It seems more than a little condescending and insulting to suggest that Muslims as a group just can’t help getting all bomb-y when someone pisses them off.

Anwar al-Awlaki Gets His Virgins

Anwar al-Awlaki (also spelled Aulaqi; Arabic: أنور العولقي‎ Anwar al-‘Awlaqī; April 22, 1971 – September 30, 2011) was a Yemeni-American imam who was an engineer and educator by training. According to U.S. federal government officials, he was a senior talent recruiter and motivator who was involved with planning operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. His sermons are alleged to have helped motivate at least three attacks inside the United States, and was the first U.S. citizen to be added to a list of persons approved for targeted killing by the Central Intelligence Agency. With a blog, a Facebook page, and many YouTube videos, he had been described as the "bin Laden of the Internet". U.S. President Barack Obama alleged that Awlaki was "the leader of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula".

IISS:

Nigel Inkster, a former deputy head of MI6, said Awlaki "was the ideologue of al-Qaeda".


"He was very influential because he able to groom and animate so many," he said. "While everyone else in al-Qaeda was dumbstruck by the Arab Spring, he was the one person able to embrace the tsunami that hit the region."

Armies of Liberation:

AQAP issues message confirming death of Anwar al-Awlaki: Site Intel

Safe copy at Jihadology has link to original post: al-Malāḥim Media presents new statement from al-Qā’idah in the Arabian Peninsula: “Blood of the Martyr, Light and Fire: Statement on the Martyrdom of Shaykh Anwar al-’Awlaqī and his Colleagues”

No mention of al Assiri per @Inteltweet but Sami confirmed dead as well.

“The blood of the sheik (al-Awlaki) and his brothers will not go in vain; there are heroes behind him who do not sleep under oppression, and they will retaliate soon,” the group said. “We and the Americans are at war: we get them and they get us, and the end is for those who are patient – they are the ones who will be victorious.” FOX

Awlaki lived at Yemen house of General People's Congress official Zindani five months before death.

This article says Anwar was living in Sanaa in the house of a GPC member when the National Security transfered him to al Jawf for his own security, but put a transmitter in his car… Anyway this article contradicts the Ahram article, unless the National Security transferred him to Afrag’s house and then he went to visit Okaimi. Update : al Zindani does have a huge farm in Al-Jawf .. it’s about 10 kilometers x 10 kilometers.

Zindani's farm. Also, Awlaki trained Farouk on failed 2009 and 2010 bomb plots.

Long War Journal: AQAP confirms Anwar al Awlaki killed in US drone strike.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has confirmed that Anwar al Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike last month, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. In a statement released to online jihadist forums, AQAP also confirmed the killing of Samir Khan, who edited AQAP's online English publication, Inspire.

AQAP's martyrdom statement references the public debate in the US over the legality of killing Awlaki and Khan, both of whom were American citizens. AQAP says the US government "did not prove the accusation against them, and did not present evidence against them in their unjust laws of their freedom."

The statement, according to a translation provided by SITE, continues: "Where are what they keep talking about regarding freedom, justice, human rights and respect of freedoms?! Was America fed up with it to the point that it contradicted it - and every day it contradicts - these principles that it claims its state is based upon?!"

American Politics After Iraq

Dr. Andrew Parasiliti of IISS observes:

President Obama can put Iraq in the win column.

He has done exactly what he said he would do four years ago as a presidential candidate. In December, the U.S. will withdraw most or all of its remaining forces from Iraq. Unlike the economy and the Middle East peace talks, Iraq is on course.

But there will be no electoral bounce for Obama on Iraq. Americans are too preoccupied with the dismal state of the economy to much notice or care. ...

Go read the rest at the link. Indeed, matters like employment, taxation, and public education are at the top of the public's list of priorities.

Happy New Year 5772

I'll be away from posting until this Sunday, due to the Rosh Hashana holiday. I'm looking forward to taking this site to a new level in the coming year, and I'm grateful for your readership.

I've been posting at Dreams Into Lightning on Blogger since April 2004 and at DiL on TypePad since April 2006. Until now, I've mostly duplicated the same content on both sites, but that's changing.

DiL 1 (Blogger) will focus on analysis and viewpoints; DiL 2 (TypePad) will be the place for current news and events.

See you in 5772.

British Ambassador to Syria Denounces "Big Brother"

Simon Collis minces no words:

I’ve been British Ambassador in Syria for the last four years. Last weekend I decided to start this blog after Syria passed a terrible milestone. The Syrians have now endured six months of unrest and violent suppression of mostly peaceful protests. As they now look towards the next six months with a mixture of uncertainty, fear and hope, I wanted to share some personal impressions about what’s happening. Some thoughts about why it’s happening. And maybe to spark some debate about what comes next and what can be done.

In doing so I am privileged. Because I can. The last six months have shown the Syrians can too. But in doing so, they face censorship, threats and arbitrary arrest.

The Syrian regime doesn’t want you to know that its security forces and the gangs that support them are killing, arresting and abusing mostly peaceful protesters: The UN says over 2,700 people have died in the last six months, some of them under torture in prison. It doesn’t want you to know that it is preventing many from meeting peacefully to discuss reform. It wants you to hear only one version of the truth – its own. ...

Iranian Nuke: How bad?

Dina Esfandiary at IISS says: Very bad.

Most importantly, it would make the Islamic Republic a great deal bolder in its foreign policy. Iran’s regional aspirations of hegemony would no longer be a matter of trying to appear like a bully, it would be one. And rather than threatening the region with a nuclear weapon, the weapon would give them the confidence to activate their proxies to cause trouble. Americans stirring up trouble in the region? Well, let’s send Hezbollah to nab a few in Lebanon to teach them a lesson. Or better yet, perhaps we can push Hamas to ratchet up their attacks on Israel, send them a few extra rockets and mortars. Memories of the eighties anyone?

Admittedly, this might be more difficult given the changes in the region in the past few months. But it is far from implausible.

An Iranian bomb would be bad for the region. In June, speaking to senior NATO officials, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal said that an Iranian bomb would “compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences”, something he reiterated at the IISS GSR conference in September. The same is probably true of other states in the region – some have made it clear that an Iranian nuclear device would be an incentive for them to start their own programmes. Although turning to nuclear power does not necessarily mean getting the bomb, national fuel cycles pose a considerable proliferation threat, and increase the likelihood of a regional nuclear cascade.

Finally, an Iranian bomb would deliver a significant blow to the international non-proliferation and disarmament agenda. Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 and ratified it two years later. Its programme has since been subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verification. If the regime decides to get the bomb it will have abandoned the NPT. ...

Read the whole article at the link. And bookmark the IISS homepage for up-to-the minute, thoughtful commentary.

Two Executions

Eric Olsen at GayPatriot has some thoughts on the Troy Davis execution. His piece is exceptionally lucid and worth reading in full. Don't miss the comments.

Whether he was the one that actually pulled the trigger and shot Police Officer (and former Army Ranger) Mark MacPhail in the face and heart, Troy Davis was definitely in the gaggle of hoodlums that was attacking a homeless man whose cries for help were what Officer MacPhail was responding to when he met his untimely fate. The fact that 22 years of appeals were denied –including one last night that the highest court in the land rejected –leads me to believe that the evidence in its entirety is pretty conclusive…

That being said, I am not a fan of the death penalty when there is no DNA evidence.

And Troy Davis declaring he did not kill Officer McPhail with his dying breath didn’t help me feel better about an execution at the end of a circumstantial evidence case. I just keep telling myself regardless of whether he pulled the trigger…he was kicking the daylights out of a defenseless homeless man. ...

Read the whole thing at the link, and don't miss the comments.

Meanwhile, 'White supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous dragging death slaying of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas.' Two accomplices, John William King and Shawn Barry, were also convicted.

Bell Tolls for "Don't Ask"

CNN: 'A minute into the new day, 12:01 a.m., the old "don't ask, don't tell" rule that has been in force since the Clinton administration is gone. In its place is a policy designed to be blind to sexual orientation and that the Pentagon brass insists will maintain the military in fighting trim and have no negative impact on "military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion and recruiting and retention."'

BBC: '"Repeal Day" parties have been organised across the country to mark the victory for gay rights.'

TOI: 'During the long, arduous campaign to repeal "don't ask, don't tell", activists and advocacy groups tended to downplay issues related to post-repeal benefits for civilian partners. "It's not something we've been pushing very hard for yet, but it's obviously going to be the next front in the ongoing battle for equality," said Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United.'

Servicemembers United:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Servicemembers United, the nation’s largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans, celebrated the historic end of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law today with the release of the following statement from its founder and Executive Director, Alexander Nicholson, who was himself honorably discharged early from the U.S. Army because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

“On March 15, 1778 the first American servicemember was drummed out of the military for being gay. Since then, tens of thousands more have had their careers ruined and their lives turned upside down by a succession of anti-gay polices and regulations, culminating in the codification of an anti-gay statute in 1993 with the passage of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law. In all, 14,346 men and women were discharged pursuant Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. But thanks to the persistent hard work of unwavering advocates, especially those who have been directly impacted by this issue, and some courageous politicians over the past six years, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is now history. As a result, those who continue to serve can sleep easier tonight knowing that they can no longer be arbitrarily fired because of their sexual orientation. Justice has prevailed and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is dead. God bless America.” ...

Nick, aka Colorado Patriot, at GayPatriot:

While I appreciate your gladness on my behalf, please do take a moment today and keep in mind that there were some of us who were serving under DADT without regard for it.

While I am grateful that the era of homosexuality being the military’s business has ended, I am grateful more so for those who, like me, joined the military knowing the score and choosing this rewarding life anyway.

While I welcome those young men and women into the ranks of our military who heretofore had waited the policy out, I am much more proud of those who didn’t require their own terms be met in order to answer the call to serve in the first place. ...

Enlightenment and Its Discontents

In thus projecting a doctrine of human dignity, Rassvyet [published 1907-1934] did not only confront the Czarist regime and Russian society. It threw down the gauntlet to the Jewish liberals, socialists and assimilationists whose conventional policy was one of apology and self justification, accepting by implication the notion that if the Jews were not ultra-virtuous, not ultra-talented, and not ultra-blessed with ultra-civilized ancestors, they would not be entitled to the ordinary rights enjoyed or striven for by their non-Jewish fellow citizens. They thus openly accepted the double standard which was (and has remained) one of the hallmarks of anti-semitism throughout the world.

Standing alone among the organs of Jewish opinion, the Rassvyet editors applied their extraordinary intellectual resources to warn the Jewish community against the illusion that the "emancipation", which all demanded, would solve the essential Jewish problem. Emancipation had come to progressive Western Europe and what had been achieved? Virulent German anti-semitism, "scientific" Austrian anti-semitism were as alive as ever. Most dramatically of all, its monstrous face had appeared in France precisely in the age of vaunted liberalism: Dreyfus languishing on Devil's Island was a very recent memory. The idea that precisely in Russia, Russia of the pogroms, an emancipatory sun would melt the hearts of the endemic Jew-haters was a snare and an illusion: those who preached it were leading their people to the edge of despair.

- Shmuel Katz. Lone Wolf: A biography of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky.

When the winds of Emancipation began to blow through Europe, Jews were presented with a choice. They could become equal citizens but only by keeping their Jewish identity restricted to private life. Many Jews, understandably eager to break free of generations of persecution, embraced the offer. Judaism was reformed to meet the demands of this civic invisibility, with the German Reform movement leading the way. By instituting a number of significant changes, from translating the Hebrew liturgy into German to celebrating the Jewish Sabbath on Sunday rather than Saturday to abolishing traditional dietary restrictions, Reform leaders hoped to help the Jews become full partners in German life, to be what one Enlightenment thinker would later call "a Jew at home and a man on the street." Significantly, the German Reform movement did not see Jews as a separate nation but rather considered themselves to be "Germans of Mosaic persuasion."

But the Enlightenment strategy of fading out of view was deeply and tragically unsuccessful. Enlightenment and emancipation promised to treat Jews as equal citizens provided they remained invisible as Jews. But what started with eliminating Jewishness from the public square culminated in an attempt to eliminate Jews altogether. The country where Reform was born would also be the country that would condemn the Jews to extermination.

Europe's democratic ideals would leave no room for Jewish identity. On this point, there was little that separated the philosophical ends and ideologies associated with the Right or the Left. Each had a dream of sameness and unity, whether it entailed a fascistic single identity or imagined the dissolution of all identity.

- Natan Sharansky. Defending identity.

In Europe, and not just there, a new kind of politics did seem to be stirring, which sometimes called itself left-wing and sometimes right-wing -- a demagogic politics, irrational, authoritarian, and insanely murderous, a politics of mass mobilization for unachievable ends. Mussolini had embraced the word "totalitarian" to describe his own movement; and "totalitarian" in its stuttery sharp syllables seemed to fit the new kind of politics in each of its versions, right-wing and left-wing alike. The implications did seem fairly obvious. During the whole of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth, a great many enlightened and progressive thinkers had supposed that a main danger, perhaps the principal danger, to modern civilization came from a single political tendency, which was the extreme right, and mostly from a single country, which was Germany, the sworn foe of the French Revolution. But that sort of outlook seemed hopelessly antique by 1950. In the new era, no one doubted that political movements on the extreme right could still make you worry. No one felt much confidence in Germany and its political traditions.

But the midcentury writers saw all too plainly that a danger to civilization had meanwhile cropped up in Russia and among the hard-bitten Stalinists, and among other people, too. The writers worried about the many mush-headed liberals and fellow travelers all over the world who, without being Stalinists themselves, managed to admire the Stalinist enterprise. ...

- Paul Berman. Terror and liberalism.

Cross-posted at DiL - TypePad.

Middle East at Critical Mass

Turkey's Erdogan says his country is "ready for anything" as Turkey sends three military ships to the eastern Mediterranean to "defend against Israeli vessels". Debka reports that "If Turkish warships encounter an Israeli military ship outside Israel's 12-mile territorial waters, they will advance up to 100 meters from the ship and disable its weapon system."

Meanwhile, Russia says welcome as Iran goes nuclear.

And according to this enigmatic report, an unnamed IDF naval officer violated the territorial waters of an unnamed foreign country, and got a week in an Israeli brig.

Remarks. Via Meadia says that the Middle East is "on the boil", and Belmont Club concurs. Mead:

With the end of the Cold War, history began to return to a “normal” velocity. Countries got frisky; France has fallen in and out with both the United States and Germany several times since 1989. The rise of China and India transforms the international scene in a way that was common before 1945 but rare during the Cold War.

Fernandez oberves: "It bears recalling that the Cold war saw both the 1967 and 1973 Wars. So normal velocity does not necessarily augur good news."

Indeed. Michael Totten's latest report from Cairo explains that

The army and the Islamists have a strange relationship with each other that neither explains or is honest about. The state has viciously repressed the Brotherhood at times while at other times using it as either a sword or a shield against liberals.

Traditionally, Egypt's army and its Islamists have been antagonistic to one another. But what happens if they join forces?

No doubt Washington and Jerusalem prefer to do business with the military instead of the Brotherhood even if the regime was founded in a spirit of Arab Nationalism and Egyptian supremacy. But what if the U.S. and Israel will soon have to contend with both?

Sarah Palin

I haven't posted much about Sarah Palin. The main reasons are fairly simple: She doesn't hold national office (or any office at present), and she's not even a candidate for office at the moment. And - notwithstanding Sarah Palin's constant presence in the media - I try to stay focused on people and events that are newsworthy in themselves.

That said, I'll share a few of my own thoughts on the former Governor of Alaska. First: I am not sure that I would vote for her if she were to run for President, but I am sure that I do not believe she is the fool or the fanatic that the press has portrayed her to be.

I do not understand what it is about Sarah Palin that sends the Left and the media into frothing, apoplectic fits of rage - but I have to admit that I like it.

In the kind of liberalism I believe in, there's room for people we agree with but don't admire, and people we admire but don't agree with; and there's even room for people we agree with part of the time and disagree with part of the time. I don't know where the fanaticism of today's so-called "liberals" comes from, but I want no part of it.

So if I say that I think Sarah Palin is a decent, intelligent, competent, hard-working person, who's been treated miserably by the media, and with whom I agree about many things and probably disagree about many others - that is not an endorsement of "Sarah Palin for President". But it is a recognition that there's something about Palin that matters.

Where's the kaboom?

The Times Square bomb was a dud. The Portland bomb wasn't even a bomb. Now a bomber in Stockholm managed to kill himself and injure two people, but claimed no innocent lives.

So, the Western world seems to be staying ahead of the game so far. (Iraqis haven't been so lucky.)

Debka asserts that the "same hand" is behind the Times Square dud and the Stockholm fizzle:

The Swedish investigation into the country's first suicide bombing Saturday, Dec. 11, quickly found that the bomb car which exploded during a shopping rush in the heart of Stockholm was part of a well-planned, sophisticated terror operation, prepared several months in advance to inflict a large number of casualties. The Swedish media reported that Iraqi-born Taimour al-Abdaly was loaded down with three sets of bombs, one of which was a dozen miniature pipe bombs strung together as a belt.

Still, the suicide bomber was the only fatality. Two others were slightly injured.

Al-Abdaly's operation was therefore a near-failure, recalling Faisal Shahzad's failed bombing attack in Times Square, New York of May 1, although its planners, al Qaeda, are reported by debkafile's terror experts to have learned from that miss.

The Islamist terror group has turned to multilateralism in the planning, setting up and execution of operations methods to baffle national counter-terror intelligence agencies in the West, our Islamist terror experts report.

The Stockholm strike was accordingly broken down into segments, each taking place in a different country - Pakistan, Iraq, Sweden, Jordan and the UK. American and European cities may find themselves confronted in future with more attacks on those lines. ...

Full article at the link.

The Times Square bombing was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban:

Qari Hussain Mehsud, the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel.

The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created on April 30. Officials believe it was created to announce the Times Square attack, and Qari Hussain's statement was pre-recorded. ...

(Long War Journal, 2010 May 2.)

Now from LWJ, here's more on the Stockholm bombing:

A car loaded with gas canisters detonated in a busy section of downtown Stockholm today, followed by another explosion 10 minutes later caused by a suicide bomber.

After the explosions, the bomber was found dead lying about 300 yards away from the car bomb, reportedly wearing a suicide vest and a backpack full of nails and surrounded by the remains of pipe bombs. The bombs apparently were inexpertly crafted and failed to detonate to full capacity. Two people were wounded in the bombings, which took place in a street filled with Christmas shoppers.

LWJ's Lisa Lundquist continues with more details:

The Shumukh al-Islam jihadist forum confirmed the identity of the suicide bomber as Taimour Abdulwahab in a statement released today on their website.

"It is our brother, mujahid Taimour Abdulwahab, who carried out the martyrdom operation in Stockholm," said the website Shumukh al-Islam.

Swedish police confirmed that the owner of the car used in the bombing has been identified as Taimour Abdulwahab, born Dec. 12, 1981; today would be his 29th birthday, according to Swedish journalist Per Gudmundson. The car was purchased as late as November of this year. ...

Read the rest at the link.

According to The Telegraph,

Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly showed little interest in religion as he was growing up in Sweden, channelling his energies into sport and partying.

But after he began attending Bedfordshire University in Luton “everything changed” as he became a strict Muslim with increasingly extremist views, even naming his baby son Osama in honour of the al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.

But the BBC report (with video) states that he was challenged by leaders of the mosque he attended in

Luton when he started spouting off about wanting to recruit terrorists.
He lived in Britain for almost a decade and was known at his mosque in Luton for preaching about terrorism and trying to recruit extremists.

When he was challenged by the mosque's leaders he stormed out.

Questions are now being asked why the police were not alerted to Al Abdally's views ...

Go to the link for the article and video.

"Life is sacred, but books and beliefs are not."

Jerry West of the Salem News (Oregon) talks sense on the Koran burning affair:

Well, Terry Jones backed off on the Koran burning. So what? Why should any rational person care if someone burns a Koran, or a Bible, the Sears catalogue or a Donald Duck comic book? That would depend on the nature of the burning.

Book burnings by governments or others with the intent to deprive society of their content would be a direct attack on the right of free expression and the open exchange of ideas.

Two important elements of an enlightened democracy.

On the other hand, private individuals burning books to make a point, so what? Doing that is also part of one's right of free expression. ...

Jerry West touches an all the important points, and his piece is well worth reading in full.