A Washington law firm has just issued a press release on its multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit against Turkey regarding domestic property issues in the northern third of Cyprus (aka Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, or TRNC), which Turkey seized by military force in 1974 and has continued to occupy, currently with 43,000 troops.

It’s unsure how far the case will go--similar cases have been filed before—but, for sure, it has been filed at a sensitive time for Turkey in its glacier-speed accession into the EU. The movement for Turkey's accession has been strengthening lately, but will this case slow down or bring attention to the still-standing complicated issues on property in northern Cyprus?

Furthermore, it’s curious that the case has been filed right after Greece and Cyprus have said that they support Turkey’s accession into the EU. Greece’s new prime minister Georgios Papandreou said in a meeting with government officials in Istanbul that he supported Turkey’s accession, provided that it further reform itself to better align with EU policies. And today, Papandreou started his two-day visit in the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, and has already stressed his support for the country’s steady but slow-going efforts to reunify the island—and thus, for Turkey’s eventual accession. (One of the preconditions to joining that the EU has set for Turkey is the island’s reunification, which the leaders of both sides of the island have been working toward in steady, but slow-going weekly talks since 2008.)

We'll see how this plays out.

The press release below, in full:

AP: "Russia's Medvedev Orders Large-Scale Rearmament."

Did Vladimir Putin trail Ronald Reagan during one of our fortieth president's trips to the Soviet Union? Some claim the blond man with camera on the left-hand side of this photo is actually a much younger Russian president. Pete Souza, the White House photographer who took the photo, says he has subsequently confirmed that the man was Putin. What do you think?

(A tip of the homburg to Foreign Policy's Passport blog.)

Yesterday British PM Gordon Brown announced that British forces would be largely withdrawn from southern Iraq by the end of July. Once numbering 46,000 troops, British forces have been reduced to around 4,100--the bulk of which were deployed to the Basra area in southern Iraq. As British forces in Iraq wound down from the 2003 high, Her Majesty's Armed Forces decreased in overall strength. Today the British military is in a sad state of affairs--largely neglected after a decade plus of Labour Party rule.

From a purely historical perspective, one wonders about the legacy of British foray into Iraq. Charles Johnston, Governor of Aden in the early 1960s, wrote that the Middle East was where the British lost their confidence in their ability to deal with situations. Johnston was lamenting the Suez crisis, but his words are just as relevant to 21st century Iraq, where the performance of the Brits in Basra was mediocre given their impressive history.

The slow bleed of England's power and influence is directly proportional to the increase in world instability. America never developed the taste for exporting our values of democracy and free markets like the British (those who do are snidely derided as neocons), nor were we able to replicate their remarkable ability to turn insignificant and remote little corners of the world into economic powerhouses (see Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Dubai). Though, with that said, I have high hopes for what could potentially be achieved in Iraq.

If President-elect Obama asked for an increased British presence in Afghanistan, there's little doubt that our cousins across the Atlantic would respond. But, absent such a request, this may be an ideal time for the British to rediscover that famous 'stiff upper lip' that made them great. With the conservative movement on the island growing, so grows a profound distaste for the erosion of superior British customs under the wishy-washy guise of multiculturalism. Now is the time for them withdraw, recharge, rebuild, and rediscover their inner greatness.

America needs a strong Britain and America needs a strong British Armed Forces. When the two nations are confident in themselves and each other, the rest of the world reaps in the benefits. Look no further than the Reagan-Thatcher coalition that trampled communism and ushered in over a decade of peace and prosperity.

British poet Susannah Centlivre once lamented "Where are the rough brave Britons to be found with hearts of oak, so much of old renowned?" No doubt many on that wonderful little island are asking themselves that very question.

Over the weekend, the U.S. special operations teams of Task Force 88 took another shot at al Qaeda's network operating inside Pakistan's tribal areas. The target of the Predator strike was Rashid Rauf, the man behind the failed bombing in 2006 of London airlines. The plan was for al Qaeda operatives to mix binary liquid explosives and detonate them on about a dozen planes while in mid-flight over the Atlantic. Pakistani intelligence claimed Rauf was killed, but this hasn't been confirmed.

The strike has led to protests--not from Pakistanis but British Members of Parliament. Rauf was a dual Pakistani-British citizen. Some Tory backbenchers are angry over the "execution" of a citizen, while some in Labor are concerned Rauf's civil rights were violated.

Patrick Mercer, Tory MP for Newark, said the attack had “ultimately led to the execution of a British subject”. He called for a clear statement from the Government to explain what was known about the planned attack. Andrew Dismore, Labor chairman of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee, wanted to know whether British intelligence services had been consulted by the Americans.

The protests over Rauf highlight the fundamental disagreement between those who see the conflict with al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists as a war and those who see the conflict as a problem to be left to law enforcement agencies.

As the attitude of the British Members of Parliament shows, Britain, like most European countries, has opted for the latter view. This is why men like Abu Qatada, al Qaeda's "ambassador to Europe," are released on bail. Qatada cannot be deported to Jordan, where he was convicted on terrorism related charges, because his human rights might be violated. Instead the government pays him thousands of dollars a month in benefits.

Seven al Qaeda operatives, including a "recruiting sergeant," have skipped what are called "control orders," which essentially is bail, and are missing. British intelligence believes there are over 2,000 determined jihadists operating inside the country and plotting attacks from "enclaves" in London, Birmingham, and Luton. Britain’s capital has earned the derisive title of "Londonistan" because terrorists and their supporters flock to the country, knowing they can operate in an environment where the law handcuffs the government.

From today's Washington Post:

After the G-20 global economic summit wrapped up Saturday afternoon, the Italian prime minister headed for ... the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City. A mall? Since he's already seen Washington's famous monuments, Berlusconi really wanted to see one of the area's famous shopping meccas, Italian Embassy spokesman Niccolo Fontana explained. "He just walked around the mall. Many Italian tourists recognized him, and there were even a few Americans who wanted to take pictures with him."

Berlusconi, surrounded by a flock of nervous-looking security guys, browsed for 10 minutes in Macy's housewares and linens department, moved on to a sports store, then spent about 20 minutes at Brookstone, where he started flying a remote-controlled toy helicopter. Sold! The Italian delegation bought "several" of the $49.95 gadgets before heading to the airport.

You can't make this stuff up.

As it turns out, jokes comparing the late Jörg Haider to an SS man are entirely offbase. Ernst Röhm is more like it. Today’s Times of London reports that the far-right Austrian politician and his anointed successor Stefan Petzner were lovers.

The Times quotes Petzner from interviews with Austria’s national broadcaster and a newspaper:

“He was the man of my life. Our relationship went far beyond friendship,” Mr. Petzner, 27, said after only a week in the job, adding that Haider’s wife, Claudia, 52, “did not object” to their relationship.

And maybe his job would still have been secure had Petzner left it at that. (It wasn’t exactly shocking to learn Haider was gay.) But he went on: “I only had him. Now I am all alone. I would spend nights with him and his family and that was important for me because I often was afraid to be alone in the dark.”

As the Times elaborates: “Outraged by the interviews, the party felt compelled yesterday to dismiss its leader amid reports of his alleged role in Haider’s tragic death. Local papers said that, on the night of his accident, Haider and Mr. Petzner had a row at a magazine launch party. Haider left in a hurry and drove to a gay club in Klagenfurt, his home town, where he drank vodka with male escorts.” (The Alliance for the Future of Austria’s new leader is Josef Buchner. Petzner remains as a deputy.)

It’s bad enough to admit you had an affair with your boss and had something to do with his fatal binge. But being afraid of the dark was probably the final straw.

Exit the hullabaloo of American politics for five skinny minutes.

Why? Well, to see history happen: Across the pond, Queen Elizabeth II just posted her first YouTube video at Google’s British headquarters in London. And, of course, someone YouTubed her majesty YouTube-ing. Check it out here. You won’t be disappointed--unless you expected Her Majesty’s merry Corgis to make cameo appearances. Maybe they’ll give a yap or two on the next royal vid.

The Times reports on Europe's toothless response to Russia's invasion of Georgia.

The crisis in Georgia is not going away. Russia now officially recognizes the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The White House has registered its official disapproval.

Be sure to check out Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham's piece in today's Wall Street Journal. Key quote:

For more than 60 years, from World War II through the Cold War to our intervention in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the U.S. has fostered and fought for the creation of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace. This stands as one of the greatest strategic achievements of the 20th century: the gradual transformation of a continent, once the scene of the most violent and destructive wars ever waged, into an oasis of peace and prosperity where borders are open and uncontested and aggression unthinkable.

Russia's invasion of Georgia represents the most serious challenge to this political order since Slobodan Milosevic unleashed the demons of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans. What is happening in Georgia today, therefore, is not simply a territorial dispute. It is a struggle about whether a new dividing line is drawn across Europe: between nations that are free to determine their own destinies, and nations that are consigned to the Kremlin's autocratic orbit.

This Washington Post editorial dismantles the argument that the West is powerless to respond to Russia's aggression.

And Richard Holbrooke makes a crucial point: As long as Saakashvili remains the elected leader of democratic Georgia, Putin will be stymied.

Speaking of Putin, this Simon Sebag Montefiore op-ed in Sunday's Times contains the most chilling quote of the week (so far!):

[T]oday Georgia has embraced pro-Western democracy, while the Russian rehabilitation of Stalin is best illustrated by those tanks parked protectively beside the white marble temple around the humble birthplace of Iosif Dzhugashvili. This is what Vladimir Putin meant in 2005 when he said that the fall of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. And what the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko meant when he warned, “Double, triple the guard in front of this tomb, / Lest Stalin should ever get out.” Perhaps it’s too late.

What was the biggest news story between August 11 and August 17? Not the Olympics. Not John Edwards's admission of an affair. Not the campaign. Not even the showdown between McCain and Obama at Rick Warren's Saddleback church. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, it was Russia's invasion of Georgia, an event of global significance that arguably resonated even in Barack Obama's vice presidential selection.

Meanwhile, the Project reports that another growing international crisis -- political turmoil in nuclear-armed Pakistan -- has garnered only 1 percent of total news coverage in 2008.

Russia has expressed its anger at the U.S.-Poland missile defense deal which was announced yesterday:

Russia reacted angrily, saying that the move would worsen relations with the United States that have already been strained severely in the week since Russian troops entered separatist enclaves in Georgia, a close American ally. At a news conference on Friday, a senior Russian defense official, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, suggested that Poland was making itself a target by agreeing to host the anti-missile system. Such an action “cannot go unpunished,” he said.

It seems likely that Russia's invasion of Georgia helped negotiations along. It was only a few days before the invasion that Poland's Prime Minister warned that the U.S. presidential election was leading to protracted negotiation. He said Warsaw was in no hurry to conclude a deal, and looked forward to negotiations resuming at the end of August. Now suddenly, all remaining roadblocks have gone by the wayside.

It will be interesting to see whether the legislatures of Poland and the Czech Republic approve the missile placement. Russia cut off oil to the Czech Republic and threatened a response by "military-technical methods" if the Czechs ratify the agreement with the U.S. to host the missile defense radar system. Reuel Marc Gerecht recently reported that the radar deal has barely enough votes to win approval in the Czech parliament right now. Will the attack on Georgia affect the vote?

President Mikheil Saakashvili is understandably upset that Western leaders have offered little more than rhetoric:

Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili on Wednesday called for John McCain and other American leaders to do more for Georgia in their response to the conflict in his country.

“Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, ‘We are all Georgians now,’” Saakashvili said on CNN’s American Morning. “Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it’s time to pass from this. From words to deeds.”

To be fair, however, John McCain has some concrete proposals:

A cease-fire that holds is a vital first step, but only one. With our allies, we now must stand in united purpose to persuade the Russian government to end violence permanently and withdraw its troops from Georgia. International monitors must gain immediate access to war-torn areas in order to avert an even greater humanitarian disaster, and we should ensure that emergency aid lifted by air and sea is delivered.

Charles Krauthammer has a few other proposals that are worth adopting as well:

1. Suspend the NATO-Russia Council established in 2002 to help bring Russia closer to the West. Make clear that dissolution will follow suspension. The council gives Russia a seat at the NATO table. Message: Invading neighboring democracies forfeits the seat.

2. Bar Russian entry to the World Trade Organization.

3. Dissolve the G-8. Putin's dictatorial presence long made it a farce but no one wanted to upset the bear by expelling it. No need to. The seven democracies simply withdraw. Then immediately announce the reconstitution of the original G-7.

4. Announce a U.S.-European boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi. To do otherwise would be obscene. Sochi is 15 miles from Abkhazia, the other Georgian province just invaded by Russia. The Games will become a riveting contest between the Russian, Belarusian and Jamaican bobsled teams.

Although Max Boot has said we should even arm the Georgians, it seems virtually everyone, including McCain, is stopping short of saying we should do that. Krauthammer proposed a middle road: send Putin a copy of Charlie Wilson's War.

Faruk Sen, the Turkish-born founding Director of the Center for Studies on Turkey in Essen / Germany, has come under sharp political criticism over recent comments comparing the situation of Turkish migrants living in Europe to the plight and discrimination previously suffered by European Jews. Here is an excerpt:

“Although our people, who have lived in central and western Europe for 47 years, have produced 125,000 entrepreneurs with a total turnover of 45 billion euros, they are discriminated against and marginalized like the Jews, albeit to differing degrees and in different ways.”

Faruk Sen’s remarks, first published by the Turkish business paper Referans a few weeks ago, prompted the conservative-led government of the state of North-Rhine Westphalia (which has been providing major funding for the Turkish Studies Center since its founding in 1985) to push for Sen’s immediate dismissal. The Center’s Board sharply criticized Faruk Sen over the “irresponsible comparison between Turks and Jews” and accused him of having done “severe damage” to German-Turkish relations and Germany’s integration policies in general. Sen later apologized for his statement.

Unfortunately, despite his outrageous remarks, Mr. Sen was able to extract a rather favorable exit package from the state government following his threat to retaliate with a lawsuit. The 60-year old self-styled political activist masquerading as an academic has been put on leave until the end of this year, when he will formally resign as the Center’s Director.

Well, if the Germans want Obama to be president, what possible cause for concern could there be?

"There is a sort of Obama-mania in Germany right now, but I think a lot of people will have their illusions shattered if he does become president," an official in Chancellor Angela Merkel's office told Reuters, requesting anonymity. ... But a survey released by the Pew Research Center last week showed Germans vastly prefer Obama over John McCain, his Republican challenger for the presidency, by a 49 point margin.

It's been nearly a month since the British released known terrorist Abu Qatada from prison, and he's still walking the streets of London a free man.

The fanatical preacher, who was 20 stone but slimmed down on prison food, was pictured on a shopping trip near the £800,000 home he shares with his wife and children. Exact details of the location where the Qatada family are living on benefits of an estimated £50,000 a year are protected by court orders.

Despite being under virtual house arrest, the cleric appeared relaxed as he walked to nearby shops occasionally stroking his bushy, greying beard. At one stage, he shared a joke with a woman about his brown prayer beads, laughing and then beaming after her comments.

Later, they were replaced in his right hand by a six-pack of Diet Coke bottles while under his left arm he clutched a bumper-pack of toilet rolls. The father of five has claimed incapacity benefit for a bad back but on Monday he was wearing a green rucksack in case he needed to carry extra goods.

Al Qaeda foot-soldiers behead our soldiers while we pay their leaders disability. Qatada is living in a home worth $1.6 million. He's receiving government benefits totaling $100,000. This goes well beyond not deporting him. There really are no words.

German Parliament has been weighing a bill to give children of all ages the right to vote. Yeah, babies would apparently have the same right to vote as their parents under the proposal, which is to say children would provide a pretext for giving parents multiple votes.

If the bill gets adopted, babies will have the same powers to voice their opinion on government handling of macro-economic performance in a global downturn enjoyed by their parents. Toddlers will be able to take a stand on issues such as whether German armed forces should be deployed abroad.

According to the head of the liberal Free Democratic Party ­ traditional coalition partner of Chancellor Merkel's CDU party ­ the constitutional change would enfranchise 14 million people. "Unfortunately in Germany, 17 per cent of the population, namely the children and adolescent, are excluded from political decision making," said FDP chief Dirk Niebel.

Rumor has it members of the Free Democratic Party have sponsored repeated screenings of Wild in the Streets to rally support for the legislation.

The idea that Sharia should be incorporated into family law has become commonplace in several European countries, where leaders seem to think it is a moderate concession that might appease Muslim immigrants. As far as they're concerned, imposing Sharia is like a choice of law provision in a contract.

Lord Phillips has said that Muslims in Britain should be able to use sharia to decide financial and marital disputes. The judge did add that only the criminal courts should have the power to decide when a crime has been committed and when to impose punishment. But his suggestion that different religious groups should run their affairs according to different rules sparked warnings that community cohesion could be undermined.

In a speech at the East London Muslim Centre, Lord Phillips said it was "not very radical" for Dr Williams to argue that sharia can be used to help govern issues like family disputes and the sale of financial products. Lord Phillips said: "It is possible in this country for those who are entering into a contractual agreement to agree that the agreement shall be governed by law other than English law."

Of course this fails to recognize judges have traditionally invalidated such provisions when at odds with public policy. And such concerns are on full display when European judges have applied Sharia. Consider a German case last year in which a judge denied a divorce to a battered woman, because the Koran sanctioned such abuse. Or in France, where a judge recently granted an annulment, because the bride wasn't a virgin. These judges gave Sharia preference over their society's interest in preventing violence against women and encouraging marriage.

Although Lord Phillips rules out the application of Sharia in criminal cases, some of his colleagues in the British law enforcement community appear less certain that even this modest limitation is justified. Imagine for a moment the implications of their proposal: Homicide within the Muslim community might be excused when an honor killing is at issue. Ditto for domestic abuse. Maybe British judges will exempt girls of all ages from public education requirements; after all, the education of women is suspect to some Muslims.

The real solution is to let Muslims know they will be treated like full and equal citizens. That means enforcing general laws phrased in neutral terms, because Muslims are more likely to assimilate if they are treated the same way than if countries just carve out exceptions for them under the ridiculous pretext that refusing to do so constitutes discrimination.

So long as liberals privilege multiculturalism over a commitment to human rights, this cannot happen. Things don't look good either. Rarely a week goes by without reports of school boys being disciplined for not praying to Allah. We don't make neighbors of Muslim immigrants with such policies--we give them the upper-hand.

The words "children's rights" and "discrimination" take on new meaning:

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party. The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament. The school, in Lund, southern Sweden, argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination.

The boy's father has lodged a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman. He says the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the other one.

Doesn't the Swedish Parliament have better things to do than forcing a couple eight-year-olds to make up? Maybe the answer is no now that I think about it. So perhaps the take away is, as well-adjusted Americans, it never took an act of Congress to secure our invitation to a classmate's party.

Using grown-up words on standardized tests in Britain get kids extra-credit, not detention.

Peter Buckroyd, chief examiner of English for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), an examination board, said swear words should gain positive marks if the spelling and punctuation is correct.

In one case a pupil who wrote a two-word obscenity in answer to the question "Describe the room you're sitting in", on a 2006 GCSE paper was given two marks out a possible 27 for the expletive, 7.5 per cent, by Mr Buckroyd.

Had he punctuated it with an exclamation mark this would have risen to 11 per cent.

And if he had used three exclamation points, one imagines the AQA would have awarded the boy a passing mark. On math tests, do graders give partial credit to students, asked to find x, who circle it in the equation and write, "there it is"? How many points for YGTBFKM?

Saying the British are wussy is like calling the Italians romantic, the Germans belligerent, the French arrogant. Still, this seems particularly wussy even for them:

Children under the age of eight have been banned from playing in football leagues and cups amid fears they are under too much pressure from competitive parents.

Youngsters can still play matches but results must be kept private and no league tables can be compiled, according to the ruling from the Football Association. And they should not compete in knockout tournaments where trophies or medals are at stake as FA officials fear the pressure could be too great.

The move -- due to be enforced when the new season starts in September -- is aimed at protecting children from pushy parents and aggressive coaches on the touchline, and from peer pressure and bullying.

He added: 'We are trying to create an environment where children can develop their skills and enjoy the game without the pressure of having to get a result week in, week out. Children told us they were giving up football because they were getting hollered at if they made a mistake.

I'm sure David Beckham's parents never "hollered" at him. No doubt it was all hugs and kisses on the field, in front of his mates, that made him the soccer player/underwear model he is today. Goes to show Britain's dystopian future has less in common with V for Vendatta than Walden II.

Boris Johnson

The always colorful and controversial Boris Johnson is embroiled in controversy. Earlier this week, he had to sack an aide who said immigrants unhappy with Johnson's political ascension could go home. (The irony, of course, being that the aide is himself from Australia.) Now we learn Johnson is the subject of a police investigation for possession of a red leather cigar case belonging to Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz.

Johnson took the case when visiting the war-torn country back in 2003 as a journalist. He alleges that he stumbled upon it in the rubble that was Aziz's estate. Perhaps the oddest aspect of news reports is that Aziz has rushed to Johnson's defense:

The lawyer for Tareq Aziz on Wednesday offered to support London Mayor Boris Johnson who is being probed for possession of a cigar case belonging to Iraq's former deputy prime minister.

"I am ready to contact Johnson, stand by him and provide all necessary support in this ridiculous investigation," Badie Izzat Aref told AFP from the Jordanian capital Amman.

"Johnson did not steal or commit any crime, he simply took a souvenir. He has always respected Tareq Aziz, who wishes Johnson had taken other valuable things, like his notebook, which have been seized by the invaders."

For his own part, Johnson has written a hysterical op-ed, calling Tony Blair a war criminal, saying he should be the one investigated and arrested. Perhaps a more effective argument would be to discuss the fact that President Bush has Saddam Hussein's pistol mounted in the West Wing. In fact, it's on the wall of a certain room, adjacent to the Oval Office, made famous by Bush's predecessor. And I think if this certain predecessor were still president, it would be the red cigar case, not the gun, on the wall.

Novelist Ian McEwan has rushed to the defense of his friend, Martin Amis, and offered his own critique of Islamism for its persecution of women and homosexuals. McEwan goes on to assail the intellectual environment in Britain and across Europe for allowing chilling accusations of racism to be leveled against anyone who has the temerity to speak up for human rights.

McEwan, 60, said it was "logically absurd and morally unacceptable" that writers who speak out against militant Islam are immediately branded racist.

"As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist," he said in an interview in Corriere della Sera.

"This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist. And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on -- we know it well."

If Muslim special interest groups criticizing the likes of Amis spent half as much time identifying and rebuking radical clerics in Europe who inspire Islamic youth to betray their own countries, then we'd be a lot better off.

Everyone who has seen question time since Tony Blair stepped down knows Gordon Brown is a cold fish, but he may also be a lame-duck. Brown foolishly confessed to friends he wouldn't remain Prime Minister even if Labor, by some miracle, managed to hold onto a majority in upcoming national elections.

The Prime Minister has pledged that he will step down at "some point" during the next parliament should he beat the Conservatives in two years.

Mr Brown has let a few senior Cabinet colleagues know that he intends to quit in time to allow his successor at least a year to fight the election after next, a move designed to stop speculation about his leadership.

Telling people you don't intend to stay in charge is not exactly a winning message. I mean, why would anyone vote for Labor if Brown isn't even confident of his leadership, if he thinks his party is better off without him? Brown did have a victory recently, winning Parliamentary approval for detaining suspected terrorists for up to 42-days without charge. Just a week later, however, he is under fire again from members of his own party for plans to build additional nuclear power plants and other infrastructure.

This week the GAO decided to sustain Boeing’s protest of the Pentagon’s recent award of a $35 billion refueling tanker contract to a transatlantic consortium led by Northrop Grumman. This decision has caused much surprise and unease among European political observers and aerospace and defense industry insiders. In essence, the independent investigative arm of Congress tasked with evaluating the award process (to build 179 next-generation KC-X aerial refueling tankers) came to the conclusion “that the Air Force had made a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman.” As a result, the GAO recommended that the “Air Force reopen discussion with the offerers, obtain revised proposals, re-evaluate the revised proposals, and make a new source selection decision, consistent with the GAO’s decision.” While the 69-page classified decision is non-binding, the Pentagon is widely expected to follow the GAO’s recommendations.

The fear now on the other side of the Atlantic is that the GAO report could pave the way for a Boeing-induced, politically-motivated effort on Capitol Hill to unravel a landmark procurement contract that is viewed as crucially important for fostering closer defense industrial cooperation between the United States and several of its key European NATO allies, including France and Germany. So far, after all, transatlantic aerospace and defense trade (the success of Airbus in commercial aviation notwithstanding) has essentially been a “one-way street” leading from the United States to Europe. In this context, the Pentagon’s recent award of the tanker contract to Northrop Grumman and EADS was judged by Europe as the most visible sign yet that the protectionist “Fortress America” mentality that was so prevalent in Washington for so long was finally coming to an end. EADS, for its part, has urged European governments to remain calm about the the GAO decision to prevent “pouring oil into the fire”; a piece of advice largely heeded by the political leaders in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK.

The GAO report did not say that the Boeing tanker was better than the Airbus tanker. In fact, virtually all of the American and European aerospace folks that I talked to in Washington said exactly the opposite: that the Airbus tanker offers more “bang for the buck” to the U.S. armed forces and American taxpayers. Whatever the eventual outcome of the Pentagon’s re-opened procurement decision process, this week’s GAO report has further transformed the multi-billion dollar tanker deal into a high-stakes political battlefield which will probably be characterized by even more congressional lobbying and advertisement efforts waged by Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Matters are of course made more complicated by the fact that the tanker deal controversy comes in the middle of a U.S. presidential election and will probably be decided by a future McCain or Obama administration (both candidates have previously called for a reopening of the Pentagon bidding process).

Finally, many European industry insiders believe that the real reason Boeing is fighting the Northrop Grumman/EADS tanker award so aggressively is that it could ultimately provide Airbus with its first-ever assembly and manufacturing presence in the United States--a strategically important move that would significantly boost the European aircraft manufacturers long-term international competitiveness by providing a natural hedge against the massive fluctuations in the Euro-Dollar exchange rate. At the moment, for example, the weak dollar provides Boeing with significant cost advantages in its export markets while the strong Euro, in turn, eats into Airbus’s dollar-denominated international sales.

A new biography of Boris Johnson reveals how David Cameron stifled Johnson's rise in Parliament, and might have inadvertently created a challenger to head the Conservative Party of Britain. Many assume the two are friends, because they attended both Eton and Oxford together.

At the party conference in the autumn of 2006 he had stolen the show from Cameron and, although Boris had tried to behave himself since, the Tory leader knew his unruly colleague would be unable to resist stealing the show again if given half a chance. It would be madness to select such an unreliable figure as a champion of the new conservatism.

So various implausible people, such as Lord Coe and Lord Stevens, were approached to ask if they would consider becoming the Conservative candidate. But, after a prolonged search, the best the Tories could come up with was Greg Dyke, former director-general of the BBC and best known for having introduced Roland Rat, a glove puppet, to viewers of breakfast television.

Would a true friend nominate a puppeteer to run for office in your place? I don't think so.

What spurred him was growing doubt about whether he was going to get anywhere under Cameron. That doubt was confirmed in the clearest way on July 2, 2007 when the party leader reshuffled his team.

Cameron chose Michael Gove, who had only arrived at the Commons in 2005, and during their time at Oxford had been happy to act as Boris's stooge. Boris, who had been in the Commons since 2001, was left with his old job. Having looked for love from Cameron, he found himself kept at a chilly distance.

The British Ministry of Justice just released known terrorist Abu Qatada from prison even though he is suspected of being involved with the September 11 attacks and has already been convicted for several bombings in Jordan. No, today isn't opposite day; the British are just that stupid. The Special Immigration and Appeals Commission, which has ordered Qatada's release, describes Qatada "in official documents as a 'truly dangerous individual … at the center of terrorist activities associated with Al-Qaeda.'"

Law enforcement officials insist they have taken precautions.

He is will be electronically tagged and put under a 22-hour curfew at his family home in Acton, West London. He will not be allowed a mobile phone or access to the internet and the bail conditions include a long list of Islamic radicals with whom he is banned from communicating, including Osama bin Laden.

No pen pals, in other words. That should do the trick.

An astute reader notes that President Bush used the "urban" handshake in meeting with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi at an earlier date in his European tour. Bush buddy Berlusconi does not appear fazed.

Winking at the Queen of England may not comport with proper etiquette, but President Bush deserves the support of his countrymen in employing the hip-hop style handshake in greeting Gordon Brown this past week.

For his part, the Prime Minister seemed startled and confused—a look I have come to know well from Brown's weekly appearances on Prime Minister's Questions. Something tells me Bush used this modified grip when greeting Tony Blair, and that he was trying to revive the magic of their years working together. Alas, Brown should just be grateful our dear President didn't opt for a terrorist fist jab.

Dustin the Turkey, via Yahoo News

Now if only Dustin the Turkey would endorse John McCain:

Opponents of a European Union reform treaty received the backing of Ireland's Eurovision Song Contest flop Dustin the Turkey as voters went to the polls Thursday.

"Isn't a shame there wasn't a third box we could tick that just said: 'What?'" said the purple-beaked glove puppet, who tried and failed for European glory in this year's competition.

"That way they'd have to go back to the table, work out a proper way of explaining the thing, and people would know what it is that's on offer," he was quoted as saying by The Irish Sun tabloid.

Dustin's comments reflect a widespread view that the Lisbon Treaty, designed to reform EU institutions after recent expansion of the bloc, is incomprehensible.

Gordon Brown won a much-needed victory yesterday with Parliament approving his plan to permit the detention of terrorist suspects for up to 42-days without charges. An odd postscript to the story is the abrupt resignation of Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, who was outspoken in his opposition to the new law.

Mr. Davis is also to stand down as an MP in Hull and call a constituency by-election to highlight the issue of the erosion of civil liberties in Britain.

He will then stand as a Conservative candidate again for the same seat, in the by-election set to be held on July 10, while campaigning on the issue of civil liberties in the Hull area and throughout Britain.

Conservative leader David Cameron did lose yesterday in failing to defeat the proposal, but it is curious that the story of Davis's resignation is being spun as a second blow to Cameron's leadership. Cameron opposed the popular legislation, allegedly on the advice of Davis. That Cameron can now select a new Shadow Home Secretary hardly seems like a defeat.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is refusing to compromise on his proposal to permit a 42-day detention period for terrorists before charges must be filed, and the public is supporting him. What is so appalling about the Conservative Party's opposition is how apparent it is they merely wish to deny Brown any kind of legislative victory.

The irony of the present parliamentary row over 42 days is that … opponents seem willing to accept almost any crackdown other than this particular measure: reform of the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA); post-charge questioning; more aggressive use of so-called ‘threshold charging’ to allow prosecutors to charge suspects on the basis that stronger evidence is likely to turn up; the use of ‘holding’ charges; the admissibility of intercept evidence; and so on.

Is David Cameron trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the next national elections? He better pray his political opportunism doesn't backfire.

In desperate need of a victory, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is making concessions to ensure members of his own party don't vote against his proposal to permit terrorist suspects to be detained without charge for up to 42 days.

At prime minister's questions today, Gordon Brown described the concessions published in the form of amendments to the counter-terrorism bill yesterday as "major civil-liberty safeguards". …

The amendments were intended to improve parliamentary scrutiny by requiring the home secretary to report to parliament within a week of taking the power to detain beyond 28 days. The power is also to be up for renewal every 30 days instead of every 60.

In the most contested amendment, to go beyond 28 days the home secretary would be required to have received independent legal advice that the country faced an event or situation that amounted to "a grave exceptional terrorist threat".

That David Cameron and the Conservative Party are opposing the change reveals they are perfectly willing to play politics with Britain's security. The reform seems especially warranted in light of the stringent burden that exists for charging someone in Britain, which makes the need to gather evidence on complex conspiracies all the more paramount to prosecution.

British police demonstrated their regard for free speech and freedom of religion in threatening Christians with arrest for proselytizing.

A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham.

The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities …

And it's not just Muslim ghettos. Britain might soon have eco-ghettos as well.

Opposition to the Government's eco-towns project has surged with protesters signing up at the rate of 2,000 a day to call on the Prime Minister to halt plans for 10 new towns across England.

Campaigners from all over the country are working together to oppose against the plans, which have been criticised by environmental groups, planning authorities and local residents.
advertisement

There have now been 60,000 protesters who have given their signatures to oppose the towns, dubbed "Gordon's ghettoes", in one of the biggest grassroots protests for years.

Which is worse, I am not sure.

The Home Office in Britain has allocated $25 million for therapy for Islamic extremists, and says counseling is more suitable than criminal charges for those who belong to violent hate-groups.

The central element of the Home Office plan is a new national "deradicalisation" programme that would persuade converts to violent and extremist causes to change their views.

Controversially, the new plan makes clear that people who fall under the influence of violent organisations will not automatically face prosecution.

Instead, the presumption should be that some such individuals would face therapy and counselling from community groups instead of criminal charges.

The notion that if Osama Bin Laden were on a head-doctor's couch and not in a cave, another 9/11 could be averted reflects deeply flawed reasoning. When he becomes Prime Minister, David Cameron should urge Parliament to divert these funds to buy bombs, not therapy. After all, fundamentalists are not insane—they just happen to be very wrong and extremely dangerous.

Germany's unemployment rate fell "below 8% for the first time in more than 16 years." Unemployment in France is 7.8%. Among EU members, unemployment averages 7.1%. If only the U.S. economy were as strong as our European brethren. If only the U.S. unemployment rate were so low, fewer headlines would claim America is on the verge of depression. That American dominance is at an end.

Wait a second. Here in the United States, unemployment rate in April was only 5 percent, which many economists consider full employment. In fact, U.S. unemployment has not reached 7 percent at any time since 1992. Puts things in perspective, no?

Members of the British Parliament don't just earn a fixed salary; they receive a salary plus $44,000 a year in expenses for a second home. Fortunately, for rabble-rousers, a list of these expenses has just been released. My guess is if he had known his expenditures would see the light of day, Gordon Brown would not have submitted that receipt for $30 worth of light bulbs. The most curious expense, however, is not the thousands spent on dishwaters, satellite television, and window cleanings. Rather, it is disgraced Liberal Democrat Mark Oaten's bunk-bed. For his two children? Or his rent-boys?

David Cameron has played this smart. Having only submitted receipts for his phone bill and mortgage, he managed to avoid the appearance that he's living it up on the public dole. It would seem Cameron never even submitted a receipt for the mini-windmill that he installed atop his London home to establish his street-cred in the green community. That means Cameron's either too rich to be bothered with clipping coupons let alone pocketing receipts, or he's been plotting the release of these expenditures for years. Perhaps both are true.

While fringe benefits allow pols to pretend they earn far less than they do, they also expose them to withering political attack when such benefits are itemized. Therefore it is unsurprising to learn Parliament is weighing a proposal to raise compensation in lieu of such stipends. Whether or not MPs are entitled to higher pay, it would be a mistake to assume political wages are just a conspiracy to further entrench wealth in the upper class. Charles Beard made such a frivolous claim about congressional salaries in An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, and undoubtedly, some MPs (probably the wealthiest) will argue there is no need to incentivize the privilege of public service. But of course, this analysis fails because without salaries, only the rich can afford to represent their communities.

Boris Johnson might look like a sheepdog, but there’s nothing common about the new Mayor of London. And he’s perfectly comfortable with this fact too, freely discussing his days at Eton and Oxford, where he was a member of the Bullingdon. Never heard of the Bullingdon? Well, imagine the richest snob at Princeton’s most elite eating-club, multiply his sense-of-entitlement by a thousand, and you have the average member of the Bullingdon. It’s the Ivy on crack. It’s Skull & Bones for the British. It’s a Porcellian not full of white trash.

Members of the Bullingdon dress up in bespoke $6,000 tails, book restaurants under assumed names, then trash the places. When they don’t end up in jail, they toss wads of cash at the owner on the way out. By comparison to some of his more colorful peers, Johnson could be said to live a rather modest existence. Consider Count Gottfried von Bismarck (descendent of Otto), a fellow member. According to the coroner, Bismarck’s body had the highest levels of cocaine in it he had ever observed. His body was discovered among several items that must go unmentioned by this family-friendly blog.

What’s remarkable about Johnson though is that he doesn’t talk down to anyone. He is happy with who he is, and doesn’t omit the literary and historical allusions on the stump. His speeches are smart, even if he occasionally lets loose with something objectionable. This is refreshing compared to America, where Ivy League educated pols are expected to wolf down corndogs and fried dough at agricultural fairs and pretend they like it. Which isn’t to say this has always been the case. Bobby Kennedy quoted Aeschylus in discussing the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The days of politicians citing Greek tragedies, I’m afraid, are over--in the States at least.

Boris Johnson

If you read the accounts--well, the analysis of the accounts--of last week's vote in Britain, in which Labour was trounced in local council elections and lost the mayoralty of London, you may wonder if you had heard it before.

"Last week's results," writes the Wall Street Journal, "...may foreshadow a political and generational realignment in Britain." Really? It does sound familiar--and as well it should, since almost exactly the same things were said a little less than a dozen years ago (1997). Except that after that year's general election, which tossed out John Major and swept in Tony Blair, the apocalyptic thoughts were directed toward the Tories, not Labour. The 1997 debacle was the worst Tory defeat in a century, it was an unprecedented repudiation of a governing party, it called into question the long-range future of the Conservatives.

All more or less true--and, in retrospect, all deceptive to some degree.

Indeed, 1997 was an historic defeat for the Tories, whose three subsequent parliamentary leaders (William Hague, Ian Duncan-Smith, Michael Howard) were either humiliated by Blair at the polls (Hague, Howard) or retired by their own colleagues (Duncan-Smith). And last week's elections were very bad news for Labour: "Red" Ken Livingstone was ousted as mayor of London after two terms by Tory gadfly Boris Johnson, and Labour's percentage of the vote in council elections in England and Wales was actually lower than the third-party Liberal Democrats. As the Journal points out, if this had been a general election, the Tories would have swept into power with a commanding majority in Parliament.

But while local results often presage national elections--as happened when Tory councils were trounced in 1995--this was not a national election, Labour remains in control of the House of Commons, and Gordon Brown is prime minister. As another Labour prime minister (Harold Wilson) once said, a week is a very long time in politics, and while last week's results are encouraging for Tories and discouraging to Labour, there may not be another general election until 2010.

Having said that, however, allow me to make two observations. One is that, while true-blue conservatives, especially here, seem to have mixed feelings about the Tory leader David Cameron--too malleable, not sufficiently Thatcherite, too PR-minded, too green, etc.--he strikes me as being exactly what the Conservative party requires as Britain grows increasingly weary of Labour. And he is manifestly an able, energetic, attractive, and (above all) effective political leader with the requisite charm and hyperactive temperament to succeed. I don't know who the next prime minister will be, since left-wing Labour backbenchers may yet bring down Brown; but Cameron will be Britain's next Conservative prime minister.

And Boris Johnson, whose plummy accent, blond moptop and self-deprecating manner is almost entirely a phenomenon of charm, proved to be a smart, disciplined, and appealing candidate in what had appeared to be a hopelessly quixotic venture just a few months ago. Being mayor is almost entirely a public relations venture, and while Johnson probably has no future in national politics, his tenure in London will do the Tories nothing but good between now and the next general election.

A political realignment, yes; but 'generational' seems a bit overstated.

American cultural hegemony continues to abound throughout the world. Indeed, even as McDonald’s revenue fell in the United States, it grew by a double-digit margin in Europe.

McDonald’s Corp., the world's largest restaurant company, said first-quarter profit rose more than analysts estimated after European revenue gains blunted the first drop in U.S. comparable-store sales in five years.

Sales by European restaurants open at least 13 months jumped 11 percent in the quarter, as France, the U.K. and Germany led a record gain for the region. U.S. comparable-store sales fell 0.8 percent in March, the first decline since March 2003 as consumers pinched by rising fuel costs and sinking home values cut spending.

McDonalds is a staple of American capitalism and excess. In bygone days, a French farmer who opposed globalization drew worldwide renown when he led an attack against the chain in southern France. Let me be the first to welcome our new European friends to this gluttonous paradise.

Not only is the Labour Party expected to lose local elections, Prime Minister Gordon Brown risks a revolt from his own party in Parliament. Labor’s problems stem from Brown’s support for the elimination of the 10p tax bracket, which will result in a tax-increase for five million of Britain’s poorest. The public outcry against Brown’s proposed tax-hike has been so severe that some have predicted Labour will likely finish not only behind the Tories, but also behind the Liberal Democrats on May 1!

Left-wing loon and London mayor Ken Livingstone is even in a tight race for reelection after the British tabloids revealed that he has a third love child. (It would seem there are limits to what even Europeans consider personal.) As much as I’d love to see the Tories take over London, I will miss Livingstone’s pearls of wisdom as when he advised London citizens, in an effort to promote water conservation, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.” Well, the people might heed this advice when they flush the Labour Party down the toilet along with number two.

Tory leader David Cameron is in dire need of a dry cleaner, or a new suit:

Kingsley Cardi, 15, was given a caution by police for “wiping snot” on the back of Mr. Cameron’s jacket today.

Afterwards Kingsley said: “I sneezed in my hand and wiped it on him. It was just a joke -- I was showing off.

“To be honest I just needed to sneeze and I didn’t have a hanky.”

Mr. Cameron took the incident in his stride as he continued on his walkabout to rally Conservative support in the run-up to the local elections. “It’s just one of the joys of my job. I’m sure I will be fine,” Mr Cameron said.

One further difference between politics in Britain and America emerges. In Britain, the people sneeze on the politicians. In America, politicians sneeze on the people. If you don’t believe me, watch this video of John Edwards shaking hands with supporters.

Versace dress from the Fall 2008
collection via WWD.

Couture fashion is big in European politics. First we saw the new Madam Sarkozy in Dior. Now we might start seeing Italian politicians in Versace. Women's Wear Daily reports:

On the heels of Silvio Berlusconi’s victory as Italy’s prime minister, Santo Versace has secured a seat in the country’s Parliament, becoming a member of the State Chamber. "I am taking this very seriously," Versace told WWD. "I decided to run because I want to do something concrete for the future.”

The son of Italian tailors, Santo Versace is best known as the brother of Gianni Versace, fashion designer for the stars. When Gianni was murdered in 1997, Santo--a banker, economics expert, and former military officer--became president and co-CEO (with sister Donatella) of the extraordinary and exquisite fashion house. And according to the London Times, Versace "opted for the centre-right 'People of Liberty' alliance led by Mr Berlusconi because he shared the values it placed on education and meritocracy. 'My father always said problems could be solved with three words -- work, work and work.'"

Not only does Versace now have a seat in parliament, but WWD also reports that he may be up for a position in Berlusconi's cabinet. As they say on that fashion design reality show, that's fierce!

I want to come back to a story that had quite a bit of media traction in Germany but went virtually unnoticed in the United States. About two weeks ago, I co-hosted a luncheon discussion for visiting Bavarian conservative CSU Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann at the German Marshall Fund here in Washington, DC. During the talk, titled "Confronting Germany’s Immigration and Homeland Security Challenges," Minister Herrmann declared for the first time in public that Bavarian police had foiled a potential Islamist terrorist attack aimed at blowing up the opening match of the 2006 Soccer World Cup in Munich on June 9 of that year.

Specifically, the police engaged in intensive observations of a lone man suspected of being "associated with Islamist extremism" and who was seen acting suspiciously near Munich’s state-of-the art Allianz Arena soccer stadium. However, during the surveillance operation, the suspect suddenly quit Germany, possibly as a result of growing suspicious that he was being watched. Both Interior Minister Herrmann and Waldemar Kindler, the Chief of the Bavarian Police Force who accompanied the minister on his trip to Washington, declined to comment on the suspect’s nationality or current whereabouts. At the time, German authorities decided not to reveal the foiled terrorist plots to the public in order to avoid mass panic and a potential disruption of the games.

During his Washington luncheon address, Herrmann also warned sternly of the growing "danger of attacks [in Germany and elsewhere in Europe] from home-grown networks" and the "formation of parallel societies in large cities and urban areas." "We can't just ignore the fact that there is drastic distance between some Muslims and our system of values.

I was beginning to dismiss Conservative leader David Cameron as a wet blanket. That he was so smug in installing that sissy windmill atop his house. That he led the Tories disgraceful call for an inquiry into the decision to go to war--a war Cameron and his shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, supported initially and now seek to use for political gain. The following news, however, has inspired me to reevaluate.

Teachers will be encouraged to physically restrain disruptive pupils under controversial new plans unveiled by David Cameron. The Conservative leader said he would change the law to allow teachers to physically intervene to search pupils or stop them leaving the classroom.

The proposal forms part of a detailed plan drawn up by the Conservatives to instill classroom discipline which the party says is crucial in improving school standards.

Mr Cameron said: "It is acceptable for teachers to feel they can be physical. It is not acceptable to wallop children but teachers should be able to put out their hand and grab them. There does need to be a restoration of common sense…a wave of political correctness has hit schools.

What’s next? The birch? Alas, Cameron specifically ruled out corporal punishment, but this is a good compromise. No longer will British teachers be cyber-bullied and bullied-bullied. One other reason to support the Tories: the Labor Education Secretary is named Ed Balls. Surely British schools kids would take Parliament more seriously if the MP in charge of their education had a different last name.

Mixed bag at the big NATO Summit this week:

NATO leaders agreed Thursday to endorse a United States missile defense system based in Europe and to provide more troops for Afghanistan, but they refused to back President Bush’s proposal to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO membership.

Washington’s failure to win over Germany, France, Italy, Spain and other crucial European countries to its view on Ukraine and Georgia was considered by some countries of Central and Eastern Europe to have sent a message of alliance weakness to Moscow, a day before the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, makes his first visit to a NATO summit meeting.

Well I don't think that anyone expected it to be all sunshine and skittles over there--not with all the bad blood over Afghanistan--so that's not a bad showing by the president. I'm not a huge fan of bringing new nations on board, unless they've got troops in the queue ready to earn that NATO merit badge in Afghanistan. We've got enough problems integrating the current eastern European nations' highly centralized Armed Forces into the weird multi-faceted chain of commands that make up NATO, ISAF, KFOR, and so on, so why shoulder even more baggage?

The obvious counterpoint, that with critical manning shortages in places like the Helmand Province, it wouldn't hurt to invite a few more willing souls to the Afghanistan party.

Exit question: had President Bush's missile defense plan failed and new national applicants been green lighted, would the Times article have run:

Washington’s failure to win over Germany, France, Italy, Spain and other crucial European countries to its view on Ukraine and Georgia Missile Defense was considered by some countries of Central and Eastern Europe to have sent a message of alliance weakness to Moscow.

Yeah, you betcha.

The Guardian reports:

For years now, Nato nations have been committed to reach a minimum defence spending target of 2% of GDP. Yet 20 of them, including Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, have fallen far short. Among the six that have reached the target, the shares of four (including Britain and France) are in decline. Inevitably, that means the US carries ever more of the load and becomes ever more sceptical about taking Europe seriously....

The experience of Iraq, coupled with Europe's increased role in the Balkans, has tempted some Eurocentrics to say that Nato is outmoded and that an enhanced military role for the EU should replace it. This is fantasy land. If there is one thing that would be even worse for Europe than fighting a war with the Americans as allies, it is fighting a war without them. While it is true that Europe spends too little on defence because it knows it can rely on the Americans, it does not follow that European nations would be keen to spend more if Nato broke down.

The Bucharest Summit pings my interest on two fronts. First, I'm curious to see how Sarkozy--who seems to be taking his role as Chef des Armées of Europe's largest military seriously--will lay out his plans for French involvement in Afghanistan. He's hinted that the French army will be relieving the beleaguered Canadians, but there's been no firm announcement on proposed troop strength.

Second, I'd like to see if France's strong leadership role in the European Union inspires more NATO nations to follow their example. Big changes *could* be coming to an alliance near you, but the United States, Canada, France, and Great Britain can't make that happen on their own.

In the end, the Guardian is right. NATO can preach reforms until they're blue in the face, but unless European nations start shouldering the burdens of their own defense, the alliance's purpose and utility will continue to be called into question

China’s brutal crackdown on Buddhist protesters in its annexed Tibet province has sparked a heated discussion in Europe about whether or not to boycott (at least parts of) the upcoming Beijing Olympics, which are set to begin with a grandiose opening ceremony on August 8. So far, the 27 EU countries currently meeting at the foreign minister level in Slovenia have failed to agree on a common approach on how to deal with this thorny issue.

Among the big three EU powers, French President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be most open towards considering various potential Olympic boycott options. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in contrast, has already announced his intention to participate at the games. Finally, Germany just announced today that President Horst Koehler, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will not be attending the games. However, Merkel’s spokesman was eager to stress that this was nothing unusual and that none of the three had ever planned to go to the Olympics in the first place. Foreign minister Steinmeier also reiterated his government’s view that a complete boycott of the games should be avoided. Germany is certainly treading very carefully as it just weathered a dramatic deterioration in its bilateral relations with Beijing following Chancellor Merkel’s controversial meeting with the Dalai Lama at her official residence in Berlin last September.

France is already emerging as a key player in shaping Europe’s response to the Tibet crackdown. President Sarkozy, after all, will hold the rotating EU-presidency at the time of the Olympics this summer. Political leaders in Poland and the Czech Republic, for their part, have already announced that they will personally boycott the games and are urging other European politicians to do the same.

In this context it is interesting to draw a comparison between Europe’s response to developments in Tibet and Darfur. For example, previous attempts by U.S. human rights activists like Mia Farrow and others to effectively bill the Beijing games as "The Genocide Olympics." (because of "China’s role as business partner, diplomatic protector and underwriter of Sudan’s campaign of ethnic destruction in Darfur") have had only a very limited if negligible effect on international public opinion. For sure, the U.S. human rights campaigners scored some relatively minor points back home, as evidenced by Steven Spielberg’s recent resignation as an artistic director of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

The Teacher’s Union in Britain is calling for a ban on cell phones in schools. Surely there are good reasons for adopting this proposal--to stop cheating, chatting, and the proliferation of the latest Britney ring-tone. The Union relies on none of these justifications. Instead it says banning cell phones is essential to winning the war against bullying. In another article, the Union takes TV quiz shows to task for allegedly fuelling bullying. What will they blame next? Unicorns? I have a better idea: how about a culture bankrupt of personal responsibility. You know, the kind of society that would blame cell phones and television programs for violent acts.

Bullying is a hot-topic right now. Everyone’s been talking about cyber-bully because of the tragic Myspace suicide. The New York Times even went old school the other day in profiling poor Billy Wolfe, the victim of a series of brutal attacks in his Arkansas public school. A montage of black eyes and other bruises accompanies the piece. Now Billy’s parents are suing several of the perpetrators, and this litigious result seems apt. Yeah, lawsuits are good, in some cases, especially when the police and school refuse to do their job. Bear in mind one of the great cases of American tort law involved a case of 19th century bullying. Bullies populated the earth even in the bygone days before cell phones and Charles Van Doren . . .

The Times reports:

Public buildings, including job centres, schools and hospitals, are to be encouraged to fly the union jack and other national flags to boost national identity.

Ministers will this week announce the lifting of restrictions on flag flying that have been in force since 1924. They will allow public buildings to erect flagpoles and fly the union jack and national flags, including the cross of St George, the Saltire of Scotland and the red dragon of Wales every day.

At present, flying national flags from public buildings is restricted to 18 days a year, which include the Queen’s birthday and Remembrance Day.

If anyone can explain to me why the British restricted flag flying in 1924, I'd be curious to hear. The best quote of the story comes from Captain Malcolm Farrow, president of the British Flag Institute: “Any nation that doesn’t fly the national flag from its government buildings every day of the week needs its head examined.” But what about the BBC--the Union Jack or the Shahadah of Hamas?

HT: USS Neverdock

The president signals his support for Georgia to join NATO:

President Bush indicated support yesterday for Georgia's aspirations to join NATO eventually, but left uncertain whether he will try to start the process at the alliance summit next month in Bucharest, Romania.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear he opposes the prospect of Ukraine and Georgia -- former satellites of the Soviet Union -- joining NATO, leaving some alliance countries leery about provoking a conflict with Russia.

After meeting with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in the Oval Office yesterday, Bush said he would like to see Georgia become a NATO member at some point. "I believe that NATO benefits with a Georgian membership. I believe Georgia benefits from being a part of NATO. And I told the president it's a message I'll be taking to Bucharest soon," Bush said.

Just another ally that will be unwilling to dirty its hands in Afghanistan? Or would the Georgians turn out to be shooters like the Poles? NATO also needs fresh troops to unscrew the mess that is Kosovo, but perhaps the alliance should focus on properly integrating the current force before they start bringing more newbies on board.

Still, I love the idea of Ukraine signing the charter. Putting NATO on a new eastern European border (Estonia and Latvia are already there) with the Russians gives me nostalgic Cold War warm fuzzies. And--if nothing else--it'd make the alliance somewhat less of an anachronism.

I may be a tongue-tied American who would have taken up arms against the lobsterbacks had I been born in the 18th century, but I for one welcome Lord Goldsmith’s proposal to make British school kids pledge allegiance to the Queen at school assemblies. Certainly nationalism is preferable to the distressing displays of multiculturalism that have proliferated in England. Consider this recent episode:

Teachers at a primary school have been ordered to dress up as Muslims to promote multi-culturalism.

The West Midlands school is belatedly celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid and told its pupils and teachers to don traditional Muslim dress for the day.

All 257 pupils, most of whom are Christians, and 41 teachers--two of whom are Muslims--dressed up.

Although I would be shocked, shocked to learn that teachers do not dress up for Purim and students do not eat lunch in a sukkah during Sukkot, there is still a matter of instilling some national identity in today’s youth. To his credit, Prime Minister Gordon Brown solicited Lord Goldsmith’s report on how to "promote the meaning and significance of citizenship within modern Britain." Not a bad idea given the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent comments about sharia in the UK.

A good way to measure how far apart the Americans (particularly the current administration) and the Europeans are these days is by reading Helmut Schmidt’s “twelve questions for the candidates” in the current Atlantic Times. The former German chancellor simply wants to know where the contenders stand on issues like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and the environment. Schmidt rightly calls some of the candidates’ positions “nebulous” and predictably so during an election year.

But then there are those few questions posed in such a way that we know precisely where Schmidt and his cohorts stand. Here are a few:

“Since a quarter of the world’s states are Islamic, would you fight for religious and cultural tolerance and work against a clash of civilizations with Islam?” I guess Schmidt never met Karen Hughes. But seriously, I hope Herr Kanzler isn’t suggesting allowing sharia law to be practiced on German soil. Is he?

“Do you agree that, besides the Middle East, ‘Russia is the other great challenge for global security’ (Zbigniew Brzezinski)? Or do you share our view that, since Gorbachev, Russia has never violated its borders militarily and is acting more peacefully now than at any time in its Tsarist and Communist history?” Our view? That must mean not only Schmidt but Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder. As for “acting more peacefully now than at any time in its Tsarist and Communist history,” well, that would be pretty hard to top.

“Do you accept the global political and economic role of China? Will you finally invite China to the G-8 and other global summits?” Indeed, doing so will encourage a liberalization of China’s markets leading to greater economic freedom leading to greater political freedom. But this has already been achieved by the Olympics.

In a little more than a month from now, President Bush will head to Bucharest, Romania for a major NATO summit. The gathering is being billed as a potential “make-or-break” moment for the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whose lackluster performance in southern Afghanistan has been a source of increasing tension within the alliance.

But South Asia won’t be the only thing on the agenda at Bucharest. The summit will also tackle the potentially divisive question of how much, and how fast, NATO should expand. Although three longstanding NATO aspirants--Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia--are widely expected to secure invitations to join the alliance this April, the bigger test case is likely to be Ukraine and Georgia, both of which are petitioning NATO for a “Membership Action Plan,” or MAP, at the summit.

Getting a MAP is no guarantee of future NATO membership for Ukraine or Georgia; on the contrary, it’s just an aid package that will help these countries’ democratically-elected governments tackle the various political, economic, and security reforms that, if successfully implemented, will help them qualify for NATO membership down the line.

The United States and most of its major allies are in favor of offering a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia, but several European states--most notably Germany--are still iffy. Their opposition isn’t substantive: rather, they are frightened first and foremost about pissing off Russia, which is loathe to see a closer relationship between NATO and its former satellites.

Despite Moscow’s saber rattling, a source tells the WEEKLY STANDARD that the vote count among NATO member states has gotten more favorable for Georgia and Ukraine in the past few weeks. What’s needed now is a strong diplomatic push on the part of the Bush administration--which, not so coincidentally, is precisely what Senator McCain, Senator Lieberman, and a bipartisan, bicameral group of Senators and Congressman urge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to do, in a letter they sent to Foggy Bottom yesterday. Here’s the excerpt:

Normally I wouldn't throw such an enormous block quote out at the masses, but today I'm firing for effect.

Dear Ministry of Defense Bureaucrats,

It is worth remembering that on 6th June 1940 the evacuation from Dunkirk of the BEF had finished two days earlier, with the bulk of their equipment being left on the beaches behind them. On D-Day, 6th June 1944, only 4 years later, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy (American forces - 73,000.) on 6th June 1940. Ninety-five per cent of these soldiers had been civilians with no military training, experience or even any great desire to be soldiers.

11,590 aircraft were available to support the landings. On D-Day, Allied aircraft flew 14,674 sorties. All of these aircraft had been built in less than four years. Ninety per cent of their pilots had never flown in an airplane, much less piloted one, before Dunkirk and ninety-five per cent of the mechanics and other ground support personnel who maintained their engines and other systems had never set foot on an airfield.

Operation Neptune, the naval support operation for the Overlord landings, involved huge naval forces, including 6939 vessels: 1213 naval combat ships, 4126 landing ships and landing craft, 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels. Some 195,700 personnel were assigned to Operation Neptune - 112,824 of these were British, Nearly two thirds of the ships were from the Royal Navy. 70 – something % of those ships had been built since June 1940. Ninety percent of the seamen and eighty per cent of the officers manning those vessels of war had never crewed more than a rowboat before June 1940.

A pipeline was laid under the ocean to carry fuel and lubricants to the allied forces. Two pre-fabricated harbors had been designed, built and towed through one of the most treacherous bodies of water in the world and installed on the Channel coast of France while under enemy fire.

All of this, and more, done in four years. All of it done without electronic computers. All of it done without fax machines, without cell phones, without voice mail, all of it done with manual typewriters and mechanical calculators and reams of paper and legions of men and women filing and stamping and checking and rechecking and working as if their lives depended on it. As if!

And today, with all our wealth and technology, you, Ministry of Defence bureaucrats, tell us we cannot produce 12, count them, TWELVE Chinook support helicopters vitally needed by our forces in Afghanistan...

Nice to see that someone on that island is fed up with MoD's misappropriations and Labour's all-around neglectful towards Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

Sounds familiar right? Bureaucrats, folks, our own worst enemy.

Kosovo declared its independence yesterday and today the United States, Britain, and France all recognized the new government, despite the protestations of Serbia and Russia. Senator Lieberman just put out the following statement:

The declaration of independence on Sunday by the democratically-elected government of Kosovo represents the only just and sustainable outcome for the future of this unique territory, and for the stability of Southeastern Europe.

It's not every day that a new nation comes into being. And for all the talk about anti-Americanism, I think we can judge Kosovo a likely ally in the years ahead--at least that's what all the flag waving would indicate.

Still, It will be interesting to see how the Democratic candidates respond to this--given that it was a Democratic president that began our commitment in Kosovo (How would Ned Lamont have responded for that matter, given that the only mention I can find at the Daily Kos is "Serbia is not thrilled.") Will they summon the courage to acknowledge that the Bush administration--maybe, just maybe--did something right? Don't hold your breath.

Cuts "Likely" to UK defense equipment:

The UK House of Commons Defence Select Committee has warned of impending defence cuts and is "deeply concerned" that continued operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are eroding the UK armed forces' ability to react to any new contingent operations.

In a report released on 28 January the committee suggested that despite a planned real-term increase in the defence budget of 1.5 per cent annually (GBP7.7 billion [USD15 billion] in total) until 2011, "cuts in the defence programme, including the equipment programme, are likely in the coming months as part of the Planning Round process".

It called on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to be "realistic" about the number of equipment programmes that can be funded.

Then there's this:

Muslims can claim benefits for several wives, says Ministers- Husbands who bring more than one wife to Britain can claim extra benefits for them at taxpayers' expense.

Ministers have ruled that men in polygamous marriages can receive state handouts for each wife, including additional income support, even though bigamy is illegal in the UK.

Nice to see that British tax dollars are supporting the important stuff.

Earlier this week, public opinion and mainly left-wing media circles in Europe breathed a big sigh of relief mixed with Schadenfreude after learning that the U.S. intelligence community now believes that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program back in 2003. “Relief” because 1) no one in Europe wants the Mullahs to get their hands on nuclear weapons, and 2) no one wants the U.S. to launch military strikes against Iran to prevent that from happening either; “Schadenfreude” because 1) the NIE seems to weaken the Bush administration’s aggressive rhetoric as to why Iran is a major international security threat, and 2) because, like in the case of Iraq’s WMD programs, people get the impression that there is once again a clear disconnect between what the (U.S.) intelligence community knows and what the Bush administration wants the rest of the world to believe.

For Europeans, both the content and timing of this week’s NIE were even more surprising as many regular citizens, journalists, and even security experts seemed to believe that a U.S. attack on Iran was imminent, or at least likely to happen before Bush leaves office in January 2009. It is rather ironic that these folks tend to be the same people who refuse to acknowledge that the U.S. “surge” has yielded remarkable security progress in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

After learning about the NIE, governments in Germany, the UK, and France--the three European powers involved in the on-going EU3 + 3 nuclear negotiations with Iran--were quick to stress the need to keep the international pressure on Tehran, raising the specter of a new sanctions regime imposed by the UN Security Council. In this context, it is interesting that Germany’s conservative daily Die Welt not only refused to downplay the security threat posed by Iran but also raised questions as to whether U.S. and European intelligence services are on the same page when it comes to assessing what Tehran is really up to:

“[As a result of intelligence failures regarding Iraq], the US intelligence services are more defensive than their European counterparts, who aren’t yet completely convinced that Iran put a freeze on its atomic weapons program in 2003. But at least this can be said: If the US intelligence services don’t come up with any reliable information about an Iranian bomb in the next few months, the Mullahs won’t be attacked militarily under this US president.”

BBC took terror trainers....paintballing?

The BBC funded a paintballing trip for men later accused of Islamic terrorism and failed to pass on information about the 21/7 bombers to police, a court was told yesterday.

Mohammed Hamid, who is charged with overseeing a two-year radicalisation programme to prepare London-based Muslim youths for jihad, was described as a "cockney comic" by a BBC producer.

The BBC paid for Mr Hamid and fellow defendants Muhammad al-Figari and Mousa Brown to go on a paintballing trip at the Delta Force centre in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2005. The men, accused of terrorism training, were filmed for a BBC programme called Don't Panic, I'm Islamic, screened in June 2005.

Not mentioned: "Don't Panic, I'm Islamic" was a Beeb documentary on how British Muslims are unfairly stereotyped as terrorists.

Even weirder is the description of activities at Hamid's terror camp:

The court was told previously that Mr Hamid taunted police on his return from an alleged terror training camp in the New Forest where exercises included somersaults, pole-vaulting and paintballing.

Somersaults? Pole-vaulting? Was he planning on attacking Circ Du Soleil?

Jan Bittner, senior foreign policy advisor to conservative CDU/CSU Bundestag Leader Volker Kauder, has written a compelling post at the Atlantic Community blog on the plight of the more than 2.2 million Iraqi Refugees who have fled to neighboring countries to escape sectarian violence and ethic strife at home. Based on first-hand accounts gained during a fact-finding trip to Amman, Damascus, and Istanbul in October, Bittner draws particular attention to the terrible sufferings of Iraqi Christians, who are arguably Iraq’s most vulnerable religious minority:

Christians in Iraq today frequently face an ultimatum: either convert to Islam (giving their daughters to Mujahideen fighters as “proof” that the conversion is serious) or leave their homes immediately. In Istanbul, a priest of the Chaldean church recounted the final wave of violence against the few remaining Christians in the Baghdad neighborhood of al-Dora, where he was serving in 2006. Today al-Dora and many parts of the country have lost their Christian populations, and 2000 years of Christian presence in Iraq is coming to an end.

The U.S. Government has already started to address the refugee problem. By the end of 2007, it will have provided almost $1 billion in humanitarian assistance since 2003 for Iraqis in Iraq and in neighboring countries. At the end of October, President Bush requested $160 million to provide basic health services and education for Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon; and $80 million to provide emergency relief supplies, health care, and water and sanitation infrastructure to people displaced in Iraq. At the same time, though, the Bush administration has come under tremendous pressure from Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to allow many more Iraqis asylum in the United States. So far, however, logistical and bureaucratic hurdles at the State Department as well as terrorism and security concerns raised by DHS have caused regrettable delays in the relevant U.S. resettlement initiatives.

Europe, too, should do much more to help alleviate the suffering of Iraq’s refugees. For those countries that have decided to stay out of Iraq militarily, a sharp increase in humanitarian aid for Iraqi refugees would be an excellent opportunity to care for those people most in need and to help contain a humanitarian crisis that, even as violence declines, could have dangerous spill-over effects in a very volatile region of the world.

European public opinion is generally critical of sending soldiers abroad on tough missions to hunt down terrorists in far-distant countries. In contrast, the same polls consistently indicate broad-based popular support for soft, “feel good” foreign policies that focus on humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, and economic reconstruction. According to the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Trends 2007 survey, among those Europeans backing a stronger EU role in international affairs, 84 percent were in favor of spending more money on development aid; 74 percent preferred using trade incentives to influence other countries; 68 percent wanted to commit more troops for peacekeeping missions; yet only 20 percent supported deploying troops for combat operations in general. With the notable exception of Sweden, the plight of Iraq’s refugees has so far failed to galvanize Europe to action. Unfortunately, large parts of European public opinion still view the Iraq war as a lost-cause--a quagmire caused by an unwarranted unilateral U.S. military invasion--that is essentially Bush’s problem to solve. EU leaders should seize the opportunity to tell their publics why helping Iraq’s refugees through expanded aid and targeted resettlement programs is not only a moral imperative but also smart, principled foreign policy.

Some years ago at the beginning of the Putin era, the consensus among several foreign policy experts was that Russia was about to re-assert itself in a manner that it had practiced so well during the Cold War. That is, attacking the United States by proxy.

The proxy for the United States was to be one of our closest allies, the UK. The reason was very simple. The UK remains a member of the UN Security Council and other international bodies owing more to its status as a member of the WW II victory parade than to its current actual power and influence in world events. It is the “weakest link” of all the American allies and an easy target.

Russia, it was predicted, would begin to attack the UK in every manner possible short of direct military confrontation. By doing so, Moscow would be taking on the entire western alliance and attempting to diminish the image of American and NATO dominance in world affairs. Going after London would be important symbolically, but it would involve little consequences for Russia given the inability of the UK to retaliate in any meaningful manner.

The prediction has largely turned out to be true. There have been several diplomatic confrontations with the UK, the most serious of these involving the poisoning death of Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former KGB officer and Putin critic who had become a naturalized British subject. UK press organizations and other entities in Russia also find themselves under constant harassment over their country’s decision to grant political asylum to Boris Berezovskiy--another political enemy of Putin who has lived in London in self-imposed exile for years. Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers have even challenged UK air space and have been intercepted recently by Eurofighter aircraft of the Royal Air Force.

But the most persistent and least-talked about assault by Moscow has been in the area of espionage. This week the head of the UK’s internal security and counterintelligence service, MI5, stated that Russian spying against London remains at Cold War levels. The consequence is that this constant harassment diverts intelligence resources that would be better devoted to fighting al Qaeda and other terrorist threats.

Jonathan Evans, MI5’s director general, said this week that espionage by Russia, China, and other countries was detracting from the service’s mission of countering militant Islamists who were growing in number and now targeting children as young as 15 in Britain. “Since the end of the Cold War, we have seen no decrease in the numbers of undeclared Russian intelligence officers in the UK--at the Russian Embassy and associated organizations conducting covert activity in this country,” Evans said.

“So despite the Cold War ending nearly two decades ago, my service is still expending resources to defend the UK against unreconstructed attempts by Russia, China and others to spy on us.” These comments were made as part of his first public speech since he became the head of MI5 this past April. That he chose to make this a subject of his first public address speaks volumes about just how pervasive Russian spying on the UK is at present.

Turkey’s threat to launch a large-scale military invasion against PKK fighters in Northern Iraq is not only of great concern to policymakers in Washington, where President Bush will meet with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to make a last-ditch plea for Turkish restraint next Monday. Germany, too, is trying hard to prevent Ankara from embarking on a reckless military adventure with potentially disastrous consequences for security and stability across the region and beyond.

Since last Sunday, when several hundred nationalist Turkish anti-PKK demonstrators attacked a Kurdish cultural center in Berlin, German authorities are now also increasingly concerned about the conflict’s violent repercussions for relations between the country’s sizeable Turkish and Kurdish migrant populations. While several hundred German riot police were able to fend off the barrage of bottles and stones thrown by the young Turkish attackers (15 of whom were arrested), the clashes also left 18 police officers injured. The head of Berlin’s security police is already bracing for a further escalation in violent Turkish-Kurdish clashes in the weeks and months to come. "The conflict in the border region with Iraq has already spilled over into Berlin. We have to be careful and look the problem straight in the eye."

In total, there are currently about 1.7 million Turks living in Germany. This figure does not include the 500,000 or so naturalized Germans of Turkish origin or children born to Turkish parents in Germany who acquired German citizenship by birth. In contrast, the number of Kurds is estimated to be around 650,000. However, an exact ethnic demographic breakdown is hard to establish as Kurds with a Turkish passport are also counted as part of Germany’s Turkish population. According to the 2006 Annual Report by Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, about 11,500 left-wing Kurdish extremists and an almost equal number of right-wing Turkish nationalists are currently based in Germany. While Kurdish extremists have virtually stopped all their violent activities in Germany (they are now primarily focused on fundraising and propaganda operations), more and more young Turks in Germany are embracing a strange mix of both radical Turkish nationalist and Islamist ideas, making them prone to further violence.

A Turkish military invasion of Northern Iraq, which should be prevented at all cost, would undoubtedly lead to more violent clashes on German streets. For sure, the deadly hit-and-run attacks on Turkey by the banned PKK terrorist organization have rightly been condemned by Western governments in Europe and the United States. However, there can be no doubt that the roughly 3,000 PKK fighters holed up in Northern Iraq pose no real strategic threat to Turkey, which boasts a 620,000-strong army that is the second biggest in the entire NATO alliance. Back in early 2003, Turkey’s Islamist-dominated parliament denied the United States the ability to move U.S. troops into Northern Iraq to take out Saddam in what was viewed by Washington as an operation of vital importance to U.S. national security. Now, in 2007, Turkey has massed more than 250,000 troops along its border with Northern Iraq in preparation for what would certainly be a disproportionate response to a limited tactical threat.

It remains to be seen how much leverage President Bush can exert on the government of a country whose population ranks among the most anti-American in the world. According to the German Marshall Fund’s latest Transatlantic Trends public opinion survey, 74 percent of the Turkish population now views U.S. leadership in the world as "undesirable," and only 3 percent approve of Bush’s handling of international affairs. In this context it may be more effective to use those levers that really matter to Ankara. Markus Soeder, the former conservative CSU party secretary general who now serves as the Bavarian State Minister in charge of Federal and European Affairs, demanded just this week that the EU immediately freeze its on-going accession talks with Ankara in the event of a Turkish military attack on Northern Iraq. "It cannot be that a country wanting to join the EU wages a war of aggression."

Across the board, German political and media circles breathed a big sigh of relief after the defeat of populist Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski by Donald Tusk, leader of the pro-EU and market-friendly Civic Platform party, in early parliamentary elections on Sunday. Until two weeks ago, the older of the identical Kaczynski twins (his brother Lech currently serves as Poland’s president) still seemed poised to win another term in office with an aggressive election campaign based on the fight against post-Communist corruption as well as rather obsessive friend-or-foe thinking, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s fate was sealed, however, after he lost a high-profile TV debate against Tusk and when Poland’s young, educated, urban, and increasingly mobile population (more than 1 million Poles have moved to the UK since 2004) turned out at the polls in record numbers to get rid of a government that had left the country often completely isolated within the 27-nation EU bloc on issues ranging from EU institutional reforms to the death penalty. In the end, it was, essentially, only elderly, conservative Catholic voters from Poland’s poor rural areas who remained faithful to Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party, thus underscoring the country’s growing deep cultural and political divide.

Since coming to power two years ago, the Kaczynski twins and their political allies have repeatedly launched aggressive political attacks on the German government in Berlin, using bellicose rhetoric and conjuring up memories of the Second World War in an effort to deflect attention from their mounting political problems at home. From the Germans’ perspective, it was disappointing to see that a country they had sponsored for entry into the EU (and NATO for that matter) was now using membership as a way of settling old scores. For sure, former Chancellor Schroeder’s cozy relationship with Russian President Putin and their planned Nord Stream gas pipeline bypassing Poland certainly sounded alarm bells in Warsaw. However, since taking office in late 2005, Merkel has repeatedly tried to allay Polish fears over the Russian-German project, which Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s hawkish former defense minister Radek Sikorski (who subsequently fell out with the twins and decided to run for Donald Tusk’s party on Sunday instead) even compared to the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to partition Poland. It is unfortunate that Merkel’s repeated overtures to Warsaw, which also included an invitation to join the consortium by building an additional spur of the pipeline from the Baltic Sea to Poland, were rejected by the two hard-line twins, who insisted that Russia and Germany scrap the deal altogether.

Just today, my friends at Atlantic Community--a new Berlin-based online think tank--published the last installment of an interesting three-part survey gauging how 14 think tank experts from ten different European countries assess the potential consequences of a quick U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by the Summer of 2009 (somewhere along the lines of the "Edwards Plan"). In a nutshell, the surveyed analysts expressed fears that such a precipitous move could expose the European homeland to increased terrorist risks, lead to Iraq’s collapse and fragmentation, and also result in wider regional instability (i.e., the rise of Iran), further refugee flows, higher oil prices, and increased American isolationism. Geographically, Europe is of course much closer to Iraq and Iran than the United States. Here are the key findings of Atlantic Community’s survey:

1. Europeans Want America to Stay in Iraq
While the American public and policy debate revolves largely around exit strategies and "redeployment," European policy analysts believe that American troops should remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. A sudden withdrawal or public announcement of a timetable was considered dangerous by a majority of those questioned. In addition, Europeans feel that America is not doing enough to draw Syria and Iran into the nation-building process.

2. Europe Should Help, But Not Follow US Lead
European analysts suggest either pursuing policies in Iraq independent of prevailing US wisdom, or hinging level of involvement on America’s willingness to cede control. Militarily, there is little remaining sense of obligation to support the United States. Several respondents recommend that France mediate discussions among internal factions in Iraq. Efforts could focus on dialogue with powerful stakeholders to reinvigorate Iraqi nationalism and reduce sectarian violence. European diplomatic offensive involving Iran and Syria is seen as essential, but experts are also focused on Turkey. Maintaining peace in Kurdistan could be encouraged through EU membership negotiations.

3. Premature US Withdrawal Would Threaten Europe
European analysts believe that American withdrawal from Iraq would spell disaster. Increased refugee flows, regional instability, cross-border violence, higher oil prices, terrorism within Europe, and increased American isolationism were the main predictions noted by our respondents. "With a weakened United States, geopolitical vacations for Europe would be over."

While many strategic analysts and politicians in Europe are fully aware of the dire fall-out if Washington were to adopt an "apres-nous-le-deluge" approach in Iraq, European public opinion, in contrast, is very critical of the U.S. troop presence there and leaves Europe’s political leaders virtually no margin to provide additional political, economic, or military support for Iraq’s stabilization and reconstruction above current levels. For far too long, unfortunately, European public opinion has viewed the Iraq war as a lost cause, a quagmire caused by an unwarranted unilateral U.S. military invasion, and that is now Bush’s problem to solve. Europeans should not forget, though, that they, too, have a major stake in the future of Iraq.

Check out the full survey here.

One of the more important post-9/11 reforms was the creation of passenger watch lists and the effort to ensure that the names of all passengers flying to this country were disclosed before arrival. But while important to U.S. security, it has been a significant challenge to induce our partners to compile and transmit passenger lists before each flight arrives in the United States. Some nations threatened to balk, questioning whether the U.S. would really turn back planes whose passengers were not disclosed. And when the European Union signed an agreement to provide the data, it got tossed out by a judge in May.

Now the United States and EU have come to a 7-year agreement that will ensure that Passenger Name Records are transmitted to the Department of Homeland Security as early as 72 hours before scheduled flights:

“I am pleased to have signed an important agreement with the European Union today that will allow the Department of Homeland Security to continue using passenger name record data as an essential screening tool for detecting dangerous transatlantic travelers,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a press release. “Two separate agreements over the past three years have enabled our frontline personnel to rely on PNR data to disrupt terrorist travel, deny admission to individuals presenting security concerns, and dismantle human trafficking and narcotics smuggling networks.”

DHS will collect 19 PNR items from airlines generally 72 hours prior to a flight’s takeoff, with periodic updates coming in as they occur. The PNR items include: All provided contact information; payment and billing details; other names attached to the reservation; date of reservation; travel itinerary; names of travel agents; baggage information; and seat numbers.

According to DHS, this data is collected on about 87 million passengers annually. Information is analyzed to identify high-risk travelers, so that appropriate action can be taken. The agreement with the EU should ensure that this information sharing continues, and is immune to legal challenge.

From the Wall Street Journal:

GLASGOW -- Last Saturday afternoon, baggage handler John Smeaton was standing in front of Glasgow Airport smoking a cigarette when a Jeep Cherokee burst into flames nearby. He watched its burning driver emerge. A police officer pursued the passenger.

What happened next has turned Mr. Smeaton, 31 years old, into an unlikely folk hero. When he saw the passenger hitting the officer, Mr. Smeaton ran over and kicked the assailant.

Mr. Smeaton has been interviewed on the BBC, CNN and other networks about his response to the attack in which two suspected terrorists attempted to ram into the airport's main terminal. (See the CNN interview.) In a Glaswegian accent that is at times impenetrable -- Australia's Channel 7 subtitled its interview with him -- Mr. Smeaton voiced a defiance that has turned him into a de facto spokesman for Glasgow's fighting spirit. His message to terrorists: "You come to Glasgow, we don't stand for it," he says. "We'll just set aboot ye." (Translation: "In Glasgow, we'll just deck you.")

By the next evening, an admirer had created a Web site devoted to Mr. Smeaton -- nicknaming him Smeato. It includes links to his media interviews, purported details from his past (he once owned a ferret) and a plea for Britons to buy him a pint in the bar at the airport's Holiday Inn hotel. There is also a picture of Osama bin Laden with the caption: "You told me John Smeaton was off on Saturdays!"

Here's the link to the Smeaton website. The WWS salutes Smeato and has purchased a pint in his honor...which, given the current weakness of the dollar, cost some $6.20. Still worth every penny.

Earlier this week in Washington, I had the opportunity to sit down for an informal discussion with visiting German defense minister Franz-Josef Jung. While the mounting security risks for Germany’s more than 3,500 soldiers currently deployed in Afghanistan certainly ranked high on his political agenda, the conservative CDU minister also warned that the on-going diplomatic wrangling over the future status of Kosovo could be a source of massive international tensions. The province of Kosovo, inhabited by about two million mainly ethnic Albanian Muslims, remains in a legal limbo since being run as a UN protectorate following NATO’s March 1999 bombing campaign that drove out then-Yugoslav strong man Slobodan Milosevic.

Today, many European political leaders fear that a potential unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, without UN Security Council backing and subsequently recognized by Washington, would not only do serious harm to relations with Russia but could also drive a wedge through the 27-nation EU. In the nightmare scenario, some EU members (like the UK) would follow the U.S. lead and recognize an independent Kosovo while others (Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, etc.) would continue to support the government in Belgrade, which views an independent Kosovo as a blatant violation of Serbia’s territorial integrity. The remaining EU members--including key powers such as Germany, France, and Italy--would suddenly be caught in the middle of an ugly, damaging international "recognition race" over Kosovo.

In February this year, UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari presented a status proposal that would, in essence, put Kosovo on track for eventual statehood and independence under temporary EU supervision. For instance, while Ahtisaari’s plan carefully avoids the word "independence," it gives Kosovo the right to negotiate and conclude international agreements, establish a Kosovo Security Force, and adopt national symbols. Serbia is firmly opposed to Kosovo’s independence and has already rejected the Ahtisaari proposal. Moscow, for its part, has made clear that it would veto any UN Security Council resolution that would impose a settlement on Belgrade. While the Kosovo political leadership has reluctantly embraced the Ahtisaari plan, the province’s prime minister Agim Ceku, has already warned that Kosovo would declare independence unilaterally if Russia blocked a UN Security Council resolution enforcing the plan: "We can't wait anymore. Every day of delay means an increase in frustration and a loss of legitimacy."

The idea of granting independence (if necessary against the objections of Belgrade and Moscow) to Kosovo increasingly resonates among top Bush administration officials and influential lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill. During his June 10 visit to Albania, Kosovo’s next-door neighbor and ethnic kin, President Bush came out strongly in favor of an independent Kosovo, arguing that "At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you've got to say, 'Enough is enough. Kosovo is independent.'"

As President Bush follows his G-8 visit to Berlin with a stop in Bulgaria, Congressional Quarterly covers a bizarre 'kerfuffle' over a North Korean money laundering operation involving a Bulgarian bank:

During a private meeting in Washington last February, Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmitt warned Bulgaria’s Finance Minister that the Economic and Investment Bank (EI), chaired by the girlfriend of powerful Sofia mayor and presidential aspirant Boiko Borissov, was a target of a North Korean money-laundering effort.

The bank denies it has any connections with North Korea and denounced Kimmitt for spreading unfounded “rumors,” which it charges originated with political rivals of Borissov, whose right-wing nationalist party is surging in the polls...

EI Bank board Chairwoman Tsvetelina Borislavova, who acknowledged in an interview with CQ that she was “living with” Borissov, said she had been informed of Kimmitt’s warning “personally, by the finance minister,” Plamen Oresharski, upon his return from Washington last February.

But she said the tip was based on “false information” concocted by political enemies of her boyfriend Borissov, who before he became mayor last year was a top official in Bulgaria’s powerful Interior Ministry.

Borislavova said the bank had thoroughly investigated the allegation and found that “there has never been any account opened by a North Korean company or a joint venture company” in the bank...

So the live-in girlfriend of the likely future president sits on the board of a bank that may or may not be laundering money for the North Koreans depending on who you ask--your choices being the live-in girlfriend or the deputy secretary of the Treasury. CQ stresses that Borrisov has become a close ally of President Bush, and that Bulgaria is home to three U.S. bases. Further, Bulgaria is pressing to become part of the anti-ballistic missile shield that will see U.S. installations set in nearby Poland and the Czech Republic.

But when Borrisov travels to Washington this week, he's unlikely to discuss the details of such cooperation with American military officials. According to CQ, the highest ranking official on Borrisov's dance card is Washington mayor Adrian Fenty. No word on whether the live-in girlfriend is joining Borrisov on the trip.

A very interesting op-ed titled "Europeans' flight from Europe" caught my eye in yesterday's Washington Times. While the Belgian author of the piece, Paul Belien, is not exactly part of the European political mainstream--the editor of the conservative-libertarian blog The Brussels Journal wants to curb Muslim immigration to Europe, is pro-life, favors Flemish independence, and has home-schooled all of his three children with his wife, a Belgian MP for the far-right Vlaams Belangparty--he has a very interesting perspective on the Old Continent's ticking demographic time bomb. (Belien has also written for THE DAILY STANDARD.)

According to Belien, Europe's lavish welfare system--supported by high taxes--has led to a massive brain drain among the young and well-educated elites in Germany, France, and other European countries who increasingly "vote with their feet" and move to the United States, Canada, or Australia in pursuit of better opportunities. The situation is compounded by relatively high rates of unemployment and a sense of social/cultural decline in Europe:

Last year more than 155,000 Germans emigrated from their native country. Since 2004 the number of ethnic Germans who leave each year is greater than the number of immigrants moving in. While the emigrants are highly motivated and well educated, ‘those coming in are mostly poor, untrained and hardly educated,' says Stephanie Wahl of the German Institute for Economics.…

This indicates that the flight from Europe is related to a loss of confidence in the future of nations which have taken in the Trojan horse of Islamism, but which, unlike the Trojans, lack the guts to fight.…

While the fertility rate in France is 1.9 children per woman, two out of every five newborns in France are children of Arab or African immigrants. In Germany (fertility rate 1.37) 35 percent of all newborns have a non-German background. Paradoxically, fertility rates in Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etc., are lower than among immigrants from these countries in Europe. ‘A woman in Tunisia has on average 1.7 children. In France she has six because the French government pays her to have them,' Mr. Heinsohn explains. ‘Of course, the money was never intended to benefit Tunisian women in particular, but French women will not touch this money, whereas the Tunisian women are only too happy to... For Danish and German women the welfare benefits are too low to be attractive.

Europe's welfare system is causing a perverse process of population replacement. If the Europeans want to save their culture, they will have to slay the welfare state.

The Old Continent's demographic trend is even more worrisome when you take into account that in Germany, between 30 and 40 percent (there are different statistics floating around) of all university-educated German women do not have any children at all. This different kind of "brain drain" should be a source of serious concern for a resource-poor country that prides itself on being the "Land of Ideas," a driver of innovative technologies, and the world's top exporter.

German chancellor Angela Merkel--who currently holds both the rotating EU and G-8 presidencies--arrived in Washington last Sunday for the bi-annual EU-US Summit, which focused primarily on deepening transatlantic economic cooperation and fostering joint action on climate change. During their final press conference with Bush, Merkel and accompanying EU Commission president José Manuel Barroso hailed the summit as a success and stressed the U.S. Administration’s new commitments regarding energy security, efficiency, and climate change.

Back in Germany, Merkel is getting rave reviews for the EU-US Summit and her foreign policy record. An online commentary from Germany’s influential center-left weekly Der Spiegel--titled “Merkel’s Pact with America”-- highlighted the Chancellor’s strong commitment to close U.S.-German ties.

“It is virtually unprecedented in German history for a chancellor to be so unreservedly aligned with the US. Adenauer, the first [CDU] chancellor of West Germany, saw America as a guarantor of freedom, but also perceived it as an occupation force. Helmut Schmidt and Willy Brandt, both Social Democratic (SPD) chancellors, were pro-American but innately skeptical.

Merkel, on the contrary, wants to expand Germany's close ties with the United States and is on the verge of making a pact with America the cornerstone of her foreign policy. Indeed, the resoluteness with which she has pursued this goal stands in conspicuous contrast with her government's lack of political progress back home in Germany.”

With Tony Blair weakened and about to leave No. 10 Downing Street, “Angie” has become America’s most important ally in Europe and is given red-carpet treatment in Washington:

Reason blogger Katherine Mangu-Ward links to this story from RIA Novosti about a recently approved tax in Wallonia, a French-speaking region of Belgium. According to the report, the local government there, which represents some four million Belgian citizens, will now require all Wallonians to pay a 20 euro tax for the privilege of barbecuing. A barbecue releases some 50 to 100 grams of CO2 into the atmosphere, so the Wallonia government will discourage this eco-outrage with a tax, and will monitor compliance..."from helicopters, whose thermal sensors will detect burning grills."

It's hard to imagine that barbecuing could produce more CO2 than an enforcement regime that relies on helicopters--but the fact is, Europeans don't barbecue. They grill. Here in America, a real barbecue might put 100-times as much CO2 into the atmosphere over the course of a 12 hour session--perhaps making enforcement from above practical, though still completely ridiculous. Take The BBQ Guy, for example. He described his Fourth of July barbecue thusly:

I put 2 pork butts and three racks of ribs on the smoker at 8:15 p.m. The ribs finished up at 12:30 a.m. and the pork butts were taken off the smoker at 2:30 a.m. before I headed to bed.

Now that's a lot of CO2.

A real American barbecue. Courtesy of The BBQ Guy.

The University of Leeds has canceled a lecture by Matthias Küntzel entitled “Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic anti-Semitism in the Middle East.” The title had caused some controversy amongst Muslim students, leading administrators to rename the lecture “The Nazi Legacy: the export of anti-Semitism to the Middle East." The renaming seemed to have sufficiently cooled the tempers, but the event was canceled anyway, on "security grounds," after a number of complaints were made by email--though it's not clear that any of those emails contained explicit threats against Küntzel. (Küntzel recently published a piece in THE WEEKLY STANDARD under the title Iran's Obsession with the Jews.)

According to the Times:

The university authorities contacted the German department on Tuesday and asked for a change in the title. The department agreed to relabel the talk as “The Nazi Legacy: the export of antiSemitism to the Middle East”.

Yesterday morning, the head of the German department, Professor Stuart Taberner, was called to a meeting with the Vice-Chancellor’s staff and the head of security. After the meeting, Dr Köntzel’s lecture and workshops were cancelled.

Annette Seidel Arpaci, an academic in the German department, said: “This is an academic talk by a scholar, it is not a political rally. The sudden cancellation is a sell-out of academic freedom, especially freedom of speech, at the University of Leeds.” A spokes-woman for the university said that it valued freedom of speech and added that the cancellation of the meeting had been a bureaucratic issue.

Over at the Commentary blog Contentions, Daniel Johnson writes that

The Küntzel case shows that Muslims do not even need to resort to the threat of violence in order to close down academic debate on subjects they dislike. Anthony Glees of Brunel University has been warning for years of the danger posed by Islamists on campus—a danger to which university authorities are notoriously weak in responding. Before his death last year, I spoke to Zaki Badawi, the leading Muslim opponent of Islamism in Britain, about this problem, which he saw as one of appeasement. This case, however, goes beyond appeasement. Leeds has set a new precedent: the pre-emptive cringe. Islamists everywhere will take heart from the spectacle of a reputable university setting a lower value on academic freedom than on the possibility that Muslim students might take offense.

Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, was in Ukraine this week trying to soften resistance there to the deployment of an American missile defense system. Obering tried to convince his hosts that the interceptor system threatened neither Russia nor the Ukraine.

"We are talking about no more than 10 interceptors," Obering told journalists. "They would have no effect against hundreds of missiles and thousands of warheads that the Russians have. ... They are not even in a proper position if we were concerned about Russian missiles." . . .

Obering said the interception process releases a "tremendous amount of energy ... destroying almost the entire warhead and interceptor. That is why we want to use this 'hit-to-kill' technology."

He said that an Iranian missile could fly over Ukrainian or Russian territory, but that debris from a destroyed missile "will not fall on Ukraine or Russian territory."

General Obering also invited the Russians to inspect any potential missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he does not trust U.S. claims that the missile defense sites in Europe were targeted at a potential Iranian missile threat and has warned that Moscow could be forced to take countermeasures. Obering said that Russia has been invited to visit interceptor sites in the United States, and if the host European countries agreed, "we would extend that invitation to those sites in Europe."

"I hope that our ongoing engagement with the Russians will hopefully mitigate some of their concerns," he said. "They will be understanding that these sites in no way represent a threat to them."

Non to citizen journalism
France may make citizen journalism on the Internet a risky business, punishing the filming and broadcast of images of violence except by professional journalists. Pending legislation provides for up to five years of prison and a 75,000 Euro fine for someone who, for example, films rioters on his cell phone and uploads the footage to YouTube. The rationale for the law, according to Interior Minister (and conservative presidential candidate) Nicolas Sarkozy, is to crack down on so-called “happy slapping”. But the law would also cover images of violence “committed by an agent of the state in the exercise of his duties”--in other words, videotapes like the famous beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police. Cynics point out that the legislation would allow Sarkozy to pursue his goal of cleaning up the “banlieues,” as he promised his constituents he would, while diminishing the circulation of shocking images of confrontations between rioters and police.

Triangulation French-style

While Nicolas Sarkozy may be the most pro-American candidate for the French presidency in some time, last week he tacked back towards the Chirac side of his party. While presenting his Foreign Policy program in a “grand hotel parisien,” the UMP’s candidate said: “I approve the policies undertaken over the past twelve years by Jacques Chirac.” He singled out for approval Chirac’s decision to keep France out of the Iraq war, "which was a historical mistake” (the war, that is, not Chirac's decision). And he added that friendship with the United States "is not submission."

The Third Man
France now has a John Anderson in its presidential race. François Bayrou, a dull centrist attempting to split the difference between socialist Ségolene Royal and Sarkozy, has climbed to 19 percent in some surveys. Given that he has no charisma and the institutional reform he proposes would combine the worst aspects of the Fourth and Fifth Republics (reinforcement of the president’s power, leading to a de facto disappearance of the prime minister and proportional representation in the parliament), his main asset is his image as a man from the terroir--a traditional, refined country gentleman who enjoys the finer aspects of a bygone France. Tired of Ségolène’s spouting off uncontrollably and her flirting with the French left's radical chic idolization of juvenile delinquents especially her saying she shared the views of the rapper Diam's, some leftist voters may be having buyer's remorse and considering Bayrou.

Meanwhile, in a vain attempt to enter the glamorous world of Ségo and Sarko, Bayrou’s young supporters have put together a cheesecake calendar.

Over at the Corner, Mark Steyn has a great post on the boondoggle that is the Airbus A380. The hook is this headline from Pakistan's Daily Times: "PIA To Buy Airbuses To Appease EU, UK"

Says Steyn,

So it’s grand news for Euro-investors that at least Pakistan’s national carrier has been successfully strongarmed into buying the White Euro-elephant of the skies, after pressure to deny landing rights to the existing PIA fleet on "safety grounds". Now twice as many jihadists will be able to fly from Waziristan to Heathrow in one go! (The Airbus can carry 800 passengers, or a thousand if your child bride goes in the hold.)

The A380 is indeed a poignant symbol of the European Union: far too big and never actually taking flight. However, it may well prove useful for large-scale population evacuations circa 2015.

There have been two disturbing pieces of news from Britain in recent weeks. The first came earlier this month when the King Fahd Academy, an Islamic school in Acton, admitted that it uses some pernicious textbooks. The books refer to Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs." When confronted by the British media, a school official refused to discontinue using the books, explaining that "These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve."

That statement is probably true, as far as it goes. The King Fahd Academy is, as you might have guessed, funded by Saudi Arabia.

The second story appeared last week in the London Telegraph under the headline "Father killed family for being too western."

Mohammed Riaz was a 49-year-old man living with his wife and four daughters in Lancashire. An immigrant from Pakistan, Mr. Riaz was concerned because his eldest daughter, a 16-year-old girl named Sayrah, said she wanted to be a fashion designer when she grew up. He also worried that his other three daughters, ages 13, 10, and 3, might not want arranged marriages. So one night last October, while his family was sleeping, Mr. Riaz sprayed gasoline throughout his home. And set it on fire. His wife and four girls died. As a Telegraph story noted, Mr. Riaz "centred his life on the local mosque." (After setting the fire that killed his family, Riaz set himself on fire, too. He was rescued by emergency responders, but died two days later.)

Honor killings, anti-Judeo-Christian propaganda being taught in schools funded by foreign countries. Such is the state of affairs across the pond. Mark Steyn looks smarter every day.

There's been a lot of talk about the demise of the Royal Navy. This piece from the American Spectator gives a pretty good sense of just how bad things have become--the Royal Navy is now smaller than it's French counterpart for the first time in centuries.

Now Admiral Sir Jonathan Band, first sea lord and chief of naval staff, has taken his case to the press, making a public plea for increased funding. "Give me two carriers and just less than a billion and I will be off your back, a happy boy," said Band.

"The navy is a very special asset, and if you want to use it, it doesn't come for nothing," he told the journalists.

"We're at a scale now that requires a certain amount of investment to maintain.

"You can't do deterrence unless you are a really professional outfit."

It's unfortunate that the once-proud Royal Navy has been so diminished by budget cuts, and those cuts certainly makes the Pentagon's plans for a 1,000 ship international navy seem a more distant prospect. Perhaps some type of lend-lease arrangement could be worked out.

With the president's launch of a new national space policy this fall, and the subsequent Chinese test of an ASAT missile, it seems the Europeans, and the French in particular, are feeling a bit left out of "the second global space race." Peter B. de Selding, writing at Space.com, reports on a series of proposals from the French Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices. According to Selding, the committee's report contains some 50 proposals " to reinvigorate Europe’s civil and military space policy." Among them:

* Sanctions should be imposed on any European government that does not give preference to European launch vehicles for its government civil and military satellites.

* France should begin preparing nuclear-powered satellites to permit deep-space exploration, using expertise at the French Atomic Energy Commission and in French industry.

* Europe’s heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket should be made capable of launching astronauts within five years.

* Managers of Europe’s Galileo satellite-navigation project should engage in negotiations with the NATO alliance on how Galileo’s encrypted, government-only signal should be used and protected.

* France and other European governments should give assistance to companies that propose to develop suborbital flight systems designed to create a space-tourism industry.

Selding says the report was spurred by "recent acceleration of investment in China and India, and the reawakening of Russia’s space sector--the authors say Russia has multiplied space spending by 10 since 1999 . . ." Still, it's hard to imagine that the Europeans will actually come up with the funds to compete with the United States and Russia, let alone emerging space powers like China and India. And, assuming the French do redesign the Ariane 5 to carry astronauts, given the limited scientific and military value of manned space flight, one wonders what the purpose of such a mission might be.

He's the minister of the interior, the head of the UMP, and the odds on favorite to win the French Republic's next presidential election. Who is he? He's Nicolas Sarkozy, aka Disco Sarko. Enjoy.
(HT KMW)

Mouvement 3, Dancefloor 2

Back in the summer of 2005, Spain's socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero won parliamentary approval for proposed talks with ETA, the separatist group that had been waging a campaign of terror against Madrid for nearly 40 years. ETA seeks the full independence of the Basque region, shown in the map below, but Zapatero must have believed they would settle for less.

Courtesy of the BBC

Those talks ultimately led to a "permanent ceasefire," which Zapatero hailed as a major success of his administration, and which stood in stark contrast to the hard-line approach toward the group taken by Zapatero's predecessor, the staunchly pro-American Aznar. On December 29, Zapatero addressed the Spanish people:

“Are we better off now with a permanent cease-fire, or when we had bombs, car bombs and explosions?” he asked. “This time next year, we will be better off than we are today.”

The next morning, a bomb was detonated at the Madrid airport, killing 2 people and causing significant damage to the airport's newest terminal. Ever since, Zapatero has seen his public support seriously eroded by opposition attacks on his naive attempt at engagement with the terrorist group. Today, Zapatero reversed course, calling for a "great democratic consensus against terrorism."

"All Spaniards heard me say on 29 December that I had the conviction that things were better for us than five years ago and that in a year's time things would be better for us," Mr Zapatero told a special session of parliament debating Spain's anti-terror policies.

"Although it is not frequent among public leaders, I want to admit to all Spanish citizens the clear mistake I made," he said.

"Eta wasted the opportunity to contribute... to a better future for everyone, and by this decision Eta strives to prolong criminal activity which has already lasted more than four decades".

Welcome back to the war on terror.

Mounir el Motassadeq was a member of the Hamburg sleeper cell that “planned and carried out” the September 11 attacks. A “close friend of 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah,” reports the McClatchy News, el Motassadeq “had signed wills, taken over power of attorney for the hijackers and wired money for logistical support, including flight training.”

Yesterday, he was sentenced to 15 years for his conviction as an “accessory to murder for the 246 people who died on the four airliners,” but not for the thousands murdered in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. His 15-year sentence, the maximum allowable under German law, means el Motassadeq will serve (assuming he’s not eligible for parole) a little over 22 days for each murder.

With Moscow wielding its energy club on its neighbors, Ukraine, Georgia and now Belarus, there’s been a growing awakening in Europe to the perils of being too dependent on the Kremlin for energy supplies. The latest is Germany. Radio Free Europe reports that Economy Minister Michael Glos welcomed “the agreement reached the previous night between Gazprom and Belarus on securing Russian gas supplies to Belarus,” but, Glos continued, "’the conflict shows that Europe ought not to make itself too dependent on gas supplies from the East.’" Indeed.

Nearly eight years ago, NATO (without Security Council approval) began its bombing campaign to expel Serb forces from Kosovo.

The UN has been trying to figure out what to do with Kosovo ever since it took over administering the province in 1999. That process may soon be coming to an end – sort of. As many expected, the UN will likley back “supervised independence” for Kosovo, reports Reuters:

A U.N. blueprint on the final status of Serbia's U.N.-run province of Kosovo, which diplomats say will open the door to independence, will be ready on January 21, a United Nations spokesman said on Thursday….

A Western diplomat told the Austrian daily Die Presse on Thursday that it was increasingly likely [UN envoy] Ahtisaari's blueprint would recommend "supervised independence."

Diplomats have said for months that the United States and its major European allies favor independence, supervised by the European Union and a NATO force of currently 17,000 soldiers.

But Russian backing for Serbia, which says autonomy is the most it can offer a region which was once the heart of the medieval Serb kingdom, is complicating efforts to decide the issue at the U.N. Security Council, where Moscow holds a veto….

Kosovo media reports say the document, to appease Russia, will fall short of recommending independence but clear the decks for individual states to recognize Kosovo….

NATO peacekeepers and U.N. police are braced for unrest as a decision nears, and a possible exodus by some of Kosovo's 100,000 remaining Serbs if the decision goes against them.

Sustained and robust engagement by the US and EU will be critical to Kosovo’s economic and political success. We should remember that instability in Kosovo wouldn’t stay in Kosovo for long.

On April 12, 1945, Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton entered Ohrdruf, a subcamp in the Buchenwald concentration camp system.

(Eisenhower at Ohrdruf, courtesy of ushmm.org)

Eisenhower then cabled Gen. George C. Marshall:

The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick…. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”

A few days later, he sent another message to Marshall urging media coverage on the camps:

We continue to uncover German concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I have visited one of these myself and I assure you that whatever has been printed on them to date has been understatement. If you could see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54's, I will arrange to have them conducted to one of these places where the evidence of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps.

In 1948, Gen. Eisenhower became president of Columbia University. Nearly 60 years later, the same university, which banned ROTC from its campus 37 years ago, hosted an ambassador from a regime whose leader in Tehran has called the Holocaust “a myth.” Last month, this regime held an “art” exhibition in Tehran questioning the Holocaust, and yesterday it kicked-off an international Holocaust “conference” with David Duke among the speakers.

Because of Eisenhower’s foresight, the strongest antidote to the Ahmadinejads of today’s world who spin the Holocaust as “propaganda” -- even those who ply their trade at the same place the general once headed -- remains the photographs and film of the atrocities taken in 1945.

From AFP:

MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors said they were opening their own murder inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko as a funeral was held for the former Russian spy at a central London mosque.

A spate of new poisonings added further intrigue to the affair, including that of a private Russian security agent Dmitry Kovtun who met Litvinenko last month in London, according to Russian officials.

(The Washington Post reports: "British police are investigating the poisoning of a former Russian spy and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin and have placed him under protective guard at a London hospital…. Alexander Litvinenko, 43, began vomiting shortly after he had lunch on Nov. 1 with a man who gave him documents related to the recent killing of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist.")

Posted on October 7, 2006:

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered last night in Moscow, reports Reuters:

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow, police said.

"According to initial information she was killed by two shots when leaving the lift. Neighbors found her body," a police source told Reuters. Police found a pistol and four rounds in the lift.

Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old mother of two, won international fame and numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by Putin's government, particularly in the violent southern province of Chechnya.

"The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities. We don't see any other motive for this terrible crime," said Vitaly Yaroshevsky, a deputy editor of the newspaper where Politkovskaya worked.

I’m told that Politkovskaya had written an article on Russian atrocities in Chechnya due to be published on Monday.

In a speech yesterday, Gen. John Abizaid was quite blunt in assessing the threat posed by Islamic radicalism. He also questioned whether the West has the will necessary to confront it now before a broader war erupts. From Reuters:

The top U.S. general in the Middle East said on Friday that if the world does not find a way to stem the rise of Islamic militancy, it will face a third world war.

Army Gen. John Abizaid compared the rise of militant ideologies, such as the force driving al Qaeda, to the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s that set the stage for World War Two.

"If we don't have guts enough to confront this ideology today, we'll go through World War Three tomorrow," Abizaid said in a speech titled "The Long War," at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, outside Boston.

If not stopped, Abizaid said extremists would be allowed to "gain an advantage, to gain a safe haven, to develop weapons of mass destruction, to develop a national place from which to operate. And I think that the dangers associated with that are just too great to comprehend."

Abizaid said the world faces three major hurdles in stabilizing the Middle East region: Easing Arab-Israeli tensions, stemming the spread of militant extremism, and dealing with Iran, which Washington has accused of seeking to develop nuclear bombs.

"Where these three problems come together happens to come in a place known as Iraq," said Abizaid, who earlier in the week warned Congress against seeking a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from the country that is wracked by insurgent and sectarian violence.

"The sacrifice that is necessary to stabilize Iraq, in my view, must be sustained in order for the region itself to become more resilient," Abizaid said.

Other senior officers have echoed Abizaid’s view on the centrality of Iraq in this war, and the need to stay engaged. Also, though it got little media attention, this November 16 piece from the back pages of the New York Times is another example of what Abizaid is warning about.

Last January, the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine to punish Kiev. Earlier this month, the AP reported that Gazprom “would more than double the price of gas for Georgia,” a struggling pro-Western democracy. Now, the Financial Times reports:

A confidential study by Nato economics experts, sent to the ambassadors of its 26 member states last week, warned that Russia may be seeking to build a gas cartel including Algeria, Qatar, Libya, the countries of Central Asia and perhaps Iran.

The study, by Nato’s economics committee, said Russia was seeking to use energy policy to pursue political ends, particularly in dealings with neighbours such as Georgia and Ukraine….

Although there is disagreement over whether Russia could create any such cartel, the report highlights the deepening tensions between Western Europe and Moscow over energy security.

Energy company executives say the biggest threat to gas prices comes from Russia’s own investment shortfalls and possible moves by Moscow to convince other producers, such as Algeria, to limit investment.

Russia supplies 24 per cent of Europe’s natural gas, with Norway selling 13 per cent and Algeria, a major exporter to Spain and Italy, supplying 10 per cent.

Last week, the International Energy Agency warned of “the possibility of major gas-exporting countries co-ordinating their investment and production plans in order to avoid surplus capacity and to keep gas prices up.”

…Last month, before an EU summit with Russia, Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, highlighted a Russian deal with Algeria, which he said stopped Algeria selling majority stakes in gas projects to foreign investors.

“We are witnessing some form of mutual agreement as Russia and Algeria restrain investment,” said one industry analyst.

“Moscow has tightened the grip using Gazprom and Algiers has just changed its hydrocarbons law giving [Algeria’s] Sonatrach 51 per cent of every project instead of 30 per cent.”

In July, the G-8 held its annual summit near St. Petersburg, Russia. One of the major topics discussed: energy security.

From the AP:

A Danish court rejected a lawsuit Thursday against the newspaper that first printed the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Arab politicians and intellectuals warned the verdict would widen the gap between Westerners and Muslims, but said mass protests were unlikely….

The court conceded that some Muslims saw the drawings as offensive, but found there was no basis to assume that "the purpose of the drawings was to present opinions that can belittle Muslims."

"The dismissal of the lawsuit against the newspaper, which was expected, confirms the ongoing intention to harm our religion and our prophet," said Mahmoud al-Kharabsheh, an independent legislator who heads the Jordanian parliament's legal committee.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal the verdict, spokesman Kasem Ahmad told Danish radio, adding that he feared Muslims around the world would be upset by the ruling.

Jyllands-Posten's editor in chief hailed the court's decision as a victory for freedom of speech.

"Everything but a pure acquittal would have been a disaster for press freedom and the media's ability to fulfill its duties in a democratic society," Carsten Juste said.

The newspaper has apologized for offending Muslims, but stands by its decision to print the cartoons in September 2005 as a challenge to a perceived self-censorship among artists afraid to offend Islam....

I’d say the odds are pretty good that the violent intimidation tactics used against Denmark will be employed again against those exercising their freedom of speech in a democratic nation.

The Associated Press reports:

43 French bag handlers denied clearance

Authorities rescinded the security clearance of 43 baggage handlers at France's main international airport due to suspicions they were connected with radical organizations, a top government minister said Saturday….

"I cannot accept that people with radical practices" work in an airport, the minister said, adding that it was his "duty to ensure that (workers) do not have any kind of links with radical organizations."

Sarkozy also said 18 imams preaching a radical brand of Islam had been expelled from France since January. It was the first official figure on the number of expulsions of imams suspected of passing a radical message to the faithful.

Lawyers have said the baggage handlers, who worked for subcontractors at the airport, were likely to lose their jobs because such work depends on security clearances. Four of them filed a joint complaint in the past week, alleging they had been unfairly associated with terrorism because they are Muslims, attorney Eric Moutet said Friday….

Jacques Lebrot, an official who oversees Charles de Gaulle airport, told The Associated Press on Friday the cases were "linked to terrorism" and that the decision to deny clearance followed recommendations by France's anti-terrorism coordination unit, UCLAT, as part of an 18-month investigation.

From AFP:

Islamic extremists "viewed 7/7 (the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks on London's transport network) as just the beginning," an unnamed senior source said….

Britain is seen as an easier threat for Al-Qaeda than many other countries because of its historic links with Pakistan, with tens of thousands of travelers between the two countries each year, the newspaper reported.

"It's all about building up these recruits to consider themselves as Muslim 'patriots' and encouraging them to make the leap and ask themselves 'This is how the west treats Muslims, what are we going to do about it?'", another unnamed source told The Guardian.

Reuters reports:

PRAGUE, Oct 6 - Islamic extremists planned to kidnap dozens of Jews in Prague and hold them hostage before murdering them, the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes reported on Friday.

The Czech Republic's leading newspaper quoted unidentified sources close to intelligence agencies as saying the captives would have been held in a Prague synagogue while the captors made broad demands that they knew could not be fulfilled….

On Sept. 23 the government deployed armed guards around dozens of buildings and on the streets in the Czech capital after security services issued a warning that an unspecified attack was imminent.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and government officials have since refused to divulge details of what kind of attack they feared in Prague….

(Today's Washington Post has a lengthy piece on the GSPC. A couple of points: The Post suggests that since 2003 the GSPC “has planted deep roots in Europe [and] in the past year, authorities have broken up cells in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland…” But there’s evidence (see below) that the GSPC had its European network up and running by 2000 with the help of al Qaeda-linked Abu Doha. Also, were any GSPC terrorists trained in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion? It would be nice to get a conclusive answer one way or the other. The Senate Intelligence Committee doesn’t mention the GSPC in its recent report on Iraq.)

Posted on September 14, 2006:

The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.”

How did the GSPC come about?

In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden:

The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....

Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.

Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.

Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.

In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.

Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.

The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote:

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.

Germany's Spiegel has a provocative interview with Bassam Tibi, the Syrian-born Islam expert who became a German citizen in 1967.

SPIEGEL: The administrator of one of Berlin's opera houses, the Deutsche Oper, has cancelled the Mozart Opera "Idomeneo" out of fear of an Islamist reaction. Is this the first sign of Germany bowing down to Islam?

Tibi: It's not the first sign, but rather a repeated one. Recently we have been seeing more and more acts of submission, the most recent case being the Pope's apology. When it comes to Islam, there is no freedom of the press nor freedom of opinion in Germany. Organized groups in Islamic communities want to decide what is said and done here. I myself have been dropped from numerous events because of threats.

SPIEGEL: You are trying to say that critics of Islam are systematically silenced in Germany?

Tibi: Yes. Even the comparatively moderate Turkish organization DITIB says there are no Islamists, only Islam and Muslims -- anything else is racism. That means that you can no longer criticize the religion. Accusing somebody of racism is a very effective weapon in Germany. Islamists know this: As soon as you accuse someone of demonizing Islam, then the European side backs down. I have also been accused of such nonsense, even though my family can trace its roots right back to Muhammad and I myself know the Koran by heart….

Read the entire interview here.

Reuters reports:

Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.

"I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam," she told reporters. "It makes no sense to retreat."

Merkel's comments, which echoed those of other senior German politicians, fueled a row over the cancellation of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that overshadowed a government-sponsored conference to promote dialogue with the country's 3.2 million Muslims.

Merkel joins Australia’s John Howard in not knuckling under to threats and intimidation.

The folks at Britain's Henry Jackson Society have an interesting response (click on "latest editorial") to David Cameron’s recent foreign policy speech that I discussed two weeks ago. They write:

The cherry picking between the Hurd-Rifkind school of realism and the liberal interventionism of William Gladstone and Tony Blair is unsustainable. Mr. Cameron must realise now that the severe security and strategic challenges facing Britain and the international community calls for a coherent foreign policy which does not attempt to be all things to all people. Hesitation, indecision and muddled thinking are not what the present dangerous circumstances call for. Mr. Cameron’s speech exposes two competing world-views and two competing conceptions of Britain’s role in the world. Sooner or later he will have to choose which one it is that he truly believes is best for Britain’s security and prosperity.

(From AP: Bombings inflame tensions in Kosovo -- Over the past week, there have been four bombings…. But parliament speaker Kole Berisha insists the violence is a deliberate attempt to destabilize Kosovo at a delicate stage in its drive for statehood…. But the chances of more violence like the March 2004 riots that killed 19 people and displaced thousands "are unfortunately rather high," warned Alex Anderson, Kosovo project director for the International Crisis Group….)

Posted on September 15, 2006:

There will likely be more violent acts like this one as the current final status talks draw to a close -- and possibly for some time after. From AP:

Kosovo interior minister's car bombed

Fri Sep 15, 6:29 AM ET

A bomb placed under the Kosovo interior minister's car exploded early Friday in an eastern town in the U.N.-run province, police said.

No one was hurt by the blast, which occurred a few hours before Serbian and ethnic Albanian negotiators in Vienna, Austria, resumed contentious U.N.-brokered talks on Kosovo's future status.

Kosovo's parliament speaker said he considered the explosion to be directed against the talks.

(If you get a chance, read Charles Krauthammer's excellent piece in today’s Washington Post. He writes: “And the intimidation succeeds: politicians bowing and scraping to the mob over the cartoons; Saturday's craven New York Times editorial telling the pope to apologize; the plague of self-censorship about anything remotely controversial about Islam -- this in a culture in which a half-naked pop star blithely stages a mock crucifixion as the highlight of her latest concert tour. In today's world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders.” John Howard isn’t one of those followers.)

Posted on September 21, 2006:

As I have noted many times, Australian Prime Minister John Howard is a rock-solid U.S. ally and a strong world leader in the War on Terror. He hasn’t taken the David Cameron path of backpedaling on the decision to remove Saddam from power or that of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who ran away from Iraq. And Howard hasn’t shied away from speaking out on the Pope’s recent comments and the ensuing intimation campaign, which, as the Wall Street Journal put it, is “trying to proscribe how free societies discuss one of the world's major religions.” An avid Standard reader from Australia sends along this interesting interview Howard gave on Australian TV on Tuesday. Some highlights:

TONY JONES: Now, PM, let's move on to other issues: As you'd be well aware, the Pope has provoked anger in the Muslim world after quoting a 14th century emperor who accused the Prophet Mohammed of inspiring evil and inhuman human ideas and spreading his word by the sword. Now Australia's leading Catholic has called, again, for an examination of whether the Koran, and what the Koran, in fact, has written about violence.

JOHN HOWARD: Yes.

TONY JONES: Do you think Cardinal Pell has a point in focusing on what the Koran has written about violence?

JOHN HOWARD: Well I think the cardinal has a point in making the point that it's a strange form of restraint to respond to words you disagree with, with demonstrations and threats of violence. The Islamic community is perfectly entitled to criticise the Pope and the Pope is perfectly entitled, and other religious leaders are perfectly entitled, to express their views about other religions. But we're all meant to believe in peace and we're all meant to adhere to peaceful religions and I just think it's very strange and disappointing that whenever the Pope says something that people, or on this particular occasion, let's stick to this, he has said something that people don't agree with and that provokes demonstrations. Now, we are all meant to be bound by a belief in free speech and free expression, and my, I suppose, exasperation would be that of many of the people in Australia, that, okay, they may not like what His Holiness said and whether he should have said it or not is, in a sense, beside the point, but we are meant to believe in free speech and we are meant to not overreact. I think it's very important with these things that people don't overreact. I'm sure the great bulk of Catholics around the world want good relations with Islam, and the Catholic Church, itself, cops a fair amount of abuse on a daily basis. If Catholics rioted every time people attacked the Catholic Church, you'd have riots on a very regular basis.

How refreshing.

Tony Blankley explains in today's Washington Times.

Here are two pieces worth reading. The editors at the Wall Street Journal write:

It's a familiar spectacle: furious demands for an apology, threats, riots, violence. Anything can trigger so-called Muslim fury: a novel by a British-Indian writer, newspaper cartoons in a small Nordic country or, this past week, a talk on theology by the head of the Roman Catholic Church….

Taken alone, these are strong words. However, the pope didn't endorse the comment that he twice emphasized was not his own. No matter. As with Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses," which millions of outraged Muslims didn't bother to read (including Ayatollah Khomeini, who put the bounty on the novelist's life), what Benedict XVI meant or even said isn't the issue. Once again, many Muslim leaders are inciting their faithful against perceived slights and trying to proscribe how free societies discuss one of the world's major religions….

By their reaction to the pope's speech, some Muslim leaders showed again that Islam has a problem with modernity that is going to have to be solved by a debate within Islam. The day Muslims condemn Islamic terror with the same vehemence they condemn those who criticize Islam, an attempt at dialogue--and at improving relations between the Western and Islamic worlds--can begin.

And the AFP reports on the comments of Australian Archbishop Cardinal George Pell:

"The violent reactions in many parts of the Islamic world justified one of Pope Benedicts main fears," Pell said in a statement late Monday.

"They showed the link for many Islamists between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and actual violence."

"It is always someone elses fault, and issues touching on the nature of Islam are ignored," the cardinal said….

(David Cameron's Clinton-like triangulation continues.)

Posted on September 12, 2006:

Britain's Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, made a few good points in a foreign policy speech delivered yesterday. But it was also a bit confusing on substance at times. The prospective British PM said, for example, that he supported the ouster of Saddam but then went on to quote a line from Democratic Senator Joe Biden about the perils of invading Iraq “virtually alone.” In March 2003, Prime Minister Blair made the tough decision to go into Iraq because the UN Security Council refused to enforce its own resolutions. Does Cameron now believe we should have left Saddam in power and pursued a policy of containment? Should Bush and Blair have waited until the French were onboard? He didn’t say.

Cameron also noted: "Foreign policy decisions are not black and white, something which the public well understands.” The process of arriving at a decision may not be “black and white” in most cases, but making it surely is. To govern is to choose. Prime Minister Thatcher (who visited the White House yesterday) faced a choice: order the fleet to the Falklands or keep it away. She then faced another decision: to attack or not attack Argentine forces. John Major’s government had a choice: confront Serbian aggression early on in the Balkans or sit back.

I suspect a Prime Minster Cameron may also have to make tough “black and white” decisions on Iran’s nuclear program, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and other issues off today’s radar screen. Should that time arrive, he may even gain a greater appreciation for the steadfastness of Tony Blair, a good friend of America who, in the face of withering criticism at home and abroad, didn’t "go wobbly" on us in Iraq .

There will likely be more violent acts like this one as the current final status talks draw to a close -- and possibly for some time after. From AP:

Kosovo interior minister's car bombed

Fri Sep 15, 6:29 AM ET

A bomb placed under the Kosovo interior minister's car exploded early Friday in an eastern town in the U.N.-run province, police said.

No one was hurt by the blast, which occurred a few hours before Serbian and ethnic Albanian negotiators in Vienna, Austria, resumed contentious U.N.-brokered talks on Kosovo's future status.

Kosovo's parliament speaker said he considered the explosion to be directed against the talks.

The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.”

How did the GSPC come about?

In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden:

The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....

Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.

Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.

Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.

In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.

Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.

The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote:

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.

I haven’t checked the recent Senate Intelligence report to see if any of the above is discussed and evaluated, but I will.

Britain's Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, made a few good points in a foreign policy speech delivered yesterday. But it was also a bit confusing on substance at times. The prospective British PM said, for example, that he supported the ouster of Saddam but then went on to quote a line from Democratic Senator Joe Biden about the perils of invading Iraq “virtually alone.” In March 2003, Prime Minister Blair made the tough decision to go into Iraq because the UN Security Council refused to enforce its own resolutions. Does Cameron now believe we should have left Saddam in power and pursued a policy of containment? Should Bush and Blair have waited until the French were onboard? He didn’t say.

Cameron also noted: "Foreign policy decisions are not black and white, something which the public well understands.” The process of arriving at a decision may not be “black and white” in most cases, but making it surely is. To govern is to choose. Prime Minister Thatcher (who visited the White House yesterday) faced a choice: order the fleet to the Falklands or keep it away. She then faced another decision: to attack or not attack Argentine forces. John Major’s government had a choice: confront Serbian aggression early on in the Balkans or sit back.

I suspect a Prime Minster Cameron may also have to make tough “black and white” decisions on Iran’s nuclear program, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and other issues off today’s radar screen. Should that time arrive, he may even gain a greater appreciation for the steadfastness of Tony Blair, a good friend of America who, in the face of withering criticism at home and abroad, didn’t "go wobbly" on us in Iraq .

The Globe and Mail in Canada has more on the plot to destroy a British landmark using 600 kilograms of ammonium nitrate.

She started out looking for a husband. Instead, the young Carleton University student became a key conduit for thousands of dollars that, police say, was financing terrorism.

Zenab Armend Pisheh, an Ottawa-area chemistry student in her early 20s, says she was used by young, aspiring jihadists in Britain and Canada and that she was handpicked because "sisters don't get caught -- brothers get caught if they send money.

(Bloomberg news reports: "Danish authorities arrested nine people suspected of involvement in planning a terrorist attack, the country's police intelligence service said…. The arrests were made after police uncovered evidence that a number of the suspects had 'materials that can be used for the construction of explosives in connection with preparation for an act of terror,' [intelligence] service head Lars Findsen said in the statement."

From AP:

The prime suspects in the failed attempt to blow up two German trains were partly motivated by anger over the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons, a leading investigator said in an interview released Saturday. (Bloomberg news reports: Danish authorities arrested nine people suspected of involvement in planning a terrorist attack, the country's police intelligence service said…. The arrests were made after police uncovered evidence that a number of the suspects had ``materials that can be used for the construction of explosives in connection with preparation for an act of terror,'' [intelligence] service head Lars Findsen said in the statement.

The cartoons were first printed last September in a Danish newspaper and then republished in other European media months later, setting off protests across the Muslim world.

One suspect in the failed bombing, Jihad Hamad, 20, told Lebanese interrogators that a fellow suspect, Youssef Muhammad el-Hajdib, 21, considered the publications “an attack of the Western world on Islam,” Jörg Ziercke, the chief of Germany’s Federal Crime Office, told the magazine Focus in an interview released in advance of publication.

The men are suspected of planting crude bombs July 31 on two trains at the Cologne station. The bombs were found later in the day on regional trains in Koblenz and Dortmund. Authorities have said that the detonators went off but failed to ignite the devices.

Once Clinton was in office, the first President Bush had enough class to travel the world without trashing the sitting Democratic president – and during Clinton’s presidency the elder Bush could have said a lot. I wish I could say the same for this failed one-term president who regularly attacks the Bush administration while overseas. And now Jimmy Carter is busy attacking a strong ally of the U.S as well. Pathetic.

Lt. Col. Stephen Coonen has an interesting piece in the US Army War College journal Parameters on the widening military capabilities gap between American and European forces. He argues:

The improbability of many European states committing more of their treasuries toward defense suggests that capabilities will continue to diverge. While this is certainly not a desirable condition, it is far from being the apocalyptic end of the alliance. The capabilities gap, while growing, has not led to a dysfunctional alliance. Rather, Europe’s and America’s leaders continue to acknowledge the enormous value and importance of the transatlantic partnership in advancing their shared values and facing their common threats. Despite recent strains in European-American relations, NATO continues to serve as a valuable organization that binds the allies together, providing the vehicle for continued cooperation. In this light, the military capabilities gap between the United States and Europe, as it exists today, is not as significant as many observers state or imply.

Still, NATO is a military alliance that has been engaged in the Balkans and is now much more active in Afghanistan. There’s a remote possibility it could be operating in Darfur in the coming months. And other crises may erupt at any moment (think southern Lebanon) where a robust NATO/European force may be needed –- which is why it’s hard to imagine that NATO will remain a healthy alliance in the long run with European governments devoting so little to their defense capabilities.

Securitywatchtower.com has a good roundup of news (with multiple links) on the terrorist bomb plot here (scroll up a bit). At the Counterterrorism blog, Evan Kohlman comments:

Though for some, news of a reported Al-Qaida plot to down multiple commercial airliners with liquid explosives may sound exotic and unusual, in fact, U.S. authorities have been aware of such a threat from Al-Qaida affiliates for over a decade.

In 1995, when U.S. and Philippine security services uncovered a plot by 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and his uncle 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to bomb over a dozen U.S. airliners simultaneously over the Pacific Ocean, they quickly moved in and arrested their co-conspirators. One of the detained men, trained commercial pilot Abdel Hakim Murad, described Ramzi Yousef's plans in detail -- including his intention to travel to "France, Egypt, and Algeria after the activities here in the Philippines. The purpose was to train those Muslim brothers thereat, on using a Casio watch as a timing device, chemical mixtures to compound bombs, and to share his expertise in eluding detection on an airport's x-ray machine, and eventually smuggling [onboard] this liquid chemical bombs. Furthermore, France has a lot of Algerians staying and that these Egyptians and Algerians ha[ve] no experience on making these bombs and [do] not know the basics of smuggling liquid bombs through the airport."

Eleven years later, we once again return to the same threat to commercial aviation posed by liquid explosives. Only now, it would appear that the fabrication of such high-tech terrorist weapons by Al-Qaida operatives inside Western Europe is no longer an insurmountable challenge.

Senate reaction to the plot:

BOWLING GREEN, KY— U.S. Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell made the following statement Thursday regarding the disruption of a major terrorist plot centered in the United Kingdom, and the need for continued anti-terror efforts in the United States:

“This is yet another reminder, if anyone needed one, that the war on terror is not over. And it is a reminder that our military, law enforcement and intelligence forces are working around the clock and around the world to prevent attacks here at home.

“That's why we need more tools, not less, to fight terrorists. It is clear to anyone paying attention that our law enforcement and intelligence forces need every legal means at their disposal to be able connect the dots and prevent and disrupt al Qaeda’s attacks. Tools such as the terrorist surveillance program and others allow us to prevent the attacks before they happen, not just to respond when it’s too late. We must continue to arm our forces, so that they can disarm terrorists.”

(No surprise here.)

Posted on July 20, 2006:

Some EU officials are pushing for an immediate cease-fire on the grounds that continued fighting will weaken the democrats inside Lebanon’s government. But the more likely outcome from a premature cease-fire would be an emboldened Hezbollah with democrats under siege. And you can bet on Damascus and Tehran taking a victory lap to boot. That said, today’s Washington Post editorial, “Diplomatic Traps,” is spot on.

Another plausible-sounding diplomatic option is for the United States to get behind a U.N. proposal to send a peacekeeping force to Lebanon, after a cease-fire. But that's been tried before, too, and if the result is to allow Hezbollah to regroup and rearm, Hezbollah will have achieved its war aim: to strike a blow against Israel while preserving its status as a state within a state. An international force would help only if it had a mandate and the capability to enforce Hezbollah's disarmament. That won't be possible unless Israel's military campaign greatly weakens the movement.….

The unprovoked attack across an international border by Iran's client Hezbollah succeeded in turning the world's attention from the nuclear crisis to the Middle East -- just as Iran must have hoped. The best response is to shift the focus back -- and make clear that the United States and its allies will not be intimidated through war-by-proxy.

From AFP:

An Indonesian journalist detained for posting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in his newspaper earlier this year has been released from prison but will still face trial.

Teguh Santosa, 35, was freed from a Jakarta prison Thursday night after being held there for 24 hours by the prosecutor's office, police detective Aries Syarif Hidayat said on Friday.

Santosa, who is the chief editor of the Rakyat Merdeka Online newspaper, will still have to face trial for publishing the cartoons in February, Hidayat said. He faces a maximum five years' imprisonment….

Santosa, quoted by the Koran Tempo newspaper on Friday, said he was only trying to give readers a complete story on the controversial cartoons.

"It was in accordance with my job as a journalist," he reportedly said….

Evidently, the one person at the G-8 summit who has irked the Kremlin the most isn’t even an elected official. From the Telegraph:

Cherie Blair goaded the Kremlin yesterday when she volunteered legal assistance to Russian campaigners seeking to challenge a law that imposes strict controls on activists.

The Prime Minister's wife was hailed as a heroine by Russia's browbeaten human rights community when she slipped away from the G8 summit in St Petersburg to meet some of the Kremlin's fiercest critics.

She was the only leader's spouse to break away from the official summit, leaving her colleagues as they toured a handicraft exhibition….

Mrs Blair's offer of legal assistance from Matrix, the legal chambers where she works, will irritate the Russian president further. Despite the likely problems, Mrs Blair pressed ahead with the visit organised by Human Rights Watch and Citizen's Watch, a St Petersburg group.

Most of the meeting was conducted in secret but the offer of help came when discussions turned to the non-governmental organisation (NGO) law.

Critics say it gives officials the power to close groups critical of the government and imposes such draconian bureaucracy on operations that their ability to function is seriously hampered….

From Reuters:

A French terrorism trial was thrown into turmoil on Wednesday by a report French agents secretly interviewed the six accused during their detention at a U.S. military camp on Cuba's Guantanamo Bay.

The Liberation daily published a French diplomatic telegram referring to intelligence agents conducting interviews at least twice while the men were held without charge on the Caribbean island….

Some of the suspects arrived at the main Paris Criminal Court brandishing Liberation's front page and appeared relaxed and all smiles inside the courtroom as they discussed the surprise development.

Presiding Judge Jean-Claude Kross noted wryly the diplomatic telegram was dated April 1, 2002 -- April Fool's Day -- but refused to halt the three-day-old trial over a document whose authenticity had not been fully established.

And how did these six fellows end up in Gitmo? French prosecutors “allege the six men joined a terrorism network based in Britain and the Afghan-Pakistan border, passing through Britain en route to al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan” -- where they were scooped up by the US military. Liberation’s editors must be all smiles with “alleged” terrorists trumpeting their newspaper for the media’s cameras.

From the International Herald Tribune:

BRUSSELS Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium has asked the Justice Ministry to investigate whether a banking consortium here broke the law when it aided the U.S. government's anti-terrorism activities by providing it with confidential information about international money transfers.

The group, known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or Swift, has come under scrutiny following a report last week by The New York Times….

Heather MacDonald and Gabriel Schoenfeld explain the recklessness of the New York Times here and here.

On June 6, 1944, Carey Lee Javis of Virginia hit Omaha Beach in the fist wave of the Normandy Invasion. Today, he tells the story of that day in his local newspaper. Mr. Javis is an American hero.

Today's Edmonton Journal reports "several of the young men allegedly went from being typical Muslim adherents to radicalized extremists in little more than a year." The men frequented two Toronto area mosques and at least one opposed Canada's role in Afghanistan. It's also been reported that Canadian intelligence had these mosques under surveillance for some time and presumably has recordings/transcripts of what was being said inside. Did any of the sermons encourage radicalism? What about the literature distributed? If so, do the mosques receive any foreign funding? What about the terror suspects?

In addition, contrary to what Richard Clarke told ABC News yesterday (hat tip: Weekly Standard contributor Dan Darling), the plotters may have connections that extend well beyond the Canadian border. According to the Los Angeles Times,

The senior U.S. law enforcement official said authorities are combing through evidence seized during raids in Canada this weekend to look for possible connections between the 17 suspects arrested Friday and at least 18 other Islamist militants who have been arrested in locations including the United States, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Britain, Denmark and Sweden.

The investigation began as separate probes into what authorities believed were localized cells of militant Muslim young men, who shared an interest in radical ideology on the Internet in various countries and, to a lesser extent, in local mosques and training camps.

But over the past year, the counter-terrorism authorities of those countries began to see connections among the cells, in part through electronic surveillance of phone calls and Internet correspondence, as well as ground surveillance of individual suspects, several U.S. officials said in interviews Sunday.

(The Euston group formally launched on May 26 in London. Several members have also written op-eds -- see here -- as part of the roll out. Norman Geras, a government professor at the University of Manchester, has been particularly insightful, including this piece in the Guardian:

Within the large "middle" sector of left-liberal opinion opposed to the war there has been, from the start, a differentiating subdivision - between those who opposed the war without being in denial about the considerations on the other side of the argument, and those who precisely have been in denial about them. This latter group extends well beyond the far left.

The signs of denial are abundant in the recent public life of the western democracies: in the banners and slogans for that Saturday on February 15 2003, from which one would never have known that Saddam's Iraq was a foul tyranny; in the numbers of those on the left unwilling to allow, many indeed unable to comprehend, why others of us supported a regime-change war; in a constant stream of comment in liberal daily papers and weeklies of the left; in the excommunications issued and more recent calls for apology or recantation; and, most seriously, in the perceptible lack of interest in initiatives of solidarity with the forces in Iraq battling for a democratic transformation of their country, part of a wider lack of enthusiasm for the success of this enterprise given its origins in a war led by George Bush.)

Posted on April 17, 2006:

Though it hasn't garnered much media attention, there has been an interesting fight brewing within the political Left. Britain's Oliver Kamm got the ball rolling by writing a provocative piece in Progess, a journal published by British Labour Party members, arguing that the Left has abandoned its anti-totalitarian roots. Now, a "new democratic progressive alliance" has come together in the blogoshere to challenge others on the Left who are consumed with anti-Americanism and have a soft spot for tyrants. Kamm and many others have signed The Euston Manifesto.

Drawing on the "lesson of the disastrous history of left apologetics over the crimes of Stalinism and Maoism, as well as more recent exercises in the same vein (some of the reaction to the crimes of 9/11, the excuse-making for suicide-terrorism, the disgraceful alliances lately set up inside the "anti-war" movement with illiberal theocrats)," the Manifesto's preamble states:

We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.

The present initiative has its roots in and has found a constituency through the Internet, especially the "blogosphere". It is our perception, however, that this constituency is under-represented elsewhere — in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.

The broad statement of principles that follows is a declaration of intent. It inaugurates a new Website, which will serve as a resource for the current of opinion it hopes to represent and the several foundation blogs and other sites that are behind this call for a progressive realignment.

Stay tuned...

With an eye toward North Korea, the US Navy has accelerated its missile defense capability in the Pacific region. From the Associated Press:

For the first time, a Navy ship at sea successfully shot down a long-range missile in its final seconds of flight, the military said Wednesday.

The test was seen as an important step toward giving ships the ability to shoot down weapons as they are about to hit their targets. Until now, the Standard Missile 2 was only launched from ships to intercept a long-range missile in the early or middle stage of flight.

For the test, a missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai was destroyed in its final stage by an SM-2 launched from USS Lake Erie.

The Navy already can shoot down a missile in its final stage with a Patriot Advanced Capability 3, or PAC-3, missile launched from land.

The experiment with the SM-2 could broaden a warship's capability, said Rear Adm. Barry McCullough, director of surface warfare on the staff of the chief of naval operations.

The Pearl Harbor-based Lake Erie is equipped with technology that allows it to detect and track intercontinental ballistic missiles. Since 2004, U.S. warships with ICBM tracking technology have been patrolling the Sea of Japan, on the lookout for missiles from North Korea.

The U.S. military is installing missile tracking radar and interceptor missiles on 18 U.S. Pacific Fleet ships. It is also equipping underground silos in Alaska and California with interceptor missiles.

And in Europe,

NATO countries face a growing threat of attack by long-range missiles, a senior alliance official said on Wednesday as he presented a study on options for a missile shield system to protect Europe.

"There is a growing threat of long-range missile attack on NATO territory. It is timely to examine ways and means of addressing that threat." [said] Marshall Billingslea, NATO assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment.

But many on the continent aren't buying it.

"There is a difference in perception," said Andrew Brookes of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. "America is looking at protection from strategic missile attacks from places like China, North Korea and Iran. Europe doesn't believe that's a threat."

"Europeans, inherently, don't buy into this fantasy," Brookes said.

Though, it appears some in NATO believe Mr. Brookes has bought into his own fantasy.

Wired News has the story of a 25-year-old's contribution to world civilization.

Montenegrins have voted for full independence from Serbia. The last time an independent Montenegro existed delegates were gearing up for Versailles following The Great War. Serbia, which annexed Montenegro in 1919, will also likely watch Kosovo become an independent state in the not-to-distant future. But as the old order further dissolves, the work of the U.S. and the EU isn't done -- far from it. Small failed states clustered together in the Balkans can be just as bad as one large failed state. Overwhelmingly Muslim Kosovo, in particular, is very much pro-U.S. and having a vibrant, democratic pro-US Kosovo is obviously in our national security interest. But its economy is poor and civil society weak. The Bush administration and its successor should avoid putting Kosovo and the region as a whole on the back burner of American policy or five years or so from now we may be asking, "Who lost the Balkans?"

Euripolix.com reports,

European officials are stepping up counter terrorism measures following threats against Denmark, Norway and France. EU member states have strengthened security following the reputed risk of jihadists arriving through Turkey.

Le Monde reports that radical Islamists are threatening to carry out a “mission” in Europe following the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.

The publication of cartoons showing the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper sparked violent protest in the Muslim world last February. Several attacks were directed against EU missions - particularly against Danish representations in the Middle East.

The French newspaper says that internet videos of Mohamed Hassan who recently escaped from an American jail in Afghanistan, calls for terrorists to attack Denmark, Norway and France.

The threats follow April’s televised message by Osama Bin Ladin, a primary founder of the al-Qaeda movement, in which he calls for a boycott against any states that backed Denmark during the cartoon controversy. In the same video, Bin Laden also criticized French relations with its domestic Muslim community.

Speaking of Europe, has any reporter asked Secretary Rumsfeld or White House Press Secretary Snow to comment on Saddam's apparent "preparations for 'Blessed July,' a regime-directed wave of 'martyrdom' operations against targets in the West [that] were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion"?

More socialism, less capitalism -- see here.

From the Washington Times (via The Frontrunner):

"Europe faces a growing threat of ballistic missile attack from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea and needs missile defenses to counter the threats, a NATO report says." The 10,000-page report, commissioned four years ago, sees a "growing" threat from Iranian Shahab-3 missiles, as well as from North Korea and Syria. It argues that "territorial missile defense is technically feasible." However, some nations, including France and Germany, oppose such a shield.

From today's International Herald Tribune:

PARIS Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin of France said Monday that he was determined to stay in office despite mounting pressure on him to resign in connection with a dirty-tricks campaign targeting his chief rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

A five-year investigation into what is known as the Clearstream affair suddenly turned into a full-blown political scandal Friday, when Le Monde reported that Villepin, instructed by President Jacques Chirac, had ordered a corruption inquiry into Sarkozy.

In a measure of how much the affair has rattled the government, both Villepin and Chirac took the unusual step of formally denying the allegations. On Monday, Villepin's office said that the prime minister was ready to testify if investigators summoned him and that he was not planning to step down.

"He is determined to stay because he has done nothing wrong and has nothing to hide," said Véronique Guillermo, Villepin's spokeswoman. "A reshuffle is not on the table."

But so far this and previous statements have done little to calm the political upheaval the affair - already dubbed by some pundits as the French Watergate - has caused.

Coming barely three weeks after the government was defeated by street protests over a youth jobs law and 12 months ahead of presidential elections, the scandal risks overshadowing the last year of Chirac's presidency and is what many regard a blow to Villepin's presidential aspirations.

Julien Dray, spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party, said over the weekend that Chirac should act swiftly. "Perhaps he should separate right away from his prime minister," Dray said. "Perhaps he should envisage new elections."

Even in Villepin's own center-right party, several lawmakers grumbled that he should step down before the scandal sapped the party's chances in next year's elections.

The scandal began in 1991, when France sold six frigates to Taiwan in a deal worth $2.8 billion. Ten years later, a judicial inquiry was opened into allegations that French officials and industrialists had received kickbacks from the deal.

Then, in April 2004, the judge in charge of the investigation, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, received an anonymous letter and a CD-ROM accusing Sarkozy and several other high-level politicians and businessmen of benefiting from such kickbacks and channeling the payments into secret bank accounts through a clearinghouse based in Luxembourg called Clearstream.

It took Ruymbeke one year to establish that the accounts were nonexistent, sparking the latest and most politically charged question: Who sent that CD- ROM with the apparent intention of tarnishing Sarkozy's name and crippling his presidential ambitions?

Villepin's name came up officially for the first time in the sworn testimony of a retired intelligence officer on March 28, testimony which was subsequently leaked to Le Monde.

General Philippe Rondot, a respected French spy who tracked down the terrorist Carlos the Jackal, said that Villepin had asked him in January 2004 to investigate the corruption allegations against Sarkozy, the newspaper said.

Villepin, who was foreign minister at the time, responded with a statement last Friday confirming that he had asked Rondot to conduct an investigation into the Clearstream affair but denying that Sarkozy's name was mentioned.

Providing some comfort to Villepin, Rondot has made it known that he was "scandalized" by Le Monde's account of his testimony, which he called "biased." But a note that the general made to himself after his conversation with Villepin in early 2004, and that was subsequently confiscated by investigators in a string of recent raids targeting the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministry, appears to show that Sarkozy's name came up. The memo read: "Political stake: N.Sarkozy. Fixation on Sarkozy (re: conflict J. Chirac/N. Sarkozy)."

As Villepin braced for questions in Parliament on Tuesday, speculation mounted over who would succeed him if he were forced to step down.

There is no obvious answer. Two names have circulated in the French media ever since the recent protests over the jobs law: Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie and Sarkozy himself.

Both were already among the favorites for the post after last year's no-vote in the European referendum, when Villepin was appointed. But Alliot-Marie may be too closely associated with the Clearstream herself: Before retiring last December, Rondot was one of her advisers, though she claims to have been completely unaware of the investigation he was conducting.

Sarkozy's advisers say that his being appointed prime minister would jeopardize his chances for president next year. Indeed, some say he may leave the government altogether to disassociate himself from the final days of the Chirac era and concentrate on his campaign.

"At this point, the earlier he leaves the better," said Manuel Aeschlimann, chief campaign strategist for Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party. "Given how deplorable the image of the government is, it is in his interest to differentiate himself."

Though little reported, U.S. diplomacy with the former East Bloc nations has been quite successful. American investment has poured into a region that Business Week recently profiled in this piece, "Rise Of A Powerhouse." Of course, the region's continued economic vitality may get clipped if some of the big EU member states get their way. Central European governments continue to assist our military and intelligence operations (though trusting the CIA may be far more difficult because of Mary McCarthy and company), and recently Bulgaria joined Romania in signing a military base agreement with the U.S. We have also strengthened our relations with the Baltic states and nations like Georgia, birthplace of Stalin. Now, if we can only get more in "old Europe," to borrow a phrase from Secretary Rumsfeld, on board.

Mary O. McCarthy has reportedly been fingered for leaking the CIA's secret prisons operation to the Washington Post. She also apparently donated to the Kerry for President campaign and other Democrats as well, which, of course, she is free to do. Today's New York Times also reports that McCarthy returned to the Agency in 2004:

H. Andrew Schwartz, a spokesman for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that Ms. McCarthy's relationship with the organization lasted from 2001 to 2003. Several associates of Ms. McCarthy say she returned to the C.I.A. in 2004, taking a job in the inspector general's office.

CIA Director Goss said the prison disclosure, which appeared in the Washington Post in November 2005, severely harmed US national security. Were there any other leaks in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election that caused similar damage to ongoing U.S. intelligence operations? Buried in another New York Times piece on McCarthy is this intriguing line:

Intelligence officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said that the dismissal resulted from ''a pattern of conduct'' and not from a single leak, but that the case involved in part information about secret C.I.A. detention centers that was given to The Washington Post.

From Reuters:

A German court sentenced a man of Turkish origin to more than nine years in prison on Thursday for the so-called "honor killing" of his sister but found two other brothers not guilty of conspiring in the murder.

The murder of 23-year-old Hatun Surucu, who was shot while standing at a bus stop in a Berlin suburb last year, shocked Germany and sparked intense debate about a conservative Muslim immigrant community at odds with mainstream society.

Forced to marry a cousin in Turkey as a young girl, Hatun Surucu later broke with her Turkish-Kurdish family in Berlin and was living independently with her five-year-old son, to the intense disapproval of her relatives, prosecutors said....

Public outrage at the murder was exacerbated when boys at a nearby school with many pupils from immigrant families were reported to have openly applauded the killing shortly afterwards because the victim had lived "like a German."

...The case is one of a series of incidents that have added to concerns that Germany's large immigrant community, many out of work, poorly educated and not holding German citizenship, may be drifting further away from the rest of the country....

George Will, in a recent Washington Post column, warned that the U.S. should avoid the mistakes many European nations have made in permanently marginalizing an immigrant underclass. He wrote:

Conservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English. Faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status "amnesty." Actually, it would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France.

From the (London) Telegraph:

'Islamic terrorism' is too emotive a phrase, says EU

European governments should shun the phrase "Islamic terrorism" in favour of "terrorists who abusively invoke Islam", say guidelines from EU officials.

Backed by diplomats and civil servants from the 25 EU members, the officials are drafting a "non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation" to be submitted to Tony Blair and other leaders in June.

The Brussels officials hope the new lexicon, which would not be legally binding, would be adopted by governments and other EU institutions, such as the European Commission and European Parliament.

An EU official said: "The basic idea behind it is to avoid the use of improper words that would cause frustration among Muslims and increase the risk of radicalisation."

Along with civil servants from the Home Office, the officials have reviewed the impact of such terms as Islamist, fundamentalist and jihad when describing acts of terrorism and murder.

"Jihad means something for you and me; it means something else for a Muslim," EU officials at a Berlin conference on radicalisation said. "Jihad is a perfectly positive concept of trying to fight evil within yourself."

Though British officials have been involved in drawing up the lexicon, Whitehall sources indicated the Government was unlikely to adopt it wholesale or heed any call to ban "Islamic terrorist".

The lexicon is seen in London as more likely to be of use to continental governments with limited exposure to Muslims. A Home Office spokesman said: "We believe there is a balance to be struck between raising awareness of the impact that language can have and not letting extremism go unchallenged."

The lexicon is being discussed only at a "working group level" but has the support of Gijs de Vries, the EU's counter-terrorism co-ordinator.

(From Reuters: "France's students and trade unions prepared a victory parade [today] to mark the demise of a hated youth jobs law, with politicians and analysts split over whether the hope of labour market reform was dead too.... 'Alas, the hope for reform has been buried with them,' [the business daily La Tribune] wrote. 'No important reform can be undertaken in the 12 months ahead of us until the 2007 presidential election. And nothing says it will be easier after that.'")

Posted on on April 6, 2006:

Ireland, Hungary and Slovakia are doing something wrong. They enjoy healthy economic growth rates, attract new businesses, and --- gasp -- have low corporate tax rates. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that several European Union nations are "moving ahead with the long-taboo subject of creating common rules for corporate taxes, despite objections from low-tax nations such as Ireland and Slovakia.... Ireland and Slovakia have benefited from lower tax rates than their neighbors." The current corporate tax rate in Germany is 38.9 percent; France, 35; Italy, 33; U.K. 30; Slovakia, 19; Hungary, 16; and Ireland 12.5. An original EU member state, Ireland has been an economic juggernaut compared to its larger neighbors. This study by two Swedish academics singled out Ireland as one of the few bright spots in the last decade in an otherwise stagnant European economic landscape (former East Bloc nations were not included in their analysis). Fredrik Bergstrom and Robert Gidehag observe:

Stark differences become apparent when comparing official economic statistics. Europe lags behind the USA when comparing GDP per capita and GDP growth rates. The current economic debate among EU leaders lacks an understanding of the gravity of the situation in many European countries. Structural reforms of the European economy as well as far reaching welfare reforms are well overdue. The Lisbon process lacks true impetus, nor is it sufficient to improve the economic prospects of the EU.

Perhaps EU leaders should learn from Ireland and the nations of Central Europe (see Business Week's "Rise Of A Powerhouse") rather than seeking to penalize them for understanding how to compete in a global economy. Unfortunately, it's a lesson many French "students" have yet to grasp as they protest proposed changes in the nation's job-stifling labor laws.

The enemy. From Reuters:

MILAN - An Egyptian accused of helping plan the Madrid train bombings in 2004 indoctrinated young people in Spain and advocated martyrdom, an Italian investigator told a court on Friday....

Standing trial with Ahmed was his suspected protege, an Arab man named as Yahia.

Ahmed drew inspiration from Berg's beheading nearly two years ago, according to an audio recording by police.

"Together with Yahia, his disciple, he watched a video tape of Berg's execution and made comments referring to jihad and martyrdom," Megale said.

on this report from the Associated Press:

Britain Nixes Argentina's Falklands Claim

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Britain reiterated its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and rejected Argentina's claims in a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan circulated Wednesday.

The letter from Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry was a response to a Jan. 9 letter to Annan from Argentina's charge d'affaires protesting ''the illegitimate occupation'' of the islands.

Argentine troops invaded the islands -- which they call the Malvinas -- on April 2, 1982, claiming Argentina had inherited the archipelago from the Spanish crown before they were occupied by Britain in 1833.

Britain reclaimed the islands in a 74-day war.

Argentina still maintains its claim to the archipelago, populated by about 2,000 people of mostly British ancestry, but has pledged never to invade again.

The Argentine government said in its letter that 173 years after Britain's ''illegitimate occupation,'' Argentina remained committed to the islands' recovery.

Argentina cited U.N. resolutions and declarations of the Organization of American States urging both countries ''to resume bilateral negotiations with a view to finding a solution to the dispute over sovereignty.''

Argentina reaffirmed its readiness to resume negotiations ''with immediate effect'' and called on Britain to do the same.

Jones Parry's letter made no mention of any negotiations, saying the British government ''has no doubts about the sovereignty of the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and their surrounding maritime areas.''

(See here and here.)

Posted on March 21, 2006:

It would be interesting to know whether the NSA program helped snag Babar and his buddies across the Atlantic. From the BBC:

Seven British citizens had acquired "most of the necessary components" to launch a bombing campaign in the UK, the Old Bailey has heard.

Prosecutor David Waters QC said "pubs, nightclubs and trains" were discussed as potential targets, but police moved in before the plot "reached fruition"....

Mr Waters told the jury they would be hearing from an American citizen, Mohammed Babar, who conspired with the defendants.

Babar has pleaded guilty to terrorism offences in the US and, according to the prosecutor, "has an insight as an insider into the events and plans which an outsider could not have".

It is claimed Babar met several of the defendants in England and in Pakistan, where many of them have family connections.

Mr Waters said the defendants' "principal purpose" in travelling to Pakistan was "to acquire expertise in relation particularly to explosives".

It was during a meeting with Babar that 24-year-old defendant Omar Khyam, from Crawley in West Sussex, allegedly told Babar his targets could include pubs, nightclubs and trains....

The prosecutor said Mr Khyam and co-defendant Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton in Bedfordshire, both told Babar they worked for a man who they claimed was "number three in al-Qaeda".

Blair, in a speech to the Australian parliament:

"But the strain of frankly anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in," he said....

"The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved. The danger is that they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved. We want them engaged."

Blair's right. And judging from the activity on Capitol Hill the last few months, he should be worried.

Kosovar Albanians don't think much of the UN but they sure like the U.S. and NATO. This was abundantly clear when I was over there last August. They resented the fact that the UN Security Council sat on its hands while Milosevic's forces rampaged throughout the province. They were also well aware that it was American leadership that moved other nations to ignore the Security Council and act against the Serb forces. Of course, back then Russia and China blocked UN action. The Russians had a soft spot for Milosevic, while the folks who brought us Tiananmen Square believed the killings, torched villages and mass exodus of Kosovar Albanians were an "internal" matter. Today, as this Wall Street Journal editorial points out, it's more of the same:

Today's leading authority on Darfur is the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who prophesied a world "nasty, brutish and short." At least 200,000 civilians have been killed in the past three years and two million more have become refugees. The source of the problem is the Arab rulers in Khartoum, who have pursued an ethnic cleansing campaign against black Muslims in western Sudan. They've equipped the Janjaweed Arab tribesmen to do the dirty work, and that militia is now attacking civilians across the border in Chad, creating 20,000 more refugees.

To his credit, Kofi Annan started shouting about the problem two years ago, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell labeled it "genocide" not long after that. The U.N.'s mighty peace-making machinery then started to roll and . . . nothing. The Chinese (who have close commercial ties to Khartoum) and Russians have blocked any serious intervention. Arab members of the Security Council have also opposed any attempt to single out Khartoum.

And ABC News reported:

The U.N. Security Council remained divided Monday on imposing punitive measures over the conflict in Darfur despite calls for sanctions against Sudanese allegedly blocking peace in the region.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, on the next to last day of the U.S. presidency of the council, scheduled a closed-door meeting to discuss a report by a U.N.-appointed panel that recommended sanctions against key figures from all groups.

Most of the 15-member council were in favor of sanctions, led by the United States, Britain, France and Denmark but Qatar, China, and Russia were strongly opposed, council diplomats said. Qatar is the only Arab member of the council, China is a major buyer of Sudanese oil, and Russia traditionally opposes sanctions.

Perhaps we should create a new position in our diplomatic corps: Ambassador to Nations that Give a Damn about Atrocities.

It would be interesting to know whether the NSA program helped snag Babar and his buddies across the Atlantic. From the BBC:

Seven British citizens had acquired "most of the necessary components" to launch a bombing campaign in the UK, the Old Bailey has heard.

Prosecutor David Waters QC said "pubs, nightclubs and trains" were discussed as potential targets, but police moved in before the plot "reached fruition"....

Mr Waters told the jury they would be hearing from an American citizen, Mohammed Babar, who conspired with the defendants.

Babar has pleaded guilty to terrorism offences in the US and, according to the prosecutor, "has an insight as an insider into the events and plans which an outsider could not have".

It is claimed Babar met several of the defendants in England and in Pakistan, where many of them have family connections.

Mr Waters said the defendants' "principal purpose" in travelling to Pakistan was "to acquire expertise in relation particularly to explosives".

It was during a meeting with Babar that 24-year-old defendant Omar Khyam, from Crawley in West Sussex, allegedly told Babar his targets could include pubs, nightclubs and trains....

The prosecutor said Mr Khyam and co-defendant Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton in Bedfordshire, both told Babar they worked for a man who they claimed was "number three in al-Qaeda".

I wonder what his position is on the cartoons. From the Associated Press:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- A radical Islamic group spokesman has been charged with threatening the government for distributing a leaflet urging Muslims to ''eliminate'' rulers that prevent them from joining the Iraq insurgency, a Danish prosecutor said Monday.

The leaflets, from the Danish chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, called on Muslims to travel to Iraq to join the insurgents fighting coalition troops. They also urged Muslims to ''eliminate your rulers if they stand in your way'' -- a phrase prosecutors interpret as a direct threat to the Danish government.

Denmark has 530 troops stationed in southern Iraq.

James T. Quinlivan, a military analyst at RAND, evaluated the effectiveness of recent stability deployments where the "objective is not to destroy an enemy but to provide security for residents so that they have enough confidence to manage their daily affairs and to support a government authority of their own." Here's what he found. Col. McMaster probably agrees, and perhaps many others (see Gordon, Trainor book) going back to 2003. From the current US News:

Fifteen years ago, Pentagon doctrine suggested there was a strict division between combat operations and peacekeeping, or stability, missions. The Army's experience in Kosovo, Bosnia, and, especially, Somalia, Ancker says, proved that during humanitarian operations designed to stabilize a country, there was still a need for military muscle. But Ancker argues that the Iraq invasion showed that the Army did not grasp the flip side of the Bosnia lesson, that during combat operations there was a need for peacekeeping-style activities. "We did not have that down nearly as well as we thought we had," he says. The next operations field manual will tell commanders that even when engaged in combat operations they need to immediately focus on making the civilian population physically safe, establishing some sort of governance to allow society to function, and restoring essential services.

Leadership matters. Tuesday's Globe and Mail has some interesting poll results on the Canadian troop deployment to Afghanistan.

Canadians' views have shifted sharply in support of the Afghan military mission even as troop casualties have mounted over the past three weeks, a new poll suggests.

A modest but clear majority -- 55 per cent of respondents to a nationwide poll taken for The Globe and Mail and CTV over the past four days -- now broadly support the decision to send troops to Afghanistan. Only 41 per cent oppose the deployment.

In late February, more than 60 per cent said that given a vote in Parliament, they would opt against sending troops to the war-torn country. Only 27 per cent said they would vote in favour.... Perhaps most surprisingly, a clear majority -- 59 per cent -- said they are willing to tolerate Canadian casualties to "help achieve security and stability in the region."

The poll results "suggest that a concerted public campaign in defence of the mission by senior military officers, as well as political figures from both the Conservative government and Liberal Opposition, has had an impact."

This change in public attitude doesn't surprise me. A while back, the German Marshall Fund released a poll that found increased European disapproval of President Bush's foreign policy but with an interesting twist. One exception was in Britain (I should note that Poland’s approval numbers mirrored those in the U.S.), “where there was a slight upturn in approval.” I doubt it was a coincidence that this “upturn” occurred in a nation where the national government most vigorously made the case for getting rid of Saddam and for promoting democracy in the region. Bush’s lowest ratings were in countries, namely France and Germany, whose leaders adamantly and very publicly opposed Bush's policies. Even so, Germany's Gerhard Schröder ran on an explicitly anti-American platform and lost to an opponent who forcefully countered his demagoguery. Canada's Stephen Harper did the same against the anti-U.S. rhetoric of Paul Martin. And, of course, Australia's John Howard won a fourth term, while Tony Blair was elected to an unprecedented third. Is there a message here?

If you believe France's current economy is sclerotic, imagine what it will be years from now if millions of French youth possess the same attitude and driving ambition of Maud Pottier. From today's Washington Post:

PARIS, March 16 -- An estimated 250,000 students took to the streets of Paris and major cities across France on Thursday, escalating a political rebellion by the country's younger generation against a government that is floundering in its attempts to restructure a moribund economy....

Maud Pottier, 17, a student at Jules Verne High School in Sartrouville, north of Paris, who was wrapped in layers of scarves as protection against the chilly, gray day [said]: "You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked. I'd rather spend more time looking for a job and get a real one."

(This document would certainly be consistent with the type of operations described below.)

From March 14, 2006 post:

The latest issue of Foreign Affairs contains excerpts from a recently declassified report, produced by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, on the inner workings of Saddam's regime. This paragraph, in particular, hasn't received much attention in the media:

The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout Europe and the Middle East. In a document dated May 1999, Saddam's older son, Uday, ordered preparations for "special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas [Kurdistan]." Preparations for "Blessed July," a regime-directed wave of "martyrdom" operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion.

What were the targets? What kind of "preparations...were well under way" by March 2003? Who were to carryout the "martyrdom" operations?

It's also worth noting that on April 8, 1991, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 687, the first post-Gulf War disarmament resolution, which declared, among other things, that Iraq "not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory and to condemn unequivocally and renounce all acts, methods and practices of terrorism." Eleven years later, on November 8, 2002, the Security Council passed Resolution 1441, which declared that the "Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism...."

On trial at The Hague since 2002 for war crimes, former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was "found dead in his prison cell" Saturday morning. His legacy is one of death, destruction and deep ethnic hatred. Last August, I traveled throughout Kosovo and found a place still very much haunted by the Milosevic regime. Today, Kosovo isn't in the news much even though the U.S. has a significant national security interest at stake there. I'll write more on the critical need of getting Kosovo right and the lesson of Milosevic later. For now, here's a piece I wrote for the Weekly Standard last August:

Miles To Go
NATO stopped the bombing in Kosovo six years ago, but the region is still problematic.

Kosovo
"WE HAVEN'T WON THIS YET." That's how a senior Western diplomat serving in Pristina characterized the situation in Kosovo six years after the end of NATO bombing. The intervention against the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic was the right policy, he added, but what we've been trying to accomplish since is "more difficult here than in Bosnia." A bit south of Pristina is the town of Lipljan. There, a Kosovar Albanian man, a geography teacher, sat at a table in the home of a Kosovar Serb and spoke of people "in dark corners who work to undermine efforts [of reconciliation between Albanians and Serbs] because it's not in their interest to reconcile." Similar sentiments were repeated by others in Kosovo. So while Milosevic is tried at The Hague for war crimes, much more work remains to defeat his legacy in Kosovo.

In the late 1980s, Milosevic consolidated power on a platform of extreme nationalism. His efforts to centralize power in Belgrade put the Balkans on a path to war in which over 200,000 people would eventually be killed. In 1989, he forced amendments to the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution which eliminated the autonomy of Kosovo "inaugurating an era of spiraling human rights abuses against the Kosovar Albanian population," as detailed in war crimes documents at The Hague. All this led to the formation of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1997 and fierce fighting between the KLA and Serb forces operating in Kosovo before NATO intervened in March 1999.

Since 1999, when the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1244 making Kosovo a U.N. protectorate, the goal has been to establish a stable, multi-ethnic democracy. Under 1244, UNMIK--the U.N. Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo--supervises domestic affairs while KFOR--the 18,000-strong NATO-led Kosovo Protection Force--is tasked with creating a "secure environment" for the transition to full civilian administration of Kosovo.

Soon, the United Nations and members of the Kosovo Contact Group (the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Russia, and Italy) are expected to announce that Kosovo has made enough progress--four elections have been held, a constitutional framework drafted, and provisional government institutions erected--to warrant the start of "final status" talks. The outcome of these talks will determine if Kosovo becomes an independent nation, as the Kosovar Albanians demand and expect, or attains the status of "more than autonomy, less than independence," as Serbian President Boris Tadic frequently advocates in public appearances.

OFFICIALS IN BELGRADE have also been floating the idea of a partitioned Kosovo because, they say, full independence would provoke a nationalist reaction and suffocate Serbia's nascent democracy. Belgrade would absorb the Serb-dominated land north of the Ibar river (the majority of Serbs are also scattered in central and southern Kosovo) while the rest would become an independent state governed by Pristina. According to several Western diplomats, Belgrade has discouraged Kosovar Serb participation in elections and institutions in Pristina to bolster their case for partition.

Even so, partition won't happen. The United States opposes any partition, as does the European Union, on the grounds that a partition would spark even greater regional instability and reward the aggression of Milosevic. Furthermore, the State Department's Nicholas Burns testified to Congress that a partition would undermine the basic principle of a Kosovo "based on multi-ethnicity with full respect for human rights including the right of all refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes in safety."

Odds are that Kosovo will gain a sort of probationary independence. Full sovereignty--say within a few years--would be conditioned on, among other things, the return of Serbs who fled Kosovo since 1999 (the State Department estimates over 100,000 fled mainly due to Kosovar Albanian retribution while the United Nations believes about 13,000 have returned) and a demonstrated ability of local government officials to ensure freedom of movement throughout Kosovo. Any transition would also involve a continued international security presence for some time.

BUT MEETING THESE CONDITIONS WON'T BE EASY. Along with an unemployment rate of over 60 percent, ensuring freedom of movement in Kosovo remains the biggest failure of UNMIK and KFOR for the last six years.

A recent report, written by UNMIK chief Soren Jessen-Peterson of Denmark, cited the lack of freedom of movement as a major obstacle to further progress in Kosovo--a conclusion echoed by other international officials and one that is obvious to anyone traveling around Kosovo. If a Kosovar Albanian and Serb want to socialize, they generally do so out of public view. As many stated privately, talks in public raises the risk of being targeted by extremists who are not interested in multiethnic dialogue.

On a Wednesday in Lipljan, where about 450 Kosovar Albanians and 210 Serbs live, five Serb men sat down in a Serb home to talk about life there. "The economy doesn't exist for us," said one, who blamed the international community for their plight. Another revealed that "he talks with his Albanian neighbor in his backyard" but not on the street "where others can see"--that's too dangerous, he said. Asked if all Lipljan's Albanians were hostile, they collectively gestured no. One added that perhaps 1 in 10 Albanians are "hostile to us." Toward the end of the discussion, a Kosovar Albanian, a geography teacher who lives nearby, joined in. He agreed that ethnic relations are bad and blamed "Albanian politicians for not doing enough" to challenge the extremists who want the remaining Serbs to leave Kosovo.

A short distance from the Macedonian border is Prizren, a town where, at least on that day, you could spot children wearing clothing emblazoned with the letters "USA" (I should note that many Kosovar Albanians expressed pro-American sentiment in discussions with them). Outside a small coffee shop a middle-aged Serb said that the "majority of Albanians don't have ill will toward us. The problem is the radicals--the 10 percent who control politics." Later, speaking in the living room of her small home nearby, a Serb woman in her eighties said ethnic relations "were better" before Milosevic came to power and that "Albanians suffered quite a bit under Milosevic." Muzafri, a Kosovar Albanian who now works at a cafe in the center of Prizren, told the story of Serb forces entering his village in 1999 and giving everyone two hours to flee their homes. They joined the hundreds of thousands of other Kosovar Albanians ejected by Milosevic's forces. Asked if he would like the Serbs who still live in town to stay, he responded, "Sure, we should all live together."

ABOUT 60 KILOMETERS NORTHWEST of Prizren is Orahovac, which witnessed heavy fighting between Milosevic's forces and the KLA in 1998 and 1999. At the top of a narrow, sloping street that leads into the town's center is a crowded enclave of about 500 Serbs. They are protected by barbed wire and a handful of KFOR troops. At the lower end live Kosovo Albanians, who vastly outnumber the Serbs. In between is the so-called "buffer zone," which is lined with crumbling, burnt-out buildings. Just outside Orahovac is another Serb enclave of Velika Hoca, which has a fixed military checkpoint on the only road leading into it and is regularly patrolled by KFOR.

Many gravestones line the main road leading into the town of Decan, northwest of Orahovac, along the Albanian border. A May 2005 International Crisis Group report described Decan as a "tinderbox, full of angry armed groups, and isolated from the rest of Kosovo." According to the Louis Segnini, the local UNMIK head, Decan is the home of many "hardcore [KLA] fighters" from the 1990s who today are the town's "political hardliners." They "intimidate other Albanians" from socializing with Serbs, who live in enclaves on the edge of town. For example, every so often Segnini hosts a "sugar meeting" at the local UNMIK headquarters between local Serbs and Albanians to facilitate better relations. But when he suggests that they all go out to a restaurant down the street the Albanians get "very nervous" and decline.

In Mitrovica, a gritty, bustling town northeast of Pristina, the bridge spanning the Ibar acts as the "buffer zone" with a heavy U.N. and KFOR presence at both ends. In March 2004, Mitrovica was also the town which sparked two days of violence throughout Kosovo which left 19 dead, hundreds injured, hundreds of Serb houses burned, and 30 Orthodox churches destroyed along with 72 U.N. vehicles. KFOR was caught by surprise and did little to stop it. The United Nations believes Kosovar Albanian extremists orchestrated the violence to "destroy any ethnic integration," and officials in Belgrade point to the violence to discredit Kosovo's bid for independence. "The more I looked at what happened [in March 2004], the bigger the impact" the violence really had on our efforts, lamented UNMIK's Soren Jessen-Peterson. The International Crisis Group report concludes that "Both Kosovo Albanian extremists seeking to eject UNMIK, and those in Serbia who would prefer Kosovo to discredit itself . . . share an interest in provocation."

Whatever the outcome of the "final status" talks, the United States, the European Union, and NATO must remain engaged in Kosovo and not let the extremist minority win a victory over simple human decency.

From Reuters:

An official apology "is absolutely necessary ... because your government has not dealt with them (Muslims) respectfully," Islamic scholar Tareq al-Suweidan told a conference hosted by the [Danish] government in an attempt to ease tension over the drawings.

"We want the laws in Denmark and the European Union to be changed, either to have free speech for everyone including on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, or to change the law to respect religious figures like Mohammad," Suweidan said.

From the BBC:

In a sign of the uncertain mood in Denmark, the state railway company barred a billboard advertising a new book about Islam by a Danish professor.

The book, titled What is Islam?, contained no images of the Prophet, and a Danish imam agreed that the company had overreacted. The decision has now been reversed.

No word on whether Jeddah will host the next conference to dialogue on freedom of religion and freedom of the press.

This cover piece, Freedom Fighter, in the latest issue of Progress, a journal published by British Labour Party members, is sure to get the attention of the anti-Bush folks on the island. Oliver Kamm, author of Anti-Totalitarianism: the Left-wing Case for a Neo-Conservative Foreign Policy, argues that Blair's policies are consistent with "the principles of an earlier anti-totalitarian left." What's more, Kamm contends, "in pursuing regime change, Bush has adopted Blairism, not the other way round." And, he further argues, Blair's policies represent "a shrewd strategic judgment" that understands the need "to transform a region that has acted as an incubator for religious fanaticism by failing to provide an outlet for any other kind of dissidence."

Kamm writes:

"The overthrow of theocratic despotism in Afghanistan and Ba’athist tyranny in Iraq is central to Blair’s record. It is part of a distinctive approach that has marked his premiership. That stance represents continuity with the principles of an earlier anti-totalitarian left, and a shrewd strategic judgment of where Britain’s security interests lie in the early 21st century. It is, moreover, sharply at odds with the philosophy and practice of John Major’s government....

The foreign policy of Blair is more than Iraq, but Iraq is how history will judge him, and supporters of the prime minister need to make the case for regime change.

Let us start with what was genuinely the biggest blunder in British foreign policy since Suez. This was Britain’s failure, under a Tory government, to prevent Serb aggression against Bosnia in the early 1990s. Policy at that time consisted of what the historian Brendan Simms has termed a conservative pessimism about the limits to the effective exercise of power in the international order....

You cannot understand Blair’s policies in Iraq without that background. Long before 9/11, he took a fundamentally different approach from Major, Rifkind and Douglas Hurd, and not only in declaratory policy. In Kosovo, he confronted Serb aggression rather than acquiesced in it. He also sent British troops to preserve Sierra Leone from hand-lopping rebels, aware both of the demands of liberal internationalism and of the potential for a failed state to become far more than a regional problem. He argued his case long before President Bush came to see the urgency of promoting democracy overseas....

Of course, there were grievous failures of intelligence over WMD, and the maladministration of post-Ba’athist Iraq has been a scandalous dereliction of duty. But there should be no questioning of the immense benefits to Iraq and to ourselves of overthrowing a gangster regime. Saddam was not responsible for 9/11, but he welcomed it and sought a WMD capability in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. Ba’athist Iraq did not have stockpiles of WMD, but it did possess dual-use facilities that, according to Charles Duelfer of the Iraq Survey Group, could have produced chemical and biological weapons on a rapid turnaround.

Saddam was a sponsor of terrorism, and the most likely conduit for Islamist groups to obtain WMD. There were clear grounds for expecting Saddam to be a regional menace, and few for expecting him to be containable in the way that the Soviet Union was during the cold war. Soviet leaders were brutal and expansionist, but they were rational and calculating political agents. Saddam launched three wars in 17 years (against Iran in 1974, Iran again in 1980, and Kuwait in 1990) that almost destroyed his regime.

But there is a wider issue in the case for regime change. What marked British policy under Major, and was the principal weakness of US foreign policy in the cold war, was a ‘realism’ that took an impossibly narrow view of western strategic interests. In the Balkans in the 1990s, British policymakers allowed a nation to be dismembered by aggressive and genocidal nationalism. In the cold war, American administrations were prone to ally with authoritarian regimes as a bulwark against communism. Both approaches were far from serving the purposes that realism set itself. What overcame communist totalitarianism in Eastern Europe was partly collective security involving alliances and military preparedness. But, at root, it was the power of an idea: the appeal of an open and liberal society, as opposed to a closed and sclerotic one. The task of western governments against a new totalitarian threat – though a very old, atavistic totalitarian idea, in Islamist fanaticism – is similarly to implant the notion of freedom....

In the cold war, the nuclear stand off that had dominated world affairs for two generations was finally robbed of its terror by a transformation in the underlying political relations between states. Totalitarianism gave way to the promise of constitutionalism. Our most urgent task today is to transform a region that has acted as an incubator for religious fanaticism by failing to provide an outlet for any other kind of dissidence. Making the spread of democracy the cornerstone of foreign policy extends progressive values and at the same time protects our security. It is a principle that the overthrow of Saddam has served. Regime change in states that have committed atrocities against captive peoples ought to be the thing of which Labour supporters are proudest."

The tip of the anti-Semetic iceberg? From today's New York Times:

Two strips of red-and-white police tape bar the entrance to the low-ceilinged pump room where a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, spent the last weeks of his life, tormented and tortured by his captors and eventually splashed with acid in an attempt to erase any traces of their DNA....

But it is clear that plenty of people did know, both that Mr. Halimi was being tortured and that he was Jewish. The police, according to lawyers with access to the investigation files, think at least 20 people participated in his abduction and the subsequent, amateurish negotiations for ransom. His captors told his family that if they did not have the money, they should "go and get it from your synagogue," and later contacted a rabbi, telling him, "We have a Jew."

... So far, a total of 19 people, ages 17 to 39, have been arrested in connection with Mr. Halimi's abduction and death, including the French-Iranian woman, whose first name is Yalda.

The police found Islamist literature and documents supporting a Palestinian aid group in the home of at least one of the people arrested, but lawyers involved in the case dismiss Islamic extremism as a motivation, noting that many of the people involved were not Muslim. The Halimis' lawyer, Mr. Szpiner, denied French news reports that the gang had called Mr. Halimi's family and recited the Koran....

Standing in the doorway in Bagneux near where Mr. Halimi was held, the young French-Arab man smiled when asked about Mr. Fofana. "He was nice, everybody liked him," he said. "If the police bring him back here, the guys in the neighborhood will liberate him."

This piece by Daniel Johnson in Commentary magazine ought to drive the British Left crazy.

The British are proud of their independence; they follow American fashions, whether from Hollywood or Washington, only if they can make them their own. Fortunately, Tony Blair made foreign-policy neoconservatism his own before most Britons had even heard of it, so both it and the domestic-policy variety may well have a future in Britain beyond the temporal horizon of the Blair era. From an ideological point of view, certainly, it is the only antidote to the viruses of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and Islamo-fascism, all of which are now coursing through the bloodstream of the British body politic.

But the necessity of neoconservatism has to be explained and popularized, as David Cameron seems to grasp. For that, many more first-rate intellectuals like Oliver Kamm and Douglas Murray will need to be mobilized. They might well take their cue from their peers on the other side of the Atlantic, where think tanks, sympathetic TV networks and websites, and above all the great American magazines and journals together constitute a permanent symposium on neoconservative thought.

(Update II: Uribe supporters won big in yesterday's congressional elections, paving the way for passage of the U.S-Colombia free trade deal. With strong support in Congress and probable reelection in May, Uribe's offensive against the FARC will likely intensify. All of this is pretty remarkable given that just a few years ago the FARC greeted the newly elected president by firing mortars at the presidential palace while he took the oath of office inside. The attack, which killed dozens, led many analysts to offer grim assessments on Colombia's future. Uribe, who came to office after the fail of several "peace initiatives," has proven them wrong.)

(Update: FARC terrorists continue their killing spree in their effort to destabilize Colombia's democracy. This time, AP reports, they gunned down eight unarmed town officials while they ate lunch.)

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez gets lots of media attention with his anti-American rants. But in bordering Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe is a friend of America and an anti-terror ally. In a nation where tens of thousands have been killed and many more scarred physically and emotionally from decades of violence and terror, things are looking a bit brighter these days. Killings and kidnappings are down. Drug production has been cut. Foreign investment is rising; the economy has stabilized; and for the first time in almost a decade Standard & Poor’s boosted its rating for Colombian debt. Not bad for a man derided as a “hardliner” by his political opponents whose election, they warned voters, would be a disaster for Colombia. Right now, Uribe is on track to score another impressive election victory in May and that doesn't sit well with Colombia's FARC terrorists who on Saturday, the Associated Press reports, ambushed a civilian bus with gunfire, killing nine.

"We don't understand how they can attack the unarmed civilian population in this way," Mendoza [Col. Jose Angel Mendoza, police chief of Caqueta state] said in an interview with RCN Radio....

More than a week ago, FARC rebels began distributing pamphlets warning drivers to stay off the highways in Caqueta and Putumayo states. The FARC said the traffic ban was aimed in part to protest the re-election bid of President Alvaro Uribe, a hard-line leader with whom the rebels have shunned peace talks.

Uribe, who is well-liked by most Colombians and seems likely to coast to victory in presidential elections set for May 28, has sought to wipe out the guerrillas militarily.

Uribe's prospective reelection follows in the footsteps of other friends of America. Australia's John Howard won a fourth term, while Tony Blair was elected to an unprecedented third. German and Canadian voters followed up by rejecting candidates who ran anti-American campaigns. Now, that's quite a story.

William Bennett and Alan Dershowitz write in today's Washington Post on the hypocrisy of the major media on the cartoon issue. The Vatican also weighs in on the controversy today.

I haven't made up my mind on whether the Dubai deal harms U.S. national security. I'll wait to hear what Bush officials have to say tomorrow before the Senate Armed Services Committee. But many others, who have obviously studied the pending deal with a fine toothcomb, have. Hotline reports that Ol' Blood n' Guts Martin O'Malley, the Democratic mayor of Baltimore and gubernatorial candidate, invoked the Stars & Strips in his call to arms. "We want to turn over the Port of Baltimore, the home of the 'Star Spangled Banner,' to the United Arab Emirates? Not so long as I'm mayor, and not so long as I have breath in my body." Give me a break. I don't remember the mayor fighting to his last "breath" efforts by many in his party to shut down the NSA program monitoring al Qaeda communications to people inside the U.S. -- perhaps even Baltimore. Others, as today's Wall Street Journal points out, are stoking the Dubai issue to bolster their protectionist cause. I doubt most of the people making categorical statements on the wisdom of the deal have a clue as to the nuts and bolts of port operations/security, the role the U.A.E. has played in the war on terror, or if there is another intelligence component to this that hasn't been made public. The current deal may or may not be a good idea but the debate, so far, is about as phony as Washington can get. In the end, my guess is that a compromise will be struck allowing an amended deal to move foward.

Britain's Sunday Telegram reports on the results of a recent poll of British Muslims here.

First, Al Gore's pandering and now the EU's citadel of strength, Javier Solana, does the same in that paragon of religious tolerance otherwise known as Saudi Arabia. From Australia's The Age:

EU chief tries to calm cartoons dispute February 14, 2006

The European Union and a major group of Islamic countries say they support United Nations action to stop "defamation of religion" after cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad sparked violent protests.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is lobbying for the United Nations to include language against blasphemy in the tenets of a new human rights body and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he supported the idea.

"We agreed to take different measures including at the level of the United Nations to guarantee these acts will not be repeated," OIC Secretary General Ekmelettin Ihsanoglu said in Jeddah.

The head of the 57-nation body was speaking at a press conference with Solana, who arrived overnight in the birthplace of Islam at the start of a Middle East tour to try and calm the furor over caricatures.

"We have been talking today on how we can send a message to the people in both communities, the Islamic and European, that we need this not to happen again ... We strongly hope that people will be now sensible to understand that," Solana said.

"Be sure we are going to do our utmost for this not to happen again, because we need each other... I don't think honestly it will happen again," he added.

Ihsanoglu said he also wanted the EU to pass blasphemy laws. "I have proposed many ideas, legislative measures to be taken by the European Union," he said.

Solana, who later met King Abdullah in Riyadh, made no comment on the idea of EU measures.

But a European official close to the talks said the EU was careful to avoid promises on legislative prohibitions against offending Muslims.

"We deviated from the word 'laws' and moved to concentrate on conventions, resolutions and such things. We have to be careful of Western public opinion," the official said.

Though Muslims consider any portrayal of the Prophet blasphemous, many in Europe have supported the freedom of the press to publish the cartoons.

Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said the delegation now felt the tide was turning in the cartoon furor.

"They want mechanisms to guarantee this is not repeated and we should be able to find it in UN conventions on human rights," she said....

Andrew Sullivan has the story here.

From his gimmicky "Home from Iraq by the Holidays" troop withdrawal plan to his filibuster yodel from the Swiss Alps, Sen. John Kerry's free fall continues. In today's Washington Post, Kerry now trots out this gem concerning the violent assault directed at a newspaper published in a free society.

"These and other inflammatory images deserve our scorn, just as the violence against embassies and military installations are an unacceptable and intolerable form of protest."

As Marshall Wittmann over at the Democratic Leadership Council points out,

It is a delusion to believe that these mobs will be appeased by a moral equivalent condemnation of both the cartoons and the violence. Democrats, in particular, must make it clear that this has nothing to do with "offensive" cartoons and everything to do with a war against Western values.

Of course, Kerry's moral equivalence characterization is exactly wrong. His weak-kneed remark will only embolden the radical elements and further undermine Islamic moderates. His words must be music to the ears of people like Mr. Abu-Laban, who, the Wall Street Journal reports, is under pressure "for results."

Under pressure from young radicals for results, Mr. Abu-Laban, the Copenhagen cleric at the forefront of the campaign, and several others formed the "European Committee for Honoring the Prophet," an umbrella group that now claims to represent 27 organizations across a wide spectrum of the Islamic community. (Moderate Muslims dispute this and say the group has been hijacked by radicals.)

Mr. Abu-Laban, who grew up in Egypt and was arrested there in the early 1980s after being expelled from the United Arab Emirates for his preaching, took charge of writing statements for the group and communicating with Muslim ambassadors. He denies holding extremist views, but acknowledges hosting visits to Denmark by Omar Abdel Rahman, before his arrest in New York, where the blind sheik now is serving a life sentence in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Thank you Ohio voters!

In an interview yesterday with Neil Cavuto of Fox News, the Secretary of State under the first President Bush didn't pull any punches.

CAVUTO: What do you make of the ferocity of the response to this cartoon?

EAGLEBURGER: Well, first of all, I should tell you, I hope, devoutly, that this tends to unite, as you said -- to unite the West, to begin to understand the kind of threat that we face.

I'm -- I'm going to sound like a racist to some, and I apologize for that. I don't mean it as racist. But you have to see -- you -- you watch this on television, and then you tell yourself that this is not a serious problem in the Muslim world, in terms of the way they look at the West?

This is -- it -- it should be very clear to everybody now that we have a problem for ourselves, not just the United States, but the Western world in general, and, certainly, the Christian world. And it seems to me that it should be very obvious that what is happening now is so irrational and so dangerous that we had better wake up to the fact that the world has changed and this is a part of that change.

CAVUTO: Indeed, Denmark doesn't have a -- exactly a very violent history at all.

It is probably one of the most peaceful nations on the planet. What do you think the message is for fellow peaceful nations, nations like Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, that try to stay out of this whole debate?

EAGLEBURGER: Well, I hope -- I hope that what this will tell them all is that there has to be some unity now amongst all of us, because this is a threat that isn't going to go away.

And one of the problems in the Western world is that we are so tolerant, we have reached the point that we are tolerant of intolerance. And that's what's going on here now. And if we pooh-pooh it, and if we say, well, it's all the fault of this Danish newspaper, shouldn't have done, we will have been getting all the wrong reactions.

What we ought to be seeing now is that the Western world, if I can use the term, the democratic world, it needs to be awakened to the fact that we now have a serious threat of radical Islam. And, please, don't let me get into the point of trying to say that every Muslim is like this, but what is fairly clear now is that there is a growing number of them.

And we need to be worried about that. And I also have to say, we don't see any of that in the United States. God help us, if we should. But, in Europe now, what we're seeing is a very serious challenge to Western European democracy.

CAVUTO: You know, Secretary, there have been even critics more vocal than you who have said that the same who are ranting and rioting right now didn't say boo when there were pictures of decapitations of hostages...

EAGLEBURGER: Of course not.

CAVUTO: ... and that sort of thing.

EAGLEBURGER: Of course not.

CAVUTO: But they are making a huge deal out of this.

I guess I'm wondering whether that image, that -- that weird juxtaposition, resonates, even in the Muslim world, that there might be a - - a clarion call for -- for the more moderate members of the Muslim world to stand up and say, this isn't us?

EAGLEBURGER: Good -- good for you. Good for you, because that's the only real alternative now, is that the moderate Muslims, who have pretty much kept -- kept their heads down, for good and sufficient reason, when you see this sort of thing happening, are going to have to realize that, if they don't react to this, they're going to be dragged along by a hysterical mob that is going to move all of the Muslim world, all of Islam, in a direction that they ought not want.

And it's totally counterproductive. Yet, at the same time, I have to tell you, there was a poll taken in the United Kingdom in 2004, in which 60 percent of the Muslims living in the United Kingdom said they wanted to live under Sharia, which is the Muslim law that governs the way you live, and includes things like women with their faces covered and things of this sort.

When you have 60 percent of those who are living in one of the world's great democracies saying they don't want to live in that democracy, but they want to live in the United Kingdom, you better understand you have a problem.

A piece (sub. req'd) in today's Wall Street Journal, "How Muslim Clerics Stirred Arab World Against Denmark," isn't good news for European governments seeking to avoid future problems by groveling as the European Union's justice minister recently did in suggesting a tighter code of media conduct. Young Islamic radicals are getting better organized under the leadership, in this case, of a cleric who consorted with a 1993 World Trade Center conspirator.

In Aarhus, Demmark's second-largest city, a radical cleric gave an interview denouncing Mr. Rose and reminding him of "what happened" to Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker murdered in 2004 by a Dutchman of Moroccan descent. Mr. Rose got a security briefing from police and had his telephone number and address delisted.

Under pressure from young radicals for results, Mr. Abu-Laban, the Copenhagen cleric at the forefront of the campaign, and several others formed the "European Committee for Honoring the Prophet," an umbrella group that now claims to represent 27 organizations across a wide spectrum of the Islamic community. (Moderate Muslims dispute this and say the group has been hijacked by radicals.)

Mr. Abu-Laban, who grew up in Egypt and was arrested there in the early 1980s after being expelled from the United Arab Emirates for his preaching, took charge of writing statements for the group and communicating with Muslim ambassadors. He denies holding extremist views, but acknowledges hosting visits to Denmark by Omar Abdel Rahman, before his arrest in New York, where the blind sheik now is serving a life sentence in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

From today's Beirut Daily Star:

"The secretary general is alarmed by the threats and violence, including the attacks on embassies, that have occurred in Syria and Lebanon and other countries over the past few days," a statement attributed to Annan, issued by his spokesman Stephane Dujarric, said.

"While he shares the distress felt by many Muslims at the publication of caricatures which they see as insulting to their religion, he wishes to emphasize that such resentment cannot justify violence, least of all when directed at people who have no responsibility for, or control over, the publications in question."

Shouldn't the Secretary General's spokesman just make a categorical statement against the violence rather than adding the "least of all" qualification?

From BBC Worldwide Monitoring:

Iran is massively rearming its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons arsenal. This is the result of the first situation report by the Federal Office of Criminal Investigations and the Customs Office of Criminal Investigations (BKA, ZKA) about illegal arms transfers by German companies. "Indications are mounting that point to a secret military nuclear programme" by the mullah regime in Tehran, the confidential report says. Against this background, customs investigators are investigating six German companies, which illegally conducted 20 deliveries via Russia for the construction of the Iranian unclear power plant in Bushehr.

According to the BKA and the ZKA, Iranian universities have the "know-how" for "biological combat agent programmes". Cover companies of the Iranian intelligence services are trying to get "microbiological and biotechnological laboratory and production equipment". Apparently, the Islamic theocracy is also storing the chemical combat agents mustard gas, tabun, Prussic acid, sarin and VX.

In 2004 Customs initiated 16 criminal proceedings for illegal deliveries to crisis countries. The federal prosecutor general's office is investigating foreign agents in 19 cases in connection with illegal arms exports.

Source: Focus, Munich, in German 31 Jan 06

The Road to Euro Serfdom found this nugget from Britain's Sun:

HUNDREDS of EU politicians and welfare officials enjoyed an extravagant weekend junket — to discuss poverty.

Britain’s pensions minister James Plaskitt was among 250 delegates at Villach in Austria. They ate gourmet meals and many visited health spas.

Even the chairs for their meeting were flown 200 miles from Vienna — because the originals were judged to be too uncomfortable.

The conference was called to discuss the EU’s 32million jobless, and 70million living on the poverty line.

"Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party defeated the long entrenched Liberal Party in Canadian elections on Monday," the New York Times reports. "A Conservative victory is a striking turn in the country's politics and is likely to improve Canada's strained relations with the Bush administration."

But it wasn't supposed to be this way. Remember after the March 14, 2004 Spanish election when voters replaced Prime Minister José María Aznar with the Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero? Liberal editorialists and politicians claimed that other pro-Bush leaders were likely to follow Aznar's fate. The president's misadventure in Iraq had sparked a wave of anti-Americanism that would also topple other governments in Australia and Britain. But Australia's John Howard won a fourth term, while Tony Blair was elected to an unprecedented third. Subsequently, Germany's Gerhard Schröder ran on an anti-American platform, as did Canada's Paul Martin. And guess what? They lost.

No doubt President Bush will gladly welcome Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the White House, just as he did when Germany's Merkel paid a visit a short time ago.

From Reuters:

Putin and Blatter accuse EU of imperialism
Sun Jan 15, 2006 1:31 PM GMT

MOSCOW, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Sunday accused the European Union of "imperial" aggression in soccer.

"As a FIFA chief I have a big problem. The EU tries to have too much influence on how football is run in EU countries and they are trying to extend that influence to the rest of Europe," Russian news agency Itar-Tass quoted Blatter as saying during his visit to the Kremlin.

Last month, the European Commission, prompted by British sports minister Richard Caborn, launched an inquiry into European soccer, focussing on the regulation of agents, club financing, home-grown players and the continued investment into grass roots football and stadiums.

The sports ministers of major European football nations such as Spain, France, Germany and Italy, were also involved in discussion on how to reform the game.

Caborn said at the time that his initiative had the support of Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Lennart Johansson.

But on Sunday Blatter said: "We can't allow 25 EU countries to dictate their rules to 207 nations worldwide."

Tom Joscelyn has the story here. More information on the GSPC may be found here.

Virginia's Gerard Alexander has an insightful piece in today's Chicago Sun-Times on the divide between European elites and average European citizens.

Why are politics so different in Europe and the United States, considering that the two have wealthy economies and share a lot of cultural roots? Do Europeans and Americans really have sharply divergent views about war and peace, taxes and welfare, and trade and development? It's true that Europeans have become somewhat less religious than Americans and that European governments provide somewhat more public housing, retirement income, health care and other "social benefits" than the U.S. government does. These are differences. But they are also magnified out of proportion by the workings of democratic politics. In a democracy, major parties and coalitions craft their platforms and rhetoric to attract the "median voter," that is, the hypothetical voter at the exact center of the political spectrum, whose swing can determine an election. In most European countries, the median voter is, for example, both less religious and more dependent on government than the median voter in the United States.

This makes political differences appear very stark, by tugging American politics to the right and European politics to the left. For example, American liberals when running for office have little choice but to sideline provocative progressive language and instead loudly proclaim conservative-sounding themes like individual responsibility, the private sector, and toughness on crime and national security. Democratic presidential candidates in particular assume this centrist pose -- just think of John Kerry in the home stretch of