Left-wing extremists in Hamburg mounted violent demonstrations and riots on New Year’s Eve. The comrades set up barricades, burned piles of refuse in the streets, threw stones, and attacked a police remand center.In other news, North Korea has called for a new relationship with the United States, and wants to end the tension between Pyongyang and Washington.
Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, heroyalwhyness, JD, JP, Sean O’Brian, Steen, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Court Overturns ‘Malicious Prosecution’ Of Ministry
7th Circuit panel says trial court’s opinion on remedy ‘perverse’
A case brought by a church ministry in Chicago against city officials after they applied zoning and administrative rules to prevent the group from offering housing to victims of Hurricane Katrina has been revived by judges at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The opinion yesterday from the court panel did not determine the merits of the claims brought by the World Outreach Conference Center that city officials demanded — incorrectly — that the group get a special-use permit for its work.
But the opinion did describe the actions that were brought against the church group as the “malicious prosecution of a religious organization.”
[…]
Documentation in the case indicates the city refused to allow the church to use the building for single-room occupancy services because “9th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale wanted the old YMCA structure sold to his friend and financial backer.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Eyewitnesses: 2 Arrested in Christmas Flight Terror
‘How stupid do you think the American public is?’
Several passengers aboard the Christmas Day flight to Detroit where a Nigerian man attempted to blow up the airplane say a second passenger was arrested after the foiled terrorist attack — and they suggested other men may have played roles as well.
[…]
Following the foiled terrorist attack, Haskell said passengers were corralled into a small, evacuated luggage claim area of an airport terminal. Then, he says, bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in.
“During this time period, all of the passengers had their carry-on bags with them,” he wrote in a posting on MLive.com. “When the bomb sniffing dogs arrived, one dog found something in a carry-on bag of a 30-ish Indian man.”
[…]
Another passenger, Roey Rosenblith, told the Huffington Post officials arrested a man in a gray suit.
“The only thing that I recall happening is seeing an Indian guy off to the side, an older gentleman wearing a gray suit leaning against the wall. Suddenly there was a police officer next to him pulling his arms back and putting handcuffs on him,” he said. “The man didn’t struggle, the bags which seemed to be his were left there, and he and the police officer disappeared around the corner.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Houston: Rocket Launcher Found in Apartment
No Charges Filed
HOUSTON — Police went to a southwest Houston apartment to break up a disturbance but ended up finding something else, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday.
A woman called police on Monday and said a man was forcing his way into her apartment in the 5300 block of Elm Street.
When officers went inside, they found something that made them concerned enough to call the bomb squad.
They found an AT-4 shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. It can shoot a missile nearly 1,000 feet through buildings and tanks.
“It gives infantrymen the advantage with an ultra-light weapon that can stop vehicles, armored vehicles as well as main battle tanks and fortifications,” said Oscar Saldivar of Top Brass Military and Tactical on the North Freeway.
That type of rocket launcher has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The renter of the apartment didn’t want to talk to KPRC Local 2.
“This is my house,” the woman said. “ Get away from here. I don’t want to talk to nobody.”
The woman did tell police that the rocket launcher belonged to Nabilaye I. Yansane, someone whom she allowed to store items at her apartment.
Police records show that she didn’t want Yansane at her apartment, so she called them.
According to court documents, officers also found Jihadist writings that allegedly belonged to Yansane. The woman didn’t want to talk to KPRC Local 2 about that, either.
“I don’t know,” she said. “You’ll have to ask the police.”
Yansane was charged with criminal trespassing and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to three days in jail, which he has already served. No charges related to the rocket launcher or writings were filed.
“Other people could have had access to the apartment, so maybe if a rocket launcher was located there, as is stated in the offense report, maybe it belonged to somebody else,” attorney Garl Polland said.
Prosecutors said there are no state charges for having the unarmed launcher or possessing Jihadist writings, unless they contain some type of threat.
The former director of Houston’s FBI office said rocket launchers can be dangerous if they’re in the wrong hands.
“I don’t know any other use for those weapons except in combat,” Don Clark said. “I’ve had them in combat, used them in combat. That’s what they are used for.”
Houston police said they did a thorough investigation and did not find any ties to terrorists or a terrorist network.
| [Return to headlines] |
Islamic School Says Terror Suspect Studied in Houston
The Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day attended an intensive, Islamic education seminar in Houston last year designed for top student scholars, an organization confirmed Wednesday.
Shaykh Waleed Basyouni, vice president for the AlMaghrib Institute in Houston, said 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was living in London in the summer of 2008 when he attended the nonprofit institute’s annual “IlmSummit” here with about 150 other students.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Not So Isolated, And More Than Extremist
by Claudia Rosett
The airline bomber was an al-Qaida-linked terrorist. So why is Obama mincing words?
“Isolated extremist” was the label President Barack Obama initially slapped on the Nigerian Muslim who flew into Detroit on Christmas Day, burning himself in a botched attempt to take down the plane with explosives sewn into his underwear.
If anyone seems isolated here, it is the U.S. president himself. For three days after the terrorist attack, Obama carried on with his Hawaii holiday, “monitoring” the situation while leaving his staff to deal with the public. When Obama finally appeared on Monday to make a statement, he gave a boilerplate nod to the potential terror connections of the “suspect,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: “We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable.” But in the same statement he went on to say that “This incident, like several that have preceded it, demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist.”
At what point, in Obama’s scheme of the universe, did Abdulmutallab qualify as “isolated?” By the time Obama spoke up, Abdulmutallab himself had already confessed to U.S. authorities that he’d trained with al-Qaida bomb-makers in Yemen. Weeks earlier, Abdulmutallab’s father had warned U.S. officials that his son had become radicalized by Islamic extremists and might be in contact with terrorist groups. Before the attack, the name of the “suspect” was already listed in the ample company of some 400,000 likely terrorist affiliates, if not on an actual no-fly list. By the time Obama spoke, al-Qaida’s Yemen franchise itself was chiming in to take credit for the Christmas airliner demolition plot.
On Tuesday, Obama backtracked—sort of. While not actually repudiating his words about an “isolated extremist,” he referred obliquely to “al-Qaida and other extremist networks around the world” (their salient characteristics, in this philosophy, are neither terrorist nor Islamic, but simply global and extreme). But that was a sideshow to his focus on the two reviews he’s ordered: of U.S. air travel screening procedures and of the U.S. terror watch list.
Obviously there’s some work needed in those areas. But what’s far more in need of review is a White House mindset that instinctively bypasses the reality that there is a global war of radical Islamists targeting America and other free societies. It instead defaults to the conclusion that a Muslim trying to ignite high-tech explosives aboard an airplane is an “isolated extremist,” by Obama’s account the latest of “several.” How could Abdulmutallab be seen as “isolated”? Because once Northwest Airlines Flight 253 took off from Amsterdam to Detroit, he appeared to be the only “alleged terrorist” onboard?
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano showed the same mindset Sunday in an interview with CNN. Asked about the Christmas bomb attempt, she came out with the astounding statement: “Right now we have no indication that it’s part of anything larger, but obviously the investigation continues.” Again, that was after Abdulmutallab himself told U.S. authorities he’d picked up his explosives kit from an al-Qaida-linked bomb expert in Yemen.
A similar mindset imbued the early reports of Nidal Hassan’s shooting spree in November at Fort Hood. As information emerged about that particular systemic failure, it turned out U.S. authorities monitoring Hassan had seen nothing actionable in his seeking “spiritual guidance” online from a Yemen-based imam with connections to the Sept. 11 al-Qaida terrorists.
There’s more at work here than a presumption of innocence extended by the administration to the likes of explosives-toting airplane passengers (or, indeed, to al-Qaida and its comrades). Such evasions of dangerous realities are part of a broader philosophy that says if you just downplay these terrorist-networking types, if you just keep trying to wish them away, maybe they’ll be less of a nuisance, and at the very least confine themselves to attacks that can be handled, in isolation, by alert and brave citizens willing to put their own lives on the line to stop them.
Nor is this mindset confined to the administration. Time magazine, in an end-of-year round-up, reports that in 2009 domestic terrorism incidents “hit a peak.” The article quotes a Rand terrorism expert, Brian Jenkins, saying that of 32 terrorism-related incidents within the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001, 12 have occurred this year. That’s a trend President Obama should consider with even more alarm than his sinking approval ratings in the public opinion polls.
The Time article then goes on, however, to discount the likelihood that there is any trend here at all, saying, “For one thing, the cases are unconnected.” The article quotes Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), saying, “Each case has its own special circumstances.”
No doubt each terror scheme has its own special touch. But what they all have in common is an Islamist ideology, in the service of which the “suspects” feel impelled to try to kill Americans and savage not only the visible infrastructure, but also the unseen bonds of ease and trust that are part of the fabric of America’s free society.
Obama in his second pass at addressing the Christmas Day terrorist attack blamed the system, stressed his order for reviews of U.S. procedures and promised he will “insist on accountability at every level.” That cannot get the job done until there is accountability at the highest level, in the form of the president himself recognizing and addressing that there really is a global war against America and her allies.
The biggest security risk the American system harbors right now is a president who could spend three days “monitoring” the discoveries about this latest attack in U.S. air space, and emerge to describe the “suspect”—however briefly—as an “isolated extremist.” When does that brand of systemic failure get the review it desperately needs?
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Terror Probes — What You’re Not Being Told
On August 1, 2001, Hollywood actor James Woods witnessed four men of Middle Eastern appearance engaged in suspicious behavior on a transcontinental flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Mr. Woods’ first public recounting of his observations was five months after 9/11 on The O’Reilly Factor. During that February 15, 2002 broadcast, Mr. Woods stated that the suspicious behavior of the four men “would have been blatantly obvious to the most casual observer.”
Investigation ultimately confirmed that the actor witnessed a “practice run” for the 9/11 hijackings. He ultimately learned that all four men he observed aboard his flight were terrorists who took part in the murderous hijackings on 9/11 — and that they were not all on the same plane during the actual hijackings.
Fast forward to Christmas Day 2009, when Islamic terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab carried PETN onto Delta-Northwest flight 253 and attempted to detonate the explosive package using a catalyst in a syringe. As some “assembly” was required, Abdul-Mutallab used the lavatory prior to his attempt at mass murder. Note carefully witness accounts glossed over by the media, downplayed or denied by officials, such as a second person allegedly taken into custody while another aboard the aircraft reportedly took video.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Expellees Paid a Higher Price for Crimes of Third Reich’
By Jan Friedmann and Hans-Ulrich Stoldt
Preparations are currently underway in Germany for the opening of a museum that will commemorate Germans who were displaced after the country’s borders were redrawn in the wake of World War II. SPIEGEL spoke to the director of the government-backed foundation about plans for the museum and the controversies surrounding it that have strained German-Polish relations.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Kittel, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle opposes the inclusion of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Erika Steinbach on your foundation’s board. The Federation of Expellees, however, is insisting that Steinbach, their president, be appointed. Do you see a solution?
Kittel: We’re waiting for a wise decision to emerge from the political arena, hopefully as soon as possible. The law stipulates who approves board members — namely the German chancellor’s cabinet. I have to live with this solution, regardless of what difficulties led up to it and regardless of whether I’m happy or not so happy with it.
SPIEGEL: Isn’t the debate over Steinbach putting a strain on the plan to establish a documentation center about the flight and expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe after World War II?
Kittel: Of course the controversy isn’t advantageous, especially in the start-up phase. So in recent months, we’ve focused our work inward. We appointed an scientific advisory council, including experts from Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. And we will engage curators to design the exhibit with me. We want to begin holding events on the topic of flight and expulsion in 2010.
SPIEGEL: Polish historian Tomasz Szarota resigned as a scientific advisor, criticizing your organization’s concept and the composition of the foundation’s boards.
Kittel: Mr. Szarota’s resignation is a strange occurrence. The concept he criticized hasn’t changed one bit since he accepted his appointment to the advisory council in July. The composition of the boards has also remained essentially the same since then. Of course, the foundation continues to be interested in having a Polish historian participate on our international advisory board.
SPIEGEL: The Federation of Expellees has threatened to withdraw from the board completely. Is the entire project in danger of failing apart?
Kittel: I don’t think so. The whole thing is too well established as a governmental project for that. If the seat claimed by Ms. Steinbach remains unfilled at first, it won’t impair the board’s legal ability to act. The board draws from a broad spectrum of society, with representatives from politics and different religious denominations. Admittedly, however, it would be somewhat absurd to push ahead with the project against the resistance of organizations that represent expellees.
SPIEGEL: There have been suggestions that your foundation could receive additional funds for the documentation center in Berlin if Erika Steinbach withdraws …
Kittel: … I don’t want to engage in such speculation. The director of any institution would be glad to see his or her organization receive additional funds. The center is important for Germany’s culture of remembrance.
SPIEGEL: Poland and other Eastern European countries are afraid that Germany’s guilt will be qualified — with a documentation center for German expellees located near the Holocaust Memorial.
Kittel: We try to respect our neighbors’ concerns in our work. The documentation center won’t rewrite history or blur the historical causes and context. Nothing will be relativized here. The planned permanent exhibit will also cover events throughout Europe. In addition, we plan to include a look at expulsion around the world — through temporary exhibits, for example.
SPIEGEL: Why does Germany need a central documentation center at all? The topic is covered in various exhibits and books, and there’s no shortage of films on the subject either.
Kittel: That has only been the case recently, motivated not least by discussions surrounding the center. There was a significant lack before. Expellees sometimes felt they were being expelled a second time — this time from the public memory. The western German majority culture kept its distance from the expellees and their culture of remembrance. Some critics even spoke of a certain ghettoization.
SPIEGEL: When was that precisely? Annual commemorative events held by expellees and their descendents used to carry far more meaning in Germany than they do today, and commitments from politicians were never lacking.
Kittel: Yes, but those political commitments were often half-hearted. Many people saw the loss of Germany’s eastern territories, and not without reason, as the historical price that had to be paid for the terrible things that were done in the name of Germans and perpetrated by Germans themselves. No one wanted to touch on the injustice of the expulsion. The expellees, however, did so. There’s a connection between the difficulty in dealing with Nazi crimes and the indifference toward expellees. Many people probably longed simply to put both things behind them.
SPIEGEL: The integration of expellees was long seen as one of Germany’s great success stories.
Kittel: It was certainly a success story, but one with significant downsides. Reconciliation within the population didn’t work so well from the outset and many things went fundamentally wrong. It’s no accident that many prejudices that existed toward Slavic people were transferred after 1945 to German expellees — not only in West Germany but also in the Soviet occupied zone and East Germany. The expellees there were known simply as “the other Russians.”
SPIEGEL: Can the center heal these wounds?
Kittel: Expellees have paid a higher price for the crimes of the Third Reich than the portion of the German population that was not expelled and the country should recognize this fact. We should also remember more clearly to what degree the German east shaped our culture, doing this as a productive grieving process together with the people who now live in those regions.
Interview conducted by Jan Friedmann and Hans-Ulrich Stoldt. Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Left-Wing Violence on Streets of Hamburg
Left-wing extremists erected a street barricade in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg on New Year’s Eve, while around 180 others gathered around a police remand centre and smashed its gate.
While around 35,000 people watched fireworks on the piers of the port town, some 200 rioters erected a street barricade on Hafenstrasse in the St. Pauli area.
According to a spokesman for the authorities, the rioters knocked rubbish containers and refuse on to the streets and set fire to it. Three officers suffered slight injuries. Around 200 officers were on duty.
The vandals retreated into the district streets and police arrested two people, a police spokesman said. Authorities speculated that the violence was initiated by left-wing extremists.
Meanwhile around 180 people gathered around a remand centre under a banner declaring “Support for the Prisoners on New Year’s Eve,” and broke down the prison’s outer gate. Riot police dispersed the crowd.
Elsewhere in the city, unknown people set fire to five cars in the Sasel and Ohlsdorf districts.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: School Destroyed in Suspected Case of Arson
A fire broke out overnight in the premises of the Culture School in Stenkullen, in the county council of Lerum, near Gothenburg. Police have classified the incident as arson, and efforts to extinguish the blaze were ongoing on New Year’s morning, according to news agency TT.
At 9am on New Year’s Day, the building, a freestanding house, was still in flames, and efforts to extinguish the blaze are expected to continue into the afternoon, police have said.
Gudrun Rosén, the school’s curriculum manager, was on the scene this morning. “It was awful to see when the flames leapt into the sky. It will take a while,” she told TT.
The Gothenburg Fire and Rescue Service (Räddningstjänsten) managed to rescue a number of musical instruments — a double bass, drums and horns — from a music room, before the flames claimed the rest of the school’s contents, including clothes and props for an upcoming dance and drama performance.
The school, a timber building over one hundred years old, and which was previously a primary school, stands in an isolated location in Stenkullen. Several hundred children aged four and upwards will be affected by the fire. Students will be informed about the fire through the school’s website and by letter.
Meanwhile, work is already underway to find alternative premises for the students. “People are shocked. It is really very distressing. I have rung around to the teachers and all of them are disconsolate,” said Rosén.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
UK: BBC Director General Mark Thompson Thrown by PD James’s Detective Work
Today programme guest editor — and former BBC governor — gives corporation’s top manager a thorough grilling
He has faced down his organisation’s fiercest interrogators, including John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman, but BBC director general Mark Thompson finally met his match today when he was grilled by the 89-year-old crime writer PD James. Baroness James, a former governor of the BBC, had Thompson firmly on the back foot when she interviewed him as one of the guest editors of BBC Radio 4’s Today.
She was scathing about the large salaries being paid to BBC executives, programmes such as Dog Borstal and Britain’s Most Embarrassing Pets, and the controversial decision to drop Arlene Phillips as a judge from Strictly Come Dancing, which she said could “only be a kind of ageism”.
The BBC, said James, was like a “large and unwieldy ship … with a crew that was somewhat discontented and a little mutinous, the ship sinking close to the Plimsoll line and the customers feeling they have paid too much for their journey and not quite sure where they are going or who is the captain”.
The director general defended the six-figure pay packets of some of the corporation’s top management, after figures released last month showed that 37 BBC executives — not including on-air talent — earned more than the Prime Minister’s salary of £198,000, with more than 300 paid over £100,000. James said the “extraordinarily large salaries” were “very difficult to justify”. Thompson said most of the BBC’s highest earners could make more in the commercial sector. “I think most people would accept that if we want to have the best people working for the BBC, delivering the best programmes and best services… the BBC has to bear to some extent in mind the external market,” he said.
“The controller of BBC1 is going to be spending about £1bn a year on television programmes for that channel. We really want to make sure we have got the best person doing that job. The current controller of BBC1 was working for a commercial broadcaster and we got her to come back. She will — like most of the people on that list — get less from the BBC than they were earning or could earn otherwise. They have to take a pay cut. We are still absolutely losing key staff to commercial broadcasters who are still paying top dollar.”
James said some BBC programmes were indistinguishable from those being provided by its commercial rivals. Asked by Thompson to provide examples — “You need to give me a couple of shockers I can respond to” — she cited Britain’s Most Embarrassing Pets, Britain’s Tallest Man, Britain’s Worst Teeth, Dog Borstal, and Help Me Anthea I’m Infested, presented by Anthea Turner.
“I missed Dog Borstal, I don’t know whether you managed to catch it,” joked Thompson. “It sounds potentially rather interesting.” Thompson denied the decision to drop 66-year-old Phillips from Strictly Come Dancing had been motivated by her age. But he accepted that the BBC had to do more to combat ageism in its choice of presenters and more accurately reflect the age make-up of the population. “I don’t believe the decision taken around Arlene Phillips was ageism. But in so far as from time to time people make decisions on the basis of age, they really shouldn’t.”
When he pointed out that Phillips would return in a new dance programme on the BBC in the new year, James told him: “That was probably a response to the outrage when she went [from Strictly Come Dancing].” James also took the director general to task on BBC bureaucracy. “You have a director of marketing, communications and audiences who gets over £300,000, then there is a director of communications. Well, I thought that’s what the previous director was doing, and he gets £225,000. One wonders what actually is going on here?”
Thompson admitted bureaucracy was a “real issue” at the BBC, saying: “It is a many headed hydra. You cut off one head and two more appear. So let’s be honest about the fact it’s a real issue. One of the things we are looking at is whether we can simply make a fully accountable commitment to how much of the licence fee we actually spend on content.”
Thompson said the BBC had tried over the past five years to get its spending on overheads down. But he insisted that the 17-fold ratio between his own £834,000 package and average BBC pay was far smaller than in most FTSE-listed private companies, where top bosses could earn 100 or more times as much as average staff members. “It really is a privilege (to work at the BBC) and everyone here in the senior echelons should accept that there will be a very big discount, they will get paid much less than they could earn outside the BBC,” he said.
James, one of six guest editors in what has become an end of year tradition for Today, was made a life peer in 1991 and sits on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords. She has written more than 20 books, many of which feature her most famous creation, detective Adam Dalgliesh, and was a governor of the BBC between 1988 and 1993.
Today presenter Evan Davis was clearly impressed. “She shouldn’t be guest editing, she should be permanently presenting the programme,” he said. “Very interesting indeed.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Boy, 11, Arrested Fifty Times Has 17 Convictions in Just Two Years
A boy of 11 who has already been arrested more than 50 times has become one of his town’s ten most prolific burglars.
The one-boy crimewave was given an electronic tag and confined to his children’s home in a bid to control him — but when he broke his curfew nine days running, magistrates simply gave up and removed the tag.
Staff at the children’s home have repeatedly proved unable to stop him coming and going as he pleases.
[…]
Officers were amazed when magistrates’ response to his repeated breaking of a curfew was to remove the electronic tag being used to monitor him.
A police source said: ‘They thought there was no point having it. This is worse than a joke. Courts are not backing us up.
‘It can’t be right for his own welfare to be continually released and continually allowed to offend. It’s ridiculous. He’s currently on bail for four burglaries and two robberies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: England, Whose England?
I am belatedly posting a link to the Today programme discussion, broadcast on new year’s eve, on whether patriotism can and should be taught in schools. This was part of the guest editorship of PD James: the discussion involved myself and David Starkey, chaired by Evan Davis.
PD James began the discussion by expressing her High Tory scepticism about the possibility of a shared patriotism in a multi-ethnic society. For me, this risks essentialising ethnic difference, and underestimating the extent to which our history has been one of successful integration over time. Whether, according to taste or ideology, your favourite symbols of the public institutions which do most to bind us together would be the Monarchy, Parliamentary democracy, the NHS, the Army or the BBC, there is little evidence that levels of allegiance differ greatly by ethnic origin.
David Starkey certainly wanted to polarise the discussion, both because he felt strongly about it though partly too for reasons of public entertainment. I think I was a bit discombobulated by that, since his device was to project on to me a caricature — that the teaching history should be primarily the site of a propagandist and instrumental account of multiculturalism — that I don’t hold.
I was probably too vague in trying to dig myself out from underneath it: this Comment is Free piece and discussion on whether British identity and citizenship may be a bit clearer about some of the arguments I was trying to make about teaching citizenship and identity. (I personally prefer to describe this as a multi-ethnic society, which is an indisputable social fact, rather than a ‘multicultural’ one, which is a contested and polarised political argument, of which there has long been a plausible progressive critique).
I would be very happy with the idea that we should teach British history properly, and for the historians tell us — and argue about — what that should mean.
There has been a broad consensus that the loss of an overall narrative sweep is a bad thing. (That is the view of many on the left as well as the right. One does not need to have an instrumental motivation to also feel confident that a proper historical interrogation of our past would sometimes stand up many of our narratives and myths we live by better than theirs!)
That was argued rather well for the Fabians by Gordon Marsden back in 2006, discussing how the excessive Hitlerisation of the school history curriculum had in part been driven by a fear that teaching the history of Empire could be too divisive. Surely that is an indispensable foundation for understanding the making of modern Britain.
The discussion ends with Starkey disagreeing with my claim that British identity has always been a both/and thing. For Starkey, if Britishness can not win an emotional identity contest with Scottishness, then it amounts to little or nothing. I just don’t see why what has always been a plural and civic identity for a multinational state needs to make that demand.
But, consistent with his on argument, I was struck by how much Starkey has emotionally invested in a rediscovery of Englishness, and how little in a British identity which he is certain will wither away.
Perhaps that is only natural for a great public historian of the Tudor Age, as was captured in Starkey’s audio tour of the National Portrait Gallery for Today, broadcast earlier in the programme.
But I think we are going to see two opposing and competing, yet potentially complementary, reasons for a greater focus on Englishness.
Some, like Starkey, are for a post-British England, seeking in it an escape to an authentic past from what they think has become a banal, bastardised and contentless British identity.
Yet, as I was arguing here last St George’s Day, I am with those who think it an important pro-Union project to make sure the English feel confident that the can come to the party as one of the varieties of Britishness. (Though I do find the argument that Englishness is suppressed odd: what’s stopping us?)
Once that argument begins in earnest, we will soon find ourselves arguing about different English traditions and identities too. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I may be Starkey’s English icons of choice. The England of the Levellers, Orwell and the Fabians will be among many others who will want to have our say too.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Freedom of Thought is All We Foment
Even as he prepares to investigate the time the alleged Detroit bomber spent at UCL, Malcolm Grant argues that intellectual freedom on campus cannot be compromised
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was arrested on Christmas Day for the attempted bombing of an aircraft on a flight to Detroit from Amsterdam. Had he succeeded in his mission, it would have been an act of terrorism causing mass murder on an appalling scale.
What induced this behaviour remains a mystery. He has not emerged from a background of deprivation and poverty. He came from one of Nigeria’s wealthiest families. He was privately educated, and to a high level. He gained admission to University College London, where he studied mechanical engineering with business finance between 2005 and 2008, and was president of the UCL student Islamic Society in 2006-07.
The events of Christmas Day came as a complete shock to the UCL community. Those who taught him have described him as a well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able young man. He was provided with the usual high standard of pastoral care, but his tutors observed no aberrant behavioural issues. The same picture is painted by his fellow students — here was an ordinary student.
Elements of the British press have taken a different line. Mr Abdulmutallab studied at UCL, therefore he must have been “radicalised” at UCL; after all, according to The Daily Telegraph, “[e]ven though Abdulmutallab is not even a British citizen, he was still allowed to be elected president of the Islamic Society at [UCL]”. And more: “It is easy to imagine that the authorities at UCL took quiet pride in the fact that they had a radical Nigerian Muslim running their Islamic Society. You can’t get more politically correct than that. They would therefore have had little interest in monitoring whether he was using a British university campus as a recruiting ground for al-Qaida terrorists such as himself.”
This is quite spectacular insinuation. And without so much as a shred of evidence in substantiation. The Telegraph blog that follows the publication of this piece displays quite disturbing Islamophobia, anti-immigration rants and even postings calling for the bombing of UCL itself.
Other UK newspaper comment accuses us at UCL of being “complicit” in the radicalisation of Muslim students; and, again, of “failing grotesquely” to prevent extremists from giving lectures on campus. Mr Abdulmutallab’s presidency of the UCL student Islamic Society is further condemned for having provoked debate about the war against terror. It is a delicious irony that a theme that has sold so many national newspapers should now be declared by them to be unacceptable for student debate. The US media, on the other hand, have in general been studiously careful in reviewing facts and in ensuring that comment is underpinned by evidence.
Their example needs to be more widely observed.
What is needed is a sober and thorough assessment. We are currently providing all assistance to the authorities, and I am setting up a full independent review of Mr Abdulmutallab’s time at UCL. If any evidence emerges of a wider malign impact on him or by him, we shall certainly take appropriate action.
Where we will not yield, however, is in our commitment to the fundamental values of a university: to the equality of opportunity that was enshrined in UCL’s foundation in 1826 as the first university in England to admit students without reference to class, race or religion. We have always been a secular institution, and we will continue to admit students on academic merit alone. Nor will we accept restrictions on freedom of speech within the law. There is no question but that we will continue to allow our students to form clubs and societies for all legitimate pursuits, and encourage the vigorous debate, disputation and criticism that is central to the very concept of a university.
We will also continue to guarantee freedom of speech on campus for visiting speakers. The example cited by the UK press of our “grotesque failure” to prevent an extremist from speaking on campus is simply untrue. It involves a recent case in which an Islamic preacher, Abu Usama, with views considered abhorrent by many, was invited to speak at the UCL Union. Once the wider issues around his views became known, the invitation was swiftly withdrawn by the students and the event did not take place. I might add, however, that had that not occurred I would have intervened because the invitation had not been issued in accordance with our Code of Practice for freedom of speech on campus, which reflects the obligations imposed upon us by the Education (No 2) Act 1986.
There is a narrow line that we must walk between securing freedom of speech on the one hand and safeguarding against its illegal exercise on the other, such as in the incitement of religious or racial hatred. There is nothing unique in this for universities. We — and our students — are subject to the law in the same way as newspapers.
The events of the past few days put all British universities on notice, not only of the need to maintain vigilance against the misuse of the liberties we protect, but also of the astonishing lack of comprehension on the part of some of our news media — and no doubt far more widely — about the unique character of universities as institutions where intellectual freedom is fundamental to our missions in education and research.
I cannot resist one final irony, not yet picked up by the press, which is that the UCL faculty of engineering sciences in which Mr Abdulmutallab studied is today a major global centre for research and training in counter-terrorism. It runs a masters degree in that subject and has pioneered new technologies for airport safety and tracking. Universities are fully in the real world. Malcolm Grant is president and provost, University College London.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Good Morning to PD James — The New Miss Marple of the Today Programme
Blimey — not bad for a morning’s work! Baroness James of Holland Park (of Southwold in the County of Suffolk) was the guest editor of the Today programme this morning. In interviews with Jack Straw, the Justice secretary, and then Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, the author of An Unsuitable Job for A Woman (1972) ensured that her spell at the helm of the country’s premier current affairs programme will not be forgotten.
Listening again to her grilling of Mr Straw I was reminded not of PD James’s own detective hero, Adam Dalgliesh, but of Miss Marple. Her gentle probing worked a treat on Teflon Jack. We will never know what prompted streetwise Mr Straw to wander into the elephant trap PD James laid so carefully on the issue of police red tape. Perhaps she slipped an enchantment into his coffee. But, honestly, Lady James must be one of the best “guest” Today interviewers for years. Move over John Humphrys — here is a genuine rival. This is personal triumph for her, and a victory for all of those age fascists who want to write off anyone over the age of 60. PD James is 89.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mosque Burned to the Ground by Arsonists
A mosque was burned to the ground by arsonists in an overnight attack.
Ten fire crews were called to Cradley Heath Mosque and Islamic Centre in Plant Street, Cradley Heathe, near Dudley in the West Midlands, on Boxing Day.
But they could not save the mosque building, which was completely destroyed in the attack.. It is the second time the hall has been targeted in recent years.
The Islamic education centre next door was also burned out during the attack at 10.15pm on Boxing Day. Fire crews said the fire was started deliberately and police are now investigating.
Around 400 worshippers regularly use the mosque. Leaders now face a challenge to find a replacement meeting place.
“This is not the first time we have been targeted,” said Vasharat Ali, secretary of the mosque and Islamic centre. “There was a similar attack four or five years ago.
“The building is completely destroyed and all the books that we use with the children in the education centre next door have been damaged by t
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mosque Counts Cost of Devastating Blaze
Worshippers were today counting the cost of an arson attack which destroyed their Black Country mosque.
Leaders now face a challenge to find a replacement meeting place for Cradley Heath Mosque and Islamic Centre, which was set alight late on Boxing Day.
It is the second time the Plant Street building has been targeted and arson is believed to be the cause of Saturdayâ€(tm)s fire.
The Islamic education centre next door to the mosque was also burnt out.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Treating Everyone as a Suspect is a Dangerous Charade
In the week since the Abdulmutallab attack, there have been the usual crass, simplistic demands for ever more intrusive airport security, writes Andrew Gilligan.
I bombed an airliner a few years ago. Just like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, I easily got my bomb through airport security. Unlike underpants man, however, I blew a big enough hole to bring my plane down in flight and kill everyone aboard. This was, admittedly, television, not terrorism — a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary. But the plane was real enough — part of a decommissioned passenger jet on the ground at a Hampshire airfield. And the bomb was real, too. We created it by mixing together two easily obtainable chemicals — I’m not telling you what they are, obviously — which are colourless, odourless, undetectable by scanners and look like water to any security guard. I didn’t need to worry about hiding them in my smalls; I and an accomplice could have brought them on board disguised as two bottles of mineral water.
I used a commercial detonator. But a homemade one, which can also be carried through security in a phone or an iPod, would have created just the same effect: a massive fireball which blew a large hole in the side of the cabin, snapping the aircraft’s ribs. Had the explosion occurred in flight, there would have been rapid depressurisation and loss of control; at altitude, the damage would have been even greater, almost certainly bringing the aircraft down.
In the week since the Abdulmutallab attack, there have been the usual crass, simplistic demands for ever more intrusive airport security — scanners that figuratively strip us naked, and so on. But the purpose of my little demonstration, and the reason for recalling it now, is to show that ever more intrusive blanket checks are the wrong answer.
Unless we are all actually forced to strip naked at the airport — and probably not even then — the fact is that we can never erect a Berlin wall to physically stop everyone taking bad things on planes. All our efforts to do so, all the silly routines to which we dutifully submit, are at best a minor hindrance, a deterrent to nutters; at worst a charade and a distraction from the real target. In my documentary, Philip Baum, the editor of the magazine Aviation Security International, said he could not recall a single time when a bomb had been found using an airport X-ray machine alone. Airport security, he said, was “theatre”, designed to reassure the public rather than to stop bombers. The Abdulmutallab case would seem to support this view.
Many airport X-ray machines cannot, in fact, detect most types of explosives: Baum ran a recent trial for a European government where a woman passed successfully through 24 different airports with the complete components of a bomb concealed on her body. But even if the technology was better (and it is, to be fair, improving), it’s largely beside the point. At the moment, aviation security is about looking for suspicious things. It should be about looking for suspicious people.
That doesn’t mean scrutiny on the basis of race. To single out all young south Asian men — given the vast numbers of them passing through Heathrow — would be almost as blanket and pointless as what we currently do. It means scrutiny on the basis of behaviour. A would-be bomber will show greater stress and nervousness than the average. Those with such signs could be selected for extra checks that would have a better chance of detecting a bomb. Unlike blanket checks, this procedure has found bombers in the past.
By the time a bomber reaches the airport, however, it is probably too late. And even if we can improve airport security’s strike rate for passengers boarding planes, there is currently nothing to prevent a terrorist blowing himself up in the check-in area. Airport security means, above all, starting long before the airport, with intelligence. Abdulmutallab was already known to the authorities, and on a watchlist; it should therefore have been very easy to single him out for extra checks. That was the failure in this case.
That is the answer, not ever more machines, ever more guards, and ever more grannies taking off their shoes. One of the defining characteristics of New Labour — from child-molester checks on school volunteers to ID cards — is its belief that everyone is a suspect. Not only is that illiberal, it just doesn’t work. What it means is that the guilty get missed because the authorities are spending too much time hassling the innocent. That lesson applies just as much to airport security as any other area.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘I’m Alive,’ Says Yemen Radical Anwar Awlaki Despite U.S. Attack
Denies Ties to al Qaeda As U.S. Officials Probe His Ties to Christmas Day Bomb Attempt and Fort Hood Shooting
A week after U.S. and Yemeni officials said the radical Yemen cleric Anwar Awlaki may have been killed in a U.S.-backed Christmas eve air strike, a Yemeni journalist says Awlaki has surfaced to proclaim, “I’m alive.”
“He said the house that was attacked was two or three kilometers away from him and he was not there,” the journalist, Abdulelah Hider Shaea, told ABC News. He said he talked to Awlaki on the phone and recognized his voice from previous interviews.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Increasingly Violent Repression, The Tehran Regime Disintegrates
The government organizes mass demonstrations throughout Iran. Hundreds of arrests, the opposition accused of being manipulated by foreign powers. But even many army and Revolutionary Guards refuse to attack the Green Wave, which now groups together all popular movements. According to the regime, opponents should be executed because “enemies of God.”
Teheran (AsiaNews) — In many cities throughout Iran massive pro-government demonstrations were held today. While Ahmadinejad accused the opposition of being in the pay of Zionism, the United States and Great Britain, there are increasingly evident ruptures and divisions between police forces and amongst the Revolutionary Guard, some of whom are refusing to attack their countrymen. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is increasing its repression. It has arrested hundreds of dissidents and threatened to kill the opposition leader. According to some opposition websites in recent days there have been hundreds of arrests, following the powerful events on the day of Ashura. Among those arrested were relatives of Mir Hossein Mussa and Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate; the journalist Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a critic of the government; another journalist of the agency ILNA; the son of a prominent ayatollah. The security forces are also hampering the movement of Moussavi and Medhi Karroubi, recognized leaders of the opposition.
Born of the June demonstrations against the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Green Wave, is now accused of being a threat to the Islamic Republic. Although it is composed of Iranians of all social strata, the regime has begun to accuse them of being a tool in the pay of foreign powers.
Ahmadinejad and other leaders condemned the protests as “a theater to the order of Zionists and Americans”; foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki, has rebuked the British ambassador and threatened a “slap in the face” if it does not stop meddling in Iran’s internal affairs; Abbas Vaezi-Tabas, close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has denounced the opposition movement as “enemies of God” (mohareb) who deserve execution.
The escalation of accusations goes hand in hand with the leadership’s loss of esteem among the population.
According to AsiaNews sources in Tehran, demonstrations have now become a popular river made of young men and women, old people and mothers with children. And although in the beginning they were only calling for new elections, now they are taking aim Ali Khamenei and want the separation between state and religion.
Support for the opposition is also emerging in the army that refuses to attack the people present at the rallies and even the Revolutionary Guard, which — according to AsiaNews sources — are split into two over support of the Green Wave. The only group that still obeys Khamenei is that of the Basij (volunteers of the Revolution) trained from childhood to blind obedience of the regime.
Many ayatollah, first fearful, now explicitly criticize the choices of Khamenei and his violence against the opposition, branding it as “un-Islamic.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: More Attacks Against Christians in Mosul
A deacon seriously hurt. A Christian killed before his house on Christmas Eve. The impotence of the government and avoidance of responsibilities. Nearly 2 thousand Christians killed in 6 years.
Mosul (AsiaNews) — Attacks continue against Christians to push them to flee from Iraq. Yesterday afternoon Zhaki Homo Bashir, a Christian deacon, was hit by gunfire from a group of unknown criminals. The man had just entered his shop located in the district of al Jadida. Seriously injured, he was transported to hospital. AsiaNews published the news yesterday of the kidnapping a college student from an Islamic group. News has also reached the agency in recent days that another Christian was killed on Christmas Eve; Basil Isho Youhanna was hit by gunfire in front of his house in the neighbourhood of Tahrir, in northern Mosul. In recent weeks there has been an increase of killings of Christians and attacks on churches and convents. All the violence is part of a project of “ethnic cleansing” against the Iraqi Christians, reported to AsiaNews by Msgr. Louis Sako, archbishop of Kirkuk. The national government and the local governorate are powerless before these attacks, while the different ethnic groups Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen — with the possible infiltration of extremist cells — are all blaming each other.
According to local sources, since 2003, the year of the fall of Saddam Hussein, at least 1960 Christians have been killed in Iraq. Their presence has been reduced by at least half because of the exodus to other quieter areas of the country (Kurdistan) or abroad.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Christmas in Mosul, Fear and Small Sparks of Hope
“The government has deployed security forces at the entrance of all churches and closed all access roads. Moreover, every area of the city has been allotted a security chief but the last days’ events and the recent attacks against some places of worship have spread fear among the faithful”: thus spoke to MISNA Monsignor George Casmoussa, Syriac archbishop of Mosul, city which has been subjected to five terror attacks and many threats against local churches in the recent weeks. “They always try to send the same message, they wish to intimidate us, but we try to resist, to maintain clam and hope” said the bishop as he headed to the Parish of the Annunciation in Ein Bishara, to celebrate the Advent mass. “In this climate of fear and hatred the accounts of our Muslim brothers, who are near and suffer with us over the inconsiderate gestures of fundamentalists and political extremists, comfort us” adds the prelate, who mentioned the establishment of a common fund for Christians and Muslims, for families victimized by terrorism describing this and other gestures as “small sparks of hope and strength for the future”. “May the Christmas we are about to celebrate — said the bishop — be a Christmas of prayer for all Iraqis, Christians and Muslims, such that the country find stability and the much awaited peace”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Christian Student Kidnapped by Islamic Group in Mosul
The girl was abducted from the faculty of education. In the past, attacks have occurred against Christian university students because they wear make up or they refused to wear the veil. Attacks and kidnappings are a “warning” to force the mass exodus of Christians. Some people speak of “ethnic cleansing” on a religious basis.
Mosul (AsiaNews) — A Christian girl was kidnapped by an Islamic group while at university. The girl, Sarah Edmond Youhanna, attended the first year of the faculty of education at the University of Mosul. The kidnapping occurred on 28 December. The kidnappers had telephoned the family of the girl and said they were members of an Islamic group. The police have opened an investigation and arrested some students. The event has spread an atmosphere of panic among the many Christian girls who attend the university. In the past, Islamist groups have attacked Christian college girls throwing acid on them because they were wearing makeup or not wearing the veil. Over the past two months in Mosul four churches and a convent of Dominican nuns have been targeted in attacks, several Christian and Muslim homes have been destroyed. Five Christians have been murdered, others are victims of kidnappings. According to the Christian authorities such attacks are targeted and are part of a project of “ethnic cleansing” against the Christian community throughout Iraq.
AsiaNews sources in a city confirm that all these attacks and kidnappings are a “warning” to force the mass exodus of Christians. “The families who have fled to the north, Kurdistan — has confirmed the source — have no work, nor life perspectives. The Christian community is destined to die. “
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Trying to Break Russia’s Vodka Dependence
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is hoping for some New Year’s resolution among his countrymen, as he takes on one of Russia’s most deeply-entrenched and prickliest problems — alcoholism.
From 1 January, restrictions on the price of vodka in Russia come into force.
The cheapest bottle of vodka on sale will be 89 roubles (around £1.80; $3) for a half-litre bottle. While that still might sound cheap, the new law is all part of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s plan to tackle alcoholism in Russia.
Russians drink seriously. As a country they get through on average about 18 litres (32 pints) of pure alcohol a year.
Last year, when Mr Medvedev kick-started his campaign, he called Russia’s alcohol problem a “national disgrace” and said he was determined to cut that figure by a quarter by 2012.
But combating the consumption of what most Russians consider to be their national drink is a brave political move considering the lack of success his predecessors have had.
The last time anyone tried it was 24 years ago, when Russia was part of the Soviet Union.
Perfume not sold
Then, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev drastically cut vodka production and did not allow it to be sold before 2pm.
Significantly, perfume was also not to be sold before midday as people were starting to drink that.
Officially, lives were saved and alcoholism dropped, but Soviet state revenues took a massive hit and so did Mr Gorbachev’s popularity. President Medvedev cannot allow either of those things to happen to him.
What Mr Medvedev does know, though, is that if he can reduce alcoholism in Russia, he is likely to improve health and life-expectancy, and therefore raise Russia’s GDP.
At the moment, bootleg vodka is available at around 40 roubles a half litre. So even though $3 for bottle of vodka may seem cheap to most people, it is double the price of the bootleg version.
Importantly for the government, the minimum-price law brings in a way of telling what is illegal and what is not, and attempts to claw back some tax revenue.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea Calls for End to Hostility With US
North Korea has issued a New Year message calling for an end to hostile relations with the US.
A statement carried in major newspapers said Pyongyang also wanted “a lasting peace system on the Korean Peninsula”.
In response, a US State Department official said North Korea should show its good faith by returning to six-party talks on its nuclear programme.
In early December, the North said talks with a special US envoy had narrowed differences between the two sides.
The North Korean regime traditionally marks New Year’s Day with a joint editorial in the country’s three major newspapers.
Analysts say the statement is examined carefully for clues to Pyongyang’s policies for the coming year.
“The fundamental task for ensuring peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the rest of Asia is to put an end to the hostile relationship between the DPRK (North Korea) and the USA,” state news agency KCNA quoted the editorial as saying.
“It is the consistent stand of the DPRK to establish a lasting peace system on the Korean Peninsula and make it nuclear-free through dialogue and negotiations,” it said.
In Washington, a State Department official urged North Korea to return to the six-party talks, AFP news agency reported.
“Actions speak louder than words,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“A good step forward would be to return to six-party talks.”
Pyongyang pulled out of the talks last April following widespread condemnation of a long-range missile launch.
International pressure grew following a nuclear test in May — which drew UN sanctions and further missile tests.
But in December, North Korea said it would work with the US to “narrow remaining differences” following a visit to Pyongyang by US President Barack Obama’s special envoy Stephen Bosworth.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Mauritania: Al-Qaeda Sites Publish Photos of Kidnapped Italians
Dubai, 31 Dec. (AKI) — Al-Qaeda’s North African branch on Thursday released a statement on jihadist websites claiming responsibility for the two Italians kidnapped in Mauritania in mid-December. The Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb also published photos of the abducted couple, Sergio Cicala and his wife Philomene Kabouree.
The latest message followed a message broadcast by Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Arabiya three days ago, purportedly contained the voice of Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb’s spokesman Salah Abu Mohamed.
Al-Arabiya also published photos of Cicala and his wife sitting on the ground flanked by five masked, armed men.
Sixty-five-year-old Cicala was unshaven, wearing a tracksuit and holding his Italian passport and Kabouree’s face was obscured.
Kabouree is from Burkina Faso. She has dual Italian and Burkina Faso citizenship.
Al-Qaeda said the abductions were retaliation for the Italian government’s action against Islam and Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Cicala and Kabouree had been travelling to visit members of Kabouree’s family when they were abducted by a group of armed men. Their bullet-ridden vehicle was discovered 1,000 km south of the country’s capital, Noakchott on the road to Kobeny.
There has been no news on the fate of the two tourists for the past two weeks.
Italian foreign affairs minister Franco Frattini said the government was doing everything possible to obtain the release of the hostages.
Last week Frattini spoke by telephone to his Mauritanian colleague, Naha Mint Mouknass. The Italian government was also working with Spain and France to help secure the couple’s release.
Mauritania has increased security for tourists in the country following the abductions of the Italians.
The couple lives in the Sicilian city of Carini, near Palermo.
In a statement posted on its website on 19 December, the Italian foreign ministry asked for media discretion to guarantee the safety of the hostages and to promote a positive solution to the case.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Underwear Bomber’s’ Alarming Last Phone Call
The accused “underwear bomber” made a dramatic final call to his father that he found so alarming, the father approached Nigerian officials who took him directly to the CIA’s station chief in the Nigerian capital, sources told ABC News.
Current and former officials of the Nigerian government, including a source close to the suspect’s family, say Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, called his father from Yemen with the warning that it would be his last contact.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US Scanners Went Unused at Nigeria Airport
LAGOS, Nigeria — The U.S. gave Nigeria four full-body scanners for its international airports in 2008 to detect explosives and drugs, but none were used on the man suspected trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight, Nigerian officials say.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tracked by cameras through the security check, only went through a metal detector and had his bag X-rayed when he arrived at Nigeria’s busiest airport to start his journey, the officials say.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Texas Teachers Warned Against Being ‘Heterosexist’
‘We must help people to become committed to social change’
Candidates for certification to teach in public schools in Texas are being told that they will be held accountable for any “heterosexist” leanings and must become agents working to change society, according to one candidate who was alarmed by the demands.
The applicant, who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions, told WND part of the teachings on multiculturalism required him to read several online postings about the issue inside the education industry.
One warns that “teachers and administrators must be held accountable for practices deemed to be racist, sexist, heterosexist, classist, or in any other way discriminatory.” And a second warned that educators must not define education as the basic skills.
“How do we create a better world? How do we do more than simply survive? As educators, we must help people to become committed to social change,“ the article demanded.
[…]
The article demands, “Schools must be active participants in ending oppression of all types, first by ending oppression within their own walls, then by producing socially and critically active and aware students.”
“The underlying goal of multicultural education is to affect social change. The pathway toward this goal incorporates three strands of transformation: 1. The transformation of self; 2. The transformation of schools and schooling; and 3. The transformation of society,” the teaching material said.
The traditional teaching approaches, it continued, “must be deconstructed to examine how they are contributing to and supporting institutional systems of oppression.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Andrew Bostom: New Year’s Day Resolve — Uphold Freedom, Versus Beggar’s Democracy
Wittfogel: Totalitarianism is “…not checked by Beggar’s Democracy.”
Karl Wittfogel (1896-1988) was an historian and sinologist. Early in his career, Wittfogel was a champion of Marxism—as an academic, playwright, and activist. By 1931, Wittfogel focused his efforts on fighting the Nazis. Attempting to escape Germany, he was arrested and suffered through internment in prisons, and peat bog concentration camps. An international outcry led to his freedom in 1934, whereupon he fled Germany to England, and then to the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1939. Wittfogel renounced his belief in the Soviet Union with the signing of the Hitler-Stalin alliance, and he began to deplore the despotic, totalitarian nature of Russian and Chinese Communism, from Lenin to Mao.
Wittfogel taught at both Columbia University, and the University of Washington—the latter through 1966. His seminal 1957 analysis of pre-modern Eastern totalitarianism, “Oriental Despotism—A Comparative Study of Total Power [1],” identified the management of water/irrigation systems as the most important method by which Asiatic despots achieved total power over their subjects. He argued that the “hydraulic societies” these despotic rulers developed inspired others, like the Communists, to the same ends—centralized, totalitarian power. The preface to his February 1964 edition of Oriental Despotism (written September, 1962), includes this dedication:
My wife and closest collaborator, [the anthropologist] Esther S. Goldfrank, shared every step in the struggle for the clarification of basic scientific truths and human values. It was my belief in these values that put me behind the barbed wire of Hitler’s concentration camps. My final thoughts go to those who, like myself, were passing through that inferno of total terror. Among them, some hoped for a great turning of the tables which would make them guards and masters where formerly they had been inmates and victims. The objected not to the totalitarian means, but to the ends for which they were being used. Others responded differently. They asked me, if ever opportunity offered, to explain to all who would listen the inhumanity of totalitarian rule in any form. Over the years and more than I can express, these men have inspired my search for a deeper understanding of the nature of total power.
Wittfogel surpassed these humble expectations by leaps and bounds. Fifty years later, Oriental Despotism remains a timeless combination of erudition, originality, and eloquence unrestrained by the stultifying cultural relativism which pervades contemporary “academics.”
His insights on Islam are particularly illuminating, and ever relevant to present era tribulations deriving from the unreformed (and even unexamined) mandates of Islamic supremacism. Underpinning Islamic “absolutism,” Wittfogel notes, is the same Koranic injunction (Koran 4:59)—cited by Islamic legists, from Mawardi (d. 1058) to Mawdudi (d. 1979)—as legitimizing the totalitarian Caliphate system:
The Koran exhorts believers to obey not only Allah and his prophet, but also ‘those in authority amongst you.’ In the absolutist states established by Mohammed’s followers, this passage was invoked to emphasize the importance of obedience in maintaining governmental authority.
Wittfogel’s candor extends to these unapologetic observations contrasting Ottoman and Medieval Western European regulation of guilds, and the nature of Islamic religious “tolerance”—more aptly, non-Muslim dhimmitude under Islamic Law…
| — Hat tip: Andy Bostom | [Return to headlines] |
Focus on Internet Imams as Al Qaeda Recruiters
WASHINGTON — The apparent ties between the Nigerian man charged with plotting to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day and a radical American-born Yemeni imam have cast a spotlight on a world of charismatic clerics who wield their Internet celebrity to indoctrinate young Muslims with extremist ideology and recruit them for Al Qaeda, American officials and counterterrorism specialists said.
American military and law enforcement authorities said Thursday that the man accused in the bombing attempt, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, most likely had contacts with the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, whom investigators have also named as having exchanged e-mail messages with Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people in a shooting rampage in November at Fort Hood, Tex.
Speaking in eloquent, often colloquial, English, Mr. Awlaki and other Internet imams from the Middle East to Britain offer a televangelist’s persuasive message of faith, purpose and a way forward, for both the young and as yet uncommitted, as well as for the most devout worshipers ready to take the next step, to jihad, officials say.
“People across the spectrum of radicalism can gravitate to them, if they’re just dipping their toe in or they’re hard core,” said Jarret Brachman, author of “Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice” (Routledge, 2008) and a consultant to the United States government about terrorism. “The most important thing they do is take very complex ideological thoughts and make them simple, with clear guidelines on how to follow Islamic law.”
[…]
Awlaki is, among other things, a talent spotter,” an American counterterrorism official said. “That’s part of his value to Al Qaeda. If people are drawn to him, he can pass them along to trainers and operational planners. Abdulmutallab was cannon fodder, a piece snapped into an operation.”
Sheikh Khalid bin Abdul Rahman al-Husainan of Kuwait, who is fast attracting a large following, mixes contemporary politics with talk of martyrdom.
“Obama, in the same way that you raised the slogan, ‘Yes We Can,’ I too have a slogan,” Mr. Husainan wrote in August 2009. “My slogan in this life — and memorize this slogan — is ‘Happiness is the day of my martyrdom.’ “
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Terror and the West: A Decade of Misjudgment
[Note from JP: Only the Guardian could write an editorial on the previous decade and omit the words ‘Islam’ or ‘Islamic,’ thus rendering their analysis worse than worthless — in fact, it is so wide off the mark, as to lead one to suspect that this newspaper is staffed by the mendacious and the stupid.]
The revelation in this newspaper that the kidnap of five British men in Iraq in 2007 was masterminded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard caps an unhappy week, the last of a parlous decade. The kidnap had two motivations — to bargain for the release of the Shia cleric Qais al-Khazali, and to prevent Peter Moore, the only British hostage to have survived, from installing a computer system that would have prevented millions of dollars of international aid from falling into the hands of Shia militia groups in Iraq. This story should serve as the epitaph for the invasion. Far from stabilising, or spreading democracy, the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan and Iraq proved combustible. But the follies of the old decade are set to last into the new one.
Ten years ago, when Tony Blair hosted a bizarre entertainment to open the Millennium Dome, things looked different. Financiers thought they had created an economy that defied the laws of gravity and basic accountancy. Generals thought invasions were quick and painless. Scientists were optimistic that global warming could be contained. Mr Blair emerged from the Dome brimming with optimism. So much so that he said he wanted to bottle it. The events that followed punished judgments like these.
The trigger to the decade’s woes did not come out of the sky over Manhattan and Washington in 2001. There were many precursors, but they were ignored or misinterpreted. Like the bombings in Madrid and London, these attacks brought the best out of ordinary people — witness the heroism of the New York firefighters — and the worst out of their governments. Al-Qaida’s attacks may have looked and felt like a declaration of war (the Guardian said so in its headline) but that, in retrospect, was the least appropriate reaction.
The inability to see how non-state actors functioned across state borders, and the continuing belief that a malign sponsoring state must be pulling the strings in the background, led to the deaths of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians. Terrorists were conflated with insurgents. Anti-terrorist operations became invasions and wars. Consequently, neither anti-terrorism nor counter-insurgency succeeded. Osama bin Laden was allowed to slip the net around his bunkers in Tora Bora, but his leaving card was a conflict that lasts to this day.
The chaos continued this week. The suicide bomber who struck a remote base used by the CIA in southeastern Afghanistan appears to have used a stolen uniform from the Afghan national army. The alternative is even worse: that the army’s ranks are infiltrated by the Taliban. And the generals advising President Barack Obama are still slow to respond in the right way. Like a judo throw, the Taliban (still mostly lightly armed) are using the kinetic force of the lumbering military machine to tip it over. Meanwhile, almost 10 years after 2001, midair horrors continue. Al-Qaida affiliates in Yemen have ended the decade as al-Qaida central started it, by trying to crash airliners landing in the US. But if Yemen becomes the next target of the US drones, where next?
If there is one lesson to be drawn from all this, it is that a military superpower no longer has effective supremacy. The next decade must see the re-establishment of a co-operative international system that was badly damaged by the unilateral endeavours of Britain, America and their few committed allies. Western military powers, especially weakening ones, should bend all their efforts into transforming and supporting international institutions such as the United Nations and the international criminal court. The idea that governments in London and Washington should handpick a general secretary of the UN for his weakness, as they did the current one, is absurd; that was perhaps the greatest error of a decade strewn with mishap and misjudgment.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
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