Fakers and Liars, Again

Until I caught up with the on-going chapters of the infamous Scott Beauchamp, faux journalist, I hadn’t realized there was so much deception in the U.S. surrounding military service.It seems to be a growth industry, for a variety of reasons.

One factor is getting those nice Veterans’ Administration benefits. Another is all the glory you get from the anti-war groupies. More than fifteen minutes worth of fame, and all those sweet young liberal girls so proud of you for admitting your shame… why it's the shades of John Kerry, post-Vietnam.

The fakers became so numerous that the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 was signed into law by President Bush after its trip through the House and Senate. Before the law was enacted, there was nothing on the books that criminalized this behavior unless the person was caught in the act of, say, wearing medals or trying to sign up for benefits.

One of our commenters, IRA Darth Aggie, left me a link to the latest story of one of these fake soldiers that appeared in a Seattle paper. For those of you who aren’t aware of Seattle, it’s the latte/liberal capital of Washington state, in our northwest. There would certainly be a fair number of the fake valor guys hanging out in the vicinity, waiting for the next anti-war demonstration and their chance to tell tall tales of the horrible things they did in Iraq to civilians.

This particular story is drearily like the others, though at least this guy got caught. The anti-war folks will need to find another stooge because this one will be in jail:
- - - - - - - - -

Jesse MacBeth never was an Army Ranger, much less a corporal, never received a Purple Heart for wounds inflicted by a foreign foe, and neither saw nor participated in war crimes with fellow U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, claims for which he became a poster boy for the anti-war movement.

So, there was likely no way the 23-year-old Tacoma man suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from the horrors of war and other injuries.

MacBeth was sentenced to five months in jail and three years’ probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs claim and an Army discharge record.

At a sentencing hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik on Friday, MacBeth’s federal public defender, Jay Stansell, said that if MacBeth didn’t have PTSD from a war, he had mental health problems and grew up in a harsh environment, homeless on the streets, surviving by seizing whatever angle or positive feedback he could get.

This psychobabble from the public defender means MacBeth ia not supposed to be held responsible for his actions. His momma made him do it. It’s not his fault at all, though he sure does feel bad for being caught:

Under a plea agreement in May, MacBeth admitted guilt to falsifying a claim for veterans compensation benefits and altering his military discharge record, which was issued after he washed out of Army boot camp after 44 days in 2003.

That six weeks of boot camp allowed him to talk the talk — he had the military lingo down well enough to fool the anti-war Bush haters.

So now he’s contrite:

MacBeth said he felt bad for what he did.

“I’m sorry not only for lying about everything and discrediting anti-war groups, but also for defaming the real heroes, the soldiers out there sacrificing for their country,” MacBeth said. “I was trying to pull a fast one, to make money to get off the streets.”

MacBeth fooled peace groups and alternative media to become something of an anti-war star over the past four years.

He claimed he witnessed and participated in war crimes in Iraq with other Rangers, slaughtering hundreds of unarmed men, women and children.

In a widely distributed Internet video translated into Arabic, Macbeth said. “We would burn their bodies … hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque.”

[Judge] Lasnik noted that the case operated in two arenas, one in the courtroom where he was sentenced specifically for the crime of falsifying records, and another “in the blogosphere and elsewhere where he became a symbol.”

“Too many people with a political agenda grabbed ahold of Mr. MacBeth’s story and ran with it because they wanted to believe it. Any sober look should have lead people to believe it was all a made-up rant,” Lasnik said.

“They tried to make him a poster boy for their point of view, and I think that is outrageous,” Lasnik said.

[…]

Operation Stolen Valor… has resulted in a dozen cases under investigation in the Pacific Northwest, with fraud totals of more than $1.4 million. Eight cases have been filed and are in various stages of prosecution.

The act allows authorities to pursue phonies they previously could not touch. In the past, authorities rarely could act unless they caught someone wearing an award.

“As a Vietnam veteran and the father of a decorated Army officer currently serving, I feel very keenly the damage done by Jesse Macbeth and these other fakes,” U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said.

Hmm… I wonder if this law — if it had been in effect at the time — could have covered any of the embroidered stories John Kerry told about his valiant Vietnam experiences. How much different his life would have been if Operation Stolen Valor had been in effect for Vietnam…

Dr. Omeish Speaks Out

If you live in the Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy (a.k.a. Northern Virginia) and you have some free time tomorrow morning, you might want to check out Dr. Esam Omeish’s press conference in Alexandria at 11 a.m.

Dr. Omeish, as mentioned in my earlier posts, is the president of the Muslim American Society. He was very briefly appointed to the Virginia Commission on Immigration, until allegations of his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood surfaced, along with a videotape of his rantings against Israel.

If you attend the press conference and take photos or have text to share, feel free to send them along to us and we’ll use them in a report.

It might be interesting; it might be boring — who knows?

The full text of the MAS press release, with the details on the press conference, is below the jump.
- - - - - - - - -
Virginia Muslim Physician Speaks Out On Resignation From Governor’s Immigration Commission

Date Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2007

------------------------------------------------------------
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mahdi Bray, Executive Director
MAS Freedom
Cell: (202) 421-1362
Office: (703) 998-6525
Toll Free: (888) 627-8471

WASHINGTON, DC - Sept. 27, 2007 (MASNET) — Dr. Esam Omeish, Virginia physician and President of the Muslim American Society (MAS), America’s largest grassroots Muslim organization, will hold a press conference Friday, September 28, 2007, at 11:00 AM, at the Homestead Suites, 4850 Leesburg Pike, Alexandria, VA.

Dr. Omeish will address his resignation from the Governor of Virginia’s Immigration Commission.

The Virginia Commission on Immigration was set up to study the impact of illegal immigration on the State of Virginia.

WHO:		Dr. Esam Omeish, President
		Muslim American Society
WHAT:		Press Conference
WHEN:		Friday, September 28, 2007 at 11:00 AM
WHERE:		Homestead Suites
		4850 Leesburg Pike
		Alexandria, VA

###
-------------------------------------------------------------

The Muslim American Society (MAS) is the largest Muslim, grassroots, charitable, religious, social, cultural, civic and educational organization in America - with 55 chapters in 35 states. Learn more at http://www.masnet.org.

-------------------------------------------------------------

The Muslim American Society (MAS)
3606 Forest Drive
Alexandria, VA 22302
Tel: 1-(888)-627-8471
Fax: (703) 998-6526
URL: http://www.masnet.org

The Rise and Fall of Dr. Esam Omeish

Late yesterday afternoon Charles Johnson broke the story of the appointment of Dr. Esam Omeish, president of the Muslim American Society, to the Virginia Commission on Immigration. Early this morning we posted our own account of the event. Then, less than twenty-four hours after the story surfaced, Dr. Omeish resigned from the commission.

I’d like to think that this was the power of the blogosphere at work. It’s nice to suppose that the blogswarm generated by this issue put enough heat under Governor Kaine’s feet to cause him to jettison the jihad doctor. And I’d love to think that Gates of Vienna played its own tiny part in this process.

But I don’t think the blogs are that significant yet. The most we probably did was to hasten something that would have happened eventually anyway. Regardless, it’s good that he’s gone. It’s one small rollback of the shari’a juggernaut — one down, 100,000 more to go.

According to The Washington Post:

An Islamic activist appointed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to the Virginia Immigration Commission was forced to resign Thursday after videos surfaced of him making controversial statements about Israel.

Kaine (D) appointed Esman [sic] Omeish, president of the Muslim American Society, last month to a 20-member panel that is spending the next six months examining whether Virginia needs to do more to curtail illegal immigration.

But Kaine requested Omeish’s resignation Thursday after reviewing statements Omeish made last summer about Israel’s war with Lebanon.

The governor’s office did the usual: they tried to paint the resignation as a result of the “controversy”, rather than what Dr. Omeish actually said in his recorded speeches:

“Omeish indicated he did not want this controversy to distract from the important work of the commission,” said Kaine, who added he will replace him with another Muslim representative.

As if the man didn’t really say those things; as if everyone simply wanted to prevent all this unwarranted ruckus from interfering with the commission’s work; as if the jackals of the Fourth Estate were smearing a good man…

But a statement released by Governor Kaine left no doubt as to what was really going on:
- - - - - - - - -

I have accepted Dr. Esam Omeish’s resignation as one of the 10 gubernatorial appointees to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration. Dr. Omeish is a respected physician and community leader, yet I have been made aware of certain statements he has made which concern me. Dr. Omeish indicated that he did not want this controversy to distract from the important work of the Commission. I intend to name another representative of the Muslim community to the Commission in the near future.

“Certain statements”, eh? Statements, perhaps, that the governor would rather not bring to the attention of his Jewish constituents?

For example:

“The invasion of Lebanon, the destruction of its infrastructure and the deliberate targeting of civilians during the barbaric and disproportionate Israeli war machine is indeed criminal and must end now,” Omeish states on the video.

Dr. Omeish was apparently an affirmative-action hire:

Administration officials say Kaine appointed Omeish, an Alexandria surgeon, to the immigration panel because the governor was looking for diversity. The legislation establishing the panel also required that a physician sit on it, administration officials said.

And then the governor was shocked — shocked! — to learn of some of the things Dr. Jihad said:

Kaine said he did not know of Omeish’s remarks on the videos until a caller to a Richmond radio station asked him about them Thursday.

So his staff didn’t vet Dr. Omeish’s background properly. Or maybe nobody cared?

Bear this in mind: Governor Kaine said that he “will replace him with another Muslim representative.”

This time they’ll get a pliable and innocuous Muslim figurehead, the kind who shows up at all those ecumenical prayer breakfasts and mouths the standard bromides about peace and love and mutual understanding.

Or instead maybe they’ll find a jihadist who’s more circumspect with his words when he’s being taped.

The Muslim Brotherhood in the Old Dominion

Correction: Little Green Footballs broke the story first, and not Jihad Watch. Sorry, Charles!


UPDATE (by Dymphna): Bacon’s Rebellion is carrying this story also. I guess when the Ummah arrives he’ll have to change his name real quick.


Virginians who live in the rest of the state look askance at Northern Virginia, and with good reason: the sprawling suburbs of D.C. are like a piece of Yankeeland dropped into the bosom of our sovereign Commonwealth. I voluntarily exiled myself from NoVa thirty years ago, and whenever I have cause to return, I stand with my son atop Arlington Ridge, sweep my hand in the direction of Pentagon City and Alexandria, and warn him: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

Unfortunately, we all have to pay attention to Northern Virginia, because that’s where the people are, and that’s where the money is. The state Senate keeps the old ways of the Commonwealth from being swamped completely, but NoVa pays the piper in Richmond, and it still gets to call much of the tune.

And so it is with the Virginia Commission on Immigration. It was just recently created, with members appointed by Governor Tim Kaine, but it is already doing the bidding of the unholy alliance between the open borders business lobby and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jihad Watch broke the story of the appointment of Dr. Esam S. Omeish to the commission, and that was what made the big splash yesterday — the chairman of a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organization took his place on the panel.

The Northern Virginia Daily tells the story:

Valley delegate challenges Kaine appointee to immigration panel

A local delegate has asked Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to re-think his appointment of the head of the Virginia-based Muslim American Society to the Virginia Commission on Immigration.

Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Woodstock, wrote to Kaine earlier today, saying he was concerned about the appointment of Dr. Esam S. Omeish, a Northern Virginia physician and the group’s president, to the panel. The commission was created earlier this year to study the impact of illegal immigration on the commonwealth.

The Muslim American Society has significant ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group founded in Egypt, Gilbert said.

“It is unfortunate that the Governor would choose the leader of an organization such as this to represent many the freedom-loving Muslim citizens of Virginia on this important commission,” Gilbert said.

“While the Muslim American Society claims to be the innocent face of peaceful Islam in America, their history and teachings tell a much different story. Unfortunately, it is a story about which all Americans have become much too familiar — that of the promotion of a global Islamic state. The questionable origin and teachings of this group should give the Governor some serious concerns about his recent appointment. Even though this organization has a savvy public relations machine, the public face that it projects may disguise some very troubling hidden intentions.”

Gilbert asked Kaine to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the important work of the Commission is not tainted by other, more nefarious agendas.”

Here’s a video of Dr. Omeish voicing his opinions about the state of Israel:


But Dr. Omeish, of course, denies that there is any longer such a thing as the Muslim Brotherhood. During the media circus surrounding the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial, he had this to say:
- - - - - - - - -

Esam Omeish, president of the Virginia-based Muslim American Society, or MAS, says the documents introduced in the Holy Land trial are full of “abhorrent statements and are in direct conflict of the very principles of our Islam.”

“The Muslim community in America wishes to contribute positively to the continued success and greatness of our civilization,” Dr. Omeish said. “The ethics of tolerance and inclusion are the very tenets that MAS was based on from its inception.”

His group, formed in 1993, is thought by many to be the Brotherhood’s current incarnation in the U.S., although he and other MAS leaders say their group formed as an alternative to radicalism.

“MAS is not the Muslim Brotherhood,” Dr. Omeish said. The society “grew out of a history of Islamic activism in the U.S. when the Muslim Brotherhood once existed but has a different intellectual paradigm and outlook.”

This reminds me of the old days of the Cold War, when the various lefty organizations denied any involvement with the Communist Party. They were always named something like the Workers’ Solidarity Federation or the International Brotherhood of Labor. “What Communist Party? We don’t see no communists around here.”

But the money, the propaganda, the strategy, and the marching orders always came from Moscow. After the fall of the U.S.S.R., when the Soviet archives were opened, ample documentation emerged showing how Soviet money and influence was laundered through various front organizations which all the while worked assiduously to destroy the institutions and culture of the West from within.

And so it is with the Muslim Brotherhood. Foundations, shell corporations, charities, and dummy organizations all shield the terror financiers and their petrodollars from any direct linkage with seditious activities. Federal and international agencies chart the complex but undeniable chains of influence, yet these make for tedious and technical reading. The cries of “racism” and “Islamophobia” ring much louder, and gain more compelling sound bites, than all the work of the green-eyeshades guys and the Arabic translators ever will.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
The interesting thing is the convergence of interests that created the current crisis in the Virginia Commission on Immigration. This is essentially an intra-Republican squabble — Tim Kaine is a Democrat, but the recent power struggle within the commission pitted one faction of Republicans against another. The “open borders” faction won out over the “traditional Virginia values” faction, and by alliance with the Democrats the enthusiasts for unbridled immigration gained control of the commission.

According to Inside NoVA:

Tuesday’s 9 a.m. meeting got off to a strange start when it took more than 30 minutes for the commission to appoint a chairman and vice chairman.

That’s because Del. Bob Marshall, a staunch conservative who sponsored the bill to create the commission, repeatedly, and at times combatively, insisted that tradition dictated he be chairman.

But a movement against appointing him chairman appeared to be afoot behind the scenes, prompting Marshall, R-Prince William, to ask that the nomination process be delayed until his colleague, Del. Jay O’Brien, R-Fairfax, arrived. O’Brien didn’t show up until after 11 a.m. because he had another meeting.

Citizen member George Foresman, however, wasn’t too keen on waiting.

“With all due respect, all the other members made an effort to be here at 9 in the morning,” said Foresman, a Powhatan resident and former Under Secretary for National Protection and Programs at the Department of Homeland Security.

He then nominated Sen. John Watkins, R-Midlothian, to be chairman, describing the state senator as “a fair and reasonable individual.”

Next, Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Woodstock, nominated Marshall and Marshall started talking about “outside influences.”

“I am the author of this bill,” he said, noting it was “a little bit surprising to me that somebody made a different nomination.”

“The effort will be suspect; the conclusion will be tainted because we decided to go outside the normal process,” he said.

Then Watkins, who runs a nursery and said in his introduction that he employs immigrants, gave his campaign speech, calling for “a balanced, even-handed approach to dealing with this issue.”

In the end, the commission selected Watkins, and the meeting continued with an interesting, if slightly dated, report on the “Acclimation of Virginia’s Foreign Born Population.”

Notice all the “R”s after people’s names in the above quotes. We don’t have to wait for the Democrats to sell us down the river; the Republicans are busy doing it for them.

Owners of certain types of businesses — like Watkins, who runs a nursery — have a vested interest in an increasing supply of cheap Mexican labor. The Islamist organizations have their own agenda, and the Multicultural cover story is handy for both groups — hence the unholy alliance.

Many towns are up in arms against the Governor’s sanctuary-type immigration policies. The wrangling over the chairman of the commission is chronicled by Black Velvet Bruce Li, and there’s more background on the internal political hardball on the Washington Post blog.

The struggle over the chairmanship was fierce, and according to a Washington Post article, Mr. Marshall did not give up easily — his opponents had to wrestle the gavel from him.

The money involved in this issue, whether from business or Wahhabist petrodollars, is overwhelming, and has tipped the scales against ordinary people, guaranteeing that their preferences will have no effect on state immigration policy.

It’s becoming clear that the Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated deeply and at all levels of government within the United States.

Laura Ingraham has posted an audio interview (mp3 format) with Dr. Omeish, in which he admits to wanting Shari’a as the law for the U.S.A., if it can be voted in, and that he will work towards that end.

Note also the relationship between the Muslim American Society and the very radical Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, run by Mahdi Bray.

Keep an eye on the Vigilant Freedom blog later today. Christine has been all over this issue, and we can expect to see more on the topic at CVF as the day wears on.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Yesterday was not a good day for the Counterjihad, what with Italian police promoting cultural understanding by teaching their officers Arabic, Norway sending millions to support radical madrassas in Pakistan, Sweden paying illegal immigrants to go home, and a supporter of violent jihad running for municipal office in Finland.

And now we have the Muslim Brotherhood helping to guide Virginia’s immigration policy.

All this eager embrace of dhimmitude is enough to make a grown man cry.

It’s not just that the fox is guarding the henhouse: the hens voted him into the position. They enthusiastically welcomed him.

And now they line themselves up in neatly ordered rows to make it easier for him to pick off the plumpest and juiciest ones.


Hat tip: TW.

Being on the Left Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

I’m a bit behind on the scandal scene. But finally having been released from that clumsy sling and no longer taking pain medication (much), I’m ready to roll.

For many of you, this is old by now. Ho-hum, move to the next story. But in the midst of my injury, operation, and slow recovery I lost track of Scott Thomas past the initial brouhaha about his fraudulent stories. Today I spent some time looking around for the follow-up and finale to the story of the soldier/journalist.

What a naughty boy he turned out to be. And his former magazine’s publisher seems to have been reduced to catatonia. At least I haven’t been able to find any place where Mr. Foer apologizes for being taken in by this fraud.

Background for those of you who weren’t paying attention/never cared:

The right side of the US blogosphere stormed the accuracy of an anonymous reporter “Scott Thomas” at The New Republic. They looked closely at what he had written and decided this soldier/journalist had fabricated some tales about the atrocities of American soldiers in Iraq — tales which TNR, famous for its fact-checking, proceeded to publish. Why? Because they want this war over and this anonymous soldier gave them fuel for their righteous fire.

Here’s what I wrote at the time:

The dust-up concerns a series of essays The New Republic published by a supposed soldier in Iraq who describes anecdotes about his fellow soldiers that are (a) horrific and disgusting, and (b) inaccurate in their details. Of course, (b) simply means another “fake-but-accurate” strand in the MSM tapestry of careless lies and half-truths woven to serve their purposes.

Since then, Scott Thomas has morphed into Scott Thomas Beauchamp. And surprise! His wife, Elspeth Reeve, worked for The New Republic also…as a fact-checker, no less. What no one can figure out is whether or not she was ever assigned to check her husband’s stories.

Well, both of these “journalists” are gone from TNR. Confederate Yankee calls the wife’s leave-taking “Another Beauchamp-Related Vacancy,” though it’s not the only one he mentions. There is also the assistant to the publisher, who aired TNR‘s family secrets by relating publicly the details of a conversation that transpired between him and his boss regarding the Scottgate mess. In no time the assistant, Mr. McGee, became history too, alongside Beauchamp and Reeve.

Richard Miniter, of Pajamas Media, who has been to Iraq a number of times since 2003, took on the job of ferreting out the nuggets of real information in this sordid mess:
- - - - - - - - -
For one thing, Miniter noted that the whistle-blower, McGee, has been vilified by the left blogosphere for…being gay. This seems to imply that he can’t be trusted, or that he’s a closet conservative. After Mr. Miniter interviewed him, TNR served McGee with a cease-and-desist order. No more talking about the case of Beauchamp.

Here’s another tidbit: It seems Mr. Beauchamp married Elspeth Reeve in a hurry, even though he was at the time engaged to someone else — in fact, he was engaged three times before marrying the fact-checker at TNR. Speculation: was it her job at TNR that made her so alluring? His former fiancée, Priscilla, thinks so:

Priscilla believes that one of the reasons that Beauchamp was interested in Reeve (and ultimately married her) was her position at The New Republic.

Indeed, it appears that Beauchamp’s relationship with Reeve shifted into high gear around the time he was first published in the magazine. “He knew Elspeth from college, but they never were a couple. Then she started emailing him in February or so.” That was a few weeks after his first piece appeared in The New Republic. “I really think she supports him with his articles.”

Did Reeve’s job at The New Republic really make a difference? “Yeah, I think it was a plus point for her that she is a writer/journalist …”

[…]

It appears Beauchamp had little interest in Reeve until she was in a position to help him. “I knew he was engaged twice before he was with me, but not with Elspeth [his college friend and now wife]. … Last summer, we were together in my room and he told me about her and made fun of her.”

Reeve knew that Beauchamp was a cheater. “Of course she knew about me,” Priscilla wrote. “She knew about me since last year and she knew we were engaged.”

Beauchamp has a history of disappointing those around him. Beauchamp’s best friend in the Army (who now no longer speaks to him) was dating a local girl and he encouraged the budding young writer to meet her sister. That is how he met Priscilla.

[…}

Beauchamp’s parents believed that Priscilla was about to join their family. “His family came to Germany for his [Beauchamp’s’] R&R and they thought they would come to see me. He didn’t even tell his family that he wanted to break up with me.” He simply pretended that he still intended to marry Priscilla.

Then, he suddenly switched. “I waited over 8 months, faithfully, and he just came to my hometown for a day. He said he is not ready for marriage yet but he still loves me! …. Well, after Germany, he went to France for a week and then to the States to marry her [Elspeth Reeve]. It was quite a surprise for his family.”

Beauchamp appears to repeating this behavior. Even though he has access to free phones on base to call the United States, he is not offering an explanation to the press-just as he didn’t offer one to Priscilla.

But that wasn’t the end of it. After Miniter’s research into the Scottgate affair, Pajamas Media published an interview by Confederate Yankee with the Investigating Officer in Iraq charged with finding out what had happened. As it turns out, not much — not unless you think that making sh** up is journalism (unfortunately, TNR staff have a history of doing just that).

The IO found Beauchamp to be a fabulist. In fact, it took the journalist two attempts to sign an affidavit admitting he made it all up. I guess the Army let him slide on the first go-’round:

- Private Scott Beauchamp did not reveal that he was “Scott Thomas,” author of “Shock Troops,” until he was asked to sign a second sworn statement. It was after he signed this statement that his identity was revealed in The New Republic.

- Major Cross has seen no evidence of any sort of fact checking by The New Republic’s editors prior to publication, a sentiment shared by Army Public Affairs Officers in both Iraq and Kuwait. It is also worth noting that TNR editors have refused to publish PAO statements that contradict their claims.

- Major Cross was unable to find anyone in Beauchamp’s squad, platoon, or company that would corroborate the stories he told in “Shock Troops.”

- Beauchamp was the subject of a second investigation, which found him guilty of violating his unit’s operational security for which he could have been thrown out of the Army [he had a blog in which he published information about his squad’s movements -D].

The U.S. Army and the soldiers in Beauchamp’s unit seem to have been very forgiving of his fraudulent stories and potentially dangerous operational security violations.

NOTE: Confederate Yankee provided an amendment to his original interview with Major Cross, the IO in Iraq. It concerns the second affidavit signed by Beauchamp:

Correction: The article originally said Beauchamp had signed a sworn statement that recanted the accounts in his three pseudonymous articles for The New Republic. He did not recant, but did not stand by his claims.[my emphasis]

If that doesn’t leave you scratching your head in puzzlement, you’ve been hanging around with too many lawyers.

As I said, lots of you are probably up to date on this. I’m still playing catch up since my injury in June. If you know of any interview the publisher of The New Republic has given since Beauchamp was investigated by the Army, please let me know.

Meanwhile, if you google the words The New Republic, you’ll find it on sale for seventy-five percent off. For our European readers — the ones who have gotten this far — believe me when I say that TNR was once in the top tier of left-centrist news magazines. It was Al Gore’s exclusive territory for many years. Perhaps his failure to get elected caused this newest fall from grace rational thinking. It’s an old, once venerable mag, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to survive this third crisis of reliability.

Who knows, though? Perhaps like The New York Times it will simply step over the trail of its own smelly emanations and sail blithely on.

Being on the Left means you never have to apologize.

Kraft durch FrEUde

Take a few moments and contemplate the photo at right.

It’s a statue in front of some kind of official EU building in Brussels. I stole it (and the title of this post) from Steen — go over to Snaphanen to see a full-sized version.

Notice the stern-visaged woman holding up a EU/Euro symbol for everyone to worship.

Notice the strange blocky-looking men lying supine beneath Lady Euro, reaching upwards as if to clutch desperately at the withheld currency symbol.

Notice the Fascist Modern style of sculpture, eminently suitable for 21st-century Brussels.

We need a motto to go with it.

My suggestion: EUphoria, EUphemism, and EUthanasia!


[Nothing follows]

Protesting the Nobel Appeasement Prize

Over the weekend I posted about Eric Brandt, the Swede who nominated Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939. The next day, our Swedish correspondent LN brought to my attention the fact that Mr. Brandt had actually nominated Der Führer as a hoax, to protest of the nomination of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the master of appeasement, for the same prize.

LN left us with some Swedish materials in need of translation, and Paul, who blogs at Swenglish Rantings, stepped forward to take on the task. He drew on Bengt Nilsson’s website for his material, and has translated an introductory paragraph, followed by Eric Brandt’s letter to the Nobel committee.

Many thanks, Paul!

According to Mr. Nilsson:

The man behind the nomination was of course Erik Brandt. Exactly what drove him I do not know, but judging by his engagement during the following years he was a burning Anti-Nazi who in all ways wanted to make people aware of what went on down in Germany. The nomination of Chamberlain, Brandt felt was a completely heedless act and he decided to make “a demonstrative protest” which at the same time would be a democratic mockery of Hitler. No sooner said than done, Eric Brandt formulated a letter of nomination that looked like this:

To the Norwegian Parliament’s Nobel committee.

The undersigned hereby allows himself to respectfully suggest that the Nobel Peace Prize for 1939 be awarded to Germany’s Reich Chancellor and Führer Adolf Hitler, whom, according to the opinion of millions of people, more than any other man in the entire world is deserving of this prestigious award.

It has been authentically documented that the world peace was in great danger in 1938, and it was only hours before the breakout of a Great European War. The individual who in this dangerous situation saved our continent from the horrible disaster was without a doubt first and foremost the German people’s great leader, whom at the crucial moment voluntarily refrained from letting the mine explode, even though he had the power to release world war.

- - - - - - - - -

By his glowing love of peace, as previously documented best in his famous book Mein Kampf — perhaps only second to the bible, the finest and most widely distributed book — and his extraordinary deed of using only peaceful means, without bloodshed, to incorporate Austria with Germany, Adolf Hitler was induced at the above mentioned critical time to withhold from violence during the liberation of his homesick countrymen in Sudetenland, and in his legitimate quest to make his fatherland great and powerful. It is very likely that Hitler, when left undisturbed in peace by the existing warmongers, will be able to follow through with his high purpose, and within a reasonable time will pacify Europe and perhaps the entire world.

There are, however, an unfortunately large number of people who fail to see the magnitude of Hitler’s peace efforts, and I would out of consideration for this fact not have found the time to be right to bring forward Hitler as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, unless a number of members of the Swedish Parliament had suggested another candidate, namely the English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Such a suggestion seems hardly thought through. Surely, it is true, that Chamberlain by his extraordinary consideration and understanding of Hitler’s peace efforts to a high degree has contributed to maintaining world peace, but the final decision was, however, with Hitler and not with Chamberlain! It is Adolf Hitler and no other whom we foremost have to thank for the fact that we still have peace in the major part of Europe, and we also tie the hopes of future peace to him.

Due to Chamberlain’s indisputable merits in working for peace, it would possibly be called for that a smaller part of the peace prize was awarded to him, but the proper thing would be, that no name should stand beside Adolf Hitler’s and cast a shadow upon it. Adolf Hitler is after all our time’s incomparable divinely gifted freedom fighter, and millions of people look up to him as if he were the Prince of Peace on earth.

Stockholm, January 27, 1939
E. G. C. Brandt, member of First Chamber of Parliament.

For understated sarcasm, this letter is unmatched. Even so, it’s amazing that so many people and newspapers were taken in.

As a Swede with the talent for deadpan mockery, Lars Vilks is Eric Brandt’s legitimate heir. Let’s hope the Modoggies have more success against the evil juggernaut of history than Mr. Brandt’s letter had against “peace in our time”.

Italians Promote Dialogue — In Arabic

Norwegians are funding madrassas, and now the Italians are paying their police to learn Arabic.

According to ANSAmed:

To teach the bases of the Middle Eastern culture and the basic elements of the Arabic language in order to allow police to positively interact with immigrants in the various situations they face in their daily activities: this is the objective of the “Arabic Language and Culture” education course designed for police in the framework of the National Security Operative Programme for Development of the Mediterranean, announced today in Potenza. The course — ten classes, each six hours in length — will be attended by 20 people (from the police, financial guard and carabinieri at service in Basilicata), led by an associate professor in Arabic, who will explain them the basic aspects of the culture and social life in the Middle East, from religion to history, to which elements of the Arabic language will be added. The participants have been provided with didactic materials and instruments to continue, from their homes, on-line classes in order to study in details the basic grammar and linguistic elements. The course, organised by Italian Ministry of Interior, was launched, apart from Potenza, in eight other Italian cities: Catania, Bari, Reggio Calabria, Naples, Palermo, Caserta, Cagliari and Sassari

Hat tip: Insubria.


[Nothing follows]

Norway Bankrolls Madrassas in Pakistan

I reported last night that Sweden is paying illegal Muslim immigrants to go home.

And now we learn that Norway is paying to radicalize madrassa students in Pakistan.

According to Aftenposten:

Critics blast Norwegian aid to ‘Koran schools’ in Pakistan

Norway’s Foreign Ministry has been sending financial aid to controversial religious schools in Pakistan. Researchers and local Pakistani experts want it to stop, as does a conservative politician.

As much as NOK 6 million (more than USD 1 million) has gone to 118 so-called “Koran schools” in northwest Pakistan. Some local experts, however, fear Norway risks supporting fundamentalist groups because it makes no demands on the schools’ curriculum.

Karin Ask, a researcher at the Christian Michelsen Institute, told newspaper Dagsavisen that Norway could wind up even supporting jihadists, those encouraging holy war.

The research institution International Crisis Group (ICG) also worries about any “uncritical” support of the schools, claiming that they mount a “considerable danger” to international security.

The ICG noted that Koran schools in Karachi, for example, have trained jihad warriors and sent them to both Afghanistan and Kashmir. Ask told Dagsavisen that there’s no reason to believe schools in northwestern Pakistan wouldn’t do the same, not least because that area is known as a recruiting ground for jihadists.

Norway’s government minister in charge of foreign aid, Erik Solheim, claims the goal of the aid project was to “promote dialogue.”

If any more “dialogue” is promoted in the West, we will have literally talked ourselves to death. How much dialogue with Muslims has occurred in the last six years? How many outreach efforts have been launched? How many presidents, prime ministers, and interior ministers (if female, suitably veiled) have made the mandatory visit to a mosque or Islamic center?
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Every time a Muslim terrorist kills a new batch of infidels, another round of “dialogue” is initiated.

This is mass insanity. It’s time to stop talking and start acting.

Solheim, of the Socialist Left (SV) party, said he also hoped the aid to the schools would further religious tolerance. “We figure that the schools that choose to take part in the project are hardly those that are in tight with al-Qaida,” he said. “We want to be a counterbalance to the fundamentalists.”

And what evidence does Mr. Sondheim have for this conclusion? What makes him think that the radical madrassas won’t take all those kroner and then laugh at the Norwegians?

They don’t have to buy the rope with which they will hang us: we’ll pay them to take it.

Not every politician in Norway agrees:

The foreign policy spokesman for the Progress Party, Morten Høglund, remained concerned and wants the aid cut off.

“At a time when people all over the globe are working to fight fundamentalism and terror, the Norwegian authorities chose to sponsor the type of schools known for breeding fundamentalism,” Høglund claimed. “That must end immediately.”

So common sense is still alive in Norway, at least vestigially.


Hat tip: Fjordman.

Somebody Pass the Donuts

There’s a video here that will not reassure you about the security in our nuclear power stations.

The video is about three minutes long. You are treated to the sight of snoring security guards in the ready room, not far from the nuclear reactors. Every single one of those guys is dead asleep. Not an open eye in the room. Do you think it’s something circulating through the vents?

It’s true: we really do have a bunch of Homer Simpsons snoring on duty.

D’oh!


[zzzzz]

Paying Dangerous People to go Home

If you’re a regular reader of Gates of Vienna, or if you follow the ongoing Islamization of Sweden, you know about Malmö, a city in the south of Sweden just across Öresund Bridge from Copenhagen. Certain neighborhoods in Malmö are composed of virtually 100% immigrants, and most of those immigrants are Third World Muslims. The result is that Malmö is now a virulently violent city, and some areas are no-go zones even for the police and emergency services.

Now the Swedish police have made it official: Malmö is the most dangerous place in the country.

Well, duh.

It reminds me of those government studies that prove that a mother’s devoted love is good for a child’s mental development — spending people’s tax dollars to discover the obvious. But here it is anyway, from The Local:

‘The most dangerous place in Sweden’

The inhabitants of a part of Malmö have the dubious honour of living in the most dangerous place in Sweden, according to a new police survey.

The Södra Innerstaden, or south-central, district of Malmö is the most crime-ridden place in Sweden, police say.

Residents of the area responding to a police questionnaire complained of rowdy gangs of youths, vandalism and litter.

Open drug use is a “very evident problem,” residents said, as was street drunkenness. Women being groped was also a common complaint.

Police blamed the area’s poor reputation on the density of pubs and clubs.

“It’s an area with lots of bars and entertainment establishments. There are people around in the area all day,” said Ulla Ardermark, Malmö Police commander, to Metro.

Ah, those “youths” again! They sure do pop up all over the place.

If it weren’t for all those bars, none of this stuff would happen; the youths would just stay home and spend their time sharpening their knives and tossing Molotov cocktails at one another.

So… Malmö is filling up with dangerous people. What shall we do with them? Let’s pay them to go home!
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Failed asylum seekers to be paid to go home

Failed asylum seekers who are hiding in Sweden will in future be entitled to state support to return to their homelands, the government has said.

Migration Minister Tobias Billström has said he wants to widen the scope of benefits available to help people living in Sweden illegally to return home.

In an interview with Svenska Dagbladet, Billström said he wanted to be active in encouraging people who were not entitled to be in Sweden to return home. Everyone who has had an asylum application rejected should leave the country, he said.

The new ‘re-establishment aid’ will be introduced on 1st August. Through the programme failed asylum seekers will each be entitled to 20,000 kronor in state support to return to return to countries where living conditions are difficult.

So what happens if the state hands SEK 20,000 to some indigent Somali, and then he doesn’t go home? What are they going to do next? Say “Pretty please”?

He broke the law to get to Sweden. He broke the law by staying in Sweden. He breaks the law when he throws rocks at police cars, or beats up ambulance drivers, or rapes teenage girls, or torches schools in Rosengård.

So what’s to stop him from breaking the law by pocketing all that cold cash and then staying right where he is?

He’s living in Fat City. Why should he leave?


Hat tip: SC.

Driving the Infidels out of Finland

This afternoon the Finnish blogger Vera sent us a note with the latest skinny on Finland’s recently-formed Islamic Party:

A few weeks ago you wrote about Finland’s brand-new Islamic party. And guess what — it already turned out that one of the founders of that party, Sauli Ingman, used to post messages on Usenet (under his own name, no less) expressing his wish to go jihadding to Dagestan and Chechnya, and asking for money, military equipment and Islamic training.

Having failed to find a willing Jihad sponsor, the man decided to run in the city elections from the Left party, but willing voters were in short supply, too. When Helsingin Sanomat asked him about it, he said that he was just letting off steam, and wouldn’t have gone there for real.

The the article in Helsingin Sanomat is in Finnish, but fortunately Vera blogs in English, and covers the story in Vera’s log. Here’s the second of Sauli Ingman’s two posted messages

DAGESTAN AND CHECHNYA

Hello Dear Moslem,

I am Finnish muslim Sauli Ingman. I prayed even today five prayers to Allah!

I want to help Chechnya and Dagestani rebelling Shura. What are their homepages?

How to help them? How to join a war against Russia in Chechnya? Where to get a proper military equipment and who pays cost of my campaign?

How to send a money to Chechnya?

Why islamic countries do not help officially Chechnya, which is now in a desperate situation? Something militarily has to happen and soon!

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Let’s drive Russians out of Chechnya and Dagestan!!!!!!!

How many islamic voluntaries are fighting in Caucasia???

Please inform me about homepages and helping facilities and possibilities to drive indifidels out of Caucasia.

Yours sincerely

Sauli Ingman

The Finnish muslim (indeed!!)

There’s more over at Vera’s log. I’ll let her have the last word:

Now, maybe there is an innocent explanation for all of this. A lot of people post stuff they are not proud of when drunk, or maybe the guy just left a session open on one of the university’s computers in a public place, or maybe some evildoers forged the message. But I think it might be at least worth asking about.

Be Careful Who You Invite to the Party

Serbia is beginning to crack down on the Wahhabists in its midst. Local Muslims are unhappy about their fundamentalist beliefs, their terrorist training activities, and the recruitment of young men:

A special Belgrade prosecutor for terrorism and organised crime on Tuesday ordered an investigation of five members of the fundamentalist Islamic Wahabi movement suspected of planning terrorist acts.

[…]

Only ten days ago the prosecutors indicted another 15 members of the Wahabi movement who they said were also suspected of planning terrorist acts “with the same goal and in the same part of Serbian territory.”

These events are the unintended consequences of inviting foreign Muslims in during the civil war:

Wahabis first appeared in the Balkans during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 civil war when thousands of mujahideen fighters from Islamic countries came to fight on the side of local Muslims.

Visibly identifiable by their beards and ankle-length trousers many have remained in the country since the war, and according to foreign intelligence sources have been indoctrinating local youths and even operating terrorist training camps.

Earlier this year, police arrested seven suspected militants in southern Serbia and uncovered a radical Islamist training camp and weapons cache.

So now they’re stuck with these yahoos who have long worn out their welcome, even as they recruit the younger generation. But evidently the authorities are serious and native Muslims are apprehensive about having terrorists mucking about with serious weapons in hand:

As part of a crackdown on radical Islamists, Serbian police in March raided a Wahabi training camp in a mountain near Novi Pazar, in Serbia’s southern Sandjak region, populated predominantly by Muslims. Militants at the camp were planning an attack on local Muslims, according to Serbian security officials.

Police arrested four suspected Islamist militants during the raid, carried out on 17 March, and a further two on 19 March. They also discovered an underground arsenal of weapons at the secluded camp, including rocket-propelled grenades, 10 kilogrammes of plastic explosives and automatic assault rifles.

An earlier report on these events says the problem has been brewing for some time:
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[This is a] simmering conflict between the majority of local Sunni Muslims represented by the Islamic Community and the new followers of the Wahhabi movement. The Islamic Community’s clergy and faithful have repeatedly complained of harassment by the increasing number of the Wahhabi followers, whom they say want to impose their belief as the only true one.

Shortly after the arrests, Serbia’s interior minister, Dragan Jocic, described the men as enemies of the official Islamic Community and said the police action demonstrated the government’s determination to crush all forms of violence and terrorism.

[…]

In February 2006, Sandzak Wahhabis also staged a protest over publication by Western press of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

The Saudi-based movement claims to restore a pure and original form of Islam. This puts it at odds with the traditional Sunni version of the faith practiced in Sandzak, and with Sandzak’s Mufti. The Wahhabi movement is active in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo.

This may be a case of the moderate Muslim - at least moderate by Islamic standards - standing up to the butchers. It’s for sure they don’t want these Mujahideen hanging around, and they are willing to haul them into court and prosecute them. Perhaps when the prosecution ends and sentencing begins, deportation will soon follow - at least for the outsiders.

The question remains, however, if the Serbs will be able to get their boys and men back to some semblance of normalcy. That’s a world-wide problem for Islam. That, and their tendency to destroy the dhimmis among them.

I’m still not convinced there is truly a moderate form of Islam. The concept of dhimmis and the jizya tax they must fork over to their Muslim betters puts paid to the idea of liberty and tolerance, at least in Western terms.

Nor do I know what the tipping point in any society is when it comes to the number of Muslims in their midst. So far, we haven’t had examples of live-and-let-live in Muslim countries. How can they be tolerant when religious practice and political behavior are so intertwined? The rest of the world solved that one some centuries ago, but Islam can't seem to reformulate the issue in a way that leads to anything approaching tolerance. In individuals, such behavior has its roots in a deep sense of inferiority. Perhaps this is the case for cultures, too.

Nonetheless it is encouraging to see the Serbs standing up to the Mujahideen. Perhaps the experience will lead to a new perspective.

September 11 Was the Threshold

From “The Coming Urban Terror” in City Journal:

For the first time in history…a majority of the world’s population is living in urban environments. Cities-efficient hubs connecting international flows of people, energy, communications, and capital-are thriving in our global economy as never before. However, the same factors that make cities hubs of globalization also make them vulnerable to small-group terror and violence.

Over the last few years, small groups’ ability to conduct terrorism has shown radical improvements in productivity-their capacity to inflict economic, physical, and moral damage. These groups, motivated by everything from gang membership to religious extremism, have taken advantage of easy access to our global superinfrastructure, revenues from growing illicit commercial flows, and ubiquitously available new technologies to cross the threshold necessary to become terrible threats. September 11, 2001, marked their arrival at that threshold.

Unfortunately, the improvements in lethality that we have already seen are just the beginning. The arc of productivity growth that lets small groups terrorize at ever-higher levels of death and disruption stretches as far as the eye can see. Eventually, one man may even be able to wield the destructive power that only nation-states possess today. It is a perverse twist of history that this new threat arrives at the same moment that wars between states are receding into the past. Thanks to global interdependence, state-against-state warfare is far less likely than it used to be, and viable only against disconnected or powerless states.

However, these terrorist groups - or lone terrorists, for that matter - don’t get their funding from the air. There are terrorist states: Iran is a major funder of terrorists. So is Syria. So is Saudi Arabia. In this sense, we have moved from direct wars between states to proxies fighting clandestine wars against legitimate states.

The author is right that the density of urban areas leaves them more vulnerable to attack. This is ironic, when one thinks that cities originally came together as a way to provide safety and fend off attacks.

Have we then outgrown cities? Will they become irrelevant with the distribution of energy as we move away from oil? And move we will: check out The Bottomless Well: The twilight of Fuel, The Virtue of Waste and Why we will Never Run Out Of Energy to understand where the 21st century is headed.

But many of their solutions reside in the future; not too far off, but not present enough to quell the current chaos. Mr. Robb notes our present vulnerability and problems:
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Most of the networks that we rely on for city life-communications, electricity, transportation, water-are overused, interdependent, and extremely complex. They developed organically as what scholars in the emerging field of network science call “scale-free networks,” which contain large hubs with a plethora of connections to smaller and more isolated local clusters. Such networks are economically efficient and resistant to random failure-but they are also extremely vulnerable to intentional disruptions, as Albert-Laszlo Barabasi shows in his important book Linked: The New Science of Networks. In practice, this means that a very small number of attacks on the critical hubs of a scale-free network can collapse the entire network. Such a collapse can occasionally happen by accident, when random failure hits a critical node; think of the huge Northeast blackout of 2003, which caused $6.4 billion in damage.

As do the authors of “Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy,” Mr. Robb sees hope in the decentralization of networks. We can’t afford them anymore:

In almost all cases, cities can defend themselves from their new enemies through effective decentralization. To counter systems disruption, decentralized services-the capability of smaller areas within cities to provide backup services, at least on a temporary basis-could radically diminish the harmful consequences of disconnection from the larger global grid. In New York, this would mean storage or limited production capability of backup electricity, water, and fuel, with easy connections to the delivery grid-at the borough level or even smaller. These backups would then provide a means of restoring central services rapidly after a failure.

He has a similar solution to the growing problem of gangs. The evolution of policing practices is already beginning:

…local innovation-supplemented by a marketplace in goods and services that improve security, detection, monitoring, and so on-is likely to develop responses to threats quickly and effectively. Other localities will copy those responses that prove successful.

The present is pretty chaotic, but that has always seemed the case. Threats arise out of the discontent, rage and envy of those who consider themselves the outsiders, the outlaws. So it has always been. Taming the human heart requires human ingenuity. And if the latter seems only to occur as a reaction, that is only to be expected.

It is obvious that our safety does not, cannot, lie in centralized power. Homeland Security is anything but secure. We must let bureaucracies atrophy if we are to be safe. Centralized massive anything brings more problems than it solves.

Read Mr. Robb’s complete essay. It is thought-provoking without being alarmist.