The Western Word

This Week's Editorial

POLITICS IN SCIENCE: RIDING THE INVIDIOUS EMAIL TRAIL
By Avi Davis

In Australia, six months ago, I had dinner with a couple whom I have known for nearly thirty years. The wife is a teacher and librarian The husband is a renowned physicist at one of the country’s leading universities. At a point in the dinner, somewhere over roast chicken and potatoes, the conversation drifted onto the topic of global warming.    I proceeded to state my opinion that the whole issue is guided far more by a political agenda than good, hard science.   The husband looked at me as though I had just burst into the Ave Maria in the middle of a Yom Kippur service.

“What are you talking about?” he growled, a chill penetrating the otherwise warm atmosphere.   “Politics has no bearing on science. Scientists base their observations solely on a solid methodological approach and empirical data. As for man-made warming, it has the near universal consensus of climatologists around the world and it is absurd to suggest that the evidence is cooked.”

I remembered the conversation last week when ‘Climategate’ cracked open the records of some of the world’s leading climatologists and impugned their reputations, perhaps beyond reprieve.   The climate scientists at the world famous Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K were revealed as palpable hucksters with email trails leading back as far as 15 years, suggesting that they had doctored climate records, administered collective punishment to dissenters, colluded to subvert the work of climate change skeptics and sought to shut down a magazine that had begun to publish the work of climate change doubters.

Modern science was and is meant to be the expression of all that is rational in the human mind. Flowering in the late 16th Century, in the throes of the Renaissance, it has, since that time, offered us a system for acquiring knowledge about the natural world and through observation and experimentation, describing and explaining natural phenomena.

Over the centuries we have come to expect more and more from our scientists as their discoveries and inventions have led the way to an understanding of space and time, the building blocks of matter, the harnessing of natural forces and life-changing breakthroughs in communication, transportation, sanitation and the prolongation of human life.

Most of us find it hard to accept, then, that our scientists have biases, that they can indeed display a high level of prejudice and often exhibit a chauvinism that skews their reasoning and which can drive them, in a herd mentality, toward the brink of intellectual fascism. No one expects such men and women, who are, we believe, committed to truth, to erect deliberate hurdles or barriers to others with alternative or contrarian theories which could have a bearing on the ascertainment of truth.

Yet it happens.

It certainly did in the case of Richard Sternberg. In 2005, Dr. Sternberg, the recipient of two Ph.Ds – one in molecular biology and the other in systems analysis - was a research associate at the Smithsonian Institute, widely acknowledged as this country’s most prominent scientific institution. As the volunteer editor of one of the Institute’s publications The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, he regularly received submissions for the journal. Similar to any editor of a scientific journal, if he deemed a submission worthy for publication, he would send out the piece to a group of anonymous scientists for peer review. If the returned general consensus was positive, he would publish the article.

One such paper arrived from Dr. Steven C. Meyer, an academic with high credentials (a Ph D. from Cambridge University and a host of articles published in peer review publications). The article was titled “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories.”

Sternberg liked the piece and therefore submitted it for review.   The returned consensus was positive. Thus, in August, 2005, the article appeared.

All was quiet for a month, before a storm of protest howled forth from the ranks of the Smithsonian Institute. The events which followed were deeply reminiscent of the kind of treatment Jewish professors received from their non- Jewish colleagues following the rise of Nazi Germany.

Complaining about a paragraph at the end of the piece which offered intelligent design as alternative theory to evolution, Sternberg was systematically demoted from his position as a Research Associate . He was thereafter became the victim of a rampant campaign of harassment by both the Smithsonian administration and his colleagues; his religious and political views were investigated; his library privileges were revoked and he was forced to move his office. His professional reputation, his private life and his ethics, were repeatedly impugned and publicly smeared with false allegations by government employees working in tandem with a non-governmental political advocacy group, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE).
The environment became so hostile that Sternberg was unable to conduct his research and felt no other option but to resign.

Sternberg’s plight did not go unnoticed. Articles and editorials in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times, highlighted his case and eventually it was brought to the attention House of Representatives Commission on Government Reform which proceeded to launch an investigation.

The result of that investigation was a report with a scorching condemnation of the scientists at the Smithsonian Institute. The email trail it uncovered produced incontrovertible evidence of group harassment, private and public humiliation and character assassination, condoned and sometimes even led by the Smithsonian administration itself.

And all because Sternberg had allowed an article to be published in an Institute journal which challenged Darwinian orthodoxy.

This Kafkaesque drama has played out repeatedly in academic circles in recent years, but no more so than the case of Guillermo Gonzalez, denied tenure at Iowa State University in 2006.

In 2004, Gonzalez had co-authored a book The Privileged Planet. The book’s thesis supported the theory that the Earth is uniquely placed in the universe for the development of life and that the emergence of such life elsewhere should be exceedingly rare to find, given the combination of factors needed to support it.   This idea rebuts the popularly accepted Principle of Mediocrity, made famous by the late Carl Sagan – that the earth has no special function or purpose and is certainly not unique in the universe in supporting life.

The implicit implication of Gonzalez’s book - that the universe itself reveals aspects of intelligent design - is anathema to many ideological astrophysicists who support Mediocrity and so it was to Gonzalez’s colleagues. When Gonzalez’s nomination for tenure came up for review, they launched a furious campaign of denunciation and defamation, successfully derailing his application.

Nothing further would have occurred if the main actors in the tenure process had not been forced to produce their email exchanges under the Iowa Open Records Act. What the email record reveals is a secret cabal of vilification and ridicule by colleagues in the Department of Physics and Astronomy who explicitly wanted Gonzalez removed because of his pro-intelligent design views. In voting to reject tenure for Dr. Gonzalez, members of the faculty at Iowa State had all but ignored recommendations made by the majority of their own outside scientific reviewers, who clearly thought Gonzalez deserved tenure.

In October of this year, AFA itself learned first hand how this system works.   After contracting with the California Science Center in Los Angeles to screen two films, one pro- evolution and the other pro-Intelligent Design, as part of its event series, The Darwin Debates, our organization was informed that we had violated the contract and that the screening in the Center’s IMAX Theater was to be cancelled.

The supposed violation of the contract did not occur as alleged and a Freedom of Information Act Request (since CSC is a public institution all its email records are regarded as public domain) revealed that the allegation was merely a pretext. The email trail shows dozens of scientists from all over the country weighing in on the issue and applying inordinate pressure upon the CSC to cancel the event. In addition, an email from a representative of CSC, in what was almost certainly an inadvertent admission, was sent to us claiming that the screening of the pro-ID film was likely to affect the Center’s relationship with its affiliate, the Smithsonian Institute. That, for all appearances, seems to be the true reason for the cancellation of the contract.

In all three cases the email trail shows ideology trumping both intellectual integrity and academic freedom. Now it has seemingly done the same thing in “Climategate.”
Information, vital to an assessment of the extent of anthropogenic global warming was dismissed and its proponents vilified and harassed for no other reason than that that they opposed the consensus view. The whole episode has reinforced the notion that science is not immune from the pressures of either politics or ideology and that sometimes it will bend itself to accommodate both.

This has troubling implications for our society and civilization. If we cannot rely on the integrity of our scientists to allow unfettered discussion of issues of global concern, free of ideology or politics, what value is there to the notion of open inquiry? If scientists are revealed to be petty, vengeful antagonists who care less about the veracity of their own scientific ideas and theories than about the protection of their careers and reputations, what value are we to place on their pronouncements and claims to expertise?

The email trail of the global warming alarmists will, I predict, lead to some genuinely alarming revelations. It will display the complicity of the scientific community in a fraud perpetrated by some of the world’s top climatologists in league with the leaders of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC) - all of whom have vouchsafed the reliability of the calamitous climate figures. In this event the whole edifice of the global warming movement is likely to collapse, revealed as a hollow shell with false, doctored science at its core.

This may well vindicate those among the climate skeptics who have railed for years against the scientific hogwash and the political gamesmanship behind claims of anthropogenic global warming. But where will it leave humanity’s faith in the authenticity of science?

That should be our most pressing concern in the weeks and months ahead as the reptilian carcass of ‘Climategate’ is slit open and spills forth its bundle of secrets.

Avi Davis is the President of the American Freedom Alliance.

Want to comment on this article? See Avi Davis’ blog
Avi Davis is the president of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com

What the 9-11 Plotters Will Say in Court
by Robert Spencer

With the Obama administration moving the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other masterminds of 9/11 to New York City, many have pointed out that the defendants are likely to use the trial as a platform to spread their views on jihad, the U.S., and the war on terror. That’s most likely true -- and we already know what they will say. They told us last year, when they wrote a six-page document they filed with the military commission at Guantanamo: an “Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations.” “With regards to these nine accusations that you are putting us on trial for,” they explain, “to us, they are not accusations. To us they are badges of honor, which we carry with pride.” Their pride is explicitly and proudly rooted in Islam: “Many thanks to God, for his kind gesture, and choosing us to perform the act of Jihad for his cause and to defend Islam and Muslims.” With unusual forthrightness, they declare that “killing you and fighting you, destroying you and terrorizing you, responding back to your attacks, are all considered to be great legitimate duty in our religion. These actions are our offerings to God.” (Humanevents)

Iran's Soft War
BY PAULA J. DOBRIANSKY, CHRISTIAN P. WHITON

The Obama administration shouldn't give up on embattled Iranian democrats. Here's how America can help the Green Revolution succeed.
Iran's government has used violence, intimidation, and incarceration to keep the country's opposition at bay since the flawed election there last June. Now, the news trickling out of Tehran this week suggests that a more sophisticated ideological effort is underway -- the "soft war" reported in the New York Times. This goes further than closing opposition news outlets and now reportedly includes placing Basij militia instructors in elementary schools, more media controlled by the country's Revolutionary Guard, and expanded surveillance of the Internet.

Iran's leaders claim they are facing nothing less than a Western-directed "color revolution," just as Russia's allies did in Ukraine, where the Orange Revolution of 2004 and 2005 swept the streets with democratic fervor. But the Orange Revolution was a genuine expression of popular anger, not a plot orchestrated from Washington or Brussels. It was however, aided by diplomacy. Western diplomats can draw on experience learned in Kiev to help the "green movement" in Tehran. The United States and particularly Europe should be doing much more to engage and cultivate this newly vocal "other Iran," sustaining its calls for a democratically chosen government.

Switzerland risks Muslim backlash after minarets vote-Alexandra Williams in Geneva
Switzerland risked a Muslim backlash on Sunday after its citizens voted overwhelmingly to ban minarets on mosques.
The legally-binding referendum result had not been widely expected and was a huge embarrassment for the neutral government in Switzerland. In the run-up to the vote it had warned that a ban would "serve the interests of extremist circles" and damage economic ties with Muslim states. Anti-immigrant right-wing populists had championed the vote and led an emotive campaign. The Swiss People's Party (SVP), the country's largest in terms of popular support and membership in parliament, used posters depicting a woman in a burka in front of minarets shaped like missiles rising from a Swiss flag. "We're enormously happy. It is a victory for this people, this Switzerland, this freedom and those who want a democratic society," Walter Wobmann, president of the initiative committee, said in a victory speech. "We just want to stop further Islamisation in Switzerland." (Telegraph.co.uk)

Mental State Cited in 9/11 Case- JESS BRAVIN
WASHINGTON -- When five defendants are brought before a New York federal judge to face charges for the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the first question may be whether some of them are competent to stand trial at all. Military lawyers for Ramzi Binalshibh, an accused organizer of the 9/11 plot, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the conspiracy's alleged paymaster, say their clients have mental disorders that make them unfit for trial, likely caused or exacerbated by years of harsh confinement in Central Intelligence Agency custody. The issue already has arisen in military-commission proceedings at the military's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to an August ruling by a military judge, prosecutors have made an "apparent concession" that Mr. Binalshibh "suffers from a delusional disorder-persecutory type" disorder. (WSJ)

Muslim protesters pelt Tory peer Baroness Warsi with eggs during walkabout in Luton-Daily Mail Reporter
The country's most powerful Muslim woman was pelted with eggs by a group of young Islamists yesterday. Baroness Warsi, the Conservative shadow minister for community cohesion and social action, was visiting Luton with one of her party's election candidates. But during a a visit to the Bury Park area she was confronted by protesters who shouted her down before throwing several eggs, one of which hit her and another landed on a supporter. With egg yolk running through her hair, the Baroness attempted to reason with the members of outlawed extremist group Al-Muhajiroun - only to be harangued. The young men of Al-Muhajiroun, which in March year took part in protests against soldiers from 2nd Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment during a homecoming parade, accused her of not being a proper Muslim and supporting the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan. The Baroness - who appeared on BBC TV's Question Time with BNP leader Nick Griffin - retreated into a nearby sari shop with supporters, including Nigel Huddle-ston, Tory candidate for Luton South. (Dailymail.co.uk)

In Marseille, unease over mosque project-Edward Cody
Plans stoke debate about identity and assimilation in French city with growing number of Muslim immigrants
MARSEILLE, FRANCE -- Notre Dame de la Garde, an elegant Roman Catholic basilica, has stood for 150 years on a promontory just south of Marseille's Old Port, looking down protectively as fishermen push out to the sea and symbolizing the irrepressible spirit of this fabled Mediterranean city. But a new and very different symbol is scheduled to rise soon on another promontory, this one on the north side of the Old Port. It is the $30 million Grand Mosque of Marseille, a place for the metropolitan region's more than 200,000 Muslims to gather and worship and a dramatic reminder of the Islamic heritage that is grafting itself onto France's cultural landscape. The mosque, which at 92,500 square feet will be France's largest, has become an emblem for the many native French people who feel uncomfortable with an immigrant population that, as its numbers rise, increasingly seeks to live by its own religious and cultural rules rather than assimilate into France's long Christian tradition. (Washingtonpost)

Germany home to 90 combat Islamists: report
There are about 90 combat-trained Islamists in Germany moving among underground networks, Focus magazine reported Saturday, as intelligence agencies and police prepare to overhaul the country's anti-terrorism approach.
Some 30 of them have actual fighting experience through clashes with US or Pakistani soldiers, the magazine reported, citing German security sources. In total, 185 Islamists trained in terrorist camps in central Asia had lived or worked in Germany in the past 10 years, the sources said. New, young radicals were no longer recruited only through mosques, but also in universities, prisons and sports clubs, the report said. The security sources wanted Germany to take a stronger stance in the future towards deradicalising young Islamists. According to a separate report in magazine Der Spiegel, the Joint Terrorism Defence Centre (GTAZ) – a co-operation between various German police and intelligence agencies – will hold a forum in December to overhaul the country’s anti-terrorism strategy and come up with fresh approaches. (Thelocal)

Norway: Muslims wants Krekar out-Islam in Europe
Ahmed Aadan Warsame of the Somali Family Association in Tromsø, says Krekar's statement are harmful for Norwegian Muslims and therefore a danger to the next generations of Norwegian Muslims. Together with more Muslims in Tromsø he rejects Mulla Krekar. "We generally reject Mulla Krekar, his supporters and everything he stands for. We want peace and calm for our children in the future." "We are Norwegian citizens and part of Norwegian society, and we don't want such statements such as Mulla Krekar makes." He hopes Krekar will soon leave Norway. "He isn't good this man. Everybody knows who he is. I don't understand why the Norwegian state spends so much money on him in court cases and such things."
Q: Is Mulla Krekar a good Muslim? "No. Good Muslims are those who take care of others, whether it be Christians, Jews or Buddhists, and respect the other's religion." (Islamineurope)

Radical Muslim books too easily available: report-Stewart Bell
TORONTO -- When police rounded up 18 terror suspects around Toronto in 2006, they found cash, detonators and videos that showed some of them yelling "God is Great" as they trained in the snow with guns. Police also found copies of manifestos with titles such as The Book of Jihad, The Virtues of Jihad, Fundamental Concepts Regarding Al-Jihad and 39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad. Such reading materials now enjoy "influence and popularity" in Canada, says a secret government study that identifies the ideologues whose writings it says are promoting "violent jihad" among Canadians. The report by the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre names Sayed Qutb, Abdullah Azzam and Ibn Taymiyah as the "key ideologues whose works have contributed to Islamist radicalization in Canada." All three are dead. Qutb was a controversial Egyptian executed in 1966. Azzam was Osama bin Laden's sidekick, killed in a 1989 car bombing, and Taymiyah was a 12th century scholar from what is now Turkey. "In the context of this assessment, radicalization is defined as the process by which an individual progresses to an Islamist extremist viewpoint where violence is a justifiable means to achieve ideological objectives," the study says. (Nationalpost)

Diversi-Oaths: Creedal Admissions in the American University-Glenn Ricketts and Peter Wood
Many colleges and universities require applicants for undergraduate admissions to write an essay describing the ways in which they’ll bring “diversity” to their hoped-for alma mater. This procedure isn’t especially new. The diversiphiles first launched the tactic in the early 1990s. But required diversity essays have been getting renewed attention recently as they spread to graduate programs. In that light, we recently decided to examine the practice a bit more systematically. We surveyed the application criteria at 20 of the most selective schools in the annual rankings of U.S. News & World Report. Many of those included in this small sample no longer maintain individualized applications, but use the Common Application Online (CAO) instead. The CAO doesn’t have a required diversity essay, but provides a diversity question as an option. Some of the colleges that use the CAO, however, make the question de rigueur. The CAO at Yale, for example, asks prospective students: (NAS)

Harvard Donor Accused of Illegally Funding Iran- AMIRA ABULAFI, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Alavi Foundation, a non-profit organization that has funded various Harvard programs in Middle Eastern culture and language, faced formal allegations from the U.S. government earlier this month that they had illegally given money and services to the Iranian government in violation of laws that regulate trade with Iran. The foundation, which provides donations to colleges to promote Islamic education, denies the charges, according to a report from the New York Times. The foundation referred media inquiries to its lawyer, who could not be reached for comment yesterday. The grants received from the Alavi Foundation have funded programs at both Harvard College and Harvard Law School and have been spent to promote the academic purposes of the University. The funds partially cover expenses for programs in Middle Eastern culture, language instruction, and legal studies, according to a statement released by Harvard yesterday. (Thecrimson)

Stein Raises ClimateGate on CNN; Carville Retorts, 'Pollution Lobby Is Winn-Matthew Balan
Ben Stein made an indirect reference to the ClimateGate e-mail scandal during a face-off with Democratic strategist James Carville on Wednesday’s Situation Room: “The truth is, we’ve now got a lot of data coming out that the scientific community who are on the side of anthropogenic global warming were cooking the data and were suppressing data to those requesting their data.” Stein and Carville appeared on the program’s regular “Strategy Session” segment 46 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour, less than an hour before CNN aired a slanted report on the e-mail scandal [0]. Substitute anchor Suzanne Malveaux first raised President Obama’s upcoming trip to Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference with the Democrat: “Obviously, this is a political issue. This is up to Congress. What can the President do on this issue?” (Newsbusters)

Climate of Fraud-An NRO Symposium
What do hacked e-mails tell us about global-warming research?
The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit’s e-mail account was hacked earlier this month, exposing communications among CRU faculty members and researchers that reveal their willingness to distort climate-change data. Do those e-mails mark a sea-change moment in the global-warming debate? National Review Online asked environmentalism experts to weigh in. H. STERLING BURNETT Why anyone should be surprised by this, I don’t know. Twenty years ago, Steve Schneider of Stanford stated that to be effective advocates on the issue of global warming, scientists would have to “offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” His disciples have tried to suppress criticism of the “hockey stick” graph; when that proves impossible and researchers such as Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick expose the graph’s deep flaws, they settle for ignoring or downplaying the problem. And all of this with the cooperation of the mainstream media. (Nationalreview)

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Seymour Hersh: English libel laws 'chilling'-James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Pressure on ministers to reform England’s controversial libel laws is growing, with criticism from one of America’s most respected investigative journalists. Seymour Hersh, who exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War in 1969, said that English law has a “chilling” effect on journalism. There are growing international concerns about the way English courts allow a plaintiff to sue for damages over a report written and published in a foreign country and seen by only a handful of people in Britain. Many MPs, writers and lawyers are also concerned about the growing use of “no-win, no-fee” deals where lawyers are protected from risk of failure by being able to charge the losing side double fees. Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, this week promised to review such arrangements, suggesting the current system is unfairly balanced in favour of people seeking damages. “A free press can't operate or be effective unless it can offer readers comment as well as news,” he said. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Dutch MPs back Wilders against Turkish boycott-Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Dutch MPs say they will cancel a trip to Turkey if the country insists on a boycott of Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders. A spokesman for Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu described the anti-Islam MP as a fascist and a racist who was not welcome in Turkey. He said there were no organisations in Turkey willing to meet Mr Wilders, and his presence in the delegation would harm relations between the two countries. Leader of the Dutch delegation, Labour Party MP Harm Evert Waalkens, says that if Turkey boycotts Mr Wilders, the Dutch MPs will call off the visit altogether. He says he will be taking the matter up with Turkish counterparts on Wednesday. (RNW.NL)

Denmark: Antisemitism widespread among Muslim immigrants-Islam In Europe
Distrust and prejudice against Jews in Denmark doesn't thrive only in extremist groups. Up to 75% of immigrants from five different countries and 20% of ethnic Danes have anti-Jewish attitudes. The data comes from a new study which appears in the book "Danmark og de fremmede: Om mødet med den arabisk-muslimske verden" (Denmark and the stranger: on the meeting with the Arab-Muslim world), which will be published Friday. The study is based on interviews with 1503 immigrants from five different groups: Turks, Pakistanis, Somalis, Palestinians and ex-Yugoslavians - as well as 300 ethnic Danes. All were asked three questions, which deal with their attitudes towards various groups in society and not just to Jews. But it's the Jews that the five groups are clearly most distrustful and prejudiced against. 65.8% of the five immigrant groups said that one "can't be careful enough in relation to Jews in Denmark." 75.2% don't want a family member to marry a Danish Jew. And 31.9% think that 'there are too many Jews in Denmark'. (Islamineurope)

Column One: Bibi's bad week-Caroline Glick
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu weakened Israel this week. And he did so for no good reason. Thursday's headlines told the tale. The day after Netanyahu bowed to US pressure and announced a total freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria for ten months, Yediot Aharonot reported that the Obama administration now wants Israel to release a thousand Fatah terrorists from prison. The Americans also want Israel to allow US-trained, terror supporting Fatah paramilitary forces to deploy in areas that are currently under Israeli military control. Moreover, the Americans are demanding that Israel surrender land in the strategically crucial Jordan Valley to Fatah. And these are just American preconditions for starting negotiations with the Palestinians. According to Yediot, if those talks ever begin, the White House will demand that Israel accept a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza and agree to ethnically cleanse all the areas of Jews. (Jpost)

Egyptian Cleric Hazem Shuman's Message 'For Every Jew on the Face of the Earth... Oh Offspring of Apes and Pigs, The Day of Vengeance Is Nearing'-MEMRI
Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Hazem Shuman, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on October 31, 2009. To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2274.htm.
"Your Turn Has Come At Last, You Offspring of Apes and Pigs, You Most Accursed Creatures Created by Allah" Hazem Shuman: "Tonight's lecture is one of the most important lectures of this series. Tonight, we will talk about the Battle of Khaybar, about the Prophet Muhammad's greatest battle [with the Jews], in which the Prophet eradicated the Jewish presence in Al-Madina. "On June 5, 1967, when the Jews occupied Palestine and Jerusalem and were celebrating their victory, Moshe Dayan cried: 'This is our revenge for Khaybar.' How come Khaybar remained seared in their hearts for 1,400 years? After 1,400 years, their hearts are still burning because of Khaybar. The first thing that the Prophet Muhammad did after his victory in the Hudaybiyya Treaty, after he stabilized the Muslim state, and neutralized the Quraysh front, the first mission of the Prophet Muhammad, his first campaign, was against the Jews of Khaybar. "Your turn has come at last, you offspring of apes and pigs, you most accursed creatures created by Allah, you people who have harmed the Prophet again and again. (MEMRI)

Nasrallah vows Hizbullah will continue arming to fight Israel-AP, The Jerusalem Post
Hizbullah will improve its weapons capabilities to face off any Israeli threat, the group's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's said Monday, adding that armed struggle was the only way to regain "Arab lands" captured by Israel. Nasrallah's remarks signaled the group has no intention of meeting a United Nations resolution requiring it to give up its weapons. Nasrallah gave no details on the weapons plans, but Hizbullah has said it has tens of thousands of rockets. The IDF contends that since the Second Lebanon War, Hizbullah has tripled its prewar arsenal to more than 40,000 rockets, some of which can strike virtually anywhere in Israel - a dramatic improvement over the short-range missiles fired in the 2006 conflict. Nasrallah said the buildup was necessary. "The continuation of Israeli threats against Lebanon ... force the resistance to seek more power in order to improve its capabilities," Nasrallah told reporters via video link from a secret location. His comments came during a news conference to announce the group's new political manifesto, the second such manifesto since Hizbullah was founded in 1982. (Jpost)

TERRORISM, security and policy

Iran seizes five British sailors to raise stakes in stand-off with West-Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent and Ed Gorman
Diplomatic tension between Britain and Iran deepened yesterday with the news that Tehran is holding five British sailors after their yacht apparently strayed into Iranian waters. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that the crew members were taken from their yacht Kingdom of Bahrain on November 25 after she was stopped by Iranian naval vessels while sailing from Bahrain to Dubai. Sources named the five Britons as Oliver Smith, 31, an experienced sailor from Southampton, as well as Sam Usher, Oliver Young, 21, from Saltash in Cornwall, Luke Porter, 21, from Weston-super-Mare and Dave Bloomer, a presenter on Radio Bahrain. Mr Porter is reported to have spoken to his father Charles yesterday. Charles Porter, 48, said: "He said he was in good spirits and he said he was being well looked after". His son told him the yacht had strayed 500 yards into Iranian waters near the island of Sirri. The Britons were delivering the yacht to the annual Dubai to Muscat race, a 360-mile voyage through the Straits of Hormuz scheduled to begin the following day. (Timesonline.co.uk)

'This was a terrorist attack': Bomb derails 130mph Russian train leaving 26 dead, 100 injured-Daily Mail Reporter
A powerful homemade bomb sent a high-speed Moscow-to-St. Petersburg train careening off its tracks, according to Russian officials, killing at least 26 people in what officials consider an act of terrorism. The head of Russia's Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, said that experts found pieces of an explosive device that detonated around 9:30 Friday night as the train raced over it, gouging a 5ft crater and strewing smoking wreckage over a rural stretch of track. He said a terrorism inquiry had been opened. As many as 100 people were left injured by the disaster, officials said, and 18 remained missing Saturday night. 'Indeed, this was a terrorist attack,' said Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the investigative committee of Russia's General Prosecutor's Office, according to Interfax. Bortnikov said the bomb exploded with a force equivalent to 15lb of TNT. The attack on the Nevsky Express, a luxury train popular with government officials, tourists and business executives, was Russia's deadliest terrorist strike outside the volatile North Caucasus region since 2004. Among the dead were citizens of Belgium, Italy and Azerbaijan. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Somali training camps fuel threat of attacks on US-MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN and JASON STRAZIUSO (AP)
MOGADISHU, Somalia — The recruits gather in scorching desert hideouts in Somalia, use portraits of President Barack Obama for target practice, learn how to make and detonate bombs, and vow allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Training camps in the lawless nation of Somalia are attracting hundreds of foreigners, including Americans, and Somalis recruited by a local insurgent group linked to al-Qaida, according to local and U.S. officials. American officials and private analysts say the camps pose a security threat far beyond the borders of Somalia, including to the U.S. homeland. In interviews with The Associated Press, former trainees gave rare details on the camps, which are scattered along desert footpaths, rutted roads and steamy coastal dens. They say the recruits are told the United States is the enemy of Islam.
U.S. and Somali officials say Somalia's al-Shabab jihadist, or holy war, movement is growing, and uses foreign trainers with battlefield experience from other conflicts. The threat posed by the training camps was underscored in federal court documents unsealed Nov. 23 in Minneapolis, home to a large Somali-American community. (AP)

Iran defies world with plan for ten new nuclear sites-Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent
Iran plans to build ten new uranium enrichment plants in a gesture of defiance to the West. The escalation of its nuclear programme was announced yesterday, two days after world powers ordered Iran to halt construction of a plant near Qom and to adhere immediately to five United Nations resolutions demanding it stop uranium enrichment. The censure from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with rare backing from Russia and China, provoked anger in Iran where members of parliament demanded the withdrawal of co-operation with UN inspectors. President Ahmadinejad announced last night that his Cabinet had ordered the building of ten new plants aimed at producing up to 300 tonnes of nuclear fuel a year, with construction to begin on five within two months. He said that the Cabinet had also been studying plans to start enriching uranium to a higher level — high enough to be used in medical research but below that required for weapons. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Iran grants $20m. to terrorist groups-AP, The Jerusalem Post
Iran's parliament passed a law on Sunday earmarking $20 million to support terrorist groups opposing the West and investigate alleged US and British plots against the Islamic Republic. The legislation is widely seen as a response to Western criticism of Iran's violent crackdown against protesters following the disputed June presidential election. Lawmakers started debating the outline of the bill in August when Iran's hardline leaders were fending off allegations that security forces had tortured opposition activists detained during the demonstrations. The text of the legislation says the money is to "support progressive currents that resist illegal activities by the governments of the US and Britain." Iranian officials often use such terms to describe militant groups. It was not immediately clear which groups would receive funding from Iran, but Teheran already backs the Islamic terrorists Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The bill also taps funds to "confront plots and unjust restrictions" by the Washington and London against Teheran and to disclose "human rights abuses by the two countries." (Jpost)

Philippine military unable to keep terror groups at bay, leader says-Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
U.S. aids Philippines in battle against IEDs, al-Qaida-style warfare
MANILA, Philippines — Eliminating al-Qaida-linked terror groups is not likely to end problems in lawless Mindanao. It might be only the beginning of the struggle. "Having eliminated Abu Sayyaf, will the Philippine police or the Philippine armed forces be in a position to maintain its deterrent presence in force for a long period of time, or will it have to pull out to go someplace else … while allowing the Abu Sayyaf to regenerate?" asked former Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, during an interview with Stars and Stripes. The Philippine military is now overstretched and ill-equipped to maintain such a presence, said Teodoro, a Harvard University-educated lawyer who resigned earlier this month to run in the country’s May presidential election. Without being beefed up, the military would likely be unable to hold onto its victory, and the Mindanao region would slip back into the hands of the insurgency, he said. (Starsandstripes)

Royal Marines could have rescued pirate hostages, but the order to attack never came-Nick Constable
The disturbing truth behind the Royal Navy’s failure to prevent Somali pirates kidnapping a British couple from their yacht can be revealed today. An investigation by The Mail on Sunday demolishes accounts by the Ministry of Defence and the head of the Navy which suggest that a naval vessel at the scene had no rescue force available. In fact, far from being a toothless bystander, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Wave Knight was within seconds of unleashing a crack team of 20 lethally armed Royal Marines. Wave Knight’s crew have been so angered by the official portrayal of events that one witness has given us a career-risking statement. His evidence raises troubling questions about Government and military policy on piracy. And many people will want to know why an elite commando troop, mustered in black combat fatigues only yards from the kidnappers, was not permitted to put its air and seaborne assault training into action. The astonishing stand-off occurred on day six of the hostage crisis as the pirates attempted to transfer Paul Chandler, 59, and his wife, Rachel, 55, to their mother ship. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Global Lessons from the Mumbai Terror Attacks-Steve Emerson
One year after terrorists struck at the heart of India's financial hub, Mumbai is still reeling from the shock of the attacks that left 183 people dead, including nine terrorists, and hundreds more injured. At nightfall on November 26th, armed terrorists came ashore in Mumbai, having left the Pakistani port city of Karachi by boat. They attacked several high profile targets throughout the city, including two luxury hotels – the Taj Mahal Palace and the Oberoi-Trident – along with the main railway terminal, a Jewish cultural center, a café frequented by westerners, a movie theater and two hospitals. Six Americans were among the 26 foreigners reported killed. This was not a first for the city of Mumbai. In March 1993, several car bombs were set off at important landmarks across the city, including the stock exchange, killing around 250 people. In July 2006, another series of blasts ripped through Mumbai's commuter train network killing more than 200 people. (Familysecuritymatters)

The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama-Foud Ajami
A foreign policy of penance has won America no friends.
'He talks too much," a Saudi academic in Jeddah, who had once been smitten with Barack Obama, recently observed to me of America's 44th president. He has wearied of Mr. Obama and now does not bother with the Obama oratory. He is hardly alone, this academic. In the endless chatter of this region, and in the commentaries offered by the press, the theme is one of disappointment. In the Arab-Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth. He has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not "unclenched their fist," nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest. There is little Mr. Obama can do about this disenchantment. He can't journey to Turkey to tell its Islamist leaders and political class that a decade of anti-American scapegoating is all forgiven and was the product of American policies—he has already done that. (WSJ)

Lisbon’s Constitutional Revolution by Stealth- An analysis by Prof. Anthony Coughlan
With the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty on Tuesday 1 December, members of the European Parliament, who up to now have been “representatives of the peoples of the States brought together in the Community” (Art.189 TEC), become “representatives of the Union’s citizens” (Art.14 TEU). This change in the status of MEPs is but one illustration of the constitutional revolution being brought about by the Lisbon Treaty. For Lisbon, like the EU Constitution before it, establishes for the first time a European Union which is constitutionally separate from and superior to its Member States, just as the USA is separate from and superior to its 50 constituent states or as Federal Germany is in relation to its Länder. The 27 EU members thereby lose their character as true sovereign States. Constitutionally, they become more like regional states in a multinational Federation, although they still retain some of the trappings of their former sovereignty. Simultaneously, 500 million Europeans becomes real citizens of the constitutionally new post-Lisbon European Union, with real citizens’ rights and duties with regard to this EU, as compared with the merely notional or symbolical EU citizenship they are assumed to have possessed up to now. (Brusselsjournal)

Post-normal science-Melanie Phillips
The scientific body at the centre of the scandal over the manipulation of climate data to shore up anthropogenic global warming theory, the Climatic Research Centre at the University of East Anglia, has now said it will after all make available the raw data upon which its research was based and which it has been witholding until now. But guess what: in the Sunday Times Jonathan Leake reports that the centre has actually dumped much of this data: Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. So now no-one can ever know for certain whether the centre did commit an anti-scientific fraud or not. What kind of scientists destroy the raw data on which they base their research? The dumping was done in the 1980s, well before the tenure at the CRC of the man at the eye of the current storm, Dr Phil Jones. But that only goes to back up the impression that AGW has been based on a series of frauds on the public ever since it burst upon the world two decades ago – as this angry piece by JR Dunn observes: (Spectator.co.uk)

Blood transfusions to black holes: Royal Society publishes 350 years of scientific discoveries online-Daily Mail Reporter
Landmark moments in the history of science, from a grisly early blood transfusion to Stephen Hawking's theories about black holes, have been celebrated online today to mark the 350th birthday of the Royal Society. For the first time, original manuscripts of papers published by the world's oldest scientific institution have been made available to the public via the internet. Among the highlights from the interactive 'Trailblazing' site are Sir Isaac Newton's landmark research on white light being made up by a rainbow of colours and Benjamin Franklin's famous kite-flying experiment to identify the electrical nature of lightning in 1752. Also included is a 1770 study confirming the young Mozart as a musical child genius, and Professor Stephen Hawking's early writings on black holes. They are among 60 articles chosen from among 60,000 that have appeared in the Royal Society's journals. The publications include Philosophical Transactions (Phil. Trans.), the oldest continuously published scientific journal in the world. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Discovering Jewish Music-BARI WEISS
Charles Krauthammer's office in Washington does not lack for artifacts. He obviously cherishes the snapshot of himself with a laughing Ronald Reagan and the board where he plays chess with Natan Sharansky. But the room's centerpiece is the sepia photograph of a serious-looking man in a fur hat. He was a chief rabbi of Krakow—and Mr. Krauthammer's great-great-grandfather. Mr. Krauthammer is not a believer, but the affinity across the generations is strong. "I consider myself a Shinto Jew," he tells me. "I engage in ancestor worship." Mr. Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist and Fox News analyst, grew up in Montreal in a modern-Orthodox home. By the age of 16 he was no longer living a religious life, but a class on Maimonides at McGill University brought him back into the fold. It was there that he understood for the first time "that Jewish philosophy was not parochial, was not superstitious, but was at the level of the great philosophies of Western culture." This "moment of revelation" renewed in Mr. Krauthammer "a sense of wonder about Jewish tradition and culture" even as his career took him into the world of political commentary. His great-great-grandfather, he jokes, "spent his life writing commentaries on the Torah. I spend my life writing commentaries on New York Times editorials—which is an argument against evolution." (WSJ)

Pops: The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout-The Sunday Times review by Robert Sandall
Terry Teachout makes clear in this terrific biography, the world that Louis Armstrong inhabited was anything but wonderful. It was, for most of his life, both profoundly racist and astonishingly bitchy. By the late 1950s, with his 60th birthday approaching and four decades of solid success behind him, Armstrong was still forced to sleep in a gymnasium while playing in segregated North Carolina and was denied access to a public lavatory in Connecticut. In Tennessee, dynamite was thrown at an auditorium where he and his All Stars were performing. At the same time, he was being reviled as a sellout by younger black jazzers such as Dizzy Gillespie, the bebop trumpet ace, who called him “a plantation character”, and he was dismissed by James Baldwin, the leader of the so-called “Negro intellectuals”, as a purveyor of “old-time, down-home crap”. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Intimate Ella Fitzgerald, Rediscovered-FRED KAPLAN
WITH all the multi-disc jazz boxes that have come out in recent years — the complete Miles Davis on Columbia, the complete Charlie Parker on Savoy, the complete Duke Ellington on RCA and so on — it’s hard to believe that any significant tapes by any major musician might still be languishing undiscovered in a record company’s archives. Yet Verve has just released “Twelve Nights in Hollywood,” a four-CD boxed set of Ella Fitzgerald singing 76 songs at the Crescendo, a small jazz club in Los Angeles, in 1961 and ’62 — and none of it has ever been released until now. These aren’t bootlegs; the CDs were mastered from the original tapes, which were produced by Norman Granz, Verve’s founder and Fitzgerald’s longtime manager. They capture the singer in her peak years, and at top form: more relaxed, swinging and adventurous, across a wider span of rhythms and moods, than on the dozens of other albums that hit the bins in her lifetime. Richard Seidel, the producer of the boxed set, first heard the tapes early this year. He was driving to Massachusetts from his home in New Jersey and brought along some rough CD transfers to play in the car. “I was feeling kind of down that day,” he recalled, “and the more I listened, I could not help but start to smile. I’ve worked on dozens of Ella projects over the years, but there was something different about this one — the sheer rhythmic joy she projects, the endlessly inventive improvising.” There’s nothing rare about a joyous Ella Fitzgerald recording; the woman exuded joy in nearly every note she sang. Yet the level on these sessions soared higher and plumbed deeper. (NYT)