The Western Word

It is not so long ago that I thought everyone shared exactly the same grasp of the concept of academic freedom. Stated plainly it is defined as affording teachers in schools and universities the liberty to teach, pursue, and discuss knowledge without restriction or interference, by either school administrations or public officials. The concept had its origins in Germany in the 1850s and became institutionalized in the United States when the American Association of University Professors laid down its principles in 1913 and later clarified them in 1940. The AAUP Declaration of Principles not only protected teachers, but also protected students who were to be free of ideological coercion from their instructors

Since then, it has become a fundamental building block of the modern democratic state - so essential to the maintenance of an open and free society that it is spoken of in the same breathless, sacrosanct tones as freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.

But what happens when professors on our university campuses use the shield of academic freedom to promote antisemitism, racial prejudice, Holocaust denial and support for America's enemies? Are they deserving of the same protections afforded others with controversial views?

That question was brought poignantly to my attention this week when the communications of a University of Santa Barbara professor's anti-Israel slurs became very public.

The facts are these: On January 19, 2009, UC Santa Barbara professor, Bill Robinson, a tenured sociology professor, e-mailed his Globalization class students an inflammatory anti-Israel written article by Judith Stone along with 42 photos of Nazi atrocities which were mirrored by 42 photographs of Israel's purported atrocities in its war in Gaza earlier this year. His introductory comments equated Israel's military operations in Gaza with Nazi atrocities, asserted that Israel was committing genocide and that the state was founded on the negation of another people. When one surprised student emailed asking whether this was an assigned reading, Professor Robinson admitted it had nothing to do with the course, but "was just for your interest, as I should have clarified."

Two students promptly dropped the class. They later filed grievances, claiming that Professor Robinson had violated the Faculty Code of Conduct in that:
1. There should be no significant intrusion of material unrelated to the course
(II A, 1, b);
2. That faculty members should not use their positions of power to coerce judgment or conscience of a student ((II, A, 4);
3. That faculty should not use University resources for personal, commercial, political, or religious purposes (II, C, 3)).

The UCSB Faculty Code of Conduct is perfectly in line, in these matters, with the traditional protections afforded by academic freedom. The Code in fact follows many of the faculty directives of other universities around the country.

But Robinson was outraged at what he considered to be a Zionist conspiracy to silence him and strip him of his supposed academic rights. Within days of the filing of the complaint, a new campus organization, the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB sprang into life, with dozens of UC Santa Barbara professors signing on and hundreds of students declaring their support for the beleaguered professor. Robinson, writing in his own defense, focused on what he regarded as the violation of procedural issues and then went on to claim that "I find this complaint to be a potent, ominous, politicized violation of academic freedom. My right, in accordance with the (UCSB Faculty) Code to 'present controversial material relevant to a course of instruction', is being violated. " His supporters, among them noted professors at UCSB, claimed that Robinson is the victim of a witch hunt.

At issue, of course, is the question of whether professors can say anything they want, whenever they want and, while providing their students with materials which subscribe to highly controversial points of view, fail to offer countervailing opinions or materials. It should be no surprise that professors such as Robinson, and his counterparts in anti -Israel and anti-American invective such as Norman Finkelstein and Ward Churchill, regularly use academic freedom to mask the propagation of their radical points of view. Nor should it surprise anyone that the radicalization of the campus has not been enough for such men. The desire to offend and to even speak flagrant untruths seems to be now claimed as protected aspects of teaching that comes under the rubric of academic freedom

On the right, the complete collapse of academic freedom, wherein conservatives can barely express an opinion nor be taken seriously as competent in their fields, is a fixed belief. Last week, at about the same time I was learning about Robinson's case, a Californian female professor seeking employment out of state informed me that at the interview with the university in question, she had been intensely grilled about her suspected conservative views and affiliations. She instinctively knew that any admission that she harbored such views or affiliations, would have doomed her candidacy.

That academic freedom – or its abuse- is being claimed by both right and the left to defend various points of view was made clear to me last year when I was putting the finishing touches on AFA's own academic freedom conference How Free Is the University?

In the course of our research we discovered that several other academic freedom conferences had been organized within months of our own. The University of Chicago held a one day conference on October 12, 2007 titled In Defense of Academic Freedom which featured the redoubtable leftist beneficiaries of academic freedom Noam Chomsky, John Mearsheimer and Tony Judt themselves.

In early February, 2008, academics at De Paul University, reacting angrily to the tenure denials of Norman Finkelstein and Mehrene Larudee ( who were denied their full professorships, it seems, on the basis of the shoddiness of their research rather than the controversy of their views) ran its own conference titled the De Paul Academic Freedom Conference which featured a number of practitioners of "balanced" political instruction such as Bill Ayres, Asad AbuKhlalil and Juan Cole.

A few weeks later it was New York University's turn to join the chorus, decrying the collapse of academic freedom when it ran its own conference First National Teach-In on Freedoms at Risk in America.

This time around, the gathering of the persecuted included the aforementioned Norman Finkelstein ( last seen on al Jazeera Television espousing support for a terrorist organization and denouncing Israel) and Lynne Stewart, convicted in 2005 of conspiracy to provide and conceal material support for terrorists.

So on the one hand you have conservatives denouncing the absence of academic freedom for their positions, while on the other, you have exactly the same hue and cry is being whelped by radical leftists who feel similarly abandoned in the cold.

Newspaper editors often argue that if you are offending both sides equally then you know you are doing a good job.

Who is right then?

The harsh, brutal answer is that the words " academic freedom" themselves no longer have much meaning for anyone other than historians. That is because academic freedom did not develop as a means of promoting any particular point of view but was a vehicle to assist academics in their quest for truth. On this path, academics should be balancing a wide variety of materials and arguments, the better to test the credibility of any given proposition or theory. In such a pursuit of knowledge and truth 'balance’ is an absolutely critical ingredient -a requirement which really forms the bedrock of the academic freedom philosophy.

But with such a highly charged atmosphere on campus these days it is almost impossible to obtain that kind of objectivity from anyone - administrators included. Even in the sciences, where one would believe that the data speaks for itself, politics has intruded, barring any discussion of such sensitive subjects as the theory of intelligent design, the growing evidence against man-made climate change or the discovery of e in the universe of proof for the uniqueness of our planet.

Yet the tug of war between the two sides has essentially split the baby in two, rendering the entire concept of academic freedom, rather than a universally accepted philosophy, now more of one of personal preference to be decided on an individual basis. The concept of academic freedom probably then needs an overhaul ,to be replaced by an entirely new philosophical construct - one that is primarily based on the demands for balance and the objective pursuit of truth. How such a philosophy can be discussed or constructed, let alone agreed to in the oxygen starved atmosphere of the modern university campus, remains to be seen.

But while we are waiting for the academy to be rehabilitated, one thing remains clear: any academic - liberal or conservative, radical leftist or fundamentalist right winger, who espouses any personal point of view without at least considering an opposing position, cannot be trusted. His or her written work should not be taken seriously; their teachings should be regarded as suspect and their scholarly failings rightfully exposed.

Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky should take note. And so should Professor William Robinson at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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

Obama Busily Appeasing Jihadists
by Robert Spencer (more by this author)

“To the Muslim world,” said Barack Obama in his Inaugural Address, “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” After 100 days, how’s that going? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad summed it up best, responding contemptuously to Obama’s offer to sit down to talk without preconditions and taunting Obama for his impotence: “We say to you that you yourselves know that you are today in a position of weakness. Your hands are empty, and you can no longer promote your affairs from a position of strength.” Ahmadinejad is also turning Obama’s campaign promise against him. When Obama indicated that he wouldn’t impose preconditions on negotiations with Iran, the Iranian saw an opening. Now, he’s apparently demanding preconditions for the talks by pressuring Obama for concessions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Iran’s Thug-In-Chief spoke like an aggressor who has spotted an appeaser, and is determined to wring from him as many concessions as possible. How has it come to this so quickly? Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano seem to have made it a top priority of their administration’s opening act to weaken our position with the Islamic jihadists: (HumanEvents)

New anguish of the 7/7 families: Bombers' friends cleared of plotting deadly attack-Lucy Ballinger and David Williams
Families of the July 7 victims are demanding an inquiry into blunders made by the security services after the only suspects to be charged over the attacks were cleared. Despite a four-year, £100million police investigation, no one has been found guilty over the suicide bombings which cost 52 lives in 2005. Police sources insist that the probe into who ordered, financed and supplied materials for the London attacks would continue. But families feel they have still not been told the whole truth about what police and MI5 knew in the run-up to the attacks. Last night fresh questions were being asked about why MI5 abandoned surveillance of July 7 mastermind Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. Both were photographed alongside a convicted bomb plotter nearly 18 months before the 2005 bus and train blasts. Yesterday a jury found Waheed Ali, 25, Mohammed Shakil, 32, and Sadeer Saleem, 28, unanimously not guilty of conspiring to cause an explosion. All three were close friends of the bombers - Khan, Tanweer, Hasib Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay - and traces of their DNA were found at the July 7 bomb factory near Leeds. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Senators push for business sanctions-Eli Lake
Bill targets suppliers of petroleum products
Nearly two dozen senators will introduce legislation Tuesday threatening punishment of foreign companies that provide gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran. The Iran Sanctions Enhancement Act, a summary of which was made available to The Washington Times on Monday, would sharply escalate a U.S. economic war aimed at persuading Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and answer unresolved questions about its nuclear program. Past legislation and White House executive orders have banned U.S. investment in Iran's petroleum sector and barred U.S. banks from even indirect contacts with Iranian financial institutions. The new sanctions would go much further, though it is not clear how easily the measures could be enforced. They would freeze the U.S. assets of foreign companies providing refined petroleum to Iran and forbid them from doing business in the United States. (WashingtonTimes)

Politicians unite against forced teenage weddings-Copenhagen Post
The Social Democrats join the government coalition parties in condemning imams who perform forced weddings
A majority in parliament is prepared to crack down on imams who perform forced and unregistered Muslim marriages - particularly those involving girls under 18. The Liberals, Social Democrats, Conservatives and Danish People's Party are unified in their efforts to come up with an effective means of preventing the weddings from taking place and punishing the imams who perform them. Several leading Muslim experts and counsellors have indicated to Jyllands-Posten newspaper that the number of forced marriages in the country is significant - also for teenage girls who have converted to Islam. 'These marriages have to be identified and stopped,' said Karsten Lauritzen, integration spokesman for the Liberal Party. 'The imams who perform these weddings are contributing to the repression of women and there ought to be consequences for them.' Experts say that girls forced into these marriages cannot escape them because they have no rights when the marriage is not recognised by Danish authorities. It is normally the imam who decides if a divorce is possible, and often this decision is made according to sharia law. In addition to the forced marriages, many experts and Muslim women themselves have indicated that polygamy is also common within the Islamic community in Denmark. MP Naser Khader warned the authorities not to take the issue lightly.
‘It must be taken seriously and suppressed in all possible ways,’ said Khader. ‘You can’t just wave it off as a part of Muslim culture.’ (Cphpost.dk)

Three life sentences in Fort Dix terror plot-Joe Ryan
Judge: Brothers' hatred of U.S. impelled plan to kill soldiers
A federal judge sentenced three Muslim immigrants yesterday to life in prison for planning an attack on Fort Dix, saying radical ideology and hatred for America drove their plot to kill U.S. soldiers. The men, brothers from the Balkans, were among five defendants convicted in December of conspiring to target the Burlington County base in a crime prosecutors said was inspired by al Qaeda and proved that homegrown jihadists were plotting inside America. "Nothing has a greater impact on society than the crime of terrorism," U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler said before delivering the sentences in a heavily guarded Camden courtroom packed with government officials, the men's relatives and reporters. Dritan, Shain and Eljvir Duka each delivered rambling statements before they were sentenced, quoting the Koran and Thomas Jefferson as they accused prosecutors of manufacturing the case to scare the American people. (NJledger)

Vatican: Accord promotes dialogue with Arab League-AKI
Vatican City, 23 April (AKI) - The Vatican has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Arab League in a bid to strengthen political and cultural understanding. In a statement, the Vatican said the memorandum was signed for the secretariat of state by senior official Dominique Mamberti and Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League. The Vatican's secretary of state, Tarcisio Bertone and head of the Arab League mission to the Holy See, Walid al-Gargani also attended the ceremony on Thursday. "The agreement further consolidates the existing ties of collaboration between the Holy See and the League of Arab States, especially at a political and cultural level, in favour of peace, security and stability, both regionally and internationally," the communique said. "Furthermore, it proposes instruments for consultation between the two sides, with particular emphasis on initiatives of interreligious dialogue". The agreement comes as Catholic bishops across Europe prepare to meet Muslim leaders to promote dialogue at a conference to be held in the French city of Bordeaux on Monday. A delegation of Australian Catholic bishops and Muslim leaders is currently visiting the Vatican to look at ways to strengthen relations. (AKI)

The Classroom Without Reason-Douglas Campbell
Douglas G. Campbell is a lecturer with the Department of Recreation and Parks Management at California State University at Chico, Chico, CA, 95929; dcampbell@csuchico.edu.
A few years ago I was asked by the instructor of a philosophy class, then titled “Roots of War,” to discuss with his students the culture of the U.S. military community. After identifying myself as a former career military officer, I discussed my impression of our military’s culture. When I was done, a young woman who had been glowering at me and holding her arms tightly across her chest raised her hand. When called upon she vehemently said, “I don’t agree with you. I don’t think it is anything like that. You have just been brainwashed by the military.”
“OK,” I said, “what do you think our military’s culture is like?”
“Well, certainly nothing like that,” she sputtered. I could see some heads in the class nodding in agreement.
I asked, “Could you share with us your experience in or around the military?”
“I haven’t had anything to do with the military,” she indignantly replied.
“Have you extensively studied the U.S. military or worked with current or former members of the military?”
“No,” she angrily said.
“So where have you gotten your impression of the military’s culture?” I tried to ask softly.
“I am entitled to my opinion, and I think you are a Nazi!” was her voracious reply. The class was clearly enjoying her attack on me at this point and the philosophy professor sat smugly satisfied. (NAS)

The SAT and Its Enemies Fear and loathing in college admissions - Andrew Ferguson
One Saturday morning this month, a quarter million kids or more will slump their way into the fluorescent tomb of a high school classroom, slide into the seat of a flimsy polypropylene combo chair-desk, and then, with clammy palms dampening the shafts of perfectly sharpened number two pencils, they will take the SAT. They will carefully mark only one answer for each question, as instructed, and they will make sure to fill the entire circle darkly and completely. They will not make any stray marks on their answer sheet. If they erase, they will do so completely, because incomplete erasures may be scored as intended answers. They will not open their test book until the supervisor tells them to do so, and if they finish before time is called, they will not turn to any other section of the test. And over the next three hours they will determine the course of the rest of their lives. At least that's what a lot of them will think they're doing. They'll be wrong, of course--dozens of people have gone on to live happy and healthy lives after bombing the SAT--but they won't know it because an oddly large number of powerful forces in American society have combined to elevate the SAT to unlikely heights of influence and to impute to it unimaginable powers. You'll hear the SAT can wreck a person's future, even if only temporarily, or salvage a new future from a misspent past. The SAT can enforce class hierarchies or break them open; it unfairly allocates society's spoils and sorts the population into haves and have-nots, or it can unearth intellectual gifts that our nation's atrocious high schools have managed to keep buried. It is a tool of understanding, a cynical hoax, a triumph of social science, a jackboot on the neck of the disadvantaged. But rarely is it just a test. (Weeklystandard)

Media Bias

ABC Defends Obama's 'New World View,' Touts Supposed Successes
In the midst of conservative criticism that President Barack Obama, at the summit in Trinidad over the weekend, joked around with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and was uncritical of a 50-minute anti-American screed from Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, ABC decided to defend Obama's foreign-policy mettle -- with his only failure coming where he has followed Bush's policy. Martha Raddatz began by trying to undermine the pictures of a jovial Obama with Chavez: "Today, cell phone video images emerged of a stern and serious President Obama during a brief encounter with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The image counters the cordial hand shake with Chavez who once called Mr. Obama an 'ignoramus' and George Bush 'a devil.'" She noted that "it should not be a surprise that President Obama is reaching out to friend and foe after promising a stark change," before she recited, interspersed with Obama soundbites, how in a mere 90 days "he has reached out to the Iranian people...Muslims worldwide...And the Russians." She asked: "And where has all this gotten him?" Her one expert, former Chicago Sun-Times and New York Daily News executive James Hoge, who now runs Foreign Policy magazine, hailed Obama's approach: "I think he's doing it very sequentially, so that he's got a better chance of getting deals with people, getting some of the things we want to have done, done." (WSJ)

Geert Wilders: "The take-over of Europe is part of the global fight of Islam for world domination"
Here is Geert Wilders's acceptance speech for the Freedom Award he was given by the Florida Security Council in Miami on April 27:
Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me and thank you US border police for allowing me to enter this country. These are dramatic times. Europe might be very well on its way to destruction. We are now witnessing the largest influx in human history. This is endangering our heritage, our freedom, our prosperity and our culture. I wish I had come to a place they call the sunshine state with better news, but it would be unwise to deny the situation is gloomy. It might take a while to have you understand the situation we are in now. Maybe you as Americans still think of Europe as a place with great culture, and a profound way of looking at things. Maybe you see immigration as something that is inherently good for a country, as it contributed so much to the United States. The Europe you know from a tourist visit or from the story of your grandparents is on the verge of collapsing. We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe’s destiny and might send the continent in what Ronald Reagan once called ‘a thousand years of darkness’. The take-over of Europe is part of the global fight of Islam for world domination. Islam is not a religion. It is a political ideology. Islam’s heart lies in the Koran. The Koran is a book that calls for hatred, violence, murder, terrorism, war and submission. The Koran calls upon Muslims to kill non-Muslims. The Koran describes Jews as monkeys and pigs. Churchill compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. (Jihadwatch)

Senate Bill 320- California Libel Tourism Act Hearing-April 28, 2009Senate Bill 3
California State Senate Judiciary Committee-Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld
Thank you, Senator Corbett, for initiating this important bill, and thank you, members of the Committee, for holding this hearing on Libel Tourism. California is the world capital of the entertainment industry, which provides major revenues to the state. Yet every creative enterprise produced in California, and every individual writer, director, and producer in California is now at risk of financial devastation at the hands of Libel Tourists. In fact, all books, television and movie scripts, fiction and non-fiction, radio shows, web content and even video games, are exposed to this predatory legal action from abroad. Libel Tourism is a pernicious and growing phenomenon whereby wealthy and corrupt terror financiers exploit plaintiff-friendly foreign libel laws and expansive Internet jurisdiction to silence American authors, producers and publishers. Ever since the attacks on America of September 11, 2001, foreign libel laws have become a potent weapon used by the forces of tyranny who seek to undermine our freedom. California’s Libel Tourism Act can stop this invasive silencing of free speech and restore our liberty. American libel laws are very different from other countries’ laws and strongly protect free speech. In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court struck a critical balance between libel actions and a free press guaranteed by the First Amendment. The high court raised the bar for libel plaintiffs to insure our “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” Based on that principle, the court declared: “libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations.” (Acdemoracy.org)

Atheists target UK schools-Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Atheists are targeting schools in a campaign designed to challenge Christian societies, collective worship and religious education.
The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) plans to launch a recruitment drive this summer. Backed by professors Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling, the initiative aims to establish a network of atheist societies in schools to counter the role of Christianity. It will coincide with the first atheist summer camp for children that will teach that religious belief and doctrines can prevent ethical and moral behaviour. The federation aims to encourage students to lobby their schools and local authorities over what is taught in RE lessons and to call for daily acts of collective worship to be scrapped. It wants the societies to hold talks and educational events to persuade students not to believe in God. Chloë Clifford-Frith, AHS co-founder, said that the societies would act as a direct challenge to the Christian message being taught in schools. She expressed concern that Christian Unions could influence vulnerable teenagers looking for a club to belong to with fundamentalist doctrine. (Telegraph.co.uk)

ANTISEMITISM

Editor's Notes: Accommodating Ahmadinejad-David Horovitz, The Jerusalem Post
Iran wants to see Israel destroyed, but it also wants to take the free world back to the dark ages. So even if they don't care about Israel, why do the world's democracies continually furnish Ahmadinejad with the platform to undermine them?
Poor old Ban Ki-moon.I mean, it's not as though he hadn't told that dreadful Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to steer clear of the provocative anti-Israel material. At their tete-a-tete earlier in the day, wailed the valiant secretary-general when it was all over, "I stressed the importance of the conference to galvanize the will of the international community toward the common cause of the fight against racism" and "reminded the president that the UN General Assembly had adopted the resolutions to revoke the equation of Zionism with racism and to reaffirm the historical facts of the Holocaust." But, goodness gracious, shock, horror, would you believe it? The Iranian president simply ignored Ban's stresses and reminders, and launched another of his insidious assaults on the despicable post-WWII world order in general, and the racist, genocidal Zionist regime in particular. So clearly flummoxed was Ban by this astounding betrayal of his earnest advice, this misuse of his UN platform, indeed, that he had been rooted to his seat, evidently horrified into paralysis, as Ahmadinejad's interminable toxic peroration continued - a scheduled seven-minute conference opener extending into an hourlong horror show. (Jpost)

'Gang of barbarians' go on trial for Paris torture and murder of Jewish man-Henry Samuel in Paris
A gang of 28 Muslims known as 'the barbarians' go on trial today accused of the 24-day torture and murder of a younge Jewish man that appalled France due to it's brutality and apparent anti-Semitism. Ilan Halimi was lured into a honey trap, kidnapped and tortured for three weeks, before being found naked and handcuffed to a tree near a railway track in February 2006. The 23-year-old was in a state of shock and unable to talk, his body covered with burns, cuts and bruises, and he died en route to hospital. Tens of thousands took to the streets to march against anti-Semitism after the brutal crime, although defence lawyers say financial gain was the prime motive. The murder came just months after France's high-immigrant suburbs exploded into three weeks of nightly riots, and rapidly took on political overtones. The alleged gang leader, Youssouf Fofana, and 26 others are to answer various charges during the trial, which will be held behind closed doors before a Paris juvenile court because two defendants were minors at the time of the crime. Prosecutors describe Mr Fofana, 28, as a "perverted megalomaniac" bent on kidnapping Jews for ransom "because they are loaded with dough" and "stick together". He escaped to the Ivory Coast shortly after the murder but was arrested and extradited to France. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Labour Party embroiled in race row after candidate told she was 'too white and Jewish' to be selected-Emily Andrews
The Labour Party has become embroiled in a race row after a prospective female councillor was allegedly told she was 'too white and Jewish' to be selected. Elaina Cohen claims that Labour councillor Mahmood Hussain said he would not support her application for an inner-city ward because 'my Muslim members don't want you because you are Jewish'. Mrs Cohen, 50, has made an official complaint about the alleged remarks made by Mr Hussain, a Muslim and former lord mayor of Birmingham. She said: 'I am shocked and upset that a member of the Labour Party in this day and age could even think something like that, let alone say it. 'People should not be allowed to make racist comments like that. If someone in the party feels I cannot represent them because of my colour or religion, that's ridiculous. (Dailymail.co.uk)

TERRORISM, security and policy

Taliban Spokesman 'Paints' a Troubling Picture of U.S. Islamists-Sid Shahid
The brutality of the Taliban resurgence in Pakistan and Afghanistan has been well documented in the media. The danger officially metastasized into Pakistan on April 13 as beleaguered President Asif Ali Zardari signed into law the Nizam-e-Adl regulation. Translated from Urdu as the "System of Justice," this travesty gave the Taliban the right to dispense this so-called "justice" as per their interpretation of Shari'a law. It also gave them virtually unrestricted control of the Swat Valley. The Talibs have been quickly expanding their control in this troubled region of Pakistan, gaining strength and legitimacy. Most telling is what their spokesman Muslim Khan recently said in a CNN interview, not only about gladly harboring and protecting Osama bin Laden, but also about his desire to see Shari'a law implemented beyond Pakistan, even in America. The kicker is that for four years the Taliban spokesman lived in the United States, apparently working as a painter near Boston. All of a sudden, what has been depicted in the media as the cancer of Taliban extremism half way around the world seems to hit perilously close to home. It is almost unimaginable that a person like Muslim Khan, who supports and advocates the extremism of the Taliban, actually worked and lived a seemingly unremarkable life as a painter in Boston. We can recall the NYPD report on homegrown terror and wonder how many more with such a trajectory are lurking within our cities. Mr. Khan seemingly evolved from a Boston painter to the radical voice of the Taliban. Real counterterrorism work by "American" Muslims would demand such an analysis urgently. (Islamistwatch.org)

In conspiracy trial, dark tale emerges of jihad training-Mike Carter
NEW YORK — Speaking publicly for the first time, former Seattle resident James Ujaama testified Tuesday about his efforts in 1999 to create a terrorist training camp in rural Oregon for would-be jihad warriors wishing to take up the fight against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Among the instructors would be Oussama Kassir, a Swedish jihadist who once bragged he had been a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. Ujaama, appearing thin and graying and dressed in oversized prison overalls, took the witness stand in the terrorism conspiracy trial of Kassir, who is accused of traveling from London to the barren ranch in Bly, Ore., to help set up the training camp. Ujaama is a key prosecution witness in Kassir's federal trial, having already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. He told the U.S. District Court jury in Manhattan that he hopes to get a "significant reduction" in his sentence in exchange for his testimony against Kassir. He faces up to 30 years. (Seattletimes)

A Dishonest Debate-Andrew C. McCarthy
If interrogation laws were so clear, why did Ted Kennedy try to change them?
It was 2006, and Congress was debating waterboarding again. That should tell you everything you need to know. Our lawmakers do not debate murder or robbery or terrorism, even though there are those who portray such acts as mere “retaliation” or “redistribution” or “resistance.” We know real crimes when we see them, just as we used to know real torture when we saw it.The debate was politically charged. The 2006 elections were less than two months away. Iraq was going badly, and President Bush’s unpopularity was a drag on Republican hopes. The September 11 attacks were five years in the rearview mirror, and the war-weary American middle was unusually receptive to absurd, counterhistorical claims that threats against the U.S. were largely self-induced (or shall we say, “Bush-induced”?). With a key assist from Sen. John McCain’s two years of torture demagoguery, the Left was in an opportune position to discredit the Bush anti-terror legacy. So Sen. Ted Kennedy proposed an amendment to the Military Commissions Act (MCA) then under consideration. His measure would, finally, have brought clarity to the legal status of waterboarding. It would have expressly defined the procedure as a violation of Common Article 3 (CA3) of the Geneva Conventions, putting it on a par with “torture” — which is specified in CA3 — and making it punishable as a war crime. (Nationalreview)

Exclusive: What Does the ‘New York Times’ Have Against Missile Defense?-Peter Huessy
The New York Times loves to trash missile threats and missile defenses. In its April 26th edition, it once again mocks both the missile threats from North Korea and the American and allied attempts to defend against such threats. The author of the article was William J. Broad, the paper’s resident science expert on rocket matters. In the space of a few hundred words, he manages to make 12 key points, 11 of which were pure invention. The story arose because of a North Korean rocket launch, ostensibly to put a satellite into orbit. The launch itself violated previously passed UN Security Council resolutions, and became the focus of those concerned with the future possibility of a nuclear armed North Korea being able to mate such weapons to ballistic missiles and thus threaten the U.S. and its allies. Before we examine the merits of the Times story, it is important to step back and examine why the Times and its intellectual brethren do not like missile defense. (Familysecuritymatters)

Jihadists Sharing Maps of Strategic Facilities Worldwide-Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
(IsraelNN.com) Jihadist websites recently carried a series of maps displaying strategic, military and nuclear facilities in many countries around the world, including Israel. Other items shared by jihadists over the Internet include newspaper clippings about alleged Israeli army bases in Africa. The detailed maps are presented by Islamic fundamentalists alongside calls to carry out strikes against the named targets, according to a report released Monday by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR). One recent message specifies "important nuclear facilities and military bases that we should strike." The text is accompanied by several maps identifying strategic sites in nations as diverse as Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Greece, Israel, South Africa, Pakistan and the United States. (INN)

ANALYSIS: 7/7 bombing acquittals a bitter disappointment-Andy Hayman
The acquittals of three men on charges of helping the July 7, 2005, suicide bombers leaves me with a sense of bitter disappointment. It is a feeling that, I suspect, is shared by victims' families, the survivors and the police investigation team. These charges would not have been brought unless both the police and the prosecution were satisfied that there was significant evidence implicating the defendants in the preparation of the 7/7 attacks. We must respect the verdict of the jury but, rather than it starting to bring a small degree of closure, we are instead left with a deep sense of emptiness. I have no doubt in my mind that Mohammad Sidique Khan and the other three bombers had significant assistance from other people in this country and overseas. There were several sets of fingerprints, other than those of the four dead bombers, in the bomb factory in Leeds. There was extensive telephone contact with other people, here and in Pakistan. In my mind, it is inconceivable that the only people involved in planning these attacks were the four who carried them out. The end of this trial probably represents the last throw of the dice for the police investigation into 7/7. It is extremely frustrating to reach this milestone knowing that people who aided and abetted the murders of 52 innocent people remain at large. (Timesonline.co.uk)

The Danger of Environmentalism-Michael Berliner
EARTH DAY approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism. The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization. Environmentalism's goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where "nature" is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion. In a nation founded on the pioneer spirit, environmentalists have made "development" an evil word. They inhibit or prohibit the development of Alaskan oil, offshore drilling, nuclear power – and every other practical form of energy. Housing, commerce, and jobs are sacrificed to spotted owls and snail darters. Medical research is sacrificed to the "rights" of mice. Logging is sacrificed to the "rights" of trees. No instance of the progress that brought man out of the cave is safe from the onslaught of those "protecting" the environment from man, whom they consider a rapist and despoiler by his very essence. Nature, they insist, has "intrinsic value," to be revered for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to man. As a consequence, man is to be prohibited from using nature for his own ends. Since nature supposedly has value and goodness in itself, any human action that changes the environment is necessarily immoral. Of course, environmentalists invoke the doctrine of intrinsic value not against wolves that eat sheep or beavers that gnaw trees; they invoke it only against man, only when man wants something. (Scienceandpublicpolicy)

Koh Fails the Democracy Test-John Fonte
Consent of the governed? Or rule by international wisemen?
Advocates of global governance advance their agenda through the “transnational legal process.” Harold Koh, former dean of the Yale Law School, who has been nominated by President Obama to be the legal adviser to the State Department, is a leading advocate of this “transnational legal process.” His confirmation hearing is today, Tuesday, April 28. Dean Koh has written extensively — sometimes clearly, sometimes obtusely — on transnational law and the “transnational legal process.” In a rather clear paragraph in The American Prospect (September 20, 2004), Koh explains how the system works:
Transnational legal process encompasses the interactions of public and private actors — nation states, corporations, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations — in a variety of forums, to make, interpret, enforce, and ultimately internalize rules of international law. In my view, it is the key to understanding why nations obey international law. Under this view, those seeking to create and embed certain human rights principles into international and domestic law should trigger transnational interactions, which generate legal interpretations, which can in turn be internalized into the domestic law of even resistant nation-states.
Koh says much the same thing in the Penn State International Law Journal (2006) — more abstractly, to be sure, but it is worth listening to his voice to begin to appreciate the tone of the global-governance debate in legal circles: (Nationalreview)

Globalization, Pandemics, and Preparation-Roger Bate
Why do rich nations elect to fund global health campaigns to tackle problems with no supra-national element at all, such as obesity or smoking?
My grandmother loved to tell me stories about the tough times after the First World War when she was growing up. As a ten-year-old I was more interested in guns and battles but I never forgot her remark that the Spanish flu in 1918 was actually more devastating than World War I in terms of casualties. That pandemic infected 40 percent of the world’s population, killed over 50 million people, and particularly affected young adults. She had a natural worry about influenza in a way my parents’ generation do not. My parents’ complacency was natural, rational, and efficient. Despite two serious pandemics—Asian flu of 1957 and the Hong Kong flu of 1968, which took about two million and one million lives respectively, mainly amongst the elderly—since World War I there has not been such a devastating pandemic. But with increased globalization there is more of a risk of a pandemic than when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. The H1N1 swine flu emerging from Mexico that seemed to catch the world off guard in the last week spreads quickly and is similar to Spanish flu in that it mainly affects healthy young adults. Already a suspected 149 Mexicans have died (20 definitely caused by H1N1) and cases have been confirmed in the United States, Canada, Spain, and the United Kingdom, with Australia, New Zealand, Guatemala, Peru, and Brazil investigating suspected cases. (American)
EU judges want Sharia law applied in British courts-Daily Mail Reporter
Judges could be forced to bow to Sharia law in some divorce cases heard in Britain.
An EU plan calls for family courts across Europe to hear cases using the laws of whichever country the couple involved have close links to. That could mean a court in England handling a case within the French legal framework, or even applying the laws of Saudi Arabia to a husband and wife living in Britain. The Centre for Social Justice think tank today attacked the so-called Rome III reform as ludicrous.
It warned it would slow down cases, increase costs and lead to unjust results. However, in a report it says existing arrangements are 'anti-family'. Currently, a couple from different EU states can have their divorce heard in the first country where one of them files divorce papers. Because different states offer varying financial advantages to spouses in terms of division of wealth, the resulting 'race to court' in the best jurisdiction discourages couples from trying to save their marriage, it says. The report calls for a simpler solution, with each country applying its own laws and cases being heard in the country where the couple have the closest connection. At least nine EU states - not including the UK - are said to want to push ahead with the Rome III plan. (Dailymail.co.uk)

The Truth Delusion Of Richard Dawkins-Melanie Phillips
The most famous atheist in the world, biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, poses as the arch-apostle of reason, a scientist who stands for empirical truth in opposition to obscurantism and lies. What follows suggests that in fact he is sloppy and cavalier with both facts and reasoning to a disturbing degree.I previously wrote about the remarkable debate (which can be seen at this website) between Dawkins and John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics and Fellow in the Philosophy of Science at Oxford. Lennox is the author of God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? which demolishes Dawkins by showing not only that there is no inherent conflict between science and faith but that the argument for faith is now being bolstered enormously by the remarkable developments in science. Dawkins was on the back foot because Lennox was attacking him from his own platform of science. He was on safer ground only when, in a further debate between the two at Oxford’s Natural History Museum last October, he attacked Lennox for his Christian faith which he could more easily ridicule. But to Lennox’s core arguments, he seemed to me to have no convincing response. (Spectator.co.uk)

60 Years of Thames & Hudson-Joanna Pitman
The influx of émigrés fleeing Nazi Germany transformed the cultural life of Britain – and at the centre of that circle were Walter and Eva Neurath, who founded publishing house Thames & Hudson. This year, the family-run art imprint turns 60, and has had an extraordinary history. During the late Thirties, some of Britain’s most distinguished architects, artists, musicians, film-makers and others, many of them Jewish, arrived on our shores with their meagre belongings having escaped from the Nazi threat in continental Europe. Many of them made their homes here and went on to leave a lasting mark on our intellectual and cultural life. Britain reaped a rich reward for its tolerance. These émigrés later helped to create the Glyndebourne and the Edinburgh Festivals, the magazine Picture Post and the Royal Festival Hall. Sir Ernst Gombrich, author of the classic The Story of Art, was director of the Warburg Institute of the University of London; Sir Nikolaus Pevsner systematically documented the significant buildings of England, and the philosopher Sir Karl Popper, the historian Eric Hobsbawm and many others became important figures in our cultural landscape. Among them were two refugees from Vienna, Walter Neurath and Eva Feuchtwang. Walter had fled with his wife Marianne to London in 1938 and Eva had come later that year with her second husband, Wilhelm, fleeing Berlin on the last train out, just hours before the Gestapo came to pick them up. They met in London during the war, fell in love, and in 1949, 60 years ago, they pooled their passions, and set up a new art publishing imprint that would straddle the Atlantic. They named it Thames & Hudson, after the rivers of London and New York, and their aim was to publish reasonably priced books on art, sculpture and architecture, in which words and pictures were integrated and accessible to all. They wanted their books to educate, inform and entertain as a “museum without walls”. (Timesonline.co.uk)

'Soloist': Beautifully Played, Bittersweet Notes-Joe Morgenstern
Downey, Foxx add resonance to troubled musician's tale; 'Tyson' is a knockout
"The Soloist" is actually a duet on the theme of redemption. It's scored for two very different though equally remarkable actors, and performed with uncanny bravura. Jamie Foxx is Nathaniel Ayers, a schizophrenic street musician who was once a distinguished student at Juilliard. Robert Downey Jr. is Steve Lopez, the Los Angeles Times columnist who first befriended Ayers in 2005, then wrote about their friendship in a series of columns and a book that inspired the movie. The fictional version, directed by Joe Wright from a screenplay by Susannah Grant, occasionally suffers from a surfeit of inspirationalism, but its core is marvelously alive and complex. My sense of the experience was summed up by a moment when Nathaniel, sitting in on an L.A. Philharmonic rehearsal at Disney Hall, says with intense pleasure, "It's the way it should be." Should be, and seldom is. Films have romanticized mental illness, as in "Shine," or surrealized it, as in "A Beautiful Mind," but this one plays essentially fair with it. Music is Nathaniel's only refuge from the terrors and confusions of a merciless brain disease that ravaged his talent, destroyed his shining future as a classical cellist and defies anything resembling a cure. The movie is no less successful in its portrait of a journalist working at his craft. Other films, most recently "State of Play," reach for the fraught drama of contemporary journalism, but this one nails a host of authentic details -- Steve Lopez's paper has already begun the slide that imperils its future -- along with a special spirit. Far from being a bleeding heart, Lopez starts his journey of discovery as a self-ironic reporter on the trail of a good story. (WSJ)