The Western Word

This Week's Editorial

CAMELOT’S OTHER LEGACY
By Avi Davis

Over the past week the life of Edward Kennedy has been so scrupulously (and lovingly) picked clean by such a swarm of journalists and memorialists, that you would think that the senator had commissioned his own posthumous hagiography. That certainly would not be beyond the reach of the Kennedy clan, who, for over three generations of Kennedy hi-jinks, became renown for their ability to manipulate public sentiment in any major event involving a Kennedy.

But for once that famous publicity machine has some substance to commemorate. Whereas the presidential record of John F. Kennedy was light on substantial accomplishment and the presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy, little more than a memory of unfulfilled promise, the senatorial career of Edward M. Kennedy presents a record of unparalleled labor and perseverance. Over 47 years Kennedy had a hand in over 400 pieces of legislation, deeply affecting the trajectory of health care, immigration, education and electoral reform in this country. His willingness to compromise and his extraordinarily well honed persuasive skills, lent him a reverence from both sides of the political divide that few Senators may ever be able to match.

Well that’s the good part. There was, of course, another “ Ted” Kennedy - one for whom drunkenness, womanizing, carousing and other forms of bad behavior, made him a lightening rod for press attention and led to the collapse of his presidential ambitions. The 1969 Chappaquiddick accident, in which Kennedy departed the scene leaving his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne to drown, permanently scarred the public perception of Kennedy as a man of character, leading to the calculation that he might fail the nation in a crisis. His woeful performance in 1980, when he challenged sitting president Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination and failed to adequately articulate why he should be the party’s nominee, only served to fuse the impression that Kennedy was not up to the task of national leadership.

That impression was probably right on. Personal crisis and the way a man responds to it are indeed telling indicators of character. There is little doubt in anyone’s mind that Kennedy drove off on that summer’s night in 1969 for a tryst with the 28- year-old Kopechne and it was the obviousness of this intent and his fear of it being discovered, that ultimately resulted in his failure to report the incident to police for ten hours following the plunge from the bridge. Similarly, his involvement in his nephew William Smith’s indictment for rape in 1993, after he roused his son and Smith for
late night drinking bout at a nearby tavern in Cape Cod, was another example of irresponsibility that reinforced public understanding of Kennedy as an overgrown teenager whose private life was a sloven mess.

That impression was then reinforced in the 1990s with the publication of The Senator: My Ten Years with Ted Kennedy, by Richard Burke,which offers a scathing expose of Kennedy’s private life, written by a former aide who watched Kennedy’s descent into debauchery, even while he ascended the political ladder as an accomplished legislator. That book documents drug abuse, excessive alcoholic consumption and sexual escapades which make his father’s and his three brothers’ sexual antics seem somewhat tame.

Indeed, the Janus-faced persona of devoted public servant coupled with uninhibited libertine appears as a distinctly Kennedy generational trait passed successively down the family tree. Both Kennedy grandfathers were renown carousers and womanizers – the ebullient former mayor of Boston, John Francis “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald and the saloon owning Partrick Kennedy. Kennedy’s father, Joseph P., was the archetypal early 20th century “swinger,” completely faithless to his devoutly religious wife (despite siring nine children with her) and running through a series of mistresses for 50 years, which included the actress Gloria Swanson who at one time lived at the Kennedy Hyannisport compound in a virtual ménage-a-trois with Rose. Elder brother Joe, who died at 29 in the Second World War was consumed by an adulterous affair at the time of his death. John F. Kennedy transformed the White House, posthumous accounts have revealed, into a virtual bordello, with hundreds of young women, among them numerous prostitutes, starlets and movie stars invited (some say, “commanded”) to share the favors of the presidential bedroom. Even the formerly pristine reputation of Bobby Kennedy (father of eleven) has been shredded by the knowledge that he had affairs with numerous women, including Marilyn Monroe, whom he allegedly visited shortly before her suicide in 1962.

Psycho-therapists and Kennedy boosters might contend that Ted’s raucous behavior was both predictable and perhaps even excusable given the weight of expectation which rested on his shoulders. And it might well be true that the surviving Kennedy possessed demons neither he, nor anybody, could readily exorcise, given the high toll of family tragedies with which he had to contend.

But the purpose of dredging up the history of this century-long family bacchanalia is not to explore the Kennedy family’s personal neurosis as much as it is to identify the kind of men and women who deserve to lead us. For the Kennedys, the conquest of women was the preamble to the conquest of men and they heartily endorsed an ethos in which faithlessness, adultery and personal deception could and should be characteristic tools of any successful politician. Success did, of course, follow the Kennedys, but it was won at an enormous cost to our own political culture. Succeeding presidencies read from the Kennedy handbook the rule that means justify ends. Hence, Lyndon Johnson’s mendacity to Congress over Vietnam, Richard Nixon’s farrago of lies concerning Watergate and Bill Clinton’s evasions and subterfuges regarding the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Since that latter event we have been bombarded by our media with the message that the private life and personal morals of our leaders should have nothing to do with our evaluation of them as our political representatives. The idea that personal conduct has nothing to do with political reputation has time and again been reinforced in recent years, as witnessed in the re-election of exposed serial adulterer Antony Villagairosa as mayor of Los Angeles, the seemingly unblemished career of Barney Frank ( implicated in a male prostitution ring) and the continuing rehabilitation of disgraced former New York governor, Elliot Spitzer.

How, one wonders, would men such as George Washington, John Adams and James Madison looked upon the antics of the Kennedy brothers and the current public obliviousness to moral laxity? Not kindly. It is certain they had in mind different models of leaders, men who believed that their public lives would, by necessity, reflect their moral purpose of their private lives.

Shame is a quality which is fast vanishing from our political culture. We are losing touch with the appreciation of goodness, discipline and probity which characterized the early leaders of this republic. Our willingness to tolerate aberrant behavior from our leaders or hold them accountable for it, will not lead to the strengthening of our democracy but to its inexorable weakening. For that the Kennedy brothers must take their share of responsibility and recognize it as one of the more significant and dire legacies of their fabled reign in Camelot.

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Avi Davis is the president of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com

British Lion Muzzled
by Robert Spencer (more by this author)

Britain is sinking fast, and in too many ways its government is its people’s worst enemy.

Jihadists struck London on July 7, 2005 and Glasgow on June 29, 2007, and many still operate in Britain -- but how bad is it now? To begin finding out, I spent the last week in London, visiting mosques and discussing the situation with locals. What I saw wasn’t shocking, but quite depressing. I went to London to work on a documentary on the Islamization of Europe with operatives from the Christian Action Network, which last year produced the shocking documentary Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around the U.S. For that film, CAN’s Jason Campbell visited many of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra terror compounds which dot the rural American landscape, generally to the consternation of the locals and in the face of the indifference or impotence of law enforcement authorities. Last week, Jason and I walked around inside some of the most notorious mosques in Britain. One by one, we visited them. The North London Central Mosque, aka the Finsbury Park Mosque, the old haunt of the one-eyed, hook-handed jihadi Abu Hamza, who now faces extradition to the U.S. for his role in terror plotting. The expansive and prosperous Islamic Cultural Centre on Baker Street. The likewise large (and rapidly expanding) East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre, and the Stockwell Green Muslim Centre, where teenagers are recruited for jihad. There Jason and I both felt a distinct level of menace as we passed through the place. (Humanevents

Probe of CIA Imperils Interagency Trust SIOBHAN GORMAN and GARY FIELDS
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's decision to investigate CIA interrogation practices increased tension between the agencies and prompted a sense of betrayal among some CIA officers, current and former officials said. Rivalries had raged since the early days of the Central Intelligence Agency's World War II-era forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services, and the trust built in the wake of the 9/11 attacks could be shattered by the investigation, these people said. Many CIA officers were stunned by Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to launch a probe. Some were deeply angered by what they consider a selective declassification of documents describing the acts at issue, former agency officials said Tuesday. Of particular concern to some: their agency's decision not to release a rebuttal of a 2004 CIA inspector-general report criticizing the agency's conduct in interrogations along with the report, which was made public Monday in response to a lawsuit. "The employees that were involved wrote a joint rebuttal and they believe it was ignored deliberately by [Justice] for political reasons," said one former CIA official. (WSJ)

Europe’s Dark Hour By: Stephen Brown
Appeasement is the new continental policy, especially if radical Islam is involved.
Forty years after the death of the “last lion,” Great Britain is producing men of straw rather than of Churchillian iron.
It was only six months ago that the British government humiliatingly and shamelessly bundled visiting Dutch politician Geert Wilders back on to a plane to his native Holland to appease Muslim public opinion. Wilders had been invited to show his documentary film, “Fitna,” at Britain’s House of Lords, but, in a gross outrage, was denied entry to the country. That watershed moment of capitulation, however, was surpassed last week when the Scottish government released Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Magrahi from prison on “compassionate” grounds after serving only seven years of a life sentence for murdering 270 people, 189 of them Americans, when a bomb destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Al-Megrahi is said to be suffering from prostate cancer and given only three months to live, though many believe that he should have spend those final months in prison. To add insult to injustice, Libya welcomed al-Megrahi home with a hero’s reception – despite official promises that it would not do so. In a choreographed demonstration, al-Megrahi was greeted at Tripoli’s airport by hundreds of people, some waving Scottish flags. As al-Megrahi appeared before the jubilant crowd, Seif al-Islam, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, lifted his arm in victory. It was, indeed, a victory for terrorism, and an insult to the victims of the Lockerbie bombing and their still-grieving families. (Frontpagemagazine)

An overdraft? That'll be £200 at Lloyds TSB (but only £15 if you're a Muslim) ARTHUR MARTIN
Many Lloyds TSB customers are being hit with charges of up to £200 a month if they go into the red - while Muslims who use the bank are only being charged £15. The part-nationalised bank has been accused of religious discrimination over the disparity between overdraft charges on its standard current account and its Islamic account. The Islamic account was set up by the high street bank to attract Muslim customers by allowing them to keep faithful to their religion. Sharia law does not permit the payment of interest so the 'typical' Islamic account at Lloyds TSB has been set up without an overdraft facility. If a Muslim customer who has insufficient funds in the account tries to make a payment, it is blocked and a 'return item fee' is charged. However, on some Islamic accounts such a payment is authorised and an 'unplanned overdraft fee' of £15 is then levied. The bank says this is a management fee, not a payment of interest, so does not contradict Sharia law. Meanwhile, customers with standard current accounts who go into the red by at least £100 without authorisation are hit with an 'unplanned overdraft fee' of £20 a day for a maximum of ten days. This could mean a customer has to pay £200 in one month. The Islamic account is available to all customers at Lloyds TSB. In theory, anyone who does not need a permanent overdraft facility could switch to this account to avoid being hit by interest charges for going into the red. The disparity between the two accounts emerged after the bank sent its customers a booklet this month explaining its charges. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Anti-German Jihadist videos flood internet-The Local
With just over a month to go before Germany's general election, daily newspaper Die Welt reported on Friday that an unprecedented number of Islamist videos encouraging holy war against the country have flooded the internet.
Most recently, two Moroccan brothers from Bonn have appeared in terrorist propaganda videos online. The two men, 27-year-old Mounir Chouka and 24-year-old Yassin Chouka, are thought to be currently in hiding on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The brothers have produced several videos for the terrorist organisation the Islamic Jihadist Union dressed in military outfits and white robes, but the latest is the first in which they show their faces, the newspaper reported. The are part of growing trend of online Islamist threats intended to encourage Germany to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. Preaching under the names Abu Adam and Abu Ibrahim since the start of the year, the brothers attack the infidel American and European occupation forces in Muslim nations. They speak in German with Turkish and Albanian subtitles.
“Come and die an honourable death,” proclaims Mounir, encouraging his German Islamist brothers and sisters. Yassin Chouka then encourages all German Muslims to swear allegiance to the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar. Jihadists in Afghanistan would “delight to stand in a hail of bullets from NATO or under German Tornado planes,” his brother adds. (Thelocal.de)

France: 70% observe Ramadan fast
70% of the Muslims in France observe the fast of Ramadan, a stable number from a report in 2001, but a significant increase since 1989 (60%), according to an Ifop poll on Islam in France in 2009 published Thursday. At the same time, the number of people who say they don't fast dropped from 32% in 1989 to 20% in 2007. The rest of the people said they fasted some days or had no opinion. Friday mosque attendance remains a very male practice, with 34% of men and only 12% of women. Attendance varies with age, with 20% of 18-20 year olds compared with 41% of those over 55. The average attendance of Muslim men and women is 23% compared to only 5% of Catholics who attend Church at least once a month. The amount of those who pray daily went up from 31% in 1994 to 39% in 2007, among youth 18-24 less pray daily than among people over 55 (28% vs. 64%). The data was collected by Ifop in the period 2005-2009. The data was collected from 135 surveys each with a nationally representative sample of 950. In total the combined sample consists of 131,141 interviews. (Islamineurope)

Five Years on, Beslan's Survivors Feel Forsaken- Matthias Schepp
Half a decade after the Beslan hostage crisis, the survivors and families of the victims feel abandoned by the Russian state. The authorities don't want to be reminded of the failure of Russian security forces to deal with a terror attack that left so many children dead. It was a sweltering summer day when Alan Adyrkhayev, a doctor, received a letter from his 11-year-old daughter Emilia. It was an unusual letter, because, for one thing, the father and daughter live in the same house in Beslan, a small, dusty city in North Ossetia, nestled in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. But Emilia's request was sufficiently important to merit writing a letter. "This is dedicated to our mother Ira," the girl had scrawled in her child's handwriting. "The years have passed, but we will never forget your smile, your eyes and your tenderness." Emilia's declaration of love for her dead mother ended with a cry for revenge: "The Russians should kill the Ingushetians, just as they killed our Beslan." It was Ingushetian terrorists, as well as a few Chechens, who overran School No. 1 in Beslan, on Sept. 12004, taking 1,127 pupils, teachers and parents hostage. The Russian authorities, unprepared for such an act, spent little time negotiating before cold-bloodedly launching a rescue effort that ended in bloody chaos. Never before had a terrorist attack claimed the lives of so many children. Of the 334 dead, 186 were pupils at the school or siblings of pupils. Seventeen children lost both parents, and 72 still have severe disabilities. Adyrkhayev's wife, also a physician, died in the attack. Beslan was Russia's Sept. 11. (Spiegelonline

Yale: Betraying Nathan Hale, Embracing the Muslim Brotherhood-Diana West
When Nathan Hale, Yale Class of 1773, was caught in New York gathering intelligence on the British, he was hanged as a rebel spy. His very famous last words are said to have been: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." He was 21 years old. Notably, his statue by Bela Lyon Pratt, which stands on Yale's Old Campus, was a gift of Yale alumni 141 years after Hale's death -- testament to the reverence sucessive generations of Americans at Yale felt for him. In a description of the statue of Nathan Hale, there is this suddenly pertinent fact about this 1914 gift from Yale alumni: Unable to afford the renowned Gilded Age sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, they commissioned the piece from his former assistant, Bela Pratt."Unable to afford" ... they economized? They didn't turn to a Saudi Arabian oil well, I mean, "prince" for cash?How times have changed. I wrote extensively last week about Yale's revolting pursuit of Islamic lucre that appears to have crescendoed with its now notorious decision to enforce sharia prohibitions against depictions of Mohammed at the Yale University Press. (Scroll blog archive here.) I argued that Yale's public fawning over the UAE's notorious ruling Maktoum family, and its selection of Muna Abu Salayman, Saudi Arabia's Talal bin Alwaleed's "general secretary," as a Yale World Fellow must be seen as context and background to its sharia-censorship of its own press. I thought that was rotten enough, but it gets worse. From the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report via Family Security Matters: New Yale World fellow Muna Abu Salayman is not only a cohort of Alwaleed, she is also the daughter of a Muslim Brotherhood kingpin.Nathan Hale gave his life going behind enemy lines. Now, his beloved alma mater is welcoming the enemy in .... (Dianawest)

What Should Colleges Teach?-Stanely Fish
A few years ago, when I was grading papers for a graduate literature course, I became alarmed at the inability of my students to write a clean English sentence. They could manage for about six words and then, almost invariably, the syntax (and everything else) fell apart. I became even more alarmed when I remembered that these same students were instructors in the college’s composition program. What, I wondered, could possibly be going on in their courses? I decided to find out, and asked to see the lesson plans of the 104 sections. I read them and found that only four emphasized training in the craft of writing. Although the other 100 sections fulfilled the composition requirement, instruction in composition was not their focus. Instead, the students spent much of their time discussing novels, movies, TV shows and essays on a variety of hot-button issues — racism, sexism, immigration, globalization. These artifacts and topics are surely worthy of serious study, but they should have received it in courses that bore their name, if only as a matter of truth-in-advertising. As I learned more about the world of composition studies, I came to the conclusion that unless writing courses focus exclusively on writing they are a sham, and I advised administrators to insist that all courses listed as courses in composition teach grammar and rhetoric and nothing else. This advice was contemptuously dismissed by the composition establishment, and I was accused of being a reactionary who knew nothing about current trends in research. Now I have received (indirect) support from a source that makes me slightly uncomfortable, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which last week issued its latest white paper, “What Will They Learn? A Report on General Education Requirements at 100 of the Nation’s Leading Colleges and Universities.” (Fish.blogs.nytimes)

MEDIA BIAS

Accuse First, Ask Questions Never: Mainstreaming Anti-Semitism-Barry Rubin
The largest Swedish newspaper publishes an article accusing Israel of murdering Palestinians so it can sell their body parts. The largest Dutch newspaper publishes an article accusing Satan-worshipping Jews of creating swine flu and other diseases to murder large numbers of people. The newspaper of the British elite publishes an article by a well-known philosopher calling Israel a Nazi state. How does the Swedish newspaper’s editor respond to complaints about this sort of thing? Jan Helin responds:
It’s deeply unpleasant and sad to see such a strong propaganda machine using centuries-old anti-Semitic images in an apparent attempt to get an obviously topical issue off the table.
But what is the “strong propaganda machine” that is really using anti-Semitic images to get “obviously topical” issues off the table? The answer is not, as Helin would have it, an Israeli-Jewish propaganda machine. Since media coverage is so extremely anti-Israel — often breaking the rules of proper journalism to smite that country — it couldn’t be all that powerful. The propaganda machine is that of the other side: Middle Eastern Arab nationalists and Islamists, or their European leftist allies. These forces produce a constant barrage of anti-Israel stories which make headlines and then are never proven to be accurate. During the last decade, there has not been a single proven case of any war crime by Israeli forces. (Pajamasmedia)

Media Lies About Rifqa Bary- Pamela Geller
The court ruling on Friday that allowed Rifqa Bary, the teenager who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her Muslim family in fear for her life, to stay in Florida rather than return to her parents, was unexpected. The media shills and Islamic machinery in the U.S. never expected that G-d, Rifqa and the people would prevail upon the powers that be in Florida. So now they are in overdrive. One egregious example is an almost incomprehensible, misogynist column at the Orlando Sentinel. It is so inaccurate, so misinformed, and so dangerous, that if Rifqa Bary is harmed, "columnist" Mike Thomas could rightly be charged with incitement to violent honor killing. Thomas got nothing right. Not one detail. Further, at no point did he consider Rifqa's testimony. At no point did he consider the consequences of Rifqa's testimony. At no point did he consider the risk to Rifqa's life. Thomas says, "Left unanswered is what business Florida has involving itself in this matter. The people best suited to determine the threat level to Rifqa are the cops and social workers in Ohio familiar with the Bary family and the Muslim community." Why does Florida need to be involved? The Sentinel reported Friday: "There is no evidence, according to Columbus-area authorities that her father poses any threat." But a police officer from Columbus who involved in Rifqa's case told a source close to the case that he had talked to 20 people who knew Rifqa, and almost all 20 said she was in fear for her life. And one of Rifqa's teachers said she knew Rifqa's life was in danger, but became very frightened when told by the school to "stay out of this." (Americanthinker)

Al-Qaeda Murders Its Way Across the Sahara-Annie Jacobsen
It barely made the news.
On the evening of August 8, a suicide bomber [1] wearing a belt full of explosives approached the exterior walls of the French embassy in Mauritania’s capital city of Nouakchott. He shouted “Allahu akbar” and blew himself up. Two embassy security guards, or gendarmes, and another person were injured. Ten days later, al-Qaeda’s North African arm — al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) — claimed responsibility. Reuters [2] identified the bomber as a local jihadist named Abu Obeida Musa al-Basri.
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania is one of those countries that 99 percent of the people on the planet outside of Mauritania would not be able to place on a map. Located north of Senegal and south of Western Sahara and Algeria, it is one of the poorest, most illiterate, most draconian places in the world. Slavery, allegedly outlawed in the 1980s, remains in full bloom. Former Mauritanian slave and human rights activist Boubacar Messaoud recently told legislators in Washington that an estimated 500,000 [3] people among the country’s population of 3.3 million still live as slaves. (Pajamasmedia)

Sebastian Faulks: The book I really can't put down
(Note Faulk’s disparaging opinion of the Koran appeared in Sunday Times a few days before he ‘recanted’ )
Sebastian Faulks apologises if his comments about the Koran have offended Muslims.
There seems to be an almost inevitable irritation when novelists in Britain and America, with their long history of free speech, touch on matters Islamic. I am not the first and probably won't be the last to have ruffled some feathers, though I feel sad about this, because my new novel, A Week in December, is carefully researched, and, among its main characters, presents a hugely sympathetic and loving Muslim family; it is furthermore made clear that the parents' kindness and good citizenship spring not just from being naturally good eggs but from their devotion to the Koran. The crucial issue, I suppose, that divides Muslims from other religions is the nature of the holy scripture. We Christians and Jews have long accepted that our scriptures were written by humans; indeed, much biblical scholarship focuses on exactly which humans, and when.
For Muslims, after some intra-religious debate, it was agreed that the Koran is "uncreated": this means, as I understand it, that it is literally and in every syllable the word of the Almighty, unshaped ("uncreated") by human hand. When, with some excitement, I first read the Koran last year as research for my novel, I confess that I was disappointed by it. Raised as a child on the exciting stories of the Old Testament and inspired by the revolutionary teachings of the New, I had, perhaps naively, expected something comparable. The Koran has lovely passages, some of which inspire my character Farooq in the novel, but I did find it, from a literary point of view, repetitive. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Iranian Daily Papers: The Palestinians Must Not Accept Anything Less Than Israel's Annihilation-MEMRI
Three recent editorials in Iran's major conservative dailies Kayhan and Jomhouri-e Eslami gave a detailed account of Iran's position vis-à-vis the U.S. peace plan. It was claimed that the U.S. and Israel are trying to force on the Palestinians a plan that safeguards their own interests and perpetuates Palestinian inferiority, by activating the U.S.'s and Israel's proxies in the region - that is, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other Arabs from the "conciliation camp." Jomhouri-e Eslami called on the Palestinians to reinforce their resistance front and to reject anything less than Israel's annihilation, calling it "a goal within reach." Kayhan purported that "the Arabs who are in favor of conciliation," whom it dubbed "hypocrites within the [Islamic] nation," "are collaborating in the implementation of the Zionist-American version of peace by giving a green light to the Americans." It added that "peace - whether according to the Arab or the American formula - is tantamount to recognizing the brutal and artificial Zionist regime," and said that "unless this regime is completely eradicated from the region's political map, no Middle East peace is possible." [1] (MEMRI)

Following are excerpts from the Jomhouri-e Eslami editorial:
Stockholm's rabbi: Large Muslim population intimidates local Jews-Matthew Wagner
The strong Muslim presence in Stockholm makes the Jewish community there apprehensive about taking a public stand against the recent article in the Aftonbladet tabloid reporting Palestinian claims that IDF soldiers stole body organs from Palestinians, Rabbi Isak Nachman, the spiritual leader of two Orthodox synagogues in the Swedish capital, said on Sunday.
"We want to combat this type of thing, but some Jews here are afraid - there are between 400,000 and 500,000 Muslims out of a population of about nine million," said Nachman, a member of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe. "There is definitely anxiety and tension, especially at times when Israel is involved in a military operation, like Cast Lead," he said. Nachman added, however, that there was not a threatening feeling on the streets of Stockholm as a result of the article in Aftonbladet. "I walk around with a kippa and the Chabad rabbi here wears his hat. Muslims don't live in the large Jewish neighborhoods." Most anti-Semitic statements were being made by local bloggers, he said. The latest subject being discussed by these bloggers was the alleged Jewish connection of Sweden's ambassador to Israel, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier. Bonnier, who called the Aftonbladet article "shocking and appalling," was sharply criticized by Sweden's Green Movement and by the country's main opposition party. The Swedish government also distanced itself from her statement. Now, said Nachman, Bonnier's marriage to a man who apparently has Jewish roots is being singled out for censure. "This is a very troubling development," he said. (Jpost)

Fostering a Mid-East Genocide on Campus By: Fern Sidman
It is that time of the year once again. The new school term will begin in a matter of weeks. As the excitement and anticipation escalates for some, entering college or university for the first time can be a daunting and intimidating experience for the Jewish student. Always a minority, the secular Jewish student faces the foreboding prospect of living on a campus that has morphed into a raging hotbed of anti-Israel fanaticism.
Stand With Us, the pro-Israel advocacy organization that focuses its energies on countering disinformation and slander against Israel and Jews on college campuses, has produced a powerful and must-see documentary on the proliferation of rabid Jew hatred that has permeated today's college campuses.
The introduction to "Hate Speech on Campus" unequivocally states that the objective of this film is not to thwart the rights of free speech on campuses or to initiate a campaign against academic freedom but rather to spotlight the rampant plague of Islamic demonization of Israel that has become a ubiquitous phenomenon.
Focusing on such campuses as the University of California at Irvine, Long Beach and Santa Cruz as well as San Diego State University and Concordia University in Canada, this film utilizes realtime footage of Muslim agitators whose political and religious ideology is clearly tethered to such radical movements as the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qeada. Brought to these campuses by the Muslim Students Association as well organizations such as the International Solidarity Movement, Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Women in Black, these treacherous propagandists use arguments predicated upon half truths, distortions and overt canards as they attempt to re-write history, as it pertains to the Arab-Israeli conflict. (Frontpagemagazine)

'Facebook doesn't bar hateful content against Jews'-ELAN MILLER , THE JERUSALEM POST
The Facebook social networking Web site is violating its own terms and conditions on incitement to hatred, The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs charged in a report released on Thursday. "Facebook has through ignorance created an anti-Semitic policy platform where the only explicitly allowed hate is that, within certain parameters, directed against Jews," the report said. "Despite the initial Terms of Use and Code of Conduct, Facebook has never been eager to play a proactive role in shaping an online culture against discrimination and hate," the document's author wrote, bemoaning "Facebook's reluctance to take action unless pressured into it by the media." The Web site "has watered down the provisions against various types of hateful content and dropped its promise to provide a 'safe place on the Internet,'" the report continued. Dr. Andre Oboler, who compiled the report, told The Jerusalem Post, "I hope that this will help Facebook realize that there is a serious issue." Late last year, the site was forced to reconsider its terms and conditions of use after receiving complaints from the Jewish Internet Defense Force and Christoph Gunkel, a German journalist. The letter from the JIDF demanded that Facebook take offline five Holocaust-denial groups with names such as "Based on the facts... There was no Holocaust," "Holocaust: A series of Lies," and "Holocaust is a Myth." Holocaust denial is illegal in 13 countries and banned in other countries under broader laws that prohibit racial vilification, but Facebook claims it is duty-bound to allow its users to upload such content in the name of "free speech." (Jpost)

TERRORISM, security and policy

Remember ‘No Controlling Legal Authority’? By Andrew C. McCarthy
The CIA probe shows once more that the law does not control this attorney general.
It was a dozen years ago when Eric Holder began his first tour of duty at the Justice Department, as deputy attorney general. At the time, DOJ had a major hot potato on its hands: Al Gore, the vice president of the United States, had engaged in a clear, black-and-white felony violation of campaign-finance laws. Gore made phone calls soliciting campaign contributions from his White House office. As Charles Krauthammer wrote at the time, “Section 607 of Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code states very clearly there is to be no solicitation of campaign funds in federal government offices. Gore broke the law as written, as understood and as practiced.” Violations of Section 607 called for a penalty of up to three years in prison. Gore had no real defense, so he trotted out a phony one: There was, he infamously claimed, “no controlling legal authority.” What he meant was that there weren’t many court decisions interpreting the meaning of Section 607. It was laughable. The rule of thumb for judges, as for the rest of us, is that laws are construed to mean what they say, the ordinary, everyday understanding of the words. Most statutes are not 1,000 pages of health-care arcana. When they are succinct and clear, we don’t need judicial opinions to divine their meaning. No solicitation of campaign funds in federal government offices means: No solicitation of campaign funds in federal government offices. (Nationalreview)

Australia's Terror TV- Canberra shouldn't open the door to Hezbollah's satellite channel. By MARK DUBOWITZ AND ROBERTA BONAZZI
Australia has a record of success in fighting terrorism—witness the capture earlier this month of 18 terrorists who planned to attack a military base. But Canberra may be forgetting that the long war against violent extremism is a war of ideas as much as a war of arms. The decision last month to allow Hezbollah's al-Manar television station to begin broadcasting down under is a dangerous development for Australia and Indonesia and could reverberate around the world. Free speech protections may protect the hateful content of their messages but should not cover the role of these media outlets as operational weapons. Radical groups like Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Taliban, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and others use media outlets all over the world to plan attacks, recruit and train jihadists, fundraise, intimidate and incite. Hezbollah established al-Manar in 1991 as a tool to incite hatred and violence and recruit children and adults as terrorists. According to an al-Manar official interviewed by al-Manar expert Avi Jorisch, the station's programming is meant to "help people on the way to committing what you call in the West a suicide mission." Al-Manar reaches an estimated 10 to 15 million viewers daily and, before international action against the station, it had worldwide coverage through a network of 13 satellite providers as well as advertising support from western corporations. (WSJ)

If you British can't see why America is so enraged about the Lockerbie bomber being freed, read on-Sarah Lyall
When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie I was a newly-hired reporter at the city desk of the New York Times. The disaster may have happened across the Atlantic, but it was a local story for us. The flight was bound for JFK Airport, and most of its victims lived in the north-eastern United States and were flying home for the Christmas holidays. A huge number were students, 35 from one school alone - Syracuse University in upstate New York. I have covered many disasters and talked to dozens of distraught family members since then, but I have rarely been so emotionally shattered by an assignment. Part of it was that I was barely out of college myself. Part of it was that an old friend of mine, Julian Benello - 25, hyper-articulate, fizzing with crazy ideas, a graduate of Yale and a postgraduate studying cognitive science at Cambridge - was among the dead. But mostly it was because I had never encountered so much raw anguish, so much untrammelled grief. I had no children, and so couldn't yet fully appreciate the singularly awful sorrow of a parent who has lost a son or daughter. And it is the never-ending grief of the parents and other relatives of the Pan Am victims that has turned the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi into such a highly emotional issue for the United States. Pan Am Flight 103 was a horrible jolt for America. Until then, terrorism on such a scale was something that seemed to happen to other people in other countries. (Dailymail.co.uk)

When Will Westerners Stop Westernizing Islamic Concepts?- Raymond Ibrahim August 25, 2009
Recently, Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today wrote an article about Muslim zakat, wherein I was referenced as a "critic of Islam." She then followed up with another article titled "Critic questions the aims and ends of Islamic charity," dedicated to examining my views on zakat. While I appreciate Ms. Grossman's initiative, what especially interests me is that her response exemplifies the problems originally highlighted in my article, "The Dark Side of Zakat: Islamic Charity in Context," which Ms. Grossman takes to task. I had written: "From what American schoolchildren are being taught by their teachers to what Americans are being told by their presidents, concepts unique to Islam are nowadays almost always 'Westernized.'… [T]his phenomenon has resulted in epistemic (and thus endemic) failures, crippling Americans from objectively understanding some of Islam's more troublesome doctrines." It is, therefore, a bit ironic that Ms. Grossman's entire article is a testimony to this phenomenon. For starters, even though I indicated Muslims are actually forbidden from bestowing zakat onto non-Muslims, her opening sentence stubbornly describes zakat as a "mandate to be charitable." Surely "charity" that discriminates according to religion cannot be deemed all that "charitable," a word that, in a Western context, is connotative of universal beneficence. (Meforum)

The EU and the Irish Vote – What Americans Need to Know-Herbert London
For most Americans who read the papers of record, the European Union (EU) appears to be a progressive alternative to American liberalism. But for those who look carefully the EU expresses undisguised contempt for its member states and particularly for the populations within those states. The Irish government that has scheduled an October 2nd referendum on the EU has engaged in a pro-Lisbon propaganda campaign financed by the taxes of Irishmen. Yet it is interesting to note that not a word of the treaty has been altered from the last treaty vote which was rejected by the Irish people. I guess in Ireland, you keep voting until you get it right. The people of France and the Netherlands haven’t been given a second chance, even though the Lisbon Treaty is almost identical to the European Constitutional Treaty the citizens of these two nations rejected at the ballot box. In fact, there hasn’t been a single popular demonstration in favor of European integration. European elitists, usually lacking popular support, employ legalistic devices to enforce their will on largely unwary populations. In its effort to increase the ostensible goal of efficiency, EU bureaucrats are attempting to harmonize activities across member states, even though the countries involved vary in their economies, histories, traditions, and constitutions.Rather than rely on the will of the people seen through democratically elected governments, the EU is in the business of transferring power and authority to unelected institutions, e.g. the Brussels’ bureaucracy and the European parliament. (Familysecuritymatters)

Global Warming Blues- Norman Rogers
I spent my working life as a computer engineer and entrepreneur. I have a long history of tilting at windmills having been involved in numerous causes and crusades during my life. So when my retirement started it was natural for me to look for something to get involved with. I picked global warming. Since I had completed the course work for a Ph.D. in physics I felt that I could deal with the technical side of global warming theory. As a computer expert I though that I would have insight to the giant computer models of the earth's climate that are central to global warming science.
I smelled a rat right from the beginning. As a 20-something activist I had a job as the Director of Operations for Zero Population Growth, Inc. ZPG was a 70's environmental organization that at one time had 25,000 members. I knew that professional environmentalism has an ethics problem. Exaggeration promotes contributions. In my quest to investigate and understand global warming I joined the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. At scientific meetings, like an anthropologist, I cultivated native informants.I learned that most scientists don't have a good grasp of the big picture because they are narrowly specialized and don't think about much outside of their immediate interests. The scientists that do have a grasp of the big picture can be divided into global warming advocates, skeptics and the majority of passive observers who play it safe by not taking a position. The global warming advocates have the upper hand and the most power. The skeptics, including quite a few excellent scientists, are marginalized and frankly persecuted. They are whistle blowers. A lot of skeptics are retired. The warmers can't cancel pensions, at least not yet. The most famous promoter of global warming, James Hansen, wants to put his opponents on trial for crimes against humanity. (Americanthinker)

Guilt and Atonement on the Path to Adulthood-JOHN TIERNEY
Here is an experiment you don’t want to try at home.
Show a toy — a doll, say, or a model boat — to a toddler and explain that it it’s something special you’ve had since you were little. Ask the child to be “very careful” with it. Hand over the toy, which appears to be in fine condition, except that you’ve secretly rigged it to break spectacularly as soon as the child handles it. When your precious toy falls apart, express regret by mildly saying, “Oh, my.” Then sit still and observe the child. The point is not to permanently traumatize anyone — the researchers who performed this experiment quickly followed it with a ritual absolving the child of blame. But first, for 60 seconds after the toy broke, the psychologists recorded every reaction as the toddlers squirmed, avoided the experimenter’s gaze, hunched their shoulders, hugged themselves and covered their faces with their hands. It was part of a long-term study at the University of Iowa to isolate the effects of two distinct mechanisms that help children become considerate, conscientious adults. . (NYT)

Second World War outbreak: 70th anniversary-Sir Martin Gilbert
Historian Sir Martin Gilbert traces the bleak chain of events that triggered Britain’s declaration of war
The Second World War began on September 1 1939, with the German attack on Poland. Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. There had been many forshadowings of those grim September days, and what it would mean to the Jews. On January 30 1939, six years to the day after the Nazi party came to power in Germany, Hitler told a crowd of his keenest supporters that if war came, “the result will not be the bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe”. This boast was published in Berlin as an official German pamphlet, in both German and English. Meanwhile, the first of almost 10,000 children of the Kindertransport had reached Britain, fleeing Germany and Austria after Kristallnacht. The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, confided to his sister: “Jews aren’t a loveable people, I don’t care for them myself, but that is not enough to explain the pogrom.” The German occupation of Prague in March 1939 gave the lie to Hitler’s claim at the Munich Conference, five months earlier, that he had no further demands on Czechoslovakia, having annexed the largely German-speaking Sudetenland.With Czechoslovakia no longer in existence, Britain gave a “guarantee” to protect Poland’s independence. But this guarantee was not the end of appeasement, as Chamberlain explained in a private letter to his sister about the guarantee: “It was unprovocative in tone, but firm, clear but stressing the point (perceived alone by The Times) that what we are concerned with is not the boundaries of states but attacks on their independence.” (Thejewishchronicle)

Tom Paine, Warts and All- WILLIAM TRIPLETT
Washington
Arguably the most influential crank in American political history, Thomas Paine the man—as opposed to Thomas Paine the author of hackle-raising tracts such as "Common Sense"—has been all but lost to contemporary memory. That, at least, is the view of the National Portrait Gallery, which hopes a new exhibit will help restore the outlines of the fading arc of Paine's extremely consequential life. "Although his words are quoted left and right, right and left, I suspect most people know very little about Tom Paine," says Margaret Christman, curator of "One Life: Thomas Paine, the Radical Founding Father." Who was Paine? Depending on whom you ask, he was either an uncompromising free-thinker who made possible the popular embrace of the Declaration of Independence, or "a filthy little atheist," as Teddy Roosevelt once described him. A seditious subject of the English crown or an honorary French citizen chucked in the Bastille. Or just a fiercely American idealist with too much interest in brandy and democracy and not enough in fashion or personal hygiene. All are more or less accurate—some more, others less—though Paine did firmly believe in God. Not that it made him any less polarizing. "You either loved him or hated him," says Vikki J. Vickers, a history professor at Weber State University in Utah and author of a Paine biography. "There was no middle ground." (WSJ)

The Beatles re-mastered CDs: still fantastic-Neil McCormick
The boffins at Apple have done a respectful job with their digitally re-mastered versions of The Beatles UK studio albums, says Neil McCormick.
Yesterday, a stack of Beatles’ CDs arrived by courier, their entire original recorded output of the Sixties, all freshly packaged in smooth, shiny Digipack sleeves, with apple shaped stickers proclaiming Newly Re-Mastered Audio. I piled them up on the kitchen table and pawed over them with near religious awe. And I realised I couldn’t even bear to split the cellophane wrapping and open the gatefold sleeves. I know the music inside out anyway. If I really want to listen to The Beatles, I can listen to them in my head.
The world is about to go mad for The Beatles again. On Sept 9th, Apple and EMI are re-releasing digitally re-mastered versions of their UK studio albums, plus key soundtracks and compilations (Yellow Submarine, Magical Mystery Tour and Past Masters Volumes I and II), 14 albums in all (over 16 discs). On the same day, The Beatles: Rock Band computer game hits the stores. The Fab Four can be seen (as they so often still are) gracing the covers of a range of popular magazines, including Mojo, Uncut and Radio Times. The BBC are planning a Beatles week, which features a new documentary including what is described as “never-heard-before fragments of conversation”. The clue there is in the word 'fragments’. These newly mined gems include such witty exchanges as Paul McCartney saying, “Don’t be nervous, John” and his partner replying, “I’m not.” I saw a preview of the much heralded documentary, and confess I enjoyed every minute of it. But what I didn’t see or hear was anything new. Cause there isn’t anything. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Cartoon Jihad Continues
by Robert Spencer (more by this author)

A much-needed new book is coming from Yale University Press: The Cartoons That Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, a professor of politics at Brandeis University. It discusses the cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad that were published in the largest newspaper in Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, late in 2005, touching off murderous rage from Muslims around the world. Such a book could be a useful exploration of the free speech issues that the cartoon controversy raised. And it has already shed new light on the Islamic challenge to free speech represented by the response to the cartoons, even before it has been published.
But it has done so in a way that neither Jytte Klausen nor Yale University Press intends. For Yale University Press, according to the New York Times, checked with twenty-four “diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism,” as well as other authorities, and they all made the same recommendation: this book about the Muhammad cartoons should not actually include the Muhammad cartoons. (Humanevents)

Desecration of a hero: Hands of Churchill statue in Paris painted blood red by protesters blaming him for death of millions-Peter Allen
French anti-war campaigners have desecrated a statue of Winston Churchill in Paris on the anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess. They daubed the statue's hands in red paint to signify blood and scrawled the initials RH on the plinth. It has been 22 years since the death of Adolf Hitler's deputy, who flew to Britain at the height of the Second World War, allegedly to try to make peace. Prime Minister Churchill had him thrown in prison in 1941 and the war continued for four years. After the war Hess was tried at Nuremberg and jailed for life. The statue was attacked on Monday night, August 17, the day on which in 1987 Hess died at Spandau Prison in Berlin, aged 93. Some conspiracy theorists believe his suicide by strangulation was in fact an assassination. Among them is the Rense freedom group which has claimed responsibility for the Paris attack. The group wrote on a website: 'Protesters inscribed the initials of Rudolf Hess and daubed the hands of the Winston Churchill in crimson red on the statue of the notorious war criminal in Paris.
'Sir Winston set the stage for the slaughter of millions in World War II, when he refused to hear Hess's proposals for ending that unnecessary conflict. (Dailymail.co.uk)

NORTHERN ITALIAN MAYOR BANS BURKINI-ANSA
Women wearing Islamic swimsuit will be fined
(ANSA) - Turin, August 19 - A mayor of a northern Italian town decided on Wednesday to slap a hefty fine on women seen wearing the Islamic head-to-toe swimsuit or 'burkini' in local pools.
Gianluca Buonanno, the mayor of Varallo Sesia in the northwestern region of Piedmont, said the sight of ''a masked woman could cause dismay, especially among children'' enjoying a day at the pool. Buonanno, who is also an MP with the devolutionist Northern League party, said he was similarly concerned that the costume might pose ''hygienic problems''. ''We're always very respectful of the customs and habits of those who are not of our culture but we mustn't always be tolerant,'' said the mayor, whose party has been accused of being anti-immigrant. ''Let's try to imagine what would happen if a western went swimming in a Muslim country wearing a bikini: she might be decapitated, sent to jail or expelled from the country.'' ''We are simply banning it and if this decision upsets anyone they can simply take a dip in a burkini in their own bathtub,'' said the mayor, who said women seen wearing it would be fined 500 euros. In France, a woman wearing a burkini was recently evicted from a pool outside Paris because officials said the outfit was unhygienic. (ANSA.it)

Antwerp: School to open headscarf changing room
The Royal Atheneum of Antwerp is building a changing room with mirror for Muslim girls, where they could take off their headscarf when they come to school and put it back on when they go back home. Starting September 1st, the school is introducing a headscarf ban. "It wouldn't be nice for the girls if they had to change on the street outside the school-gate," says principal Karin Heremans. "Therefore we thought of a changing room with mirror in the school. The idea originated by the teacher and the administration during the discussions about the headscarf ban. If the Muslim girls will go outside the school to exercise, we'll also offer them a sports-headscarf. Last June the Royal Atheneums of Antwerp and Hoboken introduced a headscarf ban. The ban caused much protest among the Muslims. Principal Heremans expects that a number of students will leave to other schools due to the headscarf ban. [Ed: Though there are no more public schools in the city that allow headscarves] (Islamineurope)

Amsterdam "Apartheid at Islamic Schools"
AMSTERDAM, 18/08/09 - Orthodox Islamic schools treat Dutch teachers who are not Muslims as inferior beings. They have to have their meals separately and cannot be greeted in the same way as Muslims, says a former teacher at the As Siddieq school in Amsterdam. Hennie Metsemakers was suspended by the school a year and a half ago because she spoke of religions other than Islam in the lessons. "I had drawn a timeline and shown the most important events of a number of beliefs on it." Not only was that forbidden, but she was also ordered to teach the children that Christianity would be abolished, she told Het Parool newspaper. A few years ago, a number of teachers had already left the As Siddieq school due to the extremely orthodox attitude of its management. According to Metsemakers, the board has meanwhile succeeded in imposing the orthodox signature on all staff members, even though half the team consists of non-Muslim teachers. (Nisnews)

Honor Killings Come to America-Ryan Mauro
A 17-year old Muslim girl flees her family to avoid being killed for converting to Christianity.
Muslim women overseas have long had to deal with the threat of honor killings, but several incidents in recent years show that the threat has come to American soil. A 17-year old girl named Fathima Rifqa Bary is currently engaged in a custody battle after fleeing her father in Ohio, who she claimed threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity. She is currently living with Pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz of Global Revolution Church in Orlando, who she became friends with through Facebook. Bary says she took an approximately 30-hour bus ride from Ohio to Orlando in September to save her life. A video of her testimony has been posted on YouTube, where she cries as she explains that her family is required by Islam to execute her and that she’d die within a week of going back to Ohio. Her father, Mohamed, however, is saying she did not flee out of fear, but because of a verbal fight with her mother over her leaving the house without permission and says that the church has brainwashed Fathima. (Frontpagemagazine)

Shariah Finance Imposed in U.S., Courtesy of a Colorado Real Estate Company-Christopher Holton
Apparently, the Kuwait Islamic Bank entered into a joint venture with Colorado-based real estate company UDR, which brings to mind some crucial questions. What, if any, restrictions would be imposed on the real estate properties in which Kuwait Islamic Bank invested here in the United States? I made an inquiry via UDR’s “contact us” form on the company’s web site.
The company was quick to reply as, within minutes, we received a phone call from Dave Messenger, CFO of UDR.
I asked Mr. Messenger two questions:
1. What, if any, special restrictions or qualifications relating to Shariah were required in the deal with Kuwait Islamic Bank?
2. Are zakat payments to be made as part of this venture?
Mr. Messenger did not attempt to address question number two, but referred me to Kuwait Finance House to get an answer to that question. (Familysecuritymatters)

Brutal Murder Case Reveals Immigrant Culture Clash- Gisela Friedrichsen
A Kurdish man killed his German-born wife, who was also his cousin, because she was too independent. He stabbed her in the eyes, beat her with a billiard cue and then ran over her in his car. His mother-in-law had told him to be "strict" with her strong-willed daughter.
"Damn it, we're not on some television court show here! You keep your mouth shut!" The presiding judge is shouting like a trucker. A foreign spectator had called out something in the direction of the bench, something harmless and not insulting. One of the Kurdish witnesses was in the courtroom at the beginning of the trial, which is not permitted under German law. He is related to the defendant and the victim. "This is a case that involves my family. I have to be here," he said, explaining his presence. "You don't have to do anything!" the presiding judge said, interrupting the man. "You need to stay home until you're summoned." This isn't a TV courtroom, but the courtroom of the judge presiding over the 10th Higher Criminal Chamber of the Bielefeld District Court, Jutta Albert, a woman with peroxide blonde hair and a voice capable of grinding stone. The way she treats people from different cultures is a little strange, to say the least. (Spiegelonline)

Islamic Scholar Hits Out Over Sacking [incl. Tariq Ramadan]-John Lichfield Dutch authorities fire Swiss intellectual and TV anchor over links to Iran
The controversial Islamic theologian Tariq Ramadan has been fired from two jobs in the Netherlands for allegedly endorsing the Iranian regime by hosting a chat show on a Tehran-backed TV channel. Mr Ramadan, already persona non grata in the United States, has dismissed the decisions as "simplistic" and driven by the "Islamophobia" generated in Dutch politics by the populist campaigner Geert Wilders. The Swiss writer, lecturer and theologian, 46, has been frequently accused of preaching a moderate "European" Islam to Western audiences and taking a more extreme line when talking to fellow Muslims. He has been hailed by his admirers as an "Islamic Martin Luther", capable of reconciling the Koran with democracy and Western modernity, and attacked by critics as an anti-Semite and terrorist fellow traveller. Mr Ramadan has, nonetheless, become one of the most influential Islamic voices in the world. He has been given a series of high-profile jobs by European institutions and governments, including a place on a task force set up by Tony Blair in 2005 to combat Islamic extremism in Britain. The city of Rotterdam and the Erasmus University based in the city have jointly decided to dismiss him from his posts as community adviser and visiting lecturer on religion. This follows several days of heated debate in the Netherlands about Mr Ramadan's position as a presenter of a political chat show on Press TV, a London-based, Iranian-backed satellite TV channel. (Independent.co.uk)

Publisher Ousts Drawings From Book On Mohammed Cartoon Affair [incl. Jytte Klausen]-The Copenhagen Post
A noted US publishing company has decided not to include the Mohammed cartoons in a Danish author's new book about their effects Danish author and university professor Jytte Klausen is fuming over Yale University Press's decision not to reprint the infamous Mohammed cartoon drawings as part of her new book, 'The Cartoons That Shook the World'. Klausen's book, due out in November from the publisher, examines the influence of the drawings on Danish politics, how politicians used those images to serve their own goals, and how clerics used them to stir up anti-Western sentiment and even destabilise governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya and Nigeria. When the drawings were first published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2006, rioting in several Muslim countries followed, including attacks on Danish embassies and threats against Danes in general from extremists.But a statement from Yale University Press indicated that while it was 'deeply committed' to free speech, it had consulted with numerous experts prior to reaching its decision. (Cphpost.dk)

MEDIA BIAS

New York Times Refuses to Review Conservative Books- Christian Toto
The New York Times is generally loathe to dignify conservative-leaning books with an official review.
That stance is getting dicier these days, especially since the newspaper’s own nonfiction bestseller chart is chockablock with conservatives luminaries like Michelle Malkin, Dick Morris and Mark Levin.
President Barack Obama has only been in office for roughly eight months, but he’s already inspired multiple conservative bestsellers. Malkin’s Culture of Corruption sits atop the list, followed by Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny in the two slot and Catastrophe by Morris and Eileen McGann at number four. Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, isn’t surprised by the newspaper’s stance against these like-minded books. “Very rarely do they review conservative books,” Ross says. “What they sometimes do is mention a book that is conservative on their “Inside the List” feature. It’s a way to defend themselves against the accusation they ignore these books.” (Humanevents)

Media Corruption and the Two-Party System-Cliff Kincaid
What drives President Barack Obama to want to seize control of the health care and energy sectors of the U.S. economy? Obama was trained as a Marxist from his days as a young boy in Hawaii when his grandfather picked Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall Davis as his mentor. In college, as Obama tells the story, he picked his “friends” carefully, in order to avoid being perceived as a sell-out, and those friends included the “Marxist professors.” Later, in Chicago, he would become a political associate of another Marxist Professor, Bill Ayers of the University of Illinois. Does anybody see a pattern here? Based on what we have seen at some of the town hall meetings, there are some Americans who don’t want to see the U.S. go down the Marxist road. This is the time for the media to tell the truth about Obama and his agenda.
Unfortunately, we have now been treated to a new dishonest Obama book, Renegade, by Richard Wolffe, supposedly about “The Making of a President.” Far from being a “renegade,” the evidence shows that this President is probably the most far-left ideologically of any major political party nominee in history. Even as new questions emerge, however, it is still a challenge to get the media to report on the truthful but damaging information that is already a matter of public record. (Familysecuritymatters)

Islam film backlash feared: reports-Stewart Bell, National Post
Canadian security officials closely monitored last year's release of a Dutch film about Islam, fearing it could spark violent protests, documents released under the Access to Information Act show. The National Post has obtained copies of seven intelligence reports, circulated by Ottawa last year, that warn of a possible backlash against the documentary Fitna and Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. "There are concerns that reprinting of the cartoons and the release of the movie could provoke the kind of violent reaction which occurred within some Muslim communities overseas when the cartoons were originally published," one of the reports says. The Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, the federal agency that wrote the reports, typically tracks terrorist threats but the documents show that during four months in 2008 its focus turned to cartoons and movies and whether they would incite Muslims to violence.

Wilders Not Prosecuted for Showing Danish Cartoons
| AMSTERDAM, 19/08/09 - The Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) will not prosecute MP Geert Wilders for showing the 'Danish cartoons' of the Prophet Mohammed. The drawings are not illegal in the Netherlands, said a spokeswoman for the OM in Amsterdam yesterday. After a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of the Islamic Prophet in 2006, riots broke out in several countries. The OM has now concluded that under Dutch law, the cartoons are not offensive to Muslims as a group; they are about the Prophet Mohammed, but say nothing about all Muslims. Nor do they incite discrimination or violence against Muslims, according to the OM. Wilders put the cartoons on his website. TV programme Nova showed them on television. The OM received complaints against Wilders and Nova. Neither will be prosecuted. Nor will the OM initiate prosecution of the Arabic European League (AEL). In reaction to the Danish cartoons, the AEL put two cartoons about Jews on its website. While the publication of one of them constitutes an offence, the OM is not prosecuting on condition that the AEL does not show the cartoon again. (Nisnews.nl)

Fearing Violence, Yale Nixes Muhammad Cartoons in New Book-Fox News
Yale University is refusing to publish cartoons and images of the Prophet Muhammad in a new book about those very pictures, which inflamed anger in parts of the Muslim world in 2006 — even as a growing tide of writers and artists say they are ready to take such risks for free speech. The university's press is set to publish a book in November, "The Cartoons That Shook the World," about the dozen devious illustrations of Muhammad printed in Danish newspapers, leading to global riots in which at least 200 people were killed. The New York Times more or less rationalized the decision Thursday in reporting Yale's choice to reject the images, saying it was "not at all surprising" the school would opt out of printing the notorious pictures of Muhammad. Many Muslims consider any depiction of Muhammad to be blasphemous. But other writers and artists have been willing to risk even violent reprisals for the sake of free speech. Author Sherry Jones has weathered threats for writing "The Jewel of Medina," a novel that depicts sex scenes involving Muhammad and his bride Aisha. Her original publisher, Random House, put the book on an indefinite hold following concerns that its content would be offensive to Muslims. "I decided to take a stand for free speech and publish my books in spite of threats and violence because I wanted to make a positive difference in the world," said Jones, who will publish a sequel, "The Sword of Medina," in the fall. "Yale University Press's decision, like that of the executives at Random House, does the opposite," she said. "Self-censorship changes our world for the worse." (Foxnews)

Swedish government funds anti-Semitic NGOs-Gerald Steinberg
The article in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet accusing Israeli soldiers of stealing and selling the organs of Palestinians is not a surprise or isolated aberration, but rather the result of a long campaign of anti-Israeli demonization, based on manufactured "evidence" repeated by Palestinian "eyewitnesses". Applying the strategy adopted at the NGO forum of the 2001 UN Durban conference, the well-financed network of radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) plays a major role in this demonization, and the Swedish government is a major source of funding. Expressions of modern anti-Semitism and blood libels are the logical results of this activity. An NGO Monitor research report on Swedish government funding, published on June 29 2009, documented this pattern in detail, and warned of the incitement and anti-Semitic language being used routinely by these organizations. This systematic study examined over 20 major NGOs funded through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Diakonia, the multi-national NGO Development Center (NDC), and the Swedish Mission Council (SMR). (Jpost)

Man sentenced for role in plot to kill Jews, attack military bases-RACHANEE SRISAVASDI
He is 4th to be sentenced from prison-founded group that also wanted to attack airline at LAX.
SANTA ANA – A man was sentenced to 70 months in prison today for his role in a domestic terrorism plot to wage war on the United States by attacking Jewish synagogues and military bases. Hammad Riaz Samana is the fourth member of Jami'yyat Ul-Islam Is-Shaheeh, or JIS, a prison-founded group that wanted to make a political statement that also had plans to attack the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and El Al Israel Airlines at the Los Angeles International Airport. Samana was 21 when he was charged in the case in July 2005, along with the cell's mastermind, Kevin James, and members Levar Haley Washington and Gregory Patterson. The group committed armed robberies of 11 gas stations, including two in Fullerton, to buy weapons and gear for the attacks. Authorities said gas stations were chosen as targets because of the symbolism of the oil. (Ocregister)

PA University Lecturer: No Jewish Connection to Western Wall-INN
IsraelNN.com) A Palestinian Authority university lecturer was the latest PA academic to rewrite history and deny Jewish history in Jerusalem, which was the Jewish capital for a full 1,600 years before Muhammad authored the Muslim Koran. The lecturer denied the Jewish people's connection to the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported that Shamekh Alawneh, who teaches modern history in the televised lectures of Al-Quds Open University, said Jews invented the connection to the Wall for political purposes, to convince European Jews and Zionists to come to “Palestine.” The Jewish claim to the Western Wall “has no historical roots," he said on a television program called “Jerusalem – History and Culture.” The Jews’ claim, he said, is “political terminology to win the hearts and the support of the Zionists in Europe, so they would emigrate and come to Palestine. Nothing more!” (INN)

Column One: Fatah's message-Caroline Glick
A central pillar of the Obama administration's Middle East policy paradigm was shattered at the Fatah conference in Bethlehem - but don't expect the White House to notice. At the conference, Fatah's supposedly feuding old guard and young guard were united in their refusal to reach an accommodation with Israel. Both old and young endorsed the use of terrorism against Israel. Both embraced the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group as a full-fledged Fatah organization. Both demanded that all Jews be expelled from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem ahead of the establishment of a Jew-free Palestinian state. Both claimed that any settlement with Israel be preceded by an Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and by Israel's destruction as a Jewish state through its acceptance of millions of foreign-born, hostile Arabs as immigrants within its truncated borders. Both demanded that all terrorists be released from Israeli prisons as a precondition for "peace" talks with Israel.
Both accused Israel of murdering Yasser Arafat.
Both approved building a strategic alliance with Iran.
In staking out these extremist positions, both Fatah's old guard and its younger generation of leaders demonstrated that Fatah's goal today is the same as it has been since the its founding in 1959: Liberating Palestine (from the river to the sea) by wiping Israel off the map. (Jpost)

Food writer calls for Israel boycott-Keren David
A call for food retailers to boycott all Israeli goods has been condemned by the Israeli ambassador and anti-boycott campaigners. In an article for trade magazine The Grocer this week, prominent food writer Joanna Blythman calls on retailers and importers “actively to look for alternatives to so-called Israeli produce”. She contends that many items labelled as coming from Israel are in fact “grown on Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory… the fruit and vegetables grown there amount to stolen goods”. She adds: “The only clear and honest wording appropriate is ‘from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank’.” Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, said: “Progress in the Middle East will not be determined by how food industry publications choose to label Israeli produce. “This is just the tip of the iceberg of a wider campaign to boycott Israel, Israeli produce and Israeli people. That campaign to demonise Israel does nothing to address the day-to-day priorities of Palestinians and Israelis, and will not serve to nurture the peace process in the region.” TheJewishchronicle)

The 'One-state Solution' Only Stokes Palestinians Self-Delusion-Rabbi Abraham Cooper
In a New York Times op-ed, Robert Malley, who served as President Clinton's special assistant for Arab-Israel Affairs and Palestinian Hussein Agha, in his New York Times oped "The Two State Solution Doesn't Solve Anything" suggests that the "two states may not be a true resolution if the roots of this clash are ignored." He continues:
"To be sustainable, it will need to grapple with matters left over since 1948... the fundamental question is not about the details of an apparently practical solution. It is an existential struggle between two worldviews...As Israelis make plain by talking about the imperative of a Jewish state, and as Palestinians highlight when they evoke the refugees' rights, the heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel".

Withdrawal to pre- 1967 borders won't suffice for the Palestinians, the authors suggest we must revisit the Arab state of mind in 1948, "to bring the conflict back to its historical roots, distill its political essence and touch its raw emotional core." (Huffingtonpost)

TERRORISM, security and policy

Obama says release of Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi is 'a mistake'-Jenny Booth
President Obama today described the release from prison of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, as 'a mistake'. Speaking on a radio talk show broadcast from The White House, President Obama said:“We have been in contact with the Scottish Government indicating that we object to this [the release al al-Megrahi]. We thought it was a mistake. “We are now in contact with the Libyan Government to make sure that he is not welcomed back in some way but instead should be under house arrest.” Mr Obama added that the White House was also in contact with the families of the victims to tell them “we do not think this is appropriate”. Al-Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland on compassionate grounds. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, who announced the decision at 1pm BST, said that he was upholding the deepest held beliefs of the Scottish people in compassion and mercy by allowing al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to die. Some onlookers shouted abuse as a convoy of police and prison vans left Greenock Prison, where al-Megrahi has spent eight years in jail on 270 counts of murder, to convey him on the 20-minute journey to Glasgow Airport. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Jund Ansar Allah's Abu al-Nour al-Maqdisi: Americans Should Be "Beheaded"-NEFA
The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated video footage of a sermon by the late Shaykh Abu al-Nour al-Maqdisi (a.k.a. Abdellatif Moussa), spiritual leader of the Palestinian militant faction "Jund Ansar Allah." During his speech, al-Maqdisi condemned the United States for "flaunting [its] power and making accusations of terrorism" and ordered his followers, "those who are infidels, they shall receive beheadings. When you attack them, do it ferociously-so it is the reward of the hereafter, or continued sacrifice, until the conflict ends." He also praised "this new righteous movement; this new righteous movement led by the likes of Mullah Mohammed Omar, Shaykh Usama Bin Laden, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi... This group of patient and faithful mujahideen will teach them that the believer would rather take a willing strike by the sword on his neck-a willing strike by the sword on his neck-than a whip wielded in humiliation." (NEFA)

Indonesia: Up to 450 'recruited by Islamist terrorist'-AKI
Jakarta, 18 August (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Indonesia's most wanted terrorist, Noordin M. Top, and his Islamist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, have recruited and trained nearly 450 members for bombing operations since 2000, according to senior police. National police spokesman Insp. Gen. Nanan Soekarna said that Noordin and JI, believed to be the regional arm of global terrorist network Al-Qaeda, had provided training in bomb manufacture, weapons handling, combat skills, recruitment techniques and suicide bombing to new recruits from across the archipelago. “We can base these figures from [information provided by] members we have arrested and from those who have served time in jail. We have arrested and brought many of them to trial, while we continue trying to track down others,” he said. Nanan said programs to rehabilitate and monitor convicted terrorists were weak. He said since around 200 had been released from prison since 2002, authorities were afraid that many would rejoin their former terror networks and radical sympathisers. Nanan said links between suspects thought responsible for the 2004 Australian Embassy attack and the recent J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel bombings was testament to how the legal system had failed to deter future terrorist activity. (AKI)

Killing Germans is a duty, Sauerland cell terror suspect tells court-DW-WORLD
One of the men accused of planning attacks on US military bases in Germany in 2007 told a Dusseldorf court Wednesday that the armed fight against German soldiers in Afghanistan was a "duty."
Adem Yilmaz, part of a group of suspected militant Islamists arrested in Germany's Sauerland region in September 2007, told the court in one of Germany's largest terrorism trials since the 1970s that it didn't matter to him whether the soldiers were American, German or Turkish. "For me they are all the same," said Yilmaz, who is himself Turkish. "Allah gave us the right to fight against those people who are fighting us," he said, adding that many Muslims had been attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yilmaz also said he stood by an earlier statement that he wanted to kill as many non-believers as possible. Asked whether he would return to fighting armed jihad - holy war - after serving his sentence, the 30-year-old said, "I don't know yet." Yilmaz belongs to the so-called Sauerland Group, together with fellow defendants Fritz Gelowicz, Daniel Schneider and Attila Selek. (dw-world)

Counterterrorism in Obama's Washington-Daniel Pipes
Barack Obama's assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John O. Brennan, conveniently outlined the administration's present and future policy mistakes in a speech on August 6, "A New Approach for Safeguarding Americans." To start with, his address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, has an unusual tenor. "Sycophantic" is the word that springs to mind, as Brennan ninety times in five thousand words invokes either "President Obama," "he," "his," or "the president." Disturbingly, Brennan ascribes virtually every thought or policy in his speech to the wisdom of the One. This cringe-inducing lecture reminds one of a North Korean functionary paying homage to the Dear Leader.
Specifics are no better. Most fundamentally, Brennan calls for appeasing terrorists: "Even as we condemn and oppose the illegitimate tactics used by terrorists, we need to acknowledge and address the legitimate needs and grievances of ordinary people those terrorists claim to represent." Which legitimate needs and grievances, one wonders, does he think Al-Qaeda represents? Brennan carefully delineates a two-fold threat, one being "Al-Qaida and its allies" and the other "violent extremism." But the former, self-evidently, is a subset of the latter. This elementary mistake undermines his entire analysis. (Familysecuritymatters)

EMP threatens power shutdown for months-WND
Congressman says $100 million need to avert $2 trillion disaster
WASHINGTON – There's been a lot of talk about the potentially devastating impact of an electrical grid shutdown from the effects of an electro-magnetic pulse from the sun or from terrorism, but little action, says a prominent members of Congress. But it's worse than a threat on the horizon, says Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Maryland. It's an inevitability. Bartlett told NPR that EMP is "an event we will not avoid" – and remediation after the fact will cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Protection of the grid in advance of the disaster will cost $100 million, he said. The threat of an EMP attack by a terrorist group or foreign enemy has been a major concern for years. But Bartlett said nature, too, represents a potential time bomb. "The more sophisticated we become, the more vulnerable we are," said Bartlett. "There's a huge concern about cyber-attacks on the grid. [Well] a really robust [nuclear] EMP lay-down means microelectronics across the country would be shut down [and] you have no power…there's one event that we will not avoid, and that is a solar electromagnetic interference, solar storm. If we have a big one like the one that occurred back in 1859, that would shut down the whole grid for quite a long while. … It would cost about $100 million to protect much of the grid, but if the grid went down, it would cost us between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in damages, and the loss of life could be horrendous if in fact you were without electricity for months at a time. There's a bill in the House, and … it's got to go through the Energy and Commerce Committee." (WND)

UN Disabilities Treaty Would Limit U.S. Sovereignty-Global Governance Watch
On July 30th, in a move that could limit the ability of the U.S. to decide domestic social policy in a free and democratic manner, Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the “Convention”) at the request of President Obama. Though the Senate must still ratify the treaty for it to come into force, many human rights activists are applauding the President’s action as reasserting the United States’ leadership role in the area of human rights. However, proponents of the treaty fail to acknowledge the Convention’s potential to usurp national sovereignty by requiring the U.S. to conform domestic laws to UN-mandated human rights standards. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force in April 2008 (for more information, please see the April 10, 2008 Global Governance Watch post). The treaty outlines specific rights that all States party to the Convention must guarantee to persons living with “long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments,” including a right to inclusion in the community; a right to personal mobility; a right to inclusion in education systems; a right to health insurance and disability-specific health care; a right to “social protection;” and a right to participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport. In addition to the main text, States can also sign on to the Optional Protocol to the Convention, which allows individuals living within the State in question to bring complaints of rights violations directly before the Committee after they have exhausted all available domestic remedies. (Globalgovernancewatch)

Run Silent, Run Deep-Peter Hannaford
America's "mainstream" media missed it, but April 17 was a red-letter day for its Deep Ecologists. Red letter because it was the day the Obama Administration declared that carbon dioxide and five other gases emitted by industry threaten "the health and welfare of current and future generations." This opens the door to regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency to "cap" emissions. The Deep Ecologists see this as the path to their cherished dream of a less populous nation with greatly reduced industrial production. It will also lead to a poorer (they would call it "simpler") standard of living. The Deep Ecologists' philosophy came together in 1973 with a treatise by a Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess. He and his followers disdained the "utilitarian" environmentalists who, up to that time, had been working on clean air or water and saving this or that species. The facts of science and logic were not enough, he believed. They lacked an ethical framework that required deep questioning and commitment. Naess said that humans didn't rank above other creatures. That is, "the right of all forms [of life] to live is a universal right which cannot be quantified. No single species of living being has more of this particular right to live and unfold than any other species." (Scienceandpublicpolicy)

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show-ANDREW POLLACK
Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person. “You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.” Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories. The planting of fabricated DNA evidence at a crime scene is only one implication of the findings. A potential invasion of personal privacy is another. (NYT)

Dark Cynicism, British Style-KRISTIN M. JONES
Rain-slicked streets, hard-boiled protagonists, femmes fatales—it's easy to assume one knows the hallmarks of film noir without coming close to plumbing its depths. A mood rather than a genre, noir is a rich but elusive category. Even those who coined the term were shortsighted, seeing only Hollywood as the source of a gloomy new tone in moviemaking that emerged around World War II and spread, shadowy and glittering, into the cinema of the 1950s and early '60s. In his 1971 essay "Notes on Film Noir," Paul Schrader wrote, "In 1946 French critics, seeing the American films they had missed during the war, noticed the new mood of cynicism, pessimism and darkness which had crept into the American cinema." In fact, it was welling up, black as oil, in more than one war-traumatized nation. In Britain, noir was vibrant and eclectic—and surfaced earlier than the Hollywood version, in movies such as William Cameron Menzies's "The Green Cockatoo" (1937) and Arthur B. Woods's "They Drive by Night" (1938)—but remains little known stateside. At Manhattan's Film Forum theater, the 44-movie series "Brit Noir," with its tales of coppers, spivs, dance-hall girls and psychopaths, is packed with titles ripe for rediscovery. (WSJ)

We Are Fast Forgetting How To Be Guilty About The Past-Kate Williams
One of this summer’s big screen openings is Quentin Tarantino’s hyperbolic battle movie, Inglourious Basterds. Featuring Brad Pitt demanding his men search for ‘100 Nazi scalps’, this ironic shootfest is bloody, explosive, rowdily entertaining — and a fantasy. ‘You haven’t seen war,’ screams the trailer, ‘until you have seen it through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino.’ As the pound falls and Germany under Merkel is resurgent, 2009 is the year in which our representations of the Third Reich and the second world war have turned towards areas that we would have seen as excessive only a few years back. At a time when we are seemingly more obsessed with Hitler than ever, Tarantino has released an historical film in which history is irrelevant. Now, when most of those who fought in the 1940s are dead, the war is becoming not so much a memory, but a series of images, as fit for creative revision and ridicule as the Boleyn sisters and Henry VIII. ‘We are going to laugh at Hitler,’ declared Max Falk, the manager of the Admiral Theatre in Berlin, on the first staging of Mel Brooks’s musical The Producers in May. German audiences had never been exposed to a goose-stepping Hitler singing ‘Heil Myself’ and dancing stormtroopers. For Falk, the production was a ‘great step forward for Germany’. (Spectator.co.uk)