And why should we believe Hizbullah has no resposibility?

It seems as though the warnings that Iran is going to open a second front against Israel are true.
An unprovoked rocket attack was launched against Israel from Lebanon. Notice this comes from Southern Lebanon, where Hizbullah has full control. Who are Hizbullah's masters? Syria and Iran.

Indirectly this is the Government of Lebanon's fault too. Most people would agree that a Government's responsibilities are to control their borders among other things. But with Hizbullah operating as a state within a state, against all norms of International Law, acts of War are conducted against Israel from Southern Lebanon.

This is why UN Resolution 1559 has not been implemented, and needs to be ASAP.

Syria mulling plan to cede Shaba Farms to Lebabon

To do so they will have to sign a new border agreement.

So what will Israel do when Syria does this? If Israel turns around and vacates the portion they are on, Hizbullah will be in a tough spot.
Hizbullah (grossly false) claims of resistance to Israeli occupation, while illegitmate right now, would be deflated if:
Syria gave the land to Lebanon
Israel left.

But what if Hizbullah has been really claiming they are resisting Israeli occupation of SYRIAN land? Hizbullah is more of a Syrian stooge than a loyal Lebanese (illegally armed) political / military organization.

Possible break in the Gebran Tueni case

According to Naharnet a video camera filmed suspects and the car used in the cowardly murder.
The tape showed that the car arrived a few minutes before Tueni.
The tape will be sent to a European country for examination.

Catch the bastards!

More Iranian Censorship enacted

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered a ban on Western music.
One more step back to the stone age.

Everyday I am thankful I live in a country where things like this do not happen.
Hopefully the innocent youth of Iran will eventually rise up against this Religious Dictatorship.

Receiving handouts is a priviledge, not a right

The EU bankrolls a significant portion of the Palestinian's welfare. The EU's contribution is expected to be 312 million dollars in 2006. The Palestinians receive approximately 1 billion in handouts a year. This is 1/2 of the PA's budget (which has been accused in the past of using donations to further terror attacks against Israel's citizens.)

The EU is concerned that Hamas will win in next months parliamentary elections. (Remember Hamas is devoted to Israel's destruction.) Hamas refuses to renounce violence. The EU warned that further handouts to the PA are in jeapordy if Hamas wins.

Khaled Mashall, the Damascus based 'political' leader of Hamas, has the audacity to say that the EU's move is "flagrant interference" in the Palestinians' internal affairs.

Excuse me? If I give my money to someone (on a regular basis) and then I do not like how or what they become, it is my right to stop giving the money. I would have no sympathy for that 'someone' when they complain.

Mashall should thank the EU for the help it has already given / wasted, instead the unappreciative 'leader' insults the EU. Does he have no shame?

Ariel Sharon hospitalized for a stroke

This will be bad news if he is unable to continue leading Israel. He was the man able to leave the Gaza Strip without any recipocal moves by the Palestinians.

The chances of any further movement on the peace track will be put on hold

US House Of Representatives against Hamas Political Participation

House Resolution 575 passed on 12/15/2005 by a vote of 397-17.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) reaffirms its commitment to the safety and security of the democratic State of Israel;

(2) asserts that terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, should not be permitted to participate in Palestinian elections until such organizations recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, cease incitement, condemn terrorism, and permanently disarm and dismantle their terrorist infrastructure;

(3) calls on the Palestinian Authority President Abbas before the election to declare openly his intention to take action to dismantle the terrorist organizations;

(4) asserts that the inclusion of Hamas, or any other terrorist group on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations, into the Palestinian governing structure will inevitably raise serious policy considerations for the United States, potentially undermining the continued ability of the United States to provide financial assistance and conduct normal relations with the Palestinian Authority; and

(5) states its strong belief, as underlined in every recent Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement, that progress in the peace process requires sustained Palestinian effort to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, and that delay in confronting that principal obligation only emboldens the opponents of peace and threatens its realization.

I strongly agree with number 4. But then again I seriously think the US should stop financing the corrupt PA. If the Palestinians hate the US, then we should not support them. And more to the point, where is their pride taking hand outs from whom they hate?

Maybe Iran should spread some of the money they support Hamas and Hizbullah with, and actually give it to the Palestinian people. Oh wait they do, except only to the families of the murderers of civilians.

The corrupt PA criticizes the US, all the while with their hands stretched out for more money, but Hamas acts like a good recipient of Iranian money and does this:

Hamas leader congratulates Ahmadinejad
Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas's political bureau, praised the Iranian president for his comments on the Holocaust.

Meshal, who is currently visiting Iran, was quoted by Iranian news agencies as having told a press conference: "It seems that the president's words did not find favor with regional and international leaders. But despite this, the Muslim public supported Iran on this issue in the past and will also support it in the future."

Referring to recent statements by Ahmadinejad that Israel should either be "wiped off the map" or be relocated to Europe, Meshal added: "The Iranian government's position on Palestine fills Muslim hearts with pride."

He also said that Hamas would step up terror attacks against Israel should Israel take military action against Iran's nuclear program.

Link to the 2nd Mehlis Report

Iran's former president Khatami accuses the US of crimes for not selling them modern planes and parts.

What is wrong with these people? They denounce the US as the 'Great Satan' (which you ask me they are agents of Satan), scream 'Death to America' and now the US is supposed to sell them airplanes and parts?

Are they this brainwashed? Let me give them a short 'refresher' course on how this works.

Stop the terrorism
Stop supporting terrorism (yes we know you are the ones who blew up the towers in Saudi Arabia)
Stop the war rhetoric
Stop threating Israel
Normalize relations with the US
Get out of Lebanon
Get out of Iraq
Stop building Nuclear weapons (everyone knows you are doing it, it just seems the EU and the U.N. are spineless dogs who want to be your friend)

Can't do that? Fine. Buy crap Russian stuff, or hey one better, LEARN TO BUILD AIRPLANES yourselves. Start that by teaching your students math, science and other hard sciences, instead of HATE and religion.

The US didn't tell you to keep flying an old plane. Hell your country bought them before your revolution. Couldn't you have learned how to build planes by now?

The Daily Star is down

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Default.asp

I find it strange that I can't get to this site to read more about the cowardly assination.
Too much traffic, or are goons attacking the site to stop the flow of the truth?

Cowards kill Gebran Tueni in Lebanon

This is total bullshit. Someone who knows the killers of these Lebanese please come forward and expose them.

And the hypocrisy of five pro-Syrian Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim ministers and an ally of pro-Syrian Lahoud suspended participation in the cabinet.

Why, because the cabinet voted for a U.N. investigation into the cowardly political assinations.
The reason "We object to the principle of internationalising all Lebanese files... and abandoning sovereignty." Of course it is a Hizbullah member saying this. Energy Minister Mohammed Fneish.

HELLO they are allied with Syria (and Iran) who stamped all over Lebanon's sovereignty!!!
The lies and possible blood that flows from their mouths sickens me.
May they rot in HELL

Countdown for Mehlis to turn in his report

I seriously doubt this report will have all the answers, mainly because his commission has not received the cooperation of all parties involved. I would have expected more flare ups on the Lebanese / Israeli border, to keep attention diverted.

Big question is what will Russia do if Mehlis reports he didn't get cooperation. Will Putin water down or even refuse to allow santions (if needed)? I strongly believe it as Syria has already 'bribed' Russia:

Russia's Stroitransgas company recently signed a deal to cooperate in building pipelines and natural gas processing facilities in Syria, Rossiya reported.

Debka file reports France has drafted a 7 point Security Council resolution, of which the assassination is defined as an act of terror.

Mehlis team interviewed the girlfriend of Hussam Taher Hussam. She reportedly says she was with him at the scene of the terrorist attack, on the day just before it took place. The team wants to re-interview Hussam.

Assad gave an interview to the Russian TV station Rossiya. In it he warned / threatened that if sanctions are applied to Syria it will destablize the region and the world. Does this mean Hizbullah is going to do Syria's dirty work again?

Dar Al Hayat has an interview with Mehlis. Good reading. Mehlis says the Syrians interviewed in Vienna are suspects. The next phase of the investigation will continue, the main focus the Syrian connection.

Will update as I find more info.

What kind of idiotic statement is this Statement from ElBaradei?

In Mohamed ElBaradei's acceptance speach for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, he warned that the risk of nuclear disaster is as great as ever with terrorists pursuing the nuclear weapons.

"We are in a race against time," ElBaradei, a 63-year-old Egyptian, said about efforts to keep nuclear weapons away from terrorists. "In four years, we have completed perhaps 50 percent of the work. But this is not fast enough."

To escape self-destruction, the world must make atomic weapons as much of a taboo as slavery or genocide, ElBaradei said in his acceptance speech. It has been 60 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, yet the world is still deeply concerned by nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

Make atomic weapons taboo? What is this man been doing? Certainly not keeping the world safe from Iranian or North Korean nukes. What is he referring to that he has done in four years?
Good thing slavery and genocide are taboo, as we wouldn't want those things going on. Oh wait THEY ARE.

ElBaradei getting the Nobel Prize (along with Arafat) just eliminates the meaning of the prize now.

Wow the CIA is out to subvert the Bush Administration?

Read the story over at Powerline, it's HUGE!

They complain when we support their governments, and complain if we try to push for democracy

What do Muslims really want? They do not want to co-exist with infidels. That much is readily apparent buy how infidels live as second class citizens in predominately Mulism countries.

They want global domination.

Khaled Meshall of Hamas says truce will end

he was speaking in Damascus:

"We will not enter a new truce while our people are surrounded and are preparing
for a new round of conflict," he said. "We have had enough of the truce while
our prisoners are still held."

Israel's IDF has had a 'hands off' policy towards Hamas (but not Islamic Jihad). Well this is a declaration to resume the shooting war. So why should Israel not respond? Oh I know why, because the world is full of hypocrits.

The Muslim world does not want a peaceful resolution to the Palestinians. They don't even really want Israel's destruction, or the US to get out of Iraq. If they got everything they wanted then the citizens would then turn their attention on to their own governments. And this is exact what the rulers do not want.

Think back to the before WWII. The US was isolationist. Yet Stalin used the US as an external enemy, to refocus the attention of the Russians away from the government. Same thing is happening now with North Korea, China, Russia and the Middle Eastern countries.
Take North Korea as an example. If they would stop threatening South Korea (and it was North Korea who started the Korean war, even though the Communists brainwash their citizens into thinking the US started it) then the US could remove their troops. Same with Iraq. If the insurgency stopped, the Iraq government restored order, the US will remove their troops.

So why doesn't this happen? Because countries like Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, North Korea etc. do not REALLY want the US out of their neighborhood, because then the attention would be directed elsewhere.

Same thing with the State of Israel. The Arab governments want it as an external focus.

Great Blog to get a Muslim women's persective

Here in the West we would label this Women's Rights Movement.
I'm afraid it is much more difficult for non-Western, Muslim women to stand up for equality.

I wish them well.

Check out the site: The Muslim Woman - Looking Beyond The Veil

I have not followed blogs from within Iraq...

I guess I have been too busy following the ugly dancing between Lebanon, Syria (Iran) and Israel, plus working.
But I just had a thought while reading A Star From Mosul.

I wonder why the Anti-War groups, Anti-US groups and the fringe members of the main stream media haven't started 'claiming' that the blogging being done from within Iraq is actually part of the US Military 'propaganda' effort.

Maybe this has already been claimed and I missed it.

Maybe Iraq is not ready for Democracy, and law and order?

The section 'The Trends' brings up an interesting idea. What if the population of Iraq can not get past the loyality of just the tribal clan? It seems that with this system of loyality, it would be hard for the nation to come together, and do what is best for the majority of citizens.

I can see that if a government was able to hand out jobs to citizens based upon loyality (non-national security type jobs), instead of to the most capable citizens, then you have bad system in place (corruption!)


Back in college, in one of my Humanities classes, I wrote a paper comparing and contrasting three books (political systems):

• Henry David Thoreau's "On Walden Pond"
• Karl Marx's "The Communist Manifesto"
• John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty"

I personally agreed with Mill's ideas.

It would be interesting to have included the Koran.

Marx's vision was hugely corrupted / distorted by Lenin and (worse) Stalin.
Marxism / Leninism is closest to the Koran, with 'someone / something' having total, unchallengable control. Funny that Marx said Religion is the opiate of the masses.

No matter what I will always believe in Lord Acton's phrase:
'Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.'

Democracy is not perfect. But if you have term limits (to avoid Presidents for life), true separation of power, and something like a free media to help keep things in check, it is a better system than dictatorships. Whether it is a dictatorship by a Facist, Communist or Religious, it is the same. But Democracy needs laws, people to abide by those laws, and a honest judicial system to take care of those who do not abide by the laws.

Anyone find it interesting how Russia's occupation of Chechnya is not considered the same way as Iraq?

Look at the post for December 8th. Now Chechnya is an expensive training grounds.

Russia does not plan on giving Chechnya up. The US plans on leaving Iraq when Iraq is stable enough.

What gives here? Which is a bigger threat to the Muslims? Permanent occupation or temporary? Or is it really that either:

• the Jihadists are afraid of taking on the Russians (because the world will not cry bloody murder over any attrocities the Russians commit)
• the Jihadists are really afraid of letting Democracy take root, and hence have a harder time creating another nightmare place like Afghanistan under the Taliban or Iran.

Interesting set of 'facts' about Israel

Read the post "The 'Shitty Little Country'"

Until the Palestinians stop the bombings, Israel shouldn't be pressured to help

Islamic Jihad did not agree to the latest round of cease fires, so Israel continues to take out the leaders. In the usual Tit-for-tat rounds, Islamic Jihad decides to murder more civilians at a shopping mall. Lutfi Amin Abu Salem, 21, was spotted before he could get inside the mall, but still managed to kill at least 5 people, and wound scores more.

Islamic Jihad also carried out the other 4 suicide bombings since the 'cease fire' went into affect.

Islamic Jihad does not recogonize Israel's right to exist, and did not agree to a cease fire. So Israel continues to attack. What do the leaders expect to happen? Can they be stupid enough to think a nation, any nation, will not respond to violence?

So what does the corrupt Palestinian Authority do about this? Nothing. Spew out the usual retoric that EVERY thing is Israel's fault.

The world should come to grips with the fact that there is no legitimate government representing the Palestinians. What pretends to be the Palestinian's government is an organization that does not provide for the people represented. And that is why groups like Hamas have a more favorable standing. I wonder how much money donated (that is correct, the PA has to survive by leaching off of hand outs) is wasted by corruption?

My thoughts are the Palestinians should start over and choose a new government. And I don't want to hear the usual complaints that they can't do this because of Israeli occupation. If the terror campain stopped, then there would not be closures or blockades.

Another conviction I hold is that both sides screwed up in the Oslo process. Israel for not coming to grips, or telling their citizens they will eventually have to pull back to the '67 borders, but instead dragging out the negotiations. Arafat did just about everything he could do wrong. The Clinton Administration was dumb for thinking that he was the person to deal with.

The Palestinians need to come to a decision, do they want a State that lives side by side with Israel, or continue with their masked goal of killing or driving out the Jews? Conduct a referendum. If the majority want to eliminate Israel, then accept the fact that would mean a state of war (except genocide would come into play.) If the majority wants to PERMANENTLY live side by side with the State of Israel, then it is up to them to stop the violence. Do not put the blame on anyone else but yourselves. It is apparent to those outside of the conflict that Israel only attacks when the Palestinians do, or Israel gets intelligence that some party is planning an attack.

I fully supported George W. Bush's decision to disengage from the dispute in his first term. There was no point in engaging anyway. Somehow the world (especially the arab world) thinks the United States can dictate anything to the Israelis. If that were so, then the US would be able to dictate to the Palestinians too.

[Oops missed a point - Update] - This is the part the makes me mad:

At the same time, the defense establishment has increased the number of entry permits for Palestinian workers who want to find employment in Israel. Their entry was barred after yesterday's suicide bombing but the ban is likely to be short-lived so as not to harm ties with the international community.

I do not agree that Israel should have to let the Palestinians in to work. Let them find work in Egypt or another muslim country.

Different sets of rules for our troops vs the insurgents in Iraq

I am really tired about the hyping of white phosphorus as an 'illegal or immoral' weapon.
The US troops in Iraq use it for smoke screens, to make it difficult for the insurgents to kill them when moving around. Or it is used to illuminate areas.

The US troops are not targeting civilians with this. Let us remember what the insurgents were doing in the city in the first place!!!

Since when was the UN is concerned about fair trials?

The UN has no credibility making statements about fair trials. I do not read about the UN's concerns over the detentions in North Korea, China, Iran nor Russia. Where is the UN's concerns when the Palestianians execute suspected collaborators, without a trial?

But hey at least they are concerned that the insurgents killed two of Saddam's lawyers:

"We're concerned already by what we have seen, we are concerned by the murder of two defence lawyers and the serious wounding of another," Pace said in Baghdad.

Why doesn't the UN do something about the prisoners in non Western controlled locations?

Notice the difference in tone when reporting about Arab vs.Arab violence compared to Arab vs. Non-Muslim violence?

The fact that civilians were wounded is not give the usual 'outrage' had the clash been with infidels. Why is that? Is it because AlJazeera hypes stories just like the Western Media.

Also note the following light treatment, or actually a gross distortion of the facts in the following:

A human rights activist said a Syrian court sentenced a man earlier on Sunday to 12 years in jail for belonging to a banned Islamist group.
"The court issued a death sentence against Omar Darwish for belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood organisation in line with decree 49 of 1980 but reduced the ruling to 12 years in jail," activist and lawyer Anwar al-Bunni said in a statement.
In the early 1980s, Syria crushed an Islamist revolt which led to the death or imprisonment of thousands and drove the Muslim Brotherhood into exile. Bunni said Darwish returned from Iraq in 2003 after living there for 28 years.
Security forces have clashed with militants several times in recent months, chiefly during raids to arrest them.
In October, Syria arrested a group of militants who it said planned to launch attacks inside the country.
Security forces killed a Muslim militant in September and arrested two in another clash in northeast Syria. A week before, the forces killed five members of an Islamist group in a gunbattle in the northwest of the country and discovered a cache of weapons.

This is a reference to the Hama city massacre in which between 20,000 to 40,000 unarmed civilians were killed in cold blood. The town was shelled by the Syrian military. Chemical weapons were even used. You would be hard pressed to glean that from their description of the event.

Aljazeera Still propagates the Occupation Lie

Palestinian fighters have fired more rockets at Israel in a tit-for-tat exchange started by the killing of two Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the ruling Fatah party, said it had fired two missiles early on Sunday morning in response to the killings.Israel says its warplanes carried out airstrikes in response to rockets fired earlier. Witnesses said the occupation army carried out four raids on Gaza overnight, but there were no casualties.An Israeli army spokeswoman said the firing came in response to earlier rocket attacks from the coastal strip into Israel."These were reprisals after the Palestinians fired Qassam rockets," she told AFP.

Now hang on a second here - 'Witnesses said the occupation army...'
Israel pulled out of the Gaza. And by all accounts, life does not seem much better there. And the fault lies directly with the Palestinians themselves.

Israel should not allow any of the Palestinians in for jobs until the fighting is over. Period.