Oct 18, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From FoxNews: Iraqis Continue Checking Referendum Results.The first bags containing sheets of vote counts from Iraq's provinces arrived in Baghdad for tabulation, but delays from other areas mean a final result in the landmark referendum may not be known until the end of the week, election officials said Tuesday.
Complicating the count is the need to audit results that have raised eyebrows because they show an unexpectedly high number of "yes" votes, triggering questions of irregularities. Two crucial provinces that could determine the outcome are apparently among the regions that need investigation.
Despite these questions, and despite concerns about what the constitution will ultimately mean for Iraq and America, TIA Daily's Robert Tracinski pointed out something of which we can be certain: Zarqawi loses, again.The significance of Saturday's vote on the Iraqi constitution is not that the constitution itself will be adopted. The constitution provides only woozy protections for individual rights, offset by a possible basis for theocratic rule, plus a mechanism to allow Shiites to set up a "federal" theocracy in Southern Iraq -- with all of this to be decided later on. So it decides very little about the actual shape of the Iraqi government.
What is significant about the election is that it amounts to a public endorsement of how those decisions are to be made: through electoral politics, rather than through terrorist bombings. While many voted for the constitution because it increased the power of their group (whether Shiite or Kurdish), others, like the man quoted in this New York Times article, voted for it because they want a system in which government depends on their consent. ...
The election was a loss for the terrorist insurgency, which mounted even fewer attacks during this election than during the parliamentary elections in January. This time, crucially, Sunnis did not boycott the polls and many apparently voted in favor of the constitution. This could be the beginning of the end for the insurgency, as Sunnis reluctantly choose to engage in political debate rather than to obstruct it. ...
[T]he real battle in Iraq becomes a political one to prevent a theocratic takeover in the south. Having failed to get a commanding majority in the January elections, the Iranian-backed Shiite theocrats have fallen back on a new strategy, campaigning for a semi-independent "federal" region in the south, where they have the votes to take over.
This merely highlights the fact that the real enemy in this war is Iran, which arms and finances these Shiite theocrats and provides the theocratic model they hope to emulate. Meanwhile, our diplomats are at least beginning to issue threats against Iran for providing high explosives to insurgents who have attacked American and British troops. But when will this stop being a mere war of words?
Oct 17, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Dr. Keith Lockitch, fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute will debate "Intelligent Design" with Dr. Jim Buchholz, professor of physics at California Baptist University in Riverside on KABC radio with host - Al Rantel. This will take place on Monday, October 17 at 8PM pacific time. Tune in to 790 on the AM dial in the LA area or listen to it on the net at www.kabc.com. Dr. Lockitch will also be speaking at the University of Southern California on Tuesday, October 25th at 7:30 PM in SGM-123. For details see the USC Objectivist Club website: www.uscobjectivistclub.comOct 17, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Capitalists are often the worst enemy of capitalism. Google is a case in point. Instead of proudly proclaiming that it created and earned its billions, Google is bowing to the cries of altruists and "poverty activists." It announced yesterday that it is "giving back to the community" $1 billion--thereby implicitly admitting that by moral right the money is the property of society. "This is the moral principle of socialism, not capitalism," says Dr. Andrew Bernstein, author of "The Capitalist Manifesto."
Google's actions in China show just how fully it accepts the corrupt moral principle that whatever society commands, the individual must obey. Goggle, along with other high-tech firms like Yahoo and Microsoft, has been helping Chinese censors identify customers who e-mail words forbidden by this repressive government, words like "freedom," "democracy" and "Tiananmen massacre." In one recent case a Chinese reporter was sentenced to ten years in prison for doing nothing more than requesting pro-democracy information from a colleague in New York
How do Google and other American businesses justify their complicity in the destruction of an individual's free speech? These companies say they have to obey the laws, regulations and customs of the countries where they do business. In other words, the will of society trumps the rights of the individual.
Bernstein wonders: "Why do business in China if it forces you to destroy the very rights and freedoms that made your own economic success possible in America? What happened to Google's motto 'Do no evil'?"Oct 17, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
FoxNews reports today that voting for the Iraqi constitutional referendum has begun.Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, also weighed in, ordering Shiites to vote "yes" in the referendum, one of his aides, Faisal Thbub, said. It was the most direct show of support for the charter by al-Sistani, whose call brought out huge numbers of voters to back Shiite parties in January elections.
Though the constitutional compromise is being hailed, VOA reports: Some Iraqis Fear Constitution Will Give Power to Iran (via Free Thoughts).For months, secular Iraqi politicians like Mithal al-Alousi have been warning that Shi'ite Iran is trying to stoke sectarian tension and is aiming to create a breakaway Islamic state in the mostly-Shi'ite southern Iraq.
"I am very sure we have Iranian influence in Basra. We have Iranian influence in Amarah. We have the Iranian intelligence agency. They have control in Basra," he said.
U.S. and British military intelligence officials say they believe Iran is running intelligence-gathering operations in southern Iraq and providing arms and money to several active Islamic groups operating in the region.
The groups are accused of carrying out attacks on coalition forces, imposing Islamic laws by force, and assassinating former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party.
The largest of these Islamic groups is the Badr Organization, a Shi'ite militia force of about 20,000 men, trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The Badr group also acts as the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which operated out of Iran for decades during Saddam's rule and is now the largest and the most powerful political party in Iraq.
The head of the SCIRI party, religious cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, has been the leading proponent of a provision in Iraq's draft constitution, which calls for the creation of a Shi'ite mini-state in the oil-rich south.
The federalist arrangement is also supported by members of the Islamic Dawa Party, led by interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Like SCIRI, the Dawa Party has strong ties to Iran. [Emphasis added]
Other expressions of concern over Iran's influence in Iraq:
From Space War: Iran's Influence Growing In Iraq by Martin Sieff, UPI Senior News Analyst:Prime Minister al-Jaafari and the United Iraqi Alliance he leads represents the Shiite majority and dominates the government. Al-Jaafari's own al-Dawaa party has very strong ties to Iran. For that matter, so does Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi who runs energy policy. U.S. intelligence concluded last year that he may have given crucial U.S. intelligence secrets to Tehran. ...
Jaafari's United Iraq Alliance looks to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani as its political as well as religious mentor. Sistani has been quiet, politic, cautious and shrewd since Saddam was toppled. But two facts about him stand out. He remains a citizen of the Islamic Republic of Iran and in the two and a half years since U.S. forces liberated Baghdad, he has never once officially met any U.S. representatives.
Jaafari's appointment as prime minister was welcomed in Washington as a giant stride toward the goal of establishing a peaceful, stable, constitutional state in Iraq friendly to the United States. But his emergence as the first Shiite national leader of Iraq in its history may also be seen part of a very different process -- the rise of a new, militant, politicized and revolutionary Shiism articulated and shaped by the late Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran.
From the New Hampshire Union Leader: Iran hopes constitution bolsters Shiites by Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writer:There is little question that Iran hopes the referendum on the Iraqi constitution will help consolidate the power of Shiites in Iraq after decades of Sunni Arab domination.
Others see more sinister goals.
U.S. officials have accused Iran of secretly backing the Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq to reduce the impact of America's victory there as it tries to strengthen democracy in the region. Tehran has repeatedly said it doesn't see Iraq as a battleground between Iran and the United States.
Oct 16, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From FoxNews: Neo-Nazi March Causes Riots.Protesters at a white supremacists' march threw rocks at police, vandalized vehicles and stores and cursed the mayor for allowing the event.
Mayor Jack Ford said when he and a local minister tried to calm the rioters Saturday, they were cursed and a masked gang member threatened to shoot him. ...
At least two dozen members of the National Socialist Movement, which calls itself "America's Nazi Party," had gathered at a city park to march under police protection. Organizers said they were demonstrating against black gangs they said were harassing white residents.
The violence broke out about one-quarter of a mile away along the planned march route shortly before it was to begin. One group of men pounded on a convenience store, and others overturned vehicles. ...
When the rioting began, Ford tried to negotiate with those involved, but "they weren't interested in that." He said people in the crowd swore at him and wanted to know why he was protecting the Nazis.
They were mostly "gang members who had real or imagined grievances and took it as an opportunity to speak in their own way," Ford said.
"I was chagrined that there were obvious mothers and children in the crowd with them," he said.
Thomas Frisch, 76, said a large group of men destroyed the exterior of a gas station next to his home of 30 years.
"A whole big gang started to come in here. Next thing you know, they're jumping on the car. Then they overturned it. Then they started on the building, breaking windows, ripping the bars off," he said.
Ratajski and his nephew left Jim & Lou's Bar as a crowd gathered in front, pelting police with rocks and breaking the windows. "I was shaking. I feared for my life," said Ratajski's nephew, Terry Rybczynski.
UPDATE I: FoxNews has updated the above link, adding and deleting information. This was added:The neighborhood northwest of downtown, full of tree-lined streets and well-kept brick homes, once was a thriving Polish community. But within the last decade it's become home to poorer residents. ...
The neo-Nazi group became interested in the neighborhood because of a white resident's complaints to police about gang violence, Bill White, a group spokesman, said earlier this month. ...
Rioters set fire to 86-year-old Louis Ratajski's neighborhood pub, Jim & Lou's Bar, but he and his nephew, Terry Rybczynski, escaped the flames.
And in a Reuters article, Mayor Ford said of the violent reaction by gangs: "That's exactly what (the white supremacist group) wanted."
UPDATE II -- Oct. 17: More interesting links and commentary by Michele Malkin, Martin Lindeskog, and Committees of Correspondence.
UPDATE III: From CNN: Mayor: Nazis had right to march in neighborhood.Oct 9, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From AFP: Islam permits killing of 'infidel' civilians: Zarqawi tape (via Jihad Watch).DUBAI -- Al Qaeda frontman in Iraq Abu Musab Al Zarqawi has said Islam permits the killing of "infidel" civilians, according to an audiotape broadcast on the Internet early Saturday.
"In Islam, making the difference is not based on civilians and military, but on the basis of Muslims and infidels," said the voice attributed to the fugitive leader who has a 25-million-dollar price on his head.
"The Muslim's blood cannot be spilled whatever his work or place, while spilling the blood of the infidel, whatever his work or place, is authorized if he is not trustworthy," said the tape, whose veracity could not be determined.
The recording comes a day after US officials claimed to have seized a letter allegedly sent to Zarqawi by Al Qaeda number two Ayman Zawahiri, in which he raised concerns over the impact on Arab opinion of videotaped executions.
Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Islamist extremist, is Iraq's most wanted man.
His Al Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers has claimed responsibility for some of the most gruesome attacks in Iraq, including the beheadings of foreign hostages and Iraqis.
UPDATE I -- Oct. 10: Regarding President Bush's speech last week, I'm happy to note that he finally -- four years after 9/11 -- came out and explicitly named the enemy: "Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism." For this, we applaud the President. Unfortunately, in the very next sentence he quickly added: "Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam." "Very different"? There may be many secularized, moderate Muslims today. But to say what motivates the terrorists is somehow foreign to Islam is ridiculous. Apparently Bush is still disarmed by the some sort of multicultural/religious sensitivity. Investor's Business Daily had an excellent editorial detailing the shortcomings of President Bush's speech: Defining The Enemy.Continuing to pretend that terrorism is a distortion of Islam's supposedly "peaceful" and "tolerant" nature — and not a predictable outcome of jihad, its 6th pillar — may soothe the savage beast of political correctness. But it's no way to win a war against real savages. That can only come from frank national discourse over what is motivating them, where they are getting that motivation, and how to implement effective methods to disrupt it.
UPDATE II: The first article above mentions a letter seized by the U.S. military, which indicated "concerns over the impact on Arab opinion of videotaped executions." There was even more to the letter than that. From CNN: Pentagon: Bin Laden deputy complains about money, Iraq tactics.An intercepted letter from Osama bin Laden's deputy to the al Qaeda leader in Iraq complains that the terrorist network is short of cash and faces defeat in Afghanistan, a Pentagon spokesman says. [Emphasis added]
UPDATE III -- Oct. 11: The seized letter has now been fully released and has made the main story on CNN's site: Al Qaeda letter called 'chilling'.The letter outlines a four-stage plan to expand the war in Iraq: Expel U.S. forces, establish an Islamic authority, take the fight to Iraq's secular neighbors and battle with Israel -- "because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity."
