Apr 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
An editorial in the New York Sun observes how many of those who called for campaign finance regulations are now changing their tune:
Take a look at what the liberal groups said back before the law was passed. "Make McCain-Feingold the law of the land," MoveOn.org said. The Sierra Club supported the McCain-Feingold law, calling it "a strong first step toward real reform" and "getting big money out of politics by closing loopholes in current campaign-finance laws." The president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, Kate Michelman, told the Boston Globe, "We think some reform is needed.There is too much money being spent in campaigns." Reform Judaism hailed the law as "a historic step today toward healing a systemic sickness in our democracy" and said the law will "go a long way toward abating the pernicious influence of money in our electoral system."
Here's what they say now, in the FEC testimony. The MoveOn.org Voter Fund now says, "we are concerned about the potentially devastating impact of the FEC Proposal on all tax-exempt nonprofit organizations that engage in public policy advocacy and/or voter participation programs." The Sierra Club and Naral now say, "The proposed rules would seriously impair vigorous free speech and advocacy, as well as voter participation now and in the future. They would double, triple, or even quadruple the number of citizen organizations whose activities are subject to pervasive regulation by the Commission." Reform Judaism now says "we are especially concerned that this proposal would silence the prophetic voice of religion in American Society."
Of course, they still think they're being consistent, because they just want to muzzle the speech of the "big" and the "powerful," not themselves, the "underdogs." Altruism in action once again.Apr 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Here are some excerpts from an excellent article by historian Keith Windschuttle called "The Hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky":
Noam Chomsky was the most conspicuous American intellectual to rationalize the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington...
...Today, when actors, rock stars, and protesting students mouth anti-American slogans for the cameras, they are very often expressing sentiments they have gleaned from Chomsky's voluminous output.
...Of all the major powers in the Sixties, according to Chomsky, America was the most reprehensible. Its principles of liberal democracy were a sham. Its democracy was a "four-year dictatorship" and its economic commitment to free markets was merely a disguise for corporate power. Its foreign policy was positively evil. "By any objective standard," he wrote at the time, "the United States has become the most aggressive power in the world, the greatest threat to peace, to national self-determination, and to international cooperation."
...The worst current example, he claims, is American support for Israel:
virtually everything that Israel is doing, meaning the United States and Israel are doing, is illegal, in fact, a war crime. And many of them they defined as "grave breaches," that is, serious war crimes. This means that the United States and Israeli leadership should be brought to trial.
Yet Chomsky's moral perspective is completely one-sided. No matter how great the crimes of the regimes he has favored, such as China, Vietnam, and Cambodia under the communists, Chomsky has never demanded their leaders be captured and tried for war crimes. Instead, he has defended these regimes for many years to the best of his ability through the use of evidence he must have realized was selective, deceptive, and in some cases invented...
Well worth reading.
From Cox and Forkum:
Apr 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Mark Steyn observes:
Eleven months ago I was in Fallujah. What a dump -- no disrespect to any Fallujans reading this. I had a late lunch in a seedy cafe full of Sunni men. Not a gal in the joint. And no Westerners except me. As in the movies, everyone stopped talking when I walked through the door, and every pair of eyes followed me as I made my way to a table....
Would they have liked to kill me? Well, I'll bet one or two would have enjoyed giving it a go. And, if they had, I'll bet three or four more would have beaten my corpse with their shoes. And five or six would have had no particular feelings about me one way or the other but would have been generally supportive of the decision to kill me after the fact. And the rest might have had a few qualms but they would have kept quiet.
That's the point to remember: The Iraqi people don't want to be on the American side, only on the winning side....
[I]n the Arab world, the indifferent are the biggest demographic. They sit things out, they see which strong horse has jostled his way to the head of the pack, and they go along with him. The Turks. The British. The British-installed king. The thug who murders the king. The thug who murders the thug who murders the king. [Sun Times]
Apr 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Once again, I had the featured letter in the New York Sun--the issue is an extra-long, special second anniversary edition, with a front-page photo showing Mayor Bloomberg marking the anniversary by proclaiming "New York Sun day." Five minutes after I had emailed it in (a few days ago), the Sun called and said they'd run the letter as soon as they had space. It's a follow-up to my last one:***
On February 5, it was an extra $7 billion, requiring the largest tax increase in state history. By March 2, it was $9.6 billion. On March 26, it was an extra $16.5 billion for New York City alone. And still they're not satisfied ["The Plaintiff in Schools Case Asks $10B More," William F. Hammond Jr., April 13, 2004]. Dare I say "I told you so?"
What makes this feeding frenzy possible is the premise that coercion is justified in the service of the needy, and that the taxpayers' lives and incomes belong first to society, which may help itself to as much as it sees fit.
But educators who have something of value to offer do not need to demand compensation at gunpoint. All the extra loot that the educrats grab will simply serve to make them more effective at miseducating children.
Parents choose to have children; for them to use the power of the government to force others to pay for their children's education is to evade the responsibility for the costs of their own decisions, and to try to foist those costs on unwilling victims.
If people can't afford to educate their own kids, they shouldn't have them.
Apr 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
James Taranto passed this on from blogger James Lileks on Kerry's blaming George Bush for making the world mad at us. (Leave aside the implicit altruism of the alleged complaints):
Is the world angry at Russia, which spends nothing on AIDS and rebuffed Kyoto? Is the world angry at China, which got a pass on Kyoto and spends nothing on AIDS for other countries?
Is the world angry at North Korea for killings its people? Angry at Iran for smothering that vibrant nation with corrupt and thuggish mullocracy? Angry at Syria for occupying Lebanon? Angry at Saudi Arabia for its denial of women's rights? Angry at Russia for corrupt elections? Is the world angry at China for threatening Taiwan, or angry at France for joining the Chinese in joint military exercises that threatened the island on the eve of an election? Is the world angry at Zimbabwe for stealing land and starving people? Is the world angry at Pakistan for selling nuclear secrets? Is the world angry at Libya for having an NBC program?
Is the world angry at the thugs of Fallujah?
Is the world angry at anyone besides America and Israel?
But even if you admit that the world is angry at America - so angry that the poorest of them can't wait to come here and stake a claim - you have to stand in awe at the sheer political idiocy of Kerry's conclusion. Boiled down:
There are countless numbers of things that we could be do minimize the kind of anger and ... almost recruitment that has taken place in terrorist organizations as a result of the way the administration has behaved.
By toppling the fascists in Baghdad without French seal of approval, we have encouraged recruitment in terrorist organizations. It's not the invasion that ticked off the Man in the Arab Street, it's the lack of a 17th UN resolution on Iraq. Right now in a café in Beirut an educated man, a chemist by trade, schooled in the ways of the West, is reading an article about how the US will only spent $15 billion on AIDS and probably won't reduce its carbon emissions to 1817 levels, and he throws down the paper in disgust: bastards! I must join Al Qaeda, move to Iraq and kill the contractors who are upgrading their outmoded infrastructure!
If there is such a man, well, I'm angry at him. Do I get to be angry at him? No? Okay. I'll sit down now.
But who goes on to ask: Why are they angry at the U.S. and not at the others?
The answer is: Because we are big and powerful, and they're not--it's the implicit premise of altruism, where the successful are wrong because they're successful, and the unsuccessful are right because they're unsuccessful. But don't count on conservatives to identify that premise.Apr 14, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
James Taranto points out that no Trent Lott-style ruckus is being raised over the praise by Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd of West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd--who used to be a member of the KKK. Here's what Dodd said:
It has often been said that the man and the moment come together. I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great Senator at any moment. Some were right for the time. Robert C. Byrd, in my view, would have been right at any time.... He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this Nation.... I cannot think of a single moment in this Nation's 220-plus year history where he would not have been a valuable asset to this country. Certainly today that is not any less true.
The Junkyard blog reports on some of what Byrd has said:
So, according to Dodd, Byrd was right even when he said this?
[T]here are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time, if you want to use that word. But we all--we all--we just need to work together to make our country a better country and I--I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much. [March 2001]
And this?
The New York Times reported in 1971 on a letter Mr. Byrd wrote in 1946, after leaving the Klan. Writing to the Klan's Imperial Wizard, Mr. Byrd identified himself as a former Kleagle and recommended a person to serve as state Klan coordinator. He wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. . . . It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan realm of W.Va?"
And this?
And in a 1947 letter, after Mr. Byrd had been elected to the state senate, he wrote that he would "never submit to fight beneath that banner (the American flag) with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
Apr 11, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum: 
CNN reports: Bush: Memo had no 'actionable intelligence'.
The memo contains mostly historical information, such as bin Laden's desire to retaliate for Clinton's air strikes, but there's also new information, such as the FBI's notice of "suspicious activity" related to hijacking preparation. This latter is no small thing in hindsight. But prior to 9/11 virtually no one had imagined much less planned for planes being used as missiles. And within minutes after such an attack was known to be possible, passengers of Flight 93 immediately acted to prevent the further use of planes as missiles, and died trying. Now, if everyday citizens would take such measures, does anyone really beleive that President Bush, the Commander in Chief, would not have acted to prevent 9/11 had he had any specific information?
Some members of the media seem intent on giving exactly that impression, if only with their headlines: from Reuters (Bush Was Told of Al Qaeda Hijack Activity) to The Economic Times (Bush may have known about 9/11).
If this memo is the climax of the 9/11 commission, then if nothing else it is proof that the political opponents of President Bush are much more concerned with smearing him than in truly discovering what it would take to prevent another 9/11.Apr 10, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
China has unilaterally asserted a new "interpretation" of Hong Kong's constitution:
China claimed the right yesterday to veto any form of democratic development in Hong Kong in its toughest assertion of power over the territory since its handover from Britain seven years ago. China's parliament, the National People's Congress, ruled that only Beijing could reform the former British colony's electoral system....Hong Kong opposition figures said the ruling amounted to an illegal amendment of the basic law, which was agreed by Beijing and London before the 1997 handover. [UK Telegraph]
Apr 8, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The left devours even itself:
The state of California has declared that many grass-roots environmental conservation efforts are actually illegal. The controversy, which has already halted river restoration projects statewide, stems from the state's "prevailing wage" law. Like many states, California requires that workers on public works projects be paid the equivalent of union wages. A related provision bars the use of a combination of paid workers and volunteers on the same state-funded project.
Last October, the state Department of Industrial Relations ordered a Redding, Calif., environmental organization, the Sacramento Watershed Action Group, to pay a fine of more than $33,000 after it used both students and a subcontractor to help restore an overgrown and obstructed riverbed. The department acted after a complaint from a union-funded watchdog group that presses for strict enforcement of the state's contracting laws. [NYSun]
Apr 7, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
AFP reports: US marines bomb Fallujah mosque.After the insurgents holed up in the mosque struck a humvee vehicle with an RPG, lightly wounding five soldiers, the marines opted for their heavy weaponry.
First a warplane fired off guns, then a Cobra helicopter shot off a Hellfire missile at the mosque and finally an aircraft dropped a laser-guided precision bomb, Byrne said.
The roar of jets shook the city, caught in the midst of a brutal urban battle pitting the marines against the insurgents who have bled the coalition forces for months and ambushed and mutilated four US contractors last week.
Byrne said the marines carried out the raid as precisely as they could because there are people living nearby. Marines also came under fire around a second mosque in the city that the marines had searched the previous day...
The head of the Marines First Division, General James Mattis, defended the attack, warning if rebels used places of worship in their war against US forces, his troops would not hesitate to strike them at sacred sites. "If they barricade themselves inside a mosque, we are not going to care about the mosque anymore than they do," Mattis said. [Emphasis added]
Apr 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
News came yesterday that U.S. forces issued an arrest warrant for radical Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Last week, al-Sadr made the news for declaring that 9/11 was a miracle from God and for declaring collaboration with Palestinian terrorist groups. (Via The Command Post).
But WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah says the real al-Sadr news is: Iran declares war on U.S.What the other news accounts left out was one significant, but well-established fact: Al-Sadr works for Iran. He is an Iranian agent. His authority comes from Iran. Last April, an Iranian cleric, Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, issued a religious edict and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq, calling on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities."
The edict, or fatwa, issued April 8, 2003, showed that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran. The edict said that Shiite leaders have to "seize as many positions as possible to impose a fait accompli for any coming government." [...] On April 7, the day American troops effectively toppled Hussein's government by seizing its main seats of power in Baghdad, al-Haeri sent a handwritten letter to the city of Najaf, appointing Moktada al-Sadr as his deputy in Iraq. Haeri wrote: "We hereby inform you that Mr. Moktada al-Sadr is our deputy and representative in all fatwa affairs." It added: "His position is my position."
Almost one year ago, Farah also reported that an Iranian-trained army was in Iraq.
More on the al-Sadr/Iran connection:
SMCCDI, an Iranian student group, reports that more trained "pilgrims" to enter Iraq.In reality these so-called [Arba-in] Pilgrims are Iranian Intelligence officers and Arab mercenaries trained, by the Islamic republic regime, with the task of creating more complication for America in its War Against Terror and to avoid the stabilization of Iraq.
AllahPundit featured an number of links of the subject including this from Global Security:The loyalty of many of [Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr] supporters has now passed to another son, Hojatoleslam Muqtada al-Sadr, a mid-level cleric about 30 years of age. Unlike his father, Muqtada has no formal religious standing to interpret the Koran, and relies for religious authority on an Iran-based Iraqi exiled cleric, Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri.
And this from Asian News: Imam Muqtada Al-Sadr threatens to launch Intifada.Several months ago Al-Sadr visited Iran where he was warmly received by the Ayatollah Khamenei and Hashemi Rafsanjani. According to Arab sources, Khamenei probably compared Al Sadr to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, when wishing him luck in kicking out American forces in Iraq "like the Hezbollah did to Israel in Lebanon".
Meanwhile, InstaPundit reports how unpopular al-Sadr and his militia thugs are among Iraqi Shiites: ABCNews Poll.Shiite Arabs in Iraq express relatively little support for attacks against coalition forces such as those that occurred Sunday. And while most do express confidence in religious leaders and call for them to play a role in Iraq today, most do not seek a theocracy, and very few see Iran as a model for Iraq. A nationwide poll of Iraqis conducted in February for ABCNEWS also found that very few Shiites express support for Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia mounted the deadly attacks against the U.S.-led occupation.
It is noteworthy that not all Shiites are calling for a theocracy. However, the poll questions are worded in a way that leaves me wondering exactly what kind of government they do want. Though "Democracy" is apparently preferred over "Islamic State," the polls indicates that Shiites also overwhelming support a "a Government Mainly of Religious Leaders."
AllahPundit has still more on the Iran's machinations in Iraq, including this from David Johnson via Iran Va Jahan:On the Iraqi front, Iran's mullahs have stepped up their campaign to increase their influence in that country. Tehran has two main objectives in Iraq: to create a client regime there and to rid itself from its Iraq-based main opposition, the Iranian Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK). Since coming to power in 1979, the mullahs have considered Iraq the ideal springboard to export "Islamic Revolution" throughout the region. They view a pro-Tehran Iraq as a counterweight to the advancement of democracy in the Middle East. Clearly, a secular democratic Iraq would be a strategic blow to Tehran. For now, US policy makers should expect Iran to address the threat it perceives from the US in Iraq with terrorist violence. The Tehran regime has mounted an increasingly sophisticated, multi-phased and multi-faceted campaign in Iraq.
CNN reports: Coalition battling al-Sadr supporters in Najaf.In the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq, al-Sadr's militia was in control of government, police and spiritual sites, a coalition source said. Al-Sadr also was busing followers into Najaf from Sadr City, a Baghdad neighborhood, according to the coalition source, who said that many members of his outlawed militia, Mehdi's Army, were from surrounding provinces. Al-Sadr -- who is wanted on murder charges in connection with the killing of a rival last year -- reportedly has taken refuge in the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines. A posting on al-Sadr's Web site said he has called for a general strike.
Apr 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Yvonne Conde writes in the New York Sun about the other prisoners in the Island that contains Guantanamo, the ones you conveniently don't hear about:
The 41-year-old man sits in a filthy 18-by-24-foot cell that he shares with 10 other prisoners. He knows he is fortunate because up to 18 men are routinely squeezed in cells of that size.... The water is rationed and the little that is available is contaminated. His food rations are meager and substandard. He suffers from chronic gastrointestinal conditions, which have worsened since his imprisonment. He now suffers from parasites, high cholesterol, hypertension, and has lost 20 pounds.
Jorge Olivera Castillo is one of the 300 political prisoners inside Cuba's jails, yet the world seems blind to their plight.
There is no international outcry about his living conditions.
No visits from the International Red Cross since 1989.
No congressional delegations or pop-ins from Greek Orthodox patriarchs or Robert Redford, Sean Penn,
Danny Glover, Oliver Stone, or Harry Belafonte.
Nor--even though he is black--any support from the NAACP, whose leader Kweise Mfume visited Cuba in 2002 on a "goodwill mission."
There is no outcry from the National Writer's Union, whose pet prisoner is Mumia Abul Jamal.
Mr. Olivera was arrested on March 18, 2003, during Cuba's greatest crackdown on independent journalists and dissidents, when 75 persons were arrested. This occurred the day after the 59th Session of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights convened in Geneva....
Cuba denies that it holds any prisoners of conscience and says that all inmates described as political prisoners are merely common criminals.
For more on Cuba see www.LibertyforCuba.comApr 4, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
Once again Microsoft is being attacked for its success. This time the perpetrator is not the U.S. government but the European Union, which is demanding that Microsoft remove Media Player from Windows and pay a fine of $600 million. This is another unjustifiable assault on Microsoft's property rights. Microsoft, like any other company, should have the right to decide what features should or should not be included in its products.
The alleged justification for the European Union's assault on Microsoft is that it "has abused its virtual monopoly power" and engaged in "unfair" competition by making its Media Player an integral part of its operating system. But there is nothing abusive or unfair in taking advantage of one's earned market share to offer customers a better deal than the competition. In fact, the only thing that is abusive and unfair in this case is the government's use of force to penalize one company in order to help its less efficient competitors.
Apr 3, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Friday the New York Sun gave me the opportunity to say "I told you so" before 40,000 New Yorkers.
A recent lawsuit by the "Campaign for Fiscal Equity" demanded that New York state guarantee a "sound basic education" to all public school students. The courts agreed, and now the argument is over how much money the state will have to spend to achieve this goal. The initial estimate--an additional $6 billion--would have required one of the largest state tax increases in history. But then the CFE issued a study that put the figure at $9.6 billion, prompting a letter from me, which wasn't published.
Last week, however, the Sun reported on a new study from Syracuse University that would put the cost even higher. I recycled and amplified my letter, and the Sun printed it with minor changes:
Syracuse University now says we need to spend $26,000 per pupil to ensure an "adequate" education ["$10B May Not Be Enough To Fix Schools," William F. Hammond Jr., New York, March 26, 2004]. This would mean an extra $16.5 billion or so for New York City's 1.1 million pupils.
Back on March 2, 2004, we were told it would cost us only an extra $9.6 billion, and before that, merely an extra $6 billion. But as Assemblyman Steven Sanders said, "It's not a matter of what the state can afford...it's a matter of finding how much money is required to achieve a level of adequacy."
If we entitle people to something no matter the cost, we shouldn't be surprised when costs increase without limit. As I wrote to you then, if we have the option of arbitrarily proposing ends with total disregard for means, why stop at $9.6 billion? Why not $20 billion? $200 billion?
Why not just wish adequate education into existence and save the trouble and expense of having schools? The bankrupt idea that a need creates a right always leads to failure, for it places wishes above facts. And isn't that the very essence of dishonesty?
And then there's Eva Moskowitz. She is a somewhat left-leaning New York city council member, so you can see how bad our schools must be if they leave her saying something like this:
Public schools, Ms. Moskowitz says, cannot expect to receive a large cash infusion if state legislators and the public do not trust the city to spend the money wisely. She says that when [Joel] Klein came aboard as schools chancellor, she told him: "You need to think of yourself as having inherited the former Soviet Union. No matter how good you are, and no matter how smart and committed, it's not capitalism."
Apr 3, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
A few weeks ago John Kerry was saying foreign leaders supported him, but he wouldn't say who. Small wonder:
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has attacked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a dubious democrat hostile to U.S. interests, delivering a slap in the face to the leftist leader who had portrayed Kerry as a potential friend. The Kerry statement on his Web site made front-page news in Venezuela on Monday, nearly two weeks after Chavez had publicly praised the Democrat contender, hailing his health care plans and likening him to assassinated U.S. President John Kennedy.
And if that wasn't enough, what about this one:
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad endorsed Democratic contender John Kerry in the U.S. presidential race Thursday, saying he would keep the world safer than President Bush. "I think Kerry would be much more willing to listen to the voices of people and of the rest of the world," Mahathir, who retired in October after 22 years in power, told The Associated Press in an interview. "But in the U.S., the Jewish lobby is very strong, and any American who wants to become president cannot change the policy toward Palestine radically," he said.
The Kerry campaign rejected this endorsement too:
"John Kerry rejects any association with former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an avowed anti-Semite whose views are totally deplorable. The world needs leaders who seek to bring people together, not drive them apart with hateful and divisive rhetoric. "This election will be decided by the American people, and the American people alone. It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in America's presidential election. John Kerry does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsements."
One thing, though: If it's not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate, then why was Kerry vaunting such endorsements?Apr 2, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Jay Nordlinger in National Review:
A friend of mine from Arkansas writes the following: "Thought you'd appreciate this little anecdote. A co-worker of mine has a daughter in public elementary school, here in Pine Bluff. They're still doing Black History Month stuff, apparently, because the kids were told to come to class dressed as a famous (and presumably accomplished) African-American. My co-worker's kid was told to come as Tina Turner. My co-worker informed the teacher that her child would come as Condoleezza Rice instead. The teacher refused to allow it, on grounds that Rice 'is for white people.' Nice, huh?"
Apparently, in Arkansas, so is an education.Apr 2, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The New York Sun has compiled a collection of quotes from Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the new head of Hamas, among which are:
From his hospital bed on June 10, 2003, after suffering light shrapnel wounds following an Israeli missile strike on his car in
Gaza City: "By God, we will not leave one Jew in Palestine. We will fight them with all the strength we have. This is our land, not the Jews."
On suicide bombers:
"I congratulate them. They will teach the Jewish mothers in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and everywhere that our blood is not cheap."
On the borders of Palestine:
"There is no difference between Akko, Haifa, Gaza, Jaffa, or Nablus. The Palestinian Intifada will continue until the last Zionist is banished."
According to the AP, the Hamas website recently posted a letter from the deceased Sheik Yassin in which he wrote:
The land of Palestine is an Arab, Islamic land which was occupied with the force of weapons by the Jewish Zionists and we will not get it back except with the force of weapons.
And here's the Sun's David Twersky on the bogus distinction between Hamas' political and military sides:
Much rests on the assertion that Yassin was on the spiritual, not military or operational-side of Hamas. Perhaps [New York] Times editors should read their own copy.
In the April 4, 2002 issue, the paper ran a front-page interview in which Hamas "political" leaders argued, in their own words, that they ran the "military" side of the operation.
In "Mideast Turmoil: Gaza; Arabs' Grief in Bethlehem,Bombers' Gloating in Gaza," by Joel Brinkley, Hamas political leaders boasted that they decide "when their followers should attack and when they should back off."
One "political" leader,Dr.Abdel Aziz Rantisi--yesterday named as the new Hamas leader in Gaza--told the Times that he generates attacks by making public statements that are followed by the group's military wing, "because we are the political leaders."
According to the Times, "analysts here suggest that the leaders' roles are actually more direct. During the 45-minute interview in Sheik Yassin's compound, for example, aides twice brought him urgent news about developments in Ramallah, and he issued clear, direct orders."
The false distinction implied by designating Yassin a "spiritual" leader was not lost on the European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, who denounced the Israeli action as contravening international law. The EU foreign ministers said the assassination was an "extrajudicial killing," a charge that is based on the assumption that Yassin was a noncombatant and therefore entitled to a trial rather than a summary execution.
Apr 1, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
Here's Madeleine Albright joining the chorus of those who, apparently, think it's better for us just to roll over and die:The Bush administration's decision to detain hundreds of people in Guantanamo, Cuba, may be helping the al-Qaeda network recruit terrorists, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said today. "It is possible and perhaps probable that anger over these detentions has helped (Osama) bin Laden succeed in recruiting more new operatives," Albright, secretary of state in the Clinton administration, said in prepared testimony.
James Taranto comments: "Just about any antiterror measure can be expected to make terrorists or terrorist wannabes angry. Albright's appeasement approach would lead to complete paralysis and, no doubt, to more terrorist attacks."Here's Hillel Halkin on the same argument, applied to Palestinian terrorists:The fear that Israel is now in for a worse wave of terrorist attacks than ever rests on the assumption that Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations have so far been showing restraint and will henceforth begin to get serious. This assumption is highly dubious, both because these organizations have already given every indication of doing their utmost to kill Israelis, and because it is unclear what possible motive they might have had for holding back until now.
