Nonie Darwish: Brought Up To Hate

Nonie Darwish
http://www.Telegraph.co.uk
February 17, 2006

The controversy regarding the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed completely misses the point. Of course, the cartoons are offensive to Muslims, but newspaper cartoons do not warrant the burning of buildings and the killing of innocent people. The cartoons did not cause the disease of hate that we are seeing in the Muslim world on our television screens at night - they are only a symptom of a far greater disease.

I was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt and in the Gaza Strip. In the 1950s, my father was sent by Egypt's President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, to head the Egyptian military intelligence in Gaza and the Sinai where he founded the Palestinian Fedayeen, or "armed resistance". They made cross-border attacks into Israel, killing 400 Israelis and wounding more than 900 others.

My father was killed as a result of the Fedayeen operations when I was eight years old. He was hailed by Nasser as a national hero and was considered a shaheed, or martyr. In his speech announcing the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Nasser vowed that all of Egypt would take revenge for my father's death. My siblings and I were asked by Nasser: "Which one of you will avenge your father's death by killing Jews?" We looked at each other speechless, unable to answer.

In school in Gaza, I learned hate, vengeance and retaliation. Peace was never an option, as it was considered a sign of defeat and weakness. At school we sang songs with verses calling Jews "dogs" (in Arab culture, dogs are considered unclean).

Criticism and questioning were forbidden. When I did either of these, I was told: "Muslims cannot love the enemies of God, and those who do will get no mercy in hell." As a young woman, I visited a Christian friend in Cairo during Friday prayers, and we both heard the verbal attacks on Christians and Jews from the loudspeakers outside the mosque. They said: "May God destroy the infidels and the Jews, the enemies of God. We are not to befriend them or make treaties with them." We heard worshippers respond "Amen".

My friend looked scared; I was ashamed. That was when I first realised that something was very wrong in the way my religion was taught and practised. Sadly, the way I was raised was not unique. Hundreds of millions of other Muslims also have been raised with the same hatred of the West and Israel as a way to distract from the failings of their leaders. Things have not changed since I was a little girl in the 1950s.

Palestinian television extols terrorists, and textbooks still deny the existence of Israel. More than 300 Palestinians schools are named after shaheeds, including my father. Roads in both Egypt and Gaza still bear his name - as they do of other "martyrs". What sort of message does that send about the role of terrorists? That they are heroes. Leaders who signed peace treaties, such as President Anwar Sadat, have been assassinated. Today, the Islamo-fascist president of Iran uses nuclear dreams, Holocaust denials and threats to "wipe Israel off the map" as a way to maintain control of his divided country.

Indeed, with Denmark set to assume the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, the flames of the cartoon controversy have been fanned by Iran and Syria. This is critical since the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to refer Iran to the Security Council and demand sanctions. At the same time, Syria is under scrutiny for its actions in Lebanon. Both Iran and Syria cynically want to embarrass the Danes to achieve their dangerous goals.

But the rallies and riots come from a public ripe with rage. From my childhood in Gaza until today, blaming Israel and the West has been an industry in the Muslim world. Whenever peace seemed attainable, Palestinian leaders found groups who would do everything to sabotage it.
They allowed their people to be used as the front line of Arab jihad. Dictators in countries surrounding the Palestinians were only too happy to exploit the Palestinians as a diversion from problems in their own backyards. The only voice outside of government control in these areas has been the mosques, and these places of worship have been filled with talk of jihad.

Is it any surprise that after decades of indoctrination in a culture of hate, that people actually do hate? Arab society has created a system of relying on fear of a common enemy. It's a system that has brought them much-needed unity, cohesion and compliance in a region ravaged by tribal feuds, instability, violence, and selfish corruption. So Arab leaders blame Jews and Christians rather than provide good schools, roads, hospitals, housing, jobs, or hope to their people.

For 30 years I lived inside this war zone of oppressive dictatorships and police states. Citizens competed to appease and glorify their dictators, but they looked the other way when Muslims tortured and terrorised other Muslims. I witnessed honour killings of girls, oppression of women, female genital mutilation, polygamy and its devastating effect on family relations. All of this is destroying the Muslim faith from within.

It's time for Arabs and Muslims to stand up for their families. We must stop allowing our leaders to use the West and Israel as an excuse to distract from their own failed leadership and their citizens' lack of freedoms. It's time to stop allowing Arab leaders to complain about cartoons while turning a blind eye to people who defame Islam by holding Korans in one hand while murdering innocent people with the other.

Muslims need jobs - not jihad. Apologies about cartoons will not solve the problems. What is needed is hope and not hate. Unless we recognise that the culture of hate is the true root of the riots surrounding this cartoon controversy, this violent overreaction will only be the start of a clash of civilisations that the world cannot bear.

Nonie Darwish is an American of Arab/Moslem origin. A freelance writer and public speaker, she runs the website http://www.ArabsForIsrael.com.

Bill Madden: Rivera keeps rolling along

NY Post

TAMPA - Mariano Rivera arrived at spring training yesterday, pronouncing himself rested, fit and raring to go, and if you were George Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman, Joe Torre or any card-carrying member of the Yankee legions, this was the only proclamation of spring that mattered.

Because no one in the Yankee universe is prepared to think about life after Mo, even though, at age 36 and his place in the Hall of Fame assured, it's agreed these now are all gravy seasons.
Good as he feels, even Rivera concedes the inevitable could happen at any time. A pitcher's arm can withstand just so much toil and stress. In his case, his durability has been almost as remarkable as his dominance.

"The last few years I've been feeling good," Rivera said after completing his physical. "Last year (in which he posted a 1.38 ERA with 43 saves and finished second in the Cy Young Award voting to Angels starter Bartolo Colon) I felt especially good. But only God knows where I'll be next year. I'll pitch as long as God lets me."

Torre can only hope that's at least two more seasons, to the end of his own contract. After watching veteran free agent Scott Erickson audition for the Yanks, Torre was asked if he ever has allowed himself to think about the impact Rivera has had on his life.

"You mean how much money he's made me?" Torre said. "How could you not? But I don't think in terms of who's in waiting because he's been here and he's been the same the whole time."

That in itself is a testament to Rivera's greatness. Somewhere on his plaque it will have to be noted that no reliever in the history of the game faced more pressure situations than Rivera. He has appeared in 72 postseason games, logging an ERA of 0.81 and if he ever has felt a case of the "yips" (as Sparky Anderson used to call them), he never showed it.

"He's done it so many times, he doesn't have to prove to himself he can handle the pressure," Torre said. "The only way you can be brave is to be afraid. Don't you think it took bravery on his part to come back from the Sandy Alomar homer in (the AL division series in) '97? Or the way he came back after the Red Sox got to him those couple of times (in the 2004 ALCS). It's the same as with (Dennis) Eckersley after he gave up the homer to (Kirk) Gibson (in the first game of the 1988 World Series). The great ones are all able to respond to adversity."

Another way to put it is that the great ones crave the pressure and feed off it. In discussing last season, which may have been his best statistically, especially considering his streak of 22 consecutive scoreless appearances and the fact he yielded more than one run only once, Rivera expressed a sense of emptiness because he never got to experience the ultimate pressure.

"I've had a lot of good years and even though last year was a very good one and got me consideration for the Cy Young Award, it wasn't the one I wanted," he said. "I would trade that good year for a World Series victory."

For that reason, he does not allow himself the luxury of reflecting on his career. His 379 saves are fifth on the all-time list, 99 away from Lee Smith's record. Rivera could eclipse that in 2-1/2seasons, but it is of little matter to him.

"I don't check stats and numbers," he said. "All that stuff (the Hall of Fame) is up to you guys. I've been successful and I thank God just for being here."

So does everyone in the Yankee organization - and does he ever think about how important his well-being is to all of them?

"I don't want to put too much pressure on how valuable I am," he said, rubbing his forehead. "I take care of only what I can control. Otherwise, there's too much stress. I don't think that way. I'm losing my hair already!"

With that, he abruptly stood up and walked away, out the door into Torre's office, where the two of them would go over Rivera's special work program for the spring and privately count their blessings.

Originally published on February 17, 2006

Washington Orcas Listed as Endangered Species

By PEGGY ANDERSEN, Associated Press
16 February 2006

SEATTLE - Already designated a depleted species under one federal act, Washington state's killer whale population is getting more federal protection under another.

Since 2002, the orcas have been protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which kept them from being killed or harassed, but their listing under the Endangered Species Act gives them the highest protection available under the law.

The listing was announced in November but goes into effect Thursday.


A female orca, or killer whale, travels with a calf near the San Juan Islands in Washington

The three pods of orcas that live in Puget Sound from late spring through early fall, known as the southern resident orca population, total 89 whales. That's down from more than 100 in the middle of the last century but up from a low of 79 in 2002. The decline has been blamed on pollution and a drop in the population of salmon, their primary food.

The National Marine Fisheries Service will upgrade its orca conservation plan because of the new designation. One of the first steps is defining the whales' critical habitat, said Bob Lohn, the agency's Northwest regional director.

Federal agencies will need to consult with NMFS to make sure activities they plan in areas designated as critical habitat don't harm the orcas, Lohn said.

"If you don't protect the homes they need to survive, you can't expect them to start recovering," said Brent Plater, with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Lohn said NMFS officers would start monitoring whale-watching operations more closely. There are no proposed changes in its rules, which bar harassment of orcas and operation of engines within 100 yards of the mammals.

Some environmentalists cheered the listing.

"People are beginning to understand just how unique and amazing they are and how lucky we are to have the southern resident population in this urban fishbowl," said Susan Berta of Orca Network.

Others, however, were more cautious, noting that the Bush administration has been pushing to reshape the Endangered Species Act.

If the act is rolled back, "you can rest assured that the legal protections that the southern residents need and deserve to survive and recover will be lost," said Plater.
___
On the Net:
National Marine Fisheries Service: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_sc/storytext/endangered_orcas/18091184/SIG=10p3p94i7/*http://www.nwr.noaa.gov

Hamas vows to 'drink' Jewish blood

TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND
See terrorist group's video with messages for Israelis
Posted: February 16, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Shortly after its stunning election victory, Hamas posted on its official website parting video messages from two suicide bombers, including one who vowed the terrorist group would drink the blood of Jews until they "leave the Muslim countries."

Another terrorist urged his mother to be joyous over his death and his "wedding" with the "Maidens of Paradise."

The terrorist act glorified in the video, which can be viewed here, took place Dec. 7, 2004, reported Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch. Hamas, responsible for more than 100 suicide bombings and scores of shooting and rocket attacks, won overwhelmingly in the Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections and will form the next government.

Each terrorist had a separate message for Jews. The first said:

"My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."

The second terrorist declared:

"In the name of Allah, we will destroy you, blow you up, take revenge against you, [and] purify the land of you, pigs that have defiled our country... This operation is revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs."

The second terrorist also told how he saw his death for Allah as a wedding:

"I dedicate this wedding to all of those who have chosen Allah as their goal, the Quran as their constitution and the prophet [Muhammad] as their role model. Jihad is the only way to liberate Palestine – all of Palestine – from the impurity of the Jews."

He then spoke directly to his mother.

"My dear mother, you who have cared for me, today I sacrifice my life to be your intercessor (on Judgment Day). O my love and soul, wipe your tears, don't be saddened. In the name of Allah, I've achieve all that I've aspired. Don't let me see you sad on my wedding day with the Maidens of Paradise. So be happy and not sad, because in the name of Allah, after death is merciful Allah's paradise."

The clip has a farewell scene in which the mother helps the terrorist don his explosive vest. The scene is accompanying by a song with the lyrics, "My dear mother, don't cry over us."

Palestinian Media Watch notes the lyrics are similar to a music video that ran on Palestinian Authority television for years in which a boy asks his parents to be happy over his coming death: "My beloved, my mother, dearest to me most. Be joyous over my blood and do not cry for me."

The Israeli news monitor commented that on numerous occasions, the final messages of Palestinian suicide bombers reflected what they had been hearing in the PA media.

After filming their goodbyes, the two Hamas suicide terrorists went to the Gaza Strip's Karni Crossing and killed an Israeli soldier.

The clip also has scenes of terrorists preparing a tunnel and hiding explosives in it.

Paul Sperry: Ticking Saudi Time Bomb in the U.S.?

Paul Sperry
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
February 15, 2006

A former top Homeland Security official reveals in a forthcoming book that the FBI failed to examine "stacks of boxes" of potential evidence containing the applications of thousands of young Saudi men who had applied for and received visas to travel to the U.S. around the same time as the 15 Saudi hijackers.

While the FBI says it can find no evidence of al-Qaida cells here, the agency has not looked at all the Saudi-based evidence since 9/11, warns former Homeland Security Department Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin.Ervin, who resigned early last year, says he discovered several unexamined boxes of Saudi visa applications in a storage room at the U.S. Embassy during a trip two years ago to Riyadh, the Saudi capital. He was told by consular officers there that FBI agents neglected to go through the boxes and pull the files to see if there might have been any connections -- tribes, families, villages, occupations, addresses, phone numbers and so on -- between those applicants and the hijackers.Even in the aftermath of 9/11, "predictably, the FBI fell woefully behind in vetting these applications," Ervin says in the galley proof of his soon-to-be-released book, "Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable To Attack" (Palgrave MacMillan). The FBI missed clues to the first World Trade Center terror plot in 1993 because they were buried in boxes of unexamined evidence from an earlier terror case. Ervin says a team of FBI agents did visit the embassy in the months after the 9/11 attacks and asked the consular section to pull some of the files.

But for some unexplained reason, he says the agents left the embassy in Riyadh without examining the thousands of other applications stored in the stacks of boxes, even though Saudi Arabia is a known al-Qaida hotbed."As I write these words today," Ervin says on page 45 of the galley copy I've obtained, "these applications have yet to be examined, and the more time goes by, the less potentially useful any intelligence they might contain will be."
Even when the FBI has screened visa applicants, it hasn't done it fast enough to weed out terrorist suspects and prevent them from entering the U.S.

For example, in the months after 9/11, the FBI and CIA scoured the visa applications of all males between the ages of 16 and 45 from predominantly Arab and Muslim countries for any terrorist connections, Ervin says. They found some 200 applicants with terrorist ties.But by the time they made the connections, the State Department had already issued the men their visas, he says. The department duly revoked the visas, but it was too late -- the men had already entered the U.S.

"Our government had no idea whether any of these terrorists were still in the country, and if so, where," Ervin says. "It is possible that all 200 of them are in America somewhere today, waiting for just the right moment to launch another attack."

Osama bin Laden recently warned that al-Qaida is making final preparations for another massive attack on America. Assuming the terrorist kingpin isn't bluffing, experts say, he could have terrorist cells secreted inside American cities.

While the FBI says it's found no evidence of such terror cells here, it also said much the same thing before the 9/11 attacks. And Ervin points out that the bureau nonetheless figures there are at least 1,000 al-Qaida sympathizers in the U.S. today -- a number that he calls "low." It's possible there are thousands of sympathizers supporting and facilitating hundreds of terrorist operatives inside the U.S., he fears, and the FBI has yet to make the connections."It's safe to say, then, that a not insignificant number of suspected terrorists are known to be in the country today," he says.

Ervin speculates that the FBI chose not to examine the other Saudi visa applications because "doing so was too much trouble."Asked about it, FBI spokesman Bill Carter says it's the first he's heard of any unexamined boxes of Saudi visa applications. He says generally it's the State Department's duty to check out visa applicants, and the FBI plays only a minor supporting role in the process.

"The State Department is usually responsible for the processing of visa applications. And generally what happens in that regard is there's a name-check process," Carter says. "In other words, they would send the names over to the FBI, and we run it through our case files to determine if there's anything in the FBI databases that would preclude or prevent that individual from coming into the United States."

"But," he adds, "I'm not familiar with the fact that there are boxes that remain unreviewed."Carter says the FBI's legal attache office in Riyadh -- which has come under fire recently -- may have been involved initially in reviewing the visa files. But he maintains it was not ultimately responsible for running down terror leads on Saudi individuals after 9/11. "Most of what that [office activity] had to do with was tracking financial issues with regard to support of terrorist groups," Carter explains.

FBI agents in Washington have complained that they received little help after 9/11 from the bureau's office in Riyadh, which was run by two Muslim agents. One, Egyptian-born Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, says they were understaffed and hobbled by an antiquated computer system.

But he and his boss Wilfred Rattigan, a black convert to Islam, nonetheless found time to travel to Mecca for the hajj pilgrimage, where they surrendered their FBI cell phones to Saudi nationals and were out of contact with officials back in the U.S. who were trying to ring them up about investigations into al-Qaida and 9/11.

Both Rattigan and Abdel-Hafiz, who have since been reassigned within the bureau, wore traditional Muslim headgear and robes while on the job in Saudi Arabia, further annoying fellow agents.

When a senior FBI supervisor paid a visit to the Riyadh office nearly a year after 9/11, she found secret documents strewn about the office, some even wedged between cabinets. She also found a huge backlog of boxes each filled with three feet of paper containing secret, time-sensitive leads. Much of the materials, including information on Saudi airline pilots, had not been translated or reviewed.

Ervin, now a homeland security expert at the Aspen Institute in Washington, insists that someone in law enforcement -- whether the FBI or an agency within DHS -- still needs to review the unexamined boxes sitting in the embassy in Riyadh."Why hasn't anyone from the Department of Homeland Security bothered to look through them to see whether there might be links between any of those applicants and any of the hijackers?" he complains in his book.

DHS, for its part, says it has introduced a program meant to add another layer of security to State's visa application process. Two years ago, under the Homeland Security Act, it deployed so-called Visa Security Officers (VSOs) to Saudi Arabia, still a hotbed of terrorism, to review applications for people who could be considered national security threats.

But the Saudi program has been plagued with problems. The Government Accountability Office last year reported that officers assigned there are spread too thin by a heavy workload. And the case volume is expected to grow. Reportedly, the administration recently agreed to a request by the Saudi royal government to ramp up the number of student visas issued to Saudi nationals, a process that was slowed after 9/11.

Making matters worse, only one of the first 10 VSOs sent to Saudi Arabia could speak Arabic. "Needless to say," Ervin says, "the officers' effectiveness was severely limited by their inability to speak and read the language of the visa applicants."While it remains unclear how many other Saudi terrorist suspects have received visas to travel to the U.S., authorities have identified several Saudi nationals associated with the hijackers or al-Qaida, or both, who are still at large and may pose a potential threat to America.

Here are a few:

Ali Abd al Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi: Originally a candidate for the 9/11 operation, he was held in reserve by bin Laden for a later, even larger operation. He was recently given amnesty by the Saudi government.

Saud al-Rashid: He also trained for the suicide mission.
Photos of him were found with those of three other hijackers. Saudi authorities released him from custody in 2002.

Adnan al-Shukrijumah: U.S. investigators consider the former Florida resident -- a.k.a. "Jafar the Pilot" -- to be "the next Mohamed Atta." The Saudi national, who conspired with dirty-nuke suspect Jose Padilla, was last spotted in Central America.

Ervin warns that al-Qaida is "bound and determined to hit us again, and even harder than last time."

Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.

Paul Sperry, formerly Washington bureau chief of Investor's Business Daily, is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" (Nelson Current, 2005).

Thomas Sowell: Two Crises

February 14, 2006
Thomas Sowell

This nation is facing two crises -- one phony and one real. Both in the media and in politics, the phony crisis is getting virtually all the attention.

Like the French official in "Casablanca," politicians and much of the media are shocked, shocked, to discover that the government has been listening in on calls involving international terrorist networks. Congressional leaders of both parties have in fact known this for years without saying a word.

Only after the New York Times published the news and made a big noise about it have politicians begun to declare their shock.

That is not the only thing that makes this big uproar phony. The same people who are going ballistic over what they spin as "domestic spying" never went ballistic over one of the most gross examples of genuine domestic spying during the Clinton years.

Hundreds of raw FBI files on Republicans were sent to the Clinton White House, in violation of laws and for no higher purpose than having enough dirt on enough people to intimidate political opponents. But domestic spying against Republicans did not shock nearly as many people as intercepting phone calls from terrorists.

The current hue and cry that is being whipped up into a media crisis is part of a whole pattern of short-sighted political obstruction and a futile venting of spleen.

What could have been more short-sighted and petty than the Congressional Democrats holding up the official electoral college vote last year confirming the re-election of President Bush? It was the first time such a challenge was made since 1877.

Democrats knew from the outset that they had no chance of preventing Bush's re-election from being confirmed in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Moreover, since he was already President, they could not even delay his taking office.

It was obstruction for the sake of obstruction -- and to "do something" to appeal to the Bush-hatred of their political base. It was the same thing when the Democrats obstructed and delayed the confirmation vote on Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State and later the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

They knew from the outset that these were just futile temper tantrums that would not affect the outcome in the slightest.

One of the ugliest examples of the same mindset was painfully visible at the recent funeral of Coretta Scott King, where a solemn occasion was turned into a series of political cheap shots against a President who had come to honor the memory of Mrs. King.

The truly dangerous aspect of this temper tantrum politics is its undermining the government of the United States in its dealings with foreign powers and international terrorist networks.

There are nations and movements that respect only force or the threat of force. Regardless of anyone's politics, the President of the United States is the only one who can launch that force.

In the early days of the Iraq war, when it was clear to all that American military force would be unleashed against our enemies, Libya suddenly agreed to abandon its nuclear program and other countries backed off their hostile stances.

But when our domestic obstructionists began undermining the President and dividing the country, they were undermining the credibility of American power. North Korea's government-controlled media gave big play to Senator John Kerry's speeches against the U.S. hard line on the development of North Korean nuclear weapons.

Obviously this all-out attempt to damage the President at all costs makes any threat of the use of military force less credible with the country divided.

Whether President Bush will in fact use military force as a last resort to prevent an unending nightmare of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iranian fanatics and international terrorists is something only the future will tell.

It would be far better if the threat of force were credible enough that actual force would not have to be used. But divisive politics have undermined the credibility of any such threat. That can narrow the choices to killing people in Iran or leaving ourselves and our posterity at the mercy of hate-filled and suicidal fanatics with nukes.

That is the real crisis that is being overshadowed by the phony political crisis.

Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate

Ben Johnson: A Failure Fans the Flames

Ben Johnson
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
February 14, 2006

When David Horowitz and I wrote the article “AL GORE OR AL JAZEERA?” we intended the title as parody. Two years later, Gore has morphed into parody, and our parody has become prophecy fulfilled.

On Sunday, former Vice President Al Gore stood on the sands of the nation that produced Osama bin Laden – a nation where schoolgirls were herded back into a burning building so they would not appear in public without a burqa and where the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is considered an appendix to the Koran – and criticized his own country. America, he told the sheikhs at the Jiddah Economic Forum, is committing “terrible abuses” against Arabs, who are being “indiscriminately rounded up” in a way that is “unforgivable.”

Gore warned that, under the Bush administration, Arab Americans are “indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable.”

Forget that, as usual, Gore is completely off-base. Most immigrants who hail from nations that sponsor terrorism and who have violated U.S. immigration laws – whether by lying on their forms, overstaying their visas, or not being where they said they would be – are deported. The 500-odd detainees in Guantanamo Bay are being held because the evidence suggests they have familiarity with terrorists and may have knowledge of future terror attacks. There, these detainees are mothered by supportive, sisterly “interrogators” between prayer services and dinners of chicken and rice pilaf. As Lt. Gen. Randall “Mark” Schmidt and Brig. Gen. John Furlow told the Senate Armed Services Committee last July, “No torture occurred” at Gitmo.

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News invited Gore to enumerate specific episodes of “unforgivable” U.S. behavior. Given the opportunity to put up or shut up, Gore declined on both counts.

What is most disturbing is Al Gore’s traveling to a foreign – and hostile – country to denounce his commander-in-chief while we are fighting a War on Terror initiated by citizens and expatriates of that nation. However disconnected from reality Gore has become, he must know calling the president’s actions – which must, after all, be carried out by American soldiers – “unforgivable” invites and justifies jihad against our GIs. His words verify the Islamists’ every dark imagination about Judeo-Crusader perfidy. And when speaking in a religious theocracy that is also the world’s leading exporter of Wahhabi Islam, the term “unforgivable” carries a specific denotation: specifically, that these crimes cry unto Allah in the heavens and can only be atoned by the shedding of infidel blood. Standing a stone’s throw from Mecca (pun intended), Gore told Islamists they must give no quarter to the Great Satan.

The former veep then denounced Bush’s post-9/11 policy of denying visas to most Saudi applicants. “The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake,” he said. “The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States.”

During the Clinton-Gore administration, when that “channel of friendship” was free to run its natural course, it yielded 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11. Many of those people, too, had overstayed their visas or had immigration irregularities, but Al, Bill, and Hillary had better things to do than “indiscriminately” chase down such petty violators. Bill was too busy fretting over “Clinton fatigue” to arrest Osama bin Laden; why would he track down a few Saudi students with an interest in aviation?

Gore reassured his Saudi audience that Bush’s Nazi practices do not “represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of the citizens of my country.” In addition to sneaking in a gratuitous and megalomaniacal reference to his winning the popular vote in 2000, Gore signaled a willingness to overturn this policy, should anyone present want to make an investment in 2008.

Wherever Gore had given such an indefensible speech, it would have been indefensible: the fact that he chose to denounce his country on foreign soil during a time of war should make his asininities all the more repugnant.

The speakers who followed Gore to the podium underscored the banality of his polemical rant. Cherie Blair, the wife of Tony Blair, said Saudi discrimination against women was “undermining economic potential,” a plea seconded by Irish President Mary McAleese. In a closed Kingdom, two women dared to call for freedom, while Gore used his bully pulpit to condemn the freest nation on earth.

Gore’s inflammatory remarks carried additional weight, coming from a former vice president who still harbors presidential aspirations.

The scathing, scalding excesses of Al Gore and Jimmy Carter represent deplorable departures from American tradition. Previous ex-presidents and ex-vice presidents have followed the longstanding custom not to criticize their successors. In modern history, most have not had to, due either to their personal popularity or innate human dignity. Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and Walter Mondale were elected to – or at least nominated for – positions of national importance after their electoral defeats. Most American presidents have meekly followed George Washington’s noble example of retiring in solitude and turning the reins of power over to others. Bush-41 was exemplary; so, too, Gerald Ford. Both narrowly lost to faux moderate Southern governors, then suffered in silence through inept administrations that left America vulnerable to Islamist attacks. In modern history, only three ex-presidents have broken that cardinal rule not to criticize the current Chief Executive: Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and, Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s actions – or rather, inaction – when al-Qaeda warlords dragged the bodies of 18 U.S. soldiers through the streets of Somalia emboldened Osama bin Laden to attack again at the Khobar Towers, then the Twin Towers. The Clinton-Gore-Carter triumvirate’s appeasement of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions taught Iran a valuable lesson. And Al Gore’s 36-day public pouting session in November-December 2000 undoubtedly assured al-Qaeda that the West was so decadent, self-indulgent, and politically paralyzed by the Left that we were ripe for attack. Now, Gore is telling those jihadists and their financiers they are still on the side of the angels.

For radical Islamists, Al Gore has become the gift that keeps on giving.

Ben Johnson is Managing Editor of FrontPage Magazine and author of the book 57 Varieties of Radical Causes: Teresa Heinz Kerry's Charitable Giving.

Film Review: Capote

Cold-Blooded Writer
Truman Capote's Ruthless Pursuit Of a Murderer's Tale Is Chillingly Told
By Stephen Hunter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 21, 2005; C01

Truman Capote was as corny as Kansas in November, which is to say not corny at all.
So what was the elfin, mincing, vicuna-wrapped, dowager-loving, gossip-mongering, gay, E.T.-looking writer doing in a small village in the western edges of the Jayhawk State in November 1959? (He probably didn't even know what a jayhawk was.) The answer is twofold, according to Gerald Clarke's great 1988 biography "Capote" and this terrific movie based on a substantial part of it: writing a great book and destroying himself.

That intertwined trajectory of creation and destruction is at the heart of the severe film, almost like a diagram of the primal Faustian bargain: The artist grows so much and gains so much, achieves immortality, really -- and it only costs him his soul.

Capote, a doyen of the salons (but never the saloons) of the Upper East Side and secure in his world and reputation as the New Yorker's best and brightest boy, saw an article in the Nov. 15 New York Times recounting the slaughter of a prosperous farm family named Clutter on the high wheat plains by persons unknown. Something provoked his imagination, perhaps the hugeness of the crime juxtaposed with the stolidity of the community and its solitude way out there where the rain is Tess, the fire's Jo and they call the wind Maria. Within days he was headed there in the company of his boyhood chum, the soon-to-be-published writer Harper Lee, who served as his enabler as he attempted to make contact with the sundered town, its law enforcement professionals and, ultimately, the perpetrators of the deed.

In "Capote," director Bennett Miller, writer Dan Futterman and most of all actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role (all are boyhood friends, publicity materials say) capture this process with exquisite accuracy if minimal flourish: The genius of the film, besides Hoffman's stunning performance, is that it knows exactly how much is enough. It never overplays, lingers or punches up. It "writes," as it were, in the cinematic equivalent of the spare, eloquent prose the New Yorker is famous for.

Miller shrinks each sequence to its salient story point, then quits it in a rush. It's almost as if he went through Futterman's screenplay and cut the first half out of every scene. Meanwhile, he uses the severe landscape -- flat, the horizon a hundred miles out, the sky gray and mean, the wind making the sound like folks was out there dyin', the rustle of the dry corn, the frozen patches of snow -- to suggest the inner state of its title antagonist's mind.

And the filmmakers pull no punches (neither did Clarke's book, although Capote's did): Truman's a bitch. With an airy wave of his fat, moist fingers he disdains poor, square cop Alvin Dewey (played by Chris Cooper as if his first name were Gary) and then acknowledges, in a throwaway line as he Joan-Crawfords dramatically through the police station with a sweep of his stylish coat, "Oh, I don't really care if you catch them or not." Not exactly meant to endear himself to stoical law-'n'-order types. (Miller has great fun contrasting Capote's piping flounce with the doughy, so-butch faces of the Kansas lawmen.)

But Tru has charm and, though you can't see it under the gay bling, grit. And he's able to use his outsiderness to reach people from odd angles, for example playing up his New Orleans background to captivate Dewey's wife, a New Orleanian herself. You never heard N'Awleansean spoken with such high Tallulahesque zing! As he was with the Dowager Swans of the Rich Old Lady set in New York a few years later, he's able to ingratiate himself first with her, and by extension with the square-shootin' Dewey, which gives him almost unlimited access to the investigative machinery of the state and, in turn, the cred to get inside the prison system. Other than Dewey and Catherine Keener's grounded but hardly Alabama-seeming Lee, the movie has nothing nice to say about anyone. It views all humanity through Truman's jaundiced eyes, including himself. It suggests that not only was the killing done in cold blood, but, over the following few years, so was the writing.

"Capote" gets at the writer's ethical dilemma: Real people and their lives are never as tidy as a good story, and they must be nudged, shoved, manipulated to get with the program. Every writer of long-form nonfiction faces this issue; he also needs the cooperation of people his book will be unkind to, and so the manipulations are creative, as are, in his interior life, his justifications.

Throughout the long writing (close to six years) of "In Cold Blood," Capote plays these games with a grandmaster's finesse, even when they become clouded by emotional engagement, possibly even love. He falls for one of the killers, a forlorn and embittered loser named Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.). Yet even as he loves the poor wretched thing that Perry is, he must use him, first to find out what it is that enables a man to put a 12-gauge muzzle to the head of other humans and pull the trigger -- four times! -- and second, for the killer's account of the event, which he knew would form the climax of his book and make it great.

So he seduces Perry at least metaphorically (the picture avoids the suggestion that some others have made of a physical relationship) and guides him by offering and withholding love, by enabling the young man's fantasies of specialness and, cruelest of all, by denying the nature of the book he is writing, even to the point of lying about what the book's title will be. He also knows something more terrible: His book will be better if Perry swings at the end of the Kansas hangman's rope. He needs that scene.

Stories of ambition -- "Champion," "What Makes Sammy Run" -- usually turn on a sociopathic hero, following men without consciences who backslap, then backstab (the same backs) their way to the top without a qualm. "Capote" revises this formula; the point it makes, and almost as a dish of justice served hot, is that all this cost Capote everything. He did what he had to do, he wrote what he had to write, and he was left with fame and fortune -- and plenty of nothing. It ignores theories of alcoholism (the writer's clear problem, no matter what else may have afflicted him) as disease. Instead it treats alcoholism as a symptom of a deeper soul rot.

As a structure, the movie also has a weird resemblance to a basketball game. Wha? Well, yes, in this one sense: Remember in the old days of the 76ers, before there was a Michael Jordan or a Magic Johnson but there was a Dr. J? Remember Dr. J? The saying was: Back away and let him operate, and the best thing the Sixers did was cluster in one quadrant of the court, making way for the Doc's fabulous moves. He won them a championship that way.

That's what they do with Hoffman in this picture. No one fights him for it, no one stands against him. It's his picture, not merely because Hoffman interceded with the financiers to obtain money, not because he exec-produced, but because he is the movie. Every one else backs off and lets him do his moves, which include a simpering, unselfconscious effeminacy, a wrist that seems to be filled with helium and a voice that is somewhere between a lisp and a death rattle.

There's also some hypocrisy filtered through this, what you might call the movie's own corruption of ambition. The filmmakers judge Truman sharply for his use of Perry as a source for the murder scene -- Capote even overemphasized it by pulling it out of chronology and moving it to the rear of the book -- but they do the same. Though the movie isn't a remake of "In Cold Blood" (there's already been one), it uses that book's structure, beginning with the discovery of the bodies on the plain, ending with a powerful blast of violence (more violent than Richard Brooks's 1967 film), including an image of a twitching Mr. Clutter, his throat cut and gushing. Then there's the hanging, far more graphic than the original. So they may condemn Tru for his ruthlessness, but by using the product of it, aren't they operating in blood just as cold?

Capote (98 minutes, at area theaters) is rated R for scenes of violence and brief strong language.

Charles Krauthammer: Curse of the Moderates

February 10, 2006
The NY Daily News
Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- As much of the Islamic world erupts in a studied frenzy over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, there are voices of reason being heard on both sides. Some Islamic leaders and organizations, while endorsing the demonstrators' sense of grievance and sharing their outrage, speak out against using violence as a vehicle of expression. Their Western counterparts -- intellectuals, including most of the major newspapers in the United States -- are similarly balanced: While, of course, endorsing the principle of free expression, they criticize the Danish newspaper for abusing that right by publishing offensive cartoons, and declare themselves opposed, in the name of religious sensitivity, to doing the same.

God save us from the voices of reason.

What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share your rage but don't torch that embassy'' -- is nothing of the sort. It is simply a cynical way to endorse the goals of the mob without endorsing its means. It is fraudulent because, while pretending to uphold the principle of religious sensitivity, it is only interested in this instance of religious insensitivity.

Have any of these "moderates'' ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy in order to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), ``The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,'' showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?

A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don't are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, using merely different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith. These are not defenders of religion, but Muslim supremacists trying to force their dictates upon the liberal West.

And these "moderates'' are aided and abetted by Western "moderates" who publish pictures of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung, and celebrate the "Piss Christ'' (a crucifix sitting in a jar of urine) as art deserving public subsidy, but are seized with a sudden religious sensitivity when the subject is Muhammad.

Had they not been so hypocritical, one might defend their refusal to republish these cartoons on the grounds that news value can sometimes be trumped by good taste and sensitivity. After all, on grounds of basic decency, American newspapers generally -- and correctly -- do not publish the pictures of dead bodies, whatever their news value.

There is a "sensitivity'' argument for not having published the cartoons in the first place, back in September when they first appeared in that Danish newspaper. But it is not September. It is February. The cartoons have been published, and the newspaper, the publishers and Denmark itself have come under savage attack. After multiple arsons, devastating boycotts and threats to cut off hands and heads, the issue is no longer news value, i.e., whether a newspaper needs to publish them to inform the audience about what is going on. The issue now is solidarity.

The mob is trying to dictate to Western newspapers, indeed Western governments, what is a legitimate subject for discussion and caricature. The cartoons do not begin to approach the artistic level of Salman Rushdie's prose, but that's not the point. The point is who decides what can be said and what can be drawn within the precincts of what we quaintly think of as the free world.

The mob has turned this into a test case for freedom of speech in the West. The German, French and Italian newspapers that republished these cartoons did so not to inform but to defy -- to declare that they will not be intimidated by the mob.

What is at issue is fear. The unspoken reason many newspapers do not want to republish is not sensitivity but simple fear. They know what happened to Theo van Gogh, who made a film about the Islamic treatment of women and got a knife through the chest with an Islamist manifesto attached.

The worldwide riots and burnings are instruments of intimidation, reminders of van Gogh's fate. The Islamic "moderates'' are the mob's agents and interpreters, warning us not to do this again. And the Western "moderates'' are their terrified collaborators who say: Don't worry, we won't. It's those Danes. We're clean. Spare us. Please.

Ann Coulter: Calvin and Hobbes - and Muhammad

Ann Coulter
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
February 9, 2006

As my regular readers know, I've long been skeptical of the "Religion of Peace" moniker for Muslims – for at least 3,000 reasons right off the top of my head. I think the evidence is going my way this week.

The culture editor of a newspaper in Denmark suspected writers and cartoonists were engaging in self-censorship when it came to the Religion of Peace. It was subtle things, like a Danish comedian's statement, paraphrased by the New York Times, "that he had no problem urinating on the Bible but that he would not dare do the same to the Quran."

So, after verifying that his life insurance premiums were paid up, the editor expressly requested cartoons of Muhammad from every cartoonist with a Danish cartoon syndicate. Out of 40 cartoonists, only 10 accepted the invitation, most of them submitting utterly neutral drawings with no political content whatsoever.

But three cartoons made political points.

One showed Muhammad turning away suicide bombers from the gates of heaven, saying "Stop, stop – we ran out of virgins!" – which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. Another was a cartoon of Muhammad with horns, which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. The third showed Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb, which I believe was an expression of post-industrial ennui in a secular – oops, no, wait: It was more of a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence.

In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence.

Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.

The little darlings brandish placards with typical Religion of Peace slogans, such as: "Behead Those Who Insult Islam," "Europe, you will pay, extermination is on the way" and "Butcher those who mock Islam." They warn Europe of their own impending 9-11 with signs that say: "Europe: Your 9/11 will come" – which is ironic, because they almost had me convinced the Jews were behind the 9-11 attack.

The rioting Muslims claim they are upset because Islam prohibits any depictions of Muhammad – though the text is ambiguous on beheadings, suicide bombings and flying planes into skyscrapers.

The belief that Islam forbids portrayals of Muhammad is recently acquired. Back when Muslims created things, rather than blowing them up, they made paintings, frescoes, miniatures and prints of Muhammad.

But apparently the Quran is like the Constitution: It's a "living document," capable of sprouting all-new provisions at will. Muslims ought to start claiming the Quran also prohibits indoor plumbing, to explain their lack of it.

Other interpretations of the Quran forbid images of humans or animals, which makes even a child's coloring book blasphemous. That's why the Taliban blew up those priceless Buddhist statues, bless their innocent, peace-loving little hearts.

Largely unnoticed in this spectacle is the blinding fact that one nation is missing from the long list of Muslim countries (by which I mean France and England) with hundreds of crazy Muslims experiencing bipolar rage over some cartoons: Iraq. Hey – maybe this democracy thing does work! The barbaric behavior of Europe's Muslims suggests that the European welfare state may not be attracting your top-notch Muslims.

Making the rash assumption for purposes of discussion that Islam is a religion and not a car-burning cult, even a real religion can't go bossing around other people like this.

Catholics aren't short on rules, but they couldn't care less if non-Catholics use birth control. Conservative Jews have no interest in forbidding other people from mixing meat and dairy. Protestants don't make a peep about other people eating food off one another's plates. (Just stay away from our plates – that's disgusting.)

But Muslims think they can issue decrees about what images can appear in newspaper cartoons. Who do they think they are, liberals?

Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.

Ann Coulter is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her most recent book is How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).

Debra Saunders: The Opposite of Intelligence

February 7, 2006
The San Fransisco Chronicle
Debra Saunders

If anyone can show me that the National Security Agency, under order from President Bush or top aides, eavesdropped on Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy or some prominent partisan critic, I'll change my tune and see what this administration is doing as a threat to civil liberties. Until then, I can only see the attacks on an NSA surveillance program -- on Monday the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the program that allowed officials to data-mine information from international phone calls and the Internet -- as ill-conceived, partisan and dangerous.

Ill-conceived? The Sept. 11 commission's purpose was to figure out why authorities did not connect the dots and prevent those deadly terrorist attacks. Now, Washington is scolding the NSA for using state-of-the-art technology to try to connect more dots.

Partisan? Yes, there are Republicans who have questioned the NSA program. Still, most Democrats won't give the Bushies the same break they'd hand to a Democratic administration in a heartbeat.

After all, the Clinton administration conducted warrantless searches in an American's home. His name was Aldrich Ames, and he later pleaded guilty to spying for the former Soviet Union while working for the CIA. As The Washington Post reported in 1994, "government officials decided in the Ames case that no warrant was required because the searches were conducted for 'foreign intelligence purposes.'" There was no huge outcry that Clintonia should have obtained a warrant.
Former Clinton Justice official Jamie Gorelick contended in a letter to the Judiciary Committee that the president had "the inherent authority to authorize foreign intelligence physical searches" -- but that, after Ames, the administration later sought to change the FISA law to include physical searches because "it would be better" to have congressional and judicial oversight of those searches.

It would be better? That's it? Gorelick won't say that the Bush NSA program is illegal, as some senators charge, but only that her testimony for the FISA change in 1994 "does not address that question." That should tell you that the legality of the NSA program is, at worst, debatable.

Dangerous? Actually, it's only dangerous if Washington manages to bury vital intelligence information that allows a terrorist attack which might have been thwarted to occur.

Critics ask: Why didn't the NSA simply seek warrants retroactively? They're as easy to get as candy. Why, the FISA courts only rejected four out of tens of thousands.

The answer is clear. As The Washington Post reported Sunday, much of the NSA data-mining produced leads that led nowhere. They didn't provide probable cause for a warrant.

Even in cases where a FISA warrant would seem to be a sure thing -- as when FBI agents wanted to get into (now admitted al-Qaida terrorist) Zacarias Moussaoui's laptop -- it was not.

This is straight from the Sept. 11 panel report: Even though an FBI agent had figured out that admitted terrorist Moussaoui was "an Islamic extremist preparing for some future act in furtherance of radical fundamentalist goals,'' even though Moussaoui drew suspicion taking lessons for flying the Boeing 747 without the requisite background, even though Moussaoui had $32,000 in the bank but no plausible explanation why, "the case agent did not have sufficient information to connect Moussaoui to a 'foreign power'" -- which was a "statutory requirement for a FISA warrant."

Is the Bush administration doing everything right? Hell, no. The Bushies' argument that Congress essentially authorized these wiretaps when it authorized the use of military force after the Sept. 11 attacks is disingenuous and infuriating.

Lucky for Dubya, the Senate Judiciary Committee is filled with the most bombastic windbags in America -- they are more irritating saying absolutely nothing than Gonzales is saying next to nothing.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chair, has pushed for the administration to ask the FISA court to review the NSA program. "You think you're right, but there are a lot of people who think you're wrong," Specter told Gonzales. "What do you have to lose if you're right?"
The question should be: What does America have to lose? If FISA found against the NSA program, one would hope Congress would pass laws designed to give intelligence officials what they need -- as long as there's oversight to prevent abuses. But that may be asking too much.

The best way to define the most irritating senators on the Judiciary Committee: They voted for the Patriot Act before they voted against it.

Tony Kornheiser: So Who Won?

So Who Won? No, Not That! The Tony for Best Commercial!
By Tony Kornheiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 6, 2006; E02

Here are my choices for the best TV commercials aired during the Super Bowl -- or, as I like to call them, "The Tonys":

1. The fabulous monkeys-in-suits ad for CareerBuilder.com, whatever that is. It's simply impossible to resist dressed-up monkeys, especially when they're using burning $20 bills to light cigars to celebrate what they erroneously think was a record profit year. You give me some monkeys, I'll give you a great ad. Monkeys are gold .

2. The subtitled FedEx ad, where the prehistoric man fails to send a package on time -- because a dinosaur eats the messenger bird. Then at the end of the ad an elephant squashes the guy, a la Monty Python. Hysterical.

3. The big production-number Burger King Whopper ad with women dressed as lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles awkwardly flopping onto a burger. I loved it. (Though my friend Dawn, a therapist, said the commercial was insulting to women, especially when the words "have it your way" were intoned as the costumed women flopped on the burger. But, as I said, she's a therapist.)

4. The Sprint ad for a cell phone with a "crime deterrent" feature, the deterrent being when the guy throws the cell phone at his friend's head. Twice. Unexpectedly funny.

5. (tie) The charming Budweiser ad in which the usual Clydesdales football game is interrupted when a sheared sheep runs onto the field and is identified as a "streaker." And the cowboys watch and say, "Didn't need to see that."

The smart Aleve ad featuring Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock at a Trekkie convention, using Aleve to get past his arthritis and make the split-fingered Vulcan hand sign. Live long and prosper.

The worst ads were:

1) Those overwrought Gillette Fusion ads. Honestly, what hairball needs a five-blade razor?

2) The weird and somewhat skeevy Ameriquest ads, where people find themselves in embarrassing situations, and it's never explained why a mortgage company would be thinking like this.

3) The overproduced, pedestrian Diddy/Jay Mohr Diet Pepsi ads.

4) The infantile GoDaddy.com ad that lacked all steam. (Speaking of which, what happened to the erectile dysfunction ads? You can't spell erectile dysfunction without N-F-L. Are we to infer Paul Tagliabue has somehow solved this problem? Wow, the NFL is a can-do league. Next up, bird flu.)

By and large the ads were loaded with cute animals and absent hot babes. Some people may welcome this trend. I'm not sure I want to party with them.

Mark Steyn: 'Sensitivity' can have brutal consequences

February 5, 2006
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

I long ago lost count of the number of times I've switched on the TV and seen crazy guys jumping up and down in the street, torching the Stars and Stripes and yelling ''Death to the Great Satan!'' Or torching the Union Jack and yelling ''Death to the Original If Now Somewhat Arthritic And Semi-Retired Satan!'' But I never thought I'd switch on the TV and see the excitable young lads jumping up and down in Jakarta, Lahore, Aden, Hebron, etc., etc., torching the flag of Denmark.

Denmark! Even if you were overcome with a sudden urge to burn the Danish flag, where do you get one in a hurry in Gaza? Well, OK, that's easy: the nearest European Union Humanitarian Aid and Intifada-Funding Branch Office. But where do you get one in an obscure town on the Punjabi plain on a Thursday afternoon? If I had a sudden yen to burn the Yemeni or Sudanese flag on my village green, I haven't a clue how I'd get hold of one in this part of New Hampshire.

Say what you like about the Islamic world, but they show tremendous initiative and energy and inventiveness, at least when it comes to threatening death to the infidels every 48 hours for one perceived offense or another. If only it could be channeled into, say, a small software company, what an economy they'd have.

Meanwhile, back in Copenhagen, the Danes are a little bewildered to find that this time it's plucky little Denmark who's caught the eye of the nutters. Last year, a newspaper called Jyllands-Posten published several cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, whose physical representation in art is forbidden by Islam. The cartoons aren't particularly good and they were intended to be provocative. But they had a serious point. Before coming to that, we should note that in the Western world "artists" "provoke" with the same numbing regularity as young Muslim men light up other countries' flags.
When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how "brave" and "challenging" he is. The rule for "brave" "transgressive" "artists" is a simple one: If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked.

Thus, NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom "Will & Grace," in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes -- "Cruci-fixin's." On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of "respect" for the Muslim faith.

Which means out of respect for their ability to locate the executive vice president's home in the suburbs and firebomb his garage.

Jyllands-Posten wasn't being offensive for the sake of it. They had a serious point -- or, at any rate, a more serious one than Britney Spears or Terence McNally. The cartoons accompanied a piece about the dangers of "self-censorship" -- i.e., a climate in which there's no explicit law forbidding you from addressing the more, er, lively aspects of Islam but nonetheless everyone feels it's better not to.

That's the question the Danish newspaper was testing: the weakness of free societies in the face of intimidation by militant Islam.

One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want -- including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, hailed the "sensitivity" of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending cartoons.

No doubt he's similarly impressed by the "sensitivity" of Anne Owers, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, for prohibiting the flying of the English national flag in English prisons on the grounds that it shows the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and thus is offensive to Muslims. And no doubt he's impressed by the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew its ice cream cones from its British menus because Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script. I don't know which sura in the Koran says don't forget, folks, it's not just physical representations of God or the Prophet but also chocolate ice cream squiggly representations of the name, but ixnay on both just to be "sensitive."

And doubtless the British foreign secretary also appreciates the "sensitivity" of the owner of France-Soir, who fired his editor for republishing the Danish cartoons. And the "sensitivity" of the Dutch film director Albert Ter Heerdt, who canceled the sequel to his hit multicultural comedy ''Shouf Shouf Habibi!'' on the grounds that "I don't want a knife in my chest" -- which is what happened to the last Dutch film director to make a movie about Islam: Theo van Gogh, on whose ''right to dissent'' all those Hollywood blowhards are strangely silent. Perhaps they're just being "sensitive,'' too.

And perhaps the British foreign secretary also admires the "sensitivity" of those Dutch public figures who once spoke out against the intimidatory aspects of Islam and have now opted for diplomatic silence and life under 24-hour armed guard. And maybe he even admires the "sensitivity" of the increasing numbers of Dutch people who dislike the pervasive fear and tension in certain parts of the Netherlands and so have emigrated to Canada and New Zealand.

Very few societies are genuinely multicultural. Most are bicultural: On the one hand, there are folks who are black, white, gay, straight, pre-op transsexual, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, worshippers of global-warming doom-mongers, and they rub along as best they can. And on the other hand are folks who do not accept the give-and-take, the rough-and-tumble of a "diverse" "tolerant" society, and, when one gently raises the matter of their intolerance, they threaten to kill you, which makes the question somewhat moot.

One day the British foreign secretary will wake up and discover that, in practice, there's very little difference between living under Exquisitely Refined Multicultural Sensitivity and Sharia. As a famously sensitive Dane once put it, "To be or not to be, that is the question."

© Mark Steyn, 2006

Charles Krauthammer: The Price Palestinians Must Pay

February 3, 2006
The Washington Post
Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Amid much gnashing of teeth, the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections is being called a disaster. On the contrary. It is deeply clarifying and ultimately cleansing. If the world responds correctly, it will mark a turning point for the better.

The Palestinian people have spoken. According to their apologists, sure, Hamas wants to destroy Israel, wage permanent war and send suicide bombers into discotheques to drive nails into the skulls of young Israelis, but what the Palestinians were really voting for was efficient garbage collection.

It is time to stop infantilizing the Palestinians. As Hamas leader Khaled Meshal said in a news conference four days after the election, ``The Palestinian people have chosen Hamas with its known stances.'' By a landslide, the Palestinian people have chosen these known stances: rejectionism, Islamism, terrorism, rank anti-Semitism, and the destruction of Israel in a romance of blood, death and revolution. Garbage collection on Wednesdays.

Everyone is lamenting the fall of Fatah and the marginalization of its leader Mahmoud Abbas. This is ridiculous. The election exposed what everyone knew and would not admit: Abbas has no constituency. Would it have been better to keep funneling billions of dollars from the EU and a gullible U.S. to the thoroughly corrupt administration of a hapless figurehead? Billions that either end up in Swiss bank accounts or subsidize countless gangs of young men carrying guns?

The current nostalgia for Fatah moderation is absurd. What moderation? Yasser Arafat's 1993 paper recognition of Israel's right to exist was as fraudulent as his famous Oslo side letter renouncing terrorism. He spent the next seven years clandestinely sponsoring terror, then openly launched a four-year terror war, the most vicious in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

With this election, we can no longer hide from the truth: After 60 years, the Palestinian people continue to reject the right of a Jewish state to exist side-by-side with them. Fatah -- secular, worldly and wise -- learned to lie to the West and pretend otherwise. Hamas -- less sophisticated, more literal and more bound by religious obligation to expel the Jews -- is simply more honest.

This election was truth in advertising. Now we know. What to do?

The world must impress upon the Palestinians that there are consequences for their choices. And so long as they choose rejectionism -- the source of a 60-year conflict the Israelis have long been ready to resolve -- the world will not continue to support and subsidize them.

And that means cutting off Hamas completely: no recognition, no negotiation, no aid, nothing.
And not just assistance to a Hamas government, but all assistance. The Bush administration suggests continuing financial support for "humanitarian'' services. This is a serious mistake.

First, because money is fungible. Every dollar we spend for Palestinian social services is a dollar freed up for a Hamas government to purchase rockets, guns and suicide belts for the "Palestinian army'' that Meshal has already declared he intends to build.

Second, because it sends the Palestinians precisely the wrong message. If they were under a dictatorship that imposed rejectionism upon them, there would be a case for helping a disenfranchised Palestinian people. But they just held the most open and honest exercise of democracy in Palestinian history. The Palestinian people chose. However much they love victimhood, they are not victims here. They are actors. And historical actors have to take responsibility.

They want blood and death and romance? They will get nothing. They choose peace and coexistence? Then, as President Bush pledged in June 2002, they will get everything: world recognition, financial assistance, their own state with independence and dignity.

In August 2001, Hamas sent a suicide bomber into a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. He killed 15 innocent Israelis, mutilating many dozens more. A month later, Hamas student activists at al-Najah University in Nablus celebrated the attack with an exhibit, a mockup of the smashed Sbarro shop strewn with blood and fake body parts -- a severed leg, still dressed in jeans; a human hand dangling from the ceiling. The inscription (with a reference to the Qassam military wing of Hamas) read: ``Qassami Pizza is more delicious.''

The correct term for such a mentality is not militance, not extremism, but moral depravity. The world must advise the Palestinian people that if their national will is to embrace Hamas -- its methods and its madness -- then their national will is simply too murderous and, yes, too depraved for the world to countenance, let alone subsidize.

The essential first lesson of any newborn democracy is that national choices have national consequences. A Hamas-led Palestine, cut off entirely, will be forced to entertain second thoughts.

Film Review: Match Point

By PHILIP WUNTCH
The Dallas Morning News
Jan. 6, 2006

Woody Allen's triumphant Match Point has been heralded as a return to form. Although Match Point is his best film since 1992's Husbands and Wives, the return-to-form claim is too easily made and not entirely accurate.

All his films, most obviously Crimes and Misdemeanors, deal with the vagaries of right and wrong. But never before has Mr. Allen explored the whims of misfortune in such an elegant fashion. If elegance is not what you seek, be assured that Match Point is, above all, a richly entertaining, dark and ultimately poignant spin on luck both good and bad. The film also reflects on how interchangeable and deceptive good and bad luck can be.

Match Point is the first Allen film not to occur primarily in New York and also one of the few not to have a Woody alter ego among its lead characters. Both changes benefit the movie. The lack of a Woody clone does not, as might be feared, breed detachment from the filmmaker. Instead, writer and director Allen concentrates on writing and directing. The screenplay begins in witty fashion, with hints of dark corners to come. You realize the nature of those oncoming corners but not the detours they entail.

Match Point's locale is London rather than New York, and it's the London of moviegoers' dreams. Mr. Allen makes effective cinematic love to the venerable metropolis, capturing both its energy and its ennui. It's also the London of the dreams of the movie's lead character, Irish tennis pro Chris Wilton.

Played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Chris is the kind of character that the average Woody alter ego would instantly loathe. Employed as tennis coach at a posh club, Chris befriends the enormously wealthy Hewitt family. He says all the right things, knows all the most famous operas and never imposes on anyone. His consistent good nature and humility indicate a passive-aggressive streak that, we learn, can be deceiving.

Tom Hewitt (Matthew Goode) navigates Chris' passage into London aristocracy. Tom's sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer), falls radiantly in love with Chris, and they marry. He becomes accustomed to the family's privileges without losing his dutiful veneer.

His biggest challenge comes in the form of Nola Rice, played by Scarlett Johansson. A struggling American actress, Nola is Tom's fiancée, of whom his haughty mother disapproves. When Tom breaks off their engagement, Nola and Chris begin a lusty affair that affects all major players.
Mr. Allen has always created strong female characters and obtained fascinating performances from the actresses who play them. Match Point is no exception. Ms. Johansson gives a dynamic, feverishly sensual performance as Nola. Provocative, saucy, edgy and vulnerable, she's a mass of conflicting emotions, and Ms. Johansson illuminates all her facets.

Symbolic of the screenplay's understated compassion, Ms. Mortimer's Chloe is presented as neither dim socialite nor growling harridan. Sweet-natured but not an upholstered doormat, she's pleased to fall in love with a man not of her class and thinks herself blessed by his ostensible affection. Ms. Mortimer, who was outstanding in 2005's Dear Frankie, is splendid in the role.

Mr. Rhys-Meyers has the most difficult part. He must infuse Chris' serene facade with an abundance of cunning desires requiring devious options. He was superb as pouty snob George Osborne in 2004's Vanity Fair and now plays a variation of that film's Becky Sharp role, the outsider trying desperately to fit in. As written and acted, it's a multilayered character that evokes fascinating, conflictingly human responses from each viewer.

Of the four leads, Mr. Goode's Tom drifts out of the story, but he delivers a smooth portrayal of an aristocrat whose sense of entitlement is somewhat balanced by a sense of righteousness. The British supporting players are all in unison with Mr. Allen's stimulating view of Londontown.
It all makes for a film that even Woody-phobes can enjoy.

Michelle Malkin: Fight the bullies of Islam

Feb. 2, 2006 / 3 Shevat, 5766
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/

Something very important is happening in Denmark — a showdown over freedom, tolerance, and their wolfish menaces in religious clothing. So, please, turn off "American Idol," put down the Game Boy for a moment, and pay attention. This does affect you.

Last October, a Danish newspaper called the Jyllands-Posten published a dozen cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. The illustrations included various depictions of the prophet Muhammad, some innocuous (Muhammad walking in a pasture) and a few with provocative references to radical Islamic terrorism. One showed Muhammad with a bomb in his turban; another had Muhammad wielding a sword in front of two, wide-eyed Muslim women covered in black abayas; another featured a cartoonist hunched over his desk, sweating in fear, as he drew Muhammad in suicide bomb-like apparel.

The newspaper was making a vivid editorial point about European artists' fear of retaliation for drawing any pictures of Muhammad at all. (Remember: It's been a little over a year since Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by an Islamist gunman over his movie criticizing violence against women in Islamic societies.) A Danish author had reported last fall that he couldn't find an illustrator for a book about Muhammad; the Jyllands-Posten editors rose to the challenge by calling on artists to send in their submissions and publishing the 12 entries they received in response (available at http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/004413.htm).

The reaction to the cartoons has resoundingly confirmed the fears those artists expressed about radical Islamic intolerance and violence. In fact, the Jyllands-Posten reported, two of the illustrators received death threats and went into hiding. The Pakistani Jamaaat-e-Islami party placed a 5,000-kroner bounty on the cartoonists' heads. A terrorist outfit called the "Glory Brigades" has threatened suicide bombings in Denmark over the artwork.

Despite how relatively tame the pictures actually are (compared not only to Western standards, but also to the vicious, anti-Semitic propaganda regularly churned out by Arab cartoonists), the drawings have literally inflamed the radical Muslim world and its apologists. Eleven Muslim ambassadors to Copenhagen immediately protested to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen demanding retractions from the newspaper. The ambassador of Turkey urged Rasmussen to call the Jyllands-Posten to account for "abusing Islam in the name of democracy, human rights and freedom of expression."

Rasmussen, in a rare show of European spine, steadfastly refused to appease the howlers.

As a result, anti-Denmark sentiment has simmered over the last four months, and it boiled over this past week. In Gaza City, masked Palestinian gunmen representing the so-called Religion of Peace raided a European Union office to protest the cartoons. Muslims burned Danish flags and banners depicting Rasmussen (American and Norwegian flags, as well as portraits of President Bush, were thrown into the fire for good measure). A Danish company, Arla Foods, reports that two of its employees in Saudi Arabia were beaten by angry customers. Danish aid workers are evacuating Gaza in fear for their lives.

The country now faces an international boycott from Muslim nations whose fist-clenched protesters led chants this week of "War on Denmark, Death to Denmark" while firing bullets in the air.

Soft-on-terror mouthpieces are blaming the messenger for the conflagration. Former appeaser-in-chief Bill Clinton condemned the cartoons as "appalling" and "totally outrageous." Where was Clinton's condemnation of the gun-wielding, death-threat-issuing, flag-burning bullies of Islam who have targeted Denmark for jihad?

On the Internet, supporters of free speech have launched a "Buy Danish" campaign in solidarity with the nation under siege. But this isn't just about Denmark. American-based Muslim activists are on an angry campaign to stifle the speech of talk show hosts (most recently, KFI morning host Bill Handel in Los Angeles) who offend their sensibilities. And on Tuesday afternoon in advance of the State of the Union address, the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued an ultimatum warning President Bush to "avoid the use of hot-button terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' 'militant jihadism,' 'Islamic radicalism' or 'totalitarian Islamic empire'" in his speech — in other words, advising Bush not to identify our enemies for the sake of tolerance and diversity.

First, they came for the cartoonists. Then, they came for the filmmakers and talk show hosts and namers of evil. Next, who knows?

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Comment on JWR contributor Michelle Malkin's column by clicking here.

Michelle Malkin Archives

Uri Dan: Iran already has the bomb

THE JERUSALEM POST
Jan. 31, 2006

Rafi Eitan suspects that Iran already has enough enriched uranium fissionable material to manufacture at least one or two atom bombs of the Hiroshima type. "Otherwise Iranian President Ahmadinejad would not have dared come out with his declaration that Israel should be wiped off the map," repeating it in various versions. His efforts at denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were slaughtered prove that there is method in Ahmadinejad's madness. "Don't treat him like a madman," Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz recently cautioned.

Eitan's assessment of the situation is especially important because of his extensive intelligence experience in Israel's struggle for its existence, even before its establishment in 1948. Eitan was among those that laid the operational foundations for the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Mossad.

He is credited with numerous successes above and beyond the fact that he headed the team that apprehended Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires in May 1960 and brought him to justice in Jerusalem. He served as Menachem Begin's special adviser on the war on terror. He was involved in the secret planning and implementation of the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in June 1981.

Eitan failed in 1985 when the United States arrested Jonathan Pollard, an American navy intelligence analyst, for spying for Israel. Eitan was forced to resign after taking responsibility for running Pollard as an Israeli agent in the United States. It emerged at that time that Eitan had stood at the head of an Israeli intelligence agency known as the Office of Scientific Relations, LAKAM by its Hebrew acronym.

EITAN, CURRENTLY a private businessman who is close to 80 years old, is not only still sharp, quick and curious, but also takes a strong interest in the dangers posed to Israel. And so he came this week to the Herzliya Conference to hear the lectures and meet with colleagues from other countries.

Eitan told me: "I am convinced that the Iranians already have at least one or two nuclear devices. They have been operating centrifuges for a number of years now, they have natural uranium, and who on earth believes the Iranians when they say that they have closed down one facility or another? You would have to be an idiot or terribly na ve to believe them."

Eitan says that this view was bolstered by conversations he held with various experts from abroad who came to the Herzliya Conference - that Iran already has a an atom bomb. What should concern not only Israel but Europe too, continues Eitan, is the fact that the Iranians have acquired cruise missiles with a 3,000-kilometer range. They tried to purchase nine missiles of this kind in Ukraine from the arsenal of the former Soviet Union, but Russia thwarted part of the deal and Iran received three or four such missiles.
"In an argument with colleagues from abroad," noted Rafi Eitan, "the question was whether Iran's current president is a sort of new Hitler or merely an international manipulator. Too many experts have judged him in accordance with his actions and declarations as a kind of extremist Islamist Hitler."

The American administration of George W. Bush is entirely aware of the burgeoning Iranian nuclear danger. The question is whether the leading countries in Europe will wake up in time to the danger too. "The diplomatic struggle against the Iranian nuclear danger," warns Eitan, "must be an international one and it must come in time. The danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of Teheran is no less serious than when Saddam Hussein built the French Osirak nuclear reactor in Baghdad."

What worries Rafi Eitan is that the news coming from Teheran shows that President Ahmadinejad will not hesitate to take the most extreme measures, not unlike the methods used in the Third Reich, to put down any opposition against him. Iran has hundreds of thousands of young people who are opposed to the conceptual and cultural darkness that the fundamental Islamists are forcing on them. "Don't be surprised," Rafi Eitan told me, "if the Iranian president tries to forcibly and brutally eliminate this opposition."

Herbert London: What it means to question Darwinism

Science and the Church
http://www.cruxproject.org

Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, the Catholic archbishop of Vienna, recently caused a firestorm in intellectual circles when he made the rather obvious argument that Darwinism has many unexplained characteristics. The New York Times responded reflexively by suggesting that the Church was turning away from “modern science.”

This is a discussion surrounded by a conundrum: much of the science of Darwinism is surmise. Even something as seemingly simple as what people mean when we use the word evolution is fraught with controversy.

Cardinal Schonborn brought this out when he wrote, “Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinism sense—an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection—is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.”

In today’s discussions, words such as “evolution,” “random,” and “design” are fraught with contested meaning. What the cardinal appears to have been trying to say is that various forms of natural phenomena suggest, even if they do not offer proof in themselves, that intelligent design or providential will, cannot be dismissed out of hand on an a priori basis.

The Cardinal’s view is compatible with the possibility that God set a process of natural selection in motion or introduced the condition of human design without the benefit of a random evolutionary process. One may, of course, reject this position as hoary religionist theory, but one cannot reject it out of hand on the basis of sheer scientific analysis. Undaunted by this reality, Tufts University philosophy professor Daniel Dennett attempted to do so in his August 28 NY Times article entitled “Show Me the Science.”

For the Times to contend that the Church opposes modern science by opposing Darwinian theory is to attribute a truth to a theory and then anathematize those who do not embrace all aspects of the theory. That a Catholic Cardinal will not exile God to the fringe of this debate should hardly be surprising; unless, of course, you write for the New York Times.
Certainly there are questions raised by natural phenomena that do not fit comfortably in the Darwinian model.

For as long as birds have been on the planet, they have built nests to hatch their eggs and tend to the very young. In order to build those nests, a series of complicated maneuvers are necessary, including the selection of the “right” twig size, avoidance of predators, and twisting the nest into the appropriate shape and depth. The notion that such complex behavior has been built into the genetic code of birds is not subject to testing; it is a matter that Darwinians take on faith.

As the film March of the Penguins shows, penguins walk 70 miles into the thick ice of Antarctica to mate. Afterward, the females march back to the sea in order to provide food, while the males use a flap of skin to protect the fertilized egg from the freezing cold conditions. Darwinians ask us to believe that countless numbers of birds died before natural mutations led to a single bird of this type that would have all the necessary characteristics for survival and successfully pass them on to its children. Simple fairness would say that a far less fanciful explanation, design, should at the very least merit consideration as a plausible alternative theory.

Cardinal Schonborn, despite his ambiguous language, seems to think so. His position is not a rejection of Darwinism; it is a perfectly sensible questioning of assumptions that underlie a popular scientific theory. For those who contend that to question Darwinism is to repudiate modern science, I would say that their criticism is neither modern nor scientific.

Herbert London is president of the Hudson Institute, Professor Emeritus of New York University, and author of Decade of Denial, published by Lexington Books.

Jack Dunphy: Arresting a Crime Wave

January 30, 2006, 8:47 a.m.
http://www.nationalreview.com

Southern California cops take on the illegal-alien problem.

Imagine the following: While out on patrol in one of L.A.'s less fashionable neighborhoods, I spot a man I recognize as someone I have previously arrested. I have personal knowledge that this man was convicted of an offense against the people of California, for which he was bundled off to serve a stretch in the penitentiary. I also have personal knowledge that this man is an illegal alien, and that following his prison sentence he was turned over to federal authorities and deported to his country of origin. Yet, to my surprise, there he is enjoying the blessings of America as he strolls down the avenue just as boldly as you please. And now the question: What am I to do next?

Well, it depends whom you ask. Even within the Los Angeles Police Department there is a difference of opinion as to whether I should — or even can — detain the man unless I have reasonable suspicion of current criminal behavior. Mere suspicion that he has illegally reentered the country is not, some would argue, sufficient cause for me, a local police officer, to detain him and inquire as to his business here in el norte.

Since 1979, when the LAPD enacted Special Order 40, police officers in Los Angeles have been prohibited from taking any action "with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person," and from detaining or arresting anyone based solely on the suspicion that he has illegally entered the country. "Undocumented alien status in itself is not a matter for police action," the policy states. "It is, therefore, incumbent on all employees of [the LAPD] to make a personal commitment to equal enforcement of the law and service to the public, regardless of alien status."

Much has changed in Los Angeles since 1979. Among the more notable of these changes has been what Manhattan Institute Fellow Heather Mac Donald describes as an "illegal alien crime wave." Testifying last April before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims, Mac Donald cited some troubling figures:

* The L.A. County Sheriff reported in 2000 that 23 percent of inmates in county jails were deportable, according to the New York Times.

* In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in the first half of 2004 (which totaled 1,200 to 1,500) targeted illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) were for illegal aliens.

* The Los Angeles Police Department arrests about 2500 criminally convicted deportees annually, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Given such numbers, it should be unsurprising that law-enforcement officials in southern California are trying to devise ways to combat this crime wave. But with the state of local politics being what it is, they are trying to walk the fine line of doing so without running afoul of civil rights groups and immigrant advocates. For its part, the LAPD is set to issue a directive intended to clarify what its officers should and should not do when dealing with criminal suspects believed to be in the country illegally. The measure was discussed last week at a meeting of the Los Angeles police commission, the civilian panel that oversees the city's police department.

"This is one of those hot potato issues," said Commissioner Alan Skobin. "There is tremendous confusion within the department. If you talk to 20 officers and ask them about it, you'd get many different answers. There is confusion within the community and I think that community confusion can foster a lack of trust. So it's important that we have a clarification."

But the mere suggestion that the LAPD may reexamine the constraints that Special Order 40 places on its officers has triggered alarm in immigrants'-rights circles. "How do you make sure that the policy doesn't spill into other abuses?" said Linton Joaquin of the National Immigration Law Center. "Our concerns are that the [LAPD] not get into the business of immigration enforcement."

In other words, because there is risk of abuse, why do anything at all about the epidemic of crimes committed by illegal aliens? Such talk is falling on increasingly deaf ears these days, especially in those cities hardest hit by the crime wave Mac Donald described in her House subcommittee testimony.

In Orange County, California, just down the freeway from Los Angeles (and that much closer to the border), two police agencies are hoping that increased cooperation with immigration authorities will help reduce crime in their jurisdictions. The Los Angeles Times reported last week that the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the Costa Mesa Police Department are developing plans to have their officers train alongside federal immigration officers, with the aim of dealing with criminal illegal aliens more efficiently.

"Dozens of jurisdictions have reached out to us and asked us for copies of this policy," said Jon Fleischman, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Department. "Like with any instrument that provides a resource to find criminals, departments are looking at this to see if this will help fight crime."
But the two top cops in Los Angeles County see it differently. "It's not a matter of politics. It's a matter of practical policing," said LAPD Assistant Chief George Gascon. "If an undocumented woman is raped and doesn't report it, the suspect who raped that woman, remember, could be the suspect who rapes someone else's sister, mother or wife later."

Surely it is politics as much as practicality that motivates such talk. Gascon is of Cuban descent, and he hopes to become the city's first Latino police chief when William Bratton steps down someday in the future. But Bratton, for whom Gascon was speaking, wants to be appointed to a second five-year term as chief, and for this he must remain in the good graces of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, currently a rising star in Democratic circles, and who, as an ACLU lawyer before entering politics, was an outspoken advocate for immigrants' rights and a supporter of Special Order 40.

Sheriff Lee Baca, himself a Latino, occupies an elected position and knows where his votes are to be found. "The Orange County talk is cheap," Baca told the Times. "I want to see how arresting a young 18-year-old girl trying to get a job goes down when robbery and burglary calls for service aren't being responded to. The public will say, 'We've had enough of this.' Let the federal government do its job."

But that, of course, is precisely the problem: The federal government hasn't done its job. Despite the efforts of an overwhelmed Border Patrol, which continues to fight a battle our government seems less than determined to win, the borders remain as porous as ever, resulting in the frightening statistics cited by Mac Donald.

On Friday's Laura Ingraham radio show, Sigifredo Gonzalez, Jr., sheriff of Zapata County, Texas, told of the increase he has seen in incursions by armed drug runners crossing the border from Mexico. Gonzalez is chairman of the Border Sheriff's Association, a group trying to bring legislative attention to the problems local law enforcement officers face in confronting border-crossing criminals who are sometimes better armed than the officers themselves.

The latest such incursion, Gonzalez told Ingraham, took place in Hudspeth County, Texas, southeast of El Paso, when three SUVs, all of them apparently loaded with marijuana, were driven across a shallow section of the Rio Grande River. When one of them became stuck on the U.S. side of the river, the other two turned back and returned to Mexico. When Texas police officers arrived, they watched from a distance as a military-style Humvee approached from the Mexican side of the river. The Humvee had what officers described as .50 caliber machine gun mounted on it. Several men dressed in military fatigues unloaded the marijuana from the stuck SUV and then set the truck on fire. "These are incidents that happen often on the border," Gonzalez said.

Add to this last week's news that yet another trans-border tunnel was found, bringing the total to 21 discovered since the 9/11 attacks. This latest one, leading from a warehouse in Tijuana to one in Otay Mesa, was 2,400 feet long, and was outfitted with electric lights, a ventilation system, and pumps for removing groundwater. Some two tons of marijuana were found in the tunnel, presumably destined for the U.S.

But violent crime and drug smuggling, as serious as they may be, are far from the gravest threats presented by our porous border. "Our main concern," Sheriff Gonzalez told Laura Ingraham, "is we don't want to have a terrorist coming across our border and doing another 9/11."

Indeed. Just imagine what members of al Qaeda or some other terrorist group might bring through that tunnel. If terrorists are able to exploit our border and bring off another 9/11 — or worse — it will have us longing for the days when illegal immigrants merely killed people one or two at a time.

— Jack Dunphy is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. "Jack Dunphy" is the author's nom de cyber. The opinions expressed are his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management.