Saturday, March 19, 2005
Breezes of change
There's a lot of "little" news this afternoon worth pointing out.
The Israelis are deploying the IDF to prevent intransigent settlers from mucking up the withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. As this blogger has long predicted, for better or for worse, Ariel Sharon is going to define the final borders of Israel.
Mahmoud Abbas is certainly winning awards as the jauntiest, most optimistic Palestinian leader ever:
It almost looks as though Sharon and Abbas are coordinating their news cycle!
Arab leaders are trying to tone down the hostile anti-Israeli language, even if the substance of their resolution remains unacceptable. Of course, one particularly rejectionist Arab despot is no longer at the table.
Jacques Chirac is leading a multinational force of, er, diplomats, to demand that Syria withdraw all its soldiers from Lebanon. Germany, Russia, and Spain are also on board. Good for Chirac. Will he have the brass to back his demands with a guarantee of Lebanon's security?
Scotland Yard nabs a 3/11 suspect.
The Iraqis broadcast the ultimate reality TV, and minds win over the hearts.
The double-standard wielding NGOs are all out of joint, justice in Iraq not being up to "international standards." Of course, war in Iraq isn't up to international standards, either. I'm not big on the "two wrongs make a right" theory of justice, but you have to let the government of Iraq fight back.
Meanwhile, sectarian strife deepens in Pakistan.
While I do not share the left's fetish for stability, the value that they hold dear above all else, I will confess to a certain uneasiness over instability in Pakistan.
Of course, this is all lost on some people.
The Israelis are deploying the IDF to prevent intransigent settlers from mucking up the withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. As this blogger has long predicted, for better or for worse, Ariel Sharon is going to define the final borders of Israel.
Mahmoud Abbas is certainly winning awards as the jauntiest, most optimistic Palestinian leader ever:
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas described on Saturday the inter-Palestinian dialogue that was heldin Cairo last week by 13 national and Islamic factions and powers as "a new national success."
"All Palestinian factions had accepted an unconditioned calmness (Tahdi'a) or cessation of attacks against Israel," Abbas told reporters right after he returned to Ramallah from Amman, Jordan.
It almost looks as though Sharon and Abbas are coordinating their news cycle!
Arab leaders are trying to tone down the hostile anti-Israeli language, even if the substance of their resolution remains unacceptable. Of course, one particularly rejectionist Arab despot is no longer at the table.
Jacques Chirac is leading a multinational force of, er, diplomats, to demand that Syria withdraw all its soldiers from Lebanon. Germany, Russia, and Spain are also on board. Good for Chirac. Will he have the brass to back his demands with a guarantee of Lebanon's security?
Scotland Yard nabs a 3/11 suspect.
Moutaz Almallah Dabas was arrested on an extradition warrant issued by the Spanish authorities. He was held in Slough and will appear at Bow Street magistrates court early next week.
The 39-year-old Spanish national was held 24 hours after his brother Mohannad Almallah Dabas, a Syrian national, was arrested in Madrid.
The Iraqis broadcast the ultimate reality TV, and minds win over the hearts.
The broadcasts have stirred a lot of interest among the Iraqi people, but unease among foreign observers who see it as an echo of the ousted Baathist regime's discredited practices. ["Foreign observers," undoubtedly code for Western reporters and NGO operatives, are easily made uneasy. - ed.]
The televised confessions, on a programme called "Terror in the Hands of Justice", are shown at prime time every night, and are clearly aimed at shocking the Iraqi public.
They portray the insurgents as bloodthirsty, venal, morally deviant, and religiously bankrupt.
The broadcasts also include interviews with some of the Iraqi victims of the insurgency.
"They fired at the door seven times," sobs one man. "Then they shot my little daughter in the hand."
The double-standard wielding NGOs are all out of joint, justice in Iraq not being up to "international standards." Of course, war in Iraq isn't up to international standards, either. I'm not big on the "two wrongs make a right" theory of justice, but you have to let the government of Iraq fight back.
Meanwhile, sectarian strife deepens in Pakistan.
A bomb exploded Saturday as minority Shiite Muslims congregated at a shrine in a remote town in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people and wounding 16, police said.
While I do not share the left's fetish for stability, the value that they hold dear above all else, I will confess to a certain uneasiness over instability in Pakistan.
Of course, this is all lost on some people.
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