A valuable Foreign Minister

From IDNES.CZ (in Czech), an interview with Czech foreign minister Cyril Svoboda who was one of EU politicians that were demanding taking a strong position in the controversy – specifically that EU should demand apologies for burned embassies in Syria and Lebanon.

Q: … I must appreciate that you are one of the few EU politicians who are defending European values, for which we have been fighting hundred of years. It’s shocking what position was taken by some European politicians like Mr. Solana, who said that he will not accept the publication of simmilar cartoons in European newspapers. Don’t you think that such abandonment of European values and retreating before extremists leads us to hell?

A: Yes, I don’t want to follow such path. I agree with you. Europe must be aware of its values and must act as a power, that is respected and respectable. I want for Europe to be able to ask any other county on this planet for decency, for an example to follow international rules of conduct. And I don’t want “solidarity” to be empty word. It shows it’s easy to speak about solidarity but it’s difficult to realize it. Therefore I propose creation of a crisis scenario for the realisation of solidarity, including economical solidarity, in case some of member states will be facing boycott. It does not have to play role if it’s small or big state, and it’s a pity Denmark has been left almost alone.

Q: … do you think steps taken by EU regarding cartoons were sufficient?

A: Sadly the reaction of EU was very moderate. It would be more favourable for EU to speak clearly and show solidarity with one of it’s members. It was also a test of how EU would behave if Czech Republic would be in position of Denmark. (we have to remember that a Czech video recorded by the public TV has been also very polemic).

Q: … have EU got apology for burned ambasies?

A: Unfortunately we did not get apology for burned ambasies, and we even did not ask for it, even though I strongly demanded it and I will continue to demand it. Even though such position is not majority, it’s
right position.

Translation from Info Islam.

I totally agree with this man. What a difference from the Finnish one! (And Mr. Solana, what a shame he is Spanish!)

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Why Turkey wants to enter EU?

Well, this is a summary of what is happening in Turkey. I am just posting an excerpt:

Six months ago, the Center for Security Policy documented the comprehensive nature of Erdogan’s takeover. To recap:

• The Turkish government and economy is being corrupted by billions of dollars in what is known as “green money,” from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states awash with petro-windfalls. There is reason to believe some this unaccountable cash is finding its way into Turkish businesses, creating revenue streams used to consolidate the Islamists’ power base and finance Islamofascist terrorism.
• The Islamists are employing classic fascistic techniques, using “green” funds and the power of the state to go after strategic targets such as: enterprises of businessmen who support the democratic opposition; banks they own or rely upon for financing; Turkey’s large Alevi minority – whom intolerant Islamofascists try to vilify and persecute as “apostates”; working women (a key ingredient in Turkey’s successful economic and social modernization); the secular bureaucracy; and the press. Particularly worrisome is the fact that consolidation of media ownership has resulted in considerable self-censorship and, of late, propagandizing against the West (including notably a spate of wildly popular, virulently anti-American books and movies).
• A special focus of the creeping Islamofascist coup has been Turkey’s traditionally secular educational system. It is being steadily adulterated by madrassa-style imam-hatip and other “schools” where students are taught only the Koran and its interpretation according to the Islamofascists. The age at which such indoctrination can begin has been lowered to four-years-old.
• The prime minister, himself an imam-hatip graduate, has also mounted assaults on two other fronts that reveal Erdogan’s ominous plans not only for the country’s educators but for another critical Turkish institution, as well: the judiciary.

  First, a local prosecutor, clearly acting on orders from higher up, indicted a prominent secular academic – a university rector named Yucel Askin – on preposterously trumped up charges. Their subsequent dismissal by a court has only intensified Erdogan’s determination to subvert the judiciary. Tens of thousands of Koranic school graduates are being appointed as judges, assuring they will increasingly serve as instruments of Shari’a religious law.

  Worse yet, Erdogan has lately demonstrated that when he does not get his way in court, he is prepared to dispense with the judiciary altogether. This was the upshot of another government-inspired assault on the country’s secular universities, a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights by a female student who insisted on wearing a prohibited hijab (headcovering) to class. When this appeal was rejected, Erdogan angrily declared, “The court has no right to speak on this issue. That right belongs to the ulema (clerics).”

• This statement demonstrates the cynicism of Erdogan’s purported efforts to have Turkey join the European Union. Far from being willing to adhere to European human rights and other standards, he has simply viewed the EU accession process as a means of keeping the army from once again intervening to preserve secular rule – probably the last remaining threat to his consolidation of Islamofascist power.

  Emboldened by the success of this gambit, Erdogan has now gone after one of Turkey’s most highly regarded generals, Land Force Commander Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, who is widely expected to become the head of the Turkish military this summer. A courageous and outspoken anti-Islamist, the regime clearly views his ascendancy as a threat and has had the same local prosecutor who went after the university rector file no-less-absurd charges against Gen. Buyukanit.

You can read the rest here.

Comment: So we can sum it up saying that Erdogan wants Turkey in the EU to stop a reaction against Islamofascism. The EU do not have ANY need of admitting this country. The Turks have voted this man. Yes, there can be some of them who are resisting the regime, BUT who will suceed if they enter the European Union? Viewing what Europe is doing (even asking for a limitation of the free press) I do not think that the moderates will. I really believe the ones who sadly are going to reign all over are going to be the Islamofascists. As the Professor of Islamic Studies Mehdi Mozaffari says, “Historical experience has shown that those whom people fear will win, eventually“. And we can see European leaders are frightened, except Rasmussen perhaps. And by the way the facts that the second most sold book in Turkey is the Mein Kampf (the first is an Anti-Ameican one) and the most viewed film is “Valley of the Wolves” in which the evil ones are an American and a Jewish are just frightful.

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The lonely terrorist

You can read Daniel Pipes:

[…] No one who knew him said a bad word about him, which is important, for it signals that he is not some low-life, not homicidal, not psychotic, but a conscientious student and amiable person. Which raises the obvious question: Why would a regular person try to kill a random assortment of students? Mr. Taheri-azar’s post-arrest remarks offer some clues.

• He told the 911 dispatcher that he wanted to “punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world.”
• He explained to a detective that “people all over the world are being killed in war and now it is the people in the United States’ turn to be killed.”
• He said he acted to “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.”
• He portrayed his actions as “an eye for an eye.”
• A police affidavit notes that “Taheri-azar repeatedly said that the United States government had been killing his people across the sea and that he decided to attack.”
• He told a judge, “I’m thankful you’re here to give me this trial and to learn more about the will of Allah.”

HT: Il Mascellaro.

And The Counterterrorism Blog:

Taheri-azar is being prosecuted in state court, and North Carolina doesn’t have an applicable terrorism offense that can be brought to bear against him. The state only has two statutory provisions dealing with terrorist incidents. One bans weapons of mass destruction, while the other amends the murder offense. The amendment to the murder offense doesn’t apply here–not only because Taheri-azar didn’t murder anybody, but also because it only applies when the murder was performed with a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon.

The federal sentencing guidelines do contain a sentencing enhancement in §3A1.4 for offenses intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism. In turn, 18 U.S.C. § 2232b(g)(5) sensibly defines the predicate intention for a federal crime of terrorism as actions “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” While this provision may seem at first glance to apply to Taheri-azar, it doesn’t provide federal courts with independent jurisdiction. Rather, the terrorist intentions must be coupled with an independent federal crime.

Quite simply, prosecutors would have trouble getting Taheri-azar into federal court because it appears that he committed no federal crime. The prosecution could argue that there was a federal civil rights violation because this was carried out on the basis of religion. But Taheri-azar didn’t target his victims on the basis of their religion. He may have been motivated by religion, but federal civil rights laws really only come into play when the victim is targeted because of his religion. And Taheri-azar’s SUV didn’t discriminate between Muslim, Jew, Christian and Hindu. Federal hate crime laws seem inapplicable for the same reason.

And:

This gives rise to a serious point. Terrorist crimes are worse than other crimes because of their potential to disrupt society. Terrorists make war on the United States, and we should provide prosecutors with an additional ability to punish the terrorists. In the future, we may well see a shift not only to more decentralized terrorist cells that act autonomously from broader terror networks, but also to more lone-wolf acts of terrorism. If we take Taheri-azar’s statements in this case at face value, this would be an act of lone-wolf terror for which there is no way to enhance the perpetrator’s sentence due to his terrorist motivations. This is an issue that states should now begin to address in their criminal codes.

HT: Noisy Room.Net.

So, as a result: there is no law to pursue him on terrorists charges in the State of North Carolina and that will be used by terrorists in the future to commit their own crimes. Wow, this is marvellous…

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A Kuwaiti newspaper’s editorial

From Ace of Spades:

Published in a Kuwaiti newspaper. I guess there is a debate happening in the Muslim world. We just need it a little quicker. Time is ticking down.

Osama bin Laden is a terrorist, a criminal, a murderer, is a vile man and has many inhuman attributes, but he is certainly not responsible for the rise in hatred toward Muslims in Europe. This hatred has emerged due to the adoption (by Western governments) of the many new measures taken to stem the flow of Muslims into Europe and the United States.

[…] Muslims themselves are responsible for disfiguring Islam’s image in the Western mind. They have failed to present a positive image of Islam, and therefore are responsible for all the trouble that has descended on Muslims today.

Osama bin Laden never forced anyone to go to Iraq, kill its people and destroy its infrastructure. He has forced no one to kill innocent people in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, America and Europe. Bin Laden didn’t tell European Muslims hate the countries that have given them refuge and made them rich after their poverty, fed them after their hunger, provided them with freedom after being enslaved in their own Muslim counties, and finally educated them after they were ignorant. You, the Muslims of the West, made all of these catastrophic choices out of your own free will. You willfully sought evil and failed to return the West’s goodwill with goodwill. What do you expect from the Westerner, when he sees his own citizens killed in the name of religion? Sees hate in the name of religion? Sees terrorism harm him in the name of religion?

HT: Noisy Room.NET.

Very interesting what this editorial says. Let’s hope they are not going to imprison or to kill its writer.

Technorati : Watching America, terrorism

Michael Moore, The Yale Taliban and the Afghan Pipeline

Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Taliban ambassador-at-large who is now studying at Yale, also played a cameo role in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9-11″ cleverly constructed propaganda attack against President Bush. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal has noticed this coincidence in recollecting the interview he had with Mr. Hashemi during the ambassador’s visit to the United States in 2001.

Michael Moore asserts that George Bush allowed Mr. Rahmatullah to enter the United States in 2001 because Unocal wanted to build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan and that the pipeline deal was set to benefit Enron, a company Mr. Moore alleged was a large contributor to then-Gov. Bush’s presidential run, with Halliburton receiving a contract to build the pipeline. Mr. Moore’s argument is a stretch. The CentGas proposal to build the Afghanistan pipeline was dropped in 1998 and Enron played the field, contributing strongly to Bill Clinton, even though Clinton was from Arkansas. Halliburton was never part of the CentGas consortium. (READ MORE)

HT: Noisy Room.Net.

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Mark Steyn expresses himself

MARK STEYN tells all:

I’ve been the token conservative on liberal newspapers. I don’t mind an adversarial relationship in terms of your position on the Gulf War, or Afghanistan, or the European Union or whatever. I don’t mind having differences with editors and so forth on that. But when it gets into, when the whole relationship just becomes generally toxic, then I think it’s best to hang out your shingle somewhere else, which I will do in the United Kingdom at some point.

Read the whole thing.

HT: INSTAPUNDIT.

Technorati Tags: Mark Stein, censorship, MSM, The Telegraph, The Spectator

Blogging for free

he he.

HT: INSTAPUNDIT.