Arabian dissent

Let`s just say he had a rough day in the office.

2006-11-22T02:46:00.000-04:00

Tough day to be in Bush`s entourage:

Top three stories on Drudge:

BUSH DAUGHTER ROBBED IN ARGENTINA

THREE MOTORCYCLES IN BUSH MOTORCADE CRASH IN HONOLULU...

White House Staffer Robbed, Beaten at Waikiki Nightclub...

DAM! When it rains it pours.

First question that will be on Life insurance forms tomorow:

Do you, or have you ever had a relationship (personal or professional) with George W. Bush?

Free Karim Soliman!

2006-11-07T00:55:00.000-04:00

I know its getting tiring for some of the readers who visit my blog to read about these things and me asking them to help to help contribute, but believe me its well worth the effort. This cause is very important to me, its very important to the the moderates in the Middle East and its also important to you. It is this kind of strangulation in Middle Eastern society that helps breed religious fanaticism and the ignorance that runs wild in the Muslim World today, I cannot emphasize how important it is for people like Karim to know that the majority of decent human beings are standing by his side)

Abdelkareem first received international attention in early 2006 when he was kicked out of Al Azhar University for posts he wrote on his blog. During that first incident, he was detained by police but eventually released. Despite his first arrest, he has continued to speak his mind on women's rights, religious freedom, and academic freedom.

On November 6, Abdelkareem was again interrogated over his blogposts. A human rights lawyer from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information was present to represent Abdelkareem. But the police still decided to arrest him.

They set up a letter writing campaign to help lobby for his release, its VERY simple. If you can`t be bothered to write a letter, just go here, add your name, e-mail and country and just press "send". And please spread the word. Link this campaign on your blog, e-mail friends and relatives, mention this to your co-workers any help would be very much appreciated.

Let me stress that this is not an online petition, as many of those just end up being invitations to spam and junk mail. These letters will be filtered for duplications and spam, and sent to the following officials:

General Adel Ali Labib, Governor of Alexandria,
David Welch, US Undersecretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs,
Francis Ricciardone, US Ambassador to Egypt,
Habib el Adly, Egypt's Interior Minister,
Ahmed Nazif, Egyptian Prime Minister,
Nabil Fahmy, Egypt's Ambassador to the US

Fellow Cannucks, it would probably be a good idea to copy and paste the e-mail and send to the MP`s on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development:

Jason Kenney Kenney.J@parl.gc.ca
Mario Silva: Silva.M@parl.gc.ca
Caroline St-Hilaire: St-Hilaire.C@parl.gc.ca
Irwin Colter: cotler.i@parl.gc.ca
Ted Menzies Menzies.T@parl.gc.ca
Wayne Marston Marston.W@parl.gc.ca
Kevin Sorenson Sorenson.K@parl.gc.ca

You can follow-up on the proceedings here,

Saddam gets the easy way out.

2006-11-05T06:49:00.000-04:00

I oppose this death sentence on the same grounds to which I opposed sending Zacherias Moussaoi to hell sooner rather than later.

Its also a reflection as to why (In most cases anyway) I oppose the death penalty. Its not that I believe its a cruel punishment nor the fact that I have compassion for the prick. My issue revolves around the fact that the death penalty allows guys like this to take the easy way out of this world. In other words, I believe it doesn't go far enough in terms of punishment. It doesn't`t give the convicted any idea of the pain and misery he made other people feel due to his crime.

Let`s think about this, this man has put people people to death through the most brutal ways imaginable to any decent human being. Lashing, electric shock, drowning, you name it. And what does he get as punishment, three meals a day, and a lethal injection to the neck? Please. Furthermore we have to consider how his supporters in the Arab world will view this. In their view, they see a defiant statesman standing strong against his country`s occupiers.

There are other ways of helping Saddam really come to grasp for his crimes against humanity which could deliver the message to both him and his supporters:

Some suggestions:

-Beatings from the hands of friends and relatives of the victims that died from his orders.
-His cell block would consist of a small, dark room, with a bed shaped cement and one toilet.
-Just for kicks, let`s also make the room`s ceiling shorter than his height.
-For entertainment purposes, let`s throw in a non-poisonous cobra in his cell every once in a while (We have to give each victim`s relative an opportunity to give him at least one beating!), the cobra harms him and we laugh, he fights off the cobra and that`s his meal for the day.
-Again like Moussaoi, construct a built in-wall t.v showing all the birthdays, wedding ceremonies, graduations of all his victims over and over.
-Videotape his condition as time goes along, and distribute it all over Iraq as a message to the armed militias. "Disarm and make peace, or you`ll go through what he`s going through".

What? A little too graphic for ya? Well...so is this.

Update (06-11-2006)

Note to self, in the unlikely event that I ever become a leader of a country, Jarrett will be the one responsible of the entire "rehabilitation" system:

My idea involves a large number of bottles of Canadian whiskey, a bunch of waxed Kurdish bodybuilders of ambiguous sexuality, a camel, and the Fox Network.

(You now owe me two Keyboards Jarrett ;) )

A couple of must-read reactions across the Arab Blogsphere:

Mahmood’s Den.

and

Sudanese Thinker

Sanmonkey covers the idiotic coverage by the Arab MSM.

The dominant Middle Eastern Psyche

2006-11-05T06:28:00.000-04:00

How to describe it? A few adjectives come to mind: sick, hypocritical, dumb, twisted and so on.

Let me bring your attention to a recent media campaign launched by some Iraqi moderates who are doing their part to help curb the the violence in Iraq that has claimed the lives of many of their countrymen.

"Terror has no religion"

Recently they released several t.v commercials and print ads in which they aim to:

To reveal the true and ample doctrines of Islam, and expose the contempt these terrorists hold for the spiritual essence of our religion. These terrorists and their ungodly way are the ones responsible for making Islam an easily marked target in the eyes of the world, as well as causing Muslims to be the subject of criticism before the world community.

The target audience are meant to be the younger generation of Iraqis in hopes of deterring them from ever joining the jihadist militia (either Shiite or Sunni) as a means to redeem their frustrations of the current atmosphere. Here`s one example:

Suicide Bombing in Baghdad

But unfortunately, despite this group`s best intentions, this ABC reporter stationed in Jordan sums up why this project is dead on arrival:

Sadly, these ads appear to miss the mark. Sure they get your attention but they do look VERY American and will likely be viewed with plenty of skepticism, seen as mere propaganda. More importantly, all the ads are based on one message, "Terror Has No Religion" and suicide bombing runs counter Islam.

The initial message that`s being displayed in these ads will not matter. The simple fact that this group received "American" aid in helping develop this message will, in the eyes of many in the Arab world, just be brushed off as mere "Propaganda" (As if the simple guideline of killing innocent people is bad is Verboten! as it is conveyed by American interests. Give me a break!).

The simple fact that many Arabs and Muslims cannot simply look past the "American" nature of these commercials is an indication to just how intellectually bankrupt today`s Middle East has become. This intellectual bankruptcy itself reveals the reason as to why many "closeted" moderates don`t even bother changing the status-quo in the middle east today. And simply look for the easy way out.

(H.T. Mental Mayham)

This war is going to happen, whether you like it or not.

2006-10-30T03:12:00.000-04:00

This is not a post I write with great joy. By by the manner in which many of our esteemed "progressives" and isolationaists commentators have been describing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, this point has to be re-iterated over and over.

5 years after 9/11, two wars in two different countries, and numerous terrorist activities and busts, the left side of the political spectrum all over the western world still propagate the never-ending philosphy in which they claim is the best tool to curb the extremist islamist ideology. The manner in which it is described varies from one progressive to another, however it all comes down to this:

"If were nice to them, they`ll be nice to us."
or
"They`re here, because we are there."

Basically they believe the west should extend an olive branch whether in the form of removing its troops from muslim lands, or diplomatic and political sacrifice to give in to the muslim world`s concerns. Examples: Giving the Palestinian people their own state or "talking" with the Taliban.

These opinions and talking points illustrate the sad handicap many of our progressive friends suffer from. Like the famous conservative joke says it: "The best thing about being a liberal is that history only begins this mourning".

History, the best conservative tool since Reagan.

I hate to repeat what I`ve been saying all along, but historic facts and past events regarding conflict with fundamentalist muslim militants suggest that neither approach (military withdrawal or diplomatic negotiation) have worked to quench the other side`s thirst for more war and conflict. Quite the contrary, it made them more popular among the muslim world, more determined and more powerful and stronger (Both political and militarily).

Case studies:

Lebanon

Past events in Lebanon gives more than enough ammo to help support our argument that the current enemy we`re fighting is not exactly is not exactly someone whom we can discuss matters of mutual interest over tea and crumpets.

Take for instance, the case of southern lebanon. Since the 80`s international human rights organizations, the UN, the EU and many left-wing talking heads were repeating over and over again that Israel needs to withdraw from the south for there to be peace in the region. Israel was assured from everyone that this withdrawal would result in Hezbollah being less influential to distribute its anti-Israeli propaganda, and that cooler heads would prevail in Lebanon where the moderates would gain the upper hand in pushing for peace.

In 2000, Israel obeyed. It withdrew from southern lebanon with little or nothing in return from the other side. Unfortunately it backfired, very very badly. Hezbollah was given credit for the withdrawal, and were greeted as liberators from the majority of people in Lebanon. The moderates were shut out, as their talking points of reform and moderation were drowned by the loud ovation that "jihad works!" and the the most effective way to get matters done, is through holly war and bloodshed. Hezbollah was rewarded for its popularity with political power in Beirut and self-rule in the predominantly shiite region in Southern Lebanon. To make matters worse, Hezbollah continued to receive more than ever, military supplies from Iran.

Another event of note in Lebanon was the 1983 Marine barracks bombing. Following the bombing, and the huge public outcry back in the US to withdraw the troops, many Americans were not aware the at the time, the Islamists were taking notes, as Bin Laden stated in an interview in 1998:

Osama bin Laden, identified as the mastermind behind Sept. 11, underscored the symbolic importance of the 1983 violence when he told ABC News in 1998 that U.S. soldiers were "paper tigers."

"The Marines fled after two explosions," he recalled.

"There is no question it was a major cause of 9/11," said former Navy Secretary John Lehman, a member of the Sept. 11 investigative commission quoted recently in Knight Ridder Newspapers. "We told the world that terrorism succeeds."

Palestine:

Palestine is a different case study, where different actions took place, but unfortunately yielded similar results. Since time immemorial the Israelis were being pushed in making "sacrifices" with the PLO. And in the early 90`s, the Israelis decided to roll the dice. And proceed with the demands many leftists are making today.

They withdrew from cities like Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin, Gaza City, Hebron and gave civic control to east Jerusalem. They also agreed to "negotiate" and engage in talks with their arch enemy Yassir Arafat. The overall principles of this negotiation was revolved around "Land for Peace". Basically, the Israelis would give back the lands they took in 1967, in return the Palestinians would cease terrorist activities against Israeli civilians, and crack down on radical groups whose purpose it is to destroy Israel.

The outcome,
Arafat did not crack down terrorism. He greeted Hamas and Islamic jihad with hugs and kisses.
Groups tied to Arafat carried out suicide attacks by the droves.
More Israeli civilians died due to terrorism after the peace process than before Oslo.
Arafat personally wrote the checks to suicide bombing materials.

But, naively, Israel kept on giving, last summer they withdrew from the entire Gaza Strip. Resulting in the same results experienced in Southern Lebanon.
-Hamas was credited for the withdrawal.
-They`re more popular than ever.
-They continue to carry out terrorist activities against Israeli civilians.

In both cases, Israel did exactly what the progressive and isolationist movements are advising to do today. Withdraw militarily and sacrifice politically. Now judge for yourselves:
-Is Israel more in danger today than it was pre-PLO negotiation or withdrawal from south lebanon?
-Are the fundamentalists more or less popular than they were?
-Are the fundamentalists more or less politically influential than they were?

And then, ask yourselves, do you think that withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan would not result in a similar fate?

Truth be told, is that if history of the region teaches us anything is that we have two choices:
-Fight them now and take losses by the dozen.
-Withdraw now, and face them again in 10 years when they get more powerful and influential.

Pick your bullet wound.

The "Muslim Outrage".

On talking point the anti-war lobby loves to repeat over and over is the explanation of how Al-Qaida grows in numbers and supporters. The way they see it, whenever muslims see they`re own brethren get killed by Western troops, they instantly become more receptive towards the extremist propaganda who offer them the opportunity avenge those deaths.

Unfortunately, like most matters in the middle east, its not that simple. While there`s no doubt that civilian deaths in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq do in fact enrage the muslim youth, thanks to constant brainwashing and propaganda by the religious leaders in the region, you would have to step back and look at the atrocities committed throughout the entire middle east and look at the different reactions the muslim world chooses to display. Namely, at the killing of muslims when the killers are muslims themselves.

Examples:

1. The Hama Massacre: In 1982 following an assassination attempt on Syrian dictator Hafez Al Assad, the Syrian government raided the city of HAMA (where it was believed that it housed the largest opposition members to the Syrian Baathist regime). According to the Syrian Human rights committee, 30000-40000 civilians were massacred. And if you want more in-depth details of the raid, you can find it here:

many families were victims of genocide, whether it was under the heavy artillery shelling or massacres committed by gunning down the victims with light fire weapons. The most terrifying massacres occurred in public squares and in graveyards, even hospitals and schools were not spared, all available buildings were converted to a detention center during the massacre period. It is safe to assert that the massacre of Hama was a collection of separate massacres, which targeted about one fifth of the city’s inhabitants. One survivor of the Sriheen Massacre, which is one of the most horrific massacres then, how people were taken to their fate in eleven trucks. In his testimony, he said: “I was among a huge number of people, so crowded that we almost could not breeze, and we were taken to Sriheen, where we were ordered to step out of the trucks, so we did as told. First thing we noticed was those hundreds of shoes scattered everywhere on the ground. It was then when we realized that it meant that hundreds of our fellow citizens were killed and we were next to face the same imminent death. We were searched afterwards, and any cash or watches were taken off us. Then, the elements of the Syrian authorities ordered us to move forward towards a deeply dug trench, which stretched long. Some of us were ordered to go to another nearby trench. When I stepped forward to my spot by the trench, I saw the pile of bodies in their still tainted by running blood, which horrified me so much that I had to close my eyes and I had to contain myself to avoid falling off. As expected, streams of bullets were fired towards us and everyone fell in their blood into the trenches, whilst the ones who were inside the other trench got shot inside the trench where they stood.” The survivor went on: “My injury was not life threatening and God granted me survival by inspiring me to wait patiently till the murderers left the premises and I ran despite my injuries. I was divinely saved from that fate whereas the injured could die under the weight of the other bodies most definitely.

2. The massacres in Algeria: The armed Islamic group committed massive amounts of massacres all accross rural Algeria, killing as much as 100-300 innocent civilians in a matter of 1-2 hours per day. This occurred more frequently during the holly month of ramadan.

I`m not going to go into details as they`re quite horrific, you can look into this horrific matter on your own, however, just know that Islamists considered no one to be off limits, the targets were specifically women and children. Some put the body count at 60000 others go as high as 120000.

Many more atrocities and human rights abuses were committed on Muslims by muslims themselves. But here`s the interesting (and shocking) fact about all the heinous acts of barbarism.

What was the reaction from the Muslim across the middle east to these massacres.

Nothing.

There was no marches, no debates, no call ins to radio stations, no angry sermons at the mosque, no call for Jihad to avenge those deaths.

Should`nt this reaction at least raise a flag among the anti-war crowd? Why are the lives of muslims killed by Americans or any Western troops considered more important than those killed by their own people?

Doesn't`t this show, to put it mildly, a lack of consistency within the muslim world on the value they place on human life as a whole? The more you think about this, the more you begin to understand the sick ideology and hypocrisy many muslims are living in today. And raises a question as to who is delivering them the message rather than what message is being delivered to them.

Possible reasons for leftist opposition to Mid-East wars:

As I mentioned many times, the left has taken a nasty turn in modern times. Where their hatred for their political enemies outweigh their own principles.

(A good example of this was when the left slammed Bush on his supposed lack of funding for AIDS research. When Bush announced more funding than any other western leader to combat aids, the very same talking heads in turn slammed him for undermining the UN.).

Case in point: the defeat of their political enemies is more important to lefties toda than the well-being of the third-world.

Notice how the death of any civilian in Iraq or Afghanistan is a call for masturbation among many Progressive Bloggers. The thought of dragging dead corpses in the Middle East with the sole intent on attacking their domestic political gain is something many of them get excited about. Repercussion to military withdrawal be dammed. They want their political enemies`heads on a platter. Omar from ITM, hits the nail on the head:

Among the things I cannot accept is exploiting the suffering of people to make gains that are not the least related to easing the suffering of those people.

To others, its a a case of denial. They cannot bring themselves into believing that their are some real sick bastards in this world. And the solution in dealing with them should not be a bullet in their skull, but a hug and the intent on proving to them that were not bad people.

To some, the wars today tend to draw attention away from issues dear to their hearts. Such as the environment, or social programs. Therefore they more we ignore the problem or get it over with, the sooner we could get back to those matters they hold in priority.

Any way you look at it, the opposition talking points to these wars are very easily demolished with some good ole fashion common sense and history.

Conclusion

Its not that I refuse to look at the the left`s talking points or don`t think some of their concerns are not sincere. I wish it could be as simple as us being nice to them. I WANT to believe that just a little gesture of generosity and compassion on our part would put this whole nightmare to rest.

And its not the fact that I`m right-wing, or heartless, or militaristic, or that I have no desire to see a war-free world. Let be known that if I ever find a magic lamp, with a genie inside, my first wish would be for World Peace.

Its just that I know the reality on the ground. And I know how the middle eastern psyche works.

You want to withdraw now? Fine. Go on ahead, bring back the troops, sit down with Al Qaida, invite the Taliban over for tea, let`s give in to their demands. And then...well`ll be back at war with them in 10 years time, only this time they will be 10 times deadlier.

Be it now, or tomorrow, or 10 years from now. We will still be at war with this ideology. Whether we want it or not.

Don`t these people ever come out with something original?

2006-09-05T07:07:00.000-04:00

First it was Brison ripping off Clement`s platform.

And now its Dion copying Suzuki`s report word by word? (h/t Steve Janke).

With all respect to Steve, I`m not sure. Dion is considered (at least in the Academic World) a very well respected University professor prior to his entry into politics. Which is why I`m willing to believe that this was a fu*k up made by his legislative team rather than him personally.

But then again, you`d expect someone like Dion (who never stops reminding us of his environmental credentials or the priority he gives to this issue) to have read an important report by Suzuki and put 2 and 2 together when he read his own platform.

People making a difference:

2006-09-03T18:28:00.000-04:00

There are people who talk about making the world a better place, and there are people who actually work to make the world a better place. Like the following:

1. 4 Canadian soldiers killed Afghanistan during a successful offensive mounted by Afghan, American, British and Canadian on Taliban strongholds. Deepest condolences and prayers go out the the friends and families of
* Warrant Officer Frank Robert Mellish
* Warrant Officer Richard Francis Nolan
and the two other unidentified soldiers.

2. Arab Peace Warrior dies:

Novelist Naguib Mahfouz, who in my opinion, is the greatest novelist ever to come out of the Arab World, passed away on Thursday, he was 92. For those of you unfamiliar with Mahfouz, he was a Nobel prize winner for literature in 1988, who stood side by side with Anwar Sadat when he signed the Peace Deal with Israel at Camp David in the late 70`s. He was considered a hero and a mentor to many Arab Moderates and Democracy activists throughout the middle east. And was also highly critical of the status-quo currently held in the Arab world today. Needless to say he faced allot of this:

It is no wonder that Islamists condemned him for this very reason. In 1994, he was stabbed in the neck by extremists while he was taking his daily walk to a favorite café in Cairo. He survived the assault but lived under constant protection by the authorities ever since.

In addition to the hostility he faced from the religious establishment, he was also criticized by so-called intellectuals in the Arab world for his moderate stance toward Israel and his outspoken support for President Anwar Al-Sadat and the Camp David peace accords. Before that, he was branded a reactionary because of his well-hidden disapproval of the destructive policies of President Gamal Abdul Nasser and the coup that brought him to power in 1952. Many of his novels were banned in Arab countries.

(h/t Healing Iraq)

God Bless you Naguib. You were the beacon of light to our people for many of us.

Make sure to read more about Mahfouz:
Big Pharaoh

Sandmonkey:

Freedom for Egyptians:

Kabob Fest

And Roba:

3. Fellow Blogger Brian Gardiner from Home At Hepster is running for Terry Fox. Probably the greatest Canadian ever to have lived. If you can, help him by sponsoring him through this link. Blue Blogging Soapbox has put out a 500$ challenge. So far there`s 205$.

"Talking to the Taliban"....sooo 2001.

2006-09-03T05:53:00.000-04:00

By now, everybody is aware of Jack Chamberlain`s idiotic suggestion of "talking with the Taliban", progressive goals be dammed, this guy shown that he has no principles in which he believes in, and that the Liberal Party was right when it joked that Layton would sell out his own mother for an extra vote in the ballot box.

What you probably missed was that the Liberal party is in favor of this approach as well, and I would`nt have realized it without Eva Braun`s long lost daughter Liberal Catnip:

Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh also rejected the NDP call to withdraw troops, but agreed that talks with the Taliban could be helpful.

The problem for the Grits and the Dippers is that believe it or not...its already been tried. And by George W. Bush nonetheless:

CNN (17.09.01)

Taliban given three days to hand over bin Laden

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The Pakistani government, led by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, will ask the Taliban, Afghanistan's rulers, to hand over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden in three days or face massive military action led by the United States, CNN learned Sunday.

In a move called "very encouraging" by a senior Bush administration official Sunday, a high-level Pakistani delegation is traveling to Afghanistan Monday to carry this message to the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in Kandahar.

But to no avail.

AFGHANISTAN'S ruling Taliban yesterday ignored an edict by Islamic clerics that Osama bin Laden be asked to leave the country, defying America's demands that they hand him over or face military strikes. President Bush had also said that the Taliban should yield senior members of the suspected terrorist mastermind's al-Qa'eda organisation, and close all militant training camps inside Afghanistan, where he has lived for five years.

They said no back then, they`ll say no again. In fact just like Hezbollah and Hamas, they`ll see this as a sign of weakness and help their propaganda campaign. Its the way these people think and work.

Update (03/09/06) 5:24 pm:

Andrew Coyne with the money shot to Layton, what does he mean by "negotiations"?:

Or would they, having absorbed the initial round of gains, simply resume fighting the minute the opportunity presented itself? In which case, would any negotiations not require the continued presence of international troops to enforce the results? And what if the Taliban refused to abide by the terms even then? Why would they be likely to accede to the demands of the international community in that event, when they have been so unwilling to date? In which case, would we not have to, you know, fight them?

(H/T Daimnation!)

Debunking the Hezbollah whitewashing.

2006-09-03T04:44:00.000-04:00

I know I`m very late to comment on this, but during my mini-hiatus from the blogging world, there`s been quite a few interesting developments when it comes to Canadian Foreign Policy and anti-terrorism.

Predictably, many on the Canadian Left have called for invitations to Hezbollah to come to the negotiating table and be treated as equals in the peace process. I will list the excuses and talking points (at least the predominant ones) followed by a simple rebuke using nothing but historical facts and common sense logic.

This will be a an ongoing post, meaning every time I hear a new talking point/excuse for Hezbollah to be scratched off the terror list and begin negotiations with them, I will post it, source it, and follow it up by a rebuke. Now I`m not going to be alone in this. A few of my Lebanese-Canadian buddies will be helping me out on this: My best friend Khaled is just itching to blast away any `misconceptions`the Left has to offer on Hezbollah, he`ll be doing some of the debunking. So will Deema (an ex girlfriend who has relatives in the SLA), her cousin Ramzi, Geroge (who spent his entire childhood in Lebanon) and Eli (Lebanese foreign student in Canada).

This is just a heads up in case you see one answer/post with a different signature on it. I`m still here, only others will also be answering your questions.

Also if you happen to come accross any new excuse, let us know in the comments section, and we`ll take care of it.

I have plans to turn Arabian Dissent into a group blog, and if your of Middle Eastern origin who needs a channel to vent your frustration against the fuckers who are dragging our name in the mud, and is for Democracy, and widescale reform to take hold in the Middle East, e-mail me.

Now...on to the Debunking:

Myth number 1:

Hezbollah is a democraticaly elected party in the Lebanese legislature, if Lebanese politicians talk with them freely, why can`t we?

Answer: Hezbollah may have been democraticaly elected in the legislature, however, that does not mean they respect and honour their democratic duties. Flashback:

Some 100 lawmakers, including Geagea's wife, voted for the amnesty motions,
while about 15 legislators of Shia Muslim group Hizb Allah and their allies
walked out when lawmakers began debating Geagea's case.

The violence began when sticks and rocks were used in fighting between
members
of the Shia Amal movement and Christian Maronite supporters of
Geagea.
When gunfire broke out, Lebanese army units were deployed
to
the area to stop the violence.

There`s your reason why Lebanese politicians have no choice but to have formal talks with them. If they don`t, they get killed, its as simple as that.

Next.

Myth number 2:

We`ve dealt with the IRA, why can`t we deal with Hezbollah!?

Answer: Very simple. The nature of both groups are very very different. For starters, the IRA does not advocate nor aim for the destruction of Engalnd. And peace negottiations with the IRA only began AFTER they moderated their stance not before. The IRA also has no major plans for territorial expansion aimed at wiping an entire race from the face of Europe. And is not an active satelite for a country that`s known to fund and aid terrorist groups. The same cannot be said for Hezbollah.

Myth number 3:
comes from the well-meaning but historicaly ignorant Mike from Rational Reasons:
"including these groups in the political process (see IRA, PLO, currently ETA) has moderated their positions and brought about negotiations and peace."

The PLO moderating its stance since its inclusion into the political process? Only in Dipper world, where history begins this morning.

Since being "included in the political process" the PLO (and its sub organizations) under Yasser Arafat has:
-Doubled anti-semitic Propaghanda in their social system through state-controlled media and through its education system.
-Personally wrote checks for suicide operations.
-Helped form a sub-division that carried out suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.
-Refused to crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad (a pre-requisite for the PA when it signed onto Oslo)
-Tried to sneak in a boatload of ammunition into Gaza.
-Pulled two-faced tactics, saying one thing in English in front of the international community, while saying another in Arabic to its people.
-Refused a generous offer by Ehud Barak to get back 95 per cent of West Bank and Gaza Strip land and instead launched a civilian uprising against the Israelis.
(Initifada 2)

Does that sound like "moderating their position" to you Mike?

Myth number 4:
Hezbollah runs various charities and social programs that aim to help the Lebanese civilian population.

Answer: Let`s use this logic through a different scenario. Say I killed an innocent passer-by because I was having a bad day. However, I`m also a member of the Red Cross and volunteer at the local Food Bank from time to time. In the court of law, the later would`nt mean squat. I`m still a murderer. And will be judged as such. My volunteer work and goodwill cannot be used as a bargaining chip with the law. And neither can Hezbollah (and its apologists) use this as a tool to convince people that they`re really not that bad.

Myth Number 5:

Some Israelis don`t view Hezbollah as "terrorists"

Answer: Like I said in my previous post, the Israeli left has been very naive over the past few years.
Almost all their concessions and negotiations they championed have lead to more and more disasters for both people. So while many on the Israeli side are well-meaning, they`re not necessarily right on this matter.

(More will come...)

Delaying the inevitable.

2006-09-02T23:01:00.000-04:00

I wish I can express some level of optimism regarding the so-called “ceasefire” in Lebanon. No more bombs, no more dead innocent civilians and no more destruction to property. The Lebanese people will just have to pull back their sleeves and begin the re-construction phase once again and eventually peace will come…..

If only that was true! However, just a glimpse at the history of the region would indicate that the current UN brokered ceasefire is only a delay of the even bigger war that will create ten times more destruction and death.

The way things are perceived in the Arab world is that Hezbollah stood up against the Jews, caused many casualties, humiliated the once-might Israeli army, and have restored honor to “Muslim Pride”. It’s the exact similar reaction they had when the Israelis withdrew from Southern Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza last summer.

You’d think that this alone would raise a red flag in the mainstream media, the halls of academia or even individual citizens to properly assess what’s coming in the next few years. Unfortunately all were hearing are calls for inviting Hezbollah to the negotiations table, the “excessive force” displayed by the Israeli military and the questioning of whether or not military solutions are the proper response to Islamist threats.

Which is weird, considering all what’s happening in the recent months can be directly attributed to actions and “peace solutions” in which “Progressives” worldwide assured everybody would pay off. Many on the right however, had reservations.

Consider:

- Everybody pushed Israel to make territorial concessions in the West Bank and Gaza in the hopes that b withdrawing and giving the Palestinian people autonomy, political and economic control and a better handle to their social system. Eventually, the Israeli were told, the Palestinians would moderate, and tings would eventually fall into place for peace to take hold for future generations.

And the Israelis went for it, they gave back Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Gaza City, Bethlehem, Jericho and Jenin.

13 years later, the Palestinians elect Hamas. Hmmm…not exactly according to plans…but what the hell.

Case number 2:

Southern Lebanon:

Almost the same exact scenario as today. Israel was occupying Southern Lebanon in hopes of creating a buffer zone between northern Israel and Hezbollah. But things were getting hairy. It was getting expensive, in both finance and military lives on the Israeli side. And the Labor party in Israel under Ehud Barak caves into international pressure to eventually withdraw from Southern Lebanon and give control to the Lebanese. They were told by everyone from the UN, Bill Clinton and the EU that this move would send the right message to the Lebanese and Arabs in general that Israel would be willing to make concessions in return for peace. Once again, the Israeli right wing had different feelings. Nonetheless, on April of 2000, the last Israeli solider officially withdrew from Southern Lebanon.

6 years later: Hezbollah terrorists are praised as Liberators, they gain major political autonomy in Shiite regions in Lebanon, more political representation and message is sent to the Arab world that Israel eventually caves once you kill the right amount. Possibly setting the motivation for Arafat to launch the second intifada shortly after Camp David 2.

Was this what the people who were calling for the withdrawal back then had in mind? Who knows…but just a few years later they advocate for the same thing only this time in the Gaza Strip.

Case number 3:

The Gaza Strip

Ariel Sharon breaks off with his traditional right-wing allies in Israel and decides to create a centrist alternative to both Likud and Labor. He goes against his right flank and announces a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The left in Israel and all over the world is overjoyed. This is the right thing to do they said. Concessions and sacrifices are they key to the peace process. This will help the Palestinian moderates. Cooler heads would prevail. The Palestinians would finally build a prosperous and peaceful society that would help deflect terrorist and radical intentions.

One year later:

Hamas gets praised as liberators. Israel is seen as weak to pressure. They begin using the Gaza strip as a lunch pad to their rockets that target Israeli civilians. The economy in Gaza is in ruins, and the moderates are nowhere to be seen.

Hmmmm…so far they’re 0-for 3.

Now what you need to do is consider the three scenarios mentioned and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is Israel more or less in danger today following the withdrawals?
2. Who gave more concessions throughout the whole peace process Israel (with territorial concessions) or the Arabs (cracking down on terrorist groups)?
3. Who has prevailed in the Arab world after all those concessions? The Moderates? Or the religious fundamentalists?
4. Has the situation in the Palestinian territories and Southern Lebanon improved following the withdrawals?
5. Do you think the continued violence is due to the fact because the Israeli right was listened to? Or is it because they were ignored?

And finally…do you think following the withdrawal this time from Southern Lebanon, the Israelis have avoided or simply delayed a bigger fight in the future?

Judging from the scenarios before us, I’m leaning towards the later.

And I’m not the only one. Khaled (my buddy who was evacuated from Lebanon a few weeks ago) swears that Lebanon is dead to him. As far as he’s concerned, he ain’t ever going back. My Lebanese friends aren’t even considering returning for even a visit for the next 10 years.

I’ve just run into an Israeli-Canadian friend from University in the gym. Says he’s just trying to get back in shape because all signs in Israel point to him being called back for military service. Does this sound like peace is right around the corner?

Mail Call

2006-08-11T17:52:00.000-04:00

So I decided to check my Outlook mail for the first time in weeks this mourning, and this is the first thing that pops up:

I thought you might want to take a look at this. Nice crew you’re rolling with you self-hating asshole.

Fuck you.

That is all.

So...what exactly is this link that this anonymous coward decides to
link to, to "prove" the so-called collective racism of the "Blogging
Tories"? It's none other than a post by Liberal Blogger Cerebrus in
which he (rightly) slams a bigoted post by RightGirl on the Western
Standard blog. The post is followed by many members of the
Liberal-Left puffing up their chest and patting each other on the
back, congratulating themselves on their built-in tolerant nature and
how a member of their party would never stoop this low in terms of
racial bigotry or generalization. But, as usual, Ted plays with fire.
He labels the post as "Why I'm not a Conservative", trying to blanket
the thoughts of one person as the thoughts of an entire political
movement, party and blog avatar. He then goes on and throws a brick in
a glass house:

I'm on the record for clarifying a number of times that these wingnuts
are part of why I could never be conservative but there are still a
lot of conservatives equally offended by The Western Standard
obscenity. Nevertheless, meanwhile, over here... still nada.

That's quite a statement to make. However, a dangerous one. If Ted
wants to be jackass, well I have no choice but to fight fire with
fire.

Now, let us be very very clear. RightGirl's comments regarding
criminalizing Islam in Canada is, unbelievably dumb, bigoted, short
sighted and is nothing less than totalitarian.
Freedom of religion is a non-negotiable right for any Democratic
state. And generalizations in the way she applied are…to mince
words…stupid.

But equally as dumb, is Ted's generalization of the Conservative
movement, as well as his wondering of why the Blogging Tories are
"silent" on the issue. Unfortunately to Ted and his friends,
RightGirl's opinion, generalization and bigotry is not limited to the
Conservative movement, and lack of denunciations to these things is
not limited to the Blogging Tories.

A few examples of bigotry and racist generalization from supporters
from Cerebrus' party:

-Last June, shortly after the arrest of the "Toronto 17", one self
described Liberal Blogger leaves this message on my blog. (This is no
sarcasm; he later on defends his statement).

We need to decrease immigration from the Arab countries. That's the best way.

Funny, I never really heard much denunciation from members of Liblogs
for this comment.

-Or how about Liberal Catnip, the old hag who smugly suggested that
Muslims and Arabs in the Middle East are not worthy of humanitarian
intervention. Or better yet, how about her comments regarding the
Muslim activists who risked their necks writing a manifesto urging
their fellow Muslims to reject extremism and terrorism, in which she
suggested that they didn't know what they were talking about?

-And if Ted is mad at RightGirl for using a bigoted generalization on
all Muslims, then I'd expect him to be spitting mad at Liblogs founder
Jason Cherniak for using an absurd ethnic generalization of his own.
Claiming a terrorist-supporting hypocrite MP is an representation of
all Muslims. Apparently, we all interpret things the same way and
are unable of independent thought.

-Or better yet, when the Al Alkhras family was killed in Southern
Lebanon, the reaction from many lefty bloggers was not a sense of
sadness or sympathy, but joy that these deaths can be politically
useful to slam Harper politically. (This simply confirms what I've
been saying all along, the only third-world deaths worth giving a dam
about to the Liberal Party are those which can be spun into blaming
Conservative politicians.)

-Another Liberal idiot a while back tried to convince me that Syria
(which has killed more Muslims than Bush, Sharon and Blair could ever
do in a lifetime) was actually playing a peacekeeping role in Lebanon
shortly after the Cold War. A few of my Lebanese buddies would find
that comment just a tad extreme and would just a little bit annoyed to
say the least, but there he was, actually believing the c rap he was
spewing. (To my recollection, no Liberal blogger stepped in and told
this guy to keep his historical ignorance to himself).

Now these are just examples in the blogging world. If we want to step
back and take a look at the bigger picture when it comes to
Islamic-Canadian relations, the Liberal party flunks big:

-Do the 70+ Liberal MP's, who expressed no protest whatsoever when
Martin sent Troops to Khandahar but suddenly wished for Canadian
troops to withdraw when Harper came to power represent realize that
the Taliban and Al Qaeda (who would reclaim more power following the
Canadian withdrawal) bigoted for using the lives of Afghans so cheaply
to advance their own political needs?

-What the hell was Colleen Baumier thinking when she visited Iraq
prior to the Invasion to express her support for the Iraqi regime? Are
you honestly going to convince me she had no idea that this was going
on by the very regime she was supporting? How the hell is that
evidence that the Liberal party really is the party that stands for
the safety and freedom of Muslims worldwide?

-If the Liberal party really wanted more Muslim representation in
parliament, did they really have to go out and parachute the most
idiotic, bigoted, terrorist-supporting dumbass that has ever set foot
in this country? Is that the Liberal party's view of the Islamic
community?

All in all, I think Ted ought to be a little bit careful whenever he
wants to set off an anti-racist crusade against the conservatives
regarding Islamaphobia. Truth is, if Ted was serious about this, he
would tackle the anti-Islamic bigotry in his party first before
picking on others, and the only silence he should be questioning, is
that of his fellow Libloggers who have always remained silent during
the incidents I have just mentioned.

So in conclusion, Ted, as a Muslim I really appreciate your disgust at
this kind of bigotry and the concern for my safety which you display.
But as I have shown, you have your hands full with your own camp.

He’s coming home!

2006-07-24T19:23:00.000-04:00

He’s coming home!

First of all I want to thank everyone who sent their best wishes and prayers for Khaled's safe return from Lebanon. I’m always surprised by the affection and care many people express toward a complete stranger they never met. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Khaled was evacuated from Lebanon two days ago, disembarked in Cyprus, spent the night in a high school gymnasium, and was later on bussed towards Lanarca airport, where he got on a chartered flight one-way towards Montreal. He’s expected to land in a few hours. And I finally get to breath!!!!!!

I also wanted to apologize (once again) for suddenly disappearing for the past few days. Like I said a few days ago I’ve been doing pretty much anything to avoid the news. That meant purposely staying long hours at work (I am waaayyyyy ahead of schedule for my projects), re-arranging the furniture in my condo, helping neighbors with any home maintenance tasks (Fixing A/C’s, Chairs, Painting a room), alphabetizing my CD’s, balancing my checkbook…basically whatever the hell gets my mind off the situation. I’ve even been avoiding friends, because I know the first question they’d be asking when they see me is “Hey…how’s Khaled?” Not that I didn’t appreciate the concern, its just that I wanted to get my mind off the fact that he was in danger.

But he’s safe now. I honestly have no idea what the hell I’m going to say when I pick him up (what? “Ummmm…so….nice trip?” or “How’s Lebanon?”), I have no idea what to say to a person who was listening to bombs fall close to his location for that past week. In way I’m wondering whether or not I made the right decision by taking the day off tomorrow, I hate awkward moments.

So basically, feelings of gratitude, relief, nervousness, guilt, anxiety and uneasiness all wrapped in one….

I better hit the bar before going to the airport~

Deserved and undeserved criticisms of Harper

2006-07-19T10:59:00.000-04:00

Apologies again for not staying on top of things for the past two days, but considering the circumstances of what’s going on in the Middle East and the little dilemma I face, I’ve been trying to keep myself as busy as I can just for the sake of not loosing my mind pondering the situation. A couple of things I need to comment on regarding the Prime Minister’s handling of the situation and the reactions from the so-called “Arab-Canadian” advocacy groups.

1.The CAF blaming Harper for the deaths of the Canadians killed in Lebanon:

What a fu*cked up accusation to make! Let’s first consider the entire scenario before even taking this seriously. First of all, the Canadians that were killed were (according to Newsreports) located in Southern Lebanon. An area which the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affaires has long advocated to citizens visiting Lebanon to avoid at all costs. Even after the initial Israeli withdrawal in 2000. Second of all, when the situation got out of control last week, the Canadian Embassy in Beirut urged all its citizens to stay indoors and await further instructions for evacuation. These are two instructions which the victims tragically chose to defy.

Now that is not to say that the victims are to blame for their own deaths. Far from it, in fact had I been in a similar situation, I would have also tried to get the hell out of the area as soon as humanly possible. What I’m simply saying is that the Canadian government, bearing the circumstances, has done everything it could to warn its citizens from experiencing this kind of tragic fate.

And as for the accusation that Harper deserves flak for the deaths because he has not called for an immediate ceasefire, I find that unbelievably naïve. As much as I hate to point out the impotence of my country whenever it comes to matters of International affaires, this has to be said:

If the Israelis were not willing to listen to the Presidents of France and Russia to stand down, then chances are they wouldn’t exactly jump for the Prime Minister of Canada either. The Israelis were going to go through this military action with Canada’s blessing or not. So please, let’s leave out the retarded accusations throughout this nightmare from hell. Unless the CAF has unmistakable evidence showing that Harper was the pilot of the jet that launched the air-to-surface missile that killed the Canadians, the CAF has just made itself to be the biggest joke of all the advocacy groups in Canada.

2. Harper said he has not contacted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seeking an explanation of the air strike that killed the Canadians on Sunday, nor had his officials.

Now this is just straight out bullshit on Harper’s part. I understand his pro-Israel sentiment and I agree with his opinion that Hezbollah and Hamas are the principal parties to blame for the escalation of violence and rising death toll. But…the Prime Minster of Canada has the duty to make sure that justice prevails for all his citizens. No matter what the circumstances are. He should at least call Prime Minister Olmert and ask for an inquiry into the deaths. Was there a viable threat in the area in which the Israeli pilot fired the missile at? On what basis? Was the targeted threat worthy of such a response? Israel has an explanation to do…and the only person who must make sure that these deaths were not killed in cold-blood or human error in the Prime Minster of Canada. If it is indeed the case of human error, than he should ask for a compensation for the family members of the victims from the Israeli government.

There's no light at the end of this tunnel

2006-07-16T23:40:00.000-04:00

"Its all a bad dream".

For the past 4 days, I've been trying desperately to convince myself that all what's happening in Lebanon at the moment is just one gigantic nightmare in which I would soon wake up.

I try not to think of how a country like Lebanon, a country that was a beacon of hope to many Arab democrats and moderates has fallen in the current mess its in. With its democratic reforms, its secular nature and booming economy, many of us hoped Lebanon would turn out to be the shining example people around the Arab world would try to emulate for the sake of everyone. This is why the current events have been have been extremely hard to accept as reality. After a long painful 16 years, we were so close, and now were back to square one.

For almost 10 hours a day, I've been desperately trying to think of any feasible, armchair solution to this whole mess. In the past, whenever a military conflict arises, those of us in the west simply listen to the news, and come up with our theories for a peace settlement for both sides. In the Gulf War, the armchair solution was for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and mediate the problems between both countries regarding the oil dispute. In the Israel/Palestine conflict, everybody agreed that the Palestinians had to recognize Israel and stop all terrorist activities against her. Israel in return would give back the land it took from the Palestinians in the 1967 war. Land for Peace.

Those solutions may have been easier said than done, they may have even been unrealistic.But (and I hate to say this), they gave us a secure sense of denial in which we thought eventually all parties involved would come to the same conclusion. After all, you can't live in a state of war forever.

But for this conflict, I don't even have that. I can't think of any possible solution that would get all parties involved come to one level of compromise. Not after we add up the different variables and evaluate what's at stake for the different parties involved and take account the history of this god forsaken bloodbath.

Let's evaluate what's at stake here for the different players involved and why they will not back down this time:

Player: Israel
Why is it in this conflict: Two of its soldiers were kidnapped at the border, in which Hezbollah demanded prisoner negotiations.
What's at stake: Israel is now fighting in two areas it thought to be history to them. Southern Lebanon and Gaza. When it withdrew from those lands, it had hoped (naively) that cooler heads would prevail and that the Palestinians and the Lebanese would view it as an extension of an olive branch. Reducing the incentive for young men in those regions to become terrorist and hope to annihilate it and her people. But as I explained, that's not what happened. And the withdrawals backfired making Hamas and Hezbollah more popular, more confidant, and more determined. With that factor considered, Israel will not be fooled again. It will make sure that the infrastructure and determination of both groups to be wiped off before even thinking of coming back to the negotiating table. If It backs down, and accepts Hezbollah's demands, the enemy gets stronger and more determined. Therefore, its a fight to the death as far as its concerned.

Player: Lebanon
Why is it in this conflict: Having negotiated with Hezbollah to include it in its government, it is linked with the terrorist organization in the eyes of the Israelis. So when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, the Israeli government had no choice but include the country as Hezbollah's accomplice (as they have negotiated to integrate them in their government).
What's at stake: Lebanon is by far the biggest victim in all this mess. Whatever decision it makes, its dammed to destruction. It can either:
a) Ally itself with Hezbollah, provoking an all out war with Israel: Which would lead to its destruction (Socially, economically, politically, everything).
b) Ally itself with Israel: Provoking the ire of its huge Shiite population (which is supportive of Hezbollah) provoking an all out civil war between Shiites and the Rest of the Lebanese. Which would also lead to its destruction economically, socially and politically.
c) Door number three is the worse, it can turn on both sides and have an all out civil war AS WELL AS an all out war with Israel.

Players: Hezbollah and Hamas
Why is it in this conflict: Believes in the destruction of Israel in order to complete their goals of a giant Islamic Caliph to dominate the Middle East. So they kidnapped Israeli soldiers and provoked Israel into war. Knowing fully well Israel will not comply with their demands.
What's at stake: These two organizations suffer from the opposite fate that awaits Lebanon. Its a win-win situation with them. If they press forward with this conflict and eventually (in their eyes) get Israel to agree with their demands, it gains more power and popularity from its people, if they don't, then they will simply keep on fighting, and those that die believe that they would end up in heaven along with 72 virgins for their sexual pleasure. How can you fight that? So in conclusion: They fight and win: They get their lands and wishes back over time, they loose: well...they die as martyrs and enjoy the company of those virgins.

Players: Syria and Iran
Why are they in this conflict: For the supply and support of Hezbollah and Hamas. The incentive is to get both groups to cause as much havoc and destruction distracting the international community of their own totalitarian rule and "behind the scenes" activities.
What's at stake: Very very simple. They keep this conflict going, the international community is distracted and bickering on how to resolve the issue. Should there be a ceasefire, then all eyes are back on them. Its in their survival instincts that this mess prolongs itself as long as humanly possible. As long as Lebanese, Israelis and Palestinians are dying, they're living.

A must read for all.

2006-07-16T20:12:00.000-04:00

As usual, Canadianna is dead on with her commentary regarding the French response to the situation in the Middle East.

Be sure to read it.

8 Canadians Killed in Lebanon:

2006-07-16T18:28:00.000-04:00

Eight Lebanese-Canadians are dead and six others injured after an Israeli air strike in Lebanon, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.

"Pending further information and contact with their families, all we can say is that there are eight confirmed casualties (and) six who have been critically injured, and we're actively pursuing as much information as quickly as possible," MacKay told CTV Newsnet on Sunday.

According to The Associated Press, five of the dead are Lebanese-Canadians from a single family who were killed in an Israeli air strike while in their home in Aitaroun, on the border of Israel.

Deepest prayers and condolences goes out the families and friends of the deceased and injured. The most tragic episodes in a armed conflict is whenever innocent civilians get caught up in the crossfire.

But probably what's even more sickening is the that the political grandstanding some of our resident progressives have been making of these deaths. At a time when the middle east is about to explode in world war 3, the only I thing can make out from their reactions is a sense of joy that these deaths might end up hurting Stephen Harper's political game.

Let us first go through some facts and questions regarding the deaths and the "progressive" response:

Do many of the people who are calling this an act of war believe that Israel deliberately targeted these civilians?

Southern Lebanon (which according to the news report is where the Canadians have been killed) has always been an area which the Department of Foreign affaires has warned Canadians of going whenever you travel to Lebanon. And I know this because I remember being contacted by the Canadian Embassy in Saudi Arabia 48 hours before departing to Lebanon in 2002 for a 3 day vacation, warning me specifically to avoid the southern region (any region south of Saida to be specific). As the region has always been a point of constant violence between Palestinian and Lebanese militias as well as attacks from the Israeli border. We must therefore assume that proper warning have been in place for the Lebanese-Canadians involved, and that ignoring the or disregarding that warning comes at their own judgment.

Liberal MP Dan McTeague also tried to politicize the situation on CTV by point the finger of blame on the Harper Government and tried to look informed in the whole matter by giving out a number in which Canadians in Lebanon can access. The turd apparently had no idea that Canadians in Lebanon who were calling the embassy were already being transferred to the Ottawa Switchboard, at least according to my friend Khaled.

Since when did the left in Canada ever give a dam about Canadian residents in the middle east in the he first place? When the storey of Iran jailing a Canadian professor came out earlier in the year, it was met by stunning silence by the leftist blogsphere. Ditto with the Kouzimi case. Why weren't they screaming bloody murder at Iran for clearly and intentionally harming Canadian life then? Simple: Because that would mean having them agree with the new Government's tough approach to Iran. Therefore there was no need for an outrage. Or even care. This compliments what I've been saying all along when it comes to the Left and the Middle East: Deaths in the region to them are only tragic when it can be spun into an attack on their political opponents.

The Israeli government owes Canada an explanation. There's absolutely no denying this whatsoever. What exactly were the Israelis targeting? Did they have solid evidence to back up that a threat did reside in the targeted location?

Most important point to consider in all this: ALL these deaths, Canadian and non-Canadian, could have been avoided without Hezbollah declaring war on Israel by kidnapping two of their soldiers and demanding appeasement.

That's it for now. I'm still working the phones like crazy trying to get Khaled out of the fucking country as soon and as safely as possible. He's still alive, I talked to him last night. He was contacted by the Ottawa Foreign Affairs Bureau, who told him to expect instructions for evacuation in 1 to 2 days. But according to him he's going to try to get out of there on his own through the north.

And the chutzpah award goes to...

2006-07-15T01:53:00.000-04:00

Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha!

I don't know how many of you caught this interview Thursday evening on Wolf Blitzer, but for those of you who didn't, you missed one hell of a comedian act by the official spokesperson of Assad's tototaltarian regime in Washington.

Luckily I caught a glimpse of it, and let's just say there are some talking points the good ambassador neglected to mention during his stuttering in the CNN studios.

Here's the transcript of the interview between Wolf Blitzer and Imad Moustapha along with some rather interesting hyperlinks that would either make you laugh or cry at the level of chutzpah this prick demonstrates:

Mr. Ambassador, thanks for coming in.

IMAD MOUSTAPHA, SYRIAN AMB. TO U.S.: Hi, Wolf.

BLITZER: You heard earlier from the Israeli ambassador, Daniel Ayalon, that Iran and Syria right now are, in his words -- are playing with fire and it could have serious consequences.

How worried are you that Israel could take retaliatory action against targets in Syria?

MOUSTAPHA: Well, of course, this is pretty preposterous. The only party to blame for this collision of violence in the Middle East is Israel itself with its continuous occupation and with the atrocities it has committed against the Palestinians, particularly in the past two months.

Now, suddenly, it is Damascus once again, and it's Iran once again. Who is to blame for the results of their occupation?

BLITZER: But you acknowledge that it was in recent days, along the border between Israel and Lebanon, that Hezbollah guerrillas crossed into Israel, killed some Israeli soldiers, kidnapped two others, took them back into Lebanon.

Isn't that an act of war?

MOUSTAPHA: Look, for the past -- past decade at least, the Israelis have abducted many Lebanese. They are still in the Israeli prisons. Hezbollah has repeatedly demanded in the past six months that the Israelis should release their prisoners. The Israelis have done even worse things in the Palestinian territories.

BLITZER: But Israel withdrew from Lebanon six years ago.

MOUSTAPHA: Not all of Lebanon. The Shebaa Farms are still under Israeli occupation.

BLITZER: That's a tiny sliver that Syria -- that your government says it's part of Syria.

MOUSTAPHA: But also -- no, we don't say -- we never have said this is a part of Syria. We have always said this is a part of Lebanon.

But, most importantly, Israel continues to have Lebanese prisoners in its prisons, and Israel continues to infringe on the Lebanese sovereignty.(AK:!!!!!!!!!) Continuously it has done this, without any cessation in the past two, three years. But an important thing...

BLITZER: I don't want to get into a debate over Shebaa Farms right now.

MOUSTAPHA: Yes, of course.

BLITZER: It's a very complicated, small, little area. But do you justify Hezbollah going in and recent days and starting this escalating situation?

MOUSTAPHA: What I do not justify is that -- for the whole world to sit silently watching Israel doing whatever it wants to do. In the past two weeks, Israel has killed many, many Palestinian civilians. Today, Israel has killed tens and tens of Lebanese civilians. Families are wiped out completely.

And what happens? The United States -- this is very important. You have to compare the attitude of this administration to the past attitudes of all -- all past administrations in the United States.

BLITZER: Does the Syrian -- does the Syrian government want these Hezbollah militants to give up those two Israeli soldiers and to calm the situation down?

MOUSTAPHA: Hezbollah has said they want to exchange their imprisoned soldiers with the imprisoned Lebanese.

BLITZER: So do you support that position?

MOUSTAPHA: Would you agree with me that the Lebanese prisoners are also human beings equal to the Israeli soldiers?

BLITZER: But do you support that position of Hezbollah?

MOUSTAPHA: What we support -- what we support is the following: We want a comprehensive solution to the problem in the Middle East. Israel has stopped -- has to stop its occupation of the Arab territories. Israel has to understand that it cannot go on forever with immunity, doing whatever it wants to do.

Only last week they went into the Palestinian territories, they abducted, the Israelis, tens of civilians from Palestine, cabinet minister, elected members of the parliament. Nobody gave a damn about what the Israelis are doing.

Once two Israeli soldiers are captured by Hezbollah, look -- look at the reaction. And the stereotypical reaction of this administration is to blame Syria.

In the past, you know what the U.S. administration would have done? It would have sent envoys to the Middle East, it would have mediated, it would have calmed down the situation. This administration...

BLITZER: The administration isn't just blaming Syria. They are blaming Iran, too.

MOUSTAPHA: Yes. Yes, this administration typically would only blame other parties and they would do nothing. This flagrant bias towards Israel is not helping the situation in the Middle East.

BLITZER: You heard -- maybe you didn't hear what the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in the last hour here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

MOUSTAPHA: No, I didn't.

BLITZER: Something similar to the Israeli ambassador, Daniel Ayalon. Said almost the same thing, that they sense that Iran, under great pressure to suspend its nuclear activities, is trying to change the subject now by allowing or encouraging Hezbollah and Hamas to go ahead and kidnap Israeli soldiers.

MOUSTAPHA: There's a dichotomy here. What we say is the following.

Israel is trying to divert attention to what it has been doing to the Palestinians since Hamas was elected democratically by the Palestinian people. Israel has driven the Palestinian economy into collapse. Israel has killed tens and tens of Israeli civilians (AK:???????), including men and women and children in the past three, four months. And everything that is happening has Israel to blame because Israel continues to occupy the Palestinian territories

BLITZER: Is there an alliance now in effect between Syria and Iran?

MOUSTAPHA: No, there is no alliance. Iran is our regional neighbor. We have good relations with all of our neighbors: Iran, Turkey, Jordan Egypt.

We want good relations with everybody. And repeatedly, repeatedly we have invited Israel itself to engage in peace talks with us. It was Israel who categorically refused, because does not want peace to prevail in the Middle East.

BLITZER: That border between Israel and Lebanon had been very peaceful in recent years since the -- relatively peaceful since the Israeli withdrawal in the year 2000. Only two weeks ago you were here in THE SITUATION ROOM, and you said this -- I want you to listen to what you said.

MOUSTAPHA: Very good.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOUSTAPHA: Once the Israelis left Lebanon, Hezbollah has not been involved in any way whatsoever in anything that has nothing -- that has not to do with the Lebanese issues. This should be clear, and we should not believe Israeli propaganda.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Do you want to clarify what you meant?

MOUSTAPHA: Of course. Let me remind everybody of what's happening.

Israel actually holds Lebanese prisoners who happen to be members of the Hezbollah. Hezbollah has repeatedly invited Israel to engage in a prisoner exchange. It's very similar to what Israel has twice done with Hezbollah with German mediation.

And Hezbollah is saying today the same, we want Israelis, through mediation, through third parties, to involve in a prisoner exchange. Why do you think it's fair for Israel to have Lebanese prisoners while it's not fair for Hezbollah to have Israeli prisoners?

BLITZER: Is there any solution?

MOUSTAPHA: I think the only solution is for the United States to play the role it used to play in the past and to undertake its responsibilities as a superpower, and to impose on its ally, Israel, restraint, not something similar to the -- to the killing that is happening today under destruction in Lebanon, and to ask all parties to involve in real serious peace talks.

BLITZER: Are you afraid of all-out war?

MOUSTAPHA: It is a possibility. Israel is trying to escalate the situation, the tension in the region. We have -- we have to call for restraint.

The United States has a play to role. It is the role of the United States. Today, what did the United States do? It vetoed a United Nation's Security Council resolution.

This is negative diplomacy. We want proactive, positive diplomacy from the United States. The United States has to undertake its international obligations.

BLITZER: Imad Moustapha is the Syrian ambassador here in Washington.

Thanks for coming in.

MOUSTAPHA: You are welcome. Thank you.

World War 3 begins in T-minus 10...9...

2006-07-14T19:31:00.000-04:00

According to From Beirut to the Beltway the Lebanese army has officially joined the fighting against the Israeli Unit that landed on Sideon Beach, marking the first time in recent memory where you have two democratically elected governments engaging in a armed conflict.

The feeling out of Lebanon right out is mainly anger. Anger at Hezbollah for having kick started all this, anger at Israel for causing the destruction, Anger at the United States for refusing to diffuse the situation, Anger at Syria and Iran for backing all this up and using their country as a means of a shield and political posturing. And that's understandable, for years now, Lebanon has undergone a series of political and social reforms and experienced an economic boom that was helping the country establish itself once again as the "Jewel of the Mediterranean".

But unfortunately I can't agree with the feeling which some Lebanese have been expressing concerning the Hezbollah connections, like this:

Every one knows that the Lebanese government has no control over Hezbollah. The government didn’t even know of Hezbollah kidnapping plans, even though they (Hezbollah) are part of the government. Hezbollah is a "state within a state ", thanks to Israel, Iran and Syria.

. Israeli continued occupation of Shebaa farms territory gives Hezbollah an excuse to hold onto its arms.

. Iran's financing of Hezbollah, will allow it to use the organization to achieve its objectives in the region, regardless of the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese.

. Syria's support to Hezbollah, allows it to use this organization as its card in dealing with Israel. Every time Syria is under pressure, Hezbollah creates a crises of some sort in South Lebanon

But who is the biggest loser in all of this: Lebanon and the innocent Lebanese people. The Lebanese will again have to rebuild their country on their own and accumulate more debt, in addition to the $38 billion they have accumulated so far, in rebuilding their country during the Syrian occupation.

But unfortunately, I believe the Lebanese government bears some responsibility in all this. They have partnered themselves with Hezbollah when it comes to governing, knowing fully well that Hezbollah's terrorist operations against Israel hasn't ceased. But then again Lebanon never really had a choice in this, like I said yesterday, the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in the Spring of 2000 has painted Hezbollah as liberators and saviors in the eyes of many Shiite Lebanese. The country could not have acted in any way against the organization without risking a huge backlash from its Shiite community and risking the spark of another civil war. So needless to say, the situation is far too complicated for anyone to come up with a solution.

I honestly cannot predict what will happen tomorrow or even in 2 days. All I can say is that its amazing how 16 years of social, economic and political progress can be smashed up in 16 short hours.

A glimpse into Beirut

2006-07-14T06:08:00.000-04:00

Just hung up on a disturbing phone conversation with Khaled. A Lebanese-Canadian buddy of mine since High school. We both attended the same private, US-accredited high school in Saudi and were in the same grade. When we graduated, we both came back to Canada. He attended McGill and majored in Management, I registered in Concordia and studied accounting. We shared an apartment for 4 crazy years and when we were finally free from the hellhole that is called "higher education", we finally parted ways. I got a job with RBC here in mtl, and he left to Beirut to work as an assistant manager to his brother at a 4 star hotel in Beirut. He was, and still is my best friend to this day. So you can imagine the shock and fear that I had to go through when I heard his angry, terrified voice on the phone just 10 minutes ago.

4:15 in the mourning.

*me passed out on the couch in the living room*
The phone rings. And after 20 seconds of constant ringing, I finally wake up and stumble towards the phone.

Me: Who the fuck is this?
Khaled: Top of the morning dickhead...
Me: HEY!!! Were have you been? I've trying to call you since mourning, but for some reason I keep getting Turkey!
Khaled: Phone lines are mess right now. This was my 19th attempt to call you.
Me: What's going on? Are you allright?
Khaled: I'm ok...Alaa is ok...Rania is ok...were all good.
Me: Thank god!

*Fast Forward 5 minutes*

Khaled: The streets are deserted man...its like scene from Resident Evil only more creepier.
Me: Are you in a shelter?
Khaled: No no. Were in the apartment. But no one is going out. Not even to the store.
Me: You have enough food and water in there?
Khaled: Umm not really. The people in the building have locked the front door and have opened their apartment doors. So in a way its like living in a crowded 9 story house. Everybody's sharing their food and stuff. So were ok for now.

*Fast forward 2 minutes*

Me: How are people handling this?
Khaled: Its a mess! Some women are sobbing, the men are screaming in outrage, everybody's scared. And angry at the same time. Can't really describe it in words...you have to see it to believe it.
Me: shit...
Khaled: Just when things look to be going on the right path, shit like this happens. Fuck man! Does trouble come looking for our people?
Me: (laughing) I don't think so. It seems to know where we are most of the time.
Khaled: This isn't the right time to be cute with me....
Me: Sorry, Sorry.

Fast forward 2 minutes:

Khaled: I don't know what the hell I was thinking of coming back here. Dude were never going to live in peace in this fucking region. Its always going to be like this.
Me: *silent*
Khaled: Its never going to end....never..
Me: Things will change eventually..I mean Rome wasn't built in a-
Khaled: NO MAN! This is who we are! Let's face it. There are some areas in this world which were just not built for peace. First the civil war, then Southern Lebanon, then the Syrians, and now this!!!

Fast forward:

Me: So what are you going to do know?
Khaled: That's why I'm calling you. I'm planning on coming back to Canada.
Me: WHAT?? Bro...
Khaled: Its already been decided man. I cannot live in this freaking environment. My bags are packed and Alaa has my letter of resignation. Its now just a question of how to get to Damascus. Unless the Jews begin to bomb that as well, then I might have to make further plans to go into Jordan. And from there I can easily book my return to Canada.
Me: And you need a place to stay (laughing)
Khaled: *laughing*..just for a couple of days. If its okay with you...just a few days to get my stuff in order and then head on over to Alberta.
Me: No problem.
Khaled: I owe you BIG TIME man! Thank you very much.
Khaled: I just wanted to tell you, I might be on your doorstep at any time now. Could be in 24 hours. Could be on 6 weeks. Whenever I could find a safe passageway out of here. Its now choked. There;s almost now way out of Lebanon.
Me: There's no chance that the airport might get fixed any time soon?
Khaled: Forget it. Not any time soon. They're saying it might take a few months. But given how we usually do things around here, I'd say we'd be lucky if things are back in place by next July.
And what's worse is that the highways are all destroyed-
Me: Yeah I heard.
Khaled: And there's rumors that some Israeli destroyers are patrolling our sea.
Me: Really? Sea as well?
Khaled: That's what Alaa heard from the neighbors.
Me: Call the embassy. They'd surely help you out of here.
Khaled: Embassy's closed man. We keep getting transferred to the Ottawa switchboard, but I have to hold for like hours and I always get cut off.
Me: *sigh*

Khaled: Just a heads up allright. Could be tomorrow or a month from now.
Me: Sure thing. Take care of yourself man.
Khaled: Thanks. I'll call you whenever I get to Am-

*Phone line gets cut off*.

Israel pays the price for appeasement

2006-07-14T01:07:00.000-04:00

First of all let me apologize for the blog neglect for the past few months. The reason for this is a combination of work, moving into my new condo, and great weather tends to keep me from indoor activities. I've honestly haven't even glanced at a newspaper or a T.V. news program from the past 4 weeks. but judging from the current chaos
that were now witnessing in the region, I cannot neglect things any longer.

The last thing we ever want to do during a time of chaos and tragedy, is blame the victim. Not for being the principle reason for the damage done, the blame mainly lies with the perpetrator of the crime But for taking gullible actions that indirectly leads to the present day damage.

Examples: You wake up one mourning to find out that your next door neighbors' car has been stolen from their own garage and their tools have also gone missing. You feel terrible for the guy, and at the moment there's nothing more you want to do but cause as much pain to the burglars as possible. But somehow, you still cannot get the thought out of your mind that this burglary might have been prevented to steal had your neighbor actually remembered to close his garage during the night instead of leaving it open.

Another scenario: Your brother gets robbed while walking home from a party last night. His wallet is gone and is suddenly missing a pair of shoes. For a second you actually contemplate lobbying your government to adopting the same crime policy as Saudi Arabia when it comes to these things, but you just cannot resist the temptation of slapping your brother across the head for being dumb enough to walk through a crime-ridden neighborhood at 3 o'clock in the morning, wearing a 500$ Versace suit and 200$ shoes.

Getting back to the relevant subject, I cannot help but feel the same away about Israel during this whole series of conflict. Now the blame for all this squarely lies with Hezbollah and Hamas, there's absolutely no justification whatsoever for their actions of kidnapping and missile launching against Israeli civilians. But Israel did in fact exercise some action which does play a huge part in all this; appeasement.

Think back to the summer of 2005 and the spring of 2000. That's the time frame when Israel bowed to international pressure (that was dictated by the ever-naive line of thinking that Islamic militants are reasonable souls simply fighting the occupation of their lands) and withdrew their forces from Gaza and Southern Lebanon respectively.

And what occurred afterwards was something all terrorism experts predicted a long long time ago. More chaos, more terror, more bloodshed and no decreased security for either side. Far from taming the two terrorist groups, or the hope that the withdrawals would be perceived as an extension of an olive branch, the withdrawals made Hezbollah and Hamas more forceful, more popular, more power hungry and the perception? That was considered as plain old weakness. Which further ingrained the idea that should they increase their activities, Israel would make more and more concessions for land and power.

The reaction from the people in Southern Lebanon and Gaza were, not surprisingly jubial. Both people credited the terrorists for driving the "Jews" out of their lands, and were now completely indebted to them

To make maters worse, moderate Palestinians and Lebanese who have tried warning their people of the threat groups like these pose to their lives, were seen as useless, traitorous fools. In the eyes of most people it was "Yeah, well they got rid of the Israelis for us, what did you do?" So unfortunately cooler heads did not prevail following the withdrawals.

And in both cases, the people have rewarded the terrorist groups handsomely. The Lebanese government gave Hezbollah autonomy in the south, as well as political power. The Palestinians elected Hamas to form their legislative branch.

So all in all the withdrawals resulted in both cases:

-Two terrorist groups who were still armed and at large.
-Hamas and Hezbollah receiving the gratitude and respect of the people.
-Isolation of the Arab Moderates.
-More power and determination given to Hamas and Hezbollah.

Other countries should take note of what has happened here and notice how this ties to their battles with terrorism. We now have proof first hand, that withdrawal always causes more havoc and destruction than the alternative.

Coming back tot he original point, the actions we see today are simply reminders to the Israelis of their mistakes. Mistakes that have come back to haunt them in a brutal way against a brutal enemy. Just like the next door neighbor who made the mistake of keeping his garage door open at night, or the brother who walked right into a crime-ridden neighborhood, Israel's decision to show weakness at a time it should have shown strength, is one mistake they are paying for dearly today.

Update: Mideast Bloggers speak out:

Beirut Spring:

Hezbollah is trying to fool us. It wants us to believe that it’s offering Israel a fair deal. We are being bluffed to relax, to conclude that Israel will eventually do “the right thing”; because -and here goes the bluff aimed at Israel- we have “Surprises” hidden up our sleeves. (…)
By unilaterally provoking the trigger-happy Israelis yesterday, Hezbollah is squarely to blame for the Lebanese lives wasted, the infrastructure destroyed, the inconvenience caused to millions because of the stalled airport, and the unearned millions of dollars in tourist revenues (with the resulting unemployment and immigration).

Rambling Hal

There are so many outside forces that are constantly working against the happiness of multitudes. I want to slap the members of every single Middle Eastern government - and especially the heads of these allegedly 'democratic' parliaments and governments we adhere to coz we have no other choise - I want to slap them silly with a cheap flip flop and tell them to get the hell out of our lives.

I also want to slap religious fanatics that think they have the right to call violence and murder and terrorism by Islam. Them I don't want to just slap. I want to do other things to them instead. But I won't go into that now. I'll try and curb my violent tendencies. It's too early in the day for blood.

2:48 AM: (No, really that's the name of the blog)

With these current attacks you would think the government would wake up and realize that its time to distance themselves from Hezbollah and let the whole world know that the Lebanese people are against Hezbollah and against their actions. But, of course that didn’t happen, the Lebanese government is calling all parties to be united against Israel. What a load of political crap, they are going to make things a lot worst for everyone.”

itoot has more roundup of reactions from mideast bloggers.

Cherniak tries to BS his way out of his own stupidity.

2006-07-05T21:43:00.000-04:00

Unlike many in the Canadian Blogspehere, I'm not of those who tend to view Jason Cherniak as either intelligent or a good political spinster. Heck, I don't even have respect for the guy. Having read some of his posts during the last federal election, and listening to him regularly on the Bloggers Hotstove, I knew that in the political world, Jason Cherniak is as bad of a Hack as they come. I'm not going to mince words, he strikes me as snobbish, arrogant, clueless, there's a whiff of elitism whenever he describes his political future, and is someone who takes party affiliations very seriously. I mean if the entire Liberal caucus grabbed a bunch of AK-47's and started a rampage across Toronto, I can guarantee you that Jason would be spinning it into a version of how those MP's have been driven to madness by the actions of Stephen Harper, and should anyone bear the responsibility for the murders, its the PM himself.

Anyway, after his latest post regarding the Muslim Community and Omar Alghabra, we can also add incompetence and soft bigotry into the whole mix.

He begins:

For those who do not know the background, when I was on the Coren show I tried to argue that Muslims will not vote Conservative because if you consider the manner in which many Conservatives talk about Omar, you will realize that they are not exactly open to the Muslim community.

(emphasis mine)

Right off the bat, Jason surprises us all with his remarkable skills of Telepathy and Divination in stating that Muslims in Canada will simply be turned off to voting Conservative simply because of the manner in which Conservatives have raised the alarm over one Muslim's scary past and statements.

Now right away, this raises a flag. What the hell does Jason know about the Muslim community? So far the only thing he demonstrated in knowledge is that he believes Muslims in Canada all think alike and interpret any action in the same manner. Whether they are male or female, Arab or non-Arab, Pakistani or Moroccan, rich or poor, landed immigrant or naturalized, all Muslims are the same. Apparently to Jason we are unable of exercising independent thought, and interpret events and words in a different manner he does.

Among the many things we have learned in grade school when discussing prejudice and racism, is that to never group any minority group into one big "groupthink". Not all Muslims think alike, Not all Blacks think alike and not all whites think alike. The reason why we were taught in that manner is to never paint an entire ethnic group with one brush. But there he is, labeling us all into one groupthink
and dictating our voting patterns for us.

But it doesn't really end there for out Star liberal blogger.

"because if you consider the manner in which many Conservatives talk about Omar, you will realize that they are not exactly open to the Muslim community."

In these 20 words or so, Jason exemplifies more bigotry and stupidity at the same time. Take note of the logic: The manner in which many Conservatives talk about an MP who:

-Is a member and speaker for a student group which calls for divestment from Israel and has circulated anti-Semitic conspiracies in their literature. The group has also incited a riot on September of 2002 in which many anti-Semitic attacks occurred.
-Is involved with an organization that's under investigation for terrorist funding.
- Does not consider Hamas or Islamic Jihad to be terrorist groups and strongly lobbied the Federal government against criminalizing them.
-Does not believe in mixture of religion and politics. But is all for the implementation of Sharia.
-Constantly attacks law enforcement of racism.

is according to Jason...brutal. And this alone signifies that Conservatives are not "open" to the Islamic community. Now if Cherniak believes that Omar Alghabra is the true representation of the Islamic community when all those points are considered, then Jason himself is the true bigot who mislabels the Muslim community. To this liberal, an attack on Omar Alghabra is simply an attack on his religion and nothing else.

Since 9/11, we have constantly heard from political, religious and social leaders to not group or label an the entire Muslim community of being from one mindset. Perhaps the real person who should remember that and take it to heart is none other than Jason Cherniak.

WOW…From a self-described Liberal nonetheless.

2006-06-10T07:24:00.000-04:00

To the people who reacted angrily when I suggested that its actually the left that has demonstrated more bigotry and racism against middle easterners since 9/11, get a load of this guy who left this message on my previous post:

We need to decrease immigration from the Arab countries. That's the best way.

Heh. And I thought that Liberals were supposed to be the "enlightened" ones compared to us "xenophobic" and "racist" Tories.

But truth for the matter is such a decision would likely bring in more radicalization within the Muslim community in Canada and would not help Canada's message abroad of trying to help, not strangle, Arabs and Muslims in achieving a more secure and democratic life.

The best way to wipe out the threat of terrorists from Muslim Extremists is to change the very conditions in the Middle East that help breed their kind of philosophy. And there's no other way of achieving that other than a radical overhaul in the status-quo in the Middle East. That means pressure on the totalitarian leaders who who's interest it is to keep things the way they are in that region.
Contrary to what many people want you to believe that's easier said than done. It's not a problem that can be fixed in 5 or 10 short years, it might take a generation or more for the Middle East to finally rid itself of its self-destructing virus that's taking that region to the gutter. It’s a non-traditional war, a war that has to be won not only on the battle fields of Afghanistan or Iraq or even Palestine but in the minds of Muslims worldwide.

And winning the hearts and minds of people in the region doesn't just mean things like Foreign Aid, but rather a message. A message which states that the fundamentalist ideology held by some Muslims in the world cannot a widely accepted belief for the two-world to peacefully co-exist. That doesn't mean appeasing the hardliners by withdrawing from Afghanistan or Iraq, or cowering to the threats of the Iranian President.

An action like this tends to strengthen the resolve and dedication of the Jihadi fighters. To give you an example, I remember clearly a few days after the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000 listening to the Friday Sermon in my mosque.

What do you think the sermon was about? You think after Israel withdrew from its fighting from Lebanon the Imam's message was "The Jews have sent us an Olive Branch! Let’s put down our weapons and negotiate a proper way for co-existence among our people"? No effin way! It was very much "Jihad Works!! On to Jerusalem!"

And that's where were stuck, we either carry on fighting in those hotspots, ridding as much Jihadists as we can along the way, while helping democratic and enlightened reform to take hold that will help diminish the amount of future Jihadis taking shape WHILE taking losses. OR…we can withdraw, strengthen their resolve and deal with a much worse and dedicated Islamist threat 5 or 10 years down the line.

The choice is that clear.

I can't seem to get away from these people

2006-06-03T11:03:00.000-04:00

Not in Saudi, not in the UAE, not in Jordan, and not even in Canada:

In a sweeping raid, police arrested at least a dozen men in the Toronto area on terrorism-related charges Friday night, the RCMP announced.
Intelligence sources allege the men were part of a terrorist cell, close to carrying out attacks on one or more Canadian targets.
Police seized chemicals used to make explosives and weapons.
"That's the tool of choice for anybody who wants to cause damage," a source who asked not to be named told The Canadian Press.
The suspects are either second-generation Canadians or recently immigrated to Canada with their families.
Sources claimed the men have no connection to al Qaeda, but were allegedly inspired by militant Islamic groups.
The arrests were made in co-operation with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, Cpl. Michele Paradis, a spokeswoman for the RCMP said in a release.
The operation involved at least four police forces, CSIS and the RCMP.
Undercover officers made the arrests, which were all carried out in the Greater Toronto Area.
"The investigation is ongoing," Paradis said Friday night.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was made aware of the raid but did not comment. A spokesperson said Harper did not want to impede the operation as it unfolds.
The arrested suspects were reportedly being held in a police station in Pickering, a northeast suburb of Toronto.
Heavily-armed police officers kept guard outside the building Friday.
According to The Toronto Star, CSIS has monitored the suspects since 2004, while the RCMP began its investigation last year.
Sources discounted earlier reports that the CN Tower and the city's subway system were allegedly potential targets by the group.

Stephen Taylor has the names of those arrested:

Arrested and charged with offences under the Criminal Code of Canada are:

1. Fahim Ahmad, 21, of Robinstone Drive, Toronto, Ontario;
2. Zakaria Amara, 20, of Periwinkle Crescent, Mississauga, Ontario;
3. Asad Ansari, 21, of Rosehurst Drive, Mississauga, Ontario;
4. Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, of Lowville Heights, Mississauga, Ontario;
5. Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, of Montevideo Road, Mississauga, Ontario;
6. Mohammed Dirie, 22, Kingston, Ontario;
7. Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, Kingston, Ontario;
8. Jahmaal James, 23, of Trudelle Street, Toronto, Ontario;
9. Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19, of Stonehill Court, Toronto, Ontario;
10. Steven Vikash Chand alias Abdul Shakur, 25, of Treverton Drive, Toronto, Ontario;
11. Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, of Robin Drive, Mississauga, Ontario;
12. Saad Khalid, 19, of Eclipse Avenue, Mississauga, Ontario

Along with a bone-chilling poem by one of the alleged terrorists Zakaria Amara:

Soon I'll return to my lord , the one that deserves every grace
Oh you don't have to worry cause of me you'll find no traceIt really is to late, why did you wait?
You could have sent me at least one dinner plate
I guess it is my fate
And La Ilaha Illa Allah is my mate. (translation: "I shall worship no God but Allah". This is usually the verse suicide bombers yell out before detonating their bombs).

(developing)

Europe’s new found immigration rational too-little too-late.

2006-06-02T01:54:00.000-04:00

I freakin love the Sandmonkey’s response to the Austrian Interior Minister’s comment on how Muslim immigrants to Europe are “unintegratable” after years and years of Multi Culti worship excercised by his country.

Check it out:

Dude, you can't call them unintegratable when you never tried to integrate them. They are not assimilated because you never tried to assimilate them in the freakin first place. You felt guilty about being european and having different cultural values, so you told them they can have their own ghettos, their own schools and patted yourself on the back for your enlightend toelrant views. Now look where it got you! And what do u do? Do you attempt to fix the problem the right way? By forcing assimilation? By ending your stupid multiculturalism policy? Nooo. You just want to get rid of those who proved that it failed. Yeah, get rid of the evidence that there is a problem. Much easier than fixing it!

Fu*k yeah!

To Canadian readers:
Do the bold lines remind you of anyone?

This explains things a bit

2006-06-02T01:50:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder why those on the left become a bunch of pricks when debated?

Leftism, and liberalism, and progressivism, and etc-ism. are not merely simple politics for most of these people. Their politics to them are a core part of their identity, and, more importantly, a central support propping up their egos. They are enlightened because they believe these things; someone who does not believe these things, and yet who, superficially at least, appears to be about as smart as they might be, represents a threat to their egos. The foundation upon which a crucial structure of their sense of self-worth is undermined if they discover that there may be people who can pass as normal and intelligent and yet do not believe as they do.
If one is smart, then one believes in progressivism.
If one believes in progressivism, then one is smart.
Those are the two assumptions that prop up their sense of self worth, and they are refuted by examples of smart people who don't believe in progressivism.
And because there is a great deal of personal psychological investment in progressivism, they react intemperately to rejections of it. It's not merely a tax cut that's being debated; it's they're very sense of importance that's being attacked. It's not merely gay marriage which is being argued against; it's their value as human beings that is being uncouthly denigrated.
This tends to make the left more emotional and, well, angry when debating issues. It's all well and good to discuss a purely theoretical issue. But when you have a strong emotional investment in it -- when you have skin in the game, as it were -- it becomes not an academic debate but a heated argument.

H/T Hugh Hewitt

Question mark on the Haditha massacre:

2006-06-02T01:43:00.000-04:00

In the Arab World whenever a military operation that ends up with mass civilian casualties, you’ll never hear the end of it. They’re would be marches, angry callers who voice their opinions about the Great Satan to live Al Jazeera programs, front-page world war 3 type headlines in government controlled newspapers, angry marches fom Morocco all the way to Oman. So you would think that after the Haditha massacre they’re would be a similar reaction, especially when we consider the details of the killings.

However, it was something that was never brought up even in city council meetings:

Kimber said he heard nothing about a civilian massacre during city council meetings and talks with local leaders.
"It would have been huge, there would have been no question it would have filtered down to us," he said. "We reported no significant atmospheric change as a result of that day."

Something’s fishy in this case. Especially when we consider that an embedded journalist who was stationed with the accused Marines has a contradicting storey which could very well clear the accused Marines.

The Palestinian Civil war drags on

2006-05-20T12:34:00.000-04:00

And Hamas continues to prove that Western governments were right all along when they cut off their "aid package" to the Palestinian authority.

First, you have a Hamas taking a page out of the Liberal party playbook of governing and get caught red-handed:

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, has ordered an investigation after a Hamas official was stopped at the Gaza-Egypt border with $800,000 in cash.
Sami Abu Zuhri had tried to cross into the Gaza Strip with the money but was detained and the cash confiscated, Julio de la Guardia, a spokesman for the European Union observation force at Rafah terminal, said on Friday.

And they try to kill a respected Palestinian intelligence officer who's known to be a moderate.

Hamas accused over Gaza blast

Saturday 20 May 2006, 17:52 Makka Time, 14:52 GMT

The chief of Palestinian intelligence services has been taken to a hospital in Israel after being seriously injured in a blast at his Gaza headquarters.

Tareq Abu Rajab, the overall head of the Palestinian Authority intelligence services, was with several of his bodyguards in a lift when an explosion ripped through the building in Gaza City on Saturday.

I'm hoping to god that this will (finally!) wake the Palestinian people that a Hamas government will only make their lives even more miserable than it already is, but I'm not holding my breath. Not when it’s a population that still celebrates suicide bombing knowing full well that there would be a military backlash against them.

Grab some beer and popcorn and enjoy the show

2006-05-20T09:53:00.000-04:00

This should be interesting. How will the Canadian left react t this? While their ideological kissing cousins down south are already denouncing this measure as "racist"

Should they come out denouncing this, they would essentially be denouncing a measure that was in the forefront of Trudeau's legacy ("Official languages, not one but two"). Will they defend a measure that's championed by their political hero, and praise their most despised foreign leader ever, or will they denounce Bush and sham their political hero? Should be fun to watch.

Iran is suddenly an innocent flower.

2006-05-20T09:07:00.000-04:00

You've all must have heard by now that the original storey in the National Post about Iran instituting a policy that requires Jews and Christians to wear labels is now sketchy at best. Obviously this raises many questions about the journalistic methods of the National Post itself, but what I find the most odd about all this was the reaction from our resident appeasers and Mid-east totalitarian apologists.

From their reaction you would swear that Iran was the undeserved victim of a vicious smear employed by the vast right wing conspiracy in trying to convince the world that Iran should be nuked back to the stone ages.

Take for instance this guy who's literally frothing in the mouth that Iran would be victim of such a hoax. What's even funnier was the link he provides to credit his/her sources, check out the reactions:

From a guy calling himself "Cueball"

The damage is done, unfortunately.

Iran's leadership apparently was undeserving of any scrutiny and scorn from the world. Ahmadinejad's holocaust denial and threatening to wipe Israel off the map and his mad ravings about Islamic supremacy in this world; victimless crimes apparently , which should not be taken very seriously, even if the guy is pursuing Nuclear weapons. No, according to Cueball, this alone tarnished Iran's repution in the world. And apparently is a crime that should be punishable by jail:

The National Post should be taken to court. A don't think a retraction will be good enough. There has got to be some standards for checking sources and facts. Printing a great big hoax, calling it news, and then putting an itty bitty retraction on page 20 just doesn't cut it.

And…

Perhaps the journalist should be jailed instead.

And of course, as always with the appeasing left, Israel must be thrown in the blame game for good measure and moral equivilancy:

As if Iran is the only nation that prohibits religious minorities from top posts? How many Arab Muslims hold senior positions in the IDF or Israeli Cabinet?

Quite a few actually, but that's not really the subject here. To me, this whole issue is like falsely accusing a convicted rapist of murder. Its wrong, but its not a mistake worthy of self-flagellation.

Note the difference in reactions by the liberal-left between this episode and others when Iran wasn't exactly the innocent virgin. As always whenever a leader in that part of the world states outrageous opinions publicly, jails dissidents, orders his police force to jail judges and beat reformists badly, and commits human rights abuses unseen since world war 2, the "progressives" among us simply shrug, downplay or ignore such actions. Worrying that raising those issues would reward their domestic political opponents' ("Neoconservatives"-whatever the fuck that means) theory on these maniacs.

Why is that? Why is it that you have to beat a condemnation out of a leftie for the actions middle eastern tyrants, but a mistake or miscalculation by a western leader against them is an unforgivable sin?

One could argue that this behavior is a confirmation that third-world suffering and human-rights causes are nothing but cheap rhetoric in their activism. People who talk the talk but don't walk the walk. All for the purpose of hoping to attract some ethnic voters their way every once in a while. Can this be labeled as racist? I think it can. Although I'm sure that this theory would horrify them beyond belief.

All I know, is that Iran doesn't deserve such a spirited defense from our resident lefties. Especially considering Iran is the purpatrator of many crimes and policies that goes against many issues the left claims to hold dear to their hearts.

Canada is one giant Islamophobic hellhole- Mohammed ElMasry

2006-05-18T11:44:00.000-04:00

Talk about pissing on the rug of your host nation; get a load of this from Mohamed "Israeli Civilians are legitimate targets" ElMasry.

For Muslims in Canada, freedom of religion is less assured today than it was five years ago. Just because they are Muslims, many have been victimized by security certificate investigations, which allow authorities to detain anyone indefinitely. Others have been placed on no-fly lists or no- passport lists -- often without their knowledge, until the day they need to travel or renew their documents. Moreover, these lists are made up by civil servants, not by the courts.

Muslims in Canada today suffer from more discrimination, and more harassment at schools or in workplaces than before 9/11. The government and media have shown that they couldn't care less.

Young Canadian Muslims -- especially women wearing the traditional Hijab headscarf, or other distinctive Islamic clothing -- are made to feel like strangers, foreigners and aliens in their own country.

Hate literature against Islam and Muslims is on the rise, with statistics showing that Muslims are replacing Blacks and Jews as the number-one group victimized by hate and vandalism in Canada. But very little has been offered through government programs to educate the general public, or to make any impact in the school system.

Canadian Muslims are this country's largest non-Christian religious group, numbering some 750,000. About half of us are Canadian-born and the rest are immigrants from more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe.

Anti-Islam in the Canadian media is alive and well. You have only to glance at summaries of The Canadian Islamic Congress's annual research report on the subject to see that the National Post is the worst offender; unfortunately, other major papers in this country are not far behind.

I'd love to go through each paragraph and debunk each and every single one of his paranoid illusions about how I'm supposedly a second-class citizen in Canada, but I've already wrote extensively about fear mongering by the likes of ElMasry here.

And unfortunately, like I stated, ElMasry's words and actions are causing more tension among Canada's Muslim and Non-Muslim communities then he could ever hope for.

(H/T Dust My Broom)

Darfur and Iraq. An Interesting parallel.

2006-05-18T06:15:00.000-04:00

A conversation I had at work yesterday

Picture a crowded mess/cafeteria at around noon in a large office building. There I was enjoying my 12 inch Turkey Sandwich from Subway while reading the sports section of the Montreal Gazette.

Out of the blue, a co-worker(we'll call her Kim) barges in and takes a seat right next to me.

Kim: Hey Kareem (not my real name), you voted Conservative in the last election.
Me: Yeah…
Kim: Tell me something, why isn't Harper sending troops to Darfur?
Me: Well, the military is stretched pretty thin; recruitment is pretty low nowadays and with us being in Afghanistan and all…
Kim: Well I think its time that we got away from George W. Bush's crusade against the Muslims, and get back to peacekeeping!
Me: Crusade against the Muslims? They were harboring Al Qaeda-
Kim: Not our problem! Were not war makers (her word) were peacekeepers, and I think its high time Harper remembers that. We should pull out of Afghanistan and send them to Darfur for peacekeeping.
Me: Well Kim, Peacekeeping automatically assumes that there's you know…peace going on, or any kind of cease fire in place. What's happening in Darfur can be charitably labeled as ethnic cleansing. If any troops were to go into that region it would make their combat missions in Afghanistan look like Spring break in Daytona. Now generally speaking I'm for-
Kim: I don't care. It’s a humanitarian mission; we should help those people, unless of course Stephen Harper has a problem helping black people!

Timeout: Just for the record dear reader, this is a woman who clutches her purse whenever she passes by a young Haitian male in the Metro.

Long Silence.

Me: You really wanna play that game Kim? You wanna walk down that aisle. Fine Hey, two can play that game. Now let me just know where exactly do you stand on this. You're for Humanitarian missions' right?
Kim: Yes!
Me: Ok, now let me just get your point of view on certain things. You believe that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who terrorized his people right?
Kim: Well…of course but-
Me: Hold on, I just want to know where exactly do you stand on this…Now you believe that he was indeed a brutal murderer, the mass graves don't lie he has killed thousands of innocent men, women and children, he crushed dissent, and starved his own people-
Kim: Yeah yeah I heard it all…What does this have to do with Darfur?!
Me: I'm getting there. So we have it established that your for humanitarian mission which would free people of mass murder and genocide, and that you believe that Saddam was indeed a brutal dictator that did in fact slaughter his people left, right and center. So, let me ask you something, why exactly were you opposed to the Iraq war 3 years ago?
Kim: (She goes on and on, I can't remember the precise words, but I did hear, imperialism, oil, Halliburton and other worn out leftist clichés.).
Me: Be that as it may, the Iraqi people were liberated from a monstrous leader. There's no doubt that they're better off without him don't you think?
Kim: I suppose. What the hell does that have to do with Darfur?
Me: I just find it weird, you advocate one military intervention based on humanitarian grounds, but oppose another.
Kim: The Iraq war was no based on humanitarian grounds, it was all for-
Me: Over 20 million have been liberated from a mass killer Kim, that's not a humanitarian feat?
Kim: That's not why Bush went into Iraq. He said it was about Weapons of Mass destruction and all that shit…
Me: Hold on! You mean to tell me that you simply oppose the Iraq war based on a technicality? That had Bush just went out and stated that this was for the well-being of the Iraqi people, you would be all for it?
Kim: (after a 20 second silence)…no.
Me: Then you're not really for Humanitarian missions are you?
Kim: I am!
Me: No your not, you wouldn't exactly be opposed to one so vigorously while advocating another with passion.
Kim: Iraq was not a humanitarian mission…
Me: *sigh*...true or false, a brutal dictator was overthrown and Iraqis now have an elected parliament and a constitution?
Kim: True.
Me: Then, there was a humanitarian factor attached to the Iraq war.
Kim: (silence)

(An awkward 2 minutes of complete silence).
I knew I had her in a corner at this point, so I decided to turn the tables and for once, play the race card against a leftie.

Me: Kim do you have anything against Arabs or Muslims by any chance?
Kim: WHAT!! No!!
Me: I just find it odd, that you were opposed to the well being of the Iraqi people from being slaughtered daily, or the brutal conditions the Afghans were under. Both factors which would resume should the US withdraw from Iraq and NATO withdraws from Afghanistan. BUT you have no problem whatsoever helping the people in Darfur. So what is it Hate the culture? Hate the language?
Kim: I have nothing against Arabs or Muslims!
Me: Funny you oppose to all measures of ending their suffering fro their leaders…
Kim: I'm not!!!
Me: Really then why are you calling for withdrawal? Your opposition to the Iraq war is based on a stupid technicality which shouldn't really matter if you consider the ends and means, and want to withdraw forces from Afghanistan which would help the Taliban get back in power.
Kim: (silence)
Me: Just what I (censored) thought! You guys don't give a dam about third world suffering; the only thing these people are to you is a cheap political stump speech and some photo ops. Calling for military action on humanitarian grounds in one area, while opposing it in another is very freaking hypocritical. This, like all other matters relating to the third world is just a reason for your kind to stump on your political enemies, be it Bush or Harper. Do me a favour and stop claiming to give a damn what's occurring in the third world.

For the Record: I don't think Kim has anything against "Arabs or Muslims". I just wanted to know what it feels like to play the race card from a right-wing point of view. Feels odd, but I got my message through, and revealed her own hypocrisy to her.

Was Vellacott wrong? Not really…

2006-05-11T23:30:00.000-04:00

Is Judicial activism really a myth as many lefties claim? Well, why don’t we ask the head honcho of the Supreme Court herself…back in December.

Judges should feel "emboldened" to trump the written word of the Constitution when protecting fundamental, unwritten principles and rights, Canada's Chief Justice says.
Beverley McLachlin, in a speech delivered in New Zealand, took on critics who say judges have no business going beyond the strict letter of the Constitution to strike down laws and enforce rights.

Any questions?

H/T Filibuster Cartoons

Help free Alaa

2006-05-09T20:25:00.000-04:00

I've been busy for the past few days trying to finalize my first land purchase (A two bedroom Condo. Woo hoo!!) But it seems that I'm late informing you of a VERY important campaign.

Alaa is a secular democracy activist, and a tireless advocate of freedom,
free speech and human rights. He organizes demonstrations and engages
in protests against all kinds of injustices in Egypt and is the winner of the international Best of the Blogs award from Reporters Without Borders last December.
Alaa was arrested while protesting to support Egypt’s Judges fight for independence. 2 weeks earlier he had organized a “National Unity” protest to show solidarity with Egypt’s
Christians who suffered a sectarian attack on 3 churches on Good
Friday. Before that he was one of the few voices that urged calm and
peaceful dialogue while the cartoon crisis was hitting its peak. He is
a desperately needed voice of moderation and democracy in Egypt,
and one of the few flickers of hope in a country whose future seems
mire between the crushing rule of the regime and the fanaticism of the
Islamist opposition.

Here's how you can help:

Pressure the Egyptian government. You can usually do that by writing or phoning in the embassy. But The Mubarak Government being the way it is, this will fall on deaf ears. (They don't give a damn about their own people, you think they're going to give consideration to the opinion of a foreign, ordinary working joe like yourself?) Fat chance. What DOES grab their attention though are the words and actions of Western Governments.

So what specific steps can you take to help Alaa in Canada?
First and foremost e-mail Peter MacKay (Minister of Foreign Affaires): mackap1@parl.gc.ca
Or his Parliamentary Secretary: Deepak Obhari Obhrai.D@parl.gc.ca

Next up: the MP's. Now don't write to any random MP concerning this subject. Target which MP might have an interest rasing this issue. I would suggest the following:
- MP's who represent ridings that has a large Coptic concentration. Its the group that has is the most receptive to pressures on the government that has made them flee their native land. That would mainly consist of MP's in the 905 areas or the Montreal Suburbs who sit on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affaires and International Development.

MP's of interest:
Peter Van Loan:
VanLoan.P@parl.gc.ca
Stephane Dion
Dion.S@parl.gc.ca
Bryan Wilfred
Wilfert.B@parl.gc.ca
Irwin Colter:
cotler.i@parl.gc.ca
Garth Turner
Turner.G@parl.gc.ca
Ruby Dhalla
Dhalla.R@parl.gc.ca

When your writing the Tory or NDP MP's, emphasize the issues of human rights, democracy, freedom of speech etc…As for the Liberals…well…I'm going to sound like a prick but threaten that you will be raising the issue with their Coptic constituents, and that they will definatly hear about it the next election. Sounds bad, but from my experience with this party, nothing makes these people jump more than the prospect of lost votes. Don't bother with the BLOC, on matters of foreign affaires (unless its China or Haiti) they usually couldn't give a damn. So save your efforts when it comes to them.

For those of you too lazy to sit and type an entire letter, the Sandmonkey has drafts for you. All you have to do is sign your name, and add the e-mail list.

THEN e-mail the Egyptian Embassy, and let them know that you've contacted your elected officials regarding the issue. That's it for now. I'll monitor this closely and if nothing happens then I'd be more than happy at launching a Canadian-based campaign on Alaa's behalf. I'm just brainstorming ideas for now, nothing official or solid, but if anyone has any suggestions or would like to help in any way, e-mail me. Make sure you bookmark this Blog for continuous updates:

http://freealaa.blogspot.com

(More Later)

What to do with Zacarias Moussaoui.

2006-05-03T22:15:00.000-04:00

I actually support the decision. After all, there are so many scenarios that are worse than death. A few suggestions for the warden who will have the prick under surveillance:

1. A room that's too small to stand, let the fu*%$r crawl to wherever he wants to go.
2. A built in t.v. which shows nothing but clips of birthdays, weddings, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, graduation, anniversaries, spelling bees etc... of all the victims of 9/11.
3. Over the next few years, every single F.D.N.Y and N.Y.P.D. personnel should get at least 5 minutes alone with Moussaoui. A guard and a doctor should supervise the ass kicking to ensure that Moussaoui stays alive throughout the procedure.

Any other suggestions?

Heroic journalists in the Middle East honored.

2006-05-03T21:53:00.000-04:00

About time!

Three prominent freedom loving, anti-Syrian journalists were targeted in Lebanon in 2005, leaving two brutally killed and one seriously injured. Renowned journalist Samir Kassir (pictured right) was the first targeted and killed on June 2, 2005. Kassir had just criticized the president of Syria Bashar al-Assad days before he was killed in the newspaper he worked for, An-Nahar.

...

On the occasion of the International Day for Press Freedom, a ceremony was held Wednesday in honor of An-Nahar's slain General Manager Gebran Tueni and other murdered journalists.
The event entitled the "Martyrs of the Lebanese Press (1906-2006), 100 Years of Red Ink" was organized by Maharat Foundation in collaboration with UNESCO.

(Source: Ya Libnan)

Its essential from time to time for us to realize the just how big of a blessing it is to live in a free and democratic society. And stories like this always reminds me just how grateful I should be to my parents who brought me here 17 years ago.

If your child is not in Daycare...HE/SHE WILL END UP IN JAIL!- Carolyn Bennett.

2006-05-03T21:15:00.000-04:00

I must once again apologize for the light blogging. They made me the liaison for the interns at work a couple of weeks ago; a hair-pulling, headache inducing task to say the least, throw in the NHL Playoffs and you have a recipe for a major burnout at the end of the day.

Now that my habs have been eliminated, I can focus more on blogging....hopefully.

Now about the budget, It seems the Liberals have just committed another "Beer and Popcorn" type gaffe. Sarah at Choice for Child Care first noticed this:

Dr. Bennett on Duffy today said it was a good thing there is more money for prisons because a lot of kids will end up in prison since the new budget did not have money for ECE...even Mike Duffy said that was a bit harsh...

Vicki heard it so their must of been more of you too! Come on this is too juicy to let go. Honestly if she said that, then she has just pulled a political suicide!

As usual, whenever the Liberals commit a gaffe on national television of this magnitude, I always head to ProudtobeCanadian.ca as Joel always seems to record these moments. Lo and behold, I was right.

Here's the video.

ENJOY!

THANK YOU NEWFOUNDLAND!

2006-04-25T01:31:00.000-04:00

Michael Ryder scored 2:32 into the second overtime to give the Montreal Canadiens a 6-5 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday night and a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference series.

(Source: TSN)

On another note, I'm sorry about the light blogging of late. Work has been crazy, going through a little bit of a writer's bloc (12 hours stuck in cubicle will do that to you) and I've been completely sidetracked by the NHL playoffs. I haven't even so much looked at the front page headlines of the newspapers for the past few days, I just go straight to the sports section. Hopefully things will wind down a bit on Friday Night.

Suicide Bombing in Israel: The Aftermath.

2006-04-18T12:47:00.000-04:00

Every newly elected government has its bumps and bruises at the beginning of the road, but in the case of the new Hamas government, the post-election jinx have really taken a huge financial and political black eye, and following yesterday's suicide bombing, things aren't looking up for Palestine's Taliban.

First off, the LA Times:

THE HORROR OF MONDAY'S SUICIDE bombing in Tel Aviv, which killed the bomber and nine other people and wounded scores more, presented Hamas with an opportunity to break from its history as a supporter of terrorism. Instead, a spokesman for Hamas, which formed a Palestinian parliamentary government last month, described the attack carried out by another group, Islamic Jihad, as an act of self-defense.
If there was any lingering doubt that the U.S. and Europe were right to ostracize the Hamas government and cut off economic aid, it has been dramatically dispelled. It remains part of the problem, not part of any Arab-Israeli solution.

(H.T. Captain's Quarters)

If this is the opinion of a liberal editorial board like the LA Times, you can only imagine how the conservative press is treating this.

But Hamas' nature and arrogance has not only united its opposition in the US, but around the world as well. First it was Israel, then Canada, the US, the EU and now Japan:

Japan, which has given $840m (£474m) to the PA since 1993, said it wanted to see Hamas adopt a more peaceful policy, but did not expressly link its decision to the Tel Aviv attack.

You think this might serve as a wake-up call to the people in the Middle East that electing fundamentalist neo-fascists to government only brings about International isolation and economic strangulation? I sure as hell hope so. In truth, the Palestinian people cannot blame these hard times on anyone but the voters themselves who gave Hamas the power they always wanted.

Suicide Bombing in Israel

2006-04-17T15:56:00.000-04:00

Just another day in the middle east. Terrorist bombing in Israel, Islamists play victimization card, Arab states play stupid, Israel to retaliate.

Wanna know just how deep the stupidity of wankers like this is ingrained in their skull? Most of these falafel snack bars in Israel are run by Arab-Israelis. The one group in Israel where some sympathy is for the Palestinian people remains.

No to Evangelical Christians, yes to Sharia?

2006-04-17T15:50:00.000-04:00

Canadians are becoming increasingly uneasy about mixing religion and politics and they'd be more likely to vote for a party lead by an atheist or a Muslim than an evangelical Christian, suggests a new poll.

Source

Wow! So much for Mr. Syed's paranoid illusions about increased "Islamophobia" in Canada hein?

This part I found funny:

Mr. Grenville said he believes there's been a bit of a backlash against the divisive political debate in the last couple of years over same-sex marriage.

"To me it suggests a growing divide in Canadian culture where religion can become that wedge that pushes people apart," he said.

Main irony here? Muslims for the most part don't believe in the so-called seperation of Church and State. And the way which many muslims view the matter of same-sex marriage would even make the likes of Jerry Falwell and Hal Lindsey blush.

Is Islamaphobia a problem in Canada?

2006-04-17T15:39:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while, you will always have people coming out of the woods playing the victimization card in hopes of raising a subject that's close to their core beliefs and values. One of the best tools to grab the headlines and attention of the general population is to raise the flag of racial or religious intolerance. Nothing makes the Western World rip its shirt in anger more than outright religious or ethnic intolerance practiced within its own borders (as it should, no respectful society should have to put up with injustice and inequality targeted at a specific group). But unfortunately, from time to time, the person whose raising the alarm over a so-called injustice usually exaggerates the situation and blows it out of proportion to make it seem that the problem is worse than it really is.

Enter Imran Syed, who wrote a editorial a few weeks ago in the Toronto Star warning about "Faint signs of Islamophobia" in Canada. What is Mr. Syed basing his fears of "Islamophobia" on? A trip to a department store where this event occurred:

A few days ago while entering a big-box store, I encountered what I thought was "Islamophobia."

The man in front of me was dressed in flowing robes, had a beard and was wearing a prayer cap. Accompanying him was a woman who was also wearing a flowing black robe that covered her entire person except for her eyes.

I had to show my membership card to a young woman who barely noticed I was there because she was engrossed in conversation with her colleague regarding the odd-looking couple that had just passed by: "Can you believe that? Why does she wear that? Because she's Mus-lum and she has to wear that."

As discreet as the two young women were trying to be, I could see the level of discomfort in their eyes and body language. They were right, the people who had just entered were, in fact, Muslim.

But that right there doesn't exactly convince me that the conversation had something of discomfort with Muslims in general. From what I can tell, the only thing the girls were uneasy about was the choice of clothing, and how it relates to that women's religion. And considering the circumstances: situated in a western, liberal society like Canada, where short skirts and tank tops pass of as the norm nowadays, a women covered from head to toe showing nothing but her eyes does indeed result in a bit of a culture shock for people who have lived almost their entire lives here.

Its not something they see everyday, and considering that high volume Muslim immigration into Canada is only a somewhat recent phenomenon (10-15 years), you can expect some level of culture shock to be in place among Canadians before they eventually accept sightings like this as a norm into their daily lives. It should be stated that culture shock to the choice of clothing isn't limited to the Muslim community alone, I've heard similar stories when it comes to Sikh men and their Turbans, Hindu women, and even Africans.

But as history as shown, whether it be Chinese, Italian or Eastern European immigrants, Canadian society eventually evolves and accepts the differences among its ethnic groups. But not without going through a period of awkwardness and culture shock at first. So this experience, while I wouldn't call it "normal", is not uncommon within the context.

Syed's second scenario is even less convincing of a signal of "Islamophobia".

While I was in the electronics aisle, the same couple walked by. Another shopper who was walking by with her son in the opposite direction quickly grabbed her son's arm and pulled him closer to her. That was odd, I thought, but this must be a protective mother who always keeps an eye on her son.

One has to wonder just how clueless Mr. Syed is of behavior of ordinary parents. A parent who grabs their child's arm and pulling the kid close to them while a stranger is walking in the opposite direction
is almost a reflex motion to all parents. Whether this happens in a department store, a shopping mall, the street, the park, a restaurant, anywhere. Parents are always protective of their kids (especially the young ones) in all public spaces, and it doesn't matter if the stranger walking on the opposite side is Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist. To use Syed's strange reasoning of the observation, if a old lady who pulls her purse closer to her chest whenever she gets passed an Anglo-Saxon teenager (which occurs almost every second in day light), the old lady has some reservation about the Caucasian race!

Now this is not to say that there isn't a "negative vibe" surrounding Muslims in Canada, I believe a certain tension between the Muslim Community and the rest of Canada does exist. But Syed's two examples are noting but paranoid and in a way, delusional.

And from there, Syed completely misses the point on why such a "negative vibe" exists in the first place.

The recent global uproar (albeit disproportionate) with respect to the Danish cartoons, the ongoing fiasco in Iraq and the "global war on terror" have many Canadians taking a jaundiced view of Islam and Muslims. The common thread in each of these global events is the lack of understanding of Islam and Muslims.

Now who do you think is to blame for that?! Could it be because Muslim groups in Canada have done a piss poor job of condemning the actions of the Islamists back in their homelands?, and at worse go on intimidating journalists and politicians who dare call suicide bombers for what they are as "racist" and "Islamophobic"? Could it be because the leaders of the organizations claiming to speak on behalf of the community have made shocking and derogatory remarks about Israelis and Jews? Could it be because of the terrorists who are fighting Canadian troops in Afghanistan as we speak are doing it in the name of Islam and what they perceive to be the ticket to paradise?

And most importantly, isn't it because the Muslim Canadian organizations are trying to muzzle any open debate discussing the connections between the Islamic texts and terrorism rather than taking part of these debates and convince the majority of Canadians that Muslims in this country can indeed live in a democratic society peacefully with those that have opinions that are different to theirs and in some occasions, hold opinions that would be heresy to their religious belief.

Running around yelling "Islamophobia" and "Racism" to shut off the critics of Islam not only re-enforces the conviction of those who hold these anti-Muslim views, but also convinces many Canadians that our community is at odds with theirs when it comes to free speech and suitable discussions in a democratic society. It is this, and not the chaos in the Middle East that's driving tensions between Muslim and Non-Muslim Canadians to new heights every day.

The sooner people like Imran Syed realize that, and begin to forcibly attack the cancerous fundamentalist ideology that exists in the Muslim world ins instead of focusing their efforts on Canadian journalists, academics and politicians, the sooner the this "Islamophobia" disappears.

Its quite ironic that its articles like this by the like of Syed, is what drives up the very thing they denounce every day.

All in all I think the vast majority of Canadians have no personal problems with their Muslim countrymen. But as long as events like this and this are done in the name of Islam, and the Muslim Canadian organization does nothing to flush it out of their belie ,that awkwardness Syed feels, will only grow.

FOR THE RECORD: I have never in any way shape or form experienced discrimination based on my religious beliefs in my entire 13 years as a Canadian citizen. Canadians in general, never go looking for trouble among its own people, and try to raise hell just for the sake of raising hell.

Not everyone's having a good Easter weekend.

2006-04-15T08:41:00.000-04:00

Especially not in Egypt

Police said they had arrested three men in the attacks in the northern Mediterranean city.

One
was said to have attacked two churches; one assaulted a third church;
and the other was arrested during a foiled attack on a fourth church

One worshipper was killed and at least two others were in serious condition after the attacks, the official said.

Initial
police reports said a total of 17 people were injured: 10 at the Saints
Church in downtown Alexandria and three at the nearby Mar Girgis
Church. Four worshippers were wounded at a church in Abu Qir, a few
miles to the east.

Police said a fourth attack was foiled by an officer guarding another church in Egypt's second-largest city.

Just one drop in the huge bucket of crap that's wrong with the Middle Eastern society. I wish I can tell you incidents like this are isolated and rare. But unfortunately, its all too common when it comes to the practice of religious tolerance in throughout the Middle East. Arab Christians have always been viewed as outsiders in their respective societies. Even though they have lived in the same lands for generations (in some areas, longer than the Muslim population) as their Muslim countrymen, they were always viewed as second-class citizens based on many obscure reasons. Suspicion that they're collaborative with Western Governments, anger of their resistance to Supreme Islamic power (Shria Law for example) and the old classical reasoning of not being from the same religion as the majority of the population. The only thing you have to know here, is that the vast majority of Muslim in the Middle East see these people as outsiders. Outsiders who should be subjected to certain restrictions for the simple sin of not being born a Muslim.

The Egyptian Bloggers, (bless them) unsurprisingly, are not convinced by the Egyptian government's statement on the manner:

Freedom for Egyptians:

Egyptian TV reporterd that the Governor of Alexandria said one of the attackers was an ex-police officer who is mentally disturbed. This is so repulsive. The government of Egypt is the government of excuses. Any incident that happens in Egypt and denied any logical or objective explanation is blamed on mentally-disturbed people...

The Big Pharaoh

And of course, as they always said when similar incidents happened, the officials are saying the attackers are "insane". It seems we have too many insanes here.

The Sandmonkey digs a little deeper:

Ok, there is something extremely fishy here. The Official story from the police says that the guy who attacked the two churches is mentaly unstable- like they always say when such an attack happens- but that was until the second and third guy were arrested and the thrid and fourth attacks were carried through. The fishy part is in regard to the church security. Chruches in Egypt are always protected by the police. There is always a police car and at least 4-5 policemen protecting it. Are you trying to tell me that this mentally unstable guy managed to go in the first church and attacked 11 people by his lonesome, and then managed to get out without being attacked by the security outside, and then managed to go inside a second church and attack 3 more people? All of those people and 2 infiltration, done by one guy holding a knife? Are you kidding me? I am supposed to believe this?

All you need to do now, is compare the reaction to this slaughter at the hands of Muslims against their own fellow countrymen, to that of the daily violence in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, where the killing is supposedly done by Western Troops. That difference right there, is all you need to know about the current moral compass used by the majority of population in the region and the manner in which Christians are viewed as.

This is what the Lefties were comparing to Auschwitz?!

2006-04-11T00:25:00.000-04:00

Just read this and laugh/weep at the drooling idiots who are still screaming bloody murder of the "concentration camp-like" conditions over at Guantanamo Bay:

Asadullah strives to make his point, switching to English lest there be any mistaking him. "I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great," said the 14-year-old, knotting his brow in the effort to make sure he is understood.
Not that Asadullah saw much of the Caribbean island. During his 14-month stay, he went to the beach only a couple of times - a shame, as he loved to snorkel. And though he learned a few words of Spanish, Asadullah had zero contact with the locals.

He spent a typical day watching movies, going to class and playing football. He was fascinated to learn about the solar system, and now enjoys reciting the names of the planets, starting with Earth. Less diverting were the twice-monthly interrogations about his knowledge of al-Qaida and the Taliban. But, as Asadullah's answer was always the same - "I don't know anything about these people" - these sessions were merely a bore: an inevitably tedious consequence, Asadullah suggests with a shrug, of being held captive in Guantanamo Bay.

Movies, school, football, warm weather, beach atmosphere, jesus freaking Christ, throw in some women and you've got paradise...oh wait! They have those too!

It goes on:

On January 29, Asadullah and two other juvenile prisoners were returned home to Afghanistan. The three boys are not sure of their ages. But, according to the estimate of the Red Cross, Asadullah is the youngest, aged 12 at the time of his arrest. The second youngest, Naqibullah, was arrested with him, aged perhaps 13, while the third boy, Mohammed Ismail, was a child at the time of his separate arrest, but probably isn't now.

Tracked down to his remote village in south-eastern Afghanistan, Naqibullah has memories of Guantanamo that are almost identical to Asadullah's. Prison life was good, he said shyly, nervous to be receiving a foreigner to his family's mud-fortress home.

The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. "Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don't have anything against them," he said. "If my father didn't need me, I would want to live in America."

Asadullah is even more sure of this. "Americans are great people, better than anyone else," he said, when found at his elder brother's tiny fruit and nut shop in a muddy backstreet of Kabul. "Americans are polite and friendly when you speak to them. They are not rude like Afghans. If I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer _ or an American soldier."

Everything and anything about the horror stories about Gitmo are now a joke, let's no take any of those complaints seriously again. For the love of god, they're interviewing those boy in Afghanistan away from the so-called American captors.

I now consider this whole brouhaha about Gitmo to be closed, sealed and shut.

H/T

Interesting Seating arrangements:

2006-04-04T08:02:00.000-04:00

Take a look at the seating arrangements of the new Parliament and quite a few thoughts pop into mind:
(Thanks BBS)

Some of the blocks in which the CPC MP's are paired is quite ironic, if not remarkable. A few thought that spring to mind:

The Red Tory Bench: To Harper's left, you have Peter MacKay (Minister of Foreign Affaires) and Jim Prentice (Minister of Indian and Northern Development affaires). Should make quite an interesting pair, as both have squared of against each other in the 2003 PC leadership debate. And one thing I have always taken note from leadership races is that the bruises that the candidates sustain and cause never really heal, not even with time.

Think about it: Harper Vs. Stronach. Martin Vs. Chretien. Boisclair Vs. Marois. Jim Flaherty Vs. Ernie Eves. Not exactly prime examples of forgive and forget. (For the record, I admire both these men, and would have no problem supporting either for a future leadership of the party).

Founding Fathers of a certain revolution: To Harper's right you have Tony Clement and Jim Flaherty. Both very instrumental in the famed Common Sense Revolution that swept Ontario in the mid 90's. Which is great for both of them. Can spend the boring hours of question period, point of orders and formalities reminiscing about the good old days in Mike's cabinet.

The BrokeBack Mountain bench : Chuck Strahl and Monte Solberg. Two of the most beloved guys in the party. But sheesh, they're already roommates. So now the first person they see in the mourning is each other, spend most of the working day side by side, have dinner with each other and finally are the last person they see before they go to bed. I mean...throw in a couple of horses and some cowboy hats and.......Ha! I'm just teasing. You rule Monte! P.S. I freakin miss your blog posts!

The Bible Belt Bench: Vic Toews and Stockwell Day. I don't really expect much disagreements to take place between these in their own chit-chats. (Again for the record, I have no ill feelings for either men, especially Day, since he managed to take a sharpside turn for the better since he stepped down as leader of the Canadian Alliance.).

The Quebec Bench: Blackburn and Vernier side by side. Makes sense considering the close proximity of their cabinet files. Francophonie and Ag. of Economic development for Quebec).

The Future Prime Ministers Bench. Maxime Bernier and John Baird. This is one bench the opposition should keep within eyesight as both these men will play a significant role in the future of the party, that I can guarantee you. One interesting bit about this, Bernier is older than Baird, yet Baird is the one with far more government and political experience as a whole.

Women of talent bench: Diane Finley and Rona Ambrose. Two women whom Ken Dryden should certainly ignore unless he wants to get a good smackdown.

The odd couple bench: Get this! An Quebec urban, socially liberal, French almost unilingual Conservative MP (Sylvie Boucher from Beauport—Limoilou) sitting right next to An Alberta rural, social conservative, Anglo unilingual MP Jean (from Fort Mcmurray-Athabasca). Needless to say I expect this will be the only section in parliament to be quiet.

Other observations:

-Rahim Jaffer is a little too far in the back in my opinion. So is Laurie Hawn.
-I'm very happy to see James Moore sitting in the front benches. Plus, since Fortier is unable to be the house of commons, Moore's role as his parliamentary secretary will really be an opportunity for him to shine and skyrocket his way through the upper ranks of the party.
-Notice how most of the So Cons and mavericks tend to be in the corners or waaaaayyy back behind the cabinet.
-Its a little sad to see some Veteran MP's stuck in the back. Especially considering many rookie MP's are practically so close to the PM they can almost just reach out and touch him.

Zarqawi steps down as Insurgency leader

2006-04-03T09:26:00.000-04:00

I don't know if this is real or satire:

Jordanian al-Qaeda militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been forced to step down as leader of a coalition of Iraqi militants, a leading Islamist claims.
Huthaifa Azzam, whose father was a mentor of Osama Bin Laden, said Zarqawi was replaced by an Iraqi two weeks ago.

Mr Azzam claimed some were unhappy about Zarqawi's tactics and tendency to speak for the insurgency as a whole.

However, experts say choosing an Iraqi as political leader is a tactic aimed at giving the insurgency an Iraqi face.

What the hell? Is there a Board of Governors which Zarqawi had to deal with?

What reformers in the Middle East go through.

2006-04-03T08:06:00.000-04:00

Freedom for Egyptians describes a very depressing incident that gives you idea of what those who wish to change the status-quo in the region go through day in and day out. I wish I could tell you that incidents like this are rare and isolated. But in truth, its just another day in the life of a moderate in the Middle East.

The Egyptian liberal Al Wafd party headquarters in Dokki was stormed yesterday by the 71 year old disposed leader and last September presidential runner Nomaan Gomaa with 60 armed thugs and gang members.

Gomaa who was dethroned last January by the reformists of Al Wafd leaderships on allegations of hidden agenda and conspiring with the current regime of Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak that does not spare a moment to stifle liberal reformers for the best interest of the ruling National Democratic party and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Read the rest.

Does Linda McQuaig care about Women's rights?

2006-04-03T07:34:00.000-04:00

This is all you need to know about how the political partisanship of some individuals tends to make them turn their backs on matters which they supposedly hold dear.

Linda McQuaig, Canada's poor-man answer to Maureen Dowd, wrote an editorial in where she bitches and moans about certain Foreign Policy actions which the Harper government had undertaken so far. Among her objections and criticisms was the Conservative reaction to the recent Hamas victory in the legislative elections in Palestine.

Then last week Canada became the first country (following Israel) to cut off aid to the new Palestinian government, despite the fact that it was democratically elected by the Palestinian people.

Now I know that this claim has been made by many other people, but I chose to focus on McQuaig because she seems to have some kind of...affection for the fundamentalist/Terrorist organization. This isn't the first time she has written in their defense.

Its quite ironic that McQuaig would criticise the cut of funding of an organization whose social policies, especially regarding women and minorities, is precisely the kind of policies she rails against in this country. (Women's rights for example).

For starters listen to this audio interview by the Media Line. where they speak to Ghada Zughayar. A Palestinian women who is Assistant to the General Director for External Relations of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees where they talk about Hamas' position on Palestinian women and their role for society. Is this really an organization which the likes McQuack should be upset about not being financially backed by her federal government?

And as for Hamas being "democratic", listen to James Bow on the latest Bloggers Hotstove (at around 10 minutes through the roundtable dicussion)where he describes how democracy is more than just about elected governments, but a series of checks and balances that gives the population a set of individual liberties that are fundamental for any functioning democracy (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press etc...). And time and time again, Hamas has shown that its not exactly sympathetic to those particular set of standards.

Is McQuaig's disdain for the Conservative government so deep that she's willing to overlook or even ignore an Hamas' position on Women in society? Or is she uninformed of the situation? I have a hunch that its not because of the later, as McQuaig has covered the Middle East quite extensively during her career. You cannot have gone through such long period of time commenting on issues of the region without recognizing how groups like Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood view a women's place in society.

Its like talking extensively about the Montreal Canadians without the knowledge that they won 23 Stanley cups.

But whatever the reason is, McQuaig's reaction to the Hamas cut in funding, is just one example of blind partisanship and political deranged syndrome at its worst. In time, it makes you forget your own principles.

The REAL civil War in the Middle East is not in Iraq.

2006-04-01T19:21:00.000-04:00

But in Palestine:

GAZA (Reuters) - Gunmen from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement fired off guns in a show of force in Gaza on Saturday, defying orders from Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to stay off the streets.

The militants demanded Haniyeh arrest members of a rival group they blamed for deadly clashes in which three people died, violence that has posed a major challenge for Islamist militant group Hamas now in charge of the Palestinian government.

LOL!! You know I really don't know who to cheer for. :-)

A corrupt organization Vs. A Mini Taliban. Either way, ordinary Palestinians and Israelis will be the real winners whichever of these asswipes to manage to kill the other.

(H/T LGF)

Liberals loose (yet another) talking point.

2006-04-01T19:18:00.000-04:00

Remember the hissy fit many Fiberals made early in the election campaign when it came about that *GASP* some pro-Republican individuals in the US was pulling for Harper to win the election and going so far as suggesting that they're actually helping his campaign.

Well, we can rest easy for the next election. The Liberals apparently have hired Democrat Joe "There was not one election disaray I did'nt take part in" Trippi to help them with their leadership campaign.

Apart from the fact that this guy was not part of any successful Presidential run, Liberals will no longer be able to bitch and moan about any intervention by a Republican party sympathizer to the CPC in any Election campaign.

Speaking of which, do you think the media reaction to this would be as hysterical to this as...oh I don't know...say Karl Rove helping a future Conservative campaign?

Hmmm...I wouldn't bet on it.

(H/T Neale News)

Islamist stupidity knows no borders

2006-04-01T18:42:00.000-04:00

You know you REALLY have to hand it to the Muslim-Canadian community groups in this country. They never seem to miss an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot, and simply re-enforce the negative stereotypes they claim to battle against!

Be it Aly Hindy's threats , Mohammed El Masry's stupidity, Omar Alghabra's staff and their Freudian slips, these community groups just seem to dig themselves deeper and deeper and are just begging to be ridiculed by the entire country.

But now, it seems that Syed Soharwardy was way to eager to throw his name in the hat among the batch of embarrassing individuals which the Muslim Community in Canada is cursed of being represented by.

This dumbass is the Calgary imam who is taking the Western Standard magazine (Canada's equivalent of the National Review) to the Alberta Human Rights commission following their publication of the infamous Danish Cartoons and a description of the insane reaction they created in the Middle East and Europe.

Oh but that's not all...read what else is Mr.. Soharwardy is upset about:

Earlier this month, I received a copy of Soharwardy's rambling, hand-scrawled complaint. It is truly an embarrassing document. He briefly complains that we published the Danish cartoons. But the bulk of his complaint is that we dared to try to justify it - that we dared to disagree with him.

Think about that: In Soharwardy's view, not only should the Canadian media be banned from publishing the cartoons, but we should be banned from defending our right to publish them. Perhaps the Charter of Rights that guarantees our freedom of the press should be banned, too.

Soharwardy's complaint goes further than just the cartoons. It refers to news articles we published about Hamas, a group labelled a terrorist organization by the Canadian government. By including those other articles, he shows his real agenda: censoring any criticism of Muslim extremists.

Perhaps the most embarrassing thing about Soharwardy's complaint is that he claims our cartoons caused him to receive hate mail. Indeed, his complaint includes copies of a few e-mails from strangers to him. Some of those e-mails even go so far as to call him "humourless" and tell him to "lighten up". Perhaps that's hateful. But all of those e-mails were sent to him before our magazine even published the cartoons. Soharwardy isn't even pretending that this is a legitimate complaint. He's not even trying to hide that this is a nuisance suit.

This is stupid on so many levels:

1. Lack of respect for Freedom of the Press: Sowhardawy's complaint sends the message that there are Muslims in Canada who do not accept one of the major tenants in any functioning, healthy democracy. Once you accept to live in a country like Canada, you must accept that your political, religious and cultural beliefs will be challenged and criticized from time to time. This is the case for all minority groups. And as an individual citizen, that's simply the price you have to pay in order to practice that same level of freedom. Sowhardway is apparently unwilling to accept the pre-requisite. Making many Canadians deepen their suspicions on whether or not Muslim Canadians can co-exist with them peacefully in a functioning democracy.

2. Lack of Judgment and Common Sense: Had Sowhardawy actually had three brain cells in that thick skull of his, he would have realized that the entire coverage of the Danish Cartoons brouhaha was surrounding not the cartoons themselves, but the actual reaction to those publications. (Things like..oh I don't know...death threats, embassy burnings, uncivilized discourse). The cartoons if Mr.. Sowhardaway remembers, were published way back in October, and never made international headlines until 3 months later. (Again due to the retarded reactions) To claim that it was the cartoons themselves that helped "defame Islam" shows nothing but stupidity on his part.

3. Bringing a dead horse back to life: Due to this dumbass, the Danish Cartoons controversy is right back in the news after 2 months of it slowly disappearing in the classified section of major news outlets. In other words, this idiot has brought back yesterday's news front-and center once again.The very same storey that he claims "defamed Muslims".

4. A strengthened resolve by his opponents: If Sowhardawy believes this will strike fear into news outlets that dare to criticize his ideology, he is sadly mistaken. If anything the media's resolve would be strengthened and would be more encouraged to publish news reports that would put his ilk in more negative light. As we've seen time and time again, if any media outlet fears its freedom is at stake, they retaliate against that source who is trying to whip them into "discipline".

5. The setting of a dangerous precedent: Now if were going to have radical imams take media outlets to tribunals and courts because if things that "offend" them, does that give me the right to take the Toronto Star to court for offending my political beliefs?
(See where this could lead).

Makes you wonder who really is responsible for the "Islamaphobia" which many of these morons bitch about day in and day out.

If you would like to help out the Western Standard in this case, go here. And just make a small donation. Could be 5 dollars could be 10. Believe me the price of one fast food value meal is well worth the struggle to help defend freedom of speech and freedom of the press in this country.

What the Jill Carroll episode tells us about the Middle East

2006-03-31T04:30:00.000-04:00

A huge sigh of relief followed the news that Jill Carroll, the American reporter for the chirstian science monitor was released by her terrorist captors yesterday. The joy was expressed both in the west and especially in the Middle East. But out of all the blog posts I have read on the subject, none of them seemed to have remarked something that was extremely obvious and sickening about the reaction.

Something that tells us a lot about the sick mentality that's gripped the Middle East for the past, oh I don't know, 100 years. All of her defenders in the Arab world called for her release on the basis that (a) she was sympathetic to the so-called "Arab Cause" (b) The fact that she sympathized with he plight of the Palestinians, (c) the fact that she opposed the Iraq War, (d) the fact that she has in the past denounced Western Imperialism in the Middle East.

But what if Carroll wasn't that sympathetic to the Arab problems facing the region today? What if she was an ordinary reporter who gave no opinion of the subjects which she wrote about? Or worse, what if she was a pro-Israel advocate? What if she was for the Liberation of Iraq from Saddam's totalitarian rule? Would the same people who called for her release in the Arab world, be equally passionate about lobbying for her release?

Don't count on it.

We've seen other hostage situations where those who were kidnapped whose fates were not as lucky as Jill's, without a voice of protest from the same group that called for the release of Jill. People like Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl. Who never had the luxury of many peaceniks and Arab nationalists calling for their release. At least not to the same level.

Showing us that in the Middle East today, people who don't exactly see eye-to-eye with the current Arab public opinion, risk being ignored or shown indifference for their fate if ever they get kidnapped. This matters because it is precisely things like this that give Arabs and Muslims a bad name. If the Arab world wishes to convey that it is capable to live peacefully with the western world, then ideology from within must be clear that ALL hostage taking, regardless of the hostage's political views, must be met with the same level condemnation and lobbying.

Foreign Policy with a spine. (part 2)

2006-03-29T16:29:00.000-04:00

What does it say if I learned this from a foreign blog?

Canada Suspends Aid to Hamas-Led Gov't

And we're the first western country to do so! Good job Peter!

TORONTO - Canada said Wednesday it was suspending assistance to the
Palestinian Authority because the new Hamas-led government refuses to renounce violence and recognize
Israel. Hamas responded that Ottawa's decision was hasty and unfair.
ADVERTISEMENT

It was the first government besides Israel to cut off financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority since Hamas won the legislative elections in January, and other nations were expected to follow suit.

Hamas formally took power Wednesday, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas swearing in its 24-member Cabinet.

Hamas and new Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh insist they won't soften the militant group's violent ideology or formally recognize its longtime nemesis.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement that Canada had no choice but to suspend assistance and decline any contact with the new Hamas Cabinet.

"The stated platform of this government has not addressed the concerns raised by Canada and others concerning nonviolence, the recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the roadmap for peace," MacKay said. "As a result, Canada will have no contact with the members of the Hamas Cabinet and is suspending assistance to the Palestinian Authority."

Source

H.T. The SandMonkey

The financial black hole that is public education.

2006-03-29T16:09:00.000-04:00

A quick look at the Liberal Leadership campaign quickly points out that some leadership candidates, especially Belinda Stronach and Bob Rae, wish to make education a central policy in their plank. The NDP as well, has been very loud over the past few years regarding federal funding of education. Here are two problems that spring up immediately.

1. Constitutional: Education is Provincial responsibility For any fed to start meddling in this would create an immediate clash between local and federal governments. Especially in Quebec, where they view education as a major tool to enforce its distinctive nature (language, culture etc...).

2. More funding doesn't mean better academic results, if anything statistics show us its the inverse. More funding, more problems (at the same time a cut in funding doesn't exactly show good results either). Edwin Feulner and Doug Wilson have some revealing statistics in their new book Getting America Right.

Since 1965, according to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the federal government has spent $321 billion on education, including a 90 percent increase since 1997, compared with a 40 percent rise in overall federal spending. Shouldn't the logical result be all sorts of wonderful academic improvements in US schools? Sorry, it hasn't worked out that way. Since 1995 test scores for American school children have fallen steadily behind those of students in Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, and most other industrial nations. In 2003, for example, the United States ranked fourteenth out of thirty-five nations in the eighth-grade math testing. In other words, it looks as though education ranks among the black holes of Federal Spending. -- P.22

If there's one place politicians never look at, its the failures of the actual bureaucracy within the education system. But that would mean pissing off the unions, which left-of-center parties never dare to alienate as they serve a powerful political force for their election campaigns.

(H/T Right Wing News)

Media Management 101

2006-03-29T16:00:00.000-04:00

I'm late (as usual) on commenting on the issue of Harper restricting reporters access from Cabinet meetings. Long and short of it, I don't think its a smart strategy.

Look, I understand Harper's view on this matter. These scrums between cabinet ministers and journalists, while sometimes informative, have always been a fertile occasion for a gaffe or inconsistency in the past. Something which Harper cannot afford in this minority government, as it would mean days and days of damage control, which in the end slows down the government process and is an easy way for the party to loose focus. With this technique, at least he can help keep his government keep their eye on the ball.

Second of all, we know that "photo ops" have not been kind to Harper. From his Afghanistan trip, the media kept talking about his waist size and his choice for soft drinks rather keeping it professional. So the media isn't exactly innocent on this matter. And it certainly raises cynicism about their bitching of wanting to "report the news". So the restriction on photo ops can be understandable as well.

However, I think in this case the negatives outweigh the positives. For starters, creating tension between the media and your administration is not the smartest way of delivering your message. Having a hostile media to deal with means that in the future they will not hesitate about reporting any minor missteps you make into a front-page controversy. Editors and columnists might also feel the rage of their co-workers which in turn leads to negative editorials.

And further more, not allowing the media to report on the cabinet meetings isn't exactly the best manner to show progress. It doesn't show people who are not political junkies out there that government is indeed getting down to business and work is being done. Had I not been a "political junkie" who follows the news on an hourly basis, I would have no idea that these cabinet meeting are going on in the first place...which would make me question "What is the government doing nowadays?" Making me completely unaware of any progress or action the government is making on certain legislation.

And thirdly, it tends to show that your not willing to handle tough questions in periods of difficulty. Which is very bad. As many people rate their leaders for their behavior and handling of matters in times of political crisis. Restricting access to the media in this case would just seem to cement the perception that your not willing to take the heat. (Making people wonder...if you don't want the stress, then why did you take this job in the first place).

So in conclusion, is it illegal? No. Is it understandable? In a way. Is the right way to reach out to voters? The negatives outweigh the positives in this case. Meaning no.

Although I don't think Harper or anyone else in his cabinet is restricting any access to the media overall, I haven't heard that complaint, but only that its restricting access to them at certain times.

A time which reporters see politicans more vulnerable.

Moment of Silence

2006-03-29T15:58:00.000-04:00

Pte. Robert Costall, 22, of the First Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Edmonton, was killed early Wednesday.

An American soldier was also killed and three Canadian soldiers were injured in the battle, which took place in Helmand Province, about 110 kilometres north of Kandahar.

At least eight Afghan National Army soldiers were also reported to have have died.

Costall was born in Thunder Bay, Ont. He is survived by his wife Chrissy and their one-year-old son Colin. Chrissy and Colin live in Namao, north of Edmonton.

Costall's aunt, Colleen McBain described the news as "pretty devastasting."

"I feel it's all from a movie, but it's not a movie," McBain told CTV News Wednesday.

"It's real and there's a lot of other families going to go through the same thing. Unfortunately I think Canada's going to be in there for a long time."

Thank you Pte. Robert Costall, for all the sacrifice you've made for your country and for the security of the world. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

The fact that this guy was only 22 with a wife and child makes this loss really hard to swallow.

Source

Hamas update

2006-03-27T06:50:00.000-04:00

A couple of amusing (as well as depressing) news reports regarding Hamas and the Arab World.

1. The annual reunion of the totalitarian di*kheads (also known as the Arab League Summit) agreed unanimously to support and recognize the Hamas government only a few days after Hamas stated clearly that not only will the refuse to disband its militant wing, but further shield them from any Israeli attack or arrest. Oh yeah, that's the right message to send the world! Unfortunately the international community (as usual) seems to have its head stuck beneath the sand.

Why would the Arab Dicktators offer such aid? Two reasons

-By helping create havoc the Israel/Palestine region, these guys know that their own populations will be stuck on Al Jazeera and its controlled press detailing day by day the Israeli "atrocities" while they go on about their business of corruption, patronage and tighten its grips on its dissidents.
- Had they refused to do so, they would face the wrath of their fundamentalist religious sheiks and mullahs. Meaning Iran in 79 all over again.

Basically common sense and democracy are dammed either way.

2.As for the Hamas cabinet...

Meanwhile, the sole Christian minister in the prospective Hamas-dominated government said on Saturday that he was resigning.

Tanas Abu Eita, from the West Bank town of Bait Sahur near Bethlehem, declined to say why he had taken the decision when asked by AFP. He was to have been the tourism minister.

I guess he finally got the memo as to what Hamas truly thinks of Palestinian Christians.

Hamas meanwhile responds in typical Arab fashion...blame someone else!

Hamas sources confirmed that Abu Eita had tendered his resignation and blamed local and US-led international pressure.

One thing you have to know about these guys...its never their fault when a misstep occurs domestically.

WMD's and Al Qaida Links and Russian involvement with Saddam explained.

2006-03-25T10:28:00.000-04:00

If your a regular reader of ITM, you already know that some of the documents relased clearly showed a connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein's regime. But just what exactly are the specifics? How close of a relationship was it? What did it involve? Was it made through a third-party connection or was it a direct line of communication? And what more did the documents revealed?

Now unless you think spending weeks looking through the docuements themselves is your idea of a good time, go ahead.

But...Randy from RightWinged.com (who is guest blogging at Expose the Left) gives us a roundup of all the past and present news releases concerning what we know so far about the documents that and offers some analysis of his own.

Here's the post. Its quite long (a good 15 minutes if not more should you go through the links), but VERY well worth the read.

If anything save the page as it will be usefull should any more findings come out concerning Saddam's reign.

Syria tightens its grip to power:

2006-03-25T09:08:00.000-04:00

You know the scary thing about all this is that the Liberals considered these folks to be "peacemakers".

Syrian security forces have arrested a dissident writer after at least four other people including his son were detained for speaking out against the government, rights activists say.

Both the Syrian Human Rights Organisation and Anwar Bunni, a human-rights lawyer, said Ali Abdullah, who spent five months behind bars last year, had been arrested at his home for "unknown reasons".

Just another day in Bashar Al Assad's hell hole.

Source

In defense of...

2006-03-25T08:44:00.000-04:00

Just my opinions on some recent news items which came up that caused a few emotions to burst up around the blogsphere:

In defense of....The Afghanistan Mission

Ever since the case of Abdul Rahman came up (the Afghani citizen who converted to Christianity and who now faces the death penalty) there's been some grumblings on this side of the Atlantic. I've even read some comments that went as far as calling for the withdrawal of troops as a means of punishing the new Afghan government's policies on religious freedom. Look...I understand the frustration, I too find the case of Abdul Rahman to be appalling, and I pray to god that he will walk out of all this in one piece, but let's just take a deep breather and examine the situation:

Let us remember that Afghanistan was trapped in decades and decades of religious fundamentalism, war, tribal clashes, poverty, foreign occupiers, etc. Therefore we really shouldn't expect any miracles to occur in terms of human rights and religious tolerance in a short time. We can't expect a country that was living in the what is considered to the equivalent of the dark ages 5 years ago to suddenly embrace 20th century form of social enlightenment in such a short while.

For enlightenment to start taking hold in Afghanistan (and the Muslim World for that matter) certain pre-requisites need to take hold such as Educational institutions, Proper Infrastructure, a developed economy, an appreciation for the arts, and then slowly society begins to progress.

Withdrawing troops now, would most definitely make all the progress so far collapse, resulting in the return of the religious Fundamentalists to take power. Taking the country is the opposite direction its going now...backwards.

In defense of...the Ralph Klein Budget:

I know a large increase in spending in the recent Alberta Budget might make a few Fiscal Conservatives wince at the sight, but truth is its to be expected, if not applauded. (Hear me out for a second!).

Wasn't the whole argument behind budgetary tax cuts (which Klein did in the 90's) was that it would result in higher government revenue in the future? (which it did). So as Alberta's population increases due to its economic boom, money must be spent to improve Alberta's social programs and infrastructure now that the money is available. That doesn't mean spending should be done uncontrollably, but only to say that an increase in spending is to be expected.

Which in a way justifies the whole concept of Reaganomics

In defense of...The Flat Tax

Vincent Geloso has good post regarding the Flat Tax and the countries that have adopted it as its tax system. And guess what? All of those economies grew impressively. Give it a read.

In defense of...Harper's original policy on Hamas.

When Harper hinted last month that he may not recognize the results of the Palestinian elections that saw Hamas sweep into power, the left in this country screamed bloody murder at such insult to their ideological brothers in Palestine. Well...earlier this week, the new cabinet Minster responsible for security stated that not only will Hamas refuse to recognize Israel, but actually assist its militants on the attacks in Israel.

Not that the left would give a dam about the "collateral damage" to Hamas' operations anyway, but the centrists out there have to believe that it was the right thing to do on Harper's part.

Oh sure, Al Jazeera is not a Medium.

2006-03-22T06:15:00.000-04:00

I'll try to post my overall thoughts on the Al-Jazeera and they're recent expansion of opening an English-language channel soon this weekend when I hope to have more free time (my opinion on Al Jazeera is rather complicated, I can't exactly describe it in 1000 words or less). But here's a taste of the essay:

Score another one for bad reporting from Al jazeera. Check out this headline on their web site:

Is the US war on Iraq a 21st-century crusade?

Before I go on...take a guess whether this is an editorial or an actual news report...if your believe that its the later, then unfortunately your correct. Here's the full "news" report. Basically it goes on and on about the possibility of Iraq being motivated by Christian Fundamentalists in the United States in hopes of reviving their own religious prophecies...which is fine...provided they report the storey fairly and accurately using reputable sources.

But as usual when it comes to Al-Jazeera "reporting". This report strikes out.

Strike 1: Practically three quarters of the report is based on the opinions of the like of Dr Muhammad Ayash al-Kubaisi, a muslim "scholar" who describes the Iraqi insurgents as "resistance fighters" and implied in the past that the U.S. is deliberately blocking the release of French Hostages in Iraq.

Strike 2: Instead of seeking U.S. legislators themselves (the ones who authorized the attack in the first place) to ask for their take on the matter, they instead go on to ask a Jewish pro-Israeli activist for his opinion on the matter. Along with a lowly ex-Pentagon advisor.

Strike 3: Instead of tying the conclusion of the report strictly to the hypothesis on which it started (religious motivation) they drag on about early 20th century European expansion in the Middle East which was motivated by Military and commercial imperialism rather than religion.

Just notice the vibe they're trying to imply: a. Is the war in Iraq a Crusade? b. dedicate three quarters of the report to the opinions of Islamists and Arab Nationalists who agree c. Limit the opposing viewpoint to 20 words and finally drag out the history book and recount the horror stories of past Western Imperialism.

What do you think their trying to tell their naive viewers in relation to the original question?

Its one thing to present this kind of crap as an editorial, as it still leaves the viewer with the impression that an opposing viewpoint exists. But as an accurate news report? Bull.F&$#@ingg.shit.

Keep in mind, they posted this in their ENGLISH website, where they try to convince you of their "accuracy" and "moderation" you can only imagine their reports in Arabic.

More about Al-Jazeera this weekend (Hopefully).

So much news, so little time.

2006-03-21T06:56:00.000-04:00

Quite a few things to blog about. But I'm in a hurry, so I'll try to summarize things as brief as I can in one post.

-The Afghani Ambassador speaks my language: Check out what he had to say to the idiots who were protesting regime change in the Middle East this past week-end:

"Where were you when the women of Afghanistan were imprisoned?" he asked. "Where were you when the children of Afghanistan were denied schooling? Where were these demonstrations for human rights and dignity and honour?"

Good questions. But when the ambassador offered to speak to some of these "Peace Activists" face-to-face to discuss their fears, as usual, they went AWOL:

"I have contacted some of these groups. They're sort of reluctant to discuss the issues."

But...but...I thought the left wanted "debate".

...

-But then again, Mr. Samad should tone down the human-rights rhetoric a notch considering his government is in the process of executing a man whose only crime was to convert to Christianity.
(Don't expect the left to raise much hay about this btw). If your a Canadian resident and want to voice your displeasure, Candace has the details.

...

-This is why the UN is a @#$*ing joke!

...

-Yet another voice of Muslim reason: His name is Amr Khaled.

I'm familiar with his lectures, which is why I was surprised to see him talking politics as he usually limits his talks focusing on religion and morality. Best part about all this: Khaled is VERY popular with the young Muslim population in Egypt and throughout the Arab world. Make no mistake he will make a impact.

...

Jordan's struggle for Democracy and Human Rights.

Let me introduce you a three Jordanian bloggers who are aiming to bring widescale change to their part of the region:

Roba from And Far Away: An Art student based in Amman, self-described Feminist, blogs mostly about Art and personal experiences, but her posts on Middle Eastern politics are well worth the read.

Batir Wardam from "Making A Difference: Jordanian writer and researcher striving for a democratic and sustainable change in Jordan and the Arab world. His posts are very well thought out and very well researched. His writing style and sense of logic resonates very well no matter which country your reading him from.

Natasha from Mental Mayhem: She's Christian, a journalist working in Washington. And a dam good blogger. Nothing I write about her blog here will bring justice to the quality of the her blog. In fact, she ranks right up there with the Boys from ITM and the SandMonkey as part of must-read Middle Eastern blogs.

Three more bloggers for Freedom in the Middle East.

...

Just one thing regarding this. Having a guy who believes that Stalin was "right wing" and that the Communist revolution didn't work because he didn't go "far enough" conduct a research on Conservatives is like asking David Duke to conduct a racial study. (h.t. Dust My Broom)

Hey! That's me!

2006-03-21T01:31:00.000-04:00

I can honestly say that I can identify with Adean's latest cartoon:

Only:
1. I don't play Golf.
2. I'm not married.
3. And most of my relatives live overseas.

Ashley MacIsaac: A freak of nature.

2006-03-21T00:40:00.000-04:00

When I heard this mourning a guy named Ashley MacIsaac was running for the leadership of the Liberal Party, the first thought that came to mind was "I heard of this guy before!", but it certainly wasn't within the context of the entertainment sector.
Truth be told I only found out he was a "fiddler" today.

No, it was from somewhere else within a different context...it wasn't until during my Lunch hour that I remembered reading about him last year on Joel Johansesn's blog ProudtobeCanadian.ca And it was in a MUCH less flattering picture Okay, are you ready for this?

Turns out "Ashley" made some headlines in the past.

Just a Glimpse (have a vomit bag ready before reading further)

Last year, MacIsaac sued the Ottawa Citizen for reporting something he thought cast him in a bad light. While performing in Ottawa the fiddler picked out some Asian women in the audience and joked about them spreading SARS, according to the Ottawa Citizen.

Wow! Something tells me he and Reg Alcock would be birds of a feather in the Liberal Party. Anyway:

In 1996, MacIsaac was quoted as saying he enjoyed sexual acts involving urination with his 16-year-old boyfriend, according to the CBC.CA web site (and you know the story must be true since the state-run CBC is staffed by Liberal Party and NDP apologists, hacks and appointees who might normally take a dive for a fella named Ashley).

And before you think that this is just drug-induced talks by MacIsaac, just know that he confirmed this with the Montreal Mirror:

And during that interview, I did ask MacIsaac about all the rumours. In particular, his penchant for pee. Ashley, as it turns out, loves to have men piss on him. He discussed that with me. And that rumour about a 15-year-old boyfriend? I didn't have to bother to ask; he was right there in the room with us, eager to get his name in the article.

Read the rest by Joel.

I don't know about this...

2006-03-20T18:09:00.000-04:00

The family of the slain Afghani man who was accidentally shot by the Canadian Troops in Afghanistan wants to come to Canada.

Thank you for the sheep. But can we come to Canada?

That was the response today from the family of Nasrat Ali, the Afghan father of six who was killed by a Canadian soldier on patrol here last week. Semen Gul, Ali’s widow, had said earlier that the family would be asking for $30,000 (US) in compensation from Canada for the loss of their main breadwinner, a man who allegedly had 15 dependants in close kin, including a daughter-in-law and toddler grandson.

But today, Ali’s oldest son, Nisar Ahmed, 22, told the Star through an intermediary that what his family would like most is temporary relocation to Canada, so that the younger children in the family can get a good education.

Look I can certainly sympathize with their loss. Loosing the breadwinner in the family is a major setback in many parts of the Muslim world. But I have some reservations about this request, for two reasons.

How can I say this without sounding like an insensitive jerk? But to accept that request would imply that we consider the whole incident was our fault. When in fact it can be argued at worst that it was just a tragic case of miscommunication on both sides.

It would send a dangerous signal: If we accept this demand, we will definatly not see the end of this. You have no idea how far some people are willing to go to get their families out of places like Afghanistan, so if word gets out that all that needs to happen is you getting killed by Canadian soldiers and your family gets a one-way ticket to Canada to start a new life with new opportunities, you can bet the house that tomorrow we'll be seeing hundreds of desperate men running towards the Canadian base hoping to get shot in hopes of martyring themselves for the well-being of they're families.

That doesn't mean I don't think other arrangements should be considered.

(H.T. Nealenews)

Caging the Beast

2006-03-20T02:25:00.000-04:00

Let me rip a quote from the X-Men 3 Promo in which Wolverine is quoted as saying "Sometimes when you Cage the Beast...the Beast gets angry"

Enter Akbar Ganji, the Iranian Dissident Journalist recently released from Jail after a 5 year sentance:

We get this:

"My views have not changed at all. Jail and pressures never forced me to change my views. Today, I'm more determined to say what I said six years ago."

And this:

"My husband is so weak physically now. He is just 108 pounds. But I'm happy he is back home," his wife said. "He needs rest; please don't put too many questions to him. He's not going to be so outspoken." "No, I'm more radical than before," Ganji interrupted.

The will for freedom is not something that can tamed with a jail sentance. And that's something the bastards over in the Middle East will realize as the moderates gain more clout.

Welcome Home Akbar.

(H.T. Regime Change Iran again! Make that site a daily reading.)

George Clooney: Neocon Point Man in Hollywood?

2006-03-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

The left has Micheal Moore, the right has Geroge Clooney? At first glance this may sound insane, but read carefully the letter which Max Boot sends Clooney following his Oscar win.

Even "Syriana," which has been criticized for its America-bashing by a lot of conservatives (myself included), has a neocon message. It's a protest against the influence of Big Oil on U.S. foreign policy. Neocons couldn't agree more. They argue that the policy supported by the oil companies--backing Middle Eastern despots--is leading us to ruin. It only helps create anti-American suicide bombers--as illustrated by "Syriana." The movie suggests that we should be helping liberal Arab reformers, like the fictional Prince Nasir, just as neocons have been urging.

Then there's "The Peacemaker," your terrific 1997 thriller that sought to shake the nation out of its post-Cold War complacency by showing how
easily terrorists could smuggle a nuclear bomb into the U.S. Neocons in the 1990s were arguing for a more ruthless anti-terrorist policy. Your character, Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe, didn't let legal niceties stop him from saving New York.

Read the rest here.

(H.T. VodkaPundit)

Roommate Stories

2006-03-19T20:23:00.000-04:00

One major aspect of College or early bachelor life which many of us experience and go through is the process of living with roommates.

Its always an interesting experience to say the least. Roommates make you laugh, piss you off, freak you out, from time to time they give you murderous tendencies. But at the end of the day these experiences give us all stories to tell our friends in the bar, our girlfriends/boyfriends during dinner time, our co-workers around the water cooler, our family members during the holidays, heck some of those experiences may be used as ice-breakers with certain people.

All in all, they make for good laughs. Which is why I was happy to see KenD of the Canadian Honkey-Tonk Bar Association set up a new blog specifically about..."Stupid Roommates". Read about the horror stories and hilarious experiences many like you go through with they're roommate(s). Or if you have the courage, share one of your own. All at:

Stupid Roommates

The right idea, the wrong guy.

2006-03-19T20:18:00.000-04:00

This is encouraging:

A group of exiled Syrian opposition leaders has announced they are to form a common front to oppose President Bashar al-Assad's government.
Speaking after a meeting in Brussels, former Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam said all factions agreed that the regime Damascus had to go.

It is indeed very important and promising that exiled Syrian opposition leaders have began organizing a common front against Bashar Al Assad's totalitarian hell-hole. And hopefully they'll begin lobbying foreign governments to keep putting the squeeze on Syria while its becoming more vulnerable by the day.

However I have a couple of problems about those who were present at this meeting:

1. Abdul Halim Khaddam. Don't get me wrong I appreciate the way he's trying to redeem himself after years of service under Hafez Al Assad, and it took alot of guts for him to reveal his knowledge into the Syrian involvement into the Harriri Assassination, but there's still one major problem: He's still tainted by the old-regime. What the Arab world now needs in new blood in terms of political leadership, one that isn't influenced by past corruption and tyranny. While Khaddam's contribution is valuable, I think its best for him to remain on the sidelines for this one.

2. The Muslim Brotherhood: The LAST thing Syria needs is input from the people whose ideology is leading the self-destructing cycle of defeat in the Middle East. Islamists have never been interested in democratic reform or human-rights improvement. Its pretty useless to mount a force for change while you have a contingency in your movement that aims to extend totalitarianism in the population's personal lives. Not to mention the close relations that the Brotherhood has with Hezbollah, I don't think having them as part of the opposition is the best solution.

But what the heck...its a start I guess. We'll see what recommendations and actions they make in the following months.

(H/T Regime Change Iran)

The Iraq War: Three years later

2006-03-18T18:08:00.000-04:00

Today marks the three year anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And of course anniversaries like this cannot occur without the usual protests of our resident hippies and they're kissing cousins back in the Middle East.

Before I go on about the supposed "Peace Protestors", let's just go through what has been accomplished in the three years following the removal of Saddam's regime.

1. Iraq now has a democratically elected government that answers to its people and not from its inner circle. Individual tenants of freedom are now in place in Iraq. Such as Freedom of Speech, freedom of the Press, Freedom of worship etc...
2. Palestinian Terrorists have lost a major source of income and diplomatic backing.
3. Ditto for Al Qaeda.
4.Libya has abandoned its WMD programs.
5.Syria has withdrew from Lebanon after the Lebanese students movement protested the occupation of their country. (Actions and protests that Syria always ignored and rushed in the past)
6.Democratic movements have spread throughout the Middle East.
7.The voices of moderates in the Middle East is becoming bigger by the hour.

All these events cannot have occurred without the military action in which Bush, Blair and every single nation that took part of Operation Iraqi Freedom decided to take.

Of course order has not been "restored". But then again, "order" in a country like Iraq was absent for over 40 years. You cannot fix the crap that's been left over from the previous regimes for over 40 years in a mere three years.

Changing the status-quo (which in this case endangered the lives of Westerners) is never easy, no matter which country or region its taking place. Which brings me to our beloved "Peace Protestors".

"Iraq is a quagmire and has been a humanitarian disaster for the Iraqis," said Jean Parker, a member of the Australian branch of the Stop the War Coalition, which organized the march. "There is no way forward without ending the occupation."

As usual, the Liberal-Left take it upon themselves and use they're mysterious telepathic powers in order to convey what the Iraqi people feel and think about they're current situation.

It should be pointed out to Ms. Parker that the only people who are hoping to create the humanitarian disaster are the Iraqi insurgents themselves. Trying to create tensions among groups, slowing down the reconstruction of hospitals, schools, assassination elected officials etc. And that should we take her advice and withdraw all western forces from Iraq. These insurgents would have the upper hand, with barely anyone tracking them down.

So what does that say about the "Stop the War Coalition's" humanitarian outlook towards Iraq?

Let me be perfectly blunt here:

The Liberal-Left and the anti-war lobby couldn't give a fu*k about the well-being of the Iraqi people or anyone else for that matter. If anything they cheer on any sign of chaos as a justification to their own political views.
Rather than express concern about the innocent lives that it might affect.

They cry and scream about "prisoner abuse" that's easily comparable to hazing rituals at McGill University, yet shrug or ignore the un-humane torture and executions committed by the very regime they opposed toppling.

They suddenly become Isolationist Fiscal Conservatives when it comes to Financial aid packages to Post-Saddam Iraq, yet throw an tantrum when it comes to a leader who hints he will not financially support a terrorist organization which can be summed up as a "mini-Taliban".

In short, they want a failure of the Iraq mission, only to brag and feel exonerated in they're original political views, rather than aim to make the mission a success that would benefit the entire world.

And that's exactly why I not only disagree, but despise the modern anti-war movement. They're hatred and loathing of one man, runs soooooooooo deep, that they're willing to "cut and run" from a mission that would end up resulting in decreased security, more instability in Iraq, more human-rights disasters at the hands of Islamists, a bigger humanitarian crisis than any of us could ever imagine, all for political retribution.

(Will the real racists please stand up?)

So on this day. should any anti-war prick give you a hard time about your personal views on this matter: Just turn the table on his race-baiting tactics and counter it with:

"So what do YOU have against the Iraqi people that would make you want to withdraw U.S. troops and create chaos and havoc in the country"?

Should you get an interesting answer, please e-mail it to me.

A differential treatment for Canadian hostages? Yeah right!

2006-03-16T08:08:00.000-04:00

Its hard to question the testimony of a person that went through a personal traumatizing experience, which in this case involves a kidnapping at the hands of terrorists, without sounding like an insensitive, ideologically closed minded jerk. But heck, here goes.

According to this CBC article, Adam Budzanowski, a Canadian volunteer for JumpStart, a US-based educational charity, was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza on the assumption that he was a US-citizen.

Okay, before I go on, let me inform you of some background information which I received due to my upbringing in the Middle East to the best of my knowledge. Now in the Arab World, its easy to distinguish the locals from the Westerners (most of the time). And among the westerners, you can usually also distinguish one nationality from another. Usually its through they're linguistic accent. You can distinguish the Brits from the Americans, the Italians from the Germans, the Portuguese from the Spaniards etc...

HOWEVER, there are two groups which you can barely distinguish from one another. The first is among New Zealanders and Australians. And the second, as much as the Canadian lefties hate to admit it, the Americans and the Canadians.

11 years of living in the Middle East and I haven't met a single Arabic resident who can distinguish one from the other just through appearance or accent. They usually have the same interests, the same dialogue, the same choice of leisure, etc etc...The only way which they're able to distinguish them from another, is through identification. Remember that...Paper Identification (Passports, driving license, etc...) is usually the only measure in which Middle Easterners are able to distinguish Americans from Canadians.

Now let's get back to Budzanowski,

The Toronto native said armed men burst into the JumpStart office and aimed their guns at him because they thought he was American. They didn't believe he was Canadian, even when he showed them his passport.

Hmmmm....

With a mask over his head, Budzanowski said he was taken to a building with cement floors, shoved against a wall, a door and pushed down a staircase.

"I was sure they were going to physically harm me," he said.

Budzanowski said he was moved at least four times overnight and prevented from sleeping.

But he said his captors treated him "nicely" when they realized he was Canadian.

Now what exactly does he mean by "Nicely"...and was it really because he was Canadian? We'll see.

"Later at night when they realized, they changed from extreme rough to lightly rough. Today they changed and treated me nicely," he said.

Woah!! Hold on!!! Time out!! Flag on the play! Let's go through this step by step:

Frame 1: Terrorists burst into his office, they think he's American (according to him anyway). He shows them the ONLY WAY which can prove his Canadian identity in which they can distinguish him from an American citizen...doesn't deter the kidnapping.

Frame 2: Even after showing his Canadian passport, they give him a hard time. But suddenly out of the blue...they realize he's Canadian? On what basis? Did he rant and rave about the Maple Leafs? Did he take an online citizenship test while they witnessed? What giveaway gave the terrorists the epiphany that Mr.Budzanowski was Canadian? And from there, we realize the treatment went from "extreme" to "light". But there was still a rough treatment.

Frame 3: Terrorists apparently had a change of heart about Canadians within 24 hours (again according to what I'm provided with here). And suddenly treat him "nicely". (Again why? Did he lecture them about the so-called Canadian identity of "MultiCulturism" and acceptance and Canada's "pacifist" outlook to conflict? Did they do some online research while he was held up?) And finally let him go.

Obviously there's alot of holes in the storey here, at least from the way its described. Maybe the CBC left out some details, maybe Mr.. Budzanowski is still traumatized from the whole event to give an accurate detail of his kidnapping, maybe he didn't really understand the situation , or at worst...he's not telling the real story.

My Take: Since the prison raid by the Israelis, the Palestinian Terrorists tried to do something in return, in this case kidnap a westerner. No matter what his nationality is. They take him in, but as time goes by they realize that his holding would not bring any significance to they're cause, they slowly backed off until they released him to the Palestinian authorities. Being a aid worker for a charitable organization which is there to help the people, the terrorist knew that this might turn some of the population against them and exercised a better judgment than they're Al-Zarqawi cousins a few miles away to the east. So...they let him go.

Update: Wow...it didn't take long for the idiots over at the Globe and Mail to spin the shit of this storey all in the name of feel-good nationalism:

"Held hostage at gunpoint by Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip, Mark Budzanowski feared for his life – until his captors discovered his passport and declared 'We love Canada'"

Note: They got the name wrong, but they corrected it in the article.
What a load of crap! And people wonder why I don't subscribe to newspapers anymore.

(Promo for this article found at the Mercer report)

Quick Notes

2006-03-16T00:22:00.000-04:00

Been pretty busy at work this week, let's see if I can make it up.

PETA Day

If you haven't already done so, its not too late to get to a drive through for late-night burger or something to continue the modern tradition of pissing off the PETA nuts on this very day. Hey look, I like animals just as much as the next guy, but I have trouble taking seriously a group whose members believe that we must "reason" rather than squash the mosquitos on our skin during the summer time.

I made sure to do my part with a 1/4lb burger for lunch, 12 oz sirloin steak for dinner, and 12 spicy buffalo wings at the pool hall an hour ago.

Calling all New England Freedom Lovers.

Should there be any reader of this blog living in the New England region, take note:

Here's your chance of showing the Iranian student movement your support. The Iran Freedom Concert Committee is holding a (what else?) concert Saturday at Harvard University to kick off they're solidarity campaign. The event is supported by numerous organizations as well as a bi-partisan effort by Republican and Democrat student groups. The main significance of this event? The Video Feed will be broadcasted directly to the student leaders in Iran to show they're honorable quest for Human Rights and Democratic reform under the repressive regime. And believe you me, nothing could be a bigger moral booster to these guys than to have the knowledge that they're struggle and determination is recognized and supported by the international community.

The event is scheduled to begin at 9 PM, at the Leverett House. The committee is planning on other events in the future on campuses across the U.S. For more information visit:

http://www.iranfreedomconcert.com/

And take note on whenever they come to campus near you.

Harper's visit to Afghanistan

What they said.

That's all.

My candidate for bravest journalist award.

This Guy.

Arabian Dissent censored!!....in China?

I knew this blog might make a few heads explode back in my ancestral region, but apparently I've done something to piss off the Chinese Government (why? I have no clue!). One reader e-mailed to inform me that Arabian Dissent was blocked from servers in China. Which is odd, because I don't remember ever blogging about China or its government. Anyone else received similar complaints?

Update: Mea Culpa! Apparently I did blog about China here. (Note to self: Never blog drunk again. )

Letter to Akaash Maharaj

2006-03-13T11:58:00.000-04:00

This is the letter which I sent Akaash Maharaj after reading on his blog of his trip to Jordan for yet another pointless UN-sponsored event. Now the letter is addressed to him, but the message is consistent to all Western Politicians or anyone else who think anything constructive can come out of these conferences. And I'd also like to stress that I do not question Mr. Maharaj's sincerity regarding this trip. This is just one man's opinion on the impotence of organizations like this when ti comes to Middle Eastern matters:

Dear Mr. Maharaj

I was rather surprised to read on your blog that you will be attending the latest UN-Sponsored Middle Eastern event in Amman, Jordan which seeks to create dialogue about the status of Middle Eastern Politics and the democratic deficit which exist in that region.

The reason for my surprise is based on many ironic facts surrounding your trip. The first being that the very conference aimed at strengthening "democratic institutions" in the Middle East is being held in a country that has been known to crack down on its dissidents by locking them up without trial, but we'll just leave that embarrassing factor aside. Another irony is that the very "MP's" from across the Middle East whom you'll be meeting are mostly (if not all) unelected political hacks whom were appointed to their positions by the Arab dictators who have no interest in seeing any "democratic changes" take place.

I mean think about, you will be meeting with a wide range of politicians who are representing regimes that have repressed the very same values you aim to champion at this Conference ( freedom of expression and equality of citizens; the development of strategies for the diplomatic resolution of international conflicts; and peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians.). I'd be interested to know how you will be addressing these issues to the very same politicians that have depended on the suppression of those values in order to remain in power.

Being an Arab-Canadian who was born and raised in the Middle East, and who have lived in 3 Arab States (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE) for a combined 11 years, I can tell you right from the beginning that these "Conferences" are nothing more than an attempt by the Arab Heads of States to put on a phony song and dance show just to offer some kind of proof that they are sincere in their efforts in reforming Human-Rights laws and Democratic Reform in they're respective nations. Since the days of Jimmy Carter's Presidency, countless Middle Eastern "MP's" have been attending conferences like these with very minimal impact. You don't have to look far to realize that, just find a list of the Middle Eastern Leaders at the time of Carter's presidency, and then get a list of the current Middle Eastern leaders. They're as different as Night and...well..later that night. The family names are the same, however the only difference is that the leadership has been passed from father to son! A quick look at the laws concerning Freedom of Speech and equality among citizens would reveal literally no progress. Heck, some laws have not progressed since the days of the Ottoman Empire.

All this to say, that these types of "conferences" are meaningless sir. They're just an opportunity for Western Diplomats to pat themselves on the back, convincing themselves that they offered something constructive for the interest of peace and democracy, while the Arab diplomats simply sweep the recommendations that come out of these conferences under the rug, and laugh it up in they're own inner circles how they suckered those "do-gooders" into believing they're efforts. Mr. Maharaj...25 years of useless "dialogue" is long enough. This is a time for action to speak louder than words.

Now I don't want you to take this as a criticism of your efforts. I do in fact believe that you are sincere in your efforts to contribute positively to a change in the status-quo in the Middle East which would benefit us all. Which is precisely why I'm urging you to ignore these "conferences" and focus your time and effort on other means of constructive action for change. For starters, you can speak to a number of academics, journalists and activists who have experienced the turbulent conditions of the Middle East first hand. People such as:

Wafa Sultan: An Arab-American psychologist living in L.A. who escaped Islamic persecution in the Middle East and who occasionally appears on Al-Jazeera Television debating many of the people who are standing in the way of Peace and Democracy.

Joseph Farah: Arab-American veteran journalist of over 25 years. Farah spent a big chunk of his career as a Middle Eastern correspondent and now runs his own News Organization: World Net Daily. He can be contacted at: jfarah@worldnetdaily.com

Amir Taheri: Iranian Born journalist who has an impressive resume in his experience in covering Middle Eastern matters. He can be contacted though his agency: Benador Associates here and is available for public and private discussions. eb@benadorassociates.com

If your looking for something a little closer to home than there's reform activist Irshad Manji or Salim Mansur, who teaches Political Science at the University of Western Ontario.

These are just a few of the many experts who can offer solid, concrete analysis and recommendations and not just feel-good rhetoric and endless cycles of discussions that lead nowhere. However, I'd also like to offer you some recommendations on what you can bring up during this conference on some recent challenges that have been raised in the Middle East.

1. The jailing of Yemeni Journalist Mohammed Al-Asadi who did the tragic mistake of publishing a censored version of the infamous "Danish Cartoons" just for the sake of describing current events that were surrounding Yemenis (The burning of embassies, death threats, etc...). This might tie in well with the whole Freedom of Expression discussion.

2.Equality of citizens: I'm sure many Arab Christians and Women would really appreciate they're struggles for equality in that part of the world to be raised and debated. One of them being the disgraceful "Honour Killings" that are widespread in the very host country that your attending.

3. As for peaceful Co-Existence between Palestinians and Israelis: Perhaps you should point out to some of those Middle Eastern "MP's" how some of those Anti-Semitic Cartoons and Television Programs on State-Sponsored Media doesn't exactly give the gullible young generation of that part of the world an incentive to reach out to they're Israeli Neighbors in a friendly manner. (I know it didn't give me the incentive when I saw them when I was a child!)

Again, this letter was not a critique of your sincerity or efforts on the matter, but rather of the channels in which you decide to use your efforts. This is just a letter from one concerned citizen to another.

Thanks for taking the time of reading my e-mail, and good luck.

------

Okay...on second thought maybe I do have a good reason to doubt his sincerity, especially after this paragraph on the same post announcing his trip:

Equally, I am conscious that I live in the shadow of men and women greater than I could ever hope to be, who made the world a better place by projecting Canadian values into the international arena: Wilfred Laurier, who created the first genuinely bilingual state; Lester Pearson, who created international peacekeeping; Pierre Trudeau, who created multiculturalism as the post-modern nationalism.

Gut-feeling: this is nothing more than something which he can add on his resume to prepare for his upcoming political career. I'm sorry but his whole history screams out "Politician in Waiting!". But I hope I'm wrong.

How you can help Freedom of the Press take hold in the Middle East.

2006-03-12T13:48:00.000-04:00

Just in case you haven't heard about the case of Mohammed Al-Asadi, he's the editor in Chief of the Yemen Observor.

A few weeks after the whole Danish Cartoons fiasco, Mr. Al-Asadi made the tragic mistake of publishing the actual cartoons with a description of the events that have led to all the demonstrations Yemenis have been seeing in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the Palestinian Territories, etc... (Sound familiar?)

The result: A warrant was issued for his arrest for violating article 103 (a) of the Press and Publications Law number 25 of 1990, which prohibits "publications that harm the Islamic faith and its sublime principles or that degrade the Semitic religions, and humanitarian beliefs.". When 2 other Yemeni journalists tried to show a statement of solidarity, by publishing the cartoons themselves, the government never budged, and issued a warrant for they're arrest as well.

The whole issue is even more pathetic when you consider that the journalists blacked out the Prophet's face in compliance of Islamic laws stating that the Prophet's face never be shown. But apparently that still wasn't enough.

This is predictable as the rise of new media and independent sources in Lebanon and Iraq have ruffled many feathers for those aiming to maintain the status-quo in the Middle East. So therefore to stop the spread of Independent media, states like Yemen have decided to suppress those that are under they're control.

Thankfully, Human Rights Watch and Reporters without borders have taken up the cause to bring Al-Asadi's case to the worldwide audience. And have launched a e-mail petition demanding his release.

This is one of the many bloodless ways which we can help freedom take hold in the Middle East.

All you have to do is send an e-mail to:

moyen-orient2@rsf.org

and they'll usually handle the lobbying in front of International organizations and Governments. However this isn't like any other online petition:

Usually online petitions are not credible as they to draw allot of spam and trolls. For this petition validity is ensured.

1. Make sure you use a proper traceable e-mail service like Sympatico, Rogers, Videotron, AOL etc...not Hotmail, Yahoo etc...

2. Make sure you include Your full name, address and phone number. (They keep that information 100 per cent confidential, its just for validating purposes.).

It takes 1 minute of your time, its well worth it, believe me. Reporters without borders have had some results due to they're lobbying, so this no amateur push.

(H/T Nadz)

Foreign Policy with a Spine

2006-03-12T13:43:00.000-04:00

Some good news, for the first time in 13 years regarding Canadian Foreign Affaires: At last! Canada has a coherent Foreign Policy!

Canada voted against a controversial resolution on Palestinian rights at the United Nations yesterday, an early sign that the new Harper government is aligning its Middle East policy more closely with the views of Israel and the United States.

The previous Liberal government had abstained on the identical resolution last year. But on instructions from Ottawa, the Canadian delegation at the UN joined the United States to vote against a non-binding motion calling on Israel to allow all Palestinian refugee women and children to return to their homes.

I particularly liked what Mackay had to say:

It's not a flip to go from neutrality to taking a position," Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said yesterday.

And we finally realize why our Foreign Policy was weak and murky under the Liberal government

Hussein Amery, the president of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, said that unlike the Liberals, the Conservatives did not even consult with Canadian Arab and Muslim groups before making such a significant policy shift.

Say What?! Memo to Mr. Amery: Foreign Policy, be it on the Middle East or Africa or Asia, is aimed at reflecting the views of ALL Canadians not just special interest groups and targeted minorities. Using this twit's logic:

When Canada got into World War 2, it should have consulted with members of the Italian and German before looking at things from a wider perspective.
Canada should have consulted with the South African community in the 80's when it came time to debate Apartheid.
Chretien should have consulted with the Iraqi-Canadian community leaders when it came time to overthrow Saddam.

Foreign Policy shouldn't have to be about pleasing certain ethnic groups in Canada Decisions should be based around your basic national interests that best reflect your values. In this case it was either siding with Democracy (Israel) or radical notion that would force a collapse of Jewish Demographics in Israel (The Right of Return). Besides as Shimon Fogel points out in the article, the issue of the refugees have been agreed to be discussed among the final points AFTER territorial disputes have been settled.

Finally! A protest worth mentioning.

2006-03-12T13:32:00.000-04:00

Congrats to Winston from The Spirit of Man for attending a protest for an issue that's actually worth giving a dam about: Freedom of Speech.

(Details and pictures here, here and here)

A few hundred protestors gathered in front of the Danish Consulate in Toronto to stand up for Freedom of Speech and its valuable contribution to Western Society, following the retarded reaction by the Muslim World and their weak, pathetic apologists in the West from the whole "Danish Cartoons" controversy. I'm a little disappointed they didn't draw a larger crowd, for a "Progressive" city like Toronto you'd think there would more people that would stand up for this "Charter Right".

I remember reading about this a few weeks ago on SDA, but it completely slipped my mind, it would have been worth the trip just to be in there.

Once again, good job Winston!

Bush, Saddam and Milosevic.

2006-03-11T12:15:00.000-04:00

The Sandmonkey beat me to it.

Just another reminder

2006-03-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

There's nothing much we can do about the horrible death of Tom Fox, the American Peacemaker and Humanitarian worker but to offer condolences to his family and remember the individual sacrifice which he made to stand up for his convictions. Even though I didn't agree with Tom's philosophy on War and Peace, I still admire a man of action rather than a man of empty rhetoric. And that's what Tom did, he actually did something, which is more than what I can say for most his peacenik colleagues on this side of the Atlantic.

Rest in Peace Tom.

Events like Tom's death and Jill Carroll kidnapping are unfortunately other compliments to what I've been saying all along:

Your political views and pacifist nature, does not exonerate you from being perceived as an enemy to Islamist assholes. If your not Muslim AND don't prescribe to they're own brand of "Imperialism" (Muslim supremacy worldwide), your someone who should be dealt with.

There's no other way I can describe it.

Why Now?

2006-03-10T20:52:00.000-04:00

When your a fringe party like the NDP that's made up of Union Whores and special interest group representatives, you don't really get far in politics. I mean look at it from they're view, you have barely influenced any policy for the past 30 years, many people consider you to be a joke and what's all worse about this is that you can't do much about all this.

Nothing...except to bitch and moan your way through the legislative process. But all in all, your still a party that's going nowhere.

Following today's activity, you can also add the words "Opportunists" and "Hypocrites" in the long list of adjectives to describe the Canada's NDP.

So the NDP have decided to include Belinda Stronach into the investigation after learning that many people are wondering why the NDP have a beef with floor crossing all of a sudden when they barely made a peep when Belinda or Brison crossed over at the precise moment. All in hopes of closing the Pandora's box they opened when they asked the commissioner to look into the Emerson floor crossing.

Canadianna provided an excelent critique of the NDP a few weeks ago regarding the whole Emerson affair.

Remarkably, the NDP, who would be the benficiary of the so-called 'NDP budget' and have the thrill of holding the balance of power for a few more months, decided neither Stronach's nor the Liberal's actions were unethical -- at least not unethical enough to suggest a byelection or to contact the Ethics Commissioner.

What can we make out of all of this:

Apparently The NDP has no problems with floor crossing should they be the beneficiaries of the vote that follows. They didn't ask for an investigation following that floor crossing, not even after the budget vote, not even after Ed Broadbant's ethics package. It was only after they're hypocrisy was revealed that they decided to ask the commissioner to look into it.

But that's just the NDP for ya, Opportunist, Hypocritical and a bunch of old looser hacks bitching and moaning they're way through Parliament.

The Dubai Ports fallout: Everybody Loses!

2006-03-10T18:11:00.000-04:00

The aftermath of the Dubai ports brouhaha might have done more damage between the Middle East and The United States in a bigger way than Osama Bin Laden could have ever hoped for.

Thanks to the Xenophobic and opportunistic whores over at the Democratic Party, you now have a valuable ally to the war on terror and economic powerhouse: The UAE, pissed off at the overall reaction. So that's one more number to cross off in the little black book whenever trouble arises.

The American business community will also suffer. Boeing, whose contracts with UAE firms number in the Billions of dollars, sure as hell won't be receiving the red carpet treatment whenever they land in Dubai to bid on the Multi-Billion dollar contracts.

The Arab moderates are now hearing the old "I TOLD YOU SO!" cries from the fundamentalists. Who were preaching over and over about America's so-called "racism", "Xenophobia" and "Anti-Muslim" nature in their sermons during the noon prayers.

The Arab business community (the one Mid-East ally the US government could not afford to loose in the war on terror) is now disgusted. And isn't encouraged at increasing commerce with the United States. Business leaders are blasting away the U.S. in a way which would rival the Mullahs (not a good sign).

Arab Americans, are disgusted with the Democrats and the Republicans, being made to believe that their ethnicity alone is a threat to their nation. Even decorated Arab-American military officers such as Gen. John Abizaid are upset at the fallout.

"I'm very dismayed by the emotional responses that some people have put on the table here in the United States that really comes down to Arab and Muslim bashing,'' Abizaid said at a Capitol Hill meeting with senators.

And to top it all off, we learn that in Long Beach, the port is being controlled by a state-owned Chinese company (H.T Daimnation). But of course, we never really heard the outcries when THAT deal occured.

Disgusting. Absolutly shameful.

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be ashamed to be a pro-American.

To top it all off, all of this won't do DICK to improve security at the U.S. ports.

A clash of epochs not civilizations

2006-03-10T16:39:00.000-04:00

One of the mistakes many lefties or Isolationists make when it comes to debating Terrorism and the Middle East is the automatic assumption that the people in the Arab and Muslim world use the same common sense on whatever issue that arises as they do.

It can simply be summarized as "If Scenario A arises, I would act in such and such way, ergo, Middle Easterners would also react the same way".

This can be on anything from war to cultural exchange. For months I've been struggling with myself as to how to explain that the ideologies and common sense used over here in the west, cannot be assumed to be taking place in the Middle East. Well luckily for me, a brave Arab American women by the name of Wafa Sultan summarizes just what exactly the clash between the two worlds can be described as:

"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations," she said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete."

She's right in every way. Many practicing Muslims (myself included) do not prescribe to the ideology that's dominating the Muslim World. And there are many more like me. All of us interpret our religion in some way, but not all of us arrive at the same conclusion as the Islamists back home. So it can't be purely all about religion. And Arab civilization has progressed in terms of economy and (to a much lesser extent) culturally.

The clash comes down to ideology. This is the one area where the Muslim World as a whole has not progressed at all since the Middle Ages. Remember the Dark Ages in Europe when a corrupt body of the Church dominated all aspects of human life. And where corruption reached the highest levels of civil power?

The Muslim World is going through the same thing. And what should concern Westerners is that its this lack of progress in ideology that helps feed the ignorance that's widespread today, leading to matters like suicide bombings and the burning of embassies. Our civilizations cannot co-exist peacefully while one is still corrupted by its ideological ignorance.

No amount of "Peace Treaties" or "Cultural exchange for better understanding" will change any of that. And its the reason why people shouldn't expect immediate change following the Iraq war. Europe didn't come out of the Dark Ages in 4 years and people shouldn't assume the same with the Middle East.

Layton pisses away whatever military vote the NDP had.

2006-03-10T11:52:00.000-04:00

For all those dippers who claim that Layton's recent political grandstanding is in no way affecting the moral and resolve of the Canadian troops in Afghanistan:

One unidentified soldier cursed NDP leader Jack Layton for his calls for the Canadian army to return to a peacekeeping role. That soldier blamed Layton for a weakening in the resolve of Canadians to continue with a more warlike Afghan mission.

Laurie Hawn, Conservative MP for Edmonton Centre and a former Canadian Forces fighter pilot, was on hand to greet the wounded soldiers. As he left the tarmac, Hawn said any perceived lack of resolve on the part of Canadians could only endanger Canada's 2,200 soldiers in Afghanistan.

Source.

(H/T Mark Peters)

Mulitcultursim, Religious Freedom and the Kirpan Ruling.

2006-03-08T17:13:00.000-04:00

Brigitte Pellerin has a good article that appeared in the Montreal Gazette this mourning, which explains the position of the people who opposed the Kirpan ruling last week by the Supreme Court. She summarizes the feeling perfectly as many walked on eggshells not to try to sound culturally insensitive in the whole matter.

I also couldn't help but notice that there seems to be a Canada/Quebec divide on reaction to the ruling.

It’s difficult to condemn the Supreme Court’s kirpan decision without sounding like a bigot. But I’ll try anyway. Using the excuse of multiculturalism to give minority groups special status within public institutions is wrong and dangerous.

...

Thus I also reacted negatively to the 2004 Supreme Court ruling, Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem, giving orthodox Jews the right to build temporary “succah” huts on their balconies even though they had signed a contract saying they wouldn’t. The Court explained that if “a person’s belief at the time of the alleged interference with his or her religious freedom” is sufficiently sincere, as it was deemed to be in Northcrest, then of course the contract isn’t valid. It was an atrociously bad, and dangerous, decision. Orthodox Jews should have the same right as anyone else to sign, or not sign, a contract depending whether its provisions suit them on whatever grounds they think important. And the same obligation as anyone else to do what they promised. By ruling otherwise, allowing intensity of belief to override one’s solemn word, the court opened the door to all sorts of other claims, not always as inoffensive as a temporary hut.

...

I don’t think most Sikhs want their kids, but no one else, carrying serviceable weapons to school. But the Supreme Court says public schools should grant Sikhs special privileges because God wants it. And all us non-Sikhs are allowed to do is show respect. It’s wrong, and it’s dangerous – not because Sikhs are, but because others may be.

Read all of it online here.

Who do they REALLY speak for?

2006-03-08T16:52:00.000-04:00

I knew we were going to face this sooner or later. My beef with the MSM nowadays always revolves around the fact they never really report the full storey to give viewers/readers a detailed description of the issues facing us today.

Be it Foreign relations, the economy, domestic issues, whatever it is, lazy journalism is always prevalent. Well with the Child Care debate is no different.

Today, as a bunch short-haired angry lesbians (who seem to be suffering from a serious case of penis-envy btw) called a press conference to try to frame the whole Child Care debate into a Women's issue. (Fathers be dammed).

Here we go:

They say Harper's pledge to replace those agreements with direct payments to parents of $1,200 a year for every child under six just doesn't cut it.

"While families welcome financial support, it is not child care," Monica Lysack, of the Canadian Child Care Advocacy Association, told a news conference in Ottawa Wednesday.

FACT: The CCAA which is federally funded thanks to the years of Liberal government, never ever cites any of the exhaustive studies into the Quebec Daycare model (which is what this program is modeled after) that shows time and time again that only a small minority of working women use the institutionalized model, and worse its a program that benefited women who didn't need help at all. Already raising the question of whether or Ms. Lysack speaks for the majority of Canadian women.

Barbara Byers, executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, told reporters that "for working women, child care is all about equality."

FACT #1: While Byers does speak about "equality" she never elaborates on just how the model which she advocates doesn't help working parents who don't have a 9 to 5 working schedule, women who choose alterative models of child care (nannies, relatives etc...) or those who decide to decrease their working hours to remain home with their newborns. Raising the question once again: Does she really speak for all women/parents?

FACT#2: The media LOVES to get quotes from Labor Unions on this issue. But NEVER have they mentioned how the Liberal model would end up financially benefiting them. The daycare workers would all be unionized, and just like the Mob structure they kick part of their pay to their Union masters for "protection". Of all the articles I've read who quote Union officials, I've never seen this conflict of interest being raised.

Yeah...that's detailed reporting allright.

Interesting reactions to the Kirpan ruling,

2006-03-04T08:20:00.000-04:00

I'm glad I'm not the only one who views the latest Supreme Court Decision to be based on absolute crap. Get a load of the logic used by the Court to justify its decision:

une telle prohibition empêche la promotion de valeurs comme le multiculturalisme, la diversité et le développement d'une culture éducationnelle respectueuse des droits d'autrui.

Translation: Such prohibition discourages the promotion of values such as Multiculturism, diversity, and the development of an educational culture respectful of freedom of religion.

I decided to listen in on some talk radio shows (both in English and French) yesterday, to listen to the reaction of people concerning the reasoning behind the this ruling.

(Hand to God, I'm not making any of this up!)

One young caller who described himself as a nudist, claimed that he will got to school on Monday totally buck naked, and should the school send him home or take disciplinary actions, he will challenge their decision all the way to the Supreme Court, expecting the same reasoning to take hold.
Another student called in to state that he will be creating a new religion which makes it mandatory for every follower to carry a AK-47 with him starting at the age of 12. And will simply fall back on this decision to allow him to take his gun to school.
(There were many callers like this, made up probably 40 per cent of the calls taken I heard)
One caller made a very good point: How could the Supreme Court allow something in schools that isn't allowed in Airplanes (pocket knives). What if a Sikh decides to take his Kirpan on the plane, and gets it confiscated will he claim that his "freedom of religion" is being threatened in the name of "multiculturism"?
One teacher said that she doesn't understand why she's supposed to take away Tylenols pills from students (non-prescription drugs are banned in most schools) but allow a Sikh student to carry something that puts the safety of all students in jeopardy.
However, one women who agreed with the ruling argued that the Kirpan is no more dangerous than a pair of scissors or the many equipment that is found in art department. (Good point...sort of...IMO that's more of "apples and oranges" comparison).
A few teachers even hoped that Jean Charest would use to the Notwithstanding clause to protect Quebec schools from the decision.
One lawyer: Whatever happened to "equality", I thought that was the reasoning for behind the SSM decision, why isn't it for this case?

Right-Wingers take advantage of Alternative Media in Quebec

2006-03-03T08:53:00.000-04:00

Living in Quebec sure has its advantages. The Province is home to the REAL North American devil's playground: Montreal. Also Quebec City, who's combination of coziness, beauty and rich history is unmatched by any city on the whole continent. Quebec is also home to the Montreal Canadians (best dam Hockey team in the history of the sport), the Formula 1 Grand Prix, summer festivals like "Just for Laughs" and The Jazz Festival. Combine all that with drop-dead gorgeous women, Molson beer and maple syrup, from the long range Quebec looks like some kind of utopia.

But once you begin to dig into Québec politics. The province takes a nasty turn to modern day version of hell on earth. The threat of separatism notwithstanding, the province is facing some real dangerous challenges.

You have the demographic time-bomb (Its estimated that by 2025 there will be 2 able bodied workers to one retiree), a mounumentous provincial debt totaling over 100 billion dollars (due to lavish social spending), Public Sector Unions whose actions and demands border on extortion and a foreign policy outlook that can be easily spun into Fidel Castro worship. (Americans are pig headed Imperialists!).

In short, Quebec is the socialist experiment whose Revolution Tranquille outcomes have brought its economy and demographics into a vicious cycle of decline. But what's worse in all this is that those who are advocating for modern-day Political and Social change have no voice.

The Action Democratique, Quebec's right-leaning provincial party is limited to a handful of seats in the provincial legislature and doesn't qualify for an official opposition party (despite receiving 20 per cent of the popular vote in the last election). Artists, actors, musicians and academics , all of whom are government subsidized, are made up entirely of radical separatists, Che Guevera admirers, Michael Moore worshippers and late-sipping socialists (Quebec Conservatives and Libertarians call them "La Gauche Caviar").

Why does the Radical Left have such dominance over Quebec society? Well...the short answer lies within the French-Language mainstream media. Editorial boards, Media Figures and News Directors are well known to be staunch status-quo defenders. And whenever a movement comes along which challenges the status-quo is immediately demonized and repressed (as we've seen in the case of CHOI FM). The idea of a political debate usually takes form with a rabid communist on one side with a social-democrat on the other. Resulting in a kind of leftist strangulation of the news and political debate. If your not a pro-soverignist, pro-union or anti-American. Chances are the Quebec media will have nothing which can represent your views.

But within the past few years, Quebec Conservatives and Libertarians have taken advantage of the internet to help break this strangulation, much to the horror of the liberal-left elite in this province.

Let's go through some of those alternative media sources:

Everybody knows "Le Quebecois Libre", the only web magazine in Canada that is 100 per cent, take no prisoners Libertarian magazine. Every two weeks, the site releases a string of articles that slice and dice old socialist myths, advocates greater individual liberty and responsibility, calls for an unrestricted Free Market society and offers commentary on modern day events from a Libertarian viewpoint. And with writers such as Martin Masse, Pierre Lemieux, Paul Beadry, Mathieu Bédard and Bridgitte Pellerin (who now writes for the Ottawa Citizen), you can be sure that this is not a site for the weak hearted Grit or Dipper.

Some right leaning Quebecers have taken advantage of the blogsphere as well, and believe you me, if I had to give ONE argument in favor of bilingualism, it would be for people to be able to read and understand the writings of Laurent (though fortunately he blogs in both English and French), Jonathan, Patrick (Notwithstanding he's a Leafs fan :p), Xavier, Vincent or the mysterious guy behind Kébek.

Their writings are MUST-READS for those who are interested in the developments in Quebec Politics. ALL outstanding bloggers with an amazing writing style. (Something about Right-Wing talking points done in the French Language that just makes their posts fascinating, to me at least).

But the most interesting kind is the most recent phenomenon:

Internet Radio!

Yes, without the CRTC breathing down their necks, or the anal News Directors editing their content, some right-leaning Quebecers have taken the airwaves in hopes of elevating the political debate in Quebec. All these stations are 100 per cent independent, created through the efforts and financial resources of the individual normal, everyday working Joe's behind these stations.

1. XTRM: A Montreal Based internet station animated by former Montreal City Councilor and ADQ activist Jean-François Plante (Laurent talks about him here). Plante's show usually consists of phone interviews where he speaks to other like minded individuals (Vincent was on the show a couple of times) about recent developments in the Quebec Political world. His style is ardent, but respectful to opposing views. He brings with him political experience, so much of what he says usually carries clout. Basically, he rants in a much more respectful manner.
There's no charge for listening.

2. Rockik.com: The rotwiller of Internet Conservative radio based in Quebec City. Now unlike Plante, this station is downright vicious to everything that's Left Wing. From Monday to Friday, 9 am to 12 pm, Ismael Trépanier and Jonathan Bouchard (both in their 20's) rant away slamming the repressive government intervention in our daily lives and hammer away (in a very extreme and personal manner) the politics of the Bloc Quebecois, The Liberal Party, the NDP, and the Parti Québecois. However their Conservative views tends to be restricted to fiscal policies. More or less of the South Park Conservative variety.
The station has apparently had some very good success reaching a large audience, and the guys are planning to open an office in Calgary sometime soon (at least that's what they said in their e-mail to their viewers).

Their is a membership fee to access the archives, however you can listen to the show on the same day for free (provided you register for free).

3. Radio Pirate: Jeff Fillion is back!! One year after he resigned from CHOI FM due to a witch-hunt by the Quebec Political and Social elite, Fillion comes back with his own internet radio station, where he is expected to animate his own show (with several music channels). If you want to know more about why Jeff was censored by the CRTC, please refer to this article by Frederic Têtu in the National Post at the time of the CRTC announcement.

Now if there's any reason the Quebec City region became fertile ground for the Conservatives, its because of this guy. Fillion for years blasted away the ideology of the Left and most specifically the Parti Québecois. He was an ardent defender of the United States and Israel, and slammed the Unions and the pacifists whenever he could. All that in mind, he managed to average 410 000 listeners weekly! (if you want a comparison, Rush Limbaugh averages 200 000 in the entire US market).

The best part is that the CRTC is absolutely powerless to censure or punish him through the net. And Jeff will have a free hand in getting his message out.

Their is a registration fee you must pay in order to listen to Radio Pirate, 5.99 per month. I already signed up, and if your bilingual, I strongly urge you to do the same for the short term.

Will all this activism revive the old "Bleus"? Who knows. But one thing is clear, the left no longer has monopoly of thought in Quebec.

R.I.P Cpl. Paul Davis

2006-03-03T03:19:00.000-04:00

Cpl. Paul Davis, who was killed in an accident early Thursday near Kandahar, was offered a promotion that would have kept him at home and out of harm's way in Afghanistan.

But the grieving father of the 28-year-old soldier said his son showed courage in choosing the more dangerous assignment.

"He had the sense of duty of comradeship with the people he'd been training with, and felt he wanted to go with them," Jim Davis told CTV Atlantic in an interview from his home in Bridgewater, N.S. on Thursday.

Cpl. Davis, a married father of two, was on a routine patrol when the LAV-III (light-armoured vehicle) ran off the road and flipped over. Six other soldiers and a local Afghan interpreter were injured in the accident. Two of the soldiers remain in critical condition.

On behalf of all Canadians: Thank you Cpl. Davis for all the sacrifice and dedication you gave to your country.

"And when he gets to heaven, to St Peter he will tell: 'One more soldier reporting sir; I've served my time in hell."

Its good to know I'm not alone.

2006-03-01T08:12:00.000-04:00

Two things that put me in a good mood to start the day:

1. Canadian Muslims stand up for Denmark, Free Speech and Reason.

It is time for Canadians to stand up for the hard-won democratic values that the Muslim extremists oppose.

By rejecting the agenda of the extremists, Canada's intelligentsia would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Muslims and secular individuals from the region who reject both Islamophobia and Islamism. Islamism is not the new revolutionary movement against global forces of oppression, as a section of the left in this country erroneously perceives.

Today, the religious right and autocracies in the so-called Islamic world are united in their call for passing legislation to make any discussion on religion a criminal offence.

This, at a time when many writers in Jordan, Iran, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan are rotting in jails, facing charges of apostasy and blasphemy.

(H/T Peter Jaworski)

2. Prominent Muslims stand up to Fundamentalists worldwide.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

(H/T Damian Penny)

Hamas: Evil but not Stupid.

2006-03-01T07:43:00.000-04:00

I'm very late in commenting about this, but let's just clear things up about Hamas' so-called terms for recognizing Israel in hopes of calming the international community and allow foreign aid to continue to flow.

"Let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders,"

So far so good right? Let's continue:

"release the prisoners"

Well...I'm not so sure Israel would be eager to release people who were guilty of killing its citizens, but let's be optimistic put this under "negotiable". But here's the killer:

and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Israel.

And boom! Right there we have a problem, the current Palestinian refugees in some estimates number well over 2 million. Should they ever get "the right of return", the demographics in Israel would make it impossible to be sustained as a Jewish state. Israel from the get go stated that this is a non-starter, and will not even begin discussions of the refugees until all territorial disputes are solved. Even Mahmood Abbas recognized this as an impossibility, and shortly after being sworn in as President he entered negotiations with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Gulf States in granting the refugees in those countries citizenship amnesty.

But that's not the end of it:

Hamas will have a position if this occurs," Haniyeh said.

So basicaly Israel must commit to evrey Hamas demand, and then Hamas will think about recognizing Israel. Notice also that there's no mention of rennouncing violence in among Hamas' "conditions". I'd be eager to know what the hell were the people who were calling for Harper and the West to recognize the election results think about the situation now.

The sad part is some countries are already taking this as a good sign and have continued their foreign aid. Which is exactly what Hamas intended to happen after this pathetic news release.

Shakira for President of Lebanon!

2006-03-01T06:31:00.000-04:00

With mounting pressure on Pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emil Lahoud (who's one of the few remnants of the old regime prior to the Cedar Revolution) to resign, many questions arise on just who would be the top contender for the job.

Let's bear in mind that whomever accepts the position has no easy task ahead of them. They must assist the Lebanese Legislature in taming the Shiite militants in the South. They must be a unifying figure among all Lebanese groups (Shiites, Sunnis and Christians), and most important of all, they must be able to represent Lebanon internationally in a solid manner. Further more, as the Lebanese constitution dictates, the President must be of Christian faith (The Prime Minister must be a Sunni and the Speaker of the House must be a Shiite, Lebanon uses the French republican system of government).

Well ZadigVoltaire of Beirut Notes has one hell of a suggestion on the perfect candidate, none other than Lebanese-Columbian singer Shakia!

Its satire of course, but when you think about it, it have some advantages:

* Every diplomat will surely visit her and spend more time with her than with the Speaker of the Parliament or the Prime Minister.

* Oil-Rich Gulf Arabs will invest all their money in Lebanon just for a dance from the President.

* Bashar al-Assad will finally open up a Syrian Embassy in Lebanon, and make himself the ambassador. (AK note: He rids Syria of a dictatorship and recognizes the new regime! Two birds with one stone!)

* Hezbollah will drop their weapons after President Shakira threatens to visit Sayed Hassan Nasrallah at his headquarters in her stage clothes.

* The LBC weather person will stop greeting the viewers with "bonsoir", instead he would start by saying: "Que Passa, Hombres?"

But on second thought, its probably at beast this be kept under satire. Next thing you know other countries will catch on and before you know it Prime Minister Cuthbert, President Spears and President Hayek will be sitting around discussing border security and NAFTA and that just scares the shit out me.

(H/T Ya Libnan)

Monitoring Iraq on Al-Jazeera

2006-02-26T12:09:00.000-04:00

I've spent most of my day yesterday glued to Al-Jazeera as they continually monitored the hour-by hour developments in Iraq following the attack on the Golden Mosque.

Unfortunately I don't get the channel on my normal digital cable, so I had to get to an Egyptian Cafe to watch their coverage. Which was frustrating a bit because a) The Place was packed b) You had close to 50 people shouting at the T.V. and some of the Iraqi guys that were there were frantically trying to get a hold of their relatives after each breaking news of fresh attacks. Which made it very hard to concentrate. and c) I couldn't live blog the whole thing.

Anyway here are the highlights of the coverage (From what I can renember):

-Both Shia and Sunni leaders and head lawmakers are doing everything they can to calm the situation down. They even got together for a joint televised appeal asking all the Iraqi people to help end the cycle of violence. Kurdish groups have also asked for unity and cooperation of all parties.

-There's been allot of conflicting reports of attacks. For example, in the mourning they were detailing how a mosque was torched in Baghdad, then they retract it 2 hours later saying its in another city and finally an hour after that they acknowledge that the original and modified reports were not true.

This was escalating tensions very fast, so eventually the government had to release the correct data as to what and what has not been attacked and destroyed in hope of calming people down.

Omar from ITM has the details.

-During a call-in session some callers were blaming the attack on the Golden Mosque on the Mossad and the CIA. *Sigh*

-All the people ordinary people that they spoke to affirmed that they did not want a civil war and hoped the situation would calm. (Like I predicted)

-That's not to say everything is fine, far from it. There will still eventually be terror exchanges by the extremists of both Shia and Sunni factions. Factions which were never controllable in the first place since the fall of Saddam. However, an all-out Civil war for the moment seems improbable.

-Curfew was extended in some cities, which many people and experts agreed was the right thing to do.

Will all these efforts take hold and prevent further escalation? I don't know, this will all depend on the efforts of all parties involved, but we can at least (for now) breath a little sigh of relief that no civil war would break out. But there will be some more bloodshed. That's unavoidable when it comes to situations like this unfortunately. And remember, when it comes to matters of religion in the Middle East, nothing's set in stone.

Senator Kenny made me proud, and Senator Boxer pissed me off.

2006-02-25T08:10:00.000-04:00

I'd never thought I'd be complimenting a Liberal Canadian politician over American lawmakers when it comes to the issue of anti-terrorism measures, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Sen. Colin Kenny, a Liberal Party member and chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defense, basicaly repeats what I stated a few days on the matter of the Ports Deal which is turning the U.S. political scene upside down at the moment.

And get this!!! He praises Bush!

"I don't think we have a better and more staunch ally in the war on terrorism than the UAE, and I think that's why we're seeing President Bush draw a line in the sand," said Kenny.

And finishes off with a good dose of common sense:

Kenny said Americans should be more concerned about criminal involvement in longshoremen unions in North America and what he termed the "very low standards" of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, which must be followed at all sea ports.

Which is more than what I can say for the for certain Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California):

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, told CBS' "Face the Nation": "It is ridiculous to say you're taking secret steps to make sure that it's OK for a nation that had ties to 9/11, (to) take over part of our port operations in many of our largest ports. This has to stop."

A nation that had ties to 9/11?! Because two of the 9/11 hijackers were UAE citizens automatically renders the whole nation as a significant player to the disaster?

Using this hag's logic, the United States has "ties" to every single criminal activity done by its citizens in Foreign countries.

What.a.bitch.

Be warned the U.S. lawmakers are not doing themselves any favors here, if this is enough to piss a guy like me off, I can't imagine how it will play among the naïve folks back in the Middle East. Turning whatever allies you have left in the Middle East as enemies is a big price to pay for score some cheap political gain in an election year.

“To hell with the Afghans”- Latest Poll

2006-02-24T19:27:00.000-04:00

According to latest poll (which asks whether or not Canadians support sending troops to Afghanistan to stabilize the country), the vast majority of respondents said no.
This is weird considering this mission has broadside support from the international community and while not entrenched in legislation, received the nod from the United Nations. So it doesn’t have the “unilateral” characteristics of military intervention which Canadians usually frown upon.

So what’s the problem? Are Canadians Isolationists all of a sudden? Is it because the mission is too dangerous? Is it Anti-Americanism veering its ugly head again? Why are Canadians against this mission all of a sudden?

Let’s step back and take a broader look at Canadians’ positions on matter of military intervention. What was the position of the Canadian public when it came to sending troops to Haiti? Mainly positive. In fact the Canadian Liberal-Left took the role as Hawks on the matter. What about the possibility of military intervention in Darfur, Which ex-Liberal MP David Kilgour turned this to be his “cause celebre” at the end of his political career?

So I disagree withJarrett (who btw, I consider to be my political twin, I agree with him on EVERY single point from Economics to Military matters) that this isn’t a step towards “Isolationism” per se, but rather a knee-jerk reaction based on irrational Anti-Bush philosophy. Like everything, hatred for Bush clouds every single thing for many people. They’d be willing to sell their soul to the devil if it meant a political setback for the President.

I don’t think I can summarize it any better than The Amazing Wonderdog on the kick-ass new (Canadian) military blog: The Torch.

For those opposed to our presence in Afghanistan, the question is quite simple. Which is more important: to stabilize the country and benefit the human beings who reside there, or to frustrate American interests? And if frustrating American interests is more important than human beings, what kind of a humanitarian are you?

No need to Panic. (Yet)

2006-02-24T08:44:00.000-04:00

Since the attack on the Golden Mosque, there's been good reason for many of us start panicking over a feared scenario of a Civil War emerging from all this.

However, I'm cautiously optimistic that it won't get that far. For sure this will create some short-term havoc and the long-term implications are yet to be determined, but judging from some testimonies from some Iraqi bloggers, there's reason to remain calm for now:

Omar at ITM:

Baghdad looks more alive today but in a very cautious way, traffic in the streets is heavier than it was yesterday but still way below normal.
There's some kind of shopping frenzy because people are trying to be prepared if the worst happens; people are stock-piling small reserves of food, cigarettes, bottled water…etc especially after they heard some of the roads to/from Baghdad are closed and vehicles were turned away.

The Sunni political leaders were invited to a meeting with the UIA suggested by president Talabani but they refused to join the meeting saying the government has to condemn attacks on their mosques as well before they consider ending the boycott.
Talabani responded positively to their demand and gave a short statement to the press half an hour ago and condemned all attacks on worshipping places of all kinds.

The situation is still very tense but the good thing is that the Sunni have not returned the attacks and I hope the Shia have satisfied their vengeance by now because I don't want to even think of what can happen if this situation lasts longer than this.

Which is always a promising sign, considering retaliatory attacks tend to happen within hours in situations like this. Further more, 24 Steps to liberty details some promising signs of cooperation efforts among Shiites and Sunnis to help diffuse the crisis.

Another factor to keep in mind is that the Iraqi people can't stomach another conflict. they've been through 3 major wars for the past 25 years, which devastated their country entirely, which could be a very important incentive to act through this matter rationally.

But then again, when it comes to religion in the Middle East, these type of things are never predictable. So who knows what will happen.

More selective outrage by the Muslim World

2006-02-24T07:11:00.000-04:00

I'd just like to add on to something from Sandmonkey's post on the latest cultural "controversy" in the Mid-East.

The long and short of it is that a Muslim Pop Diva: "Deeyah" (pictured above) released a new Music video which outlined the struggle for women's rights throughout the Middle East (with a cameo appearance by our very own Irshad Manji), it was denounced for its raunchy (and "anti-Muslim") jest. Needless to say she's facing death threats, boycott, fatwas etc...you know how it works.

Now before I go on, let's remember the lesson from the Danish Cartoons brouhaha in where we learned that common sense, decency and objectivity is not exactly the strongpoint of that part of the world.
But most important of all: The Hypocrisy of their logic knows no bounds.

Well this case its no different.

Some Westerners might be shocked (or pleasantly surprised) to know that some Arabic and Middle Eastern music videos have no shortage of raunchy material and sex appeal. Its an ongoing phenomenon since the 80's. In fact some music videos by some Arab divas might even be considered too extreme for MTV or MuchMusic. (If your really that intrigued by this, register for free at this website and see some of the videos for yourself). Yet, they nowhere near create the same kind of reaction.

Now the question is, Why are the fundamentalists up-in arms over Deeyah's content, while giving weak denunciations for other Arab and Muslim Divas?

Answer: There is no political content in the videos of the other artists. Deeyah on the other hand brings up their injustice front and center.

But another question arises from all this, and I'll quote a line from Deeyah's video:

If you that religious and not with trendy clothes, then what you doin even watchin videos?"

Why are THEY watching these videos? I mean Videos like this only appear on specialized music channels where this type of content come on every other minute.

Well...I'll just let you use your imagination for that one.

Port Deal Madness

2006-02-23T04:33:00.000-04:00

Regular readers to my blog are well aware that I've never shied away from criticizing the irrational and retarded reaction from my people on matters of terrorism and religious fundamentalism. I've always spoken out against the insanities of my community and always will. However, I cannot for the life in me understand all the fear that's being circulated regarding the latest ports deal which several U.S. naval ports were sold to a UAE-based company.

For one thing, any security fears that are being raised is, in my opinion, irrational. Security detail and procedure will be overseen by the U.S coast guard and international authorities. And just like their predecessors, this company will have the incentive to keep those ports safe. Should a security breach occur, that company's reputation would be tainted and would never again receive any future contracts anywhere. Surely that's some motivation to properly assure the security of those ports.

Second, should any legislative action occur to block this deal might have some dangerous repercussions. The Business community in the Middle East is one of the strongest allies the western nations have in combating terrorism and fundamentalism. If you go through any "chamber of commerce" in any city in the Middle East you would find many promising details: They're overwhelmingly secular, they have pushed their governments into singing on to the WTO, restricting state control of the private enterprise, they view the fundamentalists as enemies to their business interests so usually they're very happy to see terror-supporting regimes brought to justice. Should any legislative action occur to block this deal, it would risk alienating a very important ally in the future of status-quo change in the Middle East.

Thirdly, the UAE (the host nation of the enterprise that are about to control those ports) is by far one of the most pro-western governments throughout the entire Middle East. They're main commercial city Dubai, is run entirely through Foreign Direct Investment and Western Tourism. They both have the political and commercial interest to maintain good relations with the West. So fears of reprisal is not an issue with this country. Unlike Saudi Arabia, the royal family of the UAE has demonstrated a strong stance against fundamentalism and has been open to inner political reforms.

Anyone worried about this deal should just take a chill-pill and think this rationally. Any action taken to block this would result in more tension between both regions, and would risk alienating a useful community in the Middle East.

Update: Arab Bloggers weigh in:

SandMonkey: On Ports
Beirut Spring: American Racism

Update II: Nadz, as usual nails it:.

Look, here's my take on the whole thing - despite the natural instinct that this is scary, there is no reason to deny a company a contract just because they come from an Arab country. The UAE has had a pretty good record on the War on Terror, and companies will operate from a financial perspective, not an ideological one. We ourselves have done a pretty shitty job looking after our ports - bringing in an outside company is probably a good thing.

A National Disgrace: Canada's Hockey Team.

2006-02-22T20:31:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I left work early to watch a tragedy unfold! Good God this hurts!!

So what went wrong? Ummm, I have a few places to start:

1. Allowing washed up, overrated, sub-par and underachieving geezers like Draper, Doan and Pronger instead of picking some new blood with Actual Talent like Spezza, Crosby, Strahl and Phaneuf.

2.The Coaching Staff: Quinn, Hitchcock and Martin, three blowhards, old school style coaching (slow play). Two of whom are having abysmal seasons, while the other is struggling to stay over 500. And Gretzky thought THEY would lead us to gold?

3. The old-style play of dump and chase is OVER! Somebody get this into their thick little skulls, nowadays you have to WORK the puck into the zone and attack the net. Not shoot and hope for a rebound...you bunch of morons!!!

4. Can someone explain to me why a bum like Bertuzzi was on this team?

5. Gretzky and Kevin Lowe should get the **** out!!! This isn't a team where you give spots to old buddies and guys who helped you out in the past, you stack a the team like this with players that are hot TODAY!!!

God dammit! I need to get drunk.

"Post-Vacation Blues" and other observations.

2006-02-20T22:39:00.000-04:00

Whenever we plan our vacations to escape the day-to-day stress and chaos of our daily lives, there is always one thing which we tend to overlook...eventually we return!! Let me tell ya, coming back from a kick-ass vacation which was everything I could hope for (apart from the weather, which was unseasonably cool and damp) to sub zero temperature and the depressing mid-winter Montreal atmosphere is one hell of a way to slip into depression.

Speedweeks in Daytona was awesome! Great races, great parties, the festivities were fun and one hell of an atmosphere. There is no words that I can use that will do this trip justice. A-Mazing! If there are any NASCAR fans who read this blog, this is something you have to experience at least once in your life. Consider it a sacred pilgrimage that you must fulfill as a fan to truly taste the awesome NASCAR experience. The only downside of all this is the challenge I have to put myself through tomorrow mourning: How the hell am I going to find the willpower to drag myself out of bed and get to work in the following days after experience all that?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few things that popped out while I was away:

The prisoner photos:

Some photos were released detailing more torture abuse against Saddam's forces at the hands of coalition troops. Now my first instinct like any sane person, was to condemn and protest these brutal actions. However, I'm facing some kind of moral dilemma on all this. Namely: These guys who are being abused, were the same guys who were carrying out the executions and torture under Saddam's orders.

In a way, I disapprove of the method, but I have no sympathy for the Iraqi soldiers being abused.

To put it in another context: imagine you walk out of your home to find a man tied to the back of a car and is being dragged around town. Now at first glance, you would be horrified and angry that anyone would commit such cruelty to another human being. However, upon getting more information, you learn that the man being dragged around was guilty of a doing the same thing to say...an innocent 6 year old girl a few days ago, and this was his punishment. What would your reaction be?

So I really don't know what my opinion on this matter is.

Undisputable points on the Mohammed Cartoons:

I see that Ezra Levant has decided to publish the cartoons in the upcoming Western Standard issue. And is already facing the howls of outrage from the usual groups, let's get things in perspective here.

1. If your the kind who defended other publications of mocking Christianity, Judaism or any other organized religion, your in no position to condemn a publication that ridicules Islam. Your either for freedom of the press, satire and free speech or you believe that some control to those rights should be in order. Its that simple.

2. To use the excuse that this would spur a violent reaction and therefore should be stopped is also a dumb condemnation of the Western Standard. What your implying is that all I or any other group that decides some content in the media is insulting towards our beliefs have to do to bring about some control of the press is to protest like a bunch of deranged monkeys, burning, killing and pillaging anything in sight and you would come to our aid and demand that the content should never have been published. In other words, your allowing the intimidation of free speech to take hold.

3. Why hasn't anyone asked themselves why don't western Muslims become equally as vigilant when cartoons in the Muslim world publish cartoons that are anti-Semitic and bigoted in nature? Why are angered by ridicule done against them, while silent against their own kind who ridicule others?

4. If Middle Eastern dictators are able to crush large protests against their rule, why couldn't they use that force to prevent the torching of Foreign Embassies that were under their security obligation? Simply re-enforces the nation that some Middle Eastern countries helped fuel the incidents.

Comic Relief

Special thanks to Brad Fletcher from Texas who sent me this excellent cartoon:

Off to Daytona!

2006-02-10T02:58:00.000-04:00

Of all the weeks I could have taken as vacation time, I don't think I have picked a better one. No more Emerson, no more Danish cartoons, no more Muslim hypocrisy, no more headaches and anger. No politics, just beer, friends, parties and horsepower! What more can a man ask for?

I fly down to Daytona in a few hours with my buddies to attend the Daytona 500 festivities. (Yes, my secret shame: I love NASCAR) We managed to get a package deal to the Budweiser Shootout, The Gatorade Duel, the Hershey 300 and finally the Daytona 500. Blogging will be non-existent until I return on the 20th. (And thank god for that!)

On another note, if anyone can tell me how I can catch Team Canada games for the Olympic Games in the U.S. (what channels? what radio station?) it will be greatly appreciated.

Look who's talking!

2006-02-09T02:24:00.000-04:00

What I'm about to describe reflects EVERYTHING that's wrong with the Muslim Community in Canada and worldwide. Key word to keep in mind here: Hypocrisy.

The CIC released a pathetic press release regarding Stephen Harper's cabinet positions. Key Quotes:

With yesterday's new federal Conservative cabinet appointments, the Canadian Islamic Congress fears that police-state politics which began under the former Liberal regime will soon emerge in an accelerated and enlarged form.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Just for the sake reasoning, let's assume that the Conservatives have a secret plan to turn Canada into a police state. (I know! I know! but let's just try to get into their mindset). Let's assume the worst: The Conservatives will accelerate the police state.

But one tricky question arises in all this. Why does the CIC urge caution to one "police state" threat, while urging people to embrace another?

A few days after the Canadian federal election, you probably remember the Canadian Islamic Congress' "warning" to Harper to respect the democratic decision in the Palestinian territories after he hinted that he won't recognize the results over there until Hamas renounces terrorism.

Let's have a look into what Hamas' domestic policy has in place for the Palestinian people:

1. The implementation of Sharia Law.
2. A "Supervised" policy to monitor the press in order to edit out "un-Islamic" theory.
3. Requiring all Women to be veiled.
4. Imposing a Dihmi Tax on Palestinian Christians and Druze.
5. The banning of certain leisure's such as Music, Dancing, Art, Movies, etc...

In other words a mechanism to control every aspect of Palestinian society into their own image. The suppression of individual freedom in the name of "Islamic Values". Does this sound like a Police State to you? I sure as hell do think so.

So why, in the name of everything that's holly, do they encourage people to embrace this "Police State" (A Hamas dominated Palestine) while warning us to be vigilant to another (Supposedly under a Conservative-Led Canada)?

Right there you see the moral bankruptcy many Muslims in the world suffer from nowadays.
-Go into a panic mode against Harper, but embrace Hamas.
-Throw a murderous fit when a cartoonist draws an unflattering picture of the Prophet Mohammed, but laugh at a cartoon depicting Jews as Nazi murderers.
-Demand economic sanctions against western countries, but hyperventilate when others demand one against a Muslim country.

....

You know what? I laid out the facts. Draw your own conclusions. I'm way too pissed to conclude this post with a worn-out cliché that's been repeated by almost every sane person who is monitoring current world events.

On a final note to my fellow Muslims:

QUIT BEING RETARDED!

Was Assad behind the Embassy torchings?

2006-02-07T17:47:00.000-04:00

There were rumors floating around in the Mid East that the embassy torchings in Beirut and Damascus of several European Embassies. Initially it started with the accusation by Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party. Now I ignored this at first because Jumblatt, while he was an idealist, was also known to be a loose cannon at times. However, some details are emerging which may compliment his theory of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad engineering the chaos.

Al Hayat reported that among those who were arrested in the Beirut riots, the breakdown was as follows:

76 Syrians arrested
35 Palestinians arrested
About a dozen Lebanese arrested.

Olivier Roy, a respected French specialist on Middle Eastern Affairs, reached a similar conclusion:

"It is evident that these demonstrations are entirely manipulated by the authorities. It's revenge for the European pressure on the Syrian presence in Lebanon."

(h/t Accorss the Bay)

Finally there’s one last thing to consider. Lee Smith in the Weekly Standard makes an excellent point which I completetly overlooked when the riots occurred.

“Syria is an authoritarian state where nothing happens on the street unless the regime permits it to happen.”

Exactly! Syria’s iron grip hold on the Public is truly remarkable. There’s not a street corner where the mukhabarat (secret police) is not present. There’s barely any phone line that’s not tapped. Nothing gets published in the newspapers that doesn’t go through review by the authorities. Dissidents of the regime have a tendance to dissapear. I’ve personally heard stories of people being arrested in cofee shops 2 minutes after mentioning some criticism of the Syrian leadership. Protests against government policies get crused before they even begin. And we’re led to believe that the Syrian authorities could’nt have done anything to control those proetsts? Bullshit! Either the Syrian authorities allowed this to happen, or they played akey role in them. Either way, we see Bashar Al Assad has already began to panic about his grip to power.