Returning to the old place after a long absence, I found that it was the scent of Algeria that now predominated along the main thoroughfare of Blackstock Road. This had had a good effect on the quality of the coffee and the spiciness of the grocery stores. But it felt odd, under the gray skies of London, to see women wearing the veil, and even swathed in the chador or the all-enveloping burka. Many of these Algerians, Bangladeshis, and others are also refugees from conflict in their own country. Indeed, they have often been the losers in battles against Middle Eastern and Asian regimes which they regard as insufficiently Islamic. Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence.
Until he was jailed last year on charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, a man known to the police of several countries as Abu Hamza al-Masri was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque. He was a conspicuous figure because, having lost the use of an eye and both hands in an exchange of views in Afghanistan, he sported an opaque eye plus a hook to theatrical effect. Not as nice as he looked, Abu Hamza was nonetheless unfailingly generous with his hospitality. Overnight guests at his mosque’s sleeping quarters have included Richard Reid, the man in whose honor we now all have to take off our shoes at the airport, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the missing team member of September 11, 2001. Other visitors included Ahmed Ressam, arrested for trying to blow up LAX for the millennium, and Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian who planned to don an explosive vest and penetrate the American Embassy in Paris. On July 7, 2005 (“7/7,” as the British call it), a clutch of bombs exploded in London’s transport system. It emerged that one of the suicide murderers had been influenced by the preachings of Abu Hamza, as had two of those attempting to replicate the mission two weeks later.
Ah yes, because Bush’s post-9/11 plan has worked out so perfectly on so many levels. All along he’d hoped that by 2007 he’d be a political eunuch on the Hill and below-freezing approval levels. And the mad genius’s plan to seize Iraqi oil and topple regimes across the Middle East has gone off without a hitch. Meanwhile, Karl Rove’s Mark Hanna-like scheme to permanently lock in a Republican majority couldn’t be going smoother.
Don’t any of these morons consider why, if he’s so evil and conniving, and willing to destroy buildings and murder thousands, he didn’t plant WMDs in Iraq?
And disgustingly, rather than using the opportunity as a “Sister Souljah moment,” a major Democrat candidate panders to them, instead of properly denouncing them as loons. He can’t, though, because they’re his base.
The people who whine that we haven’t caught bin Laden (I’m still not convinced that he didn’t die years ago), or that “Al Qaeda in Iraq is not Al Qaeda,” don’t understand what we’re at war with, or who the enemy is. Andrew McCarthy explains.
The people who whine that we haven’t caught bin Laden (I’m still not convinced that he didn’t die years ago), or that “Al Qaeda in Iraq is not Al Qaeda,” don’t understand what we’re at war with, or who the enemy is. Andrew McCarthy explains.
The people who whine that we haven’t caught bin Laden (I’m still not convinced that he didn’t die years ago), or that “Al Qaeda in Iraq is not Al Qaeda,” don’t understand what we’re at war with, or who the enemy is. Andrew McCarthy explains.
In fact, what’s finally happening reminds me of a post I wrote a couple years ago on how one establishes a beachhead of cooperation, and then expands it.
A very long, but interesting (and encouraging) video interview by Bob Wright with Eli Lake, embedded reporter for the New York Sun, and a major in Iraq.
“The people who think that the insurgents are fighting for a nationalist cause should go to Haifa Street right now.”
“In terms of the Vietnam analogy, these are people trying to seek My Lais every day, and our guys are trying to prevent it.”
This is dumb, not just because of the free speech implications, but because they are shutting down the voices that could be the most important ones in support of the war. But even if not, it’s a violation of the values for which these soldiers (and other military personnel) are fighting. Of course no operational information should be blogged, but there’s no evidence that this has occurred. It sounds more like stupid bureaucracy to me (which is the story of the Bush administration, and of every administration). Of course, that’s the story of big government itself. Unfortunately, it’s not something that we can get around when it comes to making war.
This is dumb, not just because of the free speech implications, but because they are shutting down the voices that could be the most important ones in support of the war. But even if not, it’s a violation of the values for which these soldiers (and other military personnel) are fighting. Of course no operational information should be blogged, but there’s no evidence that this has occurred. It sounds more like stupid bureaucracy to me (which is the story of the Bush administration, and of every administration). Of course, that’s the story of big government itself. Unfortunately, it’s not something that we can get around when it comes to making war.