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Le Mont de Sisyphe
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Location: Zurich, Switzerland

Je suis beau et intelligent. À part cela, je suis juriste helvète, libéral-conservateur, amateur d'armes, passionné d'histoire et de politique. Je suis libéral et capitaliste convaincu car je pense que c'est cela l'état naturel de l'homme. Je parle le "Schwiizerdütsch" avec un accent zurichois, j'adore la bonne musique, la bière et surtout la femme avec qui je vis.





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Friday, December 30, 2005

Ariel Sharon and Charles de Gaulle

Polyscopique has an interesting comparison between Ariel Sharon and Charles de Gaulle (also available in french). The parallels between the withdrawal from Algeria and Sharon's pragmatic decision to leave certain "palestinian" territories are quite fascinating indeed. Furthermore, both de Gaulle and Sharon were facing their most dangerous ennemies in the respective extremist right-wing movements in their own countries. And in both cases, the socialist left-wingers in France and Israel were / are stuck in some kind of paralytic dilemma with regards to the smart moves of their most hated opponent.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Bonne année!

Je vais partir pour quelques jours me reposer dans les alpes grisonnes, dans le Far East de la Suisse. La charmante destination s'appelle Bivio et est envrion à 1800 mètres au dessus du niveau de la mer (la photo date de il y a deux ans).

Je ne vais pas participer à la "nouvelle vague record" en messages SMS le soir du 31 décembre. Je préfère plutôt adresser ici-même mes meilleurs voeux pour l'année 2006 à ceux qui daignent me lire. C'est tout aussi impersonnel que les messages par téléphone portable mais c'est beaucoup plus moderne.

À vous tous donc une superbe année 2006, pleine de sexe, de bières et de Rock 'n' Roll et restez en bonne santé.

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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Kofi Annan, very uncool

You know what happens if as a reporter, you ask too many questions to the secretary general of the U.N.? You experience the highest ranked diplomat reacting very undiplomatically. I have just seen it on CNN, maybe there's also some video on the net [edit: the link to the video is at the end of this post]. Via FOXNews (AP):
At Annan's year-end news conference, he honed in on one of his most persistent critics, James Bone of The Times of London, who for months has raised questions at the daily U.N. briefing about the secretary-general and his son's knowledge and possible involvement in the Oil-for-Food scandal.

On Wednesday, Bone mentioned a Mercedes-Benz which Kojo [Annan's son, also being named in Oil-for-food - ed.] imported into Ghana using his father's diplomatic immunity to avoid taxes and customs duty, and said some of the secretary-general's version of oil-for-food related events "don't really make sense."

"I think you're being very cheeky," Annan interrupted. "Listen James Bone, you've been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving and please let's move on to a serious journalist."
Wow. That was straight-forward. Of course, I wouldn't like it either to be repeatedly reminded of my failures and that I am one of biggest political losers of the last years.

During this press conference, Kofi also explained what would have been his and his organization's ideal for Iraq.
Annan said his greatest regret was failure to prevent the war in Iraq.

"One thing that I would have liked to see done is for us to have done everything that we could have done to avoid a war in Iraq," he said. "That has brought such division within this organization and the international community. That is one thing that I must say still haunts me and bothers me."
It would of course have been preferable to maintain Saddam in power. Then of course, there wouldn't have been any "division" in this organization, but there wouldn't be any democratic first steps in Iraq either. Maybe should Kofi have kindly asked or suggested to Saddam to become a nice and democratic dictator...?

However, did it also "haunt and bother" Kofi when Saddam was threatening both his people and his neighbors? Or does it haunt and bother him having been chief of U.N. peacekeeping operations in 1994 when the Hutus chose to exterminate the Tutsis and when he decided to watch them doing so? A similar thing happened later in Srebrenica, Kofi being responsible for the operation as well. The outcome was the worst massacre in Europe since WW II. Of course, his "official" biography doesn't mention these episodes... Or is it haunting and bothering Kofi that the UN elegantly decided that the massacres in Darfur were not a "genocide"? And was it also haunting and bothering him when he agreed to stand up and to hold a minute of silence for those who "gave their lives for the Palestinian cause" [read: Shahids, you know those psychos who blow off busses and pizzerias] recently? Kofi's carreer is a shame. And he even got the peace nobel prize for all this...

It's really time for Kofi to retire and write his memoirs on how he wanted to "prevent the war". I will of course buy the book and put it in my bookshelf, next to Neville Chamberlain's "How to become a historical failure for Dummies".

UPDATE I (22.12.2005, 20:00): The video is available here.

UPDATE II (22.12.2005, 20:25): Roger L. Simon compares this to Nixon during Watergate and ends with a good one:
"Annan has twelve more months in his term as Secretary General. [That's the good news.-ed. What's the bad news? He has twelve more months.]"
;-)

UPDATE III (22.12.2005, 23:05): Claudia Rosset, of the FDD and Pajamas Media, has reacted to Kofi's embarassing outburst. She is one of the journalists Kofi Annan probably doesn't like very much. (Via the National Review):
[T]he U.N. Secretariat, despite all the recent talk of reform, evidently remains a place of secrecy and privilege, run by high officials who don’t mind talking about their global goals and grand legacies, but find it highly irritating to be held to normal standards of good governance or subjected to anything resembling the workings of a free press. And in this particular case, given the ferocity of Annan’s reaction, one has to wonder if there is even more to it. (...)

Bone’s question involved sludge turned up by Paul Volcker’s U.N.-authorized inquiry into the U.N. Oil-for-Food program for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Among other things, Volcker examined the work done by Kofi Annan’s son, Kojo Annan, for a Swiss-based private company, Cotecna Inspection, which in December, 1998 won an important U.N. contract to inspect Oil-for-Food relief goods imported into Iraq. While digging into these matters, Volcker came across evidence that toward the end of that same year, in November, 1998, Kojo Annan allegedly misused his father’s name and U.N diplomatic status to buy a Mercedes-Benz at a discount in Europe and ship it duty-free into Ghana. There, the U.N. resident representative at the time certified to the Ghanaian customs authorities that the Mercedes was for “personal use by Mr. Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary-General” — thus obtaining a customs exemption on the car of more than $14,000.

That discovery raised the question of whether Kofi Annan himself had been complicit in the alleged misuse of his own name and U.N. privileges. According to Volcker, Kofi Annan when asked about the deal claimed ignorance, saying “he did not know that Kojo Annan was buying a Mercedes-Benz in his name.” Volcker reported that he had found no evidence to contradict Annan. And there Volcker’s inquiry abandoned the trail, leaving the fate of the Mercedes itself a mystery.

But unless the Mercedes simply vaporized — lock, stock and documentation — upon arrival in Ghana, there is presumably more to the story — quite possibly involving paperwork with a U.N. stamp. So, for months, Bone and a number of other reporters, myself included, have been asking Annan’s aides what became of the Mercedes — and getting no answer except that Annan’s office does not consider this a U.N. matter.

Indeed, before Bone spoke up at Wednesday’s press conference, CNN had lobbed a softball version of the Mercedes question, to which Annan had replied, at some length, that he felt no obligation to provide any information related either to the car in particular, or the Volcker reports in general. On the Mercedes, he said: “My son and his lawyers are dealing with it. If you want to know more about it, please direct the questions to his lawyers or to him. I am neither his spokesman nor his lawyer.” On Volcker’s findings, Annan delivered what has become the U.N. Secretariat’s refrain: “The report of the Volcker commission is clear, and you have all read the thousands of pages of that report. And I am not going to rehash it here.”

So Bone tried to focus the question, seizing the chance to ask Annan directly: “The Volcker report says that the Mercedes was bought in your name, so as the owner of the car, can you tell us what happened to it and where it is now?” (...)

Indeed, Annan seems to have forgotten that far from giving him the “exoneration” he has claimed, Volcker issued “adverse findings” against Annan on a number of serious counts, including not only his failure to inquire adequately into his own son’s U.N.-related ventures; but also his own inappropriate delegation of Oil-for-Food responsibilities, his “inadequate response to and investigation of reports of Iraqi abuses and corruption of the Programme,” and assorted other failures of attention and oversight. “In sum,” reported Volcker, “the cumulative management performance of the Secretary-General fell short of the standards that the United Nations Organization should strive to maintain.” (...)

Backed up by thousands of pages produced by a $35 million 18-month investigation, that is perhaps a way of diplomatically suggesting that Annan himself is — how to put this? — an embarrassment to his colleagues and his profession?


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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

So, what happened in 2005?

Some of my readers are gonna love this one:




(via Cox & Forkum)

I of course don't think that everything is at its best in Iraq. But I think this is the continuation of a political process that will turn out to be successfull. If it turns out to be successfull, having invaded Iraq with good or bad "excuses" will be regarded as having been the right thing to do. It was even overdue.

And it was not the "international community" who contributed to this success.

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Easy bargain

Of course, there is absolutely no connection to the case of the German hostage Susanne Osthoff who has been released in Iraq recently:
Hezbollah member Mohammed Ali Hamadi has returned to Lebanon after being secretly released in Germany, where he was serving a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a US navy diver, Hezbollah and Lebanese security sources said Tuesday. (...)

However the German Foreign Ministry denies any link between the releases of Hamadi and Osthoff. "There is no connection between these two cases," Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jäger said in remarks to Reuters.
Yes, it is just a funny coincidence.

The goal of the hijacking in 1985 had been to force Israel to free 700 Hezbollah-friendly detainees. It probably wouldn't have worked. Israel is not known for being an easy victim of blackmailing hijackers. Germany seems to be of a different kind though. Does anyone have any relatives or friends in German prisons? Then go and get yourself a hostage. It works.

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Monday, December 19, 2005

La belle Suisse

Étant un peu absent de mon blog ces temps, j'ai pensé l'agrémenter de quelques impressions de ces derniers jours... Il s'agit d'images prises du train en allant de Zurich à Genève, à Genève même et quelques impressions hivernales de Zurich. L'avant dernière photo a été prise au "Platzspitz", l'ancien "needle park", synomyme de la misère humaine causée par les ravages de l'héroïne....

Ce qui est drôle, c'est que les bureaux à l'OMC à Genève étaient presque tous vides... ;-)




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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Sometimes the Americans are un-american

Swiss MP Dick Marty, who has been investigating for the European Council on the alleged secret CIA flights, comes to the conclusion that there is reason for serious concern. I of course do not know the content of Marty's report nor do I know anything about its credibility. I must also add that I am always stunned to note how the Europeans seem to focus on this issue. It seems quite clear to me that this is mainly motivated by an overdose of anti-americanism and disturbing soldiarity with terrorists. Otherwise, where for example is the european investigation about Saddam's european friends or about Putin's charming expedition to Chechnya?

I am convinced that the war on islamic terrorism is real and that it has to be won by the civilized world. I think however that violationg essential legal standards, like for example, "Guantanamo", outsourcing the treatment terrorists or having a rather broad understanding of "human" interrogation techniques is extremely counter-productive. The war on islamic terrorsim is a struggle against islamism itself and against its moral values. This is what makes this conflict so particular and so fundamental. This clash of civilizations/cultures/moral values can only be won by defeating the enemy's own values. If however, we do not affirm and defend our own values of liberty, democracy, rule of law, market economy, etc., then this fight cannot be won, I'd even add, it is not worth to be fought. For it is these moral values that make our position superior to the one the Caliphat represents.

These values at stake are profoundly american, they are all derived from 1776. The US should by no means forget this.

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Monday, December 12, 2005

Steuerfuss, das war knapp

Das war wirklich knapp. Der Zürcher Kantonsrat (Parlament) hat heute beschlossen, den Steuerfuss nicht zu erhöhen. Natürlich wollten die Linken mehr Geld einziehen, um die Finanzen so in den Griff zu kriegen. Das Parlament hat dieses Begehren, das übrigens auch vom Regierunsgrat unterstützt wurde, denkbar knapp mit Stichentscheid des Präsidenten verworfen. Natürlich wird der Staat gemäss den Linkskonservativen sogleich "kaputtgespart". Aber wenigstens haben wir nun erstmals Ruhe. Zuerst muss man die Ausgaben in den Griff kriegen. Natürlich zwingt dies den Finanzdirektor Hollenstein, Einsparungen vorzunehmen. Von nichts kommt bekanntlich nichts. Und der Widerstand wird selbstverständlich sehr stark sein. Die Sozialisten werden ihr Kriegsgeheul mit Wonne ablassen.

Doch Staaten wie Neuseeland haben gezeigt, wie man eine Volkswirtschaft fit macht. Dazu braucht es sicher nicht einen "starken Staat" nach sozialister Vorstellung. Für Sozialisten regelt der Staat bekanntlich wenn möglich alles selber und sorgt für alles. Entsprechend kostet er, ist ineffizient und unterdrückt notwendigerweise die individuelle Freiheit. Auch in Neuseeland war die Staatsquote viel zu hoch. Neuseeland war in den Achtzigern wirtschaftlich auf dem gleichen Level wie die damalige Türkei. Heute ist Neuseeland eines der wettbewerbsfähigsten Länder der Welt. Niemand kann also behaupten, man wisse nicht wie es geht. Einen lesenswerten französischsprachigen Kommentar zu Neuseeland in Gegenüberstellung zu den ruinösen "Rezepten" des französischen Sozialisten Jack Lang liefert mein guter Freund Pan.

Zur Erklärung: Der Steuersatz ist gesetzlich festgeschrieben und gilt für den ganzen Kanton. Der Steuerfuss wird von Kanton und Gemeiden regelmässig neu festgesetzt. Das Produkt von Steuersatz und Steuerfuss ergibt dann das effektive Steuermass, d.h. jenen Anteil des Einkommens den Dir Vater Staat ziemlich unzimperlich entreisst.

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Pallywood II: Al Dura, what happened?

After "Pallywood", the "Second Draft" has achieved its investigation on the Al Durah case. If you don't know what Pallywood is, you better watch this video first. If media bias on the "Intifada" is already common ground for you then download the movie by clicking on the above image (You can also download the video here, it's 43mb for 14 min.). Don't forget to look at the materials at the the Second Draft's site.



In short, Mohamed al Durah was the boy who was said to have been cruely shot by israeli soldiers in september 2000. The Palestinian cameraman Talal abu Rahme took the shooting for France 2. The boy Al Durah has since then become a sort of an icon for the Intifada. But at the same time, serious doubts have arisen on the whole case specially on whether it was staged or not.



In any case, this is a good opportunity to remember those days at the end of september 2000 and the media battle that started then. Another nice example is this famous picture of couse:



HonestReporting on this totally absurd story:
On September 30, 2000, The New York Times, Associated Press and other major media outlets published a photo of a young man -- bloodied and battered -- crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman. The caption identified him as a Palestinian victim of the recent riots -- with the clear implication that the Israeli soldier is the one who beat him.

The victim's true identity was revealed when Dr. Aaron Grossman of Chicago sent the following letter to the Times:
"Regarding your picture on page A5 of the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian on the Temple Mount -- that Palestinian is actually my son, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago. He, and two of his friends, were pulled from their taxicab while traveling in Jerusalem, by a mob of Palestinian Arabs, and were severely beaten and stabbed.

That picture could not have been taken on the Temple Mount because there are no gas stations on the Temple Mount and certainly none with Hebrew lettering, like the one clearly seen behind the Israeli soldier attempting to protect my son from the mob."

Do you still believe everything the media tell you?

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Sunday, December 11, 2005

From Jerusalem with love

Since, according to Mohamed El-Baradei, the world is "losing patience" with Iran, Israel, unlike the "international community," is considering to let follow the words by real acts:
Israel’s armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed.

The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations.

Iran’s stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern.

The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was “losing patience” with Iran.

A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?” That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.

Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the “point of no return” after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years. (...)

A “massive” Israeli intelligence operation has been underway since Iran was designated the “top priority for 2005”, according to security sources.

Cross-border operations and signal intelligence from a base established by the Israelis in northern Iraq are said to have identified a number of Iranian uranium enrichment sites unknown to the the IAEA.

Since Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, “it has been understood that the lesson is, don’t have one site, have 50 sites”, a White House source said.

If a military operation is approved, Israel will use air and ground forces against several nuclear targets in the hope of stalling Tehran’s nuclear programme for years, according to Israeli military sources.

It is believed Israel would call on its top special forces brigade, Unit 262 — the equivalent of the SAS — and the F-15I strategic 69 Squadron, which can strike Iran and return to Israel without refuelling.
Of course, there will be again people like you and me who will know better about what is possible and what is good for the world ("Let's have the UN resolve this problem!"). Furthermore, I know that some will object that the bad provocative Zionists have nukes as well and that this is the real root of all evil. Therefore, I would like to challenge them to quote the last time an Israeli politician expressed his intenion to wipe out whomever from the map.

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Die Familie wird grösser

Ich erlaube mir, meines geschätzten Lesers Aufmerksamkeit auf diesen Blog zu lenken: Freie Gedanken (Liberale Ansichten zur Politik in der Schweiz und der Welt"). Schaut sehr vielversprechend aus, hat eine interessante Blogroll, ist pro-atlantisch und pro-israelisch und das Beste ist: "Il ä sviss".

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Manif de soutien à Israël

En général, je n'aime pas les manifestations. Et je ne crois pas que cela fasse vraiment impression sur les mollahs fous. Toutefois, c'est suffisament rare pour le signaler: Après les balbutiements fantasmiqes récents du président iranien, une manifestation de soutien à Israël aura lieu le 15 décembre devant l'amabassade iranienne à Berne (capitale de la Suisse; non, ce n'est pas Zurich ou Genève). Point de rencontre: Thunplatz, 18:00. Pour de plus amples information, voyez sur le "Forum für Israel" (on dirait que le site n'est qu'en allemand).

(Hat Tip: Bastian)

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Die Iraker geben Bush recht.

Ich frage mich ehrlich, ob dies die Gegner der Operation "Iraqi Freedom" freuen oder frustrieren wird. Sogar der Spiegel (!) muss nun einräumen, dass die Mehrheit der Iraker der Zukunft positiv entgegen schaut und dass das Unternehmen Irak langfristig entsprechend von Erfolg gekrönt sein wird.
Landesweit setzen knapp 70 Prozent der Bevölkerung darauf, dass es dem Zweistromland binnen Jahresfrist "etwas besser" oder sogar "viel besser" gehen wird.

Der Optimismus ist allerdings geografisch nicht gleichmäßig verteilt. Im Zentrum des Landes ist die Stimmung düster: Nur 41 Prozent der Bürger glauben dort an einen Aufschwung. In der Hauptstadt hingegen blicken die Bürger mit größerem Enthusiasmus in die Zukunft (85 Prozent), gefolgt von dem schiitischen Süden und den kurdischen Gebieten.
Der Spiegel erklärt sodann auch selber weshalb die Europäer - hämisch grinsend und schadenfreudig - den Irak gern als ein zweites Vietnam sehen wollen.
Passt die erwartungsfrohe Stimmung zu den blutigen Szenen von Bombenattentaten und Schießereien, den Berichten über Entführungen, Ausgangssperren und Versorgungsengpässe?

Der scheinbare Widerspruch ergibt sich aus der unterschiedlichen Wahrnehmung der Realität: Westliche Medien konzentrieren sich auf die Kriegsschauplätze im Herzen des Irak. Bei der täglichen Berichterstattung aus den Hochburgen des Widerstands zwischen Samarra, Falludscha und Ramadi wird ausgeblendet, dass weite Teile des Landes von den Kämpfen gar nicht berührt werden.
Jene, die die Amerikaner verdammen, sollten auch dies lesen:
Immerhin haben sich die Einkommen der irakischen Haushalte in den vergangenen zwei Jahren auf durchschnittlich 236 Dollar mehr als verdoppelt, das Angebot von langlebigen Konsumgütern hat sich deutlich verbessert. Einen Fernseher besitzt fast jeder Haushalt, 86 Prozent der TV-Konsumenten verfügen zudem über Satellitenempfang.

Das Handy - im Oktober 2003 ein Luxusprodukt für gerade 5 Prozent der Bevölkerung - ist heute ein Allerweltsartikel für 62 Prozent der Haushalte [Frage: Wie viele Leute hatten wohl vor der amerikanischen Invasion ein Handy...?]. Zugenommen hat zugleich die Zahl der Autos (55 Prozent) und Waschmaschinen (54 Prozent).
Gewiss werden nun gewisse Leute meinen, die Amerikaner hätten doch gesagt, es lägen Massenvernichtungswaffen rum und das sei eben ein "verlogenes Argument" gewesen, und vor allem Abu Greib und so... Klar und das ist nicht gut. Aber die besessene Fokussierung dieser Leute auf das, was damals gesprochen wurde und die vorsätzliche Nichtbeachtung der Realität "da draussen" wie sie heute ist, spricht Bände über die Lauterkeit ihrer Argumente. Dies sind Leute von der Sorte, die internationale Probleme nur mit Palaver gelöst haben wollen, die vor gestalterischen Handlungen zurückschrecken, die die Bösen also nur verführen oder besänftigen wollen. Das ist ja auch ihr Exklusivrezept für den Iran. Mehr zu dieser geradezu pathologischen Uneinsichtigkeit hier in den Kommentaren.

Eine klare Lektion können jedenfalls schon lange jene sehen, welche es wagen, die Augen zu öffnen und die Realität so zu akzeptieren, wie sie ist: Die Veränderung zum Besseren, die der Irak in den kommenden Jahren durchmachen wird und die Befreiung von Saddams Regime werden immer nur dank George W. Bush möglich gewesen sein. Europas heutige Appeaser werden hingegen in alle Ewigkeit als jene gelten, welche den Irak dem Diktator Saddam vorbehalten wollten. Neville "Peace for our time" Chamberlain gilt nicht umsonst als einer der grössten Loser der Geschichte.

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Rummie out, Liebermann in?

There's a rumor saying that Donald Rumsfeld might be willing to leave office in the beginning of next year. He could be replaced by Senator Joe Liebermann - who is a Democrat. Liebermann is also the author of a stunning account which I mentionned here on Iraq's progresses explaining why it would be the worst idea to pull out US troops of Iraq now or to give an official timetable or public criteria for a pull-out. Unfortunately, most of today's Democrats seem to lack this kind of common sense.

(via LGF)
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HonestReporting on Terrorism

I just added four Links to my sidebar. They lead to short Flash-Videos made by HonestReporting.com (sound needed!):









You don't know HonestReporting? HonestReporting is
one of the world's largest media watch groups. The story behind the story.

Since October 2000, in addition to fighting an anti-terror war, Israel has been fighting a media war. In news outlets around the globe, journalists regularly misrepresent Israel as the aggressor and Palestinians as the victims.

In response, HonestReporting was established to scrutinize the media for anti-Israel bias, then mobilize subscribers to respond directly to relevant news agencies.
Look at the site. It's worth it. E.g. in their latest report they point at the roots of terrorism: the palestinian "Authority" (PA). They show how much "martydom" ("Shahids", in fact Suicide bombers, you know, those who blow off shopping malls and pizzerias) is still glorified in that society. The PA still boosts this by giving financial reward help to the families of terrorists, by running media programms calling for attacks on jews or by glorifying them wherever they can. For example do you know how the Rafah border crossing has been named (the Pallies just took over "control" of it recently)? After one of last years sucide bombers. Pleasant people, aren't they?

If you don't believe this, you're probably a MSM (Mainstreammedia) reader already successfully influenced by the great manipulator, Arafat. It was time you read me.

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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Saddam et son âme soeur

Le procès de Saddam a été ajourné au 21 décembre. Cela tombe très bien, car ainsi, Saddam pourra dignement y fêter l'anniversaire de son âme soeur.

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Palestinians having Party

It's really becoming obvious. In a comment about yesterday's sucide attack in Netanya, I said (in french), that I wouldn't be surprised to see pictures of Pallies celebrating the mass murder of jews in Netanya. Well, via LGF, I just found them. Meet Pally-Party™ :

AP: Supporters of the Islamic Jihad march along the streets carrying Jihad flags during a rally in support of Lotfi Abu Saada, 23, a suicide bomber who blew himself up Monday in the Israeli city of Netanya, at the bomber's hometown in the West Bank village of Illar near Tulkarem, Tuesday Dec. 6, 2005. Israel on Tuesday clamped a closure on the West Bank and Gaza, banning virtually all Palestinians from Israel, in its first response to the suicide bombing that killed five Israelis outside a shopping mall.(AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh).
Reuters: Palestinian gunmen march in celebration of Netanya's bombing in the West Bank city of Jenin on December 5, 2005. A Palestinian suicide bomber killed five people outside an Israeli shopping mall and Israel ordered its army to hit militant leaders behind the attack. Witnesses said the bomber smiled before blowing himself up in Netanya, in an attack that threatened to unleash a new spiral of violence which could bury peace hopes stirred by Israel's Gaza withdrawal. REUTERS/Stringer
First, do you note the pervert nature of the captions? Is it really noteworthy to say that Israel closed the borders? Isn't this maybe understandabale? Or is the AP just trying to suggest that Israel is exaggerating, that in fact it's the Zionist State who is the root of all violence - once more? Hey, they just got 5 citizens blown away! And the AP notes that they are closing borders, banning poor palestinian workers from doing their honest work for a living... "What media bias?" would LGF's Charles Johnson ask...

Then about Reuters' statement: Who cares whether the terrorist smiled before blowing off?? Is he a hero or somewhat to them? Of course, in the end it is not really surprising, Al-Reuters, as some like to call them, has been (besides french television) one of the most active (militant?) supporters and defendants of palestinian terrorism. So this is nothing really new. But this second picture nevertheless struck me: Am I really the only one to recognize the young fella' in the blue jacket? Hell yes, it's Zakariyya Zubeidi, the Jenin leader of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the terror gang with close ties to Abbas' Fatah! Of course he must be happy when jews are killed. But it's peculiar that Reuters does not tell us that it's him on the picture. I mean, Reuters should know better: After all, that guy is almost a soul mate of them. They're so much pals together, that they even shoot funny movies together - just, you know, for amusement. Really funny that they don't mention him in the image caption.

Maybe it's because Reuters wants people to think they're - neutral ? Oh c'mon... You can do better than that.

UPDATE (07.12.2005, 02:30): This is bad, really bad: "Israeli Suicide Bomber". Found on Yahoo! News. As LGF points out, Yahoo is probably not to blame though, since they only automatically reproduce the headlines they get from the news agencies... Source (maybe it's already broken when you try - or corrected). Fortunately, I made a snapshot.






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Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Tribute to a hero

Speaking of yesterday's suicide bombing in Netanya: There are some reasons, why in general, there are so "few" (relatively spoken) Israelis killed by palestinian terrorists. The first reason is probably the IDF's weakening of terror gangs by targeting their leaders, the second is having first class intelligence available. Another reason are people like this security guard, who prevented yesterday's terrorist from getting inside the shopping mall and killing many more people:
Yesterday’s bomber hit a shopping centre in Netanya, a seaside city at Israel’s narrowest point, nine miles from the West Bank, a frequent target of bombers. It was the third time the centre has been struck.

Police and security guards spotted the bomber, who was carrying a black bag and wearing a heavy sweatshirt, outside the building and grew suspicious.

A security guard pushed the bomber away from a crowd of people waiting to get in, and the man blew himself up. The security guard was among the dead.

“If the bomber had got in, the result would have been much worse,” said Israel’s police chief, Moshe Karadi.

There is nothing to add.

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Monday, December 05, 2005

Les aventures d'un Suisse en Autriche

Aujourd'hui, j'ai fait la connaissance d'un fonctionnaire autrichien (le gars n'était pas à proprement parler fonctionnaire, mais il en avait oh combien l'attitude). Je m'explique; je dois payer internet une fois par mois jusqu'au 5 de chaque mois. Autrement, on me bloque internet le soir même à 24.00. Le bureau informatique de mon l'immeuble où je peux payer la somme modeste est ouvert jusqu'à 18.30. J'y suis arrivé à 18.35. J'ai frappé et on m'a ouvert. J'ai demandé si je pouvais encore payer:
- "Nein"

J'ai dit que je savais que j'étais trop tard mais que bon enfin: "Bitte, bitte"

- "Nein"

Je lui ai proposé de lui payer une bière (il y a un distributeur juste à côté).

- "Nein"

J'ai proposé de lui payer des intérêts, de le corrompre, enfin juste un peu, quoi.

- "Nein, ici il est écrit: 'offen bis 18:30'. Maintenant, il est 18:40."

- "Vous allez me couper ma connexion?"

- "Oui"

Je lui ai dit que j'allais crever sans internet. Il ne voulait rien savoir...
Il y a des jours, ou j'apprends à maîtriser ma force légendaire. Je payerai donc demain soir.

Ordure.


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Palestinian Values - again

A palestinian "activist" again gave evidence of the moral values the palestinian society breeds: He blew himself up outside a shopping mall in Netanya killing at least 5, injuring at least 35 and traumatizing many more. Both the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades and Islamic Jihad claimed to be responsible for this latest mass murder.

Netanya has in the past repeatedly been the target of palestinian terrorists coming from the disputed territories, mostly out of the Tulkarm region.

Still wonder why there is a security fence separating Israel from these people...? By the way, Netanya is one of the few places where the security fence is a real concrete wall, the distance between Netany and Tulkarm being only 13 km. Whatever the israeli reaction to this will be, all means will be engaged by the palestinians and the MSM to let it appear as being totally disproportionate and "harmful to the 'peace process' ".

UPDATE (05.12.2005, 15:15): Sotek points out that this latest attack, since it has probably been carried out by the Islamic Jihad, underlines the importance of the influence of the Iranian-Syrian axis on palestinian terrorism. This is to be taken into account in "solving" the problem.

Besides this, it seems that the suicide bomber indeed came from the region of Tulkarm.

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Sunday, December 04, 2005

Why it was right to invade Iraq

A few days after Le blog du chatborgne spoke of it, I found a link at LGF to an english speaking review of Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The black book of Saddam Hussein). This book is a reminder of what Saddam Hussein's regime internally really was: one of the bloodiest and most perfect totalitarian regimes of the 20th century (see below).

The facts enounced are in the end nothing less than an accusation against all those who, opposing the operation "Iraqi Freedom", virtually wanted Saddam to stay in power - and thus accepted that he would continue to rape, to kidnap, to torture, to steal, to abuse and to kill iraqi men, women and children. We shouldn't forget why this all finally stopped: Because George W. Bush had guts enough to bring it to an end. Otherwise, Saddam's executioners would stil be ravaging across the country.

Of course, the U.S.-led coalition did make mistakes. Their handling of the situation in the wake of the fall of Baghdad has been catastrophic. But this doesn't alter the fact that it was the coalition who eliminated this regime which would have otherwise persisted, maybe for decades. Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay would have been glad to pursue their father's bloody legacy.

This is leaving aside all the international factors that had to lead to a regime change. Some of Bush's critics of course accuse him of cheating on the "international community" about iraqi WMD. But this is in fact a totally misled discussion: First, everybody believed there were WMD and it would have been easy for Saddam to prove they were destroyed. Second, you'd never attack a harmless country only because it is possessing WMD. Saddam's Iraq was in no way a harmless country. And third, it is not the excuse you give to an action, but it is only its result that is counting. Focussing on the coalition's motives is a proof of the real weakness of any counter-arguments.

On this occasion, I don't want to miss to draw my fellow readers' attention to this article that Democratic (!) senator Joe Lieberman wrote in the Wall Street Journal on the progress and the absolute necessity to keep U.S. troops there until the Iraqis are able to take over the struggle for a free Iraq.

But let's get back to the book I mentionned in the beginning. For french speaking readers, via Le blog du chatborgne:
« La première arme de destruction massive, ce fut Saddam Hussein » nous rappelle Bernard Kouchner en introduction du « Livre noir de Saddam Hussein ».

200.000 chiites sont massacrés lors du soulèvement de 1991, 500.000 kurdes sont éliminés suite à la politique génocidaire du tyran. Saddam Hussein est également responsable de plus de 200.000 disparitions forcées, sans compter le nombre de morts dus aux guerres contre l’Iran et le Koweït.

Le régime irakien est aussi à l’origine de 4 millions de réfugiés ! Le bilan est accablant. Lorsque l’on sait que 33% des français souhaitaient la victoire de Saddam Hussein en 2003, on perçoit l’ampleur de l’ignorance et de l’abrutissement idéologique d’une partie de nos concitoyens.

And via the Weekly Australian:
The writers - Arabs, Americans, Germans, French and Iranian - have produced the most comprehensive work to date on the former Iraqi president's war crimes, assembling a mass of evidence that makes the anti-intervention arguments redundant.

"The first weapon of mass destruction was Saddam Hussein," writes Bernard Kouchner, who has been observing atrocities in Iraq since he led the first Medecins Sans Frontieres mission there in 1974. (Note: Bernard Kouchner has also been a french minister - of the socialist party...) (...)

Sinje Caren Stoyke, a German archeologist and president of Archeologists for Human Rights, catalogues 288 mass graves, a list that is already out of date with the discovery of fresh sites every week.

"There is no secret about these mass graves," Stoyke writes. "Military convoys crossed towns, full of civilian prisoners, and returned empty. People living near execution sites heard the cries of men, women and children. They heard shots followed by silence."

Stoyke estimates one million people are missing in Iraq, presumed dead, leaving families with the dreadful task of finding and identifying the remains of their loved ones.

Abdullah Mohammed Hussein was a soldier fighting in the mountains when Iraqi troops took the Kurdish village of Sedar and deported three-quarters of the inhabitants, including his mother, his wife and their seven children. They were taken to a concentration camp at Topzawa and from there some were taken to an execution ground near the archeological site of Hatra, south of Mosul. The remains of 192 people have been found, 123 women and children and 69 men, among them Abdullah's wife and three of their children. There is no trace of his mother and the other four children. They were victims of the genocidal Anfal campaign, which sought to exterminate the Kurds.

Between February and September 1988, 100,000 to 180,000 Kurds died or disappeared. The bombing of the Kurdish village of Halabja with chemical weapons including mustard gas, tabun, sarin and VX on March 16, 1988, which killed 3000 to 5000 civilians, was the most publicised of these atrocities because it occurred near the Iranian border and Iranian troops were able to penetrate with the assistance of Kurds, filming and photographing the victims.

Halabja was not an isolated case however. Saddam used chemical weapons at least 60 times against Kurdish villages during Anfal. (...)

Abdoul Hadi al-Hakim, a Shi'ite, was arrested with 90 members of his family on May 10, 1983, and was detained for eight years without being charged or tried. (...) [He] says: "The worst moments? It was all terrible, but the worst was the fear of being executed. Each time we heard the lock turn we were silent; it could be the moment to leave, for me, for another. I am angry with those who mix the crimes of the Americans with those of Saddam when they are not comparable."

The repression of the Shi'ites included the forced deportation of Iraqi Shi'ites into Iran, which started when the Baathists seized power. At least 40,000 were deported in a first wave in 1969-71 and a second wave of at least 60,000 were deported nine years later. Deportations continued throughout the 1980s. At the time of the fall of Saddam, 200,000 Iraqis were living in Iran, one-quarter Kurds and three-quarters Arab Shi'ites. Of these exiles, 50,000 were living in refugee camps in great poverty. (...)

The brutal repression of the Shi'ite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War resulted in another 300,000 deaths, most of them civilians. (...)

Everyone was targeted, including women and children. Torture was systematically used to secure confessions including beating, burning, ripping out finger nails, rape, electric shocks, acid baths and deprivation of sleep, food or water.

Then there were the victims of Saddam's three devastating wars. It is estimated that more than one million people in both countries died during the Iran-Iraq conflict which has been compared by Kutschera (note: the books editor) to World WarI with its trench warfare and colossal loss of human life. The enormous cost of the Iran-Iraq war inspired Saddam to invade Kuwait to seize its assets and Saddam's refusal to comply with the UN resolutions obliging him to disarm finally led to Iraq's invasion and his downfall. (...)

Kouchner, who was France's health minister until he was picked by UN secretary-general Kofi Annan as his special representative for Kosovo, had hoped that a united international community might be able to bring down Saddam in the way that resolute action by the international community liberated that country. He felt bitterly ashamed when the French veto in the Security Council divided the international community and made it impossible to bring about a united front to bring down the dictator. "Was there a worse way of duping those who hoped for so much from us?" he writes. (...)

Determined to keep Saddam in power, the French never once denounced the dictator. Yet far from preventing war, the French veto in the Security Council facilitated it. In the absence of a UN resolution authorising force against Saddam, the only possibility was a US-led coalition. (...)

Far from glossing over the difficulties in rebuilding Iraq, the book documents the extent to which this was inevitable after 35 years of a brutal dictatorship in which Saddam ruthlessly eliminated civil structures, political opponents and those within his party he viewed as a threat.

The repressive system put in place by Saddam was impregnable from within. There was no democratic solution to Saddam's dictatorship.: no popular movement, no insurrection could have overthrown him, as the Kurds and Shi'ites found out through bloody experience.

"The American war was perhaps not a good solution for getting rid of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. But, as this book shows, after 35 years of a dictatorship of exceptional violence, which has destroyed Iraqi civil society and created millions of victims, there wasn't a good solution," Kutschera writes.
What does all this tell us? It's easy: The longer you leave a tyrant in power who is seriously threatening and aggressing both his own people and his neighbours, the harder it will be to get rid of him. But the confrontation remains inevitable, whatever you might wish.

Does this maybe remind you of anything?

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Friday, December 02, 2005

Alle Blogger links? - Fehlte uns grad noch!

Da hat ein Bloggerkollege die gescheite Frage aufgeworfen, ob denn alle Blogger links seien. Seine mutmassende Antwort ist weniger gescheit:
Liest man sich so quer durch die Blogs, sind jene, die sich nicht Tagebuchartig mit sich selbst beschäftigen, doch vielfach wohltuend kritisch. Selten trifft man auf wertkonservative Meinungen oder gar auf rückständig gesinnten Scheiss. Da drängt sich die Frage auf: sind Blogger links? Oder entsprechen die tippenden Cyber-Schreiber einfach dem typischen Internet-User: Gut gebildet, urban, mittleres bis gutes Einkommen, eher liberal?

Falls es dazu Erhebungen gibt: Ich bin interessiert.
Jedenfalls werde ich in den Kommentaren zitiert! Mein bescheidenes Gemüt braucht nicht viel, um sich ein wenig zu freuen. Ein mir nicht mehr ganz unbekannter Kommentator stellt in besagtem Blog jedenfalls fest, dass die zwei (von mir sehr geschätzten) Blogs A New European und freilich sowie meine Wenigkeit "definitiv nicht links" seien. In der Tat. Ob wir deshalb wirklich "braune Blogger" sind, wie dies ein weiterer "Kollege" zu vermuten scheint, lasse ich mal dahingestellt. Der Spruch ist ja nicht grad übermässig intelligent. Aber vielleicht ist er ja noch jung und hat noch seine Sturmunddrangzeit (ok, ich glaube eigentlich nicht, dass dies eine Frage des Alters ist; vielleicht hat er auch einfach einen üblen Charakter).

Danke jedenfalls an meinen treuen und geschätzten Besucher gebsn für die Mention. Das ist mir wirklich eine Freude, da ich so in Zukunft vielleicht auch mehr linkslastige Zeit-Genossen anziehen werde.

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Wir wollen auch jemanden, der uns gern hat

Das Bundespersonal "wehrt" sich gegen "nicht endende Sparübungen":
Die Kundgebungsteilnehmer genehmigten eine Resolution, die den Bundesrat und das Personal auffordern, dem Bundespersonal die nötige Wertschätzung entgegenzubringen. Zudem müsse die Sozialpartnerschaft hoch gehalten werden. Von weiteren Sparübungen und Entlassungen im Zuge der Entlastungsprogramme und Reformprojekte sei abzusehen.
Jemand scheint da jemanden weichspülen zu wollen. Womöglich den Steuerzahler? Wie kann man auch nur die Verwaltung sich nicht aufblähen lassen wollen...? (auch wenn gewisse durchaus nachvollziehbare Anliegen verfolgen: Besitzstandswahrer-Demos mit Pfeifkonzerten mag ich nicht und die Mitleidstour ist wirklich hochfies)

Man sollte mal einen Monat lang versuchen, ohne Wörter wie Sozialpartnerschaft, Solidarität, Rentenklau, Steuergeschenke, kaputtsparen, etc. auszukommen. Ginge das vielleicht? Nur einen Monat? Oder leiden dann gewisse unter Entzugserscheinungen und akuter unsubventionierter Einfallslosigkeit?

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Thursday, December 01, 2005

1 Euro per Email? Here's about the UN's new fetish!

Having politically survived to the historical Oil-for-food scandal, Kofi and the UN are now looking for some new Orwellian distraction. FDD's Claudia Rosett surely won't miss the opportunity. After her relentless reporting on Oil-for-food, she this time focusses on the UN's new fetish: Monopolizing, censoring and maybe (why not after all?) taxing the internet. As usual, Kofi & Co. (that is Castro, Mugabe, Gaddhafi, Tunisia's dissidents-incarcerating Ben Ali, etc.) sell this as a good-for-humanity-and-peace-thing.

Claudia Rosett often writes for the WSJ and has proven to be very effective. I certainly like her style very much and my guess is you won't disdain it either. Via Pajamas Media (read it all):
Greetings, and a quick tip: Anyone in favor of censorship and internet taxes can skip the rest of this column.

OK. For those still with me, who probably agree it is not a good idea to have Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe editing your blog and then charging you for it, it’s time to talk about the great UN internet grab. Thanks to the U.S. just saying no, the UN bid to get its hands on our keyboards failed this month at the United Nations Internet conclave in Tunis. But don’t drop your guard. The UN will be back. The pickings are potentially too rich, and the stakes too high, for them to resist. In case anyone has any doubts, Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself (about whom you can read more by googling his name together with “Oil-for-Food,” “Rape-by-Peacekeepers” and “Bribes-for-Procurement”) appeared in Tunis to proclaim that while the U.S. had blocked a UN takeover of the internet this time, “I think you also acknowledge the need for more international participation in discussions of Internet governance issues. So let those discussions continue.” Then came Annan’s scariest line: “We in the United Nations will support this process in every way we can.”

You can bet your laptop they will. Any institution brazen enough to hold a “World Summit on the Information Society” in internet-censoring journalist-jailing Tunisia is obviously ready to try anything to get hold of the net. This initiative has been bubbling along since Tunisia first proposed it in 1998, and by now there have been enough conferences, theme papers, working groups and planning sessions so that this UN campaign has put down roots. The WSIS website is already an empire unto itself, packed with stocktaking questionnaires, press releases, a photo library and the outpourings of the Preparatory Committee, abbreviated UN-style as the Prepcom, which sounds like something out of George Orwell, because it is.

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