spinbadz own

So, former Australian PM Paul Keating is spread on the political rack simultaneous to his one-time nemesis, the conservative Alan Jones, being forcibly outed.

While Jones outer and ABC journalist Chris Masters - whose employer is charged with relentless left-liberal bias - defends his expose by calling alleged sexual inclination:

"the elephant in the room"

when one speaks of Jones.

Which may cause one to wonder whether Masters would be just as tough - or celebrated, or effective - at exposing pink elephants.


Whatever the confluence of surrounding ironies, the recent editorial in The Australian (Immigration advice ignored) puts a plausible boot into the legacy of Keating and his notorious band of political mates:

("Leaping" Leo McLeay and) Mr Keating ... used divisive multicultural politics for short-term political gain at a cost to the long-term health of the nation.

Today Australia is reaping the fruits of that electoral cynicism.

As sad as that conclusion is, there is a very fair case backing it up.

Apologists for Keating are now out in force proclaiming misconstrued notions of "multiculturalism" as the driver behind Keating's granting of citizenship to Lakemba Mosque's Sheik Hilali.

Common sense suggests that the editorial conclusion, however, appears to have it about right.

Venal political gain was more likely the real driver, with a wonky version of "multiculturalism" lending justification after the fact.

Keating's recalcitrance and contumacy in the face of recent questioning about the matter, of course , only supports such a conclusion.

Moreover, the sheik and his supporters appear to have been well aware of the corrupt dynamics involved. Any underlying Islamist cynicism towards Australia's secular democratic political system could only have been underlined.

20-odd years later, we see that El-Din Hilali seems only to have grown more adept at utilising said system to propagate unaltered extremism.

He now times a raging address to 500 people about 'Satanic' women's attire to coincide with both the end of Ramadan and the beginning of the Cronulla summer.

Now, just as he did 20 years ago, he panders towards, surrounds himself with and draws support from what we heve in recent years learned to call violent jihadist groups.

Whose proponents wail about their Australian rights to "free speech", while Hilali whitewashes all manner of incendiary anti-Western bigotry delivered in Arabic by claiming it is simply "misinterpreted" in English.

Way back in 1986, even after Hawke (Labor) government immigration minister Chris Hurford tried to have the very same cleric deported from Australia for allegedly saying things like:

"(T)he two cheapest things in Australia are the flesh of a woman and the meat of a pig",

legend has it that Keating and McLeay, later to be, respectively, Prime Minister and Speaker of the House of Representatives "went in to bat for the sheik".

Few on the political scene at that time would deny that.

History shows that by 1987 the Hawke government, after a protracted legal battle, rescinded its original decision to deport Hilali.

Writing in 1988, Sydney Morning Herald religious affairs correspondent Alan Gill mentioned "claims" - widely known even then - that the Hawke government's change of heart on Hilali

"resulted from pressure from Labor MPs in marginal Sydney seats".

The MPs Gill refers to are of course Keating and McLeay.

He further says that a party thrown by AFIC (the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils) for Hawke three days before the 1987 Federal election - and attended by the entire ALP leadership, state and federal, as well as Gough Whitlam - was a "thank you" for saving Hilali(!)

As The Australian editorial notes about Keating and Leaping:

The two (politicians) held the neighbouring (Sydney electoral) seats of Blaxland and Grayndler, both heavily populated with Lebanese Muslims ... Neither wanted to risk alienating that community

Grayndler, McLeay's old electorate, incorporates Lakemba and its mosque. Hilali - now Mufti of Australia - is and was the imam of that mosque.

However, above and beyond accusing Keating and McLeay of merely shielding the Lakemba imam from deportation - misjudgement enough, in hindsight - the editorial makes this stunning claim:

Mr Keating engineered the elevation of Sheik Hilali to the leadership of the Muslim community to ensure Labor would have a leader it could deal with.

Confronted with this idea one can all but see old Cliche Keating's famous realpolitic-driven mindset ticking over:

'Better the devil you know', he might have said. Or more likely: 'A bastard, yes, but our bastard'.

Yet his response today to reporters' questions about it today was an equally glib, but - much, much - less satisfactorily explanatory:

"Nick off".

Which might be a fine response in the face of base conjecture, but that isn't the case here.

Some of the mechanics of the alleged Keating intervention are described in the editorial thus:

(W)hen he was acting prime minister while Bob Hawke was away in 1990, Mr Keating personally approved Sheik Hilali's residency. Chris Hurford was moved from his portfolio of immigration, and Bill McKinnon, who headed the department at the time, lost his job.

Only someone with power and motive somewhere near the par with Keating's could conceivably have engineered this three-pronged attack, whosever Hand may have executed each deed, and whosoever may have been responsible for frogmarching the succession of senior immigration department bureaucrats from the period on record as wanting to depopulate chez Hilali.

Moreover, it is now coming out that disturbing little stopovers on Hilali's life voyage towards and while in Australia were known at the time:

- His training in Gadaffi's Libya; his affiliation with not only with the Egypt's Islamo-fascist Muslim Brothers, but reputedly with the "Soldiers of Allah" faction within it that is charged with the assassination of Anwar Sadat;

- According to Hurford, by 1985 Hilali already:

"had a lengthy history of inflaming divisions in his community."

Which was why, as minister, he decided "not to approve Hilali's application for permanent residence or to renew his temporary visa."

Keating knew all this, and also knew that the 1988 video of Hilali ranting at Sydney University about:

Jews control(ling) the world ... through sex and sexual perversion (sic)

and whatnot was obtained and handed over by a Muslim community group opposed to Hilali.

That is: the inflamed community divisions Hurford was already aware of were on display yet again. Keating, however, decided to ignore the conflagration - and the following year Hilali was annointed the first "Mufti of Australia".

Not only did an apparent extremist use negative media attention to extract political gain, but he appeared to do so with the blessing of key supporters within the federal Labor government.

Frank Devine drives by Australian ABC's "Media Watch" today (see post below):

(New ABC MD Mark Scott) plans, as his first action, to review Media Watch, a trivial but emblematic ABC program that purports to offer weekly analysis and criticism of media performance ...

(MW being characterised by tedious) presenters wallowing in a fantasy of being editors-in-chief of everything and castigating other media for not having the high standards and enlightened viewpoints of the ABC.

Regarding the bigger picture of ABC reform, Devine believes the mere fact of Scott fashioning himself as an identifiable buck-stops-here figure could have a dramatic effect on the broadcaster's culture:

(The appointment deals) a heavy, conceivably crushing, blow to the featherbrained collectivism that took root at the ABC 30 or so years ago and, triffid-like, slowly engulfed it ...

... Hitherto nobody has really been in charge at the ABC ...

... Faced with criticism of programs, their procedure has been to call for reports from department heads and conclude from them that no sin has been committed.

He provides the hilarious example of ABC committees upholding 47 complaints about bias in the ABC's Iraq war coverage (from Richard Alston, former communications minister) - and then ruling that there was no case to answer, because some other complaints from Alston were not upheld.

Not funny, really.

“MEDIA Watch, at least as we've known it for the past 18 years, is in serious trouble."

My goodness - 18 years!?

How does a program as lame as “Media Watch” even survive for 18 years?

Taxpayer funding, that’s how. Australian ABC TV’s “Media Watch” is a 13-mnutes weekly, seldom-watched segment. Its proponents used to loudly hallucinate about appeal to an “influential” demographic.

In fact, the few viewers the show had were mainly members of the left, especially the further reaches thereof. People with such views have a strong representation in the Australian media, and at the ABC (the 89% of US journalists who vote Democrat are mirrored in the number of Labor Party-supporting Australian journalists). The journalistic chatter about "Media Watch", especially before the advent of the Internet, gave it the appearance of relevance.

However, viewer numbers bespoke a greater truth. It has, quite simply, never been comfortable for persons of non-left political persuasions - being the vast majority of Australians - to watch "Media Watch".

This is largely because, given the show’s apparent mandate of querying particulars in select Australian media items from the preceding week:

a) It does so in a boring and derisive way; and

b) A dubious quantum and type of items derided are engineered on the right. Special (and often smug) attention seems to be paid to Rupert Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch-owned media, Rupert Murdoch media-employed journalists, right wing pundits and politicians and/or Mark Steyn.

David Salter (sayer of the quote at top and former MW executive producer) might (understandably) have us believe that the only person actively attacking MW is The Sydney Institute’s Gerard Henderson.

David must be having a Turkish. Try a Google instead, David.

Ironically, Mr Henderson appears to be offering MW a life line. Salter quotes him as pleading with the ABC to have MW:

" desist from its one-sided advocacy and facilitate genuine debate and discussion about the media".

Which is not asking a helluva lot – just a fair go: a dose of Hannity to balance the Colmes. Henderson is not therein calling for the program to be canned.

Salter, on the other hand appears to vehemently argue that Henderson’s suggested (fair and?) ‘balanced’ format can’t possibly work, that it would be too boring for public consumption:

“Media Watch works effectively only as a vehicle for individual comment, not as some "we said/they said" badminton match. What could be duller television than teams of media bores blathering on at each other for 13 minutes every Monday night? “

Personally, I would say that 13 minutes of only one team of media bores blathering unchallenged must, intrinsically, be more boring than that.

In any case modern precedent, as shown for example by Hannity & Colmes, suggests that Salter is wrong, that more rounded and roundly discussed input can deliver an entertaining product.

Not that I’m authoritatively qualified to comment on MW (apart from being one of its taxpayers sponsors). I don't often watch the program.

The last time I flicked (inadvertently) to MW some weeks back, presenters appeared to be inanely and breathlessly melodramatizing over an error that (Murdoch-affiliated, right-leaning) commentator Piers Ackerman had made – and evidently already apologized for. He had criticised the ABC children’s program “Play School”.

Yes: “Play School”. The hoo-ha was something to do with – I’m not making this up - the wording of “Mary had a little lamb”.

The “Media Watch” segment on this item ran for at least one-third of the entire program’s air time. Maybe even more: I did change the channel before it was over.

I mean, even if you accept that this item was important enough for a self-professed media watchdog to mention, there must be a reasonable query over the proportional time allocation. Given the other things going on in our world at the time.

Keep in mind that the 'Play School - Ackerman - Lamb' affair went to air around the same time, for example, that The Australian newspaper reported on the findings of the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press.

Their survey of Muslims in 10 countries, showed, inter alia:

- Most saw 9/11 as a hoax perpetrated by the US Government, Israel or some other agency;

- Most displayed support for Osama bin Laden;

- Support for suicide bombing ranged from 13 per cent (in Germany) to 69 per cent (in Nigeria);

- Blame for Muslim nations' lack of prosperity on the United States and the west ranged from 14 per cent (in Pakistan) to 43 per cent (in Jordan);

- Many more British Muslims regard Westerners as violent, greedy, immoral and arrogant than do Muslims in France, Germany and Spain;

Et cetera. In defense of “Media Watch”, perhaps the Pew survey was disqualified from their commentary parameters because it was not:

a) An offering of Mark Steyn; and/or

b) An item originally engineered in or with specific reference to Australia; and/or

b) An erroneously detailed media item – showing, arguably, merely the effects of perception generated largely through the media.

The last point is, as I said, arguable, but just the kind of thing - showing an insight into the imagined propaganda-stoked thinking of young Muslims in Australia - that a government-sponsored media watching TV program ought to be keeping tabs on.

Perhaps, if MW's parameters are self-defined to preclude it from dealing with such as that, the real issue may be to redefine said parameters in ways that would make the program more relevant in the 21st century world.

Australians now live in an era of internationally accessible and pervasive media influence. We can tap the Internet direct for the latest from the BBC or The Guardian or The Independent – the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s apparent role as local purveyor of news and opinion on behalf of like-minded overseas media outlets is almost completely redundant these days.

Further, the Internet enables people to offer media criticism and comment themselves: so who needs MediaWatch? There are many web sites and blogs doing the same thing, without stifling parameters, and in many cases better. Much better.

Who would miss the show if it was canned? Henderson's being too kind.

An alert reader has discovered an error in the last post on this blog (see below). The following comment was originally posted thus:

the ... discredited Lancet survey ...preposterously claimed 1 in 7 Iraqi adult males to have been slaughtered in fighting over the last 4 years.

It should have read thus:

the ... discredited Lancet survey ...preposterously claimed 1 in 14 Iraqi adult males to have been slaughtered in fighting over the last 4 years.

Obviously, the amended figure has no effect on the conclusion that the Lancet figure - which would have us believe that for every rugby team quantum of Iraqi males, more than one has died as a result of violence - is prepostorous.

My mistake was to absent-mindedly transfer the 7 in the "7%" figure cited at, inter alia, the Iraq Body Count web site instead of converting the figure to the accurate (1 in 14-15) ratio. Guilty as charged.

Apart from the citation of minor or inconsequential errors in criticisms of the Lancet Report there are a couple of other things that, even today and in the face of oodles of evidence, are being put forward as "evidence" of the report's credibility:

1) The unimpeachability of the standing of "The Lancet" and the academic standing of the Les Roberts, et al

Claiming credibility by virtue merely of academic qualifications is itself a strange thing in the era of Ward Churchill and Shane Warne Ph.D.

Regarding Lancet lead surveyor Les Roberts ("Ph.D. See!"), we have to keep in mind what he said after submitting his first Iraqi body count survey in time for the last US presidential election:

"I emailed (the study) in on September 30 under the condition that it came out before the election. My motive was that if this came out during the campaign, both candidates would be forced to pledge to protect civilian lives in Iraq. I was opposed to the war but I think that our science has transcended our perspectives."

Kind of speaks for itself, while shedding light on the timing of the latest survey release.

Regarding the Lancet people themselves, one only has to glance quickly at the editorial comment accompanying the Lancet report to see that the editor shares Roberts's "opposition" to the war.

2) The viability of the search methodology employed

The Iraq Body Count web site was set up by people who opposed the war in Iraq for the purpose of providing ammunition for such opposition.

Yet on the basis of confirmed media reports it concludes that the death count is less than one-tenth of this size of the Roberts' team conclusion. Roberts' team claims:

they sighted death certificates for more than 500 of the 600-plus deaths recorded in their study. Yet, as the IBC observes, this implies that there are at least half a million more death certificates in existence in Iraq than have been officially recorded. And that the deaths of nine out of every 10 people killed since the start of 2006 have gone unrecorded by any public body.

Political consultant and statistician Stephen Moore is scathing in his criticism of the Roberts' team methodology:

(They) used 47 cluster points for their sample of 1,849 interviews. This is astonishing: I wouldn't survey a junior high school, no less an entire country, using only 47 cluster points.

Neither would anyone else.

He goes on to provide examples of the methodology employed by the likes of the UN and the BBC, and then cites this astonishing admission from Roberts, who he spoke to about the latest survey:

Dr. Roberts ... said that the appendices (of the report) were written by a student and should be ignored (!)

Which led me to wonder what other sections of the survey should be ignored.

And further:

...This would be the first survey I have looked at in my 15 years of looking that did not ask demographic questions of its respondents.

But don't take my word for it--try using Google to find a survey that does not ask demographic questions.

It's all pretty damaging stuff, and it makes you wonder how and why the Lancet report ballooned into the public sphere and remains there in the eyes of a few.

Underlining it all, of course, is the warped assumption that violent death in Iraq must be blamed on the Bush administration. Including the sniper snuff murders we recently saw on CNN, today's mortar thrown into a market place, and the ambush killings of young Iraqi police recruits.

All such incidents and their calamitous toll are gleefully blamed on Bush by "war opponents".

Speaking of ABC bias (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, see below), nothing better demonstrated the huge problems faced by Mark Scott (the new chief of the embattled Australian public broadcaster) than the absurd article by Phillip Adams juxtaposed adjacent to Scott’s on the op-ed page of The Australian a couple of days back. Adams is a locally renowned left-liberal and the doyen of ABC Radio.

Here was Scott, to one side, trying to reassure the public that the ABC would endeavour to maintain high standards of political analysis. There was Adams, on the other, regurgitating as fact the already discredited Lancet survey that preposterously claimed 1 in 14 Iraqi adult males to have been slaughtered in fighting over the last 4 years.

Sadly for Adams, the Lancet survey had at that point in time already been grilled on the Internet for days.

The bias of the team conducting the survey (released, deliberately, just prior to US Congressional elections, just as the same team’s last Lancet survey had been released just prior to the last Presidential election) was not merely the stuff of educated speculation. It was evidenced by publicly available and specific statements.

The appalling figures put out by the team not only failed “the common sense test”, but exceeded by something like 90% all documented evidence of deaths in Iraq over the same period! Iraqis had already rejected the survey results. Even opponents of the war and other statisticians had rejected the survey results.

Not Phillip Adams, however. He chose to gleefully rant on and on about it in an influential public forum.

In Adams’ defense it might be said that he was merely following the lead of like-minded political commentators abroad.

The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall, for example, cited the “Lancet's politically damaging report” on the same day as Adams, while having the sense to mention that it “was swiftly dismissed by the White House”.

Yet that circumstance underlines the very essence of the pressure Adams’new boss Mark Scott is now facing: in an age when Australians are able to access The Guardian and the BBC direct, why should Australia’s ABC continue to exist? Why must hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars support an anachronism?

Further: why must hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars support an anachronism devoted to left-liberal causes?

Scott's mandate is to remedy at least the last point.

Haaretz reports that Israeli PM Ehud Olmert cut to the nuclear chase in his meeting with Vladimir Putin. He told the ex-KGB President that Russia must help solve the standoff surrounding Iran's nuclear program.

Russia has thus far escaped international opprobrium over Ahmedinejad's nuclear adventure, despite building the Iranian nuclear reactor.

The present situation has obvious parallels to France's sponsorship of Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor in the early '80s. Israel eventually bombed the Iraqi reactor.

Olmert told a press conference:

"The Iranians need to be afraid that something will happen that they do not want to happen to them. We don't have the privilege to allow a situation in which Iran has the capability for unconventional weapons,"

Of the Putin meeting he said:

"I leave this meeting with the sense that President Putin understands better than before the danger that is lurking from Iran's direction, should it succeed in realizing its objectives of arming itself with nuclear weapons"

The Russian President, for his part, told the press that he recommended Olmert to end the 'vicious circle (sic) of violence' and 'resume (sic) peaceful dialogue'. He also said hostages must be returned. He avoided mention of the Iranian imbroglio.

The Russians have, however, issued a directive to increase supervision over arms exports.

Haaretz says:

(T)he Israel Defense Forces captured 39 (Russian anti-tank) missiles (in the Lebanon war), some of them in their original packaging, along with shipment papers and other documentation, including serial numbers. Israeli officials showed photographs of these missiles and copies of the documentation to their Russian counterparts during meetings in Moscow about a month ago.

Russian arms proliferation, particularly nuclear arms proliferation, is thought to be greatly concerning the US and Israeli leadership.

These two countries are clearly the most likely targets of any nuclear attack by terrorists.

As Charles Krauthammer pointed out in a recent column, the possession of nuclear weapons by more than one state with aggressive policies towards one or both potential targets would effectively neuter the effectiveness of "MAD" deterrence, and would clear the way for underground elements with nuclear weapons stocks - as are believed to exist in Russia - to sell product.

Given the danger, it is clear Russia could be doing a lot more to delimit military or nuclear support for countries like Iran, Venezuela or North Korea.

Remember this?



And this?



If you were sentient at the time, you surely will.

The shocking images of the young Palestinian boy apparently slain by Israeli soldiers pulsated around the globe and stoked a huge fire of righteous hatred to fuel a then-nascent Islamist jihad.

The incident happened just days after Ariel Sharon sparked Palestinian riots - and his push to become Israeli Prime Minister - by visiting the super-sensitive religious tinderbox that is both the Jewish Temple Mount and the Muslim Dome of the Rock.

A few months later, Usama Bin Ladin recruiting videos featured footage of al-Durah. So did the video put out by the beheaders of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Now a Boston University History Professor, Richard Landes, writes persuasively in The New Republic that the shocking imagery was faked, that there appears to have been no slaying, that al-Durah couldn't have been killed by Israelis and, most damning of all: that French TV was complicit in the libel!

Here are extracts from the article, firstly regarding the dubious footage telegraphed around the world:

... I saw the raw footage in the summer of 2003-- ... (Charles) Enderlin (Al Durah beat chief for the France 2 television network) had cut (a scene) wherein the boy (allegedly shot in the stomach, but holding his hand over his eyes) picks up his elbow and looks around--I realized that this was not a film of a boy dying, but a clumsily staged scene.

On October 31, 2003, ... I saw the raw footage ... France2 still refuses to release for public examination. I was floored. The tapes feature a long succession of obviously faked injuries; brutal, hasty evacuation scenes; and people ducking for cover while others stand around. One fellow grabbed his leg in agony, then, upon seeing that no one would come to carry him away, walked away without a limp. It was stunning. That was no cameraman's conspiracy: It was everyone--a public secret about which news consumers had no clue.

... (N)one of the dozen cameraman (sic) present filmed anything that could substantiate the claim that the father and son had been hit, much less that the Israelis had targeted them ...

More damning even than this is the apparently open complicity of newsmen in faking the scene:

But the real shock came when ... Enderlin ... said (re the footage of faked scenes):

"They always do that," he said. "It's a cultural style."

So why wouldn't they have faked Al Durah?

"They're not good enough," he said.

A year later, the higher-ups at France2 made the same remark to three French journalists who also noted the pervasive staging: "You know well that it's always like that," they said.

I tried unsuccessfully to interest the mainstream press in this obvious fakery, but nobody was interested.

Regarding factual events surrounding the incident Landes says:

- The raw footage from that day reveals pervasive staging;
- (There is) no evidence ... of Israeli fire directed at the barrel, much less of Israelis targeting the pair;
- (G)iven the angles, the Israelis could scarcely have hit the pair at all, much less 12 times (indeed the only two bullets that hit the wall above them came from the Palestinian side, inexplicably 90 degrees off target);
- (T)here was no sign of blood on the ground where the father and son reportedly bled for 20 minutes;
- (T)here was no footage of an ambulance evacuation or arrival at the hospital;
- (T)here was no autopsy;
- (N)one of the dozen cameraman present filmed anything that could substantiate the claim that the father and son had been hit, much less that the Israelis had targeted them.

Why is a historian concerned with this? Landes is being called to testify at hearings in France acusing France 2 of libelously slandering Israel in a documentary concerning the al-Durah affair. Landes' interest and involvement, he says, stems from his expertise in similar libels throughout history.

ABC, BBC, CBC. The AB & CBCs; the AB, BB, and CBCs.

The symmetry itself is positively salubrious. What a shame that one of the "partners" may now be under threat, but it's a big maybe.

Mark Scott is the newly annointed great white hope at the head of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is today on record as committing to install checks and balances to ward against the rampant leftism the nominal Australian government broadcaster has become locally famous for.

Unlike BC Version A's spiritual parent, the British Broacasting Corporation or even, to a lesser extent, the colonial club comrade Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the ABC is only locally renowned.

The initialism "ABC" is of course more commonly attributed globally to a private American broadcaster.

Changing the Australian broadcaster's name - to, say, BBCC or BBCA or ABBBC, or perhaps PMB (Poor Man’s Beeb) - would not, of course, solve the root problems it faces. There is the question of 100s of millions of tax payer dollars continuing to support a dubiously relevant anachronism, that's the big one.

Maybe the broadcaster ought to pay its own way. That would mean delivering content designed to attract an audience that is not appallingly small - which would be a huge culture shock at the ABC.

Which begs the question of why the organisation needs to continue to exist at all.

It's not as if the 21st century world is like that of the 1930s, when the ABC was created and when radio - and later television - access were a special thing. It's not as if the ABC can be compared to Telstra. However inefficiently, the latter continues to be the only provider of essential (telecommunications) products and services.

The same can’t be said of the ABC vis-à-vis broadcasting.

guer‧ril‧la  /gəˈrɪlə/ 1. a member of a band of irregular soldiers that uses guerrilla warfare, harassing the enemy by surprise raids, sabotaging communication and supply lines, etc.

When the fleshy millionaire Moore raved and spittled against George Bush at the Academy Awards a few years ago, only the passion of his animus was surprising. The venue could hardly have been more mainstream.

Moore's motivation was widely interpreted as at least partly venal: he was, effectively, then previewing a new anti-Bush film.

The country he made the film and his fortune in guarantees him free speech.

This was underlined when he very publicly visited a Republican convention - an action that was also interpreted by some as publicity-motivated (and went without incident). Still, Moore has been romanticized as a 'guerrilla film-maker'.

The g-word took off, like some of the other fashionable catch phrases we've seen shoot across the Internet in recent days: terms like 'nuclear club' and 'meltdown'.

Just as the nuclear club is fictitious, US-bashing 'guerrilla film-makers' operate everywhere and openly. A new movie will show George W. Bush being assassinated. 'V for Vendetta' alluded to him as a would-be Nazi-Christian-theocrat suppressing Islam.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Ayaan Hirshi Ali is making a new film. It criticizes Islam. It's a sequel to "Submission", the film made by Theo Van Gogh. Theo's not around to make the sequel, because after making the original he was fatally staked in the heart by an Islamist chanting "Allah Hu Akbhar".

Ali, who since her involvement in that film has been protected by 24/7 security, told Der Spiegel (and me via Michelle Malkin and AEI ):

We're forced to produce the film under complete anonymity. Everyone involved in the film, from actors to technicians, will be unrecognizable.

Now that's guerrilla film-making.

Especially in a world where so many others are too scared to stand up to the fanatics. Consider:

- That "Submission" still isn't being shown in theaters (even after the film-maker was murdered by some gorilla);

- After (private!) British broadcaster ITV aired a 1980 documentary about the stoning of a Saudi Arabian princess who had allegedly committed adultery, Riyadh intervened and the British government issued an apology;

- After 1987 when (Dutch comedian) Rudi Carrell derided (Iranian revolutionary leader) Ayatollah Khomeini in a comedy skit (that was aired on German television), the Dutch government kowtowed;

- In 2000, a play about the youngest wife of the Prophet Mohammed, titled "Aisha", was cancelled before it ever opened in Rotterdam.

- This year, a Berlin opera house canceled the Mozart classic Idomeneo because it feared Muslims would react violently to a scene featuring Mohammed's severed head.

Then there were the Danish cartoons. Then the Pope incident. As Ali says:

"We are constantly apologizing ... Meanwhile, the other side doesn't give an inch."

Peter Beinart said in TNR regarding the Idomeneo closure:

Last week, (on the web) Germans declared that free speech was under siege. ... Right-wing websites buzzed. And, on the big liberal blogs, virtual silence.

... (T)he Idomeneo closure just didn't get liberal blood flowing. And why is that? Perhaps because it didn't have anything to do with George W. Bush.

… (M)any liberals seem unable to conceive of a struggle in which the Republican right is not an enemy but an ally. But there are such struggles … Free speech is under threat, and Idomeneo should be the last straw. It is time, once again, to close ranks.

Inshallah and Amen.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the face of perestroika and bringer of democracy to the former USSR, was apoplectic this week in describing the danger Novaya Gazeta correspondent Anna Politskovaya's murder (on Vladimir Putin's 54th birthday) represents for nascent - many would say stillborn - Russian democracy.

Gorbachev must of course be much more aware than non-Russians of:

- The 13 other murders of journalists since Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin became Russia's president;

- The murder of two very prominent Russian bankers in just the last few days, and the coincidence that the bank that employs one of them (the other was the Russian Central Bank Deputy Director) is

(a) about to list on the London Stock Exchange,
(b) has just concluded a synergy deal with Germany's Dresdner Bank, and
(c) has bought a 5% stake in EADS, the European aerospace giant and owner of Airbus;

- The 2003 arrest of Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. His arrest came hot on the heels of his acquisition of the prestigious Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper, and his hiring of a leading investigative journalist highly critical of President Vladimir Putin;

- The July 2003 arrest of Khodorkovsky's fellow Yukos shareholder and business partner Platon Lebedev. Many saw that arrest as a clear warning to Mr Khodorkovsky not to meddle in the upcoming elections;

- The 2000 arrest of Vladimir Gusinsky, owner of the largest independent television network in the country, NTV, just a few months after Putin's election. NTV was shut down in April 2001

- The close-down of TV-6, another independent television station where many NTV journalists sought refuge after NTV was closed down, It was snuffed out by the Kremlin in 2002;

- The mid-2000 flight from Russia of Boris Berezovsky, controller of ORT, Russia's Channel one, the largest network in the country. Berezovsky originally supported Putin's rise to power, but became a critic. Prosecutors later charged him with a series of crimes, including not repaying massive debts and loans. He is now fighting extradition to Putingrad;

- The murder earlier this month of Enver Ziganshin, the chief engineer for the Anglo-Russian oil producer TNK-BP - perhaps as a warning to BP, they say. Mr. Ziganshin's killing took place shortly after Russia's government jeopardized Shell's multibillion-dollar oil-development investment in the Sakhalin II fields by revoking a critical license - on the grounds that Shell had caused significant harm to the environment. Laughing out loud;

- The `Before' and `After' faces of US- backed Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko, who some say was a victim of poisoning. His electoral "loss" to a Russian-backed candidate was voided by the Ukrainian Supreme Court.

- The 2004 post-Beslan (middle-school massacre) re-arrangement: Putin argued that corruption in the regions had contributed to the attack. He abolished the direct election of governor for each of Russia's 89 regions, excluding Chechnya. Putin began appointing governors;

- The 6,000-odd former KGB officials who hold key positions in the Russian government at a time when power is increasingly centralized in Moscow;

- The (clearly) fraudulent elections and widespread repression in post-Soviet republics, such as Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan;

- The squeeze laid on Georgia during the past week and the harrassment of Georgians living in Russia, regarding which Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told WSJ:

"Ethnic Georgians in Russia) were subjected to a form of ethnic targeting not seen in Europe since the Balkans in the 1990s ... Hundreds are being deported; business owners are being harassed; schoolchildren are being forcibly registered with local police; women are being gratuitously tested for sexually transmitted diseases ... "

Russia has unilaterally severed air, rail, sea, land and postal links with Georgia.

The ostensible issue is territorial disputes between Georgia and its neighbour over the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The catalyst for the conflagration was Georgia's detention (and release to the Russians) of Russian spies.

The real meat in the issue is the success of Georgia's democracy, its overtures to NATO and its burgeoning relations with the US:

"In just three short years, my country has been transformed from a gangster-run economic and political basket case into a budding democracy with one of the world's fastest-growing economies. The World Bank recently lauded Georgia as the No. 1 reformer in the world and the least corrupt transitional democracy. Just last month NATO admitted Georgia into a new stage of membership talks

... (D)emocracy can be contagious."

US President George W Bush, who the esteemed western media are ever ready to lampoon for mangling language, probably nailed the concerns of democratic states when he outlined for Putin at the 2005
summit meeting in Slovakia the importance of

"a rule of law and protection of minorities, a free press, and a viable political opposition".

Very little of which seems to be in place or on the upswing in Russia at the moment.

Meanwhile, Russia's centralised and now state-controlled single oil and gas company has become an oil-producing giant. Another take on the Khodorkovsky arrest is that (per Jonathan Weiler in the Asia Times):

"(I)n the months before , Yukos and British Petroleum had agreed in principle to a merger that would have made the new entity perhaps the third-largest oil company in the world. Observers at the time suggested that Putin found such a possibility - the loss of control over a significant portion of a critical strategic resource - unacceptable."

Russia is now Europe's largest supplier of natural gas and oil.

That is: the single monolithic entity that is the corporatized natural-resource sector of Russia, that Putin's government directly or indirectly controls under the guise of law, is Europe's largest supplier of natural gas and oil.

It is also tremendous buddies with Hugo Chavez. And with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Russia is building the latter's nuclear plant, and is plans to build a gas pipeline from Venezuela to the southern tip of South America.

Taiwan often escapes under the radar of international news.

Even if North Korea's nuclear test wasn't dominating headlines, most would more likely hear about the 10,000 or so protesting against Chavez in the streets of Caracas than the hundreds of thousands now regularly flooding Taipei's streets - day after day, all dressed in red - in protest against President Chen Shui-Bian.

Chen's son-in-law is in jail for insider trading. Chen brushes that off, saying it doesn't effect him. When he regained the Presidency at the last election, he was strongly suspected of faking an assassination attempt on election eve in a (successful) bid to garner sympathy.

He scraped home in the election, and managed to remain in power thereafter in spite of the extremely dubious means by which he seemed to obtain it.

Since then, he has often manoeuvered his country into precarious situations vis-a-vis the People's Republic of China.

This has raised the political temperature not only on the mainland but within Taiwan: Chen's DPP (Democratic People's Party) - the party of many (poor, often darker-skinned) ethnic Taiwanese - has historically been in opposition.

The Kuomintang (KMT) has been Taiwan's traditional party of government ever since Chiang Kai Shek's (wealthy, Mandarin-speaking) nationalists were transplanted to the island en masse in flight from the mainland communists.

The KMT were never comfortable not having power, and less so when they perceived its fast and loose exercise by protagonist Chen.

His latest transgression, being suspected of taking (in conjunction with his wife) large bribes from the Taiwanese owners of the (Japan-headquartered) Sogo department store chain, has sent the temperature over the top.

Prosecutors last week said Chen's wife Wu Shu-chen did receive and spend about 300,000 Taiwan dollars (9,090 US) of department store vouchers but cleared her of accepting the gifts in exchange for lobbying favors for lack of evidence.

That is, as seems to be the pattern with Chen, he has achieved (superficial) plausible denial of the charges at hand. The pattern itself, however, cannot be denied.

Particularly so in a country that takes its politics very very seriously: television often shows the fisticuffs on the floor of the parliament there, and many have heard that the non-compulsory electoral turn-out is in the vicinity of 80% of eligible voters.

That's the passion that has now driven them to the streets. Yet Chen's still saying he won't step down.

Lots has changed in this brave new millenium. Yet the Nobel Peace Prize remains the speech dream of Miss Worlds throughout the universe. Recipients like the great peacemaker Arafat, the great statesman Annan, and the great quotesman Carter may have redefined its image somewhat.

The occasion of today's hearty welcome of North Korea to the World Nuclear Club is most certainly a poignant moment to recall the contribution of the named former US President along that battler country's righteous road:

(CNN interview with Carter, June 22, 1994)

Interviewer: Are you absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are going to honour this agreement, that while talks are going on that it's not just a matter of buying time on the part of the North Koreans, that they will not secretly pursue the nuclear program they were pushing earlier?


Carter: I'm convinced. But I said this when I got back from North Korea, and people said that I was naive or gullible and so forth.

... I outlined the specific points that were the Clinton administration's position, ... And with very little equivocation, he agreed. I think it's all roses now.

(Quote from Cut and Paste)

***************************************

Cameron Stewart, The Australian:

Kim Jong-il "is very knowledgeable about what goes on in the international scene," said former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung.

But (KJi's) true passion ... is films.


In an interview in 2000 he said if he was not in politics, he would have "become a movie fanatic or a critic or a producer".

In 1978 Kim ... arranged for two South Korean movie-makers to be kidnapped from Hong Kong ... They ... eventually made movies for him and helped school him.

He ... was an avid James Bond fan until the 2002 Bond movie Die Another Day painted North Korea as the baddie, prompting him to denounce it as "racist (and) an insult to the Korean nation".


According to romantic North Korean legend, Kim was born in a small cottage near a sacred mountain.

But in fact he was almost certainly born in ... Khabarovsk while his father Kim Il-sung was being harboured by Stalin.

He has only left his North Korean homeland to travel to neighbouring China and - once - to communist East Berlin.



... His family's palaces ... were filled with every conceivable modern convenience and a small army of servants ...

In addition to yachts, Kim had extensive collections of Harley-Davidson bikes, imported limousines and a stable of thoroughbred horses.

... His country's diplomats send him delicacies ... such as blue shark's liver from Angola and ... wines from the world's foremost vineyards.

... He was reputed to be a hard drinker ... He has married at least three times - including to an actress and to a dancer - and has fathered four children ...

... KJi to visiting South Korean newspaper editors in 2000:

"I have not sat in my office for my entire life in a depressed mood. I spend my time with people , singing and enjoying myself.

When I see government officials I get highly nervous. These people do not want to change themselves.

I usually spend my time with people in the countryside.

I go swimming and horseback riding once or twice a week. I ride horses at about 60 kilometres per hour. I have been riding horses since I was 11 years old, usually more than eight kilometres at a speed of 40, 60 kilometres per hour every day."

One defector, Hwang Jang Hop, claimed: "Every single mission of every single spy has to be approved by him ... The man is a terrorism genius."

Kim was personally linked with the bombing murder of several South Korean cabinet ministers in Rangoon in 1983.

In 1987, a North Korean agent, Kim Hyon Hui, who confessed to planting the bomb that blew up Korean Airlines Flight 858 killing all 115 people, said her orders came directly from Kim.

... (H)e has spent about one-third of his country's meagre resources on maintaining a massive military force of more than 1.1million men ...

At the same time ... the country's rural peasantry ... is starving because of repeated crop failure ...

Faced with an almost bankrupt state, Kim has turned to international crime ...

In 2003 the state-controlled North Korean container ship the Pong Su was caught off the Victorian coast trying to land its cargo of illicit heroin in Australia.

We were horrified by the Salman Rushdie fatwa, and astounded at the ferocious backlash at the Pope, whose predecessor an Islamist once tried to murder.

We took the 'Danish cartoon riots' in stride, and barely noticed the snuff-video beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl after he was made to declare that he was a Jew, or the release of TV newsmen Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig after they were made to convert to Islam on film.

Now a French philosophy teacher named Redeker is in hiding a la Rushdie. The incident raises only eyebrows, and only a relative few.

Sadly, we've become accustomed to ugly Islamist bullying and media blackmail.

That's partly why this incident in Bangladesh, as detailed in the Solomonia blog, struggled to make news beyond the local papers:

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, a Bangladeshi Muslim journalist who invited (Benkin, a Jewish acquaintance) to write about Israel from a Jewish point of view, will be tried this month on charges of spying for the Jewish state. The crime is punishable by death ...

With Choudhury's support, Benkin wrote the first pro-Zionist articles published in Bangladesh. Choudhury in turn condemned Muslim extremism in the Israeli media.

Choudhury was arrested ... before boarding a flight to Israel, where he was scheduled to deliver a lecture on Muslim-Jewish relations.

Who, honestly, could be even be mildly surprised?

The really surprising thing is that a man like Choudhoury is so bold and pure as to take the steps he did - and in a Muslim country.

It's also no small thing that outspoken Muslim free thinker Irshad Manji is brave enough to put a photo of herself with former Israeli PM Peres on her website:


This complete with the caption: "Shimon, you and I are members of the Zionist conspiracy"

- which the worldly and educated would recognise as humour.

However, thugs of the type who caused another outspoken Muslim lass, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to be escorted 24/7 by bodyguards most certainly would not.

Yet while individuals like Choudhoury, Manji, Ali, Wafah Sultan - who rejected Islam after Salafists murdered her university lecturer - and Fouad Ajami speak their minds, senior managers at CNN and Reuters admit to restrained reportage by their own news organisations of and in the Islamic world.

They fear both endangering their employees and shrinking their market reach, not necessarily in that order.

Even YouTube feels the wrath and pressure of the "Religion of Perpetual Outrage", as Michelle Malkin reports - her slideshow on the evolution of the Danish cartoon affair having recently been inexplicably and suddenly banned there.

Headlining in Australia today, The Australian's newspaper editorialists are therefore, unfortunately, absolutely correct in complimenting the nature of Muslim community criticism of Muslim-Australian scholar Ameer Ali thus:

ISLAMIC scholar Ameer Ali has shown great courage ... in opening debate on how best to interpret Muslim faith in the modern world. The immediate reaction of Australia's Islamic leaders to Dr Ali's controversial comments is as predictable as it is disappointing. But the fact that it has been framed as a debate, as opposed to mindless violence, says a lot about Australia and its 300,000-strong Muslim community that is to be celebrated.

"Celebrating" the fact that a debate has not resulted in violence! What has the world come to. Especially when you consider what the doctor actually said:

... Islamists would continue to breed jihadis unless the Koran was "reinterpreted" for today's society. Dr Ali ... is writing an academic paper entitled Closing of the Muslim Mind. ... He questions the centuries-old literal interpretation of the Koran, and says it is "rubbish" to think anyone who challenges the text will be doomed to hell. Dr Ali said Mohammed should be seen as human and imperfect, and he criticised Muslims who reacted violently towards depictions of the prophet, while aspiring to emulate his appearance. He said God would not judge Muslims on the length of their beard, but rather on their character, knowledge and contribution to society.

Angry retorts to this were always inevitable, weren't they.

Even though the viewpoint is perfectly reasonable, even though similar consideration of other forms of monotheism would be considered tame and not newsworthy, Dr Ali has incurred the wrath of the Mufti of Australia, who says:

anyone who said the prophet was human and had flaws could be renounced from the faith.

He challenged Dr Ali to withdraw his remarks - or be barred from standing at any religious ceremony. Other reactions are less restrained. And yet, as The Australian says, we should be thankful that the response is rhetorical and not vengeful.

Yet?

Just found this unconsciously enlightened reference to this blog in CNN's (Wolf Blitzer) coverage of Pope John Paul's passing last year:

CAL CHAMBERLAIN, CNN BLOG REPORTER: And some of those dignitaries were majoring news at their own at the funeral.

Over at "Spinbadz Own" blog at spinbad.blogspot.com under the title Leaders of Israel, Iran, Syria shake hands at Pope's funeral. (They) link back to a "Ha'aretz" article that says the president of shook hands twice with the Syrian president and then, at the conclusion of funeral services, shook hands with the president of Iran. And the two spoke for almost an hour in Farsi. And it goes on to say, a nonevent, but a huge nonevent in the context of the history of the Arab-Schindler conflict.

The Arab-Schindler conflict?

There is something in that.

Tuesday night at Sydney's George St movie house. The 500+-seat Cinema 7 is nearly packed. Mainly women. The trailer had tantalized. You just knew "The Devil Wears Prada" was going to be a smash.

Flick to this morning's takings reports, and there it is: already at #1 in Australia.

Nearly $5 million in less than a week. Juxtaposed, perhaps poetically, at #10 is the somewhat anti-corporate "A(m) Inconvenient Truth", taking less than $2 million in 3 weeks - still quite successful in Australian terms.

Had Meryl Streep, however, done an Ali Gore and toured down under in synch with the film release, then ... . Well, let's just say noone would be mangling her or her film's name.

While Gorat has hogged much recent cellulo-political intriguing, Streep has shown a whole nother generation why a good few "oldies" regard her as their all-time favourite actress. Academy Award nomination a-coming? Plus possible mon cherie.

3 or 4 significant others at the acting nucleus of the film might also be honour-bound. The costumes are of course par excellence (and the product placement shameless), the storyline funny and flowing, the one-liners pearlers.

Anne Hathaway's transformation from anti-fashionista to butterfly is unforgettable. The catalyst for that is an amazing little speech from Streep. She nails the young high fashion new-chum (and would-be rebel) when said rebel smirks. Smirk was directed at apparently pedantic deliberations over an outfit colour scheme.

Hathaway (and we) are then astringently advised of the hand-me-down place of unwitting anti-fashionistas in the greater scheme of (clo-)things, with reference to the history of the particular shade of blue in Hathaway's sweater.

I loved the soundtrack, but you may not. Madonna's "Vogue" gets a tickling, and you can't help but cast your mind to the managing editor of "Vogue" magazine when it does. She who some point the finger at as the ... base ... character for Streep's role.

That character - Miranda Priestly is her name - is a little different from the one portrayed in the best-selling "' Devil Wears Prada" book. In the latter, they say, she is a ruthless monster with absolutely no saving grace. The Hollywood version romanticizes her up a couple of moral notches. She's still a hellcat, but with a dash of humanity.

Even Hathaway feels that dash: she sternly tells a (Streep-loathing) suitor: "If she were a he rather than a she, you'd be admiring 'his' business instincts, instead of reviling her as a 'bitch'". Or words to that effect.

Which is probably meant to be one of the film's poignant moments, and it is. It may not, however, ring entirely true for the film audience. Many of us will seamlessly segue Michael Douglas in "Wall Street" to Streep's noughties version of the complex corporate anti-hero.

The latest film is definitely worth a look, regardless of your interest in the consumer high-end. Douglas's Gekko fetched a following, irrespective of a particular interest in high finance. Miranda Priestly could easily finish up as a similar, if more fashionable, type of icon.

Three and three-quarter stars (of a possible five).

There's a US Democrat full court press on right now, in case you hadn't noticed.

The aim is congressional power, the means is discrediting Bush policies (while not really committing to alternatives). The sparring vanguarders are the Clintons and Al Gore. Both sides aim for the 2008 Presidency, and erstwhile Clinton staffer Dick Morris sees an ultimate Hillary triumph as inevitable. She'll do most anything to win the prize, he says:

"(Bill Clinton is) often not a very nice person to be with in private ... (Hillary) reminds me of President Nixon. She's very ruthless."

Nixon thought so too.

Edward Klein quotes Nixon as calling Hillary "frightening" after meeting her at the White House. This was after their first formal introduction, but it was not the first time the two had come across each other:

Klein says Hillary played a major anti-Nixon role as a staffer investigating Watergate ... and yet purported to express admiration of the ex-President's methods within seconds of exchanging hellos at the Clinton White House.

We can probably presume Nixon to have been a guy whose blood didn't easily curdle. Klein intimates that it curdled after he met Hillary.

Morris predicts Hillary will be the next president. But he does not think she would make a good president:

“She’s as close to a European socialist as we have in the U.S.

“Hillary is a liberal who’s a moderate when she has to be. Bill is a moderate who’s a liberal when he has to be.

“People ask me, ‘When did you turn on the Clintons?’ I didn’t.

“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I hate both parties equally."

In the 2008 presidential election, Morris said he believes the only two Republicans who could give Sen. Clinton a “run for her money” are Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor, and Arizona Sen. John McCain. But:

"(T)hey're both too good,”

“I think the only person who could stop her is Al Gore,”

Interesting that Condoleeza Rice has fallen off the Morris radar as a prospective campaigner - he seemed to be singing her praises at one time. No mention either of Jeb Bush, and that also seems an astute omission.

Gore is of course conveniently positioned atop an environmental wave right now, and US Senator James Inhofe, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, believes 70% of the American public have been sucker-punched and duped by that wave.

Billary's strategy is of course to target Bush anti-terror and Iraq campaign policy.

Gore's pressure device has been the Micky Moore-style movie he stars in, while the Clintons have led with a raft of books - by themselves, Dick Clarke and now Bob Woodward.

The Woodward book is today being vamped around the usual media outlets as revealing gasp-shock-horror factoids concerning pre-911 Bush administration knowledge of Bin Ladin plots. So it's probably worth recalling, though it won't be by the Woodward peddlers, what Richard Miniter's book said about Clinton administration knowledge of Bin Ladin, as reported recently in (inter alia) The Australian:

... Thirty-eight days after Clinton was sworn in, al-Qa'ida attacked the World Trade Centre. His only public mention of the bombing was a few paragraphs stuffed into a Saturday radio address, which was devoted to an economic-stimulus package

(H)e turned the first terrorist attack on American soil over to the FBI and forgot about it.
By the end of Clinton's first year, al-Qa'ida had apparently attacked twice. Al-Qa'ida attacks would continue for every one of the Clinton years, climbing in lethality. :

In 1994, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (who would later plan the 9/11 attacks) launched Operation Bojinka to down 11 planes simultaneously over the Pacific, killing about 3000 people. A sharp-eyed Filipina police officer foiled the plot. The sole American response: increased law-enforcement co-operation with the Philippines.

In 1995, al-Qa'ida detonated a 100kg car bomb outside the US military's Office of the Program Manager in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing five Americans and wounding 60 more. The FBI was sent in.

In 1996, al-Qa'ida bombed the barracks of American pilots patrolling the "no-fly zones" over Iraq, killing 19. Again, the FBI went in.

In 1997, bin Laden repeatedly declared war on the Western world.

In 1998, al-Qa'ida simultaneously attacked US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people including 12 American diplomats.

In 1999, the Clinton administration disrupted al-Qa'ida's millennium plots, a series of bombings stretching from Amman in Jordan to Los Angeles.

(!!!!APPLAUSE!!!!)

This shining success was mostly the work of Richard Clarke, a National Security Council senior director who forced agencies to work together.

But the millennium approach was short-lived. Over Clarke's objections, the previous status quo quickly returned.

In October 2000, they wouldn't fail. An al-Qa'ida bomb ripped a 12sqm hole in the hull of the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding another 39. Throughout history, an attack on an American warship has led to war, but not this time.

When Clarke presented a plan to launch a concerted cruise missile strike on al-Qa'ida and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan, every member of the Clinton cabinet voted no.

... (T)he Predator drone plane, which spotted bin Laden three times in 1999 and 2000, was grounded by bureaucratic infighting; a petty dispute with an Arizona Democratic senator stopped the CIA from hiring more Arabic translators;


Clinton refused to meet his first CIA director for two years ...

***********************


I mentioned that the prospective Democrat leaders are being cagey about actually committing to policies significantly differentiated from those of Bush.

On the present Gore front, the environmental front, it is clear that the adoption of the Kyoto accord recommendations - that both the Bush and Bill Clinton administrations effectively rejected - would simultaneously be a disaster for the US economy and ineffective as a means to prevent global warming.

On the Clinton front, much is being made of unhappiness about the horror that is present-day Iraq, and the now-famous "NIE" (US National Intelligence Estimate entitled Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the US) that is said to conclude that the invasion is a mistake.

But the actual conclusion of that report regarding what to do about Iraq is rather different:

"Perceived jihad success (in Iraq) would inspire more fighters to continue the fight elsewhere." And "should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight". That's supportive, not undermining, of Bush's opposition to withdrawal.

This from Michael Costello who, unlike many commentators, has actually read the report.

Hillary can be expected to have actually read the report too.