L'État, c'est moi
Global Guerillas has a piece about the 'mercenary industry', continuing its focus on 4th Generation Warfare. It says the proliferation of private security agencies in Iraq "serves as yet another sign of the return of the pre-Westphalian warfare" and advises watching the documentary "Shadow Company" by Nick Bicanic and Jason Bourque, which has solid interviews with industry insiders/pundits/analysts like Robert Young Pelton, Doug Brooks, and Peter Singer" as an introduction into the phenomenon. Chester has been on the subject of privatized warfare before. He wondered whether the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision didn't go some way towards putting nonstate combatants on par with states. He wrote in an essay for Pajamas Media that:
Hamdan’s main focus was trial by military commission, but one of its most important side-effects is that it seems to grant a recognition to a non-state organization without territory, an identifiable system of government, and lacking any legal mechanism capable of ratifying the Geneva Convention. Yet it is covered by the Geneva Convention. One must ask what other types of non-state or private organizations could achieve this sort of legal recognition if al-Qaeda could?
Going by recent events in Lebanon, Hezbollah has achieved a stature and de-facto recognition that many states would envy. It's funny how Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, though receiving money and training from states to attack other states (called "proxy warfare") are never referred to as "mercenaries". Instapundit has a post on Darfur looking at the issue not merely through the usual Islamist/nonIslamist prism, but in the context of the UN's condemnation of the right to self defense. Reynold's post says:
DARFUR UPDATE: "In the face of ongoing genocide in Darfur, the international community's failure to accept the 'responsibility to protect' (that's United Nations language, officially adopted) innocent civilian lives has taken its last, abject form. The National Islamic Front (NIF) regime in Khartoum, made up of the very men who have for more than three years orchestrated the systematic destruction of Darfur's African tribal populations, has been told directly and unambiguously that there will be no U.N. peacemaking force without its consent." Kind of puts the U.N.'s disavowal of a right to self-defense in perspective, doesn't it?
The UN's 'disavowal of self-defense' highlights the muddle into which thinking on state/nonstate actors has fallen. The UN argues that people have no legal right to defend themselves and those matters should be left to the state. The state? If Khartoum can can use the nonstate Janjaweed militia in Darfur and Iran can use the Hezbollah in Lebanon, what sense does it really make for the UN to argue that individuals cannot privately defend themselves?
posted by wretchardthecat at 9/02/2006 04:42:00 PM
65 Comments:
Would the UN itself be a state or a nonstate actor? It presumes to tell us what to do, up to and including attempting to override our Constitution, so surely at a minimum it's an "actor".
Things will get very interesting when the left (there really are some sufficiently hostile ones... look at Demokratischer Untergrund) in Amerikkka start creating groups to contend with the folks trained by Blackwater...
The State monopoly on the use of violence to enforce justice, like all monopolies, is tolerable only for as long as it works reasonably well. When it begins to fail due to political correctness or inefficiency, a black market for security will emerge. People who have followed Iraq the Model will note how "neighborhood patrols" soon begin to emerge where the state is perceived as being unable to provide security. The "Minutemen" on the southern border derives largely from the perception that the border patrol has failed.
Hamstringing law enforcement with PC rules then reacting to the resulting public disappointment with magisterial pronouncements about the sole of legitimacy residing in the state has the effect of disempowering those who would trust the state and empowering those who would subvert it. Hence the bizarre phenomenon of laws which only restrict the law abiding, while scofflaws are more less left to scoff.
On an international scale the result is Darfur, where only the sleeping lifeguard is authorized to save the drowning man who, though capable of swimming, is prohibited from doing so.
"...Hezbollah has achieved a stature and de-facto recognition that many states would envy."
Envy indeed. Yesterday I saw a news report to the effect that a group would be investigating Israel's alleged war crimes against civilians in Lebanon, but the group would NOT be investigating Hezbolahs's killing of Israeli civilians.
When the U.S. Army took the first German city to be encountered by the Allies in WWII, Aachen, the German forces barricated themselves in the city's old opera house to make their last stand. With a massively constructed stone building as their fortress, surrounded by open areas that offered excellent fields of fire, the well-stocked Germans thought they could hold out for an extended period.
And then the Army brought in a self propelled 155MM artillery piece, and using the unheard-of tactic of direct fire with such a weapon, and at point blank range, proceeded to knock the opera house down around the Germans ears.
In the face of such brutish unsporting opposition, the German general surrendered his forces - and then stated that the use of such artillery in direct fire applications should be outlawed.
Funny what looks like a war crime when you are an NGO - or a Nazi - doesn't it?
One of these shows a man in Nogales that has illegals going through his yard every nite.
Has had them in his house 3-4 times.
---
Military Times staff writer Michelle Tan and photographer James J. Lee arrived in Nogales, Ariz. August 20 and are covering the National Guard’s Operation Jump Start for four days.
Read their blog.
• Audio slideshow: ‘Border Guards’
• Audio slideshow: ‘An Unending Hunt’
• Audio slideshow: ‘Across the Fence’
Forget national-state military establishments. Contract soldiering out to properly equipped and trained bodies of specialized super-troops, tasked with hunting down and killing designated targets and their leaders.
Criteria for targeting would be "Outlawing"-- declaring a specific group and its adherents, by whatever name, outside the bounds of civilized society. No constraints, no behavioural norms... the idea of terrorist murderers using ambulances, dressing in opponents' uniforms, justifies any and all responses.
Contract "posses", Special Forces or whatever --akin to (let's face it) paramilitary death-squads-- will be cheap, effective, ruthless as was the Soviet KGB in retaliating for murdered Russian diplomats through the late 1970s. You want a shadow war, without a grain of civilized compunction or regret? You got it, kids, and by the way-- Westerners have never lost that battle yet.
You may think Eurabia is a done deal, but surprise! At tipping points, we'll take leaves from your own book. Allah has forsaken you and your abominable conceits for lo! these thousand years. Mullah-cracies from Marrakesh to Zamboanga definitely need a dash of realism, straight.
“If they come in they should be legal,” he said. “When I lived in their country I had to be legal. I lived in Mexico for seven years.”
Husemann said he’s had illegal crossers run into his house looking for help. He plans to build fences around his property.
“It’s just like a prison,” he said. “It’s getting to the point where the government should be doing something about it but they’re not.”
The SCOTUS Hamdan decision in effect is a genuflection toward the pre-eminence of a supranational treaty, and may very well come back to be used to argue that domestic anti-government groups within the territorial United States are fully protected by the terms of the Geneva Conventions.
Dear Doug,
Regarding your post on Michelle Tan and James J. Lee in "Military Times..."
Anyone remember how we cheered the people risking their lives trying to escape East Berlin?
Of course, the East Berlin Soldiers were under standing orders to use lethal force, there were land mines, electrified fences, and vicious attack dogs to KEEP THE EAST GERMANS PRISONER IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY!
(hat/tip to my dear brother, the seriously annoyed guitarist...)
Fiddler,
I'm confused:
You saying the residents of Nogales should welcome them into their yards and homes?
No, just saddened by the irony.
Both Bush (41) and Clinton intercepted Haitians in their leaky boats in international waters and sent'em back to Haiti, and no one raised any serious challenge to their authority to do so.
I think it takes a hell of a lot of commitment to brave hundreds of miles of shark-infested waters in a bitty little boat to relocate for a better job.
You might think that is a fairly motivated job applicant.
just in a fugue state tonight...
Problem with the border jumpers is that they include significant numbers of serial molesters, murderers, drug runners, welfare cheats, insurance scam artists and etc.
...and a sorely lacking education, and now with multiculturalism dominant, desire to assimilate.
Unlike previous first gen offspring, these new arrivals are decidedly not all upwardly mobile.
Here's a story about an exceptional case, exceptional Parents.
...along with some very sad statistics that prove Rufus wrong.
(as do health, welfare, education, and crime figures)
This is not the same country it was when previous immigrants came, Rufus, them's the facts. Limbaugh's wise granpa schooled him on your perspective.
He followed that for years until all the on the ground FACTS taught him different.
---
For senior Luz Elena Gutierrez, that path wound through hallways crowded with dispirited peers, around inexperienced teachers and veterans disillusioned by experience, over economic obstacles seldom faced by middle-class children, to the spotlight on stage at tonight's graduation as Fremont's valedictorian for the Class of 2006.
Almost 500 students will cross the stage with her.
But more than 100 of them will receive a certificate of completion instead of a diploma; they had the grades to graduate but could not pass the state exit exam.
And 1,500 of her freshman classmates will not be present; they left Fremont during the four years leading to graduation.
"At a school like this, guys get pressured to do a lot of things … gangs, drugs. .
She chose her friends as carefully as she picked her courses: like-minded girls who met under the big tree on the quad for lunch and to discuss calculus, college applications and leads on financial aid.
It is no coincidence, she says, that all 10 of Fremont's top seniors are girls. "At a school like this, guys get pressured to do a lot of things … gangs, drugs. Boys make fun of you if you do your work. Girls don't have that kind of pressure."
That's 400 out of 2000 that graduate, Rufus, 1600 don't.
We only need so many non-educated folks.
...and please address this:
Half of California's prison population are illegals!
To pretend Calif. does not have serious problems just because you don't, is to ignore reality.
When it begins to fail due to political correctness or inefficiency, a black market for security will emerge.
A year or so ago, before I knew he was Aussie rather than Yank, I was lecturing Wretchard on vigilante justice and posse's and how that sort of reaction had won the West quite nicely, thank you very much.
At that point, he was aghast at the prospect of lawlessness and/or citizenry presuming to take the law into our own hands.
Now it appears that he's aghast that The Law has been hamstrung to the point where there is no one left BUT citizens to go after the various Bad Guys, whether they're coming after us burbling "Allah u Akbar!" or "hasta la vista, baby".
Too bad no one is willing to arm the citizens who are becoming dead in Sudan.
Thanks Rufus, I was just about to ask about the Marielitos. I know there were some real hard cases among those. As I recall from some of the news reports from the time, U.S. authorities were able to track down and arrest a lot of the worst rapists, murderers, bullies and thugs.
Hey, Look at AUSTRALIA and SOUTH CAROLINA... Penal Colonies.
Now in Oz people take as much pride in tracing their descent back to a British convict shipped from the Old Bailey, as Daughters of the American Revolution do in their Mayflower connections.
I suspect that my family has a lot more rustlers, poachers and freelance distillers in our background than any other sort.
Miscreants.
Troublemakers.
Sheep shaggers.
independent, self-sufficient...
"Sod the Aristocrats!"
There was no welfare state, in state tuition for illegals, free medical care, and etc Fiddler:
Apples and Oranges.
ALL So Los Angeles Emergency Rooms have been CLOSED!
Can you argue that's a good thing?
As biologists would say:
The selection pressure then was intense, but like so many other things, the reverse is now true:
Reward the worst.
"And as far as one running into my home seeking help..."
---
As long as it is someone ELSES Room, Rufus and Fiddler are fine with that.
The New Agers roam the Club.
Free Love! Open Borders! Free Lunch!
The Mexican Pawns are being used by slimes like this in DC:
---
IV. The Dangerous Effect of Section 240D and Section 154
Buried deeply in the Senate Bill is a provision would disarm America’s state and local police in the war against terrorism. Section 240D contains a statement that would have the effect of barring state and local police officers from making arrests for civil violations of immigration law—precisely the sort of violations that terrorist have demonstrated a propensity to commit.
---
But if Teddy writes it, W signs it.
habu_3; 08:11:43 PM
re: Con Thein
Hadn't heard of the place for years and didn't know that more than a handful of people had ever heard of the G-d forsaken place. It was a dark and bloody place. Habu, you never cease to amaze!
Feral pineapple and banana plantations hiding the remains of crumbling old estates, with whole divisions of the NVA operating with impunity, entertained the Corps. And, all this just a hop-skip-and jump from the river. Many a good Marine bought the farm there.
Sorry, doug, I guess it's that gang of Liberal dee-programmers that kidnapped me briefly.
to quote Sinatra:
"Call me.... [politically] Un-Reliable..."
Seriously, I've been reading up on the goings on in Mexico. Mostly a lot of stuff from ZNET about what's going on in Oaxaca. I haven't had the energy or time to really study much about the contested national election.
I confess to the sin of letting my attention wander from the true path, and musing on the possibilities of “Can’t we all just get along?”
I confess to the sin of carelessness in naming South Carolina as the penal colony when in fact it was Georgia... (Thanks for the correction, Whit! >;-D)
Having lived in LaLa Land and since foresworn (even fivesworn) the place because everybody believes in the goddam TOOTH FAIRY, I confess to allowing myself to forget my rage at the closure of emergency rooms, the cutting back of public services by the Alameda Public Library when it was not even charging anything for failure to return the stinking library books....
I grovel before my betters.
Illegal Alien Amnesty Bill Bloats Welfare ...
...over the last 30 years, this historic pattern has reversed. As the relative education levels of immigrants fell, their tendency to receive welfare benefits increased.
By the late 1990s, immigrant households were 50% more likely to receive means-tested aid than native-born households.
Moreover, immigrants appear to assimilate to welfare use. The longer immigrants live in the U.S., the more likely they are to use welfare.
The picture for illegal immigrants, who would receive amnesty under the bill, is even more alarming. Roughly half of current illegal immigrants are high-school dropouts. Use of welfare among legal immigrants who are high-school dropouts is three times the rate for the U.S. native born population as a whole. The rate for low-skill immigrants granted amnesty would be similar. Overall, welfare costs added by this group would be quite high.
Illegal immigration is now a major cause of child poverty. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 4.7 million children of illegal immigrant parents currently live in the U.S. Some 37% of these children are poor.
There is a remarkably foolish idea now running through the Senate that the key to solving the Social Security crisis is to import into the U.S. tens of millions of low-skilled immigrants, earning perhaps $20,000 per year, along with their families. The folly of this should be apparent.
---
The Democrats Love for us to pay to subsidize new Democrat voters!
Fiddler:
Habu, and now You!
I guess it must be my turn.
I'm well practiced at it.
I persisted in believing men could control their destiny in the presence of women for decades!
(Doug Sings)
"We are the World,
We are the Children..."
"...it seems to grant a recognition to a non-state organization without territory, an identifiable system of government, and lacking any legal mechanism capable of ratifying the Geneva Convention."
In other words, the Court's majority has concluded a treaty.
Possum, you enjoy your Pillow Time, you hear?
---
Fisk Slams Nasrallah!
Look, guys--- I've never had anyone fire a shot at me, and I've never fired a shot at a human.
I’ve cleaned fish, but I've only read about butchering an elk.
I'm more the boy-scout, "be prepared" first aid learn to build your own water filter kinda guy. Weekend camping. 12 weeks of Red Cross Wilderness Emergency Response training, CERT Team training with the local fire department,
But I have re-acquainted self with my dad's old 30-06. (He steered us brothers toward Junior NRA, and we each turned out to be pretty good shooters.)
There are certain questions I've thought through that I'm not disposed to discuss except among really intimate friends.
Bill Whittle has described in his essays the sort of mental path people like me have wandered.
Being an uncle and briefly a step-dad can’t be the same as being a father.
I can only imagine other folks’ experiences that have gotten them to their attitudes.
I appreciate your indulgence, and corrections to my false steps.
Allen,
That Fisk link is to Syria Blog, don't miss it:
Guess what?
The Euros are sellin out the Joos.
Again.
I'm succumbing to the Oprah-like gravity of the Belmont Confessional!
Feeling guilty, very very guilty!
Ok, here goes:
I'm not worthy!
(but of course you all knew that)
Peace be upon us, brothers.
I grovel at your superior education, writing ability, video editing capability and musical talents, Fiddler!
God knows what else, but no need to go too far with this.
Hey Rufus,
Your Turn!
Grovel on, young man!
Whatever my talents may be, they come from self-indulgence more than discipline.
It's not false modesty but plain fact to mention that my vocabulary for whatever it's worth, was expanded by my mom drilling me for spelling bee when I was recuperating for a year from a childhood injury, and I was a captive scholar.
Other people have put their talents to much better use, helping either their country or humanity in general. I've paid my bills.
DCASR overlooked my youthful improprieties (Habu will understand, maybe) and judged me and my brother fit to do certain sorts of work for the gummint.
This country has blessed my life beyond the dreams of kings of earlier generations.
I have most of my teeth, and binocular vision, and can walk without a limp, none of which would have been possible if I'd been born in the time of my parents' parents.
I have the benefit of a good education, despite my attempts to cast it away.
I stand in awe of people who put on a uniform and did the tasks assigned them.
Put that in the present tense.
Where's my soap box?!
Iraq Holds 'key al-Qaeda figure'
Last Updated: Sunday, 3 September 2006, 10:00 GMT 11:00 UK
"The Iraqi authorities have announced the arrest of a man they say is the second-in-command of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, told a news conference the man, Hamad Jama al-Saedi, was detained a few days ago."
Now this is instructive. The Iraqis have this guy two days and he has already given up info so that the Iraqis have rolled up another twenty captured and killed. It seems unlikely that the Iraqis have heard about the new and kinder Belmont Club and must be using some, shall we say, firm methods of interrogation. For two years, we have heard from the experts that interrogation by force does not work. Well this Deputy Head of AQ certainly is chatty.
It is also instructive that the DH of AQ Iraq, did not much mind sending waves of suicide bombers to kill innocents, but when put to the test, he has decided to postpone his share of the promised virgins.
There are some very obvious lessons. We shall see.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Endurance Meets Doubt in Iraq
“As a soldier, I am going to do whatever we got to do,” he said. “As a personal opinion, I don’t think we need to be in this city, period. How much money and how many soldiers is it going to take when these people don’t want our help? They just don’t. We don’t even know who we can trust.”
Hit is a tough assignment. The predominantly Sunni town of some 65,000 sits astride the Euphrates in Anbar Province. Saddam Hussein hid in the nearby palm groves soon after escaping from Baghdad in April 2003, a telling indication that the town contained more than a few supporters of the old order.
The American military experience with occupation was successful when we had the complete unconditional surrender of the belligerents. I have no idea what we expect these troops to do. I suppose offer them a decent job when they quit the army in disgust.
A disconnect to be sure.
---
---
Be sure to read this post by Omar.
Very revelatory.
A tale of two tribes, a gang and a militia...
Doug, His last line,
"I truly hope things end in the way I and the majority of my people like, after all, bonds created and maintained over centuries are no doubt stronger than the evil doings and ill wishes of a few mad criminals."
My cynical side tells me the opposite is true. People are so inherently tribal that the only thing that will bring things back to normal is blood letting to the point where everyone loses their appetite for more.
NahnCee said...
Would the UN itself be a state or a nonstate actor?
That made me realize that many UN decisions are taken primarily to bolster that organization itself! Why hadn't I thought of it before? It's like any bureaucracy: it cares about itself even if its mandate becomes perverted in the process. Remember the "I am NOMAD" episode from the original Star Trek?
From Austin Bay,
"His [Rumsfeld's] biggest mistake, in my view, was keeping a cadre of advisers that were fine for peace-time, Beltway political brawling, but ill-prepared for warfighting — particularly fighting a long, intricate, sustained war."
How comforting. And what about Iran?
2164th said: "...was successful when we had the complete unconditional surrender of the belligerents."
After the word "belligerents" I would add ", which, generally, the unrestrained application of our military force" before the ".".
You get back to it later when you observe there has not been enough blood shed. My short form for that, as I say it to friends here in CT, is "Not enough slaughter." But then, as I have observed here before, that is why the jihadis hide so well...they know what awaits them out in the open in a direct confrontation; adopting the NGO tactic is just another way to hide. They are DAMN good at hiding. They hise themselves better than they hide their women.
h_3,
I keep all those magnificent men (our military and Marines, in particular) in my prayers regularly. I will add your b-i-l in with my friends and neighbors who died in Beirut and Grenada.
That picture is stunning Whit. I almost thought you were photoshopping us.
Whit, Rumsfeld must have cut back funding for that LZ.
Thank you, sirius_sir, for the link to Mark Steyn's article (“Why abduct us? We cede our values for free”). That article pinpoints several questions that have been on my mind for a nawful long time.
For those who don’t have time to go read it, he begins by noting the wholesale rollover of the international news media establishment to the anti-Western tide, and examines specifically the dilemma of Sidney, Australia. As he puts it, the reporting by the press would suggest that there is an “epidemic of incidents committed by men of no known appearance” because the “journalists” authoring the news articles take it as their personal responsibility to actively censor the information that identifies suspects as Islamic males.
Steyn's key phrasing No. 1:
"One can understand the agonies the politically correct multicultural journalist must go through, distressed at the thought that an infelicitous phrasing might perpetuate unfortunate stereotypes of young Muslim males. But, even so, it's quite a leap to omit the most pertinent fact and leave the impression the Sydney constabulary are combing the city for mullets.
...it's never a good idea to put reality up for grabs. There may come a time when you need it."
Steyn's crucial phrasing No.2:
"It doesn't matter how "understandable" Centanni and Wiig's actions are to us, what the target audience understands is quite different: that there is nothing we're willing to die for. And, to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead."
One theme that kept cropping up in Sunday School when I was a bitty little kid was the heroic refusal of Christians through history to renounce their faith, despite torture and death and imprisonment.
I’m certain that kids in Hebrew school have been reminded of their own like legacy, as have kids attending the wonderful schools administered by the Jesuits and other Catholics, et cetera.
It is essential to distinguish that from the madrassas and certain mosques that teach NOT the heroic refusal to renounce one’s faith, but the imperative to SLAUGHTER anyone who refuses to renounce one’s faith, if it is not YOURS.
It is also essential to remember that the highest ideal of ISLAMIC education throughout the Islamic world is the rote memorization of the verses of the Qur’an, so much so that at this time, the largest portion of Saudi university students are pursuing degrees in Islamic studies, rather than engineering, biology, history, chemistry, literature, or any other academic speciality.
I think the two Fox guys ought to pull an operation out of this. Fox would be in on it, of course, along with maybe the allies-siding faction of the CIA. Okay, the guys go mufti, and keep up their work, only on camera they spout the most ridiculous notions imaginable, playing it straight, as new converts, right outta the Koran. The slow laughter would build over time.
I have just one thing to add to all this:
Edmund Blackadder, "Back and Forth", in a wattle and daub for Chrissake TIME MACHINE, accompanied by his trusty dogsbody, Baldrick.
As usual, they have a verrrrry cunning plan...
The jihad's new man, Mr. Bean,
emerged from his thatch-roofed machine;
Said "When it comes to religion,
I'm just a big pigeon,
whichever the wind blows I lean!"
Buddy, am I completely mistaken? I had heard reports describing Rowan Atkinson as almost the single British celebrity who was openly critical of the PC rules suppressing the identification of Islamic terrorists as "Islamic" or "terrorists."
I'm trina do some research.
Do you know of some specifics?
O/T--Ollie North's show tonight (Fox) examines the circumstances of death of George Patton.
Fiddler--gosh, no, I didn't aim the doggerel at anything other than your Black Adder riff. The medieval time machine thing inspired my limbrick brain.
Today the Canadians deserve our thanks and sympathy for their help and sacrifice in Afghanistan.
"More than 200 Taleban fighters have been killed in a major offensive by Afghan and Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, Nato says.
Four Canadian soldiers with the Nato forces were also killed in Operation Medusa, which began on Saturday near the city of Kandahar." BBC
Words to Live By
"Find The Bastards, Then Pile On."
Standing Order for Troopers of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam issued by its commander, Colonel George S. Patton, III
some instalinks on the Afghan battle:
Whit, after closer inspection, I think that picture is a fake.
It would be very hard to balance the wash from those two props one over the roof and the other above the ground. The same wash would blow those guys off the roof. There is no dirt or debris and the trees are not moving.
More on Rowan Atkinson and pending British legislation promoting PC speech:
Here is the link to Rowan Atkinson’s address to the British House of Lords, 25.1.05
A brief excerpt:
” I am here to plead the case in opposition to a law of Incitement of Religious Hatred on behalf of those who make a living from creativity: those whose job it is to analyse, to criticise and to satirise. Authors, journalists, academics, actors, politicians and comedians. All of whom, the government claim, need have no concerns about the legislation but as the arguments both for and against the measure have evolved, I believe that these reassurances are a politically motivated fiction.
I question the legislation and the thoughts behind it for the following reasons:
Firstly, the government’s belief that the measure will promote racial tolerance. Now racial tolerance may sound a pretty inarguable notion. Unfortunately, what is very arguable is the definition of the term - the definition of a tolerant society. “
Here is another link to the European magazine “Index on Censorship” that has excerpted quotes from that same speech. Here’s their little after-blurb describing the occasion of his testimony:
”Rowan Atkinson was speaking at the House of Commons on the eve of the second reading of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill to publicise the objections of a broad group of writers, representatives of the National Secular Society and MPs. This text is reprinted with his permission.”
For the truly brave, here is the BBC official website page discussing the “blasphemy law” which evidently derives from common law — i.e., case precedents dating centuries. A caption on the site states that the law only protects the Anglican Church of England. The site indicates its most recent update was 18 October 2004.
Check also Polly Toynbee’s comment/article in the online Guardian titled “What's at stake is the right to insult and cause offence” from Tuesday 31 January 2006.
Not so much trying to RAM Atkinson down anyone's throat as just look at some encouraging debate going on in UK about the whole PC mess... seems like there are folks fighting the dhimmi tendency.
Bout the chopper pic--- is there a link anywhere to a larger format?
I've been using Photoshop since 1987, and I can't see enough from the image file I downloaded to make any judment. I don't for a second doubt that there are pilots with that much skill, though, cause I've seen 'em do it.
trangbang68,
re: Buffalo
Thanks!
Companies A, B, & D 9th Marines were not decimated, however. They were nearly annihilated. Casualties were well in excess of 200%, but people quit counting.
For Plame/NYTimes watchers, this trip down memory lane is quick & down on it.
oops, sorry, I meant this.
Of Zen and donut holes:
re: Al Gore
I recall Franklin saying of one of his British ministerial antagonists, “He fills a chair.” Mr. Gore could be that man.
Of course, it could have been Disraeli, or possibly Churchill. Hell, I don't know, but I like the thought nonetheless.
Australia is abusing its "moderate" Muslims, so they say. And, by golly, those "moderates" are angry. Yes, that is hard to believe, I know.
"Muslim anger erupts at Costello call to renounce terrorism"
http://www.theage.com.au/
news/national/muslim-anger-
erupts-at-costello-call-to-renounce-terrorism/2006/09/03/
1157222007392.html
Patriot Games?
This could be the start of something big. Are these chaps “Far Right” as in Sam Adams, or far right as in David Duke?
Britons threaten Muslim beheadings in footage
http://www.theaustralian.news.
com.au/story/0,20867,20347865-2703,00.html
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