Why?
Walid Phares asks four questions about the $100K reward offered by al-Qaeda for the murder of a Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks they deem blasphemous. An extra $50K will be paid Vilks is "slaughtered". Phares asks:
1. Why would al Qaeda Iraq and not another branch offer such a bounty? The Cartoonist is Swedish and the al Qaeda Iraq fights against the US in Iraq. Where is the link here? Many voices in the debate on the War on Terror have been saying that al Qaeda came to Iraq just because the US invaded the country. What about Sweden?
2. Why is al Qaeda-Iraq offering a bounty for the killing of an editor in Scandinavia? Why offering money for Jihad? Well, when a Jihadi group begins to offer financial rewards, it means that the ideological reward isn't enough.
3. Will such a call be heeded in Sweden? Does al Qaeda have cells -dormant or not- that far north? Reports tells us that the Salafists are propagating this ideology across Scandinavia. Very few realized that an assassination of a film maker in Amsterdam was imaginable before Theo Van Gogh was killed.
4. Will al Qaeda or other Jihadists attack Swedish companies or individuals worldwide? In fact orders were given but it depends on whom would consider themselves the "infantry" and actually take action. It will also depend on what the Swedish Government and Multinational Corporations would state in public or do in private. Sweden has had decades of neutrality regarding many challenges in international relations, and its foreign policy wasn't comparable at all to NATO countries in their struggle against Terror. However, this is the greatest litmus test yet to be addressed.
Here are some possible answers:
1. Al Qaeda is trying to stake out a leadership position in the Global Islamist struggle. One of the ways this is typically done is to to take the lead in "hot button" items. Coverage of the Mohammed cartoons ensured a high profile for the issue in much the same way as Salman Rusdie's literary fame did. The planned murder of Vilks is above all an act of propaganda. It's part of a media drama.
2.Offering bounties is a common tactic. Iran offers a certain amount of money to perform specific acts of murder. Planting an IED, shooting a person, etc. It's like a McDonald's menu, with a price opposite every item. There are probably value combos and special deals. The observation that Sweden had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq is irrelevant. The idea that the Jihad is all about the invasion of Iraq is a demonstrable lie. Iraq did not cause the Jihad. Iraq has nothing to do with the planned murder of Vilks.
3. The call will probably be heeded in Sweden. The immigration, birth and conversion figures are high enough to ensure there will be a sufficient pool of persons available to respond. Considering that the money is comparable to contract for murder rates and murder is not unheard of in the West, why should there be any shortage of takers in Sweden?
4. Swedish companies will probably be threatened. Now that a "grievance" has been manufactured there's a pretext upon which any grifter, genuine Jihadi or generic extortionist can approach any Swedish company and say "we are outraged over the cartoons. Pay us or we'll harm you."
Thinking of al-Qaeda as a religion like Buddhism will take one down the wrong path. It's easier to understand it as a gang, with territories, local bosses, rackets, internal rivalries, and a secret culture which requires you to be "made". Al-Qaeda is in fact linked to gangs. It operates an actual narcotics trade in Afghanistan. It performs contract hits on behalf of clients and subcontracts hits to independent operators. It does everything gangs do and very little that religions, as we know it, undertake. The reason al-Qaeda is poorly understood is that the West insists on misunderstanding it; giving it a dignity far beyond any it would accord itself in candid moments. The contracted Vilks murder is a case in point. It's not about cartoons, blasphemy or piety but about intimidation and dominance. A desert raider will grasp the point immediately. But maybe the West never will.
posted by wretchardthecat at 9/15/2007 03:10:00 PM
45 Comments:
I have got to think there are other "groups" out there that would see this as an encroachment on their traditional enterprises.
Funny too how it's from an Arabic word and all...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia
Alternate explanation: Al Queda in Iraq is getting its ass whupped and, like all bullies and most crimminals, is looking for someone easier to beat up.
Recall that before the Zerkowie Kerpowie, the man himself said on more than one occasion that things were already going so badly that the organization should seriously consider Moving On to another and less demanding venue. Well, thar you go... There are already losts of Muslims in Sweden nursing at the sow of socialism; no doubt they are all getting pretty bored.
The best thing that the Swedish could do to respond to this would be to announce that they were deploying a strategic nuclear deterrant force that would be used to protect their national interests.
1. Don't I remember AQI offering a reward in Iraq a year or so ago for the capture of an American soldier, and double if it was a female soldier? A couple of soldiers have disappeared, but I wonder if the reward was ever paid. And I haven't heard of any female soldiers going missing, so either the ladies are tres' fierce, or AQI is way lazy and inept, or the locals decided not to bet the farm on them paying off and so decided not to play that particular game.
2. Which leads me to my second comment: How the hell would any cartoon assassin get their pay-off? If they travel to a village in Anbar, both the assassin and the AQI paymaster (and all those lovely dollars) will be molecularizd by an American bomb.
How does a cartoon assassin prove satisfactorily that yes, *I* am the nutcase in question who did the deed?
If you're a "moderate Muslim" bopping long minding your own business in Sweden, and you decide you want to make a few extra shekels doing a good deed for your religion, would you *really* then want to travel to a country as dangerous as Iraq for your payoff?
Would AQI be able to send its paymaster to Sweden, carrying a brown paper bag with $150,000 to meet the cartoon assassin? Or a wire transfer from Baghdad to Sweden? Labelled "blood money". Does Baghdad have the capability yet of wiring blood money, or does AQI have to trot over to Iran every time they want to pay out a bribe?
Somehow I just don't think whoever's currently in charge of Al Queda in Iraq thought this plan through very well.
Nahncee,
How does a cartoon assassin prove satisfactorily that yes, *I* am the nutcase in question who did the deed?
Someone who had participated in the counterinsurgency campaign against the Huks related how targets were crossed off the order of battle in the old days, before DNA testing. His instructions were to bring back the head of a Huk commander to intelligence. Taken from a dead body of course. This was in the days before digital cameras and fingerprint scanners. In the case of the Communist New People's army, their assassins sometimes killed their targets in front of their families. I was told, I can't recall when, how a Communist hit man was assigned to murder a someone described as a renegade and danger to the Party. He surveilled the target and returned to his commander saying there must be some sort of mistake because the target was so old and infirm he could only shuffle across the yard with the help of two canes. How could this harmless old man be the feared renegade? The NPA commander told his triggerman there was no mistake. The death sentence had been handed down years before and the Party never forgets. You see, they have their little lists too. He went and shot the old man.
Today, bless our souls, civilization has advanced to the point where anyone with $200 or so to spare can buy a decent digital camera on Amazon, capable of still captures and VGA-quality video with stereo sound. The al-Qaeda who offered a $50 K premium to see the the cartoonist "slaughtered" probably expect video of the proceedings to be supplied to be posted on one of their sites, pour encourager les autres. Unlike the old Scout Rangers who were only expected to take the heads of the dead, it's probable that al-Qaeda wants the cartoonists head off while he is alive. Man is a sad and sorry creature.
I don't think proof of death will be a problem. It's the traces of love that are so rare and hard to find in the world.
There isn't another country on the planet that is as welcoming or tolerant to muslim refugees as Sweden.
It is simply AQ's form of gratitude.
Perhaps a price tag will be placed on the heads of the radical imams and their cronies who trample the sacred lands of the Norse, of Europe and the Western World. However this price will be much lower than what the arrogant islamics are placing on the poor Swedish cartoonist. For what is a cockroach worth? Especially the ones promoting a violent parody of a religion?
Free West,
A price tag on the heads of radical imams?
I'm reminded of an old joke: scientists discover a living ape-like creature thought to perhaps be the "missing link" between man and australopithecus, but to be sure they have to see if it can reproduce with humans.
So they place an ad looking for volunteers to attempt the deed, stating "$10,000 to mate with ape."
Almost immediately they get a reply from a man who says he'll do it, but has three conditions: "first, my wife must never know; second, any offspring will have to be baptized; and third, I'll have to pay in installments."
ba-dum-bump!
:)
Very likely Viks and his publisher WILL be killed. Sadly.
I don't think Viks has any idea of his danger (any more than Van Gogh did) and thinks everyone is like the Swedes he knows.
His murder (sadly inevitable) will be more evidence that Muslims and Westerners cannot and will not exist side-by-side. Expect various extremist/rightist parties to make hay off the murder as the impotent Multiculturalist PC appeasers who have their own religion: pacifist appeasement look like the clowns they are.
We are coming to a crisis point in Europe -- Islam played it's hand too early. And I think Col. Peters is right -- Europe's pathetic PC crowd has failed and Europe will return to the jackboot.
I suspect after numerous Swedes are killed in the name of Allah rightists will sweep into power and expel most/all Muslims. And that Sweden will be the pattern for most European nations.
Isn't Al Qaeda tracking quite closely here the path taken by the Anarchists a century ago?
The Anarchists started out overtly committed to various ideas and objectives, but over time as they ratcheted up the violence came to be known primarily instead as wanton murderers. Following that development interest in their ideas fell, and they faded away.
Perhaps this is inevitable as any group seeks to extend its influence by pushing the level of violence 'to eleven'. Disgust sets in and their influence among potential recruits wanes instead.
Nobody said it better really than Pope Benedict at Regensburg quoting Manuel II Paleologus:
"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached"
Seems like a lot has been forgotten about this violent cult since the year 1391.
Wretchard, well yes, of course there are cell phones and digital cameras. There's also photoshop and video editing, and how hard would it be to put together a video of a dead cartoonist with you standing beside him holding a bloody knife?
It seems to me like the movie Spartacus that poor AQI in Iraq might be on the receiving end of multiple videos and photographs, each claiming to be the assassin and demanding immediate payoff.
Hell, if I had the equipment and expertise I would be tempted to submit my own "proof of purchase" video via LA (which is quite near to Hollywood and its special F/X folks). Be cool if we could convince AQI to send their reward to some nice Jewish wiz like Steven Spielberg.
Much like any other street gang, al-Qaeda is fighting a war in search of a pretext.
Al Queda does have many of the same workings as a gang but what we recognize as gangs are self financing criminal operations. Al Queda is also part of the Wahabi sect of Islam and so is also a religion It is a religion, a gang and a government all in one. The religious part is the recruitment arm, the gang part is the offensive operations arm, the government part is the desired outcome of it all.
We have attacked the gangs but refrain from attacking the religious part which is not necessarily all of Islam but is the Wahabi-Salifist sect.
"There isn't another country on the planet that is as welcoming or tolerant to muslim refugees as Sweden."
I don't know much about Sweden, but PJ O'Rouke's book "Eat the Rich" explains very clearly why the Swedes are so industrious - they have no choice given their winter weather. Even socialism cannot kill the fact that thousands of years of breeding and culture has produced the only kind of people who can survive in that environment. As well as a race of females bred to be the perfect Hooter's waitress.
I can't think of a better place for the Jihadists to take over. No place has been more accomodating - and no place is less well suited climtologically and socially. The girls there don't wear bukhas - they would rather not wear anything at all if it is not too cold out.
The clash would be incredible. Civilization would crumble to dust.
And the first winter would kill all the Jihadists off.
Don't worry about the Sweden, they were Vikings before they were Swedes.
"Thinking of al-Qaeda as a religion like Buddhism will take one down the wrong path."
It also frames the debate into an Us vs Them with them being 1 billion muslims which works for AlQueda since it creates a substantial "soft support" base.
Ignoring the fact that Osama's Daddy was a billionaire will also lead one down the wrong path.
The AlQueda movement has more similarities with the Radical Left in the US.
The radical left leaders of the '60's came from very prosperous families and they found a bevy of recruits at Universities.
The Leaders of AlQueda came from very prosperous families and recruit from religious Universities.
Religious Universities are a particularly good recruiting ground since those attending are seeking a purpose to their life other than material wealth.
Virtually all of the "Movements" in the world are headed by the Children of very affluent people with the bulk of their recruits coming from Upper Middle Class homes seeking a "Purpose to Life"...whether if be saving the whales or trees or destroying the symbols of their parents affluence.
The fundamental problem of the Saudi Oil curse is that it has created a society where there is no purpose other than collecting and distributing oil wealth. 40% of the Saudi Population is foreign contract laborers. Saudis don't dig ditches, lay bricks or anything else that requires one to actually "struggle" to create something. It is a nation of poor little rich kids with no purpose to their lives.
When I did my tour in the ME when Carter was president the lament of many of the Saudi young people I knew was that they didn't feel they had a "purpose" to their lives. AlQueda gives them a "purpose".
Telecoms giant Ericsson has taken steps to reduce its visibility in the Middle East following Saturday's threat by al-Qaeda in Iraq to target major Swedish companies if Sweden does not apologize for the publication in several newspapers of a caricature of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
pol-troon-ery n. abject pusillanimity, contemptible fearfulness
I don't think your Average Lars is about to cave in to the Islamonutjobs but the political leadership and chattering class throughout Europe are the personification of poltroons.
Last week, there was an article published in GulfNews that described the abject, humble and profuse apologies of the Swedish ambassador to that particular sandbox. I think the article also said that he'd look into having the laws in Sweden changed so that Muslims would never again having to risk having their sensibilities outraged.
A day or two later, there was a second article published saying that someone higher on the foodchain in Sweden had STRONGLY denied that Sweden had apologized for anything, that they had no intention of apologizing, and more or less said that Muslims need to grow up. Really, about that last part.
The second article went on to say that what the ambassador has meant to say was that he regretted that anyone was upset but that it emphatically was not an apology.
Left unsaid was whether the reporter or the goverment made the initial story up out of whole-cloth, or if someone merely translated the wrong thing the wrong way.
(I do think Chris Muir is trying his damndest to get his very own fatwa issued against himself. And all the places that he's carried. Maybe fatwa's are only issued against Swedish cartoonists who can be easily targeted because they only appear in one small area.)
Its helpful to recall that the sunni salafists and the iranian khomenists --ie the religious medievalists -- were empowered by the oil OPEC stickup of the 1970's. This is their last hurrah.
How do we know this is their last hurrah?
Because their underlying funding/righteousness/sense of entitlement/power comes from oil. The world is going to go off oil for the automobile industry in the next decade.
Consider this article.
Nearly every automaker is testing hydrogen-powered vehicles across the world, touting them as a renewable alternative to gasoline.
Lapetz said Ford has the ability to bring internal combustion hydrogen technology to market in cars within five years. But that's only if fuel storage limitations can be solved, public fear of hydrogen can be allayed, filling stations set up, and gas prices stay high.
"The technology is there at a sufficient level, in the three-to-five year window, if all things were perfect, we could reasonably think this is a solution we could draw on," Lapetz said. "We're not really talking about invention, that's the thing. We know how to manufacture this kind of technology in high volumes."
That time frame is reasonable, Gurpreet Singh, team leader for engine and emission control technologies with the U.S. Department of Energy, said Tuesday.
"You're taking the base gasoline engine and modifying that. You don't need to have anything that's very exotic," he said.
The Energy Department also says hydrogen can be used as safely as other common fuels if handled properly.
Wretchard, I think you nailed it. These are common thugs who wrap a very thin veneer of religion around their faces so the true ugliness that repulses both Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Case in point: Anbar. The local populace is vomiting it up as fast as they can after drinking deep from the cup of al Qaeda.
rds:
So, what about the Male ape-like creature?
Not that I really have any interest, you understand.
MUSLIM MOBS BEATING and KILLING EUROS WITH IMPUNITY
Today, some 80,000 people participated in a silent march in Brussels to commemorate 17 year old Joe Van Holsbeeck, who was knifed on 12 April because he refused to hand over his MP3 player to two North African youths.
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Sweden Pulls Out of Military Exercises Because of Israel --> -->
(defensenews.com)
Sweden has withdrawn from European military exercises due to be held next month in Italy because of Israel’s participation,
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Where the World Meets Sweden, and Vice Versa
Goteborg is as much about boats and water as it is about bricks and mortar.
And this is just one more reminder of why Bush is sooooo right, and Bush-haters are soooo wrong.
We have to hunt down and kill Al Qaeda world-wide. It just happens to be easier to do it in Iraq. But we desparately need to close the Muslim-freak-show in Pakistan before Bush is out of office, thus forcing Al-Qaeda to hide elsewhere.
You don't negotiate with these people, you simply kill them and move on. Sort of like the systematic extermination of the Nazi SS conducted by the British after the close of WWII.
Finding Paradise in Sweden
On an island 10 kilometers (6 miles) west of central Stockholm. There was the light: the house has big windows facing south,
---
Dhimmification of the West:
Amnesty for Honest Gang Bangers
<-- but why?
CHARLES: The Energy Department also says hydrogen can be used as safely as other common fuels if handled properly.
Hydrogen doesn't spill on the ground. The flames go straight up. You just don't want to be riding in a bag full of it when it catches fire.
And how many sticks of dynamite energy are in effect stored in a tank full of gasoline. Anyway, many years ago a method was perfected to have hydrogen absorbed into a bed of material that would be released by a small amount of battery powered heat. I can imagine that the process’s use was limited at the time by the difficulty of controlling the metering of the fuel to the engine. With the present onboard computers, I doubt that that is now a problem. Metering is not a problem for some hydrogen recombination units I have worked with in the recent past. The infrastructure is the problem. Biofuel or E-85 utilizes the same basic systems. The Hindenburg incident, unfortunately, is the visual image of hydrogen.
As to the use of hydrogen fuel to dry up the money pool for terrorists; I doubt that we have the time to rely on that effort, based on the West’s present public policy of NOT treating those countries that support terrorism as allies of our terrorist enemies. Iran, other than some economic boycotts, has not experienced much in the way of punishment; even after being involved in the IED/EPF killings of our people – some 70% of our casualties.
I see Pakistan ripe for conversion to a radical Islamic state with atomic weapons and Iran on its way to obtaining said weapons. I certainly don’t know the answer, but treating the Islamicfascists as equals in diplomatic efforts and expecting them to honor agreements is asinine. The Japanese military prior to WWII, having a similar view of the West as the Islamists now, were diplomatically negotiated with into signing the agreement on naval vessel limitations that worked so well as we found out after Pearl Harbor.
Just move on people; we prefer intellectual ignorance rather than lessons learned here.
Israeli Raid in Syria
Not to belabor a stray thread but, it doesn't matter whether an assassin is paid at all. The "true believers" will do it for the sake of Big Mo, AQI will claim it paid off on the job and the world will believe that lie just like all the ones that preceeded it. Islam is not based on credibility, It deals in intimidation and empty promises. Much like Democrats.
Everyone keeps claiming that Pakistan has a nuke.
Would it be too much to ask them to prove it?
I mean, like, we thought Saddam had some way-bad shit, too. Turns out we were a little bit, but not totally, wrong about that.
Personlly, I'm thinking that whatever Pakistan *does* have can't possibly measure up to what the West thinks of as a "nuclear bomb".
Doug,
To satisfy your purely academic curiosity, they only found a female, AFAIK...sorry!
Pak Nuke
They got 'em Nahncee, they can blow up Los Angeles, they can ship one by freighter right to your home town.
Aw Shucks!
(speaking strictly academically)
A lost opportunity for scientific research.
The Path To 9/11: The Inside Story
Exclusive interview with writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh
(scroll down)
The Path To 9/11: The Inside Story mp3
Right clik to download mp3.
Just load it on a converted cargo ship, along with a Scud varient.
Get a couple hundred miles off shore, shoot it. Don't even have to enter the harbour, at Long Beach.
Ingnorance is bliss.
CALIFORNIA YANKEE'S Account of Israeli Raid.
The Guardian goes further calling the Syrian raid a dry run for an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities:
Two detachable tanks from an Israeli fighter were found just over the Turkish border. According to Turkish military sources, they belonged to a Raam F15I - the newest generation of Israeli long-range bomber, which has a combat range of over 2,000km when equipped with the drop tanks. This would enable them to reach targets in Iran, leading to speculation that it was an 'operation rehearsal' for a raid on Tehran's nuclear facilities.
[. . .]
So Operation Orchard can be seen as a dry run, a raid using the same heavily modified long-range aircraft, procured specifically from the US with Iran's nuclear sites in mind. It reminds both Iran and Syria of the supremacy of its aircraft and appears to be designed to deter Syria from getting involved in the event of a raid on Iran - a reminder, if it were required, that if Israel's ground forces were humiliated in the second Lebanese war its airforce remains potent, powerful and unchallenged.
At Captain's Quarters, Ed Morrissey writes that Syrian nukes would result in an immediate war with Israel which could involve the U.S.
More at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller Atlas Shrugged, Blue Crab Boulevard
Ok, hydrogen is not a primary fuel, there is no source of molecular hydrogen we can tap, it has to be extracted from hydrogen compounds. That's pretty much limited to hydrocarbons and water. Breaking it out of water takes energy.
Hydrogen's potential utility is because it could be an excellent distribution fuel, but it doesn't replace oil as a primary fuel.
There are no silver bullets here.
But the clock is running out for the Jihadists, and they know it.
Just a small point. Nuclear energy can provide the power to disassociate water and one of the "waste" products that has to be gotten rid of is hydrogen. Hydrogen is recombined to make water at nuclear sites since the nuclear process breaks up water molecules to produce free hydrogen and oxygen. Still the infrastructure is the big problem, as it was for propane, a past touted gasoline replacement.
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 09/17/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Thinking of al-Qaeda as a religion like Buddhism will take one down the wrong path. It's easier to understand it as a gang, with territories, local bosses, rackets, internal rivalries, and a secret culture which requires you to be "made". Al-Qaeda is in fact linked to gangs.
Actually substitute Islam for Al Qaeda and you have it exactly right. Islam has been conducting itself in exactly that manner
since its inception.
Muhammad was the first gang leader and he acted exactly like a gang leader even going so far as to rob the rich caravans to provide booty and slaves for his gang members.
Nothing we do regarding the "war on a tactic" will win the actual war until we come to terms with that reality. Whether that means we are at war with a billion people or not is irrelevent to the facts of the matter.
It may be a very uncomfortable fact and it may be a fact that causes us to squim but treating Islam as a religion is a fools game. Muslim Brotherhood revelations in the States are proving the point that we are inder assault not by some limited group outside of Islam...
tckurd said...
"I have got to think there are other "groups" out there that would see this as an encroachment on their traditional enterprises."
The Mafia is a mere shadow of its former self, gone legit on its profits.
The drug trade in Marseille is now run by Muslims, not the Corsican Mafia of the French Connection.
"However this price will be much lower than what the arrogant islamics are placing on the poor Swedish cartoonist. For what is a cockroach worth?"
Should permission ever be granted, I suspect that the "bounty hunters" will not require even the price of their ammo.
2164th - Don't worry about the Sweden, they were Vikings before they were Swedes.
That was before Swedish men got pussified and Pc'd.
Imagine a Viking ship full of effete homos like todays Hollywood Jewish Lefties are.
Ah, Sigurd, when I think of that skull of a Russian peasant that my father drank Mead out of, I weep. I tell you I weep for that man who could have been a great abstract symbol of angst of endless flat lands and black mud, like an Igmar Bergman B&W when film is finally invented.
"There, there.." Sigurd softly comforted Asdamann's smooth check as he nestled closer on the storm-tossed ship's deck.
Meanwhile, the Swedish captain Helgard the Hound of Hell commanded: "Row! Row! But only if you feel like it and rowing supports your human dignity and would not put an African or woman in a position of inferiority if they had to row alongside you as differently abled..."
Then Lars the Cutter said: "What shall we do? Are we to kill Irish monks? Pillage? Rape the red-headed Celts."
And he was met by wails of the shocked and horrified Swedes on the longship. "Kill innocent civilians? Rape defenseless women? Pillage without international law and lawyers saying it is allowed? What kind of barbarian are you????????"
"Then what will we do?"
"Rape and pillage are the sins of our white male oppressor fathers! We will catch cod and eels and beg their forgiveness for taking their lives. We will trade the slimey half-rotting cargo to Lowlanders who will give us dresses and salted putrid dead dried fish from last years catch and flowery French tea. Then we will give dresses to our womenfolk and beg them to stop fucking Islamic invaders in return for our new dresses. Then give another few dresses and beg for them to have sex with us. If they refuse, then it is back on the sea for sardines and trade for shoes for the Swedish womenfolk.."
"Yes, the Captain is right. It is the women and their Muslim friends who must, in the name of fairness and Viking sensitivity..have all choice. We warriors must bow to their wishes and hug our disconsolate comrades, And drink our flowery French tea like the manly Swedes we are".
nice bit o' writing, C4.
Osirik II?
Bret Stephens makes some interesting points at the WSJ Opinion Journal...
it's more than a little telling that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz chose, in the wake of an Israeli Air Force raid on Syria on Sept. 6 dubbed "Operation Orchard," to give front-page billing to an op-ed by John Bolton that appeared in this newspaper Aug. 31. While the article dealt mainly with the six-party talks with North Korea, Mr. Bolton also noted that "both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear matters is not far-fetched." He went on to wonder whether Pyongyang was using its Middle Eastern allies as safe havens for its nuclear goods while it went through a U.N. inspections process.
How plausible is this scenario? The usual suspects in the nonproliferation crowd reject it as some kind of trumped-up neocon plot. Yet based on conversations with Israeli and U.S. sources, along with evidence both positive and negative (that is, what people aren't saying), it seems the likeliest suggested so far. That isn't to say, however, that plenty of gaps and question marks about the operation don't remain.
http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010619
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