31 July 2006 @ 11:52AM >> Apropos of this post from last week, here are pictures showing how Hizbollah uses residential areas to launch attacks:

The images, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Herald Sun, show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons.

Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon.

The photographs, from the Christian area of Wadi Chahrour in the east of Beirut, were taken by a visiting journalist and smuggled out by a friend.

[...]

The images include one of a group of men and youths preparing to fire an anti-aircraft gun metres from an apartment block with sheets hanging out on a balcony to dry.

Others show a militant with AK47 rifle guarding no-go zones after Israeli blitzes.

Another depicts the remnants of a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket in the middle of a residential block blown up in an Israeli air attack.

The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be named said he was less than 400m from the block when it was obliterated.

“Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets,” he said.

“Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated.

“It was carnage. Two innocent people died in that incident, but it was so lucky it was not more.”

The release of the images comes as Hezbollah faces criticism for allegedly using innocent civilians as “human shields”.

29 July 2006 @ 12:26PM >> The New York Times is reporting that Oliver Stone (”the director of [two] antiwar movies”) is getting praise for his World Trade Center film from some unlikely sources:

L. Brent Bozell III, president of the conservative Media Research Center and founder of the Parents Television Council — best known for its campaigns against indecency on television and for stiffer penalties on broadcasters — called it “a masterpiece” and sent an e-mail message to 400,000 people saying, “Go see this film.”

Cal Thomas, the syndicated columnist, wrote last Thursday that it was “one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see.”

[...]

To top it all off, a writer on The National Review’s Web site, Clifford D. May, actually wrote the words “God Bless Oliver Stone.”

This about a filmmaker whose conspiratorial tirades — not to mention his hyperviolent “Natural Born Killers,” polarizing political films “J. F. K.” and “Nixon,” and the lesser-known television documentary on Fidel Castro — have driven conservatives batty for decades. Only last year, The Washington Times, in an editorial, called the hiring of the “conspiracy-addled” Mr. Stone a “maliciously inspired choice” to direct “World Trade Center.”

The film isn’t out yet, so I can’t judge it for myself. But when the project was announced, I do remember thinking that Oliver Stone was a poor choice for a film about September 11th. (Fortunately, I didn’t write about it, so there’s no embarrassing rant to sheepishly recant.)

And that reminded me, we all have our own knee-jerk reactions and personal biases, even those of us who make a hobby out of pointing out the biases that exist elsewhere.

I’ll watch the film, simply because I’d like to be surprised by someone like Oliver Stone. It’s a healthy thing when your prejudices are proven wrong.

28 July 2006 @ 8:54AM >> Earlier this week, four U.N. officials were killed in Lebanon by an apparent Israeli airstrike. Within hours of the event, U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan announced his belief that Israel had deliberately targeted the U.N. personnel. Annan demanded that “any further attack on U.N. positions and personnel must stop.”

Yesterday, strong evidence came to light suggesting that Hizbollah was effectively using the U.N. position as a shield, conducting attacks against Israel, knowing that any Israeli response was likely to hit the U.N. post. The New York Sun reports that one of the U.N. officials killed in the attack had earlier sent e-mails saying that Hizbollah was “all over” his position. The recipient of those e-mails, a former major-general in the Canadian military named Lewis MacKenzie, described their contents:

“What he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them, and that’s a favorite trick by people who don’t have representation in the U.N. They use the U.N. as shields knowing that they cannot be punished for it.”

To Hizbollah, civilians and U.N. positions are strategic assets. The terrorist group routinely launches attacks from residential areas and near U.N. posts. Hizbollah knows that this puts Israel in a bind: if Israel decides to respond, that response will provide a tear-jerking scene for the evening news where the headline will be “Israeli Bomb Kills Civilians,” or “U.N. Officials Killed in Israeli Airstrike.” But if Israel backs down out of a fear of how the media will report the story, then Hizbollah gets a safe haven where they can launch attacks with impunity. Hizbollah wins either way, with a propaganda victory or a military one.

Of course, to any fair-minded person, it is obvious that Hizbollah bears the responsibility for the deaths of those U.N. officials. It’s too bad the U.N. doesn’t have a leader who understands that.

26 July 2006 @ 7:45PM >> They say politics is showbusiness for ugly people. However, having just spent the day in a committee room at a House of Representatives office building, I would have to say that this appraisal is grossly inaccurate.

Apparently, the people who put together The Hill (”The newspaper for and about the U.S. Congress”) agree, and they’ve come up with their list of the 50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill. Judging from the crowd that showed up to watch a few clips from Indoctrinate U, I think they’ve left quite a few people off that list.

25 July 2006 >> This past spring, Comedy Central censored the image of the Muslim prophet Mohammed in an episode of South Park. The network’s decision came in the wake of the Cartoon Intifada, in which riots broke out around the globe after a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting Mohammed.

Recently, in the second installment of an extensive two-part interview, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone discussed the controversy. Trey Parker said:

“This is South Park, and we rip on absolutely everyone in really horrible, terrible ways. And if you’re saying that this is the one thing we can’t do, besides Tom Cruise, because they’re threatening violence, well, then, I guess that’s what everyone should do. Then if the Catholics don’t want us ripping on Jesus anymore, they should just threaten you with violence, and they’ll get their way. That’s why it is such a slippery slope and such a dangerous path to go down.”

Matt added, “I think, too, it was a disappointment because, like Trey said, when that thing flared up in January — we’d actually talked about doing the Mohammed cartoon episode before because those [cartoons] were about a year ago that came out in Denmark. So we’d actually talked about it before it hit the fan in January. When it did, we had this idea where we wanted to show Mohammed’s image, but completely not offensive, just a guy standing there. And that was going to be the point.

[...]

Matt and Trey learned the ridiculous reality that they can show Jesus defecating on George Bush, but they can’t show Mohammed. Matt said, “That’s the point. It’s open season on Jesus.” Trey added, “Yeah. You can do anything you want to Jesus.”

The appeasers at Comedy Central, Viacom and elsewhere are teaching the world a dangerous lesson: if you want your preferred religious figure to get any respect, you’ve got to be willing to kill people to do it.

(Hat tip: Bridget Johnson.)

24 July 2006 @ 12:45PM >> If John Kerry were president, peace would magically descend on the Middle East:

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who was in town Sunday [...], took time to take a jab at the Bush administration for its lack of leadership in the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.

“If I was president, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Kerry [...]

Sure. Simply by being inside the Oval Office for an extended period of time, the mere presence of John Kerry’s superior intellect would bring about a peace that had eluded the region for generations.

I’m surprised Kerry’s ego hasn’t yet acquired enough mass to become visible to the naked eye.

22 July 2006 @ 4:21PM >> Sheesh. I can’t even take a week off without war breaking out.

Of course, to those who’ve been paying attention, this is not a new war. Israel has been under siege since the founding of the modern state in 1948. The war has never been about the plight of Palestinians. If the Palestinians wanted to live side-by-side with Israel in peace, then the Oslo peace accords would have worked. When Oslo didn’t stick, and Israel offered virtually everything Yassir Arafat demanded, the Palestinian leader instead rejected peace and launched an intifada. If Israel’s neighbors truly wanted peace, then why didn’t Israel’s retreat from Palestinian territory secure it? Why is every Israeli compromise and concession followed by more war?

Because Israel’s enemies will not be satisfied with anything less than the country’s complete destruction. They believe Israel is an illegitimate state and that no infidel has a valid claim to what they believe should be Muslim land. But to any fair-minded person, a cursory look at history settles that debate quite easily, as Judith Weiss points out:

Half of Israel’s Jewish population is Arab Jews, not European Jews. How come there are Arab Jews? Because they were in Israel/Judea before Arabs became Muslim. In fact, they were the Jews before various historical events scattered and exiled some of them, one destination being Europe. [...]

The earliest verifiably Jewish artifacts in Israel date to 1500 years before it was conquered by Islam. Contemporary documents and archeological finds verify some Biblical history, and show evidence of Jews in Persia 1000 years before it was conquered by Islam, in Babylonia (later Iraq) 1000 years before it was conquered by Islam, and in Egypt (especially Alexandria) during the Roman Empire, before Egypt was conquered by Islam. Even the Koran acknowledges that Jews were living in Arabia before Mohammed decided to create a new religion, and there is evidence for Jewish residence in what are now Arab countries dating back to Solomonic times.

Don’t expect any of this to satisfy the likes of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These facts won’t sway Hamas, the terrorist organization that the Palestinians recently elected to govern them. Nor will these facts stem the never-ending volley of rockets that have been raining down on Israel from Hizbollah-controlled areas in southern Lebanon.

Yes, in the two years since the U.N. flaccidly ordered militias like Hizbollah to disarm, the group has inexplicably failed to do so. It’s almost as if terrorists have no respect for the authority of the United Nations! Shocking, I know; I assumed the threat of more speechifying from Secretary General Kofi Annan would be enough to cause even the most militant fanatic to lay down his arms. But I guess the U.N. isn’t as potent as I thought.

Which leads to the current problem. After Syria—Hizbollah’s terror co-sponsor with Iran—withdrew its occupation forces from Lebanon last year, optimism abounded in that newly-independent state, but the state proved too weak to secure its own southern territory. So Lebanon became a broken nation. And, just as the failed state of Afghanistan made it succumb to the Taliban and al Qaeda, Hizbollah succeeded in turning southern Lebanon into its terror playground.

With the backing of Syria and Iran, the playground bully has become quite strong. Hizbollah has already fired thousands of missiles into Israel, and thanks to weapons from Iran, the group now appears capable of hitting every major Israeli population center. And now that Iran looks to be on a fast track to becoming a nuclear power, within the next five or ten years, Hizbollah—if it still exists—could be dropping Iranian nukes on Israel.

When Hizbhollah operatives recently ventured into Israeli territory to kidnap two soldiers, they weren’t just violating the borders of a sovereign nation, they were trying to show the Israeli people that not only was their military incapable of protecting civilians, they weren’t even capable of protecting themselves. Against the backdrop of the missile attacks, Israel interpreted this as what it was: yet another act of war. And this time, Israel responded with a forceful attack on Hizbollah positions inside Lebanon.

But many are now criticizing Israel, saying that the country’s response is not proportional to the provocation, as if the provocation hasn’t been ongoing for years. Pretending that Hizbollah’s only crime is capturing two Israeli soldiers requires quite a bit of historical amnesia. But to the wishy-washy handwringers at the U.N., that amnesia is required; without it, they might actually be forced to take a stand. They might actually have to do something besides laundering money for Saddam Hussein and selling 12-year-old girls into sexual slavery. But, of course, the U.N. will do nothing useful; what do you expect from a world body where terror regimes like Iran and Syria get the same vote as Canada and Finland?

Cease-fires and negotiated peaces have been tried. Throughout history, world opinion repeatedly forces Israel into bargains with adversaries who use “peacetime” to build strength. No matter how many handshakes, strained smiles and photo ops each new peace deal yields, Israel’s enemies invariably come back and attack later. And no matter how much land Israel gives up—and they’ve given up quite a bit of strategically-important land in their many futile attempts to buy peace—groups like Hizbollah will not be satisfied with anything less than the destruction of the Israeli nation.

That’s why a cease-fire, the proposed solution of people who see no moral distinction between the actions of Hizbollah and Israel, has the effect of undermining Israel’s security. Hizbollah won’t perceive a cease-fire as a cooling-off period before joining Israel on a road towards peace, they’ll just see it as a brief pause in a continuing war, a time-out they can use to start rolling more Iranian rockets towards the Israeli border. And if Hizbollah manages to hold on to southern Lebanon until Iran can produce a nuclear weapon, is there any doubt that they’ll use it? Terrorists aren’t usually known for their restraint. And yet the world is demanding restraint from Israel, which is merely trying to prevent that day from coming.

You can’t negotiate peace with an enemy whose only goal is your destruction. The end result of a cease-fire will not be peace. A cease-fire merely puts off the inevitable for a future day when the stakes are higher. If Hizbollah is not destroyed, and if the current regimes in Iran and Syria maintain power long enough to produce a nuclear weapon and a way to deliver it to Israel, you can be damn sure that weapon will be used. Iran’s president has virtually guaranteed it.

So when the rest of the world demands restraint from Israel, it makes me wonder: would any other country put up with living like the Israelis have for decades? If suicide bombs and lobbed rockets were exploding all over France with such regularity, would we expect the French to sit by and do nothing? Okay, bad example. But you get my point.

As long as the mullahs control Iran and the Baathists control Syria, they will use proxies like Hizbollah to wage war on Israel. Unfortunately, the reality is, this war is inevitable. And it goes beyond Hizbollah. Ultimately, Syria and Iran must be confronted. It can happen today, next year, or sometime after Iran has acquired nukes. As far as the fate of Israel is concerned, this war better play out before the mullahs get the bomb. After that, it’ll be too late.

When will the world wake up and realize that ignoring the Jihadists does not make them go away? People don’t seem to learn until the bombs start blowing up their own cities. And even then, the lesson is quickly forgotten. But if the last five years has taught the world anything, it’s that the hatred of the Jihadists isn’t limited to Israel. And this bone-deep hatred won’t magically vanish if Israel disappears under a mushroom cloud. No, if you’re an infidel, you’re on the list. The only question is how long it’ll take them to get to you.

14 July 2006 >> I mentioned a couple of days ago that my upcoming film Indoctrinate U is finally in shape for us to show to distributors. Luckily, that also means that for the first time since starting this project nearly three years ago, I can take an entire week off!

Although I understand that the urge is hard to overcome, I don’t plan on posting anything for the next week. But since I can’t bear the thought of you going without your regular dose of some guy’s opinion, here are just a few of my favorite sites:

• Instapundit, a frequently-updated site run by a robot that claims to be a law professor at the University of Tennessee.
• RealClearPolitics, the political junkie’s well-stocked dealer, providing a twice-daily comprehensive roundup of mainstream media opinion columnists.
• PressThink by NYU professor Jay Rosen, one of the most thorough and thoughtful commentators on the state of the news media, a straight-shooter.
• Mickey Kaus’s column at Slate, KausFiles, is the kind of site you look forward to checking, and then you get mad when it hasn’t been updated.
• James Taranto is another must-read, although he’s on vacation himself, until the 17th.

Let’s see...what else? Oh yeah:

• Anything by Charles Krauthammer, Mark Steyn, Victor Davis Hanson, or Jonah Goldberg.
• And, finally, some comic relief from Greg Gutfeld, Cox & Forkum, and Chris Muir’s Day by Day.

There. That should keep you nice & busy while I’m gone.

I know what you’re thinking; this time apart will be tough, but don’t worry. We’ll get through it. I’ll be back from the offline world soon.

You kids behave, now. I better not come home to find this place in shambles.

13 July 2006 @ 1:27PM >> Looking for a conservative website that reviews porn? RightWingTrash is your place! Billing itself as “a daily celebration of popular culture,” in the site’s first few weeks of existence, they’ve managed to discuss comic books, Syd Barrett and Columbo, and find hidden conservative messages in The Devil in Miss Jones, The Hills Have Eyes and the music of the guy who sang the 80s classic “Mexican Radio.” It’s eclectic stuff, and it’s further evidence that conservatives aren’t quite as easy to categorize as some would have you believe.

12 July 2006 >> The idea was simple enough: give the world a small taste of the political environment that college students face every day.

How many people outside academia realize the degree to which classrooms have become political platforms for professors? Who off campus hears that entire press runs of student newspapers routinely “disappear” because they contain opinions that challenge the campus orthodoxy? Who knew professors could be hounded out of their jobs simply for failing to register with the preferred political party?

While campus political correctness has been the subject of magazine articles and books, people rarely get a chance to see the students and professors who suffer very real punishment simply for holding the “incorrect” set of views. Never before have the excesses of the campus power structure been scrutinized in a feature-length documentary film.

Nearly three years ago, I teamed up with Stuart Browning and Blaine Greenberg to form On The Fence Films, specifically for the purpose of creating films that ask questions other filmmakers weren’t. Our first planned feature-length film would cover the political environment on college campuses.

I am very happy to report that this film, Indoctrinate U, is now being shown to distributors and should be released this fall. We are also setting up a campus tour to coincide with the release; I’ll be traveling to schools around the country screening the film.

• Film distributors interested in Indoctrinate U should contact Blaine Greenberg at:
  blaine (AT) onthefencefilms (DOT) com
• Students (or anyone affiliated with a college or university) who want to bring Indoctrinate U to their campus can request a screening.

Indoctrinate U covers a number of stories never before shown on screen. Some of the stories are bizarre and so hard to believe that you may end up researching them yourself. And if you do, you’ll realize that the truth on campus truly is stranger than fiction. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s frightening, and sometimes, it’s just plain depressing.

We haven’t posted our trailer online yet, but in the meantime, here’s a bit of a tease.

11 July 2006 @ 7:20PM >> The original Crazy Diamond has passed. Shine on, Syd.

10 July 2006 @ 12:40PM >> New York Magazine discusses the rise of the left-wing blogosphere and its effects on the Democratic Party. The article notes the disconnect between the party’s leadership and the activist base coalescing online that tends to be much more vocal in its opposition to current American foreign policy.

One prominent left-wing blogger dubbed “Kos” believes the party’s problem is that the leaders aren’t more like the base. Kos and his followers are trying to push the party further to the left on foreign policy, believing that this will fix the Democrats’ ballot box losing streak:

[...] Kos and his allies see themselves not as ideologues but as pragmatists, aspiring players. And, indeed, time and again, Kos has declared that his main interest is in regaining power, by whatever means necessary. In his keynote at his Las Vegas convocation, he declared, “Republicans have failed us because they can’t govern; Democrats have failed us because they can’t get elected.” His mantra on other occasions has been “I’m just all about winning.”

I think Kos and his ilk are more like the Democratic Party leadership than they realize. They’re both more focused on winning elections than devising a strategy to defeat the Jihadists. Maybe if the Democrats focused more energy on winning the war, they might actually win a few elections.

8 July 2006 @ 10:43AM >> So I called Verizon on Thursday to make an appointment for a technician to come to my apartment. I was pleasantly surprised when they said they could send someone out the following day. “Really?” I asked. “The cable company took two weeks to just send someone over here.” Yep, just be home Friday between 8AM and 4PM, I was assured, and I’d get next-day service.

Of course, I dutifully parked my butt at home and, for fear of missing the appointment, I ventured not once into the warm sunshine that beckoned outside. And when nobody showed by 4PM, I called Verizon to express my sincere hope that some unfortunate accident did not befall the poor Verizon guy and to kindly inquire about his health and whereabouts.

The representative told me that the computer had the appointment scheduled for next Wednesday.

Thanks, Verizon.

7 July 2006 @ 3:06PM >> Although former Taliban spokesman Rahmatullah Hashemi has been rejected from Yale’s Eli Whitney Students Program, the current Yale student is being invited back for another year in Yale’s non-degree studies program:

Hashemi, 27, spent last year studying at Yale through the Nondegree Students Program. He can return to Yale and remain in that program next year if he wishes, Tatiana Maxwell — president of the International Education Foundation, which was created to fund Hashemi’s schooling at Yale — told The New York Times. Hashemi gained national attention when The New York Times Magazine ran a profile of Hashemi as its cover story in February.

[...]

John Fund, a Wall Street Journal columnist who has been covering the Hashemi controversy, said the decision seems to placate all parties involved.

“It is a purposefully muddled end,” Fund wrote in an e-mail. “I think everyone here is trying to save face ...Yale can claim they didn’t bend to pressure, sponsors can claim he can still get his U.S. education.”

[...]

While some students and teachers — including many of those who interacted directly with Hashemi — supported his presence at Yale, others did not view the issue as favorably. Two alumni, Clint Taylor ‘96 and Debbie Bookstaber ‘00, launched a campaign and Weblog called NailYale — a name that makes reference to the rumored Taliban practice of removing the nails of women who wear noticeable nail polish — encouraging alumni to forego donations to Yale until the University’s decision to admit Hashemi was more fully explained. Members of Yale’s Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity wore T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Taliban man, go home!” for their year-end TANG competition this spring.

[...]

Taylor, who has been critical of Yale’s decision to allow Hashemi on campus from the start, said Yale likely felt the pressure of the building dissent about Hashemi’s presence at Yale.

6 July 2006 >> The New York Times’s publishing the details of our efforts to track terrorist finances seems to have struck a nerve with Americans. Nearly two weeks after the story broke, it is still a hot topic of discussion on political chat shows and the Internet. There is even a protest planned outside the Times headquarters next Monday.

Brain Terminal readers are also weighing in. Mike Thorneburg writes:

I just read your 30 June ”The Times and the Spy Loophole” post on Brain Terminal. In reference to your hunch that the public will be calling for some heads to roll at the publishing of The Times’ next treasonous diatribe, my suspicion is that we’re already sharpening the axes.

We should have demanded from our legislators a full accounting of the Times’ expose of the phone database program which is (was) a completely legal and successful method of monitoring the nature of calls placed to and received from terrorist countries by persons living in the United States. Moreover, I think many of us have missed the really big picture here and that is: WHO INSIDE THE ADMINISTRATION OR ACROSS THE AISLE IS LEAKING THIS CLASSIFIED INFORMATION TO THE PRESS? That’s what I really want to know.

Given their track record, I certainly wouldn’t dismiss desperate liberals and Dems, anxious to regain their political power, from abandoning our country’s security in order to attempt to discredit the administration and have it appear that President Bush and his appointees are abusing their power and usurping the general rights of the citizenry. After all, The Times’ story said nothing of this program being illegal nor did it allege any wrongdoing by the program’s developers or administrators. The article was simply a cheap shot at oneupmanship by an arrogant New York elitist culture hell bent on shoving its own particular leftist agenda down our throats. We should press our leaders for a full investigation of the story and demand they find out WHO is leaking information about these classified programs so that they can be hauled into court and prosecuted.

[...]

As for the Bill Kellers of the world, fortunately, we have long been a few steps ahead of them. We’re not so naive that we can’t smell the stench coming from the press barn. Mr. Keller has proven himself time and again an adversary to most mainstream Americans and part of the problem, not the solution. In my book, he’s a traitor and a pig, more concerned with selling papers and stroking his own ego than keeping America informed.

John adds:

I’m over here in Iraq and read your article today and have one question that I’m sure has been asked before (but I’m asking it again): If the NYT received classified information in advance of the operation that killed [Abu Musab al-Zarqawi], would they have published it, thus letting [Zarqawi] make his getaway, set up an ambush, or worse, both?  Yet, in a roundabout way, that is exactly what they are doing in the publishing of these stories.  And not only are they hiding behind the first amendment, but there doesn’t seem to be any investigation that I’ve heard of to prosecute their source(s).

Yesterday I witnessed the immediate aftermath of an [improvised explosive device].  Thankfully, no one was killed, yet one soldier was injured.  These attacks, as you point out, were made possible because of the financing.  It takes money to make even a terrorist’s world go ‘round.  Sure, the terrorists know there are programs designed to track their finances.  But I’m sure they don’t have as detailed a picture as they’d like so as to counter and change their tactics.  The NYT was happy to accomodate them, however.  And, in that same roundabout way, one of our soldiers is now in the hospital.

All the muck that’s fit to rake.

Lastly, “DiggaFromDover” sums up the situation with:

Freedom without responsibility is journalism.

Other than Dan Rather’s bogus memos, I can’t recall any other media action that caused this level of anger among e-mailers. While Dan Rather’s memos were intended to defeat a particular politician—President Bush—the actions of the Times put the entire country at risk by making it harder to identify and track terrorists as they move around the globe. And you don’t have to be a fan of President Bush to be disgusted with that.

5 July 2006 >> Apparently, the concept of peace is malleable:

A New Zealand peace activist is facing serious assault charges after he allegedly punched a rock singer in London, leaving the man in a coma.