TANKS IN TOWN!!!

This weekend, Friday 25th, Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th, the city of Mons in southwest Belgium commemmorates its liberation by the US 3rd Armored "Spearhead" Divison, event which took place on September 2nd/3rd 1944.



It's always a huge spectacle since Mons and surroundings are every time visited by tens of period vehicles, many of which are US combat tanks of that time: Shermans of course, but also Chaffees, tank destroyers, Honeys, and, a bit erroneous, Pershings, since that type didn't enter action until late February 1945. The photo above gives an impression of Mons' main square taken in completely by all kinds of wheeled and tracked vehicles in use by US divisions in the ETO (European Theatre of Operations) in '44-'45. Responsible for the organization of Tanks in Town, is the Royal Mons Auto Moto Club, and the photos on display here are from them. Unfortunately they are not from this year's event, but of that of 2005. Couldn't make it there.

Mons, pop. 91,000, is quite an amiable place with a picturesque town centre and a fair share of beautiful historical buildings. While there's little industry, it is important as an educational centre since there are a lot of colleges and a university. It is also the centre of the Borinage region, and old coal basin lying along the French/Belgian border. In early September 1944, that border was crossed en masse by rapidly advancing US units which had just all but destroyed a huge body of German armor and infantry in the notorious Falaise pocket in Normandy, France. The photo to the right shows the very first GI to cross the border, PFC James W. Carroll, a scout of the 628th Tank Destroyer Battalion, on his trusted Harley Davidson WLA. Because 3rd Armored had more WLA's in service (some 300 plus) than Shermans, it could be argued that the Spearhead should rather be called the 3rd Armored Hell's Angels division! Actually, Tanks in Town is also made possible by the WLA association, which groups Harley Davidson WLA aficionados from around the world (the HD WLA was the most widely used motorbike by the US Army in Europe).

While the Falaise pocket was real bad for the Germans, with 50,000 KIA and an enormous lot of matériel ruined, the Germans fared little better at Mons, where they underwent a similar catastrophe, albeit on a smaller scale. In the process of liberating the city, the Spearhead and accompanying units bagged some 40,000 troops in the so-called Poche de Mons, including the remnants of the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen. While Hohenstaufen offered fierce resistance and its remaining 88mm guns took out a large number of US tanks, overall it was another catastrophe for the Nazis. In just two days, September 2nd and 3rd, they lost 30,000 men either dead, wounded or taken prisoner, including three generals. Among the 10,000 which managed to escape was 9th SS Panzer, now only 3,600 "strong" and guided out of the carnage by its Chief of Staff Obersturmbannfuehrer (Lt. Col.) Walter Harzer, since the commanding general, Sylvester Stadler, had been gravely wounded in battle. Hohenstaufen was so badly mauled that in all likelihood it had no tanks left. Still, its remaining infantry and a few armored cars and self-propelled guns would prove pivotal in repelling the British paratroopers at Arnhem, barely three weeks later. But that is another story. The photo below shows an armoured Tanks in Town column consisting mainly of Shermans on a road just outside Mons, 2005.



Notice how, as time goes by, we so quickly get used to the successive camo and colours of the US military. When I first saw the "pajama" camo now in use by US ground troops I had a little trouble seeing its advantage over the desert camo used during OIF. And now the large kevlar helmets and sandy colours and patterns look almost archaic. Back then, see photo, it was all olive green and khaki. While the olive green for the tanks wasn't that bad, one can guess that at some point some smartass high up in the Pentagon must have concluded to dispense with the large white stars. Too good a marker for an anti-tank round I suppose.


MFBB.

F*CK THE POLITICIANS.

A.) BLITZKRIEG.

Most people think the Germans were the first. Why else would it be called “Blitzkrieg” – Lightning War? Move so fast you literally knock the adversary off his feet. Pierce defense lines at their weakest point, occupy communications centers and destroy or conquer ammo and supply dumps in the enemy’s rear. Smartly use the force of combined arms to totally and utterly destroy the military hardware the other side is using against you – or intended to use against you. However; actually an Australian general can lay justified claim at the fathership of the novel concept, for it was a certain General John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps in France, who on July 4 (!) 1918, at Le Hamel, smashed the German front opposite him in a mere 93 minutes, using an attack with close coordination and cooperation between tanks, warplanes and artillery. This success was followed by another one the next month, when on August 8, 1918, 420 British tanks appeared out of the morning fog in front of the German lines at Amiens, and cut through them like a hot knife through warm butter. Three months later, Germany surrendered.


While it was the British and the French who first used tanks in great numbers (General Monash, after all, "merely” used British and French tanks), the radical change the new weapon would bring about in 20th century warfare was at first, and for a long time, not recognized by them. This was because the mobility of the “landships” – as many viewed them at the time – did not allow them to move much faster than infantrymen. At Amiens e.g. the British won simply because they had so many tanks, whilst the Germans had almost none, and not because the Brits used their new huge killers efficiently. Indeed, the whole homemade tank force of the Kaiser consisted of some 20 – that’s twenty – unwieldy and totally ineffective A7V’s.

All that changed during the interbellum, because mechanical and electrical innovations greatly improved engine reliability and performance. And while the victors did have visionary thinkers and pragmatists recognizing the potential of fast armoured warfare in close cooperation with other arms – like a De Gaulle in France, a Fuller and a Liddell Hart in the UK – it was, not surprisingly after all, the vanquished who were adamant in their efforts to develop the concept of armoured thrusts in cooperation with other arms, to the leading doctrine of modern warfare. Some of the names of the German advocates sound familiar: there was Guderian, author of the standard work "Achtung-Panzer!". There was a Lutz, a Von Reichenau and a Von Thoma. They established the theorema that tanks would be organized in independent units and not be subordinated to infantry. Together these men laid the foundations for the Blitzkrieg as we know it, and that the Germans had specifically designed Panzerdivisionen in 1940 which they used to great effect, is due to them.

People from our age, used to seeing fast moving tanks in newsreels and war movies, have a tendency to dismiss the effects of armoured warfare and indeed may not grasp what a tremendous advantage he, who uses combined arms properly, has over he, to whom warfare is adjusting your front like a child would arrange his toy soldiers and model tanks. A couple of the latter here, a cannon there, a sole tank somewhat further, then an antiaircraft battery, finally the whole interspersed with infantry. The innocent reader who pores over handy stats in his newspaper comparing the strenghts of opposing armies may assume, because party A has much more troops and much more tanks than party B, that the former's victory in case of conflict is guaranteed. Not at all! Of equal, if not greater importance, is how you properly use your military potential. Few people realize that at the beginning of WWII Britain, France, Belgium and The Netherlands had actually more boots on the ground and more tanks than Nazi Germany. But in May 1940, the numerically inferior Germans truly revolutionized warfare. Panzer divisions were acting independently from infantry formations or, indeed, had their own infantry moving along with them in armoured personnel carriers, travelling at the same speed. Thanks to radio, tank commanders could interact with their subordinates, directing platoons here and there, ordering the whole formation to at once turn left or right, even call in pinpoint artillery barrages from mechanized (!) artillery or airstrikes from the ever present Stukas – divebombers – buzzing overhead. These dreadful planes could perform precision hits by releasing their deadly charge within meters of the designated target, and had a "net" effect roughly comparable to an F-16 performing a precision strike. Fuel, ammo, all kinds of supplies were flown in on captured airfields right behind the advancing panzer juggernaut. All of this required top-notch logistics, which the Germans mastered just as well. In short, the German armor, infantry, artillery, and airforce acted unisono. In 2006 codespeak, they were networked. Opposing the Germans were the combined armies of British, French, Belgians and Dutch – with outdated equipment, lacking tactical doctrines, lacking essential communication between ground units and own planes flying overhead, finally, when seeing the strength and ability of the enemy, lacking conviction. In 2006 codespeak, their computers were 80's AT’s and they exchanged info by distributing floppy disks. In ten days, the Germans traded their border for the French coast at Calais, a feat they had not been able to produce in four years during World War I. It was a lightning war indeed. Three and a half weeks later, half France lay down in tatters and Belgium and The Netherlands were completely occupied, while a shocked Britain was anxiously awaiting a German invasion.


B.) SOUTHERN LEBANON, JULY/AUGUST 2006.

Enter Israel on Wednesday July 12, 2006, but first have a glance at the maps below. To the left, you see what Israel was like at the end of the sixth day in the Six-Day War, June 5, 1967 to June 11, 1967. Yes, all the cream-colored territory comprises not only what the Israelis started with, that is to say their tiny territory (yellow on the map to the right): 20,770 square kilometres, think somewhat smaller than New Jersey. But also: the whole Sinai peninsula, the West Bank AND the Golan Heights. In less than a week, the IDF had conquered over 50,000 square kilometres so that Israel was now three and a half times its original size. To the right, you see what Israel won at the end of 34 days of fighting in July and August of 2006: the pitifully small red area representing southern Lebanon between the border with Israel and the Litani River, give and take 1000 square kilometres. Of which they began to withdraw the day after they had finally taken it.




As all of us have heard ad nauseam, the conflict started on July 12 with Hizballah lobbing katyushas across the border at the town of Shlomi and ambushing an Israeli patrol, killing eight soldiers and abducting two. Thanks to CNN, the NYT, the BBC and AJ the actions of the Israeli Air Force have received ample coverage so I think it's useless to shed any more light upon that aspect of the hostilities. But the actions of the Israeli government regarding the ground offensive are less wel known, and actually read like a manual of how not to do it:

12/7 to 18/7: Israel calls up reservists, artillery fires across the border.

19/7: Israeli infantry crosses into southern Lebanon to carry out what the army called "restricted pinpoint attacks". Two soldiers die in clashes with Hizballah fighters.

20/7: further clashes

22/7: The Israeli army continues ground incursions into southern Lebanon. A communique says it has gained control of the village of Maroun al-Ras after several days of fighting. Troops continue to mass along Israel's northern border, but the Israeli government says it is not planning a full-scale ground invasion.

23/7: Israeli Secdef Amir Peretz says Israel would agree to the proposed deployment of a multi-national force in southern Lebanon and suggests it should be led by NATO.

24/7: Fighting in southern Lebanon between small Israeli and Hizballah units around the village of Bint Jbeil, a few kilometers inside Lebanon.

26/7: Nine Israeli soldiers killed, 22 injured in fighting around Bint Jbeil. Another soldier dies in the nearby village of Maroun al-Ras.

27/7: The Israeli security cabinet decides to call up more reserves to refresh troops fighting in southern Lebanon but rules out widening the military offensive.

29/7: Israeli forces withdraw from Bint Jbeil which they had been trying to take for some days.

1/8: Israeli forces, small in number, wage fierce clashes with Hizballah fighters in southern Lebanon. Three soldiers are killed and 25 slightly injured in clashes in the border village of Ait al-Shaab. The Israelis claim to have "hit dozens of Hizballah gunmen".

3/8: According to Israeli officials, Defence Minister Amir Peretz orders top army officers to begin preparing for a push to the Litani river, which is up to 30km (19 miles) north of the border.

4/8: There is heavy fighting in southern Lebanon as small IDF units try to push Hezbollah back from the border.

7/8: Three IDF soldiers and five Hezbollah militants are killed in clashes in the southern Lebanese village of Bint Jbeil, the Israeli military says.

8/8: Israeli PM Ehud Olmert calls Beirut's plan to send 15,000 troops to the south if Israel withdraws an "interesting step" which Israel will examine.

9/8: Israel's security cabinet approves a plan to send troops towards the Litani River, up to 30km (18 miles) from the border, but delays implementing the plan to allow more time for diplomacy. Fifteen Israeli soldiers are killed during a day of intense fighting in Lebanese villages near the border. Israel says 40 Hizballah guerrillas also died.

12/8: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announces that ceasefire will come into effect at 0500GMT on Monday. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert describes the resolution as positive and acceptable, and says he will put it to his cabinet on Sunday. Israel continues ground attacks, tripling its forces inside Lebanon and reaching as far north as the Litani river.

14/8: Hizballah distributes leaflets congratulating Lebanon on its "big victory", and leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah gives an address broadcast on Hezbollah television claiming an "historic victory".

Congratulations Peretz and Olmert.

The last few days are interesting, because on August 12, Israel could suddenly "triple" its forces in southern Lebanon. But what does tripling mean when you have only a couple of thousand troops at hand? From what I have read, only during the very last days were there more than 10,000 Israeli soldiers on Lebanese territory. And while I have never come across a record detailing IDF tank strength, I would wager they never put more than 150 in the field. Now, most military analysts assume Israels standing army at roughly 180,000. Deduct personnel from other arms and non-combatants, and you have probably 45,000 infantry. Furthermore, it is generally agreed they have 4,000 tanks. While I assume a lot of these are stored in styrofoam for use when it really gets hot, a number of 500 tanks ready to roll does not seem that unrealistic to me. Don't get me wrong. Those few soldiers who did cross into Lebanon and faced Hizballah deserve a lot of praise, but WHY THE HELL was the IDF for one month tipping its toe into Lebanon the way a Saint-Tropez bimbette would gauge the water temperature on the beach of Narvik???


C.) KLOTZEN, NICHT KLECKERN.

There's a compatriot of mine blogging from Israel, or shall I say, a former compatriot, since his nom de web is "Former Belgian". I occasionally enter there without knocking. So I did on May 1, 2006, to find a post of him on the new Olmert Cabinet then being formed. Let me quote, from that post, the following excerpt:

WHat about Labour?

*Amir Peretz: Defense Minister
*Yuli Tamir: Education Minister
*Shalom Simchon: Agriculture Minister
*Binyamin "Fuad" Ben-Eliezer: National Infrastructure Minister
*Isaac "Bougie" Herzog: Tourism
*Ophir Pines-Paz: Sports and Jerusalem Affairs
*Eitan Cabel: Public Broadcast Ministry (what?!)

I don't trust Yuli Tamir (she smells a bit too much of "left"ist humanities academe for my taste), but at least she has qualifications to be Education Minister. Shalom Simchon has held the Agriculture portfolio in at least one government I can remember off-hand. But Amir Peretz as Defense Minister?!? G-d help us.

Dang, there you have it. Amir Peretz, a socialist as Defense Minister. Tell me all about it. In Belgium, for some reason the post of Defense Minister goes in 9 out of 10 cases to the Parti Socialiste, and the result is that over the past three decades the Belgian Army has morphed into a cross between the Boyscouts and The Waltons. Then we have PM Ehud Olmert. Yeah, I heard all the excusing stuff that he truly is a military figure since he served in the Golani Brigade. He may have deserved the Israeli equivalent of a Purple Heart for injuries to his arm and leg, but after all he completed his military duties as a war correspondent for the IDF magazine Bamahane. And about that later stint in the IDF, that 1980 reserve officer course: he was already a MK then, so I guess that episode wasn't exactly Tigerland. To me, it's more telling that Olmert has B.A. and LL.B. degrees in Psychology, Philosophy and Law, plus, that he is a lawyer by profession. My mom often told me that two things you should always steer clear of are hospitals and lawyers. She might have added to it socialist defense ministers, check out this Israelinsider article from April 27, 2006 and weep.

The point is, a pivotal military operation, the good outcome of which would have broken the back, or else seriously damaged Hizballah, has been handled by politicians. Worse: undecided, hesitating politicans. We were talking about Guderian. There's a famous quote from that fella, attributed to him when his Fuehrer once again committed forces piecemeal. It is:

"Klotzen, nicht Kleckern!!!"

Loosely translated as: Boot'em, don't spatter 'em!!! Which is exactly what happened on the Israeli-Lebanese border. For over one month, frikkin politicans held one of the finest armies in the world on the leash, trying to fix the situation with a platoon here, a company there, relying solely on air power, and for the rest squarely ignoring desperate pleas of the top military brass to let them have their way. And it shows: the end result is that they lost military, political and moral capital. To paraphrase another fella who preferred klotzen over kleckern: Olmert and Peretz had the choice between dishonor and war. They chose neither, and got the first. There is little doubt in my mind that if the IDF had been allowed to switch to Blitzkrieg mode, they would have splattered Hizballah against the wall like an annoying bug. The Litani River is only thirty kloms north of the Israeli border. A powerful strike northwards with, say, the equivalent of three divisions to the northwest to Tyre, supported by far-ranging artillery and undisputed air power, might have reached that city in a matter of hours. The geography of the border region is even such that simultaneously, an Israeli attack from the east would have been possible, thus enabling the IDF to roll up what was posing for a Hizballah "front" from behind. Had these thrusts been undertaken within a week, it can reasonably be assumed that a good deal of Hizballah missile launcher park would have been trapped on the wrong side of the Litani, whereas now they were permitted to escape safely to the north of the river.

I do not buy all the garbage of Hizballah consisting of professional soldiers. They are not. Fanatics, especially religious fanatics, are very often devoid of two qualities which are essential for successful fighting men, and these are intelligence and imagination. Over the past years, there have been numerous occasions showing that the much vaunted Islamic Holy Warrior is probably the least effective fighter in the history of mankind. Proof? One "skirmish" on August 6, 2004 between al-Sadr's Mehdi "Army" and US Marines. 300 KIA for the former, against (alas) two for the latter. Fallujah, November 2004: some 1,500 terrorists killed against (unfortunately) 71 US troops - this while the defenders had the priceless advantage of defending from an urban area. Afghanistan, Baluchi Valley, July 2006. Dutch Commandos kill 18 Taliban, the latest victory in a string of successes where dozens of Islams Holiest Trippers, erm, Troopers, were taken out. Dutch losses throughout the whole campaign: none. Repeat: none. To be sure, the Hezbo, Hamas, Mehdi, AQ nutters et al can be quite succesful in taking out huge numbers of certain categories of enemies, like, uh, infidel women and children, barbers, schoolteachers, commuters, people shopping on market squares, blindfolded abducted soldiers and so on. After which our zeroes issue resounding communiques going like "Thank God our brave mujahedeen were able to slaughter the infidel enemies of Allah and cast them in the deepest abyss of Hell and blah blah de blah etcetera".

But when faced with real soldiers it's always the same song, and this kind of stories goes a long time back, even beyond the time when the banner the adversary was gathering under was not so much islamism as it was pan-arabism. Consider the map of the Israeli offensive in the Sinai, from 5 to 8 June 1967. The Egyptian defenses had much more military hardware than Hezbollah, with 7 divisions totalling 100,000 troops, 1,000 tanks and hundreds of artillery pieces. In true Blitzkrieg fashion three IDF divisions and two brigades concentrated their offensive on the weakest spot in the Egyptian main defense line in the east of the Sinai and the Gaza Strip, broke through them, never cared for their flanks and finally sent the enemy running in a hurry for the Suez Canal. While the three IDF divisions all fought well, one distinguished itself in particular. Its axis of operations ran through the heart of the Sinai, which it reached on the third day of the offensive. Its commander was a certain General Ariel Sharon, Arik for friends. Arik lies in a coma now, and his place has been taken by civilians. It shows. Had the operations in southern Lebanon been run as Arik did in the Sinai almost forty years ago, the IDF would have cut through Hizballah - and yet another quote, this time from General Patton - like crap through a goose.


MFBB.

IN MEMORIAM STAFF SGT. URI GROSSMAN.

On Saturday August 12, Staff Sergeant Uri Grossman, a tank commander in an IDF armoured unit operating in southern Lebanon, was killed in action in the village of Khirbet Kasif when his vehicle was hit by a Hizballah antitank missile. In the same incident, two soldiers and an officer died. The four of them were among the 24 IDF fatalities on that day, a reminder of the ferocity of the fighting when Israel tried to make as much gains on the ground as possible in anticipation of the August 14 ceasefire. Born on August 27, 1985, and a student at Jerusalem's Experimental School, Grossman would have celebrated his 21st birthday in two weeks. He would have been released from the army in November. May he rest in peace.



Sgt. Grossman is the son of leftwing writer and peace activist David Grossman, who, together with two other leftwing novelists, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, called for a halt in Israeli military operations in Lebanon just days before the death of his son. Grossman senior has made a career out of undermining the fighting spirit of the Israeli people through his engagement with "peace" groups and publishing such books as Death as a way of life (2003). In Israel, he has fulfilled very much the same role as West European pacifist politicians in the interbellum, who starved their military to such an extent that in 1940 they were steamrollered in six weeks by the Nazis, who had happily rearmed. Similiarly, people like Grossman sr. over the past years instilled in the Israeli people a false sense of security and persuaded them to let their guard down. Meanwhile, Hizballah stocked 20,000 missiles just across the border.

The thirties' pacifist slogan was "No More War". Fair enough, but such a concept makes only sense if both parties have a mutual interest in it. While Grossman sr. undoubtedly thinks high of his own intellect, he was and is too stupid to understand this. Just like Chamberlain did not see that it made no sense to try to solve crises through dialogue with a party whose programme calls for Lebensraum and extermination of Jews, Grossman did and does not see that it makes no sense to try to solve crises through dialogue with a party which does not even put your country on maps, and calls for... extermination of Jews.

I do not want to downplay the heroic sacrifices of the common Israeli soldier over the past month, but when you compare the recent combat performance of the IDF with its achievements during six particular days in 1967, it is clear that the former is a far cry from the latter. Blame men like Grossman sr. In May 1940, the common western soldiers paid with their blood for the shortsighted defense policies of their respective countries. When one reads the now emerging complaints from Israeli troopers about poor equipment and old tanks without reactive armor, one is reminded of French tankers sent into battle in May 1940 in Renault FT17s from... 1917. Maybe Uri Grossman's tank was without reactive armor. Maybe that is why a Hizballah missile was able to penetrate it. Maybe... David Grossman in a way has the blood of his son on his hands.

To me, the son is a Hero forever. The father, a Coward. Forever.


MFBB.


P.S.: if you are one of those despicable white western males, you may have children whom you allow to watch infidel garbage such as Winnie the Pooh and Teletubbies. Watch what your Iranian - or Paleostinian counterpart for that matter - lets his offspring look at. And understand why people like David Grossman are not only deluded fools, but dangerous fools as well.

BACK TO YOUR DUNES SCHTOOPID LOONS.

Seen the photos from Toronto, Brussels, Washington, NY, Paris with those collections of frikkin terrorist supporters, flying Hizballah banners and Nasrallah posters? Funny, just lately I questioned the loyalty of the muslim communities in our midst. But I could never have said say it as eloquently as Mark Steyn:

The pan-Islamists do act. When they hold hands and sing "We Are The World," they mean it. And we're being very complacent if we think they only take over the husks of "failed states" like Afghanistan, Somalia and Lebanon. The Islamists are very good at using the principal features of the modern multicultural democracy -- legalisms, victimology -- to their own advantage. The United Kingdom is, relatively speaking, a non-failed state, but at a certain level Her Majesty's government shares the same problem as their opposite numbers in Beirut: They don't quite dare to move against the pan-Islamists and they have no idea what possible strategy would enable them to do so.

So instead they tackle the symptoms. Excellent investigative work by MI-5 and Scotland Yard foiled this plot, and may foil the next one, and the one after that, and the 10 after that, and the 100 after those. And in the meantime, a thousand incremental inconveniences fall upon the citizen. If you had told an Englishman on Sept. 10, 2001, that within five years all hand luggage would be banned on flights from Britain, he'd have thought you were a kook. If you'd told an Englishwoman that all liquids would be banned except milk for newborn babies that could only be taken on board if the adult accompanying the child drinks from the bottle in front of a security guard, she'd have scoffed and said no one would ever put up with such a ludicrous imposition. But now it's here. What other changes will the Islamists have wrought in another five years?

Time to call a spade a spade. A Pew poll finds one in four British Muslims thinks the 7/7 attacks were justified? My ass. If you are polled on, say, your sexual habits, are you gonna lay it all bare? Unless you are Pamela Anderson, I don't think so. Thus, make that 1/4 a 1/2. It can't go on like this. The mere existence of Islam is an insult to humanity. For its most fierce adherents, there's simply no place in our civilized societies. We need to come to terms with the unpleasant fact that, for starters, the hardliners have to be deported to the shitholes they originate from, manu militari if necessary.




MFBB.


NB: credit for the demo photo to Moonbatmedia; the flag I got via Action in England.

SAVE PAUL BELIEN!!!

There's something rotten in the state of Belgium, and it's called the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR, CGKR in Flemish). Over at The Brussels Journal, Paul Belien writes:

This morning the police came to my door again to question me about allegedly racist articles on The Brussels Journal. I was not in. Tonight the local police phoned to “invite” me urgently to the police station. In Belgium any leftist or totalitarianist can lodge a complaint against “internet racism” through a Belgian government website and the judiciary starts an investigation. Apparently someone in Ghent has lodged a complaint against this website. I am not allowed to know who this person is, but I am requested to come to the police station to be interrogated. I told the officer that I refuse to justify my writings for anonymous complaints. “I am not living in the Soviet Union,” I told him (though I fear I am).

As a matter of principle I will not go to the police station. I defend the freedom of the press, which implies the right of journalists not to be questioned by the authorities about articles and opinions that they write or edit. I told the officer that if the police wants to question me they will have to arrest me. The Belgian authorities are clearly intent on intimidating us and closing down this website.

What kind of a "Belgian government website" is Mr. Belien talking about? It's Cyberhate, a site where one can fill in forms with the URL and the email of persons deemed "racist". Checks are not needed, and the only forms accepted are those from the left. And so it can happen that a hatesite like the one from the Arab European League, where the murder of 6,000,000 jews is ridiculed, remains online, while a decent conservative site like The Brussels Journal is increasingly coming under attack. It is not an isolated case in Europe: in Sweden, possibly the worst European PC country, several rightwing sites have been shut down. Up north in Holland, Dutch Disease Report, which was something like a local LGF, mysteriously went offline several months ago and remains so to this day.




Cyberhate is an initiative of this CEOOR organization, an outfit with far-reaching powers, able to invoke Belgium's notorious Anti-Racism Law, and directly responsible to the Belgian government. CEOOR is led by Jozef De Witte, a radical leftwing apparatchik who - what a coincidence - happens to be the brother of the socialist governor of the province of Flemish Brabant, Lode De Witte. When one scrutinizes the careers of people like Jozef De Witte, one is always struck by how these creatures manage to secure fancy posts with resounding titles which have little or nothing to do with decent management but everything with nasty tutelage.


De Wittes assignment prior to his "promotion" to Chief of Belgian Thought Police was Chairman of 11.11.11, a radical leftwing NGO, virulently anti-American and viciously free markets-opposed.One of the more "memorable" initiatives developed by 11.11.11 with De Witte at the helm was the Boycott Israel Action of 2004, which exhorted consumers not to buy Israeli products. The campaign poster to the left says "Israeli Fruit tastes bitter - Boycott Israeli products" while the key graphical element is an Israeli orange leaking (Palestinian) blood. Sympathy for the Paleostinian cause with total disregard for the historical background of Israel admittedly harsh, but totally understandable policy in the West Bank, is a recurring theme among leftists everywhere on the globe. I have argued many times on these pages that it is crystal-clear that in the current global crisis surrounding the whole War on Terror, the left is unconditionally allying itself with radical islamism, and the inquisition against Belgium's prime conservative journalist who frequently laments the erosion of Western Values under the incessant attacks the Leftwing/Islamic alliance, is further proof of that.

The way Mr. Belien is increasingly being "visited" by police and "invited" to come to police bureaus to "explain matters" and alleged racist articles on The Brussels Journal - and, as you may recall, he already had to remove an article to avoid prosecution under the Anti-Racism Law - is very saddening news to me. It is a sign that the "powers that be" have decided to use all means necessary to stifle the rise of the Right in Belgium, both in Flanders with the Vlaams Belang and in Wallonia with the Front National. Small wonder, for opinion polls suggest big wins for both parties in the October 8 municipal elections. In Wallonia, the FN chairman, Dr. Daniel Féret, even had his civil rights stripped for a period of ten years.

While the predecessor of the Vlaams Belang, the Vlaams Blok, was outlawed, while the Belgian government tries to dry up the financial resources of the VB, while Belien has to shut up and while Féret has now less rights than Sharia-practicing muslims in Molenbeek, sympathizers of Hizballah have come out TWICE in Brussels over the last ten days, namely on July 30 and on August 6, the last time with an 8,000 strong demonstration. More info on Flemish site Kapingamarangi. (while there, notice also the many banners with hammer and sicle). The flags of an organization which murdered 241 Americans in Beirut in 1983, killed hundreds of Israeli citizens with coward suicide attacks, butchered close to 100 Argentinian Jews in 1992 and 1994, and deliberately and with impunity lobbed some 2,500 missiles thus far to Israeli civilian targets, fly freely in the capital of Europe.

But it's Paul Belien who has to come to a police bureau to explain.


MFBB.

P.S.: credit for the photos of Paul Belien, Jozef De Witte and the 11.11.11 poster to Luc van Braekel, credit for the Brussels photo to LGF.

PISS OFF DAY.

Everbody seems to be mad at Israel, so I decided it would be cool to sport an Israeli flag on DowneastBlog. Unable to find a decent example of a flag, I finally stumbled on a roundel. There was, however, an F-15 attached to it, see pic below from StrategyPage.



Photo shows a pair of F-15s over Nevada during the Red Flag 2004 exercise. The F-15, of which the latest model to enter Israeli service is the F-15I (january 1998) is the main combat aircraft of the Israeli Air Force. The F-15I (or Ra'am, as it is called in Hebrew) is basically an enhanced F-15E Strike Eagle with an enormous payload capacity, designed specifically for Israel, whence the "I".

To be exact, one should not speak of the Israeli Air Force, but rather of the Air Corps (Hel Avir). Indeed, unlike the USAF it is not an autonomous entity but "merely" a part of the IDF, albeit with a large autonomy. This Air Corps operates 900 aircraft from 9 main bases, and an estimated 524 are combat types. This sheer number (keep in mind that Israel is but a very small country with some 6 million plus inhabitants!) coupled with the fact that the planes are equipped with state of the art technology and manned by extremely well trained pilots, makes the Hel Avir without doubt the strongest air force of the Middle East. Its current CINC is Major-General Elyezer Shkedy.

Here's a couple of good links to have a peek at: a list of the Israeli Air Force's squadrons, the current combat order, and an unofficial IAF site. Great gallery at the latter.


MFBB.

ARE THEY REALLY ISRAELIS, AMERICANS, CANADIANS, BELGIANS?

With the exception of Iraq, in the whole of the Middle East there is but one place where Arabs are granted democratic rights. That place is Israel. OK, there are some restrictions concerning IDF service and job opportunities in the public sector, but on the whole, the 1.4 million strong Israeli Arab community (some 20% of the population) reaps the benefits of living in a country where there is Rule of Law. Not only can they elect their representatives in a truly democratic way, their living standard is on average much, much higher than that of Arabs in the rest of the Middle East. One can reasonably assume that in a country with a free press, Israeli Arabs are well aware of this priviliged status vis-à-vis their brethren in the surrounding countries, and that this knowledge would translate in some kind of gratitude towards the State of Israel. But here there is serious ground for scepticism. Take e.g. the National Democratic Assembly (Tajammua' in Arabic, Balad in Hebrew), an Arab Party in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament. Obviously the NDA is the most popular Arab party in Israel since several others such as the United Arab List did not make it to the country's legislative body. The National Democratic Assembly calls for ridding Israel from its Jewish character by turning it into what it calls a "truly democratic state". One of Tajammua's members, Azmi Bishara, is sympathetic to Hizballah. Believe it or not, but this guy is an MK (Member of Knesset, we'd call that an MP).

Now, after the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit near the Gaza Strip, but before the Hizballah attack in the north, Another MK of Tajammua', Wasil Taha, defended the abduction by Hamas as a "legitimate act of resistance". Taha as well as former MK Abdulmalik Dehamshe, also an Arab, said that Shalit should be considered a POW rather than a kidnapping victim. While these statements did cause quite some verbal uproar among the other MK's, the Law for the Prevention of Terror, which would allow, a.o., the trial of MK's (Arab of otherwise) who support terrorist organizations, was not invoked. This prompted Avigdor Lieberman, MK and Chairman of the far-right Israel Our Home party, to the following reaction:

"Our law enforcement system has gone bankrupt given the fact that Arab MKs who openly support Nasrallah are not put on trial," he said. He chose not to address questions regarding Qana .

Lieberman was asked by one ynet reader "if he thinks that Knesset members who support Nasrallah deserve to be in the Knesset." Lieberman responded that "This is a rhetorical question, hence the answer is clear. In no sane country can you see this phenomenon of members of parliament who support the enemy during wartime. In the United States, there could be no Senate member who supported Bin Laden and, in Russia, no parliament member who supported Chechnyan rebels."

"The law for the prevention of terror is clear and it allows us to try most of the Arab MKs who spoke in support of Nasrallah and justified the kidnap of Israeli soldiers and so it. This means that the law is not dealing with these cases and putting these men on trial; our law enforcement system has gone bankrupt," he continued.

If a topic like that would be an isolated fait divers, I would not pay much attention to it. However, over the past years I have here and there come across more stories like these, which all seem to point towards a rather questionable loyalty of the Arab/Muslim citizens of Israel towards their legitimate country. The latest one my eye fell upon was this July 19 piece from the LA Times:

In Nazareth, a mainly Arab city of 60,000, residents will tell you, mostly in private, that despite the rocket fire they sympathize with Hezbollah's decision to kidnap Israeli soldiers as a way to win the release of Lebanese and Palestinians jailed in Israel.

But one can go further. I have argued before on these pages that Europe does indeed have a problem with racism. If you want proof of that, just check out photos of European governments. Overwhelmingly white. And yes, I have also already admitted that part of the problem we face with Muslims here may find its roots in racism (I do not consider it the main cause however). Now, while I am aware of the racist dimension in America, I'd wager that in se, the States are a lot less racist than Europe. A logical conclusion would be that the Muslim community in the States is less alienated from the US government, indeed from America itself, to a degree in compliance with the absence of the racial element. Or, if not the absence, the fact that American racism is much less than European racism. To put it simply, one could expect that because of less racism in the US, Muslims there are more loyal to America than European Muslims are to their respective European countries.

It is therefore worrisome to find out that the more I read about it, the more I find out that muslim loyalty towards their adopting state does not seem to differ that much on both sides of the Atlantic. I just read one of Debbie Schlussels' latest posts, Hezbos in America Who Hate America:

DEARBORNISTAN, USA--To all those who had any doubt where the loyalty of Shia Muslims in America is, take the comments of Hayat Taleb--at yesterday's latest pro-Hezbollah rally to heart. Taleb, aged 24, who grew up here, lives in Dearbornistan, and is a mother of two U.S. citizens she is raising to share her beliefs said this to The Detroit Spews: "I'd rather die there [Lebanon] than live here [America]."

Photo from Debbies blog. Wow, Mrs. Taleb would rather die in Lebanon than live in America. One wonders what the heck she is still doing in Dearborn then??? Makes me think of another Lebanese, closer to home and by the name of Dyab Abu Jahjah, who in his own words Lived His Life For His Lebanese Nation - be it from a comfy Belgian sofa.

Let's now trod northwards to Toronto, Canada, where lately a 17-strong terror cell was broken up, whose members were intent on blowing up several Canadian landmarks and one even aspired to behead the Canadian PM, Stephen Harper. Like the US and Israel, Canada is a western country which has given its Muslim immigrants everything they lacked so sorely in the shitholes they fled: non-erratic power supply, clean water, quality education, socialized healthcare, decent housing, civil rights etc etc etc. Again, one would assume the newcomers would reward all this with a sturdy loyalty towards the new fatherland, right?

Wrong, apparently.

I'm not saying every Canadian Muslim woman is like Nada Farooq, wife of Zakaria Amara, the Toronto cell leader. But nor do I believe she's an isolated case. There is serious cause for concern. From Captain's Quarters:

The wives spent a lot of time on the Internet, wheedling and cajoling their readers to support and to wage jihad on Western society. Farooq wanted a baby badly, and she wanted to name it after a Chechen Islamist commander killed by the Russians. Her dream was to have her children follow in his footsteps, apparently all the way to the grave. She called openly for death by crushing for gays in Muslim societies, and she posted a prayer to Allah for the Jews to be crushed as well. Crushing, apparently, gets big play in the Amara/Farooq household. Canada doesn't fare any better in Farooq's tightly wound world. She repeatedly refers to our northern neighbor as "this filthy country". and explicitly declared in one message that "we hate Canada".

Hmmmm. This filthy country. We hate Canada. The wife of Belgian terrorist Khaled Bouloudo, now in jail for being involved in the Madrid bombings, wears a burqa in Maaseik, eastern Belgium. She hates my country too.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING THEN IN OUR COUNTRIES???

On July 30, there was a pro-Hizballah demo in Brussels. The photo below and the excerpt are from Czech blogger Alva:

Anti-Israel and anti-USA groups organized a demonstration in Brussels today. It was advertised as a "Rassemblement contre l'agression sioniste au Liban et à Gaza", "gathering against the Zionist aggression in Lebanon and in Gaza". (No word about Hezbollah violating the internationally recognized border between Lebanon and Israel.) About 3,000 to 5,000 Arabs, muslims and leftist Europeans walked from Boulevard du Roi Albert II to Place de l'Albertine chanting (and carrying) anti-Israel and anti-US slogans. The crowd waved not only Lebanese flags but also Hezbollah and Iranian ones (along with a sign "Iran fait vite"), among others. Actually, you would think it was a pro-Hezbollah party, as the crowd chanted "Vive Hezbollah, vive Hamas!" together with "Allahu akbar".

See? Nasrallah posters and Hizballah flags in Brussels, the capital of the EU. A frikkin 60-year old conflict is finally overflowing to good ole Belgium. And in the back of my mind I have the mathematical certainty that if I, as a REAL Belgian, would dare to stand silently along the street with an Israeli banner or a Stars & Stripes as these guys pass along, I'd get into trouble. Yup, I'd get in trouble for exercising my goddam Constitution-granted RIGHT to stand with a banner of my choice on a street in MY country. Jesus Christ. These guys ain't no more Belgian than Kim Jong-Il is. Their loyalty lies elsewhere. I do not want to stigmatize. I waved out three Germans of Turkish origin today. Refurbished the showroom. Decent fellas. Hard and efficient workers. Polite. Speaking Krautese like Herr Schaefer and Frau Mueller. Seemingly perfectly assimilated. Nevertheless, I have my doubts whether the crew leader's wife, pregnant with their fifth child, is allowed to work outside the house. And I hope I am mistaken, but somehow, I fear she wears a headscarf. Even if I am troubled to say so, we cannot permit to be weak of heart. We must start to seriously question the loyalty of the muslim population in our midst.


MFBB.

QANA 2006/HAMA 1982 - ARABS ARE F*CKING HYPOCRITES

Disclaimer: naturally, I deeply deplore the Qana disaster. I am a father myself, and despite the fact that it appears there's far less victims than initially claimed, it's clear that there are a lot of innocent children among them, which is horrible. The guilt lies not with Israel, but squarely with Hizballah and yes, I saw yet another photo of "the man with the green helmet" in my commie newspaper rag. Bottom line: there is no negotiating with Hizballah. It has to be destroyed, plain and simple, and it's good the airstrikes have resumed.

----------------------------------
a.) Qana 2006.

From Ynet, July 30, 2006:

Israel's attack on a building in the Lebanese village of Qana that killed at least 54 civilians constitutes "state terrorism", Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Sunday. "The massacre committed by Israel in Qana this morning shows the barbarity of this aggressive entity. It constitutes state terrorism committed in front of the eyes and ears of the world," Assad said in remarks carried by state news agency SANA.

b.) Hama 1982.

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is the son of the late Hafez al-Assad, who became Syrian President in 1971 and remained in function until 2000, when he died of a heart attack. The first decade of al-Assad's rule was marred by continuing troubles with the powerful Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. It should be noted that the Assads are themselves Alawites, a minority sect not immediately known as fervent islamists. Indeed, in 1976 Syria intervened in Lebanons civil war on the side of the Lebanese... Maronites, who are Christians, and actually it was this fact, more than anything else, which acted as a catalyst for MB armed opposition to Assad's Baath regime. The MB started to assassinate key members of the Syrian government and in June 1979 even conducted an attack at an artillery school in Aleppo, northern Syria. 83 cadets were killed, most if not all of them Alawites. One year later, the MB even tried to kill Assad himself. And in summer and early fall of 1981, it carried out three major car bombings at Syrian government officials in Damascus. It is said that hundreds of bystanders died in the attacks.

By early 1982, Hafez al-Assad had had enough and intended to crush the MB for good. Hama, Syria's fourth city (pop. at the time some 250,000) was a Brotherhood stronghold, and it would serve as an example.

Before dawn on February 2, 1982, the Syrian Air Force began to bomb the city. This was only an introduction, since around the city the Syrian Army had assembled Defence Brigades, Special Forces and specially selected elite army units such as the 21st and 47th Brigades. They had brought with them tanks, heavy artillery and rocket launchers, and these would shell Hama for four weeks. In between shelling, troops would move in and shoot eveything that moved.

The following excerpt is from a Syrian Human Rights Committee report:

"It is rather impossible for a writer to paint a picture of the massacres committed against women and newborn children or to describe the methods used to murder members of the same family, one after another right before the eyes of the ones to follow the same fate. They would cut the guts of a baby while his mother held him, and then fire a stream of bullets onto her to prevent her from giving birth to another future opposition member. They would fire right on the head of an elder, while he murmured a prayer after what he had just witnessed. Children would scream asking for their mom, or grandfather just to be answered with a stream of bullets killing them all. A family would fall in a pool of their blood, but not for long, because soldiers would set everything ablaze after ransacking the house for any valuables and cutting the hands and ears off in their crazed rush to loot the jewelry worn. Not one store escaped theft, ransacking or bulldozing, no mosques escaped destruction, nor any minarets remained erect in Hama during that tragic month, even churches were not spared and suffered a similar fate."

More SHRC excerpts:

* The massacre in the new Hama district:

On the 3rd day of invading the city of Hama, the Syrian regime defence brigades gathered the citizens of the ‘new Hama district’, in the football field and shot them. Then they raided the houses and killed everyone there. They robbed the people of their belongings. Some sources estimate the victims of the district to be around 1500.

* The massacre in the Sooq Alshajarah district:

On the fifth day of the massacre, Sooq Alshajarah district was heavily bombed and the Syrian regime forces invaded the district and shot the young and the old in the streets and followed those who sought refuge into the mosque and killed them all. The victims were estimated to be around 160. The members of the security intelligence and the army forces killed the families of Al-Alwan, Hamood, Kojan and Al Abu Sin including their men, women and children. Some of them were shot, some were stabbed and some of them died under the remains of their bombed houses. On the same day, the regime forces also killed over 70 people, including women and children, after being gathered in AlHabashi shop that sold grain. Then the forces set fire to the shop to kill those who hadn’t died.

* The massacre in Al-Bayadh district:

In front of the Muhammad AlHamid mosque in Al-Bayadh district, due to the lack of space on the vehicles which carried the detainees, the regime forces killed some detainees and threw their bodies into a waste ditch belonging to a tile factory owned by Abd Alkarim Alsaghir.

* The massacre in Sooq Altaweel:

The massacre of Sooq Altaweel took place on the 7th day of the invasion, where 30 young people were killed on the roof of the market. The authorities also killed Sheikh Abdullah Al-Halaq, who was 72 years old, in front of his house and robbed him of his possessions. The security forces also shot 35 citizens after robbing their money and watches. Those citizens had been gathered in Abd-Alrazaq Alrees’s shop where they had all been killed, except for two children, age 13, who managed to escape through the shop’s loft.

Estimates for the Hama 1982 carnage vary roughly between 15,000 and 40,000 killed. Even if you take into account a number of "only" two wounded for everyone killed, that means between 45,000 and 120,000 casualties. Over the years I have read so many references to the massacre that I'd cautiously say the number most cited is 35,000. If you are still sceptic and think the SHRC reports above are onesided, convince yourself and do a Google for "Hama 1982" + massacre. What happened there reduces Qana 2006 to a picnic. Yet here we have President Bashar al-Assad with the nerve to call a tragic Israeli mistake involving citizens of a neighboring country, "state terrorism" (a mistake, btw, provoked by Hizballah rats who know full well their actions will cause toddlers to die)....

....while his own father butchered close to 35,000 of his own citizens.

Arab hypocrisy, the Grandmother of all Pleonasms. The Middle East: what an insane, crazy, disgusting, FUCKED UP corner of the world.


MFBB.

RUDI, A MESSAGE TO YOU RUDI...

Stop your foolin' around
Time you straightened right out
Quit being an asshole
And playing the terrorist supporting role

(Lyrics by Dandy Livingstone/The Specials 1979, covered by UB40 in the eighties)

We're talking here about Rudi Vranckx, one of the "star" reporters of the VRT, the Flemish part of the Belgian state-run TV. Mr. Vranckx is one of those typical multiculti commies making up the bulk of the VRT's reporter corps. Since he is also an accomplished Americahater and there have been a lot of Americans in the Middle East for some time now, he's the perfect man for the post of Middle East envoy for Belgian TV. I once watched him taking an interview of a Dr. Saad in Nasiriyah General Hospital, South Iraq. Dr. Saad, just liberated, apprently had nothing good to say about those trigger-happy US grunts. However, a short while later I saw CNN interview that same Dr. Saad, because he was actually a doctor in the hospital where Private Jessica Lynch had been held. In that interview, even if it was from CNN, the good doctor was a lot more positive about US troops. I guess it's that badass personality of mine, but I suspect Rudi did a li'l cutting and pasting when he prepeared his interview for the beloved Belgian audience. But I digress. Why was I talking about Rudi Vranckx? Because of Dyab Abu Jahjah. Who's Dyab Abu Jahjah? In the case of Dyab, a thousand words is worth more than a picture:

a.) Dyab on the HAMAS-abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit:

When a Palestinian heroic commando penetrates out of the great concentration camp called the Gaza strip and attacks a military base of the fascist Israeli Army of occupation taking down two criminals and capturing a third, every freedom loving soul on this planet should be joyful...

b.) Dyab on the HAMAS-abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit (v2.0):

After the massacres that the Zionist enemy committed against our people in Palestine, killing babies, children and peaceful families, the Palestinian resistance retaliated with a heroic attack killing two soldiers of the Israeli criminal army and capturing a third, after entering the Palestinian occupied territories (1948) by digging a tunnel under the racist wall.

Cut Dyab some slack here people. He was apparently having some trouble finding heroic actions by Hizballah or Hamas zeroes. OK, let's cut the crap, his photo is to the left. Like we've said earlier on these pages, Dyab Abu Jahjah is a Lebanese extremist and self-confessed former (?) Hizballah member who was able to enter Belgium in the nineties through a phoney marriage with a Belgian girl. He's the founder and leader of the Antwerp-based Arab-European League, a radical muslim youth movement which in the meantime has spread to Holland and France. He's in favour of importing Sharia Law in the Low Countries, wants arabic to become the fourth official language of Belgium and is, aha, an ardent opponent of multiculturalism! Indeed, according to Abu Jahjah multiculturalism and assimilation constitute "cultural rape", and he favors muslim segregation instead. I may have a message to Rudi Vranckx that he's an asshole, but Dyab has another message for our star reporter, namely that he can shove his multiculti ideals up his, well, I just said it. But let that be no problem for Rudi! Dyab, like I said a Lebanese, could not bear any longer seeing the IDF bombing Lebanon to rubble from Tyre to Tripoli and decided to travel to his homeland to help defend it against the despicable Zionist fascists. But what a koinsidens!!! Rudi and Dyab met on the smoking remnants of a Hizballah Katyusha launch site babyfood factory in Sidon, and the following interview was broadcast on Belgian TV. I kid you not. Keep in mind that Abu Jahjah in 2002 in Belgium publicly confessed he had been a Hizballah member, and that before his departure for Lebanon in mid-July he publicly stated in Belgian newspapers and on Belgian TV, that he was siding with that terrorist organization. Just imagine that: in Belgium, a man like Paul Belien is silenced, but a fella who leaves for a war zone and openly boasts he's going to fight with the terrorists is halal. Here's the interview, via LVB:


VRT- reporter interviews on first-name basis with Abu Jahjah in Sidon

Rudi Vranckx: "Dyab, you come from deep in the south, was it difficult to get here?"

Dyab Abu Jahjah: "Rather difficult, most roads are bombed [...]"

[...]

Rudi Vranckx: "They say that the resistance is hiding the rockets amidst the civilian targets".

Dyab Abu Jahjah: "That is not at all true. If you see the south of Lebanon, that's a big region eh! There's a lot of valleys, woods, grottos there... anything you want!"

[...]

Rudi Vranckx: "How do you support Hizballah?"

Dyab Abu Jahjah: "That is for me to know. I try to do that as best as I can."

Rudi Vranckx: "fight?".

Dyab Abu Jahjah: "I will not give an answer to that, fightin is not the only means to support the resistance. Every deed you do to keep this people on its feet is an act of resistance. It doesn't have to be fighting. It can be fighting, but it does not have to be that".

(broadcast on the VRT-news, 23 July 2006, 1 and 7pm)


I draw two conclusions from this interview. The first is that it's a crying shame that I have to pay sour-earned tax euros to fund a fucking commie TV network which sees fit a.) to send a reporter to interview a Belgian Hizballah member as if he were talking to a drinking buddy, and b.) have the nerve to portray that terrorist supporter at home as if he were a political expert.

The second conclusion is that Mr. Jahjah apparently has lost a lot of his gung ho attitude after a few weeks in the company of the IDF. "Every deed you do to keep this people on its feet is an act of resistance. It doesn't have to be fighting. It can be fighting, but it does not have to be that". Blah. Blah. Blah-de-blah-da-blah. Blah Blah. Blèh. What's the matter Dyab? Just before you swapped hot Belgium for an even hotter Lebanon, you were talking like this on you fancy AEL site:

This might be the last text I will write before going home on a trip that might be my last, I want to thank all the comrades who shared the struggle with me here for equal rights and for justice, as these are the same values we struggle for everywhere. I would like to tell them that you can not postpone the moment of truth for ever; one moment in which one makes a stand in the face of oppression is more precious than a life time of triviality.

I lived my life for this Nation, and not a hair in me will hesitate in laying it down for this Nation too. The fight for Arab Unity, Liberation, Freedom and Socialism is the essence of Justice in the Homeland and beyond. Some people call it a fight for god, some people call it a fight for mankind, in essence it is one and the same fight for freedom and justice.

...

When oppression rises above the sun to cover it, and injustice defies the wind and the Wicked and the Evil feast on the Flesh of innocent men, women and children. From within the darkness and the orgy of blood, a sword will shine, and the brave will murmur: “What a beautiful day to die” .

Methinks that when the heroic leader of the AEL first spotted a Merkava tank or heard the bird to the right buzz overhead, he thought that as a thirtysomething there would, after all, still come a lot of other "beautiful days to die." What a frikkin loser. Stay where you are eejit. I find it hard to understand why you, who "lived your life for your Nation", chose to do so from faraway Belgium.


MFBB.

AFGHAN CUP: HOLLAND 18 - TALIBAN 0

As some of you may know, the presence of non-US NATO troops in Afghanistan is gradually making itself more felt, and this fall the number of those NATO troops will be numerically almost equal to that of US troops. The two forces have different agendas however. The NATO troops operate within the ISAF framework (International Security and Assistance Force), and as the name implies, are more involved in providing a security umbrella for reconstruction "behind the frontlines", while the US troops operating under Operation Enduring Freedom are for the most part exclusively involved with fighting terrorism.

ISAF's area of operations will be expanded to include six additional provinces: Day Kundi, Helmand, Kandahar , Nimroz, Uruzgan and Zabul. Four Regional Commands will be established at Mazar-e Sharif (ISAF Region North), Herat (ISAF Region West), Kandahar (ISAF Region South) and Kabul (Central), and an additional four ISAF Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) will be created in the Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces. To achieve these goals, ISAF, currently at a modest strenght of 9,000 (provided by 36 countries, including 10 non-NATO ones) will be increased by up to 6,000 personnel bringing the total number to approximately 15,000, which is, numerically at least, on a par with US troop strength.

However, as NATO/ISAF widens its scope, chances are that its troops will see more actual fighting. It seems that lately I was a bit too sceptical about the Dutch fighting qualities, since over the previous months, far from the cameras, the Dutch contingent got quite its share of fighting, with a provisional climax during a ten-day operation concluded just one week ago and of which we now have some more details.

The 1,500 strong Dutch military presence in Afghanistan is mostly concentrated in Uruzgan province, and one of their bases is Camp Holland near Tarin Kowt, the province's capital. Camp Holland, home to some 455 Dutch troops, is scheduled to become the base camp for a Dutch Army-led reconstruction mission, due to start on August 1, 2006 (another camp will be set up in Reh Dawod, also in Uruzgan). Ten kilometers (six miles) north of Tarin Kowt lies the Baluchi Valley, and over the past weeks the Dutch noticed a buildup of Taliban fighters in this valley. Since the valley and its surrounding hills constitute a good fire base for missiles directed against the camp it was decided to remove the growing threat. On or around July 10 Operation Baluchi took off, with Dutch commandos supported by armoured vehicles and for air support their own Apache helicopters and F-16s (the Dutch still have 4 F-16 fighters in AF). 18 Taliban were killed while the Dutch suffered no casualties. The Dutch thus continue to have good luck, since over the past few months, in smaller skirmishes, they killed dozens of Taliban while suffering no losses themselves. After the cleanup, Afghan National Police took possession of the valley to prevent it being retaken by the Taliban.

On July 21, in The Hague, The Netherlands, Gen. Dick Berlijn, commander of the Dutch Armed Forces, provided some background to the Dutch involvement in AF in general and Operation Baluchi in particular.

"If we had not done something then our soldiers could have come under fire and the construction of our camp could have been hindered," Gen. Dick Berlijn, commander of the Dutch armed forces, told reporters in The Hague. Berlijn said the Taliban fighters were massing on terrain on both sides of the Baluchi Valley, about 6 miles north of where Dutch troops are building Camp Holland, which will be their base for a reconstruction mission due to start Aug. 1. "The Baluchi Valley is a strategic position and in the end we decided that if we did not do something about it, it would be a major threat for us," he said. Berlijn said the Dutch mission was carried out independently of a U.S.-led coalition mission in the same region, but added that Dutch and coalition forces coordinated closely. He declined to give any details of the U.S.-led operations. According to Berlijn, his country already has more than 1,500 troops in the country and said that number could rise to around 2,000 before settling back to the 1,400-strong force approved by parliament. In recent months, Dutch troops have killed dozens of Taliban and other enemy fighters without suffering any fatalities.

Back here in Holland, creeps such as Jan Marijnissen, the leader of the Socialistische Partij (SP) and one of those fancy euroweenie full-fledged lunatics in the mold of Zapatero, may equal Islamic terrorism with Dutch resistance against the Nazis:

"During World War II, Dutch people thwarted nazi Germany's destruction machine by blowing up town halls, because this was where the Jews were registered. Things are not all that different in the Middle East. Islamic fundamentalism, including the terrorist wing, is a reaction to Israel's occupation of Palestine, to America's presence in the Middle East and to the West's support of undemocratic regimes in the Middle East."

... but the actions of the Dutch Commandos in the Baluchi Valley prove that the spirit of a nation which once was truly a world power, is not completely extinct yet.


MFBB.

JULY 21 - BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY.

Belgium is a weird country.

Actually Belgian Independence Day should be October 4th, since on October 4th, 1830, Independence was formally declared by the provisional government (known as Voorlopig Bewind in Flemish and Gouvernment Provisoire in French).

However, since Europe at the time was still trying to find out if a monarchy wasn't such a bad state form after all - Europes first experiment with a republic, France, had caused quite some headaches - these provisional rulers opted for a Constitutional Monarchy. Only problem: they couldn't find a King yet. Only one year later, on July 21, 1831, Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, shipped over from England, would be crowned King of the Belgians in Brussels. And thus, even though at his accession to the throne his country was already 10 months old, the day he assumed control as Leopold I would become Belgian National Holiday.

I wish I could provide some more info on these early days and the events that led to Belgian Independence. Unfortunately, I'm rather short on time. So I'll try to keep it brief and to the point.

In 1815 Napoleon was beaten at Waterloo. At the Congress of Vienna the then European superpowers had already decided (before the actual battle) to amalgamate the Low Countries - what is now known as Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg - in the Dutch Kingdom under Willem I of Oranje (the Dutch Royals are from the House of Oranje/Nassau, wherein Orange is a place in France where they were once exiled and Nassau is a place in Germany where the very first Willem, known in Anglosaxon countries as William the Silent, was from).



For 15 years, from 1815 to 1830, a Dutch King was thus ruling over Flemings and Walloons (as well as over the Luxembourgers). And here's the thing. Willem was some kind of Enlightened Despot, but the fact that he never gave the "Belgians" equal rights, granted no press freedom, and introduced a couple of nasty, authoritarian measures made that he never "ticked" in the southern part of his Kingdom. Add to that the general animosity among the Walloons, who at the time possessed way more industrial backbone than the Dutch themselves, plus the fact that they had to accept Dutch as official language - the horror - and you have the ingredients of an uprising. It came on August 25, 1830, after riots broke out in Brussels at the end of a popular Royal Theater play called "La muette de Portici". Although the Orange-true Civil Guard managed briefly to restore some order, word got out, and riots ensued, in other places such as Liège, Verviers, Huy, Namur, Mons and Leuven. To try to cool down the situation, King Willem sent one son, Crown Prince Willem, to Brussels to negotiate. However, he also sent a second son, Frederik, Commander of the Royal Army, with a force of 6,000 to Vilvoorde, a place 10 kloms north of Brussels. The latter act was generally seen as a provocation by the protesters. As the tensions grew, the soon-to-be Belgians got reinforcements from Liège and free corps were raised.

By the 23rd of September King Willem had had enough and he ordered Frederik with his army, in the meantime 12,000 strong, into Brussels to show who was boss. The free corps were able to canalize the anger of the masses - who suffered from high unemployment - towards the royal troops, and a genuine battle unfolded in the heart of Brussels, the Warande Park. If you ever visit Brussels, that's the park right between the Royal Palace and Parliament (and if you ever fly over the center of Brussels, you will notice there's a gigantic freemason compass in the park, a legacy of the Austrian architect Bartholomeus Zinner). Anyway, for four days the battle raged in and around the park. The "Dutch" had cannons, but the "Belgians" threw anything they could lay their hands on from the rooftops. Musket fire was everywhere, and soon there were hundreds of dead and wounded on both sides. The beautiful painting by Gustaaf Wappers, see above, is a romanticized depiction of the death of a "Belgian" and the general uproar during those hectic days (it is a painting much in line with the Delacroix painting of the French Revolution. You know what I'm talking about - the painting with the stout woman with the gun and the bare knockers). In the night of September 26 to 27, the Royal Army had had enough and it left Brussels, marching back to Vilvoorde. During the fight, a provisonal government had formed - the Voorlopig Bewind/Gouvernement Provisoire - comprising a.o. strong characters such as Louis de Potter, from Brugge, and Charles Rogier, from Liège. Belgium's "Founding Fathers" are on the drawing below, a popular period litho. On October 4th, this Provisional Government declared Belgian Independence. Quite remarkable, already on November 10 elections were held, resulting in a National Congress, which formalized the independence of the new little state from the North Sea to the Ardennes. The search for a King could begin.



MFBB.

HEY, CAN'T YOU AIM A LI'L BETTER???????

Before you all think MFBB has become a sissy, no, nee, non, nein and njet! I'm all for blasting Hizballah to kingdom come and reducing that fuckface Nasrallah to a smoldering heap of fat and bones. And if that's not clear enough, I AM in favor of disproportionate response. They kill an IDF soldier, kill 100 of 'em lousybeard good-for-nothing dumb-as-a-backdoor fanatical Quran-thumping A-holes. But not in this way. Close to 200 dead in Lebanon, and the (overwhelming) majority of them simple Lebanese citizens? NOT good, imho. I can't fail but notice the difference between the USAF going out of their way to avoid civilian casualties when conducting bombing operations in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, and apologizing at length and offering "blood-money" after the (sadly, inevitable) collateral damage does occur, and the IAF blasting half Beirut to smithereens without (from my POV at last) critically hurting Hizballah.

Consider the satellite photo of Lebanon to the left, taken this weekend by NASA's MODIS Rapid Response System. For the geeks, unlike Google Earth, MODIS provides real-time satellite pics via two birds, Aqua and Terra, which orbit in such a way that every location on the planet can be photographed at least once a day during daytime. On the downside (when comparing the images with GE high-res ones) is the low resolution, every pixel being a square of 250 x 250 m. Credit for this photo goes to fellow Belgian/Flemish blogger Luc Van Braekel, thanks Luc! Now, what you see is a big black cloud of smoke over Beirut, presumably coming from destroyed oil tanks of the al-Jieh electricity plant, and a smaller one more south - I assume that one's over Tyre. Yes, I know, burning oil tanks look much more dramatic than a destroyed missile site, which we couldn't see anyway on a photo like this one, but I can't help to think that a lot of ordnance is being released where it shouldn't. I am still taking into account that from my safe vantage point my estimation may just be that of an armchair general. OK. But what to think then of Michael Totten's post of July 15? For those who don't know Totten yet, he's a self-proclaimed "Liberal Hawk", is travelling the Middle East extensively (I have no idea how he manages to finance his exploits) and he considers Lebanon his second home. I've been following this guy for some 2 1/2 years now, and I think he knows damn well what he's talking about. This is how he reacted to the IAF air raids:

I sympathize one hundred percent with what Israel is trying to do here. But they aren't going about it the right way, and they're punishing far too many of the wrong people. Lord knows I could be wrong, and the situation is rapidly changing, but at this particular moment it looks bad for Israel, bad for Lebanon, bad for the United States, good for Syria, and good for Iran.

.....

What should the Israelis have done instead? They should have treated Hezbollahland as a country, which it basically is, and attacked it. They should have treated Lebanon as a separate country, which it basically is, and left it alone. Mainstream Lebanese have no problem when Israel hammers Hezbollah in its little enclave. Somebody has to do it, and it cannot be them. If you want to embolden Lebanese to work with Israelis against Hezbollah, or at least move in to Hezbollah's bombed out positions, don't attack all of Lebanon.

Israel should not have bombed Central Beirut, which was almost monolithically anti-Hezbollah. They should not have bombed my old neighborhood, which was almost monolithically anti-Hezbollah. They should not have bombed the Maronite city of Jounieh, which was not merely anti-Hezbollah but also somewhat pro-Israel.

To underscore Totten's point, here's a small BBC item about a raid on the port of Abdeh, in the extreme north of Lebanon just 6 kloms south of the border with Syria. Yeah, I know, it's from the British Bullshit Company. Still...

Israel has extended its air campaign to northernmost Lebanon, killing at least 14 people, including nine soldiers, in the port of Abdeh near Tripoli.... The Israeli military said it had been targeting radar stations in Abdeh because they were used by Hezbollah to hit an Israeli ship on Friday, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Targeting Hizballah radar stations (do these mongoloid fuckers know how to operate radars?????) sounds like a good sport to me, but killing nine soldiers of a military the Israelis EXPECT to disarm Hizballah does not. Not content with Totten and the Beeb yet, I decided to peek at some Lebanese sites. Here's a snippet from Lebanese Political Journal, which proclaims it's the top-notch blog for Lebanese politics. At first glance, it didn't strike me as suffering from BDS or whatever other symptom of leftwing diseases:

A school in Tyre filled with refugees was bombed. The number of casualities is not specified.... The plastic factory in Tyre, the paper factory in Ouzai, and a soap factory have all be destroyed.

Finally, while wandering 'round the net I came across an explanation from Op-For, some kind of strategy page, which seems to offer a valid explanation for Israels strategy:

What we are witnessing in southern Lebanon is concurrent with actions designed to prep a battlefield for the insertion of ground forces. So far, Israel has relied on its dominance in sea and air forces to isolate Hezbollah, rather than focusing their brunt of their superior forces on actual enemy positions. By blockading the coast, neutralizing Beruit's airport, and damaging roads and bridges into and out of Lebanon, the IDF has cut off Hezbollah's supply routes by land, sea, and air, and blocked all lines of escape.

........

The end result is a battlespace that traps the now ill-equipped enemy force, the deal environment for Israel to crush Hezbollah forces. I think that in the coming days, we will see a sizable Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanon, a campaign designed to exploit the favorable conditions that Israel has created for itself. I have the feeling that once that invasion comes, Hezbollah's ability to launch rocket attacks into Israel proper will be severly reduced, if not eliminated.

Hm, that's one explanation indeed. However, I for one am reluctant to accept the idea of the IDF once again rolling into southern Lebanon. I rather tend to think that the inexperienced Olmert and Peretz (Israeli Defense Minister) felt that after the collapse of their Gaza strategy (Olmert was one of the architects of the 2005 Gaza pullout), be it due to Paleostinian Dumbness, they should show they're not the wussies their enemies seem to think they are. The very near future will tell if the IAF has just been softening up Lebanon for a ground offensive. However: whether poised to roll in, as Op-For claims, or lashing out wildly without knowing how best to respond, like I tend to think, still doesn't justify indiscreminate bombing.

Again, before accusing me of talking like a softy, don't forget it wouldn't be the first time Israel acts like a trigger-happy Rambo on steroids. In the 1967 Six-Day War the American Naval Monitoring ship USS Liberty was attacked first by Israeli jets, then by Israeli motor torpedo boats. The final tally was 34 US sailors dead and 174 wounded. Later on the Israeli military said it thought the Liberty was the Egyptian Navy vessel El-Quseir. To this day there's an awful controversy going on about the whole case, with on one side the Israelis sticking to their version - a tragic mistake - and on the other side the survivors of the attack, who claim it was deliberately done. The combined air and sea assault left the USS Liberty a smoldering wreck pocked with 800 rocket and torpedo holes, see pic, taken from the USS Liberty website. Personally, I hope and pray it was a mistake. I couldn't bear the thought it was not, and I fail to see what advantage it could have gotten the Israelis. But if it was a mistake, the case of the USS Liberty shows that in the Israeli Armed Forces it's sometimes shoot first, ask questions later.

I'm just a dumb Belgian taxpayer who had better done some more biz paperwork this evening, but if I'm permitted to give the IAF some advice it would be that in the broad area between carpet bombing and surgical strikes they should try to move more towards the latter.


MFBB.

P.S.: CDR Salamander, if you're out there - you are a naval guy. I'd be interested to hear your take on the Liberty affair.