HALL OF INSANE

I suppose US citizens’ attention is focused on the Katrina aftermath proper, whether it be the rescue efforts or the political storm gathering over the responsibility for the human and material loss after the levees broke.

Still, I’d like to point your attention to the way European MSM is generally covering the disaster and its aftermath. Not that I’m a sadomasochist or something. I don’t take some secret pleasure in exposing stuff that at first sight can only widen the chasm between Europe and America, as you know something that I deplore very much. No, I’m exposing a very tiny piece of this garbage so that you know what we Euros are fed on a daily basis, hoping it will offer an explanation as to why Europeans generally seem to dislike the USA. So here goes. The text and the cartoon below appeared in the leading Belgian newspaper De Standaard on Tuesday 6 September 2005. "De Standaard" is the leading Flemish newspaper and since Flanders has more inhabitants than Wallonia, it is also the leading Belgian newspaper. The cartoon is from Dutch "super"cartoonist RubenL, no connection with JohnL, God forbid, and its caption reads:






Nuff said, except that I wonder whether the bald fella is Cheney or Rove. It might well be the latter, you know. Eliminating the Dems’ powerbase in Louisiana using Katrina just reeks like Rove.


Oh well. The author of the piece is a certain Marti Waals, Project Coordinator for Memisa, which is a well-known (at least in Belgium) NGO offering health care in Third World countries, especially in Congo. The title is "Forget Darfur, over to New Orleans". Translation of the first paragraph:

I just come back from a mission to Darfur. But when I saw the TV-images of the ravage and misery inflicted by the Katrina hurricane in the south of the United States, I imagined myself to be in one of the crisis areas in the Third World. It is really unbelievable: the mightiest country on earth is apparently not able to offer its population the most elementary needs. Funds meant for raising and maintaining dykes were diverted towards the fight against terrorism. Even one week after the disaster hospitals don’t manage to cope with the stream of sick and wounded. Hungry and desperate people loot shops to get to food and drinkling water.

Well, that’s the prevailing message in a nutshell over here. I have heard this mantra repeated ad nauseum. Time and again the emphasis is laid on he perceived inability of the United States to help those struck by disaster. The gloating is unmistakable: here is the country that bullies its way through international politics and which now desperately needs help from the international community. Somehow, the underlying message is that IF ONLY the United States had been a Big Socialized Centrally Led Europe Clone, all the suffering would have been dealt with that more swiftly. Well, if that is true, we URGENTLY need much more socialized Europe Mr. Waals! Our Memisa dude appears to be confident that if one day disaster strikes here, our conglomerate of nanny states will take care of each and everyone (except, of course, of hateful racist xenophobic neonazi warmongers like, uh, myself) before you can say Bush took vacation, people faced starvation. Well, sorry dude:

BRUSSELS, Belgium — European officials conducted a simulation showing how Al Qaeda could kill 40,000 people and plunge the continent into chaos if a crude nuclear device were detonated outside NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Oh, I know, that Black Dawn simulation is just another ploy of scaremongers like Rover. Well, sorry to disappoint you again Marti:

After a warning by the chief of the Brussels fire brigade that his men would never be able to cope with an attack on more than one underground station, Véronique Paulus de Châtelet, the Governor of Brussels, confirmed on Tuesday that Brussels does not have an emergency plan in case of an attack by al-Qaeda or other likeminded criminal organisations.

I hope I never have to find out how my nanny state will take care of me in the event of an al-Katrina disaster.


Not content with mocking America for failing to help its own people, towards the end of his prose Mr. Waals sees fit to take a final swipe at the Bush Administration when he draws Darfur in his observations, although I fail to see what marauding janjaweed have to do with Katrina. The following is a translation of the last paragraph (not visible in the text):

During my last mission to Darfur I have seen a lot of desperation, but also a lot of hope. I have talked to homeless and refugees. Many of them dare not yet return home for fear of the attacks of the Janjaweed gangs. Those people will depend for a long time yet on American grain. This will last till that same America exerts sufficient political pressure to finally end this aggression.

Uh, sorry, mr. Waals? Can you pull your head out of your ass please?

In early July 2004, the US, on the grounds of genocide committed against Darfurians, wanted to have the UN Security Council declare a resolution imposing sanctions on Sudan if the violence in Darfur did not stop. At the time, there were an estimated 70,000 dead and 1,200,000 refugees. Speaking of political pressure, Frances Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier OPPOSED the US move, downplaying the disaster and calling what happened in Darfur a "civil war" instead:

"I firmly believe it is a civil war and as they are little villages of 30, 40, 50, there is nothing easier than for a few armed horsemen to burn things down, to kill the men and drive out the women,..."

In other words, can I please get back to my croissants? Subsequently, The US’s draft resolution was voted down by the UN, that paradigm of moral authority according to Mrs. Short. Aside from France, key opponents were the Arab World and The People’s Republic "it’s all about the oil!!!" of China.

By January 2005, there were an estimated 180,000 dead and 2 million refugees in Mr. Museliers "civil war". A UN report released in that same month STILL stopped short of calling the Darfur tragedy a genocide. Now, since the UN is the Global Moral Authority, why does Mr. Waals still think that the US should exert more political pressure to end this aggression??? Does Mr. Waals want the United States to go against the United Nations???


Sigh. Back to Katrina. The gloating did not remain confined to the media but extended to Europes leftist political scene - they are bedfellows anyway - with the most vicious remarks coming from Germany, where Chancellor Schroeder, during a televised debate with upcoming chancellor candidate Angela Merkel, found it necessary to boast that Germany, with its "stronger" state (as opposed to the "minimal" US state) deals far better with natural disasters than the US.

You read me well. There were a couple of floods this summer in Germany and Austria, the aftermath of which was indeed dealt with quite efficiently by relief teams. However, in one breath Schroeder equates the impact of the floods with those caused by Katrina. In the words of Ray D. from Davids Medienkritik:


"Katrina was simply so much larger in scope than recent German floods that to speak of them in the same breath is sheer absurdity. Yet Gerhard Schroeder did exactly that in a major, nationally televised election debate watched by well over 20 million German viewers. The Chancellor first pointed to "noticeable differences" in Germany's response to recent floods versus the US response to Hurricane Katrina, clearly implying that the German response was far better and that the "difference" in response justifies a large state."



Yo, that's Germany's size compared to Katrina's there. I wonder how Gerhard would have dealt with that. He'd probably have had to mobilize the Unions. And, about those floods: bad as they were, there were an estimated 11 people dead in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Don't want to know what Katrina's toll is. Still more Sauerkraut insanity here.

Good God. Why do I have to share precious European O2 and H2O with these clusterfuckers? Why??? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY??????????????????


MFBB

SLAP BY SLAP...

I thought this one was just too good.




From the inimitable Chris Muir of course. Btw, I am of the opinion that both Jan and Sam, but especially Sam, are looking incredibly sexy lately.

Serious now. The scale of the disaster in New Orleans and surroundings is baffling. So if you can spare a dime, please do so over here. Take your pick. If you still need a little prodding, you may want to check out this series of before and after photos. Via Townhall.


MFBB


UPDATE:

The Truth Laid Bear has a great initiative to raise bucks for the relief effort. Another illustration of the power of blogs. You are a Blog Aficionado, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this, and you can't claim it's for my beautiful eyes either. So then get off that lazy ass of yours and DONATE!!!


Me being just a nutty Belgian, I don't know that much about American charities. So, like I said, take your pick over here. Still not sure what organization to donate to, may I recommend then The American Red Cross? Hey, it's not just me! LGF's Charles Johnson endorsed it too! Follow the link just mentioned, ARC's Homepage is one of the first ones on the list. Wanna know where the Blogs' efforts stand? Check out Glenn Reynold's roundup.


OK, TTLB told MFBB to also include the Technorati Flood Aid Tag and since I'm a good boy, voilà: flood aid. Ditto for the Hurricane Katrina tag: hurricane katrina. U vraagt, wij draaien. One last thing: when you have wired your contribution, please don't be shy to register it here. Doen!



UPDATE II:


Come on people, add a few bucks. According to the BlogLeaderBoard, Downeastblog finds itself somewhere in the middle, with 140 US$ donated so far (1.24 am Western European Time). Interestingly, we're just ahead of Barcepundit, who happens to be a Spaniard on the same side of the fence as we, or so I'm told.

THE BRUSSELS JOURNAL.

For some time now I have wanted to shed some light on the recent emergence of a new Belgian rightwing group blog, called The Brussels Journal. Although I strongly suspect the main driving force behind the project are Dr. Paul Beliën, Flemish conservative writer and journalist, and Mr. Luc Van Braekel, Flemish Internet entrepreneur and Flanders’ top political blogger with his excellent LVB.net, The Brussels Journal also has a European dimension since among its contributors we notice such names as Elaib Harvey, Norman Barry and Carlo Stagnaro. The Brussels Journal's aim is probably best summed up by Mr. Beliën:

"I believe in being free, acquiring knowledge, and telling the truth."

The above quote from the legendary American journalist H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) sums it up pretty much. The Brussels Journal is a project set up by European journalists and writers to restore three values that are so lacking in the so-called "consensus-culture" of contemporary Europe: Freedom, the quest for Knowledge, and the Truth.
We defend freedom and, though we do not pretend to know the ultimate truth, we strive to acquire as much knowledge as possible by presenting facts and views that are hard to find in the "consensus-media" of Europe.

- Dr. Paul Beliën

Personally, I think that the birth of TBJ is another sign of the emergence of a significant and ideologically "pure" European Right. For decades, Europes "Right" was such in name only, its being "right" most of the time not amounting to anything more than not exactly being "left" – a matter of colours if you will. Indeed, when one looks at the behaviour of the French "Right" for example, it’s sometimes hard to disitnguish their actions from the French "Left", think French protectionism and subsidies for ailing industries par example. The contributors of TBJ on the other hand offer European Rightism with an ideological backing, and as such this new group blog reminds me of IntellectualConservative.com. In the discourse they use one finds such concepts as the fair tax and even the flat tax, as well as an unashamed defense of individualism, self-accountability and free markets. In socialist dominated Europe, with its at best "mixed" markets, the existence of a group of independent thinkers and writers like TBJ is therefore a hopeful sign that the pendulum has taken a definitive swing to the other side. If we add also the fact that some – not all – of TBJ’s contributors are not ashamed to "out" themselves as Christians, or at least don’t bother to profile themselves as ethically conservative, we may indeed see the beginning of a European Rightwingism modelled after its American counterpart. Here’s hoping for the future!


While I am at it, may I point you to their regular postings which up until now invariably offer thorough and well-balanced insight and analysis. One of the last posts, by the hand of said Mr. Beliën, who is also a WSJ contributor, reports on a speech by Mr. Andrei Illarionov, Chief Economic Advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, while at a Mont Pélerin Society summit in Reykjavik, Iceland (The Mont Pélerin Society is a Hayekian think tank). I guess that over the past five or so years, most of those interested in Russian matters have watched economical and political developments in the former USSR with considerable anxiety, given Mr. Putins clampdown on corporate Russia as well as his apparent nostalgy for the Communist era and his governments actions against political dissidents and too indepenent media platforms. Well, I must say that Mr. Illarionovs speech more or less baffled me. Some excerpts:



*

Last week Illarionov pointed out that in the 1990s, when oil prices were relatively low, Russia lowered taxation (adopting a flat tax of 13%), privatised its oil industry, stimulated economic competition and attracted foreign investments. Since 1999 oil prices have been on the rise, multiplying five-fold. With the high oil prices "the Dutch disease" came to Russia, said Illarionov. Money has flown in, leading to a high money supply, high inflation and a rise of the ruble.

"An exacerbation of the Dutch disease promotes corruption, impairs the quality of policies, including those of an economic nature, and demoralizes essential federal and public institutions. The flow of revenues not earned through the hard labour of the government or economic entities has a degrading effect, thus encouraging the emergence of a ‘rent-oriented’ government and a ‘rent-oriented’ society. As a result, the idea of business through creative endeavors gives way to an aggressive ideology of redistribution."

Russia soon became a "petro-economy" where the government strengthened centralisation and began to implement a so-called "industrial policy" with a sharply increased taxation of oil companies, an increase in government spending and an expansion of government companies and the non-market sector. The "petro-economy" led to the "petro-state" with what Illarionov calls the "Venezuelan Disease Syndrome." Venezuela went through an unprecedented economic growth until the late 1950s when its per capita incomes and consumption levels almost equalled those of the U.S. and Switzerland. However, after the authorities nationalized the oil industry and other key sectors of the economy in 1957 the country entered a decline that continues today.

"The Venezuelan disease [consists of] a policy based on increasingly stringent tax and bureaucratic controls over finances (above all, in the oil and gas industry), nationalization of the largest and most successful corporations, the continued government monopoly over infrastructure facilities, a ban on private ownership of mineral resources, exclusion of foreign investors from the development of the most promising natural resource deposits, and protectionism that creeps into all branches of the economy."

Today the Russian authorities are reaffirming their stranglehold on the "commanding heights of the economy." They have effectively nationalized the oil industry (Yukos). They intervene in the other economic sectors. The bureaucracy and the military are on the rise and the rule of law is dwindling. This has affected young Russians who are currently seeking career opportunities as government administrators rather than entrepreneurs.

Illarionov’s speech was, as Johan Norberg noted, "informative and powerful," but he was so outspoken that he left his audience baffled, wondering whether they had really been listening to the man who since 2000 has been Putin’s senior economic adviser. Some of the MPS members put forward the theory that the 44-year old economist, a self-declared fan of libertarian writer Ayn Rand, has been given permission by his boss to say these things so that the latter can show the world that he tolerates criticism and freedom of speech, even at the highest level. That explanation looks far-fetched to me, but as Mr. Putin is the former head of the KGB one never knows.


*

Johan Norberg is, as some of you may know, the driving force behind the Swedish pro free market think tank Timbro. You may want to bookmark that site. More on Mr. Illarionovs views here.


MFBB

Cindy Sheehan is coming to Brunswick ME.

Tom, it's time to saddle up. You drive the Expedition through the masses of leftist freaks, I'll hang out the window and deploy the McDonald's shake to Sheehan's skull.

MFBB’s ARTSY FARTSY CORNER (1)

On the evening of August 6, my wife and I went to the Château de Beloeil for the yearly classical music festival "La Nuit Musicale de Beloeil", which is held in the Château’s park. The castle, main attraction of the village of Beloeil in Hainaut province, Belgium, really is an impressive setting for such an event, since its park is designed as a frame around a disproportionately large water basin stretching hundreds of meters to the left of the chateaus main façade. This basin is called the Bassin de Neptune, and as you walk around it and enjoy the performances of the dozen or so orchestras, ensembles and choirs, your eyes are inevitably drawn towards the majestic château across the lake. Since medieval times it has been the property of the Princes of Ligne, and over the centuries it saw many transformations, from 14th-century fortress to château de plaisance by 1780.


Every year the works of an important composer are highlighted, and only over the past years Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi and Bach "passed the revue". This year it was Tchaikovski’s turn. Piotr Ilich Tchaikovski was born on 27 May 1840 in Votkinski in the Ural mountains to a wealthy middle-class family. His father was a mining director, his mother idolized French culture. In 1848 the family moved to Saint-Petersburg, where young Piotr became a first-class clerk in the Ministry of Justice. Only in 1863 he enters the Conservatory, where Rubinstein is one of his tutors. It was Rubinstein who appointed Tchaikovsi, on graduating in 1865, as Principal for Harmony at the Moscow Conservatory, a post he held until 1877. It was during these years that he wrote his 1st Piano Concert and the ballet The Swan Lake. More importantly, between 1876 and 1890 Tchaikovsky yearly received an amount of 6,000 rubles from an eccentric widow by the name of Nadezhda Von Meck, on the condition that they never meet. His financial needs thus alleviated, he dedicated his Fourth Symphony to her. In the eighties Tchaikovski spends a lot of time in Italy, where he will compose some masterpieces, a.o. the Italian Capriccio and the Opera The Queen of Shades. In 1891, on a Tour in the United States, he performs in Carnegie Hall, where he receives a warm welcome. In 1892, back in Russia, the famous The Nutcracker sees the light. In 1893 he composes his 6th symphony, better known as La Symphonie Pathétique. It will be his last. During a cholera epidemy he carelessly drinks a glass of unboiled water and almost immediately falls gravely ill. Despit heroic efforts of three doctors, Tchaikovski dies on 6 November 1893.


As my wife and I strolled through the park, occasionally sitting down to listen to a choir here, attending a performance from a chamber orchestra there, I was musing how much I liked summer, not so much for the weather, since in Belgium you are apt to have cool and wet Julys every lustrum or so, but because it is the season where you can almost literally hop daily from event to event. Both in Flanders and Wallonia you can’t miss the ads for numerous musical, historical or architectural gatherings, often in inspiring locations such as châteaux, abbey ruins, medieval town centers etc. etc. Now, while I don’t consider myself a classical music freak nor a culture yuppie, every year I like to partake in some of these events, if only because a change of perspective and a flight from boring (work) routine refreshes the mind and liftens the mood.

And so, this year we got acquainted some more to the works of Piotr Ilich Tchaikovski, who essentially was a tragical artist. You wouldn’t say so from his music, which does not strike you as fraught with Weltschmerz, although a certain melancholy is never far away. Not contributing to any gloomy mood whatsoever was the continuous lightshow being projected onto the castles wing facing the lake, and, together with countless torches and fires, as well as numerous opportunities for light snacks and beverages, made for a jolly good atmosphere among the 16,000 guests.


If you think you are not exactly familiar with Tchaikovskis work, you might want to check out this link, where you can listen to mp3 samples as well as buy entire pieces from the master. No matter how much you may consider yourself to be at odds with classical music, chances are that you recognize I Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso, from Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Opus 23, which you can listen at here, or Scene (Act II) – The Swan Lake, over here. I have another sample here, it’s called March of the Slaves, and while the sample itself is drawn from early on in the piece, it being rather a warming-up excerpt, I assure you that the finale of this symphony, played out extremely loud and combined with the most magnificent fireworks you’ve ever seen, would make your skin crawl. At midnight, as I was watching the plethora of fusées exploding over our heads, the myriad of colors reflecting magnificently in the mirror that was the Bassin de Neptune, and with the March of Slaves thundering over the black water, I was thinking that a country that has spawn a composer and music like that is a mighty, mighty country.


MFBB

Hey, look who's famous!

It's about damned time...

FRANKLY MY DEAR, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN.

Heh.


"A 17-year old boy was killed in an explosion in an apartment building in Oslo's northeast ward of Grorud Wednesday evening. His 19-year old brother was seriously injured, in what was apparently was an attempt at making explosives. The police believe they intended to use the explosives to blow up Oslo Transit's ticket machines, NRK reports."


What that Norwegian journal does not tell you is that the fella actually is having sex right now with 72 virgins, an orgy his brother apparently missed by, uh, a wh*re’s hair: both are Norwegians from Syrian descent and I don't think they were Wiccans. The "friend" was from Musharraf Country and not an animist. The two girls were purely Norwegian though (I must admit MFBBLogic (TM) has never quite been able to jibe with women’s logic).

Anyway, according to my fellow Nazi Blogger, uh, brother-in-arms Hoegin in Norway, the fella was convicted last year for 17 facts, a.o. a violent robbery of a supermarket in Romsas. Not gonna elaborate on his further exploits, it’s too bad.


Oh well. It’s all the fault of our western so-sai-ty man. All the fault of our western so-sai-ty.

For this occasion, MFBB stole the I-Don’t-Give-A-F*ck-O-Meter from Dog of Flanders.


MFBB


P.S.: nadineken, if you ar reading this, I have not forgotten about Père Ubu. Just haven't been able to upload the pic you sent me. Having trouble with Ipswitch Uploader from this puter. Have to do it from another one. The GiveAF*ckOMeter above only shows because I'm stealing bandwidth.

"The United Nations bankrolled the production of thousands of banners, bumper stickers, mugs, and T-shirts bearing the slogan “Today Gaza and Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem,” which have been widely distributed to Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip, according to a U.N. official."

This is exactly why I am glad John Bolton is our ambassador to the U.N. I hope he opens the 55 Gallon drum of Whup-ass on these clowns.

Iyad Jamal Al-Din.

This is a name you will probably hear more of in the future. He is a true Iraqi patriot and a hell of a brave man. I sincerely hope he makes a difference in Iraq.

Hat tip to Player Two.

WALL OF HONOR AND RESPECT. WALL OF HONOR AND RESPECT. WALL OF HONOR AND RESPECT. WALL OF HONOR...

Belgian/Flemish top blogger Luc Van Braekel has a post on the phenomenon of the so-called Freeway Bloggers. Dunno to what extent this is a hype in the States, but apparently it was sufficient for the UK’s The Brrrrrrooooooooooaaaaaaaarrrrrrkkkkk Independent to waste trees on:

Feel like getting something off your chest against that iniquitous warmonger in the White House? Well, you can write a letter to your newspaper, tune in to liberal talk radio, or click to a reliably leftie website. Alternatively, you can take a drive on the highways of the United States.

These are the domain of the freeway bloggers, a breed that have invented a tangible concrete and tarmac version of the internet to make their feelings known about George Bush. The messages, posted from overpasses, bridges and verges, are short, pithy and very, very rude.

I took a short glance at those freeway boggers' website, where I found ethereal wisdom like:

a.) Sample 1: chimpeach

b.) Sample 2: If we had gone after Bin Laden the way we did Bill Clinton, he’d be dead by now.

c.) Sample 3: Rumsfailed

d.) Sample 4: We refuse to fight in a war started by men who refused to fight in a war.

But the best one was:

e.) Sample 5: Nobody died when Clinton lied.



Riiiiiiiiiight. Nobody diiiiiiiiiiiied. Here is an MFBB sample you morons:

Twin bombings of us embassies in kenya and tanzania crumpled buildings and blew apart buses Friday, August 7, 1998, trapping people under piles of concrete and twisted steel that rescuers cleared with backhoes, torches and their bare hands. At least 81 were killed and more than 1,700 injured, officials said. The blasts occurred 450 miles from each other but just minutes apart, turning busy streets in the two African capitals into bloody zones of terror.

Now, I can relate you know. Since the overwhelming majority of the dead in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam were blackies, it may be that the genius who thought out that catchy oneliner did not think it worthwile to count them in. After all, for lefties Body Counts only start to matter when the corpses’ value has been significantly enhanced by Speer, Barnes or Magnus bullets. It's all about Corpsorate America, don't you know.

Anyway, the Fwemish newspaper De Morgen, lefty nitwits pur sang, copyrighted the The Indypendent article in question, and that’s how LVB found out about it. LVB being a blogger pur sang, he seems to feel kind of offended at the thought of them graffitying clusterf*ckers being called "bloggers":

I wonder why the people who post these signs are called "bloggers". A slogan is not a blogpost, nor is a blogpost a slogan. To call these protesters "freeway bloggers" is an insult to bloggers.

I agree. Then follows an anecdote about his November 2004 journey in the States, during which he was apparently surprised by the many "walls of honor and respect":

What struck me during my visit to the US in November of last year, were the numerous "walls of honor and respect", with pictures from and dedications to servicemen stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a picture I took in the Powerhouse Building in Kingman, Arizona, the building where the Historic Route 66 Museum is located.

Many of these walls of honor and respect exist, though they are not always called that. To my surprise, googling for the term "wall of honor and respect" does not give any hits, while "freeway bloggers" gives 535 hits at this moment. Let's change that. The time has come for bloggers to post images of these walls of honor and respect. Please mention the term "wall of honor and respect" in your post, so that we can trace them through Google.

Roger that Luc. I’m sure you don’t mind that I once again, and not for the last time, steal a pic from your site. I certainly don’t. So here goes, the Wall of Honor and Respect as photographed by LVB:






And don’t forget to read the Sunday, August 14 installment of The Mesopotamian, "Pajama War Games". A nice scenario for a Freeway to Hell, as advocated by the Road Bloggers.


MFBB

So, it seems the Democrats might be taking the lead on stopping illegal immigration. This is a good thing, even if it's just for show. The GOP is alseep at the switch on this one. Another bonus to the Democrats getting tough on this issue is that it opens the door for Republicans to do the same without losing hispanic votes. Good for Bill Richardson.

Mohammed over at Iraq the Model has wirtten an outstanding and very touching open letter to Cindy Sheehan, the mother holding an anti-war vigil outside President Bush's Crawford, TX ranch.

Your local FairTax pimp is back with a couple of mp3 files of Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity talking about the FairTax. This isn't a bad little cliff notes version of the plan for those of you who are unfamiliar with it. Boortz's FairTax book is #1 in the NYT non fiction best seller list this week, by the way. This might actually get some attention...

http://boortz.com/mp3/archive/080205_boortzhannity_1.mp3

http://boortz.com/mp3/archive/080205_boortzhannity_2.mp3

AFGHAN ELECTIONS, BELGIAN F-16'S, AND THE TURN OF THE TIDE IN EUROPE?

For understandable reasons, the nationbuilding effort in Afghanistan has always been, and will continue to be, a sideshow to the big events in Iraq. Somehow, what mattered most in Afghanistan was first dislodging the Taliban and only after that introducing Rule of Law and democracy, while in Iraq it was/is basically the other way round. Saddam was a spent force anyway, and no matter how much his WMD threat mattered, Iraq was first and foremost all the trial ground for the grand scheme of rendering the region harmless by empowering its people and hoping they get prosperous in the process.

That said, somehow, just below the radar, the very same process as the one in Iraq DOES continue in Afghanistan, albeit in a much less publicized way – and, admitted, not always in the way we westerners would like it to be. There was the country’s new constitution, adopted January 4, 2004. Taliban Lite for some perhaps, but somehow still a step forward. Then there was the country’s first-ever democratic presidential election on October 9, 2004, from which Hamid Karzai, with a 55.4% support, emerged as the clear winner. And soon, come September 17/18, 2005, the country is going to hold its first ever democratic Parliamentary Elections, in which 249 representatives for the Wolesi Jirga, or House of the People, are to be elected for a five-year term. This Wolesi Jirga tasks sound very familiar to western ears:

* Consider, debate and approve or reject draft laws
* Approve a law with a two-thirds majority
* Approve or reject Government proposals to obtain or grant loans
* Make decisions on the annual state budget and state-funded development programs
* Question Government ministers
* Set up special commissions to review and investigate the actions of the Government
* Approve or reject individuals appointed by the President to Government positions

At least 68 seats in the Wolesi Jirga have been reserved for women, in accordance with the constitutional provision that at least two women, on average, are elected from each province. If a province is allocated only two seats, one seat will be reserved for a woman.

Direct elections will be held too to form the Provincial Councils in all provinces. Every province must have its own democratically elected council of 9 to 29 members.

As for the Meshrano Jirga, or House of the Elders, (the "Senate"), its 102 members fall apart in three categories. 34 will be appointed to four-year terms (indirectly elected, so to say) by the Provincial Councils, and 34 to three-year terms by the District Councils. The remaining 34 Meshrano Jirga members will be appointed directly, for five-year terms, by the Afghan President himself.

I admit that there seem to be a lot of Islamist loopholes in the Afghan Constitution and in the conditions set for participating in the elections, mostly about Islam being the sole religion in Afghanistan and citizens being able to do anything they want and profess what religion they like as long as it is not contradictory to the principles of the Muslim Holy Book, the Quran... Personally, I don’t believe anymore that Islam is compatible with democracy, I even wonder now how I ever could have believed that. There’s not a single country on the face of the Earth that has Islam as its main religion and is as prosperous, free and democratic as your average western democracy. Turkey e.g., has had 80 years the time and were it not for its military, it would long since have become a theocracy again.

What I do believe however is that it is possible to nudge the Muslim countries to some condition where they can create for themselves a relative sate of prosperity to the extent that no significant pool of jihadists has a chance of forming. Islam is on this planet to stay, at least as long as illiteracy, poverty and inequality exist, and since eradicating it off the face of the planet is no option, the best thing the West can do is help those countries where it is the main religion towards a state where its citizens are rich enough to not consider anymore blowing themselves and others up to protest their self-inflicted misery.


Now, I still regret Belgium did not participate in the Iraq Operation. In my opinion, we could, and should, have sent a light brigade just like the Dutch did. However, I somehow am glad that at least in the Afghanistan theatre my country takes some responsibility towards attaining said goals, see above, as well as doing at the same part something useful in the WOT. It does so within the framework of ISAF, which stands for International Security Assistance Force", and ISAF's aim is to provide the nascent Afghan nation and its government with the military backbone to impose its rule in the farthest corners of its vast territory (ISAF’s Mission Statement can be found here). Now, since ISAF is also a UN-mandated operation (yeah, urgh, I know. Heard it too about benon Sevan and Boutros Ghali's family member), one finds many non-NATO countries contributing troops to its military chapter, although ISAF is run under NATO auspices. In fact, ISAF counts among its 8,000 troops soldiers from as many as 36 nations. Current ISAF commander is the Italian Lt. Gen. Mauro del Vecchio.

A while back, Belgium had some 630 troops on the ground, composed chiefly of a 400-strong battalion guarding Kabul International Airport (KAIA) and a 200-strong Paratroop Company as part of the KMNB (Kabul Multinational Brigade). In the meantime, the Para Company has been withdrawn and the only ground troops are still the KAIA Guard unit, now consisting mainly of soldiers from the 1st Regiment Jagers te Paard, a recce unit based in Leopoldsburg. However, there is also air support, since the Belgian Air Force recently dispatched four F-16AM fighter-bombers to Kabul, under the code name "Eastern Eagle".



This happened at the request of General James Jones, NATO Commander in Europe (SACEUR), and in fact the Belgian government took the decision already on 22 April 2005, at which time there was, since April 1, already a detachment of four Dutch F-16s in Afghanistan. The actual ferry flights took place first on July 6, with the F-16s from the 2nd Fighter Wing departing from Florennes AFB towards the Turkish Base of Acinki, and then on July 12 with in-air refuelling originally scheduled over the Black Sea by a Dutch KDC 10 tanker plane, in the event however it was a French Armée de l’Air C 135 FR (this because the Dutch tanker was at… Aruba, where it assisted in the refuelling of three Dutch F-16s deployed to map and scan the area in search of the missing American teenager Natalee Holloway!). Anyway, the four F-16s arrived at KAIA after a flight of 4 hours on July 12.



Initially, they are meant to stay six months including the Afghan parliamentary elections, but this period could be extended should the need for continued air support arise. Basically, the fighters are meant to lend support to ISAF ground troops in their effort to establish and support government control in Western Afghanistan (the so-called Phase 2). But additionally, the presence of the jets is supposed to have a stabilizing effect during the crucial parliamentary elections on 17 and 18 September. In fact, the Dutch and Belgian F-16s cooperate together in an ad hoc unit, the so-called EEAW (Expeditionary Air Wing). The principal tasks of this wing are "CAS" (Close Air Support), "QRF" (Quick Reaction Force) and "REC" (Reconnaissance) flights. The Netherlands and Belgium have some kind of tradition when it comes to military cooperation. Within the NATO framework e.g., Dutch and Belgian Navy vessels often operate in a joint flotilla.

The F-16s standard equipment to carry out their mission above Afghanistan will consist of a Lantirn Targeting Pod, detection and protection systems, a 20 mm Vulcan cannon, 2 external fuel tanks of 300 gallons each, two AIM-9L Sidewinders and two GBU-12 laser-guided bombs.

Somewhere in October, the Belgian pilots drawn from the Florennes-based 2nd Fighter Wing – Walloons, from the province of Namur – will be replaced by 10th Fighter Wing pilots from Kleine Brogel AFB, in the Flemish province of Limburg. So first Walloons, then Flemings. Thus we both do our thing, however little it may be. Sometimes I wish this sharing of responsibility transcended to more terrains o’er here in "good ole" Belgium. There’s been quite some tensions earlier this year between our two communities; maybe you somewhere picked up the dreaded BHV-acronym, which stands for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. Not gonna elaborate now, it ain’t the place. Also, way too complex to explain in a couple of paragraphs to foreigners. Suffice to say we Flemings got screwed again, unfortunately.




Okay. Back to topic. I said "however little it may be" because, after all, four planes, if you don’t count the one 15th Transport Wing Hercules, ain’t that much. Still there’s more to this deployment than it would seem at first. Not one year ago, in late 2004, an operation like "Eastern Eagle" would have been unthinkable in Belgium – let alone in, say, late 2002 at the time of the anti-racism conference in Durban SA, where Robert Mugabe was hailed and the States vilified. Methinks just over the past year Euro states have swallowed a huge dose of reality pills. On November 15, 2004, the EU3 (France, Germany and the UK) signed an agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran aimed at guaranteeing that country stops its pursuit of weapons-grade uranium in exchange for economic incentives. Well, on Monday, August 8, the Iranians blew the agreement and resumed processing uranium. What else do you expect from a country where 40,000 human time bombs are supposedly ready to selfdetonate for jihad and whose president-elect Ahmadinejad on July 25 said "that the Islamic Revolution is not restricted to a particular space or time and will conquer all the mountain tops in the world"?

One year ago, eurocrats could still delude themselves the Madrid bombings were an isolated case. Since then, not only did they learn that in fact, even after the Spanish withdrawal from Iraq, follow-up attacks in Spain were scheduled, but also that the Islamic terrorists are, for the most part, homegrown, and that they enjoy significant support from their less sassy co-religionists. With skyrocketing immigrant democgraphics that's a hell of a prospect.

Today, Europe is starting to sing a different tune. If the rampant anti-Americanism in Europes MSM and among its leftist elites is not dead yet, it however seems to be petering out into rearguard actions against a new realism setting in. Today, radical French Imams are sans pardon put on a plane back to the shitholes they came from. Londons Metropolitan Police does apologize for the killing of the hapless but foolish Jean Charles de Menezes – but it dryly notes that "unfortunately" and due to the circumstances more incidents like that are likely to happen, get used to it if you please - and it keeps sending its bobbies with submachineguns on the streets.

The deployment of the Belgian F-16s must in my opinion also be seen in this light. The realizaton has dawned on the European leadership that urgent measures are to be taken to neutralize the only "root cause" that matters today – the inability of the Muslim World to offer its subjects a decent standard of living. Two years after OIF, Europe concludes that it better help the United States in implementing its democratization scheme for the Islamic world, since it appears to be the only strategic tool to counter the deadly influence of a poisonous ideology bent on imposing its disastrous rule on the Old Continent, and, by extension, the whole Western World.

MFBB

(all photos via Belgian Armed Forces website and Dirk Geerts)

In these dark times, a glimmer of hope.

Our local "newspaper," The Times Record, has chosen to add Thomas Sowell to its roster of syndicated columnists. His presence in this liberal propaganda rag not worthy of wrapping fish in is a welcome surprise. Has anyone checked the temperature in hell lately?

Radical Moderates

This is coming straight off the cuff while I'm working, but I had to get it out. The situation in Iraq has gotten me thinking about possible solutions to the issue. Well all know that the Iraqis need to take control of their own country for this all to work, but the question remains why that doesn't seem to be happening. I won't get into all the historic and cultural reasons for this, as I will quickly stray out of my league, but one thing strikes me that's missing in this equation that seems essential to a thriving, democratic Iraq. This missing element is a class of moderate muslims that truly understand what's at stake, and are willing to go to the same lengths, if not further, that the terrorists are to gain control of their country. We can talk all day about what's civilized, what's acceptable, etc, but this sort of thing doesn't happen by sitting around talking and hoping it goes away, or relying on a big brother (the U.S.) to take care of things for you. You have to have a dedicated force of people from within who are willing to be absolutely ruthless in their pursuit of the jihadists. They have to be willing to out intimidate, out fight, and out murder these scumbags at every turn. The jihadists have to live in fear of them, or all is lost.

I don't care about all this bullshit about "becoming one of them" or "stooping to their level". If you're not willing to sacrifice as much as your enemy, you are bound to lose. There isn't an independent democratic society anywhere that can't trace it's roots back to a group of radicals who were willing to take things to a level beyond what their enemies could tolerate in order to secure their freedom. If this group doesn't emerge in Iraq soon, all will be lost.

IN MEMORIAM STEVEN VINCENT



Steven Vincent is dead. Dunno if you check sometimes for new on-the-spot bloggers in Iraq, but in recent months a spate of newcomers caught my eye, a.o. Michael Yon, blogging from Mosul, Sgt. Missick with his blog A Line in the Sand and… Steven Vincent, whose blog In the Red Zone dealt mostly with his Basra experiences. Well, Steven was killed yesterday, Tuesday August 2. He was abducted at gunpoint in the Ashar neighborhood of Basra, together with his female interpreter Mrs. Tiays, and his body was found on a nearby spot shortly after, showing multiple gunshot wounds. Mr. Tiays was shot in the chest but is being treated in a hospital. She is in critical condition.

During the short time I got to know Mr. Vincents blog I nevertheless was impressed by his vivid writing style and ability to paint a situation as if you were there. I especially recall his report on a visit in a British Army Landrover to an Iraqi Border Fort somewhere east of Basra. Basra seems to have been the place he was irresistibly drawn to, he was writing a book about it, and his numerous blog accounts picture a telling tale of a city where – let’s face it – corruption and rising religious interference threaten to destabilize reconstruction.

It now seems Vincents criticism of the disastrous impact of strictly religious Islamic groups on Basran society may have cost him his life. He was killed days after a critical piece of him appeared in the New York Times. I don’t have the link to that, but below is one to his latest (and alas, last) contribution to National Review. Steven was not shy to calling a spade a spade and had no good word for, a.o., SCIRI’s interference in Basra politics (e.g. their appointing of religious zealots in technical capacities over the heads of competent engineers) as well as the infiltration of SCIRI and Mehdi Army puppets in Basra Police.

On again, off again...

BASRA, IRAQ — In the middle of an interview with Sheik Abdul al-Baghdali, an American-hating supporter of Moqtada al-Sadr, the lights in his office suddenly went out. "This is what your country has done to Iraq," he snorted, "stolen its electricity." On his pumpkin-sized face was the insufferable smirk of a man who knows — right or wrong — he has you beat in an argument.

....

Save a prayer for this brave man and fellow blogger. Steven Vincent was a New Yorker, and I think it is only fitting that the last words in this post should be his:

"I stood that morning on the roof of my building in lower Manhattan and watched United Airlines Flight 175 strike the south tower of the World Trade Center. At that moment, I realized my country was at war -- because of the 1993 attack on the Trade Center, I figured our enemy was Islamic terrorism -- and I wanted to do my part in the conflict. I'm too old to enlist in the armed services, so I decided to put my writing talents to use."

Steven Vincent, December 2004, interview with Frontpage Magazine


MFBB

A TALE OF TWO JOHNS...

George, I love you!

John, luvya too!

MFBB

Have you ordered your advance copy yet?

This is currently #1 on Amazon's non fiction list; which bodes well for putting the spotlight on tax reform.