BLACK ALLIES.

While making a nuisance of myself over at Atlas Shrugs I stumbled on a great photo over there.




But first...


I was wrong. Five months ago, I predicted that Barack Obama "would be toast in three months". Well, I think we can all agree that was not exactly my smartest remark on these pages. As a matter of fact, while I claim to have, over the past five years, provided fairly good political forecasts with regards to "my native Europe", I must admit that all my predictions regarding the US Presidential elections could not have been farther from the truth. I was sure McCain was a spent force - he's the one who months ago already secured the Republican nomination. I was sure Romney would be the Republican frontrunner - despite a promising start, he dropped out early. And I was sure Obama would be a doner by now - but it looks more and more as if he will become the Democratic nominee.

While my predictions regarding the fight leading up to the 2008 elections may have been dead wrong, I still stand by my assessment of the democratic party's black candidate. An assessment I almost instantly formed back in 2004, when I first heard of the man - more precisely, after that "famous" Audacity of Hope speech. And an assessment which has not been altered since, to the contrary. Senator Barack Obama is, in my view, not only an airhead - he's a dangerous airhead. I am by far not the only one who thinks so, but I was surprised to read a piece last week in which the author, black himself, explains his likewise unfavorable view far more clearer than I could ever have done. Regular reader and commenter Mark/TC linked to a great piece by that grand seigneur of the Black Intellectual Right, Dr. Thomas Sowell. Here is a guy who will probably not see an endorsement from the NAACP anytime soon:

Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits — one hit away from the 3,000-hit landmark — which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach.

Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner’s 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top. The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.

What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black president of the United States.

No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached. Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a president of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.

There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever, and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president — especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.

Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults.

Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things — using the mantra of “change” endlessly — the cold fact is that virtually everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s. Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive, and subsidizing those who are not — all this is a re-run of the 1960s. We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation, and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances, and hamstringing the police. Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes — including the media magic of meetings between heads of state — was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history. Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it...

As I have stated on these pages before, this is not a racist site. We do not oppose a Black becoming President of the United States. But when that day comes, it should be someone of great intellectual and moral stature, someone who is steadfast in his opinions and cautious but decisive in his actions, and someone who is a great manager of people. Plus, it wouldn't hurt if he had a certain gravitas and an aura of statemanship around him. In my opinion, Senator Obama has nothing of this all. And the environment in which he was bred - which produced him, so to say, is the one of the endlessly repeated lies in spite of all the evidence. Back in the sixties or even the seventies, less critical people could still be forgiven for buying the self-flagellating, self-marginalizing rhetoric of the Left. Today, there is no excuse anymore to offer the wrong reasons for the obvious problems of the black community, which deserves far better than the condescending, quintessentially racist-in-itself attitudes of liberals. No more affirmative action, but Self-Empowerment. No more blaming on the others, but introspection. No more lax or autodestructive lifestyles, but sound conservative family values. No more teen pregnancies, but math courses. And no more being content with the crumbles of welfare agencies, but making big money with your own business. THAT is the path the Black Community should follow, and not the dead ender of a spoiled brat groomed to be a poster boy for an ideology which failed decades ago.

Dr. Thomas Sowell's landmark will be reached some day. Some day, possibly (probably?) not too far in the future, that hit will be achieved. But only a hit coming from this direction will make it an event worth to be remembered. The National Black Republican Association. In the other case, "a scratch hit" will probably prove to be the nicest of euphemisms.


MFBB.

BELGIAN NAVY 101.

On April 2, 2008 the Belgian Navy officially acquired a new frigate, which it purchased from the Dutch Navy. The latter, for a small country like The Netherlands actually a very fine force, is currently building some smaller corvettes to replace several of the (relatively) unwieldy vessels. The frigate, formerly Hr.Ms. Willem Van Der Zaan (Hr.Ms. = Hare Majesteit, Her Majesty, the Dutch have a Queen. Note by MFBB), was christened F931 Louise Marie, after the first Belgian Queen. It sister ship, the F930 Leopold I, named after Belgium's first king, was commissioned in 2007 already. Both frigates belong to the so-called Karel Doorman Class, named after Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman who died in the Battle of the Java Sea, February 27, 1942, one of those early naval battles which went so disastrously wrong for the Allies. Although he could have saved himself Doorman preferred to go down with his flagship, the light cruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter. Rear Admiral Shoji Nishimura's fleet suffered only negligible losses, the combined American-British-Dutch-Australian force was about decimated. Among the victims was the British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, veteran of the 1939 Battle of the Rio de la Plata.

Both the Leopold I and the Louise-Marie (I know, especially the latter name sucks, but unlike the Dutch we Belgians are a bit short on famous admirals) are so-called M (Multipurpose) frigates, which means that they were specifically designed to deal with a variety of combat situations, be it surface warfare, aerial defense, or fighting submarines. To some degree stealth techniques were used in the design, and a great deal of the machinery is fully automated, e.g. under normal circumstances the engine room is unmanned, with only one technician monitoring everything via a number of displays.




Never having had a great naval tradition, Belgium's Navy has always been a neglected service. The heaviest "fighting" vessels Belgium had were an old cruiser bought from the French, the D'Entrecasteaux, which saw briefly service in the interbellum, and the gunboat Artevelde, which the Kriegsmarine actually equipped as such when the almost completed ship was captured in 1940 on the Cockerill shipyard in Antwerp. After literally decades of negligence, the commissioning of today's frigates is therefore something of an anticlimax since we never had anything remotely comparable. Overall measures are still modest, with a total length of 123.72 metres and a width of 14.37 meters. The draught is 6.2 meters, and water displacement is 3.328 tonnes. But it's the armament which is pretty impressive. Surface targets are engaged with RGM-84 Harpoon missiles, torpedoes, or the OTO Melara fast-firing 76mm gun. Aerial targets are dealt with using NATO Sea Sparrow missiles or also the OTO Melara gun. The machinery consists of two Stork-Werkspoor diesels developing 9.790 HP together, and two Rolls Royce Spey 1A gas turbines of 33.800 HP (also combined). Maximum speed is 30 knots, using the turbines. When the diesels are engaged, speed is limited to 21 knots. The F-930 and F-931 each have a crew of 145, consisting of 15 officers, 70 NCO's and 60 sailors.




The Leopold I and the Louise-Marie replace the last two remaining Wielingen class frigates, designed and built (with Dutch advice) at the Boelwerf in Temse, now defunct, and the Cockerill shipyard in Antwerp. At the height of the Cold War the Belgian Navy had four of them, namely the F-910 Wielingen, the F-911 Westdiep, the F-912 Wandelaar and the F-913 Westhinder. The latter was scrapped in 1993 following defense cuts. The remaining three were one after another sold to Bulgaria, which in this manner acquired its first NATO compliant warships. The F-912 in 2004, and the F-910 and F-911 last year (naval buffs may be interested to know that the Bulgarian Navy is the in the process of modernization, and will rely both on our secondhand frigates as on newly to be built state of the art French Gowind corvettes, for which Bulgaria cut a deal with France last fall). Somehow I will miss the old ships, which I had the occasion to view in person on a naval show in Zeebrugge some years back. Despite their size they packed a respectable firepower. The gun up front, a 100mm Creusot-Loire, was actually heavier than the gun equipping the new frigates. Instead of Harpoons they relied on MM38 Exocets, which the Argentine Air Force used in its air-to-surface variant to such devastating effects in the 1982 Falklands War.



Below yet another pic of a Wielingen class frigate, the F-910. It's kind of an historical photo since taken during the Gulf War, either in the fall of 1990 or the spring of 1991. Belgium had dispatched a minesweeper flotilla escorted first by the F-912, then by the F-910. Just behind the gun turret, you see the six-barreled 375mm rocket launcher for use against submarines. The Exocet missiles for defense against enemy ships are on the aft deck. At the extreme end, barely visible, are the Sea Sparrows. Full armament details here.




The mainstay of the small Belgian Navy are its minehunters/minesweepers, however. Ever since World War II, when an all-Belgian minehunter flotilla, the 118th, operated within the British Royal Navy, this particular branch of service has received most attention. However, defense cuts have now cut down the force to just six minehunters, of which the M915 Aster is shown below. It's a so-called tripartite mine hunter, with a glass reinforced polyester (GRP) hull because of the low magnetic signature. This kind of vessels acquitted itself fairly well during the Gulf War: in 1990-1991 the Belgian minesweeper/hunter flotilla accounted for just under one third of the close to 1,000 destroyed mines in the Persian Gulf. Vessels like this, also in use in the Dutch and French navies, use remotely operated vehicles to eliminate mines if the risks for divers are too great. The two types ROV in use are the so-called PAP (Poisson Auto-Propulsé) and the Seafox. The finer techniques are taught in EGUERMIN, the Naval Mine Warfare School in Oostende which Belgium and The Netherlands operate together.





To conclude, below a picture from the old box: the troop transport ship AP957 Kamina en route for Korea with on board the Belgian contribution to the fighting there, one infantry battalion (one platoon came from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg). In Korea, the battalion was subordinated to various British and American units, namely the British 29th Infantry Brigade (during the Battle of the Imjin River) and the US 3rd Infantry Division "Rock of the Marne".



Photos via the Belgian Navy site.


MFBB.

IN MEMORIAM 1st LT. DENNIS VAN UHM, PFC MARK SCHOUWINK

General Peter Van Uhm, newly appointed Dutch Commander Armed Forces, did not keep his son out of harm's way. Last Thursday, April 18, 1st Lieutenant Dennis Van Uhm (23) and Private 1st Class Mark Schouwink (22) lost their lives in Afghanistan when an IED exploded near their open-topped Mercedes scout car. Two other troopers on board, Cpl. Roger Hack (25) and Pvt. Toninho Norden (20) were gravely wounded, the latter critical.



1st Lt. Dennis Van Uhm, Private 1st Class Mark Schouwink, 45ste Pantserinfanteriebataljon

Lt. Van Uhm commanded a platoon of the 45th Armoured Infantry Battalion (Ermelo) as part of a local operation in the west of the Deh Reshan region, Uruzgan Province, primarily aimed at reconnoitring the area. In one particular village there, Khorma, the Dutch troops often face ambushes and IED attacks. The operation involved around hundred Dutch and Afghan troops. With the manoeuver completed after a few days, the Dutch returned to their base in Camp Holland, the main Dutch base (at the same time the main ISAF base, which the Dutch share with the Australians) in Uruzgan Province near a locality named Tarin Kowt (the other Dutch base is Camp Hadrian at Deh Rawod). On the road back, at twelve kilometers northwest of Camp Holland at 5 o'clock Dutch time, an IED ripped through the fourth vehicle, in which Van Uhm, Schouwink, Hack and Norden drove. Van Uhm and Schouwink were killed instantly, bringing the total number of Dutch deaths in Afghanistan to sixteen.

In a tragic twist of fate, just the day before, Dennis Van Uhm's father, Peter Van Uhm (52), formerly a Lieutenant General commanding the Dutch land forces, had assumed overall command of the Dutch Armed Forces, succeeding Gen. Dick Berlijn, and been promoted four-star general. The Van Uhms are a military family. A brother of the general, Marc Van Uhm, is a brigadier general commanding 11th Air Mobile Brigade. And young Petrus, born in 1955, decided to join the Armed Forces after becoming captivated with the feats of arms of the 82nd "All American" US Airborne division which liberated his birthplace of Nijmegen. Probably the operation which made the greatest impression on him was the crossing of the Waal river to capture a critical bridge by 3rd Battalion, 504th Regiment of the 82nd Division in 26 small unprotected rowboats, under heavy fire from the crack 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg - one of the most heroic operations of the war. If so, I can't help but having a feeling of history coming full circle... The sacrifice of US soldiers and Dutch resistance fighters (remember Jan Van Hoof!) against a common enemy, setting a young Dutchman on a path which would lead to his son... fighting alongside US soldiers against a common enemy some sixty-four years later.




If there is one important lesson to be learned from Lt. Van Uhm's death, it's that the Dutch should phase out their open-topped Mercedes scout cars ASAP and use vehicles which offer better protection. Patrolling in SUV's, even if they are khaki-clad, is suicidal. They are now learning the hard way what their American brothers-in-arms learned four years ago in Iraq - and these used Humvees, of which even the non-uparmoured ones offered better protection than the Dutch vehicles.

Regardless from that... we salute these Heroes and Warriors, who fell in the same conflict which started in earnest on that fateful day in september , almost seven years ago. A conflict against an evil radical islamic ideology which wants to cast back humanity to the 7th century, a goal which is as insane as it is unlikely. Because of humanity's progress which is ultimately forward, no matter the setbacks. And because of men like Lieutenant Van Uhm and Trooper Schouwink. Their cause is a just one, and their sacrifice will not be in vain. May they rest in peace. If you are a religious person and a caring human, you might want to pray for them - and for all the other ones whose names evade us.


MFBB.

DOWNEASTBLOGS ARTSY FARTSY CORNER.

And now for something completely different. With all those Allahu Hackbars around a man would forget the things which make life worthwile. Art, for instance. How about this?



John William Waterhouse's painting 'The Lady of Shalott'. Actually the most famous of the three versions he crafted. It's a work inspired by Alfred Tennyson's poem of the same name, which recounts the story, based on Arthurian material, of a noble lady living under a curse in an island castle upstream from Camelot. The curse is that she is not allowed to look directly outside at the world, and can only see what happens there by looking in a mirror. She spends her days weaving a magic web. One day, the mirror shows her a handsome knight in shining armour passing by. It's Lancelot, King Arthur's most famous and trusted Knight (who at some point nevertheless frolicked with Arthur's spouse, Queen Guinevere). Tennyson:

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.

Immediately the Lady of Shalott is under the spell of the dashing knight and she rushes to the window for a better view. Behind her, the mirror cracks and she knows the curse's doom will come upon her. She has time to leave her castle and board a small boat upon which she writes her name as 'The Lady of Shalott' and which she then sends downstream towards Camelot, but before she arrives there she dies. When the boat comes to a halt near Camelot, Arthur's Court wonders who this beautiful dead lady may be. In Tennyson's poem, Lancelot exclaims:

"Who is this? And what is here?"
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

John William Waterhouse (April 6, 1849 – February 10, 1917) was born in Rome to a couple of artists, William and Isabela Waterhouse, who moved to South Kensington, London, when he was five. Before he entered the Royal Academy in 1870, his father had already honed his natural painting skills. His early works depicted classical themes, in the style of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic Leighton, and one, the 1874 Sleep and his Half-Brother Death was exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Society of British Artists and the Dudley Gallery. In 1883 he married Esther Kenworthy, an Ealing art schoolmaster's daughter who was herself an artist who had exhibited at the Royal Academy. They would have two children, who both tragically died in childhood. His greatest fame Waterhouse would win as a member of the Pre-Raphaelites, a school which for some reason rejected the classical themes and elegant compositions of the High Renaissance Italian artist and architect Raphael Sanzio and those who were influenced by him. Not surprisingly, Waterhouse exchanged his classical themes for mythological ones, drawing heavily on English and Italian literature. He developed a keen interest for strong female characters, not to say femme fatales.



In 1895 Waterhouse was elected a full Academician at the Royal Academy, and taught at the St. John's Wood Art School. One of his most famous paintings is the one above, The Lady of Shalott, a study of Elaine of Astolat, a figure of an Arthurian legend. This character was the inspiration for Tennyson's poem and, hence, for Waterhouses painting. The reproduction shown does not do right to the sheer beauty of the original, which includes also a very fine study of a waterfall. And the meagre number pixels does not allow to grasp the shock of bright colors nor the abundance of details. But if you find yourself in London one day, you might want to check out the Tate Gallery, where it - this version at least - is exhibited.

A recurring theme in Waterhouses subjects is the character of Ophelia, a Danish noblewoman who figures in Shakespeares famous play Hamlet. The most famous version depicts her just before her death, sitting on a tree branch over a lake, putting flowers in her hair. And just like The Lady of Shalott (and even other Waterhouse paintings), it's about a woman dying in or near water. This work was actually submitted by Waterhouse to obtain his Royal Academy diploma. Curiously, the painting got lost thereafter, only to be found later on in the twentieth century. It is now part of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's collection. It would be followed by versions in 1894 and 1909, and the latter is my personal favorite, see the pic to the left. Just look how that robe is draped, wow!!! Other favorites of mine are "My Sweet Rose" and "La Belle Dame sans merci", the latter based on John Keats' poem of the same name. Belle dame my sorry ass, but look how the light shines on the knight's armour and be stunned! Waterhouse planned another painting in the Ophelia series, to be called "Ophelia in the Churchyard.", but unfortunately he could never finish it because of cancer. He died in 1917, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London.




Beyond the ordinary pleasures, the false pretensions and the foul developments of today's world, there's an ancient wealth waiting to be discovered. Not to seek for it is a shame.


MFBB.

HOLLAND FIT? NAH. AS GOOD AS DEAD.

As you can see from the last but one post, LiveLeak pulled "Fitna" again. So we had to look for another source, see below. All over Europe and indeed, all over the western world, politicians, opinion makers, editors, directors of governments-sponsored "diversity organizations" and "organizations against racism" and "organizations for social cohesion" and what not, are almost literally tripping over each other in a rush to condemn it. A leading editorialist of "top" Belgian newspaper De Standaard, a leftozoid scumbag with acute brain haemorrhage called Bart Sturtewagen, wrote a scandalously disgusting piece anticipating a Great Muslim Induced Debate In Which They Will Prove that Islam And Western Values Can Coexist Peacefully. Which is a rather optimistic thought, given the fact that:

a.) just the other day, for the debate in the plenary hall of Dutch Parliament (in which, btw, ALL parliamentarians excelled in Wilders bashing) EXTRA security measures were taken

b.) An exposition about discrimination in Nijmegen had to be called off because Moroccan youths tore down cartoons they deemed offensive and threatened violence

c.) The spokesman for Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Netherlands branch, a certain Okay Pala, recently declared that "they do not agree with freedom of expression, because they denounce democracy"

Mr. Sturtewagen ended his essay with the slogan "If Wilders wins, we all lose". Which is rather weird, given the fact that the man for the past three years has had to live in hiding in his own country and moves from secret location to secret location surrounded by bodyguards.

The sight of so many of our moral betters almost dying to grovel in the dirt for their de facto muslim overlords at home and abroad, is one of the most shameful things I have ever witnessed in my life. Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhaegen went out of his way to humiliate himself, first inviting more than twenty muslim ambassadors to his cabinet to beg for protection of Dutch citizens in their countries, then writing an opinion piece in arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat in which he, on behalf of the Dutch government, explicitly distanced himself from Wilders and his film. And believe it or not, but there's now a site online, sorryvoordefilm.nl, for Dutchmen who feel the need to apologize and promote nuance of the opinion muslims form themselves about The Netherlands. Look at it here and feel your toes curl. The opening page states "We are ashamed of this man. Don't judge us." Sensitive wooden shoe makers can leave a message of hope, peace and understanding and upload their photo. Compared to that, Neville Chamberlain is Rambo on steroids.

Over here at DowneastBlog, Your Personal Euro/American Rightwing Rock in a Red Sea, we keep proudly featuring Fitna and honoring that lone brave Dutchman, who for some reason still has the blood of Tromp and De Ruyter running undiluted through his veins:




Now, give credit where credit is due. This fella does a far better job than your servant chronicling the Death of Free Speech in Europe. Pat Condell on the Fitna aftermath:



And I say that as a christian, be it not such a good one. My God, what a fucked up world.


MFBB.

FITNA, THE MOVIE. NEVER MIND MUSLIM REACTIONS. LOOK FOR THE QUISLINGS IN OUR MIDST.

Dutch version, couldn't get an English version embedded. With thanks to Bart Debie.

This 15-minute "movie" shouldn't be an issue. Basically, it does not contain "new" material, nor does it boast explicitly challenging or "offensive" remarks by Geert Wilders. The shocking fact about all the bruhaha is not the muslim reactions to it - in my neck of the woods, there wasn't much consternation. No rioting, almost no vandalism. For now, it appears the reactions in "the muslim world" seem to be rather tame too.

No, the real shocker is that all members of the Dutch government were shitting a smelly brown fluid because of what they anticipated, and did everything to distance themselves from Wilders' project. The real shocker is that their minions, the Quislings of our time, came out of the woodwork to do the dirty job for the government so that they, afterwards, could pretend they had defended free speech. The real shocker is finding out that we are being governed, spelled lessons, and lied to be the most abominable collection of coward politicians, sinister multiculturalist prophets, and whorenalists. Their names are many: Jan Peter Balkenende, Gerard Spong, Hans Laroes, Bart Sturtewagen, and literally thousands of others in important positions in governments, big law firms, TV companies and major newspapers. The real shocker was finding out that one of our most precious values, Freedom of Speech, was not at all defended by our self-proclaimed moral betters who were in the best position for broadcasting a loud and clear message to the muslim world: "Until here and no further!"; but that the defense had to be done by barely some tens of internet mavericks. Saying that Freedom of Speech has survived last week because you can see this ultimately rather inoffensive "movie" online on a couple of sites is far too much honor. If you consider how the European Union, the Dutch government, YouTube, LiveLeak, Network Solutions and literally hundreds of editors of major European newspapers either caved in under the threats or rushed to the defense of the utterly evil and inhuman political-religious ideology which is islam, I would rather say that Freedom of Speech in the West barely survived, indeed, is moribund.

Islam's strenghth has always been the weakness of its enemies. Judging by the weakness of the scoundrels who should come up for our values, it must be getting very strong indeed.

Islam may be our enemy, but it is not our principal enemy. The REAL ENEMY is in ourselves.

Scum... we are watching you.


MFBB.

THE BRAIN IN SPAIN IS MAINLY ON THE WANE.

February 2004. Jose Maria Aznar, Spain's PM of the rightwing Partido Popular, can look back on eight years of unprecedented successes which transformed his country from the sick man of Europe to an economic enigma. Almost eight years before, on March 3, 1996, the PP took over the helm of Spain after thirteen years of disastrous economic rule and widespread corruption under the Spanish socialists, the PSOE. Then, unemployment stood at a staggering 22%. Spaniards earned 78% of the EU average. And the state's share of the economy was an extremely unhealthy 45%.

Aznar's recipe was simple: Reaganomics. He slashed taxes, slimmed down the public sector, and freed up the labor market. The results were spectacular. By 2000, unemployment was at 15%. By early 2004, at the end of his second term, at 11.2% - a reduction by 50%. Throughout Aznar's eight years in power, the Spanish economy grew at an average of 4% yearly, far outstripping the EU's paltry average of 0.6%. Average income had risen to 84% of the EU: in 1996, BMW sold roughly 12,000 cars in the whole of Spain. Eight years later that number had nearly tripled. Spanish banks were awash in money, the two biggest ones noting maximum profits in 2003. One year later, the second biggest one, BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), would take over Bancomer, Mexico's biggest, for 3.3 billion EUR. And Aznar managed to do all this and at the same time keep a tight budgetary control - while Germany, France and other countries fiddled and cheated with the stated EU monetary goal to keep the budget deficit under 3%.

This is the man who in 2000 said:

"Socialism, in my view, is a thing of the past. If anybody can come up with a better form of social protection than having a job, then please tell me."

March 11, 2004. Three days prior to the general elections, a coordinated series of bombings rips though the Cercanias system (commuter trains) of Spain's capital Madrid, leaving 191 dead and 1,755 wounded. A panicking Partido Popular, knowing that its involvement in the Liberation of Iraq is not well received by a majority of the population and fearing it will be punished if it directly links the attacks to islamic terrorists, totally bungles its communication with the media, halfheartedly pointing towards the Basque separatist terror organization ETA while it is abundantly clear the former are the perpetrators. On election day, the punishment follows. In the event, the PP's reluctance to lie the blame with the islamoterrs was explained as an admittance of guilt by a majority of voters - it is well possible that if the PP, which had been leading in the polls, had been straightforward over what it really thought, it still might have won. As it was though, its bad PR brought one man into power who would spell Spain's doom - the leader of the Socialist Party PSOE, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Literally EVERYTHING this man did was wrong.


Four years of Zapatero rule sufficed to halt Spains economic boom. TIME magazine ran a gushing story in early 2004 under the title Spain Rocks! - it can't and won't do so now. Truth to be told, for awhile Zapatero was smart enough not to alter Aznar's economic policy too much. But after Aznar's first set of dramatic reforms, which led to halving unemployment, a second set was necessary to maintain the momentum, which the Zapatero government utterly failed to do. E.g., one of the biggest challenges is still the rigidity of Spains labor market, it being still extremely difficult and expensive to fire people. Like in neighbouring France, companies are very reluctant to hire new (permanent) employees and as a result there is a disproportionately (and unhealthy) high number of short-term contracts. Essentially, during three years the PSOE reaped the fruits of the PP's good stewardship of the economy, but in 2007 the first signs of a slowdown manifested themselves, and by early 2008 unemployment was back where it was ten years ago, inflation was at its highest level (4.4%) since 2002 and economic growth prospects for 2008 are expected to stall at 2.7%, the lowest percentage in six years.

Where Zapatero failed to provide reforms in the economy, in another field he excelled: liberal, "progressive" legislation. The abortion rate in Spain was already alarming - in the ten years between 1995 and 2004, thus mostly under Aznar rule, it nearly doubled from 49,000 to 85,000 a year. Coupled with a deathbed birthrate hovering around 1.1 children per couple, the world's lowest, the abortion phenomenon mathematically ensures the near extinction of Spaniards within a century. In the given situation, a responsible government would have done everything in its might not to legalize abortion, and thus even more drain the dwindling supply of newborns. Zapatero did the exact opposite - in 2005, he introduced legislation that made abortion easier. This was, however, just the beginnings of his efforts to kill off as many traditional Spanish values as possible. In the same year, an "express divorce" bill was passed - with predictible results: in two years, from 2005 to 2007, the number of divorces jumped a staggering 74%. For every 2.3 marriages there is now one divorce. Of course, marriages are a serious matter and if partners despite their best efforts find no suitable way to peacefully and harmoniously live together and consume all the benefits of a good and true relationship, divorce is sometimes the best option. But removing each and every barrier has the same effect on the weaker willed as it has on kids allowed to roam the candy shelf at will. And so Spain's divorce rate is, three years after Zapatero's law, the highest in Europe. What will the net result be? All sociological studies all over Europe confirm the same scenario: one parent households are poorer and more vulnerable. In such a situation, if the woman becomes pregnant, the sooner she will step into an abortion clinic. And why not? That poor gal soon doesn't even have to worry about the costs anymore: in February 2008, the Spanish Socialists promised that if re-elected the government woulf field the bill. But perhaps nothing illustrates better the total disconnection from reality of the Zapatero government than the fact that in 2006 the PSOE introduced a bill in the Congress of Deputies calling for "the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings". The justification of the PSOE was that "humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees, 97.7% with gorillas, and 96.4% with orangutans. Today only members of the species Homo sapiens are considered part of the community of equals. The chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orangutan are our species's closest relatives. They possess sufficient mental faculties and emotional life to justify their inclusion in the community of equals." Saying that with that bill the Spanish socialists had gone bananas makes all the more sense since humans share 50% of their genes with bananas. What makes less sense is that they would give equal rights to our hairy distant relatives while they wouldn't give them to the approximately 100,000 Spanish unborns - 270 a day in 2006, one for every six pregnancies, the main cause of death in Spain now - processed through the abortion clinics's fleshmills. In December 2007, for the first time in history, a Spanish television network showed an abortion on TV, with a nurse injecting a deadly poison into the foetus through a pregnant woman's vagina. No doubt some social worker had judged that for some reason the woman was too psychologically stressed to carry the burden of mothership and given the green light. So, no equal rights for the simian relatives on the picca to the right.

Nor was this the end. Also in 2005, gay marriage and gay adoption were legalized. Putting on a pedestal a form of relationship that brings forth no offspring, in a country where children are rapidly becoming a rarity, is, while not even adressing any moral or ethical issues, a demographic folly. Even more insane is allowing gay couples to adopt children, for children raised in such a "household" will tend to see such a "family" as normal, if not the norm, and are at a higher risk to continue the non-offspring producing practice. Anno 2008, in Europe, anyone who dares to speak out against the flurry of liberal legislation risks to be labeled very soon as an archaic prude clinging to old-fashioned and utterly uncool lifestyles. In 2007, the ludicrous and vain Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht even stated "that countries which lack such legislation [gay marriage and gay adoption laws] are simply less further advanced in their evolution process". The truth of the matter is - and any honest sociologist will confirm that - those "old fashioned and utterly uncool lifestyles" do a far better job of providing society with a steady flow of new generations ready to take the burdens of work and life off the shoulders of the older ones. When this basic dynamic falls away - and the combined effect of Zapatero's laws merely hastens the trend - a society is doomed. In Europe the Spaniards are not alone in massively rejecting the responsibilities of a family and meeting the single, quintessential goal for survival - procreation. But they may well be the ones speeding the quickest towards self-chosen extinction.

One cannot really say that all was quiet on the Domestic Front during the Zapatero years, for in 2005 Spanish Parliament passed the 'Reglamento de la Ley de Extranjería', or New Regulation of the Alien Law. This piece of legislation effectively legalized close to 1 million illegal immigrants, who made use of a three-month timeframe between February 7 and May 7, 2005 to get their papers in order. Needless to say, such a bold move requiring close to none conditions to be fulfilled would have to go wrong. Spain finds itself now saddled with 1 million legal aliens, and its immigration problems haven't been solved a bit. In 2007, French Prime Minister François Fillon said, during a interview with French television station TF1, that Zapatero had confided to him that he "bitterly regretted" his decision to grant amnesty to almost a million illegal immigrants and "that there would be no repeat." An assertion Zapatero almost immediately denied, claiming Fillon had "misinterpreted his words". I know who to believe.

In another field, yet another U-turn of the new government would prove to be a total failure. Aznar's Partido Popular had always resisted talks with ETA, the Marxist-Leninist terrorist wing of Spain's separatist Basque movement (the political wing being the leftist party Herri Batasuna). As could be expected from an appeaser, Zapatero did the exact opposite, opening talks with ETA in June 2006. For his efforts he was rewarded with a car bomb attack on December 30 of the same year in Madrid's Barajas International Airport, and the murder, just days prior to the latest election, of Isaias Carrasco, a former town councillor for the socialist PSOE in the Basque town of Mondragon. So much for reaching out to terrorists.

As for foreign policy, the story would prove to be no different. No sooner was the Zapatero government confirmed in office, or it withdrew the Spanish contingent from Iraq, thereby doing exactly what Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri wanted it to do. Indeed, on the eve of the 2004 elections, just days after the Madrid bombings, a video message from "Al Qaeda's military commander in Europe", a certain Abu Dujan al-Afghani, was found in a rubbish bin. It contained a.o. the sentence "If you don't stop your injustices, more and more blood will flow and these attacks will seem very small compared to what can occur in what you call terrorism." Before three months had passed, Spain's 1,300 troops had left Iraq. To paraphrase Winston Churchill: "Never before in the history of human conflict, so many have bowed so much to so few". Once there was a time when 180 Spanish conquistadores brought down an entire Inca empire. Five centuries later a handful of bearded barbarians forced their heirs to run, tail between legs. Hey, what can you expect when you elect a loon who thinks the high point of summer fashion at the time Hizballah provokes a war with Israel is wearing a kaffiyeh?

Other "highlights" of Zapatero's foreign policy included schnoozing up to Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro and Venezuelan would-be dictator Hugo Chavez. With the latter, in 2005 the Spanish government signed the biggest arms deal in years, worth 2 billion EUR and including four Navantia coastal patrol ships as well as four corvettes from the same company, 10 C-295 transport planes and two maritime surveillance planes. Washington's negative advice against the deal on the grounds that Chavez had "totalitarian tendencies" and "was a destabilizing factor in the region" was validated since, as Chavez first, in 2007, had his followers in Venezuela's parliament, in a move not unlike Hitler's 1933 Enabling Act, vote a bill guaranteeing him rule by decree for 18 months and second, almost initiated a war with Colombia in early March 2008.

There used to be a time when the British had a polite advice when in a conversation with Germans, and it was - don't know if they heed it still - "don't mention the war!". For decades, very much the same credo was silently applied in Spain, where the bloody Civil War (1936-1939) had provoked deep rifts into society, the pain of which had somehow been sublimated first under three decades of Franco's rule and then under the subsequent democratic governments, to the extent that Spain seemed to have come at peace with its past. But that was not counting Zapatero. If there ever was a divider on the European Continent, it was him. A lot has been said about Franco's "illegal" coup d'état, but the truth is that the Republicans (Spain's Left, including the PSOE, the Communists, two liberal parties and Galician and Catalonian nationalists) have as much guilt, if not more, for starting the war. The PSOE's leader, Largo Caballero, openly exhorted his followers to wage a revolution, and the Comintern, the USSR-based International Communist Organization, instructed the Spanish Communbists to outlaw Spain's Right. Both sides committed horrible atrocities, both sides had their mass graves, and both sides perpetrated war crimes on an unprecedented scale. Franco's Nationalists finally won. But Franco, who was indeed backed by Hitler and Mussolini, was far smarter than his "allies". He kept Spain out of World War II, thereby preventing immensely more loss and destruction. And after the war, his autocratic rule ever so slowly gave way to democracy, thereby confirming the rule that rightwing dictatorships, in contrast to leftwing ones, are self-extinguishing. And a decade before Franco ceded control to a democratically elected government, his government was responsible for the Milagro Espanol, the Spanish Miracle, Spain's economic boom between 1959 and 1974 which lifted the country out of its poverty and which at its zenith in 1974 led to an income per capita of 79% of the Western European average, a percentage that would only be reached again 25 years later... under Aznar. Serious historians therefore cannot deny that the personage of Franco deserves rather more nuance, instead of the vilifications of the Left. Yet Zapatero chose to up them, and thereby tear old wounds wide open. He removed the last remaining statue of the generalissimo in Madrid and vowed to obliterate all streets and squares named after him. But that was only the most visible part of his actions. Zapatero had a bill passed with the Orwellian moniker Law of Historical Memory" which specifically honors the estimated 285,000 Republican losses of the Civil War and the post-war victims of Franco's regime... but says nothing about the 145,000 Spanish who perished at the hands of the Republicans, nor about the more than 6,000 priests and nuns who were murdered - sometimes raped - by them. The ensuing result is that today, Spain is more than ever a divided society, pitting the relatives of the Republicans against those of the Nationalists, with both sides fiercely defending the actions of their forefathers.



So then, after botching up his country's economy, caving in to islamic terrorists, appeasing basque terrorists, passing laws that destroy society, shitting on tradition, offending allies, befriending dictators, setting the doors wide open for illegals, and rip old wounds open, how would you expect a normal population to treat a fella like Zapatero? In a perfect world, it would be covering him with tar and feathers and give him the boot - if he was lucky.

In Spain, he got re-elected. On March 9, 2008, 35 million voters elected 350 members of the Cortes, Spain's Lower House, as well as 208 members of the Senate, the Upper House. [btw, for a good overview of Spanish parties, check out the contributions of AMDF at Gates of Vienna]. And the PSOE won 169 seats vs the Mariano Rajoy's PP 153. A narrow victory perhaps, but a victory nevertheless, 43.7% against 40.1%. It should have been a solid victory for the right, it turned out to be a defeat. Explain please?

Sir Winston Churchill does a fine job of it:

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

As does your servant, if you allow for a little chest-thumping:

"The second best argument against democracy is fooking schtoopid Spaniards voting."

Oh come on, don't tell me now my true colors are showing. I still think democracy is by far the best system, ole Winston thought that too. So, if Manuel Ihaventgotacluos really feels he should vote for a cojones-less lunatic who will tax the hell out of him and flood his country with illegals, let him!!! And you ain't seen nothing yet!!! Wait till those urangutans and chimpanzees start voting!!!


MFBB.

ELIOT SPITZER IS A SCHOOLBOY.

Normally I'm against copying and pasting of full articles.

Not this time.

The Dutch NIS (English Language News Service) News Bulletin, 8 March 2008. Hat tip The Brussels Journal.

AMSTERDAM, 08/03/08 - The police's National Diversity Expertise Centre (LECD) wants sex allowed in all public parks in the Netherlands. The police institute has advised the cities to follow the example of Amsterdam, De Telegraaf newspaper reported Friday.

In Amsterdam's Vondelpark, owners of dogs let off the leash can be fined, but sex will shortly be permitted. "Why should we try to maintain something that is actually impossible to maintain, which also causes little bother for others and for a certain group actually signifies much pleasure?" says Paul van Grieken, the responsible Alderman in the Oud-Zuid district of Amsterdam.

Van Grieken confirmed that the plan to tolerate public sex in Vondelpark is part of a draft version of new rules of conduct for the city's best-known park. The regulations are to come into force after the summer. "Of course there are strict rules attached. Thus, condoms must always be cleared away, it must never take place in the neighbourhood of children's playgrounds and the sex must be restricted to the evening and night-time."

The draft memorandum says that fines will be maintained for dogs running around off the leash that, for example, cause nuisance to sunbathing or cycling users of the park. "The research showed that many people find this disturbing," according to the alderman.

LECD is now calling on Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht to tolerate 'cruising' gays in all their parks. In a letter to the administrators of the three cities, the police institute says that by regulating sex in public, the safety of homosexuals from 'queer-bashers' can be better guaranteed.

Thus, it says in the recommendations that "officers must not disturb the activities, as long as they do not cause any actual nuisance" and they would "only have to take corrective action if there is a question of actual offensive behaviour that is visible from the public path."

Homosexuals' organisation COC is pleased that the Amsterdam Oud-Zuid district is to be the first to tolerate sex in the Vondelpark. "Cruising is something belonging to all time and banning it does not work anyway. They do it surreptitiously and mostly without others being annoyed by it. But homos at cruising spots are often attacked. By now agreeing rules of behaviour on this, safety can be increased," according to COC Amsterdam chairman Dennis Boutkan.

Paul Van Grieken, the responsible Alderman (scroll down here), is of the GroenLinks (literally GreenLeft) party. Watermelons you know. Green from the outside, red from the inside.

But, you might have suspected that already.


MFBB.

JUST SAY "F*CK YOU" TO ISLAM.

Outstanding video from Pat Condell. Mind you, I'm not particularly enamored with Pat Condell. If you check out his site, the fella suggests GWB and UBL are two sides of the same coin, and imho it takes quite some brain damage to think so. Mr. Condell is an outspoken atheist, and while he may not respect my faith (a.o.), I do respect his being godless. As a matter of fact, having struggled (and struggling still) with faith myself, I can fully understand why people get turned away from religion or become, at "best", agnostics.


Still, Mr. Condell has some very pointy and true remarks about the Religion of Peace, whose adherents over just the past week, for a change, killed 38 people at a funeral in northwest Pakistan, blew up 53 others in a Baghdad commercial district, shot dead 8 Jewish students in Jerusalem, and in China attempted to crash an airliner and attack the site of the Beijing Olympic Games.





Food for thought. Is he exaggerating? I think not. Just today, France held municipal elections. Guess who was candidate for the post of mayor in Strasbourg, one of France's most important cities? Mohamed Latrèche, founder and chairman of the Parti des Musulmans de France, the French Muslim Party. Mohamed Latrèche is a fierce antisemite who allied himself with the notorious Holocaust denier Serge Thion, went to Iraq in early 2003 to be part of the "human shields" and staged numerous anti-Israel and anti-"occupation" demos. His PMF is demanding a Muslim cemetery with perpetual rights, a school for girls who are "deprived of an education by the liberty-killing law on headscarves", halal meals in school cafeterias, hospitals and so forth, dignified places of worship responding to the needs of the Muslims of Strasbourg, and special schedules at swimming pools for Muslim girls. Amongst others. Photo of this illustrious personage courtesy of Gaelle Mann.

Geert Wilders, when will you finally release fitna??? We are tired of waiting.


MFBB.

DANISH LEOPARD 2'S IN ACTION AGAINST THE TALIBAN!

Those damn Danes again! Motoons on the homefront, Leopards on the Afghanistan front! Until the day before yesterday I was completely unaware that the Danish Army had silently deployed 5 or 6 of the heavy Leopard 2 MBT's to Helmand Province, Afghanistan. This happened in the third week of January, and it seems that after the Battle of Musa Qala the Danes thought they'd do well to follow the Canadian example, since the latter have been using their Leopard I's with great success against the Taliban. Below you see a pic of a Danish Leopard 2 in Helmand, clad with barracuda camouflage. In performance, firepower and speed it is very comparable to the M1 Abrams tank. Actually, in 1997 the Danes looked to the M1 as a successor to their Leopard I's. That was three years after they had missed, in 1994, an opportunity to buy secondhand surplus Leopard 2A4's from the Dutch Army - the Austrian Army was quicker, and the Dutch Leopards went to the Alps. However, just when in 1997 the M1 seemed poised to make it to Europe in Danish service, the German Army, like the Dutch, decided to slim down their tank fleet, and this time the Danes quickly cut the deal: 51 used Leopard 2A4s, all produced between 1980 and 1986, were bought in December 1997 for the round summa of 780 million Danish kronen. In Denmark, the 2A4s were upgraded to A5 standard. The most visible change this involved was the turret, which before had its armour arranged - not so smartly - in a vertical plane, whereas an A5 turret reminds very much of an M1 turret, with its strongly sloped front and flanks. Furthermore "hunter-killer" capacity was enhanced as well as preparations made for an up-to-date command and control system. By the end of June 2000 the first Leo 2's were operational in the Jydske Dragonregiment (Jutland Dragoon Regiment), the sole pure armoured regiment of the Danish Army.



A few words on the history of the Leopard 2. It is a German main battle tank, until now actually the last in the line of a long and proud family of armoured "beasts" named after fierce felines, a line which started in the early forties with the famous "Tiger" tank. Leopards are produced by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, and since 2003 also by the Spanish Santa Bárbara Sistemas. Developed in the early 1970s as direct successors to the 40-tonne Leopard I's (still in use with the Belgian Army!) and first entering service in 1979, they are the foremost MBT in the German Army as well as in ten other European countries (and in some non-European countries as well, e.g. the Singaporean Army). To date, more than 3,480 Leopard 2s have been produced.

All models are equipped with digital fire control systems with laser range-finders, fully stabilized main gun (a 120mm Rheinmetall L55) and coaxial machinegun, and night vision equipment (the first vehicles used a Low-Light Level TV system or LLLTV, the later models thermal imaging). The tank can engage moving targets while negotiating rough terrain. It can wade through 4 meters deep water by means of a snorkel, or 1.2 meters without any preparation. Climbing capability is high and vertical obstacles over 1 meter high can be taken. At 62.2 tonnes, the Leopard 2 is powered with a turbo-charged multi-fuel V12 diesel engine producing 1,500 horsepower, good for a top speed of 72 kilometers an hour. Operational range is 550 kilometers.

Back to the Danes! Watch the arrival of the heavies in January 2008 in even more astounding giant Antonov 124's! Too bad the quality of the video is mediocre at best.

Of course, the Danish infantry did not await the arrival of the Jydske Dragonregiment to take the fight to the enemy. See them in action here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

And here.


As regular reader and commenter Mark/Tory Conservative remarked (Mark, honestly, I think Typos is a way cooler nick. No offense dude), Mark Steyn seems to have said that the European NATO troops are in Afghanistan to man the photocopy machine. As much as I admire the man, this time he got it damn wrong. That ain't photocopying. Leave that to Obama!


MFBB.

NATO AIN'T DEAD!

Brothers in arms: a patrol consisting of a Dutch Fennek light armoured recce vehicle followed by an unrecognizable US troop carrier. The Fennek's size belies its weight, 10.4 tonnes combat-ready.

It is true that the brunt of the fighting in Afghanistan is borne by the US Army. It is true that most NATO members have issued lots of caveats with regards to the deployment of their troops. It is true that some of those members who do fight - Canada, The Netherlands - face increasing pressure from leftist defeatists at home to end the deployment altogether. It is true that the Taleban are not defeated yet and that the end is not in sight yet. But...

But on the other hand, is there, after all, really reason to despair? Should not cautious optimism be the norm instead of anxious fretting? While the lackluster support among most NATO allies for Operation Enduring Freedom and the NATO/ISAF mission is worrisome, should one not be also elated that, after all, ALL NATO countries are present and contributing, be it to varying degrees? I live in a continent where right after the Wall came down, the leftist bozos who all the time had been part of the problem rather than of the solution started asking whether an organization like NATO was really necessary in the post communist era. Doubts about NATO's purpose in a time when a world-acclaimed author concluded that history had come to an end, afflicted even those sympathetic to an organization which had seen the light when Truman was president.

And yet here we are, eighteen long years later, and even though there is some coughing and hiccups and the occasional spasms, to state that NATO is dead couldn't be farther from the truth. ALL 26 NATO members have troops in AF. True, it's always the same who do the fighting: the US of course, Canada, the UK, The Netherlands, the Danes and Estonians. But service in the relatively quiet north and west isn't always a piece of cake either. Germany e.g., which its 3,210 troops responsible for Regional Command North and the third largest contributor, has had 29 fatalities thus far. While not comparable to the losses the US has suffered, not exactly a Club Med resort assignment either. The French, with their 1,515 personnel mainly around Kabul (currently under Opération Pamir XVII), are indeed highly constrained by caveats - but they do a prodigious job of demining dangerous areas. Less glorious perhaps, but just as necessary. They also do extensive patrols and there have been skirmishes with Taliban, check out this video. Then there is the fact that ISAF, as the very acronym implies - International Security and Assistance Force - is essentially not a fighting operation. It is an operation meant to help the democratically elected Afghan government establish its hold over the country, and support it wherever necessary with reconstruction. Combat brigades were never intended to be ISAF's spearheads - its PRT's (Provincial Reconstruction Teams, there are currently 25 of them) were. Norway's 495 troops are mainly deployed in the Meymaneh PRT in Faryab province, part of Spain's 740 personnel lead the Qala-i-Naw PRT in Badghis province. Hungary's 230 troops are responsible for the Pul-e Khumri PRT in Baghlan province. Slovenia's 70 troops of the 2nd motorised company, 20th motorised battalion (Celje) soldier on in Herat. And the Slovenian government donated 10,000 AK 47 automatic rifles to the ANA, the Afghan National Army. While all these operations miss the drama of the fierce combat in the south, they just as much contribute to the success of Enduring Freedom, America's mission in Afghanistan. So far, despite the setbacks and the caveats, it is not exaggerated to state that the US's NATO allies conducted an operation Enduring Support. At the recent Munich Conference, TIME's Michael Elliott had a conversation with retired US Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a novelist and essayist. The following is an exerpt from Elliott's article, A Call to Arms, in the February 25, TIME Europe issue:

... That is to say, there are, today, German troops in Afghanistan - 3,500 of them. They may not be in the most dangerous parts of the country or hunting down well-armed bands of Taliban guerrillas, but they are there. That, when you think about it, is astonishing. American author and columnist Ralph Peters (who is nobody's idea of a softie on defense matters) was at the Munich conference, and put things in perspective for me. When he was serving in the U.S. Army intelligence in Germany, Peters said, "We couldn't get the Germans to move 8km. Now we've got them moving 8,000 miles."

But honest is honest, some are doing more than their share. Canada has had 78 fatalities so far. The Netherlands, which is actually punching above its weight, 14 or so. The following video contains some footage of Dutch Commandos in Uruzgan province:



The shortage felt on the ground is such that this spring, an additional 3,200 US Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the 7th Marine Regiment will be dispatched to southern Afghanistan. This shouldn't have to be necessary. Are there any signs that the burden will be carried more evenly in the near future? Luckily, there are. The French will send hundreds of fresh troops to eastern Afghanistan (check out this clip of French Chasseurs Alpins in the hills around Kabul). Under the staunch leadership of its PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark stays committed. And look out for Spain, which will have parliamentary elections come 9 March. With clear signs that the Spanish economy is tilting towards a recession - Zapatero's main concerns were rather legalizing gay marriage and gay adoption, talking with ETA terrorists and a red carpet treatment for 4 million illegal immigrants - the Spanish conservatives stand a good chance to win. This may then imply a bigger Spanish commitment. And as we have seen, even my country will send some additional troops plus four fighter bombers - finally with a mandate to bomb and strafe Taliban strongholds.

NATO may become a sextagenarian in a little over a year, but this old warhorse has by no means lost its teeth - quite the contrary.



Dutch F-16 taking off from Kandahar Airfield, on its way to kick some Taliban ass.


MFBB.

BURQINI OR BIKINI? TAKE YOUR CHICK, UH, PICK!

Zwolle, The Netherlands. February 26, 2008. 11.59 am. Public swimming pool "Hanzebad". Director Hans Meijer confirms that the burqini remains barred from his facilities. One week before, a Dutch muslim convert, Yvonne Buitelaar, had appeared in "Hanzebad" clad in a burqini, shocking those present. In a letter addressed to Mr. Meijer, the City Council of Zwolle protested the latter's decision to ban the all-covering bathing suit, arguing that "The argument that other visitors may experience the burqini as insulting is no objective criterion." (By contrast, the argument that muslims may experience a 10 minute YouTube movie as insulting does seem to be an objective criterion.)

Zwolle, The Netherlands. February 26, 2008. 16.29 am. Public swimming pool "Hanzebad". Director Hans Meijer confirms that the burqini is allowed in his facilities. Four hours and thirty minutes before, Director Meijer had received a letter from Zwolle's City Council to reconsider his opposition to the all-covering bathing suit, offering several sound reasons to do so, and apparently Mr. Meijer thought they cut wood. One of the arguments for lifting the ban is that in their eternal wisdom, the City Councillors think that wearing the burqini will promote integration. As for now, the whole matter is an academic issue since a.) most burqinis are worn by converts, of which there are - until now - relatively few, and b.) muslim women of non-Dutch extraction are not allowed in public swimming pools anyway, burqini or not.

That leaves us poor infidel kufars with the burning question....

Burqini?



Or Bikini?



Needless to say, Outlaw Mike endorses the latter as the Preferred Swimming Attire for the Modern, Confident, Conservative-Libertarian, Hayek-reading, Reagan-worshipping, Devoutly Christian 21st Century Woman. Yeeee-haw!!!

And Director Hans Meijer should change the name of his swimming pool from Hanzebad to Islamabad.


MFBB.

IN MEMORIAM WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY (1925-2008)

A Giant of the Right has passed away. William Frank Buckley, author, TV personality and conservative commentator, was found dead at his desk - as befits him - in the study of his Stamford, Connecticut home this very Wednesday, February 27. William F. Buckley's signal achievement in life was the foundation of the renowned political rightwing magazine National Review in 1955 in New York, from which he retired as an active editor only 35 years later, in 1990. Under his guidance, National Review formulated the ideological basis for modern conservatism, which is essentially a marriage between traditional conservatism and libertarianism. The role of Buckley in paving the way for the "Reagan Revolution" can therefore not be underestimated.

Buckley's yeoman's work at NR and his countless columns as a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist did not prevent his versatile personality of manifesting itself in other arenas. He was a staunch defender of Joseph McCarthy and in 1964 strongly supported the presidential candidacy of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. In 1965 he ran for mayor of New York City (and lost to democrat John Lindsay), and from 1966 to 1999, he hosted the television show Firing Line . As a novelist he wrote a series of novels around the character of CIA agent Blackford Oakes, a reminder of his brief stint as an undercover CIA agent in Mexico City in the early fifties. Apart from this series, he wrote together a stunning number of books on writing, speaking, history, politics, and sailing. To complete the image of a pure western conservative, he was a practicing Christian who often attended Latin Mass in Connecticut. In 1991, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George H. W. Bush. William F. Buckley was married to Canadian-born Patricia Alden Taylor, who gave him a son, Christopher Buckley, and who died last year after a long period of illness.

I have been looking for some quotes that might best typify this apparently Great American Personality of the Right. As a European, I must confess I am not all that well acquainted with WFB's work, but then I had the misfortune of growing up in a poisonous socialist environment, where anything that reeked of another opinion than the Dogmas of the Leftist Church was either downright rejected, and as such I was first tempted to choose this quote:

“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

... or, if it is not simply rejected, it is invariably labeled Nazism, whereby our moral betters time and again forget that it's actually them who are the ideological confrères of that repulsive brand of leftism. I was reminded of that when I came across the famous exclamation Buckley made in a heated encounter with leftozoid douchebag Gore (what's in a name) Vidal, who called him "a proto- or crypto-Nazi":

“Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I will sock you in your goddamn face, and you will stay plastered.”

Honestly, I don't mean to offend gay people. I'm just quoting the man who may (probably) or may not have harbored less nice feelings about you. Anyway, when I pondered my fate as a small business owner working his ass off for the benefit of the common good and the monthly check of the imam next door, I decided I'd post this money quote:

“Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.”

In the end however, recognizing at last a Fellow Christian (who, I am convinced, was convinced, as I am convinced, that we christians can never be really good christians), I was won over for this humble jewel:

“You cultivate the essential virtues: high purpose, intelligence, decency, humility, fear of the Lord, and the passion for freedom.”

Rest in Peace Mr. Buckley. I will pray for you.


MFBB.

Economic Facts and Fallacies

Peter Robinson of National Review has been interviewing Thomas Sowell regarding his new Book, Economic Facts and Fallacies.  I'm currently reading this book and as is always the case with Sowell, he presents an impeccably researched and clearly articulated dismantling of many of the left's core beliefs.  It's simply stunning how many things that we've all been told our whole lives regarding economic issues are based on faulty logic, misinterpretation of data, or outright lies.

Watch the interviews (Robinson usually splits these into 5 parts) but more importantly, buy the book.  

Peter Robinson's Interview with Thomas Sowell

LONG LIVE SOCIALISM! LONG LIVE SOCIALISM! LONG LIVE SOCIALISM! LONG LIVE SOCIA... HUH?!??

June 2004, San Francisco. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) addresses a meeting of woman Senators for US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who is up for reelection in the fall. The senator (Clinton) tells those present that under the Democrats, the Bush tax cuts will be a thing of the past.

"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

..............MEANWHILE...............


..............BACK IN EUROPE...............


..............WHERE THINGS ARE TAKEN AWAY FROM YOU ON BEHALF OF THE COMMON GOOD.........


An article by Per Wirten, Swedish journalist, Chief editor at Arena magazine.

UNACKNOWLEDGED, UNSEEN, UNMENTIONED
Poverty in Europe

Impoverished German children dream of the USA; one Greek person in four is behind with their most basic bills; sixty per cent of the poor in Romania have outdoor toilets. Cracks are appearing in Europe's beloved image of itself as the egalitarian alternative to the United States, writes Per Wirtén.

What do we really know about poverty in Europe? Not a lot. The constant flow of facts, images and stories from the other side of the Atlantic means I know more about American poverty than its European counterpart. There is a steady stream of books and articles about "the working poor" at Wal-Mart, Latinos in Los Angeles and Afro-Americans in run-down slum districts. How many of us have read books like Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich's account of struggling to get by in low-wage hell? Or avidly immersed ourselves in the slums of Baltimore in the TV series The Wire?

.....

Last summer I walked in the shadow of thunder clouds through Stockwell in south London: dilapidated buildings, worn pavements, grilles over the doors and windows of each individual shop. The whole environment was reminiscent of the former GDR. The next day, I travelled through small, dreary, post-industrial towns in the north of England. On my journey I read that a British report had found that the proportion of poor people is back at the level it was in the 1960s, that growing class divisions are tearing the middle classes apart, and that the only positive news is the reduction in numbers of the most vulnerable.

.....

In October 2007, while in Berlin, I read two German sociologists' description in the anthology Neighbourhoods of Poverty of the situation of the poor in the working class district of Neukölln. Those interviewed had a monthly income of between 300 and 500 euros, that half had not had a proper job for 15 years, that they have given up on the labour market, and that, by relying on a disciplined "management of scarce resources", they get by on odd jobs and welfare handouts. Children become locked into poverty when they are forced to give up school to help bolster the family's meagre income. Many dream of emigrating (maybe to the US).

.....

In the autumn of 2005, New Orleans was submerged after hurricane Katrina breached the levees. It was the city's poorest quarters that suffered the greatest devastation. The authorities' arrogance and inability to react shocked the rest of the world. Europe offered the US emergency relief; in Paris, intellectuals wondered how the country could afford to wage war in Baghdad but not to protect its own people; and Swedish premier Göran Persson declared that a catastrophe of such a kind would be unthinkable in European welfare states. Exactly two years later, Greece was in flames. The Greek state was just as ineffectual as the American state had been after Katrina. Help from the EU was slow to arrive; people died and villages were left in ruins. Of course, questions were asked in the European media, but the criticism came nowhere near the wave of indignation that was directed at the US after the New Orleans disaster. Yet Greece's position in the EU as one its most corrupt, unequal and poorest member states is not unlike that of Louisiana in the US.

.....

For most of my adult life, I have wanted Europe to resemble the United States more. It's not that I don't see the wrongs in American society, it's just that plain old sense tells me that if the US are the world's most favorite destination for immigrants it can't be that bad. Sadly, lately it seems exactly the opposite is going to happen. To those Americans who think that it's America which should resemble Europe more, be careful what you wish for.

Hat tip No Pasaran! Hillary graphic Hilldabeast.


MFBB.

WHOA!!! FIVE YEARS ALREADY?!?!??

Sigh. You know when you are getting old when Roy Scheider dies at 75 and you have to celebrate a lustrum for defending western civilization. Well, no lustrum for me personally, actually. While DowneastBlog indeed celebrates its fifth birthday this month, I only came on board ten months later, in November 2003. One of the co-founders of this blog, Kerry, had the swell idea was so foolish to bombard me European guestwriter. But by then DB, a project of Kerry, her husband Tom, and Scott, had been online since 9 February 2003, that's right, the month before OIF started. I think it's appropriate, at the occasion of our fifth birthday, to reprint that very first post. It's a time document, a sketch from the past, a snapshot of the mood. Here goes! The actual posting was done by Tom, but actually it's a rant from Kerry:

Kerry's vent:
If I see one more thing about "Iraq making concessions for U2 planes" I am going to lose it! How can they concede something that they already "conceded" in 1991.

As far as all of the people that don't want war, not many people actually "like" going to war, or actively want it to happen, however, history has shown us that in times it is a justified and necessary fight. I love all of these people in Hollywood that think that they know better than those actually having to do the job. No matter what they say about Bush, they can hardly say that he is a "war monger" if they are as "open minded" as they claim to be, he hardly hides his Christianity as his guiding influence. Thankfully after his State of the Union address some people are getting that, with his proposals on funding for the AIDS crisis in Africa, etc. To anyone reading that thinks it is easy to say that if you aren't on the receiving end of the destruction of war, I have more to lose than a lot of these people, my husband is still IRR in the Navy, and could get called up and we have close friends that will have to fly missions if it goes more than a couple of months. My husband's two brothers are in the Army, and his father died serving the Navy for this country. I'd like to see Sean Penn giving equal time to the families living on military bases without their husbands and wives, moms and dads so that he has the freedom to take trips to Baghdad. I'd like to see him talking to those that have nightmares, depression, and all of the other horrific fallout from living through 9-11-01.

Do people actually believe these people that "report" from the streets of Baghdad about the "anti-Americanism" that is there? As if anyone that values their own or their families lives are going to say anything against the regime! I can much more appreciate the Pope's sending a "peace envoy" to try admittedly "as a very long shot" to get the Iraqi regime to cooperate. That is the moral high road, to strive for peace until every possiblity is exhausted, but we differ on where that line is drawn. They've had 12 years to co operate. Anyone in basic management or parenting should get this. It is like saying to your child, "if you keep treating your toys poorly then we will take them away." "Now we really mean it this time, you'd better stop." Imagine a parent doing that for 12 years with a kid. Guess what you'd have? An out of control kid that then believes that nobody is going to follow through because that is the experience. Guess what we have? A dicator that is out of control for the same reasons, thanks to the fabulous leadership of the UN. The lack of commonsense just baffles me.

OK, another Iraq related thing. Tom is going nuts over the word "unilateral". "We are making unilateral moves, rushing to war", you can read in various periodicals on a daily basis. Guess what folks? There are somewhere about 16 nations with us, that isn't "unilateral". And as far as a rush to war, we've been in a "war" with Iraq still since 1991. There was a cease fire agreement, which they have violated at every turn for 12 years. Yes, we have to take some responsiblity for not pushing the UN to do something before this. We have hardly been a rush to war, when it has been 12 years that we have tried the waiting game, which has only fostered growth of defiance and production of weapons of mass destruction. September 11 has changed everything, that is a reality. Boy, it is a good thing that we "waited" to deal with Al Queda and Bin Laden, huh? What does it take for people to get it?

God Bless our troops, our President, our people, every last one, and especially those that misguidedly don't understand that much as you wish for peace, you can not negotiate it with a fanatic.

Five years on, I still find myself in agreement with the basic tenets of this vent, or rant, or whatever you want to call it. Of course, it's easier for me to say so than those who face(d) the enemy on the battlefield. Many brought sacrifices - and too many, by now, the ultimate sacrifice. But I believe that if fate had placed me in their shoes, my reactions and opinions on this conflict still wouldn't have changed. These days I get the impression that far too many people desperately want to get back to the time when all we had to care about was a grounded spy plane in China and how to set your first steps on the Internet, and the most exciting news was that Saparmurat Niyazov was proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan. Sorry, but it ain't gonna happen. These days don't come back, and besides, Saparmurat Niyazov is a goner anyway. There is but one sole option: carry on this WOT till we have won.

Over here at DowneastBlog, we are willing to continue, and do what little we can to support those who do the real fighting. As far as I am concerned, if that takes staying around long enough for celebrating the next five years, I'm ready for it. Are you?


MFBB.