Blog about politics (mideast and pro-Israel, Canadian and local Montreal), world events, and random thoughts.

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The World I Know is updated on a semi-regular basis by segacs.

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4:09 PM
Got him! Pakistan claims to have captured a top Al-Quaeda leader:

Pakistan said it had arrested the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on Saturday in what officials declared was a major coup in the global war on terror.

"We have finally apprehended Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Rashid Qureshi, spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf, told Reuters.

"It was the work of Pakistani intelligence agencies... It is a big achievement. He is the kingpin of al Qaeda."

Still doesn't answer the question of where Osama Bin Laden is.

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10:21 PM
In an editorial in Wednesday's La Presse, Pierre Lapperrière makes the case against appeasement by hilighting the cost of appeasing Hitler in the pre-WWII era:

Les É.-U. jugent qu'il ne respecte pas certaines ententes et qu'il est dangereux pour la sécurité internationale qu'un tel président soit au pouvoir. Le président Hussein récolte toutes les sympaties, et des millions de manifestants, surtout dans les pays démocratiques et libéraux, manifestent contre la politique américaine. On observe aujourd'hui une forte division, une faiblesse au sein des démocraties occidentales. J'ai comme l'impression que l'opinion publique n'évolue pas avec l'histoire.

[ . . . ]

Hitler utilisa ce doute qui siègeait au sein même des démocraties pour se débarasser, subtilement, point par point, des clauses du traité. Chaque fois qu'il enfreignait le traité, l'occident se consolait en se disant que l'Allemagne ne voullait que corriger certaines des injustices les plus criades commises — Versailles et appliquer "le droit des peuples à disposer d'eux-mêmes". À chaque écoupé, Hitler se répandait en discours pacifistes, proposait de nouveaux accords pour rassurer les états inquiets de sa gourmandise. L'occident ne voulait pas de guerre.

[ . . . ]

Churchill ne voulait pas tuer des enfants allemands pour assouvir une soif de sang ou assurer la supériorité anglaise en Europe, il voulait arrêter un virus déjà installé; c'est-à-dire couper un pied avant que la gangrène gagne le corps. Et pendant que les médecins occidentaux ne reconnaissaient pas l'infection ou refusaient de porter la responsabilité d'une amputation, le cancer se renforça et l'opération fut beaucoup plus sérieuse.

Lapperrière is right; the world has learned nothing from history and from its mistakes. And it's about to make the same ones all over again. I can only hope that someone has the courage to step in before the cost is as high as it was sixty years ago.

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4:11 PM
Michael Demmons has the latest on PETA's disgusting tactics. PETA is using a poster that is comparing Jews in Nazi concentration camps to chickens served in a meal.

P.E.T.A. has gone WAY overboard. Again. It is absolutely one thing to campaign for the rights of animals. It is entirely fine - even noble to put yourself on the line to help those inhabitants of this planet who are unable to help themselves. But it is positively disgusting to use pictures of Jews in German concentration camps next to pictures of chickens in cages and say one is as bad as the other. I really don't know what to say about this.

Frankly, neither do I.

Update: It seems the campaign's creator is Jewish and claims his family lost members in the Holocaust. He also claims that the campaign is being funded by an "anonymous Jewish philanthropist". I wish I could claim to be more surprised.

The Anti-Defamation League has denounced the campaign, by the way.

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2:22 PM
As a child of the 80s, this news is very sad: Mr. Rogers has passed away. He had cancer and was 74 years old.

I grew up on shows like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers' Neighbourhood, and Mr. Dressup. It's as if a piece of my childhood has died along with him.

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3:19 PM
USF fires terrorist professor.

The computer engineering professor charged with running the American operations of a Palestinian terrorist group was fired Wednesday by the University of South Florida.

Sami Al-Arian, who had been suspended since shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, was found to have abused his position at the university, USF president Judy Genshaft said.

"Dr. Al-Arian's statements about his activities have been false and misleading and he's failed to meet our high professional standards," Genshaft said. "No longer will he be able to hide under the shield of academic freedom."

Al-Arian, 45, was arrested last week. He and seven others are accused in a 121-page federal indictment of setting up a terrorist cell at the university and funneling support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the government says has killed more than 100 people in Israel and its territories.

Geez, and they accuse Concordia of being Gaza U . . .

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3:15 PM
The U.S. calls us procrastinators.

The Americans rejected a Canadian UN proposal that was circulated in attempt to forge a compromise in Iraq. The proposal would have set deadlines for different stages of disarmement, and set March 28 as a deadline.

When asked about the Canadian proposal, Fleischer said Bush believes his resolution is the "way to go."

"Time is running out, this issue must come to a conclusion," said Fleischer.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also discussed the proposal. Afterwards, U.S. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher said Canada's proposal "only procrastinates on a decision we all should be prepared to take."

While I understand Canada's desire to forge a compromise and mediate betweeen an increasingly polarized UN, I gotta agree with the Americans on this one. There's nothing magical about March 28th. The anti-war protestors won't have changed their minds by then. Saddam Hussein won't turn into Mother Teresa by then. Really, nothing will change between today and March 28th on an issue that the world has been stalling on for months already.

The saying goes "procrastination gives you something to look forward to", and that's all very well and good - while I'm writing a paper or completing a project. But the only thing further delay will accomplish here is to increase anti-Americanism and to give Saddam Hussein more time to prepare weapons of retaliation. It's time to act, not to delay. And it's time for Canada to get on-side.

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11:36 AM
Having faded from the front-page headlines, the CSU is up to its old tricks again.

The Union has failed to comply with the university's demand (as required by the CSU's own bylaws) to make detailed financial information available. They also ruled against a complaint that would have kicked "king Patrice" Blais out of office, as he is not even registered in any classes. The following conflicts of interest were also brought to light:

Reporting on behalf of the financial committee, councillor Patrice Blais reported decisions that were made which could be seen as conflicts of interest. Blais said the procedure for such matters is that the person involved would be absent for any deliberations and would not vote on the matter. Among the matters reported:

• $3,000-3,500 were allocated to a project creating a book about the history of the CSU. Both Blais and Adam Slater were involved in this project.
  
• A $2,000 budget advance to the student group Facing Reality, a group headed by CSU councillors, was approved.
  
• A newspaper about the situation following the World Trade Center terrorist attacks was given $3,000. VP Finance Sameer Zuberi was involved in this project.
  
• Four clubs with Financial Committee members as executives received budgets: $2,500 for Adam Slater's Democracy Now; $5,000 for Bilal Hamideh's Muslim Students' Association; $4,000 for Trish McIntosh's Praxis; and $6,000 for Louis-Éric Simard's Debating Society (Simard resigned from the financial committee for undisclosed reasons).

Other motions shot down include one that would have gotten rid of any CSU member with a criminal conviction for financial crimes, one that would have compelled the CSU to keep a detailed book of financial records in compliance with their by-laws, and one that would have forbade people from using the general CSU mailing list to campaign for elections. (Tom Keefer used this list the night before the infamous September 2001 by-election, telling people not to vote for the Representative Union. RU won anyway and - surprise, surprise - the CSU overturned the election result.)

The worst part is that despite being the most anti-democratic, unaccountable group around, the same people risk being re-elected right back into power. Concordia students go to the polls at the end of March, and unless enough of them get involved enough to make a change, nothing much will improve. Sad, but true: voter apathy is democracy's worst enemy.

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11:02 AM
Frequently, clerics and political leaders among the Palestinians claim that the "Jews are destroying Muslim holy sites", in effort to arouse anger and incite riots and violence. The truth is that it's the other way around. Arutz Sheva reports that Joseph's tomb has been destroyed by Arab vandals:

The destruction of Joseph's Tomb of the past two weeks is now "official." Prime Minister Sharon and Defense Minister Mofaz confirmed this morning, at the Cabinet meeting, Arutz-7's report of the end of last week: Arab vandals entered the holy site in Shechem sometime in the past two weeks and turned the large stone marking Joseph's grave into a pile of rubble.

Minister Natan Sharansky called upon the Foreign Ministry to publicize the photos of the destroyed site. "If we would have razed the gravesite of one of the founders of Islam," Sharansky said, "billions of Moslems would have taken to the streets. It's inconceivable that the world should not know about this travesty." Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Sharon said they would in fact publicize the photos.

To see more photos of this disgusting violation of a Jewish holy site, see this site.

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10:49 AM
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that racketeering laws cannot be used against anti-abortion groups using violence and intimidation as tactics.

By an 8-1 vote, the high court said in an opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist the judgment that the anti-abortion activists had violated the racketeering laws must be reversed.

The civil lawsuit against Operation Rescue, the Pro-Life Action League and three of the league's leaders was brought by the National Organization for Women and others. At issue were tactics that included violent demonstrations to block access to clinics.

This is yet another miserable example of the courts engaging in social engineering. What does it say about the U.S. judicial system, whereby judges are appointed by the administration in power and make decisions in line with the party who appointed them?

If violence and intimidation are being used on a case-by-case basis, the perpetrators should be prosecuted for those crimes. But when these tactics are being used on an organized, planned basis across a country, then individual prosecutions are no longer sufficient. That was the intention of racketeering laws (usually used against organized crime organizations such as the Mafia) - to prevent wide-scale use of threats and intimidation to coerce people or businesses into closing or committing illegalities.

Apparently, women seeking abortions - or doctors performing the service - aren't seen as deserving of these protections, according to the Supreme Court. Disgusting.

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2:03 PM
Looks like a springtime election. The news seems to be that us Quebecers will be going to the polls April 14th to decide whether we want a federalist, separatist, or closet-separatist-pretending-not-to-care government.

I've been accused of being extra hard on Mario Dumont and the ADQ. Actually, I think it's the other way around. People in Quebec are so tired of the Liberal-PQ dichotomy, they see Dumont as a breath of fresh air. Thus, they're being too easy on him, giving him a free pass every time he waffles on an issue or makes a ridiculous proposal. And thanks to much of the "soft nationalist" support going Dumont's way instead of to the Liberals, it looks like we're going to be in for another 5 long years of Bernard Landry.

*Sigh*.

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8:51 AM
A freak snowstorm hits Israel and buries the area in snow.


A snowman at the Kotel

Just the other day I was on the phone with a friend of mine in Israel and she was complaining about how much she missed our Montreal winters, and how jealous she was of me for having gone skiing and how she wished she could be here. All I can say is, be careful what you wish for. I don't think Haifa (where she lives) will see much snow - probably just rain - but still . . .

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5:41 PM
Saddam challenges Bush to a debate.

Hahahahahahaha.

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11:31 AM
More empty threats by the UN to Saddam Hussein:

U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Monday that Iraq must begin destroying its illicit al-Samoud missiles by Saturday and he did not expect any more talks with Iraq on the issue.

[ . . . ]

Blix last Friday ordered Baghdad to begin destroying the missiles, their warheads, engines, launchers and other components by Saturday after concluding they exceeded the 90-mile range set for Iraqi rockets by a Security Council resolution.

But without the U.N. agreeing to take any kind of action if these demands are not met, this threat is as empty as a scrawny kid telling the schoolyard bully to stop stealing his lunch money "or else".

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11:11 AM
I've come to the conclusion that going to bed at 4am when you have to be up for work at 7 is NOT a smart idea.

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11:04 AM
Strange bedfellows . . . The National Religious Party and Shinui agreed yesterday to join Sharon's coalition government.

This despite Shinui's anti-religious stance. Although Shas has so far been excluded from the government, in keeping with Lapid's promise that Shinui would never join a government that includes Shas. At any rate, it looks like the NRP and Shinui have made a couple of key compromises:

The NRP received assurances that religious education would remain independent and budget cuts for national service for religious women would be repealed.

The coalition guidelines will include an agreement reached between the NRP and Shinui which calls for the Tal Law that grants IDF service deferments to all yeshiva students to be canceled and replaced by a new arrangement. The Large Families Law, under which state support for families increases sharply from the fifth child, will be replaced by a law granting an equal allotment for each child.

The key issue to watch there is the Yeshiva deferment one. This has been in place since 1948, when Ben-Gurion made a concession to a small number of Yeshiva students, exempting them from army service in attempt to preserve the small number of religious scholars from Eastern Europe who survived the Holocaust. It quickly ballooned into a huge loophole, through which virtually all religious men and women are able to defer their army service by declaring themselves too religious to serve. It will be interesting to see what the law is replaced with. I personally suspect it won't be too different from the status quo, because Sharon would never risk alienating the entire Haredi population of Israel at this point.

Shinui and the NRP give Sharon a very narrow majority. If Am Ehad joins the coalition, it will be a bit more secure. Labor, however, still seems to be holding out, and it's starting to look like Mitzna may actually stay out of the government. Yes, I know I predicted otherwise, but hey, who says I'm right?

The world media is decrying this as being bad for the peace process, saying that Sharon has formed a right-wing government that opposes peace. The NRP is opposed to Palestinian statehood as a matter of record, but I suspect that won't matter much, as the parties have agreed to consider President Bush's "road map" - if only to help the ailing Israeli economy for now.

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8:53 AM
Quotable quotes:

L. Ian MacDonald was on CHOM this morning talking politics with Terry DiMonte, like most Monday mornings. They were discussing Iraq, and how if we lined up George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein and asked Canadians to choose, about half of them right now would choose Saddam - the guy who (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here) "used mustard gas on his own people and rapes children in front of their parents as a torture technique. Nice guy, eh?"

Both were saying how ridiculous that is, and how they don't understand it. And MacDonald said how there's a difference between legitimate criticism of war priorities and of what would happen in the region after Saddam was outsted, and irresponsible blanket criticism based on "a wave of anti-Americanism in this country, which is not unlike antisemitism in that they're both based on envy."

I always liked that guy.

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2:11 AM
I was just watching The Agency on CBS.

Between "Reality TV" and prime-time soap operas, I thought I'd seen it all. But this hour of TV just set a new low. In the show - which is about the CIA - the Americans travel to Israel to attempt to broker a deal between the Israeli Mossad and the Palestinian Authority. (Yeah right!)

Even more ludicrously, an assassination attempt on the CIA staff is traced back to "extremist Israeli settlers" - including an IDF captain and a high-ranking Israeli security officer - who, according to the script, are so against peace efforts that they liaised with Hamas in order to make and detonate bombs. The entire scenario is so ridiculous, I had a hard time keeping a straight face. Never mind that right-wing Israelis, although portrayed by the media as fanatics, have never been involved terrorism, as the show suggests. And they would never in a million years dream of working with a Palestinian terror group like Hamas.

I guess the scriptwriters were afraid of seeming as though they were taking sides. But attempting to paint both sides with the terrorism brush is incorrect and unfair.

The scenes where one of the characters, ostensibly a high-ranking member of the Israeli Mossad, was speaking the most awful Hebrew I've ever heard, were rather amusing. (Although his boss seemed to be fairly fluent). The thing that made me literally laugh out loud, though, was when the CIA - in attempt to stop a cell phone from being used as a bomb detonator - decided to block all cell phone signals in Jerusalem. Anyone who knows how reliant Israelis are on their cell phones would understand.

Only on TV.

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