Of Realism and Resistance, mainly ...

Today a necessary news update, building on recent earlier posts:

With respect to yesterday's post "Counter-Terrorist Blog Swarm Wanted!" Ioannis Michaletos of Strategic Analysis relays an article "Kosovo is Spiralling out of Control" by Mikhail Logvinov. It lays bare a few intricacies in the matter begging closer scrutiny.

- For example: "... if Russia rejects the Kosovo independence plan, Brussels will assume responsibility and make an appropriate decision", in favour of independence, we may assume. On the other hand, according to a spokeswoman for European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana "the EU will make a decision if need be, but only with the UN Security Council’s consent" of which Russia happens to be a veto carrying member. It may be the author who's caught in a circular argument, or it may be the E.U. that has now finally lost its way!


- It seriously beggars belief that Moscow's "(t)rying to prevent the partition of its long-time Slavic ally" is termed "a dubious decision from the viewpoint of international law"! Since when has the encouragement of partition become the politically correct? Since the advent of Transnational Progessivism perhaps? Has the breaking up of sovereign states, to be forcibly incorporated into post-democratic, totalitarian federations already become the official international policy? I would certainly hope that "(t)hose countries whose territorial integrity is threatened are against the current European trend" of the breaking up of sovereign, national states.

- At least 'the West' is not caught unawares of the dangerous consequences of their actions, as they have been "discussing crisis scenarios that should give a legal seal to tough actions against Belgrade". Go ahead, pile it on!

- The article further points out that "Kosovar and Serbian organized crime planned" the 2004 ethnic clashes between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. It would appear that, apart from the Wahhabis - it is primarily the mob that would greatly benefit from Kosovo's independence, courtesy of 'the West'.

Here's more from the intrepid Julia Gorin. So far the news from the Eastern front.
Yankee Wombat, an American in Oz recently had two pieces from a surprising perspective.


- His post "The Quick and the Dead" concerns Michael Yon's fabulous independent journalism in Iraq and his recent shocking article "Bless the Beasts and Children", describing and illustrating the horrific way in which Muslims are killing Muslims. Yankee Wombat answers the matter which I registered from the sidelines over the weekend, how this story of whole-sale slaughter broke in the MSM, and was almost immediately denied by same.


- In another post "Eurabia and Delusions of Grandeur" Yankee Wombat reviews Bat Ye’Or's book Eurabia and comments upon what he sees as "the conceit of the Europeans - they were confident that their culture would absorb the Muslims ... Europe fancied itself as the senior partner in this process set to absorb the Mediterranean lands of Africa and Asia into its orbit ..."

Now that a few million Muslims find themselves on the European continent, these prove to be a great deal more assertive in defending their cultural and religious heritage than (post)modern Europeans are wont to do. Now that culture clashes and displacement is on the horizon (see Kosovo), European politicians are at a loss how to handle the monster of their creation, other then by suppressing free speech and appeasing irrational totalitarians. And then to think there have been good men and women giving their lives for our freedom: I'm sure it wasn't this what they had in mind when they signed up!

- Speaking of which, here's another pleasant uptake in the Confessions of a Closet Republican (bless her! and note the story of Liberal oppression in her profile).

- And how Foehammer has finally had enough!!! He's in resistance mode ...

Transnational Progressivism: an Inexplicable Presumption

The Transnational Progressivism Alerts for today are for the Central European areas and the Balkan peninsula, as well as for the whole of Northern America and parts of Meso-America, and - oh .... what thee eck ... make that for the whole of planet Earth and the surrounding areas!

Foehammer's Anvil, in "Bush dismembers Serbia" is on to the consequences of the impending Kosovo precedent. In instalment number 5 on the transnational state in the series "Neo-Totalitarianism" we have already seen that " ... it is certain that diplomatically and politically something is afoot. The U.N. does not have the legal power to declare countries independent; nevertheless, if Security Council member and Serb ally Russia doesn't veto ... the U.N. will have done exactly that. It will provide for any other area in the world with separatist aspirations or with an axe to grind, to go the same route".

But, if the whole exercise isn't an adexterous attempt at appeasing Radical Islamism, betting heavily on Russia indeed voting the hazardous plan to Neverland, "perhaps this is the very thing the Transnational Progressive community have in mind ... the gradual end to the mono-cultural remnants of the era of "sectarian war after war, and wave after wave of ethic cleansing", as the latest postmodern propaganda slogan goes."

Foehammer is quoting from a 'Accuracy in Media' (AIM) article by Cliff Kincaid dated June 8, 2007 as follows: "What Bush is doing is laying the groundwork for more conflict and upheaval in the world ... Never before in history has the U.N. presided over the deliberate destruction of a sovereign state. Kosovo represents the religious heritage of Serbia's Christians and many Christian churches have already been destroyed by Muslim extremists there. Taking Kosovo from Serbia is comparable to taking Jerusalem from Israel." Amen!

There is that last aspect too, yes. But in today's 'post-Christian' world who cares for a few antiquated churches and monasteries: old bricks and mortar, and a reminder of the terrible world we inhabited before the advent of postmodernity! We are all interdependent now ...!

Yet the relentless diplomatic push towards an independent Muslim state in Kosovo is indeed "ominous ... If ethnic Albanians can take Kosovo from Serbia, then Mexico can take the Southwest from the U.S., making it part of Mexico or making it into a state or region of its own, separate from the U.S. Indeed, there is a plan to do just that. Bush apparently doesn't fear this possibility because he sees Mexico joining Canada and the U.S. in some kind of ultimate trilateral entity. In this kind of world, there would be a common identity card and people would be free to travel anywhere." Hey, let's rock with this transnational progressivism! Burn your passport, delete the border!

That multicultural and multi-ethnic world of empires people lived in before the doctrine of self-determination, autonomy and the national identity was fully developed, and which since has gone out of diplomatic fashion, is described in the book "Not even my name" by Thea Halo whose mother was a Pontian Greek, father an Assyrian, Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire that - along with Armenians - felt the brunt of the Young Turk and Ataturk's policies of 'Turkey for the Turks'. Armenian Aztag Daily had an interview with the American author; it can be read in "Companians in Suffering".

Which begs the question: can Turkey ever become a worthy E.U. member while in denial over its own history of conquest, submission (dhimmitude) and suppression? Germany and South Africa were brave enough, having completed their psychological processes to come to terms with the past and are the better for it; due to their cultures of shame Japan and Turkey are still struggling with the events, the latter being in a state of denial altogether.

The tone for example in which Turkish Daily News recently reported on the matter of a Greek history text book didn't exactly betray awareness of any sensitivities on the Greek side towards past events that happened on their imperial watch, to say the least.
And neither did Turkish P.M. Erdogan betray any empathy when he told Greek P.M. Karamanlis during a meeting in Vienna last Friday, that "there is a lot of sensitivity (on the part of Turkey) to this sort of issue"; this sort of issue being the unveiling of a monument in Thessaloniki, commemorating the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Pontic Greeks during World War I and in the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1922 at the hands of Turkish forces: it "cast a shadow over friendly relations between the two countries", rang the ultimate chutzpah.

The American author has a good point where she stresses that "... by recognizing the genocides they (Turkey) would resolve some of the other important issues as well. For instance ... you don't have to keep jailing your teachers, publishers, and journalists on this issue ... It's a shame that they can't speak freely and learn what happened in their own country without fear."

"The sad thing is that they lost so much, because the Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians had so much culture there ... vibrancy ... wonderful artisans, intellectuals, teachers, musicians. At the time, there were Europeans who were saying "What in the world will Turkey do without the Christians?" After all, it was the Christians who were the intellectuals and business people, who had the education to help Turkey progress into the 20th century."

"When Turkey got rid of the Christian populations, they set themselves back, way-way back. The general Turkish population was not well educated at that time, because the Turkish government didn't bother to educate them the way the Christian missionaries educated the Christian populations. For the most part, the government wouldn't allow Muslims to attend the Christian schools, for fear of conversion, so most Turks of the time remained peasants and farmers" ... whose grandchildren are currently finding their way to permissive, postmodern, liberal societies and don't seem to be able to get over the culture shock.


As history lessons are gradually erased from school curricula, it is not unusual to find Westerners going through their lives with the false idea that Greek temples, Armenian monasteries and Assyrian churches were built by Turks, unaware as they are of the fact that pre-Islamic Turkish tribes only came on the Indo-European scene out of the Mongolian planes, from the thirteenth century onwards, conquering the indigenous Christianized peoples in the process. It is an illusion the Turks do nothing to dispel, claiming the cultural loot as their own.

A similar development occurred from the eighth century onwards with the Islamic conquests of countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa: it may come as a shock to some victims of the postmodern interpretation of history education, but (Islamic) Turks and Arabs don't build churches, or Greek ruins, or Roman aquaducts - never have, never will! Nor are they indigenous to Turkey (Asia Minor, or the Near East) or the Middle East, the Arabs hailing from the Arabian peninsula, roughly present day Saudi Arabia.

The postmodern elite is so much in a hurry towards the progression of the transnational, borderless, multicultural and multi-ethnic empire building, that they rather opt for silence and suppression of unwelcome historical events rather than deal with them, non-offensive policies being the number one on the politically correct order of the day.

U-turning politicians are never a pleasant sight, but nothing is more repulsive and nauseating than the European party big wigs slithering hither and thither in their exculpation of the Turkish atrocities in the face of that country's impending E.U. membership (Belgium's Messrs Johan Vande Lanotte and Yves Leterme and, on behalf of The Netherlands, Wouter Bos).

The most perplexing of the transnational progressive wisdom is, that - apart from the fact that the old empires were neither easy manageable entities from a governmental point of view, nor democratic champions of civil rights - the idea also counters, what not a century ago, was seen as the solution to "sectarian war after war, and wave after wave of ethic cleansing", namely borders, passports, sovereignty, the nation-state.

Orwell's Press from Hell

I may be one of a dying breed: call me peculiar, but I like to form an independent opinion, based on fullness of information, on my own - thank you very much!

Considering the postmodern press is doing our thinking for us by predigesting and preselecting the news as they see fit, I might as well open up a independent press agency here and make a day-job out of screening their omissions and censoring. I fear however I am already otherwise engaged.

I do however intend to nail Orwell's Infernal Journalism to the doorpost of hell whenever the opportunity presents itself! Such posts shall be announced, thus:


Israel and the P.A., already problem areas due to the overt anti Israeli media bias displayed by amongst others Britain's 35,000 strong membership of the National Union of Journalists (btw unheard of in the history of the press!), present today's focus. Here goes ...

... what the Western press didn't say:

- 20 Qassam rockets launched at Israel on Thursday
- Qassams ignored abroad
- 3 wounded as Qassam hits Sderot home
- Hamas blames world, Israel and Arabs

And it's not just "The Lighthouse" that's peculiar in that sense: here's yesterday's post from "Barking Moonbat Early Warning System"!

While we are on the subject of eccentricity, yesterday the world saw the first reports of a new digital application: cyber warfare, of Russia against "Soviet era ally", Estonia! It takes some getting used to by NATO: at present they don't consider it an Article 5 offence, which would normally kick the Musketeer Doctrine (all for one, one for all) into gear. Russia meanwhile, is peeved, denies as yet unpronounced charges, which it qualifies as "serious", calls for substantiation.

A fittingly Good Friday

Good Friday 2007, and it hasn't made me any more charitable towards postmodernity.

The institution that went - within one year, from the standard of journalistic excellence, to possibly the worst politically correct offender - weighs in on the Greek history book furore, and entirely along predictable, dualistic, P.C. ideological party line:

- church, obstructionist, uncompromising, conservative, irrational, reactionary, history, obscurantism, vilification of the other, narrow minded, dogmatic, nationalistic, monoculture, nation-state, petty pride: bad;

- 'science' (in casu, the authors, the supporters), reasonable, open minded, charitable, progressive, enlightened, European Empire (implicit), multiculture: good.

The basic part of the P.C. message also is, either "it must happen, it is essential" for some unidentified reason, or "it is already an accomplished fact, so you'd better make the best of it": case closed. So much for the open mind, revulsion towards dogma and the 'scientific' approach.

Another sample of the course BBC are on, can be found in a typical "BBC Breaking News Alert" of these days. Another 9/11? Government fallen? Moldova struck by major earth quake?You must be joking! Such a hot breaking news message can only concern the new animist religion! But perhaps there's still hope. They're getting new management. But if the Tory reaction is one to go by, things may not even have hit rock-bottom yet! Or it may be as per the E.U., simply beyond repair!

But back to the Greek history book story, which is revealing in more ways than one. Following the 4-1 loss in the Greece/Turkey soccer match last week, English language Turkish Daily News gloatingly spoke of "no absence of national malaise these days" and "The textbook takes a less victimized approach to the war of independence in 1821 from the Ottomans and downplays the role of the Orthodox Church during that period".

Dear Turks, by all means, eat your heart out while you still can! By the time the boys in Brussels are finished with your history books, you won't know what Greek and Armenian lobbies will have hit you! By the way, the French don't mind about the gas pipe line project being abused as a political object of blackmail over the Armenian Genocide Act, you know. Apart for your mutual interest in power politics, the French are also great stickers to principles. And after Russia's abuse of economics as a political crow bar like there never was a Soviet Union, the rest of the world by now is up to anything that might be thrown at it. You'll see ...

With hindsight it has by now become apparent that humanity's hay days were the 1990's of blessed memory, when the curtain had just fallen and to the optimist it seemed to be curtains! for the whole social engineered mess. But this is the new millennium and high time for yet another gigantic folly of global proportions.

So old Uncle Joe (Stalin) gets the blame (he's conveniently dead so has nothing to say) and the entire totalitarian circus is resurfacing in another guise, as champions of women, blacks, gays, indigenous peoples, the physically and mentally challenged, and any other downtrodden minority you can think of. Just in the nick of time rescued from white, male, Christian domination, only to be turned over to the other partner in the axis of evil in Operation Destroy the West - to reemerge on the other side of the 'debate' as dhimmis, or converts with bags over our heads. As if 1821 should never have been: empire is good, even if it is called a khalifate, it is multicultural!

This is going on while some useful others with impaired brain capacity, want us all to become bloody heathens and think, this is of no consequence at all, other than entirely beneficial, to the world we live in.


~ Some of the readers will be pleased to know that over the Easter weekend we'll be revisiting the Veritable Treasure Trove of Sheer Relativist Madness! ~

History Class: of agit-prop, revolution and terror!

I think we need a bit of a breather from all the pseudo-intellectual ranting. Only this morning I saw some fallen Christian write that "relativism is indisputable" - whereas we have seen - it hasn't got a leg to stand on. Which brings me to another one of post fin-de-siècle's mysteries: is it me or is irrationality on the rise, especially among classes that are supposed to be the strongholds of reason? These are interesting times, in so far that at this moment there is hardly anyone alive (I think), who has seen the last time in human history, that there was so much confusion about.

Which provides me with a convenient bridge to one of the most interesting books written in recent years. Published in 2005 I'm surprised it didn't get more attention before now; but then, it is reality based! I read it a year ago when I was preparing the ground in Athens for my impending emigration. Bought, in a draughty airport bookshop - a place mostly associated with the lighter digestible material - "The Orientalist" by Tom Reiss provides some valuable understandings and profound insights into a world that is now gone, but that is impacting us until this day.

The book has a few lessons too, if we are willing to internalize them. I am at present re-reading it and propose - whenever I hit a passage worth sharing - to jot down some notes in this blog. For those interested in another perspective on history, or a holiday from ethnocentricity, this is it. Multicultis: off your lazy bums and to the bookshop with you! (Or hit the Library button on your left hand side.)

It tells the story of the author of what can be termed, Azerbaijan's national novel: Ali and Nino, the tale of a Muslim boy and a Christian girl, set in the oil capital Baku. The author of this national treasure, Lev Nussimbaum, was born there in a railway carriage, in the midst of the failed revolution of 1905 as the son of Jewish parents: father an oil magnet, mother a revolutionary, would be suicide and an associate of the Georgian Koba Djukashvili, in later years known by his nom-de-guerre, Joseph Stalin.

The latter, having been thrown out of seminary (one can only guess why, or the reason for entering in the first place), operated in those years in Baku where - due to the vast oil wealth - there was a lot of expropriation to do. Reading his exploits, one is reminded of the early years of Saddam Hussein in Iraq: setting out as a thuggish enforcer of the imperial secret police, the Okhrana, he soon developed into a revolutionary in his own right: terrorist attacks, intimidation, extortion and kidnappings were the order of the day.

Russia was of course fertile breeding ground for the revolution, that had been in the making since 1881, when the liberal and progressive Czar Alexander II was killed in a terrorist attack by a group called The People's Will. But it took until 1917 to come to full fruition.

Feudalism like we knew it in Europe, with a hierarchy of aristocratic nobility from the king or emperor downwards, was non-existent in Russia. There was the Czar and there was serfdom, only abolished in 1861 (!) by said Alexander II, and nothing in between. To put this in perspective, when Parisians were shouting à la Lanterne!, in Russia Czarina Catharine the Great was granting basic rights to the nobility.

My grandfather used to say, that one's social class is betrayed by whom you look down at. He meant, that the queen doesn't look down on the cleaning lady (they are probably on first name terms), but the doorman does. Accordingly, while Russia's new middle-class was acting this out by turning serfs into slaves, another social mechanism kicked in: the well-educated children and grand-children of the new middle-class turned against it. They became the self-appointed advocates for the exploited and downtrodden, turning themselves into the engine of the revolution, as the downtrodden themselves were rather loath to up the barricades.

We have seen the same happening in our own time with Mohamed Atta c.s. on 9/11, and before them the Bader Meinhoff Group and the Rote Armee Faction. All combined to a fatal potion: a mentality by which the end justifies the means, the glorification of violence as the exclusive means towards the realization of The People's Will (no pain, no glory), the prescribed philosophy for the Russian engine of the revolution: nihilism, Paul Cliteur's accusation of Stuart Sim, that sent the latter into the chandeliers.

The Russian agitatist-terrorist groups bore names that makes Al Qa'ida look a rather unimaginative crowd: Death for Death, The League of the Red Fuse, The Terrorist Individuals, The Anarchist Blackmailers, etc. Starting out as self-styled people's advocates, their actions soon became violence for its own sake. The assassinated Czar Alexander II was succeeded by his son Alexander III, whose first act was the re-call the modern oukazes of his father, and afterwards did little else but clamping down on the revolutionaries.

It may be argued - as some now do - that clamping down probably made matters worse: the revolutionaries even preferred a tightly closed lid so that when a hole was breached, steam would be let off proper, thus fuelling the revolutionary zeal. But without the proper controls and repressive measures The Black Hand would have agitated twice as hard for the lack of it, and so as to compensate for more steam. There doesn't seem to be a 'right' way, to react to terrorism. Clamping down quick, still seems to be cautious advice.

But the environment for terrorists and agitators to foster in the first place, is a police-state that is characterised by oppression, injustice and exploitation; not one subjected to the rule of law, democratic principles and the occasional well-deserved critique. The conclusion that a democratic process in the Middle East is long overdue, seems to be not that far fetched.

Hizbollah's scorched earth mentality backfires yet again

I promised revisiting the Regensburg speech, but there are other pressing news items. For some weeks now I have been googling two articles whisked from Lebanon's The Daily Star newspaper. One I have already mentioned in an earlier post about a new phenomenon in Middle East politics, the Iranian-Syrian invention of National Islamism. It seeks to replace and incorporate Arab Nationalism with Islamism, a highly suspect and volatile potion indeed! The Palestinian and Lebanese subcontractors are Hamas and Hizbollah respectively. The idea is uniting Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Iranians under a "patriotic" Shiite-Islamic banner led by the axis Iran and Syria, with the primary goal of victory over Israel and its Western allies. This is not to be achieved by means of a negotiated settlement mind you, which is anathema to the National Islamists. The asset of Iran's nuclear capability looms large.

- The Syrian Al-Assad Ba'ath regime (sister-party to Saddam Hussein's) being predominantly secular, and Iran just about owning Syria, is in a position to dictate terms.
- The leadership in what are usually termed "the moderate Arab countries" is largely irrelevant to the doctrine: the policy as envisioned is grass-roots up.

The article underscores what stands out when you think about it: the moderate elites would be delighted to see Israel and its allies put the axis and its subcontractors in their place, but are unlikely to do anything themselves, occupied as they have been for decades with self-preservation.

The article closes with the ominous conclusion that even moderate success will set the Israeli-Palestine peace settlement back at least a generation. Against this backdrop a drama is presently playing out in the streets of Beirut. Since early December of last year Hizbollah with the assistance of Christian turncoat Michael Aoun has been camping out in the streets of Beirut in an effort to topple the Siniora government, which is seen by the protest movements as pro Western and thus "unpatriotic".

Hizbollah's scorched earth mentality has brought Lebanon into a war with Israel over the summer of 2006, at a material cost which, by the U.N. is estimated at $10 billion; through increasingly violent protest rallies and strikes it is now jeopardizing Prime Minister Siniora's attendance of the donor conference known as Paris III, where the sole agenda item is Lebanon's total public debt of about $41 billion, or 190 percent of Lebanon's GDP. It is slowly dawning on the country just what Hizbollah's state-within-a-state is costing, and that's just the material down-side.

- In another article it becomes apparent how disastrous the situation actually is: Hizbullah is not only having to deal with its devastating blunder of last summer and the protracted and futile encampment on Beirut's streets, they also have to deal with Syria's troubles with the international community over the Hariri murder tribunal.
- Added to that the fact that the Iranian pay-master is not amused that the investments haven't been paying off and over the loss of buffer territory at the Lebanon-Israeli border.
- Hizbollah's own Shiite community is also far from pleased: not only did it have to sustain the suffering due to the war, the reconstruction and "reimbursement" promised by Tehran is also not forthcoming.

Considering all this, it becomes apparent that what we are witnessing these days in Beirut may be the last desperate efforts to salvage an impossible situation, one of which the citizens of Lebanon have had enough.

The outside world may have another impression, but Israel has calculated that its policy of military restraint, in place since the Oslo peace process in 1993, is not paying off. Two particular reasons stand out in this respect: the lack of willingness or ability of ordinary Lebanese citizens to constrain Hizbollah's state-within-a-state at the southern border, and the fact that during the years of restraint Hizbollah has been piling up rockets on the Israeli border. The Palestinian organisation Hamas, at present in government, is a not only Iran's subcontractor, but is also Hizbollah's peer, and the two are emulating and incorporating successful elements of each other's strategies. It may well be that the next miscalculated kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Hizbollah will not cost Lebanon $10 billion, but will result in total bankruptcy.

- The meeting in Damascus of Palestinian President Abbas with Hamas' supreme leader Khaled Meshaal this weekend for crucial discussions on whether Hamas will accept the terms of a coalition with Fatah, is yet another cross current in the National Islamist's proxi power play with the forces of democracy.
- The latest news from Tehran is that it said it was still cooperating with the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, despite announcing a day earlier that it was barring 38 inspectors from working in the country.
- The aforementioned story is not carried by any other news outlet, but the Jerusalem Post carries a article about Iran just having taken delivery of a number of Russian Tor M-1 missiles (purchased before the recent U.N. sanctions were imposed) just as three days of military maneuvers went under way in Iran.

Nobody is at this stage advised to hold their breath till democracy breaks out in the Middle East.

About staying power, gas and other sources of energy

Before we proceed with the next tiresome instalment of the State of Malcontent (will it never end?) a few intriguing articles out of today's current affairs vacuum:

- On 1st November Heather Robinson wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal all Americans can take to heart. "My Country Needs Me. Iraqi democrats haven't given up the fight. How can we?" chronicles the trepidations of Mr Al-Alusi, founder of the now 15,000 members strong Iraqi Nation Party. I'd would like to add the following remarks:

First, now that diplomatic efforts are exerted to get Syria and Iran involved in normalizing the situation in Iraq, one wonders how these countries can possibly have that ability, given that neither has a hand in the pernicious "resistance"?
Secondly, since the Democratic Party in the U.S. has won the last elections on a leave-Iraq ticket and public opinion has shifted against the war, it is only to be expected that the U.S. Army will be withdrawn as soon as it is practically possible. In such case my sad advise to the American nation would be, not to entertain in the foreseeable future any thought of a military intervention again, since you have proved the terrorists right when they said that it would only be a matter of time before the Americans left (see Vietnam), as they just don't have the staying power to stick it out.

There's more of this sort. John Allen excelled again this weekend in an article "Benedict and religious freedom in Turkey" . It lists all Benedict's references to religious freedom made during the trip, which is very practical. It also mentions a few other remarkable facts: 1. that Turkish ID cards specify one's religious persuasion (wait till the boys in Brussels hear about this!), and 2. that "the (present) Turkish constitution recognizes every citizen's right to freedom of worship and freedom of conscience". As is made evident by Pope Benedict's six different remarks on this matter, the daily reality is at best one of (bureaucratic) harassment. One of the more important arguments in favour of Turkish accession to the E.U. is the guarantee it offers of freedom of religion. Since present Constitution isn't able to change the facts on the ground, who is to say that E.U. accession requirements will. I'd hate to spoil the party, but aren't we kidding ourselves here just a little?

This piece shows how my suspicion of the delicate profile of the heroic Mesrob II was regrettably justified.

With all the attention focused elsewhere it must be noted that the developments in Moscow are not of the heartening kind. While we are high-fiving for having won the Cold War, now that the adrenaline has worn off, we are in danger of losing the battle over Energy. Read Richard Rahn's "Russian Bear sets a trap" to see how gullible we are! And me thinking bears get trapped, instead of setting them...

While on the subject of the Russian Bear, The Daily Star of Beirut tells how Moscow is coming to the aide of the Ayatollahs' nuclear program. In passing it states something noteworthy:

"Echoing Russia's concerns, U.N. atomic watchdog chief Al-Baradei on Sunday warned against the diplomatic isolation of North Korea and Iran, saying confrontation would only lead them to accelerate their nuclear programs".

Be that as it may (or not), but is Mr Al-Baradei here not overstepping the mark, just like his colleague at the U.N., Kofi Annan is prone to do? I'm not sure of Mr Al-Baradei's status, but if he's a simple civil servant acting as chairman (like Mr Annan) shouldn't he refrain from making political statements? Educated comments invited. What to think of the man's naivete when he states that "...We need to ... change the hearts and minds in Iran ..."! I ask you: hearts and minds in Iran?! To touch the heart you need to be able to look somebody in the eyes. Ever tried to see Ahmadinejad in the eyes? Good luck to you!

For bed-side literature, try this one .

About the old war and the new one

A sad time once again in Lebanon with the assassination today of Pierre Gemayel (34), a third generation, Maronite politician and Minister of Industry in the government of Fuad Siniora.

Not content with the attempt to topple the government, which is seen as pro Western (pro democracy, that is), the idea is apparently to destabilize the country even further, with the well-known object of establishing Tehran on the Mediterranean.

According to sources it is sheer intimidation of the government, that just this week approved an international investigation into the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. That the axis Tehran-Damascus is involved, has already been established by a preliminary U.N. investigation, already conducted.

This is not a day for flippancy, but has anybody kept count of the number of dead, wounded and maimed, including charming and innocent TV journalists?

Damascus has already pronounced their involvement in the killing as ridiculous and I think we don't have to wait long before Israel is implicated (and George, of course).

There's hardly any denying by now there's a war in progress, by proxy in tortured Lebanon, or elsewhere. The Daily Star opines that the U.N. investigation is closing in on Damascus. Hezbollah, of course, is their proxy. To be continued, I fear.

It is also increasingly unhealthy to criticize President Vladimir Putin of Russia. And that's putting it very mildly! Old Sovjet habits die hard! If it didn't cost brave people their lives you might even romanticize and think in terms of Cold War spook thrillers. No, frankly, it's sad and more than somewhat bizarre!