Wednesday, March 01, 2006
WELL, RAPING, FOR ONE THING
Pittsburgh columnist Dimitri Vassilaros asks: “If the U.N is incapable of stopping its own personnel from abusing the people they are there to protect, what is it capable of doing?”
Good question. Another extract:
To put this monstrous criminal enterprise in perspective, let’s pretend the United States was responsible for this madness instead of the United Nations. Instead of the crime scenes being (among other places) in West Africa or the Congo, let’s say they were at Abu Ghraib prison or the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. And let’s say it lasted days instead of decades.
How many of the U.N.‘s 191 member nations would have been horrified and outraged? How many would have demanded that the abuses end instantly, that the criminals be punished and that victims get compensation?
Why does the United States remain in the United Nations?
NEWS BRIEFLETS
* Michael Totten reports from Suleimaniya.
* George W. Bush is a cricket match person.
* Ed Driscoll rounds up anti-assimilation views, and critics of those views.
* Socialists defend the opium of the people!
* Jim Treacher reviews (accurately) Stephen King’s latest: “Well, the first 60 pages were great, at least.”
* Silent Running’s podcasts—more popular than Phillip Adams!
* Muqtada Al-Sadr has a theory: “It was not the Sunnis who attacked the shrine of Imam Al-Hadi, God’s peace be upon him, but rather the occupation [forces] and Ba’athists.”
* Daily Kos claims an audience several times larger than Instapundit’s; how come he can’t sell as many books?
* Neocons are the new hippies.
* More on Daily Kos: the serial loser lashes out at Democrat-employed loser consultants.
* Dietrich remains at large. Readers are advised to keep their Ferraris secure.
LONE STAR
Texan John Caffery takes a stand.
UPDATE. Mr Caffery’s yard is too far for Saskatoon residents to travel, so the local library is helping out:
Saskatoon residents wishing to find out what all the fuss was about surrounding the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad can visit the Main Branch of the Saskatoon Public Library.
The latest issue of the Western Standard news magazine which contains some of the cartoons is being made available to readers.
UPDATE II. Mick-mocking film director Kevin Smith is no John Caffery:
There’s another kind of film Smith doesn’t plan on making anytime soon — one about religion. Smith said he’d love to do a “Dogma 2,” but you can’t do that without talking about Islam these days, “and after watching what happened with the cartoons, I want to say nothing about Muhammad except that’s he’s really cool guy ... And I don’t have a picture or drawing of him.”
UPDATE III. Comment of the year, thus far.
COURAGEOUS BROADCASTER SLAMMED
Joseph Wakim, founder of the Australian Arabic Council, condemns SBS for broadcasting Abu Ghraib atrocity images:
Within 24 hours of the broadcast, Dateline was trumpeting about its claim to fame through new television advertisements on SBS TV, quoting reputable media compliments. Clearly, this “world exclusive” had put the program on the global map for having the courage to expose these “atrocious” images.
What was so urgent that this broadcast of photos that were taken in 2003 could not wait until the current reactions to the blasphemous Danish cartoons subsided?
If these photos were indeed in the hands of other news media, then I can only imagine that Dateline was after the trophy for being the first. Congratulations—you are now on the world stage for presenting a museum of dehumanised Arabs.
Poor SBS; they can’t please anyone.