This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Foreign Policy

  • So let’s start in with Iran, already

    Everywhere I look, I see reasons to use military force inside of Iran. For months now we’ve heard about the advanced conventional weaponry manufactured in Iran to use against US forces in Iraq. Now today I read that some Hezbollah doofus has been scooped up in Iraq while he was taking part in a direct-action operation directed and funded by Iranians;

    Ali Mussa Dakdouk, accused of being a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative, was captured March 20 in southern Iraq, Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, a U.S. military spokesman, said. Dakdouk was “working in Iraq as a surrogate for the Iranian Quds Force,” organizing militants into cells for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, Bergner said.

    He also said that Dakdouk was a liaison between the Iranians and a breakaway Shiite militant cell led by Qais al-Kazaali, a former spokesman for the cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

    Bergner said Kazaali’s group attacked a provincial government building in Karbala in January and that the Iranians assisted in the attack preparations. Khazaali and his brother, Leith al-Khazaali, were captured with Dakdouk.

    How much more proof do we need that we are currently at war with Iran? Well here’s some more proof from the Washington Post (in case you’re not convinced yet), which summarizes a briefing to journalists from a military spokesman;

    While U.S. officials have repeatedly alleged that sophisticated Iranian-made weapons are killing Americans in Iraq, and that the Quds force is complicit in the violence, today’s briefing offered the most specific accusations to date of direct Iranian involvement in specific attacks against U.S. forces.

    The general also drew a new link with Hezbollah, saying an operative arrested in March had spent the previous 10 months worked with the Quds force to train Iraqis after years of commanding a Hezbollah special operations group.

    “The Iranian Quds force is using Lebanese Hezbollah essentially as a proxy, as a surrogate in Iraq,” Bergner said. “Our intelligence reveals that senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity.”

    Bergner’s briefing for reporters in Baghdad emphasized a Jan. 20 attack on a provincial government compound in the southern city of Karbala, where gunmen wearing American-style uniforms and driving sport utility vehicles breached the compound and killed five U.S. soldiers.

    And of course the Iranians deny involvement;

    Iran has denied past claims that it was backing Iraqi militants — including accusations that it was providing them with a particularly deadly type of roadside bomb, the explosively formed penetrator. Its ally Hezbollah has denied having any role in Iraq, saying it operates only in Lebanon.

    So despite the fact that we capture Hezbollah chieftains in Iraq, they’re not operating there. That makes perfect sense to me. Southern Iraq must be where they rest and recuperate in the off season. 

    And then, we read from the Associated Press, that Putin and the President both agree that something needs to be done about Iran’s nuclear program;

    President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin projected a united front Monday against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.

    “When Russia and the United States speak along the same lines, it tends to have an effect and therefore I appreciate the Russians’ attitude in the United Nations,” Bush said. “We’re close on recognizing that we got to work together to send a common message.”

    Putin predicted that “we will continue to be successful” as they work through the U.N. Security Council.

    Oh, and did I mention that there are at least four American citizens being held hostage in Iran to forestall economic sanctions against the rogue nation? I say at least four because there’s a former FBI agent missing over there somewhere whom the Iranian government may or may not be holding.

    Iran has been begging for an airstrike for decades, and now is the time to do it. They’ve declared war on us almost every morning since 1979, they’ve walked over us, they’ve walked over our allies – because they know they can get away with it with no repercussions. It’s time to deal them a blow. And one good stiff air strike would rock the entire terrorist community back on their heels for a minute – probably exposing themselves and their cells in the ensuing flurry of activity to deal their own counter-blow.

    Fourth of July would be nice.

    Blackfive asks Can We Bomb Iranian Camps and Military Now?

    Crotchety Old Bastard finds Iran’s fingerprints on the Taliban, too.

  • So where is AP and the Washington Post on this atrocity story?

    The past few days I’ve written about poor journalism on the part of the Washington Post and the Associated Press regarding stories they’ve published about supposed atrocities that never happened – articles about Americans slaughtering innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    So where the hell are the Associated Press and the Washington Post on embedded independent reporter Michael Yon’s latest article, “Bless the Beasts and the Children“ (by way of Jewish Odysseus by way of Atlas Shrugs) about al Qaeda butchering an entire town in Iraq;

    I told the Iraqi commander, Captain Baker, that it was important that Americans see this; he took me around the graves and showed more than I wanted to see. He said the people had been murdered by al Qaeda. I made video of him speaking, and of the horrible scene. The heat and stench were crushingly oppressive and broken only by the sounds of shovels as Iraqi soldiers kept digging.

    My feelings mirror those of Jewish Odysseus;

    Mil-Blog Journalist Michael Yon [http://www.michaelyon-online.com/] deserves a Pulitzer for this story alone, the latest in a long string of superb battlefield reports.

    You haven’t seen a word about this anywhere in the MSM, have you?

    But, hey, I hear a prisoner in Gitmo was served COLD falafel this morning…Let’s send a camera-team to confront Gates!  

    Or let some legislature member in Afghanistan accuse Americans of murdering over a hundred civilians, or some anonomous Iraqi “police” officer accuse Americans of slaughtering Iraqis in their beds as they sleep and the journalists in their hotel rooms go into a writing frenzy.  

    So why aren’t there more stories that justify our actions in Iraq? Because the media is afraid that the Left will accuse them of being a tool of the Administration – the Left doesn’t want the truth broadcast to Americans (see the latest dustup about reinstating the Fairness Doctrine) because the Left looks like a pack of knuckledragging, drooling morons when the light is shown on them. And thanks to the independent journalists who actually venture out into the battle with the troops, like Michael Yon, the mainstream press looks like the Left’s lapdog.

    Well, at least Fox News has the guts to run it.

  • This is why I hate the pompous scum on the Left

    Someone tell Elizabeth Edwards that it’s numbnuts like this Larry C. Johnson who “lowers the political dialogue at precisely the time we need to raise it” not Ann Coulter;

    Preliminary, unconfirmed reports indicate a nuclear blast has occurred at Glasgow’s international airport.  No one has seen the mushroom cloud or heard the blast, but something by God is happening and it must be terrible.  There is smoke and fire.  In fact, a car is on fire.  It must be Al Qaeda.  Only Al Qaeda knows how to set themselves on fire inside a car.  Please.  Flee to the hills (leave you doors unlocked).  Oh the humanity!

    I found the link at Little Green Footballs because I don’t usually venture into the slime that call themselves the great thinkers on the Left. I found this, with a helpful assist from The Conservative Article Annals who trolled the depths of The Daily Kos;

    The Al Qeida or Real IRA wannabes failed.  Chemistry and physics were not on their side.  They did succeed in getting the inept press led by Faux News to to characterize the cars “as bombs that would have killed hundreds of people.”  

    The press managed to scare and terrorize people again.

    Of course, it’s the press that’s terrorizing Britons, not “asians”. I thought the whole idea of terrorism is to frighten people – successful in attaining a large body count of innocents or not, that’s what crashing a flaming car into a crowded airport achieves.

    Yeah, so far UKers have been lucky this year – but the thing about amateur terrorists is that the ones who live, learn from those who didn’t. The intent is just as dangerous with or without the skill.

    John Edwards said the global war on terror is a bumpersticker slogan, Michael Moore repeats “there is no terrorist threat” every chance he gets. The Democrat presidential candidates think that fighting terror is a spigot we can turn off whenever  we want. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi think that the war on terror is just something that gets in the way of their social agenda.

    I’m pretty sure this idiot Larry C. Johnson, on September 10th, 2001, would’ve scoffed at 19 Arabs trying to crash four airplanes into buildings armed only with boxcutters, too. Or a couple of rednecks who parked a truckload of manure in front of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma.

    Just like the bozos on the Left who scoffed at the Dix Six and all of the other cells the feds have rolled up in the last five years. Yeah, Richard Reid was a dope – but he got explosives on a plane. If he hadn’t sweat so much that his matches didn’t light on the first strike, he would have taken that plane out, too.

    Yeah, these terrorists are incompetent morons- somehow the profession of suicidal maniacs doesn’t attract those who might otherwise become rocket scientists – until they get successful, and it only takes once. 

    At least this Canadian fellow, Red Tory, admits it’s a real terrorist attack, but somehow the fact that it happened in the UK, proves that Bush is wrong about fighting terrorists in their own backyards;

    …if nothing else, they point out yet again the fallacy of the Big Fib© still being trotted out by Bush-Cheney about the importance of “fighting the terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here” or as Stephen Harper put it last month when speaking at Petawawa, “the risk of terrorism here if we do not confront it there.” As has been demonstrated by the al Qaeda-related London bombings of 2005 that killed 52 and the Madrid train bombings that killed 191, and by numerous failed or thwarted plots in recent years, involvement in the conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan provide absolutely no defense from terrorism at home. Nothing could be further from the truth in fact and its time the government stopped indulging itself in this fractured fairy tale when attempting to drum up support for the war in Afghanistan.

    So we should just sit there and take it, I suppose, cowering in our basements until the next strike. So, Leftists, which is it? Are they not a serious threat or are they proof that we can’t take pre-emptive measures to stop their attacks? Or are ya’all just so damned smart that any excuse will suffice?

    Mr. Red Tory should take the time read Sergeant Grumpy;

    The Islamists do not simply want us to leave them alone, to live and let live. They want us to submit to the will of Islam, to abandon enlightenment and reason, humanity and civility. To live according to the tribal arabian cruelty that subjugates women, crushes dissent and dialogue, and takes away every freedom we have fought so hard to enjoy.

    Where do they learn such hate? Is it from the American and Israeli gunships? No, it is from two of the most powerful institutions in any culture for shaping the minds of it’s people – religion and education.

    I guess we’ve all forgotten about the bomb in the airport at Ibiza, Spain, earlier today haven’t we? The best details are at Spanish Pundit. It serves to remind us that we need to fight all terrorists, whether they’re al Qaeda or ETA or FARC or whoever.

  • Venezuelan soccer fans protest Chavez at Copa

    Despite Chavez best efforts to keep protesters away from the Copa America soccer tournament, Associated Press reports about half of the 40,000 fans broke into anti-Chavez chants;

    MARACAIBO, Venezuela (AP) – Thousands of Venezuelan soccer fans used an international tournament to show opposition to President Hugo Chavez, rising to their feet with chants of “Freedom!” The chants, which included “This government is going to fall,” began shortly into the second half of Thursday’s match between the United States and Argentina in the western city of Maracaibo, a stronghold of opposition to Chavez. 

    Chavez opponents are hoping the arrival of thousands of tourists for the Copa America tournament will draw attention to their protests against the president’s refusal to renew the licence of a popular opposition-aligned television channel.

    “We want the world to know we’re not all with Chavez,” said Gabriel Gonzalez, a business student at the University of Zulia, who attended Thursday’s match.

    About half the crowd of 40,000 appeared to join in the chants, which filled the stadium for about three minutes.

    Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin in December, has gone to great lengths to keep Venezuela’s bitter political divide from spilling into the tournament, banning protests in and near stadiums and ordering state security forces to crack down on any that do arise.

    Only one match in the three-week-long tournament is being held in the protest-prone capital of Caracas.

    But opposition activists seem determined to voice their criticisms about Chavez to the world.

    “I don’t really know whether it’s spontaneous, semi-spontaneous or directed from above” by the political opposition, said Steve Ellner, a political science professor at Venezuela’s University of the East. “This could be part of a strategy to erode support and create uncertainty.”

    The chants on Thursday followed a heckling incident two days earlier, when a small number of fans booed Chavez as he attended a ceremony.

    All this despite Chavez best laid plans to make the Copa about him, according to Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    As expected Chavez could not resist to make the Copa America his. From “ahora es de todos” the Soccer tournament went to “ahora es de Chavez“. How come the Conmebol allowed 1) the silly and stupid speech of Chavez, something which was never allowed in previous editions of the Copa? and 2) this picture below (from EFE through Tal Cual)?

    Gateway Pundit has a link to the video on YouTube and another wire service story. But the Venezuelan blogs seem silent on it.

    And Chavez is making deals with Russia to build four new refineries. No wonder he slammed the US missile defense plans for Europe. I wonder if he’ll be using Cuban slave labor for his refineries, too.

    RCTV’s Observador Online reports that Chavez is in negotiations with Belarussia to buy Venezuela a modern air defense system including missiles, radar and a command system;

    29 de junio de 2007.-
    El presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, llegó este viernes a Minsk, la capital de Bielorrusia, para concretar la adquisición de un moderno sistema de defensa aérea. Según medios rusos y bielorrusos, se trata de un sistema de defensa aérea a partir de baterías de misiles rusos S-300 PMU-2 y Tor M-1, dotadas de radares, para el que Bielorrusia ha ofrecido crear un sistema de mando automático.

    Paranoia writ large.

  • Chavez needs submarines to find his popularity rating

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    There was another march against Chavez yesterday not that you’d read about it from any US news organization. But Tank at Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra has photos and videos. Pretty impressive crowd, actually. For the story, El Universal;

    On the National Journalists’ Day, on June 27, Venezuelan journalists are not celebrating. Rather, they are staging a march in Caracas streets to demand President Hugo Chávez to order resumption of private television station RCTV’s broadcast on its original open signal and to advocate freedom of expression.

    The march -organized by Periodistas Unidos por la Libertad de Expresión (Journalists United for Freedom of Expression)- is departing from Plaza Venezuela at 10:00 a.m. to the headquarters of RCTV in Quinta Crespo, west Caracas.

    The student movement, actors, and workers and trade unions of news media, professional associations, political parties, and non-governmental associations will join reporters.  

    Gateway Pundit has more photos and news.

    Chavez missed the protests, though – he was submarine shopping in Russia. According to Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    Thus as it is usual with Chavez, when the going gets rough, the rough start traveling overseas. First a trip to Russia to see if the submarines, 9 of them, will be bought or not. Venezuela as just gadget to go and rescue people that will be taken by the frequent floods of our starting raining season. Even there ridicule pursues Chavez.

    And then he will move on to Tehran.

    And while Chavez was in Russia, he couldn’t help but inject himself into another dispute that doesn’t involve him (how would a missile shield in Europe possibly affect the people of Venezuela) so he could cozy-up to Vlad Putin and get some verbal shots in against the US;

    Venezuela supports Russia’s opposition to the deployment of a US missile shield in Europe, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said here Thursday.

    […]

    “We support Russia (in its stance), we need Russia, which is becoming stronger day by day,” he said, adding that Venezuela intended to continue cooperating closely with Moscow, including in the military sphere.

    Russia has repeatedly stated that it would actively participate in the modernization of the Venezuelan armed forces until 2013.

    In 2005-2006, Venezuela ordered weaponry from Russia worth $3.4 billion, including 24 Su-30MK2V Flanker fighters, Tor-M1 air defense missile systems, Mi-17B multi-role helicopters, Mi-35 Hind E attack helicopters and Mi-26 Halo heavy transport helicopters.

    The country also purchased 100,000 AK-103 Kalashnikov assault rifles from Russia in 2005 and sent its fighter and helicopter pilots for training in Russia.

    The South American country has been vigorously pursuing the modernization of its armed forces to counter a possible US blockade of its oil fields and to prepare for a direct military confrontation with Washington.

    Comforting, isn’t it? Except we know that the Venezuelans would never directly engage in a war with the US – it’s not in our mutual interest. Neither country has anything the other would want – the only possible exception is that it would increase Chavez’ power to engage us in a shooting war – at least the perception of his power, in the region if not among his own people.

    Chavez also said;

    “If the United States attacks Venezuela, we are ready to die defending our sacred land,” Chavez said Thursday.

    Who is “we”, little fella? First of all, the US has no intention of ever invading the peaceful Venezuelan people. Secondly, I’m pretty sure you’d have trouble summoning anyone to help you if we did. And that’s probably why Chavez is pushing for a defense pact with his new Left neighbors – to use them against his people like Mugabe planned on using Angolan troops to quell his own people in Zimbabwe.

    So, as I said the other day, Chavez is building up his army to protect himself from his own people. Either to stir up something with the US to build a false sense of patriotism, or, failing that, a direct action against the people of Venezuela when their sense of patriotism tells them that Chavez is bad for Venezuela.

    Why? Well, how about economic reasons;

    Venezuela’s bolivar weakened in unregulated trading and dollar-denominated bonds tumbled after Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips abandoned operations in the country, raising doubts about future oil output in the world’s fifth-largest crude-oil exporter.

    […]

    “[Exxon conceding control of it’s facilities in Venezuela] sparks additional anxiety regarding the future of oil investment in Venezuela,” said Enrique Alvarez, a Latin America economist at the research firm Ideaglobal in New York. “Investors are going to the dollar as a safe haven.”

    The bolivar weakened to 4,180 per dollar in the unofficial dollar market from 4,050 yesterday, traders said. People and businesses turn to the parallel market when they are unable to acquire the limited number of dollars the government sells at the official exchange rate of 2,150 bolivars per dollar.

    All of the oil in the world can’t do you any good if you don’t have cash. Investors rushing to buy dollars will only compound Chavez problems. Daniel at Venezuela News and Views   has already reported food shortages in parts of Venezuela;

    Gas shortages too , and winter is starting. And all due, as in Venezuela, to unreasonable price controls which are kept up for political reasons. Price control, the eternal soft drug of populist regimes…. and with always the same consequences: higher inflation than the neighboring countries.

    While Hugo cavorts and glad hands with all the tyrants he can find.

    Cartoon from Noticias 24 (h/t Kate)

  • Iran worries John Bolton

    Yes, Iran has asked for UN inspectors to take a look at their nuclear program to prove the Iranians aren’t building weapons, according to the International Tribune;

    A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will travel to Tehran in the coming weeks at the invitation of the Iranian government to try to clear up longstanding questions about the Iranian nuclear program, the nuclear agency said Monday.

    Iran issued the invitation after a flurry of meetings among Ali Larijani, its chief negotiator; Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the nuclear agency, and Javier Solana, foreign policy chief of the European Union.

    The purpose of the visit is to “develop an action plan for resolving outstanding issues” relating to the Iranian nuclear program, a spokesman for the Vienna-based agency said. She added that the inspectors would leave for Tehran “as early as practicable.”

    Diplomats close to the agency said the move by Iran seemed calculated to stem the rising tide of pressure over its nuclear ambitions. With Tehran refusing to suspend its enrichment of uranium, the United Nations Security Council has begun to deliberate over a fresh set of sanctions against the country.

    Of course, they’ll show the inspectors every tiny detail of their program (notice; that’s sarcasm). Yeah, they’re running out the clock on sanctions. They saw Hussein play the same game with the UN for 12 years and they took notes. Hussein just didn’t use his time to build nukes. John Bolton, in the Jerusalem Post, says it’s too late for diplomacy with Iran;

    Bolton, however, was witheringly critical of the ongoing diplomatic contacts with Teheran, which he said were merely playing into the hands of the regime.

    “The current approach of the Europeans and the Americans is not just doomed to failure, but dangerous,” he said. “Dealing with [the Iranians] just gives them what they want, which is more time…

    “We have fiddled away four years, in which Europe tried to persuade Iran to give up voluntarily,” he complained. “Iran in those four years mastered uranium conversion from solid to gas and now enrichment to weapons grade… We lost four years to feckless European diplomacy and our options are very limited.”

    I tend to agree with Bolton – and although the responsibility ultimately lies with the president and his failure to act forcibly against Iran, part of the blame has to be visited upon the anti-war-at-any-cost Left. Iran is the source of all evil in the Middle East – they supply Syria (who supplies Hezbollah and Hamas), they gave shelter to al Qaeda and Taliban operatives during the US-backed liberation of Afghanistan, they supply al Qaeda in Iraq as well as Shi’ite militias (the Mahdi Army, for example) and they gave shelter to Mooky al Sadr in the early days of the “surge”.

    The reason we ended up doing so poorly strategically in Vietnam is because the our own Left resisted  our incursion into Cambodia to shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail – a few kilometers inside Cambodia. Without that supply line, the North Vietnamese Army in South Vietnam as well as the Viet Cong would’ve withered and died – and millions of Vietnamese lives would have been saved.

    Unless we can stem the flow of weapons, reinforcements and supplies at the source (in Iran), we’re going to learn the same lesson all over again – while the Left dances on the graves of our troops like they did for twenty years after the Viet Nam War.

    Just like we have to learn the lesson that Arabs don’t negotiate well with the West all over again – every year.

    Pamela Gellar Oshry of Atlas Shrugs is reporting riots in Iran that I’m not reading about anywhere else (Gateway Pundit has videos and photos of the aftermath) and Mike at Lamplighter is reporting another assasination of an Iranian mullah.

  • U.S. lifts Palestinian embargo

    Remember when the PA was a terrorist group?:

    Excerpt:
    U.S. lifts Palestinian embargo
    By Joseph Curl
    THE WASHINGTON TIMES
    June 19, 2007

    The Bush administration yesterday lifted economic sanctions and a diplomatic embargo against the Palestinian Authority after its expulsion of the Islamist group Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip last week.
    Seeking to strengthen President Mahmoud Abbas by resuming direct U.S. aid, the administration moved swiftly after Mr. Abbas ousted Hamas from his national security council, installed an emergency Cabinet and outlawed the terrorist militia, which calls for the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews worldwide.
    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she told new Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the decision to end the 15-month-old embargo in a telephone call.
    “I told him the United States would resume full assistance to the Palestinian government and normal government-to-government contacts,” she told reporters at the State Department.
    “We intend to lift our financial restrictions on the Palestinian government, which has accepted previous agreements with Israel and rejects the path of violence. This will enable the American people and American financial institutions to resume normal economic and commercial ties with the Palestinian government,” Miss Rice said.
    In another major boost to Mr. Abbas, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana announced yesterday in Luxembourg that the 27-nation bloc would resume direct financial aid — hundreds of millions of dollars — to the Palestinian Authority now that Hamas is no longer part of the government.
    Mr. Abbas’ Information Minister Riyad al-Malki told reporters after the new government met in the West Bank city of Ramallah that “the government will pursue its jurisdiction over all parts of the homeland, regardless of what happened in Gaza.”
    In the past week, Hamas has seized control of Gaza by force, winning a series of battles with Mr. Abbas’ Fatah movement and executing its members.

    http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20070619-121826-6342r”>http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20070619-121826-6342r

    The last time I checked, they still were.  When Israel relinquished control of the Gaza strip and hastily withdrew from Lebanon, warring terrorist factions duked it out.  In Gaza, the extremist bad guy with the most toys won– Hamas, that is–and Hezbollah promptly set up shop in Lebanon, thereby creating yet another threat to security. The icing on the cake is our re-newed diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority, because Mahmoud Abbas kicked out a political rival?  Any stability in the Middle East would be a welcome sight but the problem is, every inch given to extremist combatants, results in a mile.

    Look, the very idea of a “moderate Palestinian” is an oxymoron.  Every group over there has a long, bloody, brutal history with a reputation for being just as bad, if not worse than the ones they replace.   One way to look at it is as a survival mechanism, much like a gang.  Any one of them giving the appearance of cooperation with Israel or the U.S. is met with retaliation, both politically and militarily.  Even if they wanted to, the Palestinian Authority doesn’t have the clout to pull off a full-fledged independent state, capable of stability and prosperity.  Founded by the late Yasser Arafat, it still harbors and supports terrorist cells; only cracking down when it’s convenient.

    President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are backing Mahmoud Abbas in his fight against Hamas, pinning their hopes on “a reasonable voice amongst the extremists.”

    The last ‘reasonable voice’ among the Arabs was Anwar Sadat.  Remember what happened to him?

  • Culture clash in Cologne

    Now I lived in Germany for nine years during the 80s and the early 90s, and I know this must really stick in most Germans’ collective craw. According to the Daily Telegraph (by way of the Washington Times);

    The construction of one of Europe’s biggest mosques near a globally famous Christian landmark has sparked a furious dispute in Germany.

    Immigration and integration are extremely sensitive issues in Germany, which is home to a Turkish community of several million.

    But almost within the shadow of Cologne Cathedral, political correctness was replaced by bitter confrontation, as the city’s Muslims began building a 2,000-capacity mosque whose twin minarets will reach 170 feet.

    The German government has always been more accomodating to Turks than the German population. The West Germans, at first, were even wary of their East German neighbors when the Wall came down in ’89. I had a West German taxi driver tell me in 1990 that she’d wished the Wall had never come down. 

    After World War II, there was a serious shortage of manpower in Germany because the of allies’ (particularly the Soviet Union) meatgrinder into which the Nazis had sent their youths. So the Bonn government grudgingly accepted foreign workers, mostly Turks who settled together in their own communities within German communities. Most Germans did not like the fact that Turks lived among them, but accepted it as necessary. Now the need for foreign workers is gone – but the Turks are still there.

    Now, the Muslims want to remake this particular city’s skyline;

    “We don’t want to build a Turkish ghetto in Ehrenfeld. I know about ‘Londonistan,’ and I don’t want that here,” [Jorg Uckermann, the district’s deputy mayor] added, referring to a phrase used to describe the rising trend of radical Islam in England.

    […]

    Leading the charge is Ralph Giordano, a prominent Jewish author, who wrote recently that Germany is witnessing a “clash of two completely different cultures” and questioned whether they could ever be reconciled.

    Stating that he had received death threats for his opinions, he added: “What kind of a state are we in that I can face a fatwa in Germany?”

    Really, death threats against a Jew in Germany – one might think that would wake up the accomodating government just a little.

    “We live in a land of religious freedom,” said Prelate Johannes Bastgen, the [Cologne] cathedral’s dean. “But I would be very glad if the same principles existed in Muslim countries.”

    Well, what with fatwas and death threats being issued against German citizens, apparently there’s only one religion that gets religious freedom.

    And of course, Preeti Aroon of Foreign Policy magazine sees Nazis around every corner;

     The protest is driven by a fear of the Islamization of Europe. This anxiety, which Philip Jenkins argues is overblown in a recent web exclusive for FP, is a variant of what one sociologist has described as “cultural displacement” — “the fear that your children will grow up in a world different than the one you grew up in.” In the United States, it’s captured by those white Americans who, in the face of a rising Hispanic population, worry about a day when Spanish will be the language on the streets and there will be more Miguels than Michaels. In Europe, it’s captured by a woman in Cologne who says she wants to feel at home, not as if she’s in a foreign land.

    […]

    With the rise of the far right, let’s hope that Germany doesn’t end up going the way it did in 1933.

    Funny how it always ends that way, doesn’t it? When an intolerant group of people invade a country and refuse to integrate into the the previously successful culture, and the indigenous people protest, it’s always because they’re Nazis.

    Is that the education your parents wasted their money on, Preeti?