Target Centermass

Month: September 2004

  • Luxembourg Holds Massive World War II Liberation Celebrations

    Luxembourg celebrates, remembers and thanks.

    Luxembourg was only a brief stop for American forces sweeping through France on their way to Germany in World War II. But the liberation of the tiny country of 450,000 left strong memories.

    There were bands, speeches, church services, and commemoration medals as this small country looked back to remember the day that its precious freedom was restored from German occupation.

    In one ceremony at Luxembourg’s American military cemetery, where General George Patton is buried, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker hailed the American contribution.

    “This is a day of thankfulness to these brave American soldiers who from the other side of the ocean came to Europe, and came to this tiny country, to liberate this country,” the prime minister said.

    Luxembourg invited 20 American veterans who took part in the liberation 60 years ago, to return to the country for observances. The oldest of those, 90-year-old John Colligan of New York, said recognition means a lot.

    “These people, 60 years later, they’re doing it because of appreciation,” he said. “And that’s a long time to keep your mind set that you want to show your appreciation. I admire them for that.”

    Pretty good stuff. And then I came to this:

    Luxembourgers have their own perspectives on the war. For 82-year-old Victor Fischbach, it was unique. He was forced into the German army like many other able-bodied Luxembourg men. But he later escaped, and, with the help of a priest, spent 13 months hiding in a Luxembourg church with several of his countrymen. Mr. Fischbach says liberation will never be forgotten by Luxembourg.

    “When an American speaks about Europe he must think that Luxembourg is, maybe, the best friend, the strongest friend,” said Mr. Fischbach. “And we’ll never forget what we are owing to America. From time to time, I go to the military cemetery, the American cemetery. I go alone and I cry, I cry. I can’t help, I cry. And I say, go there. If you don’t believe any more in America. Go there, and you will find again, and see again what they have done for us.“

    Not all have forgotten or, rather, have chosen to not remember.

  • The $10,000 Question

    Hat tip to Wizbang! for finding this challenge about the new CBS documents:

    So, for anyone still willing to consider that these documents are anything other than cheap, childish forgeries, I am offering $10,000 right now to anyone who can find for me a typewriter from 1972 that could have reasonably made those documents. Payment will be made in the form of a cashiers check to the first individual who can do this. The typewriter must be using the same proportionally spaced font as the CBS documents, the same curly-quotation marks, the same impossible superscripted “th”s, the same 13-point line spacing, and create a document that looks as much (or more) like the alleged forgeries than does a Microsoft Word document with default fonts and margins.

  • Old vs. New II

    According to the often-but-not-always accurate Drudge Report, CBS is launching an internal investigation after today’s fun-filled activities. It seems the work of the new media is sending the old media into a rather confused situation.

  • Old vs. New

    Media, that is. It was certainly an exciting day in the blogosphere.

    If you missed it, Little Green Footballs, Power Line, INDC Journal, Allah and others squared off against none other than Dan Rather, 60 Minutes and CBS News.

    It’s not a knockout yet, but it was a 10-8 round for the bloggers. And the mainstream media need to remember to not have the AP as their cutman in the corner.

  • City Falls to Muslims

    Afghanistan is moving towards elections. Iraq pacification and democratization is in motion. Whither next in the war on Islamic terror? So many targets to consider. Syria. Iran. Sweden.

    Sweden?!!

    This read is as disgusting as it is alarming. (hat tip to Rusty Shackleford)

  • Confusion Over Fate of French Hostages in Iraq

    The terrorist scum holding two French journalists are apparently claiming that they neither asked for a $5 million ransom nor set a 48-hour deadline.

    An Internet statement purportedly from the Islamic Army in Iraq militant group holding Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot dismissed a statement that appeared on the Web on Monday in the name of the militants.

    “There is absolutely no truth to the statement carried by the media on the Internet … comprising financial and other demands,” said the statement, posted on a Web site identified as belonging to the Islamic Army in Iraq.

    Another statement on the same Web site said the group was warning “any party whatsoever from interfering” in the case of the French hostages, who were both seized on Aug. 20.

    “The Islamic Army’s legal committee will announce its decision soon, God willing,” said the statement.

    France, oblivious to the reality that is the global threat of Islamist terror, remains befuddled.

    France was stunned by the kidnappings because it had opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq and has not sent troops to the country.

    I’ve searched, but it seems there’s no truth that a new Maginot Line is being constructed. Apparently, even that would be taking too strong a stance.

    Can we please stop referring to France as an ally? Two-plus centuries ago, fine. Since then, only at their need, not ours. Hell, they bailed out of the military side of NATO in the darkest hours of the Cold War.

  • A European Conversation

    Maggie Gallagher writes of a recent discussion she had with a Swiss mother, and the column takes a look at the opposing American and Euroweenie worldviews. (Hat tip to Blackfive)

    “People hate you. Everyone hates you. The whole world hates you.” The pretty middle-aged woman, a Swiss mother and scholar, at the dinner table in Geneva earnestly wants to make that perfectly clear.

    She isn’t angry with me. She thinks the American people are totally ignorant, misled by the media and a criminal president. She also thinks the United States invaded Afghanistan in order to grab an oil pipeline.

    This is my test of whether conversation is possible. I can understand how Europeans can believe the war in Iraq was about oil. After all, European nations like France and Russia had been benefiting from sweetheart oil deals in Iraq for years. But Afghanistan?

    Go give it a read. I found this snippet rather telling:

    Does it sometimes take a war in order to achieve justice? Fifty-five percent of Americans strongly agree. Only 18 percent of Europeans do.

    Trust me, I know how these “conversations” can go. Worse yet, my girlfriend’s Swiss brother-in-law drinks the Michael Moore brand of kool-ade.

  • Women Hostages Seized in Baghdad Raid

    The abduction today of two Italian women in Baghdad may prove to be the biggest test to date for Italy and the Coalition of the Willing.

    Armed to the teeth, the kidnappers beat up a hapless guard, dragged a screaming Iraqi hostage by her hair and took off in broad daylight.

    Two Italian women — Simona Pari and Simona Torretta — and an Iraqi man were also abducted when 20 gunmen stormed a Baghdad villa housing the headquarters of two Italian humanitarian organisations today without firing a single bullet.

    The unusual abduction of women is likely to further alarm foreigners already on edge from widespread kidnappings.

    Per al-Jazeera, it appears that these two women were specifically targetted by the terrorists.

    Iraqi journalist Abd Allah Khudair told Aljazeera: “The operation only took five minutes.”

    “A three-car force broke into the organisation’s building and tied the hands of one of the staff and threw the others on the floor”.

    “The militants asked the names of the staff until they reached Simona Pari and the office head, Simona Torretta, who were captured by the militants,” Khudair added.

    At this point, any particular significance of these two is unknown, but the abduction immediately sent the Italian government scurrying.

    Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was to return to Rome on Tuesday for an emergency cabinet meeting following the reported kidnapping of two Italian women in Iraq, officials said.

    Berlusconi, currently in northern Italy, was immediately informed of the abduction of the two, who were working for the Italian charity Un Ponte Per Baghdad (Bridge to Baghdad) in the Iraqi capital.

    A top Berlusconi aide has called an emergency meeting of all ministers concerned to discuss the situation in Iraq following the kidnapping of the women, who have been identified as Simona Pari and Simona Torretta.

    ….

    Italy, a strong supporter for the US-led war in Iraq, is still recovering from the execution of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni.

    The kidnapped reporter was murdered on August 26 after Rome refused to bow to demands from the militant group to pull its troops out of the country.

    This was a bold and dangerous move by the terrorists, and there may eventually be no winners in this game. After all, change the nationality and this becomes the possible nightmare scenario that is still looming over the U.S. military after women were allowed on, over or near the battlefield.

    There are many possible ways this can play out for all involved:

    • The terrorists risk an immediate backlash from the muslim community for involving civilian women
    • The Italian government may have to make some hard choices — bail out of the war, deal with the scumbags, or stand firm and risk the lives of women, possibly leading to an upheaval on the home front
    • If Italy stands firm, the terrorists may execute the women, but this will almost certainly have a tremendous negative fallout in the Islamic world
    • It’s a crapshoot how Italy and some other nations would react to such an execution — knuckle under or come out guns a’blazing
    • The U.S. is forced to ride a razor’s edge here, capable of little (barring a storybook rescue), with much potentially gained and much potentially disastrously lost.

    A zero-sum game? Who knows? Perhaps a quick release is the only way to prevent losses for all involved. I’m not even going to pretend to predict the effect of execution videos hitting the internet in this case. My best hopes go out for these women, and the civilized world better pay close attention to how this one unfolds.

  • Arroyo Leading Philippines into Hell

    As if her please-don’t-hurt-us retreat from Iraq (and the accompanying $6 million payoff to terrorists) wasn’t enough, now there’s this little tidbit.

    Philippine President Gloria Arroyo says she has ordered the country’s defense minister to begin work on strengthening military ties with China.

    Ms. Arroyo told reporters Tuesday that Defense Minister Avelino Cruz will travel to Beijing soon to discuss defense and security matters with Chinese authorities and help set a framework for bilateral military cooperation.

  • They Shoot Children, Don’t They?

    In his latest column, Dennis Prager examines the current primative, barbaric state of radical Islam and the validity of “Muslim bashing” as a political hot potato.

    According to The New York Times, when the terrorists took over the Russian elementary school, they shouted “Allahu akbar” (“Allah is the greatest”).

    Does this surprise you, dear reader? Does it shock you that the people who deliberately attacked a school and then systematically shot and blew up little children did so in the name of Islam?

    Unfortunately, the question is rhetorical. Having targeted little children for death, there is no atrocity, no barbarity, no act of evil that the human race cannot imagine fanatical Muslims committing.

    We have already become almost inured to:

    The slaughtering of innocent human beings as if they were animals while chanting Muslim prayers.

    The reintroduction of black slavery and genocide against blacks.

    The murder of daughters and sisters for imagined or real sexual behavior.

    The stoning of women accused of adultery.

    The burning of Hindu temples and Christian churches, and the destruction of among the greatest Buddhist sculptures.

    The ban on women driving cars or learning to read.

    The idolization of young men who blow themselves up while murdering and maiming innocent non-Muslims — and the theology of sexual rewards in heaven for doing so.

    Prager is not painting with too broad a brush here. He specifically is targeting the Islamist radicals that are a pestilence on the face of our planet.

    It is, of course, only a minority of Muslims that engages in such horrors, but it is only Muslims who are doing all these things. Christians aren’t — even among Palestinians, there are no Christian terrorists. Jews aren’t — and when one Jew did deliberately kill innocent Palestinians in 1994, the rest of the Jewish world was horrified and demonstrated its revulsion in word and deed. Buddhists aren’t — despite the destruction of Tibet by the Chinese Communists, no Buddhists have murdered innocent Chinese, let alone non-Chinese who deal with China.

    Since 9/11, critiques of Islamic radicals and the general silence of non-radicals have been blunted by political correctness. Prager questions how long this should continue after the massacre of schoolchildren.

    … have we reached the point where people of goodwill can ask serious questions about Muslims and Islam? Or are any challenging questions still to be dismissed as “Muslim bashing” or, even more absurdly, “racist,” as if religion were a race?

    The truth is that everyone with a conscience has questions about Muslims and Islam. But the most powerful religion in America, the religion of tolerance, has rendered it almost impossible to ask any such questions.

    Have we reached the point? This must be another rhetorical question, because we reached that point, passed it, and can now barely see it as a speck in the rearview mirror.

    Yes, some people do shoot children, and good people have a right to ask why.

    Exactly!

    However, I disagree with Prager at one point where he states that “the only people asking these questions aloud [are] conservative and religious.” I stand here as an atheist exception, and I’d wager there’s a sizable portion of liberals or non-religious who would concur. After being careful with his brushstrokes on Islam, why did Prager have to go and get paint on me?