Target Centermass

Day: March 2, 2005

  • Recruits, Insurgents in Faceoff

    The lines are drawn in Iraq. On one side, those who want to force their society back to an oppressed time or a medievel, radical Islamist society. On the other, those who want to be prosperous, who want their country to thrive and be free, and who want their country to move forward.

    The insurgent campaign against Iraqi security forces claimed 14 more lives in two bombings Wednesday in what has become a battle of wills between recruits lining up to defend their country and attackers who oppose the country’s democratic direction.

    Better security in Baghdad helped keep the death toll down compared with Monday’s attack in which, according to the top U.S. commander, a terrorist in Hillah exploited weak security in driving a bomb-laden car into a crowd of police and military recruits, killing 125.

    “It was well scouted,” Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told members of Congress in Washington on Wednesday about the Hillah attack. The recruiting center there “showed itself to be vulnerable,” and so insurgents struck, Abizaid said.

    Iraqis continue to line up for jobs in the army and police despite repeated attacks and threats of more. Iraq’s leading fugitive, terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly claimed responsibility for the Hillah attack and at least one of the Baghdad bombings in an Internet declaration.

    “This explosion will never make me leave my job as a policeman, and I will continue,” Ali Ghanim Mijbass, 25, said from his hospital bed in Hillah, where he was wounded in Monday’s attack.

    Army and police recruits say they are attracted by pay, patriotism and the professional challenge. Entry-level police and soldiers generally get more than $200 a month, a high salary by Iraqi standards.

    “I have no regret. I wanted and I still want to be a policeman,” said Ahmed Adil Ridha, 19. He is recovering from eye and arm wounds in the Hillah attack.

    A country reborn, Iraq is in need of heroes of its own. I suggest that they already have them and just need to start taking pride in men like Ali Ghanim Mijbass, Ahmed Adil Ridha, and hundreds upon hundreds of others like them. Inspiration is there to be found.

  • Now That’s Entertainment!

    Freakin’ hilarious reality TV, Iraqi-style, courtesy of Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities.

  • Canada Expels Holocaust Denier

    I’m all for free speech and against supposed “hate speech” laws, having faith in the market of ideas. That said, I see plenty in this nutcase to take in joy the action taken but still cannot yet call it justice.

    A white supremacist from Germany who denies the Holocaust ever took place has been expelled from Canada after a two-year legal battle.

    Ernst Zundel, 65, arrived in Germany on Tuesday and was immediately taken into custody by German authorities.

    Germany was able to seek his extradition on the grounds that he was running a web site denying the existence of the Holocaust.

    Zundel once described Adolf Hitler as a “decent and very peaceful man”.

    Last week, a Federal Court judge ruled the his anti-Semitic and hatred-inciting activities were “not only a threat to Canada’s national security, but also a threat to the international community of nations”.

    I have to question whether Zundel was really a threat to the community of nations or just an idiot a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.

    It took Canadian authorities two years to establish whether Zundel, who authored a book called “The Hitler we loved and why”, posed a security threat.

    During that time, he was being held in near-solitary confinement.

    Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany, where Zundel’s theories could be easily accessed and read through the Internet.

    This enabled authorities there to open a case against him.

    Zundel, who was born in Germany, moved to Canada in the late 1950s.

    In 1988 he was convicted of “knowingly publishing false news” after issuing a leaflet carrying the title “Did six million really die?”.

    But in 1992, the Supreme Court struck down the “false news” law on the grounds that it violated freedom of expression.

    Zundel, who never managed to obtain Canadian citizenship, moved to the US in 2001 but was later deported back to Canada for allegedly violating immigration laws.

    A group that led a campaign to have him extradited, B’nai Brith Canada, welcomed last week’s verdict.

    “For decades, Zundel has spewed his venom and imbued his brand of hate in a new generation of white supremacist groups that had made him a hero,” the association’s vice president, Frank Dimant, said in a statement.

    Zundel is now expected to be kept in custody while a German judge reviews his case.

    Canada has every right to thrust this burden back upon Germany, as Zundel has no Canadian citizenship. While one could question Germany’s laws regarding denying the Holocaust, one certainly has to question their jurisdiction on internet postings from international sources. I’ll try to look more into this case tomorrow to resolve my qualms, but for now I’ll say pragmatically that Canada did well in getting rid of some trash.