Monthly Archives: February 2007

Islam is taking over, says Dutch politician

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An anti-immigrant politician is making a meteoric rise with his call on the Dutch – once one of the most tolerant nations in the world – to stop Islam taking over Europe.

Geert Wilders, the 43-year-old leader of the Freedom Party, is convinced that governments are being forced to accommodate a ‘tsunami of Islamisation’ that is fundamentally incompatible with European social values.

“Islam itself is the problem. Islam is a violent religion,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “The Prophet Mohammed was a violent man. The Koran is mostly a violent book. We should invest in Muslim people but they have to first get rid of half the Koran and half of their beliefs,” he said.

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Iran gives Hizballah rocket to reach south Israel

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Israeli Middle East intelligence spokesmen believe that Iran is transferring a new type of rocket to Hizballah that is more accurate, deadly and capable of hitting southern Israel from Lebanon.

Intelligence sources are concerned that Iran is entrenching itself in southern Lebanon with an improved weapon, according to a report in an Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahranot. The rocket, called “Fatah 110,” is an improved Chinese bombardment rocket with a 125-mile (200-kilometer) range and a 440-550-pound (200-250-kilogram) warhead. It requires just a few minutes for installation prior to being fired.

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Saudi Arabia, America’s Undemocratic Ally

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Most Westerners know comparatively little about Saudi Arabia and its House of Saud rulers. Yet Western powers — first Britain, then the United States — have been instrumental in elevating the House of Saud to the position it currently occupies and in maintaining its rule against all odds.

In return, the House of Saud has acted in support of Western policy objectives in the region and, crucially, has helped to ensure an almost constant flow of cheap oil.

However, they are hardly ideal partners in a “war on terrorism” that, ideologically, has been wrapped in “democratic” packaging. It is a cruel despotism and worse it provides ideological and logistical succor to the most extremist forms of Islam.

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The India, China, Russia Triangle

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Surprisingly, the New Delhi meting of foreign ministers of India, China and Russia did not draw a wider notice. It could be because a major focus of the three-way talks was trade and energy, not conflict resolution, though tricky issues like terrorism and West Asia were on their agenda. Undeniably, however, the trilateral cooperation has the potential that may start to command a wider and urgent notice on the global stage when the US position as a self-appointed global policeman is increasingly questioned, if not disliked.

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Analysis: Japan as a Chinese province?

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The debate started earlier this week, when a kingpin of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party said the country could eventually become “a Chinese province.” In a speech in Japan’s third-largest city Nagoya Monday, the LDP’s policy research council chairman Shoichi Nakagawa said that China’s military expenditure “is going up 15 percent, 18 percent each year. If in 15 years’ time something happens over Taiwan, (Japan) could become one of China’s provinces.”

Nakagawa argued that “China does not account for research and development or imported weapons in its military budget,” and added that “if Japan is to prosper in peace, this issue cannot be avoided.”

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Europe’s Runaway Prosecutions

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An Italian court announced this month that it is moving forward with the indictment and trial of 25 CIA agents charged with kidnapping a radical Muslim cleric. These proceedings may well violate international law, but the case serves as a wake-up call to the United States. Overseas opponents of American foreign policy are increasingly turning to judicial proceedings against individual American officials as a means of reformulating or frustrating U.S. aims, and action to arrest this development is needed.

The Italian case involves a 2003 CIA mission to apprehend an Egyptian cleric named Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr. Suspected of terrorist ties, Nasr was seized in Milan and transported to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured.

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Timeless principles of war

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Certain ancient and medieval principles of warfare remain valid today. These principles and ideas can be ignored now only at substantial risk. Consider, especially, Sun Tzu. Chinese military thought originated amid Neolithic village conflicts almost 5,000 years ago. But it was Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” written in the fifth century, that synthesized a set of principles for victory. At best, the full corpus of Sun Tzu’s works and those of the other great strategists should now be studied by our leaders. Indeed, the timeless principles of war apply even more to today’s global conflicts than they did to past historic conflicts.

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The UN’s Alliance of Anti-Americanism

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Kofi Annan may have left the United Nations, but his legacy of America bashing lives on. More than a year before he stepped down as the international arbiter of right and wrong, Kofi Annan appropriated Rodney King’s plea of “can’t we all just get along,” and created a UN-sponsored initiative dubbed the “Alliance of Civilizations.” While posing as a mechanism for improving relations amongst nations, the Alliance is, like other UN programs, a vehicle for attacking the United States.

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Hold Iran accountable

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The messages we send as the world’s sole superpower matter. Today, Iran’s leaders are testing us. They are testing us in Iraq, where Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) networks continue to fund both Sunni and Shi’ite insurgents. They are testing us at the International Atomic Energy Agency and at the United Nations, where they continue to defy demands by the international community to verifiably suspend their nuclear programs, which constitute a clear violation of Iran’s commitments as a signatory of the Nonproliferation Treaty.

How we respond to these tests is not an academic question. Understanding the intentions and the modus operandi of this regime are life-and-death matters.

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Intelligence on Iran Still Lacking

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In recent months, some U.S. analysts and policymakers have raised doubts about the quality and credibility of American intelligence on Iran. With few actual spies on the ground in Iran and no consular presence in Tehran, not to mention the United States’ limited intelligence gleaned from satellite imagery and data, some question the reliability of evidence regarding Iran’s involvement in Iraq and its uranium-enrichment program. Making matters worse, Tehran has restricted access to some international inspectors there to observe its enrichment activities. Much like the run-up to the war in Iraq, U.S. officials must rely on intelligence from American allies in the region, Iranian exiles and political groups with dubious intentions, and a Dubai-based “listening post” aimed at collecting information from Iranians doing business in the Gulf. Hovering above all these challenges, of course, are credibility problems stemming from the mishandling of intelligence before the war in Iraq.

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