Entries Tagged 'enemy propaganda' ↓

Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

Australian Muslims Push for Islamic ‘Perspective’ in School Curriculum

Muslim immigrants want to start from the premise that Australia is a “racist” country and not a fit place to raise children. (Also read Richard Fernandez: “The Australian Elections.”)

August 22, 2010 – by Herbert London

Recently the Australian Curriculum Studies Association and the University of Melbourne’s Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies issued a booklet, “Learning From One Another: Bringing Muslim Perspectives into Australian Schools,” which maintains that “every Australian school student would be taught positive aspects about Islam and Muslims — and that Australia is a racist country.”

Presumably every Australian child should be taught about the fabled past of Islam and imagine the worst of Australia in order to avoid the challenges Islam poses to this peacefully integrated nation.

The report contends that there is a “degree of prejudice and ignorance about Islam and Muslims,” conditions that Australian students should oppose as they embrace diversity as the standard of civic duty. Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are mentioned as famous names synonymous with traditional Islamic ideas, but there isn’t any reference to terrorism.

The truly remarkable dimension of this report is that a largely immigrant community, comprising a small minority, is demanding that classes be taught from its perspective rather than the perspective of the nation to which most chose to come. Australia is demonized as racist while the real challenges posed by Islam are overlooked. Moreover, it is precisely the communal values and institutions in Australia that made it a worthy destination for immigrants in the first place.

Read the rest.

buzzsawmonkey hits the nail on the head in this comment:

“Muslim,” of course, is not a race.

And if Australia is so dreadfully prejudiced against Muslims, why did they choose to move there?

Curriculum corruption is nothing new

The only thing new about it is the degree to which curriculum corruption is being harnessed to the forces of worldwide jihad. For that, we can thank the tranzi-prog/jihadist alliance that makes up the current western political/academic/media elite.

Even back in 1964, physicist Richard P. Feynman noticed how the American curriculum was being debased. He recounted his experiences with evaluating textbooks in his 1985 autobiography, “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!” The Textbook League makes that chapter, Judging Books by Their Covers, available online, with permission from the publisher. Here is a brief excerpt; it is worth visiting the site (or buying the book) to read the whole thing.

I was giving a series of freshman physics lectures [in 1964], and after one of them, Tom Harvey, who assisted me in putting on the demonstrations, said, “You oughta see what’s happening to mathematics in schoolbooks! My daughter comes home with a lot of crazy stuff!”

I didn’t pay much attention to what he said.

But the next day I got a telephone call from a pretty famous lawyer here in Pasadena, Mr. Norris, who was at that time on the State Board of Education. He asked me if I would serve on the State Curriculum Commission, which had to choose the new schoolbooks for the state of California. You see, the state had a law that all of the schoolbooks used by all of the kids in all of the public schools have to be chosen by the State Board of Education, so they have a committee to look over the books and to give them advice on which books to take.

It happened that a lot of the books were on a new method of teaching arithmetic that they called “new math,” and since usually the only people to look at the books were schoolteachers or administrators in education, they thought it would be a good idea to have somebody who uses mathematics scientifically, who knows what the end product is and what we’re trying to teach it for, to help in the evaluation of the schoolbooks.

I must have had, by this time, a guilty feeling about not cooperating with the government, because I agreed to get on this committee.

Immediately I began getting letters and telephone calls from schoolbook publishers. They said things like, “We’re very glad to hear you’re on the committee because we really wanted a scientific guy . . .” and “It’s wonderful to have a scientist on the committee, because our books are scientifically oriented . . .” But they also said things like, “We’d like to explain to you what our book is about . . .” and “We’ll be very glad to help you in any way we can to judge our books . . .” That seemed to me kind of crazy. I’m an objective scientist, and it seemed to me that since the only thing the kids in school are going to get is the books (and the teachers get the teacher’s manual, which I would also get), any extra explanation from the company was a distortion. So I didn’t want to speak to any of the publishers and always replied, “You don’t have to explain; I’m sure the books will speak for themselves.”

I represented a certain district, which comprised most of the Los Angeles area except for the city of Los Angeles, which was represented by a very nice lady from the L.A. school system named Mrs. Whitehouse. Mr. Norris suggested that I meet her and find out what the committee did and how it worked.

Mrs. Whitehouse started out telling me about the stuff they were going to talk about in the next meeting (they had already had one meeting; I was appointed late). “They’re going to talk about the counting numbers.” I didn’t know what that was, but it turned out they were what I used to call integers. They had different names for everything, so I had a lot of trouble right from the start.

She told me how the members of the commission normally rated the new schoolbooks. They would get a relatively large number of copies of each book and would give them to various teachers and administrators in their district. Then they would get reports back on what these people thought about the books. Since I didn’t know a lot of teachers or administrators, and since I felt that I could, by reading the books myself, make up my mind as to how they looked to me, I chose to read all the books myself. . . .

…

We came to a certain book, part of a set of three supplementary books published by the same company, and they asked me what I thought about it.

I said, “The book depository didn’t send me that book, but the other two were nice.”

Someone tried repeating the question: “What do you think about that book?”

“I said they didn’t send me that one, so I don’t have any judgment on it.”

The man from the book depository was there, and he said, “Excuse me; I can explain that. I didn’t send it to you because that book hadn’t been completed yet. There’s a rule that you have to have every entry in by a certain time, and the publisher was a few days late with it. So it was sent to us with just the covers, and it’s blank in between. The company sent a note excusing themselves and hoping they could have their set of three books considered, even though the third one would be late.”

It turned out that the blank book had a rating by some of the other members! They couldn’t believe it was blank, because [the book] had a rating. In fact, the rating for the missing book was a little bit higher than for the two others. The fact that there was nothing in the book had nothing to do with the rating.

I believe the reason for all this is that the system works this way: When you give books all over the place to people, they’re busy; they’re careless; they think, “Well, a lot of people are reading this book, so it doesn’t make any difference.” And they put in some kind of number — some of them, at least; not all of them, but some of them. Then when you receive your reports, you don’t know why this particular book has fewer reports than the other books — that is, perhaps one book has ten, and this one only has six people reporting — so you average the rating of those who reported; you don’t average the ones who didn’t report, so you get a reasonable number. This process of averaging all the time misses the fact that there is absolutely nothing between the covers of the book!

I made that theory up because I saw what happened in the curriculum commission: For the blank book, only six out of the ten members were reporting, whereas with the other books, eight or nine out of the ten were reporting. And when they averaged the six, they got as good an average as when they averaged with eight or nine. They were very embarrassed to discover they were giving ratings to that book, and it gave me a little bit more confidence. It turned out the other members of the committee had done a lot of work in giving out the books and collecting reports, and had gone to sessions in which the book publishers would explain the books before they read them; I was the only guy on that commission who read all the books and didn’t get any information from the book publishers except what was in the books themselves, the things that would ultimately go to the schools.

Read the rest.

By Gramfan

Jihadis victimize everyone

On Christmas Day a brave Dutchman, Jasper Schuringa, played a very big role in preventing yet another terrorist triumph.

He was able to subdue the young Islamist Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and stop him from murdering a plane-load of people and then getting his virgins, raisins, or whatever these brain-washed Islamists think is waiting for them in Paradise.

Now the airlines of the world have to think hard about what they can do, yet again, to keep the airlines safe.

But can they? Christopher Hitchens doubts it, and wonders why the majority of us have to endure these basically useless procedures.

Daniel Pipes suggests using the methods employed by El Al, Israel’s airline.

People who follow the activities of Islamists worldwide would not have been at all surprised.

Thwarted terror plots and Islamist Militants’ incidents are almost daily occurrences. The only surprises are the out-of-the-box methods that are constantly updated. It seems these people have nothing better to do than figure out new ways of killing people they hate and disagree with!

What a "noble goal" in life that must be!

This is a global problem, yet the leaders of the world simply don’t want to know about it, let alone deal with it effectively.

Yes, there is a river in Egypt called "Denial".

Another fact often overlooked is that these attempts at mass murder do not only occur in the west, but in many Islamic countries. Pakistan is a good example of this. Muslim on Muslim murder. And of course who can forget the beheadings by the Taliban.

In 2009 there was quite a string of such plots and incidents and they have been well-documented by those who follow these issues.

Here is an excellent summary by Pamela Geller.

She is not alone. To list all the people who document these incidents is quite a task: Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Steven Emerson, to name but a few.

It is indeed astonishing that people, moderate Muslims and non-Muslims alike, do not protest in front of their respective government agencies constantly and say "enough already!"

It is quite unbelievable. Is it fear? Political Correctness? Apathy? Ignorance? All of these and maybe more? Why should any civilized person have to put up with any form of medieval behavior in the twenty-first century?

Excusing jihadis; demonizing those who defend themselves

And yet recently I read on Ms Geller’s excellent blog about Bill Ayres et al protesting about conditions in Gaza, which, by the way, are not nearly as bad as people would have you think.

These people are ably assisted by the Viva Palestina crowd led by George Galloway who has just been accused of lying by the Egyptians.

Mention must also be made here of the "gifts" bestowed on Israel and the rest of the world by Jimmy Carter. His apology for his comments about Israel, and his role in adding to the global jihad should not be underestimated.

It is as if they are totally ignorant of what is actually happening, and ignorant of the fact that not only the Israelis, but also the Egyptians control the crossings to Gaza. It is not just ignorance. It is deceit, and it is affecting many people who live in the Middle East: Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.

But I forget: Gaza is a fashionable cause, and Israel, that tiny strip of democratic land in an ocean of Islamic theocracies and dictatorships, is the cause of ALL the problems in the world – yep, sure it is!

All those "occupied territories" ..err.." disputed territories" are the root cause of it all!!

And please dismiss from your mind the thousands of rockets that were launched into Israel which eventually lead to the Gaza war and the infamous Goldstone Report.

Israel’s legal position is well explained by Danny Ayalon.

Shame many people don’t realize the real situation in Israel.

I am not trying to demean the suffering of the Palestinians, especially the Gazans, who, under Hamas have indeed suffered, yet most of this is due to their leaders who are obsessed with maintaining power, accumulating wealth, and are totally disinterested in the welfare of their citizens.

Corruption is king. Teach your children to hate. Get money for weapons from the West and build almost NO infrastructure. Make sure the United Nations helps you all the way, and perpetuates this ridiculous situation. Can’t have a bunch of UN employees out of a job, can we?

Tennis Jihad

Yesterday I read that New Zealand is protesting an Israeli tennis player, Shahar Pe’er. This is not this first instance of "Tennis Jihad".

It has happened in Sweden too.

Is it not strange that two western democracies allow politics to interfere with a sporting event in this day and age?

Am I being naive? Are all sporting events tied to politics like they were in Hitler’s time? They shouldn’t be. Is history repeating itself?

This is the disconnect: every day we hear of Islamist terrorism all over the world. No one says a word; no one protests, no one minds being patted down and removing their shoes at airports.

People of all races and creeds everywhere are threatened by radical Islamist extremists who are willing to kill and die in the name of their belief system. (I hesitate to call it a religion).

Blame must also go to the left-wing post-modernists who ably support them in the name of political correctness and self-loathing.

But one Israeli tennis player in New Zealand, and one in Sweden, cause demonstrations. These two countries, fine examples of Western liberal democracies, should hang their heads in shame.

This situation is very hard to comprehend. "You can’t be serious!" Indeed, Mr McEnroe!

Also see:

• The Moral High Ground Means Capitulation To Evil
• Shahar Pe’er: Official Site
• Wikipedia: Shahar Pe’er

Blog author Sparta received the following email:

By Stephen Karganovic[1]

The aggressive Srebrenica lobby has been having some difficulties lately. It is not used to its demands being ignored or – worse yet – defied. But it seems that its increasingly obnoxious attempts to force-feed the world its version of events in Srebrenica in July of 1995 and to impose permanent global grief on people who had nothing to do with them are finally arousing some long overdue resistance.

A case in point to what absurd lengths the lobby is prepared to go were its infantile demands for the final World Cup soccer game in South Africa, scheduled for July 11, to be suspended to honor Srebrenica “genocide victims.” When that did not work, Bosnian Moslem lobbying groups signaled their readiness to settle for one minute of silence. But the World soccer association, FIFA, would not even have any of that, either. In a polite, but firm response, Srebrenica lobbyists were told that game will go on as scheduled, without the injection of any Balkan political overtones. Sarajevo was furious, but there was not much that it could do about it.

An equally unexpected and “disappointing” development was Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper’s refusal to endorse a Srebrenica resolution. Since his coalition has a majority in parliament, notwithstanding the impotent fulminations from Sarajevo and its local Canadian outfit, “Institute for Genocide Research,”[2] that effectively took the proposal off the table as far as parliament was concerned, at least for now. Again, the lobby was dealt a setback it is not used to and it does not quite know how to handle it.

The course of the Ganić extradition case in London may also cautiously be regarded as a sign of increasing ennui in the West with the Srebrenica lobby’s campaign to make everyone march to its tune. Serbia’s pro-Western client government did not really expect its pro forma Interpol arrest warrant for Ganić’s arrest to be honored anywhere and it was therefore caught by surprise when British authorities took Ganić into custody at Heathrow airport a few weeks ago. The amateurishly prepared evidence to back the extradition request, that was initially submitted by Belgrade, bore eloquent witness to that. Not that the charges were frivolous. Ejup Ganić, a member of Bosnia’s wartime Presidency, stands accused of organizing and ordering the lethal attack on a column of unarmed Yugoslav National Army soldiers who were evacuating their barracks in Sarajevo on May 3, 1992, after safe passage guarantees were solemnly given. Forty-two soldiers, mostly conscripts, were killed in murderous cross-fire and seventy were wounded. Two hundred and seven were taken prisoner and subsequently released, many after being subjected to humiliation and torture.

The fact that the British court is giving the matter lengthy and thorough review, notwithstanding Belgrade’s confused reaction, belies Sarajevo’s original expectations that the matter would be resolved quickly with Ganić’s complete vindication and triumphant return home. Regardless of the ultimate ruling in the case, the mere fact that Belgrade’s extradition request was not summarily discarded and that the Bosnian „statesman“ must undergo the lengthy rigours of a court procedure to sort out his responsibility for some rather grave offences, like General Pinochet before him, or any other similarly situated mortal, sends a clear signal that the free ride for the West’s favorite victims may be over.

This string of bitter reverses in the fields of sports, politics, and jurisprudence was ameliorated just in time by the long-expected ICTY judgment in the Popović et al. Case, made public on June 10. Not that there were any major surprises in the court’s findings: Serbian officers guilty, genocide, 7.000 to 8.000 victims, and all the rest. There is, however, one important novelty in the judgment. It is the shift from standard forensics[3] to the cutting edge technique of DNA analysis as the primary tool for dealing with the identification and quantification of exhumed human remains which constitute the corpus delicti of the Srebrenica case. In the Popović verdict, the chamber offers the following conclusions:

“Based on the evidence, the Trial Chamber has found that at least 5.336 identified individuals were killed in the executions following the fall of Srebrenica. However, noting that the evidence before it is not all encompassing, the Trial Chamber is satisfied that the number of identified individuals will rise. The Trial Chamber therefore considers that the number of individuals killed in the executions following the fall of Srebrenica could well be as high as 7.826.”[4]

The actual number of victims is a key aspect of the Srebrenica controversy and it goes also to the issue of genocide. It is manifestly incorrect to argue that provided the genocidal dolus specialis is demonstrated, even a handful of victims will do, so what is all the fuss about whether 8.000 or some other number were executed? In fact, it was precisely in the Krstić case that the chamber accepted the thesis that the “scale of killing,” i.e. numbers, was germane to genocidal intent.[5]

The real issue never was the courts’ attempts, provided they were in good faith, to determine the number of victims, but rather the methodologies they used in going about it. In both Krstić and Popović cases no attempt is made to disguise the fact that the “7.000 to 8.000” number of victims is sacrosanct and that evidence must be adjusted to fit that numerical target, rather than vice versa. It is thus that in Krstić the chamber claims, falsely as it turns out, that 2.208 Srebrenica bodies had been found at the time of judgment, and adds, quite absurdly, that in the opinion of unnamed experts 4.805 additional bodies supposedly relevant to the case lay in yet unexhumed mass graves. In relation to the critically important issue of numbers, it thus follows that the Krstić judgment was based not on a fact, but on a prognosis. Needless to say, ten years have passed since then but the predicted additional bodies have failed to materialise.

In testimony to the fact that nothing is new under the sun, or at least at ICTY, we now see the Popović chamber engaging in the same type of legal soothsaying in an attempt to gloss over the critical lack of executed bodies. The chamber notes that „the evidence before it is not all encompassing“ but since the magic figure of 8.000 must be reached by hook or by crook, it simply proclaims its conviction „that the number of individuals killed in the executions following the fall of Srebrenica could well be as high as 7.826.”

It would be useful to first review the grounds upon which that “conviction” is based and, indeed, the entire fabric of the chamber’s reasoning in this segment of its verdict before deciding whether to take its conclusions too seriously.

For starters, it would be a good idea to ask where the data on which the chamber’s conclusions are based comes from. The answer is in par. 638 et passim of the Popović judgment. The data come from the International Committee for Missing Persons [ICMP], an NGO based in Tuzla, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. ICMP’s website projects the image of a benign humanitarian organization whose mission is to apply science, in this case DNA, to identify dead victims of the Bosnian conflict and to provide solace and closure to suirviving relatives. All fine and good. But there may be more to ICMP than meets the eye.

ICMP’s independence is debatable. It was formed in 1996 at the G-7 Summit in Lyon, France, at the initiative of US President Bill Clinton. The list of its chairmen so far reads like a US establishment Who is who. Its first chairman was former secretary of state Cyrus Vance, 1996-1997, followed by Bob Dole, 1997-2001. ICMP’s current chairman, „philantropist“ James Kimsey, used to be the chairman of America Online.

But is that meticulously nurtured humanitarian profile realistic, or is it but another Srebrenica illusion? The probability of the latter option is enhanced when one considers that the chairman of ICMP is appointed by none other than the Secretary of State of the United States. As we learn from State Department press release of May 11, 2001:

„Secretary Powell has appointed Jim Kinsey as the new US chairperson of the International Committee for Missing Persons (ICMP), the leading organisation involved in the identification of remains of people killed in recernt conflicts in the Balkans. Mr. Kinsey isd the Founding CEO and Chauirman Emeritus of America Online Inc.“

Though ICMP’s public image projects the impression of a classical NGO with purely humanitarian objectives, based on the mechanism whereby its management is appointed at least a conflict of interest issue could be raised. Not only that, but while fullfilling its mission it would seem that ICMP is not accountable to any scientific or juridical body. In the opinion of US political analyst George Pumphrey:

„It is a wing of the US State Department and publishes a ’nímport quoi’ to serve the propaganda interests of its masters. Many of their reports are so ambuguously worded that even if someone would attempt to verify their announcements, it would be impossible, because one is not sure if they are speaking of whole corpses or of pieces of corpses.“

Lack of accountability and its corollary, unverifiability, are indeed the salient features of ICMP’s work. ICMP’s data have never been seen or tested by independent experts, even in court settings where they were officially presented in evidence, such as in the Popović case. That took place in closed session and under severely restrictive conditions which did not allow the defence either the time or the resources for a comprehensive expert review of ICMP’s results. But as we learn, if true, those results are in fact quite sensational: 6,481 Srebrenica victims currently identified, and enough evidence leading ICMP to support an estimate of altogether around 8,100 individuals missing from the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.[6]

That is practically on the mark. In short, according to this, ICMP has cracked the Srebrenica case and put skeptics out of business.

If ICMP’s word is all that is required to show that, it may well be true. All requests for DNA profile matches and other pertinent data to be disclosed to be reviewed by independent experts are politely but firmly declined by ICMP. Its secretiveness is justified on the grounds that allowing public access to the data would be an insensitive act that would result in great indignity to the victims and compound the pain of the survivors. It claims that its hands in the matter are tied and that it can release the data only if the survivors would give their written permission. How likely is it in the Balkans that they ever would?

It seems that ICMP’s penchant for guarding the “privacy” of its data does go excessively far, even absurdly so. When Radovan Karadžić asked to be given access to their data for verification purposes, it came to light that in fact he was not precisely being discriminated against because the prosecution revealed that they, also, were denied proper access. Prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff made the astonishing statement that “ICMP did not share DNA data with us, either. So it is not correct that they gave it to us, but not to others.”[7]

Reliance on ICMP findings is, therefore, little better then faith-based jurisprudence.

But even if protestations of privacy on behalf of family members who donated blood samples are to be accepted at face value, now that the 5,336 identified victim figure has been enshrined in the official judgment, it would seem simple and convenient to allay doubts by publishing at least the first and last names of all the 5,336 individuals involved. The publication of such a list is indispensable to verify, first of all, if the persons in question ever existed: if they did, whether they are really dead: and if they are dead, whether their deaths had anything to do with the execution of war prisoners in Srebrenica in July of 1995.

That ought not to offend anyone’s sensibilities because thousands of names of alleged Srebrenica victims have already been carved onto a huge slab of stone at the Potočari Memorial Centre, to be seen by everyone. The publication of these names of victims supposedly identified by DNA would not only be quite sensational, it would also make further forms of verification possible. Unfortunately, no such list is appended to the judgment or seems to be forthcoming.

But the Chamber’s biggest problem in this regard is not its failure to name the identified individuals (identification, it should be recalled, means assigning a first and last name rather than a number to each individual.) Nor is it even its cavalier prediction, reminiscent of the failed forecast in the Krstić judgment, that “the number of individuals killed in the executions following the fall of Srebrenica could well be as high as 7.826. It is, rather, that the Chamber is apparently ignorant of how DNA works and of what it can and cannot do.

That ignorance is reflected in the Chamber’s mystifying finding that “at least 5,336 identified individuals were killed in the executions following the fall of Srebrenica”, which is a scientific impossibility. By matching samples taken from the deceased person to biological material donated by the potential blood relative, DNA procedure can establish, with various degrees of certainty, the deceased’s probable identity. But in terms that are relevant to criminal liability it can do nothing more than that. It cannot help determine the time and manner of death. The deceased whose first and last name might indeed be established as a result of a successful match, could have been killed in combat, in an accident, or could have died of natural causes, and it could have happened in Srebrenica or someplace else. The casual suggestion made by the Chamber, that the 5,336 identified individuals “were killed in the executions following the fall of Srebrenica” is scientifically unwarranted and, as any biology student could inform the Chamber, it is absurd on its face. No one can make such a determination based on DNA data without exposing themselves to enormous ridicule.

But this is exactly the determination which the Chamber was obliged to make, because without the time and manner of death claim to go with it, the pompously announced DNA identification evidence is quite useless for conviction purposes.

It may be argued that the Chamber acted most unwisely by embracing the DNA approach without at least consulting a biology student about its usefulness before doing so. Once this segment of the judgment is subjected to thorough critical analysis, ICTY will discover that it will get even less in terms of evidence that can withstand critical analysis than was the case with the apparently jettisoned standard forensic approach. The standard approach at least had yielded 947 potential execution victims (442 with blindfolds and ligatures, plus 505 with bullet injuries). The methodology shift to DNA is incapable of demonstrating a single culpable death in terms of legally relevant criteria. It seeks to impress with the aura of high tech, but like any bluff it can last only as long as it remains unchallenged or, in this case, unexamined.

“ICMP’s identification techniques directly undermine revisionist attempts to deny mass atrocities,” crowed ICMP’s Director-General, Kathryn Bomberger. “By providing irrefutable evidence on victims’ identities, the ICMP helps judicial institutions bring war crime perpetrators to justice, restores victims’ humanity and dignity and brings a sense of closure for their surviving family members. These family members have a right to information concerning the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones”.[8]

One can only feel sad for international justice as long as it is stuck with astute legal minds of the caliber of those who composed the laughable Popović judgment, and as long as in evidentiary matters they continue to be assisted by charlatans such as Kathryn Bomberger.

---

Footnotes:

[1] President of the Dutch NGO Srebrenica Historical Project.

[2] The autonomy of this institution on Canadian soil, not to mention its academic pretensions, may well be questioned. It turns out that the Canada-based Institute for the Research of Genocide was founded by an act of the Institute for the Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law at the University of Sarajevo as recently as August 2009 (http://www.instituteforgenocide.ca/about/).

[3] In the previous Srebrenica trials, Krstić and Blagojević asnd Jokić, the forensic evidence consisted of autopsy reports based on the examination of exhumed post-mortem remains. A critique of the Tribunal’s interpretation of that data was published by Dr. Ljubiša Simić, http://www.srebrenica-project.com/DOWNLOAD/post%20mortem/Forensic%20analysis%20of%20post-mortem%20reports.doc

[4] Prosecutor v. Popović et al., see par. 793, par. 837, and footnote 2862.

[5] Prosecutor v. Krstić, Appelate judgment, par. 35.

[6] http://www.instituteforgenocide.ca/6481-srebrenica-genocide-victims-identified-through-dna-science

[7] ICTY, Prosecutor v. Karadžić, Status conference, July 23, 2009, Transcript p. 364, lines 21-23.

[8] Radio Netherlands Worldwide, July 9, 2010: http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/over-6400-dead-srebrenica-muslims-identified

Blog admin 1389 received the following article from Stella Jatras.

Justice seems as far away now as it was then.

“Since Mitrovica is in the news, I’m sending this out again for those who might not have read it. – Stella”

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jatras4.html

Other Side of an Ugly Story

by Stella L. Jatras
Special to Antiwar.com
9/6/00

I have followed with great interest the events in Kosovo this past year and I was particularly intrigued by both accounts written by Officer Vincent duCellier that were published in the Washington Times. Officer duCellier, a former Maryland police officer, has selflessly volunteered his time and separation from his family to command the prison in Mitrovica, Kosovo. The first article appeared as a touching letter written to his wife titled, “Lessons of a lifetime,” dated as a 3 August editorial. The second article published in The Metropolitan Section of the Times is dated 21 August and titled, “‘We are the police’ in war-torn Kosovo, Maryland cop learns the value of America from volunteer mission,” and was almost identical to the first article, which aroused my curiosity as to why the Washington Times would give second coverage to identical reports in so short a time. This is in response to Officer duCellier’s observations as a police officer commanding the Mitrovica prison in Kosovo.

Officer duCellier alluded many times in both letters to the “hatred that is clearly evident between Serbians and Albanians.” However, what appears to have made the greatest impression on him, and perhaps exposes his pro-Albanian sentiments, was the tragic fate of a young 16-year old Albanian boy who was totally paralyzed on the right side as the result of a beating by the Serbian police a year earlier, which left him with only limited use of his left side. Officer duCellier writes, “He is Albanian. This was his crime, and so the Serbian police under [Slobodan] Milosevic broke his neck.” I certainly do not defend this act of cruelty, but Officer duCellier neglected to relate even one of the incidents where Serbs were the victims.

A FEW EXAMPLES OF THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

Unfortunately, there are many tragic stories such as the one told by Officer duCellier. As an example, the tragic death of the Bulgarian staffer working for the U.N. civilian mission in Kosovo who was shot and killed after his first day on the job. (AP, U.N. Official killed in Kosovo). The AP writes: “According to Inspector Gilles Moreau of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, now serving with the UN in Pristina, a group of ethnic Albanian youths followed him and asked him what the time was. When Krumov replied in Serbian, the youths began to kick and punch him. A large crowed gathered, separating Krumov from his colleagues. “‘All of a sudden, a shot was heard, the crowd dispersed and the body of Mr. Krumov was on the ground, lifeless,’ said Inspector Moreau. Krumov had been shot in the head.”

And what was this young man’s crime, I would like to ask Officer duCellier? The Guardian of 13 October 1999 writes that “Mr. Krumov, a Bulgarian, was killed because he spoke a simple phrase in Serbian.” I repeat: “He spoke a simple phrase in Serbian.”

Another example of injustice was done to a Serbian man and his two sons who spent over a year in prison [was it in Officer duCellier's prison?] after having been accused of killing an ethnic Albanian. The Washington Times reported on 9 August that a “Serbian man, two sons acquitted, slaying case seen as test of Kosovo justice for minorities.” [LOL. "Kosovo justice for minorities?"]. An Associated Press article on 21 July writes, “the murder trial of a Serb man and his two sons, accused of killing an ethnic Albanian in a shootout in Kosovo, took a dramatic turn Friday when the trial judge said American troops confirmed they killed two people at the scene that day. Judge Patrice De Charette said the admission was contained in a 103-page report submitted by U.S. authorities Friday to the court trying Mirolub ‘Mirko’ Momcilovic, 60 and his sons Jugoslav, 32, and Boban, 25.” Is this what Officer duCellier considers to be justice by keeping innocent Serbian men in prison for over a year before being released?

Staff Sgt. Frank Ronghi, the U.S. soldier who received a life sentence without parole for killing an 11-year-old ethnic Albanian girl while on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo, bragged to his fellow soldiers that he was going to pin this one on the Serbs. If the Sergeant had not taken along one of his buddies while in the process of dumping his young victim’s body in a field, innocent Serbs would be rotting in jail for the rest of their lives at this very moment and Sgt. Ronghi would be walking around scot free to perhaps rape and murder another young girl and blaming it on Serbs, and why not? After all, the name of the game is, “blame it on the Serbs!” when considering the Serbs have been accused of other atrocities for which they were not guilty.

Sgt. Ronghi was not dragged before the dock at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as is done to Serbs who, unknowingly have been secretly declared as war criminals and kidnaped under some of the most bizarre circumstances such as kicking down the door of a Kosovo Serbian medical center and yanking the patient from his hospital bed at 2:45 a.m. A military spokesman said that the man had been wounded by a British KFOR soldier during rioting in the Serbian enclave of Gracanica, just south of the provincial capital, after a grenade attack on a Serb market there. Father Sava of Decani Monastery, emphasized that he did not wish to address whether the patient should have been arrested or not but he condemned the manner in which this was done, calling it “unprecedented and unacceptable” and added, “We cannot tolerate this anymore! This kind of behavior on the part of British KFOR show us that the international forces are an occupying force, not peacekeeping forces acting in accordance with the UN Resolution.”

Another assault by ethnic Albanians on Serbs was reported by Associated Press on 5 December 1999 when an American Professor from Berkeley was murdered. AP reported, “NATO peacekeepers and U.N. police only realized later what had happened: A crowd of ethnic Albanians had pulled [Professor] Basic, his 51-year old wife and her 74-year-old mother from the car, flipped it over and set it on fire. The mob kicked, punched and pummeled them. Basic was shot. Firecrackers were jammed in the mouths of the terrified women. Basic died en route to the hospital. The two women suffered critical injuries and remain hospitalized in the Serbian city of Nis.” The Associated Press also reported that “His [Professor Basic] face looked as if it had been dragged across gravel. The medic who was present began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but couldn’t hear Basic’s breathing over the crowed’s shouting. He ripped open the man’s shirt. That’s when he saw the bullet’s entry wound.”

But why am I not surprised at the Gestapo method of apprehending those bearing the Scarlet Letter “S” for Serb? Didn’t this sort of Nazi-type thuggery happen in the wee hours of the morning when storm troopers broke into the home where young Elian Gonzales was being protected by his Cuban Miami family from being returned to “Papa Castro?” Were Bosnia and Kosovo merely rehearsals for what occurred on that early morning raid in Florida?

I would like to ask Officer duCellier, are the KLA/Albanian thugs who committed these atrocities in his prison, or in any other prison for that matter? When incidents of this sort occur, most ethnic Albanians are questioned and then released without spending any time behind bars, unlike Serbs who are detained in prisons even after they have been proven innocent. The question should then be raised, where was the outrage from Professor Basic’s congressman and senators over his violent death and the brutality displayed against his family? Did that act of Albanian barbarity not warrant some condemnation?

R. Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post Foreign Service reported on 12 June, 2000, “The killer stood ankle-deep in the mud of a stream bed on Sunday night two weeks ago and poked his AK-47 through a metal fence covered with camouflaging vegetation. He was close enough to get a clear view of 4-year-old Milos Petrovic and four Serbian men milling in front of the tiny grocery in this Kosovo village. Milos had come for an ice cream cone with his uncle, but his presence was no deterrent to the gunman who fired 21 shots at the group and then fled along the stream. Milos’ head was nearly gone, and two of the men also died quickly. U.S. troops flew the others by helicopter to a base camp for surgery.” The report continues:

“The dead were among the more than 500 people who have been slain in Kosovo since NATO peacekeeping troops and U.N. officials arrived here one year ago to begin reconstructing this war-ravaged, ethnically riven Serbian province. In the last five weeks alone, more than 55 other serious, ethnically motivated crimes have been committed against Kosovo’s minority Serbian population.” Very recently, two hand grenades were thrown at a group of people in the Serb area of Kosovo, wounding ten Serbian children ranging from the ages of five to 15. Are any of the Albanian terrorists who committed these atrocities languishing in Officer duCellier’s prison?

NATO TERRORISM RESULTS IN AMPUTATIONS FOR INNOCENT CIVILIANS

Acts of brutality by NATO’s use of stun guns against the Serbian population resulted in the amputation of limbs. As reported in the Associated Press of 16 March, 2000, “Seizing control of a key bridge in a first step to reunite this ethnically divided city, NATO peacekeepers clashed Wednesday with angry Serbs in a confrontation during which two people lost limbs to stun grenades.” It continues: “At least 15 Serbs and an undetermined number of peacekeepers and journalists were injured. Nine of the injured were hospitalized, said Dr. Radomir Jankovic, a chief surgeon at the Serb-controlled hospital. A mother of three and a diabetic man each had one foot amputated because of injuries suffered when stun grenades fired by French peacekeepers exploded near them, Jankovic said.” Have charges been brought against the French peacekeepers for inflicting such pain and suffering on their Serbian victims? Agence France Presse reported that “a 70-year-old Serbian woman was dragged out of her house after being savagely beaten by unidentified assailants, the UN’s refugee agency in Kosovo said on Friday. The agency seized on the attack as an example of the ‘horrific lack of community initiative’ demonstrated by the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian community in the southern Kosovo town of Prizren when it came to dealing with hate crimes. The woman was attacked in her Prizen home before her assailants dragged her outside and left her in the street.” AFP reported from Pristina on 27 August that “a Kosovo Serbian child was killed and three others seriously injured when a car hit them Sunday, UN police spokesman Richard Graham told AFB. A car leaving the scene was stopped by KFOR peacekeeping troops and two Kosovo Albanian men were arrested by UN police in relation to the incident,” and in another case, Fr. Sava reported that on the same day the Serbian child was killed, a 75-year-old Serb from Crkvena vodica was also killed by a machine gun fire from an unindentified car which immediately disappeared in direction of Albanian dominated Obilic.

As Patrick J. Buchanan says, “What is goin’ on here?”

Again, I would like to ask Officer duCellier, have any of these Albanian thugs been jailed and brought to justice? What was the Serbian child run down by a car, or the machine-gun death of the 75-year-old Serb guilty of other than being Serbs?

Jerry Seper of the Washington Times wrote on 4 May 1999, “KLA rebels train in terrorists camps, Bin Laden offers financing, too.” During the first two months of KFOR’s occupation, more churches were destroyed by America’s buddies, the KLA mafia, than under 500 years of the Ottoman Empire, and the destruction of Serbian holy sites continues while Congress remains silent unlike their passionate display of condemnation on the floor of the House of atrocities allegedly committed by Serbs. It seems our good Congressmen couldn’t get on the floor fast enough to denounce alleged Serb atrocities. While all traces of Serbian churches and monasteries are being eradicated, the United Arab Emirates’ defense minister has offered to build 50 mosques in Kosovo at his own expense. (Reuters, 20 August).

I cannot stress frequently enough and strongly enough that the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has somehow been magically morphed into the peaceful Kosovo Protection Force, was armed and trained in Osama bin Laden’s camps and are engaged in sex slavery, (“Sex slave trade thrives among Kosovo troops,” London Times, 5 February 2000), prostitution, (“Kosovo’s Flesh Trade, the San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2000), kidnaping, murder and drugs (“Albanian drug dealers and trafficers are flourishing in post-war Kosovo,” by Imer Mushkola in Pristina, 23 May, 00). This is the nature of the KLA beast, and now that they have almost succeeded in ridding themselves of the Serbs, Roma, Jews and non-Albanians, they have already begun to kill their own. And after they have rid themselves of unwanted ethnic Albanians, who’s left to target? You guessed it – American GIs. Isn’t it comforting to know that our politicians and media have made a pact with these thugs on behalf of the American people? Christopher Lane and Benjamin Schwartz of the Washington Post say, “We were Suckers for the KLA,” but were we? I think not. We have known all along exactly what our agenda was – to rid the world of those pesky Serbs and to take over their assets.

In an incredible report, the Washington Times of August 22, World Section headlines, “Violence against minorities no longer stuns Kosovo.” It goes on to say, “Violence against minority groups is so common place it appears to be regarded as normal, often met with a resigned shrug of the shoulders from U.N. police officers and members of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (Kfor) peacekeeping.” The “civilized” community was more than willing to accept some retribution, some form of revenge by ethnic Albanians against the minorities who were left in Kosovo, as though two wrongs DO make a right, but the question should be asked over and over again, revenge for what? Retribution for what? And for how long? More and more reports are finally beginning to surface that there were no mass graves in Kosovo, nor was there a genocide and that rumors of atrocities committed by Serbs had been greatly exaggerated. The BBC World Service reported on 17 June, 2000 of the huge arms find in Kosovo and writes that K-For British-led peacekeepers in Kosovo have uncovered the largest store of illegal arms found since fighting ended in the province a year ago. Six tons of arms have so far been removed from the bunkers. “You’ve got enough here to start a small war,” said British Major Simon Marr. AP further substantiated ownership of the cache of weapons when it wrote, “NATO said Friday that a huge cache of weapons including mortars, mines and machine guns found last week belonged to the Kosovo liberation Army.” Are these arms violators serving time? Not in Officer duCellier’s prison, I would venture to guess.

Am I to assume that as a “volunteer,” Officer duCellier is not being financially rewarded other than having the satisfaction of helping to keep order in a prison in Kosovo? Is it compassion alone that he feels the need to extend his services in Kosovo until September of 2001? If so, he is certainly to be commended for his humanitarian desire to bring law and order to a lawless nation, one created by NATO and our politicians. Or is it possible that there is a $$$$ factor which enters the picture? Officer duCellier states that there are “36 International Police Officers on my staff and 65 detainees in the jail. The detainees are mostly Serbians [a little over half, he states] accused of various war crimes such as mass murder, [apparently, charges of killing just ONE ethnic Albanian is considered to be "mass murder," such as in the case of the Serbian father and sons], genocide and arson top the list. They each profess to be innocent. The Roma here face similar charges, while the Albanians are charged with minor theft, weapons possession and attempted murder.” “Minor theft? Weapons possession and attempted murder?” It appears that KLA/ethnic Albanians who commit atrocities such as raping a Serbian nun while Kosovar rebels looted her monastery after NATO troops refused a mother superior’s plea for protection, or “Grannies” who have been targeted for special horrors, such as decapitation, drowning in bathtubs, stabbing or raped, [their crime of being Serbs], are considered to be lesser crimes than those allegedly committed by Serbs accused of “mass murder,” [mass graves that have been proven to be non-existent?] Or “genocide,” yet the Wall Street Journal reported, “War in Kosovo was Cruel, Bitter, Savage; Genocide It Wasn’t,” (31 December 1999). Could it be that Serbs in Officer duCellier’s prison are accused of war crimes that do not exist?

Bob Djurdjevic’s Truth in Media (TiM) reported on 14 August that “Hashim Thaci, the Kosovo Albanian terrorist-in chief and (thus) Madeleine Albright’s good pal, attended a gala luncheon on Monday (Aug. 14) at the Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles. A TiM source who was also there said that when Albright and Bill Clinton showed up, “before they spoke, Thaci went up to Albright, had a brief talk, and then kissed twice on the cheeks.” It was during her last visit to Kosovo that Madeleine Albright was greeted with kisses from Thaci, after he had just executed six of his officers. It appears that Senator Lieberman shares views of Madam Albright, for it was he who said, “The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles…Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.” (Washington Post, April 28, 1999).

By now, we have all heard the joke of how the war in the Balkans began. During a meeting of Madeleine Albright with the all-male NATO ministers, she asked the question, “Well gentleman, do we make love or do we make war?” Of course, the answer was unanimously for war.

And what a lovely war it is, Officer duCellier. Money and all.

As a career military officer’s wife, Stella Jatras has traveled widely and has lived in many foreign countries where she not only learned about other cultures but became very knowledgeable regarding world affairs and world politics. Stella Jatras lived in Moscow for two years where her husband, George, was the Senior Air Attaché), and while there, worked in the Political Section of the US Embassy. Stella has also lived in Germany, Greece and Saudi Arabia. Her travels took her to over twenty countries. She is the author of the “Open Letter to General Michael Short,” which antiwar.com carried on 11/3/99, “From Camp Swampy to Camp Bondsteel!” on 4/6/00, and “Srebrenica – Code Word to Silence Critics of US Policy in the Balkans” on 7/31/00.

From: “stoptheism@att.net”
To: smoothstoneblog@yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, March 2, 2008 12:27:42 PM
Subject: Please announce on your blog and send to lists

From Steve Plaut:

Call to Arms! Please assist ISRACAMPUS.org.il !!

I would like to ask your assistance in getting the word out about ISRACAMPUS.org.il, which replaces Israel Academia Monitor (now defunct) as an improved, cleaner and meaner, watchdog web site that exposes and monitors Israel’s Academic Fifth Column.

ISRACAMPUS is an improved, professionally-edited web site that replaces the older web site (which suffered from amateurish and inept editing). It starts afresh in a new cyber-home, and contains a number of new features. These include “ALEF Watch,” a segment of the web site that follows the anti-Israel shenanigans disseminated via the University of Haifa on the ALEF chat list, a list that includes open anti-Semites, jihadists, and even some Neo-Nazis. The new ISRACAMPUS also features “Van Leer Watch,” which follows and exposes the anti-Israel radicalism at the supposedly academic “think tank,” Van Leer Institute. And don’t miss the new “Shmootz Corner,” which will feature unusually candid anti-Semitic and venomously anti-Israel remarks by Israeli academics. Take a look for yourself, at http://www.isracampus.org.il

I would like to ask your help in passing the word getting the news out! Can you tell members of chat lists in which you are a member about the new web address? Can you print out the statement below and hang it on bulletin boards, cyber and otherwise, at your place of work, in your synagogue or school, etc.? Can you tell your local Jewish weekly about us and pass on the message below? Better yet, can you send US all information you have on the seditious activities of Israeli academic radicals and extremists?

ISRACAMPUS can be contacted at:
IsraCampus.org
POB 6652
Haifa
Israel

By email: isracampus@gmail.com
From: http://isracampus.org.il/about%20IsraCampus%20page.htm

Who are we?

A specter is haunting the Israeli Academic “Post-Zionist” extremists in Israel, and it is ISRACAMPUS (www.isracampus.co.il). Modeled in part on “Campus Watch” in North America, ISRACAMPUS monitors and exposes the anti-Israel (and sometimes anti-Semitic) political activities, writings, and pronouncements of Israel’s far-leftist academic extremists. Israeli universities contain hundreds of faculty members who are active in promoting boycotts of Israel, in organizing army soldiers for mutiny and refusal to serve, in promoting law breaking, and in collaborating with anti-Israel groups attempting to delegitimize Israel as a fascist, terrorist, racist, apartheid entity. Students, professors, donors, alumni, journalists and others participate in ISRACAMPUS and help it gather materials.

Until ISRACAMPUS came upon the scene, few in Israel and fewer still outside Israel were aware of the anti-Israel activities of these Israeli academic radicals. That is now changing. The past two years, when there were numerous attempts to adopt boycott of Israel resolutions in the UK, Canada, in the US, and elsewhere, it was ISRACAMPUS that exposed the fact that most of these resolutions have Israeli academic initiators and sponsors, faculty members who draw salaries paid for by the Israeli taxpayer, calling on anti-Semites all over the wor ld to boycott Israel. The Israeli media and the Jewish press around the world are increasingly discussing and reporting about the shenanigans of “Israel’s Academic Fifth Column.”

Israeli academic institutions have been misused in recent years as platforms for radical anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic propagandizing, often by tenured radicals with embarrassing academic records and dubious research credentials. These include Israeli faculty denouncing their own country in the foreign press as "genocidal" and supposedly perpetrating Nazi-like war crimes, professors who publish articles proclaiming Israel a fascist apartheid state engaged in "state terrorism," lecturers who endorse Arab terrorism against Jews, applaud the Hizbollah, and call for Israel to be dismantled entirely.

While its web site has been in operation for only a relatively short period, the impact of ISRACAMPUS is already being widely felt. A growing number of reports are appearing in the mainstream media about Israel’s academic extremists, “New Historians,” and “Post-Zionists.” Israel’s Channel One television channel recently devoted a full hour to Israeli academic extremists and their role in promoting boycotts of Israel. Israel’s Maariv daily has been particularly courageous in condemning these things. Countless blogs cite and link to our web site. Israeli university officials are being faced with growing calls to enforce academic standards and put a stop to the political biases operating in campus hiring and promotion. Classroom indoctrination and one-sided anti-Israel courses taught by extremists are increasingly being exposed and triggering public outrage.

And the extremists are themselves growing wary. While no one is calling for restricting academic freedom and freedom of expression, even for the worst anti-Israel academic radicals , nevertheless these folks are feeling pressure as their activities are exposed to the sunshine. They know someone is looking over their shoulders. Over the past two years there has been a dramatic drop in the number of Israeli radical academics turning out anti-Israel propaganda for Bash-Israel organizations and web sites. While anti-Israel petitions, containing the names of hundreds of Israel academics, appeared in the past every few weeks on the internet, almost nothing of this sort has been initiated more recently. And in radical political “chat rooms” Israeli academic extremists are increasingly complaining about the fact that ISRACAMPUS is exposing what they write and do.

It is getting harder for Israeli university administrations to turn a blind eye to on-campus politicization, classroom indoctrination, and subordination of hiring and promotion to politically biased decision making. People a re asking campus officers tough questions about how it is that so many Israel haters with insipid, sometimes downright embarrassing, academic records are being hired and promoted as faculty members and using their podium to demonize their own country. Voices expressing outrage against one-sided indoctrination, such as in courses purportedly about “the occupation,” are growing.

ISRACAMPUS is the best way to “keep Israeli universities honest,” and to ensure that their faculty engage in research and educating, rather than in Israel-bashing, sedition, and anti-Zionist political propagandizing.

And ISRACAMPUS needs your help to stay in operation!

Alec Rawls did a 45 minute interview with Washington D.C talk-radio host Joe Ardinger Saturday night (3-8-08, Segment 3).

“It rips,” says Alec. “We exposed a lot of the terrorist memorializing parts of the Flight 93 Memorial, and went over the clear proofs of intent that architect Paul Murdoch included in the design.”

Joe’s interests: “Ghosts, UFO’s, The Lizard People from The Hollow Earth, Politics, True Crime, Conspiracies, you get the idea…” If he wants outlandish, the truth about the Flight 93 Memorial is tops, which could just make Joe the man for the Job.

Alec knows nothing about the Lizard People, or Joe’s politics, but this issue ought to transcend all domestic divides, and for Joe it certainly does. “Very fun interview,” says Alec: “Joe is a great host, and he says he wants to keep after this.”

That’s excellent. Thank you Joemericans!

(If Joe’s 3-8-08 Segment 3 link ever disappears, there is a backup copy here.)

To join our blogbursts, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

Pennsylvanians know about the Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 Memorial, and have stopped donating. The first indication came last September when State Senator Jane Orie came aboard as a fundraiser. She got a quick education in growing controversy.

In a 9/11 radio interview with Pittsburgh talker Fred Honsberger, Orie explained why she hoped the Flight 93 families would get back together and revisit their design choice:

Orie: “No matter who it is, and no matter where I went today for 9/11 events, everybody brought up this crescent. Whether it is intentional or not, it is disturbing to people.”

Honsberger: “So everyone is bringing it up to you.”

Orie: “Absolutely.”

At that time, the Memorial Project had collected about $12.5 million, far short of the huge design’s anticipated 60 million dollar price tag. Six months later the amount sits at “A little more than $12 million.” It is possible that they are actually spending more on their fundraising efforts than they are raising.

Bill Steiner, who has been rustling up opposition on the ground in PA, dropped by Somerset recently and had a conversation with Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley. She appeared beleaguered, and confided that fundraising was sluggish, suggesting that the memorial would probably have to be built in stages. Presumably she meant something other than the normal stages of building, but was anticipating delays.

Now this week the Somerset Daily American has an editorial complaining that the whole state seems to be dumping on Somerset County, bemoaning amongst other things the lack of funding for the Flight 93 Memorial.

This is not the preferred way to stop architect Paul Murdoch’s terroist memorial mosque from being built. The damn thing ought to just be stopped by those in government who are in a position to stop it, so that a new and fitting design can be selected. At that point, money will be needed, but for now, with Murdoch in full command of the hijacked memorial, lack of money is what is needed. Starving the engines of fuel is one way to keep the hijacker from reaching his target, and until the hijacker is stopped, nothing else matters.

The people get it, and are voting with their pocketbooks. When are our our elected representatives going to step up and do their part?

Senator Orie is not the only Pennsylvania state legislator who has expressed concern, but Congressman Tancredo is as yet the only politician to actually call for the crescent design to be scrapped. If our representatives can’t be leaders, can’t they at least be followers?

To join our blogbursts, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

Click thumbnail to view high-resolution flyer (300dpi) in PDF format. Fits letter size paper. Suitable for “flyering” your town or campus.