Fint interview med Edward Luttwak

Q&A: Edward Luttwak

The military strategist talks about Israeli security, Henry Kissinger, the Arab Spring, and the death of Osama Bin Laden

By David Samuels | September 6, 2011

Edward Luttwak is a rare bird whose peripatetic life and work are the envy of academics and spies alike. A well-built man who looks like he is in his mid-50s (he turns 70 next year), Luttwak—who was born in 1942 to a wealthy Jewish family in Arad, Romania, and educated in Italy and England—speaks with a resonant European accent that conveys equal measures of authority, curiosity, egomania, bluster, impatience, and good humor. He is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University, and he published his first book, Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, at the age of 26. Over the past 40 years, he has made provocative and often deeply original contributions to multiple academic fields, including military strategy, Roman history, Byzantine history, and economics. He owns a large eco-friendly ranch in Bolivia and can recite poetry and talk politics in eight languages, a skill that he displayed during a recent four-hour conversation at his house, located on a quiet street in Chevy Chase, Md., by taking phone calls in Italian, Spanish, Korean, and Chinese, during which I wandered off to the porch, where I sat and talked with his lovely Israeli-born wife, Dalya Luttwak, a sculptor.

Mere HER i Tablet Magazine.

Multikulturen fungerer ikke i Tyskland

Venstrefløjsere må virkelig være glade for sig selv. Al ødelæggelse går lige efter planen:

Parallel Justice

Islamic ‘Arbitrators’ Shadow German Law

By Maximilian Popp – September 1, 2011

In mosques or tearooms, Muslim elders dispense verdicts that keep their communities in line. They mediate between aggrieved immigrants, sometimes at the expense of German justice. Some say the arbitrations ease caseloads in court, but others see the creeping advance of Sharia law.

The men ambushed Fuat S. on the street, then locked him in a basement and tortured him. Fuat was later admitted to the hospital in Berlin’s Neukölln district with gaping wounds, contusions and broken bones.

Mere HER i Der Spiegel.

Multikulturen fungerer ikke i Belgien

Bloggen, Islam versus Europe, har oversat en stump af en belgisk artikel:

Senior Belgian Judge: “The End of Democracy May Not be Far Away”

4 September 2011 |  by Cheradenine Zakalwe

Two senior Belgian judges, Yves Liégeois, Antwerp public prosecutor, and Piet Van Den Bon, Advocate General of the Higher Labour Court, have made devastating criticisms of the Belgian government’s immigration policy.

I blogposten kan man endvidere læse:

• “The end of democracy may not be far away. The problems are becoming unmanageable. The total failure of immigration policy is one expression of that.”
• The two Antwerp magistrates insist that the authorities have completely lost control of immigration.
• the majority of foreigners can get access to unemployment benefits if they have done enough work in their country of origin
• The law relating to asylum has been hijacked: the same applies to family reunion

Læs det hele HER hos Islam versus Europe.

Andre kilder: Snaphanen, London Review of Books,

Multikulturen fungerer ikke i Australien

Australierne må ikke selv bestemme, hvem der må bo i deres land og hvem de skal betale til. Det skal den almægtige dommerstand afgøre. Et demokratisk flertal er jo populisme, – kun retssystemet må beslutte vigtige sager:

Australian PM Julia Gillard hits out at asylum ruling

1 September 2011

Ms Gillard called the ruling “deeply disappointing” and said the court had “rewritten the Migration Act”.

Under the deal, Australia would have sent 800 asylum-seekers to Malaysia and would have received 4,000 refugees in return over four years.

Mere HER hos BBC.

Andre kilder: ABC Radio Australia, ABC News Australia, The Australian, The Sidney Morning Herald, Adelaide Now,

Multikulturen fungerer ikke i Canada

Canadas ytringsfrihed hænger i en tynd tråd:

Be nice, or else

by Janie B. Cheaney – September 5, 2011

Canada is not us, nor is the United States Canada. But sometimes a glance north can be instructive as to the long-term implications of a new policy (such as national healthcare) or the practical applications of an existing one (hate crimes legislation).

A few years ago, Canada watchers were riveted by the spectacle of well-known journalists Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn brought to trial for things they wrote or published that supposedly slandered Muslims. Both were acquitted, perhaps more because of their prominence than the injustice of the charges against them. An earlier victim wasn’t so fortunate: The Rev. Stephen Boisson of Alberta was prosecuted to the extent of the law when his letter to the editor about homosexual activism was published in a small town newspaper. Having neither fame nor fortune, Boisson was convicted by the Alberta Human Rights Commission (HRC) and told to stop saying those things: no anti-homosexual remarks, in writing or from the pulpit, to anybody, ever. A higher court overturned the HRC decision in 2009—after seven years, hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and untold besmirching of his character.

Mere HER i World Magazine.

David Cameron er et blålys

Her handler det om England og engelsk politik:

Cameron Can Come Out Fighting – Or Chuck It In

Iain Martin – September 2011

David Cameron’s party doesn’t really love its leader. Talk to a cross-section of his MPs and it is clear that many respect him — admiring his considerable self-confidence, his to-the-manor-born command of the House of Commons and composure in the aftermath of crisis such as this summer’s rioting. But for a lot of Tories in parliament and out in the country it appears to go no further than that.

“I feel almost schizophrenic when I see him perform in the House,” says a veteran Tory MP. “In one sense it is captivating. He has a very stylish delivery and sounds as though he means it all, the conservative stuff I mean. And then the other part of me thinks no, it’s just hot air and in the end he’ll never do what needs doing.”

Mere HER i Standpoint Magazine. Og en artikel, der roser Theodore Dalrymple:

Underrated: Theodore Dalrymple

Jonathan Foreman  – September 2011

Regular readers of Theodore Dalrymple will not have been surprised by the looting that spread through London and then to other English cities in early August. Indeed, one of the fascinating and appalling aspects of these disturbances, beyond the gleeful contempt for the law shown by the looters, and the complacency of the police who allowed them to rampage, were the familiar explanations offered by the offenders for their behaviour.

In interviews with reporters they sounded exactly like the amoral underclass interlocutors who have peopled Dalrymple’s writing for two decades. In the aftermath, the media was full of anguished discussion about what had brought Britain to this grim pass. Many of the talking-heads seemed shocked to discover that thousands of young people neither respect nor fear the authorities. It baffled them that, despite the material wealth of our society, a disturbing portion of “our” youth are vicious, selfish, greedy and callous to a degree that would shock the genuinely deprived inhabitants of South Asian slums or Mexican barrios.

Mere HER i Standpoint Magazine. Og om de nylige plyndringer i England – artiklen munder ud i en fin kritik af multikultur:

How Liberals And Looters Trashed My Town

Peter Whittle – September 2011

In October 1974, McDonald’s opened its first UK branch in Woolwich, south-east London, on the main street, Powis Street, and my sister and I went along. It was quite an event. As local teenagers with recourse only to the Wimpy Bar when we wanted to impress new girl and boyfriends, we were excited by the appearance among us of this thing from another planet — all yellow and red plastic, shiny surfaces, individually-wrapped parcels of food. There was a pretty big crowd of all ages gathered that day, dodging traffic which, before pedestrianisation, still hogged the road, but which also made it feel alive. The strongest memory I have is of our confusion as to how we were meant to eat this stuff; there was no sign of any knives or forks. We looked around anxiously. “Perhaps,” said my sister inncocently, holding up a long, weedy plastic spoon, “we’re meant to use this?”

Mere HER i Standpoint Magazine.

Andre kilder: Wikipedia, Pajamas Media,

Video: Ezra Levant & Michael Coren – igen

Fra 2. september 2011 – skønne Sun News Network:

Ezra Levant & Michael Coren On The State Of Christianity

Meget barske billeder her - om bla. dyremishandling, halalslagtning, Al Qaeda, Egypten, Det Muslimske Broderskab, vanvidsimamer, voldskultur, Irak med mere:

Ezra Levant & Jonathan Halevi The Arab Underground Aug 31 2011

Ezra Levant on homegrown terrorism

This brief, 3-minute video shows footage of the annual Al-Quds Day Rally held at Queen’s Park (the Ontario Legislature) here in Toronto, which took place this past Sunday, August 28th.

Speakers are seen describing Israel as a “cancer” that must be killed, Israel is accused of being involved “wherever we see injustice happening”, and Israelis are called “racists”, “barbarians”, and “inhuman”.

The flag of Hezbollah, a terror organization banned under Canadian law, is also flown by demonstrators.

It is important for people to understand that there is a world of difference between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies and a denial of the right of Israel to exist, in language that is without question anti-Semitic. In the case of this rally, ‘criticism’ of Israel quickly crossed the line into outright anti-Semitism.

The video also shows how those who genuinely believe in human rights often share a podium with hate-filled extremists. Those activists should be accountable for the company they keep.

Diana West om Bat Ye’ors nye bog

Bogen hedder “Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate”:

The jihad is against the Bible

Diana West – September 01, 2011

Beyond the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looms another signal date in the annals of global jihad. That date is Sept. 20, when the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas is expected to petition the United Nations for statehood.

What would a U.N.-ordained Palestinian state have to do with global jihad? Practically everything, because such statehood would mark a major victory in the long war on Israel’s existence. And, whether unadmitted or unimagined, it is Israel on which the axis of Islamic jihad turns.

I’ve never been more convinced of this than after reading four, clarifying pages of Bat Ye’or’s new book, “Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate” (Lexington Books). In a first-chapter primer on the relationship between the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, much of which revolves around mutual animus toward Israel, Ye’or revisits the hateful perversion that passes for political normal: the relentless mission of the Islamic world, with EU encouragement, “to appropriate a tiny piece of land” – Israel – as a political and religious cause despite the fact, as she reminds us, no town, village or hamlet of Israel is mentioned in the Quran or early biographies of Muhammad.

Mere HER hos WorldNetDaily. Jewish World Review her. The Brussels Journal her. Næsten identisk version i The Washington Examiner her.

Årsdagen for 9/11 rykker nærmere

Simply Evil

A decade after 9/11, it remains the best description and most essential fact about al-Qaida

By Christopher Hitchens – Sept. 5, 2011

The proper task of the “public intellectual” might be conceived as the responsibility to introduce complexity into the argument: the reminder that things are very infrequently as simple as they can be made to seem. But what I learned in a highly indelible manner from the events and arguments of September 2001 was this: Never, ever ignore the obvious either. To the government and most of the people of the United States, it seemed that the country on 9/11 had been attacked in a particularly odious way (air piracy used to maximize civilian casualties) by a particularly odious group (a secretive and homicidal gang: part multinational corporation, part crime family) that was sworn to a medieval cult of death, a racist hatred of Jews, a religious frenzy against Hindus, Christians, Shia Muslims, and “unbelievers,” and the restoration of a long-vanished and despotic empire.

To me, this remains the main point about al-Qaida and its surrogates. I do not believe, by stipulating it as the main point, that I try to oversimplify matters. I feel no need to show off or to think of something novel to say. Moreover, many of the attempts to introduce “complexity” into the picture strike me as half-baked obfuscations or distractions. These range from the irredeemably paranoid and contemptible efforts[MN1] to pin responsibility for the attacks onto the Bush administration or the Jews, to the sometimes wearisome but not necessarily untrue insistence that Islamic peoples have suffered oppression. (Even when formally true, the latter must simply not be used as nonsequitur special pleading for the use of random violence by self-appointed Muslims.)

Mere HER i Slate.

How to Reverse the West’s Decline

Jonathan Sacks – September 2011

It is not clear that the West has successfully met the challenge of 9/11. Worse: it is not clear that the West yet fully understands what the challenge is.

To understand 2001 we have to go back to 1989, the year of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was an historic moment that few had expected. What did it mean? It was then that two stories were born, with one of which we are familiar, the other of which we seem hardly to know or understand at all.

Mere HER i Standpoint Magazine.