Video: Julian Assange interviewer David Horowitz & Hassan Nasrallah

Fra Russia Today den 23. april 2012 – den anden deltager er kommunist og hedder Slavoj Zizek:

David Horowitz on World Tomorrow with Julian Assange

Julian Assange’s The World Tomorrow: Hassan Nasrallah

Hezbollah urged the Syrian opposition to engage in dialogue with Assad’s regime, but they refused. Hezbollah leader Sayyid Nasrallah confirmed this in his first interview in 6 years, the world premiere of Julian Assange’s ‘The World Tomorrow’ on RT.

Assange får kritik for sine programmer, – også fra venstrefløjen. Fra 24. april 2012:

Assange’s mainstream friends U-turn after show boom

The media that once praised Julian Assange, hailing him a hero for his work as a whistleblower, has now drastically changed its tune, after the debut of his talk show on RT. While some say it’s due to journalistic jealousy, others believe the U-turn is political. Laura Smith reports from London.

Russia Today har før haft Horowitz som gæst – fra 24. november 2010:

Will profiling make us safer?

Following outrage over TSA screenings, GOP Reps. Chaffetz And Hoekstra revived calls for profiling, Thom talks to David Horowitz about this.Following outrage over TSA screenings, GOP Reps. Chaffetz And Hoekstra revived calls for profiling, Thom talks to David Horowitz about this.

The Wichita Eagle har lige haft en artikel om en ny episode:

• Mom: TSA agents at Wichita airport treated daughter, 4, like a terrorist

Andre kilder: YouTube, FrontPageMagazine, Digital Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, The Sacramento Bee, Tablet Magazine, Family Security Matters,

Julian Assange om retsssagen i England

Assange har en ret særegen dømmekraft. Og en noget sammensat personlighed. Interview:

Julian Assange: The Rolling Stone Interview

Under house arrest in England, the WikiLeaks founder opens up about his battle with the ‘Times,’ his stint in solitary and the future of journalism

By Michael Hastings – January 18, 2012

It’s a few days before Christmas, and Julian Assange has just finished moving to a new hide-out deep in the English countryside. The two-bedroom house, on loan from a WikiLeaks supporter, is comfortable enough, with a big stone fireplace and a porch out back, but it’s not as grand as the country estate where he spent the past 363 days under house arrest, waiting for a British court to decide whether he will be extradited to Sweden to face allegations that he sexually molested two women he was briefly involved with in August 2010.

Mere HER i printversion eller  her hos Rolling Stone.

Opdatering – Berlingske Tidende har en artikel om artiklen her:

• Wikileaks-stifter: Jeg har planlagt det arabiske forår

Opdatering den 27. januar 2012: Assange får åbenbart eget tv-show hos Russia Today, skriver Commentary Magazine, der har historien fra Forbes:

• The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Julian Assange, Kremlin Pawn

Opdatering – BBC har mere om Assanges tv-show her.

Opdatering 1. februar 2012 fra The Daily Mail:

• WikiLeaks Founder Appeals Extradition at Britain’s Supreme Court

Pundits om Iran, terror etc.

Mord, vold, terror, død og ødelæggelse. Had. Muslimer. The usual stuff:

Bombing Iran a ‘Bad Idea’? Probably. But It’s the ONLY Idea

October 24, 2011 – by David P. Goldman

Dalia Dassa Kaye at the Foreign Policy website argues that bombing Iran is a “bad idea.” She’s absolutely right. It’s a bad idea, except all the others are worse. As Prof. Kaye observes,

The aftermath of an attack could be devastating militarily and politically. It could unleash a wave of Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces, allies, and interests. Iran maintains a wide array of levers across the region, including militia groups it has trained and funded, that it could employ to retaliate against U.S. forces or diplomatic personnel, particularly in countries like Iraq. Iranian missiles have ranges that can reach Israel and all its Gulf Arab neighbors, including those hosting U.S. military forces.

Mere HER hos Pajamas Media.

Don’t Just Blame Iran for the Terror Plot, Blame WikiLeaks

Ryan Mauro – October 25, 2011

The U.S., Saudi Arabia and the international community are debating how to respond to Iran’s planned assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington D.C., but there is another party that shares responsibility: Wikileaks, the anti-censorship organization that recklessly published confidential diplomatic cables that prompted Iran to target the ambassador.

Last November, Wikileaks published a series of documents exposing private communications between international government officials. One of the most explosive documents was a State Department cable dated April, 20, 2008. It quoted the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir, as secretly telling General David Petraeus, “He [the Saudi king] told you to cut off the head of the snake,” referring to the Iranian regime.

Mere HER hos Family Security Matters.

What Will They Think of Next?

Why the crazy Iranian plot to pay Mexicans to kill the Saudi ambassador isn’t so implausible.

By Christopher Hitchens | Oct. 24, 2011

There may conceivably be a reason to doubt the truth of the Obama administration’s claim that the “Quds Force” of the Islamic Republic of Iran went into the free market for murder in order to suborn the killing of the Saudi ambassador to the United States. But neither the apparently surreal nor the apparently flagrant nature of the thing would constitute such reasons. We have been here before, as a splendid recent book reminds us, and have learned that no allegation made against the goon squads in Tehran can be thought of as prima-facie implausible.

Mere HER i Slate. The National Post her.

A Pattern of Appeasement and Retreat

October 24, 2011 – by Michael Ledeen

Take two headlines, one about Iraq, the other about Afghanistan.  The Iraqis told us to honor our signed agreement, and pull out all our troops by year’s end.  Over in Kabul, Karzai said he’d go to war against us if we attacked his neighbor, Pakistan.  It’s the same story in both places, but the real headline is the thirty-year-old one:  U.S. fails to come up with an Iran strategy.

It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?  You’re a Middle Eastern leader, and you’ve been working and fighting alongside the Americans.  The United States was magnificent on the battlefield, and you either won (as in Iraq) or were winning (Afghanistan) when the Americans announced they were leaving.  And they even set a date for their departure.  Where does that leave you?

Mere HER i Pajamas Media. Family Security Matters her.

Regime blames assassination plot on its enemies

By Reza Kahlili – October 21, 2011

Iran panicked after the United States accused it of hatching a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, immediately denying the allegations, which included plans to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies and labeling the plot’s organizer an enemy of the state.

We should have seen it coming.

Iranian officials warned Saudi officials months ago of repercussions because of the Saudi monarchy’s intervention in Bahrain and Yemen, where Iran is pushing for the overthrow of U.S.-friendly governments to establish Shiite rule. Some Revolutionary Guard commanders and parliament deputies even called for a military response to the Saudis’ action in the region.

Mere HER i The Washington Times.

Explaining Iran’s Approach Towards the Middle East

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi – October 25, 2011

What drives Iran’s ambition to become the dominant power in the Middle East at the expense of the Sunni Arab Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)? Is it solely an issue of Iran’s Shi’ite Islamist ideology?

To begin with, it is worth recalling that many of the Iranian regime’s assertive and expansionist policies today predate Khomeini’s revolution and rise to power in 1979. For example, Iran’s claim to Bahrain goes back to the secular Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s resolution in November 1957, declaring the island to be Iran’s fourteenth province. Eventually, the Shah let go of Bahrain for the time being, much to the chagrin of Iranian nationalists.

Mere HER i Middle East Forum. The Jerusalem Post her.

73% of Iraqis: Iran Is Likely to Act Aggressively When U.S. Troops Leave

By Terence P. Jeffrey – October 24, 2011

About 73 percent of Iraqis said they believe it is likely Iran will act aggressively toward their country after U.S. troops leave in December.

Fifty-one percent said they believe the security situation within Iraq will get worse when the U.S. forces leave.

Mere HER hos CNS News. Jeg har blogget en hel del om Iran her i oktober. Se for eksempel:

• Det islamo-nazistiske Iran er ekstremt farligt
• Video: Robert Spencer og Ezra Levant om terrorplaner Iran ~ USA & Saudi Arabien
• Video: Iran er overalt i Sydamerika
• Video: Iran, Venezuela, USA, terror, muslimer og mere

Andre kilder: Tablet Magazine, Fox News, Family Security Matters, Townhall,

Saudi Arabien: Fik kvinder nu også flere rettigheder?

De vestlige halalpresse har gentagne gange skrevet, at saudiarabiske kvinder vil få stemmeret ved lokalvalg. Men det har saudiaraberne aldrig sagt noget om:

Moderation, Saudi-Style

Women will always be serfs under sharia.

Andrew C. McCarthy – October 1, 2011

A woman is sentenced to be whipped ten lashes for . . . drumroll . . . driving a car. That might have made for a fairly typical week in Saudi Arabia. After all, the kingdom’s 20 million subjects and 5 million immigrant laborers are under constant surveillance by the mutaween, the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a police force several thousand strong that enthusiastically enforces Saudi law.

Whipping is a common punishment, so much so that our Saudi allies carefully regulate it: When the authorities impose hundreds of lashes, the sentences are carried out over weeks or months, no more than 50 strokes per session. Maybe the CIA should have consulted the enlightened sheikhs to ensure that waterboarding terrorists was as humane as whipping drivers.

Mere HER i National Review Online. Og desuden denne interesante artikel:

Lloyd’s insurer sues Saudi Arabia for ‘funding 9/11 attacks’

By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter – 19 September 2011

A Lloyd’s insurance syndicate has begun a landmark legal case against Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of indirectly funding al-Qa’ida and demanding the repayment of £136m it paid out to victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Mere HER i The Independent.

Andre kilder: National Review Online, National Review Online, The New York Times, The New Republic, Reuters, Jyllands-Posten, Jyllands-Posten, Jyllands-Posten, Foreign Policy,

Amitai Etzioni om det begrebsforvirrede Mellemøsten

Om imamer, meningsmålinger, revolutioner, demokrati og mere:

Toward a Nonviolent, Pluralistic Middle East

September 11: A Decade Later

by Amitai Etzioni – Fall 2011

The 2001 attacks on the United States have intensified the debate that has existed since the dawn of Islam: How is the West to respond to the followers of Muhammad? Some—most famously Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington—held that the contest is between two rather monolithic civilizations that are bound to clash. In a 2007 award acceptance speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Lewis described a history of clashes between Islam and the West. He stated that at first Muslims sought to spread their nascent faith through conquest throughout the then-Christian world; then the Christians invaded the Muslim world (the Crusaders); then the Muslims pushed back into Europe (the Golden Age of Islam); then the West retaliated by colonizing the Muslim world; and now the Muslims are again rising against Christendom by terrorism and flooding Europe with immigrants.[1] Huntington argued that “Islam’s borders are bloody, and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”[2] By contrast, President George W. Bush stated in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that “Islam is peace,”[3] while British prime minister Tony Blair argued that the problem was not Islam but “extremists trying to hijack it for political purposes.”[4]

Mere HER i Middle East Quarterly.

Interview med Taslima Nasrin

Introduktionen i artiklen er ikke den samme som i den ledsagende mp3. Audioen er bedre. Men selve interviewet er identisk - audio her:

“Bangladesh government should be ashamed” – Taslima Nasrin

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury- August 29, 2011

Taslima Nasrin, an award-wining writer and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwa calling for her death. Not many have risked their life to tell the truth.In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasrin’s fiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Mere HER i Weekly Blitz.

Opdatering 6. september 2011 – WikiLeaks har offentliggjort indhold fra notater af en amerikansk ambassadør i Indien:

Taslima: US envoy condemns all parties

Pallavi Shahi – New Delhi | 4th Sep 

The CPI(M) is “hypocritical and authoritarian” over controversial author Taslima Nasreen, the BJP is “opportunistic and exploitative” and the Congress is “neither secular nor courageous”, said the then US ambassador to India, David Mulford in a cable commenting on the three parties’ handling of the Nasreen crisis in 2007, when she was forced to flee Kolkata. In a 28 November 2007 cable released by WikiLeaks, the ambassador scathingly comments, “India’s main political parties could not care less about Nasreen or her writing beyond how their parties’ reactions to events play to voters”.

Mere HER i The Sunday Guardian.

Opdatering 22. september 2011 – lille nyt interview:

If Mamata allows, would love to return to Kolkata: Taslima

Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen feels “Peace is far away” and claims that she is a victim of religious, political and social ‘fatwas’.

“Unfortunately, settlement is not for me. Banning, censorship continues. Not only religious fatwas, I became an unfortunate victim of political and social fatwas. Life is not easy and peace is far away,” 49-year-old Nasreen, who has been living in Delhi since June, said.

Mere HER i Indian Express.

Video & artikel: Daniel Pipes i Australien

Endnu en video fra Pipes’ besøg i Australien. Og endnu engang fra ABC – en paneldebat. Man kan følge med i en fuld udskrift her. Spol frem – de første 10 minutter er irrelevante. Panelet forventes at kunne svare på lidt af hvert:

ABC Q&A: Islam, Israel and Insurgents (Monday 22 August, 2011)

Andre kilder: Daniel Pipes,

FN: Ytringsfriheden overtrumfer alt

Et eller andet siger mig, at denne FN-rapport ikke får den store betydning:

Rapporten fra FN’s særlige menneskerettighedskomite har været længe undervejs. Men nu har 18 jura-eksperter offentliggjort den rapport, der allerede kaldes for en hyldest til ytringsfriheden. De 18 eksperter giver ytringsfriheden status som en ”meta-rettighed,” der overtrumfer alle andre menneskerettigheder i den 15 sider lange rapport.

Sådan skriver Kristeligt Dagblad. Og Børsen tilføjer:

De 18 jurister, hvoraf fire kommer fra muslimske lande, er alle enige om, at det skal være i orden at komme med udtalelser, der kritiserer en religion eller et særligt værdisæt.

Problemet opstår netop, når lande forsøger at forbyde den slags – inklusive blasfemilove.

Ret beset er det foretagender som OIC og Durban III, der får et rap over fingrene. Jacob Mchangama siger i følge TV2:

Rapporten er en begmand til de islamiske lande, der forlanger kriminalisering af religionskritik, fordi den viser, at religiøse love ikke er nogen valid grund til at begrænse ytringsfriheden. Rapporten fastslår også, at ytringsfrihed er en universel rettighed

Jacob Mchangama siger til DR, at FN-rapporten også har betydning for de lande,

der opretholder forbud mod holocaustbenægtelse. Men også i hele spørgsmålet om ytringsfrihed på internettet og i sagen om WikiLeaks, hvor stifteren Julian Assange har offentliggjort en omfattende mængde amerikanske, hemmeligt stemplede dokumenter.

Jaså. Et farvel til den del af sharialoven, der forbyder islamkritik? Hvorfor er det lige, at man ikke tror på det? At Assanges  kriminelle handlinger legitimeres, virker mere sandsynligt. Og antisemitismen kører også videre, ligesom ingen har tænkt sig at skrinlægge planerne om at indskrænke ytringsfrihed på internettet – undtagen for Assange, naturligvis.

Der er med andre ord ikke sket noget nyt. Papir er taknemligt…

Andre kilder: Jyllands-Posten,

Tidligere blogget om samme sag:

• OIC vil alligevel forbyde religionskritik
• Religiøs forhånelse tilladt!

Video, Dry Bones, Ezra Levant, Alan Caruba, Isi Leibler & Rupert Murdoch

Det handler om Murdoch her:

Ezra Levant On The CBC’s Murdoch Obsession

The CBC – they wrote the book on navel gazing and nothing illustrates their double standards more than their non-stop coverage of the News of the World/Murdoch phone tapping scandal. Wait till you the one about the CBC,The Chicken & The Chocolates….

Og et par artikler:

The Love of Scandal

Alan Caruba – July 21, 2011

The television coverage of the British Parliament’s inquiry of the Murdoch’s, father and son, Rupert and James, was wall-to-wall on every news channel including Fox News, part of the Murdoch media empire. As an American, I found myself straining to understand what many of the MPs were saying as their accent often rendered them unintelligible to my ear.

Mere HER hos Family Security Matters.

Rupert Murdoch – a Genuine Friend of Israel

July 20, 2011 by Isi Leibler

For Israel, a major erosion of the Murdoch media would have highly adverse repercussions….

Rupert Murdoch, the man who single-handedly created the most powerful media conglomerate in the world, is currently experiencing a nightmare. Not only is his empire under siege but his competitors are literally baying for his blood, inciting the public and indulging in an unprecedented campaign to demonize him. They are also denying the presumption of innocence before being tried. Moreover, there is enormous hypocrisy from other newspapers who have been engaged in similar transgressions being at the forefront of calling for the dismantling of Murdoch’s media holdings.

Mere HER hos J-Wire.

Andre kilder: Melanie Phillips,

Opdatering den 12. august 2011:

The Future of Fox News in Jeopardy

Cliff Kincaid – August 12, 2011

A former competitor of Rupert Murdoch is coming to the defense of the media mogul, saying that he is “at the top of the ‘Most Wanted’ list of every Socialist/Communist activist in the world today” and that the demise of his media empire would do terrible damage to conservatism and Western civilization.

Murdoch, who is 80 years old, is chairman and CEO of News Corporation, the world’s leading publisher of English-language newspapers and their on-line affiliates. Fox News Channel in the U.S. is one of its leading subsidiaries.

Mere HER hos Family Security Matters.

Christopher Hitchens om “News of the World”

Scandal Sheets

In Britain, the Guardian takes on Rupert Murdoch’s cynical view of what newspaper readers want to read.

By Christopher Hitchens – July 11, 2011

On a beautiful Sunday morning at Brideshead Castle, Sebastian Flyte breaks off a desultory conversation about religion and morality because he wants to immerse himself in the scandal sheets: “He turned back to the pages of the News of the World and said, ‘Another naughty scout-master … oh, don’t be a bore, Charles, I want to read about a woman in Hull who’s been using an instrument … thirty-eight other cases were taken into consideration in sentencing her to six months—golly!”

As my colleague Anne Applebaum pointed out elsewhere in Slate, in his essay “Decline of the English Murder,” George Orwell knew exactly how to set the scene for a pleasurable reverie on human wickedness:

Mere HER i Slate. Kan også læses her i National Post i en næsten identisk udgave.

Video: Douglas Murray hos The Institute of Art and Ideas

Fra en konference, HowTheLightGetsIn, 26. maj – 5. juni 2011. Her handler det om WikiLeaks. Man kan se hele debatten hos The Institute of Art and Ideas - deltagerne er Douglas Murray, Annie Machon, Nigel Warburton og Julian Baggini:

An Age of Transparency – Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray and Annie Machon argued over the motives and usefulness of people like Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

Tidligere blogget fra samme konference:

• Video: Douglas Murray – debat om The Nanny State

Video: Douglas Murray & Amy Goodman

Fra The World Today på BBC den 3. juli 2011, hvor man snakker om lidt af hvert. Studieværten hedder Rebecca Kesby:

Douglas Murray and Amy Goodman: Assange and Music Festivals

Douglas Murray and Amy Goodman appeared on the BBC World Service to discuss Wikileaks, Music Festivals, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Arab Spring.

Douglas Murray and Amy Goodman: Afghan Withdrawal and The Arab Spring

Douglas Murray om pressen

Murray er i det causerende hjørne her:

Out With The Old Media

By Douglas Murray – July/August 2011

One of the foundation myths of post-religious societies is the idea that reason will win out-that faced with reason or anti-reason people will follow the former path. But as we gain access to vast arrays of information, the combination of new and old media appears to be making fools of us in unexpected ways — not least in failing to ask any of the questions that so obviously need asking.

Increasingly, our societal position seems to be naivety. But not straightforward naivety, rather a kind of naivety arrived at via extreme scepticism. Scepticism is a curious drug. A good dose of the stuff never hurt anyone. But inhale too much of it and you can be stoned into docility. Those who like to believe that they think for themselves appear to become sceptical of everything other than the things they should be sceptical of.

Mere HER i Standpoint Magazine.

Christopher Hitchens om slyngelstaten, Pakistan

Det man beskylder Lars Hedegaard for, er vand ved siden af dette:

From Abbottabad to Worse

Hating the United States—which funds Islamabad’s army and nuclear program to the humiliating tune of $3 billion a year—Pakistan takes its twisted, cowardly revenge by harboring the likes of the late Osama bin Laden. But the hypocrisy is mutual, and the shame should be shared.

By Christopher Hitchens • July 2011

Salman Rushdie’s upsettingly brilliant psycho-profile of Pakistan, in his 1983 novel, Shame, rightly laid emphasis on the crucial part played by sexual repression in the Islamic republic. And that was before the Talibanization of Afghanistan, and of much of Pakistan, too. Let me try to summarize and update the situation like this: Here is a society where rape is not a crime. It is a punishment. Women can be sentenced to be raped, by tribal and religious kangaroo courts, if even a rumor of their immodesty brings shame on their menfolk. In such an obscenely distorted context, the counterpart term to shame—which is the noble word “honor”—becomes most commonly associated with the word “killing.” Moral courage consists of the willingness to butcher your own daughter.

Mere HER i Vanity Fair. Der er flere pakistanske artikheder her fra Reuters:

Saudi Arabia, UAE funded jihadi networks in Pakistan: Wikileaks cable

Islamic charities from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates financed a network in U.S. ally Pakistan that recruited children as young as eight to wage holy war, a local newspaper reported on Sunday, citing Wikileaks.

Mere HER i The Raw Story.

Andre kilder: Business Insider,

Video: Erick Stakelbeck om Fetullah Gülen

CBN News har undersøgt de tyrkiske islamister og deres mål. Fra juni 2011 – artikel hos CBN her:

The Gülen Movement: A New Islamic World Order?

Fetullah Gülen has been called the world’s top public intellectual and the face of moderate Islam. Yet others have branded him a wolf in sheep’s clothing… The Christian Broadcasting Network CBN

Andre kilder: Frie Ytringer,

Tip: Tak til Asdic.

Præsident Obama og Det Muslimske Broderskab

Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood

Mark Silverberg – May 20, 2011

President Barack Obama appears to be preparing a fresh outreach to the Muslim world in coming days, one that will ask those in the Middle East and beyond to reject Islamic terrorism in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death and embrace what he believes will be a new era of positive relations with the U.S. A senior Obama administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity suggested: “We shouldn’t be afraid of Islam in the politics of (Arab) countries”, and Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser at the White House told the Wall Street Journal: “It’s an interesting coincidence of timing – that (bin Laden) is killed at the same time that you have a model of change emerging in the region that is completely the opposite of bin Laden’s model.” Problem is, this emerging model of change won’t be the kind the U.S. Administration is anticipating.

Mere HER hos Family Security Matters. Kan også læses her hos International Analyst Network.

Andre kilder: PipeLineNews,

Peter Bergen & Marc Thiessen om Bin Laden

Did WikiLeaks Almost Blow the bin Laden Operation?

By Marc Thiessen – May 9, 2011

Two weeks ago, WikiLeaks released its so-called “Gitmo Files”—hundreds of pages of classified documents detailing intelligence that captured terrorists provided the United States. As I point out in this morning’s Washington Post, the documents WikiLeaks made public included a file on Abu Faraj al-Libi, one of several CIA detainees who helped lead the agency to Osama bin Laden’s courier. While it garnered little attention at the time, the Abu Faraj document WikiLeaks exposed contained explosive information that could very well have tipped off al Qaeda that the CIA was closing in on bin Laden.

Mere HER hos The American. Den omtalte artikel i The Washington Post kan læses her:

• CIA ‘deniers’ are the new ‘birthers’

Og næste artikel:

Bin Laden’s Poisonous Ideology Began To Wither on 9/11

By Peter Bergen, New America Foundation | May 9, 2011

Osama bin Laden long fancied himself something of a poet. His compositions tended to the morbid, and a poem written two years after 9/11 in which he contemplated the circumstances of his death was no exception. Bin Laden wrote, “Let my grave be an eagle’s belly, its resting place in the sky’s atmosphere amongst perched eagles.”

As it turns out, bin Laden’s grave is somewhere at the bottom of the Arabian Sea, to which his body was consigned after his death in Pakistan at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs. If there is poetry in bin Laden’s end, it is the poetry of justice, and it calls to mind what President George W. Bush had predicted would happen in a speech he gave to Congress just nine days after 9/11. In an uncharacteristic burst of eloquence, Bush asserted that bin Laden and al-Qaeda would eventually be consigned to “history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies,” just as communism and Nazism had been before them.

Mere HER hos The New America Foundation. Kan også læses her hos CNN.

Andre kilder: AEI,

Indien, Pakistan og Afghanistan

India’s Changing Role

The Afghanistan Conflict

by Harsh V. Pant – Spring 2011

As the Afghan war enters its final and most decisive phase, India’s strategic position in the country has turned a full circle. Having maintained a close relationship with the post-Taliban government for years, New Delhi suffered a humiliating setback last January when its warning against the folly of making a distinction “between good Taliban and bad Taliban” was summarily ignored by the Afghanistan Conference in London.[1]

At a stroke, Pakistan squeezed its nemesis from the evolving security architecture by persuading the West that the time had come to incorporate the “moderate” faction of the Taliban into Afghanistan’s future state structure and to give Islamabad a key role in mediating this process.[2] Meanwhile, despite its best attempts to keep a low profile, India and its nationals have been increasingly targeted by extremist forces in Afghanistan. The Indian embassy in Kabul was struck twice over the past two years, and guest houses frequented by Indians were attacked with nine Indian nationals killed.[3]

Mere HER i Middle East Quarterly.

Video: Douglas Murray, Julian Assange & Mehdi Hasan om WikiLeaks

Og om whistle-blowers. Det er ikke hele debatten, arrangørerne har uploadet på YouTube, men mere dukker muligvis op:

Douglas Murray speech, New Statesman/Frontline Club debate

Douglas Murray, author and political commentator, speaks at the New Statesman/Frontline Club debate on the motion: “This house believes whistle-blowers make the world a safer place.” With Julian Assange’s point-of-information interjection. Speakers for the proposition were Julian Assange, editor in chief of WikiLeaks; Mehdi Hasan, senior editor (politics) of the New Statesman; Clayton Swisher, head of al-Jazeera’s transparency unit. Speakers for the opposition were: David Richmond, former director for British defence and intelligence, member of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office board; Bob Ayers, former director of the US department of defence, information systems and security programme; Douglas Murray. The event took place on 9 April 2011, Kensington Town Hall, London. This footage was filmed exclusively for the New Statesman. Video direction: Michael Taylor, Big Face Art.

Man kan læse mere om arrangementet her i The New Statesman. Desuden findes dele af arrangementet som audio hos PSmith, Journalist – link her.

Opdatering 6. oktober 2011 – hele debatten er dukket op på YouTube:

Frontline Club/New Statesman – Debate on Whistleblowing and WikiLeaks

Frontline Club and New Statesman debating the motion “This house believes whistleblowers make the world a safer place.”

Event was held at Kensington Town Hall, 9 April 2011.

Proposition:
Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks
Clayton Swisher, head of Al-Jazeera’s Transparency Unit
Mehdi Hasan, senior political editor, New Statesman

Opposition:
Sir David Richmond, former director, defence and intelligence, British Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Bob Ayers, former director of the US Department of Defence Information Systems Security Programme
Douglas Murray, author and political commentator

Also participating: former MI5 whistleblower Annie Machon and HBOS whistleblower Paul Moore.

Andre kilder: TGDaily, YouTube,

Søren Kern om Frankrig og Libyen

Why France Was So Keen to Attack Libya

by Soeren Kern – March 23, 2011

Even before allied forces unleashed a “shock and awe” barrage of cruise missile attacks against Libya on March 19, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was quick to take the credit, saying France had “decided to assume its role, its role before history” in stopping strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s “killing spree” against people whose only crime was to seek to “liberate themselves from servitude.”

Sarkozy’s newfound concern for Libyan democracy contrasts sharply from only three years ago, when Sarkozy welcomed Gaddafi with open arms during an extravagant five-day state visit to France. On that occasion in December 2007, Gaddafi breezed into Paris in his Bedouin robes, accompanied by an entourage of 400 servants, five airplanes, a camel and 30 female virgin bodyguards , and then proceeded to pitch his heated tent on the grounds of the palatial Hôtel de Marigny, just across the street from the Elysée Palace.

Mere HER i Hudson New York.

Opdatering 24. marts 2011 – Søren Kern om England:

The Most Islamic Community in Europe

by Soeren Kern – March 24, 2011

Leicester, an industrial city in central England, is home to the most conservative Islamic population anywhere in Europe, according to American diplomatic cables that were obtained and recently released by the website, Wikileaks. Leicester is also on track to become the first majority non-white city in British history.

The politically incorrect observation was made by a senior US State Department official who visited the city as part of an effort to engage Muslim communities in Europe. It reflects how Leicester’s long-ballyhooed experiment with multiculturalism is being challenged by Muslim separatism and assertiveness.

Mere HER hos Hudson New York.