Confederate Yankee has some serious questions for the AP.

Technorati Tags: Associated Press, meda, media bias

Meryl Yourish gathers up the information. First off, here’s the first paragraph from the World Council of Churches web page about “Who Are We?”:

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is the broadest and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian unity.

So this is a specifically Christian organization. Yet their “Latest News” page, as of now, has an article condemning the Israeli “occupation” and how it hurts human dignity, but absolutely nothing about this 3-day-old story on Muslims in Gaza attacking a Christian school and church. How about any stories about the endless rockets launched into Israel from Gaza ever since Israel held up their part of the peace process and pulled out? Nothing.

Nope, Israel is the big problem. Odd, then, that those in Gaza are fleeing…to Israel.

Many Christians said they were prepared to leave the Gaza Strip as soon as the border crossings are reopened.

Where they can’t get along and where they kill innocents in order to take power, the WCC is silent. But they condemn the country where the refugees flee to. What an awful double-standard.

Technorati Tags: World Council of Churches, Christianity, double standard, Gaza, Israel, Islam

I’ve criticized the UN on human rights before. Their Human Rights Commission was a sham and a joke, often headed by countries with the worst human rights abuses, and very often condemning those with better records on it while ignoring egregious acts by member states.

The Commission was disbanded in a “reform” move, and the Human Right Council was created. Living up to my low expectations, the Council is virtually identical to the Commission in its actions.

Members of the UN’s new human rights watchdog on Tuesday formally agreed to continue their scrutiny of Israel while halting investigations into Cuba and Belarus – a move that immediately drew fire from Canada and the United States.

Palestinians are trying to get into Israel to escape the human rights abuses in Gaza (the subject of an upcoming post). Yet they excuse Cuba, ignore Hamas and Fatah, and single out Israel. Such “myopic zeal”.

The United States – which is only an observer to the 47-nation body – has been skeptical since the beginning.

Any wonder?

The large Muslim and African groups, which dominate the council, had lobbied hard to minimize the scope for naming and shaming countries over their human rights records, …

Any wonder?

…but make an exception for Israel, the only government explicitly criticized so far by the body.

This is absolutely preposterous. The United Nations has absolutely no credibility in this area, and its pronouncements on this should no longer be taken seriously.

And if this is what they call “reform”, they make their own case for dismantling.

Technorati Tags: United Nations, Human Rights Council, Cuba, Belarus, Palestinians, Gaza, Hamas, Fatah

Richard Dawkins, scientist, atheist, and author of “The God Delusion”:

Refusing to believe that science and religion could ever be happy bedfellows, the self-confessed atheist said that professional scientists who did promote that theory needed to prove the existence of god because it was a scientific question.

Emphasis mine, to point out that there have been many scientists who indeed were very religious. For instance:

Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible — exhibited this week for the first time — lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history’s greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law — even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters — and combing the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel for clues about the world’s end.

Any scientist who does that today would no doubt be considered a nut by Dawkins and his supporters. And yet I’m certain that Dawkins has no problem accepting the scientific conclusions of someone he’d consider a religious fanatic today.

In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the Apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060.

“It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,” Newton wrote. However, he added, “This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail.”

In another document, Newton interpreted biblical prophecies to mean that the Jews would return to the Holy Land before the world ends. The end of days will see “the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom,” he posited.

This is not someone with just a passing interest in a popular religious text of the time, this is someone who takes it seriously. Oftentimes, this sort of religious display is handwaved away as purely cultural, but I don’t think you can do that here.

Yemima Ben-Menahem, one of the exhibit’s curators, said the papers show Newton’s conviction that important knowledge was hiding in ancient texts.

“He believed there was wisdom in the world that got lost. He thought it was coded, and that by studying things like the dimensions of the temple, he could decode it,” she said.

The Newton papers, Ben-Menahem said, also complicate the idea that science is diametrically opposed to religion. “These documents show a scientist guided by religious fervor, by a desire to see God’s actions in the world,” she said.

They are not mutually exclusive.

Technorati Tags: religion, science, Isaac Newton, Richard Dawkins, Israel, Jerusalem, Bible, Apocalypse, Yemima Ben-Menahem

Preach it, Tony.

“It is so comforting to people to say there was an error made in the planning. Someone didn’t spot what was going to go on,” he told the House of Commons liaison committee, made up of all the chiefs the lower chamber’s scrutiny bodies.

“That is not what has created the problem. What has created the problem is that the people we are fighting have decided to give us a problem.

“What they have decided is that if they can hang on long enough in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, or anywhere else, then we will lose the will.”

He said that Islamist militants purporting that Muslims were being oppressed by the West had a “difficult argument to make” if Muslims were being given a free vote for the first time.

“If we end up saying that because these people are committing these acts of terrorism in Iraq or Afghanistan, that we shouldn’t have done the removal of Saddam or the removal of the Taliban, then we are making a fundamental mistake about our own future, about security, about the values we should be defending in the world.”

Technorati Tags: Tony Blair, Afghanistan, Iraq, war on terror, Islam, Muslims

The troops for the surge have all finally arrived.

The full contingent of new U.S. forces being sent to Iraq — what military leaders call a “surge” of troops to improve security and stability in the capital — was completed by Friday, with 28,500 additional troops now posted in the country, a U.S. military spokesman said.

“The strategic movement of forces into the theater is complete, and the surge is just starting,” said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver. “Now that the force is here, we’ll see the counterinsurgency start in full swing, and we’ll be able to execute the strategy as it was designed.”

Someone really needs to inform Reid and Pelosi that something can’t fail before it’s even really got going.

Unless you’re politicizing the war, that is.

Technorati Tags: surge, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Lt. Col. Christopher Garvern, military

An insurgency. A civil war. A collapsed government. No, not Iraq.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a new prime minister, a day after dissolving the Hamas-led unity coalition, officials say.

Former Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, an independent, has been asked to take over and form an emergency government.

The move comes amid political upheaval in Gaza, where Hamas has forcibly taken control from its Fatah rivals.

But Ismail Haniya, of Hamas, says he is still prime minister and has vowed to disregard Mr Abbas’s decisions.

It’s interesting how many Democrats are willing to work with the Palestinians and want them to have their own country, but are more than ready to throw the Iraqi government, which is holding together far, far better and making much more progress, to the wolves.

Technorati Tags: Hamas, Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad, Gaza, Ismail Haniya, Democrats

Twenty years ago today, the President of the United States did what every single diplomat told him not to do, but he did it because he believed it was the right thing to do.

And it was.

Powerline highlights Peter Robinson’s story of how he researched and then wrote a speech to be delivered by Ronald Reagan at West Germany’s Brandenburg Gate. It was Robinson who wrote the lines, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” No one at the State Department or the National Security Council liked it because it was too confrontational and raised false hopes.

Indeed it was confrontational, but you don’t slink away from confronting evil. It only raised false hopes if you had no faith in your cause and a belief in the ultimate victory for what was right. If you didn’t want to offend evil, and if you didn’t think winning was really possible, you really wouldn’t like that tone.

But that tone was what was needed then. And too many haven’t learned the lesson even today. Read the whole thing to find out what Robinson learned in Berlin that gave him the idea for the line.

These days, the world talks tough to countries like Iran and Syria, and groups like Al Qaeda. But the difference is that Reagan acted on his words. He walked away from the table in Iceland when he determined the Soviets were acting in bad faith. The Left was hysterical, condemning this action as confrontational. They were right, it was. But they were wrong, because they didn’t realize that that’s the language the Soviets understood. They learned that Reagan would act on what he said, and they respected it. And thus, without the nuclear exchange the Left was sure Reagan was leading us to, very soon the gate did open and the wall did come down.

Bin Laden’s lesson from observing America’s retreat from Somalia was that we would tuck tail and run at the first sign of a serious resistance. That is why he was bold enough to plan the 9/11 attacks; because a different President sent a different message.

BIN LADEN: We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America — the United States — that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedeen in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.

America left faster than anyone expected. It forgot all that tremendous media fanfare about the new world order, that it is the master of that order, and that it does whatever it wants. It forgot all of these propositions, gathered up its army, and withdrew in defeat, thanks be to God.

To bin Laden and his supporters, this is not a policy war, nor a political war, but a religious war. It must be fought differently than the Cold War, but some things never change. Speaking truth to evil, and backing up your words with confident actions, whether on the diplomatic field or the battle field, are required to defeat that evil. Reagan understood that. It’s a lesson that needs to be relearned by the diplomats of our present time.

Technorati Tags: Ronald Reagan, Peter Robinson, Gorbachev, Osama bin Laden, terrorism, diplomacy, Somalia

Shire Network News #93 has been released. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice. I had this week off, so no commentary text here.

…is self-defeating (Paul Harvey).  From MEMRI:

The current wave of violent Hamas-Fatah clashes is one of the most brutal the PA has known, especially considering that it broke out only a short while after the signing of the Mecca Agreement, which was supposed to put an end to the mutual fighting. The large number of casualties, and the fear that has taken hold of the Gaza streets, have sparked intense protest among Palestinians and Arabs, with harsh criticism directed towards both the PA and Hamas.

Some consequences of the clashes are public statements by residents calling on Israel to reenter the Gaza Strip, and concerns regarding the effect of the fighting on the international community’s faith in the Palestinians’ ability to establish a state, to honor agreements, and to maintain peace.

Emphasis mine. ‘Nuff said.

Technorati Tags: MEMRI, Palestinians, Gaza, Hamas, Fata