The Iconoclast

If Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich have their way, the American government will make sure that "Assad has to go."

And if he does go? Then what?

Because if he goes, that means the Alawites will be demoralized, and the Sunni Muslims -- more and more of whom are displaying, though the Western governments appear not to care, the views that the Ikhwan has always held, while the liberal reformers that the Western press made so much of in Egypt, and the American government hoped so much from in Iraq, are losing significance every day.  What would happen to the Christians, Arab and Armenian, in Aleppo and Damascus if the Alawites lose complete control? What would happen to the Alawites themselves -- do you think they should put their faith in guarantees from Sunni Muslims? From the Ikhwan? Where have such guarantees ever worked? What would happen to those Muslims who, being secular, are dyill willing to endure Alawite rule because they don't want rule by the real Muslims, with all that that implies for secularism?

Gingrich calls himself an "historian." He may have served a purpose in raising the issue of the invented "Palestinian people" though his brief remarks on the matter were not adequate, and he should, in attempting to undercut the phoniness of the "Palestinian people" propaganda effort, have been sure to eloquently present the telling evidence, in such fashion that no one would be able to dismiss or ignore what he said, as they have done with his statement since. It's the old business about killing the king -- when you have the opportunity, make sure you succeed. And though he was right, he did not do a good enough job. That's a problem.

And as with so many others, Gingrich's understanding of Islam, and of geopolitics, --to judge by his joining the Democracy-Now sentimentalists agitating for an end to Alawite rule in  Syria, which means a takeover by Sunni Muslims, not all of them Farid Ghadry or even close -- leaves something to be desired.

Gingrich suggests covert action in Syria

The zaftig -- to use a word much loved by John Updike -- Sheryl Sandberg, No. 2 executive at  Facebook, whose founder's face is so amusingly unsettling -- is the subject of a largely admiring piece in today's New York Times.

That piece includes this offense to the English language:

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, who worked with her at Google, said Ms. Sandberg’s high profile gave Facebook an edge in recruiting and retaining talent. “When you have women who say, ‘Can I stay in? Can I have children and make it still work?’ the existence of role models like Sheryl is very impactful,” said Ms. Singh Cassidy, who now runs a video shopping start-up, Joyus.

"the existence of role models like Sheryl is very impactful"?

Samuel Daniel, predicting the wide distribution of "the treasure of our tongue,"  could not have foreseen such a debasement of the currency.

But who could?

And don't you feel sorry for the inoffensive English language, which has done so much good, and nothing, certainly, to deserve this impoverishment?

Wouldn't you like to do something about it?

But what?

20 Cats in Sinks  (hat tip: Small Dead Animals)

The question is, why?

From the Daily Star Sunday

HARDLINE Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary taught six of the nine fanatics jailed last week for plotting to bomb London. The firebrand cleric even praised the terror gang as “decent young chaps”.Choudary claimed he had no idea they planned to kill and maim. He said: “We cannot be blamed.”

But last night a Tory MP called for the preacher to be arrested. Patrick Mercer said: “This is yet another nail in Anjem Choudary’s coffin. “No one can doubt his connections with active and highly dangerous terrorists who pleaded guilty to their crimes.” But Choudary claimed the jailed plotters were merely “inquisitive” and their plans had been “taken out of context”.

The controversial East London-based cleric said: “From what I knew of these young chaps, they were very decent young men. Dedicated to Islam, they were students of Sharia and as far as I know they were not planning or plotting anything. They were very inquisitive so I am not surprised if they downloaded material but that does not mean they wanted to kill anyone or carry out any operations.”

The former leader of al Muhajiroun and Islam4UK groups – both banned in January 2010 – said that he viewed their activities as little more than “thought crimes”.

He said: “Certainly the ones in London and in Stoke were students of mine. They studied the Sharia with me and I knew them for quite a while. Number one, that does not mean they were members of any kind of organisation because not everyone who studies with us is part of the organisation. Number two, we are not aware of anything outside our own activities which is purely ideological and political struggle.”

He added: “We are very conspicuous. The police know what we say openly is what we say privately. And that’s why I have never been arrested for anything either plotting or planning anything. If they thought there was a link between these guys and me I’m sure I would have been picked up.”

The cleric, who once planned to parade through the former repatriation town of Wootton Bassett carrying empty coffins in protest at the war in Afghanistan, said that he talked about the “science of the Koran and Islamic jurisprudence” in his lectures.

He said: “I talk about how to derive rules from the divine texts, very technical and very academic, nothing to do with sending people abroad or engaging in military activities. At one point they used to study with me and attend some of our lectures. They used to attend some circles and occasionally they would attend some demonstrations and protests. But that does not mean they were part of any organisation. They were students, they were studying. The same can be said of the people in Stoke.”

“Talking, discussing things, talking about what is going on is not something which should be illegal really. It was an unfortunate fact that they were being followed and listened to."

A lot of academic research goes into proving the obvious: in this case that, as a nation, we are much less honest than we used to be.

Researchers at the University of Essex, working at the Centre for the Study of Integrity (a name in itself to make you smile wanly) have discovered that the British are more inclined to cheat, and to believe that cheating is justified, than they did in 2000, only 11 years ago.

Lying, having an affair, buying stolen goods and keeping money you have found are all considered more acceptable than they were a decade ago, say the researchers.

Of course, to say that we are more dishonest than we used to be is not to say that most of us, much less all of us, are dishonest.

Being very absent-minded myself, leaving my things by accident all over the place, I am repeatedly grateful for the honesty of people in returning them to me.

For example, I must have left my mobile phone in taxis half a dozen times, but the drivers have always made efforts, sometimes considerable, to return it to me – without any expectation of reward.

I left a notebook in a taxi not long ago, and it had my address in it. I had expressly written on the cover that the only reward for its return to me in the event of loss would be my thanks. It duly arrived by post.

Such episodes gladden your heart, but alas there are just as many episodes of dishonesty to sadden your heart.

Let me start with a few small things. I go to book a ticket on an airline that is offered, say, for £15.99. Fantastic! But the taxes are £50, luggage is £10, and the total is perhaps £5 less than the cheapest scheduled flight.

In effect, I have been strung along by the impression that I am getting something very cheap; but quite the opposite is true. And then, when I come to pay, they have the gall to charge me for the use of my debit or credit card, when there is no other way to pay.

Recently, I wanted to rent a place in a country town; all of the rental agencies, except one, used a number that charged the caller, without advertising that they did so. This is not illegal, perhaps, but it is dishonest.

Perhaps the most astonishing example of this kind of institutionalised spivvery is that if I pay a foreign cheque into my bank, I am charged interest on it.

Charged interest on the money I pay in! The reason given is that my account is credited immediately, but it takes some time for the money to be collected from the foreign bank. In fact, I am charged a fantastic rate of interest over a period of six weeks. In an age of electronic transfer apparently, it would be quicker to use carrier pigeons.

In contrast, if I send money from my bank to a foreign account, it disappears from my account instantaneously, but does not arrive at its destination for ten days. Bear in mind that the transfer is conducted at nearly the speed of light. Where is the money in the meantime? Any guesses as to who is earning interest on it?

We are chiselled and cheated in this way almost at every turn. And while each little transaction might net little to the chiseller, millions of such transactions amass him an illicit, even if legally-acquired, fortune.

Meanwhile, the conduct of our political class has been revealed as that of small-time crooks. More MPs cheated on their expenses than did not.
Even some of those who broke no rules broke the spirit of the rules. By rights, most MPs should be in prison, and would be if they were just your next-door-neighbour.

After leaving office, MPs and ministers behave as if they were selling their influence in a souk. If Tony Blair, a former Prime Minister, makes untold millions trading deals with shady despots in the Third World, is it really any surprise that many people - the electoral peasantry of our political masters - feel that to be honest in these circumstances is to be naive, a fool, a mug.

They are wrong, actually: it is important to be honest for the sake of one’s self-respect, but not everyone values their self-respect.

What we have seen in this country is the widespread legalisation of dishonesty. Most of the bankers did nothing illegal, perhaps, but in effect they misappropriated shareholders’ funds (and continue to do so) by paying themselves grotesquely inflated salaries and bonuses, having brought the economy to its knees, egged on and encouraged by Gordon Brown.

The interests of the banks’ shareholders - and remember that, in cases like the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB, we taxpayers are those shareholders - clearly require that bankers should be employed at the lowest cost possible, not the highest. Yet only yesterday, the talk was that Stephen Hester, chief executive of the RBS, is in line to receive a bonus of £1million.

This legalised theft extends to the public sector. The number of workers earning more than £50,000 in Manchester City Council went up by 40 times between 1997 and 2007, even though there has been no evident improvement in services over the same period.

In the council in which I live, all the workers have had to take a five per cent pay cut: except, that is, the most highly paid 60, some of them earning over £100,000. This is not illegal, but from the moral point of view it is criminal.

The head of the publicly-funded BBC is paid approximately £800,000 a year, and his various satraps huge sums, when most of them are just successful bureaucrats who have never risked a penny of their own in any real business.

This represents the most blatant funnelling of money from the pockets of the poor into the pockets of the rich. I am no egalitarian, indeed I believe equality to be a pernicious economic goal, but personal enrichment should not come from the public purse. Neither, for that matter, should it come from the pockets of shareholders in public companies.

Our belief in the rule of law has declined catastrophically. Islington Museum currently has an exhibition of library books defaced in the 1950s by the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. Orton later became a well-known, but not necessarily very good, playwright. The pair of them went to prison for six months for defacing the books, causing £450 damage (the equivalent now, perhaps, of £25,000), stealing 72 others, and cutting out 1,653 art plates.

These are not the worst crimes in the history of the world, of course; but they are nothing to celebrate just because one of the culprits became famous (he was murdered, as it happens, by his fellow-defacer).

Their prison sentence was not inappropriately harsh; the problem is that people now think that it was. They think, in other words, that doing this considerable damage to public property was some kind of harmless amusing jape.

However talented Orton may have been, no talent justifies this kind of vandalism; and if we choose to glorify as Islington Museum does, we ought not to be surprised that some people think they can behave in the same, yobbish way.

Dishonesty is contagious. And the example our business, political and intellectual leaders give us is, to an unprecedented degree in recent memory, bad, corrupt and corrupting.

When my wife, who is French, moved to this country 30 years ago, she admired the honesty of both the British people and of public life. Alas, she admires them no longer, because there is nothing much left to admire.

 Originally published in the Daily Mail.

From the Mail on Sunday

A Muslim pilot arrested over an alleged terrorist plot involving an aircraft was a senior first officer for British Airways and flew Boeing 747 jets. He can be identified for the first time today as Surrey-born Samir Jamaluddin. The 39-year-old is suing the airline for racial and religious discrimination after losing his job.

He was judged a security risk after his arrest by Scotland Yard counter-terrorism detectives in 2007, and the airline decided it was in the national interest to ensure he never flew again. He was eventually dismissed three years later.

The pilot was unmasked when employment tribunal reporting restrictions were lifted on Friday after 12 days of highly charged evidence, allowing the case’s extraordinary circumstances to be revealed for the first time.

During the case – described as unique and unprecedented – the tribunal heard that BA became increasingly ‘frustrated’ at the previous Labour Government’s failure to act over the issue. In private, the security services and the Department for Transport’s security arm, Transec, backed the airline’s decision to prevent Mr Jamaluddin from flying. But they failed to pursue the matter or support BA officially, even after BA’s former chief executive, Willie Walsh, raised the matter with then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. BA was told the Government was not prepared to instruct the firm to withdraw Mr Jamaluddin’s airside security pass because, at the time, it was ‘particularly sensitive to its handling of terrorist threats’

Tim Steeds, BA’s director of security, accused Transec of ‘sitting on the fence’ and said he too asked the Home Secretary ‘to move things forward’. But help was not forthcoming and the airline was left to resolve the problem alone. ‘They [Transec] were clear they did not want Samir to fly again, but that the decision to allow Samir to fly or not was BA’s,’ said Mr Steeds. ‘We became so frustrated.’

The tribunal heard that at a briefing attended by MI5, MI6 and senior police officers in October 2007, BA was warned that two businessmen wanted to fly a ‘747 by Christmas 2007’ and had paid for lessons upfront in cash. . . . Adam Mohamed, 32, of Chessington, Surrey, and Imad Shoubaki, 35, of Merton, South London – had ‘sought flying lessons in order to achieve a private pilot’s licence as quickly as possible’. Both had been having up to four lessons a day, which the tribunal was told was ‘extremely unusual’. But BA believed they would have had time to learn only to ‘steer a 747 mid-flight, not take off or land’.

The two men were arrested along with Mr Jamaluddin later the same month, after his close links to them were uncovered by police. None of the arrests resulted in convictions, but after conducting two inquiries the airline concluded Mr Jamaluddin was in a ‘position to cause considerable harm’ and should not fly again.

The pilot, a practising Muslim of Indian descent, believes the decision to end his ten-year career was unfair and taken against a background of post-September 11 paranoia and prejudice. In the event, Mr Jamaluddin was arrested over money-laundering offences connected to the alleged terror plot and, much to BA’s relief, the news never became public.

The pilot’s brother, Yakoob Jamaluddin, an active member of the Islamist extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, was questioned over the same offences but never charged. Police then established the first of several links between Mr Jamaluddin and the two men. The first was that his brother Yakoob was in business with Mr Mohamed. The pilot and his brother were arrested on October 23.

Mr Steeds said police told him it ‘seemed as if Samir had been expecting to be arrested’ as they found the name and number of a prominent human rights lawyer who specialises in race discrimination issues punched into his mobile phone. ‘They also informed me that copies of the flight documents previously shown to BA had been found in Samir’s flight bag. I considered it was too much of a coincidence that Samir had documents in his possession which were the same as those found in Mr Shoubaki’s possession, given the links.’

Mr Steeds said he was equally ‘troubled’ by a cheque stub found at Mr Jamaluddin’s house recording a payment of £10,000 to Mr Mohamed.  The pilot claimed it was a payment for the rent of a flat, but BA did not find the explanation convincing. Mr Steeds said it was also suspicious that Mr Jamaluddin applied to join pilots’ union Balpa only after Mr Shoubaki and Mr Mohamed were arrested.  Again, he said it suggested that Mr Jamaluddin was quite possibly expecting to be caught up in the terror investigation and ‘might need representation’

Explaining the decision to withdraw Mr Jamaluddin’s airside pass, thus ending his BA career, Mr Steeds said: ‘I concluded there was a more than trivial security risk in allowing Samir to operate BA aircraft. I know from many years of working with the Metropolitan Police that releasing an individual without charge does not necessarily mean there are no longer any suspicions.  In some instances, the Government’s policy is to disrupt a plot before it reaches its final stages, in the interests of public safety, even if this means that ultimately there is insufficient evidence to prosecute. I was satisfied on the evidence that there was more than a trivial security risk in this case, and therefore I could not be satisfied that Samir was suitable to hold a security pass. My suspicions were not unfounded.’

The hearing continues.

I do not like it that these persons  - who are most likely to have been Sunni Muslims acting in support of the Sunni Muslim campaign to overthrow the Alawites and replace them as Top Dogs in Syria - thought themselves able to do this sort of thing to an embassy in Australia's national capital, and get away with it.  If they are caught  - one hopes they left fingerprints all over the scene of their riotous activity - their citizenship credentials (if they have Australian citizenship) and their backgrounds should be examined and investigated and cross-checked most minutely.

First, the account that appeared in the ABC.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-05/syrian-embassy-in-canberra-attacked/3812054

'Syrian Embassy in Canberra Attacked'.

'The Syrian Embassy in Canberra has become one of several Syrian consulates to be attacked around the world.

'The attack on the embassy comes as Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to stand down.

I observe that the rioters refrained from going anywhere near either the Russian or the Chinese embassies.  Perhaps they feared that attacking those might involve them in...difficulties, either at the time, or later. - CM

'A group of up to 40 men stormed the embassy in the southern Canberra suburb of O'Malley about 9: 30 pm (AEDT).

'Once inside, they smashed everything in sight on the ground floor of the building.

'Superintendent Mick Calatzis says three embassy staff took refuge in the basement.

"It was obviously not a pretty sight", he said.

"We are obviously concerned about it and three staff members from the embassy were present when the men forced entry.  However, no-one was injured".

'So far no arrests have been made and police are not commenting on whether this was a co-ordinated attack.

'Superintendent Calatzis says ACT Policing, federal police and other Commonwealth agencies are all investigating.

My question is why our Australian police and security agencies appear to have been caught napping in the first place.  They should have expected it, once things hotted up in Syria; it is necessary to anticipate this sort of behaviour from Mohammedans toward rival or deemed-insufficiently-Islamic Mohammedan entities, just as it must also, regrettably, be anticipated - once one has foolishly admitted a sufficient number of Mohammedans into one's country - toward non-Muslim targets, such as the embassies of nations high on the Mohammedan hate-list, most notably Israel and the USA. - CM

"The foreign government of Syria is a representative here in Australia...and they have very much cooperated with us as well", he said.

"They've given us permission to investigate this matter as well.  We have to respect their sovereignty in Australia as well".

'Syrian embassies in London, Berlin, Cairo, and Kuwait among others have all come under attack from protesters (sic: most probably, from Sunni Muslim mobs - CM) in recent days.

The local newspaper, the Canberra Times, has a little more.  Lisa Cox reporting.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/syrias-canberra-embassy-invaded/2443946.aspx

'Syria's Canberran embassy invaded'.

'A group of 20 to 30 broke into the Syrian embassy in O'Malley at 9.40 pm last night, terrorising staff and causing extensive damage to the building.

'Three embassy staff were in the Culgoa Circuit building at the time and they barricaded themselves in an office at the rear of the building and called police for help after the men left.

Why only after the attackers left?  Surely the embassy staff would have had mobile phones on their persons?  This bit puzzles me. - CM

'No details were available regarding the intruders and police were searching for them late last night.

'Police cordoned off streets around the embassy while they hunted for those responsible.

'The Syrian embassy in London was similarly attacked yesterday, with five people arrested after gaining entry as a protest erupted at the building, Scotland Yard said.  About 150 demonstrators descended on the embassy in Belgrave Square amid reports of more than 200 people killed in a deadly barrage in the central city of Homs...".

There are more details on those other attacks on Syrian embassies within other non-Muslim countries - Britain, Greece, Germany - in this ABC article.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-05/syrian-embassies-stormed-after-homs-27massacre27/3811996

"...In London six people were arrested [after] protesters broke into the Syrian embassy, police said. Around 150 demonstrators had gathered outside the plush property in central Belgrave Square.  

'A Scotland Yard spokesman said five people had been arrested for gaining access to the building after the demonstration started around 2:00 am (local time).

Around 2 in the morning on a freezing February morning? What a peculiar time for a 'demonstration'.  That is not the usual time for holding rallies and protest marches or even, for that matter, 'demonstrations', since at that hour most of the potential audience will be fast asleep.   It is, however, precisely the time when military  surprise attacks are made, or when a mob will set out to conduct a lynching or a pogrom. - CM

'A sixth person was arrested for assaulting an officer.

It will be interesting to discover who exactly these six people are.  I would expect that they are Sunni Muslims, and that they may not all even hail from Syria. - CM

"We will keep an eye on the situation and keep an appropriate policing plan in place", the spokesman said.

At least the UK police weren't caught napping quite as thoroughly as the police in Canberra appear to have been...It seems our Aussie police have yet to fully take into account the deplorable Mohammedan propensity for rioting and smashing things - whether buildings or people - at the drop of a hat, or the circulation of an inflammatory rumour. - CM

'Some of the [London] embassy's windows were reportedly smashed during the proest.

'In Athens, about 50 mostly Syrian protesters (sic: rioters - CM) broke into their country's embassy, smashing windows and painting anti-government slogans on the walls, a police source said.  Police detained 12 Syrians and an Iraqi.'...

'12 Syrians and an Iraqi'.  What are '12 Syrians and an Iraqi' doing in Athens?  I doubt they are Syrian Orthodox Christians.  They are more likely to be Sunni Muslims, who have entered Greece among the million or so illegal 'immigrants', the vast majority of whom are Muslim males of military age, who have poured into Greece via Muslim Turkey within the past five years or so. - CM

'A day earlier in Berlin around 20 protesters (that is, rioters - CM) broke into the Syrian embassy and "destroyed furniture, hung a flag from a window" and wrote slogans on the walls.  All were arrested, but released (why? - CM) after police took their details."

At least the British, Greek and German police managed to catch some of the rioters.  In Australia, the Syrian embassy staff failed to raise the alarm in time and in any case our police seem to have been caught flat-footed.

Footnote: There are six mosques of some sort in Canberra.  The oldest was built in 1960 by the Pakistani, Malaysian and Indonesian governments, just across the road from the Iranian Embassy in Yarralumla. That is: three Sunni-dominated countries combined to plank down a Sunni mosque precisely opposite the embassy of Shiite-majority Shiite-ruled Iran...

If I were the Australian Federal Police I would begin at that mosque - the oldest and largest Sunni Muslim mosque in Canberra - when conducting the investigation into the raid on the Syrian embassy. 

Take-home point from this story?  The more Mohammedans you have in your country, the more likely it is that you will have - as Australia, and Greece, and the UK, and Germany have just had - outbreaks of mob violence, involving either intra-Mohammedan quarrels, or else Mohammedan attacks upon non-Muslims.  And the more trouble and expense you will incur, in attempting to prevent or to punish such outbreaks of Mohammedan violence.

From The Tablet:

Heroine Stupor

Wanted Women, a new joint biography of two Muslim women, refuses to distinguish between an al-Qaida terrorist and a feminist intellectual

"In a sign of congressional anger, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who chairs an influential Senate subcommittee that oversees some foreign aid, on Friday warned the Egyptian military 'that the days of blank checks are over.'"

But why did they ever begin?

Why was Egypt given tens of billions of dollars for the great sacrifice of receiving, from Israel, the entire Sinai, together with 16 billion (1979) dollars worth of infrastructure, which it had lost in a war that it started?

If it was to make sure Egypt honored the Camp David Accords, the Egyptians did no such thing, but violated all of the solemn commitments to encourage tourism, cultural exchanges, and other signs of normalization of relations with, and encouragement of friendliness toward, Israel.

If it was to make sure that at least Egypt would not attack Israel, there was no chance of that because the Egyptians would not want to lose the Sinai for the third, and last, time.

And if one really wanted to make sure Egypt did not attack israel, the best way to do that -- and to discourage the Egyptian army from continuing to be the corrupt and vicious institution it is -- would be to cut all military aid to Egypt. After all, why does Egypt need such military aid? To fight Libya? To fight the Sudan? It can only be in order someday to threaten Israel, and by supplying it to Egypt, the American government does damage to Israel, and causes even more headaches for its defense planners. Why do that to a real, as opposed to a false, ally?

Putin's palm-fringed palace is giving Livadia a run for the Russian government's money:

From The New York Times:

February 4, 2012

From Success at Putin’s Side to Exposing Corruption

By SCOTT SHANE

SERGEI KOLESNIKOV is a soft-spoken biophysicist who once thought he would spend his career toiling in placid obscurity inside a secret Soviet military institute.

Then, as Communist rule collapsed, he became a prosperous businessman and part of the crony capitalist web surrounding Vladimir V. Putin, by his own account working with some success to rebuild Russia’s primitive health care system.

But today he is a whistle-blower on the run, working to expose what he believes to be the defining corruption of the Putin era.

It is a risky personal campaign that Mr. Kolesnikov began 13 months ago with a splash, publishing an open letter to President Dmitri A. Medvedev that revealed a billion-dollar palace on the Black Sea that he said he had helped build secretly for Mr. Putin.

Mr. Putin’s aides denied that he had anything to do with the palace and the sprawling estate that surrounds it, whose owner of record was a company run by an old friend of the Russian leader.

But questions keep arising: a Russian version of WikiLeaks posted eye-popping photographs that rocketed around the Web; Russian activists and journalists who tried to visit the site said they were stopped and questioned by the Russian equivalent of the Secret Service; and Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper most critical of Mr. Putin, reported that it had obtained a 2005 contract proving that the Russian president’s office was involved in the construction. Last March, Russian news reports said the palace had been sold to another friend of Mr. Putin for $350 million.

By then, Mr. Kolesnikov had fled Russia, eventually settling in Estonia and providing journalists with documents that appear to support his account of his role in a network of businesses with purported Putin connections. He has also kept a wary eye out for agents of a government he believes would like to see him silenced.

“For me, I think it’s dangerous everywhere,” Mr. Kolesnikov, who wears rimless glasses and looks much younger than his 63 years, said in an interview in a Manhattan coffee shop last month during a brief visit to the United States. “But, you know, if you could show the whole truth to the whole country, about this palace and all these machinations, Putin would be gone in two weeks.”

The sudden ferment in Russian politics, with two big anti-Putin demonstrations in Moscow in December and another set for Saturday, has given Mr. Kolesnikov’s crusade a less quixotic feel. He said Russia was responding to the same combustible combination of Internet and video-armed smartphones that propelled the revolts of the Arab Spring.

“Today, it’s impossible to hide anything,” he said. “It’s getting harder and harder for politicians to lie.”

HE is scathing about the hurried political concessions offered up since December by Mr. Medvedev and Mr. Putin, currently the prime minister, who is running for a third presidential term in elections set for March 4.

“People think he’s entering negotiations. No way. He has Qaddafi’s mentality,” Mr. Kolesnikov said, adding that he would cling to power with the tenacity of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the late Libyan leader.

Mr. Kolesnikov’s family history and résumé might have been invented by a novelist trying to reflect the distinctive periods of Russia’s tumultuous recent history. His father was a military man who fought in World War II; his mother, still living, is a physician who as a teenager survived the brutal siege of Leningrad.

He earned a doctorate in biophysics in the early 1970s and spent more than 15 years conducting military research in Leningrad on “biological defenses” against cutting-edge weapons like lasers. He liked the work, which paid well by Soviet standards.

“There were good points to the Soviet system,” Mr. Kolesnikov said. “There was not such a huge gap between the top and the bottom. People didn’t obsess about money. The state controlled too much, but many people could pursue their creative work.”

He married and had a son, who trained in physics and now runs an information technology business. His first wife died of cancer, a loss he described as “the greatest tragedy of my life.” He has since remarried.

In 1989, after private ventures were legalized under Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s perestroika, Mr. Kolesnikov started a medical equipment business. His partner was a bureaucrat in Leningrad’s health department who also was a K.G.B. officer and an acquaintance of Mr. Putin, himself a career K.G.B. man.

In 1991, the year Leningrad reverted to its old name, St. Petersburg, Mr. Kolesnikov said Mr. Putin, then a city official, invited him and his business partner to create a joint venture with the city to import and build medical equipment and renovate decaying hospitals. The firm was called Petromed, and it thrived.

When Mr. Putin was elected president in 2000, Mr. Kolesnikov was enthralled.

“He was young and smart, and immediately began to bring order,” he said. “Everyone was tired of drunken Yeltsin. Everyone was tired of oligarchs who were really thieves.”

A close associate of Mr. Putin proposed a curious but ambitious national role for the medical equipment company. Oligarchs supporting the government would be asked to donate large sums that the company would use to renovate and equip hospitals, with 35 percent of profits diverted to other investments across Russia, including a lumber company and a shipyard.

THE project was started with a $203 million contribution from Roman Abramovich, one of Russia’s richest men, said Mr. Kolesnikov, who backed his story with a number of contract documents that appeared to be authentic.

He said some of the money went, mainly as loans, to companies operated by Mr. Putin’s relatives or friends. “I understood very well that Putin was helping his friends,” he said. “But I felt we were doing good work. We were investing in Russia.”

Mr. Kolesnikov said he met with Mr. Putin more than a dozen times, but usually dealt with aides. Over time, he said, the tone changed. The aides began to refer to their boss as “the czar” and directed money to the Black Sea villa, known as “Project South.”

Costs ballooned to $500 million while he was involved, Mr. Kolesnikov said; with a new road, electric and natural gas service, and security installations, he said he believed that the price probably reached $1 billion.

When the global recession hit in 2008, and money ran short, Mr. Kolesnikov said Mr. Putin’s associates ordered him to cut off all other projects and spend all available cash on the palace. Then he learned that costly construction materials were illegally bypassing customs. He protested, wrote his open letter and left the country.

Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, dismissed Mr. Kolesnikov’s account, saying that to the best of his knowledge, Mr. Kolesnikov had fled Russia because he was in a conflict with his business partners over money that had been stolen from the company. In an interview this week, Mr. Peskov called the allegation about the palace “absurd,” and only one of many rumors that ascribe extraordinary riches to Mr. Putin.

“Have you heard about the fact that Putin owns 5 percent of Gazprom, that he owns half of the company called Gunvor, and that his personal wealth is more than $30 billion?” Mr. Peskov said, laughing. He did not rule out that the building could have been built for the Kremlin.

“Look, we have congress halls built for the Kremlin, we have different sites for international events, for congresses, international negotiations, but if you call each of them ‘Putin’s palace,’ it’s absurd; it’s nothing but absurd,” Mr. Peskov said.

Mr. Kolesnikov says he wants to return to Russia as soon as he judges it safe — presumably in a post-Putin era. And he all but rules out a political role for himself in Russia.

Everyone pulls out -- all the townsfolk -- as the gang finally arrives, the gang that is not a threat only to the forces of order, that is to Gary Cooper, but to everyone. For if they kill him, they will do what they want with the town. In the end, he finds himself, despite earlier signs of others perhaps joining him, all alone. So he does what he must, dealing with the forces of evil as he surely has had to do in the past.. He rids the town of the malevolent gang that was a menace to everyone, and and without the aid of anyone save a winsome Grace Kelly who, at the very last, gets off the train, runs back, and ends up managing to kill the penultimate member of the gang, even shotting him -- quite justifiably -- in the back.  After it is over, when those who had abandoned him emerge, relieved that he’s taken care of everything, and hoping somehow that he will be able to overlook or forgive  how they behaved, he glances briefly at them in quiet disgust, and pulls off his badge, and throws it into the dust. He’s had it. He's had it  with them.. He's sick of them. He's not going to do their work for them. And the townsfolk can only mill about, and the camera pulls back, so as not to show their individual faces of confusion and embarrassment. and not knowing quite what to do or even how to look at each other..

If anyone in the Western world thinks that Israel will ever again listen to anything anyone in that world presumes to preach or lecture or hector  that permanently beleaguered tiny country, and its citizens, as to  what it must or must not do for “the sake of peace” or in order  that the spoiled and frightened Western world need not worry about a most temporary loss of a few drops of oil, or so that it can put off, to its own great future sorrow, confronting the problem and threat of Islam, and of Muslims who acquire the most dangerous of weapons, if after this is all over the Western world, the Obama administration, the European Union apparatchiks, the inneffective I.A.E.A., the corrupt and corruptingUnited Nations, if anyone dares after this is all over to try to get Israel to “make concessions" and "take chances for peace"  to the shock troops of the endless Jihad that is waged against it, if when Israel’s l citizens enduring dangers and daily imperilments that no citizens anywhere else n the West would  ask themselves to endure even for one minute -- precisely because of all the chances it has taken, at the urging or under the pressure of others, and because of all the compromises with its own security Israel has so often  made, and because of all the times it has not been allowed, or not allowed itself,  to finish what it set out to do because of pressures from its so-called allies and so-called friends in the West, then all of those people – I allow myself to believe, and perhaps you do too --  have another think coming.

Exhibit that Proves the Exception to the Rule

I attended the excellent presentation at the Holocaust Museum on Jan. 29 and was impressed by the photos and film portraying the courageous acts of heroism among Muslims in occupied Albania during World War II. No other Muslim community displayed such a commitment to humanitarian aid to their Jewish neighbors.

When the question is asked why was not similar behavior encountered anywhere else in the Muslim world in that period, it is imperative to understand what made the Albanian brand of Islam so different, and the Besa tradition of hospitality and honor so wholly atypical.

Indeed it was startling to see Albanian Muslims proudly displaying their Certificates of Honor from Israel, listening to Albanian politicians boasting of their close ties with friends and colleagues in the Albanian-Israeli Friendship Association and listening to veterans among the former partisans who fought against the German and Italian occupying forces recount their exploits and members of the Communist Party singing their International hymn.

What is also worth remembering is that Albania, Turkey and Iran were the first three Muslim countries to extend diplomatic recognition to the State of Israel in 1949-50 and all three incurred the wrath of the entire Muslim world for refusing to go along with the invasion of Palestine by the armies of six Arab countries in order to crush the nascent Jewish state in May 1948. These three states were long regarded throughout the Muslim world as “renegades.” Albania’s recognition of Israel was de jure (like that of the USSR and not simply de facto as was the case with American recognition).

The Muslims of Albania have traditionally been divided into two main communities: those associated with Sunni Islam and those associated with the “deviant” Bektashi Sufis, a mystical Dervish order that arrived in Albania during the Ottoman period in the 18th and 19th centuries. This sect is to this day considered heretical by most mainstream Muslims. The Bektashis are found primarily in the lands of the south where the Tosk dialect of Albania prevails (in contrast to the Gheg variety in the North).

It is in the South that we find most of the courageous acts of Muslim aid to the Jews in World War II. In the North and especially in neighboring Bosnia where there has always been a strong Albanian minority, the record of collaboration with the Axis and even participation in a German organized SS unit (The Skanderberg Dvision) is very different.

The 21st Mountain Waffen Skanderberg Division was established by Heinrich Himmler in March 1944 and named after George Kastrioti Skanderberg, the national hero of Albanians who resisted Ottoman invasion for 25 years. Its purpose was to crush the resistance movement in Yugoslavia and promote ethnic Albanian identity and possible creation of a “Greater Albania” but it had little success as most of its conscripts were not enthusiastic about their being dragged into the conflict.

The tradition of close Albanian cooperation with their Jewish neighbors and even pro-Israel sentiments is still alive today. On a recent three-day trip in November 2011 to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and in meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha criticized unilateral efforts by the Palestinian Authority to achieve the status of a sovereign state. He stated that “Such moves do not advance a political solution. The Palestinians must understand that this is not the way. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians must pass through direct negotiations and promises of security for the two states.”

Berisha has sought to boost business ties with Israel further, encouraging investors to participate in projects such as the construction of new hydropower stations and development of joint projects in the areas of agriculture, fishing, education, tourism, information technology and energy.

Albania’s readiness in April 1949 to recognize the State of Israel, although not followed by an exchange of ambassadors, was a courageous act. It demonstrated the unwillingness, shared with Turkey and Iran (all three are non-Arab Muslim countries) not to fall prey to Muslim extremism, so common in the Arab world to promote hostility to Israel as a religious issue.

Turkey, the first Muslim state to recognize Israel, had under its national leader Kemal Attaturk completely divorced Islam from the state institutions and legal codes of the Turkish Republic and the Iranian Shah, who also recognized Israel in 1950 was a pro-Western leader who realized that economic development and progress for his people would most likely be realized if he followed the Turkish model of secularism.

The Holocaust Museum is to be commended for the Besa exhibit and adding an important and moving positive portrayal of the record of Righteous Gentiles.

Originally printed in the The Heritage- Florida Jewish News, Feb. 3, 2012.

Listen here.

Sing along, if you wish, with the lyrics here:

Un jour, la tendre Annette,
Le cœur plein de désir,
Délaissant sa chambrette,
A pris bien du plaisir

{Refrain:}
En cueillant la noisette et la fraise des bois
En cueillant la noisette et en gaulant des noix
En cueillant la noisette et la fraise des bois
En cueillant la noisette et en gaulant des noix

Elle croisa Gustave
Le garçon, fort ému,
Prit son bel accent grave
Et son accent aigu

{au Refrain}

Il la prit par la taille,
Il la sentit frémir
Et dans ses yeux canailles,
Il lut bien du plaisir

{au Refrain}

Il la prit par la taille,
La prit par le menton,
Elle, dans la bataille,
Tomba sur le gazon

{au Refrain}

Ah! Maudite culbute
Jugez du désarroi!
Le gredin, dans sa chute,
Avait vu... son émoi... Oh

En cueillant la noisette et la fraise des bois
En cueillant la noisette et en gaulant des noix

Dans cette pirouette,
Elle eut le cœur troublé,
Elle perdit la tête
Tout en perdant... le pied

En cueillant la noisette et la fraise des bois
En cueillant la noisette et en gaulant des noix

Sa robe, sa coiffure
Ne pourront plus servir
Belles, de l’aventure
Gardez le souvenir.

Arab Spring's First Fruits (Libyan Division)

Libyan diplomat was tortured, died in detention, rights group says

(CNN) -- A Libyan diplomat died 24 hours after he was detained by a militia based in the city of Zintan, Human Rights Watch said.

The French Foreign Ministry confirmed Omar Brebesh's death in prison, though it did not have any information as to the circumstances. The ministry said Brebesh, 62, had served as the charge d'affairs in France from 2004 to 2008.

CNN's attempts to reach Libyan officials were not immediately successful. However, Libya's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Shalgham, told the United Nations this month that Libya does not approve of any abuse and was working to stop any such practices.

Brebesh was detained January 19 and appears to have died from torture, Human Rights Watch said Thursday after viewing a preliminary autopsy report.

The autopsy report said the cause of death included multiple bodily injuries and fractured ribs. Photos of Brebesh's body, seen by Human Rights Watch, show welts, cuts, and the apparent removal of toenails.

The rights monitoring group said it also read a Tripoli police report that said Brebesh had died from torture and that an unnamed suspect had confessed to killing him.

His death comes amid various reports of detainee abuse and sharp criticism that Libya's new leaders have failed to establish the rule of law.

Amnesty International said this month that several detainees have died after being tortured in recent weeks. And the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said it was halting its work in detention centers in Misrata because detainees were tortured and were denied urgent medical care.

Human Rights Watch said Libya's militias will continue torture and abuse unless they are held to account.

"Libya's leaders should show the political will to prosecute people who commit serious crimes, regardless of their role in the uprising," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group's Middle East and North Africa director.

"The rule of law, and punishment for crimes, apply to all Libyans, including those who fought against Moammar Gadhafi," she said.

Brebesh's son Ziad told Human Rights Watch that his father voluntarily submitted to an investigation by the Al-Shohada Ashura militia at their base in the Tripoli neighborhood of Crimea. Brebesh had been called there for questioning.

Ziad escorted his father, who entered the base at 5:30 p.m. January 19. Ziad said he stayed inside for tea before being told to wait outside.

After 45 minutes, militia members took Ziad away to retrieve one of the family cars and a firearm. He returned later that night but was prevented from entering the area where his father was being interrogated, Human Rights Watch said.

The next day, following a visit to the Al-Shohada Ashura base, the family heard that Brebesh's body had appeared at a hospital in Zintan, about 100 kilometers southwest of Tripoli. Ziad's brother Muhammad went there in the evening and described what he saw:

"I saw his face. There was blood on his nose and mouth. But I didn't see the rest of his body or his face from the other side. There was a bump on his forehead. After that, I kissed him and that was it. Later, when we saw the other side of his face at the hospital in Tripoli, it looked like his jaw was broken, like his face was not in the right place."

Brebesh's family showed photographs of his body to Human Rights Watch that revealed welts and extensive bruising on the abdomen, lacerations on both legs, and a large wound on the sole of the left foot. Some of his toenails appear to have been removed, the rights group said.

Il faut laisser maisons et vergers et jardins
Vaisselles et vaisseaux que l’artisan burine,
Et chanter son obsèque en la façon du Cygne,
Qui chante son trépas sur les bords Méandrins.

C’est fait, j’ai dévidé le cours de mes destins,
J’ai vécu, j’ai rendu mon nom assez insigne,
Ma plume vole au ciel pour être quelque signe,
Loin des appas mondains qui trompent les plus fins.

Heureux qui ne fut onc, plus heureux qui retourne
En rien, comme il était, plus heureux qui séjourne,
D’homme, fait nouvel ange, auprès de Jésus Christ,

Laissant pourrir çà-bas sa dépouille de boue,
Dont le sort, la Fortune, et le Destin se joue,
Franc des liens du corps pour n’être qu’un esprit.

                                                                         -- Ronsard

Prépas, l'excellence au prix fort

LE MONDE CULTURE ET IDEES | 03.02.12

La France a l'amour vache. En envoyant ceux qu'elle considère comme les meilleurs de ses enfants en classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles, elle leur inflige un régime dont la rigueur étonne ailleurs, dans les pays nordiques et anglo-saxons notamment. Pour un pays qui s'autoflagelle si volontiers au motif qu'on n'y travaillerait pas assez, c'est remarquable.

A peine sortis d'un bac auquel ils ont généralement obtenu une mention "Bien" ou "Très bien", sélectionnés avant l'examen sur leur parcours scolaire, ces jeunes de 17 à 20 ans vont connaître, pendant deux ans, parfois trois, des semaines de travail de soixante heures en moyenne (autour de 35 heures de cours, le reste chez eux). Ils seront évalués avec sévérité. Leurs enseignants utilisent volontiers un arsenal de méthodes pédagogiques qu'ils ont eux-mêmes connues, et qui sont destinées à endurcir : contrôles longs et fréquents, notes très basses, classements permanents.

Leur vie sociale se réduira souvent à leur entourage familial et scolaire. Beaucoup seront amenés à abandonner la musique, le sport ou le théâtre. On leur demandera de se consacrer avec une exclusivité jalouse à un apprentissage des savoirs et des méthodes afin de pouvoir reproduire avec la plus grande rapidité les modèles académiques. Ce dispositif conduit à une série de concours, au terme desquels un certain nombre intégreront les grandes écoles, où de super-profs finiront de polir ceux qui seront les cadres de la nation. Les autres, s'ils y sont autorisés, pourront rempiler pour une troisième année et retenter leur chance, ou partiront se chercher d'autres chemins dans le vaste monde.

S'il n'opérait que la sélection de quelques-uns au détriment de tous les autres, il est probable que le système ne survivrait pas. Sa force - et son attrait - repose sur les travers de l'université qui perd plus de la moitié de ses effectifs en trois ans. Elle résulte aussi du caractère généraliste de son enseignement, qui assure aux élèves des connaissances que l'enseignement secondaire seul n'a pas permis d'acquérir, ou d'étayer. Ceux qui ne seront pas admis dans les grandes écoles utiliseront ailleurs les acquis de ces deux années à marche forcée.

A SOCIÉTÉ CRUELLE, FORMATION BRUTALE

A société cruelle, formation brutale. Dans le pamphlet effaré qu'il consacre à l'école française (On achève bien les écoliers, Grasset, 2006), l'Américain Peter Gumbel compare les prépas françaises à l'armée américaine en guerre, telle qu'elle est représentée dans le film Full Metal Jacket, de Stanley Kubrick. La comparaison est outrancière mais elle est historiquement juste. Créées au XVIII^e siècle, institutionnalisées sous la Révolution française puis le Premier Empire, les grandes écoles et la préparation qui devait y conduire étaient initialement destinées à former des ingénieurs et des cadres pour l'armée. Il leur en reste ce côté "Sir, yes Sir !" et cette ambiance de service militaire qui laisse à ceux qui l'ont connu des souvenirs ambigus, mélange de souffrance et de fierté. Ce que Gumbel stigmatise comme un "syndrome de Stockholm".

"Quand Napoléon crée les élites de la nation, ajoute la psychanalyste Claire-Marine François-Poncet, il remplace la noblesse de naissance par une noblesse de mérite. L'effort qu'on lui demande doit être à la hauteur des catastrophes de la Révolution et des guerres napoléoniennes. On a tué l'aristocratie de privilège. Il faut payer le crime."

"LA MOITIÉ DE LA CLASSE ÉTAIT SOUS ANTIDÉPRESSEURS"

Il n'existe pas de statistique du mal-vivre en classes préparatoires, de données sur les suicides, maladies, anorexies... Une étude avait bien été initiée, au début des années 1990. "Nous n'avons jamais eu ni l'argent ni l'adhésion des grandes écoles" pour la faire, expliquait la psychologue et épidémiologiste Marie Choquet, dans Le Monde Magazine, en 2010. Mais on peut aussi s'asseoir à une table, et laisser parler les étudiants, principalement en lettres et en maths (khâgneux et taupins, les structures fermées générant leur lexique). Dans un premier temps, ils insistent loyalement sur ce qu'ils ont gagné. Ils ont "appris à travailler", "à s'organiser". Ils y ont trouvé une "ouverture d'esprit". Ils y ont gagné beaucoup de "rapidité", une grande facilité à "parler de tout". Et tout cela, certainement, est "inestimable ".

Chez les très bons élèves, ceux que leur triple héritage bourdieusien (social, financier, culturel) sur-adapte au système ou ceux, plus rares, que des dons singuliers distinguent, le constat en reste là : deux ou trois années enrichissantes et plutôt heureuses.

Mais chez les autres, les juste bons, les moins conformes, le discours se fissure vite. Il apparaît que l'inestimable se paie, cher. Ce sont les nuits de trop peu de sommeil, les repas avalés en vingt minutes, l'épuisement. Le sentiment de l'insuffisance, de l'incapacité, entretenu par quelques enseignants, minoritaires mais marquants, sur des élèves qu'ils "cassent". "Sans mentir, dit Valentine, qui sort d'une khâgne dans le nord de la France, la moitié de la classe était sous antidépresseurs." Pour Lucie, qui a quitté un lycée parisien pour un autre en banlieue, "plus humain" : "En khâgne, ils ont l'air morts. Ils vivent sous une pression totale."

Samuel, qui sort d'une classe étoile (le haut du panier scientifique) dans un lycée des Hauts-de-Seine, se souvient de "cette fille qui travaillait tellement qu'elle ne se faisait pas à manger. On l'a vue perdre dix kilos en quelques semaines". Salomé, qui a abandonné l'hypokhâgne pour préparer les Arts Déco, se revoit se lever "très tôt et fixer longtemps le plafond ; plus rien ne passait dans ma tête". Chez certains, le régime aboutit à la paralysie. "Cette année, je n'arrive plus à rédiger une dissert de philo, dit Lucie. Je me dis qu'il faut que je montre mes idées. J'ai trop peur." "Les moqueries publiques en colle sont cruelles, ajoute Clara, en khâgne à Paris. Je ne sais pas comment on est censé réagir dans des situations pareilles. Moi, je me recroqueville."

On leur a dit et répété qu'ils étaient la crème et le gratin, et les voilà dans le même temps traités comme des enfants un peu rétifs. Pour Samuel : "Je n'avais jamais eu l'impression, avant, d'être un délinquant qu'il fallait remettre dans le droit chemin." Il s'interroge : "C'est une politique d'intimidation dont je ne vois pas très bien l'utilité." Lors d'une épreuve de concours blanc (une semaine et demie d'examens, six heures d'épreuves par jour), Valentine fait un malaise et se retrouve à l'infirmerie "bondée d'élèves de prépa aux yeux rouges". Le médecin qu'elle consulte lui conseille de tout arrêter. L'enseignant auprès duquel elle s'excuse constate : "Je commence à en avoir marre de tous ces gens malades en pleine épreuve." Clara note : "Les absences prennent une importance considérable. Même avec un bon classement, si tu as des absences, tu n'es pas admis en khâgne. On a tous peur d'être malades."

"Est-ce qu'on est obligés d'en passer par là ?, se demande Lucie, qui n'est pas la seule à s'interroger. Tu es tellement stressé que tu n'as plus le temps de voir l'essentiel, de bien travailler. Tu survoles, avec l'impression de faire toujours la même chose." "Tout est très rhétorique, on apprend à parler de ce qu'on ne connaît pas. La pensée n'est jamais globale", regrette Hélène, en khâgne dans le 5^e arrondissement de Paris. "A un moment, ça devient contre-productif, note Samuel. J'ai redécouvert le raisonnement mathématique en arrivant en fac."

Labs?

Bananas?

Dukes Of Devonshire?

Towns In Vermont?

Now study  each of  the names below and assign each, in turn, to one of the four categories of Cavendish given above: 

James Clerk Maxweil,  Irina Alberti, Varlam Shalamov, J. D. Watson,  Henri Salvador, Max Perutz, Adele Astaire, Scrabble, Carmen Miranda, The Kniphausen Hawk, Jacques Chirac, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ray Ventura

Now show your work -- not to me, but to someone hanging around your house, possibly a family member, to whom you will explain your reasons for what you did..

Yes, I know it's a silly way to spend one's time which like the tide waits for no man: Eheu fugaces.....ah, fugeddaboutit.

I never should have posted this.. But once I wrote "Cavendish" I just couldn't stop.

Sorry.

I'll try not to let it happen again.