France has been thrown into a national crisis by the abduction in Iraq of two French journalists by the same terrorist band that murdered Enzo Baldoni. The “Islamic Army” said that it wants the French to revoke the law that prohibits the Islamic veil in the schools and gave the French government 48 hours to do so or else…  This evening they had the two haggard hostages again on al-Jazeera calling their fellow countrymen to go out and demonstrate against the law that their democratically elected parliament had passed.

The cat plays with the mouse before dinner.

I really believe we are looking at the opening of what is rapidly becoming a major mutation in the jihadist global strategy, a continuation of the fountainhead that were the terrorist attacks in Madrid in march. And I think they are out to prove a couple of doctrinal points to the other Muslims, the moderate ones, the lukewarm, the skeptics…

One of the main points of their rationale for the war against the Christians and the Jews is that the infidels have come to value humanity so much that they border on idolatry, one of the anathemas for Islam. They despise our humanism because they construe it as yet a certification of our raw materialism, our abolishing of God to enthrone, to worship human life. That is the real meaning of one of the most important axioms of jihadism: “They love life, we love death”, recurrent in its propaganda.

What they want to prove is that just by threatening to take two lives they can de-stabilize Little Satan France. It’s like Hitler when he started launching the V1 and V2 on England, trying to convince the Germans, the world and perhaps himself that he had the absolute weapon, the one that could win him a war that seemed already almost lost… The jihadists are telling their fellow Muslims that the Jihad can be won because de Christians and the Jews are weak and decadent… because the way we value human life for them is just a weakness and a sign of degeneration.

Sun-Tzu showed many centuries ago that wars are won by exploiting the adversary’s weakness as much as by thoughtfully putting to use one’s strengths. Now, the most important dictum of the Chinese master is “know thy enemy” and one has to convene that they seem to know us better than we know them.

I live now in France and I have been amazed by the ignorance of all but an elite of specialists regarding the jihadists, appalled at the Byzantine analysis in the mass-media. President Chirac, his government and the media are now suddenly discovering that the terrorists consider them a target… and a soft one at that! And they refuse to see reality in the eyes. They refuse to accept the role of Little Satan that the jihadist scriptwriter has reserved for them.

They go and rush and scramble to line up Muslim leaders who would say that it is wrong (at the very least for tactical reasons) for Islamic terrorists to attack France… They even got Arafat to make a distasteful speech calling his terrorist brothers in Iraq to spare the life of the French hostages. Doesn’t Mr. Chirac know what the jihadists think of Arafat? Arafat, the man who sold and probably still sells to Sharon the cement to build the wall to corral out the Palestinians!

Chirac's minister of Foreign Affairs is now in the Middle East, desperately fishing for sympathetic declarations by the sort of people Osama bin Laden brands as traitors, puppets, apostates, corrupted turncoats etc. Rumor has it that he has been given the authority to pay out a huge ransom to the terrorists in order to secure the liberation of the two journalists…

But the terrorists have just started to show their cards. They may or may not accept the money but, in any event, they want first to humiliate Little Satan France, just to see it beg and show off their power for all the 1,100 M Muslims to see.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 2:05 AM

click HERE to see a text in english saying more or less the same

L’enlèvement de deux journalistes français par le même groupe terroriste qui a assassiné cette semaine le journaliste italien Enzo Baldoni marque une nouvelle étape dans la guerre des jihadistes « contre les croisés et les juifs ».

C'était dans les cartes. La France est bien un objectif "mou" des islamistes, le pays où ils vont essayer leur stratégie de séparatisme social pour obtenir un statut de dihmi, avec une législation particulière pour les musulmans, basée sur la loi islamique. Les gens qui on crié à Sarkozy que le Coran était leur seule constitution annonçaient ce qui devait fatalement arriver…


L’attitude de la France et de l’Allemagne à propos de la guerre en Iraq n'a pas été lue comme le prétendaient M.M. Chirac et Villepin, comme un signe de poids spécifique géopolitique et d’indépendance vis-à-vis des Etats-Unis sur la scène internationale, mais plutôt comme un indice de frayeur devant la volonté combative des jihadistes et de faiblesse face à la menace terroriste.

Leur logique n’est pas la même qui prévaut à l’Elysé. Les jihadistes lissent la réalité mondiale en termes de guerre de religion et ils n’ont que faire des débats sur le multilateralisme, le monolateralisme etc. Pour eux, le Grand Satan sont les Etats-Unis, et si le petit Satan qu’est la France rameute d’autres pays à l’Onu contre l’intervention en Iraq c’est que la peur du terrorisme chez les français est plus forte que celle que leur produisent des hypothétiques représailles du Grand Satan…


Dans leur stratégie européenne, visant à forcer les gouvernements de l’UE à octroyer aux communautés musulmanes un statut d’autonomie légale et politique basé sur la Shariah, la question du voile islamique prend pour les terroristes une énorme valeur. La loi interdisant son usage dans l’espace du système éducatif a été vécue par les jihadistes comme un défi du petit Satan qu’ils croyaient déjà apprivoisé, résigné à tolérer le communautarisme. Peut-être sont-ils aussi déçus de la faible réaction des musulmans français devant le fait accompli de la loi en question…

Chirac sombre de plus en plus dans une espèce d’autisme doré, à peine capable de rassembler toute son énergie pour se maintenir au pouvoir. En ce qui concerne la politique internationale, il agit en benêt irrémissible, absent d’une réalité qui lui dépasse, incapable d’assimiler les changements en dehors de sa matrice conceptuelle périmée… Et dans son coin, Dominique de Villepin –le dauphin pathétique de l’empereur nu- se dit peut-être que les thèses de Robert Kagan n’étaient pas si farfelues, tout compte fait.

Entre temps, deux hommes sont dans l’angoisse de ne pas savoir s’ils vivent leurs dernières heures. Et cela pour le crime d’être journalistes et français… et la fatalité d’avoir eu un président comme Monsieur Chirac aux commandes de la République une et indivisible.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 5:05 PM

A Spanish Update

A few years ago, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of History, (nothing less!), even the military were talking about the peace dividend, and a fair share of my friends and fellow social voyeurs (I mean, journalists, reporters and analysts) thought the time ripe for out-of-the-box prefabricated politicians, the dream of  PR buffs and marketing aficionados. They all were daydreaming about citizens voting with their zappers between a sop opera and a reality show, not giving a damn about issues and choosing the best looking, best baby-kissing most politically correct candidate… Well, that was before September 11, 2001. That day we al witnessed the first mass murder transmitted worldwide in real time. History had, at the very least, an appendix and it wasn’t pretty.

That’s why, in the midst of this mean and hobbessian times of ours, I reckon that Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero became Spain’s Prime Minister one historic cycle behind his time. No one had ever seen a better looking, more consistently smiling, faster baby-kisser, grand-ma-hugger and more heinously politically correct candidate. An iconoclast friend of mine in Madrid says of him “Zapatero smiles even when he’s defecating”. But then, there is a darker side. The man is one of those European politicians groomed by some savvy elders in the corridors of party paramountcy, a clever tactician of never-ending maneuvers and power struggles, where opportunity is always more important than contents, where gray is the color and secrecy is the virtue.

In March 11th, a commando of Islamic terrorists blew up four train wagons in Madrid, killing two hundred people. The overwhelming majority were working people on their way to work. That was three days before the date of the general election…


A majority of Spanish voters -- who pre-3/11 had supported the ruling, America-friendly Popular Party -- voted it out, on behalf of Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialist Workers’ Party. The first thing he did was to withdraw the largely symbolic Spanish military contingent in Iraq, all in all, 1,300 soldiers. The second was to appoint a government made up of staunchly anti-americans. Beyond that, their only visible adeptness for the job was that one half of them were women and, with the comforting exception of the Economy minister, all of them gloriously incompetent.

Spain has now arguably the most harebrained government in decades… but, if their critics don't lie, it may be the most voracious as well...

The Economist this week reached for its reservoir of British understatement to describe the Zapatero style:

“In the finest traditions of Mediterranean democracy, heads have been rolling in every agency under the government’s control –and in many places that are supposed to be independent. There have been purges at think-tanks, the judiciary and the Cervantes Insitute, which represents Spanish culture. The state-owned media, several key embassies, the security services and Madrid’s museums have all seen changes at the top”. The writer then virtuously prays for the government to declare the stock markets off-limits for cronyism and well connected predators and hopes that perhaps Zapatero “may have a chance to break with the excesses of political favor-trading” Amen, God bless you all..
 

But there is one field in which Zapatero is acting swiftly and decisively. After the terrorist attacks, he has promised to pay a salary to Muslim imams and preachers and ear-marked some US$ 50 M for it. The money will be administered by the Islamic Cult Council of Mansur Escudero, a former communist cadre converted to Islam who used to have a program in Radio Teheran of all places. A characterizing anecdote: Mansur’s second wife, a charismatic Basque who maintained a militant Islamic web site, was murdered a couple of years ago by a contract killer who in his turn was assassinated in jail by some co-detainees who forced him to drink a bottle of paint solvent.

Some scholars, critics of Zapatero, point that classical Muslim jurists divided the world into Dar-al-Islam (Land of Islam) or those territories where the Law of Islam prevails; Dar-al-Harb (Land of War) which includes those countries where Muslim Law is not in force; Dar-al-Ahd (Land of the Covenant) considered as a temporary and often intermediate territory between Dar-al-Islam and Dar-al-Harb; and Dar-al-Sulk (House of Truce), territories not conquered by -Muslim troops, where peace is attained by the payment of tribute which guarantees a truce or armistice.

So, are those US$ 50 M the tribute Zapatero has to pay to have peace in our time? (Chamberlain coined that toothsome expression). Well, he may think so and sure enough Mansur Escudero has 50 millions of reasons to tell him that is the case. But it is far from sure that the jihadists share that view… Spain cannot be included in the Dar-al-Sulk because it was once a land conquered by Jihad.



So tells fellow blogger hppauli the story:

To the Muslim, once a land has been conquered in Jihad, that land is forever Muslim. It doesn't matter if someone reconquers it and claims it as their own, the land remains theirs. If the Muslim's had it once, they will "by the will of Allah" have it again. They might fight one war, ten wars, fifty wars, a thousand and lose each time, but one day they will fight the thousand and oneth war and win. The House of Truce is always a temporary situation which might turn to their advantage in the next battle that is fought. Any lands already conquered are in the land of Islam, any not conquered yet, are in the House of War. That means that to their mind, portions of Europe are theirs and they are eager to have them back again. Al Andalus (Spain) is already being reclaimed in many Muslim's minds as theirs.

Tonight I feel just too bedraggled to give my personal opinion on all this.

UPDATE

Urban Empire, an excellent blog in more than one sense had a very kind post recommending this article with a link to THIS POST he wrote on March 15, just three days after the terrorist attacks in madrid Lucid.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 1:14 AM

Significativa decisión del Secretario de Estado

En un lacónico comunicado, el portavoz del Departamento de Estado, Richard Boucher, comunicó al ministro griego de exteriores Petros Molyviatis que Colin Powell no asistirá a la ceremonia de clausura de los Juegos Olímpicos de Atenas.
La causa aducida y su formulación ("asuntos urgentes que atender en Washington") a mí me parecen elegidos para dejar claro que la suspensión es debida a la oleada de manifestaciones organizadas por la izquierda radical griega en contra de la visita.
Powell da así una sonada muestra de diplomacia pública, algo que vamos a ver cada vez con mayor frecuencia en la política de Washington. En cualquier caso, la suspensión no ha sido seguramente motivada únicamente, ni siquiera en primer lugar, por la voluntad de evitar incidentes callejeros.
El antiamericanismo histérico de un sector de la izquierda europea va de nuevo a convertirse en factor político interno de los países de la UE, en momentos en los que proliferan los signos de preocupación por parte del resto de los sectores políticos ante un divorcio atlántico que ha ido demasiado lejos...
La izquierda radical y los ex-comunistas, aislados, defienden sus cuotas de poder en los movimientos sindicales,  a menudo corruptos e impregnados de clientelismo y en la agitación antiimperialista en la calle... La diplomacia pública de Powell es un mensaje a los europeos que no están de acuerdo -a los muchos que están ya hartos- de ver su política exterior condicionada por ese tipo de organizaciones.
La negativa de Powell a asistir a la clausura de los JJOO tiene una segunda lectura; es una campanada en medio de una campaña electoral marcada por una combatividad sin precedentes de los candidatos y en la que Powell suena con insistencia para suceder a un Dick Cheney desgastado y con problemas de salud.
Representa también la afirmación de la tercera vía de las relaciones internacionales americanas, entre la percepción neoconservadora de Charles Krauthammer y el liberalismo internacionalista que se adjudica a John Kerry. ¡No dejéis de leer el último artículo Francis Fukuyama...!

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 11:22 AM

This time they WANTED to murder a journalist.

They want journalists out now because they are losing and the spell is getting weaker. They killed Enzo because he wrote this blog and they sort of didn’t like it. Because he wasn’t telling the story according to the murderers.

Enzo in another war

Well, that’s the end of yet an adventurous life as a professional witness of his time. My memory goes back to my friend Lugo, a French cameramen who got killed in Beirut by a lost ricochet while filming a stampede of a crowd of poor frightened people… The difference is that Lugo got killed by chance, the sort of bad luck that gets you in the way of a bullet that doesn’t know where it was supposed to go and Baldoni has been killed in cold blood, very much in the way those very same bastards killed 200 madrileños on March 11.

In Bagdad

Already a hostage-Putting a Brave Face

Pacifism is a luxury we can't afford anymore.

Now, have a look at Enzo’s blog and think about the future.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 6:30 PM

Urban Empire, one of my favorite blogs has this didactic story:

Amnesty International today expressed its outrage at the reported execution of a girl believed to be 16 years old for “acts incompatible with chastity”. Ateqeh Rajabi was reportedly publicly hanged on a street in the city centre of Neka, northern Iran, on 15 August 2004.

Amnesty International is alarmed that this execution was carried out despite reports that Ateqeh Rajabi was not believed to be mentally competent, and that she reportedly did not have access to a lawyer at any stage.
During the trial the judge allegedly severely criticised her dress, harshly reprimanding her. It is alleged that Ateqeh Rajabi was mentally ill both at the time of her crime (having sexual relations outside of wedlock) and during her trial proceedings. (via Blogs of War)
John Little writes:
The government of Iran is seriously out of touch with the youth and other moderate elements of it’s society.
And Urban Empire, quite sensibly says:
I don't think the problem, in this case, is the government being out of touch with the youth. It's that the government of Iran is a medieval theocracy with a strict form of shariah as its penal code. News like this needs to get wider attention in the international media.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 11:23 AM

Are we in for a re-formulation of American politics?

Over half the delegates to the Republican convention (to be held in NYC next week) seem to be disposed to put forward a new running companion for George W. Bush, would Dick Cheney leave (voluntarily?) the ticket. Fasten your seat belts!

Colin Powell and Rudolph Zero-Tolerance Giuliani top the unofficial but very real list to succeed Cheney. Now, Mr. Bush will repeat to friends and foes alike that his support of Cheney is beyond discussion; no delegates would dare to say loud that the vice-president is more part of the problem than of the solution to a bitterly contested election… but whisper they do. To compound matters, AP did ingenuously survey the delegates and found out exactly how much they all love Powell and Giuliani, or, if you prefer, bought the right to go and print what everybody knows privately.

But some delegates still remember that Powell turned down Bush’s offers to run with him in 2000. And most of them believe that, like Martin Luther King, he has a dream: to become the first non white president of the USA. I think they are right about Powell’s presidential ambitions and I believe that a dreadful lot of citizens would vote for him if he runs in 2008, including a fair share of the ones who, like myself, are now leaning towards Kerry… So, perhaps he won’t be very enthusiastic about running this time. Then, of course, you may be willing to bet that Giuliani would surely love to be the first Italian-American tenant of the White House. But we are in 2004 and ahead we all have four years of this war that will probably outlast a couple of presidents
So, what about Condoleazza Rice? I reckon Bush would love her on the ticket and so would I. Longer shots would be senator John McCain or even Bill Frist, his being from Tennessee not withstanding.

But is Cheney to step aside? Nothing is less sure. Campaign pundits swear that replacing Cheney never has been actively considered. It is true that campaign officials aren’t exactly reputed for their trustworthiness (at least during the campaign!)… And the pressure to bring the GOP more toward the moderate center is building up.
Dick Cheney is 63 and has had four heart attacks since 1978, the most recent in November 2000… you sure remember that election!

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 10:59 PM

BBC NEWS / Health / Africa faces new polio threat

Africa could be on the verge of a major polio outbreak, the World Health Organization has warned.
Mali and Guinea have reported their first cases of the disease in five years. Three cases have also been reported in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The WHO had previously predicted that polio could be eradicated by the end of this year.
These latest cases are being blamed on problems vaccinating people in parts of Nigeria last year.
Islamic clerics in Kano state condemned immunisation campaigns as an American plot to make Muslim women infertile.
Unable to vaccinate in the region, the WHO tried to prevent polio spreading further by protecting people in neighbouring countries.
However, Guinea and Mali were outside the ring of countries targeted by WHO and the United Nations Children's fund (UNICEF) in an immunisation campaign launched in February.
Ten African countries, which had previously eradicated the virus, have now reported new cases.

'Big implications'

Bruce Aylward, co-ordinator of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, said the latest cases suggested efforts to contain the virus were not working.
"This is an extremely important development," he said. "Earlier this year, we had conducted a synchronised campaign in a group of countries around Nigeria and Niger".
"What we are seeing is the virus actually breaking beyond that into a second tier of countries - so very big implications."
The WHO is worried that a major polio outbreak could be around the corner. The high season for polio transmission begins in September.
Officials have drawn up plans to mount three vaccination campaigns in 22 African countries, over the next 12 months.
It's aimed at halting the present outbreak, and banishing polio from the continent forever.
But as yet there aren't enough funds to carry it out - US$50m is needed by the end of this year alone. There are also questions over whether people will accept the vaccination teams.
Kano leaders recently changed their stance and a four-day campaign took place. However, it is estimated that only 60% of children were brought forward, which is not enough to stem the virus. [Read my comment below]
Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus, which invades the nervous system. It can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.
The disease can strike at any age but mainly affects children under three years of age.

---

My Comment:
The fatwa against the polio vaccin has been endorsed again last month by the clerics of the Supreme Council for the Shariah. Indeed, because of pressure from many instances, including the Islamic Conference in Instambul, the self-styled governor of Kano, who last year enforced an outright ban on vaccination to comply with the fatwa, did finally yield two months ago and accept the WHO teams to come back. Too late, too little... The clerics just accused him to bow to western propaganda and called anew all muslims to refuse vaccination.

When the WHO teams tried to do their work in the rural areas of Northern Nigeria, parents would hide their children from them or attack the nurses shouting the usual "Allah U Akbar" and "Allah will know the believers".

Hundreds, thousands of African children will contract polio because of those scoundrels. Will they ever pay for this crime?

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 11:29 PM

Muktadar el Sadr ha huido de Nayaf, abandonando a su suerte a sus fanáticos seguidores. Para los amateurs de la propaganda negra en la prensa española, aquí os pongo una crónica, refundida de agencias y publicada en El Correo de Bilbao, con algunos términos trigger resaltados...

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El incierto futuro de Irak

Los blindados de EE UU, situados a menos de 20 metros del mausoleo del imán Alí en Nayaf

Los francotiradores estadounidenses disparan contra toda persona que entra o sale del recinto

AGENCIAS / NAYAF

Los blindados estadounidenses están situados hoy a menos de 20 metros de la puerta del mausoleo del imán Alí en Nayaf (centro sur de Irak), donde están atrincherados los milicianos chiíes del líder religioso Moqtada Sadr, según informó un corresponsal de la agencia France Presse.

Las fuerzas estadounidenses retomaron a primera hora de la mañana los disparos de artillería contra las posiciones de la milicia de Sadr en las proximidades de la mezquita.

El avance hacia el mausoleo de la ciudad santa chií fue por dos flancos, y comenzó hacia la 07.30 hora local (03.30 GMT), después de que la artillería efectuara varios disparos contra supuestas posiciones adelantadas de la milicia leal al clérigo radical Muqtada Al Sadr.

Según fuentes oficiales iraquíes citada por la radio Dijla (Tigris), los milicianos dispararon de forma insistente antes de retroceder hacia la mezquita del imán Ali Ben Taleb. A medianoche, un avión artillado C-130 atacó por cuarta noche consecutiva reductos de la milicia situados en torno al mausoleo, en el casco antiguo de Nayaf.

Los disparos comenzaron a las 6:30 locales (4:30 en la España peninsular), precisó el sargento Trevor Candelan. Ayer a mediodía, las fuerzas iraquíes se unieron a los soldados estadounidenses en Nayaf, indicó Candelan, que añadió que la noche había sido relativamente tranquila.

El avance de los tanques y los blindados sigue al cerco impuesto por las fuerzas iraquíes desplegadas ayer para encabezar el asalto al mausoleo, en el que se cobijan varios cientos de milicianos y civiles.

Francotiradores

Un avión americano disparó un misil hacia las 10:30 (08:30 en España) de esta mañana a pocos metros al oeste del mausoleo del imam Alí que hicieron temblar el edificio, según constató un periodista de AFP.

Asimismo, todas las entradas al mausoleo del imam Alí, en Nayaf, se encuentran sometidas esta mañana al fuego de los francotiradores estadounidenses, por lo que nadie puede entrar o salir del recinto.

Los milicianos impiden el paso por la puerta de entrada principal, que se encuentra en el sur, debido a los francotiradores estadounidenses que disparan contra toda persona que entra o sale del recinto. Al norte, la puerta está cerrada desde hace varios días por las mismas razones.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 11:20 AM

Click For Michael Moore


I promised a A Primer in Propaganda and Perception Hijacking using Farhenheit 9/11 as a benchmark and an illustrious exemple, and I'm still working on it. So, while doing research -thanks, Google- I have found that some one had done something very similar.

Meet Dr. Kelton Rhoads who just posted on the net his 31 pages long draft of Propaganda Tactics and Fahrenheit 9/11 (PDF). After gulping about one third of it, I feel that I had to recommend this reading. Well written, better argued.

I’ll post a critique when I’m through.

Here is Rhoads’ first paragraph:

I had my nose buried in books on the subject of propaganda analysis during June 2004, when Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was released. So it’s embarrassing to admit I didn’t immediately recognize something big was happening in my field, and that it was as close as my local theater: “feature-length movie-house agitprop,” as one commentator called it, which he correctly recognized as “a relatively rare and new thing.”1 With a few notable exceptions, such as Leni Riefenstahl’s work, propaganda has made a poor showing at the box office. Hollywood tried its hand at “message films” following World War II, but it was quickly discovered that “most people do not go to the movies to have their consciences disturbed.” Subsequent research has shown that individual movies rarely bring about major changes of opinion.4 Maybe that’s why I was slow to see Moore’s inferno. Still—you’d think that a professor and psychological consultant who considers his expertise to be influence and persuasion, would have gotten to the theater sooner. But I finally did, and for those (admittedly few) of us who marvel at the virtuoso application of persuasion techniques, I’ll say that Fahrenheit 9/11 was a fine education.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 1:04 AM

Just got it over the Internet...

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 6:42 PM

par Per Ahlmark
L'antisémitisme, l'anti-sionisme et l'antiaméricanisme sont de plus en plus virulents et accointés les uns aux autres dans l'Europe d'aujourd'hui. Ils trouvent leur source dans une espèce d'aveuglement combiné avec un étrange mélange d'aliénation, de sentiment de culpabilité et de peur envers Israël et les USA.

Des millions d'Européens évitent de voir en Israël un pays qui lutte pour sa survie. Israël ne peut se permettre de perdre une seule guerre d'importance, car ce serait la fin de cet Etat juif et démocratique. Mais beaucoup d'Européens pensent que les Israéliens font une erreur à la base : ils se refusent à tout compromis et préfèrent utiliser les moyens militaires pour résoudre des problèmes politiques.

L'attitude européenne est sensiblement la même à l'égard des USA. "Regardez l'Europe", disent nombre d'Européens, "Nous avons éradiqué la guerre, les dangers du nationalisme et la dictature. Nous avons crée une Union européenne pacifique. Nous ne faisons pas de guerre, nous négocions. Nous ne gaspillons pas nos richesses dans l'armement. Le reste de la planète pourrait nous prendre en exemple pour apprendre à vivre en paix". En tant que Suédois, j'ai entendu toute ma vie ce genre de vantardise pacifiste : la Suède, pays neutre, est une superpuissance morale. Maintenant cette fanfaronnade est devenue l'idéologie de l'UE : "Nous sommes le continent de la moralité." C'est la "suédisation" de l'Europe.

Il est vrai que l'existence de l'Union européenne tient du miracle sur un continent qui a donné naissance à deux totalitarismes, le communisme et le nazisme, qui sont à l'origine de gigantesques bains de sang. Mais l'Europe oublie comment ces idéologies ont été vaincues. Sans l'armée américaine, l'Europe de l'Ouest n'aurait pas été libérée en 1945. Sans le plan Marshall et l'OTAN, elle n'aurait pas redémarré économiquement. Sans la politique de confinement sous le parapluie américain, l'Armée rouge aurait étouffé le rêve de liberté en Europe de l'Est et aurait unifié l'Europe, mais sous un drapeau d'étoiles rouges.

Les Européens de l'Ouest ont aussi oublié que certaines régions du monde n'ont jamais connu la liberté. Dans beaucoup de pays, les salles de torture sont la norme et non pas des bavures grotesques et honteuses de troupes mal encadrées. Dans ce contexte, toute tentative de se comporter à l'européenne en négociant - sans la force militaire pour appuyer la diplomatie - est tout simplement vouée à l'échec.

Plutôt que d'aider ceux qui combattent le terrorisme international, beaucoup d'Européens rejettent la responsabilité de son accroissement sur Israël et les USA ; c'est une nouvelle illusion européenne. Dans le style munichois, l'adoption récente d'une attitude conciliante par l'Espagne s'enracine dans cette forme de pensée.

Que se serait-il passé si l'Espagne et toute l'Europe avaient réagi d'une manière diamétralement opposée à l'attentat de Madrid en avril en disant : "A cause de ce massacre, nous allons redoubler d'effort dans notre engagement pour stabiliser l'Irak en envoyant deux fois plus de troupes, d'experts, d'ingénieurs, de professeurs, de policiers, de médecins, ainsi que des milliards de dollars pour aider les forces alliées et leurs partenaires irakiens." Le triomphe des terroristes aurait été transformé en un triomphe de la guerre contre le terrorisme.

L'image que beaucoup d'Européens se font de l'Amérique et d'Israël crée un climat politique propice à de terribles préjugés. "Vous avez le grand Satan et le petit Satan, l'Amérique veut dominer le monde", exactement les accusations portées contre les Juifs dans la plus pure rhétorique antisémite. Pour la propagande anti-sioniste moderne, Israël cherche à dominer tout le Moyen-Orient. Ces idées se retrouvent dans les sondages qui montrent que les Européens voient dans Israël et les USA les véritables obstacles à la paix dans le monde.

L'écrivain britannique Ian Buruma estime que la rage antiaméricaine et anti-israélienne de l'Europe touche à un sentiment de culpabilité et de peur. Les deux guerres mondiales ont conduit à de tels carnages que le "jamais plus çà" a été traduit en "bien-être chez soi et non-intervention à l'extérieur". Le problème avec cette idée est qu'elle ne peut être appliquée que sous la protection de la puissance américaine.

L'extrémisme antiaméricain et anti-sioniste sont en train de fusionner. Le slogan soi-disant pacifiste "Hitler a deux fils : Bush et Sharon" qui fleurit en Europe dans les manifestations contre la guerre banalise le nazisme tout en diabolisant ses victimes et ceux qui l'ont défait.

Cela vient en grande partie d'un sentiment de culpabilité sous-jacent de l'Europe qui est lié à l'Holocauste. Les victimes de l'Holocauste - avec leurs enfants et leurs petits-enfants - feraient aux autres ce qu'on leur a fait. En mettant sur le même plan l'assassin et sa victime, nous nous en lavons les mains.

Ce mélange d'anti-sionisme et d'antiaméricanisme revient sans cesse. Le "méchant Israélien" et le "méchant Américain" semblent faire partie d'une même famille. "Le Juif hideux" devient l'outil d'une campagne de diffamation dans laquelle les "néoconservateurs", ainsi qu'on les appelle, sont responsables à la fois du militarisme américain et des brutalités israéliennes. Ceux qui sont dénoncés s'appellent comme par hasard Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Kristol, etc. C'est la version moderne du vieux mythe qui veut que ce soient les Juifs qui gouvernent les USA.

Récemment, le rédacteur en chef de Die Zeit, Josef Joffe, a mis le doigt sur le fond du problème : comme les Juifs, les Américains seraient égoïstes et arrogants. Comme les Juifs, ils seraient prisonniers du fondamentalisme religieux qui leur donne la conviction d'être dans leur droit et les rend dangereux. Comme les Juifs, les Américains seraient des capitalistes avides pour lesquels l'argent est la valeur première. "Les USA et Israël ont été fondés par des exclus, tout comme les Juifs l'ont été de tout temps", explique-t-il.

Les liens entre l'antisémitisme, l'anti-sionisme et l'antiaméricanisme sont indéniables. A moins que les dirigeants européens condamnent sans ambiguïté cette triple alliance sinistre, elle va empoisonner la politique au Moyen-Orient et les relations transatlantiques.

Per Ahlmark est ancien vice-Premier ministre de Suède.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 1:18 AM

Los neoislamistas tratan de volver a llevar a la sociedad a la edad media.
Hay que decir que son consecuentes y radicales en su negación de la modernidad, que consideran atea e impía. Por ejemplo, reivindican -nada menos-
volver a legalizar la esclavitud

Texto tomado del sitio web del Islam de México


Niños esclavos rescatados por una ONG son devueltos a su pueblo por el intermediario árabe

"...De la misma manera, la esclavitud debe ser comprendida bajo el punto de vista islámico. La esclavitud es parte constante e ineludible de la situación humana. El Islam jamás la ha abolido; tal decreto de abolición no aparece en parte alguna. Lo cierto es que la esclavitud forma parte importante de la Ley Islámica (una cuarta parte del al-Muwatta habla de sus estrictas reglas). La Ley Islámica sitúa al esclavo bajo la custodia doméstica y le asegura ropa y alimentos, en igualdad con el dueño de la casa. Y algo aún más importante: el Islam no considera la esclavitud una desgracia. El esclavo puede obtener su libertad por matrimonio o por medios económicos. Por su esencia, el esclavo trasciende los grados desde la base de la sociedad a los puestos más elevados. Toda la élite de gobierno del estado Osmani fueron esclavos. Desde la esposa de Suleimán el Magnífico a la madre del sultán Abdalhamid, las poderosas, políticamente hablando, esposas de los sultanes habían sido esclavas.

No podemos ignorar que la esclavitud, al ser un hecho inevitable, cuando se esquiva no hace más que metamorfosearse bajo un nombre diferente careciendo por completo de cualquier protección legal. Su alternativa no es la “libertad” del mismo modo que en la situación post-dhimmi tampoco lo es la “igualdad”. El esclavo moderno es, por supuesto, el llamado refugiado político. El refugiado está condenado a la degradación social y al estatus que ofrecen los campos de concentración: impotentes y permanentes ciudadanos de ninguna parte sin patria ni estado. Vietnamitas de Hong Kong, hutus, ruandeses, afganos, tibetanos, palestinos y las masacradas víctimas de Sabra y Shatila. Todos ellos son parte de la esclavitud institucionalizada, vigilada y no liberada por la Comisión de Refugiados de la ONU.

La siguiente vez que alguien os diga que esta gente practica una religión como las demás...

Cartoon enviado por L.Cifuentes de C.Juarez

VISITA EL PORTAL CONTRA LA ESCLAVITUD

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 3:02 PM

The Al Qaeda Manual - Index (On the Disaster Center)

Sometimes, people don't know what they talk about. For instance, how many of the people out there pontifying about al Qaeda know that the first sentence of their operative manual contains a reference to Socrate, Plato and Aristotle?

And yet, who can win a war without knowing the enemy?

I invite you to read this manual, think and decide, first, if we are at war or not. Then you can make an educated choice, whether you want to fight the war, or remain neutral or join the enemy…

So thus begins the Al Qaeda Manual:

The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates..., Platonic ideals..., nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun.

Islamic governments have never and will never be established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils.

They are established as they [always]have been

by pen and gun
by word and bullet
by tongue and teeth

Pledge, O Sister To the sister believer whose clothes the criminals have stripped off . To the sister believer whose hair the oppressors have shaved. To the sister believer who's body has been abused by the human dogs. To the sister believer whose...

Pledge, O Sister
Covenant, O Sister ...to make their women widows and their children orphans.
Covenant, O Sister ...to make them desire death and hate appointments and prestige.
Covenant, O Sister...to slaughter them like lambs and let the Nile,al-Asi,and Euphrates rivers flow with their blood.
Covenant, O Sister...to be a pick of destruction for every godless and apostate regime.
Covenant, O Sister...to retaliate for you against every dog who touch you even with a bad word.

In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate Thanks be to Allah. We thank him, turn to him, ask his forgiveness, and seek refuge in him from our wicked souls and bad deeds. Whomever Allah enlightens will not be misguided, and the deceiver will never be guided. I declare that there is no god but Allah alone; he has no partners. I also declare that Mohammed is his servant and prophet.

Go to The Al Qaeda Manual - Index (On the Disaster Center)

Another link (On Al Qaeda Watch)

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 12:50 PM

Thanks to Michael Moore and his 100 M US$ in ticket sales, it has become fashionable to portray the Bush administration as a threat to America and the world, filled with bullying religiosity, brash militarism and bizarre views on everything, from gay marriage to parking tickets. Just a bunch of Jewish neo-cons vying to trick us all into letting them to dominate the world.

I think the whole fad (movies, a litany of books, cartoons and after-hours talk shows) starts to smack of overkill.

I mean, their bidding to make that man look repellent is so hysterical, the rhetoric is so overwrought –often crudely indulging in the techniques of subliminal advertising, like Moore but with less art- that Bush’s image starts to emerge revamped, more sympathetic by the day.

In the next election, I personally tend to favor Kerry. My choice doesn’t mean that I think that Bush has been a bad president, let alone the unsavory character concocted by people like Ted Rall. I just have the hunch that, in the actual situation, with this war to be fought, Kerry may be a better president; I do feel that George W. Bush really needs a rest. But now all this hateful, unrelenting Bush bashing is sort of chafing my rationale for voting Kerry into office. Seeing the greed and the hysteria of many of those Bush bashers, I feel so bone-tired that the temptation to support him surges almost naturally from the bottom of my aesthetical little me… Long live the under dog! And then suddenly I start feeling that Bonanza was a dam’ good TV show.

Overkill and perception conveyance. Man, do we live in a nasty world!

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 11:01 AM

A classic article on the roots of jihadism
Un artículo ya clásico y fundamental sobre las raíces del jihadismo
Un article devenu classique et fondamental pour comprendre le jihadisme
by Waller R. Newell



MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about Osama bin Laden's Islamic fundamentalism; less about the contribution of European Marxist postmodernism to bin Laden's thinking. In fact, the ideology by which al Qaeda justifies its acts of terror owes as much to baleful trends in Western thought as it does to a perversion of Muslim beliefs. Osama's doctrine of terror is partly a Western export.

To see this, it is necessary to revisit the intellectual brew that produced the ideology of Third World socialism in the 1960s. A key figure here is the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), who not only helped shape several generations of European leftists and founded postmodernism, but also was a leading supporter of the Nazis. Heidegger argued for the primacy of "peoples" in contrast with the alienating individualism of "modernity." In order to escape the yoke of Western capitalism and the "idle chatter" of constitutional democracy, the "people" would have to return to its primordial destiny through an act of violent revolutionary "resolve."

Heidegger saw in the Nazis just this return to the blood-and-soil heritage of the authentic German people. Paradoxically, the Nazis embraced technology at its most advanced to shatter the iron cage of modernity and bring back the purity of the distant past. And they embraced terror and violence to push beyond the modern present--hence the term "postmodern"--and vault the people back before modernity, with its individual liberties and market economy, to the imagined collective austerity of the feudal age.

This vision of the postmodernist revolution went straight from Heidegger into the French postwar Left, especially the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, eager apologist for Stalinism and the Cultural Revolution in China. Sartre's prot g , the Algerian writer Frantz Fanon, crystallized the Third World variant of postmodernist revolution in "The Wretched of the Earth" (1961). From there, it entered the world of Middle Eastern radicals. Many of the leaders of the Shiite revolution in Iran that deposed the modernizing shah and brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power in 1979 had studied Fanon's brand of Marxism. Ali Shari'at, the Sorbonne-educated Iranian sociologist of religion considered by many the intellectual father of the Shiite revolution, translated "The Wretched of the Earth" and Sartre's "Being and Nothingness into Persian." The Iranian revolution was a synthesis of Islamic fundamentalism and European Third World socialism.

In the postmodernist leftism of these revolutionaries, the "people" supplanted Marx's proletariat as the agent of revolution. Following Heidegger and Fanon, leaders like Lin Piao, ideologist of the Red Guards in China, and Pol Pot, student of leftist philosophy in France before becoming a founder of the Khmer Rouge, justified revolution as a therapeutic act by which non-Western peoples would regain the dignity they had lost to colonial oppressors and to American-style materialism, selfishness, and immorality. A purifying violence would purge the people of egoism and hedonism and draw them back into a primitive collective of self-sacrifice.


MANY ELEMENTS in the ideology of al Qaeda--set forth most clearly in Osama bin Laden's 1996 "Declaration of War Against America"--derive from this same mix. Indeed, in Arab intellectual circles today, bin Laden is already being likened to an earlier icon of Third World revolution who renounced a life of privilege to head for the mountains and fight the American oppressor, Che Guevara. According to Cairo journalist Issandr Elamsani, Arab leftist intellectuals still see the world very much in 1960s terms. "They are all ex-Sorbonne, old Marxists," he says, "who look at everything through a postcolonial prism."

Just as Heidegger wanted the German people to return to a foggy, medieval, blood-and-soil collectivism purged of the corruptions of modernity, and just as Pol Pot wanted Cambodia to return to the Year Zero, so does Osama dream of returning his world to the imagined purity of seventh-century Islam. And just as Fanon argued that revolution can never accomplish its goals through negotiation or peaceful reform, so does Osama regard terror as good in itself, a therapeutic act, quite apart from any concrete aim. The willingness to kill is proof of one's purity.

According to journalist Robert Worth, writing in the New York Times on the intellectual roots of Islamic terror, bin Laden is poorly educated in Islamic theology. A wealthy playboy in his youth, he fell under the influence of radical Arab intellectuals of the 1960s who blended calls for Marxist revolution with calls for a pure Islamic state.

Many of these men were imprisoned and executed for their attacks on Arab regimes; Sayyid Qutb, for example, a major figure in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, was executed in Egypt in 1965. But their ideas lived on. Qutb's intellectual progeny included Fathi Yakan, who likened the coming Islamic revolution to the French and Russian revolutions, Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian activist killed in a car bombing in 1989, and Safar Al-Hawali, a Saudi fundamentalist frequently jailed by the Saudi government. As such men dreamed of a pure Islamic state, European revolutionary ideology was seldom far from their minds. Wrote Fathi Yakan, "The groundwork for the French Revolution was laid by Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu; the Communist Revolution realized plans set by Marx, Engels and Lenin....The same holds true for us as well."

The influence of Qutb's "Signposts on the Road" [also known as "Milestones"](1964) is clearly traceable in pronouncements by Islamic Jihad, the group that would justify its assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981 as a step toward ending American domination of Egypt and ushering in a pure Islamic order. In the 1990s, Islamic Jihad would merge with al Qaeda, and Osama's "Declaration of War Against America" in turn would show an obvious debt to the Islamic Jihad manifesto "The Neglected Duty."

It can be argued, then, that the birthplace of Osama's brand of terrorism was Paris 1968, when, amid the student riots and radical teach-ins, the influence of Sartre, Fanon, and the new postmodernist Marxist champions of the "people's destiny" was at its peak. By the mid '70s, according to Claire Sterling's "The Terror Network," "practically every terrorist and guerrilla force to speak of was represented in Paris. . . . The Palestinians especially were there in force." This was the heyday of Yasser Arafat's terrorist organization Al Fatah, whose 1968 tract "The Revolution and Violence" has been called "a selective precis of 'The Wretched of the Earth.'"

While Al Fatah occasionally still used the old-fashioned Leninist language of class struggle, the increasingly radical groups that succeeded it perfected the melding of Islamism and Third World socialism. Their tracts blended Heidegger and Fanon with calls to revive a strict Islamic social order. "We declare," says the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah in its "Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World" (1985), "that we are a nation that fears only God" and will not accept "humiliation from America and its allies and the Zionist entity that has usurped the sacred Islamic land." The aim of violent struggle is "giving all our people the opportunity to determine their fate." But that fate must follow the prescribed course: "We do not hide our commitment to the rule of Islam, . . . which alone guarantees justice and dignity for all and prevents any new imperialist attempt to infiltrate our country. . . . This Islamic resistance must . . . with God's help receive from all Muslims in all parts of the world utter support."

These 1980s calls to revolution could have been uttered last week by Osama bin Laden. Indeed, the chief doctrinal difference between the radicals of several decades ago and Osama only confirms the influence of postmodernist socialism on the latter: Whereas Qutb and other early Islamists looked mainly inward, concentrating on revolution in Muslim countries, Osama directs his struggle primarily outward, against American hegemony. While for the early revolutionaries, toppling their own tainted regimes was the principal path to the purified Islamic state, for Osama, the chief goal is bringing America to its knees.


THE RELATIONSHIP between postmodernist European leftism and Islamic radicalism is a two-way street: Not only have Islamists drawn on the legacy of the European Left, but European Marxists have taken heart from Islamic terrorists who seemed close to achieving the longed-for revolution against American hegemony. Consider Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, two leading avatars of postmodernism. Foucault was sent by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera to observe the Iranian revolution and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Like Sartre, who had rhapsodized over the Algerian revolution, Foucault was enthralled, pronouncing Khomeini "a kind of mystic saint." The Frenchman welcomed "Islamic government" as a new form of "political spirituality" that could inspire Western radicals to combat capitalist hegemony.

Heavily influenced by Heidegger and Sartre, Foucault was typical of postmodernist socialists in having neither concrete political aims nor the slightest interest in tangible economic grievances as motives for revolution. To him, the appeal of revolution was aesthetic and voyeuristic: "a violence, an intensity, an utterly remarkable passion." For Foucault as for Fanon, Hezbollah, and the rest down to Osama, the purpose of violence is not to relieve poverty or adjust borders. Violence is an end in itself. Foucault exalts it as "the craving, the taste, the capacity, the possibility of an absolute sacrifice." In this, he is at one with Osama's followers, who claim to love death while the Americans "love Coca-Cola."

Derrida, meanwhile, reacted to the collapse of the Soviet Union by calling for a "new international." Whereas the old international was made up of the economically oppressed, the new one would be a grab bag of the culturally alienated, "the dispossessed and the marginalized": students, feminists, environmentalists, gays, aboriginals, all uniting to combat American-led globalization. Islamic fundamentalists were obvious candidates for inclusion.

And so it is that in the latest leftist potboiler, "Empire," Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri depict the American-dominated global order as today's version of the bourgeoisie. Rising up against it is Derrida's "new international." Hardt and Negri identify Islamist terrorism as a spearhead of "the postmodern revolution" against "the new imperial order." Why? Because of "its refusal of modernity as a weapon of Euro-American hegemony."

"Empire" is currently flavor of the month among American postmodernists. It is almost eerily appropriate that the book should be the joint production of an actual terrorist, currently in jail, and a professor of literature at Duke, the university that led postmodernism's conquest of American academia. In professorial hands, postmodernism is reduced to a parlor game in which we "deconstruct" great works of the past and impose our own meaning on them without regard for the authors' intentions or the truth or falsity of our interpretations. This has damaged liberal education in America. Still, it doesn't kill people--unlike the deadly postmodernism out there in the world. Heirs to Heidegger and his leftist devotees, the terrorists don't limit themselves to deconstructing texts. They want to deconstruct the West, through acts like those we witnessed on September 11.

What the terrorists have in common with our armchair nihilists is a belief in the primacy of the radical will, unrestrained by traditional moral teachings such as the requirements of prudence, fairness, and reason. The terrorists seek to put this belief into action, shattering tradition through acts of violent revolutionary resolve. That is how al Qaeda can ignore mainstream Islam, which prohibits the deliberate killing of noncombatants, and slaughter innocents in the name of creating a new world, the latest in a long line of grimly punitive collectivist utopias.

---

Waller R. Newell is professor of political science and philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 8:48 AM

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Hungarian director Istvan Szabo has criticized documentaries by American filmmakers, saying movies such as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" were fictions "with elements from the real life."
"I don't believe in documentary," Szabo, jury president for the Copenhagen International Film Festival, told reporters. The festival, which opened Thursday, will run through Aug. 29.

Szabo said Moore's documentary about President Bush, the terror attacks and the Iraq war, and the movie in which Spurlock goes on a McDonald's-only eating binge for 30 days to dramatize America's growing obesity problem, "are fictions with elements from the real life."

He got up from his chair and gesticulated to show that a director can choose whatever angle he wants to show "a little bit of reality only."

"The question is always who is paying the guy behind the camera," he said.

The Hungarian filmmaker, whose latest film is "Being Julia," starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons, said he prefers fiction because actors play roles and sets and dresses are specially created.

"The fiction genre is honest because everyone knows from the beginning that it is a lie," he said.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 2:53 AM

To say that radical Palestinians have little luck with their leaders would be plain understatement. Arafat and his cronies belong into the Guinness Book of Records of callousness, corruption, graft and hypocrisy. Now it's been Marwan Barghouti, the jailed leader of the Tazin militia and one of the possible succesors to 75 year-old Arafat.

	To deviate attention from the popular uprising against Arafat and the snowballing Cementgate, the Palestinian Authority leadership had ordered that all Palestinian prisoners go on hunger strike. It began on Sunday and 2,100 are said to participate inside and outside the jails, since civilian leaders
Marwan Barghouti, the boss

and the population are invited to fast in solidarity.
So far so good. But Wednesday the Israel Prisons Service distributed pictures of Marwan Barghouti caught on camera eating lunch and eagerly cleaning the dish. He had previously covered the window of his cell before he began eating, to avoid being seen from the outside. But the evil Israelis had a micro-camera, not bigger than an American dime, hidden in the cell. His lawyer said first that it was old footage. Now he protests against the blatant invasion of privacy and says that Zionists are imitating the Iraqi prisons infamous procedures.

Members of the Tanzim at a demonstration in Gaza

Bon appetit, Marwan...

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 11:59 AM

Como periodista he tenido muy pocas oportunidades de escribir editoriales. Luego, los medios para los que me ha tocado trabajar eran casi siempre del tipo que no aprecian que los escribidores den rienda suelta a sus emociones. Pero bueno, la revolución del blogging me permite liberarme y decir lo que me parece al mundo. Lo que me parece Arafat, esa sabandija sin entrañas que ha vendido el cemento para construir el muro de la separación de Sharon mientras lo denunciaba como crímen contra la humanidad. Yo ya sabía que ese individuo era una basura, pero esta vez, ya en la etapa final, ha logrado superar todas sus maldades desde el primer asesinato.

En diciembre de 1983, cuando Arafat abandonó Tripolí en el Líbano rumbo al exilio en Túnez, yo llevaba ya cubriendo la zona bastante tiempo. Con algún paréntesis centroamericano, estaba en ello desde la revolución iraní que derrocó al Sha en 1979. Había vivido el terror islámico en Teherán, con las ejecuciones en los columpios escolares y las farolas, los prolegómenos del conflicto Irán-Iraq, la invasión del Líbano por los israelíes, el cerco de Beirut, las matanzas de sabra y Shatilah por la falange cristiana... Había visto mucha corrupción, hipocresía y traición, casi siempre por parte de los líderes árabes -bueno, musulmanes sería más correcto- de todos los colores y particularmente de los que habían hecho una profesión de vampirizar a los palestinos y medrar a costa de sus desgracias; también en Irán (y eso que estaban en plena euforia revolucionaria), en Iraq, En Siria...

Había visto ya mucho, pero sentí un sobresalto en el estómago, un ánsia física de vómito, cuando ví a aquél individuo con su cara de sapo y su kefiyh cuidadosamente dispuesto, hacer el saludo de la victoria en las horas previas a embarcarse rumbo a Túnez con sus sicarios, bajo bandera de la ONU, escoltado -gran ironía y no precisamente poética- por barcos de guerra franceses. Atrás dejaba miles de muertos, un Líbano exángue, un pueblo, su puebblo, sin sitio a donde ir, exprimido por sus líderes y abandonado a su suerte.

Desde entonces, sólo he visto a ese asesino y dictador de (literalmente) mala muerte entregarse con fruicción al arte de manipular al prójimo y mandar a los más manipulados a morir y matar por él. Como me dijo una vez un médico palestino en Beirut: "Si Arafat hubiera sido alemán, hubiera sido Hitler; si hubiera sido ruso, Stalin; si hubiera sido americano, hubiera sido Al Capone".

Pero es que esta vez ha sobrepasado todos los bornes y, por fin, le ha pillado su propia gente. El día 17, Al-Jazeera ha publicado la sentencia de muerte política de ese indeseable. El resumen es simple:

Hace un año, Egipto se ofreció a vender cemento a la Autoridad Palestina a un precio simbólico de 12 a 15 US$/tonelada para apoyar la economía palestina y reparar las viviendas y edificios públicos destruidos por las incursiones de los bulldozers israelíes. Bello ejemplo de solidaridad entre hermanos árabes...

Pero el cemento no fue utilizado para noble fin. Unas empresas de paja de prohombres palestinos próximos al dictador, en lugar de llevar el cemento a la desolada zona de Gaza, lo llevaron a la ciudad israelí de Ashkelon. El hombre de paja principal de la operación, Jamal Tarifi, obtuvo unos beneficios de unos 9 millones de US$ revendiendo el cemento a los contratistas israelíes contratados para construir el muro de separación a 100 US$/tonelada. Jamal Tarifi es hermano del ministro de Asuntos Civiles de la Autoridad Palestina e íntimo de Arafat, Jamil Tarifi. Arafat fue informado de la brillante operación comercial mediante un memorandum fechado el 11 de septiembre de 2003.

A la historia pertenece que la motivación para que los israelíes construyeran su muro fue proporcionada por la oleada de atentados suicidas contra la población inspirados, propiciados y organizados por el raïs Arafat. Y que los sicarios de Arafat han asesinado a varios palestinos por haber intentado mantener a sus familiar trabajando en las obras del muro.

Pero ahora llega otro escándalo. Desde que se cerró el acuerdo entre Arafat y los intermediarios para la venta del cemento a Israel, los atentados suicidas han cesado casi por completo. ¿Será que ya no son necesarios?

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 12:13 PM

No matter what, I love the Chinese. I like their reflective art of living and their almost allergic repugnance to oxymoron when reasoning.

So, here you have a Chinese view on terrorism and terrorists that, someway, somehow, illustrates China’s peculiar dilemma in the NetWar. Now, go ahead, think Chinese and wonder: what is China’s dilemma? This one is particularly useful to Europeans who have had their perception, well, managed… Now, read this pearl of the official Xinhua agency and let your imagination fly into the near future. Did you know that there were 22 Chinese citizens locked up in Guantanamo? Come on, did you know it?


When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

www.chinaview.cn 2004-08-19 09:01:57



BEIJING, Aug. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- The US decision not to return the detained Chinese "East Turkistan" terrorists to China has sent out a wrong signal. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week the US has decided not to hand back the 22 Chinese Uygur terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He said the US will find a new destination for them.

Powell acknowledged that finding "new places" was not a simple matter.

Maybe the US secretary of state knew deep down that to relocate these Chinese suspects elsewhere beyond China is legally and morally ungrounded.

Undoubtedly, it is China, not other countries, that should bring to justice the Chinese "East Turkistan" forces, which made up part of the pervasive international terrorist network.

The "East Turkistan" forces are listed as terrorist by the UN Security Council and the United States. They have plotted more than 260 attacks inside Northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, killing 162 and wounding 440 to date.

Moreover, a mountain of evidences suggest the group has close links with al-Qaida, Taliban remnants, Chechen terrorist groups and other international terrorist cliques.

According to China's counter-terrorism agency, from February 2001 to September 2002, the president of the East Turkistan Information Centre (ETIC), Abudujelili Kalakash, trained its members in Xinjiang for terrorist activities.

In March 2003, Kalakash directed a field survey along the railway between Lanzhou in Gansu Province and Hami in Xinjiang in preparation for blowing up the line - one of many planned attacks.

The United States has been seriously concerned and remains on high alert, fearing terrorist activities against US targets both on home soil and abroad.

The US President George W. Bush once warned the world that they were either on the side of the United States or on the side of terrorists, following the attacks on September 11, 2001.

But when deciding not to send Chinese terrorists back to China, which side does the United States choose to be on?

Showing leniency to terrorists surely means non-leniency to innocents.

Undoubtedly, the US decision serves as a short-sighted move that will benefit none but the terrorists.

Possibly, Washington has a different classification on those who prefer to act secretly as they threaten the world with terror and fear. Is it, then, only those threatening US interests who are considered as real terrorists?

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 3:51 AM

La guerre entre le terrorisme jihadiste et les démocraties ne fait que commencer. Ou plutôt, disons qu’elle se trouve encore à sa toute première phase. Les attentats de septembre 2001 contre le World Trade Center à New York et le Pentagone à Washington ont marqué un climax mondial et aussi, de la part des élites du monde démocratique, le début du processus d’acceptation du fait d’être en guerre. Mais quelle drôle de guerre ! Non seulement ne sommes-nous pas tout à fait surs de qui est l’ennemi mais, encore plus surprenant, il se trouve encore un nombre considérable d’hommes politiques, de journalistes et de membres de la société civile qui nient, par moments farouchement, que nous soyons en guerre du tout.

Or, oui, la déclaration de guerre eut bien lieu, tout officiellement, en 1998, lorsque un certain Osama bin Laden annonça, dans un arabe fleuri, « Depuis plus de sept ans, les Etats-Unis occupent les terres de l’Islam, sur le plus sacré de nos territoires, l’Arabie, pillant ses richesses, accablant ses dirigeants, humiliant son peuple, menaçant ses voisins, et utilisant ses bases, dans la péninsule, comme fer de lance pour lutter contre les peuples islamiques voisins. » En vertu de quoi, « tuer des américains et leurs alliés, tant civils que militaires, est une obligation individuelle pour tout musulman qui le peut, dans tout pays où c’est possible, jusqu’à ce que la mosquée Aqsa et la mosquée Haram soient délivrées de leur étreinte, et jusqu’à ce que leurs armées, fracassées et les ailes brisées, quittent les pays d’Islam, et soient incapables de menacer un musulman. »

Ah, mais c’est seulement aux américains qu’il en veut ! diront des âmes bien pensantes. Non, pas seulement. Il proclame aussi le droit et le devoir des musulmans de tuer les alliés des américains. Et, en bon stratège, il se réserve le droit de définir quel type de lien avec les américains peut être considéré une alliance, même si l’allié en question n’en est pas conscient. Au fait, la déclaration est signée par un Front islamique mondial pour le Jihad contre les Juifs et les Croisés. C’était voilà six ans… Qui est un juif pour ce monsieur? Qui un croisé?

Un premier exemple d’asymétrie.

Des individus cagoulés et armés jusqu’aux dents tiennent un pauvre homme effaré devant un caméra. L’un d’eux lui aboie de dire son nom et de bien tenir son passeport devant la poitrine.

Le prisonnier dit : « Je m’appelle Untel et suis citoyen de tel pays ».

L’un des cagoulés sort un énorme couteau et coupe la tête d’Untel pendant que des cris en off proclament la grandeur de Dieu.

Le journal Le Monde titre l’information : « Un citoyen de tel pays exécuté par la résistance iraquienne »
En tout il s’agit de vingt lignes terses et lointaines.

Peut-être manquent-ils d’espace parce, à côté ils ont un article à trois colonnes où des juristes (par exemple) parisiens s’indignent, ô combien ! à propos des conditions de détention dégradantes infligés aux prisonniers de Guantanamo.

Et moi, pendant un dîner très agréable, je demande à une amie juriste (parisienne) si elle pense que l’homicide dont a été victime Untel peut être appelé « exécution ». Elle me répond que, sans doute, oui, « puisqu’il a lieu par la décision d’une organisation ». Je rétorque que, si cela est vrai, lorsqu’une personne se fait tuer par la Mafia en Sicile, cela mériterait aussi l’appellatif d’exécution…. Silence, gorgée de vin, regard incomode, parlons de Michael Moore. En aucun cas serait-ce un assassinat.

Bon, je crois qu'ici, dans ce lien, il y a un cas très à propos...


[à suivre]

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 7:33 PM

Click For Michael Moore



So, you just wonder WHY Fahrenheit 9/11 had such a strong impact on you?


I'll try to tell you very soon...

Learn about Michael Moore's illustrious predecessors: Einsenstein, Leni Rifensthal, Roman Karmen!

Take a trip to the secrets of Transfer, Calling Names, Glittering Generalities, Card-Decking and other fascinating tools of the kraft of raping other people's minds.

Discover the subtilities of brain washing! Try it with your friends and foes!


Coming Soon To This Blog!!!

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¿Te preguntas POR QUÉ Fahrenheit 9/11 te ha impactado tanto?


Intentaré contartelo muy pronto...

¡Entérate de los ilustres predecesores de Michael Moore's: Einsenstein, Leni Rifensthal, Roman Karmen!

¡Participa en un apasionante viaje a los secretos de la Transferencia, Calling Names, Glittering Generalities,Mazo de Cartas y otras fascinantes herramientas del arte de violar la mente del prójimo!

¡Descubre las sutilezas del lavado de cerebro! ¡Pruébalo con tus amigos y enemigos!


¡¡¡ MUY PRONTO EN ESTE BLOG !!!

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Let's start with a definition:

Perception management is a term invented by the U. S. military. This is the U. S. Department of Defense (DOD) definition:

perception management-- Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator’s objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.

Note that it takes a military writer to limit the concept to actions exclusively reserved to “foreign audiences”. In our global times one can have some difficulty to clearly define what is “foreign”; not so audiences, which are more real than ever.

Perception management, as defined by the DOD would appear to include propaganda ("a specific type of message presentation, aimed at serving an agenda") as well as other activities. It is clear from the definition that unlike Public diplomacy, perception management is specifically intended to include the use of deception; that is, perception management is not supposed to be limited to the dissemination of truthful information.

As of 2004, the phrase "perception management" is filtering into civilian use as a trendy synonym for "persuasion." Public relations firms now offer "perception management" as one of their services. Similarly, officials who are being accused of shading the truth are now frequently charged with engaging in "perception management."

Now, what about dear Michael Moore?

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 12:34 AM

The buzz-word is loose-knit and then a few semantic horrors like organizational, empowerment to embellish the countless pages written about this war. Yet, can we win a war when one has first of all prove that it does exist? A sizable share of our enlightened elites will even deny its existence. Who are we, after all? The West? The USA+Europe+Japan three-legged organizers? Or the ones who can eat to their hearts’ content? Or the ones who can afford to vote, say, write, read and watch what they please?
And, above all, who is the enemy?
Well, the current conflict started one day six years ago when a repentant sinner called Osama declared war upon Christians and Jews. So, I was a Christian, after all; to the astonishment of my neighborhood’s priest, I am a Christian. That's why that bearded zealot declared war on me: surrender or die. And he says that they (he and his buddies) will prevail over us (Christians and Jews and don't forget the Idolatrous) because we love life and they love death. And they are sort of winning, I’m afraid. And a sizable portion of people among us want them (i.e. Osama and his buddies) to win; or perhaps I’d better say they want our side to lose. So, its us and them, our side, their side. Again.

And dear old Spain now has a prime minister that I’m not sure if he’s Chamberlein or Petain or Quisling or perhaps, after all, a nightmarish ghoulish postmodern version of Baron Samedi with a marketing degree. And France got a president that just pretends he doesn’t see, because he needs to keep the job in order nor to be convicted of misuse of public funds... Where are you, Tocqueville? And Arafat's cronies sell 400,000 tones of cement to Sharon to build that wall of his. And somewhere in the distance a doctor tells mothers in Nigeria no to vaccinate their children against polio because the vaccine contains a poison that makes Muslim little girls infertile. An American conspiracy, you know. Anyway, better crippled for life than saved by the unbeliever's science.

Welcome to the end of History, mind you, go and get yourself a gun, if you happen to know how the weapon to win this one looks like, and meet me in the info-sphere. John Arquilla is already there (mixing up the medicine, Dylan'd say) and Qiao-Liang is sharpening his pencil.

In any event, here you have the link to Arquillas The Advent of Netwar

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 4:16 PM

Como soy de orígen español, amo a España y tengo debilidad por los españoles.

Es cierto que tantos años fuera de aquél querido país, la influencia de las culturas anglosajona, escandinava y francesa y el consumo inmoderado de Kentucky Fried Chicken me han convertido en un perfecto híbrido global pero, bueno, las raíces son las raíces y sigo todo lo que pasa en España lo más de cerca posible.

Hasta los atentados del 11 de marzo de este año, España estaba gobernada por el proamericano José María Aznar, un arquetipo de hidalgo de Castilla la Vieja con bastante más fe que tolerancia. Pero tras el mayor atentado en muchos años en Europa, que costó la vida en Madrid a 200 personas tres días antes de las elecciones, los terroristas de al Qaeda consiguieron su objetivo de que el sr. Aznar perdiera la votación, y fuera substituido por un socialista, José Rodríguez-Zapatero, que había prometido retirar el millar y medio de soldados españoles presentes en Iraq en la coalición amorosamente tejida por el presidente george W. Bush.

Zapatero, de buen aspecto físico y un instinto certero para el marketing, ha encauzado su gobierno hacia la hiper-corrección política y el antiamericanismo militante. Así, el actual gobierno español está compuesto por 50% de mujeres y 50% de hombres. Es posible incluso que las identidades sexuales de los españoles estén también convenientemente representadas entre los ministros españoles y puede que, vista la ejecutoria hasta ahora, también la escala de coeficientes intelectuales de la población. En lo que seguro que hay unanimidad es en declararse furiosamente contrarios al imperialismo unilateralista americano -flagelo de los pueblos, ya se sabe- y muy particularmente de George W. Bush, que es un cowboy ignorante como todos sabemos. Así, si ahora mismo España es probablemente el país más antiamericano de Europa, su gobierno lo es con toda seguridad. Y la prensa está más o menos en la onda del gobierno...

Miren, no es cierto que la prensa de Madrid sea a priori peor que el periódico local de Topeka, Ks. De hecho, haber padececido los ardores patrióticos de Kox es una forma de graduarse en materia de exaltación ridícula, por lo que los noticiarios de las cadenas españolas no deberían llamar la atención. Pues bien, cuando se trata de cubrir noticias americanas, particularmente las referentes al Querido Tejano de la Casa Blanca o sus cómplices, los medios de prensa españoles entran en una especie de delirio totalmente único, incluso en el contexto la prensa europea. Eso lo pudo comprobar hace unas semanas nuestro inimitable Donald Rumsfeld.

Estaba el admirado Rumsfeld en Singapoore, defendiendo la civilización occidental un rato, cuando se le ocurrió dar una conferencia de prensa (créanlo o no, es muy bueno en esa actividad) en un barco de la marina americana, cuadro bastante adecuado para los tiempos que vivimos. Allí, entre otras maravillas de su pensamiento, expresó que quizá el malvado Osama Bin Laden trataría de lograr un atentado en tierra americana antes de la elección presidencial de Noviembre. Movido por su comprobado anhelo didáctico, dijo que podríamos temernos una salvajada como la del atentado en marzo contra los trenes en Madrid o la masacre de la dicoteca en Bali.

Nada nuevo bajo el sol. El único que era nuevo era el enviado especial de la agencia de noticias española EFE (*) asistente a la conferencia, que consiguió poner poner su pabellón en la cima del Everest del Dubious Journalistic Achievement.

El caso es que ese peculiar genio del periodismo mandó a Madrid una crónica en la que citaba al querido Rumsfeld diciendo que iba a haber atentados de al-Quaeda en España y Bali antes de las elecciones americanas. Auténtico. Se lo juro por San Pulitzer.

Los más bondadosos dicen que un periodista-funcionario(*), español, norcoreano o laotiano, enviado a una conferencia de prensa del secretario de defensa del imperialismo no tiene por qué saber inglés y menos el inglés del sr. Rumsfeld. A fin de cuentas, las leyes de Murphy son de aplicación obligada en los medios de comunicación estatales, parte de su identidad. Los fascistoides lacayos del imperialismo asegurarán que el periodista de la agencia EFE estaba haciendo méritos para ascender y que era sólo el exponente de la calidad del gobierno que le paga. Los ecuánimes comentaristas como yo decimos que la verdad puede estar en algún punto intermedio.

Pero lo mejor viene ahora...

La señora Doña María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, vicepresidenta del gobierno español, dama enérgica, especie de Sra. Thatcher izquierdista, en cuanto leyó la crónica del periodista-funcionario no dudó- No necesitó llamar a ningún embajador, cónsul o lo que España tenga en Singapoore. Tampoco le pareció conveniente ver qué decían AP, Reuters y los demás sicarios mediáticos del capitalismo anglosajón. Rápidamente llamó al periodista-funcionario de servicio y dijo:

"El señor Rumsfeld, secretario de defensa de los Estados Unidos es un irresponsable. ¡Mira que decir que va a haber atentados de al-Quaeda en España este verano!"

De inmediato los periodistas-funcionarios empezaron a sacar artículos diciendo que a lo mejor el pérfido e irresponsable Rumsfeld quería perjudicar la principal industria española, el turismo...

Y ahora viene la deliciosa historia personal. Actualmente vivo en Francia, lo que es una bendición en muchos sentidos, pero me expone a las llamadas de amigos y colegas americanos que necesitan citar a un experto en algo u obsevador, vagamente residente en la Unión Europea. Así que me llamó un amigo y viejo compinche de borracheras que trabaja para el pool de Knight R. en Washington y me dijo:

"J.A., tú naciste en España, ¿no? ¿sigues lo que sucede allí?"

"Sí, más o menos"

"Oye, hay una ministra española que cita unas declaraciones de Rumsfeld que no vienen en el record por ninguna parte. Y ha dicho que es un irresponsable."

Y me contó que la señora aquella había dicho que Runsfeld había dicho lo que nadie más decía que hubiera dicho.

Es verdad que mi opinión sobre la responsabilidad del sr. Rumsfeld ha conocido altibajos, pero decir que es un irresponsable, así, tan tajante... me resultaba un poco fuerte. Por lo cual le dije a mi amigo que lo dejara de mi cuenta, le expliqué que en Europa eran las 3 am (**) y que al día siguiente haría unas llamadas a Madrid, a ver qué había del asunto.

"J.A., te lo agradezco en el alma. Creo que hemos agarrado al DOD en una ocultación de información relevante."

Al día siguiente llamé a un par de amigos de Madrid y estos me expresaron su sorpresa (agradable) de que la señora ministra supiera quién era Donald Rumsfeld y me dijeron que no le diera demasiada importancia. Que era una dama bastante más temperamental que informada y que verían a ver de dónde salía el asunto. Dos horas después mi informante desde Madrid lloraba de risa contándome la historia del enviado especial de EFE y las declaraciones de la vicejefa del gobierno español.

Cuando llamé a mi amigo a Washington estaba excitadísmo.

"Los hemos agarrado, J.A., los tenemos. Rumsfeld ha escondido información al record, al pueblo americano, a nosotros y quizá al propio GWB. Rumsfeld lo niega todo y el Departamento de Estado ha puesto en marcha a George Argyros (embajador USA en Madrid), a ver si Powell se hace con su cabeza".

Le dije que calmara sus ímpetus. Le expliqué, como pude, lo que son y las peculiaridades de la agencia EFE, el Partido Socialista español y la señora en cuestión. Que finalmente aquello iba más allá de los (probablemente muchos) pecados del querido Donald.

Decepcionado, mi amigo me dijo que sin duda España era un país muy peculiar. Le contesté que era la patria de Salvador Dalí y Luis Buñuel.

La historia terminó con que la embajada USA en Madrid aclaró el asunto de que el enviado especial de EFE a la conferencia de Rumsfeld no conocía más allá de tres palabras en inglés (yes, number one, f***), dijo a la ministra que Rumsfeld no había dicho aquello, sino que había dicho lo otro, que era un caballero muy responsable y acompañaron sus decires con los cables del hilo en español de AP, Reuters y, por si acaso, AFP (Agence France Press). Con lo que todos contentos.

¿Todos? No. La señora ministra no creyó oportuno presentar sus excusas.

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(*) Es preciso decir que la agencia EFE es propiedad del estado español y sus empleados son funcionarios pagados con dinero de los contribuyentes. Por supuesto, nadie debe pensar que eso pueda tener la más mínima influencia en la independencia de su cobertura noticiosa, pero yo sería un pésimo reportero si no hiciera mención de ello.

(**) La gente que vive en Washington, quizá por complejo de Roma imperial, parece que nunca acaban de entender lo de los husos horarios.

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 8:16 PM

O.K, Florida's 27 electoral votes are worth (literally) millions for both candidates to the White House. And then, at least for Mr. Bush, they justify taking a little risk that might well get him quite a few votes by looking brave and, why, yes, presidential.

So, the most bashed president in decades flew aboard of the Marine One chopper over smashed homes , uprooted trees and all the usual signs of Mother Nature’s wrath…

And he flew low and look presidential he did. Up to now, hurricane Charley has killed 13 people in Florida… $5 billion to $11 billion of damages, thousands homeless. So, he’d better look as convincingly presidential as possible over there.

I mean, look, Bush landed in Fort Myers and then flew (low) north over areas hardest hit by the hurricane, which packed winds of 145 mph (about 230 kmph). And, talking in terms dear to perception managers, when you hear that on the 6 pm news, it sounds and even looks risky, the journey of a heroic, concerned and assertive statesman.

Mr. Bush’s visit carries political significance… and balm over old sores.

1992 hurricane Andrew claimed 26 lives and caused nearly $20 billion in property losses. That was during Bush senior’s watch, mind you and to say that Floridians weren’t impressed with his response would be a nice understatement and a gruesome euphemism. The first President Bush was acrimoniously criticized for moving too unhurriedly to deliver food, water, and troops. Although he vastly outspent Bill Clinton in the following campaing, he was forced to a bitter fight to defend what once had been considered home turf, winning by a very small margin.

Not this time. Even before Hurricane Charley struck, the second President Bush, was flashing promises of federal money and swift relief action. And then he came to fly low into the Floridian hearts and (perhaps) minds.

Florida. 27 electoral votes and John Kerry leading by seven points according to the latest survey. Florida where the election 2000 was decided by, how many? 537 votes.

Meanwhile, John Kerry had to watch from the sidelines, probably ruminating about what one can do in a campaign when one is the President of the USA and about the millions of precious campaign dollars spent on looking presidential in front of Floridians before hurricane Charley came around.

What’ll happen to that 7% lead is everybody’s guess. The democratic hopeful couldn’t do much about it. He had to make do with a call to his supporters to volunteer in disaster relief efforts…

[Added on 08/15]

Kerry said he wouldn't visit the area immediately because he didn't want to divert police from helping in the recovery. Poor guy. There was that Spanish King, Phillip the 2nd, who, on news of his Armada more than half destroyed by bad seas on its way to invade England, sentenced: "I send my ships to battle men, not the elements". Well...

# posted by Juan A. Hervada @ 7:46 PM