Macaque

One of my two senators, George Allen of Virginia, has just committed the unforgivable freudian slip that will sink his presidential aspirations.
Annoyed by a young man filming his speeches for his opponents'campaign, Allen called him a "macaca". This epithet was addressed to the young man with the video camera, who happened to be the only dark skinned, Indian American, in the room. "Welcome to Virginia, the real America" sneered Mr. Allen. That Mr. Siddarth was born in Dunn Loring, Northern Virginia adds to the comic of the situation.
The senator, a fluent French speaker, tried to explain his racist slur away by saying it referred to the young man's mohawk..
When are republican politicians going to stop taking their audiences for complete idiots? Perhaps the good senator should wake up and look at the "real" Virginia around him.

"Macaque", in French slang, is a derogatory word for dark skinned persons of non-European origin.
As French speaking senators go, give me John Kerry anytime.

Losers

Early this morning the cease fire decided at the UN has put an end to the 6th Arab Israeli war, the one month long war in Lebanon.
Who won?
Nobody.
Who are the Losers?

Israel.
By far the biggest losers, they have demonstrated that their ultra performing army was unable to win an asymetric war against religious fanatics bent on their anihilation and ready for martyrdom.
Double losers, since they lost the moral high ground with world public opinion, in causing a very visisble carnage among Lebanese civilians.
Finally losers, because Hezbollah is still in Lebanon, but Olmert will lose his job and Israel will be ruled by Bibi Netanyahu, who will prepare the country for the 7th war.
Note that no TV station showed us Hezbollah fighters hiding behind women and children.

Lebanon.
Second largest losers, in people and property. Victim of a Syria that has never swallowed the humiliation of being kicked out unceremoniously last year. Dismembered because 1/3 of the population and the parliament are actually hezbollah and proponent of medieval Islam.

The USA
The US have lost big. According to Seymour Hersh in the latest issue of the New Yorker (08/14/06), the neocons, under Eliot Abrams of Contras fame, had pushed Israel to probe Hezbollah resistance, as a dry run and a prelude to an attack on Syria and Iran.
By delaying the peace, supplying weapons to Israel, and with Condi Rice losing face during her hapless trip to the Middle east, the USA have gratuitously angered the arab street. Result: Their champion Israel is humiliated, and hezbollah lives to fight another war, all the while revealing the enormous equipment and technology supplied by Tehran.

Europe.
Since the French referendum on the defunct EU constitution, the EU is limp. Its presence in the Middle east is moot. France had to cave in at the UN and won't even have a Chapter 7 right to enforce its mandate.

The world.
Is the world safer because Nasrallah can claim victory today? Is the world ready to accept the armed dictatorship of religious fanatics, who have never been elected, and impose their obscurantist superstitions on the rest of the world?
The French Resistance in WWII never intended to spread their ideology to the rest of the world, nor destroy the infidels.
In Washington, the neocons have already drawn the only conclusion from this sorry exercise: our champion, Israel,has not been able to prevail over a fanatic group, well armed and controlled by Iran. In trying to limit civilian deaths, they were too timid. Conclusion: The only way to eradicate the danger represented by Iran and Syria is to go all out and wipe them out with all our might.

The more I see it, the more we are in 1938.

Never cry wolf.

As a frequent flyer, I feel particularly concerned by the latest uncovered plot. Not only the very routes and airlines I so often use were on the targeted list, but I find the airport experience increasingly unpleasant. In my latest passage through London-Heathrow, I spent my entire 3 hours layover waiting in line for various and sundry security checks. And that was last June!
While perusing the European press, and its letters to the Editor, I was not surprised to find widespread disbelief that there ever was a plot. Many Europeans are of the firm opinion that the periodic discovery of plots and the perennial alerts, are nothing but political maneuvers from he White House in order to influence elections.
Unfortunately, they are by and large right.
This time, however, I fear they are wrong.
I sense that the murderous Islamists outed by Scotland Yard meant business. What is to be done with people who wilfully murder human beings on a large scale claiming supernatural orders? They have lost their membership in the human race and should be exterminated.
The same goes for Hezbollah, by the way.
A recent article in Brussel's "Le Soir", demonstrates that their fundraising comes from diamond, drugs, and human trafficking. Thus the "party of God" can purchase weapons with which it can target civilians in Israel.
Once again, many Europeans feel compelled to side with the enraged moslems. To wit, the recent demonstration in Brussels where humane minded citizens demonstrated against Israel in a sea of Hezbollah flags.
That we could come to such an aberration is partly due to the wrong choices made by the Bush Administration in Iraq and by its political shenanigans.

La guerre en Irak est perdue.

Après plus de trois ans de guerre contre l'Irak, on commence à avouer officiellement que la guerre est un fiasco, pour reprendre le titre d'un livre qui vient de sortir ici.
Hier, les généraux Abizaid, commandant en chef en Irak, et Pace, Chef d'Etat major, on déclaré que la situation était pire que jamais et que le pays allait à la guerre civile. Le mot est lâché. Soit dit en passant, le général Pace est fils d'immigrants italiens et porte donc mal son nom qui veut dire paix en italien.

L'ONU avait déclaré cette guerre illégale. Le monde entier avait critiqué le gouvernement Bush pour son aventurisme.
Mais, aveuglé par un mélange d'idéologie, de cupidité et de religiosité exacerbée, l'entourage de Bush est allé au devant de la catastrophe. Sans connaissance aucune du pays, de sa culture, de son histoire ou de sa religion, les néo-conservateurs y sont allé gaiement.George Bush n'avait jamais entendu parler de Sunnis ou de Shia avant la guerre.
Il apparait qu'Ahmed Chalabi, l'homme d'affaire Irakiens qui avait assuré les américains qu'ils seraient accueilli à Baghdad comme à Paris en 1944, et qu'ils ont poussé au poste de Premier ministre, travaillait pour l'Iran qui sort grand vainqueur de cette guerre, régnant maintenant en maître sur tout le Moyen Orient et son pétrole.
Après 100 000 irakiens tués, la mort de 2600 jeunes militaires US , 400 milliards de dollars partis en fuméee, une facture qui continue à se monter a 2 milliards de $ par semaine, une réputation en ruine et une haine universelle, l'Administration Bush cherche la sortie.
Quelle qu'elle soit, la sortie, souhaitée par 72% des américains, va couter trés cher.
3quarts des brigades militaires US ne sont plus en état de combattre (Besoins de réparer hommes et machines, manque de budget etc..)
Si les USA quittent l'Irak demain, les islamo-fascistes qui les combattent auront vite tiré la conclusion de leur faiblesse et il faudra s'attendre à d'autres 11 septembres!
L'engluement en Irak paralyse toute autre initiative. L'Iran, la Syrie, le Hezbollah et le hamas en profitent dès aujourd'hui.

Bien sûr, on peut se réjouir de la déconfiture de Bush et de ses associés. Mais il a fait beaucoup de dégâts ici aux USA en écornant pas mal la Constitution sous couvert de temps de guerre. En fin de compte, sans les USA pense-t-on que l'Europe seule fera face à la menace islamiste? Avec un Iran regonflé, doté de l'arme nucléaire, une Corée du nord incontrôlée et des milices islamistes en liberté prônant tchador et sharia au bout de leurs roquettes, sommes nous plus à l'abri?

Le public américain va faire fonctionner sa Constitution en novembre et va imposer une défaite cuisante à ses parlementaires qui lui ont menti et l'ont entraîné dans cette triste aventure. si les Démocrates obtiennent une des deux chambres des auditions vont être lancée qui vont entraîner des enquêtes sur la guerre, les liens avec Enron, la corruption avec Halliburton, mais aussi tout le mystère qui entoure le 11 septembre.
Comme au lendemain du Vietnam le public américain ne voudra plus entendre parler de faire le gendarme du monde pendant longtemps.
Il faudra que l'Europe se dote de gros budgets militaires pour se protéger, ou alors enseigner l'arabe et le Coréen à ses enfants!

Faith and reason

In Thionville, there is an altar dedicated to Reason. In the heydays of the French Revolution, the "citoyens" had decided that religion was a chief source of wars and conflicts, and that it was time to graduate out of superstitions, and into the worship of Reason. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine, all respected founding fathers of the young American Republic, were quite taken by this new philosophy. They by and large agreed with Jean Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire, and subscribed to the idea of the universal Clockmaker.
But today it seems that we have been backtracking. We are in a new religious era. The rapturists dispute the loony prize to the islamists.
It would be inconsequential, or even ridiculous, if it did not kill thousands of people on behalf of God or Allah.
The theocratic State of Israel is pitched in a battle to the death against the Islamist Hezbollah sect. Both are competing for Holy territory and are inspired by God. Unfortunately, just as in past religious wars, the human carnage is horrendous. The Qana massacre today, the second time for Qana which had already lost 129 people in 1996 to Tsahal, is a replique to the bombing of Haifa and other civilian areas.

The Islamist fanatics want nothing less than the total destruction of the infidel West.

On Bill Moyers'excellent PBS program "Faith and Reason", Margaret Atwood gives the following explanation: We like the idea of a God because the alternative, billions of atoms, cannot talk to us nor take care of us. In the same broadcast,Martin Amis feels ashamed of sharing a specie with the faith based fanatics who orchestrated 9/11, and is afraid for its future.
Whereas Europeans have "graduated" from the mirage of religion, 64% of Americans still live in a pre-reason era.

Intercourse.

My Chinese friends and I decided to leave the high tension suburbs of Washington for a short trip to the past. We drove to Intercourse, PA., in the heart of Amish land. The Amish, are descended from a group of Anabaptists who left southern Germany and the Colmar region of Alsace, to settle in the rich agricultural state of Pennsylvannia.
The Amish speak German at Church, a German dialect close to Letzeburgish at home, and English with outsiders they call....the English. They do not accept any benefits from the State, do not serve in the military, and live without cars, electricity, phones or other modern inputs.They drive buggies, work in very rich farms, and wear plain looking clothes.
After Lancaster county, we drove on to Rte 15 in Maryland, and took a walk in Catoctin mountain State park, with its lake and Cunningham falls.

It was a welcome break from the news with its constant drums of war and destruction. Israel has of course the right to survive, and I feel for the grieving Lebanese. Is it a proxy war between the West and Iran, or the Umma? The Bush Administration is playing for time. Europe, as usual, talks and talks and talks, but cannot act.

Blessed are the Amish who, above all, fear "Hochmut".

Whirlwind

I just came back from a whirlwind tour that took me from Edinburgh to Wasshington, and then immediately to Chicago, Portland, Las Vegas, Washington, Brussels, Thionville, Paris, and back to DC!
The US tour with the French-American Foundation was very interesting. It was a fact finding tour destined to find new solutions to social housing, or, as it is called here, "affordable housing". You can easily imagine that solidarity based systems do not compare easily with market based ones. Yet, the French group I accompanied was very interested by the innovtive solutions they found in this country. In the end, both countries have the same problem and the waiting lists for decent housing are just as long in Chicago as they are in the Paris suburbs.
In Thionville, I found a very hot and sunny Lorraine. The entire family gathered to honor my parents for their 60th wedding anniversary. A great feat in this day and age. Thionville was even on the first stage of the Tour de France, and we saw Hincapie in his yellow jersey.
We managed a day trip to Paris, thanks to the French High Speed Train network.

Lucky for me, I missed the inglorious end of the World Cup. We just landed at Dulles Airport as France lost to penalty kicks. As to Zidane's loss of cool, I attribute it to the racial taunts the French team had to undergo for a month. Part of the solution to the difficult ethnic mix of French society is to be found in its multicolores soccer team. Oh well!