In today’s Opinion Journal’s Review & Outlook, there is an editorial titled A Show for the Whole World to See  that discusses televising high profile criminal trials, such as one of the features of Court TV involves. In certain cases, such as Saddam’s trial, I believe it is a good idea. I think that for the many people whose lives have been touched by the crimes of such persons, watching their trials can bring closure of a kind. But I’m with the author of the column on the idea that the televised trials should be just that, trials, unsaturated by media circus spectacle.

The prospect of actually watching Saddam in the dock raises a range of emotions. They include fear and distaste at the thought of a media circus injecting elements of entertainment and even farce into a grave proceeding about mass murders and extermination campaigns that killed thousands. At the end of each televised day, would we be subjected to chit-chat about Saddam’s hairstyle and what he wore to court?

That kind of stuff really irritates the hell out of me, I can’t help it.

It seems that the media, rather than just reporting something, has to milk it for every last nuance in order to fill up their pages or their broadcast segments, like “there’s nothing else to say, but we’ll say something anyway.”  I recall the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy affair and the milking it received, there was simply nothing more to report, so the media started picking away at it by publishing outside “expert” opinions and so forth. I believe what put that affair to bed was 9/11, as a matter of fact.

Back on topic:

The first televised trial seen globally began in 1961, when Adolf Eichmann, who oversaw the deportation of millions of Jews to the Nazi death camps, entered an Israeli courtroom. The case, which ended with Eichmann’s hanging in 1962, engendered controversy, partly because he had been kidnapped in Argentina by Israeli agents. Ultimately, though, the trial stands as a triumph, and not only of final justice. It was a major contributor to the enduring record of a terrible era. Since then, there have been other famous attempts at reckoning, but none so revealing. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s untelevised U.N. trial at The Hague heads toward a fourth year with no resolution. Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was shot in 1989 after a two-hour tribunal that left no record of his crimes. East Germany’s Erich Honecker was allowed to retire peacefully to Chile after a German court ruled that he was too ill with cancer to continue the “cruelty” of a trial. With Saddam, there is now an opportunity to see justice done, to see what terrible things can happen without the rule of law. And then, with the evidence before our eyes, to imagine what future atrocities may be prevented in countries that choose the path Iraq has now taken.

My grandparents were Jewish immigrants, he from the Ukraine, she from Poland. My grandmother had lost her two brothers, after whom I was named, to the Nazis. I grew up in their house in New York.

When the Eichmann trial was televised, the house became dead quiet save for the trial installments, my grandparents sitting together in rapt attention before the T.V. When it was over and the monster was sentenced to hang, they seemed to have a new buoyance about them as though a great weight had been lifted somewhere within them.

Closure.

I believe that televising Saddam’s trial(s) would have much the same effect on Iraqis who lost loved ones to or were themselves victimized by the Saddam regime. It might also be a good medium for showing Americans and other westerners who are bombarded by anti-Bush MSM misinformation and Michael Moore/Move-On style treason the real reasons why we overthrew Saddam Hussein and freed Iraq. 

One of the columnists I  never miss is Suzanne Fields. Every adjective I could possibly apply to her column is glowing.

This one is a must-read :

That’s what the culture wars are all about. Men and women will sometimes die for an abstract idea, but it’s usually the specific way of life they love and their love for it that drives them resolutely into harm’s way.

Read the column, it’s definitely in the masterpiece class.

In about a week, the Israeli population will watch as their government supervises a mass eviction of fellow Jews from their homes in order to cede land to the Palestinians. This is land the Israelis captured while defending themselves against an invasion by their Islamic neighbors, an invasion that, had it succeeded, would have revisited the “Final Solution” strategy of the Nazis.

The Israelis who have fought for this turn of events are obviously either as lemmingly as our own U.S. liberals or simply dumb enough to believe that just because the Palestinians have lied to them or violated every single peace agreement  they’ve signed off on before, this time they mean it. Once they have Gaza, all violence will cease. Can you fucking believe that? No, let me say it with feeling: Can you Fucking believe that!!!!!!!?

The Knesset has approved what amounts to the construction of a giant terrorist armory and firebase at the expense of Israeli civilians’ homes. I suppose we could call that “Enemy domain.”

A column by Barry Rubin in the Jerusalem Post kicks butt.

Aug. 10, 2005 10:04  | Updated Aug. 10, 2005 12:50 The logic of the Middle East By BARRY RUBIN It cannot be repeated often enough that Middle East politics are not like those of other places. It make sense once one understands the region?’s history, politics and institutions, but the region often defies the logic that semi-informed outsiders expect. So… * There will be no decline in incitement or change in the public rhetoric of Palestinian officials speaking to their own people. Thus, of course, Israeli suspicions regarding their intentions will be reinforced. * The Palestinian movement will continue to be oriented toward conquest and revenge rather than nation-state nationalism. * No stable government with real control over the territory will be created in the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority will not even try too hard to do that. On the contrary, it will ignore the road map’s provisions about stopping terrorism and disarming radical groups and simply keep insisting on getting a state right away… What the hell do the Utopians in Israel believe they are accomplishing? We ought to send them every year’s installment of “I’ll hold the football, Charlie Brown, you come running up and kick it….”     No, dammit, I’m still not done!   Here’s an article in Haaretz about Netanyahu’s say on the subject: Netanyahu urges MKs to act to stop Gaza pullout By Gideon Alon and Yossi Verter, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service In his first speech before the Knesset since resigning from the government Sunday to protest the disengagement, MK Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday launched a fierce attack against the government, urging lawmakers to join the struggle to thwart the disengagement plan. “Only we in the Knesset are able to stop this evil,” the former finance minister said. “Everything that the Knesset has decided, it is also capable of changing.” “I am calling on all those who grasp the danger: Gather strength and do the right thing. I don’t know if the entire move can be stopped, but it still might be stopped in its initial stages,” said Netanyahu.   Right, like that ever happens. The “Roadmap” is about to become a steaming piece of discarded rubble ignored by those who made it so….

It looks like Paul Volcker’s investigation into the U.N.’s Oil For Food quagmire is showing results, even to the arrest of one of the principal players. This WSJ editorial could not be more aptly titled than Oil For Fraud.

Oil for Fraud
Paul Volcker’s latest report details the graft over which Kofi Annan presided.

Tuesday, August 9, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Indeed. It’s pretty cool the way this report arrived just in time for Bolton’s arrival at the U.N., and the continuing disclosures on the graft that’s been going on under Kofi Annan’s auspices should give Bolton all the room he needs to point to reasons for cleaning up the U.N. The last thing Kofi can say is, “You don’t fix what ain’t broke.” 

It’ll be pretty interesting to see what comes out at Yakovlev’s trial and, if Annan does revoke Benon Sevan’s diplomatic status(sorry, no more diplomatic immunity for you, Frenchy!) we get to extradite him, what happens there, too. From what we know of French honor, Benan would roll over on his “longtime friend” Kofi in a heartbeat, if there’s something to roll over about, in order to save his own skin.

Even now, the U.N.’s defenders like to paint Oil for Food as a great humanitarian effort slightly tarnished by a few overhyped instances of corruption. In fact, Oil for Food was a huge field of graft, helped by the fact that the man in charge of policing it was, based on the evidence Mr. Volcker has collected, in the service of the bad guys. Mr. Annan might think of this as yet another opportunity for “reform.” If he’s even remotely serious on that score, he can begin by reflecting a little harder on his own responsibility for the failures over which he, and nobody else, presided.

I’m looking forward to finding out what Volcker has to report in September.

I am really apprehensive about the Gaza Strip withdrawal.

It truly amazes me that the Israeli Knesset(the Jewish State’s parliament) has approved this, and that Ariel Sharon is a party to it.

Here are people who have something like 57(no, not the Heinz-Kerrys) years of experience dealing with the Palestinians.

Here are people who have to know that the Palestinians will use Gaza as an explosives and munitions storehouse, and to launch terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens.

Here are people(terrorists)–yeah, it’s this link again– who have no intention of sticking to any agreements they make. Below are some revealing excerpts from the Hamas Charter. Keep in mind that Hamas is rapidly becoming the most popular political party in the Palestinian existence.

Here are people who should know better. By giving the Palestinians the Gaza Strip, they are further endangering Israeli citizens.

When Palestinian groups start attacking Israel out of Gaza, every drop of Israeli blood spilled will be the fault of the Knesset members who approved the evacuation of the Gaza Strip. Their fault 90%, the terrorists’ fault 10%.

Because they should have known better.

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

And that is what concerns me.

A couple of weeks back, Vilmar at Ranting Right Wing Howler, one of my favorite blogs, posted on a Long Island schoolteacher who was forced to resign her job because she was a conservative and not following the liberal dictum of the school district(she had a pic of President Bush in her classroom). Initially, Vilmar had said he would like to post my letter to the school principal at his blog, so I didn’t post it here, but I suppose he either forgot about it or changed his mind, so I am posting it here and now. This is how to let a liberal piece of &%&&#%* know that you disagree with his/her agenda:

Dear Ms. Becker-Seddio;

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It’s amazing how informative and interesting to read Nicholas Kristof(excuuuse me, Nicholas D. Kristof) can be when he writes about something other than politics. In his NYT column today, he writes about Hermiston, Oregon, a rural farming district that’s embraced Wi-Fi technology in a way no place else in America, except maybe Philadelphia, comes anywhere close to. The column is here .

But Hermiston is actually a global leader of our Internet future. Today, this chunk of arid farm country appears to be the largest Wi-Fi hot spot in the world, with wireless high-speed Internet access available free for some 600 square miles. Most of that is in eastern Oregon, with some just across the border in southern Washington.

Driving along the road here, I used my laptop to get e-mail and download video - and you can do that while cruising at 70 miles per hour, mile after mile after mile, at a transmission speed several times as fast as a T-1 line. (Note: it’s preferable to do this with someone else driving.)

That really makes me want to bring my Inspiron up there just for the novelty of being bombarded with one continuous, uninterrupted hotspot!

In his {this week’s} column published at Human Events Online, Oliver North Provides some good

Advice for Ambassador Bolton

by Oliver North
Posted Aug 5, 2005

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Congratulations, John, on your new assignment as the United States’ permanent representative to the United Nations. Please know that these good wishes are offered in the same spirit that I would applaud Hercules on his willingness to cleanse the Augean stables.

He, of course, had to divert the waters of the Peneius and Alpheus to accomplish his task. To flush the effluence from the corridors of the U.N., you may have to do the same with the Hudson and East Rivers. Please permit me to assist you in that task by throwing in my two cents — which is, by the way, more than I think we ought to waste at the United Nations next year.

First, look under every rock. The corruption at the U.N. didn’t begin with the Oil for Food scandal and it certainly doesn’t end there. The United Nations is nothing more than bureaucracy piled atop waste, wrapped in fraud, covered with abuse — all of it funded by American taxpayers who foot 22 percent of U.N. dues — more than any other nation. We also pour billions of dollars more into the coffers of its related agencies.

He’s got that right. In the course of the column, North pretty much covers all the bases. Let ‘em know that America’s largesse can just as easily become considerably-smaller-esse. Go get ‘em, John! 

Remind your new “colleagues” that last month the U.S. House of Representatives voted 221 to 184 to withhold 50 percent of U.S. dues to the U.N. until reforms are implemented.

 

Mad Dog Vinnie at Vince Aut Morire offers this priceless post called How To Fisk A Terrorist(Again).

Check it out, only not with a mouthful of coffee.

While reading Best Of The Web Today, I ran across a link to this article at Newsmax.com and thought its headline rather amusing.

Democratic Pollster: We Don’t Stand for Anything     

Democratic Party pollster Stan Greenberg said Wednesday that “one of the biggest doubts about Democrats is that they don’t stand for anything.”

Maybe Greenberg should have run against Bush last year. In so few words, he was able to deliver a message it took Johns Kerry and Edwards an entire campaign season to get across to the American people.