Friday, April 19, 2013

But Wait! There's More!

After hours of locking down Watertown, a part of the greater Boston area, the police finally captured nineteen year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after a nearly twenty-four hour manhunt. His older brother, Tamerlane, was killed last night and the younger Tsarnaev fled. He was found hiding in a boat on Franklin Street.

And now begins the circus.

Finding this person wasn't the circus itself, though it certainly may have seemed that way. The law enforcement authorities' handling of this manner in a timely fashion is quite stellar and they rightly deserve praise. What is coming, however, will be politically and emotionally frustrating. Where once people speculated wrongly or in a politically distracting way, there now rises efforts to quell the obvious through back-pedalling or silence. Where is the haste to judgment now? And let's not forget CAIR's rush to avoid the backlash that never, ever comes. In the immortal words of Ibn Warraq:

Most important, Ibn Warraq  describes the “mind-set” of most Muslims as intolerant, self-pitying, stagnant, and trained to blame others for their own failures.

This idea of retaliation is a seventh century one and certainly not one that should be entertained in Western countries where the rule of law (such as it is) still stands. The kind of person selfish enough to think only how they will be affected by the actions of their comrades is beneath contempt. The real victims are those whose bodies are wrecked because of violence no one dare speculate on. They are the people who live under constant threat of violence. The twenty-four hour lockdown of Boston is a reality for many in Islamic countries where venturing outside may result in kidnapping or death. That the post-modern West would choose- choose!- to crumble in the face of inexcusable barbarity is more demoralising than any land-of-opportunity tale splashed across the mainstream with all the accommodating swiftness imaginable.


Moving on....


North Korea now trains children for armed service:

North Korea's newest batch of future soldiers — scrawny 11-year-olds with freshly shaved heads — punch the air as they practice taekwondo on the grounds of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. Students and teachers here say they're studying harder these days to prepare for a fight. ...

Inside the sprawling compound of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, students are made aware of their government's latest invectives against its foes, in addition to usual subjects of study: biology, history, foreign languages.

"At the moment, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is tense, and America is being bad to us," said Lt. Col. Kim Hak Bin, an administrator at the military academy. "But you can see that the students here look just as bright as usual, and life and classes are carrying on the same as before.

"Our students are ready to go to the front lines whenever a war breaks out, and they are now studying harder than usual," he said Thursday.

This country that sets out conditions for its returning to the six-party talks trains children for its army. At least they will eat a meagre meal before potentially being cannon fodder.


I'll bet it is:

Presumably as a result of the Boston marathon explosions, the Harper government is putting its proposed anti-terrorism bill on top of their priority list.


(With thanks to all)

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