Major Bosshardt, who is well known and loved by every Dutch person, has died at age 94. Boshart was a Major in the Salvation Army and dedicated her life to the poor and addicted. She first became famous because she regularly visited the red light zone in Amsterdam, to talk to prostitutes, to listen to their stories, and to be there for them: she did not condemn them, she loved them. When asked why she always went to prostitutes and drug addicts, she said that, in the end, we are all sinners and that these people truly need her help and God’s love.

This is quite a tremendous loss for the Salvation Army and for the Dutch as a whole. The entire country mourns her deaht, and celebrates her life. May God bless her - and quite frankly, I am sure He will. This woman was truly filled with love and compassion. She hated no one; she loved everyone. Major Bosshardt served, and continues to serve, as an example to thousands, ten thousands, and even millions of people - whether they are Christian or not.

I was raised a member of the Salvation Army. My parents became, when I was 12 years old or something, Envoys. Envoys do not have a community of their own: they help the Captain (pastor) in their own city, and travel sometimes to other cities to lead services / sermons. I was raised, in a way, with Major Bosshardt. My parents talked (and still do) a lot about her - whenever she was on TV, we all ran to the TV and watched the show.

She laughed, she made us cry, but above all, she showed us what God’s love can accomplish in people’s lives and that not words, but actions matter - no matter how small those actions appear to be. Major Bosshardt taught us that one truly saves the world, by saving one. You do not have to save thousands of people, you do not have to change the lives of thousands of individuals for God to love you, for God to notice you, and for God to be there for you. God is always by your side and God loves you - no matter what you do. God’s love knows no boundaries, and Major Bosshardt constantly reminded us - all of us - of it.

It’s a sad day for the Dutch, it’s a good day for Major Bosshardt who finally meets the God she worshipped and served all her life.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a religious group in Turkey called the Dönme, after reading an article about them at Forward.com (Jewish news). Before reading that article, I had never heard of the Dönme, but after reading it, I was fascinated and wanted to find out more about them. Little over a week ago, a person who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me a lot of articles about them, hoping that they would help me understand the Dönme better. They most surely did, so here is my follow-up post (due to the length of my article, I have decided to publish in it two parts - part 2 about, among other things, their Lithurgy, Commandments, etc. and the endnotes - will be published tomorrow).

Because you all might not remember my first post on the Dönme, so here is a short introduction to who they are: they are the offspring of Jews who lived in the 17th century and were followers of rabbi Shabbatai Tzevi. Tzevi - and his followers - believed that he was the Jewish Messiah. The Ottoman rulers, however, were not very fond of the idea of having the Jewish Messiah among them and forced Tzevi to convert to Islam in 1666. Soon many of his followers followed suit and moved to Saloniki (then Ottoman, now Greek), where they lived for many generations.

Although they outwardly acted as all Muslims, they privately (or secretly better) “maintained a belief that Shabbatai Tzevi was the messiah, practiced kabbalistic rituals, and recited prayers in Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish.” [1] According to the descendents of the original Dönme living in Istanbul, “the Dönme in Salonika saw themselves as a community apart; fulfilling the commandments of Shabbatai Tzevi caused Dönme to only marry among themselves, avoid relations with Jews, maintain their separate identity guided by detailed genealogies, and bury their dead in distinct cemeteries.” [2] After the Turkey’s defeat in the first World War and the following (successful) Turkish Independence War, the Dönme moved from Salonika (which was, from then on, Greek) to Turkey.

In Turkey, the Dönme continued to adhere to their religion in private, while publicly pretending to be Muslims. On Friday’s they (sometimes) went to the mosque, on all the other days, however, they secretly practiced their own religious customs. In fact, they are so secretive about it no Sabbatean “will ever publicly admit to being one.” Quite amazing is that “the Sabbateans themselves learn their real identities only when they turn 18, when the secret is finally revealed to them by their parents. This tradition of zealously maintaining a double identity in Muslim society has been passed on for generations.” [3]

Although they are called Dönme by outsiders, they call themselves “Sabbateans,” because the term Dönme has a highly negative feeling: “the term implies a conversion that is not genuine” and “there is a stigma attached to to the term dönme, which, like the term kizilbas, tends to connote dissimulation and harbors allegations of heterodox practices often linked to incest.” Besides that, “the term dönme is also used in contemporary Turkish to refer to persons who have undergone a change in sexual idenity.” Needless to say, all of “this adds an additional layer of ambiguity to this already ambiguous term.”[4] This is why I will, from now on, call the dönme as they call themselves: Sabbateans.

The Jerusalem Report (see note 3) had the rare opportunity to talk to a Sabbatean, who does not want to hide his identity. His name: Ilgaz Zorlu. Zorlu is the author of Yes, I Am a Salonikan, “which has been through six printings since its publication earlier this year and which has made its author persona non grata in the Sabbatean community.” Zorlu has had enough of all the secrecy and is “determined to break the silence, to put the issue on the public agenda, and to prove that the Sabbateans are actually crypto-Jews, that their Muslim appearances are nothing more than a sham.”

The reason that he wants to convince the Jewish authorities (so to speak) that the Sabbateans are Jews, is that he wants them to be accepted as such. He wants to be recognized as a Jew - one with strange customs (for Jews at least) - but a Jew nonetheless. Sadly for Zorlu, other Jews do not except the Sabbateans. They consider them to be neither Jews nor Muslims. Zorlu’s 25-year-old cousin and a student of business administration who wished to remain anonymous when he talked with The Jerusalem Report, “tried twice to pray in local Jewish synagogues, but was kicked out both times.” [5]

All in all, there are an estimated 15,000-20,000 Sabbateans living in Turkey today.

The community is divided into three subgroups, who have little interaction with each other: the Karakas, Kapanci and Yacobis. Each group has its own agon (rabbi) and synagogue. The synagogues are kept secret - usually just rooms in private apartments or basements - and constantly change location; no outsider has ever been allowed to see one, and not even all the Sabbateans know where they are.[6]

When I read the articles the anonymous person sent to me, I was struck by the identity problem the Sabbateans have. They consider themselves Jews, but are not accepted as such. They consider themselves Turks, but cannot publicly say that they are not Muslims (because they fear that doing will hurt their chances to prosper / succeed). The Sabbateans are “viewed as a community with a double identity. The term itself, “connotes a conintuously changing or unstable identity” used by some scholars as a metaphor.[7]

Sabbateans were always very secular (which is quite logical of course). They were educated in a non-religious way and, again logically, strongly supported the revolution by the Young Turks, who wanted to - slowly but surely - make Turkey more secular. When Atatürk became more powerful, and liberated Turkey from the occupying forces, they supported him and his very secular agenda as well.

Once the Turkish Republic was established, “two major events brought Sabbateanism into public view.”[8] These two events were the Karakaşlı Rüşdü affair and the Capital Levy affair in 1942-1944:

In January of 1924, Rüşdü Bey, who belonged to the most conservative group of Sabbateans in Turkey, made an appeal to the Turkish Parliament in which he critiqued Sabbateans for not being “true” Muslims/Turks. This unusual public statement, caused, it seems, by Rüşdü Bey’s excommunication due to his marriage to a person from outside the group, resulted in widespread public debate on Sabbatean identity. Reportedly, many documents were destroyed during this period by families fearing an official investigation, and the Karakaşlı Rüşdü affair seems to have strengthened the resolve of Sabbateans to assimilate.

After the Karakaşlı Rüşdü affair Sabbatean identity faded again from public view until the Capital Levy of 1942. During World War II, the Turkish government instituted a head tax, the declared goal of which was to tax who had made fortunes as a result of the war economy. The Capital Levy, which remained in force between 11 November 1942 and 15 March 1944, had another goal that was not officially stated: to make possible the transfer of capital from the non-Muslim communities of Jews, Aremenians and Greek Orthodox to the majority population of Muslim origin. The Capital Levy largely succeeded in replacing the non-Muslim bourgeoisie of the city of Istanbul with a bourgeoisie of Muslim origine.

Although they were officially Muslim, individuals of Sabbatean background were charged higher taxes than Muslims, and treated in the same manner as non-Muslims during the Capital Levy episode. Of the two individuals charged the highest amount of tax during this period, one was Jewish and the other of Sabbatean origin. The Capital Levy was experienced as a great shock by persons of Sabbatean background who identified with the Turkish Republic and Turkish national identity, and who had largely ruptured their ties to a Sabbatean idenitity. The Capital Levy episode did more than illustrate the exclusionary nature of Turkish national identity; it suggested that anyone can be considered as a potential outsider in a society where the basis of identity is essentially unstable. The deep-seated paranoia and the constant search for the “enemy within” which characterizes Turkish political culture is a product of the Turkey’s modernity project’s refusal to acknowledge the past.[9]

The Capital Levy episode had a severe impact on the Sabbatean community: fear (for) and the experience of discrimination, led many Sabbateans to deny their heritage and to encourage marriages with Turkish Muslims. “As a result, the Sabbatean community has largely ceased to be a separate community, while a wall of silence within the family has created a rift between parents and children.”[10]

It is in that light that we have to look at before mentioned Ilgaz Zorlu: he tried to re-open the debate, but - above all - he tried to appeal “to persons of Sabbatean heritage to acknowledge their ethnic / religious idenitity.” He - at least - succeeded in the former: his work, “combined with the exposure in the media, has turned into a media campaign to bring Sabbateanism into public view as an ethnic/religious identity.” Sadly, however “it has done so in a way that has unfortunately encouraged pre-existing stereotypes about the community to resurface, has played into the hands of anti-Semitic groups, and made it more difficult for individuals of Sabbatean heritage to publicly discuss their identity.”[11]

The Sabbateans also - reportedly - played an interesting role in Turkish politics. According to Sabbateans - “from whose intelligentsia came some of the most active leaders of the revolution” - “were caught up in the great cultural revolution”[12] under Atatürks rule. They supported, even embraced, Atatürk’s secular agenda. Quite some Turkish politicians have - the last century - been ‘accused’ of being Sabbatean. One of them is Ismail Cem [1940-2007], Turkey’s Foreign Minister in 1997 (in the 55th administration of Turkey). Cem, however, denied being Sabbatean and died in January of this year.

There are even conspiracy theories alive and well about the political power of the Sabbateans:

Cem has long denied such claims, but he is only the latest target of a conspiracy theory that dates to the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. At its heart, two issues: the legitimacy of a secular regime in this mainly Muslim country, and the question of what it means to be a Turk. “The Sabbateans have a monopoly over Turkish society,” claims Mehmet Sevket-Eygi, columnist for the Islamic newspaper, Milli Gazete. “The Turks themselves live like the subject population of British India.”[13]

In this regard too, Zorlu is often criticized for writing his book I am From Salonika. According to some, his book and his claims that certain important people were (and are) from Sabbatean heritage have fed already existing prejudices and created and worsened conspiracy theories:

According to Marc Baer, Turkish historian at Pittsburgh University, the most troubling thing about Zorlu’s work is that “his claims about his community echo anti-Jewish and anti-Sabbatean myths popular in Turkey.” Zorlu’s conviction that “Turkey’s founders were all of of Sabbatean origin” has spurred religious newspapers to run headlines reading “Ataturk studied in a Jewish school” and “100,000 Sabbateans in Turkey.” It is now “common knowledge” that a media mogul and politicians ranging from the wife of the Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, through the recently resigned economy minister, Kemal Dervis, to the ubiquitous Ismail Cem, are of Sabbatean origin. “Zorlu has sold his soul to the fundamentalists”, says Rifat Bali.[14]

As mentioned in the quote above, not only did Zorlu’s book feed anti-Semitism and anti-Sabbateanism already existing in Turkey, he also accused several important people of being Sabbateans: Bulent Ecevit’s wife was Rahşan Ecevit (Bulent Ecevit passed away in 2006, Rahşan is still alive). Whether that is true or not: no one can say. Some even believe that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk himself was Sabbatean (or his father to be more precise, about whom very little is known).[15]

Other famous - alleged - Sabbateans are: “Mohammed Djavid Bey, one of the leaders of the ‘Young Turk’ movement, who for a while was Prime Minister of Turkey,” “Nazhat Fayek (another former Prime Minister), Mustapha Aref (a former Minister of the Interior), and Musleh al-Din Adel, a Deputy Minister of Education,”[16] and, lastly, it is even said that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the father of Turkey, was of Sabbatean heritage[17].

The reason for this last ‘accusation’ are:
- Atatürk was born and raised in Salonika
- His father - of whom little is known - behaved like a Sabbatean: “outwardly observing Muslim ceremonies while inwardly scoffing at them”[18]
- Itamar Ben-Avi wrote in one of his books that, in 1911, he had a conversation with Atatürk, who was then still known as Mustafa Kemal. During that conversation, Atatürk reported said: “I’m a descendant of Sabbetai Zevi - not indeed a Jew any more, but an ardent admirer of this prophet of yours. My opinion is that every Jew in this country would do well to join his camp.” Furthermore, Atatürk said that he had a little, secret prayer of his own. His most important prayer: “‘Shema Yisra’el, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Ehad!’” For those who know: this is the most important Jewish prayer[19]

The Times reports that Republican consultants predict that John McCain will drop out of the race in September, if his poll numbers have not gone up by then and if his fundraising dries up (which they seem to consider a very real possibility).

Such a move would not truly surprise me - I have to say. McCain has - in my opinion - simply no real chance of winning the Republican nomination. The conservative base seems to detest him, and more moderate Republicans feel betrayed by McCain’s decision early on in he campaign, to court the conservative / even the religious right.

The last nail in his coffin was the immigration bill. Before that we had McCain-Feingold which did not make him popular among Republicans either. McCain is an honorable, respectable man, a hero even, but he is not popular enough to win the Republican nomination.

Ed Morrissey meanwhile writes that he would not bet on it. Well, I am not taking any bets either, but I do consider it to be a very real possibility. The notion that he will not drop out, because there are candidates with even less support still in the race, is a logical fallacy. McCain is in this thing to win; Tancredo, Hunter, Paul etc. have no chance whatsoever and they knew that going in. They have other goals.

McCain, however, has one goal, and one goal only: to become America’s next President. If that is impossible, it seems quite likely to me that he will quit the race well before the finishline.

Fareed Zakaria wonders the US is “losing the war on terror.”

Consider the news from just the past few months. In Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, the government announced that on June 9 it had captured both the chief and the military leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the country’s deadliest jihadist group and the one that carried out the Bali bombings of 2002. In January, Filipino troops killed Abu Sulaiman, leader of the Qaeda-style terrorist outfit Abu Sayyaf. The Philippine Army—with American help—has battered the group, whose membership has declined from as many as 2,000 guerrillas six years ago to a few hundred today. In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which were Al Qaeda’s original bases and targets of attack, terrorist cells have been rounded up, and those still at large have been unable to launch any major new attacks in a couple of years. There, as elsewhere, the efforts of finance ministries—most especially the U.S. Department of the Treasury—have made life far more difficult for terrorists. Global organizations cannot thrive without being able to move money around. The more that terrorists’ funds are tracked and targeted, the more they have to make do with small-scale and hastily improvised operations.

North Africa has seen an uptick in activity, particularly Algeria. But the main group there, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (known by its French abbreviation, GSPC), is part of a long and ongoing local war between the Algerian government and Islamic opposition forces and cannot be seen solely through the prism of Al Qaeda or anti-American jihad. This is also true of the main area where there has been a large and troubling rise in the strength of Al Qaeda—the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands. It is here that Al Qaeda Central, if there is such an entity, is housed. But the reason the group has been able to sustain itself and grow despite the best efforts of NATO troops is that through the years of the anti-Soviet campaign, Al Qaeda dug deep roots in the area. And its allies the Taliban are a once popular local movement that has long been supported by a section of the Pashtuns, an influential ethnic group in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In Iraq, where terrorist attacks are a daily event, another important complication weakens the enemy. From a broad coalition promising to unite all Muslims, Al Qaeda has morphed into a purist Sunni group that spends most of its time killing Shiites. In its original fatwas and other statements, Al Qaeda makes no mention of Shiites, condemning only the “Crusaders” and “Jews.” But Iraq changed things. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, bore a fierce hatred for Shiites, derived from his Wahhabi-style puritanism. In a February 2004 letter to Osama bin Laden, he claimed that “the danger from the Shia … is greater … than the Americans … [T]he only solution is for us to strike the religious, military and other cadres among the Shia with blow after blow until they bend to the Sunnis.” If there ever had been a debate between him and bin Laden, Zarqawi won. As a result, an organization that had hoped to rally the entire Muslim world to jihad against the West has been dragged instead into a dirty internal war within Islam.

Zakaria goes on to explain:

The split between Sunnis and Shiites—which plays a role in Lebanon as well—is only one of the divisions within the world of Islam. Within that universe are Shiites and Sunnis, Persians and Arabs, Southeast Asians and Middle Easterners and, importantly, moderates and radicals. The clash between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestinian territories is the most vivid sign of the latter divide. Just as the diversity within the communist world ultimately made it less threatening, so the many varieties of Islam weaken its ability to coalesce into a single, monolithic foe. It would be even less dangerous if Western leaders recognized this and worked to emphasize such distinctions. Rather than speaking of a single worldwide movement—which absurdly lumps together Chechen separatists in Russia, Pakistani-backed militants in India, Shiite warlords in Lebanon and Sunni jihadists in Egypt—we should be emphasizing that all these groups are distinct, with differing agendas, enemies and friends. That robs them of their claim to represent Islam. It describes them as they often are—small local gangs of misfits, hoping to attract attention through nihilism and barbarism.

He has a good point: we should distinguish the different groups from each other and we should exploit those differences and change our policies towards them accordingly. The one terrorist isn’t the other. They are not all the same, they do not all hold the same believes, and they are not all motivated by the same things.

Lastly, Zakaria writes:

Britain, the United States and most other countries have not found it easy to address the root causes of jihad. But clearly, they relate to the alienation, humiliation and disempowerment caused by the pace of change in the modern world—economic change, migration from Third World to First World, movement from the countryside to the city. The only durable solution to these ongoing disruptions is for these people to see themselves—and, most important, the societies they come from and still identify with—as masters of the modern world and not as victims. How to open up and modernize the Muslim world is a long, hard and complex challenge. But surely one key is to be seen by these societies and peoples as partners and friends, not as bullies and enemies. That is one battle we are not yet winning.

This is one of the main keys and one of the reasons for my believe that we should invest bigtime in the Middle East. Not in oil companies, but in people. The big plan must be to modernize the Mideast. To do that, we have to look at Turkey. Turkey went through such a modernization process under Atatürk’s rule. His idea, his plan, was not to bring Democracy to Turkey as such, but to bring Turkey into the modern age; to modernize Turkey. To achieve this, he had to nationalize certain industries - we all know that in the West we strongly object to nationalizing industries, but if you want to modernize a country, the free market simply does not work. First you have to nationalize and modernize, then you can gradually de-nationalize before mentioned industries.

In this war on terrorism we constantly have to re-adjust what we are doing, and how we do it. We cannot come up with a plan today, and do what it proscribes for the next 20 years. We constantly have to look at the situation on the ground and adjust our policies accordingly.

Good news for Hillary Clinton and Fred Thompson (who has yet to officially announce his candidacy): the two of them lead the polls in Nevada. The results (Republicans):
Fred Thompson, 25 percent

Mitt Romney, 20 percent

Rudy Giuliani, 17 percent

John McCain, 8 percent

The results (Democrats):
Hillary Clinton, 39 percent

Barack Obama, 17 percent

John Edwards, 12 percent

Bill Richardson, 7 percent

Obviously a very, very easy lead for Hillary Clinton. If you look at this poll, it is difficult to imagine another Democratic winner in Nevada. Good to see that Mitt Romney is doing relatively well as well. I find it difficult to say much about Thompson’s position: on the one hand, he might take a very comfortable lead in the coming months (there is a base), but on the other hand, he has not been attacked yet, he did not defend his former votes / actions / words yet; he did not appear in any of the debates yet, etc. In other words: he might lose that support very quickly.

Less cautious: Thompson will most likely do very well. Not just in Nevada, but everywhere. Republicans seem to adore him (for some reason).

Something has to be said about Thompson: nobody was talking about him until quite recently. Suddenly, he has become the savior for many. It is all a bit strange.

A fascinating series at The Boston Globe about Mitt Romney (h/t Hollyrob). It is incredibly interesting to read these articles and to watch the videos. Sadly, the Globe only published 2 installments yet: the other five installments will be published later.
Installment 1 can be found here.
Installment 2 here.

Part 1 is called “The Son”
Part 2 is called “The Missionary”

The New York Times reports:

In a new video, kidnapped British journalist Alan Johnston appears with what he says are explosives strapped to his body and warns that his captors intend to set them off if rescuers attempt to free him by force.

The tape, called ”Alan’s Appeal,” was seen Monday after it was put on a Web site used in the past by militant groups to post messages. It was made by the Army of Islam, the shadowy group that claimed responsibility for snatching Johnston, a correspondent with the British Broadcasting Corp., from a Gaza City street on March 12.

”Captors tell me that very promising negotiations were ruined when the Hamas movement and the British government decided to press for a military solution to this kidnapping,” Johnston says in the 1 minute, 42 second, recording, looking nervous and under stress. ”And the situation is now very serious, as you can see.”

Johnston: “I have been dressed in what is an explosive belt, which the kidnappers say will be detonated if there is an attempt to storm the area. They say they are ready to turn the hideout into what they describe as a death zone if there is an attempt to free me by force.

“I do appeal to the Hamas movement and the British government not, not to, resort to the tactics of force in an effort to end this. I’d ask the BBC and anyone in Britain who wishes me well to support me in that appeal. It seems the answer is to return to negotiations, which I am told are very close to achieving a deal.”

Where are the British media? Where are the British academics calling for boycotts now? Where is the outrage? Can you imagine what the response would have been like, if Johnston would have been kidnapped by an Israeli terrorist organization?

Anyway - for Johnston and his family, this is a horrible, horrible time. It is impossible to imagine what he must go through. May God protect him and be there for Johnston’s family, to give them all the strength and faith they need to get through this. Same goes for Alan himself of course.

To say that Tom Friedman does not exactly like the energy bill that recently passed the US Senate would be quite an understatement:

When you watch a baby being born, after a difficult pregnancy, it is so painful and bloody for the mother it is always hard to tell the truth and say, “Gosh, that baby is really ugly.” But that’s how I feel about the energy legislation passed (and not passed) by the Senate last week.

The whole Senate energy effort only reinforced my feelings that we’re in a green bubble — a festival of hot air by the news media, corporate America and presidential candidates about green this and green that, but, when it comes to actually doing something hard to bring about a green revolution at scale — and if you don’t have scale on this you have nothing — we wimp out. Climate change is not a hoax. The hoax is that we are really doing something about it.

No question, it’s great news that the Democrat-led Senate finally stood up to the automakers, and to the Michigan senators, and said, “No more — no more assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by the U.S. Congress. We’re passing the first bill since 1975 that mandates an increase in fuel economy.” If the Senate bill, which now has to go through the House, becomes law, automakers will have to boost the average mileage of new cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, compared with about 25 miles per gallon today.

But before you celebrate, pay attention to some fine print in the Senate bill. If the Transportation Department determines that the fuel economy goal for any given year is not “cost-effective” — that is, too expensive for the car companies to meet — it can ease the standard. That loophole has to be tightened by the House, which takes up this legislation next week.

But even this new mileage standard is not exactly world leading. The European Union is today where we want to be in 2020, around 35 miles per gallon, and it is committed to going well over 40 m.p.g. by 2012. Ditto Japan.

Obviously, that is quite sad. On the other hand, what matters right now is that America is actually doing something. For a long time, Europe was willing to act, Europe showed that it was willing to do something about global warming, and now, finally, America joins Europe, at least to a degree.

It seems that Hillary Clinton has learned from the health care debacle in the 1990s:

As first lady in the early 1990s, she tried to reshape the nation’s health care system — an audacious effort that collapsed under its own complexity, Republican opposition and the Clintons’ unwillingness to seek compromise with lawmakers.

“I still have the scars to show for it,” she tells voters now, promising a more consensus-based approach to health care reform if she is elected president…

Burned by the experience, Sen. Clinton has since adopted what she calls “the school of small steps.”

Aides say her plan will be rolled out through a series of speeches focusing on different aspects of health care reform, with the topic of universal coverage to be tackled last.

She began last month with a speech on reducing health care costs. Among other things, she called for enhanced computerized medical record-keeping and encouraging insurance companies and providers to emphasize prevention of illness, rather than treatment.

Her second address, on improving health care quality, will come later this summer.

Of course, her consensus-based approach does not make her more popular among quite some Democrats. Edwards and Obama have both come up with far more bold proposals “which have been generally praised by activists.”

On the other hand, her approach might mean that she will be able to draw from the different existing plans - use the strong points from the other plans, getting rid of the weak ones - and by doing so, she might be able to come up with the best plan that stands a change of actually succeeding / being approved and implemented.

The Washington Post published the second installment of a four-part series about US Vice President Dick Cheney. The title of the second chapter is “Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power,” and provides some insight into how Dick Cheney encouraged the executive to adopt a quite radical theory of executive power. At the very start of the installment, the two authors write: “The vice president’s office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials.”

More:

Cheney and his allies, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, pioneered a novel distinction between forbidden “torture” and permitted use of “cruel, inhuman or degrading” methods of questioning. They did not originate every idea to rewrite or reinterpret the law, but fresh accounts from participants show that they translated muscular theories, from Yoo and others, into the operational language of government.

A backlash beginning in 2004, after reports of abuse leaked out of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay, brought what appeared to be sharp reversals in courts and Congress — for both Cheney’s claims of executive supremacy and his unyielding defense of what he called “robust interrogation.”

But a more careful look at the results suggests that Cheney won far more than he lost. Many of the harsh measures he championed, and some of the broadest principles undergirding them, have survived intact but out of public view.

James A. Baker had the following to say about Dick Cheney: “Once he’s taken a position, I think that’s it. He has been pretty damn good at accumulating power, extraordinarily effective and adept at exercising power.”

It is yet another long read, but well worth it.

Jonathan Foreman writes:

Don’t expect to hear much about it in the mainstream media — especially now that John Burns is no longer in Iraq for the New York Times — but this Sunday a Baghdad court is expected to hand down a verdict in the case against one Ali Hassan Al-Majid — better known as Chemical Ali.

He and five other Saddam henchmen have been on trial for their role in the genocidal “Anfal” campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1988. Around 182,000 people were killed during the Anfal, many of them with poison gas. Mass graves are still being found.

The trial is a problematic story for much of the media because it undermines the fashionable anti-war narrative in which Saddam Hussein was just another run-of-the-mill dictator, no worse than most others.

Mention of the Anfal or the mass graves - which are still being found by the way — is rather discomforting for the Bushitler crowd.

His conclusion:

De-Baathification may have been carried out crudely and excessively after the Liberation of Iraq, but the case against it is usually overstated. I for one am glad that mass murderers like these are on trial rather than leading Iraq’s security forces, shoulder to shoulder with American troops.

Now, I am quite happy to see chemical Ali being judged - and hopefully punished - as well, but lets not act as if those who believe that the de-Baathification of Iraq “may have been carried out crudely and excessively” believe that someone like Chemical Ali should be in charge of Iraq’s security forces. In fact, just about everyone agrees that the number one guys had to be removed. All of them. However, the US decided to send everybody home. Not just the number guys, but also - as a figure of speech - the number 10 guys. This is the problem with the de-Baathification process pushed through by Bremer et al.

O, and Chemical Ali has been sentenced to death.

The Spiegel Online has an interview up with Mahmoud Zahar, co-founder of Hamas. Hamas told the Spiegel among other things, that Hamas wants to turn Gaza into an Islamic state:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: After heavy fighting, Hamas won control over the Gaza Strip last Saturday. But it’s not clear what your party now intends to do. The assumption in the Western world is that Hamas wants to establish an Islamic state in Gaza. Is this true?

Zahar: Of course. We want to do that, but with full support of the people. At the moment we can’t establish an Islamic state because we Palestinians have no state. As long as we don’t have a state, we will try to form an Islamic society.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How would a Hamas-led Islamic state look?

Zahar: There would be no difference from how it looks today, because our customs and traditions in Gaza are already Islamic. Marriage, divorce, daily business — everything is Islamic. As soon as we have a state, then everyone will have their freedom. Christians will remain Christians, parties could be secular or even Communist.

Yeah, because the Sharia leaves a lot of room for religious tolerance and the freedom of individuals: as long as they do exactly what the Koran tells them to do that is. If they do not, they should - essentially - be killed. Zahar has a somewhat limited view on freedom: he considers freedom to be the obligation to live an “Islamic Life.”

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In the West there is a fear that the Gaza Strip may become a playground for international terrorism. Is this danger real?

Zahar: Our people can’t distinguish between resistance and terrorism. We’re fighting for the liberation of our land from an occupation. When people in Europe had to fight the Nazis, they were honored, later, as freedom fighters. No one would have called Charles de Gaulle a terrorist.

On the other hand, no sane person would compare Zahar to De Gaulle either.

And good news for those who say that we should ship suitcases filled with money to Gaza:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The militant wings of Fatah and Hamas have been fully armed over the last few months. Are these weapons still in circulation?

Zahar: There are naturally very many weapons around now. Two years ago, one bullet in Gaza cost around €3.50 — now it would cost 35 cents. The American aid money has been translated into weapons. Thank you, America!

H/t Jihad Watch where Robert Spencer offers some commentary of his own.

Hal G. P. Colebatch writes for The American Spectator that the decision to grant knighthood to Salman Rushdie was a major mistake. Firstly, he does not deserve to be knighed for his literary work (he is not that great of an author), secondly, the reasons Blair wants to see Rushdie be knighted is probably not so honorable:

THERE ARE ONLY TWO POSSIBLE explanations for the knighting of Rushdie: either those responsible for the recommendation were ignorant of the inevitable political consequences — fury against Britain by Muslims around the world, attacks on British interests and quite likely on British people in Muslim countries — or they knew those consequences and did not care.

Further, if it is meant to be a hit at Iran, from whence the original fatwa against Rushdie originated, perhaps in retaliation for Iran’s recent seizing of British sailors, it seems not only particularly feeble and ineffectual but actually counterproductive. The government in Iran is facing growing popular discontent and this is the sort of emotionally charged slap in the face that could rally support behind it.

Britain has several thousand troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both countries they are trying to win over the support and friendship of the population and to be regarded as friends and liberators rather than invaders, oppressors and infidels.

Britain has spent billions and strained its defense budget to the limit to put those troops there. Quite a few have died. The knighting of Rushdie has made their task unnecessarily harder, has made the chances of failure greater, and has put their lives that much more at risk. Because of the Queen’s direct involvement with knighthoods, it has also put the Queen at risk to a new degree.

Hal’s major problem with the decision to knight Rushdie, therefore, is that it hurts the war on terrorism / extremism. The major flaw in Hal’s reasoning is that those who hate Britain do not need more excuses. They have ‘reasons’ enough to hate Britain, most notoriously the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, o, then there is also this little thing called the British Empire.

Having said that, there certainly is some - perhaps even a lot of - truth to Hal’s point that if we want to win the war against Muslim extremism, we should not insult moderate Muslims. We need their support. This does not mean that we should listen to what extremists say - I’d tell Hal to please ignore whatever it is that comes out of Iran - but that we should listen to what those moderate Muslims actually have to say about this matter. I have not read reactions from these moderates yet - lets first wait and see how they’ll respond before we say that the decision to grant knighthood to Rushdie was a mistake.

The EU countries agreed to a new treaty last week, one that is much like the older “constitution,” which was not accepted by the peoples of the only two countries that held a referendum about it (France and the Netherlands), though, with a few differences. Obviously, our politicians are trying to sell to us as something completely new - the Dutch people, however, think quite differently and do not believe one word of what our Prime Minister says about this subject.

Meanwhile, the Brits don’t seem to be too happy either:

A key pledge safeguarding British control over its own foreign policy that was secured by Tony Blair at the Brussels summit is not legally binding, it became clear last night.

The Opposition stepped up calls for a referendum after it emerged that a clause negotiated by Mr Blair allowing exemption from a common EU foreign policy was merely a “declaration of intent” and not an enforcable part of the treaty.

The Prime Minister’s hard-fought deal began to unravel as the Conservatives accused him of surrendering British sovereignty and boxing in his successor, Gordon Brown.

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said Mr Blair had broken the most important of his four “red lines” - the limits of the powers he was prepared to cede to Brussels after the rejection two years ago of the EU’s planned constitution.

The blueprint for a new Reform Treaty, signed by the 27 EU member states at 5am yesterday, was hailed by Mr Blair, who leaves office on Wednesday, as a key part of his legacy.

The Dutch politicians also explain that, because they changed a comma in this treaty, there is no need for a referendum. The real reason is - of course - that if a referendum would be held, the Dutch people would most likely repeat their ‘no, thank you very much,’ from two years ago since little has changed.

Blair: “We’ve been arguing for many years about the constitutional question. This deal gives us a chance to move on. It was important to get out of this bind into which we’d got with the constitutional treaty.”

The solution: lets ram it through their throat.

This ‘treaty’ is, as the Telegraph words it, “simply a repackaged version of the rejected EU constitution.” Nothing significant has been changed, except for a comma every here and there. O, and they have decided to simply call it a “treaty” instead of a “Constitution.”

Nice try, sadly for them, Europeans are not stupid.

Now, I am personally in favor of a Constitution for the EU, but I do not favor pushing it through peoples’ throats. As far as I know, we still live in a Democracy, and the Dutch (and French) have already said ‘no’ to the Constitutional treaty of two years ago. Our Prime Minister promised that they would come up with a completely different plan altogether, ‘we’ trusted him (well, I didn’t but ok), and now broke his word.

We need a new referendum. Let the people - once again - decide what to do with this treaty.

The Iranian regime has found a new way to show off its morality: The human rights outrage in Iran…and a challenge to Rosie O’Donnell and her ilk.

Here is one of the pictures:

What’s happening here you ask, and what was the victim’s crime? Crime: he did not dress Islamic enough. The punishment: he has to “suck on a plastic container Iranians use to wash their bottoms.”

Another one:

Joe Gandelman writes:

It truly is revolting. And it doesn’t matter whether someone wants the U.S. to bomb Iran, doesn’t want the U.S. to bomb Iran, is considering whether he/she/it wants the U.S. to bomb Iran…

A side issue is when those who write weblogs post something and seemingly demand others respond to it or suggest they are supporting it by not commenting on it. We don’t do that here. To each his/her own and we don’t pre-judge those who may not comment on it.

I am less careful: I do judge them. There are certain people who never blog about the crimes committed by Ahmadinejad and people like him, all in the name of Islam. These bloggers never address this issue. These bloggers, instead, prefer to write about how Bush is a “warcriminal,” that he should be impeached, that Bush lied, people died, etc., instead of writing about a truly criminal, inhumane regime like that of Iran.

If Liberals want to be perceived as the Guardians of Human Rights, they should write about this subject. If they don’t (and many of them do not), they are simply a bunch of hypocrites.

David von Drehle wrote a fascinating article for TIME about mayor Rudy Giuliani. David writes:

How many alleged criminals can a law-and-order candidate be associated with before it starts to hurt? That’s the question facing former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, following the indictment Tuesday of Thomas Ravenel, his volunteer campaign chairman in South Carolina.

Giuliani entered the Presidential campaign early this year with one tarnished pal stuffed into his baggage: his former bodyguard, police commissioner and business partner Bernard Kerik. Kerik’s career began to unravel in 2004 after Giuliani urged President Bush to name him Secretary of Homeland Security — a nomination that was quickly withdrawn amid reports of Kerik’s questionable business and personal dealings. Kerik eventually pleaded guilty to ethics violations while on the city payroll and remains under investigation for tax evasion and other offenses, which Kerik’s attorney has said, “he didn’t do.”

Now Ravenel, the state treasurer of South Carolina, has been charged with cocaine possession and distribution — a felony punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison. Neither he nor his attorney has made any statement.

Giuliani’s campaign lost no time in announcing Ravenel’s resignation from his unpaid post, and let it be known that the indictment took them entirely by surprise. And Ravenel’s offense was alleged to have occurred in late 2005, before his official association with Giuliani.

Still, for a candidate promising to track the whereabouts and lawfulness of every non-citizen living in the United States, it can’t help his cause when he fails to spot possible crooks on his corporate and campaign letterhead. And Giuliani’s opponents wasted no time in circulating news of Ravenel’s indictment; one McCain staffer fired off a dispatch within minutes to reporters’ e-mail boxes. Anti-Giuliani bloggers swiftly added the Kerik angle.

Will Rudy’s aides become a major problem for him? They just might. American campaigns are the dirtiests in the world. There is not a secret you have, you will be able to hide during the campaigns. Not only will your opponents look at you, they will also look at your wife and, yes, your aides. Everyone involved has to be clean, especially when you want to portray yourself as the national security, terrorism and crime-fighter candidate.

David concludes:

No one survives a career in politics without crossing paths with a few rogues. But it’s also true that no candidate — not even one as strongly branded in the public mind as Giuliani — entirely controls his public image. Three years ago this summer, John Kerry watched in dismay as his Vietnam record was turned against him by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Something similar could happen, if Giuliani isn’t more careful, to Hizzoner’s carefully crafted image as the scourge of wrongdoers the world over.

Quite right.

Four must read posts about Dick Cheney:
- Ed Morrissey: “Rule Of Law?” Ed calls the assertion that Cheney is not part of the executive “desperate.”
- Glenn Reynolds: “DICK CHENEY AS A LEGISLATIVE OFFICIAL.” Glenn writes: “Like a lot of the Bush Administration’s arguments, this is one that would make an interesting law school paper topic, or law review article, but that is politically idiotic and legally self-defeating.”
- Joe Gandelman: “Dick Cheney: Surrogate Or The Lone Ranger?”
- Crooks and Liars: “Countdown: Above The Law.” Nicole writes: “Keith Olbermann and WaPo’s Dana Milbank look at the bizarre and outright deceptive justifications the White House has created to enable Cheney’s own personal version of a shadow government.” Milbank explains that Cheney shares a close resemblance to the Holy Trinity…

Also read my earlier post on Dick Cheney and a fascinating series at the WaPo on the most powerful VP the US ever had.

Watch the video at Crooks and Liars for Representative Patrick Henry declaring the war on earmarks / excessive spending. He talks about how they have to look at the worthiness of projects: only the most important projects should be supported, etc.
SFGate:

The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved $153 million in pet projects, rewarding both powerful and not-so-powerful lawmakers alike with 377 cherished “earmarks” for their home districts.[..]

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., won $129,000 for the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree Project, an economic development initiative in economically distressed Mitchell County. The money would double retail space available for a gift shop selling products - typically made by former factory workers whose plants have been shuttered - such as Christmas tree ornaments, handmade soaps and pottery.

McHenry is a vocal conservative and burr in the side of Democrats running the House. He’s not popular with some Republicans; a senior GOP member of the Appropriations Committee pointed McHenry’s earmark out to reporters, calling it “interesting.”

Well, if the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree Project, isn’t a “worthy” project I do not know what is…

Thank God I am not American, so I do not actually have to pay for… “worthy” projects like that.

An interesting article on this subject at the Ecnomist.

Mark Steyn on universal health care:

I don’t have much to add to Jonah’s and Iain’s posts, but hey, that’s never stopped me before. So let me just say that I think socialized health care is the single biggest factor in transforming the relationship of the individual to the state. In fact, once it’s introduced it becomes very hard to have genuinely conservative government - certainly, not genuinely small government. I think I say in my book that in Continental cabinets (and in Canada) the Defense ministry is somewhere you pass through en route to a really important portfolio like Health. Election campaigns become devoted to competing pledges about “fixing” health care, even though by definition it never can be.

In a public health care system, the doctors, nurses, janitors and administrators all need to be paid every Friday so the only point at which costs can be controlled is through the patient, by restricting access. If you go to an American doctor with a monstrous lump on your shoulder, it’s in his economic interest to find out what it is and get it whipped off as soon as possible. If you go to a British or Canadian doctor, it’s in the system’s economic interest to postpone it as long as possible. And because the public will only sit around on waiting lists for two or three years, eventually in order to control costs you have to claw it out of other budgets - like Defense. Socialized health care is the biggest cause not just of the infantilization of the citizenry but of the state.

Now, I am a conservative and I am a big opponent of Big Government, but lets not act as if universal health care is the root of all of Europe’s problems. Our health care system needs to be improved, that is for sure, but it is not as bad as Jonah thinks it is. In the end, we do not have citizens who do not receive treatment because they do not have enough money, which I consider to be a good thing.

We have got long waiting lists, that is true, but we are working on them. In the Netherlands, we have just reformed our insurance system, which will help a great deal (more freedom for individual insurance companies, more competition, etc.). As with so many issues, health care requires a balancing act, and neither system is perfect.