When discussing the aftermath of the Moors Murders, Theodore Dalrymple quoted the mother of a victim whose body has never been found [emphasis added]:
Myself and the parents of the other victims . . . have had to live for over thirty years knowing that our children died a terrible death at the hands of that evil pair. Hindley is due to have her case heard at the [European] Court of Human Rights. What about our rights? Thereis no such thing as a normal life after your child has been murdered. We live a life sentence too but there is no appeal or reprieve for us, our suffering goes on and on and is only made worse every time something like this comes up. We are the forgotten victims. Hindley has never been charged with the murder of my Keith . . . . I would like to take out a private prosecution but I cannot afford it and cannot get Legal Aid. I still do not know where my son is and all I want is to have him home and give him a decent burial.
Nobody cand doubt the agony of these parents. Their children have died terrible deaths, and they’ve been denied the closure of a funeral.
But despite our pity, Israel’s decision to release live terrorists in return for the bodies of dead Israeli soldiers is a terrible mistake. Caroline Glick (H/T) explains why this is so hideously bad an idea [emphasis added]:
Despite the government’s best efforts to put a brave face on the decision, the deal with Hizbullah is arguably the most humiliating step ever taken by a government of Israel.
In exchange for the bodies of two dead soldiers — Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser — Israel has succumbed to all of Hizbullah’s demands. It will release six murderers from prison and send them to Lebanon for a hero’s welcome. It will give Hizbullah the bodies of 200 terrorists and so empty Israel’s Potters Field for terrorists. Moreover, it has pledged to close Israel’s graveyard for terrorists and so has committed future governments to never keeping terrorists’ bodies as bargaining cards for future swaps of Israeli hostages. Israel has agreed to provide Hizbullah with information on four missing Iranian “diplomats.” And it has agreed to release an unknown number of Palestinian terrorists from prison.
This deal will cement Iran’s control of Lebanon through Hizbullah. It also all but guarantees that any future Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hizbullah will be killed on the spot. Why care for hostages when you can murder them and expect to receive the same payoff you would get if you kept them alive?
More Israeli parents will now see their children taken hostage and murdered. The Israeli government will find itself the junior partner in this deal with the devil.
“In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels,” he said over the weekend, responding to a question from an Israeli journalist who noted that Mr. Carter had been snubbed by most of Israel’s top leadership and reprimanded by its president, Shimon Peres. “When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.”
. . . . He said the dictator “speaks” for “all” the people, just as the people in a democracy speak for themselves. Taken at face value, this is a reflection of every dictator’s conceit: that his will is also the general will, whether the people agree with him or not. This is what Fidel Castro meant when he praised Cuba’s elections, in which only the Communist Party is on the ballot, as “the most democratic in the world.” Perhaps Mr. Carter has harbored similar views about the relative merits of his opinion versus the people’s since he was turned out of high office by 44 states.
Yet a dictator does not speak for the people. Properly speaking, a dictator speaks for none of the people. A dictator speaks only for himself, while “the people” are transformed, through force and fear, into an abstraction, an instrument, a rhetorical trope. On the contrary, it is only in a democracy where the government can morally and lawfully be said to speak for the people, since it was morally and lawfully chosen by the people to speak for them. Which means that Mr. Carter has matters precisely backwards: It is in democracies such as Israel where the views of the leadership matter most, and in dictatorships such as Syria where they matter least.
When asked about Carter’s trip, Obama had a non-response.
“I’m not going to comment on former President Carter,” Obama told reporters while campaigning in Indianapolis. “He’s a private citizen. It’s not my place to discuss who he shouldn’t meet with. I know I’ve said consistently that I would not meet with Hamas.”
Had Obama given Carter the verbal smacking the ex-president deserved, I think he’d have moved up in public opinion. Not only did Obama miss another Sister Souljah moment, but he also demonstrated that he lacks the intellectual honesty to follow his negotiate-with-anybody-stance to its logical conclusion.
At least by Carter’s logic, even as President Carter himself didn’t speak for us. It’s a pity all the political prisoners in the Middle East will almost certainly not see it that way.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has today said that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is “unavoidable” and that it would help maintain social cohesion.
Rowan Williams told BBC Radio 4’s World At One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.
He says that Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court. He added Muslims should not have to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”.
Dr Williams said there was a place for finding a “constructive accommodation” in areas such as marriage - allowing Muslim women to avoid Western divorce proceedings.
Hey, I’ve got a brilliant idea. If Muslims don’t relate to the British legal system, GET THE FRACK OUT OF BRITAIN. Why the HELL should we bend over backwards to accommodate a 12th century legal system in a modern western country? Leftists like Dr. Williams always tell us that we should be accepting of other cultures - well that door goes both ways.
If you want to live in the west and enjoy all the freedom and prosperity it provides you should live by our rules. If you want to live under sharia law - move to Saudi Arabia or Iran.
Those are my four issues in this campaign — which I happily give Apollo credit for — and I’m more confident that John McCain will make better decisions on them than Mitt Romney. That’s why I just voted for him.
McCain was one of the few Republicans to support the war and criticize its prosecution before it became popular for Republicans to do. He backed the Surge from the beginning and through its darkest hours and has been proven to have been right.
On judges, McCain voted for all of President Bush’s nominees, including Justice Alito, a vote he has vehemently defended. Even if John Fund was right and McCain would nominate justices more like Roberts than Alito, I know I’d be a perfectly happy man.
Mitt Romney is a good guy and I’m not going to fault anyone who votes for him: he’s infinitely preferable to McCain on fiscal matters and he doesn’t buy into the man-made-global-warming-will-destroy-the-world-thank-you-Al-Gore stuff. On those issues — as well as immigration and campaign finance/1st amendment issues — we’re going to have to fight McCain, especially those like me. But so long as we emerge from a better Iraq and appoint reasonable justices, I’m willing to fight those fights.
Snarky Bastards briefly covered the story of Farfour, the Jihadi mouse of Hamas children’s television, who was eventually beaten to death by a Mossad agent (on camera). Well, Palestinian boys and girls have a new friend in Narhoul, the wingless Jihadi bee!
In addition to teaching Palestinian children about the virtues of jihad and martyrdom, Narhoul also provides a forum to discuss the Prophet’s teachings on animal cruelty — by showing what you’re not supposed to do to realcats.
A couple of years ago, I wondered how long it would be until Jihadis started releasing videos of themselves kicking puppies (crusader puppies, of course). I think this is pretty close.