Executed

BBC

It was only nine o'clock in the evening in Crawford but George Bush was already embedded in the land of nod, with orders not to be woken until the morning. The blithe indifference of deep slumber was the final snub to the dead man who once described himself as "Salahadin II", "the Redeemer of all the Arabs" and "the Lion of Baghdad".

Indeed, the man once dubbed by the west as 'the Iraqi strongman' before he became less of a middle-eastern tool.

Shortly thereafter the White House issued a pre-prepared written statement: "Today Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial - the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime."

A fair trial, in an occupied country?

President Bush and his advisers have always liked to compare the birth pangs of Iraqi democracy to the emergence of a free Germany after the World War II. Bloodletting But what they were dealing with was not Germany 1945 but Germany in 1648 emerging from the feudal bloodbath of the 30 years war. Another example would have been Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Al Jazeera

For some Iraqi Kurds, the execution was a "fair decision" regardless of timing, though it has dashed hopes of justice for crimes against them. Saddam was due to face charges against Iraqi Kurds during a second trial in what is known as the Anfal, or "spoils of war", campaign. This was due to resume next month.

Is that democratic justice? Perhaps the people in charge couldn't risk the truth about US-Iraqi relations being discussed in court.

And now what of the man who - apparently - was really behind the September 11th 2001 attacks, namely Bin Laden?

Of god

So, here we go again for the big debate on wether there is a creator or wether science can explain all. Recently, I came to the conclusion, that faith is a personal matter which can not and need not be proven. I believed that would be a definition which would please hard core atheists, sceptics such as myself as well as believers in a creator. I also thought it would be a good way of diffusing differences in a heated argument on the subject, a subject on which neither side is ever willing to cede ground. This is not necessarily the case, though, as I found out talking to a muslim believer the other day. Our discussion was fairly amicable and we parted on friendly terms both pleased to have been able to exchange our thoughts. We were, however, both right, and determined to have the last word. I say that, but I remain unconvinced as to how anyone can be 'right' on this issue. The man assured me, that the existence of a creator could be proven, if not scientifically, at least philosophically in the sense, that everything we see around us, everything material must come from somewhere, someone or something must have created it. Sure, I said, but who created the creator? Here, he said, I was thinking in materialistic terms when I should have been thinking outside the material sphere. Problem is, he was using a spiritual creator to 'explain' the origin of the material world. I respect him for making a difference between scientific and philosophical proof, but in fact it comes to the same thing as the scientist I saw on the news recently arguing, that schools should be open to teaching about creationism as a scientific theory simply because nothing disproves it. As far as I know schools don't usually teach a theory unless it has actually already been proven (though perhaps education systems tend to accept 'proven' theories a little to easily). In the end, I believe I am still right in saying faith is personal and proof has no role in it. Of course, we may never know everything about where we come from. Of course, it doesn't seem to make any sense to say we appeared out of nothing, and yet it makes no more sense to say some non-material being created us, since the question remains: where does that being come from? For all of us who are not scientists, belief in a creator is as valid as belief in the idea, that the world came out of nothing. When I say 'belief', I really mean 'theory'. None of us know, however, who the creator is, why he/she/it created us, and what we were created for. That all belongs to the domain of faith, and should not be imposed as fact. Neither the Bible, the Qu'ran , the Torah or any other holy book can be seen as anything more than legend. They are certainly not proof. Some people may think their after-life depends on them praying regularly to their god and imposing their beliefs on others, but they run the risk of being utterly mistaken and reaching death having wasted their lives and the lives of others in the process. This is why for me faith should remain a theory and/or a personal matter. There is so much to say on this subject, and I am sure I am far from having written everything I could write. If anyone is interested in continuing the debate, please leave a message!

Painting the Picture

Fisk (extracts)

The other Lebanese problem - which the people of Northern Ireland will immediately spot - is that a sectarian state, where only Maronites can be the president and where only Sunnis can be the prime minister, cannot be a modern state. Yet if you take away the sectarianism France created, Lebanon will no longer be Lebanon. The French realised all this in the same way - I suspect - as the Americans have now realised the nature of their sectarian monster in Iraq. Listen to what that great Arab historian, Albert Hourani, wrote about the experience of being a Levantine in 1946 - and apply it to Iraq. To live in such a way, Hourani wrote: "is to live in two worlds or more at once, without belonging to either; to be able to go through the external forms which indicate the possession of a certain nationality, religion or culture, without actually possessing it. ... It is to belong to no community and to possess nothing of one's own. It reveals itself in lostness, cynicism and despair." Amid such geopolitical uncertainties, it is easy for westerners to see these people in the borders and colours in which we have chosen to define them. Hence all those newspaper maps of Lebanon - Shias at the bottom and on the right, the Sunnis and Druze in the middle and at the top, and the Christians uneasily wedged between Beirut and the northern Mediterranean coast. We draw the same sectarian maps of Iraq - Shias at the bottom, Sunnis in the middle (the famous "Sunni triangle" though it is not triangular at all) and Kurds at the top. The British army adopted the same cynical colonial attitude in its cartography of Belfast. I still possess their sectarian maps of the 1970s in which Protestant areas were coloured orange (of course) and Catholic districts were green (of course) while the mixed, middle-class area around Malone Road appeared as a dull brown, the colour of a fine, dry sherry. But we do not draw these maps of our own British or American cities. I could draw a map of Bradford's ethnic districts - but we would never print it. I could draw a black-white ethnic map of Washington - but the Washington Post would never dream of publishing it.

It's interesting, that just as reserving the presidency to one community, the PM to another and the speaker of parliament to yet another is not entirely democratic, the same goes for restricting democracy to one religious/ethnic community within society. It might be said Lebanon and Israel are on a par. The difference is, of course, that in one case, several communities must strive to live together in harmony, whereas in the other only one community is officially represented by the state, which was in fact created for that one single community. The others, who lived on the same land for generations must accept second-class status.

Very Cross and other stories

On this issue of BA banning a small cross, I think Ian Hislop put it well on Have I got News for You. Of course, it's not only nonsensical for BA to dig their feet in over such a small item of jewelry, it's also unfair to expect a person to hide their faith when others are allowed to show theirs. That said, such a ban doesn't amount to persecution of christians. As Hislop said, persecution is stoning, beating etc. I do believe people or groups can be persecuted without physical violence, but to say christians are persecuted in Britain, a country whose head of state is also head of the church, is almost comical.
I also think this case has shown how politicians, especially elected ones, should be careful when they open their mouths. Jack Straw may feel intimidated when a veiled muslim woman comes into his surgery (poor thing), but his job as an elected representative is to defend the rights of all first and foremost. If he believes a christian BA worker should be allowed to wear her cross, then he should defend the right of a muslim woman to wear the veil if she so chooses, and however intimidated he feels. I find it hard to believe an experienced politician such as him, what's more MP in an ethnically diverse town in a multicultural country, could be so ignorant and small minded as to feel uneasy facing a veiled citizen.
My personal view is, that the veil or niqab was never a problem until recently. Similarly, islamic terrorism never took place in this country until 7/7/05. I don't think it is coincidental, that this all takes place post-9/11/01 and post US/UK invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. I think Blair and his minions which include Straw, would like us to conveniently ignore those links, and believe, that islam has suddenly become a faith to be feared, for no apparent reason.
Finally, I would like to point out, that faith is a personal issue. Some christians may say the cross is not necessary as some muslims may not feel the veil is necessary. It is not for anyone to say what a believer should or should not wear. Faith, in my opinion, is cultural. This is why in some muslim countries women wear a niqab and in others they wear a hijab or nothing. It is also why in some muslim communities in Britain women will be more likely to wear a niqab than in others. This is why it is more a case of cultural tolerance than religious tolerance. Furthermore, since faith is a personal matter but also a belief, who are we to say what believers should or should not believe. When western politicians call on muslims to practice a moderate islam, they are belittling the faith. If a muslim believes in a radical islam, that is his or her right, so long as he or she does not harm others.

Balanced reporting

Al Jazeerah

In an unprecedented incident an Israeli woman was killed by a Palestinian projectile in Sderot this morning. Members of the armed resistance often launch the homemade projectiles from the northern Gaza Strip onto the Israeli town, but usually not even material damage is done.

One wonders how Al Jazeerah can be accused of being unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinians. Then again, one wonders how anyone can be unfairly biased in favour of the palestinians, given the biased context which favours Israel: it is a state, with a powerful military, supported by the world's unique super power, and none of the most powerful 'democracies' of the west will openly question Israel's 'right to self defence' nor its questionable version of democracy. Whether or not palestinian terror attacks are morally justifiable is frankly not relevant, at least as long as for every Israeli (Jew) killed, dozens of Palestinians are killed, kidnapped, their houses flattened, and the 'free world' continues to justify Israel's terrorism in the name of 'self-defence'.

BBC

In the past nine days alone around 80 Palestinians have been killed. And altogether, close to 400 have died - many of them civilians - since the Israeli army intensified operations in late June.

Over the same period, on the Israeli side, there have been three deaths. They were all soldiers, and one of them was killed accidentally in friendly fire.

The BBC manages to come accross as sympathetic to the Palestinians, even being accused by zionists, pro-zionists and neo-cons (right and left) of actually being liberally biased and biased in favour of the Palestinians. And yet, if the BBC really favoured the Palestinians, it would talk of Israeli terror, Israeli militants. It would name the hundreds of Palestinians killed almost daily, and it would regularly interview their families. If the BBC was biased towards the Palestinians, it would link Palestinian attacks, murders and kidnappings directly to Israeli attacks, murders and kidnappings. It would have reminded us regularly, that prior to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, two Palestinian suspected militants were kidnapped in Gaza by the Israelis. Actually, if the BBC was professional it would do all that.

Judith Butler on anti-semitism, Jews and Israel

London Review of Books (extracts)

Summers is right to voice concern about rising anti-semitism, and every progressive person ought to challenge anti-semitism vigorously wherever it occurs. It seems, though, that historically we have now reached a position in which Jews cannot legitimately be understood always and only as presumptive victims. Sometimes we surely are, but sometimes we surely are not. No political ethics can start from the assumption that Jews monopolise the position of victim. 'Victim' is a quickly transposable term: it can shift from minute to minute, from the Jew killed by suicide bombers on a bus to the Palestinian child killed by Israeli gunfire. The public sphere needs to be one in which both kinds of violence are challenged insistently and in the name of justice.

If we think that to criticise Israeli violence, or to call for economic pressure to be put on the Israeli state to change its policies, is to be 'effectively anti-semitic', we will fail to voice our opposition for fear of being named as part of an anti-semitic enterprise. No label could be worse for a Jew, who knows that, ethically and politically, the position with which it would be unbearable to identify is that of the anti-semite. The ethical framework within which most progressive Jews operate takes the form of the following question: will we be silent (and thereby collaborate with illegitimately violent power), or will we make our voices heard (and be counted among those who did what they could to stop that violence), even if speaking poses a risk? The current Jewish critique of Israel is often portrayed as insensitive to Jewish suffering, past as well as present, yet its ethic is based on the experience of suffering, in order that suffering might stop.

(...)

If, on the other hand, we distinguish between anti-semitism and forms of protest against the Israeli state (or right-wing settlers who sometimes act independently of the state), acknowledging that sometimes they do, disturbingly, work together, then we stand a chance of understanding that world Jewry does not see itself as one with Israel in its present form and practice, and that Jews in Israel do not necessarily see themselves as one with the state. In other words, the possibility of a substantive Jewish peace movement depends on our observing a productive and critical distance from the state of Israel (which can be coupled with a profound investment in its future course).

(...)

A challenge to the right of Israel to exist can be construed as a challenge to the existence of the Jewish people only if one believes that Israel alone keeps the Jewish people alive or that all Jews invest their sense of perpetuity in the state of Israel in its current or traditional forms. One could argue, however, that those polities which safeguard the right to criticise them stand a better chance of surviving than those that don't. For a criticism of Israel to be taken as a challenge to the survival of the Jews, we would have to assume not only that 'Israel' cannot change in response to legitimate criticism, but that a more radically democratic Israel would be bad for Jews. This would be to suppose that criticism is not a Jewish value, which clearly flies in the face not only of long traditions of Talmudic disputation, but of all the religious and cultural sources that have been part of Jewish life for centuries.

(...)

A challenge to the right of Israel to exist can be construed as a challenge to the existence of the Jewish people only if one believes that Israel alone keeps the Jewish people alive or that all Jews invest their sense of perpetuity in the state of Israel in its current or traditional forms. One could argue, however, that those polities which safeguard the right to criticise them stand a better chance of surviving than those that don't. For a criticism of Israel to be taken as a challenge to the survival of the Jews, we would have to assume not only that 'Israel' cannot change in response to legitimate criticism, but that a more radically democratic Israel would be bad for Jews. This would be to suppose that criticism is not a Jewish value, which clearly flies in the face not only of long traditions of Talmudic disputation, but of all the religious and cultural sources that have been part of Jewish life for centuries.

(...)

Identifying Israel with Jewry obscures the existence of the small but important post-Zionist movement in Israel, including the philosophers Adi Ophir and Anat Biletzki, the sociologist Uri Ram, the professor of theatre Avraham Oz and the poet Yitzhak Laor.

(...)

It will not do to equate Jews with Zionists or Jewishness with Zionism. There were debates among Jews throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries as to whether Zionism ought to become the basis of a state, whether the Jews had any right to lay claim to land inhabited by Palestinians for centuries, and as to the future for a Jewish political project based on a violent expropriation of land. There were those who sought to make Zionism compatible with peaceful co-existence with Arabs, and those who used it as an excuse for military aggression, and continue to do so.

(...)

What is ironic is that in equating Zionism with Jewishness, Summers is adopting the very tactic favoured by anti-semites (...) Mona Baker, the academic in Manchester who dismissed two Israeli colleagues from the board of her academic journal in an effort to boycott Israeli institutions, argued that there was no way to distinguish between individuals and institutions. In dismissing these individuals, she claimed, she was treating them as emblematic of the Israeli state, since they were citizens of that country. But citizens are not the same as states: the very possibility of significant dissent depends on recognising the difference between them. Baker's response to subsequent criticism was to submit e-mails to the 'academicsforjustice' listserv complaining about 'Jewish' newspapers and labelling as 'pressure' the opportunity that some of these newspapers offered to discuss the issue in print with the colleagues she had dismissed. She refused to do this and seemed now to be fighting against 'Jews', identified as a lobby that pressures people, a lobby that had put pressure on her (...) Oddly, and painfully, it has to be said that on this point Mona Baker and Lawrence Summers agree: Jews are the same as Israel.

(...)

The 'Jew' is no more defined by Israel than by anti-semitism. The 'Jew' exceeds both determinations, and is to be found, substantively, as a historically and culturally changing identity that takes no single form and has no single telos.

Any independent-minded persian-readers out there?

UPDATE BELOW

Information Clearing House

When properly translated the Iranian president actually calls for the removal of the regimes that are in power in Israel and in the USA as a goal for the future. Nowhere does he demand the elimination or annihilation of Israel. He called for greater governance for Palestine. The word map does not even feature. And the president makes plain that the Holocaust happened, but, he argues western powers have exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own imperialistic purposes. What the mainstream ran with is complete deception.

The deception has been aided by the fact that much of the media use an ‘independent’ company called Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri) for translating Middle Eastern languages. Memri just happens to be owned by two right-wing neo-con Israelis: Meyrav Wurmser, the wife of one of Dick Cheney’s aides (and ex-special assistant to ‘Strap-on’ John Bolton), David Wurmser and former(?) Israeli Military Intelligence officer, Colonel Yigal Carmon. Indeed a look at Wikipedia’ s incomplete staff list seems to suggest a heavy Israeli bias in staffing and at least two more ex-Israeli Military Intelligence people. Still the little red email is sure that’s just a coincidence, as is the fact that the Israeli army (presumably military intelligence) has also used this mistranslation tactic in the past.

Update: Fri.20th Oct.

On Holocaust denial by Ahmadinejad:
Information Clearing House

The Iranian press agency IRNA renders Ahmadinejad on 2005-12-14 as follows: "'If the Europeans are telling the truth in their claim that they have killed six million Jews in the Holocaust during the World War II - which seems they are right in their claim because they insist on it and arrest and imprison those who oppose it, why the Palestinian nation should pay for the crime. Why have they come to the very heart of the Islamic world and are committing crimes against the dear Palestine using their bombs, rockets, missiles and sanctions.' [...] 'If you have committed the crimes so give a piece of your land somewhere in Europe or America and Canada or Alaska to them to set up their own state there.' [...] Ahmadinejad said some have created a myth on holocaust and hold it even higher than the very belief in religion and prophets [...] The president further said, 'If your civilization consists of aggression, displacing the oppressed nations, suppressing justice-seeking voices and spreading injustice and poverty for the majority of people on the earth, then we say it out loud that we despise your hollow civilization.'"

(...)

The assertion that Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust thus is wrong in more than one aspect. He does not deny the Holocaust, but speaks of denial itself. And he does not speak of denial of the Holocaust, but of denial of the Myth of Holocaust. This is something totally different. All in all he speaks of the exploitation of the Holocaust. The Myth of Holocaust, (see Finkelstein: The Holocaust Industry - Jez) like it is made a subject of discussion by Ahmadinejad, is a myth that has been built up in conjunction with the Holocaust to - as he says - put pressure onto somebody. We might follow this train of thoughts or we might not. But we cannot equalize his thoughts with denial of the Holocaust.

(...)

The next step is to connect the Iranian President with Hitler. 2006-02-20 the Chairman of the Counsil of Jews in France (Crif) says in Paris: "The Iranian President's assertions do not rank behind Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'". Paul Spiegel, President of the Central Counsil of Jews in Germany, 2005-12-10 in the 'Welt' qualifies the statements of Ahmadinejad to be "the worst comment on this subject that he has ever heard of a statesman since A. Hitler". At the White House the Iranian President is even named Hitler. And the German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel as well moves over Iran's President towards Hitler and National Socialism by saying 2006-02-04 in Munich: "Already in the early 1930's many people said that it is only rhetoric. One could have prevented a lot in time if one had acted... Germany is in the debt to resist the incipiencies and to do anything to make clear where the limit of tolerance is. Iran remains in control of the situation, it is still in their hands."

All this indicates war. Slobodan Milosevic became Hitler. The result was the war of the Nato against Yugoslavia. Saddam Hussein became Hitler. What followed was the war the USA and their coalition of compliant partners waged against Iraq. Now the Iranian President becomes Hitler.

Open letter

Stop the war

DEMONISING MUSLIMS: AN OPEN LETTER There is an attempt to plunge this country into a racist hysteria of a kind we have not seen for a generation or more -- directed against Muslims. Recent weeks have seen a series of speeches by leading politicians designed to isolate and demonise British Muslims. These have been reflected in spurious news stories and, still more seriously, violence directed against Muslim people and places of worship. In particular, we deplore the recent remarks by Jack Straw concerning the veil worn in public by some Muslim women. His intervention undoubtedly created the climate in which the racist attack on a Muslim woman in Liverpool took place. Likewise, the bullying attacks of John Reid have served only to spread fear amongst Muslims. We further condemn the attempted fire-bombing of a mosque in Windsor -- the latest in a number of such episodes nationwide -- and note the failure of many commentators and politicians to condemn this outrage. We express our solidarity with all British people of the Muslim faith and affirm their right to worship and dress as they please and to live their lives in peace and security. The current wave of Muslim-baiting is rooted above all in the disastrous 'war on terror', of which this government has been such a prominent supporter. This war has made Britain more vulnerable, not less, to terrorist attack -- an uncomfortable fact from which ministers try to distract by attacks on the Muslim community. If the government is concerned about improving the cohesion of our communities, let it first of all abandon its support for the foreign policy of the US administration, including the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We call on all people of good-will to reject the anti-Muslim hatred being whipped up and to support the values of tolerance now under attack.

Canada blocks IAEA vote on Israeli nuclear weapons

Atomic archive

Terrorism News

Israel neither confirms nor denies its nuclear status but is considered to be the only country in the region with nuclear weapons. Israel does not accept IAEA controls on its nuclear activities.

Punk as Fuck

When the truth is too embarrassing...

From Bradblog.com:

Just amazing. Fox's O'Reilly Factor just covered the Mark Foley (R-FL) issue in two different segments, one of them with a page who says he received communications from Foley, and another with Ann Coulter.

Never mind the content of either segment for now. Incredibly, during a total of three different cutaways to video footage of Foley, he was labelled at the bottom of the screen eachtime as "(D-FL)" !

Three different times. In two different segements. Each cutaway about 15 seconds or more. Showing Foley as a DEMOCRAT. Amazing.

So either Fox is the most duplicitous network in the free world, or the most incompetent. The former is more likely.

Olbermann on dog wagging

More from that guy down there

The Death of Retail Price

Anti-Borat hard-liners have pulled the plug on borat.kz, Borat's Kazakhstan-based Website after his frequent displays of anti-Semitism and his portrayal of Kazakh culture.

Funny considering Borat's creator is Sacha Baron Cohen, a Jew.

And indeed...

In the video, Borat said, "In response to Mr. Ashykbayev's comments, I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government's decision to sue this Jew. "

Is it really possible, that people can be that dumb as to believe Borat represents the real Kazakh people? I guess so...but in that case he is merely the messenger.

Blog of this day

The Death of Retail Price

It started with alcohol which naturally lead her to weed

Such a profound statement yet so rarely heard.

My moral of the story would be: don't let anyone you care for sink so low. Who you care for is your own choice...

anti-Americanism

No Pasaran

Azerty: Do these polls distinguish George W. Bush from the United States? It strikes me many French like the United States but rather they mistrust Bush...

Ted Stanger: Indeed, the French are somewhat schizophrenic when it comes to the United States. You'd have to be really disabled in the eyes and ears not to notice that US cultural products enjoy great success in France but it is the American model of society that is not appreciated and that is even, in my view, demonized, sometimes excessively [Hunh ?! — Ed.]. Nowadays in France, one defines an anti-American as one who hates the United States more than is necessary.

What is schizophrenic about that? And who decides when it is 'more than necessary'? Americans? The US must be the only country-with the exception of Israel-the policies of which it is impossible to criticise without being called a racist. There's no such word as anti-Frenchism (in French) or anti-Britishism, of that I am sure.

Desmond Tutu on South Africa's unfinished struggle

iafrica

"We must take seriously the cry of those who say in the past we were not white enough, today we are not black enough – even if they are wrong. We must take seriously their perception and try to change it.

"Many a truth is uttered in jest"

"So, let us hear the cry of those who complain about a Nguni-ocracy and even of a Xhosa-ocracy. Many a truth is uttered in jest.

Steve Biko, who was murdered whilst in detention in 1977, had an "all-consuming passion to strive for the liberation of his people". He strongly believed that, by internalising a negative self-image, black people collaborated in their own oppression. The Black Consciousness movement was meant to "exorcise this demon".

Black consciousness is not finished – Tutu

In his address, Tutu stressed that the work of black consciousness is not finished – we still do not respect ourselves and each other. "Fundamentally we do not respect one another…the fact of the matter is that we still, depressingly, do not respect one another."

Tutu went on to point out the moral degeneration of South African society and the disregard for the value of life inherent in "horrendous" acts of rape and murder. "Perhaps we did not realise just how much apartheid damaged us, so that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong."

My two pennies worth

I have just watched Newsnight on the BBC doing an experimental poll with 30 people on what they thought of the potential labour candidates in the next election.

I will now post my disclaimer: I trust none of them, and will be spoiling my vote (bar a crisis!).

I have to say, I can't believe how maleable people can be. And these were fairly 'educated' people who were fairly politically aware.
The reaction of many seemed to be, that Brown was insincere in his praise for Blair. While this is no doubt at least partially true, which politician is sincere? John Reid? Well, according to many of them, yes. At least it gives the lie to the idea, that a Scotsman can't be trusted to lead Britain!
What on earth can persuade anyone with half a rational mind, that a populist like Reid could be sincere? Have we not learnt, that a politican saying what people want to hear is usually dishonest?
It's amazing, despite most people rejecting politicans as dishonest and liars, people still fall for the same techniques of flattery, plain speaking etc.

Unitarian Jihad

Communique

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

No religious war

This is not a religious war. There is no reason, that Jews and Christians and Muslims and Hindus should not live and work in peace.