Category Archives: America

Update III: Olby Sweats Haiti (Robertson Vs. The Devil)

America, Christianity, Colonialism, Foreign Aid, History, Media, Military, Race, Racism, The West

I almost felt sorry for MSNBC’s old Olby, so desperate was he to scoop at least one news story detailing Haitian agency, initiative, creativity, and, yes, altruism, in the face of the desperate realities of the quake. Alas, Olby had very little to work with. He was certainly not a happy camper when one of his houseboy reporters told of happening upon a group of Haitians desperately digging in the rubble. Olby’s enormous face softened. But not for long. It transpired that the site used to be a bank. Oh, there were people buried under the bank, but Olby’s touching scene of nobility and self-sacrifice was really a gold-digging expedition.

Goodness is glorious, and the glory belonged, mainly, to Western charitable organizations, with America in the lead.

America is clearly coordinating an awesome mission of mercy to Haiti. The US has practically taken over rescue operations. From the churches—who have storage warehouses in that blighted place; have had them for decades, just in case—to the military, the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, forced to control air traffic sans an “airport control tower or radar,” to the many private charities (Billy Graham’s Rapid Response Team commandeered at least three chartered planes)—how fabulous are the individuals involved in the rescue, recovery, and rehabilitation of Haitians, and how thankless their task.

The heartbreaking images of victims demanding help, complaining about its slow delivery (due to Haiti’s infrastructure or lack thereof), or, in the case of some young, fit, machete-wielding men, helping themselves to what little there was—all made our Olby edgy.

He did extract some comforting platitudes from one Sir John Holmes, Undersecretary of the UN. Holmes promised the pompous Olby that, considering how slow the West is moving to alleviate the suffering, some testiness among the victims is, well, understandable.

Holmes also alluded to the need to avoid being too dramatic in saying that people are going to start dying in large numbers tomorrow. Olby is very melodramatic and super sanctimonious.

Aside: What do you think of NICHOLAS KRISTOF’s new idea for Haiti? The New York Times’ columnist says “the best hope for Haiti was to encourage manufacturing (of garments, for example) aimed at the US market. How is Nic, the aid aficionado, going to get around the fact that scarce resources flow to where they are utilized most efficiently? I can just imagine.

Update I (Jan. 17): “Informed U.S. State Department sources tell WND that Washington has taken de-facto control of earthquake-ravaged Haiti.”

“USAID has now taken control [of Haiti],” said one source. “We [the U.S.] are the only ones who can get things done.”
Vice President Joe Biden told reporters at Homestead Air Force Base, Fla., where relief efforts are underway, that Haiti is a nation “that has totally collapsed.”

I was floored. After providing his viewers with a succinct and useful history of Haitian failures—and following a debate pivoting on the themes of Western culpability and the “road forward”—Zombie Zakaria ended a “FAREED ZAKARIA GPS” segment by posing this question:

“Do you think the United States ought to expend large amounts of money and resources to rebuild Haiti? How much can or should the United States do to save a country with problems as deep as Haiti’s? Will it do anything?”

To ask is to answer. Still, this is progress.

Let me end this update with the following excerpt from the Articles Archive, written about Africa, but adapted to “Hispaniola”:

Irrational superstitions, unfathomable brutality, atavistic attitudes, and self-defeating values—[Haiti’s] plight is not the West’s fault, although, Western governments have compounded its problems through foreign aid. “The Heart of Darkness” that is Haiti is a culmination of the failure of the people ‘to develop the faculties, attitudes and institutions’ (in the words of the brilliant Peter Bauer) favorable to peace and progress.

Update II (Jan. 18): A great deal of huffing and puffing has gone on in the media, lib and con, because of
Pat Robertson’s predictable take on why Haiti was struck. I say “predictable” unpredictably—not because of Robertson’s penchant for controversy, but because of his Christianity. Robertson’s “theological beliefs include the idea that one will reap God’s wrath if one defies His wishes, as Robertson construes them. So what?” Accordingly, the reverend said this on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club”:

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal.”

While conceding that “Robertson’s comments were embarrassing and offensive,” an evangelical missionary by the name of Aaron D. Taylor elaborates on their internal logic:

“When I was a student at Christ for the Nations School of Missions, I learned about the so-called ‘pact with the devil’ that the African slaves of Haiti made to free themselves from the French. Later I learned about the so-called ‘renewal of the covenant’ presumably made by Aristide in 2003 where he officially recognized Voodoo as a state religion. When the earthquake struck Haiti, I knew that it was only a matter of time before a televangelist would say something that the media would pick up and allow themselves yet another opportunity to paint evangelicals in a negative light.

… many African social systems are structured around fear of evil spirits. Unlike in the West, where the predominant salvation model centers around guilt/forgiveness, in African societies people often place their faith in Christ because they view the message of the Resurrection as a cosmic defeat over the power of demonic forces. This is why when Africans (and/ or people of African descent) read their Bibles, most don’t read through the prism of Western liberalism. They take what the Bible says about the supernatural at face value.

Witchcraft is a poor moral base to build a prosperous society. When people are afraid to succeed in their jobs or businesses because they fear their neighbor will place a deadly curse on them, that’s bad news for the economy. Most African Christian leaders recognize this.” …

I cover some of this in my forthcoming book, Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post Apartheid South Africa. In the New South Africa, “traditional” belief systems (or superstitions) are seeping like sewage into what were once western systems of law and medicine. The results are predictably horrible.

Update III: Are you wondering why I lumped what passes for conservative, these days, in the liberal camp as far as the hysteria over Pat Robertson’s predictably Christian take on Haiti?

Check out the thread on the neoconservative Breitbart site.

Update III: It Worked With The Unabomber’s Brother, But Not With Abdul’s Father

America, Family, Homeland Security, Islam, Jihad, Terrorism

It worked like magic with the Unabomber’s brother, but not with the generic Abdul’s father. Not even a warning from dad could sway America to look upon a Muslim suspect with suspicion.

“FATHER OF TERROR SUSPECT REPORTED SON 6 MONTHS AGO.

“US Approved Passenger List.” NEWSWEEK is reporting that “Farouk Abdulmutallab (previously identified in the media as Abdul Mudallad), was entered into a database used by the government to deny or restrict U.S. … The fact that Abdulmutallab was not on the U.S. government’s ‘no fly list’ would help to explain why American authorities cleared the aircraft he boarded, Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, for takeoff. As NEWSWEEK reported earlier today, Dutch authorities say their U.S. counterparts were given the passenger list for review before the flight left the gate and its departure was not approved until clearance was received from the U.S.”

All the Kings Horses and All The King’s Men—the agencies the government has created to protect us—possessed all the requisite information needed to stop or supervise this character closely, but didn’t. Yawn. “Your Government Jihadi Protection Program” at work. (That’s why we need the state apparatus to manage medicine.)

The WaPo confirms too that, “The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was added to a catch-all terrorism-related database … Abdulmutallab was not placed on any watch list for flights into the United States, however, because there was ‘insufficient derogatory information available’ to include him, another administration official said.”

Maj. Nidad Hasan all over again?

Update I (Dec. 27): HAVE TUMMY TROUBLES WILL TRAVEL. Mass contagion ensues. A passenger lingers in the loo too long and is apprehended, but certified “Non-Threatening,” eventually. The man “spent about an hour in the bathroom and got upset when he was questioned by the crew of the flight from Amsterdam,” reports CNN.

The security alert aboard a Northwest Airlines jet Sunday was the result of a “non-serious” incident, and the man questioned in connection with the scare does not appear to be a threat, a law enforcement source said Sunday.
The crew of Northwest Flight 253 — the same Amsterdam, Netherlands-to-Detroit, Michigan flight targeted Friday in what prosecutors called a bomb plot — reported a “verbally disruptive” passenger Sunday and requested police meet the plane, airline and airport officials told CNN. The man was questioned by police after the plane landed in Detroit early Sunday afternoon.

If you thought you were hassled at the airport before, just you wait. The Nigerians manning America’s airport screening posts will be reacting against Oma from Omaha will a vengeance.

Update II (Dec. 28): The Transportation Security Administration (T.S.A) wasted no time in retaliating against the sheeple for an attempted attack by a profile in suspicious behavior:

The NYT: “the new T.S.A. measures required an additional round of searches, including body pat-downs at airport gates overseas.

International travelers were also told that they could not leave their seats for the last hour of a flight, during which time they also could not use a pillow or blanket. They were also limited to one piece of carry-on baggage, including a purse or briefcase, and that piece had to be stowed in an overhead compartment for the last hour of a flight.

Airlines were ordered to turn off in-flight entertainment systems with maps showing a plane’s location, and pilots and flight crews were told not to make comments about cities or landmarks below the flight path.
There also were unspecified measures at airports in the United States, where lines at screening machines grew long. At the Detroit airport, officers in bright blue vests marked “Police” walked through the check-in lobby. … Henry Chen, 48, a businessman who lives in San Francisco, said he was shocked to have a female flight attendant barge in on him in the restroom while he was washing his face during a flight from Seoul. “It was kind of weird, to have a lady try to get in,” he said. “She said that they had to watch people being in the restroom too long.”

Update III: SO MUCH FOR LISTS. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano “acknowledged that U.S. authorities had placed Abdulmutallab on a general counterterrorism watch list that contains about 550,000 names, which is shared with airlines and foreign security agencies. Administration officials acknowledged Abdulmutallab was placed on that list a month ago after his father, a respected Nigerian banker, went to U.S. authorities in Nigeria with concerns about his son’s ties to militants.
Napolitano said without specific and ‘credible’ evidence of suspicious activity, Abdulmutallab could not be classified as the kind of greater security risk that would bar him from traveling to the U.S.”

[SNIP]

What does a Muslim, bomb-carrying boy need to do in order to get American attention? Go on Oprah? This is a cry for help!

Update III: It Worked With The Unabomber's Brother, But Not With Abdul's Father

America, Family, Homeland Security, Islam, Jihad, Terrorism

It worked like magic with the Unabomber’s brother, but not with the generic Abdul’s father. Not even a warning from dad could sway America to look upon a Muslim suspect with suspicion.

“FATHER OF TERROR SUSPECT REPORTED SON 6 MONTHS AGO.

“US Approved Passenger List.” NEWSWEEK is reporting that “Farouk Abdulmutallab (previously identified in the media as Abdul Mudallad), was entered into a database used by the government to deny or restrict U.S. … The fact that Abdulmutallab was not on the U.S. government’s ‘no fly list’ would help to explain why American authorities cleared the aircraft he boarded, Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, for takeoff. As NEWSWEEK reported earlier today, Dutch authorities say their U.S. counterparts were given the passenger list for review before the flight left the gate and its departure was not approved until clearance was received from the U.S.”

All the Kings Horses and All The King’s Men—the agencies the government has created to protect us—possessed all the requisite information needed to stop or supervise this character closely, but didn’t. Yawn. “Your Government Jihadi Protection Program” at work. (That’s why we need the state apparatus to manage medicine.)

The WaPo confirms too that, “The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was added to a catch-all terrorism-related database … Abdulmutallab was not placed on any watch list for flights into the United States, however, because there was ‘insufficient derogatory information available’ to include him, another administration official said.”

Maj. Nidad Hasan all over again?

Update I (Dec. 27): HAVE TUMMY TROUBLES WILL TRAVEL. Mass contagion ensues. A passenger lingers in the loo too long and is apprehended, but certified “Non-Threatening,” eventually. The man “spent about an hour in the bathroom and got upset when he was questioned by the crew of the flight from Amsterdam,” reports CNN.

The security alert aboard a Northwest Airlines jet Sunday was the result of a “non-serious” incident, and the man questioned in connection with the scare does not appear to be a threat, a law enforcement source said Sunday.
The crew of Northwest Flight 253 — the same Amsterdam, Netherlands-to-Detroit, Michigan flight targeted Friday in what prosecutors called a bomb plot — reported a “verbally disruptive” passenger Sunday and requested police meet the plane, airline and airport officials told CNN. The man was questioned by police after the plane landed in Detroit early Sunday afternoon.

If you thought you were hassled at the airport before, just you wait. The Nigerians manning America’s airport screening posts will be reacting against Oma from Omaha will a vengeance.

Update II (Dec. 28): The Transportation Security Administration (T.S.A) wasted no time in retaliating against the sheeple for an attempted attack by a profile in suspicious behavior:

The NYT: “the new T.S.A. measures required an additional round of searches, including body pat-downs at airport gates overseas.

International travelers were also told that they could not leave their seats for the last hour of a flight, during which time they also could not use a pillow or blanket. They were also limited to one piece of carry-on baggage, including a purse or briefcase, and that piece had to be stowed in an overhead compartment for the last hour of a flight.

Airlines were ordered to turn off in-flight entertainment systems with maps showing a plane’s location, and pilots and flight crews were told not to make comments about cities or landmarks below the flight path.
There also were unspecified measures at airports in the United States, where lines at screening machines grew long. At the Detroit airport, officers in bright blue vests marked “Police” walked through the check-in lobby. … Henry Chen, 48, a businessman who lives in San Francisco, said he was shocked to have a female flight attendant barge in on him in the restroom while he was washing his face during a flight from Seoul. “It was kind of weird, to have a lady try to get in,” he said. “She said that they had to watch people being in the restroom too long.”

Update III: SO MUCH FOR LISTS. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano “acknowledged that U.S. authorities had placed Abdulmutallab on a general counterterrorism watch list that contains about 550,000 names, which is shared with airlines and foreign security agencies. Administration officials acknowledged Abdulmutallab was placed on that list a month ago after his father, a respected Nigerian banker, went to U.S. authorities in Nigeria with concerns about his son’s ties to militants.
Napolitano said without specific and ‘credible’ evidence of suspicious activity, Abdulmutallab could not be classified as the kind of greater security risk that would bar him from traveling to the U.S.”

[SNIP]

What does a Muslim, bomb-carrying boy need to do in order to get American attention? Go on Oprah? This is a cry for help!

Update IV: Verdict In The Case Of Noxious Knox

America, Ann Coulter, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Family, Justice, Law, Media, Morality, The Zeitgeist

Update I (3:15PM): GUILTY ON ALL SIX COUNTS. Knox and her ex-boyfriend face a life sentence which, in Italy, amounts to 30 years in jail. In Knox’s case it will be 26 years of incarceration. (Update II below).

1:06 PM: Due any minute is the verdict in the case of “Foxy Knoxy” (Amanda Knox), an American college student, aged 21, from Seattle, Washington, who is on trial for murder in Perugia, Italy.

To repeat the post of June, “The case is instructive in what it says of a deep-seated pathology infecting American society, where reality takes a backseat to some self-serving parallel universe. You see it again and again … Something else that’s worth noting and is not forthcoming from the American media, paragons of pity that they are: Meredith Kercher, the forgotten victim, whose throat was cut with a pen knife during the sexual assault, died an agonizingly slow death.”

With O.J.-type evidence in support of their case, Italian law enforcement agencies are alleging Knox murdered and sexually assaulted one of her roommates, British exchange student Meredith Kercher.

Ann Coulter is right about very many things; it’s a shame she doesn’t always writes about the things she’s right about. On Knox, Ms. Coulter wrote the definitive column covering the crime that is America’s news coverage of the case.

I’ve watched the case unfold and have had similar thoughts as those Ann Coulter expresses in “NYT: DUKE LACROSSE PLAYERS KILLED MEREDITH KERCHER:

“The evidence includes:

— a large kitchen knife, believed by forensic investigators to have caused at least one of Kercher’s three wounds, found at Sollecito’s house. Despite having been thoroughly washed, the knife had Knox’s DNA on the handle and the murder victim’s DNA on the blade.

— a bloody footprint at the crime scene that matches Sollecito’s. The floor had been cleaned so that the footprint was invisible to the naked eye, but was revealed with Luminol (just like on “CSI”).

— Knox’s bloody footprints, mixed with Kercher’s blood, were found in another roommate’s room, where a window had been broken to make it look like there had been a break-in — a theory discounted immediately by investigators. Knox’s footprints, too, had been scrubbed but were discovered with Luminol.

— Kercher’s bloody bra strap at the crime scene that had abundant amounts of Sollecito’s DNA on it.” Read on.

Update II: A procession of rabid women talkers on CNN has been rubbishing the Italian legal system, claiming that the case against Knox is completely fabricated; that the evidence above doesn’t exist; that the prosecutor is a crook; and that the jury and the Italian people at large convicted this innocent American youngster for her bold life style.

The problem is this: The likes of Lisa Bloom and the scary Stacey Honowitz don’t
offer any evidence to support their case against Italy—for that’s what it is.

Both women, and another Vanity (un)Fair feminist, fulminated becasue Knox’s promiscuous, repulsive life-style was the subject of court briefs. Well, the prosecution made the case that the victim was killed in the course of some kinky acts. It makes sense to show how inclined the perps were to engage in said activities, no?

This is American chauvinism at its ugliest.

Look, as an outsider—a relative newcomer—who has been observing American culture, and who has come from a more conservative society (South Africa), I can say that the effects on America’s youth of a progressive upbringing are dire. The lack of generational boundaries and the leveling of necessary hierarchies that preserve civil society—those dictated by authority, age, wisdom, intelligence—this affects the youth. I find American young people, women especially (with exceptions, of course), narcissistic, oversexed and over indulged. (Girls behave sexually even with their fathers. Yuk!) This mindset can easily breed all manner of corruption and invincibility.

Update III: Lisa Bloom has changed her tack slightly while on Anderson Cooper 360°. Earlier in the day she screamed bloody murder: Knox was wrongly convicted. The evidence was insubstantial. Now she contends that indeed Knox’s confession and her “damaging behavior” after the murder, as well as the blood evidence, are enough to bring down a conviction in an American court as well. I guess Bloom is worried about the damage to her credibility her previous dogmatic position might engender.

Update IV (Dec. 5): Larry Auster, usually highly critical, appears to have been swayed by the American media’s advocacy for Knox. Auster admits that in the programing he watched the prosecution’s case was missing. “The Dateline program is suspect because it never presented the prosecutors’ actual case,” he concedes. Despite not hearing anything from the prosecutors’ team, Auster accepts that Knox was subjected to “extreme police interrogation” and to “a kind of torture and psychological manipulation” that culminated in a “false confession which she subsequently withdrew.”

How does he know that this transpired? Because Knox, a habitual liar, said so after the fact and after advice from her lawyers?

Via “View From The Right,” I reached this sober comment on the NYT:

[BEGIN QUOTE]
Maria
Milan
December 3rd, 2009
1:14 pm
From True Justice For Meredith Kercher – http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php

The forensic evidence is enough to convict both Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

Amanda Knox’s DNA was found on:

1. On the double DNA knife and a number of independent forensic experts – Dr. Patrizia Stenoni, Dr. Renato Biondo and Professor Francesca Torricelli – categorically stated that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade.

2. Mixed with Meredith’s blood on the ledge of the basin.

3. Mixed with Meredith’s blood on the bidet.

4. Mixed with Meredith blood on a box of Q Tip cotton swabs.

5. Mixed with Meredith’s blood in the hallway.

6. Mixed with Meredith’s blood on the floor of Filomena’s room.

7. On Meredith’s bra according to Raffaele Sollecito’s forensic expert, Professor Vinci.

Amanda Knox’s footprints were found set in Meredith’s blood in two places in the hallway of the new wing of Meredith’s house. One print was exiting her own room, and one print was outside Meredith’s room, facing into the room. These bloody footprints were only revealed under luminol.

A woman’s bloody shoeprint which matched Amanda Knox’s foot size was found on a pillow under Meredith’s body

The significance of the woman’s bloody shoeprint in Meredith’s room is considerable. By itself it debunks the myth that some had propagated for a while, that Rudy Guede acted alone. The bloody shoeprint was incompatible with Meredith’s shoe size.

An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was found on Meredith’s bra clasp, and Dr. Stefanoni has excluded the possibility of any contamination.

Alberto Intini, the head of the Italian police forensic science unit, pointed out that unless contamination has been proved, it does not exist:

“It is possible in the abstract that there could have been contamination, but until this is proved, it does not exist.”

Please note that the bra clasp wasn’t kicked around the room for 46 days. Your comments were very misleading.

The bra clasp was found under the pillow on 2 November 2007, during the first search, and collected on 18 December when the second search was carried out by a different team.

During this entire time, the clasp was lying on the floor of what has been testified to have been a completely sealed crime scene. So when and how could any contamination occur?

Excluding a spontaneous migration of Sollecito‘s DNA on the clasp from some unidentified location in the murder room or in the cottage, it could have only taken place during either the first or the second handling of the sample, so the fact that the clasp was recovered weeks later really bears no relevance.

Furthermore, where could any abundant amount of Sollecito‘s DNA have come from, if besides that on the bra clasp, the DNA corresponding to his genetic profile was only found on a cigarette butt in the kitchen?

Raffaele Sollecito’s bloody footprint on the blue bathmat will be important evidence.

Two independent imprint experts categorically excluded the possibility that the bloody footprint on the blue bathmat could belong to Rudy Guede.

Lorenzo Rinaldi stated:

““You can see clearly that this bloody footprint on the rug does not belong to Mr. Guede, but you can see that it is compatible with Sollecito.”

The other imprint expert print expert testified that the bloody footprint on the blue bathmat matched the precise characteristics of Sollecito’s foot.

You won’t find a better example of witnesses who aren’t reliable than Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

They have both given multiple conflicting alibis and lied repeatedly.

Their deliberate and repeated lies were exposed by telephone and computer records, and by CCTV footage.

One question Judge Massei and Judge Cristiana and the six members of the jury will now be asking themselves is: if Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent and had nothing to hide, why did they lie so deliberately and repeatedly?

The answer really isn’t very difficult to work out.

If you are still not sure what the answer is, this sentence from Amanda Knox’s handwritten note on 6 November 2007 should help you:

“Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith’s death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think.”

[SNIP]