Posts, January 2004:

Multiculturalism hasn't won: Countries don't obey stereotypes. Many blogs writing about the Krekar case portray Norway as a multiculturalist heaven where Muslim terrorists are tolerated, even respected. This is broadly true, if we look only at media and politics. Media treatment of Krekar [...]

Liberal interventionism: I've been reading David Frum and Richard Perle's An End to Evil. Bad title, and it doesn't try hard to convince people who don't share their worldview, but if you do you'll want to read it. One thing I realized [...]

Anti-Israelism and anti-semitism: As I wrote below, I don't think "Snow White and the Madness of Truth" is anti-semitic or supports terrorism, and I don't support Zvi Mazel's form of art criticism. But if we're to grant Palestinian suicide bombers the right to [...]

Israeli ambassador sabotages artwork: The Israeli ambassador to Sweden damaged an art exhibit in Stockholm on Friday. The piece - Show White and the Madness of Truth - contains a photograph of a female Palestinian suicide terrorist floating in a blood-red pool. A [...]

Krekar release overturned: An appeals court in Oslo has overturned the decision to release Mullah Krekar from custody, which I wrote about last week. Borgarting Lagmannsrett has decided that Krekar will be held until Frebruary 2 while the investigation continues, just as the [...]

All in a day's work: Saeed al-Sahhaf, ex-Information Minister of Iraq, has found a new job, as a commentator on the UAE station Abu Dhabi TV. Sahhaf was also known as Comical Ali, as Aftenposten helpfully reminds us: Saeed al-Sahhaf became a cult figure during [...]

Depends on the meaning of "we": VG has translated parts of two speeches Mullah Krekar held over the internet in November 2003: It was asked what we will do when we get in power... I swear by Allah that we will not cut off the hand [...]

Krekar arrested, released: Those of you who care probably know already that Mullah Krekar was arrested again on Friday. (This isn't the blog for breaking news.) Krekar was leader of Ansar al-Islam until he was arrested in 2002, but he's still some kind [...]

Gun toting air marshals: The US has asked that foreign airlines and airports put guards on their planes when the US suspects a hijacking plot, but some airlines and air authorities don't like it. This whole hijacking terrorism thing is so 2001, and when [...]

Books of 2003: I dedicate last year to Amazon. Has it ever been this easy to find good books? I still enjoy browsing shelves in the book store, but it feels like one of my senses has been cut off. Yes, this one [...]