Of course, no one on the Left would dream of saying such a thing these days, but many I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. (my emphasis) Now to whom could he possibly have been referring? The Arab and Muslim world has no doubt, and is telling itself that Freeman was forced out by... This is a case I have made many times, not least in...
Wednesday, 11th March 2009
A voice of decency inside the church
5:15pm
Having written so critically of certain Anglican attitudes towards Israel, I was very heartened indeed to see the realistic and decent comments made by Giles Fraser, vicar of Putney, in the Church Times the other week. Fraser, pictured above at 'Levellers' Day' in Burford last year and who helped prepare an edition of the Gospels with a neo-Marxist introduction, certainly could not be accused of being an apologist for Israel. Nevertheless, he has grasped that something has been unleashed which is in a different category altogether from legitimate criticism – and it is coming from the political left. Reflecting on the fact that far from being its ideological opponent the left has historically tapped into Jew-hatred, Fraser wrote:
...Exit, spraying venom
10:37am
By his ending shall ye know him. Chas W Freeman (see my entries here, here and here) has now withdrawn from his appointment as chairman of the US National Intelligence Council. And this was his disgusting parting shot:Persistently Validating Extremism
12:52am
Policy Exchange has produced yet another extremely important pamphlet on radical Islamism and the grievous and indeed lethal errors in government policy towards it. Entitled Choosing Our Friends Wisely by Shiraz Maher and Martin Frampton, it is a devastating critique of the centrepiece of that policy, a strategy called Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE). Recently, it was reported that there was a strong feeling in parts of the security establishment that this strategy had been a disaster; defining the problem as only ‘violent’ extremism’, the government had failed to grasp that the core problem is actually religious/ ideological extremism which produces a continuum of divisive, antisocial or threatening views which provides the sea in which violence swims. The strategy should therefore be changed to ‘Preventing Extremism.’
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
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