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"When my grandfather left Europe in 1937, the graffiti on the walls read, 'Jews go to Palestine'. Today the graffiti reads, 'Jews out of Palestine'. How soon Europe forgets.

This says it all.

Enlightening essay. Thanks for the post.

As long as W. stays in the White House, the USA will not teeter... We will fight- as hard as we can, for however long it takes.

We shall go on to the end;
We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans;
We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air;
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be;
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds;
We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets;
We shall fight in the hills;
We shall never surrender...
Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940 at the WSC House of Commons

Thanks for posting this.

An interesting autobiographical quote from David Warren's site:

My greatest interests as a writer are finally not in the passing political questions
but in the underlying civilizational issues -- the need, somehow, to reverse the
terrible moral and intellectual slide of the West, or at least preserve some part of
our inheritance to future generations.

Warren is excellent!

Great stuff:

He grasped that the great weakness of the United States and the West, after the defeat of Nazism, was identical with the great weakness of Germany that had allowed the rise of Hitler. In each case, it is the existence of an intellectual elite who think about abstractions instead of realities, and whose instinct to appease a mortal enemy is founded in a lazy, cowardly, and conceited moral relativism. Kraemer was father to the phrase, "provocative weakness" — in two words, the reason why the West is under attack today from such terror networks as Al Qaeda.

More truth:

What is interesting here, to those capable of taking a longer view, is the spectacle of history repeating itself -- less in outward events, than in inward structure. As in the 1930s, leftists and pacifists on the streets of Europe directly advanced the triumphs of Nazism, so today the demonstrators work to advance the triumphs of Islamism. For they refuse to acknowledge the consequences of ignoring such an enemy.

EXTREME SECURITY FOR BUSH’S VISIT TO LONDON
by
Gordon Thomas

Downing Street and the White House regard a “real and present danger” is a terrorist attack during President George Bush’s state visit to London this week.

Hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters are expected to demonstrate in London and across the country against Bush. Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted this week that the visit has serious problems in terms of security.

“We are examining the possibility of a suicide bomber using a biological weapon,” confirmed a senior member of the American security task force that has arrived in London.

Experts in countering biological warfare from Porton Down, Britain’s bio-warfare defence establishment on Salisbury Plain, will be in London. They will be stationed at the Ministry of Defence during the Bush visit.

GCHQ, Britain’s “invisible eye in the sky” at Cheltenham will focus its thousands of computers and listening devices to pick up “a whisper in the wind” of any threat to the President.

At Menwith Hill in the north of England, where America’s National Security Agency has its European facility, ECHELON, NSA’s most sensitive and still ultra-secret surveillance system will be specially programmed to keep track of any threat to Bush.

The global electronic network is of truly astounding proportions. It links satellites to a series of high-speed parallel computers.
The system enables every electronic communication in the world to be intercepted – in real time.
Searching for key words, ECHELON can identify and segregate 500,000 “messages of interest” a SECOND.
By the end of the week, hundreds of US secret service men, FBI agents and anti-terrorist teams from the CIA will be in London.

Joining them will be every available officer from MI5 and MI6. All police leave has been cancelled. Surveillance will be intensified on all suspected Islamic Fundamentalists.

With them will come CIA chief, George Tenet, and FBI director, Robert Muller, who will accompany the President.
Both plan to pay special attention to the activities of Abu Hamza al-Masri. The one-eyed cleric spreads his extreme Islamic Fundamentalism outside the Finsbury Park mosque in north London which he is barred from entering.

The American intelligence chiefs will repeat again their demands that Hamza should be extradited to the United States to face terrorist charges.
The issue is likely to be discussed in talks between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bush.

Documents discovered in Denver, Colorado, on how to poison a city’s water supply have been traced back to the Sheikh by the FBI.
But the threat to Bush has triggered a turf war between Britain’s security services and the platoons of Americans.
MI5 and the Special Branch feel there is a danger that the Washington security policy of “you do it OUR way” is counter-productive.
They point to the fact that the FBI want to conduct a finger tip search of the President’s suite in Buckingham Palace where he will stay during his three day visit.

“If the Queen went to stay in the White House, we wouldn’t expect to run a metal detector over her guest suite,” said an MI5 source.
This coming weekend, the US security team will check the ancient sewers under Whitehall where a terrorist could place a bomb. The sewers serve Buckingham Palace where the President and Mrs Bush will stay.
After the search, all manhole covers will be sealed – as they are in all American cities prior to a Presidential visit.
Security men will also first check all the food the President will be served.

“The plate containing his own meal will be selected at the last moment from several identical plates before it is served to the President,” confirmed a US security man.
Original plans for the President to ride in a horse drawn coach down the Mall to Buckingham Palace have been scrapped.
Instead, Bush’s custom-made limousine will take him everywhere in public.
The car’s defences have added 2,000 pounds to its original weight. An armoured internal partition and windshield have been integrated into the body shell. The doors and roof are similarly protected.

The titanium-ceramic armour has been tested to withstand a 155 millimetre shell airbursting overhead, or a five pound mine detonating under the chassis. All the windows are proofed against 50-calibre armour piercing bullets.

Built into the passenger compartment is an oxygen mask and fire suppression system, a global positioning indicator accurate to within one foot and a jam-resistant miniature communications switchboard which can connect the President to the Pentagon or the White House.
A touch button facility can also link him to Air Force One. Programmed into the switchboard for his London visit will be all the key security numbers he will need – plus the Queen’s direct line.

In the event of the limousine’s tyres being shot out, the car is able to maintain a speed of 60 mph on the steel rims of its wheels.
The CIA trained chauffeur has passed the most demanding driving course in the world. By his right knee, within instant reach, is a compartment containing a pump action shotgun.

“Short of driving in a tank, the President is the most protected person in public on earth,” Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld has said.
His personal phalanx of bodyguards have been given special Home Office permission to carry hand guns at all times. Usually, the protection detail of a foreign dignitary must check in their guns on arrival in Britain.

Gordon Thomas is a writer on intelligence - his many books include :
Gideon's Spies_The Secret History of Mossad
Robert Maxwell - Israel's Superspy
Seeds of Fire - China and the Story Behind the Attack on America

bump

Reality Bump!

ping

Another good Warren piece.