Free Republic

George Jonas and David Bowie died yesterday. They both wrote lyrics, Jonas somewhat less profitably than Bowie. Other than that, they didn't have much in common. I will miss George very much. He was Canada's greatest public intellectual, and I was honored to share the pages of The National Post with him. I'll have more to say later, but there's a modest tribute from me as part of Joseph Brean's story in today's Post:His columns were memorable in many cases for a single aphorism. Politicians who seek high office, for example, should be disqualified for being stupid enough to think...

The "Arab Spring," a phenomenon that has aroused the enthusiasm of many, has aroused mainly apprehension in me. On February 23, I wrote that "to optimistic observers, especially to eastern seaboard liberal-democratic types, the ouster of Tunisian tyrant Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January amounted to lighting a long fuse to blow up all tyrannies in the Middle East. Pessimistic observers agree that the fuse has been lit, except the ensuing explosions aren't going to herald something better, such as democracy, but worse, such as theocracy." My concern only increased when I saw much of the Western media not being...

Schoolboys in my native Hungary used to recite an old ditty. It conjured up emotions ossified in the seams of time. The Kings of Hungary Freedom Square, Budapest, Hungary Stork, stork, ciconia, What makes your foot bleed? A Turkish lad is slashing it A Magyar lad is mending it With a fife, a drum and a fiddle of reed.The wounded stork’s song was a fragment of tribal memory bobbing to the surface from the collective unconscious of a great historical hurt. It was a bitter lay, a denunciation of the Ottoman Empire, the Xanadu of imperial Islam. The Turks had...

My friend, noted Quebec academic and author Pierre Lemieux, submitted his firearms licence-renewal application directly to the Prime Minister's office this week. "Mr. Prime Minister," he wrote in a covering letter enclosing his Form 979, "I would like to suggest that you should enforce your own "laws" yourself. You will note that, as a proud descendant of the disobedient French Canadian coureurs de bois, I have not answered one of the form's indiscreet and obscene questions. I answered that my love affairs are none of your business." (Form 979 asks, among other things, about recently ended romantic relationships.) Atta boy,...

My book was all about avenging evil. Then the King of Hollywood got hold of it.by George Jonas January 7, 2006 EXCERPTS [emphasis is mine, T]:    ...Spielberg is quoted as saying that the real enemy in the Middle East is intransigence. He conceives of "Munich" as a prayer for peace. His screenwriter Tony Kushner says they do not wish to demonize either side.Such remarks illustrate why, in an era of moral chaos, Hollywood is unlikely to restore clarity. With due respect to pop culture and its undisputed master, one doesn't reach the moral high ground by being neutral between...

As the United Nations General Assembly voted last week on an Arab-sponsored resolution to proscribe any action Israel might take against Yasser Arafat -- 133 for, four against, 15 abstentions, including Canada -- petitions popped up in my e-mail demanding: a) that the UN condemn terrorism; b) that the UN declare suicide bombings war crimes and have those who instigate them prosecuted as war criminals before the ICC, the International Criminal Court, and; c) to protest Canada's fence-sitting abstention in the General Assembly. Though I agree with the petitions, I've two reasons for not signing them (or clicking on the...

The sea to sea rally of Canada's Unregistered Firearms Owners Association (CUFOA) has been underway for about a month. It started on June 27 in Saskatoon, and has by now pretty much crossed the country from Victoria to St. John's. On July 29, the rally plans to convene on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, at which time some organizers will present affidavits that may result in their arrest. In essence, the affidavits (some have been made available on the Internet) will state that the affiants possess unlicensed firearms they have no intention of registering as required by law. "I will not...

The next explosion you hear may be Iran. The country is ready to blow, in more ways than one. While the world's attention focused on neighbouring Iraq, two trends have developed, or rather ripened to maturity, in Tehran. The first is an attempt by the ruling clerical regime to acquire nuclear capabilities. The second is an attempt by a home-grown reform movement to change or topple the clerical regime. Neither process is new. Both have been bubbling underneath the surface of more sensational events in the region. In the coming months, though, news of Iran (along, perhaps, with news of...

About a month ago I wrote that opponents of the war to depose Saddam Hussein haven't had much luck justifying their position after the war was over. Their worst predictions never materialized: There was no quagmire à la Vietnam, no masses of refugees, no environmental disasters. Dismantling Iraq's Baathist tyranny cost fewer American casualties than the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon alone. Mass graves proved beyond any doubt the foul nature of Saddam's regime, and many Iraqis greeted the coalition forces as liberators. Opponents, I wrote in April, would cling to one remaining shred of argument to justify their...

CNN News Executive Eason Jordan's confession, published in The New York Times on April 11, created a stir in media circles. Entitled "The News We Kept To Ourselves," Mr. Jordan agonized about the trips he made over the past 12 years to lobby Saddam's regime to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open. "Each time I visited," Mr. Jordan wrote, "I became more distressed by what I saw and heard -- awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff." The CNN news chief's confession took me back...

In the unlikely event that Saddam Hussein is alive and captured, many people will call for him to be tried by a tribunal, preferably the International Criminal Court (ICC). I think it would be a mistake. My suggestions, in descending order of preference, are: 1) Shoot him out of hand; 2) Let him go, and leave his punishment to God; 3) Try him before a coalition tribunal; 4) Let the ICC assume jurisdiction over him. It has been said that Churchill recommended shooting senior Nazis out of hand after the war. If so, I do not think Sir Winston's suggestion...

Watching the northern branch of the now defunct Iraqi Ministry of Information, otherwise known as the CBC, is a reminder why eliminating the United Nations is as important as eliminating Saddam Hussein. A show that's being repeated on CBC's Newsworld these days is The Fifth Estate special, called "Inside the War On Iraq." It proposes to explain the war in terms of a neo-conservative conspiracy aimed at establishing American hegemony in the world. In the show's view, this has been the reason for the invasion, not ridding the world of a murderous and menacing tyranny. It was all the chilling...