We take our title and the whole of the following from Mark Steyn who put it in ‘the corner’ of National Review Online:

Strange developments at the Iranian nuke talks:

A British nuclear expert has fallen to his death from the 17th floor of the United Nations offices in Vienna.

The 47-year-old man died after falling more than 120ft to the bottom of a stairwell. He has not been named.

He worked for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, an international agency charged with uncovering illicit nuclear tests.

A UN spokesman in the Austrian capital said there were no “suspicious circumstances” surrounding the man’s death…

Four months ago another UN worker also believed to be British fell from a similar height in the same building, it has been reported.

Hmm. I’d advise Mohammed El Baradei’s surviving colleagues to take the elevator, but then again the aunt of Kofi Annan’s discredited sidekick Benon Sevan fell to her death accidentally stepping into an empty elevator shaft shortly before she was due to be questioned about the Oil-for-Food scandal. If you work at the UN, get a gig on the ground floor.

And in any case, UN DELENDA EST!

It happened many times in the history of Europe that a state drove out the Jews, then regretted doing so when it found itself the poorer, and so invited them back again. Now voices are raised about the sad plight of Berlin since its Jews were ‘driven out’, never to return.

We may hear the sound of bitter laughter from the ghosts of European Jewry (though not apparently from stupider Jews living in Germany now) as we read this, by Paul Belien of the Hudson Institute:

Thilo Sarrazin, a Bundesbank director who criticized Turkish and Arab immigrants in a recent interview, has been punished by his employer and may lose his job. Apart from receiving threats by Islamist extremists, he may also be taken to court by the German authorities on charges of “incitement to racial hatred.” For many Germans, however, Mr. Sarrazin, who until last May was Finance Minister in the regional government of the state of Berlin for the Social-Democrat SPD, is a hero.

Last week Axel Weber, the president of the Bundesbank, Germany’s equivalent of the FED, needed body guards on an official visit to Istanbul. Normally, the head of the German central bank never travels with body guards, but life at the Bundesbank has changed since two weeks ago. Lettre International, a German cultural magazine based in Berlin, published an interview with Thilo Sarrazin, in which the Bundesbank director criticized the unwillingness of Turkish and Arab immigrants to assimilate into German society. The interview provoked the anger of these very immigrants. Immigrant groups accuse Mr. Sarrazin of espousing the “racist views of the far right.”

His boss, Mr. Weber, however, does not want to become the target of angry Muslims. He has apologized to everyone who might feel offended by the “discriminatory comments” of the Bundesbank official. In fact, the Bundesbank issued a statement, distancing itself in the strongest terms from the interview. It also demoted Sarrazin; he may even be fired altogether.

In the Lettre International interview, Sarrazin talked about the economic and cultural situation in his hometown of Berlin. He argued that Berlin has been unable to recover the cultural and economic status and prestige it had before the Second World War. Even its contemporary population figure of 3.2 million is lower than the pre-war 4 million. Sarrazin says that Berlin’s dynamics were broken when the city lost its Jews: the Jewish elite were driven out and instead the city acquired a Turkish and Arab underclass.

“The large scale disappearance of the Jews could never be compensated,” Sarrazin said. “Thirty percent of physicians and lawyers, eighty percent of all theatre directors in Berlin in 1933 were of Jewish origin. Commerce and banking were also largely Jewish. All this has vanished; it was also a considerable intellectual loss. Sixty to seventy percent of the extermination and expulsion of the Jews in the German speaking countries affected Berlin and Vienna.”

Sarrazin argued that during the Cold War, ambitious and dynamic people moved away from the highly-subsidized West Berlin while left-wing activists and drop-outs took their place. Meanwhile a Turkish and Arab underclass was imported, which also lives mostly off government subsidies without making economic contributions to the city.

“Berlin has a bigger problem than elsewhere of an underclass that does not take part in the normal economic cycle. Many Arabs and Turks in this city, whose numbers have grown as a result of wrong policies, have no productive function except selling fruit and vegetables,” Sarrazin said. The plight of his home town makes him very bitter. He lashed out at what he called policies that were “too plebeian” instead of elitist. “Anyone who can do something and strives for something with us is welcome. The rest should go elsewhere,” Sarrazin told Lettre International. The Turks, however, “are conquering Germany in the same way that the Kosovars conquered Kosovo: through their high birthrate. […] I do not need to acknowledge anyone who lives off the state, rejects this country, does not take proper care of the education of his children and keeps producing little girls in headscarves.”

Since the publication of the interview, Sarrazin has received threats from Islamists. The Social-Democratic SPD Party has started a procedure to oust him from its ranks. He has also been criticized by the Central Council of German Jews, whose General-Secretary Stephan Kramer compared his comments about Turkish and Arab immigrants to the “opinions of Göring, Goebbels and Hitler.” The Berlin prosecutor is currently examining whether Mr. Sarrazin can be prosecuted for the crime of “racial incitement.”

An opinion poll indicated, however, that 51 percent of the Germans agree with what Mr. Sarrazin said. Conservative newspapers, such as Die Welt, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and the mass circulation Bild have come to his defense, arguing that he has merely stated uncomfortable facts. Prominent Germans, such as former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the writers Henryk Broder and Ralph Giordano, have also spoken out in support of the Bundesbank official.

Helmut Schmidt, the nonagenarian former leader of the Social-Democrat SPD, said that the presence of seven million immigrants in Germany are proof “of a wrong development for which the political class [of the past 15 years] is responsible.” It would have been better, Mr. Schmidt told the weekly magazine Focus, that those who refuse to integrate into German society “had been left outside.” He added that “The further inflow of people from Eastern Anatolia or Black Africa will not solve the problem [of Germany’s ageing population], but will only create an enormous new problem.”

Ralph Giordano said that Sarrazin’s analysis was “right on the mark.” Henryk Broder stated that he “does not even go far enough.” Since both Messrs. Giordano and Broder are Jewish, their support for Mr. Sarrazin has earned them severe criticism from the Central Council of German Jews, whose Mr. Kramer derisively called both men “Jewish intellectuals.”

On October 14th, Jasper von Altenbockum, an editorialist of the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, wrote in his paper that Mr. Sarrazin’s frank remarks were proof of his great “civil courage.” “Civil courage is more than just courage. It is also a service to the state, whose legal constitutions and social achievements are worth defending.” Mr. Altenbockum criticized those who accuse Sarrazin of acting irresponsibly and foolishly. “In a civil society it is not considered foolish to risk one’s own existence when one defends the civil society and its freedoms and security. What is foolish is for the civil society to punish those who act this way.”

In contemporary Europe, leading a life surrounded by body guards has become normal for people such as Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who criticizes the Islamization of his native land, and Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist who made a drawing depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. Thilo Sarrazin has now joined their ranks.

Certain countries contributing soldiers to the coalition forces in Afghanistan are buying their troops protection by paying the enemy tribute, according to some reports. The allegations seem all too probable. The aim would be not to defeat the Taliban but just to keep them temporarily at bay. It is not a tactic for conquest and victory. If true, it is yet another sign that NATO is in disarray and the Taliban are winning.

From The Australian:

The Times [London] newspaper  said 10 French troops killed in Sarobi, near Kabul, last year had not properly assessed the risks, because their Italian predecessors failed to inform them they had paid the Taliban not to attack them.

The Italian government described the British newspaper’s report as “totally baseless” and said it had “never authorised any kind of money payment to members of the Taliban insurrection in Afghanistan”.

But a senior Afghan official suggested otherwise. “I certainly can confirm that we were aware that the Italian forces were paying the opposition in Sarobi not to attack them,” he said.

“We have reports of similar deals in (western) Herat province by Italian troops based there under NATO’s umbrella.

“It’s a deal: you don’t attack me, I don’t attack you,” he said, adding the practice was passed on between foreign forces and it was likely that senior commanders were either involved or turned a blind eye to it. It is simply a matter of buying time and surviving.”

A French army spokesman in Kabul, Lieutenant Colonel Jackie Fouquereau, said: “The French do not give money to insurgents.”

NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, General Eric Tremblay, said he was “not aware” of such practices and had no information about the Italian case. …

But according to a number of Western and Afghan officers, the politically sensitive practice is fairly widespread among NATO forces in Afghanistan.

One Western military source told of payments made by Canadian soldiers stationed in the violent southern province of Kandahar, while another officer spoke of similar practices by the German army in northern Kunduz.

“I can tell you that lots of countries under the NATO umbrella operating out in rural parts of Afghanistan do pay the militants for not attacking them,” the senior Afghan official said. …

He said he did not want to say precisely how many but one Western officer said: “As it’s not very positive and not officially recognised, it’s never spoken about openly. It’s a bit shameful. Consequently, it’s sometimes not communicated properly between the old unit and the new unit that comes in to relieve them,”  which may have happened between the Italians and the French. According to The Times, the Italian secret service gave tens of thousands of dollars to Taliban commanders and local warlords to keep the peace in the Sarobi region. …

Scooter Schaefer writes at Townhall:

Imagine for a moment you know a student activist at an expensive New England university. This alternatively dressed student and his friends started a campus club that sounds like a 1960’s liberation organization; they regularly attend protests, meet at coffee shops, and engage in philosophy debates. If you are imagining a young liberal radical, don’t jump the gun. There is a new fresh face of student activism that is challenging the liberal bulwark that has long dominated college campuses, and should have you re-examining your pre-conceived notions about campus activism on the right.

The student activist described above could be any number of students that are a part of a movement that is rapidly growing on college campuses across the country, and is neither an extension of the GOP nor a scheme to repackage conservatism. …

National student organizations such as Students for Liberty, Young Americans for Liberty, and Campaign for Liberty are currently experiencing a groundswell of students rallied not by a single political figure, nor an all-encompassing party, but by belief in an idea. Call it libertarian, classical liberalism, or laissez-faire philosophy, but students can rally around what liberty means in their lives; individualism, self-determination, and autonomy.

And for those students who are able to recognize it, the current administration has become …  the single greatest threat to their civil liberties. …

The conservative movement can best incorporate these new lovers of liberty by returning to, and articulating its core principles of limited government, individualism, and unfettered autonomy. Reagan was not a libertarian but found consensus on this issue by masterfully articulating our shared beliefs that a government that governs best is one which governs least.

Students need an idea or belief to rally around. The left has successfully rallied students for decades; not with the arcane intricacies of legislation or party politics, but with a cause. The new face of student activism has taken liberty as their cause. To resonate with these students, the conservative movement would do best to communicate the value it holds in the individual liberties of our citizenry and the belief that government is not the solution, government is the problem.

To those ‘core beliefs’ of conservatism we would add: a market economy and strong defense. We are not sure what ‘unfettered autonomy’ means, or how ‘autonomy’ and ‘self-determination’ are different from liberty. And surely liberty is a much greater thing than ‘civil liberties’. And don’t  political parties form round ideas?

However, we hope it’s true that a lot of students are rallying to the cause of liberty. If true, it’s good news. But how many make a ‘groundswell’?  A rough percentage figure would be helpful.

At the Geneva talks, Iran has achieved a diplomatic victory, and at the same time full legitimacy for its program of nuclear enrichment. Furthermore, it could be helped, probably by Russia, to attain a higher grade of enrichment, raised from the present 5% to 19.75% – just .25% under weapons-grade. This tiny margin would allow Iran and its apologists – including the US administration – to maintain the fiction that Iran wants nuclear power for ‘civilian uses only’.  In fact, this help with the enrichment process would make it easy for Iran to produce a nuclear bomb in a few weeks.

And the Obama administration is happy with this outcome.

From Power Line:

One would think that at least two lessons would have been learned from the financial crisis: stop pushing loans to people who cannot or will not pay them back and stop offering loans with “flexible underwriting criteria.” Not so. The Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are pushing their most audacious plan yet expanding the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) which helped spark the crisis in the first place. …

Read it all here.

AP reports:

The United States has long suspected that much of the billions of dollars it has sent Pakistan to battle militants has been diverted to the domestic economy and other causes, such as fighting India. Now the scope and longevity of the misuse is becoming clear: Between 2002 and 2008, while al-Qaida regrouped, only $500 million of the $6.6 billion in American aid actually made it to the Pakistani military, two army generals tell The Associated Press. The account of the generals, who asked to remain anonymous because military rules forbid them from speaking publicly, was backed up by other retired and active generals, former bureaucrats and government ministers.

At the time of the siphoning, Pervez Musharraf, a Washington ally, served as both chief of staff and president, making it easier to divert  money intended for the military to bolster his sagging image at home through economic subsidies.

“The army itself got very little,” said retired Gen. Mahmud Durrani, who was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. under Musharraf. “It went to things like subsidies, which is why everything looked hunky-dory. The military was financing the war on terror out of its own budget.” …

The details on misuse of American aid come as Washington again promises Pakistan money. Legislation to triple general aid to Pakistan cleared Congress last week. The legislation also authorizes “such sums as are necessary” for military assistance to Pakistan, upon several conditions. The conditions include certification that Pakistan is cooperating in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, that Pakistan is making a sustained commitment to combating terrorist groups and that Pakistan security forces are not subverting the country’s political or judicial processes…

The misuse of funding helps to explain how al-Qaida, dismantled in Afghanistan in 2001, was able to regroup, grow and take on the weak Pakistani army. Even today, the army complains of inadequate equipment to battle Taliban entrenched in tribal regions.

And about that ‘certification’: they would never deliberately lie, would they?

From the Telegraph:

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots. A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver. The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth. The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad’s birthplace, and the name derives from “weaver of the Sabour”, the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran’s Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad’s track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past. Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: “This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad’s background explains a lot about him. “Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith. By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society.”

A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that “jian” ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews. “He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents had,” said the Iranian-born Jew living in London. “Sabourjian is well known Jewish name in Iran.”

Does not compute …

Does not compute …

Does not compute …

The Israeli government has released 20 Palestinian prisoners – the majority of them members of terror groups – in return for a video that verifies the health of captured solider Gilad Shalit.

In the video, Gilad speaks to the camera:

“Hello, I am Gilad, son of Noam and Aviva Schalit, brother of Hadas and Yoel, who lives in Mitzpe Hila. My ID number is 300097029.

“As you see I am holding in my hands the Palestine newspaper of September 14, 2009, published in Gaza. I am reading the paper in order to find information regarding myself, hoping to find some information from which I would learn of my release and upcoming return home. I have been hoping and waiting for the day of my release for a long time. I hope the current government under Binyamin Netanyahu will not waste the chance to finalize a deal, and I will therefore be able to finally have my dream come true and be released.

“I wish to send regards to my family and say to them that I love and miss them and yearn for the day in which I will see them again.

“Dad, Yoel and Hadas, do you remember the day when you visited my base on the Golan Heights on December 31st, 2005, that if I am not mistaken was called Revaya B. We walked around the base and you took photos of me on the Merkava tank and on one of the old tanks at the entrance to the base. We then went to a restaurant in one of the Druse villages and on the way we took photos on the side of the road with the snow-capped Mount Hermon in the background.

“I wish to say to you that I feel good, health-wise, and the Mujahadeen of the Izzadien al-Qassam Brigades are treating me very well. Thank you and goodbye.”

This unending appeasement of terror for little gain is something that the Israeli state will regret – every act of weakness will be exploited. How many more murderers and terrorists must be released before the Israeli state still fails to return Gilad to his home?

It is a troubling scenario – Israeli has a duty to its soldiers; but it also has a duty to its people, and will granting Hamas agitprop trophies and imprisoned killers do anything for Israel’s fortunes and survival in the long run?

This move will not spell peace for the Palestinians, it will increase the chances of another Hamas-started war. As long as such a despotic group exists, there can be no liberty or democracy for the people of Gaza.

This exchange is reminiscent of the release of Samir Kuntar. The moment he walked into Lebanon as a free man spelt the end of a hard earned 60 years cultivating the image of Israel as a capable, tough and proud state. Samir Kuntar is one of the most despised villains of Israeli society: a vicious murderer, his crimes included the inhuman beating to death of a three year old Israeli girl in front of horrified witnesses.

My horror at the release of this epitome of evil is not the support for his crimes that is propagated by Middle Eastern fundamentalist media outlets and despotic governments; it is not even shock at the (frankly expected) Western indifference for this monster – instead I am appalled by the virus that goes by the name of appeasement that has risen again to infect the integrity – or lack thereof – manifested by the weak politicians and activists of the liberal West.

The release of Samir Kuntar, four other terrorists and the hundreds of remains of dead Lebanese murderers marked the beginning of the end. Israel, more than any country, should realise that appeasement is a policy that will never work to their advantage.Machiavelli once wrote, “…one should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for war is not avoided thereby but merely deferred to one’s own disadvantage.”

Kuntar’s relase sent chilling reminders of Chamberlain’s efforts to secure peace; or the IRA murderers given their ill-gotten freedom by Blair’s government; the US government’s protection of Arafat in 1982; the attempted appeasement of Saddam Hussein before the 1990 Gulf War; the encouraged promotion of Islamic culture above all others in Western countries by Western governments; the suggestions of British judges for allowing some form of sharia law in Britain – the last hundred years have shown a frightening propensity for the West to fail to learn from its mistakes and to allow the forces of evil a chance to exist and prosper.

At the time, the release of the five terrorists for two dead Israeli soldiers, met one of Hezbollah’s few demands, another being the return of the Sheba farms to Lebanon. Is it that these unforgettable years of terrorism, torture, murder – the kind of cruelty unimaginable to civilized society – have all just been for the return of a few hundred yards of farm and a child murderer? – appeasement gives terror groups and terror States the time and support to commit even worse atrocities.

After Kuntar’s release, Hamas decided it was no longer going to agree to Israeli terms for the return of Gilad Shalit and was to demand greater returns for the terrorist group. Furthermore, a group of British MPs called for a dialogue with Palestinian terror groups, Hamas included; breaking the policy of no recognition that most Western countries had pursued at the time.

These endless sacrifices for Shalit may all be in vain. It is Israel’s duty to return that soldier home, but in doing so, should it be risking the lives and well-being of her other citizens?

Sam Westrop runs the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy

Can this really be true?

According to DebkaFile:

The Pentagon has brought forward to December 2009 the target-date for producing the first 15-ton super bunker-buster bomb (GBU-57A/B) Massive Ordinance Penetrator, which can reach a depth of 60.09 meters underground before exploding. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that top defense agencies and air force units were also working against the clock to adapt the bay of a B2a Stealth bomber for carrying and delivering the bomb. The Pentagon has ordered the number of bombs rolling off the production line increased from four to ten – a rush job triggered in May by the discovery that Iran was hiding a second uranium enrichment plant under a mountain near Qom – a discovery which prompted this week’s international outcry. Congress has since quietly inserted the necessary funding in the 2009 budget.

All this urgency indicates that the Obama administration has been preparing military muscle to back up the international condemnation of Iran’s concealed nuclear bomb program, its sanctions threat and his willingness to join the negotiations with Iran opening on Oct. 1 in Geneva. Tehran may have to take into account a possible one-time surgical strike against its underground enrichment facility as a warning shot should its defiance continue. In particular, the world powers this week demanded that Iran open up all its nuclear facilities and programs to full and immediate international inspection. Failure to do so could bring forth further US military action.

According to our military sources, the earliest date for the accelerated Pentagon program to produce a super bunker buster bomb mounted on a stealth bomber is December 2009 or January 2010. This too is three years ahead of its original schedule. Pressed into service are two US Air Force research centers for work on adapting the radar-evading stealth bomber to the giant bomb: the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the Munitions Directorate and Air Armament Center, both headquartered at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

If it does turn out to be true, we will confess ourselves to be gobsmacked.