Vatican terror target?

Dec. 29 - Not suprisingly Cardinal says Pope unafraid of Vatican terror threat revealed by Berlusconi.

It also confirms that special precautions have been taken around the Vatican.

This is the second mention I've seen of the story that Berlusconi told a reporter that the Vatican was targeted for attack so I'm going on record as believing the initial report. Heh.

Berlusconi shocked many in Italy by his comments to the conservative daily Libero, which ran a three-page spread on the new Vatican threat.

Berlusconi distanced himself from the remarks but didn't directly deny the contents. His office specified that the premier hadn't granted an official interview to Libero. "One cannot confuse a quick exchange of Christmas greetings with political declarations," it said.

Italy's opposition has cried foul over Berlusconi's latest remarks, saying they were irresponsible and needlessly heightened fears. Rome's provincial president, who attended midnight mass inside St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Eve, also expressed surprise that he knew nothing of the alleged threat.

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Christmas terror threat at Vatican

Dec. 27 - Berlusconi: Christmas Terror Threat at Vatican:

Berlusconi told Milan's Libero newspaper of a "precise and verified news of an attack on Rome on Christmas Day."

"A hijacked plane into the Vatican," Berlusconi is quoted as saying. "An attack from the sky, is that clear? The threat of terrorism is very high in this instant. I passed Christmas Eve in Rome to deal with the situation. Now I feel calm. It will pass."

He added, "It isn't fatalism, but the knowledge of having our guard up. If they organized this, they will not pull it off."

I admit I was somewhat skeptical when Berlusconi previously said a leader of an Arab nation (later identified as Khadaffi of Libya) had appealed to him for help in healing the breach with the West, so although I still retain skepticism at any unverified report, I don't find it so easy to brush this one off.

UPDATE: Instapundit links to this from Reuters in which Berlusconi denies telling Libero newspaper there was a terrorist threat to the Vatican.

Meanwhile, media reports about the elevation of the US terror threat to orange and the cancellation of Air France flights into LAX are pretty speculative including this report that US officials want to talk to "no shows" for the cancelled flights as well because, according to this, unnamed French sources say that all 13 were on terror watch lists.

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Silvio Berlusconi, Liberty and Khaddafi

Dec. 20 - Many thanks to Richard who sent the url for this interview which appeared Sept. 6, 2003, in the Spectator with Berlusconi which includes a reference to a telephone call which reportedly came from Libya's Gaddafi The new imperial vision of Silvio Berlusconi and includes this:

I tell you the truth: if I lived in a country where there was no day appointed for elections, I would become a revolutionary, if not a terrorist. And that is because I love liberty too much; without liberty a man is not a man. He has no dignity. And so today we are now able, with Russia and America together, to look at all the states of the world, and assess the dignity of all the people in the world, and we can give them democracy and liberty. Yes! By force if necessary! Because that is the only way to show it is not a joke. We said to Saddam, "Do it, or we come, and we came and we did it. I cannot say which country he was from, but someone telephoned me the other day and said, "I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid." [Mr Berlusconi's spokesman indicated that the leader in question was Col. Gaddafi.] (Emphasis added.)

Read the whole article. Berlusconi is something of an enigma, but his depiction of political life in Italy, the slant of the media and the activist judiciary has a familiar ring.

What I found fascinating are his reasons for joining the coalition (and remember he is saying all this back in September) and the recognition that he was willing to take an enormous gamble and go on faith.

One ironclad rule of war is that War Is Uncertain. No matter the odds, anything can happen. Although a military victory seemed assured, there were worries about the use of WMD (which would have been far more devastating for the unprotected Iraqi civilians than the troops,) possible terrorist retailiations in the US and the biggest unknown was (and is) the chances for a political victory.

It was a gamble. It was one backed with facts, strategy, and a helluva lot of hope and probably we haven't talked about it because once the die was cast it was too late to take it back but despite the setbacks we will undoubtably see, we did succeed in disturbing the status quo in the Mid-East and that's a good thing.

Is it too early for self-congratulations? I think we are entitled to some, at least, and to stand up straighter because we took an enormous chance and saw it through.

My work schedule never sucked more than this weekend when I'd rather be opining, surfing and citing all the fantastic posts that have come out of the Libyan decision, but I have a blogroll full of insightful people who are examining this move.

If I don't find the Canadian response to this latest I'll be logging off and getting myself to work. (If it's a "yes, but ..." I'll be going to work and fuming, but that's another story.)

Be careful, and remember that who we are and why we do these things is, to paraphrase Berlusconi, for sweet liberty: our love for her is what makes all men and women stand tall and gives us courage to dare that which others say is impossible.

UPDATE: This gives a hint as to the months of behind-the-scenes work that went into Friday's announcement.

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German Financial Reforms

Dec. 20 - The wording is interesting: Jobless have benefits cut as Schroeder wins reforms

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder yesterday pushed through the German parliament a package of reforms which he hopes will pave the way for the revival of the "sick man of Europe".

The original "sick old man of Europe" was pre-WWI Ottoman Empire. Interesting analogy.

Tax cuts, labour-market reform and wide-ranging reductions in subsidies which formed the key elements of Mr Schroeder's array of reforms, known as Agenda 2010, secured the support of the vast majority of the Bundestag's 603 representatives.

The plans, on which Mr Schroeder had staked his future, amounted to the biggest overhaul of the welfare state since it was introduced by Otto von Bismarck in the 19th century.

But Mr Schroeder was in the uncomfortable position of relying on the opposition conservatives who dominate the upper house of parliament, the majority of whose representatives voted in favour of the reforms.

So the only point of using anti-war and anti-American sentiment to win over the conservatives was simply to get power, not because he really had differences in social planning. What a huge honking surprise.

It gets more interesting:

Under the reforms, income tax is to be cut by £9 billion from Jan 1 in an attempt to encourage spending. A couple with joint earnings of £25,000 will be £425 a year better off. The top and bottom tax brackets are to be adjusted from 48.5 to 45 per cent and from 19.9 to 16 per cent.

Cutting taxes? Why, I never heard of such a thing - oh wait, yes I have. Not up here much lately, although we used to hear about that sort of thing in Ontario before the recent election.

Read the whole thing. Can we play Spot the Irony? Dang, I have to go. My income taxes haven't been cut, but I'm counting on property taxes going up . . .

Have a good day, and be safe.

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Aznar visits troops in Iraq

Dec. 20 - Good on him: Spanish PM makes surprise Iraq visit to the 1300 Spanish troops there. Earlier it had been announced that the Spanish will remain in Iraq until June, 2004, an additional 6 months than their initial committment.

The Fox coverage also has more information on the visit and mentions the 1,000 Japanese troops going to Iraq for humanitarian purposes

Also, the Pentagon has listed the number of US soldiers killed by hostile fire since the president declared an end to major combat operations at 200.

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Reconstruction contracts

Dec. 16 - I am really, really confused. Americans are depicted as as grasping, greedy and downright unscrupulous business types who are utterly bankrupt morally and only out for a fast buck, but when it comes to blatant opportunism, it turns out that Martin names his price:

In his first conversation with Bush since being sworn in as PM, Martin protested U.S. policy that bans non-coalition countries from bidding on reconstruction contracts. He reminded the U.S. president that Canada is a "major participant" in the war on terror, dispatching 2,000 troops to Afghanistan while contributing $300 million along with policing and judicial experts to assist the fledgling democracy.

So he admits that the war in Iraq was part of the war on terror! Then why didn't he support the war in Iraq?

"I believe that Canadian companies can and should qualify. I obviously made that point to the president and we agreed that we would ask our officials to look at it and that we would discuss it further in Monterrey," he said.

Bush's call yesterday was to congratulate Martin on becoming PM and to confirm a face-to-face meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, in mid-January.

The president calls to congratulate Martin, and Martin's first response is to say that he believes that American taxpayers should finance Canadian businesses.

Has it even occured to those Canadians protesting the US decision to wonder who will get the reconstruction contracts from the Canadian funds - footed by Canadian taxpayer dollars - pledged to Iraq and Afghanistan?

In other news, the French and Germans figured it out themselves. They've chosen to discuss the best way to appear magnanimous with their eyes firmly on the prized reconstruction contracts.

And to think how much they sneered at the "Coalition of the Billing" when allies were signing up to support us in Iraq.

UPDATE: It seems I'm a bit behind the times. The correct phrase now seems to be Coalition of the Pissy. What name are we supposed to give to individual members? (Don't answer that! My mother read this sometimes.)

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Steyn Speaks

Dec. 15 - New Mark Steyn column in today's Daily Telegraph (UK) Payback time for the axis of weasels and spells it out:

On Iraq, France, is on the other side - Saddam was their man, to the end. Germany is in a state of semi-derangement - a third of Germans under 30 believe that America organised the 9/11 attacks, a statistic only a polling point or two behind the excitable young men of Pakistan's North-West Frontier.

Canada thinks that it can enjoy north American prosperity without contributing to north American defence. And Russia is already undermining the next American goal - under cover of the anodyne EU/IAEA position on Iran, it is continuing to assist the mullahs' nuclear programme.

So it's not (just) payback, it's also about the next round of problems. One can think of several terms for folks who behave in these various ways, but "allies" isn't one of them - unless "allies" is now a synonym for, respectively, saboteurs, poseurs, nutters and enemies.

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Germany

Dec. 13 - Americans had decided long before Condi Rice gave voice to it that we would "Punish France", but I haven't been comfortable with her advice to "Ignore Germany" and I'm glad to see Right Wing News is keeping an eye on them.

The world may be shocked and awed by the recent mobilization of police and wholesale arrests in Germany but that was for the sake of their own security more than ours, but what to make of this: The German "Peace Movement" Wants To See American Soldiers Die. That's not hyperbole; they are actually organizing and fund-raising to that end. He provides lots of links to other sources that advocate that end.

I've seen little evidence that the German public is as divided as the Canadian public over their relationship with the US, and although I'd be glad for that news, it does seem ominous that the German government isn't looking into this effort to support the Ba'athists and terrorists in Iraq more, given their "pacifist" stance. Of course, they're a bit busy these days trying to conquer Europe with paperwork.

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EU Constitution

Dec. 13 - Some quick hits on the ongoing discussions over the proposed EU Constitution:

Blair cast as summit peacemaker.

A leader (editorial) in the Telegraph: Don't mention Superstate.

European Union factfile.

British protesters at the conference were arrested in what the Sun (UK) calls an Assault on Free Speech in and, yes it does sound somewhat trumped up.

The Sun Says Liberty? Pah!.

What I've resented most were the attempts to compare it to the US Constitution, a document which restricted centralized power instead of greedily hoarding it, but it does look as though closer scrutiny has alarmed enough people to sink this power grab.

UPDATE: Expat Yank has come more links on the EU Constitutution and also wonders how us simpletons in the USA can write an enduring document at 9 pages but the more sophisticated Europeans need 256 pages.

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Bush to Europe: Forgive Iraq Debt

Dec. 12 - Bush sends debt-relief message to Europe:

President Bush yesterday said forgiving Iraqi debt would be "a significant contribution" to postwar reconstruction efforts and suggested that such a move by France, Germany and Russia might be enough to permit those countries' companies to compete for prime contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.

Heh. Will they blink?

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EU Constitution

Dec. 4 - Good op-ed in the Washington Times about those expressing concerns about the EU Constitution (Sovereignty alive in Europe).

The money quote is from Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic:

"We could see the scaffolding of a nation-state that would retain a president and similar institutions, but with virtually zero influence ... That's my forecast. And it's not a reassuring vision of the future ... The enemies of free societies today are those who want to burden us down again with layer upon layer of regulations ... We had that in communist times. But now if you look at all the new rules and regulations of EU membership, layered bureaucracy is staging a comeback."

And what happens when unaccountable bureaucrats run the show?

The EU administrative record has been so dismal that calls for sovereignty have grown more urgent. As Mr. de Borchgrave noted in his article, EU auditors recently released a report that found "systematic problems, over-estimations, faulty transactions, significant errors and other shortcomings" in the EU budget. The auditors could vouch for only 10 percent of the $120 billion that the bloc spent in 2002.

No, this isn't about the Liberal Party rule in Canada. Honest.

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