Free Republic

All sensible husbands will agree with me when I say that it is very important to beat one's wife. They will therefore share my sympathy with Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, the preacher who was given a 15-month prison sentence in Spain last week for writing a book offering tips on wife-beating, the Muslim way. In Women in Islam, published three years ago, Mr. Mustafa recommends a three-stage approach to keeping the little woman in order: first, give her verbal warnings; next, if she still refuses to mend her ways, subject her to a period of sexual abstinence; finally, if even stage...

Israel is often excoriated by foreign governments and humanitarian NGOs for its use of roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza -- particularly as they affect women, children and the elderly. But as Wednesday's suicide bombing shows, such security measures are necessary: Every Palestinian is now a potential bomber Indeed, the circumstances of this latest attack show terrorist groups are actively exploiting Israeli efforts to provide Palestinian travellers with humane treatment. The killer was Reem Al-Reyashi, a 22-year-old Gaza mother of two who had previously declared her desire to become "the first woman to carry out a martyr...

Canada is about to grit its teeth and begin discussions on a U.S. plan to create a missile defence grid covering North America. The plan to build one or two sites comprising long-range surface-to-air anti-ballistic missiles and radars was conceived in the 1990s by the Clinton administration, albeit at the behest of a Republican-controlled Congress. The justification was, and is, ostensibly, to defend the continental United States (and Canada) from missiles fired by "rogue" states which cannot be deterred from gross misbehaviour by America's nuclear arsenal. The countries most often cited as potential threats to the United States include North...

Canada is about to grit its teeth and begin discussions on a U.S. plan to create a missile defence grid covering North America. The plan to build one or two sites comprising long-range surface-to-air anti-ballistic missiles and radars was conceived in the 1990s by the Clinton administration, albeit at the behest of a Republican-controlled Congress. The justification was, and is, ostensibly, to defend the continental United States (and Canada) from missiles fired by "rogue" states which cannot be deterred from gross misbehaviour by America's nuclear arsenal. The countries most often cited as potential threats to the United States include North...

Last month, The New York Times published an interview with Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian dictator was on his best behaviour, asking the United States to revive peace talks between Syria and Israel, and even suggesting that his nation could have normal relations with the Jewish state. He also insisted that his intelligence agencies were working with the CIA to thwart terrorist attacks, pledged his support for democracy in Iraq and said Damascus does not give weapons or money to the terrorist group Hezbollah. That's the kind of message Mr. Assad knows the West wants to hear. Since the toppling of...

If you want to know what's really at the heart of the Palestinian conflict with Israel, don't ask the politicians or the diplomats. Go to the new experts: Palestinian children. Unlike the rest of the world, they've been paying close attention to what their leaders and educators have been teaching them -- and they're ready to sign their lessons in blood. Children interviewed on PA TV in recent weeks have stated clearly and without reservation that Israel has no right to exist, and that their goals -- for which they're willing to sacrifice their lives -- are Israel's destruction and...

When Afghans hear good news, they fire their guns in the air. And this is precisely what many Afghans have been doing over the past week to celebrate the approval of a new draft constitution by the Loya Jirga, a high assembly of tribal chiefs, religious leaders and other notables who have always been called to lead the nation out of a tight spot. The latest session of the Loya Jirga lasted 22 days, not the 10 initially planned, and produced more drama than expected. But the assembly, which ended its latest session on the weekend, has done its job:...

As we recover from New Year festivities, the customary thing for a columnist to do is to quote Robert Burns. Since my topic today is U.S. foreign policy, however, I will omit Auld Lang Syne and cite his even more apposite lines: "The best-laid plans of mice and men Gang oft agley." (i.e., often go wrong.) This is not a reference to Iraq where, despite the formidable problems of establishing a sustainable democracy in the teeth of terrorist resistance, the United States and its allies seem to be gradually getting the upper hand. Nor to the "Bush doctrine" of preventive...

American presidential campaigns seem to go on forever. It seems like years, not months, that the nine Democratic contenders have been racing for the nomination. I have some liberal, anti-Bush sparring partners, passionate news and blogosphere junkies whose e-mails keep me abreast of the Left's self-deluding fantasies of success for the Democrats in 2004. Last month one was gloating because Al Franken's anti-Republican Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them, had become a best-seller. This was apparently a sign that in 2004 Bush would be swept from office by irate Americans fed up with the "fascist" policies of his...

The advocates of Political Correctness enjoyed another great year in 2003. The spoilsports at the Canadian Passport office, for instance, decreed that there was to be no more smiling on passport photos. Then the Defence Department threatened to jail married soldiers in Afghanistan who dare to kiss their own spouses or even hold hands, let alone have sex. Not to be beaten to the PC punch, the federal Fisheries Department posted a $100,000 civil service job in B.C. open to non-whites only. In the eyes of Ottawa, some Canadians are a heck of a lot more equal than others. And...

Having lost the battle to block the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, war opponents are now demanding that Americans accelerate the transfer of power to Iraqi civilians. Yet, since the capture of Saddam Hussein earlier this month, many of these same voices have been insisting that international, not Iraqi, courts be given the task of trying the former dictator for his numberless crimes. Iraqi jurists aren't ready for such a complex case, the critics argue. Instead, they want the job handled by legal carpetbaggers from The Hague. In the case of many war opponents, the reconciling principle takes the form of...

'He is almost in from the cold." This is how British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described the latest position of the Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Straw described Gaddafi as "a statesman" and "a man we could do business with." An hour earlier, British Prime Minister Tony Blair had telephoned the Colonel in Tripoli to relay similar sentiments. Unusual words of praise also came from President George W. Bush. But why this sudden warmth for a man who was described as a terrorist mastermind only a week ago? What is it that caused this strangest of political epiphanies? The answer...

Never has so many congratulations been offered through such painfully gritted teeth. European leaders, Democratic politicians and media Big Feet all felt compelled to celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein. After all, as the guardians of the moral conscience of mankind they are supposed to disapprove of dictatorship, torture and mass murder even more than most people. But since welcoming the downfall of Saddam also meant giving aid and comfort to U.S. President George Bush, that took all the fun out of it. Listening to European politicians as they followed up their praise for the skill and bravery of the...

BAGHAD - Acting on a tip, soldiers of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division descended on a hole near a house on the outskirts of Tikrit Sunday, where they discovered President George W. Bush's re-election. "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him for four more years," a beaming Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, announced at a press conference. Soldiers uncovered Bush's re-election hiding six feet below ground in a six-by-eight-foot hovel that was covered by a rug and a Styrofoam lid. To avoid skepticism among Iraqis and Americans, the U.S. military said it confirmed the second term's identity by...

It was bound to happen: a virtual Middle East peace accord in a world of virtual reality. The so-called Geneva Accord, signed last week by Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister, and Yasser Abd-Rabbo, a former aide to Yasser Arafat, has met with a mixture of childlike enthusiasm by some and wizened cynicism by others. Jimmy Carter has rushed to endorse the accord with one of his trademark Colgate smiles. The accord has also won some me-tooist support from a Kofi Annan looking for a side-stool for his United Nations. Colin Powell has been tempted into entertaining the architects...

For years, our Liberal government has sat on its hands as the federal Auditor-General, the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, the Conference of Defence Associations, Jane's Defence Weekly and the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century have all warned that our desperately underfunded military is headed toward irrelevance. This week, a new report came out with a similarly bleak message. But is anyone in Ottawa listening? In Canada Without Armed Forces?, Queen's University professor Douglas Bland and his co-authors warn that in every category -- equipment, personnel and logistical support -- the Canadian Forces are...

If Canadians needed further proof that their country has lost control of its borders, it was provided by Immigration Minister Denis Coderre's announcement of plans to permit illegal aliens to be granted work permits and apply for permanent resident status. Of course, the Minister was quick to point out that his amnesty was not a "general amnesty for all illegal immigrants." Presumably it will be a selective process with the mandatory "humanitarian component." The Minister also assured us that criminals and security risks would not be accepted. After all, said the Minister, "We must send a message that illegal activities...

Eventually somebody is going to have to stand up and formally declare the Kyoto Protocol to be dead. Now might be the time, since it's best to clean these global policy carcasses off the scene before rigor mortis sets in. Yesterday, for the umpteenth time in two months, a Russian official announced his government isn't prepared to ratify the 10-year-old United Nations plan to control the world's weather by controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking in Moscow just as another UN climate change extravaganza was starting up in Milan, Andrei Illarionov, President Vladimir Putin's economic advisor, said Kyoto is inconsistent with...

Every time the Canada Firearms Centre is in the news, its credibility diminishes. Whether it is an exposé of bureaucratic incompetence at managing the computer system leading to the permanent extinction of the records of thousands of registered guns or the sending of an angry letter to a dead man, rebuking him for failing to register hunting rifles that had long been sold by his family, nearly every story about this billion-dollar fiasco provides another reason to scrap the entire project. The latest stories concern a typical administrative cover-up and an even more typical administrative screw-up. In response to the...

It is generally hard to find anything good to say about Bashar Assad. But the Syrian dictator surprised us over the weekend when he handed Turkey 22 Islamists suspected of involvement in the horrific Istanbul synagogue bombings of Nov. 15. Might this gesture reflect a newfound understanding of Syria's position in the world? Syria is bordered by Israel, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. Two of those five -- Israel and Turkey -- are Western-friendly democracies; Iraq will soon be a third; and Jordan is leaning in the same direction. The despotic Baathist ideology Syria shared with Saddamite Iraq has been...