Netherlands may use "decoy Jews" to fight anti-Semitism




By David Paulin

Anti-Semitism has gotten so ugly in The Netherlands that Jews walking along Amsterdam's street are being harassed by young Muslims who yell insults or give Nazi salutes. Last Sunday, a Dutch TV channel aired a secretly recorded video that showed a rabbi enduring such harassment, according to a Dutch news report.

To fight such anti-Semitism, Acting Amsterdam Mayor Lodewijk Asscher has hit upon a novel crime-fighting idea: "Decoy Jews."

Dutch police "already use people posing as pensioners and gay men in an effort to catch muggers and gay-bashers," noted DutchNews. So the use of "decoy Jews" represents a new variation of an old crime-fighting tactic.

The idea of using "decoy Jews" was put forth by Labor MP Ahmed Marcouch and "fits in with Asscher's decision to take unorthodox measures to try to reduce verbal and physical attacks on Jews in the capital," explained DutchNews.

The Netherlands, of course, has for years suffered from a growing pathology -- a toxic mix of multiculturalism; Muslim immigration; and a proclivity for tolerating the intolerant. Nobody who understands this will be completely surprised that a rabbi strolling along Amsterdam's streets can now expect to encounter anti-Semitic harassment. A country of 16.3 million, The Netherlands' Muslim population numbers 945,000 or 5.8%.

One of the first to sound alarm bells about what was happening in The Netherlands was writer Bruce Bawer in his disquieting book: "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within." It was published after a Muslim immigrant from Morocco, Mohammed Bouyeri, murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh on an Amsterdam street on Nov. 2, 2004. Van Gogh's crime: defiling Islam.

Bawer offered keen insights into the pathologies of Dutch society that opened the way for such a crime. He wrote:

Van Gogh's murder came as a shock, even though I'd seen something like it coming for years. In 1998, I'd lived in a largely Muslim neighborhood of Amsterdam, only a block away from the radical mosque attended by Bouyeri. There I'd seen firsthand the division between the native Dutch and their country's rapidly growing Muslim minority. That division was stark: the Dutch had the world's most tolerant, open-minded society, with full sexual equality, same-sex marriage, and libertarian policies on soft drugs and prostitution. Yet many Dutch Muslims kept that society at arm's length, despising its freedoms and clinging to a range of undemocratic traditions and prejudices.

Did Dutch officials address this problem? No. Like their politically correct counterparts across Western Europe, they responded to it mostly by churning out empty rhetoric about multicultural diversity and mutual respect -- and then changing the subject. I knew that by tolerating intolerance in this way, the country was setting itself on a path to cataclysmic social confrontation; yet whenever I tried -- delicately -- to broach the topic, Dutch acquaintances made clear that it was off limits. They seemed not to grasp that their society, and Western Europe generally, was a house divided against itself, and that eventually things would reach the breaking point.

Given the forgoing, it's a safe bet that "decoy Jews" will be too little -- too late.

Originally published at The American Thinker blog.

Portrait of a Jamaican Drug Lord

Still on the loose, Christopher "Dudus" Coke is a reputed 'math whiz'

Update: Accused Jamaica drug lord captured!


By David Paulin

Reputed Jamaican drug lord Christopher Michael Coke -- now the Caribbean nation's most wanted man -- was a "math whiz" in high school who startled teachers with his dazzling test scores.

After math, Coke had a second favorite subject: religion.

Coke did poorly in every other subject and had “inconsistent” attendance, according to confidential school records obtained by a Jamaican newspaper. Today, U.S. authorities call Coke -- known as "Dudus" to Jamaicans -- one of the world's most dangerous narcotics kingpins. He's wanted in the U.S. for drug trafficking and arms smuggling.

Coke is no ordinary drug thug, as it turns out. He attended an elite private secondary school in Kingston, Ardenne High School. In 1927, it was founded by an American husband-and-wife missionary team with the Anderson, Ind.-based Church of God. They'd first arrived in Kingston, the capital, in 1909 after it suffered a devastating earthquake. The school's motto: "Deo Duce Quaere Optima" -- "With God As Guide, Seek The Best."

How might the school founded by American missionaries from small-town Indiana have influenced Coke's reputed success in the world of organized crime? Interestingly, Coke was not known as one of Jamaica's typically "flashy" crime lords or "dons" as Jamaicans call them. He was low key: not one to party it up at night clubs with scantily clad women. He avoided the limlight. In a sense, he was not not unlike many denizens of the small towns and rural areas of America's Midwest: places like all-American Anderson, Indiana.

It's also interesting to speculate on whether Coke was immersed in a Protestant work ethic at Ardenne that later helped him in his career in crime; an ethic that sociologist Max Weber contended was part of America's successful "spirit of capitalism.”

Coke's math teacher at Ardenne recalled that "Michael" (the name the boy went by) was a "bright mathematics student" -- a boy who was quiet and well-behaved during the five years he taught him. Recently, the veteran teacher told a Jamaican newspaper that he had often wondered what happened to the gifted Michael Coke after he'd graduated, believing the boy "had all ingredients" for success.

It was not until years after Coke graduated that the teacher learned that his gifted student was the son of the late Jim Brown, one of Jamaica's most fearsome drug lords. In 1992, Brown died when a fire engulfed his jail cell, just days before he was to be extradited to the U.S. on murder and drug trafficking charges. He allegedly headed the Shower Posse, an international drug gang so named because of the penchant of its gunmen for showering bullets upon rivals and anybody who getting in their way.

Some sons take over the family business and make a shambles out of it. Coke wasn't one of them. Like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather, Coke allegedly took the family business to new levels of success, while simultaneously functioning as a legitimate businessman and “community leader” in West Kingston.

Over the years, he obtained many government contracts for things like road work and construction, which allowed him to distribute jobs in the gritty area that he ruled. He staged a popular weekly street dance and a "dancehall" event. His stronghold in the Tivoli Gardens area of West Kingston is part of a so-called "garrison community" -- a mini-state within a state that has links to Jamaica's ruling and center-right Jamaica Labor Party. Other such “garrisons” have ties to the left-leaning People's National Party.

Go to The American Thinker for the rest of this article, which was originally published on Sunday, June 20, 2010. (Photo is from the Jamaica Observer.)

An execution in Texas Stirs Debate

By David Paulin

The counter-culture and anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s had a destructive influence on millions of young Americans who rebelled against authority, experimented with drugs, and "dropped out." One of them was David Lee Powell. He was from a small Texas town and had nearly perfect SAT scores when he entered the University of Texas in Austin as a freshman. But before long, the valedictorian of his 15-member high school class was experimenting with drugs and had became an antiwar "activist."

Today at 6 p.m., Powell, 59, is scheduled to be executed in Texas for shooting to death an Austin police officer, Ralph Ablanedo, during a traffic stop 32 years ago. Arrested shortly after the killing, Powell, then 27, had a ragged and crazed appearance not unlike Charles Manson. He shot Ablanedo ten times in the chest with an AK-47. The high-powered assault rifle's bullets pierced Ablanedo's bulletproof vest.

Officer Ablanedo, one year younger than Powell, had made far different choices in life. Clean-cut and well-respected, he was married and had two children. Powell had been on his way to do a drug deal when he was stopped. In addition to his AK-47, he was carrying $5,000 in methamphetamine, a .45-caliber pistol, and a hand grenade that he threw at police who were pursuing him; it didn't go off.

During his 32 years in prison, Powell has been described as a model prisoner. His good behavior and good deeds, say his supporters, ought to provide him with some sort of redemption -- namely, the commutation of his death sentence to life in prison. After all, Powell is not the same man he was 32 years ago, argues the liberal editorial board of the Austin American-Statesman; accordingly, his execution has "lost its meaning." Powell, who now looks nothing like he did 32 years ago, also has himself put forth the case for sparing his life. "Every person is more than the worst thing that they've ever done, and I'm no exception," he said during a jail-house interview with Statesman reporters.

On the other hand, members of the law-enforcement community in Austin are among many who are glad to see justice finally being delivered. It will bring "closure" to many whose lives were ruined by Powell, they say. Many Austin police officers will be attending the execution at the state prison in Huntsville, Texas. Others are said to be heading to a local bar at 6 p.m. to drink a toast to their fallen colleague at the moment of his killer's execution.

Among those in the death chamber will be the sister of Ralph Ablanedo, Irene. According to the Statesman, she "plans to stand at the window in the Huntsville death chamber to watch Powell die from five feet away. She will be thinking about her brother, what he meant to his family and how he was taken away too early. The pain of loss still burns."

"I can't wait for that bastard to take his last breath," she said. "That is what he deserves."

The death penalty arouses much debate. It's not an issue that neatly divides liberals and conservatives. Consider the case of Karla Faye Tucker, who was executed in 1998 in Texas at the age of 38. She grew up in a troubled family and was into sex and drugs in her early teens. Like her mother, she was for a time a Rock' n Roll groupie. In 1981, Tucker and her boyfriend, Danny Garrett, murdered Jerry Dean and Deborah Thornton during a late-night burglary. They used a hammer and pick-ax to brutally kill the couple in their bedroom.

In prison, Karla Faye Tucker converted to Christianity, and her conversion seemed genuine to many. Here is a YouTube interview with her, during which she talks about her new-found faith. She said she was not afraid of dying, because "Jesus has prepared a place for me."

Conservatives such as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and televangelist Pat Robertson lobbied to have her sentence committed to life; they were part of a large international movement seeking a life sentence for Tucker -- one that brought together many liberals and conservatives. Also lobbying in Tucker's behalf was the brother of murder victim Deborah Thornton, who felt there would be no "closure" in Tucker's execution. But Texas Gov. George W. Bush, steel-willed in his conviction, declined to commute Tucker's sentence to life. “May God bless Karla Faye Tucker and may God bless her victims and their families,” he said.

Reasonable people can disagree over the death penalty. Some are uneasy over it because of the possibility of executing an innocent person, although there were no such concerns in David Lee Powell's case -- and nor in the case of Karla Faye Tucker. What's more, the evidence is paltry that the execution of ordinary murderers serves as a deterrent to other criminals (although the same probalby cannot be said in respect to using the death peanlty against imprisoned murderers who kill again while in prison). Imprisoned for life, they would have nothing else to loose except for their lives.

But some crimes are so ghastly that the death peanalty seems approprite. One example was the execution of Saddam Hussein, which sent a powerful message at the time to dictators around the world (especially the Middle East), while also providing closure for untold numbers of Saddam's victims. His trial and execution paved the way for rebuilding a psychologically-scarred nation.

In the cases of David Lee Powell and Karla Faye Tucker, there can ultimately be no debate about one thing: Both to a great extent were products of their times.


Photos are from the Austin American-Statesman. This was originally published at the American Thinker blog.

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Jamaica's violence part of American plot to kill black people!

The Rev. Mervin Stoddart, a Jamaica-born racial agitator living in Florida, runs off at the mouth in yet another of his anti-American newspaper columns -- one that certainly won't resonate among the overwhelming majority of all those 'salt of the earth' middle-class Jamaicans that I know. Have any U.S. officials ever thought to look at Stoddart's immigration status to see if he can be deported back to Jamaica?



By David Paulin

What was the real cause of Jamaica's recent violence -- the firebombing of police stations by drug thugs and pitched battles with security forces attempting to serve a U.S. extradition warrant on alleged drug lord Christopher "Dudus" Coke?

It was all part of an American-hatched plot to kill black people!

That's according to a newspaper columnist writing in the Jamaica Observer, a popular left-leaning daily paper in Kingston, the capital. Jamaica-born columnist Mervin Stoddart, a Florida resident, claims that Dudus "is a fall guy and the media hype surrounding his story is a smokescreen."

The self-described minister explains:

Numerous forces inimical to Jamaica show up in the Dudus saga. Conscious Jamaicans must consider the New World Order implications. Perhaps U.S. destabilization of Jamaica seems like child's play to Washington because Jamaicans worship President Barack Obama. Blessed Jamaica is perennially envied by "brute beast" (2 Peter 2:12) Euro-Americans, who recently got whipped in international sports by Jamaicans. Chaos created in Jamaica and other countries by evil globalists offers distraction from their own problems. There are dangerous insurgencies raging in the US, especially in the Tea Party Movement, with signs of impending civil war.

For some 6000 years, earth's evil Caucasians have been decimating people of color. Their drug war, terror war and killings of Iraqis, Afghans, and practically all predominantly black nationals on earth are key pieces of their population reduction plan, as exposed by Jim Marrs in The Fourth Reich. Their endgame is in place whereby globalists are ready to decimate their own race to get rid of people who do not share their racist, globalist, satanic views. Some people, like Jamaicans, reject this evil globalism because it offends their faith in God, but many branches of Christianity are leaders in this march to the white supremacist one-world government. Jamaicans must use the spirit of discernment to identify those churches that are Satan's servants, especially churches headquartered in Euro-America.

He concludes:

Every Jamaican at home and abroad must analyze the Dudus tragedy and work for deliverance, but no one should excuse the real enemies of Jamaica.

The Jamaica Observer, incidentally, is owned by Gordon "Butch Stewart (click here for photo) who owns the all-inclusive Sandals and Beaches resorts that are popular among well-to-do white Americans. Most Jamaicans are of African heritage, but Stewart is one of a handful of Jamaicans who is known to his countrymen as a "white Jamaican."

On occasion, the politically well-connected businessman hosts prominent Democrats from the U.S., including New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. The wacky major spent what one newspaper called a "little post-Katrina rest and relaxation" at Stewart's villa in Negril. There was no word in that article as to whether Stewart's columnist, Mervin Stoddart, joined in the fun.

(Main body of this article was originally published at the American Thinker blog.)

For more on anti-Americanism in Jamaica's among its leftist elites, see my piece in the Washington Times, "Answering Anti-Americanism."

Jamaica: The Good, the Bad, and the 'Dudus'





By David Paulin


Questions and answers about Jamaica's State of Emergency, its gang culture, and the events leading up to the search by security forces for alleged drug lord Christopher "Dudus" Coke.











Q: How would you characterize the nature of the ties between the Jamaica Labor Party and Christopher "Dudus" Coke?

A: To understand the nature of the ties between the Jamaica Labor Party and Coke, you need to understand three things. First, consider some geography. Coke is based in West Kingston, a critical constituency of the right-leaning Jamaica Labor Party or “JLP” dating to the early 1960s. It's one of Jamaica's so-called "garrison communities" -- areas of Kingston's metropolitan area aligned to one of the country's two main political parties. The opposition party is the left-leaning People's National Party or “PNP.” Second, West Kingston is represented in Parliament by Prime Minister Bruce Golding, a seat he accepted (for better and worse) after becoming head of of the JLP in 2005. It's an area that enabled him to be opposition leader and that served as his springboard to be prime minister in 2007. Third, the Tivoli Gardens area of West Kingston is the stronghold for Christopher "Dudus" Coke, where he allegedly operates an international drug and arms-smuggling organization called the "Shower Posse." Tivoli Gardens is now the focus of bloody assaults by security forces attempting to arrest Coke. As of Tuesday afternoon, dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries had been reported.

Q: So what is the precise relationship that Coke has with the JLP and Bruce Golding?

A: It's a complex symbiotic relationship -- a loose one, so to speak -- whose roots date to Jamaica's independence and to what's called the "political tribalism" that emerged during the early years after independence; a period during which politicians utilized gangs to help sway elections. Since then, those gangs have become self-sufficient and are no longer beholden to the politicians as they had been. In other words, the politicians are no longer riding the tiger (as many Jamaicans note); it's the tiger that's riding the politicians.

This symbiotic relationship has existed for years between politicians and strongmen like Coke (or “Dons” as Jamaicans call them). It amounts to a power-sharing arrangement. Coke, for instance, serves some important roles for the JLP and Golding. Like other Dons with ties to the two main political parties, he fills a power vacuum created by a weak government. Coke also maintains "order" in West Kingston. He provides ad hoc social services such as handouts of food, and he provides jobs through government contracts he distributes – all financed through his legitimate business or from his alleged drug and arms-smuggling profits. And during elections, Coke keeps his political bargain: He maintains political conformity and ensures that West Kingston votes for the JLP -- a task that has often resulted in political violence over the years. Reportedly, Coke gave a "green light" for Golding to accept the West Kingston seat in Parliament in 2005, a seat previously occupied by Edward Seaga. As one newspaper article in Jamaica put it: Golding may represent West Kingston, but Coke runs the place. All in all, it's a Faustian bargain.

It's a matter of conjecture about how close Jamaica's politicians are to the alleged illegal activities carried out by men like Coke. Do they merely look the other way for political expediency? No doubt, they do, and so do the police; otherwise, the "garrison communities" would not exist. Do politicians share profits from the drug trade? That's a matter of conjecture. However, Jamaicans can't help but think the worst when they see prominent politicians and officials hanging out with some Dons and attending gaudy funerals for slain Dons -- spectacles that Jamaica's public-spirited news media have covered in detail and sharply criticized. Ordinary middle-class Jamaicans have been left disillusioned and angry. But their frequent calls for political leaders to "dismantle the garrisons" falls on deaf ears.

Q: What is the "Manatt Affair" and how did it affect Golding’s decision to sign off on Coke’s extradition? Besides Manatt, what else might have prompted Golding to change his mind about extraditing Coke after a 9-month long extradition standoff with Washington?

A: On May 17, Prime Minister Bruce Golding surprised Jamaicans with a repentant television address -- apologizing for the two-month long "Manatt Affair" and pledging to extradite alleged drug lord Christopher "Dudus" Coke. So what was Manatt? Two months earlier, Jamaica's Parliament erupted in the first of many heated sessions over revelations that the prestigious U.S. law firm of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips was paid $49,000 to lobby Washington not to extradite Coke; the fee was part of an original $400,000 contract. Prime Minister Golding lost credibility over the scandal, for it weakened his claim that his administration was delaying the extradition request due to concerns that the Americans had violated Coke's "constitutional rights" with illegal wiretaps and unnamed informants.

In one Parliamentary session after another, the opposition PNP hammered Golding for failing to fully reveal the precise relationship with Manatt; or as one newspaper put it: "to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Jamaicans are cynical about their politicians, and so many doubted that Golding's position on Coke's extradition was really all about the alleged drug lord's "constitutional rights" -- and whether the American's had violated them. Golding also lost credibility as his stories about Manatt changed while in the PNP's spotlight. Eventually, he stated that the contacts with Manatt were initiated through the JLP at his orders, although a taciturn Manatt spokesman said the contacts were from Jamaica's government. The opposition PNP -- which ironically has its own Dons and for years tolerated Coke and other Tivoli strongmen -- called for Golding's resignation.

The episode provided yet more evidence to law-abiding and ordinary Jamaicans that Prime Minister Golding has not tackled Jamaica's deepest pathology -- its garrison communities -- since becoming prime minister in 2007. His high-minded claims about Coke's "constitutional rights" had less credibility. Ultimately, the issue of good governance -- or lack of it -- was at the center of the "Manatt Affair."

Did Manatt alone cause Golding's government to do an about-face about extraditing Coke? Certainly, it's a decision that tormented Golding, for he surely foresaw much of what would happen: protests among West Kingston's poor residents (a critical constituency) who are loyal to Coke; and the orgy of deadly violence now taking place as security forces removed road blocks set up in poor neighborhoods, and then began to battle gunmen loyal to Coke as they set out to find and arrest him.

In explaining Golding's about-face over the extradition request, there is much to suggest that top officials in the Obama administration started taking a hard line against the Golding administration, although the details of what took place have yet to be revealed or confirmed. However, according to one Associated Press report (which U.S. officials would not confirm), top officials in Golding's government had their U.S. visas canceled. A Jamaica newspaper, relying on unnamed sources (presumably American or Jamaican officials in the know), told of U.S. satellite photos showing important Jamaican officials visiting Coke's stronghold; and it was reported in the same article that some affluent Jamaicans were being stopped while visiting the U.S. and grilled about the sources of their wealth. At one point, Secretary of State Hilliary Clinton even made a fleeting visit to Jamaica, meeting with Golding at the airport serving Kingston.

From all appearances, then, the Obama administration abandoned its notions that it could break the extradition standoff by relying on two cornerstones of its original foreign policy: "mutual respect" and "honest engagement." Instead, it cranked up the pressure on Jamaica by playing hardball -- Realpolitik.

Q: In your article at the American Thinker, you mentioned the anti-Americanism of elite, left-leaning Jamaicans. It seems that this anti-Americanism, in some sense, puts left-leaning elites on the same side as Tivoli Gardens residents who oppose Coke’s extradition. How do these two groups regard each other? As allies in the fight to prevent extradition, or as snobs and thugs, respectively?

A: Some of Jamaica's leftist elites were simply reacting with their usual knee-jerk anti-Americanism by criticizing the United States as being a bully or imperialist in the extradition standoff. It's hard to imagine that these educated anti-American elites would have much in common with poor residents in Tivoli Gardens, who probably would jump at the chance to immigrate to the United States if they could get a U.S. visa. (If you doubt that, go to the U.S. Embassy in Kingston and take a look at the line some day.)

While Coke and his gunmen could be called thugs, the residents of Tivoli Gardens could not be described that way. However, many middle-class Jamaicans say they are trapped in a culture of poverty and dependence – all of which is exploited by “Dons” like Coke who provide them with an ad hoc welfare state. It's a symbiotic union all its own. Regarding the values of this underclass, women typically start having children at an early age. Young boys view the Dons as the sorts of men they want to become. Many members of this underclass lack the social skills needed to enter the middle-class.

Q: If Coke is arrested and does time in the U.S., will this have any noticeable effect on the drug trade in Jamaica? Is there any policy the U.S. could pursue that could realistically make a dent in the Caribbean drug trade?

A: If Coke is arrested and goes to the U.S. to stand trial, there is always the possibility he could implicate fellow drug traffickers, not to mention corrupt businessman, politicians, and others involved in the drug trade. No drug kingpin has ever been arrested in Jamiaca, a fact the U.S. State Department recently noted in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. However, Coke needs to get to the U.S. before this can happen. In 1992, his father, Lester Lloyd Coke -- or Jim Brown as he was known -- was West Kingston's "Don" and a JLP loyalist. Days before he was to be extradited to the U.S. on murder and drug trafficking charges, Brown died when a mysterious fire engulfed his maximum security jail cell.

Golding, for his part, could obtain political redemption by doing what law-abiding Jamaicans have for years been clamoring for -- dismantling the garrison communities, the "monsters" as they call them, over which politicians have lost control since they created them. That would surely put a dent in the drug trade, and it would make Jamaica a better society than it had been. Increasingly, though, it appears that Golding will have much work to do if reports out of Jamaica are accurate: that gunmen hired by Coke -- and associated with some of the opposition People's National Party's Dons -- have joined forces with Coke's gunmen to to battle the police. It appears that much blood will still be shed, with dozens killed and hundreds wounded by Tuesday afternoon.

Q: You mentioned in your American Thinker article that although other English-speaking, Caribbean nations share a similar past with Jamaica, none has the same level of drug and gang related violence. If not history, then what may have caused Jamaica’s thug problem?

A: Jamaica's left-leaning elites are fond of blaming Jamaica's pathologies on their country's legacies of slavery and colonialism. And although I didn't note it in my article, they also blame Jamaica's problems on what they regard as a rigged international system in which the U.S. has gamed the economic playing playing field for its own benefit. Yet countries like The Bahamas also have histories of colonialism and slavery, and yet they have none of Jamaica's pathologies. There is no Bahamian Diaspora comparable to the Jamaican Diaspora. Indeed, The Bahamas has none of Jamaica's political violence; none of its anti-Americanism among its political class; none of the economic troubles; and none of the cultural problems such as thuggish Dance Hall music. Why is Jamaica so different? The reason has everything with decisions that Jamaica's political leaders took-- or didn't take -- years ago when the country started on the course that it did.
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Obama's lesson in Realpolitik



By David Paulin

Obama's foreign policy bumblers are getting a lesson in realpolitik in an extradition standoff with Jamaica -- which may not be the best place for a Caribbean vacation right now. Kingston, the capital, is on a "knife's edge" of tension, report Jamaica's media outlets. Residents are braced for civil unrest. Security forces are out in force.

Jamaica's leftist elites, for their part, have gone into an anti-American frenzy not seen since President Bush's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The epicenter of the gathering storm is Kingston's gritty Tivoli Gardens area -- longtime home to an alleged drug lord and arms trafficker named Christopher Michael Coke, 41, who is wanted by U.S. authorities. There, in what some call a "state within a state," Coke and his gunmen have for years operated with minimum harassment from the police -- thanks to loose ties with political leaders and fierce loyalties they've cultivated with poor residents.

Now, anticipating a raid by security forces, Coke and his gunmen have reportedly thrown up barricades booby trapped with gasoline-filled canisters, barbed wire, and live electrical wires. They're heavily armed -- ready for a flight as police attempt to serve an arrest warrant on Coke. Backed up by his gunmen, Coke has ruled this section of West Kingston for years, serving as a "community leader" by providing an ad hoc if not thuggish government for poor residents.

The showdown comes after Jamaica on Monday finally signed a extradition request from the United States for Coke -- after stonewalling the Obama administration for months and voicing concerns over Coke's "constitutional rights." As an American Thinker article reported last March, Jamaica's political leaders claimed American law enforcement authorities had violated Coke's rights with wiretaps and the use of unnamed witnesses -- all cited in an indictment unsealed last August by the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. However, the more likely reason for the extradition standoff was that Jamaica's political leaders were protecting Coke. They had much to lose by extraditing him.

Known as "Dudus" to Jamaicans, Coke has for years been the alleged leader of Jamaica's "Shower Posse," which has distributed crack, cocaine, and marijuana in New York City and elsewhere while smuggling weapons back to Kingston. No doubt, a disproportionate number of the victims of Coke's drug trafficking and violence have been poor and black Americans. Coke is one of the world's "most dangerous narcotics kingpins," say U.S. officials.

For the rest of the article, go to The American Thinker.


For more coverage of Jamaica's State of Emergency (which major media outlets are not covering in depth) go to the websites of Jamaica's two major newspapers: jamaicaobserver.com and jamaica-gleaner.com.


UPDATE - 1

Travel Alert
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
This information is current as of today, Sat May 22 2010 07:21:54 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time).

Jamaica
May 21, 2010
The Department of State alerts U.S. citizens about developing security concerns in Jamaica, particularly the Kingston area. The possibility exists for violence and/or civil unrest in the greater Kingston metropolitan area. There are unconfirmed reports of criminal gang members amassing in the Kingston area, as well as mobilization of Jamaican defense forces. If the situation ignites, there is a possibility of severe disruptions of movement within Kingston, including blocking of access roads to the Norman Manley International Airport. The possibility exists that unrest could spread beyond the general Kingston area. U.S. Embassy Kingston is taking extra security precautions. This Travel Alert expires on June 21, 2010.

U.S citizens should consider the risks associated with travel to and within the greater Kingston metropolitan area. U.S. citizens are urged always to practice good security, maintain a heightened situational awareness and a low profile. U.S. citizens in Jamaica are advised to monitor local news reports and consider the level of security present when venturing outside their residence or hotel.

UPDATE - 2

Sunday, May 23, 2010
JAMAICA DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY

What Caused the Times Square Bomber to 'Snap'? (It's the jihad, dummy!)

By David Paulin

What motivated Faisal Shahzad to attempt to explode a car bomb in Times Square? Might it have anything to do with radial Islam, jihad, and anti-Western hatred?

Nope. Not according to may media outlets and pundits. And no matter that Shazhzad quickly admitted to getting explosives training in Pakistan or that his car bomb was "payback" for the deaths of Taliban leaders in U.S. done attacks.

Consider a story in today's Connecticut Post, a Bridgeport-based newspaper that's one of the state's largest dailies. It provides fascinating insights on what set off Shahzad -- insights that come from James Monahan, a clinical psychologist and associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven.

"Maybe he (Shahzad) was the runt of the litter; the child who couldn't meet his parents' expectations," Monahan told the paper.

"Maybe he was starting to see the hopes of living the good life in America die and he began feeling like a failure," the professor speculates at another point. "Maybe he wanted the satisfaction of going out with a bang."

And what about jihad? Or radical Islam? Or Islamic-inspired terrorism? The Connecticut Post dares not mentions such words. Not once. Turning to Professor Monahan for sage advice, it only says, "The professor suggests that maybe Shahzad fell into the wrong crowd, who turned his American failure into anger against America."

The professor adds: "They need to be grilling him in an attempt to determine his connections and his associations to radical groups. His wife is someone who they should want to talk to."

Gosh. What a good idea: Talk to his wife! And I wonder what kinds of "radical groups" the professor might be referring to?

Unfortunately, the Connecticut Post's reporting is par for the course in respect to much of the media's coverage of Faisal Shahzad -- something Mary Katharine Ham observes in a Weekly Standard piece on the "dumbest theories on the Times Square Bomber."

Here's a parting thought: If the Times Square Bomber had been a Christian right-wing white guy who went to Tea Parties and opposed ObamaCare, would the media be treating him with the kid gloves they are using in their politically correct coverage of Shahzad?

Obama's fruitless quest to extradite a drug thug

The Obama administration is vexed that 'mutual respect' and 'honest engagement' have failed to persuade Jamaica to extradite an alleged drug kingpin

By David Paulin

It should have been a routine extradition request between countries with friendly relations. Six months ago, the United States asked Jamaica to extradite an alleged drug lord and arms trafficker based in Kingston, the capital. The alleged crime boss, Christopher Michael Coke, 40, is regarded by the U.S. Department of Justice as one of the world's “most dangerous narcotics kingpins.”

Coke – also known as “General,” “President, “Duddus” and "Shortman" -- is as well known to Jamaicans as was crime boss John Gotti to New Yorkers. Ostensibly, Coke is a legitimate businessman. But according to an indictment unsealed last August by the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, Coke has since the early 1990s led an international crime ring called the "Shower Posse." The group distributes cocaine, marijuana, and crack in New York City and elsewhere, while smuggling arms back to Jamaica, according to the indictment, citing intercepted phone conversations and other evidence.

In Kingston, Coke controls a “garrison community” in the Tivoli Garden's area -- “a barricaded neighborhood guarded by a group of armed gunmen,” said the indictment. “These gunmen act at Coke's direction. Coke arms them with firearms he imports illegally, via a wharf located adjacent to Tivoli Gardens. Coke also distributes firearms to other area leaders of other sections of Kingston, Jamaica.”

Presumably, Jamaica's political leaders would be eager to get rid of Coke. After all, they're ostensibly committed to combating the international war on drugs. Jamaica's drug trade helps to fuel one of the world's highest murder rates on the island of 2.7 million people.

Yet Jamaica has yet to extradite Coke – and it seems reluctant to do so. The likely reason has been widely discussed in Jamaica's news media and is implicitly acknowledged by U.S. officials: Coke has political ties to Jamaica's ruling Jamaica Labor Party. He is part of what might be called Jamaica's thug culture. That culture, according to a State Department report on the international drug trade, has compromised elected officials, the police, and legitimate businesses.

For the rest of the article, go to The American Thinker.

James O'Keefe and the Fourth Estate's Double Standards

By David Paulin

Lying, cheating, stealing -- all have been employed by gung-ho members of the Fourth Estate for the sake of the public's right to know. Indeed, reporters for top media outlets have masqueraded over the years as workmen, students, and even bar tenders in their effort to expose corrupt officials and misdeeds -- and to, of course, get a good story (and maybe some coveted journalism awards).

Well, who could imagine such journalistic shenanigans in light of the way the mainstream media is portraying James O’Keefe III, 25, the videographer who became famous for exposing Acorn, the liberal community organizing group.

O'Keefe is facing federal charges along with three young colleagues for allegedly attempting to "tamper" with (not "bug" as the Washington Post initially had gleefully reported) the phone system of Senator Mary L. Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat. Two of them entered the senator’s New Orleans office pretending to be repairmen.

O'Keefe said the group was investigating whether Sen. Landrieu had been ducking constituent complaints last December by claiming her phone system was overloaded. He admitted to using poor judgment in respect to his investigative tactics.

So how does the New York Times portray O'Keefe and his young colleagues in a front-page story on Sunday? They're pigeonholed as being members of an exotic subculture - "conservative activists." And according to the Times, members of this subculture are willing to push the envelope in their determination to expose hypocrisy, foolishness, and other misdeeds among their targets – liberals.

The Times' headline sums things up along these lines: "From High Jinks to Handcuffs/A Provocative Conservative Movement Born on Campus." Oh, and by the way, the Times also published the mens' mug shots.

“I could have used a different approach to this investigation," O'Keefe is quoted as saying. But the nation's paragon of journalistic integrity then points out: "that approach was precisely the kind that he and others have been perfecting for years, a kind of gonzo journalism or a conservative version of “Candid Camera.”

Indeed, the Times explains:

Those methods took root on college campuses in the latter half of George W. Bush’s presidency, fostered by a group of men and women in their late teens and early 20s with a taste for showmanship and a shared sense of political alienation — a sort of political reverse image of the left-wing Yippies of the 1960s. They studied leftist activism of years past as their prototype, looking to the tactics of Saul Alinsky, the Chicago community organizer who laid the framework for grass-roots activism in the ’60s, as well as those of gay rights and even Communist groups."

The Times, however, fails to mention something -- and that is that the tactics and flair for showmanship demonstrated by O'Keefe and like-minded conservative students share much in common with the mainstream media itself.

Consider some examples:

In 1978, the Chicago Sun-Times opened a sleazy bar operated by undercover reporters determined to expose rampant corruption in the Windy City. And soon enough, just as they'd expected, every petty official in Chicago was coming around with his hand open.

The Sun-Times' dynamite investigative series was described by an article in Time magazine:

Bribes flowed like beer...For just $10, the fire inspector was willing to ignore the exposed electrical wiring. For $50, the plumbing inspector "fixed" the leaky pipes, and for $100, the ventilation inspector overlooked $2,000 worth of necessary duct work. Jukebox and pinball purveyors not only offered kickbacks but showed the new management how to skim off profits.

The Sun-Times had hoped to snag a Pulitzer Prize for the series of articles it wrote about its bar, appropriately named the "Mirage." But some members of the Pulitzer board denied the paper America's highest journalism honor, believing its bar sting exceeded the envelope of acceptable journalism ethics.

Touching on the controversy, an article in the Milwaukee Journal pointed out that journalistic deceit – undertaken for the public good -- has a long tradition. At top news outlets, it pointed out, reporters have masqueraded as Congressmen, graduate students, and assembly line workers.

However, it noted that editors remain divided over whether such "masquerades" are ethical or unethical.

Such ethical hairsplitting can be the least of a news organization's problems when mainstream editors decide, like O'Keefe did, to push the envelope. In 1998, for instance, The Cincinnati Enquirer did an exposé on Chiquita Brands International Inc., portraying it as a heartless multinational. But the fruit company had the last laugh after it turned out that an Enquirer reporter on the story was involved in the theft of voice mails from Chiquita, or as the paper later admitted: "was involved in the theft of this information in violation of the law."

Among other things, the Enquirer paid Chiquita $10 million; fired the story's lead reporter; and published a front-page apology for three days in a row that said its story had ''created a false and misleading impression of Chiquita's business practices.”

All in all, the Enquirer's story sounds like one that would have made Saul Alinsky proud.

As for O'Keefe, there's no denying that he exceeded the envelope of his own advocacy journalism. Next time, he might try a safer story, like maybe following the Sun-Times' example and setting up a sleazy topless bar (with hidden cameras) near the U.S. Capital Building. Members of Congress would get discounted lap dances and booze.

Would such a sting operation be ethical? If you say no -- "unethical" -- then answer another question: Would you still want to watch the video captured by the hidden cameras?

O'Keefe and his colleagues, I'll bet, know the answer to that one.

This was originally published at The American Thinker.

Will New York Times Readers Pay for Online Content?

By David Paulin

Struggling to turn a profit and stop a hemorrhage of buyouts and layoffs, the New York Times just announced that it will be charging readers to access some of its content next year. The details have yet to be worked out. However, it seems that readers will receive free access to a certain number of articles, and after that they'll have to pay to read "All the News that's Fit to Print."

Will it work?

Obviously, it depends on whether readers think the Times' journalism is worth paying for, and it depends as well on how much the Times will be charging. The conservative Wall Street Journal -- unlike the ultraliberal Times -- charges a hefty subscription rate for its popular online content, and the Journal also happens to be the nation's biggest circulation newspaper.

Let's admit something. The Times does occasionally pull off some first-rate journalism, even as its conservative critics rightly criticize it for the liberal spin it puts on its supposedly objective news articles. However, first-rate journalism alone does not necessarily mean that loyal Times readers will be willing to cough up a subscription fee.

I say that based on who the Times readers are (compared to those of the Wall Street Journal), and I say that based on a regular look that I take of the most e-mailed articles at the Times and Journal.

To paraphrase an old saying: Show me who your readers are, and I'll show you who you are. Well, take a look at some of the most e-mailed article at the Times and Journal, and it obviously says something about what's important those papers readers, and it says something about their values and worldview. This of course raises another question: Would these readers be willing to pay for the types of stories that they are so quick to e-mail?

Here are some of the most e-mailed stories from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times from January 20, 2010:

Wall Street Journal:
1. Opinion: Boston Tea Party
2. Opinion: Lanny J. Davis: Blame the Left for Massachusetts
3. Opinion: The Message of Massachusetts
4. Opinion: Terry Miller: The U.S. Isn't as Free as It Used to Be
5. Unfinished Projects Weigh on Banks
6. How to Buy Disability Insurance
7. GOP Victory Upends Senate
8. May I Hate the Saints?
9. Opinion: Michael Mann's Climate Stimulus
10. Opinion: The Great D.C. Migration

New York Times:

1. If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online

2. DE GUSTIBUS: Snack Time Never Ends

3. The Times to Charge for Frequent Access to Its Web Site

4. More Men Marrying Wealthier Women

5. You Saw What in ‘Avatar’? Pass Those Glasses!

6. Op-Ed Contributor: Taxing Wall Street Down to Size

7. G.O.P. Senate Victory Stuns Democrats

8. Thomas L. Friedman: Is China an Enron? (Part 2)

9. DINING & WINE: The Balkan Burger Unites All Factions

10. INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE. The Female Factor: In Germany, a Tradition Falls, and Women Rise

This originally ran as a blog item at The American Thinker.

'BUSH VISION'
All About My Excellent Botswana Safari



By David Paulin

It's called "bush vision" in Africa.

White men don't have it. But native Africans raised in the bush do. That's what an ex-game warden named Keith Rowles told me at a photographic safari camp he operates near Botswana's Moremi Wildlife Reserve.

Most wildlife blends easily into its surroundings thanks to its natural colors, strips and spots. But Rowles said native Botswanans seemed blessed with superhuman eyesight — "bush vision" — that made them extraordinary game spotters.

"I've never seen a white man yet who could spot game nearly as well as these native guides." he said. I was skeptical. But a few days later, at another camp some 40 minutes away by light plane, a native guide named Raymond offered dramatic proof of Rowles' claim one hot afternoon.

I was hiking with two vacationing Americans, a foreign service officer and his wife. Raymond, about 19 or 20 years old, was leading us along an elephant trail that meandered across a plain of tall grass on a huge tree dotted island.

The hike had been disappointing compared to others I'd taken. No wildlife was in sight; the animals had taken cover from the blazing sun. We'd started out too late in the day to see much of anything.

I blamed Raymond.

We'd met him that morning, and he'd failed to make a good first impression. At other safari camps I'd visited, the guides were athletic and self-assured men in their 30s. All had led hunting safaris. But Raymond had a boyish face and lanky body. With his perpetual smile, he seemed more suited for a job at the Kentucky Fried Chicken in the capital city of Gabarone.

My doubts about Raymond multiplied during our 30-minute delta boat ride to the island, much of it through barely passable, reed-choked channels. Reeds slapped across the boat, forcing us to duck and push them aside. A few times, the boat's motor conked out.

"How long has it been anybody has gone down this channel?" the foreign service officer asked. Like myself, he wondered if we'd blundered down the wrong channel and become lost. Raymond merely shrugged, then beached the boat on the island we'd been approaching. We disembarked and started along an elephant trail.

It had also bothered me that Raymond carried no rifle, although guides at other camps I'd visited had carried them. But then, as we neared a grove of trees just ahead on the elephant trail, Raymond's bush vision and judgment suddenly proved more valuable than any rifle.

"Stop here please", he said.

Staring straight ahead, his eyes searched a grove of trees 300 yards away. He lifted his binoculars.

"Under those trees. Lions."

Startled, we quickly scanned the tree line. We couldn't detect the lions. We raised our binoculars. Even then, Raymond had to provide detailed instructions. After a few minutes, I finally spotted them — several lionesses sprawled lazily about with their cubs. With their yellowish hides, they blended perfectly into the bush. We would have blundered right into them had we been hiking alone.

Then I noticed one big lioness: She was alert, craning her neck upwards staring intently at us. I wondered if she was curious or sizing us up as potential prey. The foreign service officer spotted them next and mumbled something to himself. His wife never did spot them.

"Where are they?" she kept repeating.

The lions were a fair way off. But we couldn't help feeling a bit vulnerable, isolated on that island, without a gun, led by a guide who seemed woefully lacking in experience.

After ten minutes, Raymond — who quietly had been taking in the situation — led us off on an angle back toward our boat.

We'd only gone a few hundred yards when we spotted about 20 agitated wildebeest under some trees, backing into a defensive circle.

"Tonight," Raymond assured us, "those lions will kill one of those wildebeest."

That evening I asked our safari operator why Raymond carried no rifle.

"We think a gun can get you into trouble more often than it will get you out of trouble, " he said.

I was unconvinced. Still, if I had to go into the bush unarmed, I'd want to go with Raymond.

A week earlier, I had arrived in Botswana from the United States to write about its wildlife and small tourism industry. A relatively prosperous African nation, Botswana's economy is primarily fueled by rich diamond mines and cattle production. Tourism accounts for just 2.5 percent of its gross national product.

Botswana was never colonized, so it was spared the growing pains that still afflict other African nations. Today, the landlocked country of 1.2 million people has a democratic, multi-party, non-racial system. Beggars and violent crime are virtually non-existent in Gabarone, the capital of 120,000.

Only beyond Botswana's borders does one find Africa's darker side— AIDS epidemics civil war, famine and racial violence.

Most people have heard of the fabled Kalahari Desert, an area of brush, grass and sand that dominates some 70 percent of Botswana. But many are unaware it's next to Botswana's verdant Okavango Delta, which is nourished by the Okavango River from Angola to the north. Many nature films are made in both areas, not to mention the comedy film of a few years ago, "The Gods Must Be Crazy," about a hapless Kalahari Bushman who walks through Northern Botswana to majestic Victoria Falls —420 feet high and more than a mile wide— on Botswana's northern border.

One reason Botswana remains a somewhat off-beat safari destination is its conservationists' tourism policy. Forty percent of its land has been set aside for wildlife preservation, and 17 percent of that land includes game reserves where hunting is prohibited.

In addition, Botswana limits the private safari camps dotting the country to mostly small, upscale facilities — reflecting its "high-end, low-volume" tourism policy At the four camps I visited, no more than 20 guests were allowed, so it was eommon to view game with just a few other guests.

For two people, a typical eight-day photographic safari in the Okavango Delta costs $4,000 to $5,000, which includes meals and light-plane transportation to two or three camps.

Like most tourists in Botswana, my safari started in Maun, a dusty frontier town on the edge of the delta, whose modern airport is a staging area for most safari operators. From Maun, it's a short light plane ride to grass airstrips near safari camps dotting the delta.

Our young, rangy Australian bush pilot packed six of us into a single engine Cessna 210. "Well, we're already too heavy for that bag," he told one alarmed female passenger. "But if you can squeeze it up front I guess we'll be okay." And then we roared off into the African wilderness, flying at 3,000 feet over the flat green delta.

Thirty minutes later, we started our final approach toward a grass airstrip a few miles from Shinde Island camp, operated by Texas-based safari operator Ker & Downey.

My hands clenched the seat when I noticed a number of deer-like animals grazing on the grass airstrip, and I wondered if the pilot saw them. But he landed anyway, and the deer ambled slowly out of the way.

The pilot steered to the left and right keeping a safe distance from the few stragglers who were unconcerned by the whirling proeller and roaring engine. "Those were springbok," the pilot told me later. "They usually get out of the way. But some animals don't want to move. So you have to buzz the runway a few times to shoo them off."

A delta boat then whisked me and four other guests across reed-lined channels and ox-bow lakes for 20 minutes. We pulled up to the dock at a shady tree-dotted camp, where guests stay in 10 African-style tents with adjoining bathrooms.

Camp manager Philip Davies, his wife and their uniformed native staff lined up to greet us. Women employees led us to our quarters, balancing our bags on their heads. We joined the Davies for lunch in an open air lodge, during which we got a real treat—the inspiring sight of five bachelor elephants, 150 yards away, ambling majestically across the grassy plain facing our camp.

"Do you ever get tired of that?" I asked Davies, a Welshman and retired banker who spent his banking career in Africa, but who now runs Shinde Island for the fun of it. They live in a tent for several months of the year, their only connection to the outside world a radio and BBC broadcasts.

"No," Davies smiled. "You never do. We have a home back in England with all the comforts. A TV and VCR. But we're happy here."

Unlike East Africa, where migrating herds of animals darken the plains, Botswana's herds are small. I never saw more than 40 or so animals together. Camps are in areas where hunting is prohibited, so animals remain calm if people remain a respectful distance.

One evening at Tsaro Lodge, a row of stone bungalows near the Moremi Wildlife Reserve, camp manager Keith Rowles took two other guests and me out in search of a nearby lion kill. Rowles warned us that lions might be about. A nearby herd of grazing impalas and leehwes had vanished, and the area had grown unusually quiet.

His suspicions were confirmed at 10 p.m. when he spotted a lioness drinking from a small pond - a few hundred feet from the group's dinner table.

"Oh, what excitement!" said Mrs. Rowles, as we climbed aboard our four-wheel-drive safari vehicle. Our headlights funneled into the darkness on one of those wonderful, unexpected adventures that makes a safari so memorable.

A few hundred yards away, we found the lions in a grassy clearing. We drew within 50 feet of them. They ignored us. Rowles beamed a search light over the bloody scene. One big lioness, her eyes glowing, gnawed on the ravaged belly of a young zebra. The others were asleep, scattered lazily about on their sides, their bellies bulging with meat. The next day, Mrs. Rowles said she heard a zebra mother crying for her lost child.

At some safari camps, it's not always necessary to search out game. Sometimes, it comes to you, much to the annoyance of most camp managers.

One afternoon at Shinde Island, I was sipping tea with the Davies in the camp's lodge when an elephant nicknamed Harry strolled amiably toward us across the grassy plain. His ears flapped, his trunk swayed.

Nobody could quite remember how Harry got his name. But one thing was certain: He liked to visit the shady camp to take a nap or bash his head against a palm tree to knock down its tasty fruit.

Once he had chased a young American yuppie couple, who'd startled Harry awake early one morning when they jogged along a path where he was napping. The irate couple wanted Harry shot. But the Davies spared the elephant, though they banished him from the camp. A "no jogging" policy was strictly enforced thereafter.

So that afternoon, when Harry ambled within 100 yards, Mr. Davies charged out of the lodge — confronting Harry on the edge of the plain. He shouted loudly, clapped his hands, furiously waved his floppy hat.

Harry stopped, shook his head. He pawed the ground, obviously confused. After a few minutes, Harry reluctantly turned around, ambling away with a stately gait.

Such stories about life in the bush are common, and for me they were as much a part of my safari as the wildlife. One night during dinner at Shinde Island, I sat near an unassuming native guide named Galabone (pronounced Hala-Boney). A year earlier, he'd been badly mauled by a wounded lion he'd been tracking with a hunter.

Galabone, who was hospitalized for some time, said the lion attacked him instead of the hunter, because it knew he was the tracker. He quit hunting.

And the stories are humorous. At a Ker & Downey camp called Pom Pom, I slept fitfully my first night in the bush, being unaccustomed to the deep rumbling snorts of hippos in a nearby lagoon.

Although my tent was tightly zipped up, I dreamed of grinning hippos poking their snouts into my tent.

"Hippos kill more people in Africa than lions," camp manager Brian Kemp had warned earlier, when advising guests to stay put after turning in.

Two weeks earlier, a middle-aged British couple who had used the tent I was now using took that advice one night. They bolted awake when a tree crashed across their tent, collapsing part of it.

Huddling together, they listened most of the night to a loud munching sound. They were too stoic to yell for help.

The next morning, they learned a hungry elephant knocked down the tree and eaten its leaves. They returned with one of many great stories to tell.

So did I.