Who is the real leader here?





Like millions of Americans, I was riveted to live images of the mine rescue in Chile. One emotion kept creeping into my mind: I couldn't help but admire Chile's President Sebastián Piñera-- and compare his bearing and leadership to that of America's own president, Barack Obama.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece on the mining disaster: "Capitalism Saved the Miners." It wasn't only capitalism, of course. It also took a man like Chile's conservative president, a former businessman and Harvard-trained economist, to know how to leverage the forces of free-market capitalism to save his fellow countrymen.

Contrast Piñera's performance against what Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez did when tens of thousands of his fellow countrymen were killed and injured by devastating mudslides in 1999 -- he rejected a a U.S. Navy ship loaded with aid and military engineers from the United States in a fit of nationalistic bluster. That ship was steaming to Venezuela when Chavez announced that the aid was not welcome. For those who think that George W. Bush is responsible for all the anti-Americanism in the world, it should be noted that America's president in 1999 was Bill Clinton.

Had this mining disaster occurred in socialist Venezuela, it's safe to say that it would not have had a happy ending.

Congratulations to President Piñera, the rescued miners, and all Chileans who can be rightly proud of this wonderful mine rescue. There are many stories left to tell about this shining example of human courage, innovation, and cooperation -- all things that flourish in a world of responsible free-market capitalism where the human spirit is allowed to flourish.
--David Paulin

Gun control and a shooting at the University of Texas

By David Paulin

It was a sad and harrowing morning yesterday at the University of Texas in Austin. A young man with an AK-47 assault rifle fired a number of rounds into the air as he ran past frightened onlookers at 8 a.m. He then dashed into the school's library where police say he shot himself to death.

No injuries from the rampage were reported, other than a sprained ankle as thousands of frightened students evacuated buildings and sought cover in secure areas. Police for a time thought a second shooter might be on the loose.

The shooting triggered a massive police response and prompted school officials to cancel classes and close the campus. It also reignited an old debate in Texas -- whether people with concealed handgun permits ought to be able to carry their handguns on state college and university campuses. Like many states, Texas prohibits concealed handgun holders from carrying their guns on campuses. Republican lawmakers and Republican Gov. Rick Perry have been unsuccessful in their efforts to rescind the ban.

Coincidentally, the shooting occurred on the day that conservative author John R. Lott, Jr., a proponent of concealed-handgun laws, was to speak at the University of Texas law school about crime and how it is affected by citizens who own guns and carry concealed handguns.

A research scientist at the University of Maryland, Lott wrote the book "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" – which the Wall Street Journal praised for "helping to redefine the argument over guns and gun control."

Gun bans don't deter crime, says Lott – an argument he made yesterday evening when speaking at a local book store, near where the first shots were fired, instead of at the university's law school.

"Would you put up a sign in front of your house saying 'This is a gun-free zone?" he told the Austin American-Statesman before delivering his lecture. "That makes no sense because it tells the criminal there's not going to be any guns there. Yet we put signs like that up at our schools and universities. ... There's a tremendous advantage to having concealed-carry laws, because the shooter doesn't know who has a weapon.”

"Some places like the UT campus are targeted by gunmen because they know the potential victims won't be armed," Lott went onto tell more than 100 people -- a crowd that Students for Concealed Carry on Campus Vice President Kory Zipperer told the Statesman was larger than expected.

"I think today's situation shows why gun-free zones don't work, because he was still able to carry a gun onto a gun-free zone and shoot," Zipperer said.

Moments after reports of an armed man shooting an AK-47, the university activated contingency plans for such emergencies – warning students with text messages, activating emergency sirens, and announcing the emergency on loudspeakers.

Andy Fernandez, a member of Leaders of Libertarian Longhorns, told the Statesman he was frustrated by how vulnerable students were. "They had no chance to defend themselves," he said.

Ironically, the paper noted that the gunman was, according to authorities, "legally allowed to carry his loaded AK-47 on sidewalks around campus, and only broke the law when he fired it and carried it into a campus building."

As for the shooter: Police quickly identified him as Colton Tooley, a 19-year-old university sophomore majoring in math. Teachers, neighbors, and others who knew him expressed shock: Tooley's actions were inconsistent with the person they knew, they said.

Tooley graduated from Austin's Crockett High School last year and students there were upset to learn what happened, noted Principal Craig Shapiro. In a statement, he said Tooley was "an excellent student who excelled in every subject, and was ranked 7th in his class. His teachers recall him with words such as 'brilliant,' 'meticulous,' and 'respectful.'”

For Crockett's students, Tooley's death was particularly upsetting because it occurred after fellow student James Hinojosa was hit and killed by a train last week, Shapiro said.

He added:

“I respectfully request that the news media refrain from coming on to the Crockett campus, and attempting to speak with students or staff. These have been two difficult weeks for our community, with the loss of Colton, and the death of student James Hinojosa in the train accident last week. Our school needs time to heal from our losses." (This was originally published at The American Thinker.)

John Lott discusses the relationship between crime and handgun bans during an appearance on C-SPAN:

U.S. Justice Department to Hire 'Black English' Jive Speakers



By David Paulin

The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to hire “jive” speakers – people fluent in "Black English" or "Ebonics" – to help with undercover investigations of drug dealers. According to the The Smoking Gun website, Ebonics is even described by the Justice Department as a commonly spoken American language!

As The Smoking Gun reports:

In contract documents... Ebonics is listed among 114 languages for which prospective contractors must be able to provide linguists. The 114 languages are divided between “common languages” and “exotic languages.” Ebonics is listed as a “common language” spoken solely in the United States.

Ebonics has widely been described as a nonstandard variant of English spoken largely by African Americans. John R. Rickford, a Stanford University professor of linguistics, has described it as “Black English” and noted that “Ebonics pronunciation includes features like the omission of the final consonant in words like ‘past’ (pas’ ) and ‘hand’ (han’), the pronunciation of the th in ‘bath’ as t (bat) or f (baf), and the pronunciation of the vowel in words like ‘my’ and ‘ride’ as a long ah (mah, rahd).”

Detractors reject the notion that Ebonics is a dialect, instead considering it a bastardization of the English language.

So how could Eric Holder's Justice Department classify Ebonics as a commonly spoken language? No doubt, one reason is a profound devotion to multiculturalism -- the post-modern ideology that views all cultures as equal --along with the languages that help define them. Another reason may be a desire not to offend various racial constituencies and friends: certain black churches in Chicago; various professors of black studies; and perhaps even a former community organizer known for his impeccably creased pants.

Incidentally, anybody unfamiliar with "Black English" or "Ebonics," can find out what they've been missing in this hilarious clip from the movie "Airplane!,” the 1980's spoof in which Barbara Billingsley (the all-American suburban mom in the 1950s/60 TV sitcom "Leave It to Beaver") famously showed off her fluency in jive.




Interestingly, Billingsley's jive is similar to the lower-class English I regularly heard while working two years in Kingston, Jamaica, a former British Colony. Jamaica's version of Ebonics, popular among its lower classes, is called “Patois.” And as with Ebonics in the U.S., the use of Patois among lower-class Jamaicans has provoked an ongoing controversy -- pitting left-leaning elites (primarily in academia) against Jamaica's black middle-class and its conservative intellectuals. The debate is interesting because it throws a spotlight on the absurd arguments put forth by left-leaning elites in America and Jamaica over the use of non-standard English.

Like their soul mates in America, for instance, Jamaica's left-leaning elites defend Patois as an “authentic” language that's an important part of Jamaica's "post-colonial" national identify. Indeed, they advocate that school children even get formal instruction in Patois along with standard English. Middle-class Jamaicans and conservative pundits, on the other hand, point out that Jamaican kids already speak Patois – and are in fact in dire need of learning proper English. This is vital to success in school and landing good jobs as adults.

Like American critics of Ebonics, Jamaica's conservative pundits contend that Patois is really just “slave talk” – a product of Jamaica's undisciplined culture. Indeed, a prominent Jamaican lawyer and author named Morris Cargill offered some fascinating observations along these lines in a Jamaican newspaper column a few years ago. Specifically, Cargill drew a relationship between culture and success concerning the use of Patois over standard English in Jamaica and the Caribbean. He wrote:

I prefer to describe what we call our Patois as either slave talk or yahoolish, for that is what it really is.

When I was going around the other West Indian islands during the Federation I was greatly impressed by two important things. When Grantley Adams made his speeches in the Federal House he often spoke with a thick Barbadian accent. But beneath that accent his speeches were well structured, and were in excellent English. I soon found that to be true of all the Barbadians I met. Never mind the accent. Whatever they said was firmly based upon well structured English.

The Trinidadians had a different but softer accent, yet they too spoke excellent English. When one phoned a private home both the maid and the mistress spoke the same excellent English with the same charming lilting accent.

The situation in Barbados and Trinidad differs greatly from the situation in Jamaica for our patois is nothing more than hopelessly broken English, unstructured and incapable of dealing with abstract concepts, without tense or number.

Although a few Jackasses, some of whom are at the University, keep on claiming that Patois is some kind of language, it is nothing more than an undisciplined and unstructured kind of chattering. An undisciplined and disorderly way of speaking makes for an undisciplined and disorderly mind. Of course the converse is also true. A disorderly and undisciplined mind also brings about a disorderly and undisciplined way of talking.

One doesn't know which comes first but I don't think it matters. Every writer complains about the lack of discipline in Jamaica but it doesn't seem to occur to many that that indiscipline is expressed by, and probably results from, the undisciplined way so many talk. We should watch our language and stop calling slave talk some sort of cultural heritage. It is nothing of the sort. It is simply mental sloppiness. Barbados and Trinidad both have a useful lesson to teach us. It may well be the reason why both those countries are so very much more successful than we are.

Regarding Ebonics, the same might be said for most of its American speakers -- their poor language skills condemns them to poverty. Of course, this excludes those earning good livings as drug dealers; professors of Black Studies; or as “Ebonics translators” at the Justice Department.

Dat ain't no jive.

DUELING HEADLINES:

Afghanistan and Team Obama



Pregnant widow accused of adultery executed by Taliban

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The Taliban has executed a pregnant widow accused of adultery in western Afghanistan, provincial and district officials said Monday.

The 47-year-old woman, Sanam Gul, also known as Sanam Bibi, was killed in Badghis province Saturday morning, said Ashrafuddin Majidi, the provincial governor's spokesman.

For the rest of the story, click here.

Joe Biden: Taliban negotiations likely

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Tuesday that 70 percent of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan are essentially mercenaries who possibly could be negotiated with instead of fought, and said the United States likely will try this approach.

Mr. Biden, in Belgium to discuss Afghanistan with NATO officials in advance of next month's summit, said that he did not know what kind of concessions Taliban members might be willing to make, and said that the Afghan government would have to initiate and approve of any such talks.

For the rest of the story, click here.

____________________________________

Seven Things to Remember When We Talk to the Taliban

Is your stomach churning yet? The occasionally salacious but usually accurate Guardian is reporting that Team Obama is signaling that it's ready to negotiate with the Taliban. Through "trusted" intermediaries like the Pakistanis and Saudis, naturally, and via plausibly denied channels, of course, but... really? Is this what a peace-in-your-first-term, Nobel Prize-winning president looks like? If we're going to reconcile ourselves to this kind of indecent proposal — the last one led to the bloody Swat Valley offensive — the U.S. had better not lose site of reality. Here's how. If it's not too late.

For the rest of the story, click here.

It's fun to shoot some people, isn't it?



"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." -

-Lt. Gen. James Mattis, U.S. Marine Corps

Accused Jamaican Drug Lord Pleads 'Not Guilty' in New York City Court


"Christopher "Dudus" Coke could face a life sentence if convicted in a U.S. court. What incredible stories might he tell in a plea bargain about the relationships between Jamaica's dons and the country's outwardly respectable politicians and businessmen? It's also interesting to speculate about whether any of these Jamaicans over the years played the anti-American card, cozied up to certain American politicians from New York and Massachusetts (among others), and delivered high-minded speeches in the United Nations and other venues."
--"Obama's Fruitless Quest to Extradite A Drug Thug," American Thinker, March 7, 2010


"If Jamaica's most notorious drug kingpin makes it into a U.S. courtroom, one can only guess at what incredible stories he might tell about his country's drug trade. No doubt, some of Jamaica's political and business elites are very worried."
--"Obama's Lesson in Realpolitik," American Thinker, May 21, 2010

Actor Val Kilmer apologizes for insulting Vets, New Mexico residents




By David Paulin

Hollywood actor Val Kilmer on Wednesday gave a partial apology to New Mexico residents who were outraged that he'd reportedly called them drunks and also disparaged Vietnam veterans. Among the magazines that allegedly misquoted the actor were Rolling Stone and Esquire. In a bizarre moment at the public hearing where Kilmer spoke, a Hispanic man suggested the actor was a racist businessman.

Kilmer, wearing a prominent pony tail, got the permits he was seeking from county commissioners to turn his sprawling ranch outside Santa Fe into an upscale bed-and-breakfast. But resident Abran Tapia -- who together with other residents had opposed the permits because of Kilmer's alleged insults -- was not satisfied with what one local TV station called Kilmer's "partial apology."

"It's the biggest piece of crap that I've ever heard, Tapia said of Kilmer, who has put on considerable weight since the height of his Hollywood days.

Tapia, rising another concern, also complained that Kilmer's bed-and-breakfast would be "racist" because Hispanics couldn't afford to stay there, according to one news report. It was a puzzling remark, to be sure -- one that no doubt caught Kilmer off guard. No matter that it reflects a common sentiment among deep-thinking Hollywood liberals, members of ACORN, and perhaps even President Obama and his friends in Washington and Chicago. (Originally published at The American Thinker).

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?