From The Nation…..

Other sources however told TheNation that Durrani was sacked for his controversial statements to Indian media about the identity of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone suspect of 26/11 Mumbai attacks. His disclosures created a lot of confusion about Pakistan’s stance on Mumbai incident.

Sources further said that more heads could roll in the days to come as consequence of these developments that had forced Islamabad to confirm on Wednesday that Ajmal Amir Kasab was a Pakistani national, a confession dealing severe blow to the image and credibility of the PPP-led coalition government.

Pakistan has a new director for its intelligence agency. He is supposed to put a new face agency and convince everyone that Pakistan is not supporting terrorists. But listen to what he has to say. From Spiegel….

Pasha is apparently adept at overcoming old divisions. However, it is worth listening closely when the general explains why he too is unwilling to apprehend the Taliban leadership, even though many claim that Taliban leader Mullah Omar, for example, is in Quetta, a city where Pasha lived until a few years ago. “Shouldn’t they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn’t that freedom of opinion?” he asks, defending extremist rabble-rousers, who are sending more and more Koran school students to Afghanistan to fight in the war there.

Such words from Pasha arouse the old suspicion that the ISI is playing a double game.

I don’t think you can accuse this dude of playing a double game. He flat out told you what his views were.

Edit: Wretchard has a good point…..

The US already knows the Pakistani government — if such an entity can be collectively referred to — was guilty of the Mumbai attacks. But since the “international community” can’t nerve itself to use force and Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons, the plan is to support the international community’s Pakistani guys fight al-Qaeda’s Pakistani guys. Because only Pakistanis are actually going to be allowed to act directly in this situation.

But they need help. To strengthen their political hand the US has conveniently slipped signals intelligence into the hands of the Indians, because although the al-Qaeda Pakistani guys know they have nothing to fear from the US, for reasons we must pass over here, they may still have something to fear from India next door. And that fear may give the international community’s Pakistani guys the edge in what comes next.

But what comes next?

From the Belmont Club….

The New York Times lays the groundwork for a campaign that’s just waiting to happen. The new menace is Third Hand Smoke, a danger so great that you instinctively fear it even if you’ve never heard of it.

I say we declare smoking a crime publishable by death and let the smokers choose how they will die as long as they pay for it themselves. I reckon that most of them will chose death by cigarettes.

From Spiegel…..

Motorcycle gangs have long kept the police busy with violence and drug trafficking. But now investigators are alarmed by a new threat: Militant neo-Nazis are rising through the ranks of the Hells Angels in Germany.

To a certain extent, neo-Nazis in Germany always get more press than they warrant due to the nation’s past. But there does seem to be some real social degradation going on.

All across Europe, organized groups willing to use violence are growing in strength and popularity. Meanwhile, the states that make up Europe seem to lack the will to tackle thugs with a cause effectively. If they keep up that lack of will long enough, pretty soon they won’t have the means regardless of the will.

This week’s essay of the week covers Israel’s last excursion into Lebanon in depth. In light of recent events, it is a history that is worth reviewing.

From Y-net News……

“Why am I one of the few that have expressed understanding for Israel? … I am enjoying the luxury of telling the truth,” Schwarzenberg told the daily.

From the Telegraph….

Israel has launched a ground invasion of Gaza, sending a column of troops and tanks into the Palestinian territory to destroy Hamas rocket launchers.

It is hard to think of a good ending to this. Israel does not want to reoccupy Gaza, but anything short of that is unlikely to destroy Hamas. I think they are hoping that if they destroy enough tunnels and cause enough damage, Hamas will collapse on its own.

But I think that this is unlikely. TV stars have a way of getting the money they need to survive. And right now, Hamas is a TV star all over the Arab world.

From the Telegraph….

Rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army have murdered about 500 people in a series of massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The good news in all this is that Uganda army seems to have finally got its act together enough to kick Kony drive him far away from Uganda. They should have done that a long time ago. The bad news is that it is not likely that anyone in Congo will be able to deal with Kony. Unless Rwanda takes it into its head to do something about him, that is. But then, Rwanda has its own problems.

From Brussels Journal…..

But now, more than 500 years later, Spanish anti-Semitism is on the rise once again. According to a recent study published by the Pew Research Center, nearly half of all Spaniards have negative views of Jews, a statistic that marks Spain as one of the most anti-Semitic countries in Europe. According to Pew, 46 percent of Spaniards hold negative opinions of Jews, up more than double from the 21 percent of Spaniards with such views in 2005.

Spain is also the only country in Europe where negative views of Jews outweigh positive views; only 37 percent of Spaniards think favorably about Jews. By comparison, 36 percent of Poles have negative views of Jews while 50 percent have positive views; in Germany, 25 percent negative versus 64 percent positive; in France, 20 percent negative versus 79 percent positive; and in Britain, 9 percent positive versus 73 percent favorable. (According to Pew, 77 percent of Americans have favorable views toward Jews, compared with 7 percent unfavorable.)

Pew’s latest research about Spanish anti-Semitism corroborates the findings of other, similar surveys. For example, a report about European anti-Semitism published by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League says that 54 percent of Spaniards believe that “Jews have too much power in international markets.” And 51 percent of Spaniards believe that “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country.”

This article has a big flaw. It wants to blame antisemitism in Europe entirely on the left. This has no relation to reality in Europe. Go to any culturally conservative web site that is based out of Europe and I can just about guarantee you will find some seriously antisemitic comments. The Brussels Journal is no exception. Look at the comments at the bottom of the post that was quoted from above.

To be sure, the left in Europe is plenty antisemitic themselves. Indeed, antisemitism is far more common across the political spectrum in Europe than it is in the US.

In the US, we are prone to call anyone who is to harsh on Israel antisemitic. But over in Europe, a lot of people are out and out hostile to all Jews and they do not bother to hide it.