Dreams Into Lightning 2

William Sampson

National Post:

Supporters of a Canadian who said he was mistakenly charged with murder, tortured and held in solitary confinement for close to three years in a Saudi Arabian jail expressed sadness and a hope for “justice” after reports surfaced of his death.

William Sampson, 52, suffered a heart attack in England this week, according to filmmaker David Paperny, who directed a 2007 documentary about Sampson’s ordeal. ...

"Stubborn Yorkshirewoman" Cpt Lisa Head

Telegraph:

Captain Lisa Head, 29, had been lucky to survive the first explosion, when an undetected IED partially detonated under her foot, merely showering her with dust.

But after stepping away to smoke a cigarette and enjoy a “Condor moment” to gather her courage she returned to the alley in the Afghan village of Padaka, in Helmand Province. ...

Read the rest at the link. Via Stuttaford at The Corner.

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens has died. There's nothing I can add to what has already been written about him, except that his passing is a great loss to all of us. (I remember, when my mother was alive, discussing with her the implications of Hitch's departure from The Nation.)

Here is my friend Michael Totten on Christopher Hitchens.

Hassan Askari, New York Hero

Via Five Feet of Fury, here's something to give you hope as you're ushering out Hanukkah, getting into the Christmas spirit, gearing up for Eid al-Adha, or just ruminating on the human condition, as the case may be:
Daily News - Muslim Hero Breaks Up Train Beating

The Good Samaritan who tried to stop the Christmas-versus-Chanukah subway beating has two black eyes and a sore nose - but no regrets.

"I did what I thought was right," said Hassan Askari, 20. "I did the best that I could to help."

Askari, a Bangladeshi Muslim studying at Berkeley College in Manhattan, was on a Q train headed to Brooklyn late Friday when he came to the aid of young women confronted by a group of 10 thugs.

Fearful for the women's safety, he pushed one of the men away - and was then pounced on by the group, he said. ...

This is the incident you might have heard about, when a group of young people had the temerity to say "Happy Chanukah" on the Q train.

One of the Jewish victims, Walter Adler, expressed amazement that Askari took the risk to try to help.

"That a random Muslim kid helped some Jewish kids, that's what's positive about New York," said Adler, 23, who suffered a broken nose and required four stitches to close a lip wound.

Askari's interference allowed Adler to pull the emergency brake, which alerted police to trouble on the train.

Go read the whole article at the link. More here.

The three friends who suffered multiple bruises and cuts allegedly at the hands of Jirovec and his group have no doubts the attack was religiously motivated.

"They said, 'You dirty Jews, you killed Jesus on Chanukah, you should all die,'" said Maria Parsheva, 23, a Baruch College student.

Apparently these classy characters are historians too. (You do remember that the Last Supper was eaten over latkes, right?)

Victor Grayevsky

Michael Ledeen:

He was a Polish Jew, born Victor Spielman, which he changed to Victor Grayevsky after he found that “Spielman” was just too Jewish for an ambitious young Pole. He went to school in Kazakhstan, then returned to Poland at the end of the war, where he joined the Communist Party and made a bit of a name for himself as a journalist. In the mid-fifties he followed his parents and sister to Israel, where he ran a lot of the broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
And so? And so, he was arguably one of the most important men of the twentieth century, for he was the person who obtained the advance text of Khrushchev’s Secret Speech, the one delivered in February, 1956, the one that laid out the crimes of Stalin for the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party. That text was a turning point in the Cold War. Grayevsky gave it to the Israeli Embassy, where it was copied and sent to Israel. The Shin Bet intelligence service delivered it by courier to James Jesus Angleton, the head of CIA counterintelligence (and the CIA’s liaison with the Israelis), who gave it to CIA chief Allen Dulles, who gave it to President Eisenhower.
The speech made headlines around the world, and Khrushchev’s revelations were vigorously exploited by the United States, shocking the Communist faithful. ...

The Khrushchev Report was mentioned prominently in Neo-Neocon's review of 'Radical Son' by David Horowitz:

But right now I want to concentrate on the tie-in between these two events in Horowitz’s life. The first event was one that rocked the American leftist world in a way I hadn’t quite realized till I read Horowitz’s book, while the second was an event that hardly made a ripple, except for sparking change in Horowitz himself.

The first event was the publication of what became known as the Khrushchev Report. Horowitz had been the quintessential “red diaper baby.” His parents were not just leftists, they were committed and devoted Communists, as were most, if not all, of their friends. They had pooh-poohed any criticism of the Soviets, and revered Stalin. For them, and for their generation of American Communists, this was a watershed event, the great dividing line which occurred in 1956, when Horowitz was in his freshman year at Columbia. He writes:

…the Times had published a report from the Kremlin describing a secret speech by the new Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev. It had been smuggled out of the Kremlin by the Mossad, the Israeli secret service [quite a fascinating detail, that]. The speech made headlines all over the world because it was about crimes that Stalin had committed. Until then, Communists and progressives everywhere had denied such crimes ever took place, and had denounced the reports as “anti-Soviet” propaganda. Over the next months the story was confirmed, even by Communist sources, and in June the full text was published in the Times, and then in the Daily Worker itself…..

When my parents and their friends opened the morning Times and read its text, their world collapsed–and along with it their will to struggle. If the document was true, almost everything they had said and believed was false. Their secret mission had led them into waters so deep that its tide had overwhelmed them, taking with it the very meaning of their lives.

According to Horowitz, this was how Peggy Dennis, a woman who was a Party leader, recounted the event in her autobiography:

The last page crumpled in my fist. I lay in the half darkness and I wept…For the years of silence in which we buried doubts and questions. For a thirty-year life’s commitment that lay shattered. I lay sobbing low, hiccoughing whimpers.

Horowitz describes the split that followed:

In the American community of the faithful, the Khrushchev Report was a divisive force. Forty-year friendships disintegrated overnight, and even marriages dissolved as one partner would decide to quit the Party, the other to keep its faith…In the two years that followed, more than two-thirds of the Party membership dropped from its lists….My parents were among those who struggled to find solace in the thought that while “mistakes” had been made, remedies were being taken. But…they were stunned by a blow from which they could never recover…although they remained faithful in their hearts to the radical cause, they were never really active in politics again.

Passages in italics are excerpts from 'Radical Son'. Horowitz himself was horrified, but remained loyal to the left for almost 20 more years, convinced that the left could and must be purged of its violent shadow side. It took a brutal murder within the Black Panther community to convince him otherwise. But the seeds must already have been planted by Grayevsky's revelation.

Here is a portion of The Australian's account:

Grayevsky's girlfriend Lucia Baranowska was executive secretary to the most powerful man in communist-ruled Poland, party chief Edward Ochab. When Grayevsky arrived at Baranowska's office that morning, she said she couldn't get away: "Things are just too hectic."

As he prepared to leave, he noticed a document on the desk with the Russian words "top secret" and "state secret" on its red cover. At the bottom it read "Comrade Khrushchev's speech to the 20th Party Congress".

He picked it up and riffled through it. "Would you mind if I take this for an hour or so?" he asked. ...

Go to the link for the rest.

All of this happened a bit before my time, but I find it fascinating to read how one article shaped the mindset of a generation, and destroyed so many illusions. We have Victor Grayevsky to thank for the revelation that brought so many out of the spell of communism.

Rest in peace, Victor Grayevsky.

A Force for Good

I actually lost a girlfriend because I had the audacity to believe this very thing:

"I genuinely believe the United States Army is a force of good in this world"
The immortal words of 2LT Mark Daily live on. The Los Angeles Times has picked up the story: "Mark Daily wrote on MySpace that he joined the Army to help the suffering people of Iraq. In death, his words have become a call to service."

A small sample:

In a 2005 videotape of his officers' commissioning ceremony, Daily told the crowd that the U.S. Army is one of the few militaries in the world that teach not only tactics but also ethics. "I genuinely believe the United States Army is a force of good in this world," he said. ...

In Mark Daily's own words:

So that is why I joined. In the time it took you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny.

Don't forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans have a responsibility to the oppressed. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction.

So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include "Good Luck."

Go to Michelle Malkin for more.

Remarks. It gets better. Here's more from the LA Times story:

"Anyone who knew me before I joined knows that I am quite aware and at times sympathetic to the arguments against the war in Iraq. If you think the only way a person could bring themselves to volunteer for this war is through sheer desperation or blind obedience then consider me the exception."

Mark Daily, born on the Fourth of July, grew up in Irvine's Woodbridge Village, on a street of spacious homes and well-manicured lawns. His father, John, is an aerospace project manager; his mother, Linda, an audiologist.

His family says he became a registered Democrat who read voraciously and delighted in fervent debate. He read liberal intellectual Noam Chomsky, conservative Sen. John McCain of Arizona and everything in between.

His first passions were animal rights and environmental protection, prompting him to become a vegetarian and Green Party member in high school for a few years. He defended American Indian rights so loudly in one backyard debate that Linda Daily imagined the neighbors would think it a family brawl. His heroes were immigrants because "they risk their lives to achieve better ones," he wrote on his MySpace page.

Damn. I think I know this guy.

After the 9/11 attacks, Daily was not convinced that a military response was the best option. In his MySpace essay, he runs through the gamut of reasons he used at one time or another to argue against confronting the Taliban and Saddam Hussein: cultural tolerance, the sanctity of national sovereignty, a suspicion of America's intentions. Weren't we really after their oil? he wondered.

Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him. A 2003 phone conversation with a UCLA ROTC officer on the ideals of commitment and service impressed him.

Ultimately, his family says, Daily came to believe that his lifelong altruistic impulses and passions for the underdog had to extend to Iraqis crushed under decades of oppression. It was time to stop simply talking about human rights and actually do something to help secure them.

"There was no epiphany" - only a gradual, reasoned evolution of views. He considered every viewpoint in the debate, and he took the time to inform himself about the facts. Are you listening, Jay Dixit?

Daily touched down in Iraq on Nov. 19 and was sent to the northern city of Mosul. In calls and e-mails home, he began asking for presents for his new Iraqi friends: cigars for the soldiers, candy and soccer balls for the children. He vividly described his adventures with them: a Thanksgiving Day game of musical chairs, a rooftop cigar session; his first Kurdish meal, his first local haircut.

In one video he sent, Iraqi soldiers surround him with grins, crowning him with a turban as a gesture of friendship.

In typical fashion, he sought out new points of view. In one discussion, he wrote that he asked a Kurdish man whether the insurgents could be viewed as freedom fighters. The man cut him off. "The difference between insurgents and American soldiers," Daily said the man told him, "is that they get paid to take life — to murder — and you get paid to save lives."

"That Kurdish man's assessment of our presence means more to me than all of the naysayers and makeshift humanists that monopolize our interpretation of this war," Daily wrote in a Dec. 31 e-mail.

Daily was killed by a roadside bomb on January 15, one day after sending an e-mail to his parents saying, "All is well. More war stories then I can fit in this e-mail. Having the time of my life!"

Update. A belated thank-you to Jane at the Jawa Report for the link.

Robert L. Jones

Robert L. Jones, United States Army

Army Spc. Robert L. Jones

22, of Milwaukie, Ore.; assigned to the 40th Engineer Battalion, Baumholder, Germany; killed June 17 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during combat operations in Ramadi, Iraq. Also killed was Sgt. Reyes Ramirez.

See also here.
The Patriot Guard Riders plan to be there. So do I.

Families United: Recognize Soldiers and Families

David Elwell of Families United, writing in the Des Moines Register:

This month marked the third anniversary of a history-making day for Iraq: April 9, 2003, Liberation Day.

As a lifelong Iowan and a veteran of the Iraq War, I ask you to join in celebrating the freedoms acquired and advances made since the downfall of Saddam Hussein and his regime. Since that day, the people of Iraq have experienced many fundamental changes. The greatest came in the form of self-determination their election of a legitimate government through democratic means for the first time.

The history of Saddam Hussein and his regime is horrific. Over a span of eight years, Saddam started two wars with neighboring countries, tortured and gassed nearly 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis and was responsible for the deaths of as many as 1 million people. And that's only a small portion of the atrocities he is accountable for, all done while he relaxed in the comfort and luxury of one of his palaces. Human rights were not even considered, and death and torture were normal occurrences.

Thanks to the dedication of American forces in Iraq, this regime is gone, and Iraq has been reborn. A new, democratically elected parliament has been sworn in. In addition, 2,405 schools have been built or renovated and thousands of teachers are being trained, according to the U.S. State Department.

Simple freedoms such as the use of cell phones and Internet access are increasing by the thousands. Other changes include the addition of nearly 100 independent newspapers and 25 new primary health-care facilities. The Alwaiya Children's Hospital, which treats 300 patients a day, has nearly completed its modernization. ...

Read the rest at the link.