The Burka Blues

That 16 year old girl in Luton has lost her court case. She was trying to gain the right to go to her school wearing a burka or jihab or whatever ridiculous name people are calling it this week. I heard about it last night and my feeling was the same as when my horse passes the finish line first. Yes!

The article in today's Times covers the history of her case but leaves out some important information:

- her parents are dead - her mom died when she was very young
- she's living with her radical, Muslim and only slightly older brother, he's in charge of her and with this religion, you know what that means
- she was aged 12 when "she" decided to fight for the right
- she's being funded by....where did I read that the entire eyewateringly expensive court case is being paid for by a radical Muslim group?

Ah, here, it's this lot:

"Her supporters, incidentally, are Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation founded in 1985 by the giggling, publicity-crazed “Sheikh” Omar Bakri Mohammed, whose recent claim to fame has been to encourage young British Muslims to join Al-Qaeda and who has condoned suicide terrorist attacks. "

That's the group that Dippy-the-Guardian-journlist belonged to, you know, the journalist who wrote glowing articles about this gal and the dear little Yorkshire lads who decided to blow up a few tube trains in July. He was outed by a blogger and the Guardian fired him faster than you can say "complete re-design in August". By the way, if the Guardian re-design has been so successful, why is it replacing all those editors? Perhaps we'll never know.

Anyway, Hizbut spending money in the British courts beats the mystery money source paying suicidal murderer bombers like Tanwierd - you remember - the London 7/7 bomber who worked part time in a fish and chip shop in Leeds and left an estate of about a quarter of a million dollars.

There's tons of money sloshing around and it certainly seems some days like crime pays.

This Christopher Hitchens article explains beautifully why Sodhim never caved in the face of overwhelming pressure:

"Saddam believed until the end that the French and Russian governments would save him. He also knew what we - at the time - did not: The oil-for-food system had turned into a self-sustaining racket that cemented his support in French and Russian circles."

and:

"What did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations' secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad."

"The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus - the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate - to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal."

"Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello."

'Oil-for-food bordello' - I like that imagery and I'm glad that Hitchens is back on form, killing me softly with his intellect rather than the tone of the last few months, a bit too rantey for such a cool guy.