The Friday Furo Questus

Mourn With Those That Mourn
Staff Sgt. Gregson Gourley, 101st Air Assault. Killed in action by an IED while on patrol near Hawijah, Iraq on Feruary 23, 2006. Hometown: Midvale, Utah.


Questus Furore - Divide and Conquer
Events in Iraq after the bombing of in , Iraq, a Shiite shrine, threaten to spiral out of control, although the curfew seems to have clamped down on the violence for the moment. For an idea of the damage done, look here for a before-and-after.

It has long been a goal of Al Qaeda and its affiliated movements to prevent any kind of peace in Iraq. Not that they have anything better in mind - they just want to see the United States fail. They offer no real alternatives, and build nothing.

It is an odd war.

And while riots over cartoons published six months ago in a Danish newspaper continue to roil the Muslim world, there seems to be little protest in those same places over those who deliberately destroy of a Shiite shrine, and try to spark a civil war.

Apparently mockery is a far more serious crime than murder.

Recommended Reading
VDH two-fer: "Standoff in Iraq" and "Why No Nukes For Iran?"

Theodore Dalrymple, "Law Isn't Enough."

For those of you interested in the marriage debate, Stanley Kurtz takes a look at the state of marriage in Sweden and Holland. (And Canada.)

From the Washington Post: "The Failure of the Press."

And from John Donovan, "Editorial Decisions."

Thought of the Week
"Terror is not a new weapon. Throughout history it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example. But inevitably they fail, either because men are not afraid to die for a life worth living, or because the terrorists themselves came to realize that free men cannot be frightened by threats, and that aggression would meet its own response. And it is in the light of that history that every nation today should know, be he friend or foe, that the United States has both the will and the weapons to join free men in standing up to their responsibilities."
John F. Kennedy, 1961

Churchill Quote of the Week
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
Winston Churchill