Van der Sloot: the wheels of justice grind slow

The New Neo Posted on by

Joran van der Sloot, the man who almost certainly killed Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, has confessed to murdering another young woman in Peru. Thus, justice of a sort will finally come—unfortunately, too late to save his latest victim, twenty-one-year-old Stephany Flores.

The Peruvian authorities had the advantage of having a fairly airtight case against van der Sloot, due to video evidence. No doubt that (and perhaps some other forms of “persuasion?”) helped motivate the psychopathic serial killer to confess in hopes of getting a reduced sentence. Too bad the maximum in Peru for murder is 35 years.

Van der Sloot’s story illustrates not just the fact that certain cases grab the public imagination and become tabloid fodder, but also that sometimes a suspect is pretty much known to be the murderer but falls through the tracks of a justice system anyway, either because there is not enough evidence to charge and convict, or because that system is incompetent and/or compromised, or perhaps both.

Van der Sloot appears to have been an angry time bomb waiting to go off. A statement attributed to him in the present case by a Peruvian newspaper is, if true, a perfect example of the mindset of the psychopathic killer:

According to La Republica newspaper, Van der Sloot told officials he broke Flores’ neck in a rage after he discovered she had used his notebook computer without permission and learned he was involved in the disappearance of Holloway.

“I did not want to do it,” La Republica quoted him as saying. “The girl intruded into my private life.”

It is a terrible thing that van der Sloot was able to kill again. But it is a good thing that he has finally been caught, although belatedly and at great price. But had he not murdered another woman and been trapped by the evidence, he might have remained free forever, as many murderers do.

In the United States, for example, an average of slightly more than a third of all murders remain unsolved. This represents a marked increase in the last few decades, a disturbing trend:

National clearance rates for murder and manslaughter have fallen from about 90 percent in the 1960s to below 65 percent in recent years.

The majority of homicides now go unsolved at dozens of big-city police departments, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of crime records provided by the FBI…

Experts say that homicides are tougher to solve now because crimes of passion, where assailants are easier to identify, have been replaced by drug- and gang-related killings. Many police chiefs – especially in areas with rising numbers of unsolved crimes – blame a lack of witness cooperation.

But the percentage of unsolved murders is extremely variable:

In 2008, police solved 35 percent of the homicides in Chicago, 22 percent in New Orleans and 21 percent in Detroit. Yet authorities solved 75 percent of the killings in Philadelphia, 92 percent in Denver and 94 percent in San Diego.

“We’ve concluded that the major factor is the amount of resources police departments place on homicide clearances and the priority they give to homicide clearances,” said University of Maryland criminologist Charles Wellford, who led a landmark study into how police can improve their murder investigations.

Apparently we have the ability to change things. We just don’t have the will and won’t appropriate the money. It seems that this might be money well spent, however. It’s not just solving a certain crime. As the case of van der Sloot shows, putting one murderer behind bars in a timely fashion might prevent a repeat act, and save another family the agony of losing a member in such a dreadful fashion.

If Republicans take the House in 2010, a possible Obama pivot to center?

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If Republicans manage to gain control of the House in the 2010 election, and Nancy Pelosi loses her post as Speaker, Fred Barnes speculates that Obama may breathe a sigh of relief and pivot to the center, much as Clinton did before him:

With Republicans in charge, he’d have to be bipartisan. He’d surely have to accede to serious cuts in spending””even as he complains they are harsh and mean-spirited. Mr. Obama could play a double game, appeasing Democrats by criticizing the cuts and getting credit with everyone else by acquiescing to them.

Mr. Clinton did this brilliantly in 1996. He fought with Republicans over the budget, winning some battles, losing others, as he lurched to the center. He twice vetoed Republican welfare reform bills, then signed a similar measure. He was hailed as the president who overhauled the unpopular welfare system…In 1994, Republicans freed the president from the clutches of liberal Democratic leaders in Congress. In 2010, they can do it again.

But Obama is not Clinton, who from the start was a pragmatist and political realist rather than a doctrinaire ideologue. Obama has shown almost no sign of being the former, and given every indication of being the latter. What’s more, Clinton had some knowledge of economics, and Obama appears to have little or none.

Of course, with Obama, anything is possible—including a head fake to the center in order to lure a majority of Americans into voting for him again in 2012. But if I had to go out on a limb and make a prediction, I would say that I doubt such an Obama move will happen, even if the Republicans were to win the House in 2010. Obama would not only be betraying his own deeply-held belief system, but would risk having his base stay home instead of going to the polls in 2012.

What’s more, even if I’m wrong and Barnes is right, I think that the American public would be suspicious of such a turn by Obama at so late a date. At the beginning, Obama’s talk of bipartisanship and moderation was believed by many voters. It would not ring true any more, because we’ve seen him demonstrate the exact opposite time and again. Obama is a blank screen no longer.

Helen Thomas retires

The New Neo Posted on by

It appears we won’t have Helen Thomas to kick around any more, as the veteran White House correspondent has retired, effective immediately.

And not a moment too soon. Thomas is turning 90 in August, so we can’t exactly call it an early force-out. She stayed too long at the fair, long enough so that she opened her mouth just one too many times, and was caught on camera in this day and age of You Tube and near-instant dissemination.

[ADDENDUM: And right on schedule, here’s a Helen Thomas defender in the comments section.]

Remember Bernie Madoff?

The New Neo Posted on by

He’s pretty sure you do.

This article from NY Magazine makes it clear that Madoff’s arrogance remains undiminished, even (or perhaps especially) in prison. It contains some fascinating nuggets, such as a purported conversation between Madoff and convicted spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard, who resides in the same facility (“Pollard thought that taking advantage of old ladies was ‘kind of fucked up.’ ‘Well, that’s what I did,’ Madoff said matter-of-factly”)

Here’s my favorite, though, in which Madoff expresses a sentiment about the SEC that I happen to share:

Madoff saved his scorn for the SEC. He did impressions of its agents, leaning back with his hands behind his head just as one self-serious agent did””“a guy who comes on like he’s Columbo,” but who was “an idiot,” Madoff said, as recorded in the extraordinary exhibit 104, a twelve-page account of the interview that is part of Kotz’s report. Madoff is no ironist. His disdain for the SEC is professional, even if the agency’s incompetence saved his skin for years””all Columbo had to do was make one phone call. “[It’s] accounting 101,” Madoff told Kotz, still amazed.

Madoff seems to have adjusted to prison quite nicely, which must infuriate a lot of people. He doesn’t seem racked by guilt, which is hardly surprising, and he’s admired by many of his fellow inmates because of the scope of his con. What’s more, he’s giving investment advice.

So maybe it’s not so different for him in prison compared to out as one might think.

Well, at least Helen Thomas…

The New Neo Posted on by

…didn’t tell the Israelis to “go back to Auschwitz,” like a passenger on the Mavi Marmara told an Israeli Navy radio operator initially contacting the Turkish ship. The speaker was one of those gentle “peace activists,” no doubt.

And by the way, when did the words “I regret” come to constitute an apology? Here’s the full statement Helen Thomas released in an attempt to absolve herself after her initial offensive remarks—and remember, this woman is a writer, so we can assume she is choosing her phrases carefully here:

I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.

Are these words of apology? Where is any indication that Thomas acknowledges her moral transgression? And to whom is she “apologizing?” There is no object of this so-called apology.

Translation of Thomas’s statement:

I wish I hadn’t said it, and I especially wish I hadn’t gotten caught on camera saying it.

But I don’t take it back, I won’t apologize to those evil Israelis/Jews. Instead, I’ll put out some cover words that indicate I want peace to come to the Middle East. Of course, my idea of “peace” in the Middle East is for the illegitimate Israelis to leave the area and make it Judenrein, as I made crystal clear in my previous, more spontaneous, statement.

And then I’ll speak in some general moral equivalency terms about respect and tolerance on both sides—a respect and tolerance I completely failed to show towards the Israelis. That sort of non-apology ought to do the trick and get me off the hook with the idiots who don’t think too deeply.

Whatever has happened to words, and our understanding of what they mean?

Helen Thomas and the Polish homeland of the Jews

The New Neo Posted on by

Perhaps you’ve already seen the video of Helen Thomas giving the Jews of Israel some decidedly unfriendly advice about just where they should go:

And you’ve probably seen the calls for Hearst to fire Helen Thomas and encourage her none-too-early retirement. You may even have seen Thomas’s expression of regret (not apology) about her remarks.

Many have written about the incident, focusing on Thomas’s anti-Semitism and bile. I note those phenomena, too. But I’m also interested in certain other things. The first is the fact that this woman has been shaping public opinion on politics for half a century. The second is her startling and abysmal ignorance (or deliberate twisting; we don’t know which) of history.

Born in 1920, Thomas is old enough to remember WWII and Israel’s subsequent founding back when they were current events rather than history. That ought to cause her to understand exactly why her comments are so absurdly, ironically venomous. Asking Jews to “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back “home” to Germany and Poland would be almost laughable (one could imagine the Onion writing it as a parody) if Thomas hadn’t meant the remarks so seriously, and if they didn’t invoke the memory of such deeply horrific, hateful, and barbaric historic events.

Thomas’s reference to Germany and Poland as the original “home” of the Jews of Israel also expresses, among other things, her adherence to the false and misleading anti-Israel party line that Israel is composed of European Jews, which ignores the vast numbers of Jews from Arab countries who have settled there since its founding. And her particular mention of Poland as the Jewish “home” made me think of the complex yet ultimately sorrowful history of the Jews in that country.

Take a look; though lengthy, it makes for fascinating as well as sobering reading. The Jewish presence in Poland lasted for about a thousand years—not as long as their presence in Israel, of course, but still quite a long time. Jews came to Poland because they lost their ancestral homeland in Israel and then were expelled from country after country in Europe. Poland was for a while a welcoming port in a storm, relatively tolerant and accepting, especially during what was known as the golden age of the sixteenth century.

In general, the Polish kings wanted the Jews around for their own purposes—mostly economic—and the clergy didn’t, and the two groups were at odds on the issue for quite some time. This caused wild oscillations in the Jews’ acceptance and treatment in Poland over the centuries. But compared to what was happening in other places—Russia, for example, or Spain, as well as many other countries—Poland was an intermittently safe spot.

This caused Jewish numbers to increase there on the whole, although they waxed and waned in response to disease and periodic massacres. Jews never were a huge segment of the population (the maximum appears to have been 9.5%, right before the Holocaust). But in the city of Warsaw—somewhat like the city of New York now, and resembling Baghdad during the early part of the 20th century—Jews comprised about thirty percent of the inhabitants in later, pre-Holocaust, years.

The Nazis’ war against the Jews was especially ferocious in that “homeland,” Poland. Ninety percent of Polish Jews were murdered after the Nazis invaded and occupied that country. It is a further irony that some of the few surviving Polish Jews who tried to return “home” postwar were murdered for their pains when they got there. Then, many of those who were left were persecuted and then forced out by the Soviets, belatedly finishing Hitler’s goal of making Poland virtually Judenrein.

Where did that small number of surviving Polish Jews go? The answer, for quite a few, was “Israel”—the only country on earth that was/is bound to take them. But for the Helen Thomases of the world, the Jews must leave there as well—that is, if they are allowed to live at all.

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

Rough-around-the-edges spambot with a heart of gold:

Great job, more people must to share things like this on the internet. Would seem almost too hard to find information anymore because everybody is just posting crap. At last a blog I can pursue with no crap!

Does the world—and the US—want Israel to survive?

The New Neo Posted on by

When I began blogging I was surprised—although I shouldn’t have been—to find that virtually every time I wrote about Israel it drew the trolls.

And not just any trolls, either; a very specific type of anti-Semitic troll. And I don’t mean “anti-Semitic” as a synonym for “anti-Israeli,” although the two can often coexist in the same body/mind. I won’t bother to give you examples of what these trolls write, but suffice to say it’s not equivocal and it’s very vicious.

Most of you will never see these comments, due to various mechanisms I’ve put in place to delete and/or block them. But since that process is not fail-safe, every now and then one slips by. Other than that, however, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

There is no other topic on earth that predictably draws this volume of venom. And we can’t blame the internet; anti-Semitism has the longest and most illustrious history of any hatred on earth.

Countless volumes have been written about the causes of the phenomenon, so I feel no need to add to the speculation here. But suffice to say that, despite all the theories, no one really knows for sure. It’s probably a case of overdetermination—“all of the above.”

In recent decades the actual, human, imperfect-but-trying-its-best country of Israel, besieged on all sides by enemies sworn to destroy it, has come to be criticized for every single effort to survive and to defend itself. The flotilla incident is no different, but there is something new in the mix: the United States, Israel’s historical ally, has sent subtle and not-so-subtle messages through Obama and his underlings that it will wink at or even support efforts to undermine Israel’s security.

Mona Charen connects the dots for us and lists ways in which Obama subtly gave the flotilla “activists” a green light to provoke Israel and to assume afterwards that there will be no bad consequences forthcoming from this administration:

By 1) declaring through Secretary of State Clinton that the blockade of Gaza is “unsustainable and unacceptable”; 2) joining the United Nations Security Council in “condemn(ing) those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded”; and 3) having a White House official tell the Washington Post that there is now a “general sense in the administration that it’s time to change our Gaza policy”…

The administration [also] let it be known that it had “warned” Israel to “use restraint” against the Gaza convoy. There was no corresponding warning to Turkey about supporting and supplying the illegal flotilla.

Charon leaves out the preparatory steps of (1) changing policy on whether Israel should be allowed to build in its own capital, Jerusalem; and (2) insulting and humiliating Israel’s leader Netanyahu when he visited the US (this sort of message is especially well-understood in the mideast).

Charles Krauthammer sums up the picture nicely:

…[T]he blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel ”” a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets…

Oh, but weren’t the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel’s offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza ”” as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel’s inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.

Israel has already twice intercepted weapons-laden ships from Iran destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?

But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel’s fallback as the world systematically delegitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself ”” forward and active defense…The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense.

Krauthammer is not optimistic about the prospects. Those who demonize Israel and hate Jews will call his article typical inflation of Jewish victimhood (and hey, those crematoria didn’t really exist, right?). Others will simply say that he is being depressingly realistic:

The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, six million ”” that number again ”” hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists ”” Iranian in particular ”” openly prepare a more final solution.

A little background on the BP oil spill

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Here’s BP’s side of the story, presented by its CEO, Tony Hayward.

I’m not offering this because I believe it’s the truth, the whole truth,and nothing but the truth (hardly), but because it’s of interest in terms of some of the possible technical solutions. Equally interesting—or perhaps more so—are many of the comments, some of which detail BPs negligence prior to the spill, and some of which discuss the economics of the whole thing.