Today's Guff

Six-Party Talks A Failure
This news didn't get enough coverage, really, but John Bolton is saying that the Six-Nations Talk process was a failure and all we could really hope for was for the North Korean regime to collapse all of its own accord.

John Bolton, who left the U.N. in December, said the United States and Japan should enlist China and South Korea in efforts to put further pressure on North Korea, which he said has no intention of verifiably giving up its nuclear weapons program.

“The only answer ... is the collapse of the North Korean regime and the hopefully peaceful reunification of Korea, and that should be our objective,” Bolton, now a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told reporters.
The latest round of the six-party talks – including the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia – ended in December with no agreement on disarmament or a new date for further talks.

Bolton said the North's missile tests in July and its first nuclear test, in October, showed the communist regime was determined to develop a weapon and greatly embarrassed its top ally, China.

Even if North Korea were to promise to give up its weapons program, Bolton said it was highly unlikely the regime would submit to invasive verification of its nuclear sites to make sure it was not cheating.

“If my conclusion that the six-party talks have failed is correct ... that means we have to switch to a new policy,” he said at the Japan National Press Club.

Not the most encouraging news to hear.

"A Credit To His Race"

This is a bit of a worry.

A DVD of preachings by a radical Australian sheikh, in which he refers to Jews as pigs and calls on Muslim parents to offer their children as soldiers to defend Islam, has been labelled "offensive, unacceptable and outrageous" by the Acting Attorney-General.

Sheikh Feiz Mohammad, Amir of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, makes the controversial comments on several DVDs, called the Death Series, which are available for purchase in Australia, overseas and on the internet.

His preachings drew concerns following the airing of a British documentary, Undercover Mosque. Its producers bought one of his DVDs from children selling Islamic CDs and DVDs at a car park behind a mosque in England.

The Australian Federal Police said it was aware of the DVDs and was making enquiries into the matter.

Sheikh Feiz, who is an Australian citizen now believed to be in Lebanon, is shown in the documentary preaching jihad.

"The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit of Islam is jihad," he said.

He criticises Muslim parents for being too cautious about letting their children receive jihad teachings.

"Today, many parents they prevent their children from attending lessons. Why? They fear that they might create a place in their hearts, a love, just a bit of the love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah."

He goes on to talk of his desire that children be offered "as soldiers defending Islam".

"Teach them this: that there is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a Muhajid.

"Put in their soft, tender heart the zeal of jihad and the love of martyrdom."

In another DVD excerpt shown on Undercover Mosque, Sheikh Feiz makes pig-like snorting noises when he refers to Jews.

"They will be [snort, snort] - all of them. Every single one of them."

One often gets a little leery of media-beat-ups, but this one might just be true. This guy may have made videos promoting jihad and racial vilification and suicide bombings - and sold them. And I'm not inclined to say "so what?" or claim "cultural misunderstanddings". I'm more inclined to string him up by the balls and haul him into our law courts and try him under the vilification laws.