Here’s the BBC correspondent Barbara Plett, finding herself in tears at the demise of Arafat:

“To be honest, the coverage of Yasser Arafat’s illness and departure from Palestine was a real grind. I churned out one report after the other, without any sense of drama. Foreign journalists seemed much more excited about Mr. Arafat’s fate than anyone in Ramallah. We hovered around the gate to his compound, swarming around the Palestinian officials who drove by, poking our microphones through their dark, half-open windows.

“But where were the people, I wondered, the mass demonstrations of solidarity, the frantic expressions of concern?

“Was this another story we Western journalists were getting wrong, bombarding the world with news of what we think is an historic event, while the locals get on with their lives?

“Yet when the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry…without warning.”

Do you think she’d shed a tear for the pope? Or Mother Teresa? The far left’s attraction to foreign murder and tyranny endures, doesn’t it? The BBC’s online timeline for Arafat’s life was also instructive. The last two dates were his Nobel Peace Prize and the 2001 Israeli blockade in Ramallah. No mention of Camp David or Taba. The BBC has the historical objectivity of Stalin.

Index On Censorship

Yes, these alleged protectors of free speech are blaming the victim in the Theo van Gogh murder. Money quote from Index on Censorship’s Web site:

“Van Gogh’s juvenile shock-horror art finally led him to build an exploitative working relationship with Somalia-born Dutch MP Ayann Hirsi Ali, whose terrible personal experience of abuse has driven her to a traumatizing loss of her Muslim faith. Together they made a furiously provocative film that featured actresses portraying battered Muslim women, naked under transparent Islamic-style shawls, their bodies marked with texts from the Koran that supposedly justify their repression. Van Gogh then roared his Muslim critics into silence with obscenities. An abuse of his right to free speech, it added injury to insult by effectively censoring their moderate views as well.”

These are the defenders of free speech? Then there’s this obscenity:

“A sensational climax to a lifetime’s public performance, stabbed and shot by a bearded fundamentalist, a message from the killer pinned by a dagger to his chest, Theo van Gogh became a martyr to free expression. His passing was marked by a magnificent barrage of noise as Amsterdam hit the streets to celebrate him in the way the man himself would have truly appreciated. And what timing! Just as his long-awaited biographical film of Pim Fortuyn’s life is ready to screen. Bravo, Theo! Bravo!”

The man was murdered for his controversial political views. Murdered. Somehow I don’t think he was intending it to be a publicity stunt.

Quote for the Week

“On the one hand side, I meet plenty of people, both Dutch and Muslim, who say they condemn the Van Gogh murder. But. They understand it. On the other hand, I meet a slightly smaller number of people, mainly Dutch and not as many Muslims, who say they don’t want to condone the attacks on mosques. But. They understand it. May I offer a heartfelt raised middle finger to both groups?” -Arjan Dasselar, Dutch blogger. Amen.

Why Fallujah Was Necessary

Yes, it won’t solve everything. Yes, some Sunni and jihadist terrorists have escaped to wreak havoc elsewhere. But subduing the Sunni-jihadist insurgency is a simple prerequisite for some kind of representative government in Iraq. Liberal hawk Johann Hari cites an Iraqi friend, Yasser:

“The Sunni resistance is, however, a different story [from the Shiite resistance]. ‘I was there in Fallujah earlier this year. It doesn’t look like Iraq; it looks like Taliban Afghanistan. I didn’t see a woman’s face the whole time I was there. They are all hidden behind those dehumanising shrouds.” The resistance fighters he met there believed in either Sunni supremacy or endless jihad. “It wasn’t surprising. You only have to look at who they are killing to find out their philosophy. They don’t want democracy and peaceful co-existence. If there was any way to negotiate with them, I’d support it. But how can you talk people like this down from their ledge? What can you offer them?’ Yasser then offers two crucial facts. First, there hasn’t been a single Shia suicide bomber in Iraq so far. That tells you something about who is trying to destroy security and why. Second, there have been just three weeks this year when there were no suicide bombs in Iraq. They were the three weeks the US forces had Fallujah surrounded. Doesn’t that suggest it is the base of the Sunni resistance? Doesn’t that suggest it is right to deprive them of their base by force if necessary?”

Yes, and yes. It’s foolish to believe that this siege means a major victory. It doesn’t. It’s one stage in a brutal war of attrition against the enemies of democracy. But it must be done. And what it’s teaching the American military will prove invaluable in the years of war ahead.

Time for Healing

“The wreckers loose in our own society are stronger, more confident, and more numerous. It is those wreckers that most concern me: the arrogant judges, the academic deconstructors, the teacher-union multiculturalists, the media guilt mongers, the love-the-world pacifists, the criminal-lovers and family-breakers, the inventors of bogus rights and destroyers of cherished traditions, the haters of normality and scoffers at restraint, the enterprise-destroying litigators and pain-feelers.” -John Derbyshire, still hating, National Review

Mr. Sullivan’s writings appear daily at www.andrewsullivan.com