I usually agree with Boris Johnson, the witty, tousle-haired* Tory MP, but he is wrong when he says this about Saddam's death:

Was this what we fought for? Is this really the lesson in human rights and Western values we hoped to deliver to the people of Iraq? This wasn't justice. This was a sectarian lynch mob. This was a snuff movie.

Perhaps it was a sectarian lynch mob, but so what? The idea that we can deliver lessons in human rights and Western values to any Muslim country is quite ridiculous, as it is ridiculous to condemn the manner of Saddam's execution as if it happened in a civilised country and to an ordinary murderer.

Boris compounds his error with an even more egregious one:

"You can tell, by the way I walk, I'm a busy man, no time to talk", sang the Bee Gees. Well, if Blair is so busy on his yachts that he has no time to talk to the British people, then he should stay in that Bee Gee mansion.

No, they did not sing that, mondegreen man. What the Bee Gees actually sang was:

"You can tell by the way that I use my walk, I'm a woman's man, no time to talk."

Don't you know anything?

*Following Hugh's example, I have mentioned Boris Johnson's hair, in case, like the flowers that bloom in the spring, it is at all relevant.

About my post giving George Sales's [translator of the Jefferson Koran ] introductory remarks, a reader writes: You should have put in bold text the following (so all could see and read):

...it is absolutely neces­sary to undeceive those who, from the ignorant or unfair translations [of the koran] which have appeared, have entertained too favourable an opinion of the original..."

Well, you are right, but I write directly into the little box, ordinarily, and so do not have the "bold" function at hand.

It is absurd that people should think that Jefferson's ownership of a Koran meant that he was favorable to Islam. He was an educated man. He wanted to find out about Islam. As a law student at William and Mary his only way of finding out was by buying a copy of Sales's translation of the Koran. He did possess a copy of Humphrey Prideaux's polemical attack on Muhammad, but according to Sales even Prideaux did not sufficiently expose the doctrines of Islam.

Jefferson owned a Koran. So did John Quincy Adams, possibly our most learned President (if anywhere near Boston, many will want to visit the Adams Family site, and library, in Quincy) whose views on Islam can be found by googling "John Quincy Adams" and "Islam." And what's more, they actually read the books they bought, and made sense of them, unlike Blair or Bush or so many others.

Ibn Warraq owns many different Qur'ans. So does Ali Sina. So does Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Robert Spencer owns quite a few different Qur'ans. So do I.

What does that make all of us? Does it make us as much "supporters of Islam" as some are claiming Jefferson must have been, otherwise he would not have possessed a Qur'an?

What palpable nonsense people offer up, and expect others to believe.

I have five different translations of the Qur'an. That means that I am five times as enthusiastic about Islam as was that enthusiast Jefferson.

Robert possesses ten different translations of the Qur'an. He, therefore, is ten times as enthusiastic about Islam as was that enthusiast Jefferson.

Ibn Warraq possesses fourteen different translations of the Qur'an. He, therefore, is fourteen times as enthusiastic about Islam as was that enthusiast Jefferson.

Und so weiter.

Parisians are trying to shrug off a reputation for arrogance:

Parisians do not usually mock themselves to please the British, but a cut in the number of cross-Channel visitors has inspired a tongue-in-cheek campaign to show les anglais how to be as rude as the French without learning the language.

In an attempt to recast the city’s image, the regional tourist board has issued a guide to, mostly offensive, Parisian gestures. Among them is le bof, or Gallic shrug. “1) Stick out your lower lip 2) Raise your eyebrows and shoulders simultaneously,” say the instructions. “Use it to deny knowledge, agreement or responsibility.”

Britons are invited to send their interpretations of French gestures to the board’s site (www.cestsoparis.com) and those voted the best will win a free trip for two to Paris next week. “You don’t need to speak French to understand Parisians,” it reassures visitors.

Learn these gestures to blend in with the crowd, says the board. “People will start mistaking you for a native in no time.” Beginners could practise by watching President Chirac’s New Year’s Eve television address. With the sound down, his oscillating shoulders, jutting chin and turned-out palms represent a masterclass in the technique of the sub-style of elegant continuous shrug.

L’entente cordiale may not be helped by Britons trying another well-known gesture from the guide: le camembert. This age-old pincer movement of thumb and forefinger, suggesting the pinching of a cheese, is “a rude way to tell someone to shut their mouth” and is “not to be used in polite company”.

The word "camembert" makes me think of Citizen Camembert in Carry On, Don't Lose Your Head, and also of a mondegreen moment from school French lessons. During a dictation, a classmate wrote "qu'à mon beret" as "camembert, eh?" I'm not sure what the original context was, or what was passing through her mind when the phrase underwent its cheesy transformation.

The Times Leader says we should gesticulate more:

Britain has much to learn from the extra layer of human communication that is gesticulation. Much of what passes for hand language in this country is merely an extension of the four-letter word and some of the strange waving between individuals is inarticulate in the extreme.

It is time, therefore, for the stiff upper lip to quiver, if not pout, and for the insulting “salute” to evolve into salutations. As France shows, the future of gesticulation is in our own hands.

Nonsense. Usually, when the English gesticulate, they knock things over. Our upper lips must remain stiff. None of this pouting and quivering - that didn't get us through two World Wars, one World Cup and the death of Princess Diana.

A very good article by Christian Delacampagne in Commentary (h/t Arts & Letters Daily). Here he describes the development of the modern French intellectual climate concerning Islam and the Arab world:

"...The first of the great Orientalists was Louis Massignon (1883-1962), a Catholic intellectual who published his first books a century ago and, as France became embroiled in the Dreyfus affair, moved openly in anti-Semitic circles. Then along came a famous trio: Jacques Berque (1910-95), Maxime Rodinson (1915-2004), and Vincent Monteil (1913-2005). An expert on Indonesia, Monteil converted to Islam and, after World War II, subscribed to various right-wing theories denying the reality of the Holocaust. Rodinson, a Jew, was a Communist activist during the cold war. As for Berque, who grew up in colonial Morocco, he lived for so many years in Arab countries, both in North Africa and the Middle East, that with the passing of time he became progressively less able to maintain a critical distance.

Indeed, while working in the cultural section of the French embassy in Cairo in 1988, I was regaled by Berque over lunch one day with stories of his complete assimilation into Arab culture. Traveling through Iraq in the early 1970’s, he had pretended to be a Moroccan, and as such was invited by the imam of a big mosque to comment on a Qur’anic verse during the Friday sermon. Had he been discovered as an imposter, he would have risked death. But, as Berque happily told the story, his Arabic was so fluent (he was the only non-Arab member of the Egyptian Academy of Arabic Language) and his knowledge of the material so extensive that no Iraqi could have detected he was a mere Frenchman.

Nor was Berque’s identification with the Arabs strictly cultural. Looking back over his political pronouncements, one finds a clear pattern. He called Israel’s birth an illegitimate act and insisted that the Jewish state would not survive more than a few years. In 1967, he predicted that Nasser would wipe Israel off the map. In the late 1980’s, he declared that Saddam Hussein was a great socialist and secular leader who was going to bring democracy to the Middle East, and demanded that France treat him as a good friend. In his final years, he argued that Islamism might make inroads here and there, but that it could never gain much of foothold among elites in a country like Egypt.

Unfortunately, today’s heirs to this Orientalist tradition in France entertain similar biases and are no more reliable in their political judgments. Gilles Kepel, in The War for Muslim Minds (2004), has proclaimed Islamism a failure and al Qaeda a spent force, going so far as to describe the attacks of 9/11 as an act of sheer despair. Olivier Roy, the author of Globalized Islam (2004), sees Islamism as a revolutionary program that answers popular aspirations, even if it happens to express itself in reactionary terms. Another scholar, François Burgat, argues in Face to Face with Political Islam (2005) that Western countries, instead of fighting Islamist leaders, should enter into a friendly dialogue with them.

None of this is to suggest that these scholars lack knowledge of the political situation in the Arab world. But they give a distorted image of that situation—and, I believe, they do so deliberately. Eager to discourage any sense of menace that the West might feel from the direction of Islam and the Arabs, they minimize both the importance of radical Islamism and its threat to international peace and freedom. In defiance of what the Islamists themselves say, France’s Orientalists insist time and again that there is no “clash of civilizations.”

The effect of these views on the wider political discussion in France is profound. The present generation of Orientalists is omnipresent in the French media, unavoidable on radio and television. They assure the country that the progressive Islamization of European suburbs, plain for all to see, poses no danger. They suggest that the problem with Israel is its very existence. They inspire the open sympathy with Hamas, Hizballah, and Iran that can be found in newspapers like Le Monde and Libération. And they encourage the use of the term “Islamophobia” (a coinage of Iranian clerics) in order to delegitimize all those who might be tempted to disagree with them—individuals like Redeker..."

Two of the most egregious of these French "experts on Islam" discussed by Delacampagne in his excellent piece are the  sociologist Gilles Kepel and that "adviser to the government" Olivier Roy. The evidence, over the past 20 years, of their misunderstandings and misreadings of Islam, are there for all to see.

Meanwhile, there are others, scholars or teachers about Islam who do tell the truth. There is Anne-Marie Delcambre, whose little guide to Islam is a helpful vademecum. There is Jean-Pierre Charney. There are the scholars of Islam at such redoubts as the Universite of Aix-en-Provence (Aix-Marseille).

There is the public figure Alain Finkielkraut. There is the student of world politics (mainly of Soviet Russia) Alain Besancon, now properly alarmed by Islam. There are others.

But until the cabal of press-and-government, of Le Monde-RFI-Quai d'Orsay is exposed, ridiculed, and damaged, until D. de V. and Chirac are out of office, until all kinds of connections with Arab money are exposed, until the assorted Eric-Rouleaus are driven out of power. Eric Rouleau himself has for decades been  an apologist for Islam and a stout promoter of the "Palestinians" who later was rewarded by being made ambassador to Iran. This kind of mix-'n-match business goes on in France a lot, with a minor novelist, the author of "Exposition Coloniale," being given, as a sinecure by Mitterand, the directorship of the school of Landscape in Versailles though he knew nothing about the subject. Government posts, like government-owned apartments, are handed out like party favors in endlessly corrupt France. 

At Le Monde Rouleau for a very long time venomously depicted Israel as an aggressor in its attempt to defend itself from what should clearly now be seen as an endless Lesser Jihad, and did  nothing to alert readers about Islam, Rouleau, and his ilk, permitted the heedless policy on immigration that has brought France to its current state, and may be the end of the "perfected civilization" of Chamfort, Chateaubriand, Montaigne, and Victor Hugo, not one of whom could ever have been produced by a Muslim society.

And one wonders what role Rouleau played, or others just like him, in having Jean Peroncel-Hugoz transferred from reporting from Islamic capitals such as Cairo and Algiers, after the appearance of Peroncel-Hugoz's astonishing work "Le Radeau de Mahomet."

There are  many fools and crooks in France. But not everyone is a crook or a fool. And all the others, the rest of the French, should not be brainwashed or buffaloed much longer, as their country disappears, slowly, because of what may have been a fatal misunderstanding of Islam. There is still time, but not much. And of course the hideous Le Pen gets in the way, and somehow needs to be eliminated so that those properly and intelligently alarmed about Islam can step forth, and be heard. Philippe De Villiers may have slim electoral chances, for example, but he tells the truth, and thereby forces others to offer their own asymptote to that truth.

"I believe her intentions are good. I don't give a damn about her sexual orientation, nor that she is, as Hugh puts it, a 'henna-haired self-promoter.' All successful writers are self-promoters; they have to be."--from a reader objecting to my post on Irshad Manji

Really? Chaucer? Larkin? Keats? Flann O'Brien? Salinger? Pessoa? Montale?

Perhaps you mean right now and right here, in this age. It isn't true. The odd appearance for an interview does not constitute the kind of self-promotion that Irshad Manji frenetically engages in -- no, she's on the Christopher Hitchens or Gore Vidal or Norman Mailer level of self-promotion.

That is, the level of unseemliness. Ayaan Hirsi Ali promotes herself, agent and all, but not quite in the same manner. Irshad Manji's manner puts me in mind of Camille Paglia. So that even when she veers into perfect sense, for a moment, one distrusts her. This is the shamelessly "I, I, I" kind, the Tom Friedman kind, and it should not be condoned just because some find that "her intentions are good." Everyone's intentions are good. Tariq Ramadan's intentions are good: Islam will save us, and Islam must be protected from any searching criticism in order that it might be thrust upon us to save us.

Irshad Manji simply gets in the way of the true and thoughtful apostates from Islam, those who do not wish or what is often the same thing, do not know how to promote themselves.

I object. Why shouldn't I?

LONDON: A British Muslim said yesterday he regretted calling for the United States and Denmark to be bombed during a protest in London last year against publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad. --from this news item

A non-citizen? Expel him.

A citizen? Strip him of his citizenship, or at least use the case to craft or draft legislation that will make such behavior treasonous, and grounds for the stripping of citizenship.

And then expel him.

Back to a place where, it is clear, in every respect, he will fit right in. He will not miss the legal and political institutions of the Infidels. He will not miss the emphasis on the individual. He will not miss a state in which Islam does not, as it should, yet "dominate" because it "is not to be dominated." He will miss nothing at all about Great Britain, of which he may be an accidental and disloyal citizen, save possibly for fish and chips.

He can find those, if he looks, in Pakistan.

WASHINGTON — Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq. --"Iran's Secret Plan For Mayhem" NY SUN

What is "secret" about the "Secret Plan"? Iranian agents are in Iraq to inflict as much damage as possible on their chief enemy, the Americans. It is false to say that they help both sides -- Sunni and Shi'a -- equally, but it would hardly be surprising if Iranian agents, like most of the Shi'a, would welcome the Americans suffering at the hands of the Sunnis, and vice-versa.

The Islamic Republic of Iran calculates the Americans have removed their most potent local enemy, Saddam Hussein (who after a dozen years of sanctions was no longer so potent), and the organized Sunni forces, and Iran can afford to help, indirectly, perhaps not whatever remnants of Al-Zarqawi's "Al Qaeda in Iraq" may exist (because those who call Shi'a "Rafidite dogs" and regard them as worse Infidels than are the Americans), but Sunnis whose main attacks are on the Americans.

What does this show? That Iran wishes to inflict as much damage on, tie down for as long as possible, the Americans, whose leaders are hopelessly insistent that they must stay lest "America lose face" or as the egregious hireling of Muslims, who refuses to reveal the names of his foreign clients, Brent Scowcroft put it, "to betray its friends in the region" which, unsurprisingly, turn out to be Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, in the view of Brent Scowcroft. Those "friends in the region," unsurprisingly, in Brent Scowcroft's view, do not include Israel, a non-Muslim member of the West, whose loss to Islam would have untellable consequences, both on Western morale, and on Muslim morale; for Israel Scowcroft presents his usual: pressure from America on our only true ally there, in order "once and for all" to "solve" the Arab-Israeli conflict. This tells you all you need to know about Brent Scowcroft's knowledge of Islam, the endless, world-without-end nature of the opposition it inculcates against all Infidel states, and certainly against the state of Israel which, like Spain and Sicily and the Balkans, Greece, and other areas, was once considered part of Dar al-Islam. And that means it is especially offensive to Muslims that it should not be under Muslim rule, though in the end, of course, it is the whole world which "Islam must dominate" and where Islam "is not to be dominated."

In Iraq, the Sunnis are not to be easily tamed, if at all, by the Shi'a or by Iran. Some commentators appear to suggest, without any evidence, that "Iran will take over" as soon as we leave. Nonsense. The headache of the determined Sunni resistance will now be entirely the headache of Iran -- and furthermore, the Iraqi Shi'a, or many of them, are not prepared to necessarily turn Iraq, or the part they control, over to the "Persians." The assumption that there is necessarily smooth relations between Arab Shi'a and Persian Shi'a, especially when there are all kinds of potential points of dispute -- how exactly would "Iranian" influence, for example, be used to stifle possible sympathies by the Shi'a Arabs of Iraq for the Shi'a Arabs of Khuzistan -- and is it inconceivable that the Shi'a Arabs of Khuzistan might wish to be free of Iran in order to unite with the Shi'a of Iraq?

There are all kinds of possibilities, of shifts and shape-shifting, that those who tell us we must stay because "otherwise Iran will take over" refuse to consider. They also appear to think that the American public will remain, not only endlessly patient, but that American soldiers, who themselves are being asked to bear the entire burden of a foolish policy, and who know better than anyone the meretriciousness, the lack of national feeling, the hostility hidden or revealed toward them as Infidels, by virtually the entire ungrateful population of Arabs (the Kurds are a different matter, and for reasons that go beyond their regarding the Americans as their protector -- reasons that include their other non-Arab identity, which plays against Islam, while the Arab identity reinforces Islam), will remain unaffected by this fool's errand. That is what such people as McCain (whose disastrous choice of an adviser, Robert Kagan, is a mistake on the level with John Edwards's disastrous choice of Bonior for his campaign) appear to think, swallowing the Party Line of the Bush Administration whole.

Iraq can work to the benefit of the Camp of Infidels. It contains a mix of hostilities, rivalries, hatreds among different groups of Muslims. It is madness for the Americans to worry about "Iran taking over." It cannot happen. Or rather, Iran has already taken over, in a sense, what it can,and now it is time to let the Sunni Arabs inside Iraq, but supported by the Sunni Arabs outside, to do whatever they intend to do in order to preserve their position, and to allow the Shi'a Arabs to do whatever it is they will do in turn.

It is not time to follow the siren song of Foreign Agent Brent Scowcroft, as he tells us we, the Americans, cannot "leave Iraq" now, because that is what the Sunni Arabs have been telling him, and so many others perhaps just as eager -- if such is possible -- to serve, like Scowcroft, as an unfailing mouthpiece for those Sunni Arabs, "our friends in the region."

One begins to look forward, at this point, to the desecration of Jefferson's Qur'an by Ellison, as he attempts to enroll it in a stunt that will now be remembered for all the questions it has raised and will continue to raise, and for the prompting, or excuse it gives, to discussion about not only Jefferson, but John Quincy Adams, and indeed of everyone of significance in the Early Republic, and the universal view of the perfidy of the Muslim states and peoples with whom they had to negotiate, and the clear-eyed view of Islam that so many had, and so many expressed -- because in those days, our leaders studied, thought, did not glad-hand, did not descend to pitiable sentimental nonsense, and neither a Washington or a Jefferson or any Adams would ever have thought of "transplanting democracy" because "ordinary moms and dads in the Middle East" yearned for "freedom." What a degradation not only of the democratic dogma, but also what a dumbing-down that has proceeded up, upwards to the highest levels of our unfortunate and ignorant rulers, in both parties.

Ellison's stunt opens the door, provides the excuse. Don't let others, don't let our rulers, forget Jefferson and Adams and John Quincy Adams and William Eaton and John Ledyard and Philip Freneau and William Barlow and all the others who wrote about Islam, and could teach our current "taking-a-leadership-role" leaders, the people who more than five years after the 9/11/2001 continue to be unable or unwilling to study Islam or the history of Islamic conquest, who could be shown up in a half-hour, on radio or television, by intelligent interviewers, to know far less than the minimum that would be merely adequate for the discharge of the responsibilities of rule. The early Americans could show these late ones a thing. Or two.

"Hugh, i whole heartedly disagree with you!

Here is the problem. If we pull out of iraq it not only re enforces the muslims perception of America as a weak and cowardly paper tiger. It frees up the jihadis busy in iraq to repel the infidel from muslim soil as commanded by allah and muhammad to travel to other lands and lend their support, such as somolia!" --- from a reader

And just how long would an American withdrawal from Iraq, as you put it, be perceived by Muslims as showing America "as a weak and cowardly paper tiger"?

For such a measure does not have to take place in a vacuum. All kinds of signals of a new, harder, much more ruthless policy, can be given, and should be. A withdrawal can be announced, and then in the months between the announcement and the withdrawal itself being complete, all kinds of other measures can and should be undertaken. Cutting the Jizyah to Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt and the "Palestinian" Arabs would be good, increasing military aid to real, i.e. non-Muslim allies, such as Ethiopia and Israel, would also be good, so would a meeting of NATO called to discuss the internal threat to NATO members military operations, and even control of weaponry, by the growing Muslim menace within Europe. Perhaps 5,000 American troops, for "humanitarian reasons" of course, could seize the southern Sudan and Darfur in order to protect the local population until such time as referendums on the future they desire, in or out of Sudan, can be held, the imposition of a large and ever-increasing gasoline tax combined with the announcement that all revenues from that tax will be used for nuclear, solar, and wind energy projects, and also for subsidies to mass transit, "because we must diminish the use of oil to preserve the environment from catastrophic and possibly irreversible change, and to dry up the sources of funding for the world-wide Jihad" and of course, ensuring that Iran knows that it can no longer avoid physical damage being inflicted on it if it continues its nuclear project (American hostages having been removed from Iraq, but American planes and ships close by, and ICBMs ready to do their stuff), and that furthermore the country formerly known as Iran may suffer a great and permanent diminishment if the Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, and Khuzistanian Arabs all were to revolt at the same time.

And if all of those measures are undertaken, and if further, the American withdrawal is followed by real war between Shi'a militias and Sunnis determined to hold on, what then? What happens to that supposed belief you and others - Brent Scowcroft, George Bush, the Saudi Ambassador, Mubarak -- keep warning us will be a catastrophic situation that "of course we can't permit." Why can't we? Wasn't the Iran-Iraq War a good thing? Why can't we watch the Sunnis refuse to acquiesce, and accept help from Sunni powers outside Iraq, and give the Shi'a as good as they get?

And how long, if the measures offered in the first paragraph are undertaken to show that the United States is hardly withdrawing from the war, but now fighting it intelligently, out of a recognition that Islam, all of Islam, is the problem and that problem will not be solved by bringing either "freedom" or "prosperity" (for god's sake, look at what prosperity brought to the Muslims -- it made them everywhere more dangerous to Infidels) to "ordinary moms and dads throughout the Middle East."

You offer up the usual baseless nonsense.

It's too idiotic to keep offering up. Basta.

"[The Qur'an is] the scripture I read everyday, and it's the book that I, you know, draw inspiration from," Rep. Keith Ellison

Time magazine:

When President Bush dumped Donald Rumsfeld after the midterm elections in November, many officers in the Pentagon were elated to be rid of the domineering Secretary of Defense. They looked forward to a day when their views on such crucial issues as the Iraq War might carry more weight with the White House. But as the Administration prepares to announce its latest new Iraq strategy, those same officers may no longer be so optimistic. Bush is widely expected to call for the so-called surge option: injecting some 30,000 new soldiers and Marines into Iraq. But many officers at the Pentagon, including some of the most senior, aren't sure such an increase in the force is a good idea.

The head of the Marine Corps has openly questioned the wisdom of the move without an overarching strategy. "We would fully support, I think, as the Joint Chiefs, the idea of putting more troops into Iraq if there is a solid military reason for doing that, if there is something to be gained," Gen. James Conway, who became Commandant of the Marine Corps six weeks ago, said to reporters recently. "We do not believe that just adding numbers for the sake of adding numbers — just thickening the mix — is necessarily the way to go."

Now other members of the military's top brass are quietly questioning the lack of a clear-cut strategy. "What is the objective? Does the President want Iraq to look like Iowa?" asks one retired senior officer. "What has finally put some backbone in the Joint Chiefs is that, to date, there has not been a realistic endstate identified that matches the reality on the ground. They still don't get it. Tactics without a strategy are a recipe for disaster."

Intelligent journalists will take this as a signal. They are free to quote from the Qur'an. They are free to bring to the attention of a wider audience 9.5, 9.29, in fact all of Sura 9, the last or second-to--the-last of the Suras. They are free to adduce the more than one hundred so-called "Jihad" passages from the Qur'an. They are free to let Christians and Jews know that the Qur'an instructs Muslims, such as Keith Ellison, not to take "Christians and Jews as friends, for they are friends only to each other." They are free to quote verses about deception, free to quote the verse that calls Muhammad "uswa hasana," free even to quote, as glossing the Qur'an, the most relevant of the "authentic" Hadith.

They are free to do so.

Why don't they?

Curt Weldon was one of the few House members willing to discuss all parameters of the war we find ourselves engaged in, and in doing so he most likely angered the Administration. The timing of the FBI raid was certainly suspicious. Here is the latest from The Phoenix:

On his last day in office, the House Ethics Committee said U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon violated a House gift rule by taking his family on a $23,000 donated trip in January 2003.
The statement by Chairman Doc Hastings and minority member Howard L. Berman said Weldon has agreed to repay the money.
"Representative Weldon, through counsel, has stated his intent to make the repayment, and to notify us when the repayment has been made," the statement said. "We intend to monitor his efforts to repay the expenses and to make further public statements if necessary or appropriate."
Weldon was defeated in the November election weeks after the FBI raided the homes and business office of the congressman's daughter and political associate as part of a federal investigation into whether he helped them obtain about $1 million in lobbying and consulting contracts.
The ethics committee did not state Wednesday where Weldon had gone, how many family members joined him, or who paid for the trip.
But Weldon's attorney, William Canfield, said the congressman took his wife and children to Moscow in January 2003 for a Kremlin ceremony in which he was inducted as a fellow into the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"He wanted his family to go with him and see this momentous event, so he took them," said Canfield, who estimated that six to eight people went on the trip. He said either the Russian government or members of the academy of sciences paid for the trip.
"It wasn't like some boondoggle," Canfield said, adding that Weldon, who holds a degree in Russian studies and speaks the language fluently, may be the only American to become a member of the academy.

Weldon also led a congressional delegation to Beslan after the massacre. President Bush and PM Blair should have gone instead. In my view, this was a major diplomatic blunder.

This is an exclusive from the Daily Mirror which makes me despair.  First you learn that Mustaf Jama, wanted for the murder of PC Beshinevsky and his brother, now serving a life sentence for his role in that murder were not returned to Somalia because it was considered “too dangerous” for them.  Then you hear that Jama fled the country disguised in a veil using his sister’s passport and is probably among very powerful relatives in Somalia (I do hope he meets a nice Ethiopian tank one dark night). Then you read this about this 18^th birthday “present” given to 2 hardworking Jewish girls who have not cost us taxpayers a penny and who will be an asset to this country once qualified and I get very angry.

TWINS Kamila and Karina Kaya are clever girls with bright, if fleeting, smiles, anxious to build a life in this country. They are 18, but have little time for boyfriends and even less time for pubs and parties. They want to be doctors.

Three years ago Kamila and Karina, then just 15, were bundled on to a plane to the UK after witnessing the slaughter of their parents in their native Kyrgystan, a mountainous, troubled little country that once formed an insignificant part of the Soviet Union.

A relative managed to get them flights out of the country by begging an official: "They are in grave danger - take them anywhere in the West." Anywhere became Heathrow - and since their arrival three years ago they have lived peaceful and blameless lives in Birmingham where the local Jewish community has taken them under its wing.

Until two weeks ago, when they were taken to the bleak Yarls Wood detention centre near Bedford where even the staff were quietly mystified by their arrival. Before their arrest, the Jewish girls spent most of their days studying for their science diplomas at Bournville College Of Further Education, where their tutor says they are the best students she's had in 30 years of teaching.

Their spare time was spent cleaning their tiny flat in Stirchley, baby-sitting or helping out at an old folks' home. Their quick intelligence meant they were able to speak fluent English within weeks of arriving in the country. Their living expenses and legal costs have been paid for by Birmingham's Jewish charities and have cost the taxpayer nothing.

But despite the community's insistence that they will support the girls for as long as they need help, and their guarantee that they will never live on benefits, Kamila and Karina could be sent back to Kyrgystan in weeks.

WITH no job, money or contacts in a poverty-stricken country that is corrupted by criminal gang masters, they fear they will be killed or forced into the sex trade. Bride kidnapping is also rife in their country. Young women are abducted by families hell-bent on seeing their sons married, and are often held hostage until they agree to the union.

The girls lived in this country legally until they turned 18 in November and became adults under British immigration law. And on December 22, without warning, the tearful girls were escorted into a van and driven to the detention centre. "It was horrible," says Kamila, sobbing at the memory

They have had their day in court, and the judge who turned down their application for asylum said he believed every word of their story but had no choice but to refuse them entry because there was no hard proof that their parents had been murdered.

The girls were due to be deported yesterday, but were given an eleventh hour Home Office reprieve and granted a further seven weeks in the UK. It means staying under lock and key in the detention centre, but anything is better than being forced home.

. . . Jewish Community Care charity whose social worker Sharon Grey told the Mirror yesterday: "Kamila and Karina are lovely, polite, quiet and considerate girls. "We took them under our wing because they were in desperate need, and they are forever expressing their gratitude. We housed them in a small flat and they have lived off £50 a week charity money, which they think is a fortune. They have never taken a penny from the government and we are desperate to keep them here." She continues: "It's so depressing to see them in the detention centre, but we're working tirelessly behind the scenes to guarantee their safe future.

"Ideally we'd like them to stay in Britain, but if that's not possible we've arranged a safe haven for them in Israel. (Thank heavens – you can understand why Israel’s very existence is so important) But now the Home Office is even causing huge delays in letting us have access to their birth certificates, so time is running out."

A Home Office spokesman declined to comment on the Kaya sisters' case, but said: "We only return those people whom the independent appeals process has found do not need international protection and who can therefore return safely.

Lynne Jones, Labour MP for Birmingham (Selly Oak), helped delay the twins' deportation. She says: "People have taken them to their hearts and they clearly have a contribution to make. The case is complicated because their parents' murders haven't been verified and Kyrgystan is categorised as a reasonably stable country. But I will be keeping a close eye on their case."

We dearly want to stay here," says Karina. "And we promise we will be no trouble.

"But even if we have to go, we want to tell all the people of the UK we are grateful for their kindness - we will never forget it."

There is no picture of the girls on the website but there is in the paper – they look like good wholesome young women, worth 100 hijabettes.

This story about the Jewish refugee twins from Kyrgystan is sickening. Of course they should stay. However, I think we should make a sharp distinction between asylum and immigration, and between our treatment of minor and adult asylum seekers.

Britain is a tiny, very crowded island. Our infrastructure is creaking. It is reasonable to question whether we should be taking in any asylum seekers, overtaxed as we are. Immigrants, yes, if and only if they contribute to our society, but people fleeing persecution? Call me hard-hearted, but there are many countries that are relatively safe, if not very pleasant. Must the alternative to being killed be living in a country with the world’s fifth largest economy and a generous welfare state? If someone is in genuine fear for his life, he will go anywhere. If someone claimed he was dying of thirst, but then insisted on San Pellegrino rather than tap water, I’d smell a rat.

Asylum claims from any adult who passed through another safe country before coming to the UK, or who had a choice of going to a less attractive but safe and less densely populated country, should be rejected.

This sounds harsh, but I am making a distinction between asylum and immigration. When it comes to immigration, for the UK it is a buyer’s market. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people want to live here. We should choose only those who are likely to contribute, and exclude automatically all those who are likely to endanger us. No Muslims whatsoever, therefore, and all others considered on merit.

The same rules cannot apply to minors, who should stay here until they reach 18. After that, whether they are allowed to remain or not should depend on common sense criteria and the interests of Britain must be paramount. Are they Muslim? If so, out they go, no exceptions. All other cases should be considered on merit. And these twins have more merit between them than a hundred hijabettes, as Esmerelda rightly says. Of course they should stay.

Had the twins been adult at the time of their entry, and chosen to come here rather than Israel, there would be a case for rejecting their asylum application. Asylum – if the word is to mean anything - must be reserved for those non-Muslims whose life is in danger. But an immigration application, in view of their potential contribution to this country, could be considered most favourably.

As for the Muslim whose life is in danger – well, that’s too bad. For every suffering Muslim, whose suffering is a direct result of his belief system, there is a non-Muslim more deserving of refuge in the UK, which, as refuges go, is a cushy number.

I am pleased that the Daily Mirror has taken this case up, and have a feeling that the girls will be allowed to stay. If not, then I am sure they will make a good life for themselves in Israel.

Referring to the refugee twins from Kyrgystan, Hugh says:

Their parents were murdered in Kyrgyzstan, a country which has become, among the five stans of formerly Soviet Central Asia, re-islamized. It is reasonable to assume that their lives are in danger. Therefore they deserve to be permitted to remain in Great Britain as those who have already, as minors, given sufficient promise of contributing to the welfare of Great Britain, but deserve admittance under any reasonable program of asylum.

Indeed. As I said in response, and made clear in my original post, they should stay, but my point about asylum still stands. Just because someone is fleeing persecution does not mean that they should be allowed to stay in Britain. Not if they are adult, have first passed through another safe country, or if they have an alternative. If they are adult, have passed through another safe country or have an alternative, they are not in danger of their lives, and therefore not asylum seekers but potential immigrants. As such their application should be considered on merit.

The twins would pass all my strict criteria. Many wouldn't, but the UK is really small, you know. If the US were threatened with this kind of overcrowding it would pull up the drawbridge - and does, even though it isn't.

Question - not a trick one, a genuine one - would the twins get to stay in the US if they claimed asylum?

If so, given the relative size of our countries, why does anyone claim asylum in the UK rather than the US?

If not - if the US wouldn't take them in - why not?