Dutch Church Commission Reveals Systematic Sexual Abuse Going On For 60+ Years

This is just mind-boggling, but no longer surprising; a report commissioned by the Dutch Roman Catholic church details sexual abuse within its purview for 65 years, and there tens of thousands of minors affected by more than 800 alleged perpetrators:

Thousands and thousands of children suffered from sexual abuse in the Dutch Roman Catholic Church over more than six decades, and about 800 "possible perpetrators" have been identified, an independent Commission of Inquiry said Friday.

"Several tens of thousands of minors have experienced mild, serious and very serious forms of inappropriate sexual behavior. Victims have often suffered for decades from the effects of abuse and have received acknowledgment of the fact," the panel says in its report. "This has caused problems for them, their immediate family and their friends, who require attention and sometimes professional counseling."

The report, which covers a period from 1945 to 2010, says "the scale" of the abuse "is relatively small in percentage terms, but is a serious problem in absolute numbers." The victims were under the responsibility of the range of people working in the church -- priests, brothers, pastoral workers and lay persons, it says.

At least 105 of the 800 are still alive.

For those who have been abused recently, there has been recourse through the courts, but many of the abusers in older cases will go unpunished.

However, an admission of this size and scope should cause the Church to reconsider its approach to sexual abuse by its members and leaders beyond what has already been done. It needs to do more to make those subject to abuse whole.

Dutch Legislators Infringe On Free Exercise of Religion By Banning Ritual Slaughter Practices

Dutch legislators have passed a measure that would ban the ritual slaughter of animals for food consumption. The measure would require that animals be first stunned before they are slaughtered. Under Jewish and Islamic doctrine, animals must be fully alert before they are slaughtered. Proponents claim that the ritual methods are cruel and should be banned.

So, while this affects 50,000 Jews in the Netherlands, the real focus is on the 1.2 million Muslims who follow Islamic dhabiha.

But the Islamic dhabiha and Jewish shechita methods of ritual slaughter require them to be fully conscious.

The legislation was proposed by an animal rights party with two MPs, which argued that failing to stun the animals subjected them to unnecessary pain.

But debate over the matter swiftly became a focus of animosity towards the Netherlands' 1.2 million-strong Muslim community. The country's Jewish population is comparatively small at 50,000.

Following months of debate a last minute concession was offered - the Muslim and Jewish communities will have a year to provide evidence that animals slaughtered by traditional methods do not experience greater pain than those that are stunned before they are killed.

However, observers say finding such proof will be virtually impossible.

The bill must still be approved by the upper house of parliament before it can become law.

Before Tuesday's vote, the head of the Party for the Animals, Marianne Thieme, denied the bill was an attack on religious minorities.

She argued the law was necessary because scientists agreed that animals suffered pain or fear if they were not stunned before slaughter, and because current regulations allowed exceptions for ritual slaughter.

Jewish and Muslim slaughtering practices are quite similar, and both require the use of a trained ritual slaughterer (shochet in Jewish practice) to slaughter the animal with compassion and with a single stroke of a razor-sharp knife according to strict procedures. For example, the shochet cannot press, pause, tear, pierce, or cover the animal being slaughtered. Stunning or other modern methods would render the ritual practices invalid because it would cause additional damage to the animal.

Once the animal has been slaughtered, the shochet examines the animal for additional diseases or lesions that would render the animal unkosher.

Far from being humane, these modern procedures (stunning by any number of means) are designed to maximize the number of animals slaughtered for the least cost. Jewish and Muslim slaughtering procedures are far more labor intensive and costly, in part because of the rate that meat from the slaughtered animals is deemed not to meet their respective religious standards.

Claims that Jewish and Muslim practitioners will have a year to show that their methods do not cause more harm to the animals will be all but impossible to prove; how exactly can anyone show that an animal suffers more or less pain or fear immediately preceding their slaughter. It's a bogus controversy and one that directly infringes on the religious freedoms of these communities.

Libya Descends Into Civil War

Mumar Khadafi continues to try and put down the insurrection against his regime with force and the opposition has also used force to hold territories it has liberated from the regime in Tripoli. Khadafi's loyalists have resorted to airstrikes as its ground actions have not been wholly successful at thwarting the rebel groups from gaining and maintaining ground as the noose slowly begins to encircle the capital of Tripoli.

Airstrikes have forced the rebel groups to pull back from Ras Lanuf, which is a key oil depot, and significant casualties were reported.

The situation can be considered a civil war for intents and purposes, which is what I've been calling it for the past week as the rebel groups continue to hold much of the territory in the Eastern half of the country and Khadafi has a tenuous hold on the capital and its environs.



The rebel groups are attempting to rearm and sustain their efforts against Khadafi, and there have also been reports that Egyptians have crossed into Libya to aid the rebel groups.

There is fighting throughout the country, although the focus is along the coastal cities where the majority of the population is situated and which are key transit points.

There was heavy fighting in Zawiya, and the civilian population is getting hammered by the Khadafi loyalists, often with sniper fire:


Khadafi's forces continue holding three Dutch airmen, and rebel groups note that the military efforts by NATO countries to rescue their citizens can be used as propaganda that plays into Khadafi's hands by seizing it as evidence of a Western conspiracy to overthrow his regime.

A British special forces team (SAS) was released by opposition groups after being briefly detained.

Earlier, two sources close to the Libyan opposition told CNN that negotiations between senior British officials and senior opposition leaders in Libya were under way to secure the release of the eight British special forces troops.

The Sunday Times of London reported that the unit of "up to eight men" was being held after "a secret mission to put British diplomats in touch with leading opponents of Moammar Gadhafi ended in humiliation."

British Prime Minister David Cameron said last week his government wanted to contact the opposition to find out who they were and what they wanted.

The newspaper said opposition figures were angry about the "intervention" of special forces troops and "ordered the soldiers to be locked up on a military base."

In an interview with the BBC, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox -- in response to a question -- said there was no plan to use British land forces on the ground in Libya.

UPDATE:
The NY Times has a good feature showing the progress of fighting through the country, and notes that the rebel groups are closing in on Khadafi's home town of Surt. I would expect Khadafi to try and hold Surt at all costs, but Khadafi isn't just fighting the rebels, he's fighting reality.

He continues to claim that his countrymen love him and that the opposition isn't nearly as strong as they appear to be. His is a cult of personality that is going to come crashing down on him and his loyalists:

But accuracy and logic have never been the tenets of Colonel Qaddafi’s governing philosophy, and their absence is especially conspicuous now, as rebels pose the greatest challenge to his four decades of enigmatic rule.

Not a day passes in Tripoli without some improbable claim by Colonel Qaddafi or the top officials around him: there are no rebels or protesters in Libya; the people who are demonstrating have been drugged by Al Qaeda; no shots have been fired to suppress dissent. In an interview broadcast on Monday with the France 24 , Col. Qaddafi called his country a partner of the West in combating Al Qaeda, insisting that loyalist forces were confronting “small groupings” and “sleeper cells” of terrorists.

He put the death toll on both sides at “some hundreds,” disputing estimates that the tally ran to several thousand.

A segment of the Libyan population appears to admire his defiant promotion of his world view, and confusion and obfuscation help explain how he keeps his rivals off balance.

Foreign news organizations were reporting, based on firsthand observations, that rebel forces were under fire but remained in control of the eastern half of the country, as well as many pockets in the west. The government’s main victory over the weekend appeared to be driving the rebels from the town of Bin Jawwad, which they had taken Saturday night. And both sides continued to prepare for a decisive battle in the Qaddafi stronghold of Surt.

But many Tripoli residents seemed happy to ignore such reports on Sunday and chose to accept Colonel Qaddafi’s narrative — that his loyalists were at the gates of the rebels’ headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi, or were in control of it already, or had captured the rebels’ top leader.

For more than four hours, Qaddafi supporters fired triumphant bursts of machine gun fire into the air from cars and among crowds in the downtown area. As many as 2,000 of them waved bright green flags and bandannas — and, in many cases, guns — as they rallied in Green Square, and several hundred of the pro-Qaddafi demonstrators were still at it at sunset.

Many of the people in Green Square lashed out at the Arabic news channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, calling them liars that had confused and inflamed Libya’s young people. The crowd’s fist-pumping ardor was a testament to the strength of the mythology of epic heroism that Colonel Qaddafi has instilled since he seized power at the age of 27.

He did it in part by making sure that his was virtually the only voice in public life. News reports try not to refer to other top government officials, or even soccer players, by name, ensuring that Colonel Qaddafi is virtually the only public figure in Libya.

The Situation Remains Dire In Libya as Fighting Continues

The situation in Libya remains dire as fighting continues between rebel groups and Khadafi loyalists.

Khadafi's goons captured three Dutch helicopter crewmembers who were trying to evacuate Dutch citizens from the country. Word of the capture had been kept under wraps until a Dutch paper spilled the beans.

Libyan forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi have captured three crew members of a Dutch naval helicopter who were rescuing European citizens, last Sunday, the Dutch Defense Ministry said on Thursday, the first report of foreigners being by held in Libya’s bloody and unfolding uprising.

Otte Beeksma, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said the pro-Qaddafi forces also captured two civilians being rescued — one Dutch, the other from an unspecified European country — who had since been released. Dutch officials decline to give personal details of the crew members while confidential negotiations for their release were underway.

The authorities had kept word of the capture a secret until a Dutch newspaper broke the story.

Mr. Beeksma, said the crew of a Lynx helicopter had landed in the coastal city of Sirte — a pro-Qaddafi stronghold — after flying from a navy ship, the HMS Tromp, anchored offshore. The helicopter was “surrounded by armed Libyan forces late on Sunday afternoon.”

The two people being evacuated were transferred to the Dutch Embassy in Tripoli on Sunday, but the crew and their helicopter were still being held. Mr. Beeksma did not identify the two people who were being rescued.

The use of military personnel in such operations is not limited to the Dutch authorities. Last weekend, British news reports said British special forces accompanied a rescue effort by the Royal Air Force to pluck oil workers to safety from remote desert encampments.

It's little wonder then that the US has moved its naval forces closer to Libya as I had noted yesterday. The US isn't likely to engage in military actions except if the humanitarian and relief flight crews come under attack. Capturing the three Dutch crewmembers who were conducting relief flights would qualify.

None other than Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (who's no stranger to undemocratic actions and stifling of dissent) is offering to mediate the conflict between Khadafi and the opposition. He's also busy railing that the situation in Libya is a pretext for a US invasion to take the country's oil.

The International Criminal Court will be investigating Khadafi for possible crimes against humanity in his attempts to quell the uprising and brutal use of force. Khadafi's goons continue attempts to retake territory captured by the opposition, including the oil port city of Brega. His forces have tried airstrikes and attacks from multiple fronts with little success.

While the opposition remains a ragtag collection of groups and even disgruntled army units with access to lots of weapons, including many of the same weapons that Khadafi has access to, they lack cohesive training. Reports indicate that these groups are in the process of training to better repel Khadafi's attacks, particularly airstrikes.

In Benghazi, the prime concern is that Khadafi will attempt airstrikes against the city.

UPDATE:
President Obama has authorized military airlifts to transport refugees from Libya to safe areas outside the country.

President Obama called again on Thursday for the immediate resignation of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and said he had authorized American military airlifts to help transport refugees fleeing from Libya back to their home countries in the region.

“The U.S. and the entire world continues to be outraged by the appalling violence against the Libyan people,” Mr. Obama said after a White House meeting with President Felipe Calderón of Mexico. “Muammar el-Qaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead, and he must leave.”

Mr. Obama said he had directed the Pentagon to prepare for a full range of possible military options in connection with the crisis in Libya. Asked about whether the United States would support sending warplanes over the country to keep the Libyan air force from attacking rebels, creating what is known as a no-flight zone, the president said that was one of the options being considered.

So Much For Peace and Joy on Earth

While Christians around the world are celebrating Christmas, terror attacks were carried out in Nigeria and Pakistan that killed dozens, a terror plot was thwarted in he Netherlands, and Hamas is again threatening Israel's destruction.

43 were killed in Pakistan when a female suicide bomber struck in Peshawar food market:



Dutch authorities arrested 12 Somalis on terrorism related charges, noting that while no weapons or explosives were found, the attacks were said to be imminent.

Yet, there was some hope, as Iraqi Christians packed a church in Baghdad that was the scene of a massacre of priests and parishioners.

Dutch Prosecutors Say Two Yemeni Men Are Part of Terror Conspiracy; US Officials Say Not So Fast

Yesterday's incident involving two Yemeni men apparently engaging in a test run against US security procedures may be part of a wider terror plot according to Dutch prosecutors.

Two Yemeni men who arrived in Amsterdam on a flight from Chicago Monday are being held in custody on suspicion of involvement in a conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, the Dutch public prosecutor said Tuesday.

"The men are held in custody on suspicion of a conspiracy to a terrorist criminal act. In a few days it will be made public if they will be charged," the prosecutor said.

The Dutch public prosecutor will hold a press conference at 1400 GMT.

The two men, who are Yemeni nationals, were arrested by Dutch police Monday after U.S. authorities had raised concerns about suspicious items the men carried in their luggage. These items included mobile phones taped to plastic bottles, which had been seized in the U.S.

The two men were taken into custody in Amsterdam after engaging in unusual behavior and their baggage revealed watches and cellphones taped to plastic bottles. Security experts believe that the duo were engaged in a dry run for a possible terror operation.

Investigators are looking at possible ties with Detroit, even as the men originally boarded planes in Birmingham, Alabama.

Two U.S. officials said investigators are looking into whether they were testing the aviation security system to see whether strange items and travel patterns would raise suspicion. U.S. authorities found suspicious items in their checked luggage, including a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle and a knife and box cutter.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the suspicious items were found in the checked luggage of one passenger, Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi of Tuscaloosa, Ala., flying on a United Airlines flight Sunday night from Chicago to Amsterdam. Another man, Hezem al Murisi of Memphis, Tenn., was also detained.

"Suspicious items were located in checked luggage associated with two passengers on United Flight 908 from Chicago O'Hare to Amsterdam last night," department officials said in a statement Monday. "The items were not deemed to be dangerous in and of themselves, and as we share information with our international partners, Dutch authorities were notified of the suspicious items."

U.S. officials also found multiple cell phones taped together and multiple watches taped together in al Soofi's checked baggage.The pair were arrested Monday morning at Schiphol Airport after getting off the United Airlines flight from Chicago, where their earlier decision to change their flight plans raised flags in the U.S., officials said.

Both of the detained men are friends who had once lived and worked in Dearborn, said Imad Hamad of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The al Soofi and al Murisi families are prominent within the Yemeni-American community in Dearborn, Hamad told The News.

"When the news broke, people were surprised because they knew them as good people, respected people who always worked and worked hard," Hamad said.

The duo had changed flight plans from their original bookings:

A Transportation Security Administration official said al Soofi had originally booked a ticket from Birmingham to Chicago and onward to Washington, D.C.'s Dulles International and then to Dubai and Yemen.

But when he got to Chicago, he changed his travel plans to take a direct flight to Amsterdam. Al Soofi's luggage made it to Chicago and to Washington, despite the fact he did not board the flight from Chicago to Washington.

Al Murisi also changed his travel plans in Chicago to take a direct flight to Amsterdam, raising suspicion among U.S. officials. Federal Air marshals were on the flight from Chicago to Amsterdam, a law enforcement official said.

A cousin of one of the men arrested claims that the arrest was a mistake and that al Soofi would not be involved in terrorism. He further thinks that his cousin may have been tricked into carrying the suspicious items.

UPDATE:
This AP report is saying that the FBI isn't finding that the two men were on a terror test-run.

The FBI probe of two men arrested in Amsterdam after suspicious items turned up in one of the men's luggage is finding they were probably not on a test run for a future terror attack, a U.S. official said Tuesday, casting doubt on earlier suggestions even as Dutch authorities held the pair on suspicion of conspiring to commit a terrorist act.

The U.S. does not expect to charge the men, a law enforcement official said. The two men arrested in Amsterdam — both traveling to Yemen — did not know each other and were not traveling together, a U.S. government official said.

The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.

Test Run:Two Yemeni Men In Custody On Terror Charges In Amsterdam

This seems to have all the hallmarks of a test-run by al Qaeda terrorists to probe the airline security checkpoints.

Two Yemeni men who arrived in Amsterdam on a flight from Chicago were arrested Monday by Dutch authorities and charged with preparing a terrorist attack after officials found suspicious items in their luggage, Dutch and U.S. officials said.

U.S. authorities requested the arrest after discovering that one of the men had checked his luggage from Chicago to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, but then left Chicago on a different flight to Amsterdam, said a U.S. official, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the case.

The luggage sent to Virginia contained a cell phone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, in addition to three cell phones taped together and several watches taped together. The owner of the luggage, Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi, a Yemeni citizen who lives in Detroit, also was carrying $7,000 in cash, said a Dutch official, who also spoke on condition anonymity.

After sending his luggage to Dulles, Al Soofi was joined in Chicago by a second man, Hezam al Murisi, and the two men flew on United Airlines flight 908 to Amsterdam. U.S. air marshals also were on the flight.

Al Soofi's luggage was flown to Virginia and was headed for Dubai and then Yemen. But once authorities learned al Soofi had flown on a different flight, federal officials in Virginia ordered the flight returned to the gate to remove al Soofi's luggage. Another inspection revealed no explosives.

ABC News is reporting that the duo were carrying mock bombs in their luggage, but were still allowed to continue on their way.

Ongoing Afghan Operations Reveal Serious Flaws

The Afghan army still isn't capable to lead in military operations against the Taliban. That means that the burden will remain on the US and NATO forces for the foreseeable future.

However, that doesn't mean that NATO is cognizant of that particularly important fact. They're trying to puff up the Afghan capabilities beyond what is reasonable.

Michael Yon, who has been in Afghanistan has called out NATO for its propaganda. It notes that one metric of how successful the current operations are is whether the Taliban can control cell phone towers

That the enemy controls so many towers is proof they control the ground. Near Sangin, the enemy controls a power station within walking distance of three British bases (2009).

Trying to puff up the Afghan aspect of a recent operation in Helmand province does little to actually improve security on the ground. The gains were fully the result of ISAF and the US forces that participated whereas the Afghan forces involved were merely spectators. This is propaganda we can do without and it does nothing to improve the facts and security on the ground.

What we do know is that the Afghan military is still incapable of the heavy lifting necessary to deal with the ongoing Taliban threat. That's a huge problem and a major impediment to drawing down US or NATO forces in Afghanistan. Moreover, there are issues with the Dutch commitment to NATO's Afghan operation. The Dutch government collapsed yesterday over disagreement over continuing that commitment. Considering that the NATO obligation to help member nations is central to the premise of NATO, this is a huge blow to the organization and to the Dutch government.

Even as the allied offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja continued Saturday, it appeared almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops would be gone from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The question plaguing military planners was whether a Dutch departure would embolden the war’s critics in other allied countries, where debate over deployment is continuing, and hasten the withdrawal of their troops as well.

“If the Dutch go, which is the implication of all this, that could open the floodgates for other Europeans to say, ‘The Dutch are going, we can go, too,’ ” said Julian Lindley-French, professor of defense strategy at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. “The implications are that the U.S. and the British are going to take on more of the load.”

The fact is that the US and British have been carrying the heaviest load in Afghanistan all along both in terms of troop commitments and combat operations. Some NATO countries have attempted to limit their offensive military operations in an attempt to limit casualties (to mixed effect as the Taliban attack targets of opportunity). This is yet another test of the Obama Administration to maintain the NATO coalition efforts in Afghanistan and is a test of resolve for NATO planners and military strategists on both sides of the Atlantic.