Archived news and commentary: October 7 - 13, 2002

2002/12/30 - 2003/01/05
2002/12/23 - 2002/12/29
2002/12/16 - 2002/12/22
2002/12/09 - 2002/12/15
2002/12/02 - 2002/12/08
2002/11/25 - 2002/12/01
2002/11/18 - 2002/11/24
2002/11/11 - 2002/11/17
2002/11/04 - 2002/11/10
2002/10/28 - 2002/11/03
2002/10/21 - 2002/10/27
2002/10/14 - 2002/10/20
2002/10/07 - 2002/10/13
2002/09/30 - 2002/10/06

Sunday, October 13, 2002

News and commentary:

"Terror in Bali" (Sydney Morning Herald, 2002/10/13)
The explosions light up the island skyline. Photo: AFP

"Outrage at Bali Bombs, Fingers Pointed at Al Qaeda" (Reuters, 2002/10/13)
"The United States and Singapore, which has detained dozens of people in a crackdown on what it says is a Southeast Asian "terror" network, Jemaah Islamiah, have been pressing Indonesia to arrest Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir they describe as a pivotal player in the group. At a news conference on Sunday, Bashir blamed the United States for the attacks. "It would be impossible for Indonesians to do it," he said. "Indonesians don't have such powerful explosives." 'I think maybe the U.S. are behind the bombings because they always say Indonesia is part of a terrorist network.'"

"Holiday haven that became hell on earth" (Julie-Anne Davies, The Age, 2002/10/14)
"Sitting a short distance away from him in his Bali hotel room were four young girls, all from Sydney but all from different families. The eldest was 15, two were 14 and the fourth, just 12 years old. Last night they still didn't know whether their parents were dead after the murderous explosions that ripped through two nightclubs on the popular Kuta Beach strip. Michael and his mate, both from Perth, had been drinking at a bar three doors from the Sari when the explosion ripped through the nightclub. "We just ran on to the street and tried to do what we could but it was carnage, sheer bloody carnage," Michael said last night. "Then we saw the girls, one after the other, just wandering around in shock and we grabbed them and brought them back to our hotel to try and help them." One of the girls had told him she was on the dance floor when the club erupted into flames and had had to crawl over dead bodies to get out."

"Deadly Blast Levels Bali Nightclubs" (Richard C. Paddock, Los Angeles Times, 2002/10/13)
"Eric Lloyd, a tourist from San Clemente, said he rushed to the site from his hotel and saw a horrific scene of carnage, with body parts strewn over the street. "I pulled out bodies with no arms. I pulled out live bodies with no legs," he said. "There were heads lying all around." Lloyd, 31, who joined other bystanders in helping to rescue survivors, said he believed the death toll could easily reach 300. Police were still pulling bodies from the rubble this morning."

"Bali stunned by club bomb carnage" (CNN.com, 2002/10/13)
"'There was just a procession of people covered in blood, covered in glass, glass embedded in people, people's backs which have obviously been on fire,' said witness Richard Poore. "It was just horrible." An official with the American Chamber of Commerce said the explosion rattled windows at least 6 miles (10 km) away. The blasts and subsequent fire destroyed an entire city block, said Robert Koster, a journalist on the scene. It appeared the second explosion may have been caused by a car bomb, he said."

"182 killed, 332 hurt in Bali's explosions" (Sukino Harisumarto, UPI, 2002/10/13)
"Most of the dead had been burned beyond recognition when the flaming roof of the Sari Club collapsed on them in a fire apparently fed by escaping gas. ... More than 200 people had been jammed into the Sari Club café, which was destroyed by the blast, an employee said."

"'It was a horrible sight'" (BBC News, 2002/10/13)
"British tourist Matt Noyce, who was in a bar in Bali's Kuta beach when there was a massive explosion, tells the BBC what happened. 'Basically there was just a massive explosion. You didn't really realise it was an explosion to start with. You just saw a blinding light and your ears felt like they were exploding. There was just complete panic in the bar, loads of people diving for the door trying to scramble over each other. Then outside it was awful, like something you'd see out of Vietnam. There were bodies everywhere. It was pretty dark but you could tell some people were really badly injured. Lots of blood everywhere, people with burns. Some people with limbs that just, well, just terrible, terrible injuries.'"

"Finger of blame pointed at Jemaah Islamiya" (Mark Tran, The Guardian, 2002/10/13)
"The US and Singapore, which has detained dozens of people in a crackdown on Jemaah Islamiya, have been pressing Indonesia to arrest a Muslim cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, whom they describe as a pivotal figure. But Indonesia says it has no evidence to link Mr Bashir to Jemaah Islamiya. The Bali bombings follow persistent reports that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organisation is trying to establish a foothold in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. ...
Jemaah Islamiya is an Islamic extremist group with cells operating throughout Southeast Asia. Recently arrested members in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines have revealed links with al-Qaida. Jemaah Islamiya's stated goal is to create an Islamic state comprising Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the southern Philippines. Three Indonesian extremists, one of whom is in custody in Malaysia, are the reported leaders of the organisation. The group developed plans in 1997 to target US interests in Singapore and, in 1999, videotaped potential US targets in preparation for attacks in Singapore. A cell in Singapore acquired four tons of ammonium nitrate, which has not yet been found." (See also: "The Southeast Asian Jihad" (Dana Dillon and Paolo Pasicolan, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/01/17) and "Al Qaeda network believed thriving in Indonesia" (Richard Halloran, The Washington Times, 2002/07/31))

"Cleric calls for seizure of dogs and their owners" (AP/IranMania, 2002/10/13)
Found via Best of the Web Today: "A conservative Iranian prayer leader denounced the "moral depravity" of dog ownership and called on the judiciary to arrest all dogs and their owners, the reformist Etemad paper reported Sunday. "I demand the judiciary arrest all dogs with long, medium or short legs together with their long-legged owners, otherwise I will arrest them myself", the Etemad newspaper quoted the cleric, named as Hojatoleslam Hasani, as saying at a Friday prayer sermon in the northwestern city of Urumieh. "The abominable people in this country think that liberty means loose morals, for example men and women walk in the streets hand in hand", he added."

"Islamic pendant 'taken off for rape'" (Frank Walker, Sydney Morning Herald, 2002/10/13)
"A man took off his Islamic pendant as he raped a girl, saying that to keep it on would be "disrespectful", police alleged in court yesterday. Farhad Qaumi, 19, of Berala, appeared in Parramatta Bail Court charged with aggravated sexual assault, causing bodily harm and two counts of detain for advantage. Police alleged Qaumi and another male saw two girls, 15 and 16, on the street and offered them cigarettes, swapped phone numbers and asked them to join them for a ride in May last year. Qaumi identified himself as Ahmed and the other man as Bobby. The girls declined the invitation, but Bobby forced the 15-year-old into the car. Police alleged Qaumi also forced the 16-year-old into the car before locking the doors. After arriving at Auburn Swimming Pool car park, Bobby took the 15-year-old girl for a walk while Qaumi forced the other girl into the back seat. There, Qaumi is alleged to have raped the 16-year-old girl and forced her to perform oral sex. A statement of facts tendered in court by police said Qaumi took off his Islamic pendant, saying: 'I have to take it off as it is disrespectful.'"

"Egypt's Cultural Revolution" (Martin Walker, UPI, 2002/10/13)
Here's a new twist to conspiracy theories regarding Bush's stance on Iraq - it's really about China and Europe: "Something important is happening in Egypt. It might be called the al-Jazeera effect, the way that the highly professional and popular Qatar-based satellite TV channel is starting to change the media culture of the Arab world. Less than a year ago, a new private satellite channel was launched in Egypt called Dream TV. ...
The show that everyone watches is Al-Ustaz, the Professor, which features the grand old man of Egyptian journalism, Mohamed Heykal, former editor of Al-Ahram, adviser and close confidant to former President Nasser. So far he has done three shows, all discussing politics and world affairs, and they have all had a huge impact. His latest show, on Iraq and the Bush administration, has been re-broadcast three times already. Heikal did not give the standard Arab rant about Jewish influence in Washington and Arab victimhood, and ridiculed the idea that America's top priority was to crush Iraq and the Arab world in general. "It's all a sideshow. Iraq is just the battleground," Heykal said. 'What is about to happen in Iraq is about taming the rising international monsters, the big international competitors like China and Europe. Unfortunately, the Iraqi people will suffer and so will we all, but this is not about us. This is about international strategy.'"

"Tour of Suspect Iraqi Plant Offers Only Partial Access" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/13)
A report from a tour of Al Furat, an industrial plant in Iraq: "One indication that the current operations at Al Furat might not be quite as harmless as the Iraq officials claimed came from the extensive defenses around the plant. Sandbagged bunkers lined the approach road after the buses carrying the group turned off the highway leading south from Baghdad. Farther off were clusters of antiaircraft weapons mounted on high earthen berms, all of them manned. ...
Much of what the reporters saw at the plant had an oddly makeshift appearance, almost as if work on the radar and other electronic appliances under way in the laboratories was new, or at least being conducted in an oddly haphazard way. Secretaries sat staring mutely at the screen savers on their computer desktops, and logged onto programs only when reporters approached. Some testing equipment in otherwise bare laboratories sat on carts parked awkwardly along the walls, as if nobody had given much thought to the matter."

"Saddam's Sons" (Evan Thomas and Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, from the 2002/10/21 issue)
"Both men (Uday is 38, Qusay 36) were born and bred to violence of the most lurid kind. As infants, they were supposedly given disarmed grenades as toys. More reliably, they were said to accompany their father on outings to the torture chamber. ... Saddam has always believed in the symbolic power of mutilation. [Saddam] was aiming at the creation of "a new man" in Iraq, just as Hitler and Stalin had tried to do in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. He may well have made his sons into psychopaths. ... Strolling through a park, Uday spotted a young couple. He called out to the young woman, but the pair walked on, pretending not to notice. Affronted, Uday grabbed the woman by the arm and declared, "You're much too good for this simple man." (Her companion was wearing the uniform of an Army captain.) The woman stammered that she had been married only the day before. Uday's guards promptly dragged her to a hotel room, where Uday raped her as the guards watched from the next room. Latif, who says he witnessed this scene, says he heard the woman scream. He went to the balcony and saw her half-naked figure lying in front of the hotel entrance six floors below. Her husband, who cursed Uday, was executed for 'defamation of the president.'"

"Officials See Signs of a Revived Al Qaeda" (Don Van Natta Jr. and David Johnston, The New York Times, 2002/10/13)
"American officials say they fear that terrorist attacks in the past week and taped messages from leaders of Al Qaeda signal the beginning of a new wave of terrorist activity and possibly a large-scale attack. Senior government officials also say that an attack that crippled a French oil tanker near Yemen and another that killed a United States marine in Kuwait showed that the terror network had reconstituted itself, with smaller groups prompted to begin new attacks by inflammatory new messages from Qaeda leaders. ... Both tapes were broadcast in the past week by Al Jazeera, the satellite channel based in Qatar, and one American official said the two messages might have been intended to be a green light for Al Qaeda to initiate large-scale attacks."

"Bombing at Resort in Indonesia Kills 182 and Hurts Scores More" (Raymond Bonner, The New York Times, 2002/10/13)
"The nightclub where the car was parked, the Sari, and an adjacent one engulfed by the flames, were popular with Western tourists. Officials said many of the dead and injured were foreigners, most of them Australians and Europeans. An American official said there were Americans among the casualties, though he did not have the number or names. ...
No group took responsibility for the attacks but suspicions immediately fell on a radical Islamic organization based in Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiyah. The group and its leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, have been linked to plots against Americans by an operative of Al Qaeda who was seized in Indonesia and turned over to the Central Intelligence Agency several months ago. ...
Bush administration officials say that Jemaah Islamiyah fits all the criteria to be listed as a terrorist organization, but the United States has refrained from doing so for fear of destabilizing Indonesia politically and making life more difficult for President Megawati. Mr. Bashir has a significant following among Indonesian Muslims, and has been warmly embraced by the country's vice president, Hamzah Haz."

 

Saturday, October 12, 2002

News and commentary:

"Bali Nightclub Bombing Kills 171" (Slobodan Lekic, AP/Yahoo! News, 2002/10/12)
"A bomb destroyed a crowded nightclub on the tourist island of Bali Saturday, sparking a devastating inferno that killed at least 171 people and wounded 274 - many of them foreigners. Officials said it was the worst terrorist act in Indonesia's history. Authorities said a second bomb exploded near the island's U.S. consular office. Police said there were no casualties in the second explosion. The blasts came amid increasing fears by the United States and others that Indonesia - the most populous Muslim nation - is becoming a haven for terrorists and that al-Qaida operatives are active here. There was no claim of responsibility for the bombing in the Sari Club at the Kuta Beach resort, which officials said killed Indonesians along with Australians, Canadians, Britons, and Swedes. ... Witnesses on the famous tourist island, which draws large numbers of Australians, said that the nightclub blaze engulfed another nearby club and damaged several other buildings on the same block and a dozen cars. "The place was packed, and it went up within a millisecond," Simon Quayle, the coach of an Australian rules football team, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio."

"Necessary War" (Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/10/21 issue)
"Contrary to the line taken in the United States by Saudi crown prince Abdullah's public-relations minions, bin Laden's war against America is not a war against Saudi Arabia. ...
The rulers in these countries have surely noted that al Qaeda's suicide bombers have not been directed at them. The Saudis have closely studied bin Laden's statements where he discourages his followers from making a battleground of Arabia, the future oil engine of bin Laden's resurrected caliphate. ...
Indeed, what in great part makes bin Ladenism special and his appeal borderless is the extent to which the Saudi holy warrior aimed his terror beyond the detested dictators and kings of the Middle East, directly at the United States. Bin Ladenism is what the hard core of Iran's Islamic revolution aspired to but never attained - a jihadist "virtual umma" (to borrow from the Franco-Iranian scholar Farhad Khosrokhavar), a nationless community of suicidal believers who can strike the "Great Satan" from any corner of the globe. ...
Compared with the terrorist-guerrilla units that sprang from the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, the old-time Islamic Jihad in Egypt, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, al Qaeda's globe-trotting warriors are a blessing for Muslim rulers wanting to sleep at night. The only consistently compelling reason for Hosni Mubarak, for example, or any other Muslim ruler in the Middle East to extend himself continuously and aggressively against al Qaeda is fear of American power."

"Radical Shias are a worry for Bush as well as Saddam" (Ian Cobain, The Times, 2002/10/12)
"Karbala may be a mud-coloured city, lying close to the mud-coloured waters of the Euphrates, but it is a place steeped in blood. It was the massacre here in AD680 of Imam Hussein and his followers that led to the great schism between Sunnis and Shias. ...
Centuries later there would be slaughter again. In March 1991 the residents of Karbala joined those of Basra, 315 miles to the south, in the uprising against Saddam. The Iraqi Army fled in terror, about 75 Baath Party officials were hurled from their office windows to be hacked to death by the mob below and it seemed for one heady moment as if the regime were about to fall. But no strong leader emerged and there was no support from the West. The Republican Guard returned 11 days later to perpetrate the worst bloodbath that Karbala has seen. The guardsmen are said to have been merciless, ploughing through the bazaars in T72 tanks emblazoned with the slogan "No Shias After Today" and fighting from house to house until the last rebels sought sanctuary in the magnificent 11th-century al-Hussein and al-Abbas mosques. The copper-domed shrines are revered almost as much as Mecca by millions of Shias across the East, yet Saddam's troops did not hesitate to train their tank guns and heavy artillery on them. The surviving rebels are said to have been hanged from lampposts or dragged to their deaths behind the T72s. Their families were hunted down and shot. The shrines have been rebuilt, but some of their grey marble walls remain pock-marked by shrapnel, and fear still enshrouds the city, mingling with the sand that drifts in from the Mesopotamian Desert. Today there are fears of a fourth historic massacre at Karbala if renewed American and British attacks on Iraqi forces ignite the city's religious fervour, economic frustration and hatred of Sunni oppression."

"Kuwait says al Qaeda linked to attack on Marines" (CNN.com, 2002/10/12)
"The leader of the suspected terrorist cell involved in this week's deadly attack on U.S. Marines in Kuwait had connections with al Qaeda, according to Kuwaiti Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Khalid Al-Sabah. The minister said the investigation into Tuesday's attack uncovered plans to attack other sites, but he provided no details except to say tight security had already eliminated some of five sites under consideration. Al-Sabah told reporters Saturday that authorities had arrested 15 people who were being "referred" to the Kuwaiti judicial system for prosecution."

"Saved by U.S., Kuwait Now Shows Mixed Feelings" (Craig S. Smith, The New York Times, 2002/10/12)
"Muhammad al-Mulaifi, head of the information department at Kuwait's Ministry of Islamic Affairs, tried momentarily to suppress a smile, then broke into a broad grin when asked if he supported the terrorist attacks on the United States last year. "I would be lying if said I wasn't happy about the attack," he said, sitting on the floor of his air-conditioned home office, a carpeted, cushioned oasis amid the harsh heat of this small, dry country. Mr. Mulaifi said that many Kuwaitis were delighted about what had happened to the United States and that he had attended parties held in celebration. "Only then did we see America suffer for a few seconds what Muslims have been suffering for a long time," he said. His view is not an uncommon one among Muslims in this part of the world, but it is surprising coming from someone whose country the United States rescued from Iraqi domination just over 11 years ago."

"Iraq Backs Away From U.N. Demand to Set Arms Terms" (Julia Preston, The New York Times, 2002/10/12)
"Iraq, ignoring rising global pressure for thorough inspections of its weapons programs, has backed away from agreements reached last week on minimum conditions for the inspectors to carry out their work, diplomats said today. In a letter that became public today, Iraq did not meet a specific request to confirm agreements it made last week in Vienna with Hans Blix, the leader of the United Nations weapons inspection team. Instead, Iraq insisted on further discussions of even basic logistical arrangements." (See also excerpts from the letter: "Iraq's Response to the U.N." (The New York Times, 2002/10/12))

"Pakistan election result creates new Islamist heartland" (Luke Harding, The Guardian, 2002/10/12)
"America's attempts to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida suspects hiding in Pakistan were dealt a significant blow yesterday when hardline Islamic parties took power in the two tribal provinces next to Afghanistan, after doing unexpectedly well in Pakistan's elections. The religious parties won at least 36 seats in the national assembly - and were poised last night to play a key role in the new parliament. ...
Yesterday, political observers and ordinary Pakistanis were trying to come to terms with a new political landscape - and the stunning success of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six anti-American Islamic groups. "It is a revolution," the MMA's leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, told supporters in Peshawar on Thursday night. "We will not accept US bases and western culture." The alliance won control of the provincial assembly in North West Frontier province, and is likely to govern in coalition in neighbouring Baluchistan. Several senior Taliban and al-Qaida figures are believed to be hiding out in these two tribal regions, next to the Afghan border. ...
The religious parties now control its administration and police force. "The task of hunting down the rebellious Taliban and hostile al-Qaida will become almost impossible,' Najam Sethi, the editor of the respected Daily Times, said yesterday." (See also: "Pakistan vote gives voice to 'Taliban Lite' party" (Mark MacKinnon, The Globe and Mail, 2002/10/12): "He promises a global Islamic revolution, and to expel American forces from the soil that will soon be under his political control. But Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the first-minister-elect of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, is afraid of the T-word. ... Nonetheless, the question remains whether his openness to a Western stranger - as well as his acceptance of democracy and the Pakistani constitution - are shared by his followers. It was clear by the end of the interview that his emotional defence of the Taliban was designed mainly to please the crowd of listeners who wandered in and out of the room during the interview. "You must realize that I cannot criticize [the Taliban] here," he whispered conspiratorially as we exchanged farewells.")

Added in archive:
"Address to the 2002 Weinberg Founders Conference" (Martin Kramer, www.martinkramer.org, 2002/10/05)

 

Friday, October 11, 2002

News and commentary:

"The Nobel Appeasement Prize" (James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal/Best of the Web Today, 2002/10/11)
"Back in May, columnist Jonah Goldberg called Carter (borrowing a line from "The Simpsons") "history's greatest monster": 'As the "human rights president," Carter noted that Yugoslavia's Marshall Tito was also "a man who believes in human rights." Carter saluted the dictator as "a great and courageous leader" who "has led his people and protected their freedom almost for the last 40 years." He publicly told Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, "Our goals are the same. ...
We believe in enhancing human rights. We believe that we should enhance, as independent nations, the freedom of our own people." He told the Stalinist first secretary of Communist Poland, Edward Gierek, "Our concept of human rights is preserved in Poland."' ...
It's probably an exaggeration to call Carter a "monster"; he seems a well-intentioned naïf, and he has done some worthwhile work for Habitat for Humanity. But his record as president illustrates the folly of seeking peace through niceness. He lectured Americans on the foolishness of their "inordinate fear of communism," and the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. He tried to appease the mullahs in Iran, and they answered him by holding dozens of Americans hostage, releasing them the moment Ronald Reagan was inaugurated." (See also: "Jimmy Carter: America basher" (Jonah Goldberg, Town Hall, 2002/05/15))

"Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Carter With Criticism of Bush" (The New York Times, 2002/10/11)
"The 2002 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to former President Jimmy Carter. Noting that Mr. Carter had devoted decades of his life to the peaceful resolution of international conflicts, the chairman of the committee that awards the prize said that Mr. Carter's selection "must be interpreted as a criticism of the present U.S. administration." ...
But comments by the committee's chairman, Gunnar Berge, were expected to generate as much interest as Mr. Carter's selection. In remarks to reporters after the announcement, Mr. Berge said that Mr. Carter had been nominated for the peace prize "many, many times" but that a major reason that he was finally selected was that he represented a counterpoint to the militancy of President Bush." (See also: "Carter: 'I would have voted no'" (CNN:com, 2002/10/11): "Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter said Friday he would have voted against the Senate resolution giving President Bush the authority to use military force if necessary against Iraq. ... Carter said he recognizes that Saddam Hussein poses a real threat to the world, and some action must be taken. "I would have voted no had I been in the Senate," he told CNN's Larry King. 'I think it should all be done through the U.N. and not unilaterally by the United States.'")

"Interview with Yasser Arafat" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 428, 2002/10/11)
From an interview for the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, made by Saida Hamad: "Hamad: "Sari Nusseibah, in charge of the Jerusalem portfolio, signed a document with Israeli elements from the Left which includes abolishing the Palestinian refugees' right of return to their homes from which they were expelled."
Arafat: "No one can abolish the right of return. There is Resolution 194. I told them this officially in the [framework of] the agreements signed between them and us, and also to Sharon and Netanyahu at Wye River." ...
Hamad: ... "Do you think that the two agreements [regarding the Church of the Nativity crisis] were a mistake?"
Arafat: ... "Don't forget that difficult decisions are made in battle, but in the end what is most important is that a boy from among our boys and a girl from among our girls will wave the banner of Palestine over the churches, walls, and towers of Jerusalem. They see this as far, but we see it as coming, and truth is with us... 'They will enter the mosque as they entered it for the first time' (Koran, Al-Israa, 7)." ...
Hamad: "Today, on the pretext of cracks in the Western Wall of the Haram, the Sharon government is trying to intervene in the affairs of the Waqf."
Arafat: ... 'This is most dangerous. And it is not the first time. For 34 years they have dug tunnels, the most dangerous of which is the great tunnel. They found not a single stone proving that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine [at all].'"

"Mandela picks Iraq over U.S." (R.W. Johnson, National Post, 2002/10/11)
"Mandela has uttered stronger and stronger statements critical of Bush. ... When this failed to move Bush Jr., Mandela declared the U.S. threat of pre-emptive war to bring about regime change in Iraq meant that the United States, not Iraq, was now "a danger to world peace." He followed this up by announcing that "some people" were saying that the United States was flouting the United Nations' authority because Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, was a black man. Last week Mandela went further still, no longer putting such allegations in the mouths of "some people," but openly charging that the Bush administration was acting out of racist and white supremacist motives in not "obeying" Kofi Annan. 'No country, however powerful it may be, is entitled to act outside the UN. When UN secretaries-general were white we never had the question of any country ignoring the United Nations, but now that we have got black secretaries-general like Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan certain countries that believe in white supremacy are ignoring the UN for racist reasons.'"

"When I Hear "Arab Democracy," I Reach for My Seat Belt" (Martin Kramer, Sandstorm, 2002/10/11)
"The question: Should the United States promote liberal democracy in the Arab world after a victory in Iraq? (The presumption: The United States will replace Saddam with some semblance of a pluralistic order.) ...
Frankly, my eyes glaze over when I hear Condoleezza Rice, James Woolsey, and Tom Friedman wax eloquent on the coming "march of democracy" in the Arab world. (Woolsey to James Fallows in the current issue of The Atlantic: "This could be a golden opportunity to begin to change the face of the Arab world. Just as what we did in Germany changed the face of Central and Eastern Europe, here we have got a golden chance.") As a survivor of the Middle East peace process, which, we were told, would transform Israel, "Palestine," and Jordan into a Benelux, I smell snake oil. Of all the rationales for war, this one is the least substantial and the most ideological, and those who make it cast doubt on whether they fully understand the regional context in which an Iraq war might be fought. ...
The Iraq debate should be decided by the consideration of threats, threats, threats. It would be unfortunate were it to be sidetracked by promises, promises, promises." (See also: "Address to the 2002 Weinberg Founders Conference" (Martin Kramer, www.martinkramer.org, 2002/10/05))

"Remembrance of Things Past" (Victor David Hanson, National Review, 2002/10/11)
Hanson on "the German way": "That a self-righteous European socialist government trades with, rather than opposes, a Middle Eastern madman with weapons of mass destruction in a post-September 11 world is to be expected, rather than shocking, in these depressing times of the new amoral morality. ...
A more jaded skeptic would see in contemporary Germany socialism, pacifism, and relativism shades of a weak and decadent Weimar - with all the attendant extreme reactions to it looming on the horizon. We sadly expect residual anti-Semitism in Germany, but when ex-officials there complain of the power of American Jewish constituencies in New York and Miami, the awful subtext is, of course, that there is no such problem now in Germany, because... ...
So it turns out that Minister Däbler-Gmelin's allusions were Freudian: Which country, in fact, really did turn to nationalism - and anti-Semitism - to deflect domestic concern over a faltering economy and a reduced world influence? Had the German people turned out in droves to drive Schröder out, the entire fiasco would have disappeared, and we would have forgotten that prominent Germans were implying that we were fascists while opposing real fascists as they proclaimed their neutrality and traded profitably with fascists."

"Coward's Counsel" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2002/10/11)
"Self-appointed voices of conscience warn of tens of thousands of American dead. That's nonsense. And when those who despise the men and women in uniform invoke the welfare of our troops to further their failing agendas, they transcend the commonplace cynicism of Washington. This is hypocrisy as a moral disease. Our soldiers do not fear Saddam. I do not know a single man or woman in uniform who believes that our military will fail or suffer badly, should we go to war with Iraq. The best-informed insist we will hit the Iraqi regime with such overwhelming, unexpected fury that the world will be shocked by our effectiveness. And that is what Saddam's defenders fear, whether they are in the Middle East or in the middle of their congressional terms. This debate is about dogma, as philosophical derelicts attempt to salvage their homegrown anti-Americanism."

"Left Behind" (Jonathan V. Last, The Weekly Standard, 2002/10/11)
Last on yesterday's "Prominent Citizens Oppose War with Iraq" press conference: "The religious left, in the person of Linda Fuller, of Habitat for Humanity, asked, "Can you imagine the difference if we voted, as a nation, to pray for Osama bin Laden?" Fuller then recounted a story about her son. Evidently, when he was a young boy there was another kid in the neighborhood who always bullied him. Confronted with what to do about this bully, Fuller convinced her son to invite him to his birthday party. The bully came to the party, and afterwards, the two were fast friends. Paul Wolfowitz, take note. ...
The most memorable thing about the presentation of NOW's Olga Vivas was Vivas's job title. She's the "Action Vice President" at the National Organization for Women. (Is that like an action figure? Does she come with kung-fu grip? Shouldn't Dick Cheney demand the same title?) But she did have the best red meat of the day, saying that it isn't radical Islam, but rather "U.S. foreign policy" that "has already contributed to" the "oppression" of women in the Middle East. Besides, she asked, "Isn't there terror being inflicted on the women and children of the United States" by Bush's domestic policy?"

"Sontag Award Nominee" (The Daily Dish, 2002/10/11)
Sullivan quotes Glenda Gilmore, professor of history, Yale University: "It is not enough for Bush to be President of the United States, he must become the Emperor of the World. This unclothed emperor is, as they say in Texas, all hat and no brains. In the years before us, I fear there will be causes worth dying for. There will be tyrants so unstoppable that we will have to fight them to preserve our own freedom. But that is not the case now. Instead of standing up against tyranny, we are bringing it to our own doorstep. We have met the enemy, and it is us." (See also: "Variations on Iraq: Glenda Gilmore" (Glenda Gilmore, yaledailynews, 2002/10/11))

"Of pirates and terrorists" (Saul Singer, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/10/11)
"There is nothing militarily invincible about terrorism as we know it today. Governments have the ability to prevent terrorists, to a large degree, from operating from their territory, certainly with outside help. Terrorists depend, therefore, on having space under the political-diplomatic radar screen where they are safe from the much superior power of their enemies. Pirates, as historian Paul Johnson has pointed out, preyed on the civilized world in the 19th century until European states first took military action and then established bases and colonies to deny the piracy a safe haven. Then, as now, the question was less the power of nations against outlaws, but whether states were willing to use that power to deny those who threaten peace sanctuary. ...
Johnson notes that initially European states found it convenient to ransom their citizens from pirates rather than fight them. British admiral Horatio Nelson wrote, after being ordered not to carry out reprisals, "My blood boils that I cannot chastise these pirates." It was the US that broke this pattern by sending the marines across the Egyptian desert to force the Bey of Tripoli to surrender all American captives and sue for peace. Militant Islamic terrorists are ultimately out for domination, not loot and plunder. But the strategies of piracy and terrorism are similar: they rely first and foremost on their victims being too demoralized and hamstrung to fight back." (See also: "America and the Barbary Pirates: An International Battle Against an Unconventional Foe" (Gerard W. Gawalt, Library of Congress) and "21st-Century Piracy - The answer to terrorism? Colonialism" (Paul Johnson, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/10/06))

"Arab Press Reacts to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's Statements on Democracy and Freedom" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 427, 2002/10/11)
"In a recent interview with the Financial Times, National Security Advisor to President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, stated that the United States wishes to bring democracy and freedom to the Arab world. In response, a number of Arab newspapers harshly criticized National Security Advisor Rice, often focusing on her African-American heritage. ...
The Jordanian daily Al-Dustour wrote that National Security Advisor Rice claims that ... 'She is ignoring more than one and a half billion Muslims who suffer from America's greed and oppression and from its cruel and visible war against Islam and Muslims. ... O Muslims, here is America invading you with its steel, its fire and its oppression. Its bloodthirsty individuals, the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice and Sharon, are carrying to you death, destruction, devastation, enslavement and evil which will start in Iraq after they have suppressed Afghanistan and Palestine, and will end, if we do not protect ourselves, in the last piece of land in our extended Muslim world which will be converted into a gigantic Guantanamo extending from one ocean to another.'"

"Pakistani Fundamentalists Do Well in Election" (David Rohde, The New York Times, 2002/10/11)
"Both Islamic fundamentalists and secular opponents of President Pervez Musharraf appeared to fare well in national elections on Thursday, in a vote that could complicate the American-led campaign against terrorism, according to unofficial results released early today. ...
A new party backed by General Musharraf appeared to be running second or third, behind the two mainstream parties - both led by former prime ministers living in exile and barred from returning for Thursday's vote. A coalition of six fundamentalist religious parties running on vehemently anti-American platforms appeared headed for their strongest showing ever in the first vote for a parliament since 1993, winning as many as 30 seats and making them the third or fourth largest party in the assembly. ...
At the same time, the fundamentalist parties have vowed to throw American troops and F.B.I. agents out of Pakistan, establish Islamic law and reverse the general's support for the United States. Their apparently strong showing stunned many Pakistani experts."

"Congress Passes Iraq Resolution" (Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, 2002/10/11)
"The House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to grant President Bush the power to attack Iraq unilaterally, remove Saddam Hussein from power and abolish that country's nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry. Moving the nation closer to a possible second war with Iraq, 77 of 100 senators and 296 of 435 House members voted to authorize the president to "use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." The president needs no further congressional approval to deploy troops, order airstrikes and wage a ground war with Iraq. "The gathering threat of Iraq must be confronted fully and finally," Bush said after the House vote yesterday afternoon . 'The days of Iraq acting as an outlaw state are coming to an end.'" (See also the resolution: "Congressional Joint Resolution to Authorize Use of Force Against Iraq" (The Washington Post, 2002/10/11))

 

Thursday, October 10, 2002

News and commentary:

"Slave State" (Robert Kaplan, The New Republic, 2002/10/10)
"Where are all the humanitarian interventionists now? After all, throughout the 1990s they beat the war drums for military intervention against Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, who is responsible for the deaths of only one-quarter as many people as Saddam Hussein. In the vast network of prisons, torture chambers, and poison-gas fields of Iraq and its border areas, Saddam bears responsibility for the deaths of a million people. ... Saddam is not just another dictator with whom we have to live. On a moral plane, even by the dismal standards of the Middle East, he is sui generis. The degree of repression is so severe in Iraq that whenever I would journey from Saddam's Iraq to Hafez al-Assad's Syria in the 1980s, it was like coming up for liberal humanist air. ...
Three years earlier [1983], an American technician for Baghdad's Novotel hotel, Robert Spurling, had been taken away from his wife and daughters at Saddam International Airport and tortured for four months with electric shock, brass knuckles, and wooden bludgeons. His toes were crushed and his toenails ripped out. He was kept in solitary confinement on a starvation diet. Finally, American diplomats won his release. Multiply his story by thousands, and you will have an idea what Iraq is like to this day - at least, that is, until a Western leader has the gumption to stop it. ... Invading Iraq would be a humanitarian intervention if ever there were one." (Note: Thanks again to Barry Kaplovitz for the pointer.)

"The Beleaguered Christians of the Palestinian-controlled Areas" (David Raab, IMRA, 2002/10/11)
A very interesting study, with historical as well as contemporary examples: "Despite their beleaguerment, Palestinian Christians do not speak out about their situation. Indeed, some seem to go out of their way to profess unity and harmony with Palestinian Moslems. ...
Yet, as Hanan Shlein writes in Ma'ariv, while "out of fear for their safety, Christian spokesmen aren't happy to be identified by name when they complain about the Muslims' treatment of them, ... off the record they talk of harassment and terror tactics, mainly from the gangs of thugs who looted and
plundered Christians and their property, under the protection of Palestinian security personnel." In fact, the Christians' silence may be precisely because they are a beleaguered minority with a long history of dhimmitude. ...
What may be surprising is the extent to which this condition has taken some Palestinian Christians: denigration of non-Palestinian Christians. As Father Manuel Musalam, head of the Latin Church in Gaza, told Palestinian Authority Television: 'Therefore I, the Christian Palestinian, say in all rage and daring to the Christians of the world: You are loathsome! You are contemptible!... [We Palestinian Christians] are facing the filthy Christians of the West. ... What kind of Christianity is this? This is not Christianity; it is not even paganism. This is Christianity of the jungle. Our New Testament is not their New Testament, our Jesus is not their Jesus. ... I will say still more: Our God is not their God.'" (See also: "State Department blasted for lauding PA's 'religious tolerance'" (Melissa Radler, The Jerusalem Post/IMRA, 2002/10/09): "Is the Palestinian Authority a model for religious tolerance? According to the State Department's annual International Religious Freedom report, the PA "generally respects religious freedom in practice," it "attempts to foster goodwill among religious leaders" and it 'makes a strong effort to maintain good relations with the Christian community.'")

"Oriana's Screed" (Rod Dreher, National Review, 2002/10/10)
Dreher on Oriana Fallaci's "The Rage and the Pride": "The best way to approach The Rage and the Pride is to imagine its author standing on the blasted heath of the World Trade Center ruins, hurling curses at her enemies like thunderbolts. And who are her enemies? Chiefly Muslims, who in Fallaci's view adhere to a barbaric religion in which there is no important distinction between terrorists and the mainstream. Fallaci has scarcely more regard for contemporary Europeans, who she considers spoiled, decadent, intellectually corrupt, and incapable of perceiving the threat to Western civilization posed by Islam, much less able to defend the West against it. ...
Fallaci is at her best tearing into the "masochists" of Europe, whose sentimental and self-hating worldview "reveres the invaders and slanders the defenders, absolves the delinquents and condemns the victims, weeps for the Taliban and curses the Americans, forgives the Palestinians for every wrong and the Israelis for nothing." ...
Yesterday in Paris, judges took up a motion filed by a coalition of Islamic and anti-racism groups, who are requesting in part that The Rage and the Pride be banned in France under a law intended to curb Holocaust denial. The trial is extremely important to the immediate future of Europe, and how it will deal with the clash of civilizations, which is much more intense there than most Americans can imagine. As a Fallaci lawyer said to her enemies, 'Today the real danger is green [Islamic] fascism - and you want to forbid us to denounce it!'" (See also: "Fallaci goes on trial for anti-Muslim book" (Elizabeth Bryant, UPI, 2002/10/09))

"Mother of all election frauds will make plotters stop and think" (Ian Cobain, The Times, 2002/10/10)
"There will be no manifesto, no televised debates and the outcome is a foregone conclusion because there will be only one candidate. Iraq is consumed, nonetheless, by a bizarre brand of election fever as it prepares to re-elect President Saddam Hussein. In a ploy that has been condemned by opposition groups as the "mother of all election frauds", Saddam is staging a referendum next Tuesday in an attempt to legitimise his iron rule. Nearly 11.5 million voters in this country of 23 million people will be asked to answer "yes" or "no" to one simple question: do you agree that Saddam should remain President? In a similar exercise seven years ago, Saddam, who seized power in 1969, won 99.89 per cent of the votes cast. Voters had to write their names on their ballot papers and voted under the gaze of election officials. There were reports of reluctant Iraqis being threatened if they failed to vote. ...
Party officials have chosen the Whitney Houston song I Will Always Love You as the campaign theme tune. The song accompanies the dawn-to-dusk election broadcasts on the three state-controlled television stations, which feature almost continuous footage of Saddam. He is shown praying, kissing children, firing an ancient rifle one-handed, waving to the masses and striking heroic poses."

"Germans 'shopped for guns for Iraq'" (Roger Boyes, The Times, 2002/10/10)
"Germany's role in helping to rearm Iraq will come under fresh scrutiny after two businessmen were accused of acquiring equipment for President Saddam Hussein’s much-coveted supercannon. The arrests underline fears that Saddam's network has been actively shopping on the world's black markets despite a 12-year United Nations embargo on arms imports. The prosecutor's office in Mannheim confirmed yesterday that two Germans would be tried in January for shipping drilling tools to Iraq via Jordan. "The equipment was exported to Jordan solely to avoid compliance with the embargo on military shipments to Iraq," Hubert Jobski, a prosecutor, said. The drills can be used to manufacture the tubes of Iraq's planned al-Fao supercannon, which could fire shells armed with atomic, biological or chemical agents up to 35 miles. The equipment was delivered between April 1999 and December 2000, which suggests that Baghdad has been actively constructing its supercannon. It is not known if any have been built."

"U.S. Indicts Head of Islamic Charity in Qaeda Financing" (Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times, 2002/10/10)
"The leader of a prominent Islamic charity was indicted on conspiracy and racketeering charges today in Chicago in what officials said was the most significant criminal case that federal officials have brought as they seek to shut down Al Qaeda's terrorist money pipeline. The man, Enaam M. Arnaout, 40, a father of four from suburban Chicago, faces up to 90 years in prison if convicted on the seven counts in the federal indictment, which alleges that his charity, the Benevolence International Foundation, was a financial front for Osama bin Laden's terrorist activities. Benevolence International, which is based in Chicago, has raised tens of millions of dollars over the years for what it maintains are strictly humanitarian relief efforts worldwide. But in announcing the indictment, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in Chicago, 'In fact, funds were being used to support Al Qaeda and other groups engaged in armed violence overseas.'"

 

Wednesday, October 9, 2002

News and commentary:

"Eurabia" (Bat Yeor, National Review, 2002/10/09)
"America should not choose European ways: the road back to Munich via appeasement, collaboration, and dhimmitude. For decades at the instigation of France, Europe backed Arafat - the godfather of modern terrorism - as the champion of liberty, and their hero. After the Yom Kippur War and the Arab oil blackmail in 1973, the then-European Community (EC) created a structure of Cooperation and Dialogue with the Arab League. The Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) began as a French initiative composed of representatives from the EC and Arab League countries. ...
The EAD was the vehicle for legitimizing the propaganda of the PLO, procuring it international diplomatic recognition, and conferring on Arafat's terrorist movement honor and international stature by supporting Arafat's address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 13, 1974 . Through the labyrinth of the EAD system, a policy of Israel's delegitimization was planned at both the EC's national and international levels. ...
The cogs created by the EAD led the EC (later the European Union) to tolerate Palestinian terrorism on its own territory, to justify it, and finally to finance Palestinian infrastructure - later to become the Palestinian Authority - and hate-mongering educational system. The ministers and intellectuals who have created Eurabia deny the current wave of criminal attacks against European Jews, which they, themselves, have inspired. ...
The cracks between Europe and America reveal the divergences between the choice of liberty and the road back to Munich on which the European Union continues to caper to new Arab-Islamic tunes, now called "occupation," "peace and justice," and "immigrants' rights" - themes which were composed for Israel's burial. And for Europe's demise."

"Goodbye, All That: How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee" (Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer, 2002/10/09)
A must-read farewell to the lunatic left: "Until finally, the coup de grâce - the Big Idiocy, the idiocy di tutti idiocies. It came from the very well-respected and influential academic, who said that there was at least one thing that was to be welcomed about 9/11: It might give Americans the impetus to do "what the Germans had done in the 60's" - make an honest reassessment of their past and its origins, as a way to renewal. Reassessment of our past: Clearly he was speaking admiringly of the 60's generation in Germany coming to terms with its Nazi past, with Germany’s embrace of Hitler. At that point, having sat silently through an accumulation of self-hating anti-Americanism, I couldn't take it any more. ...
...We should be grateful for 9/11 because it would allow us to reassess our shameful, even Nazi-like, past? "Isn't there an implicit analogy you're making between America and Nazi Germany?" I asked. "It's just an analogy," he said. Well, goodbye to all that, goodbye to the entire mind-set behind it: the inability to distinguish America's sporadic blundering depradations (dissent from which was sometimes successful) from "Germany's past," Hitlerism. It was "just an analogy." ...
The silence of the Left, or the exclusive focus of the Left, on America's alleged crimes over the past half-century, the disdainful sneering at America's deplorable "Cold War mentality" - none of this has to be reassessed in light of the evidence of genocides that surpassed Hitler's, all in the name of a Marxist ideology. ...
Goodbye to people who have demonstrated that what terror means to them is the terror of ever having to admit they were wrong, the terror of allowing the hideous facts of history to impinge upon their insulated ideology."

"Fallaci goes on trial for anti-Muslim book" (Elizabeth Bryant, UPI, 2002/10/09)
"A second author Wednesday went to trial in Paris in as many months on charges of inciting racial hatred for a book that has denigrating passages on Islam. The latest case involves "Rage and Pride," a best-selling novel by Italian writer Oriana Fallaci. One plaintiff, the anti-racist group MRAP, wants the book banned from France altogether. Two others, including the Human Rights League, simply want disclaimers that its disparaging passages on Islam don't accurately reflect the Muslim religion. ... "When one finishes reading the book, one recognizes the right to kill any Muslim on the street," argued Hacen Taleb, the lawyer representing MRAP, in a statement to the court. ...
The Fallaci trial echoes another opened last month against controversial French novelist Michel Houellebecq. Like Fallaci, Houllebecq faces charges of "provoking discrimination, hatred or violence" toward a group because of their religion."

"Banality in the courtroom" (Scot Lehigh, The Boston Globe, 2002/10/09)
Lehigh on the Richard Reid case: "Second, for those who believe that America brings terrorism on itself, those whose implicit premise is that if only we changed our ways, we'd have no trouble with the world, the case of the shoebomber should be revealing. Through his interrogation and e-mails, we've learned his bill of particulars against the United States. Democratic countries, he told prosecutors, are contrary to God's will. ''This is a war between Islam and democracy,'' he e-mailed his mother. A society that permits homosexuality and sex outside marriage (and that is marred by alcoholism and drug addiction) also violates God's will, he believed. And, of course, he loathed the United States because without it, he thought, Israel could not exist. And because there are US troops in the Middle East. That's the outlook of radical Islam: Extreme, irrational, medieval, antipathetic to modernity. It would be a mark of intellectual clarity for America's critics to recognize that mindset for exactly what it is." (Note: Thanks to Barry Kaplovitz for the pointer. See also: "Shoe Bomb Suspect Pleads Guilty" (Denise Lavoie, AP/Excite News, 2002/10/04))

"UNC-CH Groups Resume Anti-War Events" (Jon Sanders, Carolina Journal, from the October 2002 issue)
Sanders on a recent anti-war "teach-in": "[Stan] Goff's message is that the "military-petroleum regime" of the Bush administration planned before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to invade Afghanistan to tap oil reserves there and exert U.S. control over South Asia. "I can't help but conclude that the actions we are seeing put in motion now are part of a pre-September 11th agenda," Goff has written. "I'm absolutely sure of it, in fact... This administration is lying about this whole thing being a 'reaction' to September 11th." In October Goff told an audience at N.C. State that the U.S. was really in Afghanistan to build an oil pipeline from the Aral Sea to the Indian Ocean, and also because "the CIA needs the heroin from Afghanistan to fund its global operation." The hidden-economic-agenda-behind-the-war is a message Goff, a Marxist, has recycled since the U.S. intervened in Yugoslavia. As a member of the "International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosovic," Goff has put forth the notion that the well-documented July 1995 Srebenica massacre was a "giant hoax" orchestrated by the U.S. in order to wage "economic warfare" - that "Milosevic is no war criminal" nor "a dictator," and that there 'was never any coordinated campaign of genocide or ethnic cleansing by Serbs, no massacres at either Racek or Srebrenica, and never any such thing as Serbian 'rape camps.''" (See also: "Transcript of Sept. 23 UNC-Chapel Hill Teach-In" (Carolina Journal, from the October 2002 issue))

"Tape Threatens More Attacks on U.S." (Audrey Woods, AP/The Washington Post, 2002/10/09)
"In a taped interview, a speaker purported to be Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, threatens new attacks on the United States, its allies and its economy. ... In the recording, an unidentified person interviewed the speaker said to be al-Zawahri, who issued a warning to what he called "the deputies of America," to get out of the Muslim world, specifically Germany and France. ...
"As for America itself, it should expect to be treated the same way it has acted," the man on the tape says, pointing to suffering of Muslims in Afghanistan and in the Palestinian territories. 'It will have to pay the price. ...
The settlement of this overburdened account will then indeed be heavy. We will also aim to continue, by permission of Allah, the destruction of the American economy. ...
We advise them to make a hasty retreat from Palestine, the Arabian Gulf, Afghanistan and the rest of the Muslim states, before they lose everything.'"

 

Tuesday, October 8, 2002

News and commentary:

"Kuwaiti Gunmen Attack U.S. Troops" (Diana Elias/AP, Yahoo! News, 2002/10/08)
"Two Kuwaiti gunmen in a pickup truck attacked U.S. Marines during war games in Kuwait Tuesday - killing one and injuring a second - before the attackers were shot dead when they raced off to fire on a second group of troops. A brief statement by the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry said the incident was "a terrorist act." It identified the two attackers as Anas al-Kandari, born in 1981, and Jassem al-Hajiri, born in 1976. ...
The assailants, wearing civilian clothes, drove up to Marines in a pickup truck, stopped and opened fire with small arms, Pentagon officials said in Washington. The attackers apparently then drove to another site, stopping and shooting again before being killed by Marines who returned fire."

"Our Way" (Fareed Zakaria, The New Yorker, from the 2002/10/14 issue)
"A world with just one major power is unprecedented. ... Imperial Britain, which at its peak reigned over a quarter of the world's population, is the closest analogy to the United States today, but it is still an inadequate one. ...
But today, with no alternative ideology and no competitors, America stands alone in the world. Everyone else sits in its shadow. This doesn't mean that other countries will form military alliances against America; that would be pointless. But countries will obstruct American purposes whenever and in whatever way they can, and the pursuit of American interests will have to be undertaken through coercion rather than consensus. Anti-Americanism will become the global language of political protest - the default ideology of opposition - unifying the world's discontents and malcontents, some of whom, as we have discovered, can be very dangerous. ...
America remains the universal nation, the country people across the world believe should speak for universal values. Its image may not be as benign as Americans think, but it is, in the end, better than the alternatives. That is what has made America's awesome power tolerable to the world for so long. The belief that America is different is its ultimate source of strength. If we mobilize all our awesome powers and lose this one, we will have hegemony - but will it be worth having?"

"Harry Belafonte slams Colin Powell as race sellout" (Matt Drudge, Drudge Report, 2002/10/08)
Harry Belafonte, of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" fame, compares "Ashcroft's tactics to the McCarthy era", lauds the Durban Conference and says Powell is like a "house slave": "Belafonte, appearing on San Diego's 760 KFMB, told host Ted Leitner that Powell was like a plantation slave who moves into the slave owner's house and only says what his master wants him to say. "There's an old saying," Belafonte began. "In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master... exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. 'Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.'"

"Two versions of one story" (Natalie Solent, nataliesolent.blogspot.com, 2002/10/08)
Solent on a case of "religious hatred": "'An engineer was convicted yesterday of religiously abusive behaviour after insulting a Muslim neighbour who hailed September 11 as a "great day", praised Osama bin Laden as a "great man", and thought all Americans "deserved to die". Alistair Scott, 33, is believed to be the first person to be found guilty of the new offence designed to outlaw religious hatred.' ...
The new "religious hatred" law is an outrage. The history of free speech in this country is the history of winning the freedom to argue about religion. I could have sworn this obnoxious clause had been dropped, after widespread criticism. Apparently I was wrong." (See also: "Neighbour convicted of religious abuse" (Richard Savill, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/04))

"PLO's Qaddumi Says PLO No Longer Recognizes Israel" (IMRA, 2002/10/08)
"In the strongest Palestinian reaction to the practices of Ari'el Sharon's government toward the Palestinians, Palestinian Foreign Minister [as published] Faruq Qaddumi has stated that the PLO no longer recognizes Israel and adheres to its national charter, which includes clauses that call for Israel's destruction. ...
In exclusive remarks to Al-Bayan yesterday morning in Dubai, Qaddumi said that the massacres committed by the Israeli troops against the Palestinians must be met with massacres against the Israelis at the hands of the Palestinians. He praised all types of military operations carried out by the Palestinian resistance fighters against Israelis. Qaddumi's remarks are the first of this kind by a senior Palestinian official in the PLO since the signing of the Oslo agreement. Qaddumi is one of the most prominent aides of Palestinian President Arafat, who is besieged in Ramallah."

"The Next Hotbed Of Islamic Radicalism" (Paul Marshall, The Washington Post, 2002/10/08)
"Since Nigeria's independence, sharia has regulated family and personal law, but the newer versions, introduced largely from the Middle East, are far more restrictive and wider in scope. Since 1999, Zamfara state has required "Islamic" dress and sexually segregated public transportation. It has banned alcohol and closed churches and non-Muslim schools. These regulations are enforced by hizbah (religious police). In July the governor, Ahmed Sani, announced that all residents, including non-Muslims, must begin using Arabic, a language few speak. ...
The governor has said that sharia supersedes the Nigerian constitution and indicated that Islam requires Muslims to kill any apostate, which could include a Muslim seeking a trial in a civil court. Ruud Peters, who reported on Nigeria's sharia for the European Commission, fears that the new laws are "irreversible," because anyone trying to change them could be charged with attacking Islam. This extreme version of sharia is provoking the worst violence since Nigeria's civil war 30 years ago. In the past three years, some 6,000 people have been killed in sharia-related conflict nationwide. ...
This type of sharia is more typical of extreme Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran but has been spreading in Africa, to Sudan, Somalia and now Nigeria. Saudi and Sudanese, as well as Palestinian and Syrian, representatives have visited Nigeria's sharia states and offered them aid."

"Suicide Bomber's Father: Let Hamas and Jihad Leaders Send Their Own Sons" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 426, 2002/10/08)
From a letter to the editor of the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, by Abu Saber M. G., the father of a young Palestinian who carried out a suicide bombing: "Four months ago, I lost my eldest son when his friends tempted him, praising the path of death. They persuaded him to blow himself up in one of Israel's cities. ...
From the blood of the wounded heart of a father who has lost what is most precious to him in the world, I turn to the leaders of the Palestinian factions, and at their head the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their sheikhs, who use religious rulings and statements to urge more and more of the sons of Palestine to their deaths – knowing full well that sending young people to blow themselves up in the heart of Israel deters no enemy and liberates no land. ...
I ask, on my behalf and on behalf of every father and mother informed that their son has blown himself up: 'By what right do these leaders send the young people, even young boys in the flower of their youth, to their deaths?' Who gave them religious or any other legitimacy to tempt our children and urge them to their deaths? ...
Why doesn't a single one of the leaders who cannot restrain himself in expressing his joy and ecstasy on the satellite channels every time a young Palestinian man or woman sets out to blow himself or herself up send his son? ... The moment the Intifada broke out, Al-Zahar sent his son Khaled to America; Abu Shanab sent his son Hassan to Britain; and [as she stated to the press], Rantisi's wife has refrained from sending her son Muhammad to blow himself up. Instead, she sent him to Iraq, to complete his studies there."

"Four dead as Hamas, PA clash" (Lamia Lahoud, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/10/08)
"Hamas gunmen and Palestinian police fired on each other in a deadly fight in Gaza City Monday afternoon, after a group of masked Hamas gunmen killed the commander of the Palestinian riot police in Gaza earlier in the day. Palestinian security sources said Hamas activist Imad al-Aql killed Col. Rajeh Abu Lahiya, 47, in revenge for the death of his brother and two other Hamas members at the hands of PA riot police on October 8, 2001. Hamas militants disguised as police officers reportedly set up a check point and stopped Abu Lahiya's car. They commandeered the car, drove it to a nearby Hamas-controlled neighborhood, and ordered Abu Lahiya out. Then they shot him dead and wounded his two bodyguards, a police statement said."

"Bush Cites Iraqi Threat Posed to U.S. and Allies" (David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 2002/10/08)
"President Bush declared tonight that Saddam Hussein could attack the United States or its allies "on any given day" with chemical or biological weapons. In a forceful argument for disarming Iraq or going to war with that country, he argued that "we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring." ... Building his case, the president charged for the first time that Iraq's fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles was ultimately intended to deliver chemical and biological weapons to cities in the United States. ... He called Mr. Hussein a dictator, "a student of Stalin" and a murderer, and most important described no solution other than Mr. Hussein's permanent removal from office that would end the confrontation." (See also: "President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2002/10/08): "I hope this will not require military action, but it may. And military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures. If Saddam Hussein orders such measures, his generals would be well advised to refuse those orders. If they do not refuse, they must understand that all war criminals will be pursued and punished. If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is possible. We will plan carefully; we will act with the full power of the United States military; we will act with allies at our side, and we will prevail.")

Added in Author index:
Jeffrey Goldberg

Added in archive:
"The 2002 Wriston Lecture: A Balance of Power That Favors Freedom" (Condoleezza Rice, MI, 2002/10/01)
"Behind Mubarak" (Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, 2001/10/29)
"Nowhere Man" (Fouad Ajami, The New York Times Magazine, 2001/10/07)

 

Monday, October 7, 2002

News and commentary:

"Terror, the ultimate recyclable resource" (Bradley Burston, Haaretz, 2002/10/07)
"Palestinian gunners marked the departure of the Israeli force by firing three mortar shells at nearby settlements. Israeli military sources later told CNN that the military had traced the mortar source to the hospital, which then took IDF assault rifle fire, wounding at least eight other people. ...
Urging Fatah movement's Al Aqsa Brigades, the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other militant groups to join in a wave of terror attacks against Israelis, Hamas official Abed al Aziz Rantisi was quoted by Israel Radio as declaring, 'This is an appeal from the heart ...
Strike everywhere, kill every Zionist wherever he comes from, whether from America or Russia, they are all murderers and criminals, and not a single one of them is an innocent... Anyone who calls for negotiations with Israel is a criminal.'" (See also: "U.S. calls for military investigation of IDF Gaza raid" (Amos Harel and Arnon Regular, Haaretz, 2002/10/07): "Fourteen Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when IDF tanks backed by helicopters raided a Palestinian neighborhood in the Gaza Strip early Monday morning, with the Palestinians insisting all were civilians, and the IDF equally adamant that all but one were armed militants. ... "They made this massacre against our people," Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat said at the start of a meeting in his West Bank headquarters with Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief.")

"But It Is Genocide, Bob" (Jeffrey Goldberg, Slate, 2002/10/07)
A terrific post by Goldberg in the ongoing "Should the U.S. Invade Iraq?" discussion: "I left Pakistan and Afghanistan believing that America had done nothing to alienate the Taliban or these madrasah boys: Their hate was independent of American action. In fact, these fundamentalists owed the United States their thanks: It was the United States that supported them during the fight against the Soviets; the food many of them ate came to them courtesy of USAID, and many of the men I met who spoke English learned their English from American teachers, funded by American taxpayers. Their hatred of America, I realized, was rooted in their culture, in the theology of Islamic supremacy, in their jealousy and rage at American success. ...
It was after a couple of months in Pakistan and Afghanistan that I began to realize that these forces of Islamic fundamentalism had already declared war on us; that there was nothing left for us to do but fight them; and that by not fighting them, we were convincing them we were without virtue, strength, or courage." (See also Goldberg's original article on Pakistani madrasas: "Inside Jihad U.: The Education of a Holy Warrior" (Jeffrey Goldberg, The New York Times Magazine, 2000/06/25))

"Party of God" (The New Yorker, 2002/10/07)
An interview with Jeffrey Goldberg on his article about Hezbollah, "In the Party of God", which isn't available online yet: "That said, something new is happening in the Arab world - namely, the melding of Arab nationalist-based anti-Zionism, anti-Jewish rhetoric from the Koran, and, most disturbingly, the antique anti-Semitic beliefs and conspiracy theories of European Fascism. Add Holocaust denial, which is also becoming popular in the Arab world, and you have a dangerous new ideology, an ideology that Hezbollah, despite its assertions that it has nothing against Jews as Jews, propounds quite vigorously."

"Deadly Mistakes" (Oliver Schröm, Die Zeit/Shark Blog, 2002/10/07)
Stefan Sharkansky's translation of an article from Die Zeit on intelligence failures pre-9/11: "But it in fact also illustrates the failure of the CIA, which learned that terror attacks were being planned 18 months before September 11, yet didn't take any action against the terrorists. ... The commission uncovers new details almost daily, slowly turning grim hunches into certitude: The CIA could have prevented the September 11 attacks if systematic errors hadn't been made. ...
Langley, August 23, 2001. The Israeli Mossad intelligence agency handed its American counterpart a list of names of terrorists who were staying in the US and were presumably planning to launch an attack in the foreseeable future. According to documents obtained by Die ZEIT, Mossad agents in the US were in all probability surveilling at least four of the 19 hijackers, among them al-Midhar. The CIA now does what it should have done 18 months earlier. It informs the State Dept., the FBI and the INS. ... Now that he reads this name in the investigation file, with the note that al-Midhar was implicated in the Cole attack, the FBI agent became angry with his CIA colleagues. They had previously withheld this detail from him. But his anger increases when his own headquarters declines to give him additional support. The attorneys at the FBI's National Security Law Unit made very clear that the law prescribes a strict wall between intelligence and police investigations. And the search for al-Midhar has now returned to being an intelligence matter. "someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems'." one frustrated FBI agent writes to his headquarters on August 29, 2001." (See also the original article: "Tödliche Fehler" (Oliver Schröm, Die Zeit, 2002/10/02))

"Cardinal Puljic's Cautions About Islam" (Zenit News Agency, 2002/10/07)
An interview with Cardinal Vinko Puljic, archbishop of Sarajevo, "on the difficulty of coexistence with Islam": Q: How are relations between Catholics and Muslims in Bosnia?
Cardinal Puljic: Ten years ago, before the war, they were very good. However, from that moment, the situation has changed. The first sign was the arrival of humanitarian aid from Arab countries: It was distributed only to Muslims; it was prohibited to give it to Christians. Our Caritas, instead, made no ethnic or religious distinctions; everyone could benefit. However for them, the aid was a means to promote the Islamization of society.
Q: Does this process continue today?
Cardinal Puljic: Of course. ... A massive propaganda financed by Iran, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia has also been launched - propaganda that at times does not spare harsh attacks on the Christian religion. I must say that the chief ulema of the Muslim community of Bosnia has condemned these periodic attacks. Nevertheless, they cause concern. ...
Q: In your opinion, what should Europe do in face of Islam?
Cardinal Puljic: I'm afraid Europe still doesn't know Islam well. It must wake up, not to launch new crusades but to be aware of the new challenge. Muslims in Europe must be respected in their identity, as every religion must be in countries of Muslim majority. However, there must be insistence on the principle of reciprocity, it is a fundamental point. Europe itself is at stake, which cannot give up respect for liberty and the rights of the individual. And Bosnia, let this be clear, is in Europe." (Note: Found via The Corner.)

"Saddam's Evil Luxury Lairs" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2002/10/07)
"These are the secret palaces of Saddam Hussein - the mystery structures at the heart of the battle over weapons inspection in Iraq. They're like no other buildings on earth - each believed to be a bizarre combination of luxury resort, death camp and weapons factory, with gold-plated faucets, gourmet kitchens, torture chambers and biological, chemical or nuclear manufacturing facilities. ...
They boast dolphin pools, exotic birds, hunting ranges and even amusement parks. With water a symbol of success in the Arab world, the palaces are surrounded by giant manmade lakes. They have Olympic-size swimming pools and massive water fountains that use foreign pumps - which Iraq says it needs to ease draught conditions, but can't get because of export restrictions. The palaces are decorated in Italian marble and crystal chandeliers. Meals are made from food flown in from Europe."

"Park Peace Protest Is Riddled With Anti-Semitism" (Daphna Berman, The New York Sun, 2002/10/07)
"The anti-war demonstration in Central Park yesterday, one of several across the country over the weekend, was riddled with anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment, and in some cases classical anti-Semitism, as thousand of protesters assembled for what was ostensibly a show of harmless political dissent. Estimates of the number of protesters in New York ranged between 3,000 and 10,000, with people arriving from throughout the tri-state area. Many combined their opposition to President Bush's plans for a pre-emptive attack on Iraq with hostility to Israel. ...
The rally was organized by a group called Not In Our Name, which has produced a statement signed by liberal luminaries such as playwright Tony Kushner, feminist Gloria Steinem, and "politics of meaning" champion Michael Lerner of Tikkun magazine. ...
Ayman Asawa, who called himself a peace activist, agreed. "Bush is more Israeli than the Israelis themselves. He is a puppet of the Zionists [who] control the media, the government and the economy. The Jews' book - the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - explains how they control the world and how they make people fight against each other." His reference was to a notorious Russian forgery that has been a centerpiece of anti-Semitism since Czarist times. "The American government," Mr. Asawa said, uttering another allegation frequently heard from anti-Semites, 'is controlled by corporations and the corporations are controlled by Zionism.'"

"The Voice of Osama" (James S. Robbins, National Review, 2002/10/07)
"But whether or not it originated with the comeback kid himself, the tape can be taken as a definitive al Qaeda policy statement, a declaration that as far as they are concerned the war is ongoing. The speaker addresses the American people, to whom he speaks as "an honest adviser." He gives us one last chance to mend our ways, by which he means rejecting our "dry, miserable, and spiritless materialistic life" and converting to Islam. He also tells us that we have not learned the lessons from the "New York and Washington raids," namely that "the aggressor deserves punishment." (In fact, we do know that, we just disagree with him on the specifics of who the aggressor is.) He notes that because the U.S. is facilitating the "impending partition of the Islamic world ... the youth of Islam are preparing things that will fill your hearts with fear. They will target key sectors of your economy until you stop your injustice and aggression or until the more short-lived of us die." The speaker's emphasis on economic targets mirrors the same strategic focus enunciated in the last confirmed bin Laden videotape from last December." (See also: "Voice on tape said to be bin Laden's" (CNN.com, 2002/10/06))

"Who Elected the U.N.?" (Robert L. Bartley, OpinionJornal, 2002/10/07)
"A moral exemplar it most emphatically is not, however. Its moral standing and moral record deserve to be rehearsed just now. Whatever its pretensions, and however much they're cheered by the limp-minded, in fact the U.N. is the epicenter of world cynicism. Here idealistic rhetoric is routinely invoked on behalf of power politics and often sheer tyranny. In extenuation, it could scarcely be otherwise. ...
Under the principle of "state sovereignty," each of these 191 nations has the same vote as any other. ...
Another 59, with 24% of the world's population, were "partly free," with significant but abridged rights - in particular one-party political systems. The remaining 48 countries, or 35% of the world's people, were "not free," with no consent of the governed or respect for the individual. The United Nations is what you get when you have this melange send representatives, confine them in a hothouse on the East River, stir briskly, and tell them to go forth to solve the great issues of the world. In the political pushing and shoving, too, some nations follow Marquess of Queensbury rules and others do not. Left to its own devices, the cacophony produces a contorted consensus."

"Susan Sontag Nominee" (The Daily Dish, 2002/10/07)
Sullivan quotes the American novelist Philip Roth: "Language is always a lie; above all, public language. McCarthy used a certain language to hunt communists. That which was used against Clinton is a bit more sophisticated. As for Bush, it's ventriloquists who make him speak." (See also: "Philip Roth attacks 'orgy of narcissism' post Sept 11" (Sam Leith, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/05): "'What we are witnessing since September 11 is an orgy of national narcissism and a gratuitous victim mentality which is repugnant,' he said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro. ... To the much-repeated suggestion that America "lost her innocence" after September 11, Mr Roth said: 'What innocence? From 1668 to 1865 this country had slavery; and from 1865 to 1955 was a society existing under a brutal segregation. I don't really know what these people are talking about.'")

"Saddam's inner circle is defecting, say Iraqi exiles" (Anton La Guardia, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/07)
"Saddam Hussein's power base is coming under extreme pressure, with members of his inner circle defecting to the opposition or making discreet offers of peace in the hope of being spared retribution if the Baghdad dictator is toppled, according to Iraqi exiles. Ayad al-Awi, the head of the opposition Iraqi National Accord, said his group in recent weeks had received senior defectors from the Iraqi security services, which form the regime's nerve centre. At the same time Kurdish groups said they had received secret approaches from military commanders offering to turn their weapons on Saddam when the war began."

"IDF raids Hamas stronghold in Gaza, killing 14 and wounding 136" (Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/10/07)
"Soldiers backed by tanks and helicopters raided a Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis Monday morning, killing 14 Palestinians and wounding 136, in the deadliest Israeli strike in three months. ...
In one incident, a helicopter fired a missile into a crowd, killing eight people, Palestinian sources said. Military sources said the helicopter fire was aimed at a group of Palestinians near a mosque, and that armed Palestinians were hit. However, the sources acknowledged there were civilian casualties as well. The target of the predawn raid, the Amal neighborhood, was not chosen randomly but pinpointed as a known Hamas hotbed, and was targeted in response to a growing number of Kassem rocket firings and mortar attacks on Israeli communities in Gaza's Gush Katif."

"Inquiry launched into Yemen blast" (BBC News, 2002/10/07)
"French experts are being sent to investigate what caused a French-owned oil tanker to burst into flames off the coast of Yemen after the owners alleged their vessel was targeted by terrorists. Yemeni authorities are trying to salvage the Limburg tanker, which is still burning in the Gulf of Aden, and say they are afraid of a major oil slick spreading along the Arabian coast. But they have sought to play down allegations that the explosion was the result of an attack, saying a fire on board was the most likely cause. The owners of the tanker, Euronav, say they believe their vessel was deliberately rammed by a smaller boat. "In my opinion, this was a terrorist attack," Euronav director Jacques Moizan said. 'The crew saw a high-speed vessel approaching on the starboard side.'"

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