Archived news and commentary: October 21 - 27, 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 27, 2002

News and commentary:

"FBI Handcuffed" (Heather Mac Donald, New York Post/MI, 2002/10/27)
"Osama bin Laden couldn't have drafted better rules for ensuring that his operatives could plan in peace than intelligence guidelines drafted in 1995 by then-Attorney General Janet Reno and immediately dubbed "the Wall." It is by now a truism that terrorism will be foiled only by unfettered information-sharing and collaboration. The Wall guaranteed the opposite. ... Let's say FBI agents Dell and Simpson both work in New York City's FBI office. Agent Dell has a wiretap on Mahmoud, a Yemeni in Brooklyn, suspected of connections to an al Qaeda cell. Agent Simpson is working the criminal case against the al Qaeda bombing of USS Cole in Yemen. ... Per the Wall, Dell and Simpson can't talk to each other. ...
The ink had barely dried on the Reno guidelines before America's anti-terror operations suffered a nervous breakdown. Not only did information-sharing stop almost completely, but Justice Department bureaucrats, in full risk-averse mode, started imposing ever higher probable-cause standards on wiretap requests before they would even approach the FISA court for approval. ... Many of the "intelligence failures" for which the press has so gleefully criticized the Bush administration were in fact mandated by the Wall and other crippling restrictions. Nearly 40 years of liberal intellectual hegemony over national security issues have left the country terrifyingly vulnerable to real enemies, not imagined ones like President Bush and John Ashcroft." (Note: Thanks to Barry Meislin for the pointer.)

"Gas 'killed Moscow hostages'" (BBC News, 2002/10/27)
"Almost all the 117 hostages who were killed when Russian troops stormed a Moscow theatre on Saturday died from gas poisoning, it has been admitted. Only one of those held for three days by Chechen rebels died of gunshot wounds, said Andrei Seltsovsky, chairman of the health committee of the city of Moscow. ... More claims have meanwhile emerged that international guerrillas had a hand in the hostage-taking. The Russian authorities in Chechnya have said that a substantial number of the female rebels were of Middle Eastern origin. This echoes President Vladimir Putin's recent suggestion that there were Arabs and Afghans among the hostage-takers. The Russian security service later said that it had intercepted intensive exchanges over mobile telephones between the hostage-takers and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey." (See also: "Russians probe al-Qa'eda link as Moscow siege ends with 150 dead" (Christina Lamb and Ben Aris, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/27): "The Telegraph has learned that a number of Arab fighters, believed to be of Saudi Arabian and Yemeni origin, were among the group that seized control of the theatre." There were definitely Arab terrorists in the building with links to al-Qa'eda," said a senior Western diplomat. 'The Russians will now want to know how much help the Chechens received from bin Laden's organisation.'")

"Frightened Boy Triggered End to Moscow Siege" (Jon Boyle and Andrei Shukshin, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2002/10/27)
"But on the third night of captivity, with tensions inside the theater rising as conditions became ever more squalid, one young boy in a rear seat snapped, said Chernyak. He threw a bottle at the guerrillas and ran down the aisle. "He dashed toward the exit, shouting: 'Mummy, I don't know what to do.' They opened fire on him, but missed and hit seated people instead," she told Russian television from her hospital bed late on Saturday. "They hit a guy in the eye. There was a lot of blood, bubbling blood. And a girl was hit in the side. Then they told us: 'Don't worry. Everything's all right." Hearing the gunfire, commanders of hundreds of elite storm troopers who had surrounded the theater believed the guerrillas had acted on a threat to start shooting hostages if demands for a Russian troop withdrawal from Chechnya were ignored. ... Chernyak said that throughout the siege the guerrillas kept threatening hostages with imminent death, telling them the building was rigged with explosives and nobody would escape. ... The presence of 18 female suicide fighters with explosives strapped to their waists among the hundreds of frightened theater-goers added to the atmosphere of fear and violence, Chernyak said. "These Chechen girls, they were so happy that finally they were about to be free, that finally they were about to blow themselves up," Chernyak said."

"An honor to be treated as enemy by US: Abu Qatada" (Arab News, 2002/10/27)
An interview with Osama bin Laden's "ambassador" in Europe, Abu Qatada, made before his arrest in London this week: "Abu Qatada describes the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11 last year as acts of jihad: "Q: How do you respond to accusations that you incite terrorism in Britain, Germany and Spain?
A: I preach on the basis of the Qur'an and Sunnah of the Prophet - jihad for the sake of God, killing His enemies and the enemies of the religion and Ummah including those apostates in our land who have distorted the religion and changed the Shariah and allied themselves with the polytheists; this is God's religion and I don’t care if others call it terrorism or not. ...
Q: Do you mean that there is no sin attached to the terrorist attacks on America?
A: All work is a mix of good and bad. Nothing is purely good or bad in this world. The acts of jihad in America are a mix of good and bad. The question is which side of the scale outweighs the other and is it legal or not. On the latter question much has been written by others and myself. On the former issue then it is clear that the benefits far outweigh the viciousness and even today, the reality speaks for that fact. There is however one negative side: The Sept. 11 attacks were so massive and magnificent. Now Muslims don't want to undertake jihad activities that are of a lesser scale. For example if what occurred in Bali had taken place before Sept. 11, people's interest and joy would have been much greater. In fact, interest in the Bali action has been low because of the images of the two towers falling in New York. Against this backdrop, other activities look modest." (See also: "Bin Laden 'ambassador' arrested" (Daniel McGrory et al., The Times, 2002/10/25))

"Three killed in Ariel suicide bombing; Hamas claims attack" (Jonathan Lis and Amos Harel, Haaretz, 2002/10/27)
"At least three people were killed and 15 injured Sunday morning, in a suicide attack on a gas station at the entrance to Ariel, the largest Israeli settlement in the northern West Bank. ... Some 15 people were injured in the blast - one of them seriously - which occurred at around 11:30 A.M. ... The militant Hamas organization claimed responsibility for the attack, the second in Israel in the last seven days. Earlier, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is affiliated to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed the bombing."

"Muslim ties are no surprise" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2002/10/27)
Steyn on the sniper killings: "But there's a difference between a reluctance to leap to conclusions and a bizarre determination to leap away from the facts. ... Regardless of whodunit, it was very obvious what he'd dun: The killer didn't kill blondes, he didn't kill fetching young men he picked up in bars, he didn't kill lonely spinsters from the personal ads. He killed Americans - male and female, young and old, black and white. Now whose profile does that fit? But the penny drops exceedingly slow. It turned out police were looking for a Muslim convert. A Muslim convert who last year had discarded the name "Williams" and adopted a new identity as "Muhammad." A Muslim convert called Muhammad who in the wake of Sept. 11 had expressed anti-American sentiments. Could even the most expert psychological profiler make sense of such confusing, contradictory clues? Apparently not. Even though the crime and the accused are a pretty good match, the network criminologists profess themselves perplexed by the apparent lack of motive, as if we'll shortly discover that Mr. Muhammad had been denied a promotion at Home Depot or he'd been abused as a child."

"Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11" (Sunder Katwala, The Observer, 2002/10/27)
Conspiracy theorizing à la Vidal: "Vidal's highly controversial 7000 word polemic titled 'The Enemy Within' - published in the print edition of The Observer today - argues that what he calls a 'Bush junta' used the terrorist attacks as a pretext to enact a pre-existing agenda to invade Afghanistan and crack down on civil liberties at home. Vidal writes: 'We still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected President with the oil and gas Bush-Cheney junta. ... Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan ... [because] the administration is convinced that Americans are so simple-minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable, lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he hates us because we're rich 'n free 'n he's not.'" (UPDATE: The full text can be found here: "The Enemy Within" (Gore Vidal, The Observer/UQ Wire, 2002/10/27). See also:"Gore Vidal Says Bush 'Wants War to Go on Forever'" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2002/09/09))

"The new romantics of death" (Peter Beaumont, The Observer, 2002/10/27)
"The last 13 months will go down in history as the Year of Terror. ... In an instant, [11 September] created an enduring image that President Bush's war on terrorism cannot defeat and cannot undo; of the world's most powerful state made vulnerable. It is a message that has been grasped by lone gunmen, by militant jihadists around the world, and by the Chechens holed up in Moscow theatre with their hostages as the defining narrative of their own ills. Viewed through their prism, that single image tells them that terrorism works. ...
But a defining element is a special kind of nihilistic destructiveness born of a psychological malaise widespread among many radicalised and often well-educated young Islamic men who believe that a world dominated by Western political ideals, culture and economics holds nothing for them. It has created an existential crisis characterised by a narcissistic cult of death and destruction, postmodern in its fascination with technology and the media of communication, that yet utterly rejects all aspects of Western culture. It is this that poses the greatest challenge to police and intelligence authorities. For the culture that fuels this kind of terrorism is diffuse and as widely attractive as any other youth movement."

"Descent Into Evil" (Evan Thomas, Newsweek, from the 2002/11/04 issue)
An in-depth article about the sniper killings: "[Muhammad] was less cautious with Harjeet Singh, a buddy who worked out with Muhammad and Malvo at the local YMCA. "They said 9-11 was very good," Singh told Newsweek. "They said it should have been done a long time ago." Muhammad marveled at the damage a relatively small number of terrorists could do, Singh says. "They said 19 people did what a whole army couldn't have done." According to Singh, Muhammad and Malvo contemplated their own acts of terrorism. "They hate police," said Singh. He claims that Muhammad showed him designs for a silencer that could be attached to a rifle. "They said they were going to shoot a police officer. Then the other police officers and firemen and the mayor would get together for a funeral." Singh told Newsweek that the two men planned to bomb the funeral. "They just wanted to spread fear. They wanted to kill people," said Singh."

"In the Sights of the Sniper: 23 Fearful Days in October" (David Johnston and Don Van Natta Jr., The New York Times, 2002/10/27)
"The first shot offered little hint of what was coming. A single bullet sliced through the front window of a Michaels craft store in Montgomery County at 5:20 p.m. on Oct. 2. No one was hurt. Forty minutes later a single shot fired from a high-powered rifle killed James D. Martin, 55, a program analyst shopping for church groceries, in a supermarket parking lot in Wheaton, Md. Early the next morning, Oct. 3, the sniper struck with spectacular fury:
At 7:40 a.m., James L. Buchanan, 39, was shot in the chest and died as he mowed a lawn near a shopping mall in Rockville, Md.
At 8:10 a.m., Premkumar A. Walekar, 54, a taxi driver, was shot and killed at a gas station in Aspen Hill, Md. — within a mile of the earlier shooting.
At 8:40 a.m., Sarah Ramos, 34, an immigrant from El Salvador who worked as a housekeeper, was shot in the head while sitting on a bench outside a Montgomery County post office. ...
At 10 a.m., Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, a nanny from Idaho, was killed as she vacuumed her van at a gas station in Kensington, Md.
At 9:20 p.m., Pascal Charlot, 72, a retired carpenter who had immigrated from Haiti, was shot dead near a bus stop in northeast Washington."

"German ceremony here to honor Wehrmacht, SS dead" (Amir Oren, Haaretz, 2002/10/27)
"The German Embassy in Israel is planning a memorial ceremony next month - and not for the first time, according to the embassy's military attache - for Germans killed while serving in the army of the Third Reich, including those in SS units. ... In response to a question, Elbers said similar events are held annually in Germany and sponsored by its missions throughout the world on the memorial day (Sunday, November 3) for war casualties "and victims of hatred, persecution and racism." He indicated that the embassy held previous memorial ceremonies for soldiers in the Nazis' service, but privately and without drawing Israeli attention. Elbers expressed displeasure that the invitations to Israelis this year led to the event's exposure and negative responses."

"12 Americans Stage Protest Hussein Is Happy to Allow" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/27)
A group of 12 Americans from a Chicago-based pacifist group, Voices in the Wilderness, gathered today to bring the American style of protest to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. ... Kathy Kelly, a 49-year-old former Chicago high school English teacher who is a co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, spoke out against the Bush administration and in defense of positions taken by Mr. Hussein. At one point, she said she wished that the United States government would follow Mr. Hussein's example in ordering the emptying of Iraq's prisons, a move the Iraqi leader made last Sunday, in part to counter Mr. Bush's descriptions of him as a murdering tyrant. "I wish people in our country would be willing to show the same spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation to the two million people in our prisons," she said."

"Dread and Dreams Travel by Bus in Israel" (James Bennet, The New York Times, 2002/10/27)
"The bus would soon branch to the northeast along the Wadi Ara road, the site of repeated attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers. But the soldiers - sleepy, bored, used to it all - seemed fatalistic to the point of numbness. "You know the difference between Russian roulette and Israeli roulette?" asked one of them, Capt. Dan Ravitz, 21, putting aside his spy novel. "In Russian roulette, you choose your bullet. Here, you just pick a bus." ... In two years of conflict, Palestinian militants have attacked Israeli public transportation - buses, bus stops, trains, and stations - 114 times with bombs or guns, the Israeli police said. In these attacks, 171 people have been killed, 1,039 wounded. ... Captain Ravitz, a medic who lost one friend in a bus bombing and others in fighting in the West Bank, made a grim prediction as the 842 headed north toward Wadi Ara. "In 20 or 30 years, I don't think any Jews will live in Israel," he said, "Half of them will leave, and half of them will die." He smiled and appended an embarrassed disclaimer, as many did after offering dire prophecies. "It's a kind of joke," he said. The smile faded. 'But it's black.'"

"Thousands Rally Around World Against Iraq War" (Mark Wilkinson, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2002/10/27)
Sarandon's belief that terrorism can't be "fought with violence" is just mindnumbingly stupid: "Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters marched peacefully on the White House on Saturday to express opposition to a possible U.S. attack on Iraq, some chanting slogans accusing President Bush of planning genocide. ... In Washington, actress Susan Sarandon, who supports numerous liberal causes, accused Bush of having "hijacked our losses and our fears." Sarandon said terrorism could not be fought with violence and that most Americans did not want a conflict. ... "George Bush, you can't hide. We charge you with genocide!" chanted the demonstrators, who were escorted by mounted U.S. Park Police and watched by 600 police officers along the route in the heart of the nation's capital." (See also: "US peace marches draw thousands" (BBC News, 2002/10/26))

Saturday, October 26, 2002

News and commentary:

"'Russia Cannot Be Brought Down to Its Knees'" (Vladimir Putin, The Washington Post, 2002/10/26)
The text of President Vladimir Putin's nationally televised address to the Russian people as translated by The Washington Post: "We managed to achieve the almost-impossible, which was to save the lives of hundreds, hundreds of people. We have proved that Russia cannot be brought down to its knees. But now first of all I want to appeal to the relatives and close ones of those who died. We failed to save everyone. Forgive us. ... We are also appreciative of our friends across the world for their moral and practical support in the struggle with our common foe. This foe is strong and dangerous, inhuman and cruel. This is international terrorism. Until it is defeated, people cannot feel safe anywhere in the world. But it must be defeated. And it will be defeated."

"90 Hostages Killed in Moscow Theater" (Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser, The Washington Post, 2002/10/26)
"'We were waiting to die,' Olga Chernyak, a reporter from Interfax news service who was in the audience when the Chechen militants seized the theater Wednesday night, said in a report by her agency. "We realized that they would not release us alive. We did not believe they would let us go even if all their demands were met and troops are withdrawn from Chechnya." Chernyak confirmed official accounts that the militants killed two hostages during the night, a man and a woman. "The man was shot in the eye and there was a lot of blood," she said. 'I was sitting in the middle of the stalls and everything was happening near me. I thought then that we would all be killed. Something happened later and I fainted.'"

"US peace marches draw thousands" (BBC News, 2002/10/26)
Moral equivalence à la Sarandon: "More than 10,000 people have marched on the White House in Washington, as part of a day of worldwide protests against a possible American-led war against Iraq. The organisers of the Washington march had been expecting many thousands more to attend. However, a BBC correspondent in Washington says the rally is still the biggest demonstration against an Iraqi war so far. ... The rally in Washington opened with speeches at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Speakers included musician Patti Smith and actress Susan Sarandon. "Let us find a way to resist fundamentalism - fundamentalism of all kinds, within al-Qaeda and within our government," Ms Sarandon said. Among those also taking part were civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, and Palestinian and Moslem groups." (See also: "Anti-War Activists Rally in Washington" (Lawrence L. Knutson, AP/The Washington Post, 2002/10/26): "Thousands of people protested in northern Europe, but the turnouts were far below organizers' predictions. In Germany, a crowd estimated by police at 4,500 people carried placards that declared "War on the imperialist war," "Stop Bush's campaign" and "No blood for oil," along with a few Iraqi flags, at Berlin's downtown Alexanderplatz ahead of a planned march past the U.S. and British embassies.")

"Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' Gets New Life on Egypt TV" (Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, 2002/10/26)
"An Egyptian satellite television channel has begun teasers for its blockbuster Ramadan series that its producers acknowledge incorporates ideas from the infamous czarist forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." That document, a pillar of anti-Semitic hatred for about a century, appears to be gaining a new foothold in parts of the Arab world, some scholars and observers say. The series, "Horse Without a Horseman," traces the history of the Middle East from 1855 to 1917 through the eyes of an Egyptian who fought British occupiers and the Zionist movement. It is divided into 41 episodes and will be shown nightly through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins in about two weeks and guarantees maximum viewership because many Muslims congregate at home after breaking the daily fast. With Egyptian state television and other Arab channels also broadcasting the series, the potential audience numbers in the tens of millions. ...
Still, the show's backers say they are keeping an open mind about its authenticity. They say that in any event, reality seems to bear them out, in that Israel controls part of the Middle East. "In a way, don't they dominate?" said Hala Sarhan, Dream TV's vice president and feisty personality on the air. 'Of course, what we read from the 'Protocols,' it says it's a kind of conspiracy. They want to control; they want to dominate. I represent everybody in the street. We will see whether this happened throughout history or not.'" (See also: "Egypt plans to air tv series on 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2002/10/23))

"U.S. Vulnerability to Terror Is Still High, Panel Concludes" (James Dao, The New York Times, 2002/10/26)
"Former Senators Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman, the co-chairmen of a panel on domestic security, sharply chastised the White House and Congress today for failing to enact sweeping measures to defend the nation against a catastrophic terrorist attack, which they predicted is virtually certain to occur. The senators said that although the country should be on a war footing, it has become complacent about terrorism. ... As a result, the senators and their task force concluded, the country remains almost as vulnerable today as it was before Sept. 11, 2001, to a major attack against its sea ports, power plants, oil refineries, rail systems and urban centers. ... The former senators made their harsh remarks during a news conference to release their panel's report, titled, "America Still Unprepared, America Still in Danger." (See also the report: "America Still Unprepared - America Still in Danger" (Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman, Council on Foreign Relations, October 2002): "A year after September 11, 2001, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In all likelihood, the next attack will result in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to American lives and the economy.")

"Pro-Chechen Islamist Website: Islamic Religious Interpretation Permits Killing of Prisoners" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 434, 2002/10/27)
"On the Islamic internet site www.qoqaz.com which is hostile towards the Russians, and is probably run by Chechens, there are a number of unsigned articles which deal with Islam's position towards prisoners. ... In an article titled "A Guide to the Perplexed Regarding the Permissibility of Killing Prisoners," which appeared in the column "Jihad News from the Land of the Caucasus" the author suggests that the Islamic religious scholars present five different alternatives, drawn from the various interpretations of the Koran:
1. A polytheist prisoner must be killed. No amnesty may be granted to him, nor can he be ransomed.
2. All infidel polytheists and the People of the Book (i.e., Jews and Christians) are to be killed. They may not be granted amnesty, nor can they be ransomed.
3. Amnesty and ransom are the only two ways to deal with prisoners.
4. Amnesty and ransom are possible only after the killing of a large number of prisoners.
5. The Imam, or someone acting on his behalf, can choose between killing, amnesty, ransom or enslaving the prisoner."

"Russian forces storm siege theatre" (BBC News, 2002/10/26)
"Nearly 350 people were taken to hospital, many in a serious condition, the French news agency AFP quoted medical sources as saying. Most of the casualties were suffering from severe gas poisoning. Troops had released sleeping gas into the theatre to subdue the rebels before they stormed the complex at about 0600 local time (0200 GMT). ... The BBC's Jonathan Charles, who is at the scene, says this was not a planned operation but one which was triggered by events. ... The rescue operation began when some of the hostages tried to escape after the rebels shot two of their captives and injured at least two others. In the ensuing panic, the hostages inadvertently set off booby traps laid in the theatre by the rebels. Russian special forces then rushed to their aid, engaging in a pitched gun battle which lasted more than an hour."

"Hostages die in Moscow operation" (CNN.com, 2002/10/26)
"Sixty-seven hostages died during an operation to free captives held by Chechen rebels in a Moscow theatre and two hostage-takers remain at large, Russian officials have said. Thirty-four hostage-takers were also killed after Russian special forces, the Federal Security Service, stormed the building at 5.30 a.m. local time on Saturday after the Chechens began executing those being held, Russia's deputy interior minister, Vladimir Vasilyev, said."

"Troops End Moscow Siege, Guerrillas Killed" (Maria Golovnina and Sergei Karpukhin, Reuters, 2002/10/26)
"Russian forces stormed a Moscow theater on Saturday, killing most of the Chechen guerrillas who had started to execute captive theatergoers, but some of the 700 hostages also died, officials said. State security chief Nikolai Patrushev said 34 Muslim fighters had been killed and the rest had been taken captive, Russian news agencies reported. "None of them managed to get away," he said. Early reports indicated most of the hostages were rescued alive, ending their ordeal which began with Wednesday night's takeover, but there was confusion over how many had died. "Unfortunately there have been victims. I calculate them at up to 30," said Moscow mayor Yuri Luzkhov, his language clearly indicating he was talking about the hostages not their captors. Diplomats said none of some 75 foreigners among the captive theatergoers had died, and quoted officials as saying no more than 10 hostages had been killed in all. ... The Chechen commander Movsar Barayev was among those killed in an assault that Russia's deputy interior minister said had prevented a massacre of those seized while watching a Russian musical on Wednesday evening. Officials said at least two hostages were executed by the guerrillas before the storming began."

Friday, October 25, 2002

News and commentary:

"Moscow rebels 'threaten executions'" (BBC News, 2002/10/25)
"Rebels holding hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theatre have reportedly threatened to start executing their captives on Saturday morning. The heavily armed group says it will start shooting people if its demand for a Russian withdrawal from the breakaway republic of Chechnya is not met, a theatre official has said after speaking to captives. ... But reports from hostages say the guerrillas are giving Russia only 12 hours to meet their demands, before they start shooting the captives. ... The atmosphere inside the theatre is said to be becoming increasingly threatening, with reports that many of the hostages have been tied in their seats and some have had explosives strapped on to them."

"Bin Laden's 'Will' Complains of Betrayal - Magazine" (Reuters, 2002/10/25)
A London-based magazine said on Friday it was publishing a will written by Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, in which he complains of betrayal by fellow militants in Afghanistan. The Arabic-language al-Majallah said the will, typed and signed by bin Laden and dated December 14, 2001, was obtained a week ago from a "very reliable" source in Afghanistan. It said the will, typically packed with versus from the Muslim holy book the Koran, depicted a man who appeared desperate and on the verge of death. ... In the will, bin Laden repeatedly complains of betrayal by fellow militants, including the Taliban who shielded him. "We saw the cowardly Crusaders (Christians) and the lowly Jews hold fast while fighting us, while soldiers of our nation raised the white flag and surrendered to their enemies," bin Laden wrote in the will, studded with versus from the Koran. ... "I have chosen a path filled with dangers and endured much hardships...treachery and betrayal," he wrote. 'If it wasn't for betrayal, conditions would have been different and the outcome would have been a different one.'"

"A Funny Morality" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review. 2002/10/25)
"The disclosures of North Korean duplicity in acquiring nuclear weapons were disturbing for a variety of reasons, involving more than our national security. That Pyongyang had been lying and cheating all along since President Clinton's accords of summer 1994 was most galling because it seemed to discredit a number of the comfortable American assumptions that lay behind our past bewildering trust in compliance, inspections, dialogue, and safeguard agreements. ... The problems of such utopianism are twofold: Its fuzzy rhetoric of peace and love is as unassailable as the reality of its endangering innocents is irrefutable; and its purveyors are always lauded for their noble efforts, but rarely blamed for the carnage that comes after. ... Set against those postmodern and post-heroic theories remain tragic truths that will never disappear. ... Second, appeasement - in the past, now, and for all time - only encourages thugs and killers, and proves far more dangerous and costly in the long run than either preemption or early resolute opposition (in the manner in which Israel took out the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, or we pondered the same in 1994 in North Korea). Third, culture affects the way a people fights, creates government, eats, and sleeps, but it does not trump human nature itself. Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and Kim Il-Sung may have had culturally specific preferences in their terror and mass murder, but as human tyrants of the ages they were predictable in their behavior and thus could only be opposed, never appeased."

"Shame on you America-hating Liberals" (Tony Parsons, The Mirror, 2002/10/25)
"As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11 was up there with Pol Pot's mountain of skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps. An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing - nobody deserves this fate. Surely there could be consensus: the victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil. But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's comeuppance. Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the last year. ...
These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nut job in Kabul or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see America as the Great Satan. ...
I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh. Above all, America is hated because it is what every country wants to be - rich, free, strong, open, optimistic. ...
Remember, remember, September 11. One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against America. No, do more than remember. Never forget."

"Converts to Violence?" (Daniel Pipes, New York Post/danielpipes.org, 2002/10/25)
"It came as no surprise to learn that the lead suspect as the Washington, D.C.,-area sniper is John Allen Muhammad, an African-American who converted to Islam about 17 years ago. Nor that seven years ago he provided security for Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March." Even less does it amaze that he reportedly sympathized with the 9/11 attacks carried out by militant Islamic elements. ... Converts most likely turn anti-American when they adhere to either of two specific forms of Islam: either the Nation of Islam (NoI, the black-nationalist sect that originated in Detroit in 1930) or militant Islam (mostly imported from the Middle East and South Asia). The pattern of alienation goes back decades. From the 1940s onward, NoI's longtime leader, Elijah Muhammad, told his followers "You are not American citizens" and he spent years in jail for draft evasion during World War II. ... Louis Farrakhan announced that "God will destroy America at the hands of Muslims." ... To what extent does Islam attract the disaffected, to what extent does it actively turn them against their country? ... To what extent does the rhetoric and example set by prominent figures such as Louis Farrakhan and Siraj Wahhaj influence followers like the alleged sniper to engage in violence? If it does, given that this is wartime, do steps need to be taken to curtail their rhetoric?"

"Enemies Within" (Stephen Schwartz, New York Post, 2002/10/25)
"With the revelation that the D.C.-area sniper suspect is an American Muslim who calls himself John Muhammad, U.S. media and law enforcement have joined in what might be called a "reverse rush to judgement": They have hurried to discount any suspicion that Muhammad belonged to an Islamic extremist group or had links to al Qaeda. American solicitousness for the rights of the enemies of freedom has reached a point of absurdity. Do we have to produce a personal reference letter from Osama bin Laden before judging that terrorist acts committed by an American Muslim have something to do with the domination of American Islam by extremist ideology? Of course not. ... Like Lindh, Reid and Padilla, Muhammad did not have to go to Riyadh to acquire the violent, fundamentalist outlook of the Wahhabis: It came to them. The Wahhabi death cult dominates 80 percent of American mosques. ... Wahhabi incitement to violence cannot be treated as protected religious advocacy. Islam in America must be American Islam, loyal to the government, and anti-terrorist, or it will have no future. Wahhabis may seek the martyrdom of American Muslims as a new pretext for violence. But that would be a disaster for all Americans and for Islam as a global religion."

"Defeating Wahhabism" (Stephen Schwartz, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/10/25)
Remarks by Stephen Schwartz at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Central Asian and Caucasus Institute: "In Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, as in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo, and Chechnya, we see repetition of the pattern of Wahhabi-Saudi infiltration. The Wahhabi-Saudi agents who introduce their doctrines, financing, recruitment, and incitement to terror into these countries have the same aim in all of them: to utilize ordinary Muslims for the advancement of their fundamentalist and extremist agenda. ... While the main immediate aim of Wahhabism is to capture and guide the global Islamic community, its doctrines are also deeply suffused with hatred of the other religions. ...
Wahhabism is as different from "ordinary" anti-Israeli ideology, or even from most of so-called "militant" Islam, as Nazism was from the mentality of the German military in the first world war, as different as Stalinist Communism was from the radical socialism of a generation before. It is a nihilistic, violent, Islamofascist movement that seeks not only to impose conformity on the world's Muslims, and to completely wipe out Shi'a Islam, but also to attack the world's Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, and other worshippers."

"The bigotry of Belafonte" (Andrew Sullivan, Salon.com, 2002/10/25)
"When a black public person like Harry Belafonte calls another African-American a slave to white masters, you see what I mean. When defenders of feminism call someone who files a sexual harassment lawsuit "trailer-trash," you get the picture. When a gay man can write a column asserting that another man is a "nasty faggot," it's hard to think of how much lower the discourse can get. When liberals denigrate the president as a "boy" or as a "sissy," to quote Maureen Dowd, homophobia doesn't lurk far behind. I remember a brief interaction I had with one Barbra Streisand long, long ago when the Paula Jones suit had just been filed. I asked Ms. Streisand what she thought of the suit. "Oh, she's just a little kurva," she replied, referring to Jones. That's a yiddish expression for "whore." Charming. Again, the simple test here is the following: If a conservative had used these expressions, would it have been denounced by liberals? The answer, obviously, is yes. Imagine if George Will had called Colin Powell a "house slave." Imagine if Pat Buchanan had called Barney Frank a "nasty faggot." Imagine if Trent Lott had called Hillary Clinton a whore. Do you think they'd be invited on "Larry King Live" to further elaborate on their comments?" (See also: "Harry Belafonte slams Colin Powell as race sellout" (Matt Drudge, Drudge Report, 2002/10/08))

"Racial profiling in reverse" (Andrew Sullivan, The Washington Times, 2002/10/25)
"Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the Washington sniper case can be found in The Washington Post account of the police hunt. Here's the key section: "Law enforcement sources said authorities may have missed a chance to apprehend the men just six days after the shooting spree began on Oct. 2. ... The two were allowed to go, although their names were put into an information data bank in Baltimore, the sources said. 'Everyone was looking for a white car with white people,' said one high-ranking police source. Muhammad and Malvo are black males." ... There's a phrase for this kind of police strategy, and it's "racial profiling." ... Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, stated confidently that the killer "is kind of a wallpaper white male, a disenfranchised, disrespected man who's getting back at society." The interesting question is: Can you imagine these kinds of comments being made about a black man? There would - rightly - have been howls of protest. So why no protest when similar assumptions were made about the sniper? It's yet another case of racism against whites being acceptable and racism against blacks being unacceptable. Most of the time, this is an ugly double-standard. Racism is racism is racism. This time, the consequences of this racial profiling were even more dire. It may actually have been a factor in allowing several more people to be killed."

"From Bandung to Bali" (Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/10/25)
"It was, perhaps, the most inane speech of its time, and - as these things tend to be - probably the most influential. On April 18, 1955, Achmad "Bung" Sukarno, founder and president of Indonesia, opened the first conference of Non-Aligned States in the Javanese city of Bandung. ... "Colonialism has also its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual physical control by a small but alien community within a nation. It is a skillful and determined enemy, and it appears in many guises. It does not give up its loot easily. Wherever, whenever and however it appears, colonialism is an evil thing, and one which must be eradicated from this earth." High codes of political morality; the specter of a hidden enemy; calls for its annihilation; corrupt bargains in between - here, in a nutshell, was the essence of the tiers mondalisme Sukarno so completely embraced and embodied. ...
It was not just a matter of bad men, or foolish men, gaining a grip on power. It was a fatal combination of bad and foolish men in the grip of bad and foolish ideas that led swiftly to the ruin of most of the postcolonial world. Bandung contributed grievously to this by casting the illusion of a fictive third way for a very real Third World. ... Now Bali, and Indonesia must confront the fact that she has to take sides. It is a heartrending end to a dream, played to the sounds of a gamelan. But it is also a long overdue awakening, and comes not a moment too soon."

"America in the dock The truth: America is indeed subverting the Middle East" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/25)
The last of a five-part series about British attitudes to America: "America does not want to destabilise the Middle East. But Islamic extremism, anti-American incitement, and willing and unwilling support for terrorist organisations have fastened themselves deep into the societies and cultures of the Middle East. Osama bin Laden's terrorism is not the work only of a few sociopathic killers: it is the product of a wide and deep complicity throughout the Arab world. Finding, uprooting, discrediting and destroying terror will have equally wide and deep - and unpredictable - consequences. And that is why so many Europeans with an interest in the Arab world and its oil have urged America to learn to live with terror: to be realistic, to adjust, to accommodate - as they have had to do. And it is America's refusal to be realistic in this way that, more than anything else, has puzzled, vexed and even enraged so many in Europe and in Britain." (See also: "America in the dock - Myth IV: America couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/24), "America in the dock - Myth III: Bush wants war with Iraq because of a family vendetta" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/23), "America in the dock - Myth II: America wants war with Saddam because of oil" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/22) and "America in the dock - Myth I: America is totally in hock to the Jewish lobby" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/21))

"Bin Laden 'ambassador' arrested" (Daniel McGrory et al., The Times, 2002/10/25)
"Britain's most wanted man, Abu Qatada, described as Osama bin Laden's "ambassador" in Europe, has been seized in an armed raid on his hideout in London. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, would say only that a suspect had been arrested on Wednesday under the antiterrorist laws. Security sources last night named the suspect as Abu Qatada. The radical 42-year-old Muslim cleric, whose real name is Sheikh Omar Mahmood Abu Omar, has been accused by police in eight countries of being a pivotal figure in the al-Qaeda terrorist network. ... His arrest is a major success for Britain and will be welcomed by the White House and European leaders who have been shown secret intelligence on Abu Qatada’s role in bin Laden's network. He is alleged to have recruited figures like Zacharias Moussaoui, the "20th hijacker" and the "shoe bomber", Richard Reid."

"Seven hostages freed in Moscow siege" (BBC News, 2002/10/25)
"A Chechen suicide squad holding hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theatre released seven more hostages early on Friday. ... The releases came shortly after the rebels allowed a television crew to meet their leader and some of the people being held inside for the first time. ... NTV's crew were shown into a theatre kitchen and not allowed into the auditorium. They filmed men in masks and a veiled woman wearing what appeared to be explosives strapped to their chests with electric leads. The rebels were also armed with assault-rifles, grenades and pistols. ... The Russian journalists spoke to the rebel group's leader, Movsar Barayev, the only rebel who showed his face."

"Gunmen's Leader Has a History of Violence" (Nabi Abdullaev, The Moscow Times, 2002/10/25)
"Movsar Barayev, a nephew of the slain warlord Arbi Barayev, is reputed to belong to one of the most unscrupulous Chechen clans, whose men gained notoriety for kidnapping, torturing and executing hostages. The 1998 execution of four kidnapped telecom engineers from Britain and New Zealand has been attributed to the Barayevs. NTV television showed footage identified as a video sent by the Barayevs to the relatives of one of their hostages. Movsar, stocky and unshaven, was shown smiling, twirling a knife and then lowering the blade toward the neck of an unidentified woman who was bent forward, her hair flipped over her face. "They are Wahhabis [followers of a radical Islamic movement], and non-Muslims are not human beings for them," a Dagestani man held hostage by the Barayevs in 1999 said in an interview this summer. "For them, killing Russians is like killing sheep." Arbi Barayev, the head of the clan and commander of a rebel formation called the Islamic Regiment, was killed in a bombing raid in June 2001, after which Movsar took over." (See also: "Who is Movsar Barayev?" (Artyom Vernidoub, Gazeta.ru, 2002/10/24): "Movsar Barayev is also known as Movsar Suleimenov. He is the nephew of the infamous warlord Arbi Barayev, who gained notoriety by establishing a huge slave-trading network throughout Chechnya. Arbi Barayev was slain in summer 2001 in his home village of Alkhan-Kala. After his uncle’s death Movsar took command of most of his uncle’s men. It is believed that Suleimenov and his younger subordinates controlled all the rebel groups in Grozny, though his name was hardly ever mentioned in connection with rebel raids against the federals. Federal forces, though, have repeatedly claimed to have killed him.")

"In quotes: Moscow hostage crisis" (BBC News, 2002/10/25)
"Abusaid, representative of the rebels, in a phone call to the BBC: 'We will start killing them, the people who are here. One by one we will kill them - all of them. We didn't come here to go home again, we came here to die. We are all suicide fighters. If [the Russian Government] acts quickly, we'll leave here quickly. If they don't stop the war and pull out their troops, we'll hold out here for a week. After a week goes past we'll blow up the whole theatre.'"

"Chechen Rebels Issue Threat" (Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser, The Washington Post, 2002/10/25)
"More than 24 hours into the ordeal, a few hostages managed to call out on cell phones to report the atmosphere inside was deteriorating. "The tension is escalating," said one of them, Maria Shkolnikova. "The demands of the terrorists are turning into an ultimatum." She told Echo Moskvy radio that the situation could soon turn bloody. "They say, 'You have been sitting here for more than 10 hours and your government has done nothing to release you,' " she recounted. "The main thing they need is a troop pullout from Chechnya. If there is no pullout, they will start shooting people." Soon, one of the hostage-takers took her phone. Calling himself Hasmamat, the Chechen rebel said to Echo Moskvy: "Our demands are of the very simplest: Stop the war and withdraw the troops." ... Later this morning, the militants issued a new demand, calling on relatives of the hostages to organize an anti-war protest in Red Square. A woman who identified herself only as Nadejda said her 23-year-old sister called her from inside the theater to relay the demand."

"Ballistics match rifle to sniper attacks" (CNN.com, 2002/10/25)
"The rifle "has been forensically determined to be the murder weapon," Michael Bouchard of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms told a news conference in Montgomery County, Maryland. ... A Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, a scope, a tripod and a "sniper platform" were recovered from the suspects' 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, sources said. All the victims - 10 dead, three wounded since October 2 - were hit by a single .223-caliber bullet. The trunk of the Caprice had been converted into a sniper's nest, sources say. A senior law enforcement described the Caprice as a "killing machine," with two holes in the trunk, one for the rifle, the other for the scope. That way, shots could be fired without opening the trunk, the source said. The back seat could fold down, enabling a potential shooter to stretch out in the back without stepping foot outside, the source said."

Added one new section in Links:
Russia and Chechnya - Six links with background, news and special reports about the war in Chechnya.

Thursday, October 24, 2002

News and commentary:

"Chechen Rebels Holding Hundreds Hostage Say They Are Ready to Die" (AP/FOX News, 2002/10/24)
"Chechen rebels holding hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theater shot and killed one captive and said they were ready to die for their cause, warning Thursday that thousands more of their comrades were "keen on dying." "We decided to die in Moscow and will take with us hundreds of sinners," they said in a videotape aired on the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel. ... In a broadcast monitored in Cairo, Egypt, Al-Jazeera aired videotaped statements by some of the estimated 40 hostage-takers. The speakers, faces covered, stood before a banner written in Arabic script that declared "Allahu Akbar," which means God is Great. ... "I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living," a black-clad male hostage-taker said in the broadcast. "Each one of us is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of God and the independence of Chechnya." "Even if we are killed, thousands of brothers and sisters will come after us, ready to sacrifice themselves," declared a female hostage-taker, covered in a black robe except for her eyes. An Al-Jazeera employee said the tape had been delivered on Wednesday, apparently before the raid."

"Chechens Kill One Moscow Hostage" (AP/The Guardian, 2002/10/24)
"Chechen gunmen shot and killed one of the hundreds of hostages taken captive in a Moscow theater to demand Russia end its bloody war in the Caucasus province, news media reported Thursday. ... At least 40 Chechen rebels have threatened to kill their hostages, but more than 100 women and children have been released, Moscow police spokesman Valery Gribakin said. The freed hostages were sobbing and shaking as they emerged from the theater which holds 1,163 people. ... A pro-rebel Web site, www.kavkaz.org, said Thursday that Russia had seven days to begin withdrawing from Chechnya or the theater would be blown up. ... An explosion reverberated in the area early Thursday, but its location and source were not immediately determined."

"Jihad@Work" (Mark Riebling and R.P. Eddy, National Review, 2002/10/24)
"Americans have not yet taken much note of political violence in Russia - or of the dirty wars waged, for more than a decade, in restive former Soviet republics with unpronounceable names. But the taking of 600 hostages by Chechen terrorists at a Moscow theater should command our attention, because it may well hold clues to jihadists' future attacks in the United States. ... That al Qaeda has trained these Chechens - and perhaps even planned some of their operations - is clear. In fact, the Chechen conflict has long been seen by bin Laden as but one front in the global jihad which began on February 14, 1989, when the last Soviet soldiers Afghanistan. ... A website that supports the Chechens quoted the squad's commander, Mosvar Barayev, as saying that bombs were in the theater and that his charges were there "to die, not to survive." The website called the hostage takers smertniki, fighters martyred to a cause, as if their death were a foregone conclusion. ... The audacity, the planning, the potential toll in life are of that epic scale. "By the scope it can only be compared to the tragedy in New York," liberal lawmaker Boris Nemtsov said last night on Russian television. The jihadists - most with al Qaeda connections, but some without - are likely to follow this pattern for some time to come. This kind of terrorism, the engineering of miniature holocausts, meets their strategic needs. It is intended to sow doubt and fear in non-Muslim nations about the wisdom of resisting jihad."

"2 from state arrested in D.C. sniper case" (The Seattle Times, 2002/10/24)
"A former Fort Lewis solider and a teenager described as his stepson were arrested early today near Middletown in Frederick County, Md., in connection with the sniper shootings that have taken 10 lives in the Washington, D.C., area. John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, were taken into custody at a rest stop on Interstate 70 about 50 miles northwest of the nation’s capital, an FBI source said. ... Muhammad, a Muslim convert who changed his name from John Allen Williams last year, lived in Tacoma from 1994 until 2000 and had visited there since. He was stationed at Fort Lewis in the 1980s, served in the Gulf War and was later stationed at Fort Ord, Calif. ... Several federal sources said Muhammad and Malvo may have been motivated by anti-American sentiments in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Both were known to speak sympathetically about the men who attacked the United States, the sources said. But neither man was believed to be associated with the al-Qaida terrorist network, sources said." (See also: "Two held in sniper case; gun found" (MSNBC, 2002/10/24): "A rifle capable of firing the type of bullets used in the Washington-area sniper attacks was found in the car where two men linked to the case were arrested overnight, NBC News has learned. A former Army soldier and a teenager, arrested at a Maryland rest stop, could be charged with murder later Thursday, law enforcement sources told NBC. The two were identified as John Allen Muhammad, 41, and Lee Malvo, 17. Said one source: 'The general sentiment is we got our guys. These are the guys.'")

"The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism" (Barry Rubin, Foreign Affairs, from the November/December 2002 issue)
"Arab and Muslim hatred of the United States is not just, or even mainly, a response to actual U.S. policies - policies that, if anything, have been remarkably pro-Arab and pro-Muslim over the years. Rather, such animus is largely the product of self-interested manipulation by various groups within Arab society, groups that use anti-Americanism as a foil to distract public attention from other, far more serious problems within those societies. ... To justify outrage against the United States, the enemy must be portrayed as a bully. But to encourage challenges against it, the United States must also be depicted as a weakling. ... To be effective, anti-Americanism must therefore persuade masses and leaders that the United States is simultaneously horrible and helpless, and that it will not do anything if it is attacked, ridiculed, or disregarded. ...
As these comments suggest, it has been the United States' perceived softness in recent years, rather than its bullying behavior, that has encouraged the anti-Americans to act on their beliefs. After the United States failed to respond aggressively to many terrorist attacks against its citizens, stood by while Americans were seized as hostages in Iran and Lebanon, let Saddam Hussein remain in power while letting the shah fall, pressured its friends and courted its enemies, and allowed its prized Arab-Israeli peace process be destroyed, why should anyone have respected its interests or fear its wrath?"

"Hicks Nix Blix Fix" (William Safire, The Washington Post, 2002/10/24)
"North Korea proudly announced in 1994 that it had begun withdrawing plutonium-rich fuel rods from one of its nuclear reactors, which the world knew would enable the Stalinist government to build a half-dozen bombs. ... Enter Jimmy Carter. Within a month after the rejection of Lugar and Nunn, our former president was in the dictator's office, in front of CNN cameras, announcing - as only an unofficial emissary, of course - that he had personally worked out a deal to defuse the crisis. ... "It was kind of like a miracle," breathed Jimmy Carter about his supposed conversion of the North Korean leader from lion to lamb on live TV. ...
That strategic fact of life and death invites the question that coolly consistent sophists love to ask: If we are disinclined to attack the nuclear buildup in North Korea, why are we hot to attack a somewhat less imminent threat of mass destruction from Iraq? Saddam Hussein is a recent, serial aggressor, while totalitarian North Korea has not launched an invasion in the past half-century. Moreover, the potentially high human cost of wiping out the Korean threat should be an unforgettable lesson to every nation: The world must not allow Iraq to gain the level of destructive power that appeasement and misplaced trust permitted North Korea to achieve." (Note: For a recent example of such sophistry, see also: "Unequal Opportunity for Tyrants" (Mary McGrory, The Washington Post, 2002/10/20): "But as we barrel down the road to war with Iraq, maybe we ought to quiz our unilateralist president about why it is necessary for us to bomb, invade and occupy Iraq while North Korea gets the striped-pants treatment. Is it because North Korea has a million men under arms? Is it because Kim Jong Il never threatened to kill Bush's father, or because he has no oil, or is not a Muslim?")

"America in the dock - Myth IV: America couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/24)
The fourth of a five-part series about British attitudes to America: "That brings us to the second grievance: America's failure to consult and listen. And yes, Washington is often guilty of this. But look at the matter from an American point of view: for 50 years, via Nato, America risked nuclear suicide to guarantee the nations of Europe against attack. Sure, America benefited from the arrangement - but it benefited less than Europe and paid much more. Then, paradoxically, the first Nato nation to be attacked turns out to be America. America invokes Article V - and where are the allies? Britain is there, and God bless you for it. Australia, though not in Nato, is there as well, and bless Australia, too. But the others? Where are you? Where are the Germans whom America defended at their hours of maximum danger - the Berlin crises of 1949 and 1961? The French, the Dutch and the Belgians?" (See also: "America in the dock - Myth III: Bush wants war with Iraq because of a family vendetta" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/23), "America in the dock - Myth II: America wants war with Saddam because of oil" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/22) and "America in the dock - Myth I: America is totally in hock to the Jewish lobby" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/21))

"Saddam recalls children of envoys" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2002/10/24)
"Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has ordered all his diplomats posted abroad to send their children back to Iraq, according to a U.S. intelligence report. The notice, seen as a sign of fragility in the Baghdad government, was sent in the past two days to Iraqi envoys and intelligence personnel around the world and was ostensibly a security measure, U.S. intelligence officials said. Intelligence analysts believe that Saddam is ordering the recall of the officials' children, amid increasing U.S.-led international pressure on Baghdad, to discourage defections by using them as potential hostages." (See also: "Iraq orders foreign journalists out" (CNN.com, 2002/10/24): "The Iraqi government will expel all foreign journalists from the country next week, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The move comes after furious complaints from the Iraqi government about the reporting of several foreign journalists on assignment in the country. Iraqi officials said that after the foreign journalists' dismissal they will admit a small number back at some point under tough new rules.")

"U.S. Hands Iraq Resolution to U.N. Security Council" (Dafna Linzer, AP/The Washington Post, 2002/10/24)
"Pushing ahead on Iraq after weeks of diplomatic wrangling, the United States put its tough new proposal into the hands of the Security Council in preparation for a vote that could come as early as next week. Russia appeared to be the main obstacle Thursday, rejecting the draft chiefly due to language that could trigger military action against Iraq. But France, which has similar objections and was a vocal opponent of earlier U.S. offerings, was ready to negotiate and wouldn't block the resolution's passage, French diplomats said. The U.S. proposal, drafted with British support, gives U.N. inspectors broad new powers to search and destroy banned weapons and warns Iraq of "serious consequences" if it obstructs their work. British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said the text 'is very clearly intended to be a last chance offer to Iraq.'" (See also: "Iraq Urges UN to Stand Up to US on Draft Resolution" (Nadim Ladki and Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, 2002/10/24): "Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said the U.S. draft resolution was akin to a declaration of war on both Baghdad and the United Nations. "The United States wants to create justifications for attacking Iraq with a new resolution and this draft resolution presented by the United States, which it amended for the worse, is an insult to the United Nations and the international community," he told Qatar's al-Jazeera television.")

"Theatre's night of terror" (BBC News, 2002/10/24)
"One of the gunmen took centre stage during Act II, firing shots to the ceiling and shouting "Stop the war in Chechnya", according to eyewitness reports. ... Members of the audience were allowed to use their mobile phones to call their families for a few hours after the gunmen seized the theatre. One woman pleaded live on NTV television for the security forces not to storm the building. "Please do not start storming. There are a lot of explosives. Don't open fire on them. I am very scared, I ask you please do not start attacking", said Tatyana Solnyshkina. She said they were being treated very well, but their lives were at risk. "The only condition they are setting is that for every one of them who is killed they will immediately shoot 10 of us. The appeal was broken off when a gruff voice intervened, and the line went dead. ... An Interfax reporter attending the musical said the men claimed to have wired the building with explosives and were calling themselves 'the suicide troops from the 29th Division.'"

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

News and commentary:

"Armed Gang Seize Hundreds in Moscow Theater" (Maria Golovnina, Reuters, 2002/10/23)
"Up to 30 armed men and women, apparently Chechens and wearing masks, seized hundreds of people in a Moscow theater late on Wednesday and threatened to blow it up if police stormed the building, witnesses and police said. Officials refused to say who was behind the attack, but witness accounts pointed to an attack by Chechen separatist guerrillas. ... A teenager released by the gang told Russian television that the armed gang wanted "the war to be stopped," an apparent reference to the long-running secessionist war in Russia's turbulent Chechnya province. The teenager, among youngsters immediately released by the hostage-takers, said the group of 20-30 attackers had burst into the theater, which was showing the musical "North-East," one firing a burst of bullets into the ceiling. "He told all the actors to sit down on the front rows. Then women and men came in with masks. "Some women were strapped with explosives and they said they would blow up the whole building in 10 minutes if they (police) started to storm the building," Denis Afanasyev, a teenager told Russian television. ... Eyewitnesses said 18-20 children were released from the building as well as Muslims. One released woman said: 'They were Chechens, and they didn't bother hiding it.'"

"Paying for Terrorism" (Rachel Ehrenfeld, The Wall Street Journal/ACD, 2002/10/23)
"Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority has systemically diverted funds donated for the development of the Palestinian state to fund terrorism. "Where is the Money Going?" an independent study by the New York- based Center for the Study of Corruption and the Rule of Law, to be released in Brussels today by B'nai Brith Europe, documents how this diversion works. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the international community has donated approximately $5 billion to the Palestinian Authority. ... Let's not forget that the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Tanzim are part of Fatah. The PA recruits and employs Fatah activists, including al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Tanzim members. The EU denies especially this last part, claiming "there is no evidence that any person involved in terror attacks has actually been recruited into the PA security services." Yet, documents from the PA itself show that it pays $640,000 to $1 million per month in salaries to Fatah terrorists. The PA documents identify some of them by name. There is a Jan. 20 letter by Marwan Barghouti, the former head of Fatah/Tanzim, and an April 5, 2001 letter by Fa'ak Kana'an, Head of Fatah in Tulkarm, requesting that Arafat approve putting Fatah activists and other persons known to be involved in terrorism on the PA security apparatus payroll, and to reward them for their attacks on Israelis. These letters are addressed to Arafat, and include his approval and his comments in his own handwriting." (See also the study: "Where Does the Money Go?: A Study of the Palestinian Authority" (Rachel Ehrenfeld, ACD, 2002/10/23): "In conclusion, the Palestinian Authority, led since its inception by Yasser Arafat, has been engaged in massive-scale corruption and terrorism. Yet, all this time, the international community has turned a blind eye and continued its support.")

"Can We Coexist? A Response from Americans to Colleagues in Saudi Arabia" (Institute for American Values, 2002/10/23)
A response to a letter from 153 Saudi intellectuals, which in its turn was a response to a paper prepared by the Institute for American Values entitled "What We're Fighting For":
"Our most important disagreement with you is that nowhere in your letter do you discuss or even acknowledge the role of your society in creating, protecting, and spreading the jihadist violence that today threatens the world, including the Muslim world. For example, speaking of those who murdered 3,000 innocent persons on September 11, you do not speak in your letter of perpetrators, but instead of "alleged perpetrators." These words sadden and disappoint us. Do you expect us to believe that you are not aware that 15 of the 19 murderers of September 11 were Saudis? Or that their leader, Osama bin Laden, was a Saudi? Or that their organization, al-Qa'ida, has for years received substantial financial support from sources in Saudi Arabia? ...
These facts are well known and are beyond empirical dispute. Yet your letter incorrectly suggests that these facts are not facts at all, but instead mere "allegations," and that this entire subject - who are these terrorists and who is supporting them? - is somehow irrelevant to the present crisis. ...
Your major theme and ultimate conclusion, stated repeatedly in your letter, is that the attacks of September 11 in particular, and Islamist violence generally, are primarily the fault of the United States and its allies. You brought this upon yourselves, seems to be your basic message to us. ... ...we ask you sincerely to reconsider the tendency, evident in your letter, to blame everyone but your own leaders and your own society for the problems that your society faces." (See also: "What We're Fighting For: A Letter from America" (Institute for American Values, 2002/02/12) and "How We Can Coexist" (Institute for American Values, 2002/05/07): "It is unreasonable to assume that those who attacked the United States on September 11 did not feel in some way justified for what they did because of the decisions made by the United States in numerous places throughout the world. ... If the United States sought to withdraw from the world outside its borders and removed its hand from inflammatory issues, then the Muslims would not be bothered whether or not it is a progressive, democratic, or secular nation. ... The United States, in spite of its efforts in establishing the United Nations with its Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other similar institutions, is among the most antagonistic nations to the objectives of these institutions and to the values of justice and truth.")

"Egypt plans to air tv series on 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2002/10/23)
Arab anti-Semitism II: "Egyptian state television will broadcast a 30-part series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous anti-Semitic tract the show's creator and star says "reveals the Zionist schemes to seize Palestine." This week, Egyptian television began advertising "Horseman Without a Horse," which it said will be broadcast during the first half of Ramadan, Islam's holiest month and traditionally prime time for serialized television specials. Ramadan starts in early November." (Note: For more information about the Protocols, see also: "'You know very well that the Zionists control everything'" (Mårten Barck, 2001/10/21))

"Nasrallah alleges 'Christian Zionist' plot" (Badih Chayban, The Daily Star, 2002/10/23)
Arab anti-Semitism I: "Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday that Arabs were not "red Indians" and will not be liquidated or driven into exile by Israel and the United States. Speaking at a graduation ceremony in Haret Hreik, Nasrallah said that "Christian Zionists" were gaining strength and had a powerful impact on US foreign policy. ... Nasrallah said their aim was to return the Jews to Israel and rebuild their temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, over the Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, Nasrallah added, "if they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." Nasrallah also spoke about US hegemony in the region, asserting that Washington had reached 'a new level of insanity and arrogance.'"

"Yugoslavia 'sold arms to Iraq'" (CNN.com, 2002/10/28)
"An inquiry has been launched into claims that a Yugoslav arms dealer sold military equipment to Iraq in violation of a U.N. embargo. Media reports claim an illicit trade between the state-run arms dealer, Yugoimport, and Saddam Hussein's regime during the presidency of Slobodan Milosevic. It is also alleged that Serb experts may have helped the Iraqis build up defences. The affair came to light after a NATO inspection last week of an arms company in the Serb-controlled part of neighboring Bosnia. A Yugoslav military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the raid uncovered documents linking the Bosnian arms company, Orao, and Yugoimport, which acted as an intermediary by exporting defence equipment to Iraq."

"The Power of Facing" (Elizabeth Wasserman, The Atlantic, 2002/10/23)
An interview with Christopher Hitchens on his latest book "Why Orwell Matters": "You write a lot about the intense bitterness that the left still harbors toward Orwell. I wonder whether you think this is something typical - leftist intellectuals today are often accused of intolerance of criticism, especially from within, and of intellectual bullying and censorship in the name of political correctness. Do you see their Orwell-bashing as a manifestation of that, or as something more profound?
I think you're right - it's an aspect of that. I think Hannah Arendt said that one of the great achievements of Stalinism was to replace all discussion involving arguments and evidence with the question of motive. If someone were to say, for example, that there are many people in the Soviet Union who don't have enough to eat, it might make sense for them to respond, "It's not our fault, it was the weather, a bad harvest or something." Instead it's always, "Why is this person saying this, and why are they saying it in such and such a magazine? It must be that this is part of a plan." Some of that mentality is involved, certainly, in the way the old left people like Raymond Williams write about Orwell. They never lose that habit of thought. Political correctness, by the way, is a very mild form of this. I mean, people who talk about political correctness as being a kind of thought police have no idea of what a thought police is. But political correctness does have the same mentality. It means that intellectual argument is doomed. Objective truth simply becomes a thing to jeer at, because obviously there's no such thing as objectivity - unless of course you're politically okay, in which case you can be objective. Any child can see through that, but many adults can't."

"Islam's widening battleground" (Fouad Ajami, usnews.com, from the 2002/10/28 issue)
"The great riddle of al Qaeda has been its Arab roots and its search for bases of operation in non-Arab lands. Grant the Arab rulers their due: They have exported their troubles to distant nations, driving their restless progeny in search of safe places from which the insurgents can strike at the world and, in time, settle their accounts with their own dreaded rulers. The carnage in Bali, in a resort at the Islamic world's eastern edge, confirmed as nothing else could radicalism's pan-Islamic reach. The plotters who struck the Indonesian nightclub were determined to bring their "terror international" to a land with a hitherto forgiving version of the Islamic faith. ...
The Middle Eastern malady – victimology and the abdication of responsibility that goes with it – has made its way to faraway shores. Last year, 21 people died in the bombing of a Tel Aviv discothèque; the nightclub explosion in Bali killed several times as many. There are no idyllic places left. The war between order and malignancy has reared its head on yet another battlefield."

"The Anti-Liberal Anti-War Case" (Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, 2002/10/23)
"In its essence, the liberal argument against war is that the immoral actor is America - that America is, or imminently threatens to become, what the American president might call evil: a nationalist, imperialist, law-breaking pariah state at odds with its own traditions and values. This bitter view has become the liberal establishment line, here and in Europe. A candid explication of the line is put forward in "The Threat of America," the lead article in the October issue of the London Review of Books. ... Lieven sums up his America: "What we see now is the tragedy of a great country, with noble impulses, successful institutions, magnificent historical achievements and immense energies, which has become a menace to itself and to mankind." ... In the end, it comes to this: The anti-warriors of the left would rather see Iraq continue as a slave state under Saddam Hussein than concede any legitimacy to the idea of an American (or at least a Republican) use of force. It's a price they are willing to pay. Because, you see, America is "a menace." Well, it is a point of view. But you might have a hard time convincing the average Iraqi torture victim that it is a liberal one, or moral one." (See also: "The Push for War" (Anatol Lieven, London Review of Books, from the 2002/10/03 issue))

"America in the dock - Myth III: Bush wants war with Iraq because of a family vendetta" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/23)
The third of a five-part series about British attitudes to America: "When you ask certain senior British Civil Servants what they think of President Bush, they respond with a smile. It took me a while to learn how to translate that smile, but I think I understand it now. It says: "I am a professional and, while that notebook of yours is open, nothing you can say could possibly induce me to reveal my true opinion of that moron the Americans call their president." ... Keep those facts in mind the next time somebody suggests, as so many British journalists suggested to me, that America's confrontation with Saddam Hussein is nothing more than the working out of a Bush family vendetta. ... But the idea that an outburst of family pique and pride can move the gigantic and sluggish American democracy to the edge of war is simply - why be polite? - nuts. A president cannot take America into a major war all by himself. He needs the support of both houses of Congress. ... Are all of those 371 legislators driven by family pride? Hardly. Bush won strong congressional backing for his resolution because, since September 11, a wide consensus has been growing in America that Saddam cannot safely be left in power." (See also: "America in the dock - Myth II: America wants war with Saddam because of oil" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/22) and "America in the dock - Myth I: America is totally in hock to the Jewish lobby" (David Frum, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/21))

"Italian author slams Islam's 'hate' for West" (Tom Carter, The Washington Times, 2002/10/23)
"The Islamic world is engaged in a cultural war with the West and the worst is still to come, Italian author Oriana Fallaci told a receptive Washington audience last night. Spinning off a long list of Islamic countries, she told a group of about 80 people: "The hate for the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. The clash between us and them is not a military one. It is a cultural one, a religious one, and the worst is still to come," she continued in what she said was her first public address in more than a decade. Tight security was in place for the speech at the American Enterprise Institute after death threats were issued against her and her attorney as a result of her latest book, "The Rage and the Pride," which contains harsh criticism of Muslims. ... She said last night that critics have attempted to ban the book or have her arrested in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. The 72-year-old author described these efforts as "intellectual terrorism." Miss Fallaci, who lives in New York and is afflicted with cancer, also criticizes Western culture for its loose morals and licentiousness. "Freedom cannot exist without discipline, self-discipline, and rights cannot exist without duties. Those who do not observe their duties do not deserve their rights," she said." (See also: "Fallaci goes on trial for anti-Muslim book" (Elizabeth Bryant, UPI, 2002/10/09))

"Bin Laden's secrets are revealed by Al Jazeera journalist" (Robert Fisk, Independent, 2002/10/23)
"Heroic, vain, calculating, a caliph and a ruthless "terrorist" – a word Osama bin Laden uses of himself – are some of the characteristics of the al-Qa'ida leader that emerge from a remarkable new book by a journalist who knew him. So does al-Qa'ida's order of battle in Afghanistan when 19 suicide attackers flew aircraft into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon a year ago. ... Mr bin Laden is quoted as saying that 'the accession of a person like King Abdullah to the Jordanian throne will not change matters so long as Jordan doesn't have the resources to stand on its own feet. This condition applies to all Arab and Islamic countries that can't be independent nations on their own. The only solution is to revert to Arab and Islamic unity, which was the case before the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate. Then, we used to live together for centuries, unlike the so-called [Arab] 'nations' so recently created, whose borders were imposed on them by the West.'"

"In Opening the Gates of Its Gulag, Iraq Unleashes Pain and Protest" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/23)
"President Saddam Hussein's decision on Sunday to open the gates of his prisons and let tens of thousands of political prisoners and common criminals go free has afforded ordinary Iraqis a rare glimpse into the gulag that has maintained his power for 23 years, and prompted small but remarkable protests by some who lost relatives into the grim embrace of the state security police years ago. The protests over the last two days are the most visible sign of a new and potentially seismic trend: A willingness among ordinary people to speak up - if only in relatively small numbers, briefly, and to the accompaniment of strident praise for Mr. Hussein - for rights obliterated by him in his 23 years as Iraq's absolute ruler. ...
"Where is my son? I demand to know where is my son!" one middle-aged woman in a black cloak cried, as she huddled with a group of women at the head of 150 protesters who staged a noisy rally today outside the Ministry of Information beside the Tigris River in central Baghdad." (See also: "Hussein and Mobs Virtually Empty Iraq's Prisons" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/21))

Tuesday, October 22, 2002

News and commentary:

"Bombing was good: Bali academic" (Eric Ellis, The Australian, 2002/10/22)
"One of Bali's foremost academics and cultural leaders says last week's Sari Club bombing was a "good thing" that would cleanse Bali of unwanted foreign influence. "This is the punishment of God because we have not developed cultural tourism but we have brought in many things outside our Balinese culture," Luh Ketut Suryani said in an interview with The Australian. ... A teacher of psychiatry at Denpasar's Udayana University, Professor Suryani is a towering figure among Indonesian scholars and is regarded by foreign academics as one of the world's leading experts on Balinese Hindu culture. ... An influential adviser to authorities in Denpasar and Jakarta, she also has proposed to local community leaders to leave the bomb site on Jalan Legian untouched, as a memorial to the evils of tourism."

"US warning over Iraq delays" (BBC News, 2002/10/22)
"The US administration has indicated that its patience with the United Nations is running out, as members of the Security Council continue to voice objections to its proposed resolution on Iraq. ... Despite intensive US lobbying, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Tuesday that the new proposed resolution, circulated by the US on Monday, did not meet Moscow's criteria and was unacceptable. And his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, said a lot of discussion would be required before agreement could be found. The toned-down resolution was circulated after an earlier text, which explicitly threatened military force against Iraq, was rejected by France, Russia and China - all of them permanent members of the Security Council. ... President Bush, campaigning for Tuesday's mid-term congressional elections, said: 'If the United Nations can't make its mind up, if [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein won't disarm, we will lead a coalition to disarm him for the sake of peace.'"

"Al-Hayat Highlights Large Popularity of Syrian Defense Minister's Blood Libel Book at Syrian International Book Fair" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 432, 2002/10/22)
"Today, the London Arabic daily Al-Hayat reported that Ba'ath party leader for decades Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass's book "The Matzah of Zion," which presents the Damascus blood libel of 1840 as a "historical fact," enjoyed high popularity at the international book fair held in Damascus. The following are excerpts from the article: 'A source in the Tlass Publishing House for Research and Translation told Al-Hayat that this book is very popular among both the 600 books of the Tlass publishers, and the 38,000 books exhibited in the fair. The reason for its popularity, said the source, is 'the will of the next generation to know about the Jews, how they harmed Arabs and others, and their motives to murder other human beings.' Due to the large demand, the Tlass publication decided to publish its eighth reprint of the book in Arabic, and to publish it in other languages as well, such as English, French, and Italian.'" (See also: "The Damascus Blood Libel (1840) as Told by Syria's Minister of Defense, Mustafa Tlass" (MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 99, 2002/06/27))

"New York Will Face Bus Bombs, MTA Security Czar Is Warning" (Colin Miner, The New York Sun, 2002/10/22)
"'Israel-style suicide bus bombings are headed to New York.' That's the word of Metropolitan Transportation Authority security chief Louis Anemone and Port Authority police chief Joseph Morris who made their assessments after a five-day trip to Israel. "This stuff is going to be imported over here," Mr. Anemone said. "It already has, and I want people to sit up and take notice." ... Part of that, the officials learned on their trip to Israel, is keeping the public aware. "There has to be the resolve that the people over there have about the problem," Mr. Morris said. "This is not a short-term problem here. It's ongoing." And there is concern that the attacks overseas are a harbinger of things to come. " Today's terrorists appear to be using Israel as a testing ground to prepare for a sustained attack against the U.S.," Mr. Anemone said."

"Nightclub terror plans revealed" (Maria Ressa, CNN.com, 2002/10/22)
"An al Qaeda operative now in U.S. custody has told the FBI about plans to attack popular bars and nightclubs in Southeast Asia, according to classified documents. His name is Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, an al Qaeda operative arrested in Oman last March. ... Based in Indonesia, Al Faruq gave the CIA information last month which shut down several U.S. embassies in Southeast Asia. But a third plotter remains free - al Qaeda operative Riduan Isamuddin, aka Hambali. ... Jabarah told his FBI interrogators