Archived news and commentary: November 4 - 10, 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, November 10, 2002

News and commentary:

"Israel vows retaliation for deaths of five in kibbutz carnage" (The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/10)
"A senior military source said Monday Israel would retaliate for a terrorist infiltration and slaying of five people at the dovish Kibbutz Metzer, including a mother gunned down alongside her sons aged four and five as she read them a bedtime story. ... The Al-Aksa Martyr Brigades, linked to Palestinian Authority head Yasser Arafat's Fatah group claimed responsibility for the attack, which is believed to be the first of the last two years of violence in which Israelis are attacked in their homes within the Green Line. ... In the attack, a terrorist stormed into a house at Metzer shortly before midnight, and shot Revital Ohayoun to death as she tried to shield her two boys Noam, 4 and Matan, 5. But they, too, were shot and killed. According to police, Ohayoun was reading a bedtime story to the boys when she heard shots and ran to call her ex-husband. Relatives said he listened to them being shot over the phone and then collapsed on the floor. The gunman left the house and continued in the direction of the communal dining room where he met a couple taking a walk, Lieber said. He shot and killed the woman, Tirza Damari, 42, of Eliachin, while the man managed to flee. Kibbutz secretary Dori Yitzhak, 44, drove up in his car and was killed, Lieber added." (See also: "Israel said readying retaliation for attack on Kibbutz Metzer" (Amos Harel, Haaretz, 2002/11/11): "The kibbutz, founded by the leftist Hashomer Hatzair movement, was known for vigorous advocacy of reconciliation with its Arab neighbors, and support for a future peace including an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.")

"Violence mars anti-war rally" (Sapa-AP/news24.com, 2002/11/10)
"A protest against war in Iraq turned violent on Sunday in Brussels when dozens of youths clashed with police and attacked American-owned businesses. Up to 100 masked rioters, many of them of Arab origin, broke away from the main body of other antiwar protesters who were marching through the city centre. The rioters hurled stones at businesses and police, who responded with baton charges. Photographers and TV camera operators were also targeted by the rioters. Windows were broken at a McDonald's fast-food restaurant and at a Marriot hotel, as well as a local temporary employment agency." (See also the press release from one of the organizers, the Arab European League: "6000 demonstrators in Brussels against American agression (sic) on Iraq and for a free Palestine" (AEL, 2002/11/10): "At the end of the demonstration, AEL President Dyab Abou Jahjah addressed the crowd. ... 'Iraq is not the Problem, America is the problem. ... A war against Iraq is a war against Palestine and against all Arabs and Moslems and freedom loving people everywhere in the world, that's why we should resist together, Arabs and Moslems, European leftists and anti-globalists, We have one fight against the American Imperialism and against Zionism... ...We are against the war, and against sanctions and against inspections and any foreign interference undermining the sovereignty of Iraq or of any other Arab or Moslim country.'" For more on Dyab Abou Jahjah and the Arab-European League, see also: "Arabic: a language for Belgium?" (Andrew Osborn, The Guardian, 2002/08/27))

"In Cairo talks, Hamas refuses to halt suicide attacks in Israel" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/10)
EU terrorist appeasement II. Killing settlers is OK: "Hamas leaders reaffirmed Sunday their strong opposition to the suspension of suicide bombings inside Israel and said the goal of talks with Fatah officials in Cairo was to unite the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel. ... The Cairo talks, the first of their kind since 1995, are being held under the auspices of the European Union and the Egyptian government. EU officials have held a series of meetings with Hamas leaders in Syria and Lebanon in an attempt to persuade them to confine their attacks to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Egyptians have also put immense pressure on Hamas to agree to the change in strategy, arguing that the world can understand the killing of Jewish settlers and IDF soldiers, but not innocent civilians inside Israel. ... But Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi said Sunday the general goal of the Cairo talks was "to reach common grounds, to unite Palestinian ranks in one trench." He said Hamas believed in resistance as the only option serving the Palestinian people's higher interests."

"EU will not probe misuse of aid to PA" (Douglas Davis, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/10)
EU terrorist appeasement I. Probing terrorist funding is not OK: "European Foreign Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten has turned down a leading European legislator who wants an investigation into alleged illegal use of EU aid to the Palestinian Authority. In response to a question by Charles Tanner, Conservative foreign affairs spokesman in the European Parliament, about charges that European aid to the Palestinians currently running at 10 million euros a month is being diverted to fund terrorist activity, Patten said he wants the issue investigated "like a hole in the head." In a letter to The Sunday Telegraph, Tanner said that 'if there is to be any chance of securing a lasting peace in the Middle East, we must settle beyond all reasonable doubt such serious allegations of fraudulent and violent misuse of EU taxpayers' money.'"

"Pakistan Religious Want U.S. Out" (Kathy Gannon, AP/Yahoo! News, 2002/11/10)
"A leader of Pakistan's religious right, coming off the bloc's best election showing in the country's 55-year history, demanded Saturday that the U.S. military leave the country. "We were opposed to their war in Afghanistan before and we are opposed now. The vote of the people was clear. They want them out of Pakistan," Fazl-ur Rahman told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday. ... But his lieutenant, Mir Hussain Gillani, a squat white-bearded cleric who sat at his side, said his party's policies are clear. "Absolutely the Americans will be told to go. Leave Pakistan. This is our country," said Gillani. He also said that it was the religious duty of every Muslim Pakistani to protect and offer sanctuary to Taliban and al-Qaida. He said Osama bin Laden was not a terrorist, but "Osama is one of the biggest followers of Islam. And what has he done? What has the United States and the West proven that he has done?" Gillani is vice president of Rahman's Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam, or Party of Islamic Clerics. He said that the Taliban were attacked by the U.S.-led coalition because "America is an enemy of Islam. It is our duty to give protection to the oppressed Muslims and America is the biggest oppressor." Last week the religious bloc and a pro-democracy alliance, which includes Bhutto's party, reached a tentative agreement that would give them enough seats to form the new civilian government in Pakistan." (See also: "Islamists on brink of power in Pakistan" (Luke Harding, The Guardian, 2002/11/06))

"A Devout Muslim, a Secular State" (Lally Weymouth, The Washington Post Outlook, 2002/11/10)
An interview with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, party chairman of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which won a decisive victory in Turkey's national election: "You have said, "You cannot be secular and a Muslim at the same time. The world's 1.5 billion Muslims are waiting for the Turkish people to rise up and we will rise up." Do you still believe this or have you moderated your views?
Islam is a religion. Secularism is just a style of management. When a person chooses Islam, he becomes Muslim, but he can choose secularism as a style of administration.
But you said the two are incompatible.
I am Muslim and prefer secular administration.
You said, "Democracy is a means to an end." Do you still think so, or do you regret saying this?
I think the same way, because the end goal is to make humans happy. All systems are vehicles. ...
You were put in jail for reading a poem that sounded like the start of revolution: You said, "The minarets are our bayonets; the mosques are our barracks; our believers are our soldiers."
The poem I read I've been reciting for the last 20 years. It was written by [secularist former president Kemal] Ataturk's ideologist. In literature, you can have all kinds of symbols. Don't you, in your literature?"

"Boy Emperor Wins!" (Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times/andrewsullivan.com, 2002/11/10)
"Bush essentially became president on September 20, 2001, when his war address to Congress inspired, reassured and rallied the entire nation. I sat in a room watchng him, slack-jawed, as all the Democrats around me had tears in their eyes. That bond has stuck, and, in some respects, deepened. Bush's patient but ruthless execution of the Afghan campaign, his Homeland Security proposals, his "Axis of Evil" speech, and his persistence in dealing with the Iraqi threat all built on this. Americans are not without their worries about the war; they are not gung-ho warriors. But they grasp that we live in a new and dangerous world, and they trust this president to defend them. ... But this vote wasn't about 2004. It was about now - and the terrible decisions this young but enormously gifted president has to make in the coming weeks and months. What Americans were telling the world last week is that they like him and support him. Whatever the pundits and cynics say, this isn't Bush's war. It's Americans' war. And they intend to win it."

"Frederick's of Riyadh" (Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, 2002/11/10)
A report from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on a society "torn between secret police and secret undergarments": "The three-story mall was so chockablock with designer stilettos, bondage boots, transparent blouses and glittering gowns with plunging necklines that it would have made Las Vegas blush. I felt drab, dressed in black to suit Saudi standards with a scarf over my hair, a long skirt, a sweater over a T-shirt and flats. An earlier outing with a pink skirt had caused my Ministry of Information minder to bark: "Get your abaya! They'll kill you!" ... Suddenly, four men bore down on us, two in white robes, one in a brown policeman's uniform and one in a floor-length brown A-line skirt (not a good look). They pointed to my neck and hips, and the embarrassed diplomat explained that I had been busted by the vice squad. "They say they can see the outline of your body," he translated. ... After the men argued for 15 minutes, I fretted that I was in one of those movies where an American makes one mistake in a repressive country and ends up rotting in a dungeon. I missed John Ashcroft desperately." (See also: "Under the Ramadan Moon" (Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, 2002/11/06))

"Baghdad's Moment of Truth" (Colin L. Powell, The Washington Post, 2002/11/10)
"The disarmament process must now begin. The first inspectors plan to arrive in Iraq one week from tomorrow. The world will be watching. The inspectors are required to update the Security Council 60 days after inspections start. Inspectors also are required to inform the council whenever they encounter interference or obstacles. As President Bush said on Friday, U.S. policy will be one of zero tolerance. In the days and weeks of inspections that lie ahead, the international community can expect Iraq to test its will. Backing Resolution 1441 with the threat of force will be the best way to not only eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction but also to achieve compliance with all U.N. resolutions and reach our ultimate goal: an Iraq that does not threaten its own people, its neighbors and the world. President Bush and both houses of Congress have emphasized that the United States prefers to see Iraq disarm under U.N. auspices without a resort to force. We do not seek a war with Iraq, we seek its peaceful disarmament. But we will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. The Security Council has confronted Saddam Hussein and his regime with a moment of truth. If they meet it with more lies, they will not escape the consequences."

"War Plan in Iraq Sees Large Force and Quick Strikes" (David E. Sanger et al., The New York Times, 2002/11/10)
"President Bush has settled on a war plan for Iraq that would begin with an air campaign shorter than the one for the Persian Gulf war, senior administration officials say. It would feature swift ground actions to seize footholds in the country and strikes to cut off the leadership in Baghdad. The plan, approved in recent weeks by Mr. Bush well before the Security Council's unanimous vote on Friday to disarm Iraq, calls for massing 200,000 to 250,000 troops for attack by air, land and sea. ... As the Pentagon puts the finishing touches on a plan of attack, White House and State Department officials are discussing what one senior official called a "seamless transition" from attack to a military occupation of parts of the country. It would include efforts to deliver food to Iraqis and to engage them quickly in planning for economic development and eventual democracy in areas that President Saddam Hussein has terrorized."

"Not just commies, but Jew-hating commies" (James Morrow, The Weekly James, 2002/11/10)
Morrow on yesterday's anti-war rally in Florence: "Last night, the two very short flashes they played on the Channel 9 News showed signs that clearly read, in English, "Victory to the Intifada" and, more bluntly, "FUCK ISRAEL." (Your humble blogger, in anticipation of such signs, crouched down with his nose to the TV to read them when the report aired). And clicking around looking for photos, I find this dessicated old fool carrying placards that read, if my Italian is correct, "U.S.A. and Israel: The TRUE Terrorists" and "U.S.A. and [Star of David]: Cancers of Humanity." (See also the photo: "Florence Flooded by Anti-War Demonstrators" (WorldNews, 2002/11/09))

Saturday, November 9, 2002

News and commentary:

"Huge anti-war protest in Florence" (BBC News, 2002/11/09)
"Hundreds of thousands of protesters from across Europe have joined a rally in the Italian city of Florence to voice their opposition to any war with Iraq. ... There was no official police count of the numbers taking part, but observers estimated that about 300,000 people had turned out. The protest is the climax of the first meeting of the European Social Forum, which has brought together anti-globalisation campaigners from across the continent for five days of debates, conferences and concerts. ... Correspondents say there was a carnival atmosphere, with the crowd being entertained by clowns and jugglers and some participants eating or rollerblading along the route. ... But the message behind the rally was a serious one: "Take your war and go to hell," one banner read. "Bush, Blair and Berlusconi - assassins" said another." (See also: "U.N. Iraq Move Fuels Anger at Italy Anti-War Demo" (Luke Baker, Reuters/ABC News, 2002/11/09): "'It's a scandalous resolution,' said Sean Murray, 29, a member of a group called the Workers' Revolution. "It proves once more that the United Nations is a puppet of America, Britain and France and is not an institution that's there to serve the interests of the world's people." ... "There are so many problems in the world. Hunger, thirst and disease. Rather than tackling these, the United States is making it worse by waging war," said Ramadan Sleiman, a Palestinian activist on the streets of Florence.")

"Oriana's latest bombshell" (Oriana Fallaci, Dagger in Hand, 2002/11/09)
Chris Newman's translation of an excerpt from Fallaci's latest piece, originally published in Corriere della Sera (2002/11/06), in which she comments on the anti-globalisation meeting in Florence. And the protesters:
"The false revolutionaries, the daddy's boys, who while living off their parents or those who finance them dare to chatter about poverty. About injustice. The presumed pacifists, the false doves, who invoke peace by making war and who want peace from one side only. That is from the Americans' side only. (Never do they ask for it from Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden. Never do they improvise a march for the creatures assassinated or gassed by the former and the creatures massacred by the latter. In fact they respect Saddam Hussein. They love Bin Laden. They kneel to the military and theocratic regimes of Islam, and in their so-called social centers they hide clandestine agents not infrequently trained by Al Qaeda in Iraq or in Iran or in Pakistan. And on September 11 they were the first to snigger "Good, it-serves-the-Americans-right.")"

"Saudis test limits of freedom" (BBC News, 2002/11/09)
"The former Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki, recently wrote an article for the Washington Post about the fire at the school in Mecca in which 15 girls died because the religious police allegedly stopped them from fleeing unveiled - a story of explosive sensitivity here. But when the Saudi papers translated this piece, they cut several crucial sentences. Absurdly, Prince Turki was moved to write a letter of protest to his own papers. Among other things, he pointed out, the article had been about the government's more liberal attitude to the media."

"The U.N. Trap?" (William Kristol and Robert Kagan, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/11/18 issue)
"There is no point in kidding ourselves: The inspections process on which we are to embark is a trap. It may well be one that this powerful and determined president can get out of, but it is a trap nonetheless. It was designed to satisfy those in Europe who oppose U.S. military action against Iraq; and it was negotiated by those within the Bush administration who have never made any secret of their opposition to military action in Iraq. We should hardly be surprised, then, that the process established by the U.N. Security Council makes it harder, not easier, for the president to accomplish what he has long stated as his objective in Iraq. President Bush's own policy advisers have led him into an inspections quagmire from which he may have difficulty escaping. ...
The tragic irony, of course, is that the inspections regime cannot possibly "work," no matter how compliant Saddam chooses to be. It simply cannot eliminate the danger Saddam poses to the United States and to the world. Even if the inspectors were to find and destroy some of his illicit weapons and weapons-making facilities, we could never be confident that they had found and destroyed all of them. Nor is there anything to stop Saddam, after "disarming" and getting a clean bill of health, from beginning all over again. That is why President Bush has been right all along to insist on a change of regime in Iraq. The problem is not just Saddam's weapons. The problem is Saddam."

"Behind the Veil: A Muslim Woman Speaks Out" (Marlise Simons, The New York Times, 2002/11/09)
Europe's new refugee problem: "Ayaan Hirsi Ali had done well in the 10 years since she arrived in the Netherlands as a young refugee from Somalia and, until a few months ago, she lived a quiet life in her adopted land. Never did she intend to create a national commotion. She studied Dutch, took on cleaning jobs, went to university and worked as a political scientist. She made a name for herself pressing for the emancipation of Muslim women and documenting how thousands, living even here, were subjected to beatings, incest and emotional and sexual abuse. To the surprise of many, she became a leading voice condemning the government's support for multiculturalism, programs costing millions of dollars a year that she considers misplaced because they help keep Muslim women isolated from Dutch society. Then Ms. Hirsi Ali, 32, began receiving hate mail, anonymous messages calling her a traitor to Islam and a slut. On several Web sites, other Muslims said she deserved to be knifed and shot. Explicit death threats by telephone soon followed. The police told her to change homes and the mayor of Amsterdam sent bodyguards. She tried living in hiding. Finally, last month, she became a refugee again, fleeing the Netherlands. ... "I've made people so angry because I'm talking from the inside, from direct knowledge," she said. 'It's seen as treason. I'm considered an apostate and that's worse than an atheist.'" (See also: "Woman in hiding after she lambasts Islam" (Andrew Osborn, The Observer, 2002/10/06))

"Senior Islamic Jihad man killed in Jenin gunbattle with IDF troops" (The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/09)
"IDF troops shot and killed the most senior Islamic Jihad man on Israel's wanted list, Iyad Sawalhe, in a gunbattle in the West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday morning, Israel Radio reported. ... Sawalhe tried to resist arrest, throwing hand grenades at the troops and firing shots, before he was killed. Three soldiers were lightly wounded in the operation. Israel said that Sawalhe, 28, is directly responsible for attacks that killed 31 Israelis and wounded scores, including the recent car bomb at Karkur junction that killed 14, the bus bombing at the Merom junction and the preparation of a 300 kg car bomb that was discovered by IDF troops."

"U.S. Citizen Killed by CIA Linked to N.Y. Terror Case" (Michael Powell and Dana Priest, The Washington Post, 2002/11/09)
"The U.S. citizen killed by a missile launched from a pilotless drone aircraft over Yemen was the ringleader of an alleged terrorist sleeper cell in Lackawanna, N.Y., administration officials said yesterday. Kamal Derwish, one of two unindicted co-conspirators in the Lackawanna case, died along with the intended target of the attack, senior al Qaeda leader Abu Ali al-Harithi, who is accused of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in which 17 sailors died. ... Derwish, 29, an unindicted co-conspirator, was the most mysterious of the men from Lackawanna named in court papers, and, according to U.S. prosecutors, the most influential. They portrayed him as the devoutly religious provocateur who lured the six indicted men into the al Qaeda orbit."

"Bali club bomb was intended to kill US citizens" (Tim Johnston, The Times, 2002/11/09)
"The terrorists who massacred almost 200 people in the bomb attack in Bali last month were trying to kill as many Americans as possible, a self-confessed member of the gang has said. "It was for revenge because of what Americans have done to Muslims. So that is their intention: to kill as many Americans as they can," Major-General Made Mangku Pastika, the head of the Indonesian investigation team, said. ... General Pastika said that Mr Amrozi had shown police where the bomb used in the attack on the Sari nightclub was made. "They found the residues of the material of the bomb in the house, so they are now searching (for) more," he said. Police also said that Mr Amrozi had given them the names of some of his fellow conspirators."

"Fears of terrorist attacks hit peak" (Michael Evans et al., The Times, 2002/11/09)
"Intelligence intercepts of al-Qaeda suspects have uncovered a level of terrorist plotting on the same scale as in the weeks leading up to the September 11 attacks, The Times can disclose. The intense level of al-Qaeda "chatter" picked up by American and British signals interceptions led to David Blunkett’s sombre warning of a terrorist attack. The intelligence gleaned in recent weeks pointed directly to a terrorist threat against Western interests, and the United Kingdom is believed to be on the list of targets. ... Both drafts of the statement, the one warning of a potential dirty bomb or poison gas attack and the other using more bland language, had been formally approved by the security and intelligence services, indicating that the first was as legitimate as the second. ... One of the most alarming warnings of a terrorist outrage in Europe came from Germany. Hans-Josef Beth, head of the International Terrorism Department of the Security Service (BND), has identified Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a one-legged terrorist with experience in chemical warfare, as the likely mastermind of a future assault." (See also: "'Bin Laden alive,' says Interpol" (CNN.com, 2002/11/08))

"Bush and Blair order Saddam: Disarm or else" (Roland Watson and Rosemary Bennett, The Times, 2002/11/09)
"President Bush and Tony Blair warned Iraq last night of the "severest consequences" if it failed to disarm after the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to give President Saddam Hussein a week to accept an uncompromising new inspection regime. "The outcome of the current crisis is already determined," Mr Bush said. "The full disarmament of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq will occur. The only question for the Iraqi people is to decide how ... His co-operation must be full and unconditional or he will face the severest consequences." In Downing Street Mr Blair declared: 'Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is. Defy the UN's will and we will disarm you by force. Be in no doubt whatever of that.'" (See also the full statements: "President Pleased with U.N. Vote" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2002/11/08) and "PM statement on Iraq following UN Security Council resolution" (Tony Blair, 10 Downing Street, 2002/11/08))

Friday, November 8, 2002

News and commentary:

"U.N. passes Iraq resolution on weapons inspections" (CNN.com, 2002/11/08)
"The United Nations Security Council on Friday approved a resolution that demands unfettered access for U.N. inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The vote is in line with U.S. efforts to win international backing for stripping Saddam Hussein of such weapons. The resolution passed unanimously, after Secretary-General Kofi Annan joined the assembled delegates in the Security Council chamber. "How this crisis is resolved will affect greatly the course of peace and security in the region and the world," Annan said after the vote. 'I commend the council for acting today with purpose and resolve.'" (See also: "Text of U.N. resolution on Iraq" (CNN.com, 2002/11/08))

"'Bin Laden alive,' says Interpol" (CNN.com, 2002/11/08)
"The head of Interpol - the world's international police force - has warned that al Qaeda operatives are preparing simultaneous attacks in several countries. Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble also said he thought al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was alive. In an interview with the Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro, on Friday, U.S.-born Noble said: 'Something worrying is going on. All intelligence experts are agreed that al Qaeda is preparing a major terrorist operation, simultaneous attacks that would not target the United States alone but several countries at the same time.'"

"Turkey entry 'would destroy EU'" (BBC News, 2002/11/08)
"The man shaping the future constitution of the European Union was quoted on Friday as saying Turkey's entry into the EU would be "the end of Europe". Former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing told Le Monde newspaper that people who backed Turkey's accession were "the adversaries of the European Union". ... Mr Giscard d'Estaing told Le Monde that Turkey's capital was not in Europe, 95% of its population lived outside Europe, and it was "not a European country". Asked what the effect of including Turkey in a future wave of European enlargement would be, he said: "In my opinion, it would be the end of Europe." He proposed instead a co-operation pact similar to the one presented to Ukraine."

"From Peace to Hate" (Suzanne Davidson, The Jewish Journal, 2002/11/08)
Davidson on "the way people behaved toward us - the L.A. Pro Israel Rally Committee (LAPIRC) - at the Not in Our Name anti-war demonstration on Sunday, Oct. 6": "Our group of 25 people, many over 80 years old, experienced baiting, namecalling and general histrionics from those attending the demonstration. ... People began gathering at the crosswalk signal in order to get to the Federal Building. When they saw us they started cursing. Without first saying hello, or anything, a young Latino man told us to "f--- off." He began yelling at one of our older Russian Jewish supporters, Isaac, "You are Zionist Nazi pigs. You are Nazis!" It was surreal. People on the corner were all yelling at us in such a fevered pitch I couldn’t hear myself talk. ...
One woman who videotaped me yelled that she could do what she wanted to because she had First Amendment rights. I told her that she lacked grace. She turned around and said, "Well you lacked grace when you slaughtered my people." She was referring to Native Americans. ... And then the coup de grâce: As the 1,500 or so demonstrators began to march west down Wilshire Boulevard (the police sectioned off the street) toward Sepulveda Boulevard, they somehow managed to form a long line in front of us. At this point, our security guy put eight L.A.P.D. officers in front of us for protection. The name-calling continued full force, interspersed with occasional cries of "shame on you." ...
I shudder to think what would have happened had the police not been there. This may have been advertised as an anti-war rally, but I could hear in the distance, as I looked at the hate-filled faces, military boots marching on broken glass."

"Ramadan Sermon From Iraq" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 438, 2002/11/08)
Excerpts from a sermon delivered by Dr. Sheikh Bakr Abed Al-Razzaq Al-Samaraai in 'The Mother of All Battles' mosque in Baghdad, which was broadcasted on Iraqi television:
"You [the West] are the real terrorists. We will scare you with the help of Allah. We stand strong; Allah will not allow the infidels to overcome the believers. Who are you, Oh foreigners. Who are you, Oh descendents of pigs and apes, to scare Muhammad, who is supported by Allah, as well as by Gabriel and the [other] Angels…??? Who are you, anyway, Bush [you] little dwarf to threaten Muhammad and his descendents!!?? We challenge you with our words, before challenging you with our weapons. Who are you to threaten us, our feelings and our holy places??!! ... We tell you, Oh Allah, that we are patient… and we will fight them with all kinds of weapons. Jihad, Jihad, Jihad, Jihad. ... Today, after the capture of Jerusalem, and after the infidels defiled the Arabian Peninsula and are threatening Arabs and Muslims, the holy places, and especially Iraq - Jihad has become an obligation of every individual Muslim [Fardh 'Ayn]. Anyone who does not comply, will find himself lost in [hell], side by side with Haman, Pharaoh and their soldiers. These are not just words of a sermon delivered from the pulpit of a mosque with enthusiasm, they are religious law."

"Protocols of Elder Named Gore Vidal: Wacko 9/11 Piece" (Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer, from the 2002/11/11 issue)
Rosenbaum on Gore Vidal's "The Enemy Within", in which he attempts to "prove - well, insinuate in a Nixonian way - that a secret cabal (the Bush/oil "junta") instigated the 9/11 mass murders in order to increase their profit margins": "But all of this previous silliness doesn't rise to the stupendous heights Mr. Vidal reserves for his final few thousand words. A finale that begins when he invokes Hitler: "Many commentators of a certain age have noted how Hitlerian our junta sounds as it threatens first one country for harbouring terrorists and then another." Our sage finds some merit in this wisdom: "It is true that Hitler liked to pretend to be the injured - or threatened - party before he struck." He seems to be saying that somehow the W.T.C. mass murder was an example of the U.S. "pretending" to be injured. This will be somewhat hard to sell to the survivors of the W.T.C. attacks, who, I guess, are "pretending" to have lost their children, fathers and mothers. Clearly our sage has lost track, in his frenzy, of one slight difference between the U.S. and Hitler's Reich: Hitler did pretend injury; he dressed up prisoners in Polish uniforms to stage an attack on a German radio station in order to provide a fig leaf for his 1939 attack on Poland, for instance. But we didn't pretend to be attacked by others on 9/11, although implicitly, metaphorically, sleazily, that is what our sage implies with his Hitler analogy. But it turns out we're actually a little worse than Hitler: " … something new has been added since the classic Roman Hitlerian mantra, 'they are threatening us, we must attack first.'" The new addition that makes us worse than Hitler: We are more open about it than Hitler - at least to the penetrating gaze of our seer - thus a little worse, in our shamelessness, than Hitler." (See also:"The Enemy Within" (Gore Vidal, The Observer/UQ Wire, 2002/10/27) and "Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11" (Sunder Katwala, The Observer, 2002/10/27))

"The End of An Era" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2002/11/08)
Hanson on the "bankruptcy of the anti-Americanists": "So we have at last arrived at Cloudcuckooland: A hierarchal United States military is more tolerant of liberals in its ranks than liberal universities are of their critics on campus. Republicans support dangerous interventions abroad to remove dictators and free oppressed peoples, as leftist dissidents agitate for hands-off mass murderers and medieval theocrats. A democratic Israel is slandered as imperialistic and fascistic while an authoritarian Palestinian regime is given a pass for theft, murder, and torture. And liberals, women, and homosexuals are saved in Afghanistan thanks to the work of Air Force pilots and special forces, as reactionary fundamentalists and thugs seek to hold onto their autocracy in part by finding solace with anti-American leftists. Who would have ever thought that democratic Iraqis would seek our military's help, while agents of Saddam Hussein would line up to find solidarity with those now marching? Face it: Slobodan Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Yasser Arafat, and Saddam Hussein - not the ghosts of the thousands of their innocent dead - all prefer Ramsey Clark to George Bush. We are seeing nothing less than quite literally the end of an era - witnessed by the intellectual suicide of an entire generation, who in their last gasps are proving they have been not very moral people all along."

"Divest Yourself" (Hanna Rosin, Slate, 2002/11/08)
"The divestment movement drifted over from Europe pretty tainted, and not by Muslim radicals. There, some of its lefty proponents are still naked in their bigotry, foaming against the Shylocks of their imagination. Take one M.L. Sinnott, a scientist at the University of Manchester who helped organize academic and scientific boycotts of Israeli scholars. Stephen Greenblatt, as head of the Modern Languages Association, wrote to one of Sinnott's colleagues objecting to their having fired two researchers merely because they were Israeli. And here is what Sinnott wrote back: "From the 'claptrap' of your open letter," he began, "one would imagine Israel to be an inoffensive Mediterranean Sweden rather than a voelkisch polity whose atrocities surpass those of Milosevic's Yugoslavia." He then progresses to Zionism as the mirror image of Nazism, Jenin as Kristallnacht, the "breathtaking power" of the Jewish lobby, and, of course, the media, "either controlled by Jews or browbeaten by them." ...
Berman boils down the phenomenon to the "Anti-Imperialism of Fools," a takeoff on an August Bebel phrase particularly apt for this year's divestment movement: The radical left, who in this case are spillovers from the World Bank protests, boil their target down to one easy, ugly enemy that is in reality a tiny, relatively insignificant Mediterranean country instead of focusing on world-class imperialists like China and Russia or for that matter world-class human rights abusers. ... There should be a way to design a movement objecting to Israel's policies that is free of anti-Semitism. There even ought to be a legitimate way to object to Israel's very existence on purely political grounds. But so far, it seems, no one has managed to do it."

"Arab Press Debates Antisemitic Egyptian Series 'A Knight Without a Horse'" (MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 109, 2002/11/08)
"On November 6th, 2002, some Arab television channels aired the first segment of a 41-part serial called "A Knight Without a Horse," which is based on 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.' ... The series aroused much debate in the Egyptian and Arab press. Most writers supported the airing of the series, but a few criticized Egypt's obsession with antisemitic writings. ... After his return from Baghdad, where he had gone to observe the referendum in which Iraqi president Saddam Hussein won 100% of the votes, [producer Muhammad] Subhi said he was 'not interested in Israel's protests, and unaffected by their hysterical screams… because I am exposing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and see them as the basis of Zionism. I found that the memoirs of Hafez Najib [on which the series is based] are fertile ground for a work that will expose these protocols… They [the Jews] cannot accept any criticism, especially if it is from an Arab. They realize that discussion of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion will expose their true racist face, their expansionist intentions, and their objection to any peace.'" (See also: "Storm over 'Elders of Zion' Anti-Semitic series on Egypt TV stirs outrage" (Ashraf Khalil, San Francisco Chronicle, 2002/10/31) and "Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' Gets New Life on Egypt TV" (Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, 2002/10/26))

"Anti-Americanism" (Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/11/08)
A FrontPage Symposium with Paul Hollander, Stanley Kurtz, Dan Flynn and Victor Davis Hanson about the new secular religion: "Flynn: I think the basic problem with the anti-Americans is that they hold the United States to a standard that they would never hold any non-Western nation to. America's critics compare America with utopia and find America lacking. This method of analysis guarantees the results that those who employ it desire. Compare anything to an ideal and it's going to fall short. Compare America to places that actually exist and we look rather spectacular. ...
A better method of analysis is to compare America to actual countries, rather than imaginary ones. The Left no longer has its city on a hill (the Soviet Union), but it still has its Sodom and Gomorrah (the United States). Many saw the fall of Communism as the death of the Left. It wasn't. For the American Left, the collapse of Communism may have been a positive thing. No longer having to defend the indefensible in East Germany, the USSR, Cambodia, and elsewhere, the Left now directs its energy towards attacking the United States. This is what's so appealing about the new anti-Americanism to many young people - it's safe from criticism because it has no positive program and holds up no country as its ideal; it merely focuses its jaundiced eye upon the sins (both real and imagined) of America and the West."

"Ringleader of '85 Achille Lauro Hijacking Says Killing Wasn't His Fault" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/11/08)
"Seventeen years after terrorists from his Palestinian splinter group shot Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old American Jew from New York, and pushed him, in his wheelchair, into the Mediterranean from the deck of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, the man who calls himself Abu Abbas may be approaching the day when he will finally have to face a day of reckoning with American justice. After years as a fugitive, interrupted for four years in the 1990's when the Oslo accords allowed him to live unhindered in Gaza, Mr. Abbas, 53, is back in Baghdad, living under the protection of President Saddam Hussein. ... The killing of Mr. Klinghoffer, on Oct. 7, 1985, in full view of his wife, Marilyn, was an act that at the time seemed to set a standard for remorselessness among terrorists. ...
Asked if he was sorry for what happened to Mr. Klinghoffer, Mr. Abbas seemed to search for words that would express regret but not an apology, and that would equate the Klinghoffer killing with American and Israeli military actions that have caused civilian deaths. "Of course, it wasn't my fault," he said. "I didn't shoot the man. But he was a civilian, and I ask myself, `What was his fault?' It is no different whoever the civilian who is killed may be - whether you drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki or you kill some innocent person who is walking down a road." The difficulty, or impossibility, of making an ethical distinction between between the killing of the World Trade Center victims and the murder of Mr. Klinghoffer, who was a retired businessman, seemed lost on Mr. Abbas, as did the fact that an Italian court has convicted him of murder in the Klinghoffer case."

"Qaeda Meeting in Thailand Reportedly Plotted Attacks on Tourists" (Raymond Bonner, The New York Times, 2002/11/08)
"A group of Al Qaeda operatives met in Thailand and discussed plans to attack bars, nightclubs and tourist resorts throughout the region months before the October bombing in Bali killed more than 190 people, Asian and Western officials said this week. The group was led by a senior lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and included a Qaeda explosives expert, who was later arrested and told American officials of the January meeting during his interrogation. ... "Is Thailand next?" is the question being asked by seemingly everyone here, from bartenders to hotel owners, to businessmen and diplomats, as well by many Thai officials when they are speaking privately."

"U.S. says Baghdad is hiding anthrax" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2002/11/08)
"U.S. intelligence agencies have told U.N. weapons inspectors that Iraq has hidden 7,000 liters of anthrax, but chief inspector Hans Blix never reported the information to the U.N. Security Council, The Washington Times has learned. The failure to inform the council has raised questions about whether Mr. Blix will report accurately on anticipated Iraqi obstruction of weapons inspections, which could begin again later this month, said administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ... Mr. Blix could not be reached for comment, but he said in a recent television interview that although he respects U.S. and British intelligence agency reports on Iraq's weapons, Unmovic cannot report the intelligence to the Security Council because spy agencies will not disclose their sources."

Thursday, November 7, 2002

News and commentary:

"Machiavelli in Mesopotamia" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2002/11/07)
"From conversations I have had on this subject in Washington, I would say that the most fascinating and suggestive conclusion is this: After Sept. 11, several conservative policy-makers decided in effect that there were "root causes" behind the murder-attacks. These "root causes" lay in the political slum that the United States has been running in the region, and in the rotten nexus of client-states from Riyadh to Islamabad. Such causes cannot be publicly admitted, nor can they be addressed all at once. But a slum-clearance program is beginning to form in the political mind. Iraq is, for fairly obvious reasons, the keystone state here, and it is already at critical mass. Thus it seems to me idle to argue that a proactive policy is necessarily doomed to make more enemies. I have always disliked this argument viscerally, since it suggests that I should meekly avoid the further disapproval of those who hate me quite enough to begin with. Given some intelligence and foresight, however, I believe that an armed assistance to the imminent Iraqi and Kurdish revolutions can not only make some durable friends, it can also give the theocrats and their despotic patrons something to really hate us for."

"'Your Aggressive Baby Killing Tactics'" (James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal/Best of the Web Today, 2002/11/07)
A glimpse into a violently non-violent mind: "Atlanta radio host Neal Boortz reports (sixth item) on another campus dustup, this one at Chicago's St. Xavier University. It seems that Robert Kurpiel, an Air Force Academy cadet, sent an inoffensive e-mail seeking help in making college students around the country aware of the annual Academy Assembly, which discusses "very important issues dealing with politics." One Peter Kirstein, a professor of history at SXU, received a copy of the message and went ballistic, sending the cadet the following reply:

"You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit. Who, top guns to reign death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world? Are you serious sir? Resign your commission and serve your country with honour. No war, no air force cowards who bomb countries with AAA, without possibility of retaliation. You are worse than the snipers. You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us. September 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts have done to Palestinians, the VC, the Serbs, a retreating army at Basra. You are unworthy of my support."

Kirstein, whose university Web site includes a virtual shrine to Karl Marx, ended up issuing a halfhearted apology: "As one who believes in non-violence and the avoidance of conflict, I could have been more circumspect and creative in my communication with [Kurpiel]," he writes." (See also: "The Hate-filled Leftist Professor" (Neal Boortz, Neals Nuze, 2002/11/06) and "Hateful Letters to a Soldier - From a Leftist Professor" (FrontPageMagazine, 2002/11/08), which contains this appropriate quote: "'It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.' - Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, Sergeant, USMC")

"Bush optimistic over UN resolution" (BBC News, 2002/11/07)
"President Bush says the United Nations will vote on Friday on a resolution "bringing the civilised world together to disarm Saddam Hussein". Mr Bush told reporters in Washington: "I am optimistic we will get the resolution vote tomorrow." French President Jacques Chirac has reached agreement with Mr Bush over the wording of the US draft resolution currently being debated by the UN Security Council, Mr Chirac's spokeswoman says. ... Mr Bush told reporters: "The resolution is a disarmament resolution, it is a statement of intent to once and for all disarm Saddam Hussein. 'When this resolution passes, I will be able to say that the United Nations has recognised the threat and we are going to work together to disarm him.'"

"South America's 'tri-border' back on terrorism radar" (Mike Boettcher, CNN.com, 2002/11/07)
"CNN has learned from coalition intelligence sources that several top terrorist operatives met recently in the area - where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay intersect - to plan attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in the Western hemisphere. Sources said the meetings, which took place in and around Ciudad del Este, were attended by representatives of Hezbollah and other groups sympathetic to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network. ... Other indications of the threat came from intelligence sources in the Middle East, who told CNN of a new terrorist effort aimed at U.S. and Israeli interests and coordinated by a man named Imad Mugniyeh. The sources say Mugniyeh - working from his bases in Iran and Hezbollah-controlled areas of Lebanon - is directing the activities of terrorists in South America, planning to hit U.S. and Israeli targets if the United States attacks Iraq, or if Israel is drawn into the conflict." (For more on Hezbollah operations in South America, see also: "In the Party of God" (Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, from the 2002/10/14 and 21 issues))

"Al Qaeda admits Bali blasts on Web" (CNN.com, 2002/11/07)
"Islamic militant group al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on a Bali nightclub in which more than 180 people died. ... The Web site has been used in the past by al Qaeda to claim responsibility for attacks, including the synagogue fire in Tunisia in which mainly German tourists died, and strikes on two ships in Yemen. The al Qaeda message read: "By attempting to strike a U.S. plane in Saudi Arabia and by bombing a Jewish synagogue in Tunisia, destroying two ships in Yemen, attacking the Fialka base in Kuwait, and bombing nightclubs and whorehouses in Indonesia, al Qaeda has shown it has no qualms about attacking inside Arab and Islamic lands." The statement was translated by CNN. "This is provided that the target belongs to the Jewish-Crusader alliance," it continues."

"Bashir link to Bali suspect" (Martin Chulov, The Australian, 2002/11/08)
"The chief suspect in the Bali bomb blasts was visited three times during the past year by cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of banned terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah who has for three weeks denied any involvement in the atrocity. Neighbours in suspect Amrozi's tiny east Java village, and the director of the Islamic school where he prayed, confirmed to The Australian yesterday that Mr Bashir had visited Mr Amrozi's mechanical workshop each time he came to town."

"Suspect 'admits Bali bombing role'" (BBC News, 2002/11/07)
"Indonesian police say a man they are questioning has admitted involvement in the bomb attack that killed nearly 200 people at a Bali nightclub last month. National police chief Da'i Bachtiar said the man, whom he identified only as Amrozi, was the owner of the minivan used in the 12 October attack on the holiday island. Amrozi's exact role in the bombing remains unclear. Asked if Amrozi had parked the minivan packed with explosives outside the Sari Club, Mr Bachtiar said: "The group has several people with a division of labour, certainly including Amrozi, who admitted going there and dividing up tasks". ... The BBC's South-East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head says Amrozi appears to have acted as a field coordinator in the bombing."

"Scholar Sentenced to Death in Iran" (Ali Akbar Dareini, AP/Yahoo! News, 2002/11/07)
"A prominent reformist scholar was sentenced to death on charges of insulting Islam's prophet and questioning the hard-line clergy's interpretation of Islam, his lawyer said Thursday. A court in Hamedan, in western Iran, issued the sentence against university professor Hashem Aghajari, Saleh Nikbakht told The Associated Press. ... Aghajari, a history professor at Tabiat-e-Modarres University in Tehran, was detained in August after a closed hearing in Hamedan, where he made a speech in June questioning the hard-line interpretations of the ruling clerics. ... In his speech, Aghajari had said clerics' teachings on Islam were considered sacred simply because they were part of history, and he questioned why clerics were the only ones authorized to interpret Islam. Aghajari's speech provoked organized street rallies by hard-liners in several cities."

"Saddam's 'Weapons' Costly, 'Bush-Sharon' Cheap" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2002/11/07)
A report from Cairo: "The dates nicknamed "Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction" were not selling so well today, the first day of Ramadan, at the wholesale market where thrifty Cairenes purchase their holiday treats. ... "Yasir Arafat" and the revived best seller from last year, "Osama bin Laden," were already all but gone - a reflection that the plight of the Palestinians and the fight against terrorism remain the preoccupations of the moment. ... To relieve their doldrums, most Egyptians and, indeed, people across the Arab world look forward to the special programs that television stations roll out to take advantage of the mass audience gathering to eat. ... This year the early lead seems to be going to "Knight Without a Horse," a series that has already received worldwide attention, even though the first episode was not scheduled to be shown until late tonight. The Bush administration encouraged Arab governments to ban the series because it incorporates ideas from the long discredited "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," an anti-Semitic forgery by the czarist secret police that purported to lay out a plan by Jews to dominate the world." (See also: "Ramadan for Degenerates" (Rod Dreher, The Corner, 2002/11/07): "Nothing like sitting around with the family at night, watching a miniseries based on The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and eating sweet holiday treats festively named after mass murderers, terrorists, dictators and weapons of mass destruction. Wonderful people, these Egyptians, such exemplars of Islam's tolerance and peacefulness.")

"Saudi Arabia Searches for a More Flexible Social Contract" (Philip Taubman, The New York Times, 2002/11/07)
"For every instance of fresh thinking I encountered, there was a disheartening example of encrusted thought. The Internet is easily accessible, but censored. Hamad M. Al-Baadi, an educator, welcomed me warmly as a fellow degree holder from Stanford University, then informed me in utter seriousness that Natan Sharansky, Israel's deputy prime minister, had played a pivotal role in White House policy deliberations about the Middle East. Numerous Saudis told me that the American media were deliberately disparaging their society as part of a campaign to impugn Islam. The most familiar refrain was that Jews control the United States. When I told Saudis that that assertion was as accurate as the American perception that Saudi Arabia is populated by millions of terrorists, they looked at me blankly." (See also: "Saudi minister rebukes religious police" (BBC News, 2002/11/05))

"Netanyahu: Mine will be a government of solutions" (Caroline B. Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/07)
An interview with the newly sworn-in Foreign Minister and Likud leadership candidate Binyamin Netanyahu: "The settlements are a smokescreen under which Palestinian and Arab propaganda tries to reverse causality. What they typically do is present the results of Arab aggression as the cause of the problem. Now they are saying that the settlements or our being in the territories is the cause of the problem. But of course, when we were attacked from these very territories in 1967, there wasn't a single Israeli soldier or settlement there. That came about as a result of Arab aggression, not the cause of it. They did the same thing about 1948 in 1967. Then they said the cause of the conflict was the refugees, but there wasn't one refugee in the Middle East when five Arab armies attacked us. What they consistently do is turn the results of this aggression against us. ...
The Arabs, having been defeated on the battlefield, are trying to reverse our military victories from 1948, and especially from 1967, by winning over Western public opinion by convincing that public opinion that our victories are unjust, and that the reversal of those victories would serve justice and peace. They are lying, of course. But the important thing is that they have had the field to themselves in many parts of the world. In Europe, they have been practically unchallenged."

"'Fatwa' against Kola Boof" (FreeWorldNow.com, November 2002)
Found via FrontPageMagazine: "On Sept. 26th members (listed below) of the Arab Muslim fundamentalist government of Sudan issued fatwa (a contract for assassination) on bestselling author Kola Boof, a Black woman's writer who lives in Leimert Park, California, but who was born in Sudan, North Africa. In 1998, Osama Bin Laden himself told Kola Boof over the telephone: "If I had the time to waste - I would slit your throat myself." Ms. Boof had angered many Arab North Africans in 1997 with her first poetry collection which contained feminist "rantings". Here are the details of the fatwa: Kola Boof has been found guilty of: "Blasphemy and Treason". Codicile: "...guilty of deliberately and maliciously bearing false witness against religious sentiment and of willing treason against her Arab Muslim father's people and against her nation, the Sudan. ... The fatwa was issued on Sept. 26th. But on Sept. 15th there was a strong hint that it would be issued when a Diplomat from Sudan's government, Gamal Ibrahaim, wrote a scathing article about Kola Boof in London's largest daily Arabic newspaper, "Al-Sharq al-Awsat"...in which he basically called Kola Boof, "a blasphemer of Islam"..."a fake".."mentally unstable"..."a prostitute"....and "a liar". ... The Fatwa: Ms. Boof is to be beheaded." (See also: "Iranian Muslim clerics have just called for three American preachers: Rev. Franklin Graham, Rev. Pat Robertson, and Rev. Jerry Falwell to be killed" (Michael Ireland, ANS/JesusJournal.com, 2002/10/15))

"Turkey Waits and Wonders: How Closely Bound to Islam Is Election Victor?" (Ian Fisher, The New York Times, 2002/11/07)
"The question is even more relevant now that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is, in all but name, the leader of this nation that vitally joins East to West: has he really changed? The beliefs he expressed as a younger man, though not much younger, make many in Turkey wonder and fear a little. "Thank God, I am for Shariah," Mr. Erdogan once said, referring to Islamic law. Another time he said, "For us, democracy is a means to an end." Perhaps most infamously, "One cannot be a secularist and a Muslim at the same time." ... But in 1997 he recited a poem and opened the defining chapter of his career. It read, "The mosques are our barracks, the minarets are our bayonets." Mr. Erdogan was convicted of inciting religious hatred in 1998 and served four months in prison in 1999. Several people who know him say that experience was pivotal. "It was a turning point," said Rusen Cakir, a former journalist. 'There were two alternatives. One was to be an Islamist Mandela in Turkey, resisting in jail and never obeying. The other was trying to find a compromise with the state, with the system. He tried the first one, but one week later, he changed his mind and accepted his punishment.'"

Wednesday, November 6, 2002

News and commentary:

"The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris" (Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal, from the Autumn 2002 issue)
A must-read article on "the Cities of Darkness surrounding the City of Light": "Reported crime in France has risen from 600,000 annually in 1959 to 4 million today, while the population has grown by less than 20 percent (and many think today's crime number is an underestimate by at least a half). In 2000, one crime was reported for every sixth inhabitant of Paris, and the rate has increased by at least 10 percent a year for the last five years. ...
Where does the increase in crime come from? The geographical answer: from the public housing projects that encircle and increasingly besiege every French city or town of any size, Paris especially. In these housing projects lives an immigrant population numbering several million, from North and West Africa mostly, along with their French-born descendants and a smattering of the least successful members of the French working class. ...
A kind of anti-society has grown up in them - a population that derives the meaning of its life from the hatred it bears for the other, "official," society in France. This alienation, this gulf of mistrust - greater than any I have encountered anywhere else in the world, including in the black townships of South Africa during the apartheid years - is written on the faces of the young men, most of them permanently unemployed, who hang out in the pocked and potholed open spaces between their logements. ...
Indisputably, however, France has handled the resultant situation in the worst possible way. Unless it assimilates these millions successfully, its future will be grim. But it has separated and isolated immigrants and their descendants geographically into dehumanizing ghettos; it has pursued economic policies to promote unemployment and create dependence among them, with all the inevitable psychological consequences; it has flattered the repellent and worthless culture that they have developed; and it has withdrawn the protection of the law from them, allowing them to create their own lawless order. No one should underestimate the danger that this failure poses, not only for France but also for the world."

"The 'Wacky Races' and the Tanks" (Sylvana Foa, The Village Voice, 2002/11/06)
A report from Jenin, found via Best of the Web Today: "The UN has just finished clearing the rubble of 256 houses destroyed by Israeli bulldozers last April during the fiercest battle of the current intifada. The demolished area covers a full square block of Jenin's now infamous refugee camp. It was not easy work. The area was littered with live bombs, grenades, and other ordnance. Ian Rimell, a 52-year-old Brit, is an explosive-ordnance-disposal expert. Ian's Scandinavian-funded de-mining team has cleared thousands of "improvised terrorist devices" from the rubble of the camp. "We found 4668 items, of which 804 were live," Ian says. "The first load we buried in 30 cubic meters of concrete. Now we blow everything up. "There was a lot of Israeli stuff, including missiles which they said they didn't use," he harrumphs. "But most of it was Palestinian. We found six factory sites with components for making bombs. They were even making their own gunpowder." Ian's team gets called all the time by "people who are not happy about things . . . like two-meter-long pipe bombs planted in the road near their houses." ... "And there were instances when guys with guns would show up and demand their bombs back," says Ian, who has done similar work in Kosovo, Albania, and Bosnia. 'I always give it back - I have a wife and family.'"

"Monitoring Muslims" (Josie Appleton, spiked, 2002/11/06)
"Monitoring Minority Protection in the EU: The Situation of Muslims in the UK, published by the Open Society Institute and written by Tufyal Ahmed Choudhury, a law lecturer from the University of Durham, attempts to take stock of the position of Muslims in British society - and poses a series of recommendations for improving this position. ... Unfortunately, rather than integrating Muslims, the report's recommendations would further divide all of Britain's citizens. ... The view is that Romas have their special programmes - Romas are monitored and protected and have their own service needs recognised, so why not Muslims? But if Muslims, then why not any other group which claims a common identity? Or why not any individual who deems themselves to be at a disadvantage in some way? There is a multiplying effect here - every claim by a group or individual to have its particular disadvantage and special identity recognised is likely to spawn similar claims from others. ...
In fact, the only genuine way to relate to other people is unselfconsciously. It is only when you stop thinking of somebody as a Muslim, and you think of them as a doctor, a documentary maker or a teacher and you relate to them according to shared goals, that we will have a truly inclusive public life. Monitoring encourages a check-list approach to everyday interactions, which can only increase people's sense of difference." (See also the report: "Monitoring Minority Protection in the EU: the Situation of Muslims in the UK" (Tufyal Ahmed Choudhury, eumap.org, November 2002))

"UN council studies new Iraq resolution" (William M. Reilly, UPI, 2002/11/06)
"The U.N. Security Council Wednesday began considering the revised U.S. draft resolution that, if approved in a vote anticipated by week's end, would declare Iraq in continuing "material breach" of previous measures and warn Baghdad of "serious consequences" - the diplomatic term for use of force - if it fails to cooperate with weapons inspectors. The measure, co-sponsored by Britain, gives Baghdad a "final opportunity to comply" with past and present U.N. resolutions and lays out a strict timetable of compliance." (See also: "Text of U.S. resolution on Iraq" (UPI, 2002/11/06))

"French encyclopedia ordered to remove offensive Holocaust passage" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/06)
"A French court on Wednesday ordered the publishers of France's leading reference book to remove from its next edition a revisionist historian's claim that the figure of 6 million deaths during the Holocaust was grossly exaggerated. Five French Jewish groups had launched the legal action against the encylopedia-like reference guide, Quid, saying the passage violated a French law that makes it illegal to publish revisionist theories. ... In a section on World War II extermination camps, the book says that the official number of deaths at Auschwitz-Birkenau was 1.2 million. However, it adds that "other figures have circulated," and cites one by a revisionist historian, Robert Faurisson, who claims that 150,000 people died at the camp, of which 100,000 were Jews. The Quid, a single volume 2,000-paged reference guide, is known in France as the book that holds the answers to all questions. It is an essential tool for researchers and found in many French households."

"So-called liberals need to address the facts about terrorism" (Bala Ambati, The Chronicle Online, 2002/11/06)
Found via Little Green Footballs: "American attacks on al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts continue to be met with loathing and outrage that the U.S. government would take action to meet its primary responsibility - protecting its citizens. Any U.S. military action now is tarred with accusations of imperialism. ... When liberals denounce the United States for the regrettable but minimized and unavoidable civilian casualties of U.S. action in Afghanistan, do they consider the consequences of the Taliban regime to Afghans, let alone Americans? The Taliban slaughtered 1.5 million Afghans in their reign's 5 years; US action stopped an annual murder of 300,000 Afghans, and allowed girls to go to school without being beaten! Why do liberals now defend one of the world's most repressive regimes, Iraq, which has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shiites, used chemical and biological weapons on its own people and seeks nuclear weapons to expand a reign of terror? ... It takes true courage to be a dove, but no honor accrues to being an ostrich. The Procrustean logic of blaming all the world's ills on the United States blinds these liberals to real evil. Shredding facts to fit pet notions is a poor alibi for the cowardice of willful ignorance of reality."

"Under the Ramadan Moon" (Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, 2002/11/06)
Maybe they should go to Israeli math textbooks themselves and prove their ridiculous allegation: "I went to see the minister of education at his home in Riyadh. Mohammed Ahmed Rasheed and half a dozen deputies, men in long white robes and headdresses, arrayed themselves on chairs against the walls and worried their beads. ... They were defensive about American suspicion of the religious hard-liners' influence on boys' schooling. "Why don't you go to Israeli math textbooks and see what they're saying - 'If you kill 10 Arabs one day and 12 the next day, what would be the total?'" demanded one deputy. Agreed another: 'If 5 or 8 percent of our curriculum has to be changed, then 80 to 90 percent of the content of American media has to be changed.'"

"Islamists on brink of power in Pakistan" (Luke Harding, The Guardian, 2002/11/06)
"An Islamist cleric with Taliban sympathies was last night poised to become Pakistan's next prime minister after the country's religious groups agreed to form a coalition government with an alliance dominated by Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's party. In a move that will deeply alarm Washington, Maulana Fazlur Rehman - once described as an over-fed cleric in plush turban and sunglasses - emerged as the coalition's candidate for prime minister. ... Last night, western observers were coming to terms with the fact that a man who once called on his followers to wage a "holy war", against President Bush could soon become prime minister of the world's newest nuclear power. "We are watching carefully," one western diplomat said."

"Robotic warfare leaves terrorists no hiding place" (Daniel McGrory et al., The Times, 2002/11/06)
"Military experts say that, when the CIA used a remote-controlled unmanned aircraft to fire Hellfire missiles at a vehicle carrying six suspects, America was pursuing a revolutionary new form of warfare in which no terrorist will be safe anywhere in the world. The Predator can range over hundreds of miles. It strikes without warning. ... As the al-Qaeda gang bumped across the desert in a black Toyota Land Cruiser on Sunday afternoon, they had no idea that they were being watched by a team of CIA agents hundreds of miles away, manoeuvring a camera on the nose of the Predator drone 25,000ft overhead. The vehicle carried Ali Qaed Sunian al-Harthi, who allegedly masterminded the attack on the USS Cole. Minutes later he became the first victim outside Afghanistan to be killed by what the CIA are calling their "robo-assassin". ... Clifford Beal, editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, said: 'To use a remote-controlled drone that engages and kills people, that is quite a threshold to cross. This is the beginning of robotic warfare.'" (See also: "U.S. Kills Senior Al Qaeda Operative in Yemen With Missile Strike" (AP/FOX News, 2002/11/05))

"Four suspects now held, say police" (AP/The Sydney Morning Herald, 2002/11/06)
"Four possible suspects in the Bali bombings that killed nearly 200 people last month are being held by Indonesian authorities, police officials said today. Major General I Made Mangku Pastika, who is heading the investigation team in Bali, said two additional men were picked up in Surabaya, the capital of East Java province yesterday. Police announced yesterday they had detained one man in the capital Jakarta and one in the city of Medan on Sumatra island. Pastika did not identify the new detainees and said it was "premature" to name them as suspects, adding that they had been detained after officers determined they bore a resemblance to composite sketches of three suspects released last week by police."

"US proposes to give Iraq one last chance on weapons inspections" (James Bone, The Times, 2002/11/06)
"The United States will table a revised draft resolution on Iraq at the United Nations today that gives Iraq "a final opportunity" to disarm through weapons inspections. The latest American proposal, which is likely to be adopted overwhelmingly by the end of the week, makes clear that any Iraqi non-compliance would constitute a "material breach" of the Gulf War ceasefire - wording that allows a resumption of military action. In a nod to France the text offers a limited follow-up role to the UN Security Council."

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

News and commentary:

"Retreats into fantasy" (David Pryce-Jones, The New Criterion, from the November 2002 issue)
"Themselves living in tyrannies, Arabs and almost all Muslims are unable to enjoy such [Western] benefits unless they are fortunate enough to acquire the talisman of the green card and can emigrate. Into the complicated emotion of hate are woven strands of envy, impotence, shame, and self-pity. Failure is increasingly and inescapably oppressive to the Muslim order. To blame others for the ills one has brought down on oneself is only human. Self-pity is always easier than self-criticism. The retreat into fantasy and conspiracy consoles, and also mobilizes. So Osama bin Laden is able to recruit tens of thousands of Islamist volunteers, and to order a series of murders including the attacks of September 11. For this he becomes a genuine hero in his native Saudi Arabia, and crowds dance in his honor in Arab and Pakistani cities, while at the very same time the rumor spreads that Jews perpetrated the attacks to discredit Muslims. So the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the leading Sunni authority, can describe suicide bombing as "a legitimate act according to religious law, and an Islamic commandment." So a Lebanese intellectual proudly tells a Western reporter, 'We could provide a million suicide bombers in 24 hours.'"

"Failures of Nerve" (Roger Kimball, The New Criterion, from the November 2002 issue)
"Anti-Americanism, in both its patently murderous and fatuously sophisticated forms, is a growth industry. ... Is there a connection between the Mary Beards and what Mark Steyn has aptly dubbed the weird beards of the world? - between the prattling intellectuals and the pragmatic terrorists? In an important sense the answer is Yes. ... This is not to suggest that Harold Pinter (say) is responsible for Mullah Omar; it is to suggest that he helps create a climate of opinion where Mullah Omars have a better chance of thriving. ...
Orwell noted that pacifism was "objectively pro-Nazi" because it inculcated an attitude that aided England's enemies. Just so, anti-Americanism is objectively pro-terrorist. It was not surprising that the Nazis did all they could to encourage pacifism among the English (just as the Soviets actively aided the anti-War movement in America in the 1960s and 1970s). Similarly, anti-Americanism helps to create a climate where terrorism is excused, rationalized, explained - explained away. We deserved it; we had it coming; arrogance; poverty; the environment; root causes … Pacifism was built around phrases that sounded pleasant (peace, love, non-violence) but that were essentially deceptive because they were unrealistic - that is, untrue to the nature of reality, to the way the world actually works (as distinct from the way we might wish that it did)."

"Hamas to PA: No alternative to suicide bombings" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/05)
"The military wing of Hamas Tuesday attacked Palestinian Authority officials who are demanding an end to suicide bombings against Israel, saying they don't have anything else to offer the Palestinian people. The attack comes on the eve of talks between the PA and Hamas, which are expected to begin in Cairo on Wednesday. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the No. 2 man in the PLO, is expected to head the PA delegation, Palestinian sources said. "Those who are criticizing suicide operations don't have an alternative," said a statement issued by the Eziddin al-Qassam group. 'They can't even stop the killing of innocent Palestinians. These people don't believe in any form of resistance. Our operations are carried out on the basis of fatwas (religious decrees) issued by the majority of Muslim scholars.'"

"France Nabs 8 Linked to Tunisia Synagogue Blast" (Tom Heneghan, Reuters, 2002/11/05)
"Eight people were arrested in France on Tuesday in the bombing of North Africa's oldest synagogue which killed 21 people including 14 German tourists in Tunisia in April, the Interior Ministry said. Al Qaeda, the group the United States blames for the September 11 attacks last year, claimed responsibility for the tanker truck explosion outside El Ghriba synagogue, a Jewish place of worship on the southern island of Djerba. Documents seized during the arrests in suburbs of Lyon seemed to make a direct link between the suspects and the April 11 bombing, a ministry statement said. ... Fourteen Germans, five Tunisians and a Frenchman were killed when the tanker truck containing cooking gas exploded near the synagogue."

"Hail the American imperium" (Fouad Ajami, usnews.com, from the 2002/11/11 issue)
"America is coming into an unmistakable imperial hegemony in the Muslim world. And the acquisition of that imperial position is as striking as the reluctance - at times the innocence - with which America approaches this new calling. ... America's political and military leaders are supremely sober and seasoned men and women. If war it be in Iraq, they will have come to it out of conviction that all other options have failed. They will have arrived at that determination only because the shattering terrors of Sept. 11, 2001, revealed hatreds of America and malignancies beyond our wildest imagination. ...
Wars of liberation are never simple; gratitude is never guaranteed. We know this, for we never hear Islamists acknowledging the role of American power in rescuing the Bosnians and the Kosovars, both Muslim populations, from the assault of the more powerful Serbian and Croatian nationalisms. In Iraq, we may face a difficult imperial burden. But, in their wisdom, the American people seem to have factored all that into a subdued recognition that war against Saddam Hussein may emerge as the best of a bad lot of alternatives. Where Britain once filled the void left by the shattered Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the First World War, now the failures – and the dangers – of the successor Arab states are drawing America to its own imperial mission."

"First Interview with Saddam Hussein in 12 years" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 437, 2002/11/05)
"The Egyptian opposition weekly Al-Usbou' published yesterday an interview with Saddam Hussein. According to Al-Usbou', which has a very strong pan-Arab orientation, this was the first interview given by Saddam to any media outlet in the last 12 years. ...
Saddam: Iraq is not the only country subjected to conspiracies. The U.S. wants to impose its hegemony on the region, and to do so it has to direct its hostilities towards the Arab countries, especially the pivotal ones. All this serves the Israeli Entity and International Zionism. ...
The U.S. wants to impose its hegemony on the Arab world, and as a prelude it wants to control Iraq and then strike the capitals that oppose it and revolt against its hegemony. From Baghdad, which will be under military control, it will strike Damascus and Tehran. It will fragment them and will cause major problems to Saudi Arabia. ...
This way the Arab oil will be under its control and the region, especially the oil sources - after the destruction of Afghanistan - will be under total control of the U.S. All these things serve the Israeli interests, and based on this strategy the purpose is to make Israel into a large empire in the area. Iraq's problem is that it opposes all these conspiracies, and the others do not understand that we are defending [them]. Everyone should know that no one will be safe from [the conspiracies] that are being hatched now against Iraq. All, from the point of view of the U.S. and Israel, are the same and what will happen to us, will happen to the others later."

"The Left Dumbs Down" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2002/11/05)
"In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look sillier than the way they excoriated Bill and Hillary Clinton as traitors and even murderers. Yet these days, the intelligent left is dumbing down and showing signs of slipping into a similar cesspool of outraged incoherence. It's debasing and marginalizing itself by marshaling epithets rather than arguments. President Bush is criticized not just for catastrophically frittering away our budget surplus or for rushing us into a mess in Iraq. Rather, Citizens for Legitimate Government put it this way in its e-mail newsletter: "We have an Idiot Usurping Lying Weasel for a President." Close your eyes, and it sounds just like Rush Limbaugh."

"The Paterson 'Protocols'" (Daniel Pipes, New York Post/danielpipes.org, 2002/11/05)
"For some weeks now, the Arab Voice has been serializing an Arabic-language version of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in its pages (but not - revealingly - on www.arabvoice.com, its Web site). ... That a forgery that helped cause the Holocaust is now openly published in New Jersey points to two important realities:
- Arab and Muslim institutional life in the United States remains as radicalized after 9/11 as it was before.
- Arab and Muslim institutions are now the primary advocates of anti-Semitism worldwide, including in the West.
To prevent "The Protocols" from making further inroads in the United States, advertisers, James Zogby and the newspaper's printer must immediately and completely disassociate themselves from the Arab Voice. In addition, Arab and Muslim groups in the United States must explicitly denounce "The Protocols" and condemn all those who forward it, whether the Arab Voice or Egyptian television. Not to do so makes them complicit in the prejudice and villainy of this foul tract." (See also: "Storm over 'Elders of Zion' Anti-Semitic series on Egypt TV stirs outrage" (Ashraf Khalil, San Francisco Chronicle, 2002/10/31) and "Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' Gets New Life on Egypt TV" (Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, 2002/10/26))

"Attack Iran the day Iraq war ends, demands Israel" (Stephen Farrell et al., The Times, 2002/11/05)
"Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete. In an interview with The Times, Mr Sharon insisted that Tehran - one of the "axis of evil" powers identified by President Bush - should be put under pressure "the day after" action against Baghdad ends because of its role as a "centre of world terror". He also issued his clearest warning yet that Israel would strike back if attacked by Iraqi chemical or biological weapons, no matter how much Washington sought to keep its controversial Middle Eastern ally out of any war in Iraq."

Added in archive:
"My Holy War" (Jonathan Raban, The New Yorker, from the 2002/02/04 issue)
"The spirit of terrorism" (Jean Baudrillard, Le Monde/<nettime>, 2001/11/05)
"Whose Side are You on - an International Perspective" (Bryan Appleyard, The Times/Online TV, 2001/09/25)

Monday, November 4, 2002

News and commentary:

"A Religion of Peace?" (Kenneth R. Timmerman, Wall Street Journal/The Center for Security Policy, 2002/11/04)
"Many people in the West believe that Islam is a "religion of peace," one that condemns the murder of innocents and respects the intrinsic value of human life. Top Islamic clerics and scholars I interviewed recently in Cairo set me straight on this. ... Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb was named by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to the post earlier this year after his predecessor issued a ruling in favor of Palestinian suicide bombers. But if Mr. Mubarak was embarrassed by that Mufti's public embrace of murder, he may have to reconsider his new choice. ...
Throughout a 90-minute interview, conducted mostly in Arabic through a government-provided translator, he repeated in excruciating detail his reasoning for encouraging Palestinians to murder innocent civilians through suicide attacks. He also displayed a remarkable flexibility when it came to defining terrorism. To him, American Christian leader Jerry Falwell is a "terrorist" because he has said things that offended Muslims. Palestinians, on the other hand, are justified in massacring Israeli civilians in cold blood "because they are defending their land and have no other weapons at their disposal." ...
My interviews with these scholars made it clear that Westerners concerned by the violence in the Middle East need to understand that the two parties to this conflict do not use the same logic, nor do they believe in the same moral code. Those of us who have been brought up in the Judeo-Christian tradition have been taught that respect for life is one of God's most basic commandments. But according to these Islamic scholars - and they are not alone - the search for "justice" legitimizes the wanton targeting of innocent civilians. Targeting is the key word here. Civilians die in all wars, something known as "collateral deaths." But according to these scholars, Islam accepts purposely seeking out innocent civilians in order to sow terror in their society."

"Saudi minister rebukes religious police" (BBC News, 2002/11/04)
"Saudi Arabia's religious police should show "leniency" and respect the people's privacy and freedoms, the Saudi interior minister has said. Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz gave his unprecedented public rebuke during a visit to the force's headquarters, according to the official news agency SPA. ... This criticism has been growing since March, when 15 schoolgirls died in a fire at their school in Mecca after the mutawa allegedly prevented male rescuers from entering because the girls were not veiled. ... Overall, the past few years have seen the slow erosion of many of the powers of the mutawa - which has been described as a "kinder, gentler Taleban" - along with the gradual liberalisation of Saudi culture. No longer are women beaten with sticks for allowing their faces to show." (See also: "Saudi police face deaths criticism" (Reuters/CNN.com, 2002/03/15))