Archived news and commentary: January 6 - 12, 2003

2003/03/24 - 2003/03/30
2003/03/17 - 2003/03/23
2003/03/10 - 2003/03/16
2003/03/03 - 2003/03/09
2003/02/24 - 2003/03/02
2003/02/17 - 2003/02/23
2003/02/10 - 2003/02/16
2003/02/03 - 2003/02/09
2003/01/27 - 2003/02/02
2003/01/20 - 2003/01/26
2003/01/13 - 2003/01/19
2003/01/06 - 2003/01/12
2002/12/30 - 2003/01/05

Sunday, January 12, 2003

News and commentary:

"From the pen to the pillory" (Robert Solé, Le Monde/Watch, 2003/01/11 [2003/01/12]))
Reader responses to the editorial below, translated by Douglas: "Muriel Darmon, a doctor in Lyon, for her part, asked, if the signatories of this motion thought to end all scholarly cooperation with Russia for the massacres committed in Chechnya, or with China for its daily human rights abuses. "Would they themselves accept to be included black-list of scientific organizations under the pretext that France massively contributed to arming of Iraq or was complicit in the Rwandan genocide? And why are they not breaking ties with those universities massively invested in terrorist organizations such as Al-Najah university in Nablus?" ...
Approving of the editorial did not stop some readers from criticizing Le Monde. This resolution would not have passed, wrote Didier Stroz of Chatou (Yvelines), without "the violently anti-Israeli climate that often contains an anti-Semitism that you yourselves propagate." Without qualification, he decries the 'slurs, outrageous simplifications, partiality, lack of criticism, the angelicism with regard to the Palestinians.'" (See also the French original: "De l'index au pilori" (Robert Solé, Le Monde, 2003/01/11))

"No to boycotts" (Le Monde/Watch, 2003/01/06 [2003/01/12])
A Le Monde editorial, which has received a lot of attention, opposing the campaign for an academic boycott of Israel. Translated by Douglas: "The Israeli government has just announced that the emigration of French Jews to Israel reached record heights in 2002: a level not attained in the last 30 years. If the absolute figure (2,326) is trustworthy, the growth in the percentage is not (a doubling over 2001's level). ...
They are worried for themselves, for the fate of French Judaism, in the face of what they perceive and foresee: the rise and return of anti-Semitism even here — of anti-Semitism that is even more pernicious since it is becoming ordinary and banal — behind the legitimate political tensions and spits brought on by the Middle East conflict. ...
On the university campus, the boycott signals a break, not with a State and its policies, but with a human community: not with the acts committed but with the exchange of ideas. It leaves it to be understood that we must break ties, not with Israel, but with the Israelis, indiscriminately identified with the policies of the current government. Far from reinforcing the peace camp, the boycott's partisans are weakening it." (See also the French original: "Non aux boycotts" (Le Monde, 2003/01/06) Also: "Paris U. boycott raises French furor" (Sharon Sadeh, Haaretz, 2003/01/08))

"Saudi Women's Rights" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/01/12)
Johnson on an article in Arab News, about a "seminar entitled "The Image of Muslim Women in the Western Media" ... organized by the Information Center for the Women’s Cultural Committee": "It's always good for an inadvertent laugh or two when the Saudis try to defend their misogynistic, backward treatment of women, and here's the latest attempt: "Seminar on women focuses on Western double standard". A little defensive, are we?: ... "Noura Adwan made the point that the Western media makes judgments on the rights of Muslim women from the perspective of Western feminism, and questioned its validity in Muslim societies. "It is clear that religious codes of dress for nuns who cover from head to foot is respected in the West while the abaya worn by Muslim women is regarded as oppressive," she said." She has a point; it is pretty shameful how our religious police beat nuns whose habits are too loose..." (See also: "Seminar on women focuses on Western double standard" (Intisar Al-Yamani, Arab News, 2003/01/13)

"Cartoon from America's past resurfaces in battles over Iran's future" (Brian Murphy, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/01/12)
"Protesters in bloodstained shrouds clog streets in Iran's holy city. A popular newspaper is closed and key staff arrested. The brother of Iran's supreme leader chokes back tears in parliament. Call it the cartoon crisis. A torrent of outrage from Muslim hard-liners increased Sunday over a most unexpected provocation: a 66-year-old American political cartoon about a Depression era power struggle. The drawing, published last week in the now-closed Hayat-e-Nou newspaper, showed a Supreme Court justice being humbled under a giant thumb representing then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Iranian conservatives saw something closer to home. They felt the white-bearded judge in the cartoon resembled the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. It was considered a stinging insult to his memory. ...
Some of the nearly 5,000 marchers wore blood-soaked shrouds and carried black flags as a traditional sign of mourning. They also denounced political reformers as traitors. The newspaper was ordered closed indefinitely Saturday. Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said three employees involved in publishing the cartoon have been arrested. In Tehran, the newspaper's chief editor — and brother of Khomeini's successor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — struggled to hold back tears as he addressed fellow parliamentarians in a session broadcast live on Tehran Radio. "No one loves Imam Khomeini more than me," said Hadi Khamenei." (See also the cartoon at Social Security Online.)

"North Korea warns of 'sea of fire' as U.S. envoy arrives in Seoul" (Christopher Torchia, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/01/12)
A nuclear power using apocalyptic imagery of good and evil in extremis while threatening to turn a continent "into a sea of fire". Where are the anti-war activists?: "North Korea insisted Sunday that it never admitted having a secret nuclear program — the latest conflicting signal it has given in the escalating crisis over its alleged plans to build nuclear weapons. "The claim that we admitted developing nuclear weapons is an invention fabricated by the U.S. with sinister intentions," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper as saying. ... The newspaper blamed the United States for the current crisis and warned: 'If the United States evades its responsibility and challenges us, we'll turn the citadel of imperialists into a sea of fire.'"

"It's interesting how the American internment..." (Robert Goodfellow, aeglos.blogspot.com, 2003/01/12)
A brilliant post, found via InstaPundit: "It's interesting how the American internment of Japanese for 4 years during WWII is constantly used as an example of America's unique evil and racism. When revisiting the subject rarely, if ever, is the Canadian example brought up. At least in America the internee families were kept together, in Canada (which also rounded up Japanese Canadian citizens) the men and women were separated from each other and the men were sent into forced labor. And we all know, I hope, how Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria scored on the racial sensitivity scale during WWII. I find the ability of Europe especially to "misremember" facts so as to paint themselves as lilly-white angels and the US as brutish and uncivilized thugs to be quite remarkable."

"Terror Apologia from Evergreen College" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/01/12)
Johnson on an outrageous example of moral inversion: "Only a Western leftist "intellectual" like Steve Niva of Evergreen State College in Washington could so totally invert the normal order of cause and effect, emitting this truly disgusting article in a transparent attempt to influence the Israeli elections: ...

"Any observer with elementary skills in discerning cause and effect could see this latest suicide bombing atrocity coming. In fact, the vast majority of the nearly 100 Palestinian suicide bombings since they began in 1994 have followed an almost predictable sequence: Israeli attacks that cause major Palestinian civilian casualties or Israeli assassinations of important militant leaders are the most common trigger leading to suicide bombings, usually within two weeks."

... This article is really a cleverly disguised blood libel — because Niva's point is that Ariel Sharon is deliberately killing Palestinians to provoke suicide bombings, for political gain. There’s not a word of sympathy here for children murdered in their beds, or grandmothers blown to bits in restaurants. Rather, Niva presents the suicide bombings as inevitable, justified events, always in response to Israeli violence. His is a cold anti-Semitism, in which any defensive action by Jews becomes oppression against his beloved Palestinians, triggering the Arab rage that so fascinates and enchants him and his fellow ivory tower idiotarians." (See also: "Sharon's Fingerprints On Latest Suicide Bombing" (Steve Niva, Palestine Chronicle, 2003/12/11))

"Thousands join LA anti-war rally" (BBC News, 2003/01/12)
"A lot of people have been silenced for a long time," says Martin Sheen. Yeah, right. How many? For how long? These allegations are pathetic, especially as they are often made by high profile dissenters in high profile media. For a recent example, see Joan Didion below: "Thousands of people have taken part in a rally in the American city of Los Angeles to protest against a possible war with Iraq. Film star Martin Sheen - who plays a fictional US president in the television series The West Wing - called for Americans to seek a peaceful approach to the crisis over Iraq. ... Protesters chanted "no blood for oil" and "stop Bush now" as they rallied around government buildings. "A lot of people have been silenced for a long time, but that is ending," Sheen told the crowd. 'We are telling the world that we are patriotic Americans but we do not support war with Iraq.'" (See also: "Thousands in LA Protest Possible War" (AP/The Guardian, 2003/01/12): "Many of the signs at the protest appeared to be directed at the president. "Mr. Bush, don't repeat your daddy's mistakes,'' read one. "Bush is the real terrorist,'' said another.")

"U.S. Force in Gulf Is Said to Be Rising to 150,000 Troops" (Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 2003/01/12)
"The military force the Pentagon is massing in the Persian Gulf would be well positioned to attack Iraq on President Bush's order in mid- to late February, and it could exceed 150,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, military officials said today. ... The latest order, sent out overnight, directs 27,000 additional personnel to the gulf, including thousands of marines, an Army airborne infantry brigade, a squadron of Air Force F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters, and two squadrons of F-16CJ radar-jamming fighters. An order late Friday sent 35,000 troops, half of them marines, to the region."

"N. Korea vows 'holy war' on U.S." (Joseph Curl, The Washington Times, 2003/01/12)
"North Korea yesterday vowed to "smash U.S. nuclear maniacs" in a "holy war" and threatened to resume tests of long-range missiles capable of reaching Hawaii and America's West Coast. More than a million North Koreans yesterday packed into a square in central Pyongyang decorated with anti-American banners and huge portraits of President Kim Jong-il to hear political leaders rail against U.S. policies toward the reclusive Stalinist state. "If the United States brings dark clouds of war to hang over this land, the army and the people of [North Korea] will remove the land of the United States from the Earth and root out the very source of evil and war," one leader told the crowd, according to the official Korean Central News Agency."

Added in archive:
"The academic boycott of Israel: Back to 1933?" (Edward Alexander, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/01/02)
"Watch who you call Nazis" (Rod Liddle, The Guardian, 2002/07/17)

Saturday, January 11, 2003

News and commentary:

"The 'Ring' and the remnants of the West" (Spengler, Asia Times, 2003/01/11)
"The most important cultural event of the past decade is the ongoing release of the film version of J R R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. No better guide exists to the mood and morals of the United States. The rapturous response among popular audiences to the first two installments of the trilogy should alert us that something important is at work. Richard Wagner's 19th-century tetralogy of music dramas, The Ring of the Nibelungs, gave resonance to National Socialism during the inter-war years of the last century. Tolkien does the same for Anglo-Saxon democracy. ...
Those who hold America in contempt for its lack of refinement (this writer always has held the term "American culture" to be an oxymoron) should think carefully about this conclusion. From their founding on Christmas Day 800 AD, when Charlemagne accepted the crown of the revived Roman Empire, the institutions of the West have been formed in response to external threat. The Holy Roman Empire of the High Middle Ages, Tolkien's conscious model for the Kingdom of Gondor, arose in response to the incursions of Arabs in the south, Vikings in the north, and Magyars in the West. Boorish and gruff as the new American Empire might seem, it is an anti-empire populated by reluctant heroes who want nothing more than to till their fields and mind their homes, much like Tolkien's Hobbits. Under pressure, though, it will respond with a fierceness and cohesion that will surprise its adversaries.
Orcs of the world: Take note and beware."

"This hysteria is the most potent poison of them all" (Matthew Parris, The Times, 2003/01/11)
A bizarre column in which Parris psychoanalyzes the reporting of the discovery of traces of ricin by anti-terrorist police in London as a case of Freudian hysteria - connecting it with "our fixation with laxatives" - and at the same time blames it all on Blair and Bush somehow. How about the simple fact that it is kind of scary that a highly toxic poison might be in the hands of fanatical terrorists?:
"How weird that our media should have joined them in converting this pathetic squeak into the roar of front-page headlines. It confirms my belief that the Anglo-American alliance and al-Qaeda now need each other badly. ...
Freud would have an explanation for the grip which poisoning has upon the human imagination. Our fixation with laxatives and purgatives - our morbid interest in bulimia and colonic irrigation - is bound up, I believe, with the same cluster of instinctual horrors: we stand aghast at an enemy implanted within. ...
So now we know. Osama plans to poison us, one by one or all at once. ...
I see a danger that as he strides the globe with a deeply unpopular ally's arm around his shoulder, our Prime Minister is helping to design a designer-label for a worldwide coalition of the aggrieved and the dispossessed whose appeal will reach - may already be beginning to reach - some of our own people. With our overheated babble about mass-poisoners, masterminds and secret cells, we are glamorising al-Qaeda." (See also: "Terror police find deadly poison" (BBC News, 2003/01/07). For more on Parris, see: "Islamikazes and virtue" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2002/06/24))

"Somali refugee follows in Fortuyn's footsteps with attack on imams" (The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/11)
An article about Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "She was asked by the then ruling Labour Party to research why so many Dutch-born Muslim youths seemed to be at war with their host society. Her conclusion was a blistering critique of the Dutch state policy of multiculturalism, which she described as a calamitous mistake born of "a misplaced sense of guilt or pity" that has allowed militant imams "preaching hate" to indoctrinate youths in segregated schools, all paid for by fat subsidies from the Dutch taxpayer. She is demanding an immediate end to state funding for 700 Islamic clubs, often run by hardline clerics. ...
Her Labour sponsors did not care for the message, but she was welcomed with open arms by the free-market Liberals, who have been quick to seize on the Fortuyn message. "Everyone knows that the position of women in Islamic countries is horrendous, but the Dutch like to think it doesn't happen here," she said. 'They don't want to believe Muslim women in the Netherlands are beaten and locked up in their homes, or that girls are murdered for holding hands with a non-Muslim boy. When I took it up with the Labour Party they sided with the Islamic conservatives, and told me to stop, so that's when I became really inflamed.'" (See also: "Somali woman heads for Dutch parliament" (BBC News, 2003/01/03) and "Behind the Veil: A Muslim Woman Speaks Out" (Marlise Simons, The New York Times, 2002/11/09))

"Accused Member of Terror Cell Near Buffalo Agrees to Guilty Plea" (Robert F. Worth, The New York Times, 2003/01/11)
"One of six men accused of belonging to a terrorist cell in western New York pleaded guilty yesterday to attending a training camp in April 2001 run by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He also pleaded guilty to contributing money, goods and services to the terrorist group. The defendant, Faysal Galab, 26, agreed to cooperate with federal and state prosecutors and United States military officials in terrorism investigations, in exchange for a lesser sentence, prosecutors said. Mr. Galab and five other men from the Yemeni community in Lackawanna, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo, were indicted in October and charged with providing support to Al Qaeda." (See also: "Agents Arrest Terror Suspects Outside Buffalo" (Don Van Natta Jr. and Philip Shenon, The New York Times, 2002/09/14))

"35,000 More U.S. Troops Ordered to Gulf" (Thom Shanker, The New York Times, 2003/01/11)
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed a mammoth deployment order today sending about 35,000 new troops, half of them marines, to the Persian Gulf region, Pentagon and military officials said. The detailed order, described as several dozen pages long, involved the largest number of military personnel yet as the Pentagon masses troops, warships and aircraft around Iraq to pressure President Saddam Hussein to disarm - and to prepare for attack, should President Bush order the nation to war."

"N.Korean Envoy Says Pyongyang Free to Test Missiles" (Reuters, 2003/01/11)
"North Korea suggested on Saturday it was free to resume missile firing tests, saying agreements between the Washington and Pyongyang had become invalid. "We took the step to suspend the missile (test) firing for the time being in our expectation that dialogue between the DPRK and the United States would be continued," envoy to China Choe Jin-su told a news conference through a translator. "However, the moratorium on our missile test firing will be of no exception now that the United States made all the agreements reached between the United States and North Korea invalid," he said."

Friday, January 10, 2003

News and commentary:

"Dutch Jews enraged over remarks by wife of ECB chief Wim Duisenberg" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2003/01/10)
The only thing that knows no bounds here is the vileness of Gretta Duisenberg's reasoning. Israelis are worse than the Nazis, the "Holocaust excepted," she alleges. This excepting of the Holocaust is nauseating in itself: "Jewish groups voiced outrage Friday over comments attributed to Gretta Duisenberg, wife of Europe's top banker, comparing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories with the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. ...
Mrs. Duisenberg made her latest comment while on a highly publicized visit to the West Bank, where she met Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat on Wednesday. "The Holocaust excepted, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is worse than the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands," she was quoted as saying Friday in an interview with the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad. "The cruelty of the Israelis knows no bounds. For example, it's not unusual that they blow up Palestinian houses. The Nazis never went so far during the Dutch occupation," she was quoted as saying. More than 100,000 Jews - about 70 percent of the Dutch Jewish community were deported to concentration camps and killed during the German occupation of the Netherlands." (See also: "Duisenbergs Antisemitism Update" (Michael Visser, The Visser View, 2002/10/03): "Mrs Duisenberg was asked in a radio program how many signatures she was hoping to collect for her petition. She said: "Oh, perhaps six million" and started laughing loudly, in an apparent reference to the six million Jews who perished in the War.")

"Terrorism Link Seen in Attack On Paris Rabbi" (Marc Perelman, Forward, 2003/01/10)
Anti-Semitic "accidents": "A series of assaults against a Paris rabbi may be the work of an organized group rather than the latest in a long list of seemingly spontaneous antisemitic acts, say French Jewish communal officials. Rabbi Gabriel Farhi, 34, was lightly wounded when he was attacked in his Reform synagogue on Rue Pétion last Friday by a helmeted man screaming "God is great" in Arabic. On Monday, his car was set afire in the parking lot of his home. A fire at his synagogue last May was labeled an accident by police. ... Similarly, Farhi received several e-mails before the fire at his synagogue in May mentioning the exact date on which the arson would take place. Tellingly, at least one of the e-mails was traced by the French police to Internet cafes in Kuwait or Algeria, Lentschner said. If proven, this would indicate a possible Islamic connection not only in France, but abroad. Nevertheless, police at the time declared that the fire was an accident caused by the aging electrical system."

"Saddam's Idiots" (Jonah Goldberg, Town Hall, 2003/01/10)
Goldberg on "a new and improved version of useful idiots; we call them "human shields." These are the citizens of the United States and Europe who deliberately put themselves between the U.S. military and Saddam Hussein - or Slobodan Milosevic - in order to stop America from its 'war of aggression.'": "Every day, various regimes around the globe carry out horrible acts of aggression. But, with a very few exceptions, the international peace movement seems uniquely concerned about what it perceives to be unwarranted aggression by the United States, Israel and Europe - in that order. When Saddam Hussein mobilized to invade Kuwait, there were no human shields heading to thwart him. When Saddam gassed the Kurds, the ranks of international peacnickery didn't hop aboard planes for Northern Iraq. ...
No, it's not, as O'Keefe and his useful idiots claim, "oppression" or the killing of innocent men, women and children that rankles the anti-war movement; it's that the United States gets under their skin. ... "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist," George Orwell wrote in 1942. "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other." O'Keefe and his friends are objectively in favor of Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime because they believe he is uniquely worth defending with their bodies. They may be brave, I guess, but they're still idiots, and I'm sure Saddam is grateful for them." (Note: The Orwell-quote is from "Pacifism and the War" (Partisan Review, August-September 1942))

"Immature" (Martin Peretz, The New Republic, 2003/01/10)
"Warren Christopher wrote last week in The New York Times of terrorist attacks "wreaking havoc in far-flung places such as Indonesia, Kenya, Jordan and Yemen." Maybe I am being myopic, but why didn't he mention Israel in that list, the state that suffers most from this savagery? Certainly Bill Clinton's secretary of state wouldn't be the first prominent American to believe that terror against Israelis is different, not quite so satanic, as terror against other civilians. Palestinian terror, say its apologists, is political - the illegitimate means to a legitimate end, statehood. But many peoples have pursued statehood in modern history, and only the Palestinians have pursued it so barbarically. Terrorism, truth be told, is about the sum total of what the Palestinians have bestowed on our civilization during the last five decades. ... Edmund Burke wrote in his Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796), "War never leaves where it found a nation. It is never to be entered upon without mature deliberation." At what might have been the dawn of a real state, the Palestinians started this macabre war in a fit of delirium. The war has been and will remain, long past the day when agreed rules govern relations between Israel and whatever becomes Palestine, a calamity for their people."

"Korea Is Not Quite Iraq" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/01/10)
"Sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, someone in some administration was asleep at the wheel in allowing North Korea to achieve nuclear status - a blunder that rivals the disaster of Pakistani nuclear acquisition. Now part of the enhanced Bush doctrine must be to stop absolutely the further proliferation of such weaponry. If we don't, two very bad things will follow. First, crazy, failed states will seek to use their atomic status to blackmail the West and its allies for either economic gain or political advantage. Unfortunately the age-old burdens of the West - its freedom and affluence create a reasoned and circumspect, though often naïve, citizenry within an unreasoned and reckless world - leave it particularly vulnerable to illogical demands from outlaw nations. People sipping latté in La Jolla or West Hollywood find the entire notion of nuclear saber-rattling in the Pacific unthinkable; not so those who are starving or often routinely murdered in Iraq, Pakistan, or North Korea. Being crazy with nothing left to lose can create a powerful psychological advantage in brinkmanship."

"The Scandal of U.S.-Saudi Relations" (Daniel Pipes, National Interest/danielpipes.org, from the Winter 2002/03 issue)
Pipes on the "consistent pattern of deference to Saudi wishes" by U.S. government agencies, with lots of outrageous examples and an explanation - pre-emptive bribery: "The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, helpfully hinted at an answer in a statement boasting of his success cultivating powerful Americans. "If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office", Bandar once observed, "you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office." This effective admission of bribery goes far to explain why the usual laws, regulations and rights do not apply when Saudi Arabia is involved. ...
The heart of the problem is an all-too-human one, then: Americans in positions of authority bend the rules and break with standard policy out of personal greed. In this light, Hunter's report on the three main U.S. government goals in Saudi Arabia begins to make sense: strengthen the Saudi regime, cater to the Saud royal family, and facilitate U.S. exports. ...
The massive pre-emptive bribing of American officials requires urgent attention. Steps need to be taken to ensure that the Saudi revolving-door syndrome documented here be made illegal."

"Powell and Bush at Cross-Purposes?" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/01/10)
"It is impossible to find weapons of mass destruction in an uncooperative country. Even strong, determined inspectors will fail. Look: The United States was attacked with anthrax - and more than a year later we still can't find the stuff, even with the cooperation of the entire national government and every law enforcement agency in sight. How do you expect to find anthrax in a country in which the authorities are hiding it? Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix is neither strong nor determined. He was handpicked by France and Russia in 2000 for precisely that reason. (When it was suggested to an administration official that Blix was Inspector Clouseau, he protested that this was unfair: "Clouseau was trying to find stuff.") Everyone knows that the only way to find weapons is to question Iraqi scientists under conditions of protective asylum outside Iraq. Yet Blix has contemptuously dismissed this option as running 'an abduction agency.'"

"North Korea Says It Is Withdrawing From Arms Treaty" (Seth Mydans, The New York Times, 2003/01/10)
"Stepping up pressure following an American offer to open talks, North Korea said today it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The announcement means that, in 90 days, North Korea will no longer be bound by the treaty. The statement, carried by its official news agency and monitored here, said North Korea had no intention of producing nuclear weapons and was acting in self-defense because it was "most seriously threatened" by the United States."

Thursday, January 9, 2003

News and commentary:

"Terrorism of the Mind" (Alain Minc, Le Monde/Watch, 2001/11/06 [2003/01/09])
An answer to the essay below, translated by Douglas: "Must we allow this apology even the slightest importance, as an explanation of terrorism? Yes, unfortunately. It comes from a majestic intellectual, one of those thinkers whose name the media classes utter only with respect, one of those characters welcome to support all the conflicts, the best along with the worst. These apologetics betray the very traditional incapacity of the French intelligentsia to recognize that there exists a hierarchy of values and that referring to morality is not indecent. ... This demonstration brings the anti-American urges, the third-world-ist reflexes and the leftist reactions that pervade French opinion to the point of incandescence. It is not an isolated point of view that Baudrillard is arguing: thanks to the conceptual apparatus of the philosopher, he is only unveiling what goes unsaid and what is an after thought among so many others. An exceptional circumstance is all that is necessary to see the old demons of intellectual totalitarianism reborn." (See also the French original: "Le terrorisme de l'esprit" (Alain Minc, Le Monde, 2001/11/06))

"The Mind of Terrorism" (Jean Baudrilliard, Le Monde/Watch, 2001/11/02 [2003/01/09])
An essay by the French philosopher Jean Baudrilliard, translated by Douglas. Through the fog of post-modern dialectics he seems to say that the 9/11 attacks actually were the world itself resisting domination and/or The West declaring war on itself through suicide: "All the speeches and commentaries betray an gigantic abreaction to the event itself and to the fascination it holds. Moral condemnation, sacred union against terrorism are of the same size as the prodigious jubilation of seeing this global superpower destroyed, better still, of seeing it destroy itself and, in a way, commit suicide in beauty. For this is the one which, in its unbearable power, has fomented all this violence that is innate the world over, and therefore (unwittingly) this terrorist imagination that inhabits us all. That we have dreamed of this event, that everyone without exception has dreamed of it, because no one can avoid dreaming of the destruction of any given power that has become hegemonic to such a point, is unacceptable for the Western moral conscience but it is still a fact which is measured precisely by all the pathetic violence of all the words that would erase it." (See also the French original: "L'esprit du terrorisme" (Jean Baudrilliard, Le Monde, 2001/11/02))

"TV: Child Writes to Mother, 'Rejoice over My Death'" (Nadav Shragai, Haaretz/IMRA, 2003/01/09)
An article on a report by Palestinian Media Watch examining "the social pressure exerted by the Palestinian Authority [PA] on children to die as "Shahids" [Death for Allah].":
"One short broadcast shows the most famous child Shahid, Muhammad Al-Dura, whose death was captured on camera, apparently calling to Palestinian children, "Join me in Paradise." A child actor plays Al-Dura in fictional scenes of his life in Paradise, frolicking in an amusement park with a kite and on the beach. "How pleasant is the fragrance of Shahids. I go with no fear or tears," says the fictional Al-Dura. The program begins with the caption, "I am waving not to part, but to say you, 'Follow me.' And is signed: 'Muhammad Al-Dura'" (Note: The report, which will include filmclips, is not available online yet.)

"Terrorist-class immigrants" (Mark Steyn, National Post, 2003/01/09)
"When he first landed in Canada, Mr. Ressam was commendably straightforward: He told officials he'd spent five months in jail in Algeria after admitting to being an Islamic terrorist. But as I wrote in those far-off days of pre-9/11 innocence: "Immigration Canada was not persuaded by this: According to Ms. Shouldice, many asylum seekers try to pass themselves off as terrorists, the object being to 'exaggerate the persecution they fear in their homeland in order to impress Canadian immigration officials.' Read that again slowly: Your chances of being accepted as a refugee in Canada are likely to be improved if you've been convicted of terrorist offences." ... In that sense, the ever-growing Terrorist-Canadian community is only an extreme manifestation of our willingness to elevate over all other considerations the masochistic frisson we get from demonstrating our "tolerance" by letting in someone avowedly intolerant. True, as M. Chrétien and several of my colleagues have pointed out, September 11th was a failure of U.S. border control not Canadian border control. The difference is simple: In the U.S., letting in terrorists represents an immigration failure; in Canada, it's an immigration policy."

"Shame on the CBC's Israel coverage" (Norman Spector, National Post, 2003/01/09)
Spector is Canada's former ambassador to Israel and this is a letter to the editor in chief of CBC News, criticizing its biased Israel coverage: "Ironically, it's in the name of professional standards that you reject the word "terrorism." You insist the CBC must not adopt the terminology of either side. Say what? We must be watching different channels, if not in different languages. Because, while I sometimes agree with your terminological choices, it's clear that the CBC, like the Tower of Pisa, always leans in one direction. Your reporters do not leave viewers to decide whether curfews are self-defence measures; they unambiguously refer to "collective punishment," the Palestinian term and a crime under the Geneva Conventions. You call Israel's targeted killings, though not the recent U.S. one in Yemen, "assassinations" - an honorific used by Palestinian spokespersons but not normally conferred by CBC on any mass murderers, other than, it appears, those who send bombers to blow up babies in Jerusalem pizzerias." (Note: Found via Little Green Footballs.)

"Blix Says Inspectors Have Found No 'Smoking Guns' in Iraq" (Edith M. Lederer, AP/The Washington Post, 2003/01/09)
"U.N. weapons inspectors have not found any "smoking guns" in Iraq but are receiving intelligence from several nations that could be helpful, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Thursday. ... Blix spoke to reporters before briefing the Security Council on the progress of inspections and assessments of Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration, which he and other inspectors have said leaves many questions unanswered. After the briefing, Greenstock told reporters that 'the procedural, passive cooperation of Iraq has been good ... but the proactive cooperation we have been looking for from Iraq has not been forthcoming.'"

"Fifteen killed in Algeria attacks" (BBC News, 2003/01/09)
"Fifteen people have been killed by suspected Islamic militants in various parts of Algeria. One of the attacks took place in a mountainous area where the radical Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) is active. The Algerian Government says the group has links with the Al-Qaeda network. ... Eight soldiers died when two home-made bombs were exploded as their convoy drove by in Sidi Ali Bounab, near Tizi Ouzou, in the Kabylie region, on Tuesday morning. Also on Tuesday, a family of five were killed in the province of Chlef, 200km west of Algiers. The family, including two young children, a woman and a disabled person, where shot dead at close range." (See also: "Reports: 56 killed in bloody weekend of attacks in Algeria" (Aomar Ouali, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/01/05))

"Can America be serious?" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2003/01/11 issue)
As Ledeen below, Steyn is getting frustrated by the phony war on terror: "The 13 months since the liberation of Afghanistan allowed Kim to figure that the US isn't serious. When Saddam looks out the window and sees Hans Blix motoring around in his UN minibus, he concludes likewise. So do Hamas and Hezbollah. And those ill-disciplined Pakistani border guards who fired on US troops the other day. And the al-Qa'eda sleepers in Amsterdam and London and Montreal. And all the other likely customers of Kim's going-for-a-Dong discount warehouse. Every month that passes without the Americans using force against Iraq increases North Korea's potential client list. That's the linkage, and the deterioration in perception this last year is at least as damaging as any actual capability in Pyongyang's arsenal. If Saddam's still in power by May, the world's in big trouble."

"How We Could Lose" (Michael Ledeen, National Review, 2003/01/09)
"The terror masters treat the West as a single target, but the West refuses to acknowledge the clear pattern. The spectacle of Western diplomats quibbling over language at the U.N. while innocent Western civilians were being murdered from Amman, Jordan to Gaithersburg, Maryland, brings to mind Winston Churchill's acid reply to those who lectured him on minding his legalistic p's and q's while fighting the Nazis. It is folly, he said, to hold ourselves to the strictest interpretation of the letter of the law while fighting enemies who will destroy the very concept of civil society if they defeat us. But that is precisely what is happening. Like the celebrated Byzantine rulers under barbarian siege, Western statesmen debate the fine points of crisis resolution while the enemies of the Western enterprise pour through the gates.
This is the classic pattern of appeasement. The appeasers, from the European foreign ministries to some within our own diplomatic and intellectual establishments, condemn any effective American response as an outrageous provocation. Each time Hitler gobbled up another European country the appeasers warned against any strong response. Each time the Soviet Union deployed a new weapon the appeasers warned against our efforts to respond in kind. And now, as the terror network intensifies its lethal activity, the appeasers demand that firm action be taken against the United States lest it strike against any of the terror masters."

"Jackals Gather Round" (William Safire, The New York Times, 2003/01/09)
"The Saudis and Egyptians, sensing Saddam's demise, are devising Saddamism without Saddam. The idea is to spirit the dictator and his two bloodthirsty sons out of Iraq, passing the power to a clique of Sunni generals and Baath Party politicians, thereby offering spurious "regime change" while averting an overthrow that might give their own citizens ideas. Algeria is said to be the location chosen for the Hussein family's permanent vacation. France has also begun to hedge its bets. Well aware of the likelihood of allied action or an internal coup before the Ides of March, Jacques Chirac does not want his country out in the cold as oil-rich New Iraq is put on its feet by the U.S. and Britain. ... If Hans Blix's report equivocates and the Security Council delays, the U.S. will act. The jackals know that. That is why Iraqi officers are sending word to the opposition through second cousins that "I'm your friend, remember later." That is why jackal-nations are circling, eager to subvert liberation and make off with the coming freedom of the Iraqi people."

Added in archive:
"Israel's True Friends" (Edward I. Koch, NewsMax.com, 2002/12/05)

Wednesday, January 8, 2003

News and commentary:

"vita brevis, ars lunga, God is Sorry" by Kurt Geisel
(The Stranger, from the 2003/01/01-08 issue)

"Fear Factor" (Emily Hall, The Stranger, from the 2003/01/01-08 issue)
"By the day after Christmas, five people had asked me what happened to Kurt Geissel's work at Roq la Rue. The piece - a Koran with a Buddha shape carved into it (a reference to the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban) and bearing the inscription vita brevis, ars lunga, God is Sorry - was removed after the opening of Gods and Monsters, an irreverent look at religion (Morticia as Venus, Frankenstein as Christ, etc.). ...
She decided not to include it in her article, largely because she thought it irresponsible to feature such a work - and she told Roq la Rue owner Kirsten Anderson so. "I was afraid to publicize it, because Kirsten sits there alone in the gallery," Hackett said. "It's a particular kind of flag to a tiny group of people." Anderson, after talking to a lot of people and thinking it over, asked Geissel to remove the work - which he did, albeit unhappily. "I don't blame her," Geissel told me. 'But if you're afraid to show work because of what some nitwits have done, then the nitwits have too much power.'"

"Paris U. boycott raises French furor" (Sharon Sadeh, Haaretz, 2003/01/08)
"French politicians, media and academics have joined forces to denounce an attempted academic boycott of Israel, in response to a petition by a leading Paris university demanding that the European Union bar the country from research programs. The faculty of Paris 6 University (specializing in the natural sciences) adopted the petition on December 16, sparked public furor in France. ... Nevertheless, the university did not withdraw the petition, which says "Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has made education and research impossible for our Palestinian colleagues" and argues that continued scientific cooperation between the EU and Israel "will be interpreted as support for Israel's current policies." Last night Paris 7 University was due to vote on a similar resolution."

"The hatred of America is the socialism of fools" (Michael Gove, The Times, 2003/01/08)
"Why then do the myths of America the Hateful take such powerful hold? Because anti-Americanism provides a useful emotional function which goes beyond logic and reaches deep into the darker recesses of the European soul. In centuries past those on the Left who wished to personalise their hatred of capitalism, who sought to make it emotionally resonant by fastening an envious political passion on to a blameless scapegoat people, embraced anti-Semitism. It was the socialism of fools. Which is what anti-Americanism is now. It should not therefore be surprising that those on the populist Right who share the Left's antipathy towards the US are those, like the Austrian Freedom Party or the French National Front, who are heirs of anti-Semitic traditions. Nor should it be remarkable that the other tie which binds these allies of new Left and old Right together, the thread linking those such as George Galloway and Jörg Haider, is their hostility to Israel. Both America and Israel were founded by peoples who were refugees from prejudice in Europe. Europe's tragedy is that prejudice has been given new life, in antipathy to both those states."

"A General Speaks" (Dick Hawley, Pastornet.net/FrontPageMagazine, 2003/01/08)
A speech "from the former ACC commander (now retired and not restricted to being politically correct), Gen Hawley": "Since the attack, I have seen, heard, and read thoughts of such surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed. You've heard them too. Here they are:
1) "We're not good, they're not evil, everything is relative."
Listen carefully: We're good, they're evil, nothing is relative. Say it with me now and free yourselves. You see, folks, saying "We're good" doesn't mean, "We're perfect." Okay? The plain fact is that our country has, with all our mistakes and blunders, always been and always will be, the greatest beacon of freedom, charity, opportunity, and affection in history. If you need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see what happens. In about half a day, the entire world would be a ghost town, and the United States would look like one giant line to see 'The Producers.'"

"Exceeding Expectations" (Jonathan Karl, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/08)
Karl on David Frum's insider account from the White House, "The Right Man": "His account of Sept. 11 at the White House is riveting. As panic spread after the attack on the Pentagon, he got persistent calls from his wife telling him to get out of the White House because surely it would be attacked next. "'No,' I said fiercely. 'No! I am not leaving!' I clicked off the phone, ready to . . . well, I don't know what I was ready to do - whatever it is that speechwriters do in times of war. Type, I suppose - but type with renewed patriotism and zeal." But Mr. Frum's heroic moment lasted less than two minutes. The Secret Service evacuated the building. At first, the agents ordered everybody to move out in slow, orderly fashion. The vast hallways of the White House's Old Executive Office Building were packed. "Little streams of clicking feet merged into rivers of footsteps, and then into a torrent. 'Don't run!' the guards shouted, and the torrent slowed." But soon panic seemed to spread to the guards "'Run!' They now shouted. 'Ladies - if you can't run in heels, kick off your shoes.'"

"Libya, Syria, possibly Sudan also seek WMD, CIA warns" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/01/08)
"As the United States is consumed with proliferation crises in Iraq and North Korea, other counties such as Libya, Syria and possibly Sudan are quietly trying to acquire or expand secret arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, the CIA has warned. The US Central Intelligence Agency has also concluded that suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States, "has a more sophisticated biological weapons research program than previously discovered." "Nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic missile-applicable technology and expertise continues to gradually disperse worldwide," the agency said in a report submitted to Congress last month and made public Tuesday." (See also the report: "Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 July Through 31 December 2001" (CIA, 2003/01/07))

"Listen to the world's fears, Blair tells US" (Michael White and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2003/01/08)
"In a major foreign policy speech, the prime minister made an ambitious bid to woo sceptics about the looming war with Iraq at the same time as he reminded Washington that global interdependence must work both ways if progress is not to be overwhelmed by "the common threat of chaos". ... Earlier Mr Blair had said: "I would never commit British troops to a war I thought was wrong or unnecessary. But the price of influence is that we do not leave the US to face the tricky issues alone. 'By tricky, I mean the ones which people wish weren't there, don't want to deal with and, if I can put it a little pejoratively, know the US should confront, but want the luxury of criticising them for it.'" (See also the full speech: "PM speech to Foreign Office Conference in London" (Tony Blair, 10 Downing Street, 2003/01/07))

Tuesday, January 7, 2003

News and commentary:

"The Shoah They Can't Swallow" (Françoise Giroud, Le Monde/Watch, 2002/06/13 [2003/01/07])
An eloquent answer to the article below, translated by Douglas: "So what is happening to-day? The chance to transmogrify the face of the Jewish martyr into the Jewish executioner. To void that recurring guilt which overcomes one to liberate the small store of anti-Semitism which we everyone discovers in the cradle. With a remarkable rapidity (with the first stone of the second Intifada), a striking reversal has come about which would be inexplicable without the context in which it occurs. At last! We are allowed to speak ill of the Jews! 'Anti-Semitic, me? Don't insult me. But that Palestinian child who died before our eyes on the television, who killed him? Who?'" (See also the French original: "Cette Shoah qui ne passe pas" (Françoise Giroud, Le Monde, 2002/06/13))

"Israel-Palestine: The Cancer" (Edgar Morin, Sami Naïr and Danièle Sallenave, Le Monde/Watch, 2002/06/03 [2003/01/07])
An article from Le Monde translated by Douglas. The moral equivalence soon turns into moral inversion and blatant anti-Semitism. Note also the racialism inherent in the description of Palestinian suicide bombers - vengeance on innocents is apparently "required" in their culture: "One is hard pressed to imagine that a nation of fugitives, descended of the people persecuted longest in the history of humanity, having been subjected to the worst humiliations and the deepest contempt, should be able to transform itself in two generations into a "dominating and self-assured people" and, with the exception of an admirable minority, a contemptuous people taking satisfaction in humiliating others. ... One must not fear contemplating these young men and women who have become human bombs. Of course, despair has spurred them on but this component is not enough. There is also a very strong desire for revenge which, in its so deep and archaic logic, especially in the Mediterranean, requires that vengeance should be taken, not necessarily on the author of the infamy but on his community. It is also an act of absolute rebellion, in which the child who has seen the humiliation suffered by his father, his family, has the feeling of restoring a lost honor and at last regaining his own dignity and freedom in a murderous death." (See also the French original: "Israël-Palestine: le cancer" (Edgar Morin, Sami Naïr and Danièle Sallenave, Le Monde, 2002/06/03))

"Clash of the super-systems" (Ken Sanes, Asia Times, 2003/01/07)
Sanes argues that there are three global systems which are "shaping much of the politics on the planet": "Instead of super-powers, one might call these three "super-systems" since they are all global in reach. Among a number of things they have in common, all share a missionary zeal that leads them to want to re-create the world in their own image. It will come as no surprise to readers that one of the three systems is militant Islam, which burst into the world stage on September 11 with the horrific attack on the World Trade Center. It is now waging a terrorist war against the other two systems, as well as against anyone else it perceives as an enemy. The other two systems are American-style corporate capitalism and statist liberalism. These two systems are fighting each other for power as well, although mostly by trying to win elections and using the media to influence public opinion, instead of hijacking airplanes and targeting civilians. ..
In addition to militant Islam and democratic corporate capitalism, the third system that has the ability to inspire people across borders is statist liberalism, which is based on the effort to contain capitalism within a bureaucratic state dedicated to equality and social justice. The focus of this system is on using money generated from taxes to minister to people’s needs and defend them from unfair treatment, which means they become consumers of government services. It too relies on the wealth generated by the market, but it is definitively shaped by welfare bureaucracies and liberal/left interest groups."

"Russia must stop its abuse of the Chechens" (Cathy Young, Reason, 2003/01/07)
Young on the silence in Western media regarding Russian war crimes in Chechnya, including the case of Colonel Vladimir Budanov, who by his own admission "seized 18-year-old Elza Kungayeva, from her home, brought her to his quarters, cut away her clothes with a knife, beat her and finally strangled her. The autopsy also showed that the young woman had been raped.": "The Budanov case also serves as a reminder of the double standards that persist in international public opinion. If an Israeli army colonel abducted, raped, and strangled a Palestinian woman, the case would likely send shock waves around the world. If an Israeli military court acquitted him, we would see mass demonstrations all over Europe. Yes, innocent Palestinians, including children, have been tragically injured and killed in Israeli military operations. But for the most part, the Israeli defense forces have made a genuine effort to minimize civilian casualties, often at the expense of endangering their own soldiers. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that Russian forces in Chechnya have engaged in the systematic murder, rape, and looting of civilians. Yet we don't see European intellectuals comparing the Russian military to the Nazis. No one is calling on American universities to divest themselves from companies that trade with Russia, or organizing boycotts of Russian academics."

"Slouching from Bethlehem" (Andrew Sullivan, Salon.com, 2003/01/07)
Sullivan on an essay by Joan Didion: "There is no argument in it, no prescription for American foreign policy now, no alternative proposed for countering the murderous terrorism that has already killed thousands of Americans. In this, Didion perfectly represents a certain type of decay in thinking on the intellectual left. Their argument about where we should go from here is essentially, "We shouldn't be here in the first place." ...
But more revealing of the mind-set of today's left is Didion's belief that somehow open discussion has been curtailed, censored or chilled after 9/11 by a cadre of right-wing bullies. This is simply hooey. The First Amendment still exists. Those legions of leftists who occupy such establishment heights at most American university faculties and the nation's newsrooms and editorial boards, not to speak of the hyperliberal foundations, can still say whatever they think. But these days, they've actually got to endure criticism, opposition and occasionally ridicule as a consequence. They don't like this. They're used to writing their opinions to universal applause, prizes, sinecures and pliant reviews. Sorry to spoil the party, Joan. But debate in wartime is often a tough and grueling experience. Stop whining and start arguing." (See also: "Fixed Opinions, or The Hinge of History" (Joan Didion. The New York Review of Books, from the 2003/01/16 issue))

"The latest example..." (Tim Blair, timblair.blogspot.com, 2003/01/08)
"The latest example of extreme moral equivalence from the extremist Left: "It's all very well to be oh-so-wise after the September 11 terrorist attacks, but making generalisations about Saudi Arabia having "no freedom of the press, bill of rights or democratically elected parliament" is a bit rich when you take into account the rights of Americans like Taliban fighter John Walker and censored TV show host Bill Maher, and the absolute debacle that the Florida vote was." Those Indymedia lunatics just can't help themselves, can they? John Walker Lindh took up arms against his country and was tried and jailed for it; this reveals, in the writer's mind, a nation with a similar regard for the rights of its citizenry as exhibited by Saudi Arabia. Poor Bill Maher's show got canned; this means the US has no free press. And the 2000 election was a "debacle" that apparently delivered a government with the democratic authority of the House of Saud. Who's making the generalisations here, idiot? Actually, the quote above isn't from any teenage Indymedia acne warror. It's from Sydney Morning Herald television writer Henry Everingham's preview (no link available) of the documentary Errors In Judgement, which aired last night on SBS."

"Stupid White Man" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/01/07)
"We always hate to pay any attention to Michael Moore, possibly the world's biggest blowhard, but we're going to succumb to the temptation. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of the left-wing London Independent reports on a Moore performance at the Roundhouse in north London: "Moore went into a rant about how the passengers on the planes on 11 September were scaredy-cats because they were mostly white. If the passengers had included black men, he claimed, those killers [the hijackers], with their puny bodies and unimpressive small knives, would have been crushed by the dudes, who as we all know take no disrespect from anybody." Moore is dealing in stereotypes not only of whites (some of whom actually showed impressive courage on Flight 93) but also of blacks, whom he paints as quick to violence." (See also: "Black-on-black violence: there is a way forward" (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Independent, 2003/01/06))

"Terror police find deadly poison" (BBC News, 2003/01/07)
"Anti-terrorist police have arrested seven people after discovering traces of the highly toxic poison, ricin, in London. In the early hours of 5 January, six men of north African origin and one woman were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 at premises in North and East London by officers from the Metropolitan Police Anti -Terrorist Branch. ... Ricin, which comes from the castor bean, is considered a likely biowarfare or bioterrorist agent and is on the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's "B" list of agents - considered a moderate threat. It is relatively easy to manufacture in small amounts but would be considered an unusual agent to use for a mass attack as it must be ingested or injected to take effect." (See also: "Q&A: What is ricin?" (BBC News, 2003/01/07))

"Briton admits Saudi bomb murder" (Michael Theodolou and Daniel McGrory, The Times, 2003/01/07)
"One of the seven Britons who have been in prison in Saudi Arabia for more than two years on bombing charges has dramatically changed his testimony and confessed to murder. The families of the other Britons are said to be stunned by James Lee's admission and claim that it has ruined any chance that the men have of proving their innocence. One legal source said: "The Saudis take the view: 'One guilty, all guilty.'" British diplomats in Riyadh said that they were astonished by Mr Lee's written confession and his plea for clemency at the weekend and are demanding urgent talks with the Saudi authorities over their next move." (See also: "Saudi bomb victim's torture ordeal - and Britain's silence" (Paul Kelso, The Guardian, 2002/01/31))

"N Korea sanctions 'would mean war'" (BBC News, 2003/01/07)
"North Korea has said that economic sanctions by the United States would represent a declaration of war, as diplomatic efforts to resolve its nuclear weapons crisis intensify. It condemned the recent interception of a ship exporting Scud missiles to Yemen as an act of piracy and said the US would pay a "very high price for such reckless acts". ... Earlier, US President George W Bush said America had no intention of attacking North Korea. He said he hoped for a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the dispute over the country's nuclear activities."

Added in archive:
"The Longest War" (Victor Davis Hanson, American Heritage, from the February/March 2002 issue)

Monday, January 6, 2003

News and commentary:

"Agence France-Presse: the account versus the facts" (Clément Weill Raynal, Observatoire du monde juif/Watch, from the March 2002 issue [2003/01/06])
An English translation by Douglas of a highly interesting and revealing study in which Weill Raynal compares AFP's reporting of the Second Intifada with the facts. Note for example AFP's jaw-dropping headline for their dispatch on the seizure of the Karine A: "The three major international wire services registered the event, each one it is own way:
Reuters (GB): The IDF seizes 50 tons of arms bound for the Palestinians
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - IDF soldiers operating 500 km from the Israeli coast in the international waters of the Red Sea have inspected ship carrying 50 tons of arms and explosives bound for the autonomous Palestinian zones, Israeli officers said. (1/4/2002 3:42 PM) ...
Agence France-Presse (France): Israel complicates Zinni's mission
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel claimed on Friday to have incepted a shipload of arms coming from Iran and Destined for the Palestinian Authority, complicating the mission of the American mediator Anthony Zinni, who announced a return security talks. (1/4/2002 5:30 PM)" (See also the French original: "L'Agence France Presse: le récit contre les faits" (Clément Weill Raynal, Observatoire du monde juif/antisemitism.info, from the March 2002 issue))

"U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Gives N. Korea Last Chance" (Paul Eckert and Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, 2003/01/06)
"The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog gave North Korea one last chance Monday to readmit inspectors expelled a week ago, as the reclusive communist state defiantly accused the United States of plotting atomic war. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution making clear that if North Korea failed to cooperate it would report it to the U.N. Security Council for breaching nuclear safeguards. The IAEA board set no deadline at its emergency meeting in Vienna for North Korea to comply and defuse a crisis over its suspected atomic weapons program. But agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, saying Pyongyang had 'one more chance," told a news conference: "It's clearly a matter of weeks.'"

"Saddam accuses UN inspectors of spying" (BBC News, 2003/01/06)
"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has said United Nations weapons inspectors are carrying out "pure intelligence work". He denounced the work of the teams sent to monitor Iraq's compliance with demands to disarm, saying they were exceeding their mandate. ... The Iraqi leader charged: "Instead of searching for so-called weapons of mass destruction to reveal the lies of liars... the inspection teams became interested in compiling lists of Iraqi scientists, ask workers questions that are not what they seem and gather information about army camps and legitimate military production. "These things, or most of them, are pure intelligence work," he said in a television broadcast to mark Army Day." (See also: "Full text: Saddam Hussein speech" (The Guardian, 2003/01/06))

"Searching for 'Dirty Bombs'" (Anthony L. Kimery, Insight on the News, 2003/01/06)
"For at least the second time since terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, elite U.S. counterterrorist units have been put on a heightened state of alert in response to intelligence worries that the al-Qaeda network has obtained one or more weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), including biological and/or nuclear materials. ... The FBI's latest warnings are unusually dire. They state that bin Laden's terrorist organization may be planning an unprecedented attack to cause "mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy and maximum psychological trauma" on a scale far greater than the attacks on the World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon. Senior U.S. intelligence analysts who spoke to Insight say they fear such an attack would involve a nuclear device. They say a nuclear dirty bomb is the ideal weapon to accomplish the magnitude of carnage and mayhem of which the FBI has warned. They point to intelligence that indicates a nuclear weapon of some sort already may be in the hands of al-Qaeda, which has or is attempting to deliver the device or devices to terrorists operating here."

"Crisis in Korea: Pyongyang's 'paradise'" (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2003/01/06)
"Things are getting slowly and steadily worse, not better. And this process is clear to the Communist ruling elite, the East Asian intelligence sources said. In order to provide a modicum of pay and morale, the Pyongyang government is attempting to carry out ambitious public works. But most, if not all, of the projects involved make no economic sense, these sources said. In one instance, an enormous 14-lane highway is being built between Pyongyang and a regional center. But the old road it is going to replace has almost no motor traffic and little human traffic of any kind. What commerce and travel there was, was carried overwhelmingly by oxcart, one East Asian intelligence source said. This source said that work on the highway in question was being carried out by many thousands of physical laborers at a time. But they had absolutely no bulldozers or other heavy earth-moving or rock-breaking machinery. All of that work was being done by hand, this source said." (See also: "Crisis in Korea: Why China won't help" (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2003/01/03), "Crisis in Korea: Seoul stays with sunshine" (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2003/01/01), "Crisis in Korea: America's dilemma" (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2002/12/31) and "Crisis in Korea: View from Pyongyang" (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2002/12/30))

"Islam's Immigrant Invasion of Europe" (Serge Trifkovic, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/01/06)
"We can only guess how many thousands of Bakris operate freely in Boston, Michigan, or New Jersey, or, for that matter, in Paris, Berlin, Toronto, Amsterdam, or Milan. They take full advantage of the host-countries' laws and often operate under the guise of charities. A notable example was the International Development Foundation, with offices in London's Curzon Street, which was named in a French parliamentary report in 2001 as a financial front for al-Qaeda. Its trustees were four brothers belonging to the wealthy bin Mahfouz family, one of Saudi Arabia's most powerful, with a fortune estimated at over four billion dollars. ...
By allowing a vast and so far utterly unsupervised subculture of intrinsically hostile non-Western immigrants to emerge within their societies, the developed nations have permitted the emergence of an alternative social and political structure in their midst in which terrorists can operate virtually undetected. By seeking to appease it by granting it special privileges, the host countries only prompt laughter at our stupidity and demands for more."

"U.S. Is Completing Plan to Promote a Democratic Iraq" (David E. Sanger and James Dao, The New York Times, 2003/01/06)
"President Bush's national security team is assembling final plans for administering and democratizing Iraq after the expected ouster of Saddam Hussein. Those plans call for a heavy American military presence in the country for at least 18 months, military trials of only the most senior Iraqi leaders and quick takeover of the country's oil fields to pay for reconstruction. The proposals, according to administration officials who have been developing them for several months, have been discussed informally with Mr. Bush in considerable detail. They would amount to the most ambitious American effort to administer a country since the occupations of Japan and Germany at the end of World War II."

"Arafat makes arrest in bombing: reporter who linked it to Arafat's Fatah" (Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 2003/01/06)
"Israel Radio reported this morning that Yasser Arafat's security forces moved swiftly in the Gaza Strip, arresting the Al Jazira Gaza correspondent who forwarded an announcement by Yasser Arafat's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (the illegal military wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement) to his station taking credit for the Sunday Tel Aviv bombing that murdered 23. While Yasser Arafat's PA condemned the attack, Yasser Arafat's militia took responsibility for the attack, identifying the two bombers as Nablus residents Burak Hilsa and Samar A-Nuri. ... The correspondent was charged with acting against the interests of the Palestinians." (See also: "Original Documents: Arafat's Fatah takes responsibility for the double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv" (IDF/IMRA, 2003/01/06))

Added in archive:
"'Israel like Nazi Germany' - row spreads" (Jamie Lyons, icWales, 2003/01/03)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

Copyright © Watch 2001-2006. Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.

"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

› From 2001/09/11 -



Monthly index

December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006

› From September 2001 -



Author index

› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat



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