Archived news and commentary: April 28 - May 4, 2003

2003/06/23 - 2003/06/29
2003/06/16 - 2003/06/22
2003/06/09 - 2003/06/15
2003/06/02 - 2003/06/08
2003/05/26 - 2003/06/01
2003/05/19 - 2003/05/25
2003/05/12 - 2003/05/18
2003/05/05 - 2003/05/11
2003/04/28 - 2003/05/04
2003/04/21 - 2003/04/27
2003/04/14 - 2003/04/20
2003/04/07 - 2003/04/13
2003/03/31 - 2003/04/06

Sunday, May 4, 2003

News and commentary:

"North Korea has 100 N-weapons aimed at US, propagandist claims" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/05/04)
"North Korea has at least 100 nuclear missiles aimed at the United States and will use them if new economic sanctions are imposed against it, a propagandist for the Stalinist state claimed.
Kim Myong Chol, who styles himself executive director of the Centre for Korea-American Peace, told Australia's Channel Nine network Sunday: "It's quite obvious North Korea may have minimum 100 nuclear warheads, maximum 300.
'They all lock onto American cities.'"

"A Classicist's Legacy: New Empire Builders" (James Atlas, The New York Times, 2003/05/04)
An interesting article on the legacy of the late classicist and political philosopher Leo Strauss: "To intellectual-conspiracy theorists, the Bush administration's foreign policy is entirely a Straussian creation. Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, has been identified as a disciple of Strauss; William Kristol, founding editor of The Weekly Standard, a must-read in the White House, considers himself a Straussian; Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for the New American Century, an influential foreign policy group started by Mr. Kristol, is firming in the Strauss camp. ...
Strauss's own experience — he witnessed Russian pogroms as a child and barely escaped the Holocaust — alerted him to the perils of history. "When we were brought face to face with tyranny — with a kind of tyranny that surpassed the boldest imagination of the most powerful thinkers of the past — our political science failed to recognize it," Strauss wrote in his classic "On Tyranny." He believed, as he once wrote, that "to make the world safe for the Western democracies, one must make the whole globe democratic, each country in itself as well as the society of nations." There's a reason that some Bush strategists continue to invoke Strauss's name."

"We have made a paradise for terrorists in our own backyard" (Alasdair Palmer, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/05/04)
"Britain has become the headquarters of choice for extremist Islamic preachers, who now have a network of organisations dedicated to sowing pure hatred: hatred of the West, of democracy, and of the values of tolerance and freedom - the very values that give them the freedom to operate here. "Your task against the infidel," says one video distributed by the fundamentalists, "is to kill their children, take their women, destroy their homes." ...
Mohamed Sifaoui, a French journalist who infiltrated a Muslim terror group and who travelled to London with them to meet "the boss", said in an interview on Channel Four's Dispatches that in his experience, "London is paradise for terrorists. They can plan terrorist attacks elsewhere, call for murder and spread the ideology of terrorism and live quite happily. It's every terrorist's dream." Unless we end that dream, we will soon wake up in a truly dreadful nightmare."

"'At first he called me comrade - but then he wanted to be called Sir'" (The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/04)
George Galloway's chaffeur, Roberto Sinatra, describes his "strange experiences with the man he knew as Mr George": "My first impression was that he really was a man of the people. He called me "brother" or "comrade" and told me not to call him "sir" because we were equals.
Mr George, as I came to call him, introduced himself and said he was an MP. I was impressed. I said: "If I had known that, I would have driven a limousine."
Little did I know that, three years later, I would be driving his limousine, wearing a chauffeur's uniform - and addressing him as "Sir". Instead of being treated like a comrade, I was more a servant. ...
He knew how to live the high life. I would often drop him off at first-class airport lounges. He would return from trips with Armani suits, Cuban cigars and expensive aftershaves. He usually bought a bottle of Paco Rabanne for me."

"Fury as Dalyell attacks Blair's 'Jewish cabal'" (Colin Brown and Chris Hastings, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/04)
"Tam Dalyell, the Father of the House, sparked outrage last night by accusing the Prime Minister of "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers".
In an interview with Vanity Fair, the Left-wing Labour MP named Lord Levy, Tony Blair's personal envoy on the Middle East, Peter Mandelson, whose father was Jewish, and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who has Jewish ancestry, as three of the leading figures who had influenced Mr Blair's policies on the Middle East. ...
The Prime Minister, Mr Dalyell claimed, was also indirectly influenced by Jewish people in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, and Ari Fleischer, the President's press secretary."

"Suicide bombing leaflets' UK link" (Martin Bright, The Observer, 2003/05/04)
"Leaflets published in the Midlands urging Muslims to become suicide bombers have been found in Israel's occupied territories. The discovery fuels fears that Britain has become a haven for Islamic extremists.
Now Israeli authorities have demanded that Britain launch an immediate investigation into al-Sunnah, the organisation based at Birmingham's Centre for Islamic Studies, which published the leaflets. ...
Al-Sunnah publishes books, leaflets and a monthly magazine that is distributed across the Muslim world including the West Bank and Gaza strip.
One leaflet published just before the war in Iraq said: 'When this sudden explosion of American-Zionist violence is aiming to eradicate a nation's existence, eliminating its vitality and sites of resistance, the only way to protect this nation is through acts of martyrdom.'
The Centre for Islamic Studies refused to comment."

"Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted" (Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, 2003/05/04)
"A specially trained Defense Department team, dispatched after a month of official indecision to survey a major Iraqi radioactive waste repository, today found the site heavily looted and said it was impossible to tell whether nuclear materials were missing.
The discovery at the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility was the second since the end of the war in which a known nuclear cache was plundered extensively enough that authorities could not rule out the possibility that deadly materials had been stolen."

Saturday, May 3, 2003

News and commentary:

"Bravo Fireball"
(Gallery of U.S. Nuclear Tests)
Nuclear test in the Pacific 1954. Castle Bravo was the largest bomb ever tested by the U.S., "although this was by accident". The picture is from the highly recommended Gallery of U.S. Nuclear Tests, maintained by the Trinity Atomic Web Site.

"The Thinkable" (Bill Keller, The New York Times Magazine, from the 2003/05/04 issue)
"What Pakistan has unwittingly memorialized is a new nuclear era. A dozen years after the Soviet Union crumbled, nuclear weapons have not receded to the margins of our interest, as many expected. On the contrary, in this second nuclear age, such weapons govern our foreign policy more than they have in decades.
We have been slow to wake up to this new order, but now we are in it with a bang. We just fought a war that began as a drive to disarm one tyrant with nuclear ambitions and to demonstrate America's resolve to others. There are so many ways to think about the war we have just concluded in Iraq that it is easy to overlook this one: it is the most audacious attempt to change the rules of arms control in half a century.
Nuclear proliferation is at the heart of our confrontations with North Korea and Iran, two states for whom the message of Iraq was intended. Proliferation is a persistent irritant in our relations with Russia and China, has contributed to America's official disappointment with the United Nations and is intimately intertwined with the consuming issue of our time, terrorism."

"Powell pushes for Syria action" (BBC News, 2003/05/03)
"US Secretary of State Colin Powell has called on Syria to back American plans to increase security in the Middle East.
He said there was a "new strategic situation" following the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the publication of an international "roadmap" for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The top US diplomat also said Lebanon should stop activities of Hezbollah guerrillas on the Israeli border and called on Syria to end its support. ...
"It is time we believe for the Lebanese army to deploy to the border and end the armed Hezbollah militia presence," he said.
The US also want Syria to crack down on the presence in Damascus of groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad which launch attacks on Israel."

"Bad Reporting in Baghdad" (Jonathan Foreman, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/05/12 issue)
A report from Baghdad: "It's endlessly fascinating to watch the interactions between U.S. patrols and the residents of Baghdad. It's not just the love bombing the troops continue to receive from all classes of Baghdadi - though the intensity of the population's pro-American enthusiasm is astonishing, even to an early believer in the liberation of Iraq, and continues unabated despite delays in restoring power and water to the city. ...
But you won't see much of this on TV or read about it in the papers. To an amazing degree, the Baghdad-based press corps avoids writing about or filming the friendly dealings between U.S. forces here and the local population - most likely because to do so would require them to report the extravagant expressions of gratitude that accompany every such encounter. Instead you read story after story about the supposed fury of Baghdadis at the Americans for allowing the breakdown of law and order in their city."

Friday, May 2, 2003

News and commentary:

"VECTORY TO USA"
(Reuters/Shamil Zhumatov, 2003/05/02)
"Combo picture shows a variety of graffiti thanking the United States and Britain on walls in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk May 2, 2003."

"The Globalization of Antisemitism" (Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Forward, 2003/05/02)
"Essentially, Europe had exported its classical racist and Nazi antisemitism to Arab countries, which they applied to Israel and Jews in general, suffusing it with the real and imagined features of the intensive local conflict. Then the Arab countries re-exported the new hybrid demonology back to Europe and, using the United Nations and other international institutions, to other countries around the world. In Germany, France, Great Britian and elsewhere, today's intensive antisemitic expression and agitation uses old tropes once applied to local Jews — charges of sowing disorder, wanting to subjugate others — with new content overwhelmingly directed at Jews outside their countries and their continent.
The imagery characterizing globalized antisemitism is new. Rambo Jew has largely supplanted Shylock in the antisemitic imagination. The sly and stealth corrupting Jew of the first two eras of antisemitism, now armed with his new military and political power, has become the subjugating, brutalizing and killing Jew, either doing the dirty work himself, as in Israel, or employing others to do it for him, as the Jews, fantastically, are said to do with the Bush administration and the "East Coast" establishment is purported to do with the United States generally.
An emblematic image of globalized antisemitism is of Donald Rumsfeld wearing a yellow star inscribed with "sheriff," followed by a cudgel wielding Ariel Sharon who is flanked by a golden calf. (Please see photograph, below.) That this scene, expressing the putative globalized nature and predations of the Jews, was created for an anti-globalization demonstration in Davos is no mere coincidence." (See also the photograph: "Demonstrators in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2003" (Fabrice Coffrini, AP Photo/Keystone, 2003/01/25))

"'Global Campaign Against Aggression': The Supreme Council of Global Jihad?" (Reuven Paz, haganah b'internet, 2003/05/02)
An article on the "Global Campaign Against Aggression", a "new body of supporters of global Jihad against the United States and the "Crusader" West" whose secretary General is "the known Saudi Dr. Safar al-Hawali, who is regarded by many scholars as one of the main mentors of Osamah bin Laden". This is from the original founding declaration:
"MAKKAH ANTI-AGGRESSION CAMPAIGN
The Muslim Ummah has been subjected to vicious aggression at the hands of the forces of tyranny and oppression, especially the Zionists and the American administration led by right-wing extremist, that are working to expand their control over nations and peoples, loot their resources, to destroy their will, and to change their educational curricula and social system. ...
This sinful aggression has caused humanity to revert to the hateful days of colonialism when the imperial states violated the inviolability of weak peoples - exploiting their resources and fiddling with their values- when the law of jungle reigned supreme.
In rejection of this aggression the signatories to this Declaration summoned to proclaim (The Global Anti-Aggression Campaign), as a framework in which to unite the efforts of members of the Ummah in alerting the community concerning its right to self-defense and resistance to the aggression of its enemies in all possible legitimate and effective means."

"Al-Qa'ida Affiliated Website: The Shi'a Threat to Sunni Islamists is No Less than the 'Judeo-Christian' Threat" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 498, 2003/05/02)
Translation of an article published on 'Al-Nidaa, a "website affiliated with Al-Qa'ida", about threats against Sunni Islamists in the Arab world: ''The Secular Threat': "There is no doubt," the article stated, "that one of the greatest threats to the hegemony of Islam and the dominance of Shari'a [Islamic law] is the American secularism that will be imposed forcefully on the region... The Islamic world will change from dictatorship to democracy, which means sub-human degradation in all walks of life." The meaning, stated the article, of the term 'democracy,' is that people rule, instead of Allah. ...
The Shi'ite Threat
The article paid particular attention to the issue of the Shi'a:
'The danger of the Shi'a to the region is no less than that posed by the Jews and the Christians. Throughout Islamic history, the Shi'a helped the Christians and the polytheists in their battles against Muslim countries. The seemingly anti-Jewish and anti-Christian Shi'a hatred is nothing but slogans used to export the Khomeini revolution. ...
Those who are familiar with the beliefs of the Shi'a can hardly fathom the depth of their evil and hatred. Beware [of] them, Oh Muslims.'"

"U.S. Says Three More Top Iraqi Officials Captured" (Reuters, 2003/05/02)
"At least three additional top Iraqi officials have been apprehended, including the former head of the Iraqi ministry in charge of developing weapons, U.S. officials on Friday.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that Abdul Tawab Mullah Hwaish, minister of military industrialization and No. 16 on the "most-wanted" list was in custody.
The Military Industrialization Ministry was established in the 1980s to develop weapons. The apprehension could help U.S. investigators in their search for weapons of mass destruction that Washington said Iraq possessed."

"Geriatric Teenagers" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/05/02)
"Imagine a continent that collectively budgets very little on its own defense, instead finding protection in a distant and democratic superpower that pays rent for the privilege of basing troops, planes, and ships to stop hooligans — sometimes, as in the case of an embarrassingly impolite Mr. Milosevic, right on Europe's doorstop.
In return, many European elites ridicule American values, naïveté, and insularity — even as their countries have raked in billions of American dollars in trade surpluses and tourism from mostly oblivious, aw-shucks Americans. We self-absorbed, parochial yokels laughed and paid little attention to the fact that some in Europe had forsaken Christianity for this weird, emerging boutique religion of anti-Americanism.
Who could take their ankle-biting seriously? Who, after all, would give up all that they had gotten so cheaply — that dream of all spoiled teenagers: to snap at and ridicule their patient and paying parents, even as they call on them in extremis for help whenever the car stalls or the rent is short?"

"Wrong Turn" (Abraham D. Soafer, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/05/02)
Road Map 3: "Throughout Israel's history, and especially now, Palestinians have acted as though they have a perfect right to kill Jews with impunity. Little wonder: they live in a culture in which armed men, and men of God, publicly and routinely call for the murder of Jews. Fundamentalist Muslims and nationalist Arabs alike preach and practice a racist ideology based on the inhumanity of Jews. In their ravings, Jews - "dogs," "cockroaches," "filthy bacterial growth" - deserve to be killed en masse and uprooted from a land they have defiled by their presence. When Arab terrorists are themselves killed by Israeli reprisals, Palestinians parade through the streets of their cities with guns, masks and suicide-bomber outfits, crying to heaven for vengeance.
All this would be intolerable, and shocking beyond belief, in any society based upon law. Yet so pervasive is it in Palestinian society, as indeed in Arab society generally, that one doubts even Israelis have taken in its full dimension. ...
That is what is meant by an existential threat - a threat to Israel's very existence, fueled by a radical and uncompromising hatred of that existence and by the implacable determination to liquidate it. Some Arab and Muslim states, along with private and religious groups around the world, have adopted the destruction of Israel as official policy. Others give sanctuary and active help to groups committed to that end. ...
In the democratic West, no one wishes to believe this - it is too awful. And that, too, adds to the magnitude of the threat. By omission as much as by commission, the U.S. and other democracies have encouraged radical Palestinians and their supporters to cling to their dream of eliminating the Jewish state."

"Road map for legitimizing terror" (Israel Harel, Haaretz, 2003/05/02)
Road Map 2: "The road map's main danger is not the harsh demands it makes on Israel but its very publication. The Arabs conclude, and rightly so, that America is declaring via the map that the terror against the Jews, unlike terror against the citizens of any other country, pays and is therefore permissible. The road map is also a personal victory for Yasser Arafat, the man who until recently seemed to have fallen, never to rise again.
It can be said that Arafat lost the battle but won the war. What's more, despite the fact that, in principle, his crimes against humanity, particularly in the past two and a half years, are no different from the crimes of Saddam Hussein and all the other war criminals who have butchered civilians, Arafat enjoys immunity like no other leader of mass terror. Perhaps it is because his victims are Jews.
The bulk of his immunity is granted by the Israeli government, which is obligated to act on behalf of the victims who were murdered by his criminal activities. This is because the government, due to characteristic Jewish victims' complexes ("political reasons"), does not dare charge Arafat with war crimes. If this is the nature of the victims' government, how can we complain against the rehabilitation provided by European governments whose representatives do not desist from making pilgrimages to visit him."

"Getting off the map" (Caroline B. Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/05/02)
Road Map 1: "In embracing the newly inaugurated regime of Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat's deputy of some 40 years, the Bush administration is accepting a myth of a reformed Palestinian Authority. In so doing, it is expending political capital backing a Palestinian leader who shares none of the president's hopes for a reformed PA that can eventually lead to the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state.
Because of the support he enjoys from the Bush administration, Palestinians see Abbas as a US puppet they derisively compare to Hamid Karzai, the US-anointed president of Afghanistan. And yet, in stark contrast to Karzai, Abbas has not committed himself to waging war against terrorism by actively working to destroy terrorist infrastructure in the PA.
Rather, like Arafat, he suffices with trite condemnations of terrorism, while continuing to define Israel's actions to destroy these infrastructures as morally indistinguishable from acts of mass murder and mayhem launched against Israeli civilians."

"The hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky" (Keith Windschuttle, The New Criterion, from the May 2003 issue)
Sadly, Noam Chomsky is probably the most influential intellectual in the world. Windschuttle focuses on Chomsky's hypocritical application of universal moral standards: "Yet Chomsky's moral perspective is completely one-sided. No matter how great the crimes of the regimes he has favored, such as China, Vietnam, and Cambodia under the communists, Chomsky has never demanded their leaders be captured and tried for war crimes. Instead, he has defended these regimes for many years to the best of his ability through the use of evidence he must have realized was selective, deceptive, and in some cases invented. ...
This kind of two-faced morality has provided a model for the world-wide protests by left-wing opponents of the American-led coalition's war against Iraq. The left was willing to tolerate the most hideous acts of state terrorism by the Saddam Hussein regime, but was implacable in its hostility to intervention by Western democratic governments in the interests of both their own security and the emancipation of the Iraqi people. This is hypocrisy writ large."

"'Arabian mights' that never were" (Paul Greenberg, The Washington Times, 2003/05/02)
Greenberg on gloomy predictions that never materialized, here exemplifying with headlines from The New York Times: "'Hussein rallies Iraqi defenders to hold Baghdad/Leader says Allies will be dragged Into a 'quagmire' by guerrilla warfare' — Page One, March 25, 2003.
"Bush peril: Shifting sand and fickle opinion" — Page One, March 30, 2003. This headline is over a story by the Times' redoubtable R.W. (Johnny) Apple. There hasn't been a cheerier prophet since Cassandra. Here's a sample of his applesauce: "Street-by-street fighting in the rubble of Baghdad and other cities — an eventuality that American strategists have long sought to avoid — now looks more likely. Mr. Hussein's aides have promised savage resistance."
"Rumsfeld's design for war criticized on the battlefield" — Page One, April 1, 2003.
"The skeptics, who include some of the leading former Army commanders from the last war with Iraq, say the force the United States has deployed is not large enough to begin a decisive battle in Baghdad while simultaneously guarding ever-lengthening supply lines." — Page One, April 1, 2003.
"Iraq is planning protracted war/threat of guerrilla fighting in cities and in summer heat" — Page One, April 2, 2003.
"Defiant Iraqis say U.S. advance has been broken" — Page One, April 6, 2003.
The Times' coverage didn't quite measure up to the ceaseless flow of victory proclamations from the Iraqi information minister, but there were days when it came close."

"The Shiite 'Menace'" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/05/02)
"What the administration has done right, on the other hand, has been to exclude all the foreign latecomers and meddlers who want to get in on the reconstruction. The administration gave the perfect response to the United Nations' claim that it alone can confer legitimacy on the running of Iraq: It ignored it.
It does not even merit a rejoinder. The idea that legitimacy flows from the blessings of France and Russia, Saddam Hussein's lawyers and suppliers, is on its face risible. Legitimacy does not come out of U.N. headquarters in New York; it will come out of the ground in Iraq, as more and more factions join in the construction of a provisional government."

"Rageh Omaar's helpful friend in Baghdad" (Richard Beeston, The Times, 2003/05/02)
Alhamdullilah!!!!!: "Rageh Omaar, the BBC's star correspondent in Baghdad during the Iraq war, developed a close and potentially embarrassing relationship with the director of Iraq's Ministry of Information, who was responsible for controlling foreign correspondents.
Documents retrieved by The Times from the ministry show that Mr Omaar wrote effusive letters to Uday al-Taie, who was close to Saddam Hussein and once expelled from France for spying. ...
All Western journalists were obliged to show deference to the Iraqi authorities, but Mr Omaar showed himself to be a master of the art. After one trip he wrote that the high point had been a dinner with Mr al-Taie: "After promising and promising to have dinner with you for such a long time — we finally did it. Alhamdullilah!!!!! For me, this was the main achievement of my visit."
The tactic seemed to work. A note in Arabic on the letter suggests that it be forwarded to the visa department. Before another assignment, Mr Omaar wrote: 'It's been such a long time since we last saw each other, and I would really like to see you again. As you once said to me: Once you have tasted the waters of the Tigris, you can never forget Baghdad!!!'"

"Our lack of self-respect spawns suicide bombers" (Theodore Dalrymple, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/02)
"There are now enough Muslims in Britain that a few of them must be dangerously violent merely by the laws of human variation. Nevertheless, the fact that two Muslims, born and bred in England, should have volunteered for suicide duty in Israel, is not calculated to make us sleep sounder in our beds at night.
The question we should ask is whether we are doing anything to alienate young Muslims from our culture and civilisation. The answer is yes. By constantly uttering the mindlessly vague slogans of multiculturalism, we give the impression that we have no faith in ourselves, our culture and civilisation. And if we don’t ourselves value our traditions and accomplishments higher than those of other civilisations, why should anyone else? ...
On the one hand, young Muslims are not inducted into the best of our civilisation, largely because even the idea of there being a best is anathema to those relativists who determine our educational policy; on the other, they are personally acquainted with the worst, because they have seen it with their own eyes and lived among it. In the absence of a real faith in our civilisation, our tolerance appears to them what it is: weakness. They are therefore contemptuous of what they see, and not without reason. British suicide bombers are a true product of multiculturalism."

"Home-grown fundamentalists pose a threat to Britain, too" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/02)
"A clue was given in a chilling interview on the Today programme with Anjem Choudary, the British leader of Al-Muhajiroun, an Islamist group with a base in London. Choudary was by no means surprised to discover a British involvement in the suicide attack. Muslims, he said, had an obligation to support their fellow believers in jihad and the greatest sacrifice they could make was to lay down their own lives while taking those of others.
Inevitably, Choudary was denounced as a fanatic, which he self-evidently is, and disowned by mainstream Muslims. Islamic scholars queued up to emphasise the peaceful nature of their religion and leading Muslims lamented once more that Choudary's inflammatory remarks would harm inter-community relations in Britain.
The implication was that he represented a lunatic fringe that should simply be ignored. But we do so at our peril; for there is within the Muslim community in Britain a disaffected, radicalised group of young men who listen, almost daily, to rabble-rousers preaching the same holy war message articulated by Choudary. ...
Britain is a tolerant society that prides itself on letting people speak their minds, whatever their opinions. But it must also be incumbent on those who see fanaticism in their midst to combat it, not simply to condemn.
If the extremists are allowed, unchallenged, to continue preaching their doctrine of hate to young Muslims, then the next suicide bomb attack could well be in Britain."

"British bombers posed as peace activists" (Anton La Guardia et al., The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/02)
"The two British suicide bombers who blew up a seafront bar in Tel Aviv, killing three people, had posed earlier as peace activists, acting as "human shields" for Palestinians, sources in the Gaza Strip said yesterday.
As Israeli police and intelligence agencies stepped up their hunt for Omar Khan Sharif, who fled after failing to blow himself up, it was reported that the two had spent at least four days in the Gaza Strip. ...
A Western pro-Palestinian activist said the two later took part in a protest march in Rafah to commemorate Rachel Corrie, an American "human shield" killed by an Israeli bulldozer last March.
"As soon as I heard the names, my heart sank," he said. 'I did not need to see the picture, but when the picture came, they are there.'"

"President Bush gets a tour of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln..."
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, 2003/05/01)
"President Bush gets a tour of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, May 1, 2003, off the California coast."

"President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended" (The White House, 2003/05/01)
"In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th - the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got. (Applause.)
Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all: Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice. (Applause.)
Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.
Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world - and will be confronted. (Applause.)
And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and sacrifices for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States of America. (Applause.)" (UPDATE: Note that the caption has subsequently been changed to "President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended" [My emphasis].)

"Bush Proclaims Victory in Iraq" (Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post, 2003/05/02)
"President Bush proclaimed victory in Iraq tonight from aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier returning to home port, but he cautioned that much remains to be done in the broader war against terrorism.
"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001, and still goes on," the president said in his national address beamed from the deck of the Lincoln.
Bush told the nearly 5,000 sailors gathered on the flight deck under a bright sun that they had fought 'for the cause of liberty and for the peace of the world.'"

"President takes over plane's controls" (Bill Sammon, The Washington Times, 2003/05/02)
"President Bush helped pilot the jet that swooped down for a dramatic landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln yesterday, marking the first time he has taken the controls of an aircraft in more than 30 years. "I flew it," Mr. Bush said with a grin upon landing. He called the experience "really exciting. I miss flying, I can tell you that." ... The president was not at the controls when the plane made a picture-perfect landing on the flight deck, where its tailhook snagged the last of four steel cables, bringing the aircraft to a lurching halt in fewer than 400 feet."

Thursday, May 1, 2003

News and commentary:

"Saudi Chutzpah" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/05/01)
"Here's something a little different: the first Best of the Web Today blind tasting. See if you can identify the vintage and origin of this fine whine:

During this crisis patriotism as practiced in the United States reached alarming levels of intolerance and violence. The right of the other to dissent was unceremoniously thrown aside. If we take what happened to the Dixie Chicks as an example, one is hard-pressed to justify or even comprehend the incident. One of the ladies said she was ashamed of Bush being from her home state of Texas. She said it while performing on a stage in London. Had the Chicks been living under Saddam, we know a priori what would have happened. But knowing they lived in the United States one thought that the debate would have maintained a semblance of civility.
Instead, they were attacked, taken off radio stations, and callers to the same stations spewed so much venom that it inevitably culminated in on-the-air death threats. Obviously, democracy is skin deep.

California 2003? Nope, Saudi Arabia. It's an Arab News op-ed by one Mohammad T. Al-Rasheed. If the Dixie Chicks lived in Rasheed's country, of course, they would not even have been able to go to Britain to deliver their anti-Bush comments unless they had the permission of their "guardians" - fathers or husbands. Nor would they be allowed to drive, appear naked on magazine covers or even show their ankles in public." (See also: "The Dixie Chicks & Civility" (Dr. Mohammed T. Al-Rasheed, Arab News, 2003/05/01))

"Attack Injures 7 U.S. Soldiers in Angry Iraqi City" (Edmund L. Andrews and Terence Neilan, The New York Times, 2003/05/01)
"Seven American soldiers were wounded when Iraqis using grenades and small arms attacked a walled compound here early today. The attack followed two incidents in the city this week in which United States forces shot and killed a total of 17 Iraqis. ...
Today's attack in Falluja came only hours after soldiers in the compound and in a passing Army convoy opened fire on anti-American demonstrators on Wednesday. Hospital officials in Falluja, about 30 miles west of Baghdad, said two Iraqis were killed and 18 were wounded.
American officers said the incident happened after one of the protesters opened fire on them, a claim denied by residents."

"Hamas leader reported dead in Gaza incursion" (CNN.com, 2003/05/01)
"Israeli troops surrounded and attacked the home of a Hamas military leader Thursday in Gaza, killing him and his two brothers, Palestinian security sources said.
At least 10 other Palestinians, including a 2-year-old and a 13-year-old, died in the attack and 47 others were wounded, the sources said.
Israeli military sources said eight soldiers were wounded, with two in serious condition."

"Intellectuals Launch Campaign to Defend Cuba" (Marc Frank, Reuters, 2003/05/01)
So Castro emprisons 75 dissidents and executes people trying to flee the country and 160 leftist intellectuals protest by defending the dictatorship and seeing "harassment against Cuba" as the main problem. Business as usual, then: "More than 160 foreign artists and intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, have come out in defense of Cuba even as many of their peers condemn recent repression on the Communist-run island, one of the campaigners said on Thursday.
Latin American Nobel laureates Garcia Marquez, Rigoberta Menchu, Aldolfo Perez Esquivel and South African writer Nadine Gordimer, also a Nobel prize winner, have signed a declaration of support, Mexican sociologist Pablo Gonzalez said.
U.S. singer Harry Belafonte and U.S. actor Danny Glover are also among the personalities who have signed the two-paragraph declaration "To the Conscience of the World" so far, Gonzalez announced to a May Day rally in Havana.
"A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation among countries," the declaration says, referring to the United States and the war in Iraq.
"At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion," it continues."

"The Globalization of Antisemitism" (Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Forward, from the 2003/05/02 issue)
"The focus of the animus against Jews has shifted overwhelmingly to Jews of other countries — of Israel and the United States — as the alleged central moral and material culprits of the international arena. Zionism has become, for many, a mythical entity, a destructive agent in the world, and anti-Zionism has become interwoven with anti-Americanism to the point where Russian nationalist politicians can express their fear of American domination by saying that Russia is in danger of being "Zionized." ...
Globalized antisemitism has become part of the substructure of prejudice of the world. It is free-floating, located in many countries, subcultures and nodes, available in many variations, and to anyone who dislikes international influences, globalization or the United States. It is relentlessly international in its focus on Israel at the center of the most conflict-ridden region today, and on the United States as the world's omnipresent power. It is self-reinforcing, with its fantastical constructions of Jews and Zionism — which are divorced from the fair criticisms that can be made of Israel's policies — and by being located totally outside people's countries and experience. And it is only a few clicks of a mouse away."

"Parisian Complicity in Iraqi Death Threats?" (Ann Clwyd, The Scotsman/FrontPageMagazine, 2003/05/01)
"In April 2000, Indict, a human rights organisation founded to campaign for a UN International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq, organised a conference in Paris. It was memorable for reasons other than the quality of debate. If the revelations in British newspapers yesterday are accurate, and we believe they are, it seems that French officials colluded with Iraqi intelligence agents to frustrate our efforts in Paris. ...
Not surprisingly, despite the frequency with which senior Iraqi regime members travelled to France, the legal and political advice Indict received was that as far as asking the French to live up to their responsibilities under international law, when it comes to Iraq we might as well save our breath.
So today questions need to be asked in Paris - and answered. Let us not forget that during this period Indict staff and delegates were threatened with death "by the end of the day" by those same Iraqi intelligence agents. Yesterday, I called on the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, in the House of Commons to set up an inquiry into these events both in the UK and France." (See also: "French helped Iraq to stifle dissent" (Alex Spillius and Andrew Sparrow, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/04/28))

"Grumpy old men" (Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian, 2003/05/01)
"Yesterday's Daily Mail called the new Franco-German-Belgian-Luxembourgeois defence alignment an "axis of weasels". "The enemy would be quaking the first time the European surrender-monkey army went into action," jeered the Sun. "Not with fear but with laughter." It concluded: "The new army will need a flag. How about a white one?" Typically for today's Britain, the language of abuse is borrowed from America ("surrender-monkey" comes from The Simpsons via the National Review, "axis of weasels" from the New York Post). But the sentiments would have been shared by the English archers at Agincourt in 1415. Of course, the feelings are often heartily reciprocated. ...
The difference between France and Britain is not wide, but it is deep. Britain recognises that you need to build up a strong Europe as a partner to the United States; France knows that you can't achieve much in today's world against the US. The gap is perhaps only a couple of metres wide, but it's 600 years deep." (Note: Although New York Post used the "weasel" concept for a brilliant frontpage, it was Scrapple Face who came up with the expression in a likewise brilliant satirical piece. See also: "Rumsfeld Sorry for 'Axis of Weasels' Remark" (Scrapple Face, 2003/01/22) and "U.N. MEETS - Weasels to hear new Iraq evidence" (New York Post, 2003/02/14))

"From Iraq's secret files, a trail of mass murder" (Peter Ford, The Christian Science Monitor, 2003/05/01)
"Over the past few days, the US Army has taken custody of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi secret-police files. The dossiers - an impeccable detailing of two decades of mass murder reminiscent of the meticulous recordkeeping of Hitler's Germany or Stalinist Russia - could contain crucial evidence in any trial that former President Saddam Hussein or his top officials might face.
Already the files have yielded fragments of Iraq's secret past. The group of former prisoners who gathered the documents have so far gleaned the names of more than 5,500 prisoners who were executed, according to the files. The Committee of Free Prisoners has posted them on the walls of its makeshift headquarters by the Tigris River. Every day, thousands of ordinary men and women crowd around the rosters, seeking names of missing relatives."

"Loss Estimates Are Cut on Iraqi Artifacts, but Questions Remain" (Alan Riding, The New York Times, 2003/05/01)
"Even though many irreplaceable antiquities were looted from the National Museum of Iraq during the chaotic fall of Baghdad last month, museum officials and American investigators now say the losses seem to be less severe than originally thought.
Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the looting and is stationed at the museum, said museum officials had given him a list of 29 artifacts that were definitely missing. But since then, 4 items — ivory objects from the eighth century B.C. — had been traced.
"Twenty-five pieces is not the same as 170,000," said Colonel Bogdanos, who in civilian life is an assistant Manhattan district attorney."

"The British suicide bombers" (Chris McGreal et al., The Guardian, 2003/05/01)
"A suicide bomber and his accomplice who murdered three people and wounded scores at a Tel Aviv bar yesterday carried British passports and travelled to Israel specifically to kill, according to local officials.
Israeli sources said it was believed that the 21-year-old bomber, Asif Mohammed Hanif, travelled from Egypt to Gaza and then entered Israel.
A second man who was allegedly carrying an explosive belt that failed to detonate was named as Omar Khan Sharif. Last night he was on the run. His British passport records him as born in Derby 27 years ago and entering Israeli through Tel Aviv's international airport about a month ago. He then visited Gaza, apparently leaving the area a few hours before the attack.
Officials were reluctant to reveal more details but said they believed the British passports carried by the two were genuine. They also noted that the names were more likely to be of Pakistani origin than Palestinian, raising the possibility that Mr Hanif was the first wholly foreign suicide bomber in Israel."

Added in archive:
"Why I nearly resigned" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2003/04/26 issue)

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

News and commentary:

"Mideast 'Road Map' Launched" (Matt Spetalnick, Reuters/The Washington Post, 2003/04/30)
"International mediators launched a U.S.-led Middle East peace initiative on Wednesday, undeterred by a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed three Israelis in a crowded Tel Aviv nightclub. ...
President Bush finally directed the release of the road map, which calls for a Palestinian state by 2005, after Palestinians swore in a new cabinet led by reformist Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, a leading moderate." (See also: "A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" (U.S. Department of State, 2003/04/30))

"Pakistan Arrests Yemeni Man Linked to Cole Attack" (AP/The New York Times, 2003/04/30)
"Pakistani police have arrested six men linked to al-Qaida, including a Yemeni man wanted in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks and the bombing of the USS Cole, an Interior Ministry official said Wednesday.
The country's interior minister said the arrests prevented "a major terrorist attack.''
Waleed Mohammed Bin Attash, best known as Tawfiq bin Attash or Tawfiq Attash Khallad, was arrested Tuesday during a pair of raids conducted in southern Karachi by Pakistani authorities."

"Tel Aviv suicide bomber was British citizen" (Roni Singer and Haim Shadmi, Haaretz, 2003/04/30)
"The man who carried out the suicide bombing late Tuesday night at a Tel Aviv beachfront pub was a Muslim man with a British passport, as was an additional terrorist who managed to flee when his explosive device did not detonate.
The British man who managed to escape, after scuffling with bystanders at the pub, was named as 27-year-old Omar Khan Sharif. Sharif dropped his explosive device while fleeing, and it was detonated safely by police sappers."

"Letter from Saddam Hussein to the Iraqi People and the Arab Nation" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 496, 2003/04/30)
Boycott the occupier? Doesn't that sound kind of pathetic and defeatist coming from someone regarding himself as an incarnation of Saladin?: "Just as Hulagu entered Baghdad, so did the criminal Bush enter Baghdad, with the help of [traitor from within] 'Alqami – indeed, even more than one 'Alqami.
They did not vanquish you, you who refuse to accept occupation and humiliation, and you, who have Arabism and Islam in your hearts and minds, [they did not defeat you] except through treachery. ...
Oh sons of our great people, rise up against the occupier and do not put your trust in those who speak of Sunnis and Shiites, because the only problem that the homeland, your great Iraq, is experiencing now is occupation.
There are no priorities [now] other than the expulsion of the cowardly, murderous infidel occupier. No honorable hand would be extended to shake his, except that of traitors and collaborators....
Safeguard your property, your departments, and your schools, and boycott the occupier. Boycott him, as this is your duty towards Islam, the religion, and the homeland.
Long Live Great Iraq and its people.
Long Live Palestine, free and Arab from the river to the sea.
Allah Akbar.
Disgrace upon the despicable ones."

"US Report Says Terror Attacks Declined Sharply Last Year" (David Gollust, Voice of America, 2003/04/30)
"The State Department, in its annual report on global terrorism, says the number of terror attacks declined sharply last year due to increased international cooperation and resolve. Seven countries - Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Sudan - were again listed as state sponsors of terrorism, though Iraq may soon come off the list.
The State Department says there were 199 terrorist attacks last year, a 44 percent drop from 2001 and the lowest figure in more than 30 years." (See also the report: "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002" (U.S. Department of State, April 2003))

"Still Think the International Criminal Court Was a Good Idea?" (James Lileks, NNS, 2003/04/30)
"The International Criminal Court, like most international institutions, is a wonderful idea. A noble idea. All it needs to work is planetary government, worldwide democracy and the triumph of reason over tribal loyalties, political doctrines and individual ambition. In other words, it requires that we all live in the world described by the "Star Trek" television shows." (See also: "Iraqis target Gen. Franks for war crimes trial" (Jeffrey T. Kuhner, The Washington Times, 2003/04/28) and "Why I nearly resigned" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2003/04/26 issue))

"Hollywood confuses criticism and censorship" (Jonah Goldberg, The Washington Times, 2003/04/30)
"The Screen Actors Guild says that actors should be applauded for their courage but shouldn't face any risks. Madonna agreed: "It's ironic that we were fighting for democracy in Iraq," she told reporters after voluntarily withdrawing her video, "because we ultimately aren't celebrating democracy here. Anybody who has anything to say against the war or against the president or whatever is punished, and that's not democracy."
This is like Tim Robbins saying he's being censored to a captive audience of a couple hundred of America's top journalists. How I would love to be so brutally censored.
None of these people are being censored. They are being criticized. And only people so pampered, so spoon-fed with praise and encouragement, could confuse the free speech of others with the chilling of free speech in America. ...
Only Hollywood types believe that we should applaud speaking out as courageous but that those who speak out shouldn't face any consequences or criticism for what they say. Courage without risk isn't courage; it's play-acting. And - sorry, Madonna - a society where elites with huge fortunes and PR machines are immune from criticism isn't a democracy, it's an aristocracy for Hollywood know-nothings who spew nonsense whenever they open their mouths."

"Abu Mazen: A Political Profile" (Yael Yehoshua, MEMRI, 2003/04/30)
The second part of MEMRI's profile, here on Abu Mazen's book "The Other Face: The Secret Connection Between the Nazis and the Zionist Movement": "In the book, Abu Mazen sought to de-legitimize the Zionist movement, citing the 1935 agreement, between the Nazi authorities and representatives of the Zionist movement, which facilitated the escape of part of German Jewry to Palestine in exchange for their property. According to Abu Mazen, this agreement proves that the entire Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis in the annihilation of the Jewish people because it saw Palestine as the only appropriate destination for Jewish emigration. ...
In the foreword to his book, Abu Mazen also argued that gas chambers were not used as a means of annihilation – a claim based on research by Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. This part did not appear in Abu Mazen's dissertation but was added to the book: ...
'Regarding the gas chambers, which were supposedly designed for murdering living Jews: A scientific study published by Professor Robert Faurisson of France denies that the gas chambers were for murdering people, and claims that they were only for incinerating bodies, out of concern for the spread of disease and infection in the region.'" (See also: "Abu Mazen: A Political Profile" (Yael Yehoshua, MEMRI, 2003/04/29))

"3 killed, 35 wounded, in suicide bombing at pub in Tel Aviv" (Roni Singer and Haim Shadmi, Haaretz, 2003/04/30)
"At least three people were killed and 35 wounded, one critically and five seriously, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at around 1 A.M. Tuesday night at a beachfront pub on Herbert Samuel Street in Tel Aviv.
The pub, "Mike's Place," is located close to the United States embassy, and is popular with tourists. The embassy was not damaged in the blast.
The bomber, who was killed in the blast, set off the explosives at the entrance to the pub after the security guard on duty at the door physically prevented him from entering.
The security guard was seriously wounded in the blast, and is receiving treatment at Ihcilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Army Radio reported.
The attack was jointly planned by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and the Al Qassam Brigades, a man calling himself Abu Barek told AFP by telephone."

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

News and commentary:

"Abu Mazen: A Political Profile" (Yael Yehoshua, MEMRI, 2003/04/29)
"Practically speaking, Abu Mazen said, the militarization of the Intifada had brought about the "complete destruction" of the PA. Again speaking to the heads of the Popular Council of Refugee Camps in the Gaza Strip, he said: "What happened in the past two years, as we see today, is the complete destruction of everything we built [under Oslo], and of what was built before. We live below the poverty line in Gaza and the West Bank; our people are in a situation of loss, starvation, and suffering. The reason [for this] is [the militarization of the Intifada]… Every day, all the West Bank cities are subject to operations of destruction because of the Israeli exploitation of operations that I think are neither necessary nor effective…" ...
'Isn't this blood spilled in vain? Isn't it stupidity on our part to fire shots above the roof of a building – and then the building is destroyed on the heads of its owners and inhabitants, and [the Israelis] invade the city? Anyone who perpetrates such an operation is a criminal against his own people… Who will compensate those who have lost their homes, which they toiled for decades to build? … We have become like a people that destroys its homes by itself. And we are silent, so they will not accuse us of abandoning our brothers and of opposing national unity. If our measures are aimed at defending our people, we needn't fear such charges…'"

"Palestinian MPs Approve New Cabinet in Reform Drive" (Mohammed Assadi, Reuters, 2003/04/29)
"The Palestinian parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a new cabinet led by reformist Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in a crucial step toward launching a new U.S.-backed Middle East peace plan.
Applause swept the special Palestinian legislative session in the West Bank city of Ramallah as deputies voted 51-18 with three abstentions to endorse Abbas's cabinet list."

"US to withdraw forces from Saudi Arabia" (Peter Spiegel, Financial Times, 2003/04/29)
"The US and Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday that nearly all American forces would withdraw from the desert kingdom at the end of the summer after more than a decade of using Saudi bases as its primary Gulf air presence.
In a joint press conference with his Saudi counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, said the toppling of Saddam Hussein would allow the Pentagon to reduce the American presence in the region."

"Iraqis Say Troops Kill 13; U.S. Says Returned Fire" (Edmund Blair, Reuters, 2003/04/29)
"U.S. troops killed 13 Iraqi demonstrators west of Baghdad overnight, witnesses said on Tuesday, in bloodshed sure to inflame anti-American anger. U.S. officers said they fired in self defense.
Witnesses in Falluja, 30 miles outside the capital, told Reuters the troops opened fire late on Monday on several hundred unarmed demonstrators who had been demanding the soldiers vacate a school they were using as a barracks.
Falluja hospital director Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali said 13 people had been killed and at least 75 wounded in the incident. There were widely conflicting accounts of what had happened.
U.S. Lieutenant Christopher Hart said between 100 and 200 chanting people approached his men, who opened fire after two gunmen with combat rifles appeared from behind the crowd on a motorcycle and started shooting.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that about 25 armed civilians fired at the troops. Hart put the death Iraqi toll at between seven and 10."

"Stupor, shame and repentance" (Marc De Scitivaux, Revue-politique.com/Watch, 2003/04/16 [2003/04/29])
A brilliant critique of the French anti-war position - and its consequences - translated by Douglas: "Sycophancy is ageless and if 30% of our fellow citizens hoped for Saddam Hussein’s victory, this is surely because their elected officials failed in their duties, allowing the ascendance of the idea that one can equate the weapons of tyrannies with those of democracies.
But in meting out punishment, a special place must be made for the press. There is something very troubling in the fact that virtually every daily, weekly and radio and television station became a spokesman for the official French position. For even in those countries at war, in the United States and Great Britain, there was no unanimity. This is not a proof of the weakness of these countries but, to the contrary, of their strength. Are the elites brave and free in a country where virtually all elected officials are of the same opinion? The question at least deserves asking!" (See also the French original: "Stupeur, honte et repentance" (Revue-politique.com, 2003/04/16))

"The Iranians’ pro-Americanism worries Tehran" (Afsané Bassir Pour, Le Monde/Watch, 2003/04/25 [2003/04/29])
An interesting report from Tehran, translated by Douglas:
"Iranian leaders are worried: worried by the American presence at their gates, in the east and west; worried by the invasion of Iraq “with so little popular resistance;” worried by the speedy toppling of the Baghdad regime; worried by the marginalization of the UN; worried by the total disillusion of the Iranian people, which, since the start of the Iraqi crisis, has manifested itself in the fierce pro-Americanism of the population... but worried most of all by the vox populi, which is calling for “a regime change with the help of the American marines.” ...
“The hardliners,” says a member of the reform camp, “are very afraid. They are ready to make some concessions; they know that we still have much more credibility than they do.”
But for an Iranian architect who immediately demanded anonymity, “there is now no longer any difference between the reformers and conservatives.” Exasperated by the “profound corruption” of the regime, he wants its end. “It’s simple,” he tells us. “We don’t want any more Islamic Republic. It has taken us 25 years to realize that the revolution came to nothing.” Like many, he wants “American help for a change of regime.” The idea meets with widespread approbation. “The Afghans and the Iraqis had their dictatorships taken away,” says a filmmaker. 'So why not us?'" (See also the French original: "Le pro-américanisme des Iraniens inquiète Téhéran" (Le Monde, 2003/04/25))

"Free media blossom in Iraq city" (Ilene R. Prusher, The Christian Science Monitor, 2003/04/29)
"Two ethnic Turkmens - whose language is an offshoot of Turkish - are checking out new satellite dishes on the steps of Salih's store. They say they've already bought one and are enjoying watching television stations from Turkey. "If we turned on the television in the past, the only news was what Saddam did today," says Sabah Nur eh-Din. "We had only two channels. It would have been better to turn the television off and just paste up a picture of Saddam on the screen."
His friend, Abbas Ali, concurs. "We used to go to sleep at 10 p.m. Now we stay up until 4 or 5 a.m. because we can't get enough." Still desperate for war news, they tune to CNN, BBC, and what appears to be a local favorite, Fox. They like it, people here say, because it has been the most supportive of the war.
For many here, the only foreign channels they can understand are in Arabic, and they are deeply resentful of the most prominent one, Qatar-based Al-Jazeera.
Abu Bakr Mohammed Amin, an elderly man in a red-checkered headdress visiting Salih's television shop, gives them a dismissive flick of the wrist: "They only knew how to support Saddam," he says."

"On the Trail of the Missing" (Kareem Fahim, The Village Voice, from the April 23 - 29, 2003 issue)
A report from the Kirkh Islamic Cemetery near the notorius Abu Ghreib prison: "Jabaar Mohammed and his wife, Umm Sitar, have arrived to inquire about their missing sons and nephews. Abbas asks them to wait, but they insist he help. Abbas pulls out his green book and asks for the names and the dates of imprisonment. He drags his finger across a few pages and then calls out the names. "Ali Jabar Adwan. Sitar Jabar Adwan." Umm Sitar starts beating her chest, and then she breaks down. "Leith Adel Luawayli. Saad Abdul Rudda." This is the first news the couple have had of the boys since 1991, the year they were arrested.
The walk to the cemetery is a long one, and Umm Sitar screams, appealing to God to kill Saddam Hussein and his sons, so that they might trade places with her boys. They stop at a hole in the fence, and look across the football-size burial ground, and the graves and numbers that sprout like tin flowers from the ground, in a faded yellow bloom, on stems of sawed-off metal. They look for numbers 854 to 857, the four boys resting in a row under a tree."

"We went to war just to boost the white male ego" (Norman Mailer, The Times, 2003/04/29)
No war for consoling the malaise of the white American male! Or something. Mailer retreats into racialism and gender hatred (the "radical" and political correct version, of course, as it's aimed at "white males"): "There were, however, even better reasons for using our military skills, but these reasons return us to the ongoing malaise of the white American male. He had been taking a daily drubbing over the past 30 years. For better or worse, the women’s movement had had its breakthrough successes and the old, easy white male ego had withered in the glare. Even the mighty consolations of rooting for your team on TV had been skewed. There was now less reward in watching sports than there used to be, a clear and declarable loss. The great white stars of yesteryear were for the most part gone, gone in football, in basketball, in boxing, and half-gone in baseball. Black genius now prevailed in all these sports (and the Hispanics were coming up fast; even the Asians were beginning to make their mark). We white men were now left with half of tennis (at least its male half), and might also point to ice-hockey, skiing, soccer, golf, (with the notable exception of the Tiger) as well as lacrosse, swimming, and the World-Wide Wrestling Federation — remnants and orts of a once-great and glorious centrality." (See also: "Norman Mailer declares: 'America is so vain'" (Matt Drudge, Drudge Report, 2002/09/06))

"American Forces Reach Cease-Fire With Terror Group" (Douglas Jehl and Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times, 2003/04/29)
"American forces in Iraq have signed a cease-fire with an Iranian opposition group the United States has designated a terrorist organization, and expect it to surrender soon with some of its arms, American military officials said today.
Under the deal, signed on April 15 but confirmed by the United States Central Command only today, United States forces agreed not to damage any of the group's vehicles, equipment or any of its property in its camps in Iraq, and not to commit any hostile act toward the Iranian opposition forces covered by the agreement.
In return, the group, the People's Mujahedeen, which will be allowed to keep its weapons for now, agreed not to fire on or commit other hostile acts against American forces, not to destroy private or government property, and to place its artillery and antiaircraft guns in nonthreatening positions."

Added in archive:
"Iraqis Tell of a Reign of Torture and Maiming" (Craig S. Smith, The New York Times, 2003/04/24)
"Killer peaceniks" (Henry McDonald, The Observer, 2003/04/13)

Monday, April 28, 2003

News and commentary:

"Bush Vows U.S. Will See Iraq Through to Democracy" (Patricia Wilson, Reuters/The Washington Post, 2003/04/28)
"In a message aimed at the Arab world, President Bush vowed on Monday to stand by Iraq until democracy flourishes and said the U.S.-led occupation already had improved the lives of average citizens.
Speaking to several hundred boisterous supporters in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, home to a major concentration of Arab immigrants to America, Bush declared: "Day by day, hour by hour life in Iraq is getting better." ...
To other countries in the region who have criticized the U.S. military action in Iraq and who have expressed fears that they could be next, Bush said: "Iraq can be an example of peace and prosperity and freedom to the entire Middle East."
'It will be a hard journey but at every step of the way, Iraq will have a steady friend in the American people.'" (See also: "President Discusses the Future of Iraq" (The White House, 2003/04/28))

"Iraqis target Gen. Franks for war crimes trial" (Jeffrey T. Kuhner, The Washington Times, 2003/04/28)
Instead of a thank-you note — a war crimes trial: "Iraqi civilians are preparing a complaint to present in court in Belgium accusing allied commander Gen. Tommy Franks and other U.S. military officials of war crimes in Iraq, according to the attorney representing the plaintiffs.
The complaint will state that coalition forces are responsible for the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians, the bombing of a marketplace in Baghdad, the shooting of an ambulance, and failure to prevent the mass looting of hospitals, said Jan Fermon, a Brussels-based lawyer. He is representing about 10 Iraqis who say they were victims of or eyewitnesses to atrocities committed during Operation Iraqi Freedom."

"Spoof French newspaper reports U.S./UK invasion" (Tom Heneghan, Reuters, 2003/04/28)
"As France wonders how Washington might punish it for opposing the war in Iraq, a spoof Paris newspaper has let its imagination run wild and reported a U.S.-led invasion to topple President Jacques Chirac.
The Monde, a satirical take-off on the daily Le Monde and a French-basher's fantasy come true, hit newsstands around France over the weekend with wacky tales of chaos amid a fictitious invasion that echoes the real war just waged in Iraq.
"American, British and Monaco forces land in France," the front-page headline screams. "Chirac calls for resistance and disappears ... Pro-American uprising on Left Bank in Paris." ...
At the invasion's start, the paper depicts a groggy and unshaven Chirac delivering a rambling television address to the nation before fleeing to an underground tunnel. "It's our duty to fiercely resist our American friends," he says."

"Nine Red Herrings: How the Western 'Left' has Misread Iraq" (Ben Illin et al., marxist.org, 2003/04/28)
Three Marxists criticize anti-war Leftists: "But how is it possible for us to call ourselves Marxists and support a war waged by a coalition of rich western liberal democracies against the government of a poor "Third World" country? We would turn the question round: how it is possible that Marxism has been so corrupted and distorted that "Marxists" prefer to see thousands more Iraqis die in the torture chambers of the Ba'ath, and millions more suffer under the iniquities excused (not caused) by the UN sanctions, rather than admit that socialists not only can but must support even the worst bourgeois democracy against even the least bad tyranny? For the beginnings of an answer, let us consider just some of the transparent and disgusting lies generated and spread by the western "left" before and during the war."

"Human Wrongs" (Anne Bayefsky, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/04/28)
"The U.N.'s Iraq fiasco demands an answer to the unambiguous question of how U.N. bodies have performed against those fixed and indispensable principles. Is it still true that Americans can anticipate a common core agenda? With the conclusion last week of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights annual session, the record speaks for itself. ...
Commission meetings themselves are a platform for incitement to hate and violence. At this year's session, the Iranian deputy foreign minister threatened what he called a "vicious circle" of violence and future "extremism" resulting from the Iraq war. The Cuban representative demanded action against "the most critical case of ... massive and flagrant violations of human rights [and] of the systemic institutionalization of racism - that of the United States." The Algerian delegate said: "The Israeli war machine has been trying for five decades to arrive at a final solution." The Palestinian representative called for the "elimination" of "Zionist Nazism." ...
The sad fact is that the U.N. is not only a failed leader in the protection of human rights, but is itself a substrate of xenophobia and aggression. The U.S. pays 22% of the U.N.'s regular budget. Yet today's U.N. operates in fundamental opposition to the values of the U.S. - and to its own universal human-rights foundations."

"Until Israel is recognised, this road map leads us nowhere" (Barbara Amiel, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/04/28)
"The road map has not officially been published but drafts have circulated. Produced by the "Quartet" of America, Russia, the EU and the UN, it is all that one might expect from that glorious collaboration - a document of bureaucratic, primitive Utopianism that could have been written by President Carter and Madeleine Albright on an exciting hormone day.
There will be "free, fair and open elections" in Palestine and an "immediate and unconditional" end to violence and incitement of hate towards Israel. Given the history of the past few hundred years, one feels it could work only if every Arab state from Libya to Saudi Arabia had the equivalent of a cultural sex change."

"New Middle East? America's victory startles hawks and doves" (Yossi Klein Halevi, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/04/28)
"The imposition of ideological wishful thinking on reluctant reality" just about sums it all up: "I recently had this disorienting experience: Shimon Peres was quoted in the papers as once again predicting the imminent emergence of "a new Middle East," and I found myself wondering if he was right.
For years, Peres's new Middle East has been synonymous with self-delusion, the imposition of ideological wishful thinking on reluctant reality. Most Israelis have come to realize that the Oslo process, the ostensible harbinger of a new Middle East, was a Palestinian deception from the very beginning, a ruse to win territory and international legitimacy and then strike at Israel at the opportune moment."

"As Hussein Faded, Prisoners Were Executed" (Ian Fisher, The New York Times, 2003/04/28)
"They were killed perhaps three weeks ago, blindfolded, their hands bound behind their backs, then shot by a government that was itself about to die. Even as American troops neared the huge prison here, Iraq continued to execute suspected spies.
In the last two days, relatives looking for loved ones have unearthed 14 bodies, not inside a cemetery, but in a pit just outside Block 5, which was reserved for foreigners. Neighbors said they had found 10 more corpses on the prison grounds — like the others, all in civilian clothes and apparently killed recently. ...
Close to the execution chamber at Abu Ghraib — where two thick ropes still hang over the two trapdoors that dropped condemned men to their deaths by hanging — six more bodies were found just after the Americans arrived, according to another neighbor, Ali Hamid Muhammad, who said he had found them.
Two of the bodies where headless, he said. Four more, he said, were partly buried, their heads mangled. All were in civilian clothing.
"They looked like they had been killed recently, a day or two before," said Mr. Muhammad, who said he was a prisoner there for six years, ending in the October amnesty."

"Mariam at risk as funds dry up" (Alex Spillius, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/04/28)
Sickening II. As James Taranto points out, £65 a month means that the "annual payment to Mariam amounts to barely more than $1,200". This from an appeal which spent "£860,000 on anti-sanctions campaigns, expenses and administration":
"The father of Mariam Hamza, the 11-year-old Iraqi leukaemia victim championed by George Galloway, said yesterday that he was worried his daughter's life was in danger because funds promised by the Scottish MP's Mariam Appeal had failed to arrive.
Hamza Abd Mittab said that the monthly allowance of £65 that the family of seven has received for three years from the appeal, to pay for Mariam's food and travel expenses, had last been paid in January. Speaking at the family home in Baghdad yesterday, he said: 'Mariam's drugs are almost finished now and my daughter will die if she doesn't receive assistance.'"

"Galloway admits appeal paid wife £18,000" (Sean O'Neill and Sally Pook, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/04/28)
Sickening I: "The appeal set up by George Galloway to treat a sick Iraqi child spent more than £800,000 on political campaigns and expenses, including a direct salary payment to his wife, the MP admitted yesterday.
Dr Amineh Abu Zayyad, Mr Galloway's Palestinian wife, was paid around £18,000 by the appeal fund to "look after" Mariam Hamza, the girl who received treatment for leukaemia in Britain and America.
The activities of the Mariam Appeal, established in 1998 to raise £100,000 to treat the child, are being investigated by the Charity Commission. Mr Galloway disclosed basic details of the appeal's expenditure to the Mail on Sunday, from which he receives £75,000 for a weekly column.
He said the fund's accounts, when fully revealed, would show that, after spending £100,000 on Mariam's treatment, it spent £860,000 on anti-sanctions campaigns, expenses and administration.
Four times as much money was spent on renting offices in central London and in paying staff salaries as went on treating Mariam.
Mr Galloway estimated the salary bill was £300,000, including payments to 18 people on temporary contracts. One of those was Dr Abu-Zayyad who, Mr Galloway said, received £18,000 for nine months' work in 1999."

"U.S. to Move Air Base to Qatar" (Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 2003/04/28)
"The United States is shifting its major air operations center for the Middle East from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, the first step in what is likely to be a significant reduction of American forces in Saudi Arabia and a realignment of American military presence in the region, senior military officials said today.
The day-to-day responsibility for overseeing hundreds of air missions in Iraq and the Middle East will be transferred this week from Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a backup headquarters the United States built last year at Al Udeid Air base in Qatar, senior officials said."

"French helped Iraq to stifle dissent" (Alex Spillius and Andrew Sparrow, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/04/28)
"France colluded with the Iraqi secret service to undermine a Paris conference held by the prominent human rights group Indict, according to documents found in the foreign ministry in Baghdad.
Various documents state that the Iraqis believed the French were doing their utmost to prevent the meeting from going ahead.
Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP who chairs Indict, said last night that she would be demanding an apology from the French government for its behaviour, which she described as "atrocious".
The files, retrieved from the looted and burned foreign ministry by The Telegraph last week, detail the warmth and strength of Iraqi-French ties."

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)

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