Archived news and commentary: May 5 - 11, 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 11, 2003

News and commentary:

"Portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il..."
(AFP/Shingo Ito, 2003/04/24)
"Portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il displayed at an entrance of the foreign ministry in Pyongyang."

"Sins of the Son" (Peter Carlson, Washington Post, 2003/05/11)
"When the Dear Leader was born in a humble log cabin on Korea's sacred Mount Paekdu in 1942, a bright star and a double rainbow appeared in the sky and a swallow descended from heaven to herald the birth of a "general who will rule all the world."
A soldier in the army commanded by the Dear Leader's father, the Great Leader, saw the star and the rainbow and rejoiced, carving a message into a tree: "Oh, Korea, I announce the birth of the Star of Paekdu."
That's the official North Korean version of the birth of Kim Jong Il, the brutal dictator who rules a nation that now taunts the world with its nuclear weapons. ...
"One of the most interesting questions about Kim Jong Il is: What does it mean to be the son of God?" says Jerrold Post, a George Washington University psychiatrist and a former psychological profiler for the CIA. "It's hard enough to succeed a successful father, but it's quite another thing if the father is elevated to a godlike stature." ...
The Great Leader had an insatiable craving for adulation. By the late '80s he had erected more than 34,000 monuments to himself. His photograph was displayed in every building and pinned to the clothing of every citizen, right over the heart. Benches where he'd once sat were sealed in glass and turned into relics.
Like a king or a Mafia don, the Great Leader groomed his eldest son to succeed him. He dubbed Kim Jong Il "the Dear Leader" and called him "a genius of 10,000 talents."
Apparently, one of those talents was literary. According to North Korean mythology, during the Dear Leader's years at Kim Il Sung University, he wrote 1,500 books - an average of almost a book a day, a feat even Stephen King can't match."

"Orwell: the Observer years" (Andrew Anthony, The Observer, 2003/05/11)
"In April 1946 Horizon published 'Politics and the English Language', Orwell's meditation on how to write what you mean and mean what you write. For years afterwards, Astor circulated the piece to every journalist who joined the paper. Ironically, it is not one of the crystalline essayist's clearest efforts. ...
However, within the broad confusion and conflation of his arguments, there are paragraphs and sections that are so exquisitely precise that it is almost impossible to read them without wishing to write better. For example:
'The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.'"

"On U.S. Demands, Iraq and Sharon" (Lally Weymouth, The Washington Post Outlook, 2003/05/11)
An interview with Syria's president Bashar Assad: "Didn't Powell ask you to stop Iran from supplying Hezbollah with weapons via Damascus?
He talked about supplying Hezbollah. We say no, they do not get arms via Syria. We give them political support because they want to get back their lands.
Deputy Secretary of State [Richard] Armitage called Hezbollah the "A-team" of terror.
That's false. They have not killed anyone outside of Lebanon where their land is occupied."

"Iraqi Crowd Harasses Al-Jazeera Crew" (AP/The Guardian, 2003/05/11)
"A small crowd of Iraqis harassed an Al-Jazeera television crew Saturday, accusing the journalists of supporting former President Saddam Hussein, the satellite channel reported.
The incident occurred in Basra, southern Iraq, as the Al-Jazeera crew were driving to a meeting that was to be addressed by Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, who returned to Iraq earlier Saturday after 20 years of exile in Iran.
Dozens of Iraqis surrounded the crew's van and harassed the journalists, the channel's newscaster said in the evening news bulletin.
"The angry locals accused the station of complicity with the previous regime (of Saddam) against the interests of the Iraqi people,'' the newscaster said."

"Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq" (Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, 2003/05/11)
"The group directing all known U.S. search efforts for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding proof that President Saddam Hussein kept clandestine stocks of outlawed arms, according to participants.
The 75th Exploitation Task Force, as the group is formally known, has been described from the start as the principal component of the U.S. plan to discover and display forbidden Iraqi weapons. The group's departure, expected next month, marks a milestone in frustration for a major declared objective of the war."

Saturday, May 10, 2003

News and commentary:

"Behind Enemy Lines"
(Simon Norfolk, The New York Times Magazine, from the 2003/05/11 issue)
"A soldier's boot, found near tanks and rocket launchers west of Baghdad."

"Newspaper runs Saddam letter urging Iraqis to fight" (Reuters, 2003/05/10)
"An Arabic-language newspaper published on Saturday a letter "attributed" to Saddam Hussein urging Iraqis to crush the U.S.-led invaders who deposed him.
Al-Quds al-Arabi said that in the six-page letter dated May 7 and faxed to the London-based daily from Jordan on Friday, Saddam accused Iraq's neighbours of helping the U.S.-led invasion that ousted him from office in April, and threatened to reveal secrets he said "would change the convictions of many".
"But the truth which must be dealt with now is the resistance to the occupation, expelling and crushing it," the letter said."

"Al-Jazeera allegations" (Ian Williams, C 4 News, 2003/05/10)
"The files keep coming. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi intelligence agency documents are now in the hands of the CIA and Iraqi opposition groups, who’ve collected them from ministries across Baghdad.
Though most are still under CIA control, their contents are beginning to emerge: The latest, the secret police files on Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite news channel, described by the Iraqis as "a mobilised instrument of our propaganda". The Files boast of what they call "close cooperation" with Al Jazeera executives."

"Fidel Castro's bizarre enablers" (David Limbaugh, The Washington Times, 2003/05/10)
To call them the blame America first crowd is not a cliché, but rather a succinct scientific description: "So it's America's fault for opposing this murderous regime's continued farcical participation on the Human Rights Commission because it is an egregious violator of the very rights the commission is charged with overseeing? Just like we provoked Osama bin Laden's September 11, 2001, attacks? Well, at least these morality-deficient kooks are consistent. They harbor the same mentality that gave rise to:
• Director Oliver Stone's obsequious documentary on Mr. Castro, "Comandante." Yes, HBO pulled it, but why did they undertake the project in the first place? Mr. Castro's brutality is nothing new. Mr. Stone said of Mr. Castro, "We should look to him as one of the Earth's wisest people, one of the people we should consult." I agree, should we ever decide to implement torture techniques against convicted terrorists.
• Director Steven Spielberg gushing over his November powwow with Mr. Castro as "the eight most important hours of my life."
• Actor Kevin Costner describing his meeting with Mr. Castro as "the experience of a lifetime" and Jack Nicholson calling him 'a genius.'" (See also: "Intellectuals Launch Campaign to Defend Cuba" (Marc Frank, Reuters, 2003/05/01))

"Tam is talking a lot of cabals about sinister controllers" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/10)
"Meanwhile, my colleague Boris Johnson has uncovered an even more artful cabal. The other day in these pages, he suggested that the President, if only in terms of the fine art and antiquities section of his brain, was being secretly controlled by a lobby group called the American Council for Cultural Policy, who'd leant on Bush to facilitate the looting of the Baghdad Museum in order to deliver the Iraqi people's birthright to "the guest washrooms of Floridian real estate kings".
I don't know what Boris has against Florida estate agents - possibly he was on the wrong end of some timeshare deal - but his Dalyell-like conjuring of a cabal of sinister Sunshine State realtors all singing Rosemary Clooney's classic "Cabal-a My House" is so delightful it seems a shame to point out that the great sack of Baghdad is as mythical as the great Jenin massacre of exactly a year ago. The number of missing Baghdad antiquities has now been revised down from 170,000 to somewhere between 25 and 38 - in other words, between 169,962 and 169,975 less than was originally claimed. Are the media being secretly controlled by a cabal of Jews who enjoy making 'em look like idiots every spring?" (See also: "Why are we allowing the rape of Iraq?" (Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/04/17))

"Livingstone likens Bush to Saddam" (Andrew Sparr, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/10)
"Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, was widely condemned yesterday after comparing George Bush to Saddam Hussein.
Tourist leaders and politicians were furious about his remarks, which came a week before the launch of a campaign to attract more visitors to the capital.
The Left-winger described the American President as a "coward" who was at the head of a "venal and corrupt administration".
Addressing an audience of schoolchildren, Mr Livingstone went on: 'This really is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown.'"

Friday, May 9, 2003

News and commentary:

"Palestinian Exhibit Depicts Paradise" (Mohammed Daragmeh, AP/The Washington Post, 2003/05/09)
"Plastic trees, goldfish swimming in a generator-powered fountain, posters of the dead on the wall: This is a model of the paradise Islamic militants say awaits those killed in fighting with Israel, including suicide bombers.
The display at the West Bank's largest university, An Najah, was assembled by supporters of the violent Hamas group who said they wanted to raise students' morale after 31 months of fighting with Israel.
The university - a hotbed of Palestinian nationalism and a Hamas stronghold - said it officially opposes bombings but didn't want to stifle the students' views. ...
Those wishing to enter the room housing paradise had to walk through a candlelit passage with 26 mock graves. Each "grave" contained a green shroud and a photo of one of 26 An Najah students killed in the conflict with Israel, including six suicide bombers.
Stairs from the open graves led down into the paradise section. A small generator pumped water through a fountain into a channel where goldfish swim. Brightly plumed green and yellow birds chirped in cages suspended from plastic trees. The floor was strewn with soft sand and plastic flowers. Pictures of the bombers and quotes from the Quran, the Islamic holy book, covered the wall.
Paradise also was air-conditioned, a telling contrast to the sweltering summertime West Bank."

"Iraqis evict Palestinian refugees" (BBC News, 2003/05/09)
Ever since Hajj Amin el-Husseini's support for Hitler, the Palestinian leadership has consistently betted on the wrong horse, with tragic consequences. Talk about gaining "moral superiority by being wrong": "The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has expressed concern that up to 90,000 Palestinian refugees in Iraq could be evicted from their homes.
The Palestinian refugees enjoyed protection under Saddam Hussein, and Iraqi landlords were forced to charge them very low rents.
But since the fall of the regime, landlords have begun to evict their Palestinian tenants demanding higher rents.
About 1,000 Palestinians have already been driven from their homes in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the UNHCR said in a statement. ...
The evicted Palestinians are living on waste ground or in disused buildings around Baghdad, the UNHCR said, expressing fears of a growing backlash against the Palestinian community." (See also: "Arab Muslim Anti-Semitism" (Andrew G. Bostom, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/11/25))

"Meanwhile: In his native France, a Jew feels betrayed" (David Vannier, International Herald Tribune, 2003/05/09)
David Vannier, who is an "economist for an international bank in New York", on French anti-Semitism: "Still, much could be said about what a French Jewish leader recently described as the coalition of Red, Green and Brown - Communists, ecologists, and the far-right. To many in this coalition, anti-globalization, anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are an accepted means to dress up pure anti-Semitism. You will never find a French anti-Semite who is not also a fanatic anti-American. ...
The violence in the Middle East has expanded to France, where it is now common for Jews to face physical attack. Of course, not every French Arab or Muslim holds a grudge against Jews. In fact, few do. But the ones who do have brought to light the fact that, once more, Jews are being abandoned by the French state.
If I qualified for political asylum in the United States I would not hesitate to apply, because America is the only country in the world, along with Canada and Israel, where Jews can just be. The vast majority of the people there do not perceive Jews as foreigners. I feel betrayed by my "Old Country." I will never forget, nor will I ever forgive."

"Dementia Watch" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/05/09)
Jill Nelson, Margareta Drabble and now this. Western anti-Americanism seems to have descended into the same surrealistic depth as its Arab and Islamist twin. This is political discourse more in need of psychiatry than counter-arguments: "Sadly, the New York Press has replaced the consistently interesting columnist Christopher Caldwell with someone called Matt Taibbi, who, by his own admission, is not right in the head. "My mental health has not been so good lately," he writes. "I hadn't watched television since the second week of the war, because I was beginning to experience painful headaches and hallucinations." ...

It has become fashionable on the left and in Western Europe to compare the Bush administration to the Nazis. The comparison is not without some superficial merit. ... But it's way off. It's wishful thinking. The Reich only lasted 12 years. The Soviets reigned for 75. They were better at it than the Nazis, and we're better at it than the Russians. Ask anyone who's lived in a communist country, and he'll tell you: Modern America is deja vu all over again. And if ever there was a Soviet spectacle, it was Bush's speech last week.
Think about it. Huge weapons on display, in foreground and background. The leader who has never fought dressed in full military regalia. Crowds of adoring soldiers and "shock worker" types dressed in colorful costumes, carefully arranged for the cameras. A terrible, excruciatingly dull speech, 20 minutes of incoherent, redundant patriotism (Bush used the words "free" or "freedom" 19 times in an 1800-word speech) and chimpanzoid chest-pounding.
On May Day.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports from Copenhagen that Poul Nielson, the European Union's commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, has figured out why America wanted to liberate Iraq. "They will appropriate the oil," Nielson, a Dane, said in a radio interview. 'I think that the United States is on its way to becoming a member of OPEC.'" (See also: "May Day, May Day" (Matt Taibbi, New York Press, 2003/05/07) and "EU Commissioner Says U.S. Out to Seize Iraq's Oil" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2003/05/09))

"Postbellum Thoughts" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/05/09)
"There is a general lack of contrition (much less apology) by prominent columnists and talking heads about being so wrong so often in editorializing about the war. Partnerships with fascist regimes were embraced by major American networks — and at home, elite critics got into bed with pretty awful antiwar organizations whose true agenda went well beyond Iraq to involve subverting the very values of the United States.
The media needs to ask itself some tough questions about its own rules of engagement abroad, the use of bribe money, and the ethical and voluntary responsibility of its pundits and writers to account to their readers, when they have for so long consistently fed them nonsense and error. Universities, in turn, must ask themselves fundamental questions about tenure and teaching loads: Why does tuition consistently rise faster than inflation; why is free speech so often curbed and regulated; and why did so many prominent professors, during the past two years, in a time of war, say so many dreadful things about their own military — from general untruths about "millions" of starving, refugees, and dead to come, to the occasional provocateur applauding the destruction of the Pentagon and wishing for more Mogadishus?"

"Too Few Yalies Know Arabic? Don't Lose Sleep" (Martin Kramer, Sandstorm, 2003/05/09)
Kramer on Niall Ferguson's "The Empire Slinks Back", in which he argues for more Middle East experts: "Those mandarins-to-be in Oxford didn't study the Bhagavad Gita or immerse themelves in Persian and Arabic poetry. They read Aristotle's Ethics and studied Greek and Latin history, philosophy, and literature ("the Greats"). These were the firm foundations of their own civilization, and this was the education that sustained them as they trudged through jungles and across deserts. Empire is about defending and disseminating your own civilization. If you aren't fully persuaded of its manifest superiority, you won't bear up under the rigors of governing hostile peoples in unfriendly places. ...
At the best universities, students who major in Middle Eastern studies do learn languages, but they also get indoctrinated by a professoriate that is dead-set against the exercise of American power against anyone for any reason. This sort of preparation is more likely to produce a human shield than a proconsul. Middle Eastern studies in America, as presently constituted, are worse than useless to the defense of American interests. The U.S. government's decision, after 9/11, to double the number of scholarships in Muslim languages will only mean that in the next crisis, there will be even more "experts" urging us to stay home, lest we enrage the 'Arab street.'" (See also: "The Empire Slinks Back" (Niall Ferguson, The New York Times/NYU Stern, 2003/04/27))

"A Problem With No Solution: The Death of a Beloved Child" (Marguerite Kelly, The Washington Post, 2003/05/09)
A moving column by Michael Kelly's mother: "Mike's political column could be fierce and it infuriated some readers, but he was a sunny, funny fellow who made fun of himself, easily and often. That boy could make a dog laugh.
A humble man, an honest man - a moralist, really - he was always true to himself. Although sometimes given to hyperbole, he said what he meant, whether anyone liked it or not, and he never ran away from a bully, either on the playground as a child or on the battlefield as a man. ...
Clothes were not among his priorities, and neither were the necessities of modern life. He bought his ties at thrift shops, wore frayed shirts and holey sweaters and lost his ATM card, his cell phone, his credit cards and his driver's license over and over again, but he always made time for the people he liked and especially the people he loved. Lost memories, he knew, could not be replaced.
But now it's my son who can't be replaced, and he mattered so much to me. There is no right time to lose a child." (See also: "Atlantic Monthly Editor Killed in Iraq" (Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post, 2003/04/04))

"Nauseating hypocrisy from the axis of weasels" (Stephen Pollard, The Times, 2003/05/09)
"The fact that Iraq has begun the delicate, troubled process of rebuilding itself might lead you to think that the case for dropping sanctions is so obvious and overwhelming that it barely needs to be made.
Not, however, if you are Presidents Chirac and Putrid. Adding entire new dimensions to the word grotesque, they have declared that the sanctions must remain in force until they (or, to give them the veneer of respectability, the UN Security Council) say so. ...
Let's simply point out that the behaviour of the Russian and French presidents, and their lapdog foreign ministers, is truly nauseating — a fit of pique translated into foreign policy, which will cause real and lasting damage to the prospects of Iraqis and to the chances of a free, stable, democratic Iraq. ...
There are no arguments, respectable or otherwise, against the lifting of sanctions. There is only the truly shameful, hypocritical, self-centred spectacle of the axis of weasels wanting to punish the Iraqi people for the failure of their foreign policies."

"On the outside" (R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., The Washington Times, 2003/05/09)
"The left has been wrong for so long that no knowledgeable observer even expects its pontificators to be right. I do not believe many members of the left expect to be right. Yet after all these decades of erroneous pronouncements, the American left remains both intellectually and morally superior to you and me.
The American left is the only intellectual force in Western history to gain moral superiority by being wrong. In world history, I can think of only one other movement that has gained moral and intellectual superiority in this way: the mullahs of Islamic fundamentalism. I hope the monitors of Homeland Security keep this in mind."

"U.S. Will Ask U.N. to Back Control by Allies in Iraq" (Felicity Barringer and Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, 2003/05/09)
"A draft resolution to be introduced by the United States, Britain and Spain on Friday morning lifting economic sanctions against Iraq calls for the Security Council to endorse American and British control of Iraq's political development and financial resources for at least 12 months.
Under the resolution, new Iraqi oil revenues and at least $3 billion in the current United Nations-controlled escrow fund would be transferred to a new Iraqi Assistance Fund to be "disbursed at the direction of" the United States and Britain — referred to as the "provisional authority" — in consultation with the interim government to be formed in Iraq."

Thursday, May 8, 2003

News and commentary:

"Shadows out of Hell"
(Rowena Morrill, QMan/The Art of Rowena)
A painting by Rowena Morrill from Saddam Hussein's fantasy art collection, found at one of his safe houses in Baghdad. (See also the galleries: "Contents of the Art of Rowena" (Rowena Morrill, QMan/The Art of Rowena))

"Home Despot" (Todd Camp, Star-Telegram, 2003/05/08)
A look at the "historical lifestyles of the rich and infamous": "It's official. Saddam Hussein has the worst decorating taste of any dictator in history. The ostentatious palaces crammed with the unimaginably gaudy gewgaws, not to mention the discovery of his shagadelic love nest, pushed Saddam to the top of the eyesore list. Not even a wunderkind design guru like Trading Spaces' Vern Yip could make those tacky paintings and tacky colors look good.
Such excess came as quite a surprise to U.S. troops who seized control of Saddam's palaces and residences and offered Americans a closer glimpse of the world's tackiest tyrant.
His secluded, romantic getaway in an upscale neighborhood in central Baghdad featured lamps shaped like women and tasteless airbrushed paintings of a topless blond woman and a mustachioed hero battling a crocodile, prompting one solder to remark, "Yeah, bay-bee," doing his best Austin Powers imitation." (See also: "He may be a tyrant, but he loves his art" (Sarah Millroy, The Globe and Mail, 2003/04/19): "Among the more lurid treasures to heave into view are the fantasy paintings of American (oh irony of ironies!) painter Rowena Morrill, or just plain Rowena - she prefers, like Cher, to go just by her first name - a native of the town of Coxsackie, in upstate New York. ... In one piece, a damsel in bondage is pawed at by a salivating dragon, her back arching daintily to escape the reach of his horny claws. In another, a bare-breasted beauty looks on - helplessly, of course - as a heroic, sword-wielding Fabio-clone wrestles for his life with a giant serpent." (Note: The beauty does not look on "helplessly" - in fact, she's a priestess conjuring up the attacking serpent. Of course.))

"Years of Pain, And the Words To Describe It" (Peter Slevin , The Washington Post, 2003/05/08)
A fascinating article about Ihssan Wafiq Samarrai, a former Baath Party official favored by Hussein, who was imprisoned for treason: "After Samarrai had been in prison for six months, he received a visit. Blindfolded, he listened as the man explained that he had the power to kill him. As they were talking, he heard someone else enter the room.
"I knew his voice. It was Saddam," Samarrai related, his sitting room now illuminated only by an oil lamp in a city still without electricity.
Hussein asked him a question: "Do you want to know what your treason was?" Samarrai said he did. Hussein said word had traveled that he was a big man in southern Iraq: "We have heard that they call you Saddam of Basra."
Samarrai winced now as he continued the story.
"He said, 'You accused us of being fascists,'" Samarrai said. "I said, 'So, if I am a traitor, just kill me.' He said, 'You want to be killed?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'I will put you in prison until all your hair falls out. I will kill you every day, which is better than just once. I'll tell you something: I liked you before, but you betrayed us. You accused us. This may cause me to cut out your tongue.'"

"Kirkpatrick Was Right" (Richard Cohen, The Washington Post, 2003/05/08)
"At the 1984 Republican National Convention, Jeane Kirkpatrick, then the Reagan administration's U.N. delegate, gave a speech on foreign policy that has stuck with me. She blasted the Democratic Party's approach to foreign affairs, repeating the phrase "the blame America first crowd." I hated the speech at the time, but have recently reread it. It has aged better than I have.
Kirkpatrick's mantra - blame America first - mostly applied to the Cold War and the United States' attempt to contain and then roll back communism. But the appellation could just as aptly be applied to some of those - note the modifier "some" - who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and almost everything else the United States has done. ...
That same tendency to blame America for the moral shortcomings of others unfortunately permeates the left and the Democratic Party. I wish it were otherwise, but I got the first whiff of it after Sept. 11 when some people reacted to the terrorist attacks here by blaming U.S. policy - in the Middle East specifically but around the world in general.
Had we not supported Israel, had we not backed the corrupt Saudi monarchy, had we not been buddies with Egypt, had we not been somehow complicit in Third World poverty, had we not developed blue jeans and T-shirts and rock music and premarital sex, the World Trade Center might still be standing and the Pentagon untouched." (See also Kirkpatrick's speech: "San Diego Convention - 1984 Jeane Kirkpatrick" (Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, CNN.com, 1984))

"Blinded by Bush-Hatred" (Jonathan Chait, The Washington Post, 2003/05/08)
"Perhaps the most disheartening development of the war - at home, anyway - is the number of liberals who have allowed Bush-hatred to take the place of thinking. Speaking with otherwise perceptive people, I have seen the same intellectual tics come up time and time again: If Bush is for it, I'm against it. If Bush says it, it must be a lie. Their opposition to Bush has made liberals embrace principles - such as the notion that the United States must never fight without U.N. approval except in self-defense - to which the Clinton administration never adhered (see Operation Desert Fox in 1998, or the Kosovo campaign in 1999). And it has made them forget that there are governments in the world even more odious and untrustworthy than the Bush administration."

"I loathe America, and what it has done to the rest of the world" (Margaret Drabble, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/08)
The English novelist describes her "uncontainable rage" at seeing a horrendous dictatorship being toppled: "My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.
I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes. The liberal press here has done its best to make them appear ridiculous, but these two men are not funny.
I was tipped into uncontainable rage by a report on Channel 4 News about "friendly fire", which included footage of what must have been one of the most horrific bombardments ever filmed. But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.
It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were."

"That is a racist slur" (Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, 2003/05/08)
Freedland on Tam Dalyell's allegation that Blair is "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers": "Is there any connection between the Jewish neocons and their Jewishness? Perhaps a good university dissertation could be written on that, drawing on the Jewish tradition of seeking to change the world - from Christ to Marx. But any such thesis would also have to explain the consistent Jewish presence on the left, out of all proportion to their numbers. Maybe Jews are found sitting around the neocon table, but they are also found organising today's anti-war movement - to say nothing of the white ranks of both the anti-apartheid struggle and the 1960s campaign for civil rights in the US.
Real anti-semites are not troubled by that contradiction: they just say that Jews are behind everything. The Nazis used to depict the Jew as the master Bolshevik and master capitalist - often in the same sentence. But this kind of warped logic can have no place among liberals or the left." (See also: "Fury as Dalyell attacks Blair's 'Jewish cabal'" (Colin Brown and Chris Hastings, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/04))

"U.S. sees proof of biolab" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2003/05/08)
"The Pentagon confirmed yesterday that a tractor-trailer found in northern Iraq is a mobile biological laboratory that could be used to make deadly germ weapons.
The laboratory had been scrubbed clean, but U.S. officials believe it is the first concrete evidence that Iraq had a program to develop biological agents.
Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, told reporters at the Pentagon that the 18-wheel truck with special equipment inside matches intelligence provided by an Iraqi defector, who first revealed the existence of the mobile biological-weapons laboratories.
The equipment could be used for nonmilitary purposes, but "U.S. and U.K. technical experts have concluded that the unit does not appear to perform any function beyond what the defector said it was for, which was the production of biological agents," Mr. Cambone said."

Wednesday, May 7, 2003

News and commentary:

"A Post From Baghdad Station" (Salam Pax, where is raed, 2003/05/07)
It's quite a relief to hear from Salam Pax again, for the first time since the war started: "But I am sounding now like the Taxi drivers I have fights with whenever I get into one.
Besides asking for outrageous fares (you can't blame them gas prices have gone up 10 times, if you can get it) but they start grumbling and mumbling and at a point they would say something like "well it wasn’t like the mess it is now when we had saddam". This is usually my cue for going into rage-mode. We Iraqis seem to have very short memories, or we simply block the bad times out. I ask them how long it took for us to get the electricity back again after he last war? 2 years until things got to what they are now, after 2 months of war. I ask them how was the water? Bad. Gas for car? None existent. Work? Lots of sitting in street tea shops. And how did everything get back? Hussain Kamel used to literally beat and whip people to do the impossible task of rebuilding. Then the question that would shut them up, so, dear Mr. Taxi driver would you like to have your saddam back? Aren’t we just really glad that we can now at least have hope for a new Iraq? Or are we Iraqis just a bunch of impatient fools who do nothing better than grumble and whine? Patience, you have waited for 35 years for days like these so get to working instead of whining. End of conversation.
The truth is, if it weren't for intervention this would never have happened. When we were watching the Saddam statue being pulled down, one of my aunts was saying that she never thought she would see this day during her lifetime."

"Iraqi Documents on Israel Surface on a Cultural Hunt" (Judith Miller, The New York Times, 2003/05/07)
"In one huge room in the flooded basement of the building, American soldiers from MET Alpha, the "mobile exploitation team" that has been searching for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Iraq for the past three months, found maps featuring terrorist strikes against Israel dating to 1991. ...
Of even greater interest to MET Alpha was a "top secret" intelligence memo found in a room on another floor. Written in Arabic and dated May 20, 2001, the memo from the Iraqi intelligence station chief in an African country described an offer by a "holy warrior" to sell uranium and other nuclear material. The bid was rejected, the memo states, because of the United Nations "sanctions situation." But the station chief wrote that the source was eager to provide similar help at a more convenient time."

"North Korea may export nukes" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2003/05/07)
"North Korea threatened during recent talks in Beijing to export nuclear arms or add to its arsenal, in addition to saying it will test an atomic bomb, The Washington Times has learned.
North Korea's negotiator in the talks, Li Gun, made the threat during an "aside" session with Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, said U.S. officials familiar with the closed-door meeting in Beijing. ...
Mr. Li, a North Korean Foreign Ministry official, told Mr. Kelly during the side meeting that Pyongyang will "export nuclear weapons, add to its current arsenal or test a nuclear device," one administration official said.
North Korea is considered to be a major supplier of missiles and other weapons to rogue states and unstable regions. U.S. officials said they do not doubt that North Korea would export nuclear weapons or technology."

"Press play for the voice of Saddam" (Ed O'Loughlin, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2003/05/07)
"A tired-sounding voice calls on Iraq's people to stand together in a new underground war against the occupying forces.
"I don't want to talk in details about the occupation and why and how, and I am going to focus instead on how to face these invaders and kick them out from Iraq," it says, pausing to cough.
"... It sounds as if we have to go back to the secret style of struggle that we began our life with. Through this secret means, I am talking to you from inside Great Iraq and I say to you, the main task for you, Arab and Kurd, Shia and Sunni, Muslim and Christian and the whole Iraqi people of all religions, your main task is to kick the enemy out from our country." ...
"Certainly it's him," said a judge from a Baghdad criminal court, who asked not to be named. "I am 100 per cent certain. I deal with physical evidence all the time."
Two men gave the tape to the Herald on Monday, only after they failed to deliver it to correspondents for the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera." (See also: "Full transcript of the Saddam tape" (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2003/05/07))

Tuesday, May 6, 2003

News and commentary:

"The Leading Indicator That WMD Will Be Found" (Jack Shafer, Slate, 2003/05/06)
Shafer on Seymour Hersh's "Boneheaded-dumb wrong" predictions and assessments after 9/11, including his latest one:"Hersh casts extreme doubts on the cabal's findings that Iraq still possessed WMD by the time of the U.S. invasion. Too many of the cabal's sources are Iraqi exiles - such as Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi or defectors with personal or political axes to grind - to be trusted, Hersh writes. With Pentagon support, these spurious sources started telling their WMD/terrorism stories to the press, but most of these stories are disputed by analysts in the CIA and the DIA. ...
If Hersh's interpretive/predictive streak holds, we should expect to find proof of WMD and a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaida within the next two weeks. ...
Why are Sy Hersh's recent New Yorker defense pieces so consistently off the mark? Perhaps Hersh, who made his name tilting against the establishment, has become too willing to channel establishment sources' complaints. ... If the Delta commandos and the Army generals talking to Hersh don't like Rumsfeld's policies - or the CIA, the DIA, and others resent similar turf encroachment by Wolfowitz's "cabal" - they know there is a place where their gripes can get a complete airing: A Hersh piece in The New Yorker." (See also: "Selective Intelligence" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, from the 2003/05/12 issue))

"Ritter's One-Man Race to the Bottom" (damnum absque injuria, 2003/05/06)
Xrlq translates remarks by Scott Ritter reported in Der Spiegel - "Former Weapons Inspector Compares War in Iraq to Hitler's Invasion of Poland": "'I see no difference between the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Poland by Hitler in 1939,' Ritter told the Berliner Zeitung. Hitler had used self-defense as an excuse to send his troops in, and U.S. President George W. Bush had done exactly the same thing in 2003. "It was the same lie," Ritter was quoted as saying.
According to Ritter, Bush has manipulated the September 11 terrorist attacks on America to his advantage, in the same way that Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag. In Ritter's view, Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, making the basis of the war invalid. "130 Americans died in this war for a lie," Ritter said, according to the report." (See also the German original: "Ex-Waffeninspektor vergleicht Irak-Krieg mit Hitlers Polen-Feldzug" (Der Spiegel, 2003/05/06))

"Why Are We in Iraq?" (Dennis Miller, FrontPageMagazine/The Wall Street Journal, 2003/05/06)
Miller on Norman Mailer's latest "daft screed": "You know something, the only "race" that really occurred to me during the war was our Army's sprint to Baghdad. Conversely, Mr. Mailer appears to see just race in our armed forces, right down to the "Super-Marines" as he calls them. It seems that Mr. Mailer even notices color in people when they're wearing camouflage. He then goes on to speak about racial subsets in the world of sports. Now, when I watch baseball, football and basketball, I see uniforms and skills. Mr. Mailer evidently sees races and nationalities. He's like a Casey Stengel/William Shockley hybrid. "Why'd you send the rook' back to Triple A, Skip?" "Well, he was gettin' around on the fast ball but he still couldn't hit the bell curve."
Ironically, Mr. Mailer seems to see everything in the world in terms of black and white, except of course, good and evil." (See also: "We went to war just to boost the white male ego" (Norman Mailer, The Times, 2003/04/29))

"Begala Award Nominee" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2003/05/06)
Sullivan quotes Jill Nelson's latest column: "I feel far more vulnerable and frightened than I ever have in my 50 years on the planet. It is the United States government I am afraid of. Meanwhile, here in our great democracy, Americans go along with the program or remain silent, too afraid of the Muslim bogeymen thousands of miles away to recognize the Christian ones in our midst. Fearful that we will be verbally attacked, or shunned, or lose our livelihoods if we dare question the meanness that characterizes our government and, increasingly, defines our national character. I do not feel safer now than I did six, or 12, or 24 months ago. In fact, I feel far more vulnerable and frightened than I ever have in my 50 years on the planet. It is the United States government I am afraid of. In less than two years the Bush administration has used the attacks of 9/11 to manipulate our fear of terrorism and desire for revenge into a blank check to blatantly pursue imperialist objectives internationally and to begin the rollback of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and most of the advances of the 20th century." (See also: "A mean-spirited America" (Jill Nelson, MSNBC, 2003/05/02))

"U.S. forces detain 'Mrs. Anthrax'" (Jerry Seper, The Washington Times, 2003/05/06)
"U.S. military forces in Iraq have detained one of that country's top weapons scientists, an American-educated microbiologist known as "Mrs. Anthrax" who was actively involved in the development of germ warfare under Saddam Hussein, Defense Department officials said yesterday.
Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, the only woman among the U.S. military's list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi fugitives, surrendered to U.S. military authorities in Baghdad on Sunday. Her arrest brought to 19 the number of most-wanted Iraqis in custody. ...
Mrs. Ammash was dubbed "Mrs. Anthrax" by Western journalists because of suspicion about her role in developing deadly anthrax as a weapon of war. She is among Iraq's top weapons scientists, along with Rihab Taha, a woman known as "Dr. Germ" by U.N. inspectors."

"Most Iraqi Treasures Are Said to Be Kept Safe" (Barry Meier, The New York Times, 2003/05/06)
"A top British Museum official said yesterday that his Iraqi counterparts told him they had largely emptied display cases at the National Museum in Baghdad months before the start of the Iraq war, storing many of the museum's most precious artifacts in secure "repositories." ...
Mr. Curtis said it appeared that a vast majority of the looting at the National Museum had not taken place in its display halls but in its basement storage rooms, where more commonplace objects were kept.
Some 100,000 to 200,000 objects were stored in the basements, British Museum officials said. Many of them may never have been photographed or cataloged.
As a result, Mr. MacGregor said, they are precisely the types of objects that can easily slip into the black market for looted artifacts."

"France helped Iraqis escape" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2003/05/06)
"The French government secretly supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports in Syria that allowed them to escape to Europe, The Washington Times has learned.
An unknown number of Iraqis who worked for Saddam Hussein's government were given passports by French officials in Syria, U.S. intelligence officials said.
The passports are regarded as documents of the European Union, because of France's membership in the union, and have helped the Iraqis avoid capture, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.
The French support, which was revealed through sensitive intelligence-gathering means, angered Pentagon, State Department and intelligence officials in Washington because it undermined the search for senior aides to Saddam, who fled Iraq in large numbers after the fall of Baghdad on April 9."

"Hussein's Son Took $1 Billion Just Before War, Bank Aide Says" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2003/05/06)
"In the hours before American bombs began falling on the Iraqi capital, one of President Saddam Hussein's sons and a close adviser carried off nearly $1 billion in cash from the country's Central Bank, according to American and Iraqi officials here.
The removal of the money, which would amount to one of the largest bank robberies in history, was performed under the direct orders of Mr. Hussein, according to an Iraqi official with knowledge of the incident. ...
Qusay Saddam Hussein, Mr. Hussein's second son, presided over the seizure of the money, along with Abid al-Hamid Mahmood, the president's personal assistant, the Iraqi official here said. The seizure took place at 4 a.m. on March 18, just hours before the first American air assault. ...
The sheer volume of the cash was so great — some $900 million in American $100 bills and as much as $100 million worth of euros — that three tractor-trailers were needed to cart it off, the Iraqi official said. It took a team of workers two hours to load up the cash."

Monday, May 5, 2003

News and commentary:

"Pentagon to Free Some Guantanamo Detainees" (FOX News, 2003/05/05)
"The Pentagon is preparing to release a dozen or more detainees from its high-security prison camp at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, possibly including some teenagers. ...
An official said Monday that he believed juveniles were among those to be released. News that several boys between the ages of 13 and 16 were among the prisoners drew criticism earlier from human rights groups and a call for their immediate release.
One official said 20 to 30 prisoners would be released from the prison that was opened in January 2002. Another said the number was 12 to 15."

"The Fall of Baghdad" (Tim Judah, The New York Review of Books, from the 2003/05/15 issue)
Baghdad, April 10: "The Americans were nervous, but slowly people were coming out to greet them. Some gave them flowers and cigarettes and some wanted to trade souvenirs. Some young men began to chant: "Saddam! Saddam! Down! Down! Down!" At a military building some started destroying the portrait of Saddam outside, and then someone hit on a novel idea. Adapting the chant that Iraqis have been forced to shout for decades, they all began to yell in unison - and roar with laughter - "With our blood, with our soul - we'll defend you, Bush, Bush, Bush!"
"This is freedom, it is the dream of all Iraqis," said one man. "But I hope this army will not harm the people." An old man called Baba Shemsun Baba stepped forward and, speaking English, said, "If you said anything he would just cut off your head and not just that of the man who said something against him but of all the family, either by killing them or with a car accident." Then he said: "Now we will get jobs and money, the two things we really need." But was the war really necessary? Mr. Baba did not pause to think about it: 'With this fellow, yes.'"

"Saddam killed his top commander as U.S. forces stormed Baghdad" (World Tribune.com, 2003/05/05)
"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein killed his leading military commander on charges of treason as U.S. forces captured Baghdad.
The London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat daily said Saddam and his younger son, Qusay, executed Gen. Seif Eddin Al Rawi on April 8. The newspaper said Al Rawi, commander of the elite Republican Guards, was accused of treason and shot in the head and back.
Al Rawi was summoned by Saddam and executed on the day U.S. marines captured the Iraqi capital. The newspaper said Al Rawi's body was sent to his family."

"Bomb Britons spark airline security fears" (Harry de Quetteville et al., The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/05)
"Two British suicide bombers who attacked a Tel Aviv bar last week smuggled plastic explosives into Israel from Jordan inside copies of the Koran, Israel's defence minister said last night.
Israeli officials investigating how Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif were able to penetrate tight border controls suggested that they could have used a new kind of explosive that is more difficult to detect.
The prospect of a new explosive in the hands of terrorists raises worrying questions for airline security around the world."

"Most hospitals in Baghdad well supplied" (Paul Martin, The Washington Times, 2003/05/05)
"U.S. military officials charged with rebuilding Iraq's emergency services say that hospitals in Baghdad are in far better shape than previous reports of massive looting had indicated.
Far from having been stripped bare, the majority of hospitals have adequate equipment, and more crutches and medication have arrived than are needed, thanks to contributions from international humanitarian organizations.
Officials also said that, according to private surveys, fewer than half of Baghdad's hospitals had been ransacked. One independent survey said seven of 27 hospitals examined had been looted and that many others were spared because they were guarded by American tanks.
There are more hospital beds available in Baghdad than there are patients to fill them, the U.S. officials said late last week."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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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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