Archived news and commentary: May 12 - 18, 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 18, 2003

News and commentary:

"This BBC report says that the rescue of Jessica Lynch was faked..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2003/05/18)
Reynold's provides links to criticism of this bizarre story: "This BBC report says that the rescue of Jessica Lynch was fake, and that the soldiers were firing blanks:

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

Now, even if the whole thing were staged, who would shoot off blanks in a war zone, thus attracting the enemy without doing any good?" (See also: "Saving Private Lynch story 'flawed'" (John Kampfner, BBC News, 2003/05/15), "'She Was Fighting to the Death'" (Susan Schmidt and Vernon Loeb, The Washington Post, 2003/04/03) and "U.S. POW rescued, is 'alive and well'" (Paul Martin, The Washington Times, 2003/04/02))

"Democracy -- Whore, Judiciary --- Meaningless" (jk, varnam, 2003/05/18)
Found via InstaPundit: "I have always wondered why Arundhati Roy is against democracy and prefers dictators like Musharraf, Saddam Hussein etc. I got my answer in her speech at Centre for Economic and Social Rights in New York on May 13th. ...

"Democracy, the modern world’s holy cow, is in crisis … every kind of outrage is being committed in the name of democracy. It has become little more than a hollow word, a pretty shell, emptied of all content or meaning," she said. "Democracy is the Free World’s whore, willing to dress up, dress down, willing to satisfy a whole range of tastes, available to be used and abused at will."

See that is the problem with democracy. Sometimes you have to accept the fact that there are people who do not agree with your point of view. In Saddam’s land, you never had that problem. You could have a different point of view, so long as you were willing to spent rest of your life as a dead body." (See also: "Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy" (Buy One, Get One Free)" (Arundhati Roy, CESR, 2003/05/13), "'Brutality smeared in peanut butter'" (Arundhati Roy, The Guardian, 2001/10/23) and "The algebra of infinite justice" (Arundhati Roy, The Guardian, 2001/09/29))

"A Bombing Shatters the Saudi Art of Denial" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2003/05/18)
"For many years, Saudi analysts say, the royal family has denied that there was any problem with the creeping fanaticism that allowed every aspect of society — education, the press, women's rights and more — to be judged using an intemperate religious yardstick. If Saudis raised in that atmosphere were running amok abroad, it was easy to explain. They were abroad.
For a decade, that denial played into the hands of the terror underground, allowing Saudis to shrug off accusations that their society bore responsibility for attacks planned or carried out by Saudi-born terrorists in Yemen or East Africa or Manhattan.
But with suicide bombers striking here, and Al Qaeda the principal suspect, at least some Saudis began stressing that the first enemy they must behead is the denial itself. ...
There are some things about Saudi Arabia that no one expects to change. It is a religious, xenophobic country and will stay that way. Islam was born here. There will always be religious critics who say the society is not strict enough. So analysts expect that the religious discourse can shift only if the royal family singles it out as a problem requiring a radical solution."

"Our friends the Sauds" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2003/05/18)
"The monarchy and bin Laden may be enemies, but the best way to understand Saudi fundamentalism is to see them as a continuum. The monarchy used oil wealth to export Wahhabism, their brutish version of Islam, around the world. Al-Qaeda meanwhile drew most of the cultists who died on 11 September and most of its money from Saudi Arabia. State-sponsored Wahhabism provided the justification for jihad. With al-Qaeda, the monarchy is being hoist with its own petard."

"Saddam's nephew finds sanctuary in Syria" (Con Coughlin, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/05/18)
"A leading member of Saddam Hussein's family has been discovered living in Damascus under the protection of the Syrian government after fleeing Iraq last week, The Telegraph can reveal.
Fatiq al-Majid, one of Saddam's nephews, entered Syria last Monday after leaving Iraq at the al-Rabie'a checkpoint, which is under the control of American troops. Majid was given a Syrian visa and made his way to Damascus, where he is now living in exile. ...
Until just a few weeks ago Majid, who is in his mid-thirties and is also the brother-in-law of Qusay Hussein, Saddam's younger son and former heir apparent, was a commanding officer in Saddam's Special Security Organisation at the Republican Palace in Baghdad."

"Al Qaeda Figure Tied To Riyadh Bombings" (Dana Priest and Susan Schmidt, The Washington Post, 2003/05/18)
"One of al Qaeda's top leaders, who is hiding in Iran, is suspected of helping to organize the bombings in Saudi Arabia last week, and terrorism experts believe he may be trying to unleash as many strikes as possible in a short period of time to prove al Qaeda is still viable, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Saif Adel, an Egyptian whom intelligence officials believe has assumed the role of the network's military commander, is believed to have given the go-ahead for the Riyadh bombings that killed 34, two senior administration officials said."

"Officials Suspect Global Terror Tie in Morocco Blasts" (Elaine Sciolino, The New York Times, 2003/05/18)
"When the bomb exploded at the Casa de España, customers were eating dinner and playing bingo.
"They came in and cut the doorman's throat, then killed a customer who came across them, came in and detonated their bombs," Rafael Bermudez, owner of the Casa de España, told the Telecinco channel. 'Those who could, ran away. Tables were overturned, something caught fire, an awning, and then everything went up in flames.'"

"Bus attack follows Mid-East talks" (BBC News, 2003/05/18)
"At least eight people have been killed and several others injured in a rush-hour suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem.
A second suicide bomber blew himself up as emergency crews arrived at the scene of the blast at a busy junction in the north of the city.
No-one else was hurt in that explosion which came just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon held his first official meeting with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen. ...
It is reported that the bomber who boarded the bus was disguised as a religious Jew - the same tactic was used in a suicide bomb attack in the West Bank city of Hebron on Saturday night, which killed an Israeli man and his pregnant wife."

"Odyssey of Frustration" (Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, 2003/05/18)
"In Search for Weapons, Army Team Finds Vacuum Cleaners": "Smashing padlocks and deadbolts, the men checked for booby traps as they felt their way by flashlight from room to room. They reached a murky stone passage, smelling of mold. Cement covered its windows. Steel doors, a dull orange, lined the hall.
Interrogation cells? Munitions vaults?
One last bolt snapped. The door creaked open and Deal stepped through. There, in the innermost chamber, he found a cache of vacuum cleaners.
So it goes for Site Survey Team 3, which today begins its ninth week in the hunt for illegal weapons. One of four such units assembled before the war, it has screened intelligence leads from Basra to Baghdad with discouraging, even darkly comic, results. ...
Team 3 was sent to some facilities without being briefed on inventories already known from years of U.N. inspections. At other sites, the team could not work effectively for lack of Arabic language skills. In a repository for disabled nuclear equipment, Allison and his inspectors had to labor side by side with looters too numerous to evict. More often, the looters had come and gone. Twice, the team found signs of machinery disassembled and expertly removed. ...
Nasiriyah became an unhappy template for Team 3's search. The invading forces came and went, and Iraqis found opportunity in chaos. Sometimes looters stripped a building to its bare frame -- pulling even sockets and wiring from the walls. Sometimes they burned what they could not carry. Often enough, by the time Team 3 reached a site, someone had done both."

Added in archive:
"Shadows out of Hell" (Rowena Morrill, QMan/The Art of Rowena)
"Home Despot" (Todd Camp, Star-Telegram, 2003/05/08)

Saturday, May 17, 2003

News and commentary:

"A change of heart in the Saudi media" (Mark Follman, Salon.com, 2003/05/17)
"The dramatic shift began with the fall of Baghdad. On April 21, just days after the Saddam regime had crumbled, Arab News published a column by Qatari-based writer Abdulhamid Al-Ansary, in which he condemned the wider Arab media's blind support of the brutal Iraqi dictator. "Why did the Arab media consent to align itself with the Iraqi regime while at the same time pretending that it was with the people?" he wrote. "For how long will we be cursed by attaching ourselves emotionally to defeated heroes?"
Monday's triple-suicide attack in Riyadh rocked the very heart of the Saudi Kingdom, and appears to have only accelerated the shift in mood. In an editorial titled "The Enemy Within," published two days after the bombings, Arab News declared: "The environment that produced such terrorism has to change." ...
This marks an extraordinary departure from the outwardly defiant, even conspiratorial language frequently seen in Arab News and many other media outlets across the region before the war began, whether in daily newspapers or on popular satellite TV stations like Al-Jazeera. To be sure, Arab News has sometimes served as a voice of reason -- in a March 16 editorial, it debunked the myth that the imminent U.S.-led war was a religious one targeting Islam. But this view appeared alongside more typical inflammatory pieces like "How a Cabal Manipulates America's Post-September 11 Psyche," in which Arab News staffer Mohammed Al-Khereiji decried Pentagon advisor Richard Perle as 'just another rabid anti-Arab and anti-Islamic Jewish demagogue espousing Israeli interests.'" (See also: "The Enemy Within" (Arab News, 2003/05/14))

"An appalling magic" (Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, 2003/05/17)
Considering the avalanche of outrageously coarse liberal polemics, it's pretty ironic of them to accuse Ann Coulter of the "coarsening of the public conversation". At least, she's got a sense of humour. Freedland thesis seems to be that the extremism of Coulter gives a voice to mainstream America: "The Coulter phenomenon is about more than just her: it's rooted in a clutch of current trends in American life, some of which are only just dawning on outsiders. Whether it's America's shift to the right or the rise and rise of America's motor-mouth, talk-show culture, or the popular rebellion against establishment media or the emergence of a new Republican babe-ocracy, Ann Coulter represents it all.
Especially the coarsening of the public conversation, say her liberal accusers. For while The West Wing's Ainsley is eventually tamed, realising that even liberals and Democrats are human, Coulter remains outrageously contemptuous of anyone to the left of Bush. The TV networks, the French, the liberal wing of the Republican party - she hates them all, and says so with a vitriol that shocks an American media still rather prim in its habits. ...
The Bush administration is not a freak of nature; it enjoys wide public support. Its belief, put crudely, that the US is number one on the planet and that anyone who stands in its way is either a terrorist or an appeaser of terror, is not on the wacky fringes but commands broad endorsement. And Ann Coulter gives it a voice. We may not want to hear it, but if we are going to understand where the mightiest power on earth is heading, we may have to start listening."

"The Real Saudi Arabia" (Stephen Schwartz, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/05/17)
"Among clerical hatemongers, Ayed al-Qarni, an adviser to Prince Abdel Aziz bin Fahd, the youngest son of King Fahd, stands out. Al-Qarni wrote a poem, repeatedly broadcast on Saudi media during the Iraq intervention, in which he declared, "Slaughter the enemy infidels and say there is but one God." This lyric was supplemented by an interview in the Future of Islam - a monthly issued by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth - for April 2003. Therein, al-Qarni proudly affirmed that he prays daily for America's destruction, and incited Saudis to cross the border to fight in Iraq, and to give money to support Saddam. During the Iraq war, Wahhabi preacher Naser al-Omar called for suicide attacks on the coalition. Interviewed by a Saudi-backed TV station operating from Dubai, he said, "We should hope for more terror bombings to kill more of the enemies of God - Jews and Christians." A pro-Saddam fatwa signed by him and other clerics was distributed in Saudi government offices."

"Blasts Kill at Least 24 in Casablanca" (Keith B. Richburg, The Washington Post, 2003/05/17)
"Four bombs exploded in the Moroccan coastal city of Casablanca late Friday, killing at least 24 people and injuring about 60 others, according to news services. The blasts damaged a Jewish community center, a Spanish restaurant, the Belgian consulate and a hotel, officials said. No U.S. sites appeared to have been targeted. ...
The bombings, which were set off sometime after 9 p.m., appeared to target the Belgian consulate, a Jewish center that initial reports had called a synagogue, the Casa España restaurant and the Hotel Safir.
Moroccan journalists at the scene said the car bomb near the Belgian consulate, which was heavily damaged, may have been aimed at a nearby Jewish-owned restaurant, according to the Reuters news agency. They said eight people were believed dead at the Hotel Safir."

Friday, May 16, 2003

News and commentary:

"The choices French diplomacy made" (Françoise Thom, Institut Hayek Institute/Watch, 2003/05/06 [2003/05/16])
A brilliant essay dissecting French foreign policy, translated by Douglas: "The anti-American obsession means that France is less than inquisitive as to the nature of regimes to which it lends its support in the name of multipolarity. Iraq, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Sudan: in a word, France seems to get on better with the rogue states and failed states than with the United States whose civilization it shares. It claims to defend international law by leaning on states that ignore all laws.
The comparison to the Soviet Union goes further than it may seem. Indeed, French diplomacy is less inspired by a cynical Realpolitik (whence the failures mentioned above) than by an ideological view of the world. Its anti-Americanism is the projection of its internal jacobinism onto the global stage. The unhealthy French communion in anti-Americanism reveals the start of a drift towards totalitarianism in our country, which was already noticeable by the second round of the elections: Bush has replaced Le Pen in the role of enemy of the people. “Anti-Bushism” can be compared to the “anti-fascism” of the ‘30s and ‘40s: it conceals an obligatory communist-type consensus.
Like those in the USSR of Brezhnev, French leaders compensate with a ruinous foreign activism for their inability to begin crucial internal reforms, which are impossible because they would call into question the socialist dogma at the foundation of the French state. In both cases, foreign activism both accelerates and accentuates the internal crisis. We saw what became of the Soviet Union." (See also the French original: "Les choix de la diplomatie française" (Françoise Thom, Institut Hayek Institute, 2003/05/06))

"Re: Salam Pax" (Douglas, Watch, 2003/05/16)
In his latest column, David Warren alleged that the Iraqi blogger Salam Pax was "employed by Saddam's ... spy and disinformation networks." In an E-mail to Warren, Douglas lays out the case why this is highly unlikely: "Mr. Warren,
Some of your observations are tantalizing but I believe your gravest conclusion is wrong on the face of it.
It seems clear to me that he is only a product of his class, not an agent, current or former, of Saddam. Would a Saddamist say this?

We Iraqis seem to have very short memories, or we simply block the bad times out. ... 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. ...

Salam is definitely an insider but the evidence pointing to this does not support the incendiary statements you make about him. It is much more banal. ...
It is not only the fact that, as an architect living in Saddam’s Iraq, Salam could sit around and download MP3s all day which betrays him. Salam’s computer hardware, his ample access to broadband Internet, his satellite dish (the possession of which carried a two-month jail sentence) all immediately indicate that he had the assent of the authorities and lots of money (which required friends in high places). ...
But he is also clearly innocent of your strongest charges — as innocent as any member of the elite under Saddam could have been." (See also: "Salam Pax" (David Warren, Ottawa Citizen/DavidWarrenOnline, 2003/05/14))

"The Think Tank of the Arab League: The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-Up (ZCCF)" (Steven Stalinsky, MEMRI, 2003/05/16)
An interesting report on the Arab League's "think tank", which since its founding in 1999 "has dealt with the September 11th attacks, arguing that they were perpetrated by Americans and Israelis. It has discussed "[The] Factual Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and has hosted Holocaust deniers. Dr. Umayma Al-Jalahma, known for her article explaining how Jews use the blood of non-Jews for pastries for the Jewish holiday of Purim, was a recent lecturer at the Centre. A report today suggested that the SARS virus could be a product of 'an American war against the world.'"
Oh, and it has hosted "notable personalities such as former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and French President Jacques Chirac" as well:
"On October 11, 2001, the Zayed Centre released a report titled "The Zionist Movement and Its Animosity to Jews." A summary of the report stated: "This book deals with the activities of the Zionist Movement and its role during the Nazi regime in killing and terrorizing Jews in Europe to force them to immigrate to Israel. In the first chapter, the book enumerates the similarities between Nazism and Zionism. The second chapter discusses the cooperation between Nazism and Zionism… The third chapter deals with the role of Zionists in sending Jews to Nazi concentration camps. The fourth chapter explains that the killing of Jews is the passport to premiership in Israel. The fifth chapter proves that Zionists were the people who killed the Jews in Europe to lure them into immigrating to Israel."

"Britain Says 'Clear Terror Threat' in East Africa" (Reuters, 2003/05/16)
"Britain, which has banned flights by its airlines to and from Kenya, warned its citizens on Friday of a "clear terrorist threat" in six neighboring East African countries.
A Foreign Office statement said new advice covering Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda would warn that each is "one of a number of countries in East Africa where there is a clear terrorist threat.
"The bomb attack in Riyadh on 12 May shows that the terrorist threat remains real," it said, referring to a series of attacks in the Saudi capital.
The Foreign Office warned citizens on Thursday against non-essential travel to Kenya and the Department of Transport told British airlines to halt flights to or from that country."

"Saudi Spinning" (Stephen Schwartz, The Weekly Standard, 2003/05/16)
"According to al-Jubeir, the foundation of the Saudi state in the ideology of Wahhabism, the ultra-extremist Islamic dispensation that proclaims jihad against the world, has nothing to do with the mangled corpses lifted from the pavements of Riyadh.
Grotesquely enough, al-Jubeir's smooth, soothing verbiage is echoed by people high in our own government. For them, an al Qaeda connection to the Riyadh bombing is "alleged," an investigation must be held, leads must be followed up, and FBI teams must journey to the kingdom to try to confirm something every Muslim in the world knows: that Wahhabism is terroristic; that Wahhabism is at the basis of suicide bombings; that al Qaeda embodies Wahhabism above all; and that Wahhabism was born and nurtured in Saudi Arabia. To separate the state ideology of the kingdom from the blood shed in Riyadh would make as much sense as separating the history of the Russian Communist party from the sufferings of prisoners in the Siberian Gulag. Yet this is the position taken by America's leaders."

"Staying above the soil" (Hamid Ali Alkifaey, The Guardian, 2003/05/16)
"As I was on my way out of Iraq, I couldn't help thinking about the world's silence over Saddam's crimes against those cultured people.
Many questions came to mind: Why did the world allow him to cause so much devastation and suffering in Iraq? Why was the Arab world happy to support a mass murderer? What would have Iraq looked like if we had a government like the one in Kuwait, or even Jordan? Would it not have been a sought-after destination for historians, archaeologists, believers of all world religions, as well as ordinary holidaymakers?
Wouldn't Iraqis have become the most educated and sophisticated people in the whole region? Would they not have been a force for democracy, human rights and moderation in the Middle East?
How many lives would have been saved? What would the Iraqi population have been if Iraq had not had the Saddam government? 40 million? 50 million? How many Iraqis have been deprived of their lives just because Saddam Hussein and his family wanted to enjoy absolute power?
However, looking on the bright side of life, Iraq is now a free country thanks to the courage of George Bush and Tony Blair, and the US and British people who backed them. Iraqis are looking forward to democracy. The country is, or will be, free of weapons of mass destruction, and above all, it will at last start economic development for the benefit of its people and the rest of the world."

"Iraq: A Moral Reckoning" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/05/16)
"As the extent of the horror inflicted by the Baathist regime is documented day by day, opponents of the war are increasingly shamed. With every mass grave discovered, those who marched with such moral assurance just two months ago under the banner of human rights and social justice must make an accounting. In the name of peace, they supported the legitimacy and defended the inviolability of a regime that made relentless war on every value the left pretends to uphold:
• Human rights: Outside of North Korea, Hussein was the greatest violator of human rights in the world. The list of his crimes, the murders and the tortures, will take a generation to catalogue.
• Economic equity and social justice: Hussein was not just a murderer, he was the king of robber barons. Since 1983, Iraq has not even had a national budget. Every penny of its wealth was plundered by Hussein and his fellow Mafiosi and spent on the most grotesque extravagances, while his people were made to starve."

"The Bremer Regency" (The Wall Street Journal, 2003/05/16)
"L. Paul Bremer has been in Baghdad less than a week and already things are looking up. One of the last effective Westerners in such a tough assignment also had an L in front of his name - Lord Kitchener, the British general who ruled over Sudan and Egypt a century ago. When he wasn't suppressing local warlords, Kitchener was busy building a civil society based on a rule of law.
Lord Bremer of Mesopotamia held his first news conference yesterday and pledged to address "the serious law-and-order" problem in Baghdad. More than 300 suspects had been rounded up in the past 48 hours, he announced, and U.S. authorities are going after the thousands of hard-core criminals Saddam sprang from prison last fall. "It's time those people are put back in jail," he said. No reason to wonder now what Defense Secretary Rumsfeld meant when he said that the U.S. was going to begin 'using muscle.'" (See also an article by Bremer which originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 5, 1996: "Terrorists' Friends Must Pay a Price" (L. Paul Bremer II, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/05/16 [1996/08/05]): "First, the United States will not make concessions to terrorists, for to do so would be to take the first step down the endless road of blackmail. By our actions as well as our words, we must show that countries that use, sponsor or protect terrorists will pay a significant price. And we must make the terrorists themselves worry that they are not safe from our reach, no matter where they are.")

"Bomber 'moles' in Saudi forces" (Robin Gedye and John R Bradley, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/16)
"Al-Qa'eda has infiltrated Saudi Arabia's military and security forces at the highest level, including those entrusted with the protection of western residential compounds, American intelligence officials believe.
They are convinced that Tuesday's suicide bombers depended on a significant level of "insider" knowledge of the compounds that were hit and that al-Qa'eda even infiltrated the elite National Guard, which is involved in compound security. ...
Intelligence sources said several bombers were wearing National Guard uniforms to help them get into the three bombed complexes.
"The only area where there is no evidence of a significant al-Qa'eda presence is in the Saudi air force," one intelligence official said. 'The police, army, navy and National Guard have all been infiltrated'"

Thursday, May 15, 2003

News and commentary:

"The Calculus of Terror" (The Atlantic, 2003/05/15)
An interesting interview with terrorist expert Bruce Hoffman, "about the strategy behind the suicide bombings in Israel — and what we must learn from Israel's response": "Clearly, the one requirement that citizens everywhere have, no matter what kind of government they live under, is that they'll feel safe, that they can walk the streets and not feel in danger, that they can go to a restaurant, they can go to the local supermarket around the corner and not be harmed. That's exactly what the suicide terrorists have been trying to do: to make Israelis paranoid and xenophobic, to make them feel that their government can't protect them. To deprive Israelis, and even to an extent Americans, with the September 11 attacks, of that space, of that freedom of movement, of that sense of well-being. In essence, to create an environment that's amenable to terrorist exploitation. ...
Part of the suicide bombers' strategy anywhere is to provoke the government into undertaking actions that the terrorists feel they can manipulate for propaganda purposes, which will also portray them as the victims rather than as the perpetrators. I think that's where the Palestinian terrorist groups have been remarkably successful—not necessarily so much with public opinion in the United States, but certainly in Europe. Almost for the first time in the history of terrorism, terrorists have gotten people to sympathize much more with the perpetrators of the violence than with the victims. The IDF's activities in the West Bank over the past year have turned large swatches of foreign public opinion against Israel in a way that nothing else has in the very long and tortured dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship."

"An undated still image taken from video footage..." (Reuters, 2003/05/15)
From a series of images too gruesome to post: "An undated still image taken from video footage obtained by Reuters Television May 15, 2003, purportedly showing an unidentified prisoner being executed by unidentified officials detonating explosives attached to his body, during the rule of Saddam Hussein. The footage showed explosive and wires being attached to three prisoners, before being detonated as a means of execution." (See also: "Film Footage Shows Gruesome Iraqi Desert Execution" (Reuters, 2003/05/15))

"Saudi Press: Initial Reactions to the Riyadh Bombings" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 505, 2003/05/15)
Excerpts from the Saudi press's coverage of the bombings, in this case an article by Hamad bin Hamed Al-Salame (Al-Jazirah, 2003/05/14). Foreign?: "Oh foreign cave-dwellers, depart our country and go to hell!... Leave us. We are a believing people, and our government is wise... Go with all your ugliness and baseness... Go to hell. All your terrorist acts and bomb blasts will not make us bow our heads... Go to the place from whence you came, to the caves of Tora Bora, and kiss the feet of your masters who taught you to spill blood and kill innocents... They were the ones who taught you how to lie, deceive, and mislead the simple folk. Go, cowards... go to hell, or go to the heaven of your leader, who taught you sorcery in the caves of Tora Bora. Sit by his side in the dark paradise of ugly ideas and deeds... which if distributed to all the inhabitants of the Earth would suffice them until the Day of Judgment...
Go, idiots, and awaken all the sleeper cells... Wake them, and go with them, far from us. You have no place among us... Go to hell." (See also: "The Enemy Within" (Arab News, 2003/05/14))

"Road-map to Hell" (Melanie Phillips, The Spectator, from the 2003/05/17 issue)
The Emperor has no clothes - and hasn't had for 55 years: "Oh, so sorry to bring up the inconvenient little matter that the Palestinians want to wipe Israel off the map. But, if we're talking complications here, isn't it a shade convoluted to expect Israel to discuss the contours of a Palestinian state with people who are talking instead about destroying the Jewish one? After all, Abu Mazen's much-vaunted opposition to terror is purely tactical. His remarks indicate that he thinks murdering Jews is merely counterproductive and will set back realisation of the real ultimate goal — the resettlement of Israel as an Arab state.
In these circumstances, the road-map actively undermines the war on terror. By presuming a moral equivalence between annihilatory terrorism and the state that it targets, it puts pressure on Israel and thus encourages terrorists to persist with a tactic that produces such prodigious appeasement.
The West should end this charade. It is not enough to tell the Palestinians to rein in their mass murderers. If terror is to be defeated, the West has to show that it will no longer be strung along and taken for a bunch of suckers."

"Who Shot Mohammed al-Dura?" (James Fallows, The Atlantic, from the June 2003 issue)
Fallows examines the strange case of Mohammed al-Dura's death — the twelve-year-old Palestinian boy shot and killed during an exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators on September 30, 2000:
"It now appears that the boy cannot have died in the way reported by most of the world's media and fervently believed throughout the Islamic world. Whatever happened to him, he was not shot by the Israeli soldiers who were known to be involved in the day's fighting—or so I am convinced, after spending a week in Israel talking with those examining the case. ...
Why is there no footage of the boy after he was shot? Why does he appear to move in his father's lap, and to clasp a hand over his eyes after he is supposedly dead? Why is one Palestinian policeman wearing a Secret Service-style earpiece in one ear? Why is another Palestinian man shown waving his arms and yelling at others, as if "directing" a dramatic scene? Why does the funeral appear - based on the length of shadows - to have occurred before the apparent time of the shooting? Why is there no blood on the father's shirt just after they are shot? Why did a voice that seems to be that of the France 2 cameraman yell, in Arabic, "The boy is dead" before he had been hit? Why do ambulances appear instantly for seemingly everyone else and not for al-Dura?" (UPDATE: The article can also be found here. See also: "Probe: Famous 'martyrdom' of Palestinian boy 'staged'" (David Kupelian, WorldNetDaily, 2003/04/26))

"Thatcher's back and gunning for the French" (David Charter, The Times, 2003/05/15)
"Baroness Thatcher returned to politics last night with an attack on the French, whom she accused of collaborating with "enemies of the West" for short-term gain.
In a one-off comeback speech in New York, which broke a medical ban on speaking in public, the former Conservative Prime Minister attacked those who use environmentalism, feminism and human rights campaigns to fight capitalism and the nation state.
She praised Tony Blair, but above all President Bush, for overriding the "rot" that "paralysed" the United Nations. ...
Lady Thatcher said: 'For years, many governments played down the threats of Islamic revolution, turned a blind eye to international terrorism and accepted the development of weaponry of mass destruction. Indeed, some politicians were happy to go further, collaborating with the self-proclaimed enemies of the West for their own short-term gain — but enough about the French. So deep had the rot set in that the UN security council itself was paralysed.'"

"Homegrown Fanatics" (Sulaiman Al-Hattlan, The New York Times, 2003/05/15)
Al-Hattlan is a columnist for the Saudi daily Al Watan: "Though few would publicly admit it, Saudis have become hostages of the backward agenda of a small minority of bin Laden supporters who in effect have hijacked our society. Progressive voices have been silenced. The religious and social oppression of women means half the population is forced to stay behind locked doors. Members of the religious police harass us in public spaces, and sometimes even in our homes about our clothing and haircuts. A civil cold war is raging, one we have long pretended doesn't exist. ...
Because of the dominance of Wahhabism, Saudi society has been exposed to only one school of thought, one that teaches hatred of Jews, Christians and certain Muslims, like Shiites and liberal and moderate Sunnis. But we Saudis must acknowledge that our real enemy is religious fanaticism. We have to stop talking about the need for reform and actually start it, particularly in education. Otherwise, what happened here on Monday night could be the beginning of a war that leads to the Talibanization of our society."

"Boxes of Cash May Be Husseins' Plunder" (John Mintz, The Washington Post, 2003/05/15)
"U.S. investigators believe that the $950 million in cash that American troops recently found stashed in boxes in several locations around Baghdad is most of the $1 billion that Saddam Hussein's family secretly removed from the Iraqi central bank only days before the U.S. war began, officials said yesterday.
"We have a high degree of confidence that the found money is the same as the plundered money," David Aufhauser, general counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department, said at a congressional hearing yesterday."

"France Says It Is Target of Untruths" (Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post, 2003/05/15)
"The French government believes it is the victim of an "organized campaign of disinformation" from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
In a letter prepared for delivery today to administration officials and members of Congress, France details what it says are false news stories, with anonymous administration officials as sources, that appeared in the U.S. media over the past nine months. A two-page list attached to the letter includes reports of alleged French weapons sales to Iraq and culminates in a report last week that French officials in Syria issued French passports to escaping Iraqis being sought by the U.S. military.
The stories, all of which Paris has heatedly denied, are part of an "ugly campaign to destroy the image of France," a French official said. ...
But a senior administration official last night dismissed the French charge of organized disinformation as 'utter nonsense.'"

"North Korea gets stern warning" (Joseph Curl, The Washington Times, 2003/05/15)
"President Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun vowed yesterday that they "will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea" and threatened the use of "further steps" to deal with the Stalinist regime's nuclear ambitions.
Standing shoulder to shoulder in the White House Rose Garden, the two leaders pledged to work toward a peaceful solution to the standoff with Pyongyang, which continues its bellicose rhetoric against its neighbor and the United States." (See also the joint statement: "U.S., South Korea "Will Not Tolerate" Nuclear North Korea" (U.S. Department of State, 2003/05/14))

"U.S. Asked Saudis to Increase Security" (Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, 2003/05/15)
"The United States urgently asked Saudi Arabia to bolster security at residential compounds inhabited by Westerners just days before this week's terrorist attacks in which eight Americans died, but the Saudi government failed to act, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia said today.
Saudi officials quickly denied the charge.
In television interviews on U.S. morning shows, Ambassador Robert W. Jordan asserted that the Saudi government failed to respond quickly to the U.S. request even after evidence accumulated that a major attack was imminent. "They did not, as of the time of this particular tragic event, provide the security that we had requested," Jordan told the CBS News program "The Early Show."
A U.S. official said the request was made around May 1 and covered more than 300 residential compounds around the country."

"Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 14 in Chechnya" (Sharon LaFraniere, The Washington Post, 2003/05/15)
"In the second major suicide attack in Chechnya this week, a female bomber blew herself up today at a prayer meeting near the republic's second-largest city, killing at least 14 people and wounding scores more, officials said.
The woman managed to get within six feet of Akhmad Kadryov, the Moscow-appointed head of the Chechen government, before she detonated the bomb, according to Akhmed Abastov, who heads the region of Gudermes, where the religious gathering took place.
Kadryov escaped harm, but several of his bodyguards were reported to be seriously wounded or dead. ...
A second woman, also carrying explosives, had been milling about in the crowd, investigators said. But she was killed by Baimuradova's bomb before she could set off her own charge, officials told ORT, a Russian national television network." (See also: "Chechnya Truck Bomb Kills at Least 40 People" (Clara Ferreira-Marques, Reuters, 2003/05/12))

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

News and commentary:

"The Enemy Within" (Arab News, 2003/05/14)
Found via James Taranto, who wonders if May 11 will "bring about a Saudi epiphany the way Sept. 11 did for America?": "This was an undertaking of sheer evil. Life — be it the life of Muslims, of Saudis, of Westerners, of anyone — is sacred, a gift from God. It was targeted as much against Saudi Arabia as against Westerners — not just because Saudis and Westerners alike have been killed and maimed but because the prime aim of those responsible for this despicable crime is to create panic and terror. Those responsible are the new fascists. Merciless, cold and full of hate, with a demented vision of Islam, they declared war on humanity for the thoroughly un-Islamic goal of separating and insulating the Muslim world from the rest of humanity, as part of which they hope to terrorize Westerners into leaving the Kingdom. They have no qualms about killing anyone who gets in their way; they spread hatred and resentment, not peace; yet they have the blasphemous effrontery to claim that they do God’s work. They make a mockery of Islam, an open, inclusive faith. ...
It goes without saying that those responsible, those who poisoned the minds of the bombers, those who are planning to become bombers, must be tracked down and crushed — remorselessly and utterly. But crushing them will not be enough. The environment that produced such terrorism has to change. The suicide bombers have been encouraged by the venom of anti-Westernism that has seeped through the Middle East’s veins, and the Kingdom is no less affected. Those who gloat over Sept. 11, those who happily support suicide bombings in Israel and Russia, those who consider non-Muslims less human than Muslims and therefore somehow disposable, all bear part of the responsibility for the Riyadh bombs."

"Et Tu, Kristol?" (Daniel W. Drezner, The New Republic, 2003/05/14)
"Conspiracies are all the rage in world politics these days. A majority of Arabs believe that Israel was responsible for the September 11 attacks. Antiwar activists believe that the U.S. government "created" Saddam Hussein. And, of course, there's endless innuendo surrounding the relationship between prominent neoconservatives and U.S. foreign policy. ...
Amid all this back and forth, it's both instructive and eerie to re-read Richard Hofstadter's classic essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." ... Hofstadter clinically observed key symptoms that were emblematic of the paranoid style:

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms - he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. ...

As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. ...

Finally, all the conspiracy rhetoric suggests that U.S. foreign policy has been hijacked in secret, behind closed doors. Of all the charges leveled against neocons, this is the most absurd. Neocons have been so prolific in their writings that critics would have a much easier time accusing them of anti-environmentalism - for having destroyed entire forests to advance their cause." (See also: "Conspiracy Secrets Revealed!" (Daniel W. Drezner, drezner.blogspot.com, 2003/05/14) and "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" (Richard Hofstadter, Harper's Magazine/The Academic JFK Assassination Web Site, November 1966))

"Salam Pax" (David Warren, Ottawa Citizen/DavidWarrenOnline, 2003/05/14)
"'Salam Pax' is rising as one of the media stars in post-war Iraq. He began blogging from Baghdad well before the war, and has come back sporadically since. (He calls his blog, "Where is Raed?") He is the darling of fellow-bloggers in the West, who light up with links whenever he appears on the Web. ... But without compromising sources, and thus endangering lives, including Salam's own, one may discover a great deal about him from carefully reading his blog, and following obvious leads from there.
Salam is the scion of a senior figure from Iraq's Baathist nomenklatura. He was brought up at least partly in Vienna, which is the OPEC headquarters; his father was therefore an oilman, and possibly a former head of Iraq's OPEC mission. Another clue is a hint that his grandfather was an Iraqi tribal chief; from which I infer that his father was one of the Iraqi tribal chiefs that Saddam Hussein rewarded for loyalty, outside the Tikrit clan. ...
One of his constantly-repeated warnings is that the U.S. occupiers are fools if they do not take all those talented former-Baathist officials in from the cold, and put them back in business; that "al-Chalabi's de-Baathification plans don't solve any problems". ...
And this from a person who shows no guilt whatever at his own family membership in a Baathist regime that killed some hundreds of thousands of civilians - entirely on purpose. He dismisses all that as "a few bad apples", without thinking to volunteer any sort of information on where such bad apples might now be hiding." (See also Salam Pax's weblog: where is raed.)

"Arabia's Civil War" (Daniel Pipes, Wall Street Journal Europe/danielpipes.org, 2003/05/14)
"The current iteration of the Saudi kingdom came into being in 1902 when a Saudi leader captured Riyadh. Ten years later, there emerged a Wahhabi armed force known as the Ikhwan (Arabic for "Brethren") which in its personal practices and its hostility toward non-Wahhabis represented the most militant dimension of this already militant movement. One war cry of theirs went: "The winds of Paradise are blowing. Where are you who hanker after Paradise?"
The Ikhwan served the Saudi family well, bringing it one military victory after another. A key turning point came in 1924, when the father of today's Saudi king captured Mecca from the great-great-grandfather of today's Jordanian king. ... These changes turned the Saudi insurgency into a state and brought a desert movement to the city. This meant the Saudi monarch could no longer give the Ikhwan and the traditional Wahhabi interpretation of Islam free reign, but had to control it. The result was a civil war in the late 1920s which ended in the monarchy's victory over the Ikhwan in 1930.
In other words, the less fanatical version of Wahhabism triumphed over the more fanatical. The Saudi monarchs presided over a kingdom extreme by comparison with other Muslim countries but tame by Wahhabi standards."

"Embedded Terrorist" (Erick Stakelbeck, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/05/14)
A comprehensive look at the Left's continued support of Sami Al-Arian: "As if the mainstream acceptance of Sami Al-Arian wasn’t scandalous enough, this is where his story becomes truly surreal. Anyone with the misfortune of viewing the recent anti-war marches had to notice the seemingly incompatible alliances sprinkled throughout, as communists, feminists, gays, Greens, and hard-line Muslims put aside whatever differences may have existed between them previously in order to form one coherent, anarchistic voice. When disciples of the Taliban are marching lockstep with members of N.O.W, you know you’ve got trouble. But this is exactly what occurred during the anti-war protests, and also in the defense of Sami Al-Arian.
"The Left has thrown its lot in for years now with Islamic fundamentalists," says Emerson. "It’s such an evil alliance, and they unite under anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism."
Which makes Sami Al-Arian the perfect figure for these Wahhabi Marxists to rally around. ...
In signing on to defend Sami Al-Arian, the Left not only forfeited its credibility, it also sacrificed its soul.
That is, what little soul it still possessed."

"Terror Cell Had Recent Gun Battle With Police" (Alan Sipress and Peter Finn, The Washington Post, 2003/05/14)
"The Islamic militants behind the devastating car bombings in three residential compounds Monday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were part of an al Qaeda cell whose members fought a gun battle last week with Saudi authorities before escaping arrest, Saudi officials said today.
At the time, police raided a suspected hideout, uncovering a weapons cache that included 55 hand grenades, 829 pounds of explosives and 2,545 bullets of different calibers. The May 6 raid took place at a safe house "several hundred yards from one of the buildings hit" by the triple bombing, a senior U.S. official said today.
The cell was formed in the kingdom after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, officials said. It is led by Khaled Jehani, who left Saudi Arabia when he was 18, later fought in Bosnia and Chechnya and was based at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, the officials added. Jehani, 29, assumed a leadership position in the cell after the capture last November of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, suspected of being instrumental in planning the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, the officials said. Al-Nashiri, al Qaeda's former director of operations in the Persian Gulf, is in U.S. custody."

Note: I have just received the first gift to Watch, through my Wish Lists. And it is a really grand gift at that, with no less than six books in one package (including Edward Gibbon's great "The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire")! Wow, thanks, it's highly appreciated! I had almost forgot my Wish List's, but now I'll try to update them more often...

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

News and commentary:

"The shells of wrecked buildings..."
(Reuters/Saudi Television, 2003/05/13)
"The shells of wrecked buildings are seen after a suicide attack on a Westerners' compound in Riyadh, May 13, 2003. Suicide bombers killed 10 Americans and many others at housing compounds for Westerners in the Saudi capital Riyadh, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said as he flew in for a planned visit on Tuesday."

"Bush: Attackers to learn 'meaning of American justice'" (CNN.com, 2003/05/13)
"President Bush said Tuesday that those responsible for suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia that left dozens of people dead, including seven Americans, would "learn the meaning of American justice." ...
"These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate," Bush said Tuesday in Indianapolis, Indiana, his last stop on a tour to promote tax cuts. "And the United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice." ...
The blasts came less than two weeks after the U.S. State Department warned Americans of possible terror attacks in Saudi Arabia. Last week, the Saudi government issued an all-points bulletin for 19 men - 17 of them Saudis - on suspicion of planning attacks.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef told a Riyadh newspaper Tuesday that those suspects were behind Monday's bombings."

"Saudi bomb may have killed 90" (Rebecca Mowling and Danielle Demetriou, Evening Standard, 2003/05/13)
"Unconfirmed reports suggest as many as 90 people are feared dead in Saudi Arabia today after a devastating series of bomb attacks masterminded by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
Although the official death toll remains at 29, reports from some agencies suggest that the real figure is much higher.
Westerners living in three compounds in the capital Riyadh were targeted in a co-ordinated wave of suicide car-bomb attacks. Witnesses said they shot their way in."

"Saudi Religious Police Launch Website" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 504, 2003/05/13)
A branch of the Saudi religious and morality police has launched a new website. Here are some bizarre excerpts from the site, offering a glimpse into this misogynistic, puritan and anti-Semitic world: "Another section of the website, the "Exhibit of Violations," displays confiscated items from the "permanent collection of violations of Islamic law at Authority headquarters in Al-Madina." The section shows photos of perfume bottles shaped like a woman's torso, with text reading: "Perfume, but...! Examples of perfumes with good fragrances for women and evil bottles that harm the honor of the woman and undermine her morality. We must beware. The Prophet Muhammad said, 'Any woman who wears perfume and passes by people so they can smell it is a whore ...'" Also shown is a photo of several Barbie dolls, along with the text: "The enemies of Islam want to invade us with all possible means, and therefore they have circulated among us this doll, which spreads deterioration of values and moral degeneracy among our girls." On the photo, under the heading "The Jewish Doll," is a story titled "The Strange Request." The story reads: 'One girl said to her mother: 'Mother, I want jeans and a shirt open at the top, like Barbie's!!' The dolls of the Jewish Barbie in her naked garb [sic], their disgraceful appearance, and their various accessories are a symbol of the dissolution of values in the West. We must fully comprehend the danger in them.'" (See also: "Exhibit of Violations" (hesbah.com, Spring 2003) for examples of confiscated goods from the Saudi religious police site.)

"Huge mass grave found in Iraq" (BBC News, 2003/05/13)
"Iraqis have uncovered what is thought to be one of the largest mass graves found since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime.
BBC correspondent Barbara Plett says the remains of up to 3,000 people had been found so far, and the total uncovered could be as many as 15,000.
The grave was found in the small village of al-Mahawil, located near the city of Hilla, about 56 miles (90 km) south of Baghdad.
Among the remains are thought to be the bodies of political prisoners killed after a Shia Muslim uprising against Saddam in 1991 but also entire families.
Relatives are identifying them with their eyeglasses or other personal effects found among the bodies.
BBC correspondents say the stench at the site is unbearable and a group of US marines who visited said it was like looking into hell.
Human rights groups believe that up to 200,000 people may be buried in sites across the country."

"Iraq Expert Says It's Too Early to Assess Saddam's WMD Program" (David Anthony Denny, Washington File, 2003/05/13)
"It is much too early to make a determined assessment as to what the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq did or did not have in the way of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), according to Iraq analyst and author Kenneth Pollack.
Pollack spoke to journalists in London, Madrid and Moscow by digital video conference May 13. His topic was WMD.
"I think it is still very early in the process," he said. "It's not just that ‘the fat lady hasn't sung,' it's that, in many senses, the orchestra is still tuning up." ...
"I think that we will find the [WMD] stuff," Pollack said. "I think it's simply a matter of time, but I think that we will find, at the very least, the production capability."
A reporter for Spain's El Pais asked Pollack to assess the transition in Iraq. He replied that it was inevitably going to be messy and chaotic, and that replacing a totalitarian dictatorship that was widely feared and hated would surely release pent-up emotion among the Iraqis. In fact, Pollack said, he "would have been stunned" if an Iraqi version of Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution" had occurred."

"The secret that Leo Strauss never revealed" (Spengler, Asia Times, 2003/05/13)
"No sillier allegation has found its way into mass-circulation newspapers than the notion that a conspiracy of Leo Strauss acolytes has infiltrated the Bush administration. Supposedly Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz, a Strauss doctoral student, and other lesser-known officials form a neo-conservative cabal practicing some sort of political black arts.
If anything, the Straussians are dangerous not because they are Machiavellian but because they are naive. ...
What characterizes Strauss's diverse group of followers is not a penchant for conspiracy, but a kind of optimism, a faith, if you will, that statecraft can improve the human condition. What will happen to his legacy? Demography soon will solve Europe's Existential crisis, as the Europeans die out. The issues that occupied Strauss are dying out with them. He left his students no tools to apply to a world of civilizational and religious war. It was not the philosophers, but the theologians who sorted out Europe in the religious wars of the 17th century. If Washington really is in the hands of the Straussians, the United States is flying blind."

"Catharsis" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2003/05/13)
Hitchens on "justice vs. reconciliation in post-Saddam Iraq":
"But what if there is a difference between Justice and Reconciliation? Perhaps you have seen the notorious video of Saddam Hussein's first "purge" of the Baath Party. The members of the central committee are abruptly confronted by a broken and tortured man, who stutters through a zombie confession that implicates about half of those present. As each name is announced, guards appear and drag off the begging, shrieking victim. Those whose names haven't yet been called begin to yell hysterical professions of loyalty to the Leader. The Leader smokes a calm cigar. Scene 2 of this horror show was even more impressive. Those who had been spared were ordered to form a firing squad for those who had been "named."
Thus an ingenious element of the mafia style was added to the usual methods of dictatorship. Everyone was "dirtied up" and made complicit. And this practice, involving a nexus of informers and opportunists, was followed down to the level of schoolteacher, librarian, and factory worker. Therefore, the search for a "clean" person in today's Iraq will be like that of Diogenes, holding a lamp at midday in the market and looking for one honest and uncorrupted man.
Faced with such realities, as were the peoples of post-horror Germany and Russia, the tendency is to be forgiving for the sake of sheer realism."

"An Old Demon Anew On The Prowl" (Stephen Pollard, The Wall Street Journal/stephenpollard.net, 2003/05/13)
"In September 2002, a distinguished and well-respected British political columnist told me that "the Jews have taken over Middle East policy ... The entire Iraq issue has been got up by the Jews... What else can we expect with a Jew (Lord Levy) as the real foreign secretary... The Jews have bought Bush, just as they buy every American President... Bush is too weak and stupid to stand up to the Jews." On and on it went. When I pointed out that I am Jewish, he simply said: "doesn't alter the facts, does it?" ...
Again, the facts matter not a jot - in this case that President George W. Bush presides over the first U.S. Cabinet in decades not to include a single Jew, and that none of his key policy advisers - Dick Cheney, Condi Rice or Donald Rumsfeld - are Jewish."

"Radiation poisoning feared from Iraq looting" (Inigo Gilmore, The Sunday Telegraph/The Washington Times, 2003/05/13)
"Doctors fear that hundreds of Iraqis are suffering from radiation poisoning after widespread looting of the country's nuclear facilities.
Seven nuclear facilities have been damaged or effectively destroyed by ransackers since the end of the war last month. Technical documents, sensitive equipment and barrels containing radioactive material are thought to have been stolen.
Many residents in villages close to the huge Tuwaitha nuclear facility, about a dozen miles south of Baghdad, were exhibiting signs of radiation illness last week, including rashes, acute vomiting and severe nosebleeds.
As Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed last month, villagers began looting barrels of uranium oxide, known as "yellow cake," from the site, which they then emptied to use to store water, milk and yogurt."

"Coalition Forces Take Custody of Iraq's 'Dr. Germ'" (AP/FOX News, 2003/05/13)
"U.S.-led forces have captured two more important Iraqis - the scientist known as "Dr. Germ" and a top leader in Saddam Hussein's armed forces.
Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha, a scientist who helped Iraq make weapons out of anthrax, surrendered over the weekend, said Maj. Brad Lowell of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.
Also in custody Monday was Ibrahim Ahmad Abd al Sattar Muhammad, armed forces chief of staff since 1999, Pentagon officials said without giving details of his capture.
He was No. 11 on a list issued last month of the 55 most wanted former members of Saddam's government, the jack of spades in a card deck issued to troops."

"Blasts hit Saudi capital" (BBC News, 2003/05/13)
"According to diplomatic sources, blasts went off at three different locations in the eastern part of the city, sending fireballs and smoke into the night sky.
The BBC's Suleiman Nemr in Riyadh said that at least three people - a Saudi national, a Lebanese citizen and a westerner - had been killed at one residential compound.
According to Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef "the three explosions that occurred in eastern Riyadh were suicide bombings... set off by cars stuffed with explosives that were driven into the targeted compounds".
There has been no official word on the number of casualties, but a spokesman for a Riyadh hospital said that at least 50 people had been injured." (See also: "Powell condemns Saudi blasts" (CNN.com, 2003/05/13): "U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan said more than 40 Americans were wounded and some Americans were killed, although he could not confirm the number of deaths.")

Added in archive:
"Meanwhile: In his native France, a Jew feels betrayed" (David Vannier, International Herald Tribune, 2003/05/09)
"Helping the helpers" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2003/03/23)

Monday, May 12, 2003

News and commentary:

"Iraq: A Watershed in Post-9/11 World Order" (Lee Kuan Yew, Forbes, 2003/05/12)
Lee Kuan Yew is Singapore's prime minister: "Before locking horns on what the UN's role is to be, both sides should step back and reflect on the common threat they face from al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups. When traditional partners of the Atlantic Alliance - France and especially Germany - continue publicly to oppose the U.S. over Iraq, they help Islamic extremists recruit more terrorists. If the UN is not involved in postwar Iraq, Islamic extremists will exploit what will be portrayed as an American/British colonial occupation of Iraq. If, on the other hand, the Atlantic Allies get their act together in the UNSC, it will signal to the world that they have set aside their differences to work for a higher cause - that of bringing peace and stability to the Mideast."

"4 bomb attacks rock Saudi capital" (MSNBC, 2003/05/12)
"Less than a week after al-Qaida warned of an imminent strike, and hours before Secretary of State Colin Powell was to arrive in the Saudi capital, U.S. and Saudi officials said Tuesday that at least one person was killed and 60 other people were injured here in four bomb attacks against Western interests, three of them in residential compounds housing Americans and other Westerners. A U.S. diplomat said 40 Americans were hurt, and that there were unconfirmed reports of "a couple of American deaths." ...
Powell was scheduled to arrive in Saudi Arabia about noon Tuesday for meetings with Crown Prince Abdullah. "There have been no changes in the secretary’s travel plans at this time," said State Department press officer Nancy Beck."

"Reverse Course" (Jonathan Rauch, Reason, 2003/05/12)
"The Cold War was a five-decade confrontation in which the United States often found itself aligned in awkward and even obnoxious ways but remained, through it all, on the right side of history. In the end, the Soviet Union fell not because of Star Wars or glasnost, but because Communism was a dysfunctional system that lost the ability to fool even its friends.
Perhaps the most awkward and obnoxious of America's Cold War alignments were in the Arab world. ...
In both Iran and Iraq, Washington supported or tolerated corrupt and brutal regimes, with disastrous results in both places. Saudi Arabia has been a different kind of disaster, propagating anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism all over the world. Syria and Libya are disasters. Lebanon is between disasters. Egypt is a disaster waiting to happen. Maybe Jordan is, too.
In short, the United States has been on the wrong side of Arab history for almost five decades, and it is not doing much better than the Soviets. The old policy had no future, only a past. It was a dead policy walking. September 11 was merely the death certificate.
Bush is no sophisticate, but he has the great virtue— not shared by most sophisticates—of knowing a dead policy when he sees one. So he gathered up the world's goodwill and his own political capital, spent the whole bundle on dynamite, and blew the old policy to bits. However things come out in Iraq, the war's larger importance is to leave little choice, going forward, but to put America on the side of Arab reform." (Note: Thanks to Barry Kaplovitz for the pointer.)

"Broaden the Road Map" (Saad Eddin Ibrahim, The Washington Post, 2003/05/12)
"The doors are opening for democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. The yearning for peace is unmistakable and the aspiration for development universal. The post-Saddam Hussein era offers a momentous opportunity to achieve these objectives.
But a regional road map is needed. It is time for a forceful - not arrogant - message from the United States to the people and rulers of the region - a message that America will be a reliable partner in the pursuit of democracy, peace and development. Only with such a vision, and a carefully drawn map, can the United States avoid being dragged into repeated armed intervention. And only with it can the long-suffering peoples of the region finally join the community of open democratic societies."

"Anti-Americans are really against liberal democracy" (Barbara Amiel, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/12)
"If you watch the BBC for any 24 hours, you see institutionalised anti-Americanism. When Mayor Ken Livingstone told schoolchildren that President George Bush was "everything repellant in politics… venal... corrupt" [report, 10 May], the BBC's commentary was concerned only with how badly this would affect tourism in London - as if there was nothing substantially wrong in the remarks themselves. ...
The BBC has no idea that it has a bias. But in its anti-Americanism, as in its stand on a number of other issues (ranging from abortion to membership in Europe or the moral equivalence between the actions of suicide bombers and those of the Israeli army), there is nothing in its mind to be decided. If a dissenting view has to be presented, it will always be put in a defensive position. ...
The dislike of the United States has several components, including jealousy of its superpower success, dismay over America's eclipse of European economic and political influence, and unhappiness with a certain vulgarity in American culture. But the primary antagonism springs from the fact that British and European institutions - including the BBC and most of the media - are now firmly in the hands of the statist Left, with its slavish adherence to all the shibboleths of Left-liberalism." (See also: "Livingstone likens Bush to Saddam" (Andrew Sparr, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/10))

"Sahhafism is alive and well" (Barry Rubin, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/05/12)
"A new term for understanding the Middle East: Sahhafism. It is named after Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, the former Iraqi minister of disinformation, who attained international prominence for his lies during the Iraq war. ...
Yet while Sahhaf was ridiculed in much of the West he was believed up to the last moment throughout the Middle East. A few days earlier his view that the war was going badly for the United States and relatively well for the Iraqis had been echoed by experts and journalists throughout the United States and Europe.
Sahhafism, therefore, means telling obvious lies that are widely believed in the Arab world and accepted in the West. The Middle East has been living through the era of Sahhafism for decades."

"How Saddam's Agents Targeted Al-Jazeera" (Marie Colvin, The Sunday Times/FrontPageMagazine, 2003/05/12)
"Some of the files the INC claims it recovered - seen by The Sunday Times - apparently reveal how Iraqi agents infiltrated the Al-Jazeera television station, dubbed "the CNN of the Arab world", in an attempt to subvert its coverage of Saddam's regime. The station, claim the documents, was an "instrument" of the regime. ...
The files cover a period from August 1999 to November 2002 and include:
*Iraqi intelligence reports on three alleged agents working inside the network. One was involved with the station's international relations.
*The claim that Al-Jazeera, was "mobilised and employed" by Iraqi intelligence. ...
These documents, however, raise serious questions. The allegation that the Iraqi secret service had agents working inside the network threatens to undermine Al-Jazeera's claim to be an independent voice in the Middle East." (See also: "Iraqi Crowd Harasses Al-Jazeera Crew" (AP/The Guardian, 2003/05/11))

"Syrian Reforms Gain Momentum In Wake of War" (Alan Sipress, The Washington Post, 2003/05/12)
"For up to a year, U.S. officials had been quietly urging Syria to interdict Arab fighters and military supplies crossing the border into Iraq, including night-vision goggles and vehicles for transporting battle tanks, according to Western officials. Now, Syria has sealed the border. Syria has handed over to U.S.-led forces at least two top Iraqi figures who had been fleeing, including former intelligence official Faruq Hijazi, while turning back others at the border, according to diplomats. The Syrian government has also toned down its severely anti-American rhetoric of earlier this spring; signaled it will not meddle in Iraq's internal affairs as the United States seeks to build a new government in Baghdad; and said it will not undermine U.S. efforts to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
But the changes in domestic policy may ultimately prove to be of even greater consequence.
During the past two weeks, the Syrian government has licensed its first three private banks, considered an essential step in modernizing the state-dominated economy, while approving two new private universities and four private radio stations."

"Iraqis More Bemused Than Enthused by Cleric" (Susan Sachs, The New York Times, 2003/05/12)
"In Nasiriya, another outpost of the revolt, Ayatollah Hakim wept as he spoke to a few hundred men from the balcony of City Hall, recalling the torture and killings the Shiites had suffered under Mr. Hussein.
"Nowhere have I been that I didn't pray for you," he told the group. "I am not above saying that I kiss your hands. You are the mujahedeen." ...
But Ayatollah Hakim's cavalcade, with all the markings of a political campaign, also appeared to be just a temporary diversion for others.
The bulk of the audience hurried away after his speech, leaving behind just the people who had been brought in from Basra by the ayatollah's aides."

"Foreign forces must go, insists Shia ayatollah" (Stephen Farrell, The Times, 2003/05/12)
"The Shia ayatollah whose return from a 23-year exile has drawn huge crowds across southern Iraq demanded yesterday that US-led forces should leave the country.
Hardening his rhetoric as he sweeps north through the country, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim spent his first weekend in Iraq hammering home his twin message that the country must have an Islamic and independent government free from all foreign interference."

"Chechnya Truck Bomb Kills at Least 40 People" (Clara Ferreira-Marques, Reuters, 2003/05/12)
"Two suicide bombers drove a truck full of explosives into a government complex in Russia's rebel Chechnya on Monday, killing 40 people in the deadliest attack since the Kremlin's March poll to keep the region in its grip.
The blast in Znamenskoye, in the relatively peaceful north of the territory, wounded about 100 other people, seven weeks after a constitutional referendum that anchored the Muslim region firmly in Russia.
But a defiant President Vladimir Putin vowed not to let such attacks derail the Kremlin's peace plan. "We can not allow anything like this to happen, nor will we," he told government ministers.
Soldiers guarding the administration building, which also housed the local FSB security services, opened fire on the truck but it smashed through barriers before exploding in a fireball only yards short of the main building."

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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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