Archived news and commentary: May 26 - June 1, 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, June 1, 2003

News and commentary:

"Gold-painted dancers perform amid golden statues..."
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, 2003/05/31)
"Gold-painted dancers perform amid golden statues and cascading fireworks during a gala celebration at Peterhof Palace for European leaders hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday evening, May 31, 2003." (See also: "St. Petersburg Fit for a Czar Disgruntles Many a Resident" (Susan B. Glasser, The Washington Post, 2003/05/31) and "Russia's Jewel Box" (Susan B. Glasser, The Washington Post, 2003/05/29))

"Russia: Coronation of the Godfather" (André Glucksmann, Le Monde/Watch 2003/05/30 [2003/06/01])
Glucksman on the "apotheosis" of Russian President Vladimir Putin, translated by Douglas: "Doesn’t this remind you of something? Crimea, Catherine II, her lavish cruise on which crowned heads were doted on by ambassadors, pet followers, men of letters, and other token flatterers. The minister and lover Potemkin erected cardboard decorations depicting order prosperity, luxury. And the majesty of an empress to which a duly and sternly admonished people living in tatters sang.
In 2003, the illustrious guests will show neither concern nor thought for an agonizing population, half of which is fecundating under the poverty line. They will not visit the thousands of abandoned industrial areas where men lay about unemployed and drink, where women try to feed their children, though it may mean prostituting themselves by the side of the road. They will not see abandoned kids taking shelter in the train stations, looking for customers.
Our officials shall clink their glasses with the top brass who are bloodying the Caucasus. They will dine by candlelight with the oligarchs who are “privatizing,” or, as it so happens, “pirating” the country’s riches. To their greater profit and to the glory of a spy they made king. Having in ten years pulled off the biggest hold-up in contemporary history, these corrupted ones, fewer than twenty, are placing their new fortunes in the tax havens of the West." (See also the French original: "Russie: le sacre du parrain" (André Glucksmann, Le Monde, 2003/05/30) and "Russia's darkness is rising" (Martin Sieff, UPI/National Post, 2003/05/26))

"Monitoring the Political Role of NGOs" (Gerald M. Steinberg and Simon Lassman, JCPA, 2003/06/01)
"The NGO Forum [at Durban] produced what is known as "The NGO Declaration," which, while not an official conference document, was signed by groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. ...
Meanwhile, the NGO declaration at the Durban conference, written in highly politicized language, reflected a concerted effort to undermine Israel. Article 164 states "targeted victims of Israel's brand of apartheid and ethnic cleansing methods have been in particular children, women and refugees." Article 425 announces "a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state...the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel." Furthermore, Article 426 talks of "condemnation of those states who are supporting, aiding and abetting the Israeli apartheid state and its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing, acts of genocide." (See also: "NGO Monitor Series" (JCPA) and "WCAR NGO Forum Declaration" (WCAR, 2001/09/03))

"Anti-Semitism and Terrorism on the Internet: New Threats" (Manfred Gerstenfeld, JCPA/Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 2003/06/01)
An interview with Rabbi Abraham Cooper: "As a result of the Internet, a rather simple technological tool, a much greater scope of communication is created between individuals and groups with nothing in common except their hatred. After September 11, one could read in Arabic and other languages of Islamic countries, articles by the American racists David Duke and the late William Pierce. This occurred despite the fact that these American bigots have promoted a 'pro-white' agenda, which domestically is anti-immigrant, anti-black and anti-minorities. ...
In the U.S., the extreme right, generally speaking, did not overtly express admiration for Osama Bin Laden, as they understood that doing so would have been insane in view of the outburst of American patriotism after 9/11. Yet one group based in Florida, Aryanweb.com, had on its website, 'Death to ZOG; support the Taliban.' ZOG means 'Zionist Occupation Government,' a codeword for many anti-American government groups and others opposed to 'big brother' in Washington.
These people were searching, after the end of the Cold War, for an enemy, and decided it was their own government… What has caught on worldwide on the Internet is the canard that the United States and Israel had advance knowledge, or were involved in making September 11 happen. This mythology has taken root in the hearts and minds of tens of millions of people in the Arab and Muslim world. It has also become the calling card for anyone who hates America, the American government, George Bush, Israel, or simply doesn't want to face reality."

"German minister: US "deceived world" over reasons for Iraq war" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2003/06/01)
"Germany's development minister on Sunday accused the United States of deceiving the world over its reasons for waging war on Iraq.
"We see in the current discussion that it was about oil, it wasn't about weapons of mass destruction," Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said at a party meeting in Berlin.
Wieczorek-Zeul was joining a chorus of criticism in Europe of remarks by US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that weapons of mass destruction became a war banner because it was the only reason which everyone in the Bush administration could agree on.
"The world was deceived there, and that's why we are clear on our position," the minister said at a meeting of the ruling Social Democratic Party on economic reforms."

"Iraqi mother hides sons from Saddam for 23 years" (Wafa Amr, Reuters/MSNBC, 2003/06/01)
"She endured repeated interrogation and constant surveillance by security men looking for the two boys. Her husband, pregnant daughter and another son had already been executed as suspected members of the Shi'ite Muslim Daawa Party.
''For 23 years I lived in fear and anxiety. My tears never dried until Saddam was toppled,'' Zahra, 67, told Reuters at her humble home in a crowded quarter of Baghdad.
Zahra hid her sons in a room inside the house, keeping the secret even from her closest relatives. She managed to convince the security forces they were in Iraqi jails. ...
The brothers finally emerged from hiding a week after Saddam's fall on April 9, when they were sure U.S. forces had really conquered Iraq.
''Freedom is so very important. I can't express the feelings that overwhelmed me when I finally went out on the streets. My old friends were shocked when they saw me,'' Ibrahim said.
Saad said his neighbourhood had changed so much he could not find his way home after going on a tour of Baghdad.
''I was so relieved. It was the first night in 23 years that I had a good night's sleep,'' Zahra said, wiping away tears."

"Children's letters in the Palestinian Authority" (Itamar Marcus, PMW/IMRA, 2003/06/01)
"The Palestinian Authority [PA] Education Ministry has announced the 10 first place winners from among one million letters submitted in a children's letter writing contest. What is evident from the PA selections is that the PA Education Ministry continues to promote hatred and violence as values for Palestinian youth.
The ten winning letters all deal with the conflict, and promote hatred and killing. Not one promotes peace with Israel. ...
2- "My soul, my love, why do they keep me from you?" ...
"I hurried to look for you, my father, in the corners of the houses but I did not find you. I look at your empty bed, and see you as if in Hell. I am the one who saw the death of his brother at the moment that he became a shahid. My heart has turned into a sad block of pain. One day I will buy a weapon and I will blow away the fetters. I will propel my living-dead body into your arms, my father, and you will gather me into your hands. My soul, my love, why do they keep me from you?"
[Mahmoud Naji Chalilah, Jaba Boys Elementary [School] Jenin-Seventh Grade]"

"Arafat tells kids to die on Int'l Children's Day" (Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 2003/06/01)
"Israel Television Channel Two News correspondent Ehud Yaari showed a tape this evening of the meeting Yasser Arafat held in Ramallah with children to mark International Children's Day.
Arafat devoted his remarks to encouraging the children to be "shahid" (die for the cause), noting that one shahid who dies for the sake of Jerusalem has the power equal to 40 of the enemy dying.
Yaari noted that Arafat said nothing in his remarks about peace or reconciliation."

"Come on over the water's lovely" (Mark Steyn, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/06/01)
Steyn reports from Iraq: "In the western towns, which were relatively unscathed by the war, it's the almost surgical removal of the regime that you're struck by. Every Main Street roundabout has its empty plinths where the Saddam portraits stood. There are generally a couple of large blocks plus a compound and maybe a fancy house with elaborate decorative stonework with their doors and gates hanging off the hinges and the odd goat or donkey defecating over the interior: these are the Ba'athist buildings, and they're the sole target of highly focused looting. Everything else is untouched - the poky grocery stores piled high with boxes of soda you could boil a lobster in, the ramshackle auto shops with their mounds of second-hand tyres, all these are open for business, and in the end they're more relevant to the future of Iraq than the legions of unemployed Saddamite bureaucrats in Baghdad or the NGO armies in their brand new, gleaming white Chevy Suburbans and Land Rovers cruising the streets touting for business like drug pushers in search of junkies."

"So what if Saddam's deadly arsenal is never found?" (Con Coughlin, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/06/01)
"According to Human Rights Watch, the bodies of some 300,000 Iraqis could be occupying these mass graves, the victims of the numerous bloody campaigns of persecution and retribution that Saddam Hussein conducted against his own people, whether Shi'ites or Kurds.
If this were Kosovo, the Government would be under fire for not having acted sooner to prevent the genocide. But this is Iraq, and the anti-war lobby appears to be far more interested in picking holes in the Government's justification for declaring war rather than conducting a sober assessment of the appalling acts of inhumanity that were conducted in Saddam's name over more than 30 years.
Forget the mass graves, what about the weapons of mass destruction? Having just returned from three weeks in post-liberation Iraq, I find it almost perverse that anyone should question the wisdom of removing Saddam from power."

"A Grim Graveyard Window on Hussein's Iraq" (Susan Sachs, The New York Times, 2003/06/01)
"He was a good soldier, so when he heard the first crack of the executioners' guns, Fadel al-Shaati said he instinctively dropped to the ground and pressed himself against a wall of the freshly dug trench.
He could not get it straight in his mind. The men firing at him were comrades in arms, men of his own Iraqi Army. But they had inexplicably dragged him from his bed in his nightclothes, as they had so many others, and forced him, blindfolded and bound, into this pit in the darkness of night.
Now, 12 years later, Mr. Shaati cannot remember if the women and children beside him screamed as the bullets hit, or whether the men in the hole moaned as they died. He only recalls a moment of hollow silence when the soldiers stopped shooting.
Then came the throaty rumble of a backhoe and the thud of wet earth dropping on bodies. He survived but saw hundreds of other innocents buried in another of Saddam Hussein's anonymous mass graves. ...
"The truly frightening part is that the number of suspected mass graves is so unfathomable," said Sandra L. Hodgkinson, a State Department official who has been documenting some of the sites for the American occupation forces in Iraq. 'They are everywhere. Literally every neighborhood and town is reporting possible grave sites, and from all different periods of time. I think we're going to find them everywhere.'"

"Truth and consequences" (Bruce B. Auster, Mark Mazzetti and Edward T. Pound, usnews.com, from the 2003/06/09 issue)
An interesting article on U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons program - "sometimes sketchy, occasionally politicized, and frequently the subject of passionate disputes inside the government": "For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should - and should not - say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein's misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bulls- - -." ...
In September 2002, U.S. News has learned, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a classified assessment of Iraq's chemical weapons. It concluded: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons..." At about the same time, Rumsfeld told Congress that Saddam's "regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas." ...
As for the al Qaeda tie, defense officials told U.S. News last week they had learned of a potentially significant link between Saddam's regime and Osama bin Laden's organization. A captured senior member of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, has told interrogators about meetings between Iraqi intelligence officials and top members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a group that merged with al Qaeda in the 1990s. The prisoner also described $300,000 in Iraqi transfers to the organization to pay for attacks in Egypt. The transfers were said to have been authorized by Saddam Hussein."

"Labour morality guru compares fox-hunting to rape" (Kamal Ahmed, The Observer, 2003/06/01)
Where Christian meets Socialist: "Hunting is morally equivalent to rape, child abuse and torture, according to one of Britain's leading Christian experts, who is closely connected to Labour's religious establishment.
The incendiary claim, which brought immediate condemnation from pro-hunting groups, has been made by Andrew Linzey, professor of theology at Oxford University and a recognised authority on morality and its effects on people's relations with animals.
In a report to be published by the Christian Socialist Movement (CSM) in the next fortnight, Linzey will argue that there is no moral defence for hunting as sport and that it should be completely banned. 'Causing suffering for sport is intrinsically evil,' he says. 'Hunting, therefore, belongs to that class of always morally impermissible acts along with rape, child abuse and torture.'"

"With Protesters on the Move, Geneva Shops Board Up" (Elaine Sciolino, The New York Times, 2003/06/01)
"The Rolex store on Rue du Rhône, Geneva's equivalent of Rodeo Drive, was not to be outdone by its neighbors.
It was not enough to board up the front door and the plate glass windows with knotty pine planks painted yellow and to disguise all identifying signs. Rolex also ringed its second story with garlands of barbed wire. ...
The neighborhood McDonald's compromised: it covered its windows with plywood but stayed open.
Protesters have used the plywood planks as canvases for their messages: "Eat the Rich" and, "Genevans, don't be afraid — we're all in the same boat."
A more ominous message had been posted on the planks hiding the Cartier shop: 'Long live Sept. 11.'"

Saturday, May 31, 2003

News and commentary:

"Remarks by the President to the People of Poland" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2003/05/31)
President George W. Bush's speech at Wawel Royal Castle, Krakow, Poland: "America and Europe are called to advance the cause of freedom and peace, and these two commitments are inseparable. It is human rights and private property, the rule of law and free trade and political openness that undermine the appeal of extremism and create the stable environment that peace requires. We are determined to demonstrate the power of these ideals in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq. And these ideals will provide the foundation for a reformed and peaceful and independent Palestinian state. ...
Within an hour's journey of this castle lies a monument to the darkest impulses of man. Today, I saw Auschwitz, the sites of the Holocaust and Polish martyrdom; a place where evil found its willing servants and its innocent victims. One boy imprisoned there was branded with the number A70713. Returning to Auschwitz a lifetime later, Elie Wiesel recalled his first night in the camp: I asked myself, God, is this the end of your people, the end of mankind, the end of the world?
With every murder, a world was ended. And the death camps still bear witness. They remind us that evil is real and must be called by name and must be opposed. All the good that has come to this continent - all the progress, the prosperity, the peace - came because beyond the barbed wire there were people willing to take up arms against evil. (Applause.)
And history asks more than memory, because hatred and aggression and murderous ambitions are still alive in the world. Having seen the works of evil firsthand on this continent, we must never lose the courage to oppose it everywhere. (Applause.)"

"Blair Says Iraq Weapons Secrets Will Be Publicized" (Mike Peacock, Reuters/The Washington Post, 2003/05/31)
"Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted on Sunday that Britain and the United States would unearth evidence of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and make it public before long.
In an interview with Britain's Sky Television at a Russia-European Union summit, Blair said he had already seen plenty of information that his critics had not, but would in due course.
"Over the coming weeks and months we will assemble this evidence and then we will give it to people," he said. 'I have no doubt whatever that the evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will be there.'"

"The Mullah's Manhattan Project" (Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/06/09 issue)
"Which brings us to the last option: a preemptive military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. It is obviously an unappealing choice. But it is the only option that offers a good chance of delaying Iran's production of nuclear weapons. ...
An American preemptive strike against the nuclear facilities might fail - the Iranians have been putting their facilities underground and hiding them as best they can. We think we know where they are, but we might be wrong. And a strike could produce enormous anger in Iran. But it could also unblock Iran's frozen political system. Once the nationalist outrage has died down, once Iranians focus again on their daily lives under the mullahs, the political debate will start to roar. Khamenei and Rafsanjani will have put Iran on a lethal collision course with America. There is not an Iranian alive, including Khamenei and Rafsanjani, who doesn't know that in such a contest, Iran loses. So we can give diplomacy a chance. But in the end, if we turn away from preemptive action, then the "axis of evil" doctrine is over. The Bush administration, if it is still in power, may not want to admit this, but the ruling clergy in Tehran will no doubt point it out once they have the bomb."

"What Wolfowitz Really Said" (William Kristol, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/06/09 issue)
"As this magazine goes to press, a controversy swirls about the head of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. He is alleged to have "revealed," in an interview with writer Sam Tanenhaus for the Manhattan celebrity/fashion glossy Vanity Fair, that the Bush administration's asserted casus belli for war against Saddam Hussein - the dictator's weapons-of-mass-destruction program - was little more than a propaganda device, a piece of self-conscious and insincere political manipulation. ...
In short, Wolfowitz made the perfectly sensible observation that more than just WMD was of concern, but that among several serious reasons for war, WMD was the issue about which there was widest domestic (and international) agreement. ...
The failure so far to discover "stocks" of WMD material in post-Saddam Iraq raises legitimate questions about the quality of U.S. and allied intelligence - though no one doubts that Saddam's regime had weapons of mass destruction, used weapons of mass destruction, and had an ongoing program to develop more such weapons. ... But distorting an on-the-record interview with a Bush administration official in order to create a quasi-conspiratorial narrative of deceit and deception at the highest levels of the U.S. government is a disgrace." (See also the transcript of the interview: "Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair" (DefenseLINK, 2003/05/09) and "WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits Wolfowitz" (David Usborne, Independent, 2003/05/30))

"Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims" (Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, 2003/05/31)
"The foreign secretary reportedly expressed concern that claims being made by Mr Blair and President Bush could not be proved. The problem, explained Mr Straw, was the lack of corroborative evidence to back up the claims.
Much of the intelligence were assumptions and assessments not supported by hard facts or other sources.
Mr Powell shared the concern about intelligence assessments, especially those being presented by the Pentagon's office of special plans set up by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz.
Mr Powell said he had all but "moved in" with US intelligence to prepare his briefings for the UN security council, according to the transcripts.
But he told Mr Straw he had come away from the meetings "apprehensive" about what he called, at best, circumstantial evidence highly tilted in favour of assessments drawn from them, rather than any actual raw intelligence.
Mr Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not 'explode in their faces.'" (UPDATE: This story is a hoax, as The Guardian admits. See also: "Corrections and clarifications" (The Guardian, 2003/06/05): "In our front page lead on May 31 headlined "Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims," we said that the foreign secretary Jack Straw and his US counterpart Colin Powell had met at the Waldorf Hotel in New York shortly before Mr Powell addressed the United Nations on February 5. Mr Straw has now made it clear that no such meeting took place. The Guardian accepts that and apologises for suggesting it did.")

"U.S. to field new arms team to search Iraq" (Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times, 2003/05/31)
"The Pentagon announced yesterday it is sending a new, expanded team of inspectors to Iraq to solve the puzzle of whether ousted strongman Saddam Hussein harbored huge stocks of banned weapons or U.S. intelligence was wrong in saying he did.
Army Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton will head the Iraq Survey Team of some 1,400 American, British and Australian specialists.
The bigger team will replace the 75th Exploitation Task Force, a unit of several hundred that has not found chemical or biological weapons in inspecting 200 suspected weapons sites on a list of 900."

Friday, May 30, 2003

News and commentary:

"Saddam's New Book: 'Begone, Accursed One!'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 509, 2003/05/30)
"The London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat recently reported that among the documents found in Iraq was a book written by Saddam Hussein titled 'Begone, Accursed One!' The volume was printed, but not distributed, due to the war. ... According to the newspaper report, "the story is written, in general, in a defective style, and in its preface the author (Saddam) intimates that sometimes the devil enters the body of a person and then the dervishes or the mental health professionals strike the ground on which the person in whom the devil resides is standing with a stick and say: 'Begone, accursed one!'"
'According to Saddam – whose literary works have been praised by Iraqi literary critics, authors, and poets in hundreds of articles enveloping his works with a halo of genius and greatness – the devil lives among the wooden columns in old houses. But in the modern era, the devil's presence has shifted to the media and the television screens. The devil against whom Saddam rails in his fourth story exists only in women who wear colored lenses in their eyes, in 'the engine of an airplane,' and in 'the foreign occupation.' What is strange in Saddam's story is that its title is in line with the author's fate. The Iraqis say in this matter that it appears that the story 'Begone, Accursed One!' is Saddam's prophecy regarding his exit and the exit of his regime from Iraq.'"

"The war's feeble opponents clutch at a last straw" (Daniel Finkelstein, The Times, 2003/05/30)
"Was it a quagmire? No. Did the Arab street rise? No. Did it plunge the Middle East into a crisis? No. Did the Iraqi people fight the occupiers to the death? No. Did they prefer Saddam Hussein to the Americans? No.
Every single thing that the anti-war protesters predicted would happen if we invaded Iraq did not happen. They were utterly wrong. Yet they still cling to one small sliver of hope. We have not yet found Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. ...
Let us however, for a moment, accept the protesters' case that there are no weapons to be found. Does this mean Saddam was not a threat? Of course not. Saddam had WMD know-how and his behaviour every time that world vigilance relaxed showed that he remained incredibly dangerous. ...
I believe every word that Mr Blair said about Saddam's weapons. I wouldn't like it if he were proved a liar, but in the end I would shrug. So he exaggerated his points and his opponents exaggerated theirs. But his so-called lies saved lives and their so-called truths left people to die.
Mr Blair may have to suffer the taunts of protesters. But at least he can sleep at night knowing that in the face of injustice he did his bit for freedom, that he reunited families and liberated victims of torture. His opponents can sleep knowing that all this was done, but not in their names."

"Washington's Betrayal" (Caroline B. Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/05/30)
"Critics of the president's newest actions against Israel have argued persuasively that this new hostility toward Israel and embrace of Palestinian terrorists is inimical to US national security interests and deals a harsh blow to the US war on terrorism. From Israel's perspective, however, the largest problem with this policy is the one with which we never imagined having to contend.
This problem is that when judged solely on its actions, the Bush administration has shown that while in the past it could be relied on for at least a modicum of support, today it no longer views such support as concordant with its interests. Therefore we can no longer blindly trust its intentions.
Whether the current, openly hostile US policy toward Israel is the result of the president's own preferences or of bad advice he has received from his advisers is impossible to know. But whatever the case, this crushing and heartbreaking reality cannot be swept under the rug. The threats arrayed against us are too foreboding.
We must accept the truth. As presently constituted, the Bush administration's Middle East policy is hostile to the national security interests of the State of Israel."

"No Phony 'Cease-Fires' With Terrorism" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/05/30)
"There was some hope for change when Mahmoud Abbas became Palestinian prime minister and spoke of ending the violence and accepting Israel. But as of now, Abbas has done nothing. ...
Abbas is talking very differently. His objective, he says, is to persuade the suicide bombing specialists - Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - to accept a temporary cease-fire. This would be a disaster for any prospect of peace. It means that the terrorists who have been hunted down by Israel ever since it finally decided to strike back after last year's Passover massacre would receive immediate sanctuary: time to rebuild, regroup, rearm and prepare for the next, more deadly orgy of violence.
If what Abbas means by peace is that the terrorists just lay low for a while, then it is not a peace of the brave but a peace of the knave. If that is what President Bush accepts as "peace," he not only will have betrayed Israel, he will have doomed American policy, because he will have ratified a prescription for continued and much more bloody violence."

"A View from the Left: We, the Traitors" (Adam Michnik, Gazeta Wyborcza/FrontPageMagazine, 2003/05/30)
Adam Michnik is a prominent Polish essayist, former dissident, and editor of Gazeta Wyborcza: "What, then, is our betrayal? Today we reject the notion of equality between a regime that belongs to the democratic world - even if it is conservative and disagreeable - and a totalitarian dictatorship, whether its colors are black, red, or green. This is why we will never again say that Chamberlain is no better than Hitler, Roosevelt no better than Stalin, and Nixon no better than Mao Zedong, even if we do condemn Roosevelt for Yalta, Chamberlain for Munich, and Nixon for Watergate. ...
Today, however, the primary threat is terrorism by Islamist fundamentalists. War has been declared against the democratic world. It is this world, whose sins and mistakes we know all too well, that we want to defend.
These are the reasons behind our absolute war on the terrorist, corrupt, intolerant regime of the despot from Baghdad. One cannot perceive totalitarian threats in George W. Bush's policies and at the same time defend Saddam Hussein. There are limits to absurdity, which should not be exceeded recklessly."

"Salam's story" (Rory McCarthy, The Guardian, 2003/05/30)
An interview with the "Baghdad Blogger": "Yet in the final weeks before the impending conflict, he became increasingly anxious that the men of the Mukhabarat, the feared Iraqi intelligence agency, were on to him. "They were not only paranoid, they were going crazy," he says. At one point the regime blocked access to the website on which he was posting his writing, blogspot.com. 'There was the possibility that they knew. I spent a couple of days thinking this is the end. And then you wait for a couple of days and nothing happens and you say, 'OK, let's do it again.' Stupid risks, one after another.'" (See also: "Re: Salam Pax" (Douglas, Watch, 2003/05/16) and "Salam Pax" (David Warren, Ottawa Citizen/DavidWarrenOnline, 2003/05/14))

"Blair Accused of Exaggerating Claims About Iraqi Weapons" (Glenn Frankel, The Washington Post, 2003/05/30)
"On a day when he basked in triumph on his first visit to postwar Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a round of criticism back home over allegations that his office hyped intelligence claims that then-President Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. ...
BBC radio fueled the debate today with a report that British intelligence officials were displeased with a dossier, published by the prime minister's Downing Street office last September, that asserted Hussein had weapons of mass destruction ready for use within 45 minutes. Citing unnamed sources, the BBC said intelligence agencies were skeptical about that claim, which they described as coming from a dubious informant, and said they had opposed inserting it into the dossier." (See also: "Iraq weapons dossier 'rewritten'" (BBC News, 2003/05/29))

Thursday, May 29, 2003

News and commentary:

"Lionized in Winter" (Matthew Cooper, TIME, 2003/05/29)
Hyperbole III. More hysterics, this time from "the third-longest-serving congressman in history", West Virginia's Sen. Robert Byrd: "Just last week Byrd drew another Internet throng, declaring that Bush had lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and would get caught: "This house of cards, built of deceit, will fall." The attention has made Byrd a prime target of the right. The conservative site NewsMax.com includes Byrd in its Deck of Weasels playing cards, along with Susan Sarandon. Rush Limbaugh labels the Senator's talks "Byrd droppings." ...
For Byrd, history not only teaches the importance of rules and precedent but also offers warnings for the present. Deviation from democratic process can, he says, cloak an attempt "to dominate all branches of government." For that reason, Byrd says, "this Republic is at its greatest danger in its history because of this Administration." He cites as an example the Bush Administration's efforts to seek greater discretionary defense spending free of congressional scrutiny." (Note: Found via Best of the Web Today. See also: "The Deck of Weasels" (NewsMaxStore.com))

"Reno spurs Boca's Democratic Club" (Pilar Ulibarri, PalmBeachPost.com, 2003/05/29)
Hyperbole II. Found via Drudge Report, who points out that former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno "Appears To Compare GOP Agenda/Nazi Atrocities...": "One part of Reno's speech, which touched upon issues such as classroom sizes, health care and the criminal justice system, seemed to speak directly to Goldfarb. Reno spoke about visiting the Dachau concentration camp in Germany as a child and learning what had happened.
"I went back and asked my adult German friends, 'How could you let that happen?' " Reno said. "They said, 'We just stood by.'"
She looked right into the the audience and told them that's why she was there. She had no intention of just standing by.
"And don't you just stand by," Reno said."

"Egyptian Columnist Compares U.S. with Nazi Germany" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 508, 2003/05/29)
Hyperbole I. Excerpts from a demented column by Samir Amin, which reads just like the avarage post on Indymedia: "Today, the United States is governed by a junta of war criminals who took power through a kind of coup. That coup may have been preceded by (dubious) elections: but we should never forget that Hitler was also an elected politician. In this analogy, 9/11 fulfills the function of the 'burning of the Reichstag,' allowing the junta to grant its police force powers similar to those of the Gestapo. They have their own Mein Kampf - the National Security Strategy - their own mass associations - the patriot organizations - and their own preachers. It is vital that we have the courage to tell these truths, and stop masking them behind phrases such as 'our American friends' that have by now become quite meaningless. ...
Had they reacted in 1935 or 1937, the Europeans would have been able to halt the Nazi madness before it did so much harm. By delaying until 1939, they contributed to its tens of millions of victims. It is our responsibility to act now, so that Washington's neo-Nazi challenge may be contained and eliminated." (See also: "The American ideology" (Samir Amin, Al-Ahram Weekly, from the 15 -21 May 2003 issue))

"Television creates terrorists" (Patrick Sookhdeo, The Spectator, from the 2003/05/31 issue)
Sookhdeo on the "enemy images" on Asian satellite TV: "The principal enemy, as presented by Pakistan television, is India, with virtually every news bulletin focusing on the Kashmir issue. The enemy image is communicated by means of crude stereotypes that are almost caricatures — the cowardly, devious Indians versus the courageous, upright Pakistanis. ...
There is little or no attempt to analyse causes or to be guided by reason rather than by emotion. The enemy has no personality or identity, but is completely dehumanised so as to be crushed like an ant under foot without compunction.
During the Iraq war, Al-Jazeera used the same method. Coalition troops were portrayed as inhuman enemy invaders, the camera lingering with apparent delight on coalition dead and gloating over prisoners of war. Long, drawn-out shots of wounded Iraqi children underlined the message that 'the enemy has done this' and is to be treated mercilessly in return. ...
It is but a small step from this kind of material to the training of terrorists and suicide bombers, a large part of which is concerned with increasing their hatred and rage towards the enemy."

"Playing Offense" (David E. Kaplan, usnews.com, from the 2003/06/02 issue)
An interesting summary of the war on terror, found via Winds of Change.NET: "And the brass knuckles came on. America's frontline agents in the war on terror have hacked into foreign banks, used secret prisons overseas, and spent over $20 million bankrolling friendly Muslim intelligence services. They have assassinated al Qaeda leaders, spirited prisoners to nations with brutal human-rights records, and amassed files equal to a thousand encyclopedias. ...
Al Qaeda's wounds run deep. Over half of its key operational leaders are out of action, officials tell U.S. News. Its top leaders are increasingly isolated and on the run. Al Qaeda's Afghan sanctuary is largely gone. Its military commander is dead. Its chief of operations sits in prison, as do some 3,000 associates around the world. In the field, every attempt at communication now puts operatives at risk. The organization's once bountiful finances, meanwhile, have become precarious. One recent intercept revealed a terrorist pleading for $80, sources say."

"Universal Democracy?" (Larry Diamond, Policy Review, from the June 2003 issue)
"Clearly, most states can become democratic because most states already are. ... If democracy can emerge and persist (now so far for a decade) in an extremely poor, landlocked, overwhelmingly Muslim country like Mali - in which the majority of adults are illiterate and live in absolute poverty and the life expectancy is 44 years - then there is no reason in principle why democracy cannot develop in most other very poor countries. ...
The fully global triumph of democracy is far from inevitable, yet it has never been more attainable. If we manage to sustain the process of global economic integration and growth while making freedom at least an important priority in our diplomacy, aid, and other international engagements, democracy will continue to expand in the world. History has proven that it is the best form of government. Gradually, more countries will become democratic while fewer revert to dictatorship. If we retain our power, reshape our strategy, and sustain our commitment, eventually - not in the next decade, but certainly by mid-century - every country in the world can be democratic."

"Putting Liberty First: The Case Against Democracy" (John B. Judis, Foreign Affairs, from the May/June 2003 issue)
A review of Fareed Zakaria's "The Future of Freedom": "Zakaria argues that the best way to turn developing countries into liberal democracies is by fostering constitutional liberty rather than democracy. If electoral democracy is established in a society before it has achieved constitutional liberty, it is likely to either end up as an "illiberal democracy" (like Russia) or degenerate into fascism or populist authoritarianism (as Germany and Italy did between the world wars). He speculates that if elections were held now in many Middle Eastern or North African countries, they would be won by fundamentalist parties that would proceed to destroy whatever modicum of liberty exists and probably eliminate future elections as well. ...
Zakaria does not comment specifically on the prospects of democracy in a post-Saddam Iraq, but the implications of his analysis are clear. If the United States invades and tries to move Iraq toward democracy, it will face two major obstacles: group rivalries and oil. What Zakaria writes of the Balkans could easily apply to a future Iraq: "The introduction of democracy in divided societies has actually fomented nationalism, ethnic conflict, and even war." And Iraq's oil reserves, the second largest in the world, could encourage another oil autocracy like Saudi Arabia if the revenues are not distributed on the model of Chad."

"America's greatest enemy keeps no secrets" (Faye Bowers, The Christian Science Monitor, 2003/05/29)
A review of "Through Our Enemies' Eyes" by Anonymous, "a man who's worked for 20 years in the US intelligence community":
"It's a primer on Osama bin Laden - the experiences and primary religious beliefs that resulted in his jihad against the West.
The author considers everything bin Laden has said and done — including not only interviews and speeches available in the American press, but also those in the Pakistani and Arab press. The evidence is convincing: Bin Laden has telegraphed his every intention. We just have to pay better attention. As tragic as the 9/11 attacks were, "Anonymous" believes US leaders should have anticipated them. In fact, his book was completed by June 2001 and was going through government review prior to publication when the hijackers struck.
"The United States has never had an enemy who has more clearly, calmly, and articulately expressed his hate for America and his intention to destroy our country by war or die trying," the author writes. 'For five years in media interviews, public statements, and letters to the press, bin Laden told us that he meant to defeat the United States and that he would attack — and urge others to attack — US military and civilian targets both in the United States and abroad.'"

"Did we make it better?" (Jon Henley, The Guardian, 2003/05/29)
Henley reports from Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan on whether military intervention made it better: "'You have no idea,' shivered the radical political columnist from Koha Ditore, or maybe it was Bota Sot, "how popular you people are here. You led the Nato force in 1999 and the Paras and the Greenjackets patrolled Pristina. We love you in Kosovo, Mr British. There was even a couple who named their son after your prime minister."
Several more people in Pristina told me about young Tonibler (try reading it out loud) Podrimja. Sadly I never managed to meet him, but he stayed in my mind throughout this neophyte's tour of recently war-torn parts.What unimagined depths of emotion, you wonder, prompted his parents to name their son thus?
On the face of it Mr and Mrs Podrimja's eloquent expression of gratitude for Britain's part in ending Slobodan Milosevic's vile ethnic-cleansing campaign looks like precisely the vindication that the other Tony Blair might crave." (See also: "Kosovo 1999" (Jon Henley, The Guardian, 2003/05/29)," "Sierra Leone 2000" (Jon Henley, The Guardian, 2003/05/29) and "Afghanistan 2001" (Jon Henley, The Guardian, 2003/05/29): "An awful lot of Afghan refugees have come home, for one: nearly two million people so far, and now the weather is warmer, the influx has picked up again, at a rate of 7,000-8,000 a week. ... Countless NGOs and innumerable international agencies have accomplished tremendous feats. In his office back in town, Unicef's Edward Carwardine runs through that organisation's workload over the past year or so: more than 3 million children have been enticed back to school, 30% of them girls; 6,000 school tents have been distributed and 5,600 safe water points installed in schools... But dear God, everywhere you look, what is left to be done.")

"Life floods back in the wetlands" (Charles Clover, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/29)
"The Mesopotamian marshlands are returning to life as local people tear down earthworks and open flood gates allowing spring waters to surge on to land drained by Saddam Hussein.
Satellite pictures published yesterday by the United Nations Environment Programme on its website - www.grid.unep.ch - show that considerably more water has reached the wetlands this May than last and places that have been dry for five years are under water. ...
Canals and dams installed by Saddam dried up 90 per cent of the marshlands that formerly provided 70 per cent of Iraq's dairy industry, together with reeds for building and paper-making and a nursery for commercial fish stocks.
Hassan Partow, an Iraqi working for the UNEP in Geneva, said: 'This year the normal spring floods are a contributary factor but they are not the main reason we are seeing these changes. ... Those communities that were starved of water as a political tool are reclaiming their water rights by breaching banks.'" (See also: "Water Returns to the Desiccated Mesopotamian Marshlands" (UNEP, 2003/05/28))

"Al-Qaida 'sheltered in shah's lodge'" (Julian Borger, The Guardian, 2003/05/29)
"The tough line on Iran contemplated by the Bush administration is partly driven by intelligence reports that al-Qaida leaders are being sheltered by the Iranian revolutionary guards at one of the former shah's hunting lodges, it emerged yesterday.
The terrorist leaders suspected of taking refuge in Iran include Saif al-Adel, an Eygptian believed to have risen to number three in the organisation, and Abu Mohammed al-Masri, a suspected organiser of the 1998 embassy bombings in east Africa. They may also include Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden's sons. ...
According to a report in Newsday yesterday, the Pentagon now believes that the Iranian project to build a nuclear weapon has "passed the point of no return", and that Tehran no longer needs foreign assistance to build a bomb."

Note: Sorry for the downtime. Joe Katzman at Winds of Change.NET explains "why we vanished": "There was a fire this morning at NAC which cut power and took them down completely, along with all sites dependent on them including the new servers at Hosting Matters (us, InstaPundit, Vodkapundit, Rachel Lucas, et. al.). We're all back online now."

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

News and commentary:

"Human-Rights Inversion" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/05/28)
"Ho hum, Amnesty International is at it again. "Washington's 'war on terror' has made the world more dangerous by curbing human rights, undermining international law and shielding governments from scrutiny, Amnesty International said on Wednesday," Reuters reports. (Blame the "news" service, not the "human rights" group, for those scare quotes.)
Seems to us the world was pretty damn dangerous before Washington's war on terror. Indeed, we can think of about 3,000 people who we're sure would agree - if they hadn't been murdered by Islamic fanatics. Perhaps there is merit to some of Amnesty's complaints about the conduct of the war on terror, but they are small beer compared with the human-rights violations of America's enemies and other dictatorships. By emphasizing the former at the expense of the latter, Amnesty inverts idea of human rights and discredits itself." (See also: "'War on terror' makes world more dangerous - Amnesty" (Gideon Long, Reuters, 2003/05/28) and "Amnesty International Report 2003" (Amnesty International, 2003/05/28))

"What actually happened to Pfc. Jessica Lynch?" (Brendan Nyhan and Bryan Keefer, Spinsanity, 2003/05/28)
A useful and balanced summary of media reports on the rescue of Jessica Lynch: "Former Rep. Cynthia McKinney went even further. According to an online transcript, she made wild, unsupported allegations about Lynch's rescue during a recent speech at the graduation ceremony of the UC-Berkeley African Studies Department. McKinney claimed the operation was "staged by the US military" and that "the Pentagon ignored efforts by Iraqi doctors to return Private Lynch in an Iraqi ambulance." Instead, the military "fired on the ambulance so they could then stage a rescue and stage a firefight at the hospital and remove Private Lynch." But in reality there is no indication of coordination with the Defense Department in the alleged shooting at the ambulance, nor is there evidence of a staged rescue or firefight." (See also: "Toward a Just and Peaceful World" (Cynthia McKinney, counterpunch, 2003/05/17), "Saving Private Lynch: Take 2" (Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times, 2003/05/19) and "This BBC report says that the rescue of Jessica Lynch was faked..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2003/05/18))

"'Thousands of slaves in Sudan'" (BBC News, 2003/05/28)
"More than 11,000 people have been abducted in 20 years of slave-raiding in Sudan, a new report says.
Some 10,000 of these are still missing and many are being held as slaves, one of the report's authors told BBC News Online.
The East Africa and United Kingdom-based Rift Valley Institute released its report on the basis of thousands of interviews in the Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal province, which it says is worst affected. John Ryle told BBC News Online that many of them were being held by northern, Arab militias.
His co-director, Dr Jok Madut, told the BBC's Network Africa that he was surprised to find that the majority of the abductees were young men. "60% of them are young men who were abducted from cattle camps where they were herding livestock," he said. ...
In the worst affected village, Ajok in Aweil West County, 101 adults and children were abducted in a single week, the report says."

"Geldof back in Ethiopia" (Rory Carroll, The Guardian, 2003/05/28)
The astonishing thing about this is not so much the praise in itself, but that it has to be expressed in such a guarded way to such an astonished audience: "Bob Geldof astonished the aid community yesterday by using a return visit to Ethiopia to praise the Bush administration as one of Africa's best friends in its fight against hunger and Aids.
The musician-turned activist said Washington was providing major assistance, in contrast to the European Union's "pathetic and appalling" response to the continent's humanitarian crises.
"You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy," Geldof told the Guardian.
The neo-conservatives and religious rightwingers who surrounded President George Bush were proving unexpectedly receptive to appeals for help, he said. "You can get the weirdest politicians on your side."
Former president Bill Clinton had not helped Africa much, despite his high-profile visits and apparent empathy with the downtrodden, the organiser of Live Aid, claimed. 'Clinton was a good guy, but he did fuck all.'"

"De Villepin should brush up his politics, not fiddle with poetry" (Philip Delves Broughton, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/28)
"The unfortunate consequence of the value placed on the intellectual in France is that activities such as politics are belittled. And with that belittling come cross-Channel and transatlantic misunderstandings.
The French still cannot understand why America is so angry about France's opposition to the war in Iraq. They are exasperated by the Bush Administration's dreary seriousness, its pious suspicions that France and Saddam were quietly in cahoots. Politics, they feel, is just politics.
Cynicism about politics may be widespread in Britain and America, but in France it is terminal. Politics is trivial, ephemeral. Poetry is Prometheus's stolen gift to man. As a result, the gap between rhetoric and reality here is ocean-wide.
Chirac and de Villepin harp on about their multi-polar world because they know that, beyond sounding good, it is a hopeless vision."

"Fundamentalists bring 'Taleban rule' to Pakistan" (Zahid Hussain, The Times, 2003/05/28)
"Religious police in part of Pakistan have been granted authority to enforce harsh Islamic laws that have been modelled on those imposed by the Taleban in Afghanistan.
Since a United States-led coalition toppled the Taleban regime, thousands of Islamic fundamentalists have crossed the Afghan border to find refuge in North West Frontier Province in Pakistan. The area, which is under the control of the Islamic alliance, has now begun to look more like Afghanistan under the Taleban than a part of Pakistan.
The package of Islamic laws that has been presented to the local assembly by the Islamic alliance will bring the province's education, judicial and financial system in line with Sharia (Islamic law), based upon the teachings of the Koran. The laws ban what assembly leaders describe as 'obscenity and vulgarity.'"

"Al-Jazeera director general 'sacked'" (AFP/The Times, 2003/05/28)
"The director general of Al-Jazeera has been sacked, Qatari sources said, amid allegations that he worked with Saddam Hussein's intelligence services.
Mohammed Jassem al-Ali had held the top job at the controversial Doha-based Arab satellite television station since it launched in 1996.
Al-Jazeera and Mr Ali have been accused by western media of collaborating with the former regime in Baghdad, which the ex-director general visited before the US-led war, interviewing the president for an hour."

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

News and commentary:

"Attack in Iraq Leaves Two American Soldiers Dead" (Nadim Ladki, Reuters, 2003/05/27)
"Gunmen killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded nine Tuesday in an Iraqi city where Saddam Hussein still commands loyalty. It was the bloodiest single attack on American forces since they toppled the Iraqi leader. ...
The casualties from the attack with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms in Falluja were the heaviest suffered by U.S. forces in a single incident since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1.
It brought to four the number of fatalities in 24 hours from "hostile actions."
The Centcom statement said the gunmen appeared to have fired from a mosque in the city, 32 miles west of Baghdad. U.S. troops fired back, killing two attackers and capturing six.
Residents said no mosque was close enough to the scene of Tuesday's clash to have been used by the assailants."

"Trial begins over veil in license photo" (UPI, 2003/05/27)
Common sense on trial: "A trial began Tuesday for a Muslim woman who sued the state of Florida because she was denied a drivers license because she wouldn't uncover her face for the photograph.
Sultaana Freeman, 35, is asking the court to give her a license on the religious grounds that she has a right to wear a veil. The veil covers her entire face except for her eyes. ...
Marks opposed plans to introduce Freeman's criminal history. She was arrested on aggravated battery charges in Decatur, Ill., five years ago. She pleaded guilty and completed an 18-months on probation two years ago."

"The Moment of Truth?" (Michael Ledeen, National Review, 2003/05/27)
"If we have finally come to the moment of truth in the debate over Iran policy, the mullahs' worst nightmare may come true. For if the United States chooses to give real support to the regime's opponents, there could well be a replay of the mass demonstrations that led to the fall of Milosevic in Yugoslavia and the Marcoses in the Philippines. If the Bush administration instead falls back on merely repeating the president's many words of condemnation of the regime and praise for the opposition, the mullahs may survive to kill us yet another day.
It is impossible to win in Iraq or to block the spread of weapons of mass destruction throughout the terror network without bringing down the mullahs. Iran is not only a participant on the other side; it is the heart of the jihadist structure. If we are really serious about winning the war against terrorism, we must defeat Iran. Thus far, we haven't been serious enough."

"Will they stay?" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2003/05/27)
Taheri points to U.S. involvement in what he calls an "arc of crisis" - virtually every country from Morocco to India - and questions the popular skepticism regarding American long-term commitment: "A U.S. presence in much of this "arc of crisis" is nothing new, but the scale on which Washington has become involved is unprecedented. The end of the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet empire and the collapse of the region's predominant ideologies (including pan-Arabism and Khomeinism) created a political, security and cultural gap that America has partly filled, at times inadvertently. ...
Iran's former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has advised anti-American regimes and elements in the region to lie low and wait a little in the belief that the United States will not have the stamina for years, if not decades, of involvement in what is the most dangerous and complex chunk of the globe today. ...
Americans know how to be tenacious when needed. They fought the Cold War on political, diplomatic, cultural and military fronts for half a century. More recently, they kept Saddam Hussein in his quarantine for 12 long years.
Zamariani's fear that the Americans may leave prematurely is unfounded. America has been in the Philippines for almost seven decades, in Germany, South Korea and Japan for nearly half a century. In some cases, the Americans might stay longer that they need to, but so far they have seldom left without changing the context that led to their involvement."

"Message to the left: there is no all-powerful Jewish lobby" (David Aaronovitch, The Guardian, 2003/05/27)
"This month J Hall suggested to me that the infamous Galloway documents could have been the work of "the Jewish lobby". A Medialens regular, David Bracewell, posts this week to criticise "Israeli fascism" and adds, "if ever there was an inflammatory, racist, insidiously exclusive term, 'anti-Semitism' is it. It baffles me why the supposed victims of racism would want a term all for themselves." Supposed? And not one of the assembled lefties took him up on it. ...
Too many leftwingers and liberals are crossing the magic line right now. Let me spell it out for you. There is no all-powerful Jewish lobby. There is no secret convocation. Most journalists with Jewish names do not write the things they do because of loyalty to their race or religion. Nor can you simply change the word "Jewish" to "Zionist" and somehow be exempt from the charge of low-level racism. And it's no good wiffling on about your Jewish friends or trying to slip your prejudices past the guards by boldly proclaiming your refusal to be intimidated. There are no Elders and there are no Protocols."

Added in archive:
"The horrors of Saddam's 'sadist' son" (Tom Farrey, ESPN.com, 2002/12/22)

Monday, May 26, 2003

News and commentary:

"Intercepts Show Senior Al Qaeda in Iran Played Role in Saudi Bombings" (Rita Cosby, Fox News, 2003/05/26)
"The United States has intercepts that show senior Al Qaeda operatives in Iran probably played a big role in the recent bombings in Saudi Arabia, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News.
The official said the U.S. had intercepts for months prior to the bombings, which showed that senior Al Qaeda operatives in Iran were communicating with Al Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia about an upcoming attack, with cryptic language suggesting the attack was going to happen in Saudi Arabia.
The operatives had been in Iran for at least months, and came there after they fled Afghanistan during the U.S. military's attack aimed at toppling the Taliban government."

"Israel's Sharon Defends Road Map Support" (Ravi Nessman, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/05/26)
"Ariel Sharon told his stunned country Monday he was determined to reach a peace deal and end 36 years of rule over the Palestinians — the strongest sign yet that the prime minister's endorsement of a Mideast peace plan may have been more than a ploy to deflect international pressure.
The speech marked the first time the veteran hawk, who had long argued that a Palestinian state would pose a mortal danger to Israel, publicly used the word "occupation" to refer to Israel's presence in West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The word is anathema to the Israeli right, which believes Israel has a legitimate claim to the West Bank and Gaza for religious and security reasons.
"To keep 3.5 million people under occupation is bad for us and them," Sharon told angry conservatives in his Likud Party in remarks broadcast on Israel Radio."

"Russia's darkness is rising" (Martin Sieff, UPI/National Post, 2003/05/26)
Sieff on "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State", David Satter's "vivid, impeccably researched and truly frightening new book": "...both the expert on Russia and the casual reader wishing to be informed can be left with only one conclusion: One of the two major thermonuclear superpowers in the world, and the only one left with Multiple-Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles on its nuclear missiles remains unstable, unpredictable and is dangerously close to becoming a ruthless, predatory and unpredictable criminal state. ...
Satter plays Dante, taking his readers on a comprehensive tour of this thermonuclear-armed Inferno. Reading his relentlessly grim, implacably documented accounts is to be reminded of D.H. Lawrence's prescient vision on observing the crazed gaiety and brilliance of Weimar Germany in the 1920s. Beneath the surface dazzle, the great British writer noted, a huge chasm had opened up - moral and spiritual even more than economic and social. Superficial politics alone could not bridge it. From that gaping abyss emerged: Adolf Hitler.
There is still time for Russia to stabilize and for those who wish her well to support the constructive forces for good within her. But most of the promise has been squandered, and the Hobbesian nightmare of a society of chaos, red in tooth and claw, remains the dominant reality today."

"The bottom line is, almost anything is a crime against humanity in today's Army" (Mick Hume, The Times, 2003/05/26)
Hume on the Colonel Collins case:"If our leaders have so debased the language of atrocity that televising interviews with PoWs constitutes a war crime, they should not be surprised when others claim that pistol whipping and kicking an Iraqi detainee (an allegation Collins strenuously denies) is also a crime against humanity. It might seem ridiculous to investigate Collins for shooting a carpet — another allegation — but it is the Western authorities who have shot themselves in the foot.
In the past "war crime" was generally understood to mean the horrors of the Holocaust. More recently, however, American and British authorities have expanded the definition of war crimes, to help legitimise interventions from Kosovo to East Timor. What were once considered acts of war can now be deemed crimes against humanity. ...
Even those of us who did not support the war in Iraq should be concerned about the can of worms opened by the Collins case. It reveals a society uncertain of what it stands for, and uncomfortable with fighting all-out for anything much. Ours is a society where soldiers will sue the Government for sending them into a war zone, while the Government will investigate soldiers accused of being unpleasant to the enemy." (See also: "The colonel's mistake was to be decisive, humane and charismatic" (Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/05/25) and "Col. Tim probed on war crimes" (John Kay, The Sun, 2003/05/21))

Added in archive:
"The Suicide Bombers" (Avishai Margalit, The New York Review of Books, from the 2003/01/16 issue)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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

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

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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

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

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

Weekly archive

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

› From 2001/09/11 -



Monthly index

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

› From September 2001 -



Author index

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



Support Watch

Please feel free to donate if you enjoy the daily content and links Watch provides:

Contact Watch

Email:
watch-at-windsofchange.net