Archived news and commentary: July 21 - 27, 2003

2003/09/29 - 2003/10/05
2003/09/22 - 2003/09/28
2003/09/15 - 2003/09/21
2003/09/08 - 2003/09/14
2003/09/01 - 2003/09/07
2003/08/25 - 2003/08/31
2003/08/18 - 2003/08/24
2003/08/11 - 2003/08/17
2003/08/04 - 2003/08/10
2003/07/28 - 2003/08/03
2003/07/21 - 2003/07/27
2003/07/14 - 2003/07/20
2003/07/07 - 2003/07/13
2003/06/30 - 2003/07/06

Sunday, July 27, 2003

News and commentary:

"Saddam Hussein - US $25 milion - WANTED"
(Reuters/CPA, 2003/07/27)
"Iraq's U.S. led administration, the Coalition Provisional Authority, launched a new reward poster for Saddam Hussein this week following the deaths of his sons Uday and Qusay. Saddam himself remains on the run with a $25 million price on his head. U.S. commanders say the net is closing on him as the payment of a $30 million bounty to the informant who betrayed his sons brings in more tip-offs. Troops have been searching across Iraq, notably around his home town of Tikrit."

"Two aces net $30 million reward" (Olga Craig, The Sunday Telegraph/The Washington Times, 2003/07/27)
"On April 4, while the coalition forces pounded Baghdad, Saddam called his sons to a secret meeting to promote them. He could give them no insignia, all he could do was make the pronouncement.
Two days later, Uday sent for Ala'a Makki, the former director of his television station. He asked Mr. Makki what the Iraqi people were thinking.
"He was depressed," says Mr. Makki. 'Since he was disabled in the gun attack on him in 1996 he had become increasingly erratic and inhumane. His final words to me were: 'This time I think the Americans are serious. Bush is not like Clinton. I think this is the end.''" (Note: Found via Best of the Web Today.)

"No Apologies" (Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times/andrewsullivan.com, 2003/07/27)
"There was something wonderfully strained about how various news organizations dealt last week with the news of the deaths of Qusay and Uday Hussein. From the BBC to Reuters, there was palpable - if sternly repressed - dismay. One of the first headlines that the Baathist Broadcasting Corporation put out on the news was: "US celebrates 'good' Iraq news." ... And immediately, of course, pundits started to criticize the U.S. action as "extra-judicial," as a violation of the law against assassination, and so on. Their immediate impulse on hearing this terrific news was: how can we spin this against Blair and Bush? ...
But no one - no one - can or should deny that the lives of average Iraqis are now immensely better than they were under a vicious totalitarian state. I don't know about you, but with every new mass grave being discovered, with every gruesome torture chamber unearthed, with every children's prison exposed, the more obvious it is to me that this war was not just morally defensible; it was morally essential. By and large, it seems, understandably skittish Iraqis agree. The most reliable poll done in Baghdad - more troubled than regions to the Shiite South or Kurdish North - found a steady majority of Iraqis want the allies to stay and view the future as more promising than the past. As to security, for all its problems, the current situation certainly compares favorably to, say, the chaos in liberated Germany after the Second World War where military casualties mounted as die-hard Nazis made their last stand. But somehow I don't remember the Western media describing those isolated Nazi remnants as an "uprising." But then, in those days, the Western media wasn't quietly hoping for the allies to fail."

"Tony Blair and America undersiege, blogging" (Clive Davis, The Washington Times, 2003/07/27)
"My summer holiday starts on Wednesday, and quite frankly, it can't come a moment too soon. Trying to make sense of the anti-war campaign, the controversy over the British Broadcasting Corporation and the latest attacks on Tony Blair has been so bewildering that I cannot decide whether I am a patient on a psychiatric ward or whether I am just visiting.
That particular cloud has been following me around for quite a while now. Just a few months after September 11, for instance, I had a polite dinner party conversation with a B.B.C. luminary who took the standard anti-American line on international affairs. What seemed to distress him more than anything, though, was the fact that the world and its neighbor had taken to strolling around in that time-honored emblem of U.S. power, blue jeans.
Now there are, of course, all sorts of aesthetic arguments for and against these jeans (I happen to like them, with or without cowboy boots), but if you are going to denounce them as a symbol of global capitalism, it is probably a good idea to make sure you are not wearing a pair at the time. The man from the Beeb had clearly forgotten to check below his waistband. And a very nice, expensive-looking pair of denims they were too.
But then, as he explained when I pointed out this slight, um, inconsistency, it was safe for him to wear them: He was much more concerned about the manipulation of "the masses" (yes, there are people who still use that hoary old Marxist term) than educated middle-class people like himself. At this point I realized there was no point pursuing the argument unless I was willing to get into a fight, and to be honest even at that early stage in the new world order I was tired of arguing. Logic makes little impression on the anti-U.S. camp. Either you sign up with their conventional wisdom or you are guilty of thought crime. There is no middle ground."

"Bush playing his cards right in Iraq" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2003/07/27)
"The BBC, CBC and most of the European media have constructed an alternative universe and are content to frolic on its wilder shores. Time stands still in this world: Even though the confidently predicted civilian death tolls and humanitarian catastrophes never arrive, nobody minds. There's no reason why reality should ever intrude. ...
At the BBC and Le Monde and the Sydney Morning Herald, anti-Americanism is the New Universal Theory: It explains everything; it's the prism through which every event is viewed. But it's an unlikely strategy for American electioneering. One anti-Bush Democrat at a protest the other day carried a sign reading ''FRANCE WAS RIGHT!'' That's not a winning slogan, even in Vermont. ...
Whether or not the Clinton tack would work, the Dean-Chomsky-BBC-French strategy never will. When the last Baghdad supporter of Odai and Qusai sounds like Howard Dean's running mate, you know you're off the map."

"Suicidal Liberalism" (David Bernstein, The Volokh Conspiracy, 2003/07/27)
"Professor Andrei Marmor of USC Law School, who also teaches in Israel, argues that under the principles of liberalism Israel has a moral obligation to commit suicide by permitting Palestinian refugees from Israel's 1948 War of Independence and perhaps their descendants to "return" to Israel. Beyond the incongruence of asking a nation to commit suicide in the name of "liberalism," Marmor mainly avoids casting any of the blame for the refugee problem on the refugees themselves, or on their leaders, instead holding Israel largely responsible." (See also: "Entitlement to Land and The Right of Return: An Embarrassing Challenge for Liberal Zionism" (Andrei Marmor, SSRN, 2003/07/22))

"The Mouths That Roared" (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 2003/07/27)
A devastating review of Ann Coulter's "Treason": "Still, it isn't hard to imagine using the same methods to write the same book from precisely the opposite point of view, and indeed someone has already done it: Michael Moore, in Stupid White Men. Moore's book calls for U.N. observers to monitor American elections, accuses pretty much everyone on the right of corruption and venality - and has been a major bestseller both here and in Britain. The real question, then, is not what makes so many people buy books by Ann Coulter, but what makes so many people lap up the Coulter-Bruce-Moore formula. Perhaps it's a longing for clarity, a reflection of the deep human need to find a straight path through the modern jungle of information. Perhaps it's laziness. We all have media overload nowadays - too many sides of the story are too easily available.
But while some people go mad trying to absorb everything, others seem to go mad trying to eliminate any information that doesn't fit their predetermined stereotypes. And the looniest of all - they wind up as bestselling authors."

"See How They Ran" (Evan Thomas and Rod Nordland, Newsweek, from the 2003/08/04 issue)
"In his famous short story "The Things They Carried," writer Tim O'Brien shows that you can learn a great deal about men by what they take into battle. ... And what did Uday Hussein carry to the fight? After a hot and noisy siege last week, American soldiers found, in the rubble near his body, his briefcase. The contents, Newsweek has learned, included painkillers, numerous bottles of cologne, Viagra, unopened packages of men's underwear, dress shirts, a silk tie and a single condom. Uday and his brother, Qusay, also had with them a huge stash of cash, as well as, for some reason, two ladies' purses.
Sounds like they were headed out for a kinky last night of disco, not a fight-to-the-death last stand. ...
Uday had always intimidated and bullied his lackeys. But during the war, he began to flail as his power was mocked by the American onslaught. Ahmed (a pseudonym), who managed security for Uday’s Olympic Committee, told of being summoned by Uday shortly after the Americans invaded in March. Uday was in a panic. He explained to his staff, some of whom he had just fired, that he "wanted a lot of security" and asked them to stay by him for the duration of the war. "You’re not fired anymore," he explained. "We need you now," he pleaded. Most of his men, disgusted, refused and wandered off."

"Were Sanctions Right?" (David Rieff, The New York Times, 2003/07/27)
"Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein used the pretext of the sanctions to wage a propaganda war - one that even many American officials would later concede he probably won. Not only did Hussein use the sanctions to rationalize to Iraqis every shortage they were enduring, but he also proved himself a kind of genius at exaggerating and exploiting the effects of sanctions that were already tragic enough when reported truthfully. To rally his population, and probably also in a bid to win support from Western sympathizers and the international media, Saddam Hussein orchestrated a kind of traffic in suffering - all meant for the television cameras.
One doctor I spoke to who spent several years in a hospital in the provincial city of Baquba, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, told me that the hospital staff had instructions, whenever a child died, to keep the corpse in the morgue rather than burying it immediately as mandated by Islamic custom. ''When a sufficient number of bodies accumulated,'' he explained, ''the authorities would stage a mass funeral, railing against the sanctions, even though as often as not there was no connection between a particular child's death and the sanctions.'' ...
I inquired whether there had been other manipulations of the system to make things seem worse than they had really been.
''Of course,'' he replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 'It happened all the time. For example, we would get a shipment from the Ministry of Health of vaccines provided by the World Health Organization. But then we would be instructed not to use them until they had reached or even exceeded their sell-by date. Then the television cameras would come, and we would be told to lie and tell the public how the U.N. made ordinary Iraqis suffer.'" (See also: "Blood of Innocents - Doctors say Hussein, not UN sanctions, caused children's deaths" (Matthew McAllester, Newsday.com, 2003/05/23))

"Roots of Distrust: Betrayal, Real or Feared" (Richard A. Oppel Jr., The New York Times, 2003/07/27)
"In the upscale neighborhood in Mosul where Uday and Qusay Hussein were slain on Tuesday, a shopkeeper, Ahmed Hazim, said he and his friends believed the firefight a few blocks away was not what it seemed. It was, they said, staged by the Americans so that Uday and Qusay could be covertly smuggled out of Iraq.
"In reality, it's like a passport for Uday and Qusay to leave the country," said Mr. Hazim, 37. "There is a general understanding that there is a secret agreement between the U.S. and Saddam's family." He cited not only the American withdrawal in 1991, but also the aid the United States provided Mr. Hussein's government during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980's.
Other Iraqis don't actually believe that Mr. Hussein will be returned to rule. But they have little faith — again, based on the quick exit that Americans made from Iraqi soil in 1991 — that the United States will have the long-range fortitude to prevent Hussein allies or members of his Baath Party from someday gaining power again and taking wide revenge on anyone who aided the Americans.
Given the depth of the United States' military commitment to Iraq, and its obvious importance to President Bush, Americans may be tempted to dismiss such sentiments as improbable paranoia. But consider the experience of a population that has had very little reliable information during the past 35 years, and has had far too much of rumor, conspiracy theories and propaganda. And, more to the point, terror.
In such an environment, even good information becomes difficult to believe. Who can say for sure that it, too, isn't some form of calculated lie?"

"Cabinet approves release of 100 Hamas, Jihad prisoners" (Herb Keinon, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/07/27)
"In a 14-9 vote, the cabinet approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's intention to release some 100 Hamas and Islamic Jihad prisoners as a gesture to bolster Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
These prisoners will be added to a list of some 400 other Palestinian prisoners whose release has already been approved, and who are expected to be freed from jail within the next few days.
According to government sources, Shin Bet head Avi Dichter will present the cabinet with a list of Hamas and Islamic Jihad men who he will argue do not present a security threat to Israel.
Those with "blood on their hands" are not to be released."

"Saddam's son fed his love rivals to the lions" (Hala Jaber, The Sunday Times, 2003/07/27)
"A chief executioner to one of Saddam's sons has revealed how he helped drag two victims into a cage to be devoured by lions.
The executioner said that he was ordered to seize two 19-year-old students and take them to a farm of Uday Hussein, Saddam's oldest son who was killed by American forces last week.
As soon as they arrived the students were dragged to a cage containing the lions and forced inside. "I saw the head of the first student literally come off his body with the first bite," he said. He then had to stand and watch the animals devour the two young men: "By the time they were finished there was little left but for the bones and bits and pieces of unwanted flesh."
He was told later that the two young men "had competed with Uday where some young ladies were concerned". ...
He was also involved in barbarous "pyramid" executions in which the victims were split down the middle. Using a special vice to hold the head, a swordsman split victims as they kneeled; another executioner carved the body into two, like a slaughterman in an abattoir."

Saturday, July 26, 2003

News and commentary:

"A Grenade Attack Kills 3 G.I.'s at a Hospital North of Baghdad" (Richard A. Oppell Jr., The New York Times, 2003/07/26)
"Three American soldiers with the Fourth Infantry Division were killed and four were wounded this morning, witnesses said, after an assailant inside the children's hospital the troops were guarding lofted a grenade into the middle of a group of soldiers playing a relaxed game of cards next to the hospital building.
The hospital was sealed off shortly after the 11 a.m. attack, and military officials, with a few exceptions, were still refusing to allow anyone to enter or leave the hospital at 8 p.m. Inside, employees and patients were being searched, interrogated and fingerprinted, said several people who were allowed the leave the hospital.
This evening, a military official at the scene said that the military was investigating the possibility that the grenade was thrown from the hospital building."

"BBC menaces Britain" (Conrad Black, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/07/26)
A letter to the editor by the owner of the newspaper, found via Andrew Sullivan: "Sir - Janet Daley and Eoghan Harris's exposés of the BBC and Boris Johnson's whitewash of it (Opinion, July 23, July 23 and July 24), highlight the greatest problem raised by the current controversy. The BBC is pathologically hostile to the Government and official opposition, most British institutions, American policy in almost every field, Israel, moderation in Ireland, all Western religions, and most manifestations of the free market economy.
It benefits from an iniquitous tax, abuses its position commercially, has shredded its formal obligation to separate comment from reporting in all political areas, to provide variety of comment, and is poisoning the well of public policy debate in the UK. It is a virulent culture of bias. Though its best programming in non-political areas is distinguished, sadly it has become the greatest menace facing the country it was founded to serve and inform." (See also: "Blair must stand firm in this war against the ideologues" (Eoghan Harris, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/07/23))

"BBC World News - now with all content guaranteed sexed down" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/07/26)
"Good evening. Reports that the former Italian leader Benito Mussolini is "dead" and "hanging" "upside down" at a petrol station were received with scepticism in Rome today. Our "reporter" - whoops, scrub the inverted commas round "reporter", the scare-quotes key on the typewriter's jammed again. Anyway our reporter Andrew "Gilligan" is "on" the scene "in" Milan. Andrew...
Andrew Gilligan: I'm leaning on a lamp post at the corner of the street in case a certain little duce swings by, and I don't see any dead dictators, John. But then the Allies have a history of making these premature announcements...
He's just above your head, Andrew. I know you don't like to do wide shots, but, if the camera pulls back, I think you'll find that's definitely a finger tickling the back of your ear...
AG: Well, there you are. He's not hanging from a petrol station, is he? He's hanging from a rope attached to a girder on the forecourt of a petrol station. We've become all too familiar with the Allies playing fast and loose with the facts.
Yes, indeed, Andrew. And contradictory reports that he was hanging from a lamp-post have led some observers to question the accuracy of the intelligence on which the "liberation" of Milan went ahead."

"The BBC Retreats" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2003/07/26)
"They don't want their reporter Andrew Gilligan's parliamentary testimony published. It could be too damning. Their official argument? Gilligan is "under stress" and it could affect his health. So a journalist backed by the biggest media entity in Europe who has accused the government of lying is too fragile to have his own public comments published. What a crock. A parliamentary committee member comments: "There appear to be compassionate grounds not to publish the evidence. We're in a situation here where if we publish the evidence and something happens to Mr Gilligan we'd be in a very difficult situation." In my opinion, the BBC is going down. But there are plenty of twists to come in this tale, I'm sure." (See also: "BBC chief intervenes on Gilligan health fears" (James Blitz et al., The New York Times, 2003/07/24))

"British Broadcasting Calamity" (Gerald Kaufman, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/07/26)
"Of the many casualties of the Iraq war, one of the most serious and significant may turn out to be the British Broadcasting Corp. Such an outcome would be ironic, since the cause of its injuries--maybe fatal--would be the antiwar stance it adopted. That position led it, among other follies, to run relentlessly a story alleging that a dossier issued by the British government to help justify the war was "sexed up" by the prime minister's principal press adviser, Alastair Campbell. ...
The BBC's Board of Governors, to which the corporation is in theory accountable, on July 6 gave its imprimatur to the story in a statement, ascribing it to "senior intelligence sources" and "good contacts in the security services." Yet Kelly, whatever his distinguished qualifications, was not, had never been, and had never claimed to be part of the security services.
So the very basis of the BBC's story was undermined by the admission that Kelly was the source; and that story, almost out of control, had affected the political climate of the country. The BBC suddenly was seen to have a lot to answer for, and its national image began to take a battering."

"Classified Section of Sept. 11 Report Faults Saudi Rulers" (David Johnston, The New York Times, 2003/07/26)
"Senior officials of Saudi Arabia have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable groups and other organizations that may have helped finance the September 2001 attacks, a still-classified section of a Congressional report on the hijackings says, according to people who have read it.
The 28-page section of the report was deleted from the nearly 900-page declassified version released on Thursday by a joint committee of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The chapter focuses on the role foreign governments played in the hijackings, but centers almost entirely on Saudi Arabia, the people who saw the section said." (See also the report: "Congressional Reports: Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001" (GPO Access, 2003/07/24) and "Exclusive - The 9-11 Report: Slamming the FBI" (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, from the 2003/07/28 issue))

"Iraqi Informants' Tips Grow After Brothers' Deaths" (Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 2003/07/26)
"In the three days since American soldiers killed Saddam Hussein's sons, informants have produced a stream of new tips, some of which have led to major raids in the last 24 hours alone, military officers in Iraq said today.
On Thursday night, American forces raided a house south of Mr. Hussein's hometown, Tikrit, capturing nearly a dozen people suspected of being his personal bodyguards and enhancing the allies' chances of finding the deposed dictator, officers said. In a second operation, soldiers seized more than 45,000 sticks of dynamite."

Friday, July 25, 2003

News and commentary:

"A combination photo shows the bodies..."
(Reuters/Stan Honda, 2003/07/25)
"A combination photo shows the bodies claimed to be of Saddam Hussein's sons, Qusay (L) and Uday, who U.S. forces announced were killed in a fierce gun battle on July 22 in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, as they lie in the US Air Force morgue at the Baghdad airport, July 25, 2003. U.S. forces in Iraq partly rebuilt the faces of two bodies shown to journalists on Friday in an effort to convince Iraqis that the battle-scarred corpses were those of Saddam Hussein's widely feared sons."

"Arabs Shocked by TV Images of Saddam's Sons" (Firouz Sedarat, Reuters, 2003/07/25)
Patrick Baudouin of "the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights" gets the award for the most moronic comment of the day. But it was a very close call: "Televised images of the bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons shocked many Arabs on Friday, who said it was un-Islamic to exhibit corpses, however much the brothers were loathed.
Arab and international networks showed the bodies identified as Uday and Qusay, laid out at the makeshift airport morgue, their faces partly rebuilt to repair wounds. ...
Another civil servant Hasan Hammoud, 35, said: "America always spoils its own image by doing something like this. What is the advantage of showing these bodies? Didn't they think about the humanitarian aspect? About their mother and the rest of their family when they see these images?" ...
But Egyptian analyst Diaa Rashwan said Washington had an uphill battle in winning credibility among Arabs.
"American credibility has been questioned for a long time in the Arab world, as well as other parts of the world. This is making a lot of Arabs doubt the authenticity of what the photos or the video show," Rashwan said." (See also: "Hussein Images Dismay Some Europeans" (Tony Czuczka, AP/The Washington Post, 2003/07/25): "Patrick Baudouin of the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights said releasing photos seemed done primarily to satisfy a need for vengeance among Iraqis victimized by Saddam's regime. "This is the kind of method Saddam Hussein used. He did this sort of thing to maintain fear," Baudouin said.")

"Abbas wins White House red carpet" (Gordon Corera, BBC News, 2003/07/25)
"The mere presence of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in the White House - and his warm welcome from President George Bush - is as significant a development as what was said publicly by the two men.
It marks the first time a Palestinian leader has been given the red carpet treatment during the Bush presidency. ...
"I think the wall is a problem and I've discussed this with [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon," Mr Bush stated when asked about Israel's controversial security fence.
He also reaffirmed the US call to end settlement activity, perhaps the biggest demand which Abu Mazen has at the moment.
"I've constantly spoken out about the end of settlements. I have done so consistently," he declared.
But President Bush did maintain a strong line on the need to fight terror.
On prisoners, he argued for reviewing the issue on a case by case basis and he constantly linked progress on other issues to progress on security and fighting terrorism."

"War Folklore" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/07/25)
"These are still perilous times. But if anyone on September 12, 2001, had predicted that 22 months later there would still be no repeat of 9/11; that bin Laden would be either quiet, dead, or in hiding; that al Qaeda would be dispersed, the Taliban gone, and the likes of a Mr. Karzai in Kabul; that Saddam Hussein would be out of power, his sons dead, and an Iraqi national council emerging in his place; that troops would be leaving Saudi Arabia, Arafat ostracized, and Sharon seeking negotiations; that new Middle East agreements under discussion — and all at a cost of fewer than 300 American lives — then he would surely have been written off as a madman.
All that and more were no mere accidents. They were the direct result of the work of thousands of brave and astute Americans who were as likely to be slurred during their risky ordeal as they were to be third-guessed in its successful aftermath — and predictably by the same opportunistic bystanders.
So far we have lost fewer lives in Afghanistan and Iraq than we did in a single day's butchery in the Marine barracks in Lebanon. But unlike that terrible sacrifice, this time Americans are fighting back, winning, and changing for the better the lives of millions in the most remarkable, ambitious, and risky endeavor since the end of World War II.
We need to remember all of that, and get a grip on ourselves amid the latest outbreak of what we can now diagnose as a chronic and embarrassing hysteria Americana."

"Middle East: The Realities" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/07/25)
"Amid the general media and Democratic frenzy over Niger yellowcake, it is Bill Clinton who injected a note of sanity. "What happened often happens," Clinton told Larry King. "There was a disagreement between British intelligence and American intelligence. The president said it was British intelligence that said it. . . . British intelligence still maintains that they think the nuclear story was true. I don't know what was true, what was false. I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying, 'Well, we probably shouldn't have said that.'" Big deal. End of story. End of scandal.
The fact that the Democrats and the media can't seem to let go of it, however, is testimony to their need (and ability) to change the subject. From what? From the moral and strategic realities of Iraq. The moral reality finally burst through the yellowcake fog with the death of the Hussein brothers, psychopathic torturers who would be running Iraq if not for the policy enunciated by President Bush in that very same State of the Union address.
That moral reality is a little hard for the left to explain, considering the fact that it parades as the guardian of human rights and all-around general decency, and rallied millions to prevent the policy that liberated Iraq from Uday and Qusay's reign of terror."

"The Saudi cover-up" (Rich Lowry, Town Hall, 2003/07/25)
"Saddam Hussein never got it. He didn't realize that personal schmoozing in Washington and spreading lots of money around to former and soon-to-be U.S. government officials were the keys to realizing his geopolitical ambitions. He, in short, never learned the Saudi lesson.
How else to explain the differing treatments of the Iraqi and Saudi governments?
The Bush administration included a line in this year's State of the Union address about Saddam's alleged efforts to acquire uranium in Africa that was defensible, but hardly bulletproof - prompting an (overblown) national scandal. Now the administration is withholding from a congressional report sections dealing with Saudi support and financing for terrorism - which should prompt a (long-overdue) national scandal. ...
So, when a terrorist conspiracy with Saudi links murders 3,000 Americans, the Saudis are treated very gently. Coddling the Saudis has become an ingrained Washington habit. The Bush administration does not usually skimp on tough rhetoric, but has hardly said a discouraging public word about the Saudis, and now is actively keeping such words from being published." (Note: Found via InstaPundit.)

"September 11 report raises Saudi question" (Marianne Brun-Rovet and Edward Alden, Financial Times, 2003/07/25)
"The September 11 hijackers received foreign-government support while they were in the US plotting the attacks on New York and Washington, the leader of a congressional inquiry charged on Thursday.
The conclusion, which is hinted at in the declassified parts of the inquiry's 900-page report released on Thursday, will raise new questions about the role of Saudi Arabia in particular. The Bush administration insisted on deleting a 28-page section focusing on the link to foreign governments.
Senator Bob Graham, the former Democratic intelligence committee chairman who led the investigation, said the hijackers "received, during most of this time [in the US], significant assistance from a foreign government which further facilitated their ability to be so lethal". He would not identify the government.
But he accused the Bush administration of refusing to release the information 'to protect the country or countries . . . providing direct assistance to some of the hijackers.'" (See also the report: "Congressional Reports: Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001" (GPO Access, 2003/07/24) and "Exclusive - The 9-11 Report: Slamming the FBI" (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, from the 2003/07/28 issue))

"Secrets of Saddam's family at war" (Catherine Philp, The Times, 2003/07/25)
"Uday Hussein's personal bodyguard broke a three-month silence yesterday to give the first authoritative account of how Saddam and his sons spent the war.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, the bodyguard claimed that, far from fleeing Baghdad, the three men held out in the capital for at least a week after its fall. ...
When Baghdad fell on April 9, the three men were in separate houses in Adhamiya, a Sunni neighbourhood full of loyalists where Saddam had been on a televised walkabout two days before.
Uday's bodyguard was not present on that occasion, but was there two days later when, to the astonishment of all around, Saddam and his sons appeared at Friday prayers at a mosque in Adhamiya, a few miles from where American troops were patrolling.
"There were crowds all around and an old woman came up to Saddam and asked, 'What have you done to us?'," the bodyguard recalled.
'Saddam clapped his hand to his head and said, 'What can I do? I trusted the commanders but they were traitors and they betrayed Iraq. But we hope that, before long, we will be back in power and everything will be fixed.'"

Added in archive:
"How I became an 'unconscious fascist'" (Fiamma Nirenstein, Jewish World Review, 2003/07/15)

Thursday, July 24, 2003

News and commentary:

"A Palestinan boy with a toy machine gun..."
(Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch, 2003/07/24)
"A Palestinan boy with a toy machine gun is placed on a podium during a rally to commemorate senior Hamas militant Salah Shehada, who was killed in an Israeli F-16 attack last year, in Beit Hanoun village in the Northern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2003."

"U.S. releases photos said to show Saddam sons' bodies" (CNN.com, 2003/07/24)
"The provisional authority in Iraq has released photographs Thursday it said were of Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, aimed at convincing skeptical Iraqis that they were killed in a raid by U.S. troops.
The pictures, said to have been taken after the brothers died in a firefight with U.S. troops Tuesday in Mosul, show grim images of the heads and upper torsos of the sons, their faces heavily bearded.
An image identified as that of Uday is seen with his head shaved and with black marks on his face and head. Qusay's purported image reveals wounds apparently received in the gunbattle and missile attack in which the two men died."

"Al-Qaradhawi Speaks In Favor of Suicide Operations at an Islamic Conference in Sweden" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 542, 2003/07/24)
"During the first week of July 2003, the European Council for Fatwa and Research convened in Stockholm for its 11th session. The council, which was established in 1997 in the U.K., is comprised primarily of Islamic scholars from the Arab world and is headed by Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, one of the most influential clerics in Sunni Islam and amongst Islamist groups and organizations. ...
The London-based Arabic language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported at length on the research by Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi, who classified terror according to the following categories: colonialist terror, state terror, international terror, political terror, terror that is permitted by Islamic law, terror that is prohibited by Islamic law, and martyrdom operations. The following are excerpts from the report: ...
'The martyrdom operations carried out by the Palestinian factions to resist the Zionist occupation are not in any way included in the framework of prohibited terrorism, even if the victims include some civilians.
This is for several reasons:
First of all, due to the colonialist, occupational, racist, and [plundering] nature of Israeli society, it is, in fact, a military society. Anyone past childhood, man or woman, is drafted into the Israeli army. Every Israeli is a solider in the army, either in practical terms or because he is a reservist soldier who can be summoned at any time for war. This fact needs no proof. Those they call 'civilians' are in effect 'soldiers' in the army of the sons of Zion." ...
What weapon can harm their enemy, can prevent him from sleeping, and can strip him of a sense of security and stability, except for these human bombs - a young man or woman who blows himself or herself up amongst their enemy. This is a weapon the likes of which the enemy cannot obtain, even if the U.S. provides it with billions [of dollars] and the most powerful weapons, because it is a unique weapon that Allah has placed only in the hands of the men of belief. It is a type of divine justice on the face of the earth… it is the weapon of the wretched weak in the face of the powerful tyrant…'"

"Sept. 11 Report Details U.S. Intelligence Failures" (Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters, 2003/07/24)
"A U.S. congressional report on Thursday highlighted Sept. 11 intelligence failures by the FBI and CIA, but did not pinpoint a single "smoking gun" that could have prevented the hijacked plane attacks.
However, the report said intelligence agencies missed opportunities to disrupt the plot and did not put together a range of information that could have "greatly enhanced" the chances of uncovering and preventing Osama Bin Laden's plan to attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
"No one will ever know what might have happened had more connections been drawn between these disparate pieces of information," the report said.
The final 900-page report included newly declassified details from the joint inquiry of the House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees conducted last year.
A section on whether there was any Saudi support for the hijackers remained classified except for one page." (See also the report: "Congressional Reports: Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001" (GPO Access, 2003/07/24) and "Exclusive - The 9-11 Report: Slamming the FBI" (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, from the 2003/07/28 issue))

"Text: Cheney Speaks on Terrorism" (The Washington Post, 2003/07/24)
Vice President Cheney's speech on terrorism at the American Enterprise Institute: "Now the regime of Saddam Hussein is gone forever, and at a safe remove from the danger, some are now trying to cast doubt upon the decision to liberate Iraq. The ability to criticize is one of the great strengths of our democracy, but those who do so have an obligation to answer this question: How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat?
Last October, the director of Central Intelligence issued a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's continuing programs of weapons of mass destruction. That document contained the consensus judgments of the intelligence community, based upon the best information available about the Iraqi threat.
The NIE declared, quote, "We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction program in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade," end quote.
Those charged with the security of this nation could not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist. Ignoring such information or trying to wish it away would be irresponsible in the extreme."

"Dear Elizabeth: I Didn't Do It" (Deanne Wrenn, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/07/24)
"This is from a story that Reuters news service ran this week with my byline:

Jessica Lynch, the wounded Army private whose ordeal in Iraq was hyped into a media fiction of U.S. heroism, was set for an emotional homecoming on Tuesday. . . . Media critics say the TV cameras will not show the return of an injured soldier so much as a reality-TV drama co-produced by U.S. government propaganda and credulous reporters.

Got problems with that?
I do, especially since I didn't write it." (See also: "Jessica Lynch Due Home After Media Hype on Heroism" (Deanne Wrenn, Reuters, 2003/07/24))

"Anatomy of the raid on Hussein's sons" (Ann Scott Tyson, The Christian Science Monitor, 2003/07/24)
"About 10 a.m., American forces issued a demand for surrender through a bullhorn. But that was immediately answered by a barrage of machine-gun fire from inside the house. At that point, "things just went ballistic," said one participant. "Those guys put up a massive fight."
Using C-4 explosives, Task Force 20 members stormed through the iron front gate - the only viable entrance to the walled compound, participants said. From there, some began clearing the first floor, while others climbed back stairs and crossed the roof for other entry points.
Inside, however, the Delta troops were unable to break through inner walls of reinforced concrete where Uday, Qusay, and other defenders were holed up. Eventually, they pulled back, and the 101st pummeled the structure with multiple barrages of TOW wire-guided missiles, fire from Mark 19 grenade launchers, and Humvee-mounted .50-caliber machine guns, as well as 2.75-inch rockets from Kiowa helicopters. ...
It was not until about 3:00 p.m. that US commanders called a cease-fire, and afterwards Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, surveyed the scene." (See also: "The last moments of Saddam's grandson" (Julian Borger and Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, 2003/07/24): "There was, however, general agreement that Saddam's sons and grandson had been betrayed by an informant, who some neighbours alleged was the owner of the house, Nawaf al Zaidan, a wealthy businessman and a member of Saddam Hussein's clan.")

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

News and commentary:

"Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Briefing on His Recent Trip to Iraq" (Paul Wolfowitz, United States Department of Defense, 2003/07/23)
"General Sanchez, the outstanding new commander of the task force - Joint Task Force 7, is a veteran of Kosovo. He went into Kosovo at the beginning and stayed there for a year. And he happened, in our briefing, to comment that things are happening in Iraq after three months that didn't happen after 12 months in Kosovo. ...
The entire south and north are impressively stable, and the center is getting better day-by-day. The public food distribution is up and running. There is no food crisis. I might point out we planned for a food crisis; fortunately, there isn't one. Hospitals nationwide are open. Doctors and nurses are at work. Medical supply convoys are escorted to and from the warehouses. We planned for a health crisis; there isn't one. Oil production has passed the 1 million barrels per day mark. We planned for the possibility of massive destruction of this resource of the Iraqi people; we didn't have to do it.
The school year has been salvaged. Schools nationwide have reopened and final exams are complete. There are local town councils in most major cities and major districts of Baghdad, and they are functioning free from Ba'athist influence. ...
There is no humanitarian crisis. There is no refugee crisis. There is no health crisis. There has been minimal damage to - to infrastructure; minimal war damage, lots of regime damage over decades, but minimal war damage to infrastructure except for telecommunications, which we had to target. There has been no environmental catastrophe, either from oil well fires or from dam breaks. And there has been no need for massive oil field repair."

"Poll: One-third of Germans believe US may have staged Sept. 11 attacks" (Reuters/Boston.com, 2003/07/23)
This is really creepy: "One-third of Germans under age 30 believe the U.S. government may have sponsored the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to a poll published Wednesday.
And about 20 percent of Germans in all age groups hold this view, according to a survey of 1,000 people conducted for the weekly Die Zeit.
The poll also said 68 percent of all Germans felt the media had not reported the full truth behind the attacks, in which some 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. ...
Asked whether they believed the U.S. government could have ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, 31 percent of those surveyed under the age of 30 answered "yes," while 19 percent overall gave the same answer.
Die Zeit said widespread disbelief about the reasons given by the United States for going to war in Iraq and suspicion about media coverage of the conflict had fostered a climate in which conspiracy theories flourished.
"The news is controlled," 17-year-old Kenny Donaubaur was quoted as saying. 'You could see that in the Iraq war. It doesn't seem to me that you get the full truth.'" (See also: "The September 11 X-Files" - News and commentary on conspiracy theories regarding the September 11 attacks and the war on terror.)

"Straight Talk on Homeland Security" (Heather Mac Donald, City Journal, from the Summer 2003 issue)
"The backlash against the Bush administration's War on Terror began on 9/11 and has not let up since. Left- and right-wing advocacy groups have likened the Bush administration to fascists, murderers, apartheid ideologues, and usurpers of basic liberties. ...
Jan O'Rourke, a librarian in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is preparing for the inevitable post-9/11 assault: She is destroying all records of her patrons' book and Internet use and is advising other Bucks County libraries to do the same. The object of her fear? The U.S. government. O'Rourke is convinced that federal spooks will soon knock on her door to spy on her law-abiding clients’ reading habits. So, like thousands of librarians across the country, she is making sure that when that knock comes, she will have nothing to show. "If we don't have the information, then they can't get it," she explains.
O'Rourke is suffering from Patriot Act hysteria, a malady approaching epidemic levels. ...
When the War on Terror's opponents intone, "We need not trade liberty for security," they are right — but not in the way they think. Contrary to their slogan's assumption, there is no zero-sum relationship between liberty and security. The government may expand its powers to detect terrorism without diminishing civil liberties one iota, as long as those powers remain subject to traditional restraints: statutory prerequisites for investigative action, judicial review, and political accountability. So far, these conditions have been met."

"Israel Without Apology" (Sol Stern, City Journal, from the Summer 2003 issue)
"The late Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban once famously noted that the Palestinians "have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity." It was a clever line — except that it implies that the problem with Palestinian leadership is absentmindedness. In fact, Palestinian leaders have carefully thought out everything about the current suicide-bombing campaign, with the far from unreasonable expectation that it would bring tangible benefits to the Palestinian cause. After all, that cause was never as popular in the chancelleries of Europe and the campuses of America as it became after the first round of suicide bombings.
All of Israel's concessions and offers of "land for peace" have not only failed to appease its enemies; they have actually intensified hatred for the Jewish state and for Jews period. Thirty years ago, when I first started arguing with the Left, only a few groups overtly supported the Palestinian cause. Today, even as the Palestinian movement indoctrinates its children into a death cult, anti-Israel sentiment has reached fever pitch even in the most respectable intellectual and academic precincts: Harvard University's English department invites a poet who called for the murder of Jews on the West Bank; Columbia University's Middle East studies program becomes a virtual ministry of information for the PLO. The most popular guest speakers on American campuses are Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, both advocating the dismantling of Israel."

"Michael Moore, Humbug" (Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, from the Summer 2003 issue)
"Moore's moral stupidity, so ratcheted up by September 11, is likely to drive his next film, a documentary about the "twin errant sons of different oilmen" — George W. Bush and Usama bin Ladin. The filmmaker is hoping to release the movie, called Fahrenheit 9/11, a few months before the presidential election, to "make sure that Bush isn't returned." All signs point to his usual techniques — facts stripped of context and detail, dark insinuations, and outright lies, all leavened by pop music and Strangelovian irony.
Tracing some of Moore's recent comments, one can piece together the argument — or rather the hazy impressions, for Moore never constructs an argument — that will make up this so-called documentary. Moore will insinuate that the United States created Usama — "or USA-ma, which is more appropriate considering we trained him to be a terrorist." He will tell us that in the late nineties the oil firm Unocal held a meeting with Taliban representatives in Houston, "when Bush was governor," to talk about building a pipeline through Afghanistan. He will imply that this project was the reason the U.S. gave humanitarian aid to the Taliban, until "the deal went south," and "suddenly the Taliban were evil." And thus, Michael Moore will finally reveal the awful truth that only he is courageous enough to admit about why the United States really went to war with the Taliban.
And you can be sure that the trendy sophisticates in Cannes and Hollywood will once again rise to their feet to honor their mendacious auteur, European intellectuals will bow before his Manichaean simplicities, and the international radical Left will cheer the moral obtuseness of the man who has made his fortune turning the documentary into fiction."

"End of a Dynasty" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2003/07/23)
"The deaths of Saddam's sons is a more important step in the liberation of Iraq than the fall of Baghdad. Their deaths destroyed the dynasty at the heart of Saddam's dreams and Iraqi fears.
For the long-suffering people of Iraq, the deaths of Uday and Qusay matter more, on a practical level, than even Saddam's confirmed death one day will. With his sons alive, Saddam remained a threat to the future. With both of them dead - as well as his eldest grandson, perhaps - he's only a broken tyrant on the run. ...
The winds of change will blow more strongly now. In the short term, we may see a burst of violence directed against our troops as Pharaoh Saddam, in his rage, attempts to avenge the loss of his savage offspring. But desperate moves reveal vulnerabilities. The deaths of Uday and Qusay mark the unraveling of the regime's last hopes."

"Parallel Universes" (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 2003/07/23)
"America and Britain - along with America and France, America and Russia, America and Botswana, America and anywhere, really - live in parallel informational universes. By that I mean that the media produced in different cultures don't merely reflect different opinions about the news, they actually recount alternative versions of reality. ...
It isn't just that Europeans have different opinions from Americans about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example, they actually learn different facts and read about different events, and therefore they reach different conclusions. ...
If British newspaper readers learned anything of Blair's rapturous reception here last week, they learned it from British articles denouncing the slavish U.S. media. If French television viewers learned anything about American perceptions of the war in Iraq, they learned it from French news items on the jingoistic U.S. media. The prophets of globalization once spoke of a seamless, borderless world, in which national differences would magically disappear. They were wrong."

"It's Either Nukes or Negotiation" (William J. Perry, The Washington Post, 2003/07/23)
"If it keeps on its present course, North Korea will probably have six to eight nuclear weapons by the end of the year, will possibly have conducted a nuclear test and may have begun deployment of some of these weapons, targeted against Japan and South Korea. By next year, it could be in serial production of nuclear weapons, building perhaps five to 10 per year.
This is a nightmare scenario, but it is a reasonable extrapolation from what we know and from what the North Koreans have announced. The administration to this point has refused to negotiate with North Korea, instead calling on the countries in the region to deal with the problem. The strategy underlying this approach is not clear, but the consequences are all too clear. It has allowed the North in the past six months to move from canned fuel rods to plutonium and, in a few more months, to nuclear weapons. And the consequences could extend well beyond the region. Given North Korea's desperate economic condition, we should expect it to sell some of the products of its nuclear program, just as it did with its missile program. If that happens, a nuclear bomb could end up in an American city." (See also: "U.S., N. Korea Drifting Toward War, Perry Warns" (Thomas E. Ricks and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, 2003/07/15))

"Blair must stand firm in this war against the ideologues" (Eoghan Harris, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/07/23)
Harris on the culture of political bias at the BBC: "As I am usually going on to attack a terrorist organisation, defend a decent man like Trimble, or to support a war against a gangster like Saddam, you would think I could feel myself among people who, though they might want to put tough questions, basically shared my assumption that the IRA is morally delinquent, that Trimble is trying to do his best, and that Saddam should be shot on sight.
You would be wrong. By and large, the researchers and reporters I will meet in any branch of the BBC find these beliefs revolting. ...
A culture of political bias cannot be countered by counting minutes of airtime. It is not susceptible to internal change because it is the ambient air that broadcasters breathe. ...
So what is to be done about the virtual political party based in the BBC? If the Irish experience is any guide, things will go on getting worse. The BBC is adept at blackmailing politicians with the implied threat of giving them a bad image. ...
The BBC is the big issue in the Iraq dossier affair. Like Iraq itself, it needs to be liberated from fundamentalists and ideologues and returned to those who love fair play - which includes the free play of ideas."

"BBC to produce Kelly tape in bid to exonerate reporter" (Matt Wells et al., The Guardian, 2003/07/23)
"The BBC has a tape of David Kelly expressing serious concern about how Downing Street made the case for war, the Guardian can reveal.
Susan Watts, science editor of Newsnight, recorded her conversations with the weapons expert, who killed himself on Thursday.
In her report she quoted a "source" - now known to be Dr Kelly - suggesting that No 10 was "desperate" for information and had exaggerated "out of all proportion" the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.
The BBC believes the tape is the "smoking gun" that will exonerate Andrew Gilligan, the Today programme correspondent who originally reported the suggestion that No 10 included the 45-minute claim in the September dossier on the case for war "to make it sexier", against the wishes of the intelligence community."

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

News and commentary:

"Pentagon: Saddam's sons are dead" (CNN.com, 2003/07/22)
"Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's sons, Qusay and Uday, were killed Tuesday in a gunbattle with U.S. troops in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq said.
Their bodies were identified from "multiple sources," Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters in Baghdad.
"They died in a fierce gunbattle," Sanchez said. "They resisted detention and the effort of coalition forces to apprehend them."
When asked whether the $15 million bounties on both Uday and Qusay will be paid, Sanchez said, "I would expect that it probably will happen."
Uday, 39, and Qusay, 37 - key members of Saddam's regime - were among four people killed during the battle.
Sanchez said U.S. forces learned about the whereabouts of the brothers from a walk-in Iraqi tipster Monday night." (See also: "Celebratory gunfire in Iraq on word of Saddam sons" (Reuters/MSNBC, 2003/07/22): "Widespread and sporadic gunfire crackled across Baghdad after dark on Tuesday as word spread that Saddam Hussein's feared and hated sons may have been killed in a gunbattle with U.S. troops. ''It's celebration. People have heard about what happened,'' a U.S. military spokesman said.Much of it was Kalashnikov rifles, but Reuters correspondents also heard some machinegun bursts and small explosions. Tracer fire could be seen in the sky from several directions.")

"Baghdad's long, hot summer" (Fouad Ajami, usnews.com, from the 2003/07/28 issue)
"Opinion in America has begun to shift both on the war and on the new American burden in Mesopotamia. There is no rush to the exits - yet. Deep down, most Americans still believe in the prudence of this war. But as American blood and money ($1 billion a week) are being expended in Iraq, it would be helpful if Iraqis were to show some measure of gratitude. So far, only Ahmad Chalabi, an American-educated mathematician who headed the Iraqi National Congress, has been forthright enough to acknowledge the debt Iraq owes its liberators. More Iraqis will have to embrace their new liberty and come to believe in the good faith and intentions of the Anglo-American coalition that toppled the old tyranny.
Societies cannot live on mass anger. Nor is there wisdom in asking foreign liberators for instant remedies to a society slowly and systematically poisoned by political terror. There are burdens for America in Iraq. But the real burden rests with Iraqis. Around them, there are neighbors who wish them ill, who prophesy for the new Iraq failure and heartbreak and a return to the ways of despotism. There are Arab regimes eager to prove that tyranny is the only workable arrangement in Arab life. It is up to the new leaders of Iraq, and to the communities from which they hail, to prove that liberty and a modicum of order are not alien to the soil of those lands." (Note: Thanks to Barry Kaplovitz for the pointer.)

"Discarding War's Rules" (Daniel Pipes, New York Post/danielpipes.org, 2003/07/22)
Lee Harris is appointed as "America's reigning philosopher of 9/11" by Pipes: "Al Qaeda destroys airplanes and buildings that it itself could not possibly build. The Palestinian Authority has failed in every field of endeavor except killing Israelis. Saddam Hussein's Iraq grew dangerous thanks to money showered on it by the West to purchase petroleum Iraqis themselves had neither located nor extracted. ...
Had the United States retaliated in kind for 9/11, Harris tells me, the Islamic holy places would have been destroyed. Had Israelis followed the Arafat model of murderousness, the West Bank and Gaza would now be devoid of Palestinians. Had the West done toward Iraq as Iraq did toward Kuwait, the Iraqi polity would long ago have been annexed and its oil resources confiscated.
While morally commendable, Harris argues, the West's not responding to Muslim ruthlessness with like ruthlessness carries a high and rising price. It allows Muslim political extremists of various stripes to fantasize that they earned their power, when in fact that power derives entirely from the West's arch-civilized restraint.
This confusion prompts Muslim extremists to indulge in the error that their successes betoken a superior virtue, or even God's support. Conversely, they perceive the West's restraint as a sign of its decadence. Such fantasies, Harris contends, feed on themselves, leading to ever-more demented and dangerous behavior. Westerners worry about the security of electricity grids, computer bugs and water reservoirs; can a nuclear attack on a Western metropolis be that remote? Western restraint, in other words, insulates its enemies from the deserved consequences of their actions, and so unintentionally encourages their bad behavior." (See also: "Our World-Historical Gamble" (Lee Harris, Tech Central Station, 2003/03/11))

"The Neoliberal Take on the Middle East" (Ronald D. Asmus and Kenneth M. Pollack, The Washington Post, 2003/07/22)
"Neocons and neoliberals recognize that the status quo in the Middle East is producing anti-Americanism, terrorism and failed and rogue states and has gone way beyond "management." Both agree the West must promote the transformation and democratization of the region. But they disagree profoundly on how best to do so. Neoliberals believe that coercive democratization is bound to fail and that true success will come only from a long-term effort to help push Arabs to reform their own societies from within. This leads to four fundamental differences.
• Preemption and use of force. Neocons believe that the United States must use a high-pressure approach to compel Arab regimes to change, by force if necessary. They argue that the region's problems are so great and the danger of another 9/11 so real - this time with chemical, biological or radiological weapons - that the end justifies the means. If the regimes of the region won't change, American power should be used to bring change about. The invasion and reconstruction of Iraq are not an exception but a precedent that, if need be, can and will be replicated elsewhere.
Neoliberals, among whom we number ourselves, believe in political preemption first and military preemption only as a last resort. We supported the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq because we concluded that force was the only way to lance these boils. But force will not work as a normal tool of policy or social engineering in the Middle East. Our goal must be to have the Arabs embrace democracy and modernization, not to force it down their throats."

"How Saudi Arabia spreads terrorism and hatred of the West" (Daniel Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/07/22)
"According to Newsweek, a congressional joint intelligence inquiry has concluded that Saudi Arabia was deeply implicated in the attacks of September 11. A close associate of the al-Qa'eda hijackers, Omar al-Bayoumi, is alleged to have been working as a Saudi agent, operating from the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles.
The Bush administration has censored an entire section from the report, detailing the Saudi role in the events leading up to the attacks. These suppressed passages are said to explain how Saudi diplomats provided financial and logistical support for the terrorists. ...
Only after the September 11 attacks did the global extent of the Wahhabi menace become clear. From Algeria to Bali, from Tunis to Tel Aviv, from Moscow to Riyadh, Islamist suicide bombers left a bloody trail behind them. In the background lurked the shadowy network of Wahhabi influence.
Through charities and schools, youth groups and private foundations, Saudi oil money has been deployed on a colossal scale to finance organisations such as al-Qa'eda and Hamas. Thus did Saudi Arabia emerge as the matrix of Islamist terrorism." (See also: "Exclusive - The 9-11 Report: Slamming the FBI" (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, from the 2003/07/28 issue))

Added in archive:
"Why Did Bush Go to War?" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/07/18)

Monday, July 21, 2003

News and commentary:

"Saddam and September 11"
(Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/07/21)
"Here’s a photograph taken by members of the 3rd Infantry Division near the Baghdad Airport, that you haven’t seen published by our quagmire-obsessed, relentlessly negative media. It doesn’t prove a connection between Saddam Hussein and the September 11 atrocities, of course; but clearly, he wanted someone to think the connection existed, whether it did or not." (See also: "Marines discover Iraqi 9/11 mural" (CNN.com, 2003/03/26))

"Millionaire Mullahs" (Paul Klebnikov, Forbes, 2003/07/21)
"A nuclear threat to the rest of the world, Iran is robbing its own people of prosperity. But the men at the top are getting extremely rich.":
"The real power is a handful of clerics and their associates who call the shots behind the curtain and have gotten very rich in the process.
Ironically, the man most adept at manipulating this hidden power structure is one of Iran's best-known characters--Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has been named an ayatollah, or religious leader. He was the speaker of parliament and Khomeini's right-hand man in the 1980s, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997 and is now chairman of the powerful Expediency Council, which resolves disputes between the clerical establishment and parliament. Rafsanjani has more or less run the Islamic Republic for the past 24 years. ...
The gossip on the street, going well beyond the observable facts, has the Rafsanjanis stashing billions of dollars in bank accounts in Switzerland and Luxembourg; controlling huge swaths of waterfront in Iran's free economic zones on the Persian Gulf; and owning whole vacation resorts on the idyllic beaches of Dubai, Goa and Thailand. ...
Meanwhile the clerical elite has mismanaged the nation into senseless poverty. With 9% of the world's oil and 15% of its natural gas, Iran should be a very rich country. It has a young, educated population and a long tradition of craftsmanship and international commerce. But per capita income today is actually 7% below what it was before the revolution. Iranian economists estimate capital flight (to Dubai and other safe havens) at up to $3 billion a year.
No wonder so many students turn to the streets in protest. The dictatorship tells them what to think, what to wear, and what to eat and drink. It has also been robbing them of their future."

"Iran says Kazemi was questioned for 77 hours" (Janice Tibbetts and Clare Demerse, National Post, 2003/07/21)
"The Iranian government's inquiry into the death of Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi suggests she went through 77 hours of interrogation at the hands of police, prosecutors and intelligence officials before the blow that fractured her skull and caused her to bleed to death. ...
The report suggests between her arrest on June 23 and her hospitalization on June 27, she was questioned for 21 hours by prosecutors, then for the next 26 hours by police. The prosecutors then returned for another four hours of questioning before the final 26 hours of interrogation by intelligence ministry officials.
Late on June 26, 'The officers leading the interrogation noticed that the prisoner was not in a normal condition."
Taken back to her cell at around 9 p.m., ''she started to bleed from her nostrils and she began vomiting blood."
She was taken to hospital and pronounced brain-dead on the afternoon of June 27, but was kept on life support until the announcement of her death from a stroke was made on July 11." (See also: "Canadian journalist 'beaten to death'" (BBC News, 2003/07/16), "Detained Canadian Journalist Dies in Iran" (AP/The Guardian, 2003/07/12) and "Quebec woman in coma after arrest in Iran" (CBC News, 2003/07/09))

"All Sexed Up and No Place to Go" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/07/21)
"On May 29 the British Broadcasting Corp. "reported" that Tony Blair's government had "sexed up" a dossier on Saddam Hussein's pursuit of nuclear weapons. It now seems increasingly likely that, as we suggested Friday, it was the BBC that was engaging in up-sexing. The Beeb now confirms that David Kelly, the British scientist whose death by suicide was confirmed over the weekend, "was the principal source for its controversial report," in the words of a BBC report.
BBC correspondent Andrew Gilligan denies that he "misquoted or misrepresented" what Kelly said, but the Guardian reports that Tom Mangold, a former BBC correspondent who was a close friend of Kelly, has accused Gilligan "of 'taking the apple Kelly gave him and mixing it with an orange from another source,' and revealed that his final report 'appalled' the respected weapons expert."
The British press is piling on the Beeb. "The BBC's credibility is in question," declares the Daily Telegraph. The Sun tabloid is shrill as usual, headlining a commentary by political editor Trevor Kavanagh "You Rat": "BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan last night tried to save his job by branding suicide victim Dr David Kelly a LIAR," opines Kavanagh (the capitals are the Sun's). In another Sun piece Kavanagh scores a serious point: 'Gilligan revealed he had based his bombshell story on a lunch with a contact - and had only one source. . . . This tragedy underlines the value of the BBC rule that journalists must have more than one source for bombshell stories.'"

"What Kelly Told Parliament" (Hindrocket, Power Line, 2003/07/21)
"As we noted earlier, the suicide of former weapons inspector David Kelly has caused huge problems for Tony Blair; recent polls indicate that his standing with voters has declined precipitously, and the press generally seems to take it for granted that Kelly's death puts Blair in a sinister light.
This spin is really rather odd, given how supportive Kelly was of Blair, his administration, and the controversial Iraq dossier when Kelly testified before a Parliamentary committee. The BBC itself provides this summary: "What Kelly Told the MPs". Here are sample Kelly quotes:
"It [the BBC's story] is not a factual record of my interaction with him [BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan], the character of it, which is actually difficult to discern from the account that is presented there....From the conversation I had with him, I do not see how he could make the authoritative statement he was making from the comments that I made." ...
"Later Dr Kelly was asked if he had suggested to Mr Gilligan that the dossier had been embellished. Dr Kelly replied: 'No, I had no doubt that the veracity of it was absolute.' He went on: 'All I can say is that the general tenet of that document is one that I am sympathetic to.'" ...
In short, Kelly's Parliamentary testimony was 100% supportive of Tony Blair and his government, and it utterly undercut the supposed basis of the BBC article as claimed by Andrew Gilligan - a very basic fact that is in danger of being lost in the ongoing press hysteria." (See also: "What Kelly told the MPs" (BBC News, 2003/07/20))

"Exclusive - The 9-11 Report: Slamming the FBI" (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, from the 2003/07/28 issue)
"The FBI blew repeated chances to uncover the 9-11 plot because it failed to aggressively investigate evidence of Al Qaeda’s presence in the United States, especially in the San Diego area, where two of the hijackers were living with one of the bureau’s own informants, according to the congressional report set for release this week. ...
The long-delayed 900-page report also contains potentially explosive new evidence suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers, may have been a Saudi-government agent, sources tell Newsweek. The report documents extensive ties between al-Bayoumi and the hijackers. But the bureau never kept tabs on al-Bayoumi - despite receiving prior information he was a secret Saudi agent, the report says. In January 2000, al-Bayoumi had a meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles - and then went directly to a restaurant where he met future hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, whom he took back with him to San Diego."

"What Is Really Happening In Iraq?" (StrategyPage, 2003/07/21)
"What is really happening in Iraq? The media make it sound like another Vietnam is developing, with the Iraqi population sliding towards mass resistance as Iraqi society collapses in violent anarchy. But the reality is a lot different. Attacks on coalition troops are declining, the availability of public services is increasing and public opinion towards the coalition becomes more favorable each day. The gunmen who are attacking coalition troops are being hunted down and killed or arrested, and huge arms caches found and destroyed. ...
Much of the current reporting on Iraq warps the public perception of the past, as well as the present. The media plays down the fact that resistance from Sunni Arabs was widely discussed in the Pentagon before the war. But that wasn't a sexy story then, even though it is now. The coalition policing efforts have taken nearly a quarter million AK-47s off the streets, as well as huge quantities of RPGs, explosives and other weapons. Again, not interesting enough for prime time. Hundreds of Baath Party members have been arrested, including many senior people. Again, this is considered minor stuff. Every day, more neighborhoods get police and other services. But the reporting still tends to distort in favor of potential disasters that never seem to arrive."

"A Lone Woman Testifies To Iraq's Order of Terror" (Peter Finn, The Washington Post, 2003/07/21)
"She was walking hurriedly, as if in a trance, oblivious to the weakness in her legs, not seeing the bewildered looks of the American troops trailing her, not hearing her own cries of anguish. Jumana Michael Hanna, tears streaming down her face, had slipped into the darkest recesses of memory.
Hanna, a 41-year-old Assyrian Christian from a formerly rich and prominent Iraqi family, returned last week to the well of her nightmares: the police academy in Baghdad, a sprawling complex of offices, classrooms, soccer, polo and parade grounds -- and prison cells, some of them converted dog kennels, according to American officials who now control the campus.
This is the place where in the 1990s Hanna was hung from a rod and beaten with a special stick when she called out for Jesus or the Virgin Mary. This is where she and other female prisoners were dragged outside and tied to a dead tree trunk, nicknamed "Walid" by the guards, and raped in the shadow of palm trees. This is the place where electric shock was applied to Hanna's vagina. And this is where in February 2001 someone put a bullet in her husband's head and handed his corpse through the steel gate like a piece of butcher's meat."

"In Najaf, a Sudden Anti-U.S. Storm" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2003/07/21)
"Behind the cleric, a sweep of thousands of demonstrators, most of them trucked in from Baghdad, chanting slogans like "No Americans after today" and "No to America, no to colonialism, no to tyranny, no to the Devil!" ...
Until now, interactions between the Americans and the Iraqis in Najaf have been calm, free of the random violence rampant in the country's Sunni heartland.
But a sudden storm erupted on Saturday after Moktada al-Sadr, the scion of a clan of beloved clerics and the most vocal supporter of Iranian-style theocracy in Iraq, asserted that American forces were encircling his home. They were bent on arresting him, his aides announced, after an incendiary sermon on Friday in which he rejected the American-appointed Governing Council and called for the formation of an Islamic army.
It was, said Lt. Col. Christopher C. Conlin, the commanding officer here, a deliberate misunderstanding."

"Saddam still alive and in 'Sunni Triangle'" (Tim Reid, The Times, 2003/07/21)
"Mr Bremer said that he believed that Saddam was hiding in the "Sunni Triangle", the area north of Baghdad and south of Tikrit where 85 per cent of attacks against US troops have been launched. Mr Bremer said that there were "tens of thousands" of Republican Guard and Fedayin Saddam fighters in the area.
"Saddam Hussein, I think, is alive," Mr Bremer said on ABC television’s Meet The Press programme. 'I think he is in Iraq and the sooner we can either kill him or capture him the better, because the fact that his fate is unknown certainly gives his supporters the chance to go around and rally support for him.'"

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Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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

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

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

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