Archived news and commentary: August 18 - 24, 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, August 24, 2003

News and commentary:

"Iraq is battlefield for war vs. terror" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2003/08/24)
"And so on Tuesday, up against an enemy unable to do anything more than self-detonate outside an unprotected facility and take a few Brazilian civil servants and Canadian aid workers with him, the global community sent out a Syrian ambassador to read out some boilerplate and then retreated into passivity and introspection and finger-pointing at Washington. This is the weirdly uneven playing field on which the great game is now fought. Islamic terrorism is militarily weak but ideologically confident. The West is militarily strong but ideologically insecure. We don't really believe we can win, not in the long run. The suicide bomber is a symbol of weakness, of a culture so comprehensively failed that what ought to be its greatest resource - its people - is instead as disposable as a firecracker. But in our self-doubt the enemy's weakness becomes his strength. We simply can't comprehend a man like Raed Abdel Mask, pictured in the press last week with a big smile, a check shirt and two cute little moppets, a boy and a girl, in his arms. His wife is five months pregnant with their third child. On Tuesday night, big smiling Raed strapped an 11-pound bomb packed with nails and shrapnel to his chest and boarded the No. 2 bus in Jerusalem.
The terrorists watch CNN and the BBC and, understandably, they figure that in Iraq America, Britain, the UN and all the rest will do what most people do when they run up against someone deranged: back out of the room slowly. They're wrong. There's no choice. You kill it here, or the next generation of suicide bombers will be on buses in Rotterdam, Manchester, Lyons, and blowing up the UN building in Manhattan. This is the battlefield."

"Fighting 'The Big One'" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2003/08/24)
"I have no doubt that the U.S. presence in Iraq is attracting all sorts of terrorists and Islamists to oppose the U.S. I also have no doubt that politicians and intellectuals in the nearby Arab states are rooting against America in Iraq because they want Arabs and the world to believe that the corrupt autocracies that have so long dominated Arab life, and failed to deliver for their people, are the best anyone can hope for.
But I totally disagree that this is a sign that everything is going wrong in Iraq. The truth is exactly the opposite.
We are attracting all these opponents to Iraq because they understand this war is The Big One. They don't believe their own propaganda. They know this is not a war for oil. They know this is a war over ideas and values and governance. They know this war is about Western powers, helped by the U.N., coming into the heart of their world to promote more decent, open, tolerant, women-friendly, pluralistic governments by starting with Iraq — a country that contains all the main strands of the region: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
You'd think from listening to America's European and Arab critics that we'd upset some bucolic native culture and natural harmony in Iraq, as if the Baath Party were some colorful local tribe out of National Geographic. Alas, our opponents in Iraq, and their fellow travelers, know otherwise. They know they represent various forms of clan and gang rule, and various forms of religious and secular totalitarianism — from Talibanism to Baathism. And they know that they need external enemies to thrive and justify imposing their demented visions.
In short, America's opponents know just what's at stake in the postwar struggle for Iraq, which is why they flock there: beat America's ideas in Iraq and you beat them out of the whole region; lose to America there, lose everywhere."

"What We Should Do Now" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2003/09/01 issue)
"It is time to recognize that the occupation of Iraq needs fixing. This has been a massive enterprise undertaken with little planning and extreme arrogance. ...
Failure in Iraq would be a monumental loss for America's role in the world. Washington will have created instability in the heart of the oil-producing world; weakened America’s ability to push for change in other Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, and given comfort to its foes. The old order will rejoice and the Middle East would return to its stagnant and self-destructive ways.
And things might even get worse. The fundamental purpose behind the invasion of Iraq — more important than the exaggerated claims about weapons of mass destruction — was to begin cleansing the Middle East of the forces that produce terror. Were America to quit, it would give those armies of hate new strength and resolve. A failed Iraq could prove a greater threat to American security than Saddam Hussein’s regime ever was."

"The UN is unfit to take over rebuilding Iraq" (Con Coughlin, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/08/24)
"A recent survey of the Iraqis showed that more than 70 per cent supported the removal of Saddam's regime, which probably explains why the different factions and ethnic groups in Iraq have not allowed their age-old rivalries to degenerate into open civil war, as was so confidently predicted by pre-war doom-mongers.
If, then, Iraq is not about to become the new Lebanon, there is still the possibility that it could become the new Afghanistan, with scores of foreign, although mainly Arab, fighters flooding in to join a new jihad to repel the foreign invaders from Muslim soil.
Iraq is now the front line in the war on terror. Were the coalition to hesitate in its determination to confront the remnants of Saddam's regime, and the motley crew of Islamic troublemakers who are seeking to take advantage of the unstable security situation, it would indicate that the West lacks the will to confront those who seek to harm it.
For this reason it is essential that Mr Annan and his colleagues at the UN, rather than trying to undermine the effectiveness of the coalition by diluting its command structure, concentrate their energies on finding the means to strengthen the coalition. The serious task of nation-building in Iraq can only begin in earnest once the war is finally won."

"Chaos and Calm Are 2 Realities for U.S. in Iraq" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2003/08/24)
"While the areas stretching west and north from Baghdad roil and burn, much of the rest of the country remains, most of the time, remarkably calm. [On Saturday, three British soldiers were killed in the south, in Basra.]
Rather than fight the Americans, most Iraqis appear to be readily accepting the benefits of a wide-ranging reconstruction. ...
The atmosphere in Diwaniya is far different. The 2,300 marines based here move freely about the city, tossing candy to the children, waving back to the parents. Not a single marine in Diwaniya has been lost to hostile fire since their arrival in April. There is not even a curfew.
"This is not Baghdad," said Lt. Col. Patrick Malay, who commands a force of about 950 marines in Diwaniya. "The Iraqis love us here." ...
It is difficult to judge the lasting impact of the reconstruction projects. The new coat of paint on the Dar Al Salam primary school makes the place look brand new. While the electricity flows erratically, some residents said they were getting more now than before the war.
Anecdotally, the efforts of the marines sometimes appear to be succeeding exactly as the policy makers in Washington intended.
"Every morning, I come to work with a passion to serve my country," said Aladeen Muhammad Abdul Hamza, who took a job in the new Iraqi police force. Mr. Hamza, a former officer in the Iraqi Army, is being paid $60 a month."

"Europe Reacts Coolly to Bush's Call to Freeze Charities' Assets" (Craig S. Smith, The New York Times, 2003/08/24)
"Europe has reacted tepidly to President Bush's call to freeze the assets of four European charities said by the administration to be sending cash to Palestinian militants. That sets the stage for another trans-Atlantic rift over Middle East policy. ...
Mr. Bush demanded Friday that the assets of five charities be frozen along with those of six top officials of Hamas, the Palestinian organization whose military wing has claimed responsibility for the deadly suicide attack on a Jerusalem bus on Tuesday. ...
Mr. Bush's demand highlights a stark difference between how the United States and Europe, with its large and growing Muslim population, have dealt with Palestinian activists. Europe has resisted Bush administration requests that it blacklist Hamas's political wing, which many European leaders contend is a legitimate organization." (See also: "Bush Orders Move to Freeze Assets of Hamas Charities" (Richard W. Stevenson and Edmund L. Andrews, The New York Times, 2003/08/23))

Saturday, August 23, 2003

News and commentary:

"Iraq may be on the edge but France has hit rock bottom abyss" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/08/23)
"'The US and British armies have entered the gates of hell,' thundered George Galloway last month. "Soon it will be 100 degrees at midnight in Baghdad, but there will be no respite from the need for full body armour."
As usual, George was a little off. The gates of hell are on the périphérique and it's 100 degrees at midnight in the pissoir on the Metro. To date, two US soldiers are believed to have succumbed to the heat in Iraq, whereas over 10,000 people have succumbed to it in France. ...
Meanwhile, Maggie Pernot wrote the other day to chide me for my continued defence of the Rumsfeld Death Camps at Guantanamo. The prisoners, she complains, are "kept in tiny, chainlink outdoor cages where they were likely to be rained upon". In fact, they have sloping roofs and cool concrete floors, perfect for the climate. If they had solid walls rather than airy wire mesh, they'd be Parisian sweatboxes and everyone would be dead. By contrast, if those thousands of French pensioners had been captured by the Marines and detained by Rummy in Cuba, they'd be alive today.
Mme Pernot writes from St Julien, France. That's right: she's surrounded by an actual humanitarian scandal on all sides but she'd rather obsess about an entirely fictional one. Heat getting to you, Madame? Or just the unusual odour from the flat next door?"

"Saddam's al Qaeda Connection" (Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/09/01 issue)
"Farouk Hijazi, former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey and Saddam's longtime outreach agent to Islamic fundamentalists, has been captured. In his initial interrogations, Hijazi admitted meeting with senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994. According to administration officials familiar with his questioning, he has subsequently admitted additional contacts, including a meeting in late 1997. Hijazi continues to deny that he met with bin Laden on December 21, 1998, to offer the al Qaeda leader safe haven in Iraq. U.S. officials don't believe his denial. ...
The following day, February 19, 1998, according to documents unearthed in Baghdad after the recent war by journalists Mitch Potter and Inigo Gilmore, Hussein's intelligence service wrote a memo detailing upcoming meetings with a bin Laden representative traveling to Baghdad. Each reference to bin Laden had been covered with Liquid Paper. The memo laid out a plan to step up contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. The Mukhabarat, one of Saddam's security forces, agreed to pay for "all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden." The document set as the goal for the meeting a discussion of "the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The al Qaeda representative, the document went on to suggest, might be 'a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden.'"

"Inside story of the hunt for Bin Laden" (Rory McCarthy, The Guardian, 2003/08/23)
"Experts who have been following the attempts of the Pakistanis and the US to find the al-Qaida leader have suggested that:
· The Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, struck a deal with the US not to seize Bin Laden after the Afghan war for fear of inciting trouble in his own country;
· The al-Qaida leader is being protected by a three elaborate security rings which stretch 120 miles in diameter; and
· The Pakistani special forces looking for him are no closer than they were a year ago. ...
Mr Ijaz, who has recently visited Pakistan, believes Bin Laden is protected by an elaborate security cordon of three concentric circles, in which he is guarded first by a ring around 120 miles in diameter of tribesmen, whose duty is to reportany approach by Pakistani troops or US special forces.
Inside them is a tighter ring, around 12 miles in diameter, made up of tribal elders who would warn if the outer ring were breached. At the centre of the circles is Bin Laden himself, protected by one or two of his closest relatives and advisers. Bin Laden has agreed with the elders that he will use no electronic communications and will move only at night and between specified places within a limited radius."

"Six Groups Said to Be Monitored in U.S. for Possible Qaeda Links" (Don Van Natta Jr., The New York Times, 2003/08/23)
"American law enforcement officials are monitoring the activities of at least six groups in the United States they suspect are linked to Al Qaeda, senior government officials in the United States and Europe said this week. ...
The assessment of a widening presence of Qaeda sympathizers on American soil has alarmed intelligence and counterterrorism officials here in Europe and in the United States.
"Every month, we continue to identify new people aligned with Al Qaeda in the United States," a senior American government official said. 'It's an ongoing process but it is disconcerting that every month, almost every week, we find additional people here who are sympathetic to Al Qaeda and its goals.'"

"'Don't Let Them Pull the U.N. Out of Iraq'" (Theola Labbé, The Washington Post, 2003/08/23)
"Sergio was alive, conscious and in excruciating pain. For the next three hours, von Zehle worked to set him free. He had no rope, no bucket, no flashlight, none of the equipment that could be found on any firetruck in Wilton.
All the while, the two men talked. Von Zehle did not realize he was listening to the last words of the U.N. special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello. The following day, when he learned who the man was, von Zehle jotted down his words from memory. ...
"Don't let them pull the U.N. out of Iraq. Don't let them fail this mission," Benon V. Sevan, the head of Iraq's U.N.-administered oil-for-food program, quoted Vieira de Mello as saying to von Zehle."

"Bush Orders Move to Freeze Assets of Hamas Charities" (Richard W. Stevenson and Edmund L. Andrews, The New York Times, 2003/08/23)
"President Bush ordered the Treasury Department today to block and freeze the assets of six top leaders of the militant Palestinian group Hamas and five charities based outside the United States that administration officials said help finance Hamas.
Mr. Bush said he was taking the action in response to Hamas's claim of responsibility for the bus bombing in Israel on Tuesday that killed 20 people.
"By claiming responsibility for the despicable act of terror on Aug. 19, Hamas has reaffirmed that it is a terrorist organization committed to violence against Israelis and to undermining progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinian people," Mr. Bush said in a written statement issued by the White House as the president toured a dam here."

Added in archive:
"Losing his religion" (Lee Smith, The Boston Globe, 2003/08/17)

Friday, August 22, 2003

News and commentary:

"A Palestinian group dressed as Hamas suicide bombers..."
(AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, 2003/08/22)
"A Palestinian group dressed as Hamas suicide bombers strapped with fake explosives and carrying the holy Muslim book, the Quran, burn American and Israeli flags during a street demonstration at Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Friday Aug 22, 2003 to protest against Israeli air attacks on Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab in Gaza strip. Text on head band reads 'Al-Qassam Brigades.'"

"Tens of Thousands Attend Hamas Leader's Funeral" (Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters, 2003/08/22)
"Thirsting for revenge, tens of thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets of Gaza City on Friday to march in a fiery funeral procession for Ismail Abu Shanab, a leader of the militant Hamas group killed by Israel.
"Abu Shanab, rest in peace. Our armies will go forward. We are the men of the dark night," a loudspeaker blared as his body, shrouded in a green Hamas flag, was carried aloft.
Gunmen fired into the air, punctuating marchers' shouts of "revenge, revenge" for the Israeli helicopter missile strike on Thursday that killed Abu Shanab and two bodyguards. After the attack, militants declared a seven-week-old truce dead.
Local journalists estimated the crowd at nearly 100,000, one of the largest to turn out for a funeral of a Palestinian killed by Israel since the start of an uprising for statehood almost three years ago."

"Canada Arrests 19 in Case with Sept 11 Parallels" (Reuters, 2003/08/22)
"Canadian police arrested 19 men last week in a case that, according to court documents obtained by a newspaper, has eerie parallels to the preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokeswoman Michele Paradis on Friday confirmed the arrests but declined to offer details.
"We arrested 19 people last Thursday," Paradis said, adding the operation had involved four police departments from across the Greater Toronto area.
"They're all related and it's all part of, what we're alleging, has to do with a group taking advantage of a system -- the immigration system here in Canada."
The Toronto Star newspaper said the men were arrested after a "pattern of suspicious behavior" which featured one man taking flight lessons that took him directly over an Ontario nuclear power plant." (See also: "Canada arrests 19 Pakistanis on immigration charges" (AP/The Globe and Mail, 2003/08/22): "The document also said an address used by one of the men was linked to the theft of a nuclear gauge, a device used in construction and containing the cesium-137. The highly radioactive material could be used to make a dirty bomb. According to the document, the men lived a threadbare existence, often only furnishing their apartments with a mattress and a computer.")

"Iranian Officials Raped Reporter, Then Killed Her" (Adan Daifallah, New York Sun/IRVAJ, 2003/08/22)
"Iranian officials raped Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi before she died and put chemicals in her body to speed up its decomposition, according to a lawyer who recently visited Iran and an opposition group.
A Toronto-based lawyer, Hamid Mojtahedi, told Radio Farda, the American-funded radio station beamed into Iran, that Kazemi was raped by intelligence agents who worked with Tehran prosecutor Said Mortazavi, a man referred to as the “Butcher of the Press” by Iranian dissidents.
Mr. Mojtahedi, who traveled to Iran last month with a delegation from the Canadian chapter of the group Lawyers Without Borders, also told the radio station that a forensic autopsy of Kazemi’s body might be impossible since Iranian authorities injected it with chemicals to speed its decomposition." (Note: Found via Winds of Change. See also: "Iran says Kazemi was questioned for 77 hours" (Janice Tibbetts and Clare Demerse, National Post, 2003/07/21), "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))

"Iran ex-diplomat faces terror hearing" (BBC News, 2003/08/22)
"A former Iranian diplomat has appeared at a London court in connection with claims that he was involved in a terrorist attack which killed 85 people and wounded 200.
The Argentine Government wants Hade Soleimanpour extradited to face charges that he was part of the conspiracy to bomb a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994.
Mr Soleimanpour, 47, spoke only to confirm his name when he appeared before Bow Street Magistrates' Court, and was remanded in custody until 29 August.
The former Iranian ambassador to Argentina, who is now a research assistant at the University of Durham, denied the charges when he was arrested by police on Thursday.
The Argentine intelligence service has long believed Iran was behind the car bombing and Mr Soleimanpour's arrest follows a fresh investigation.
Iran has strongly denied involvement and has described Mr Soleimanpour's extradition warrant as politically motivated.
On Friday, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi condemned the arrest as illegal, saying it had been carried out under the influence of a Zionist regime." (See also: "Judge Requests Arrest of Iran Diplomats" (AP/Newsday.com, 2003/03/09))

"Bush Appoints Daniel Pipes to Think Tank" (AP/The Guardian, 2003/08/22)
Congratulation to Pipes, who really deserves the appointment. Pipes was my natural first choice for Columnist of the Year 2001:"President Bush bypassed the Senate Friday and appointed an outspoken Middle East scholar to a federal think tank over the objections of Democrats and others who say he is anti-Muslim.
Bush appointed Daniel Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
The White House, which made the announcement in a statement released in Burbank, Wash., where Bush was visiting, called him a well-respected scholar. ...
Critics call Pipes an extremist who should not be named to a peace organization. Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee have raised strong objections to Pipes' nomination, forcing the panel to postpone a vote on the appointment."

"Worried Muslim friends" (Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI, 2003/08/22)
"Like Bassam Tibi, a reform-minded Muslim scholar teaching at Goettingen University in Germany, Mahmoud stated, "Iraq is on its way to become another (Taliban-run) Afghanistan, only with lower mountains."
Syrian-born Tibi, a social scientist and ardent proponent of a modernized Islam compatible with Western values, said, his voice shaking with worry, "America's sworn enemies are pouring into Iraq from all sides because the borders are not properly controlled. Iraq has become the new domain for Muslim fanatics."
Added Mahmoud, "When I telephone contacts in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Yemen and Jordan, I keep hearing the same story over and over again: the story of hundreds and hundreds of men seemingly disappearing without a trace. You don't have to be a genius to figure our where they have gone - to Iraq." ...
In my telephone calls with prominent Muslims, all Bush supporters, they unanimously told me this: America has landed itself needlessly in a quicksand without being aware of it. As Mahmoud phrased it most clearly, 'If the administration is not scared about all this, I don't know what will scare them.'"

"Phase Three?" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/08/22)
"It is the American way and the nature of our media culture to exaggerate setbacks and ignore successes. Thus even as our television screens seem to be overcome by panic and fear, high-ranking Baathists continue to be arrested in Iraq, terrorists find themselves stymied in achieving another 9/11, and the reconstruction of Iraq continues.
Our real problem? We must shed our complacency that has habitually arisen after the absence of another 9/11 attack in the United States, and the rapid victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, and press on. Either the Middle East will be a breeding ground for terrorists and rogue regimes that threaten sober nations and peoples the world over, from Manhattan to Jerusalem, or it will desist and join the rest of the world. It really is as simple as that."

"Killing of Hamas leader ends truce" (Chris McGreal, The Guardian, 2003/08/22)
It's interesting to note that in many accounts Abu Shanab is described as the Dalai Lama of Hamas. Also, the truce was of course ended by Hamas itself rather than by the killing of Abu Shanab.
1. Hamas claimed responsibility for the latest Jerusalem suicide bombing, dubbed "the attack on the children".
2. Hamas itself ended it explicitly and
3. Israel was not a part of the truce in any case.
In fact, history according to The Guardian is indistinguishable from the Hamas line: "Five Israeli missiles incinerated Ismail Abu Shanab in Gaza city yesterday, killing one of the most powerful voices for peace in Hamas and destroying the ceasefire that Palestinian leaders believed would avert civil war." (See also: "Ismail Abu Shanab - Senior Hamas Commander" (Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, 2003/08/21): "In the past, Abu Shanab had been imprisoned in Israel for a period of 10 years, due to his terrorist activities, and had admitted to being involved in planning and carrying out the kidnapping and murder of Israeli soldier Ilan Sa'adon. Abu Shanab continued to support the violent campaign waged by Hamas, including perpetrating terror attacks against Israeli targets during the period of the recent 'Hudna' terrorism cease-fire.")

"General Cites Rising Peril of Terror in Iraq" (Bradley Graham, The Washington Post, 2003/08/22)
"The top U.S. military commander for the Persian Gulf region said yesterday that terrorism is becoming the "number one security threat" in Iraq, with foreign fighters entering the country through Syria and a revived group called Ansar al-Islam now firmly established in Baghdad.
The remarks by Army Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, added to a growing chorus by senior Bush administration officials who have begun to depict postwar Iraq as a magnet for terrorists bent on attacking the United States. "I think Iraq is at the center of the global war on terrorism," Abizaid said at a Pentagon news conference."

"Inquiry of U.N. Bombing Focuses on Possible Ties to Iraqi Guards" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2003/08/22)
"The official said all of the guards at the compound were agents of the Iraqi secret services, to whom they reported on United Nations activities before the war. The United Nations continued to employ them after the war was over, the official said.
The official said that when investigators began questioning the guards, two of them asserted that they were entitled to "diplomatic immunity" and refused to cooperate. Diplomats working in foreign countries are often entitled to immunity from prosecution by local authorities, but the official said the two guards could make no such claim.
Investigators are continuing to question the guards, the official said.
"We believe the U.N.'s security was seriously compromised," the official said, adding that "we have serious concerns about the placement of the vehicle" and the timing of the attack."

"U.S. request for more troops in Iraq received coolly at U.N." (Betsy Pisik, The Washington Times, 2003/08/22)
"France and other opponents of the war in Iraq gave a tepid response yesterday to a Bush administration request at the United Nations for additional troops. ...
France, which led opposition to the war in the United Nations, responded by chiding the United States for failing to build a "genuine" international partnership. ...
Other council members sided with France and did not share Mr. Annan's enthusiasm for a new U.N. resolution.
China, Russia and Pakistan said the responsibility to provide security in Iraq — to international and private organizations, and to the Iraqis themselves — rests with the U.S.-led coalition."

Thursday, August 21, 2003

News and commentary:

"U.S. Forces Captured Feared 'Chemical Ali' in Iraq" (Andrew Marshall, Reuters, 2003/08/21)
"Ali Hassan al-Majid, a feared cousin of Saddam Hussein nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for overseeing poison gas attacks that killed thousands, has been captured in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
"We do have him and he was captured alive," U.S. Central Command spokesman Lieutenant Ryan Fitzgerald told Reuters.
No details were released on the arrest of Majid, number five on a U.S. list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis and the King of Spades in a U.S. Army deck of cards depicting fugitives. ...
He was best known for leading the campaign against Kurdish rebels who took advantage of Iraq's war with Iran in the 1980s to step up their long struggle for autonomy in northern Iraq.
Human rights groups say Majid's scorched earth policy led to the murder or disappearance of some 100,000 Kurds and the forced removal of many more. Some 5,000 people were killed in a single gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988."

"Islamic Militant Groups Say Truce Dead After Israeli Strike" (James Bennet, The New York Times, 2003/08/21)
"The Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad officially declared an end to their seven-week-old cease-fire today, shortly after an Israeli helicopter strike killed a senior Hamas leader in Gaza City.
The Hamas leader, Ismail Abu Shanab, died along with two bodyguards when their sedan was struck in a barrage of six missiles fired by at least one Apache helicopter, witnesses said. Seventeen people were wounded in the barrage, including several employees of the Gaza governor. Mr. Shanab, who was educated in Vermont and Texas, was considered one of the most pragmatic of the Hamas leaders.
Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem two days ago that killed 20 people, threatened retaliation for the missile strike.
"It is jihad until victory or martyrdom," Hamas said in a statement officially announcing its abandonment of the cease-fire, which Palestinian militant factions, under international pressure, declared on June 29 to advance the American-backed peace plan, known as the road map." (See also: "Palestinian groups revoke cease-fire, vow intensified terror" (The Jerusalem Post, 2003/08/21): "A senior member of Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, said Thursday that his group has also decided to pull out of the cease-fire. He told Ynet that due to Israel's assassination of Ismail Abu Shanab, Israelis should expect "many suicide attacks". He added that 'the price will be very heavy.'")

"Kelly said Gilligan report was 'bullshit', inquiry told" (Ciar Byrne and Julia Day, The Guardian, 2003/08/21)
"David Kelly told a Sunday Times journalist that Andrew Gilligan's report on the Today programme was "bullshit" and said he had been "put through the wringer" by the Ministry of Defence over the affair.
Nicholas Rufford told the Hutton inquiry today he visited Dr Kelly at his Oxfordshire home on Wednesday July 9, the day the MoD press office confirmed his name to journalists.
Rufford said he had asked Dr Kelly about his meeting with Gilligan and whether the BBC reporter's account of that conversation was accurate.
Dr Kelly replied: "I talked to him about factual stuff, the rest is bullshit." ...
He said that in their conversation Dr Kelly described the dossier as 'factual and credible.'"

"Garofalo on Bush: 'It Is...a Conspiracy of the 43rd Reich'" (Media Research Center, 2003/08/21)
"Another round of looniness from left-wing activist/actress Janeane Garofalo as the co-host in the left chair on CNN’s Crossfire this week. On Monday she held the Bush administration "responsible" for the blackout. On Wednesday afternoon she blamed the Bush team for the terrorist attack on the UN hotel: "It is the Bush/Cheney cartel's fault for this." ...
Some highlights of Garofalo’s rants during the "Political Alert" segment at the top of the August 20 Crossfire at 4:30pm EDT: ...
Garofalo: "OK, first of all, the Patriot Act passed in the fear of the aftermath of 9/11. It was passed very hastily. It was passed without any congressional scrutiny, because this administration operates like a private corporation, no public oversight, no congressional scrutiny."
Carlson: "What are you talking about?"
Garofalo: "Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. You have to live here, too, Tucker. And you pretend. And you've got to live with this, too."
Carlson, mocking her: "It is a conspiracy, Janeane. I agree with that. We're powerless, not really a democracy."
Garofalo, at same time as Carlson and in a comment missed by the CNN transcribers for the posted transcript: "It is in fact a conspiracy of the 43rd Reich."
Carlson, ridiculing her: 'It's like Apollo 13. There was no moon landing. That's tomorrow's show!'"

"Egyptian Jurists to Sue 'The Jews' for Compensation for 'Trillions' of Tons of Gold Allegedly Stolen During Exodus from Egypt" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 556, 2003/08/21)
"The August 9, 2003 edition of the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi featured an interview with Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq who, together with a group of Egyptian expatriates in Switzerland, is preparing an enormous lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world." The following are excerpts from the interview:
Dr. Hilmi: '… Since the Jews make various demands of the Arabs and the world, and claim rights that they base on historical and religious sources, a group of Egyptians in Switzerland has opened the case of the so-called 'great exodus of the Jews from Pharaonic Egypt.' At that time, they stole from the Pharaonic Egyptians gold, jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing, and more, leaving Egypt in the middle of the night with all this wealth, which today is priceless.'"

"Another way of looking at the road map" (Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz, 2003/08/21)
"The behavior of the Palestinians since the publication of the "road map," and particularly after the achievement of the cease-fire between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, arouses the suspicion that Israel is a partner to laying the foundations of a terrorist state to be called Palestine - a state that will in fact reach an agreement with Israel, but will continue the war against it by means of various Palestinian organizations, claiming that the conflict has not ended."

"Ex-spy fingers Russians on WMD" (Ion Mihai Pacepa, The Washington Times, 2003/08/21)
"As a former Romanian spy chief who used to take orders from the Soviet KGB, it is perfectly obvious to me that Russia is behind the evanescence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. After all, Russia helped Saddam get his hands on them in the first place. The Soviet Union and all its bloc states always had a standard operating procedure for deep sixing weapons of mass destruction — in Romanian it was codenamed "Sarindar", meaning "emergency exit." ...
All chemical weapons were to be immediately burned or buried deep at sea. Technological documentation, however, would be preserved in microfiche buried in waterproof containers for future reconstruction. Chemical weapons, especially those produced in Third World countries, which lack sophisticated production facilities, often do not retainlethal properties after a few months on the shelf and are routinely dumped anyway. And all chemical weapons plants had a civilian cover making detection difficult, regardless of the circumstances. ...
The Soviet bloc not only sold Saddam its WMDs, but it showed them how to make them "disappear." ...
Mr. Putin's tactics have worked. The United States won a brilliant military victory, demolishing a dictatorship without destroying the country, but it has begun losing the peace. While American troops unveiled the mass graves of Saddam's victims, anti-American forces in Western Europe and elsewhere, spewed out vitriolic attacks, accusing Washington of greed for oil and not of really caring about weapons of mass destruction, or exaggerating their risks, as if weapons of mass destruction were really nothing very much to worry about after all."

"Why hit the U.N.?" (Martin Walker, UPI, 2003/08/21)
"In any event, the United Nations now faces a major test. ... Not only does the United Nations as an institution have a choice - whether to scuttle or to remain half in bed with the Anglo-Americans and increasingly responsible for the stabilization of Iraq - it also has a decision-making process that puts an onus of choice on France, Russia and China as veto-wielding powers. They agreed that the U.N. staff should return to Baghdad, and to that extent they share in the responsibility to respond to their slaughter.
The issue is plain enough. Do these three great powers, and through them the United Nations as a whole, recognize that the suicide bombers of Baghdad who killed the U.N. staff are now the common enemy of humanity, and join to hunt them down? Or do they take refuge in their earlier pedantries, backing Resolution 1441 to require Saddam to carry out his various obligations, but ducking the military resolve to enforce it?
In the dulcet tones of French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, or the brisk self-contradictions of his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, one can already hear the footsteps of appeasement, of blaming the Americans, of identifying some supposedly righteous force of Iraqi resistance to the occupier.
None of this can change the raw fact. The United Nations has been attacked. The international community is honor bound to rally to its defense and to haul the men behind the attackers to justice."

"Iraq is not another Vietnam, but the coalition needs more men" (John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/08/21)
"America certainly does not want to widen the Middle Eastern conflict at present, but the time may be coming when firm pressure will have to be exerted against the Assad and Ayatollah regimes. That would be desirable in any case, as a measure in the worldwide war on terror.
Despite the bombing of the UN building, there is no cause for despair. Iraq is not a potential Vietnam. Most wars give rise to periods of disorder and the level of violence current in Iraq is neither unprecedented nor uncontainable.
The anti-war element in the Western media will be doing a service to no one, least of all the Iraqi people, if they allow their pleasure at the spectacle of post-war disturbance to undermine the coalition's efforts to establish a lasting peace."

"U.S. Renews Bid To Involve More Nations in Iraq" (Peter Slevin and Bradley Graham, The Washington Post, 2003/08/21)
"The Bush administration, under pressure to improve security in Iraq following the devastating bombing of the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters, revived a discarded effort yesterday to win U.N. Security Council support for a broader international role in policing the country.
The effort, initiated by the State Department, is designed to harness outrage at the bombing to draw more countries into securing and rebuilding Iraq, without surrendering significant American authority, U.S. sources said. The Pentagon, which opposes diluting U.S. command, has offered its tentative approval, according to administration officials."

"A baby survives the inferno" (Etgar Lefkovits, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/08/21)
"Amid the carnage of the bombed out bus, a rescue worker thought he heard a cry.
Sifting through the rubble, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav lifted up a baby, bloodied but alive.
"From this terrible inferno of bloody, burned bodies, I lifted a baby, alive and unhurt," Meshi-Zahav, the director of Zaka (Disaster Victims Identification) recalled.
Another Zaka member uncovered a second infant at the front of the bus, and performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the street to resuscitate him.
Tuesday night's bombing exacted an unusually heavy toll on the young, causing Jerusalem hospital officials to dub it "the attack on the children."
At least five of the 20 people killed in the attack were children or infants, the youngest three months old. One third of the more than 100 people wounded were also youngsters, rescue workers said, children whose parents, brothers, or sisters were often wounded or killed as well."

Added in archive:
"Al-Qaradhawi Speaks In Favor of Suicide Operations at an Islamic Conference in Sweden" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 542, 2003/07/24)

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

News and commentary:

"To slam Dubya for the bombing of the Baghdad UN headquarters, NYT buries the key fact on page A9, paragraph 11" (William J. Dyer, BeldarBlog, 2003/08/20)
Deeply buried in the The New York Times. Found via InstaPundit: "But there — tucked away nicely in the eleventh paragraph, without subheading or italics or boldface or sidebar ("too damn bad we don't have footnotes we could drop this into," you can almost hear the editors murmur) — we finally learn the key fact to answer the questions, "How could this have happened and who's to blame?"

After a bombing at the Jordanian Embassy last week, senior American officials warned that other soft targets might be next. But the United Nations deliberately avoided sealing itself off because it feared that such barriers would send the wrong message to Iraqis seeking help.

Also slipped into that story is an acknowledgement that "[t]he United Nations has been a target before. Three employees were killed over the last few months in various shooting attacks."
But you have to leave altogether the bizarro-world of the NYT to learn from somewhere like the Associated Press, as printed in the Houston Chronicle, that

U.N. officials at the headquarters had refused heavy security — aside from the recently built concrete wall — because the United Nations "did not want a large American presence outside," said Salim Lone, the U.N. spokesman in Baghdad.

Oh." (See also: "Amid Blood and Rubble, a Sense of Helplessness" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2003/08/20) and "U.N. bomb was made from old munitions, FBI says" (AP/Houston Chronicle, 2003/08/20))

"Culturally enlightened French writers show simplistic Americans what justice is all about" (Merde in France, 2003/08/20)
"The Paris Intelligentsia is a degenerate band of no talent hacks that only seem to be inspired and profitable when they are shitting all over America. Check out what writer Alain Soral had to say about 9-11 in last year's book 'Abécédaire de la bêtise ambiante': 'It takes quite a bit of hurt pride, and a generous soul, for a Saudi billionaire to give up the life of a pacha to seek justice, in a life of discomfort and danger.', and 'Let us hope that the next [attack] will come quickly and that, in order to increase its educational efficiency, it hits stronger and more accurately.' Soral has published several books, is on prime time talk shows fairly often, and has screenwritten at least one film. Soral is mass market over here, not at all fringe stuff. Never forgive, never forget. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever."

"Military Explosives Used in Baghdad Blast, F.B.I. Says" (Neil MacFarquhar and Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2003/08/20)
Military weapons, including a Soviet-built 500-pound bomb, were used to blow up part of a United Nations compound here, the F.B.I.'s special agent in Iraq said today.
The explosives also included artillery shells, mortar rounds and grenades, although not all of them went off, said the agent, Thomas V. Fuentes. He said all the materials were from Saddam Hussein's prewar arsenal.
"It's not a homemade device," he said. 'It was from military munition.'"

"How did we degenerate to such a terrible extent?" (The Daily Star, 2003/08/20)
An editorial from the Lebanese daily: "The bombing tells us something about the ugly situation in Iraq four months after the war ended, but it also tells us something much more profound and worrying about conditions in the modern Arab world that would permit such things to happen.
The United Nations staff who were killed and injured included some of the finest, most dedicated international civil servants anywhere in the world; they also comprise a large contingent of scrupulously honest and diligent Arab and other Middle Eastern specialists ­ individuals who represent perhaps the most hopeful point of continuous interaction between this region’s chronic conflicts and the international community’s best attempts to resolve them. Killing the finest men and women from the Middle East and the world who serve in incredibly trying situations is an act so degenerate that it defies any rational explanation. It is, first and foremost, a call to all in this region to look deep into our souls, to answer two related questions: How could the societies of the Middle East have deteriorated politically and morally to such a degree that this sort of attack has become routine? And where are the institutions, the forces, and the men and women of the Middle East ­ in religion, politics, education, and thought ­ who should stand in the face of such national deformity and stop the bleeding from generation to generation?"

"The war against terror can be won only if we have the will" (Michael Ledeen, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/08/20)
"Long before the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I wrote that the coalition had better be ready for a relentless terrorist assault, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, once Saddam had been toppled.
We had waited an unconscionably long time between the liberation of Afghanistan and the move against Saddam, thereby giving the terror masters in Baghdad, Teheran, Damascus and Riyadh abundant opportunity to plan their response. They decided to repeat what they saw as their winning strategy in Lebanon in the 1980s (driving out America and France) and 1990s (compelling an Israeli withdrawal from the south). ...
The jihad in Iraq is simply a continuation of the terror war against the West that saw its most recent apogee on September 11, 2001. That war has been on for more than a quarter-century, and the terror masters will continue to wage it until they have either won or lost. ...
Perhaps the bombing of the UN offices will clarify things, and spur the feckless critics of the war against terrorism to join us. The terror masters do not think that will happen. They expect that the flow of body bags will stimulate world public opinion to demand an end to the "occupation" of Iraq - which would transform Iraq and Afghanistan from humiliating defeats for the Islamists into glorious triumphs over the West. ...
The terror masters are wounded and frightened, but they are still on the battlefield and they are determined to prevail. They understand, correctly in my opinion, that it is all a matter of will. We have more than enough power to prevail, but we have yet to demonstrate the resolve to impose victory on our enemies."

"Terrorist Despair" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2003/08/20)
"Our enemies' initial "Mogadishu Strategy" - based on the faulty notion that if you kill Americans they pack up and go home - was a disaster for them. Our response devastated their already-crippled organization. Now, with reduced capabilities and decayed leadership, they've turned to attacking soft targets. It's the best they can do.
It's ugly. But it's an indicator of their weakness, not of strength. ...
Within our own country, every potential Howard Dean voter will declare that the U.N. headquarters bombing proves, for all time, that our occupation has failed, can never succeed, should never have been tried, and, anyway, that we're all bad people for disturbing poor, innocent dictators. Then they'll trot out the nonsense that, since Iraq has become a magnet for international terrorists, we've failed on that count, too.
On the contrary. We've taken the War Against Terror to our enemies. It's far better to draw the terrorists out of their holes in the Middle East, where we don't have to read them their rights, than to wait for them to show up in Manhattan again.
In Iraq, we can just kill the bastards. And we're doing it with gusto.
Yes, the Canal Hotel attack proves that terrorists are rushing to Iraq like moths to a hurricane lamp. But when that happens, the lamp wins, not the moths." (Note: For an example of this predictable "nonsense", see "How America Created a Terrorist Haven" (Jessica Stern, The New York Times, 2003/08/20): "Yesterday's bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was the latest evidence that America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one.")

"Against all flags" (The Washington Times, 2003/08/20)
"Anyone who has thought that President Bush was overstating or politicizing the war on terror should be duly sobered this morning. The bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad yesterday should be revelatory even to the most credulous of the world's citizens. This was not an attack on "imperial" American troops, but on the Third World-dominated, anti-Israeli, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War United Nations. It is truly a declaration that the terrorists stand against all flags. ...
The unavoidable implication is that Islamist terrorism in any country cannot be defeated without reversing the policy (or regime) of states that give comfort and support to those terrorists. President Bush's much-ridiculed Axis of Evil exists, and its targets now include the United Nations itself. If the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Annan meant what they said yesterday, they soon will have to present their plan for regime change or transformation in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, among others.
Will yesterday's assault on the U.N. citadel in Baghdad induce the true beginning of the actual fighting of President Bush's long-called for war by the entire civilized world against terrorism? Or will the United Nations once again rationalize inaction, and thereby complete the rout of its credibility?"

"Baghdad and Jerusalem" (The Jerusalem Post, 2003/08/20)
"There are two simple lessons from the suicide bombings yesterday in Baghdad and Jerusalem: No one is safe and there is no turning back. Suicide terrorism is the plague of this century. It cannot be escaped, denied, or appeased. It must be defeated.
So far, the terrorists have successfully played divide and conquer. They have first succeeded in convincing the world that terrorism against Israel, while condemnable, is somehow understandable, and that it can be addressed by delivering on supposed "root causes," such as the call for a Palestinian state. They have also lulled the world into thinking that only those who stand up to them, such as the US and Israel, will be attacked, while those who are willing to resist the war against terrorism will be spared.
Terrorism will be beaten when these twin myths are dispelled. So long as the terrorists see that the world is afraid to take Israel's side against them, why should they stop? And so long as key European democracies, such as France, will not back concerted action against terrorism-supporting countries in the UN Security Council, why should countries like Iran and Syria change their stripes?"

"Huge Suicide Blast Demolishes U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad; Top Aid Officials Among 17 Dead" (Dexter Filkins and Richard A. Oppel Jr., The New York Times, 2003/08/20)
"L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American civilian administrator here, said there were indications that Mr. Vieira de Mello had been the target of the attack. The truck bomb crashed into the compound just beneath Mr. Vieira de Mello's third-floor office. ...
Susan Manuel, a United Nations spokeswoman, said the bombing marked the deadliest attack on the organization in its history. The attack came less than a month after the Security Council, relegated to a supporting role in Iraq, voted to endorse the American-backed Iraqi interim government.
Today, the Security Council resolved to redouble its efforts, as did President Bush, despite all attempts to force outsiders to quit the country."

"In Jerusalem, A Scene 'Like a Horror Movie'" (Molly Moore, The Washington Post, 2003/08/20)
"After praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, Tzvi Weiss, an 18-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., native with a wisp of a beard, boarded the Egged No. 2 bus for home and slid into a seat in the second row from the front.
As the bus climbed a narrow street just after 9 p.m. in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood where many of the passengers lived, "I heard a huge explosion and climbed out the window and started running," said Weiss, his white shirt drenched in darkening blood. "I saw people covered in blood without limbs, screaming -- it was like a horror movie."
The blast, detonated by a Palestinian suicide bomber, turned the interior of the large, double-cabin bus into a charred skeleton of melted seats. The explosion spewed human body parts, baby strollers and the black fedora-style hats of Orthodox Jewish men for several blocks. The blast also blew out the windows of another bus, which had pulled into the bus stop just ahead of Egged No. 2. A silver compact automobile smashed into the rear of the Egged bus as it jolted to a halt."

"A family portrait..."
(AP Photo/HO, 2003/08/20)
"A family portrait provided by relatives, in Hebron, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2003 shows Palestinian suicide bomber Raed Mesk, with his children Mo'men, right, age 3, and Sama, 2, days before Tuesday Aug. 19, 2003 when he blew himself up on a crowded Jerusalem bus, killing 20 including six children, Over a hundred people were wounded in the attack."

"Bombing Kills 18 and Hurts Scores on Jerusalem Bus" (James Bennet, The New York Times, 2003/08/20)
"In the West Bank city of Hebron, a Hamas cell released a printed statement claiming the attack, as well as a videotape of the man that Israel said carried it out.
In the videotape, the man identified as the bomber, Raed Abdul Hamid Misk, 29, appeared with a rifle in one hand and a Koran in the other. "We are proud to offer ourselves and our lives and our houses as a present to this religion," he said in Arabic. Switching to English, he said, "The people of Palestine commit themselves to cease-fire, but the criminal Sharon refused this commitment and killed many people in Palestine."
Mr. Misk was working toward a master's degree from An-Najah university in the West Bank city of Nablus, his family said.
Mr. Misk left behind two children and a wife, Arij Joubeh, in the sixth month of pregnancy. She said of her husband, 'All his life he was saying, 'Oh God, I wish to be a martyr.''"

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

News and commentary:

"George W's Personal Jesus"
(GQ/Drudge Report, 2003/08/19)

"GQ mag depicts President Bush as 'Jesus' in controversial photo spread" (Matt Drudge, Drudge Report, 2003/08/19)
Meanwhile, some are busy portraying Bush (or Blair or Sharon) as the real problem:
"A coming edition of GQ magazine turns President Bush in to Jesus Christ - in a full-page photo illustration!
The controversial photo is set to run with an accompanied essay titled "George W's Personal Jesus," publishing sources tell the Drudge Report.
"In the beginning, there was the call...," writer Guy Lawson opens in his essay on the president's religious convictions.
The photo marks a dramatic entrance for new GQ editor Jim Nelson."

"Suicide Bomber Kills 20 on Israeli Bus" (Lara Sukhtian, AP/Yahoo News!, 2003/08/19)
"A suicide bomber blew up on a bus packed with observant Jews returning from the Western Wall on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 100 in one of the deadliest bombings in the past three years of fighting.
The militant Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility, in a call to The Associated Press, saying it was avenging the killing of a senior operative by Israeli troops in an arrest raid last week. ...
The blast went off shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, as the crowded tandem bus drove along a main thoroughfare in Jerusalem and another bus pulled in front of it, witnesses said.
Several children were among the dead and wounded."

"Chief UN Envoy in Baghdad Dead, U.N. Announces" (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, 2003/08/19)
"Sergio Vieira de Mello, 55, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq and a rising star in the United Nations system, was killed on Tuesday in a Baghdad bomb blast on U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, chief U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard announced.
Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian, who had frequently been mentioned as a candidate for secretary-general, had been trapped under the rubble with rescuers trying in vain to reach him.
U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan confirmed with "deepest regret" the death of Vieira de Mello, his special representative in Iraq, Eckhard said.
The tough, debonair Brazilian, fluent in English, French, Spanish and his native Portuguese, has handled some of the world body's most difficult missions, from Kosovo in the Balkans to East Timor in the Pacific."

"Remarks by the President on Bombing in Baghdad" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2003/08/19)
"The terrorists who struck today have again shown their contempt for the innocent. They showed their fear of progress and their hatred of peace. They are the enemies of the Iraqi people. They are the enemies of every nation that seeks to help the Iraqi people. By their tactics and their targets, these murderers reveal themselves once more as enemies of the civilized world.
Every sign of progress in Iraq adds to the desperation of the terrorists and the remnants of Saddam's brutal regime. The civilized world will not be intimidated, and these killers will not determine the future of Iraq. The Iraqi people have been liberated from a dictator. Iraq is on a irreversible course toward self-government and peace. And America and our friends and the United Nations will stand with the Iraqi people as they reclaim their nation and their future.
Iraqi people face a challenge, and they face a choice. The terrorists want to return to the days of torture chambers and mass graves. The Iraqis who want peace and freedom must reject them and fight terror. And the United States and many in the world will be there to help them."

"Unidentified people inspect the rubble..."
(AP Photo/Wally Santana, 2003/08/19)
"Unidentified people inspect the rubble of the Canal Hotel which houses the United Nations headquarters, after an explosion Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2003, in Baghdad, Iraq. A car bomb hit in front of the hotel, the U.S. military said."

"'Suicide' Truck Bomb Shatters U.N. Baghdad HQ" (Michael Georgy and Luke Baker, Reuters, 2003/08/19)
"A massive truck bomb devastated the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding scores, officials said.
It may have been a suicide attack, a top U.S. official said.
Among many badly hurt and still trapped under the rubble was Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. A U.N. official said his wrecked office appeared to have been the target of the unidentified bombers.
A U.S. army officer at the scene said at least 10 people were killed. Several dead and wounded were still trapped.
"It is a tragedy...A setback politically for the U.N. mission," chief U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said of the almost unprecedented attack on a civilian United Nations operation."

"Terror victim to publish suspected terrorist's memoirs" (Gunnar Nyquist, WEBLOGG. DOCUMENT.NO, 2003/08/19)
Tolerance for intolerance is not tolerance at all, to cite Bruce Bawer: "Salman Rushdie's Norwegian publisher William Nygaard, who himself suffered a near fatal terrorist attack ten years ago, plans to publish the memoirs of an Iraqi guerilla leader and suspected terrorist, Mullah Krekar.
Mullah Krekar (aka Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad) is a former leader of the islamic fundamentalist organisation Ansar al-Islam, which was partly destroyed by US and Kurdish forces in Northern Iraq earlier this year. Ansar al-Islam is suspected of having strong links to Al-Qaeda, and possibly also to the former regime of Saddam Hussein. Ansar are believed to be behind several terrorist attacks in Northern Iraq.
Mullah Krekar has asylum status in Norway and lives in Oslo with his family. He and his lawyer have been conducting an intense campaign to avoid being expelled from Norway for violating the terms of his refugee status. ...
Mullah Krekar was questioned by police after Mr Nygaard was shot and severly wounded outside his home in Oslo in October 1993. The unknown gunman escaped and the case has not been solved, although it is considered more than likely that the attack was related to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Krekar had come to Norway as a refugee on a UN quota two years before. Krekar claimed he was not in Norway at the time of the attack. ...
Nygaard confirmed to the Norwegian newspaper VG that he was aware that Krekar was questioned by the police after the attack, but said this does not deter him from publishing Krekar's forthcoming book. Krekar has also been invited to the annual summer party of Nygaard's publishing company Aschehoug in Oslo next week. Salman Rushdie attented the Aschehoug summer party a few years ago." (See also: "Rising Tide of Islamic Militants See Iraq as Ultimate Battlefield" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2003/08/13))

"Bremer urges Syria to stop fighters entering Iraq" (Reuters/MSNBC, 2003/08/19)
"Iraq's U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer, said in remarks published on Tuesday that foreign militants were entering the country from Syria and that he hoped Damascus would cooperate more in stopping the flow.
Saudi militants are among those believed to have infiltrated into Iraq in recent weeks, according to a London-based Saudi dissident and a British-based terrorism expert.
Bremer said in an interview with the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that Iraq's neighbours, including Iran, should not interfere in the country's internal affairs.
''The truth is that there are still problems and there are still foreign terrorists entering Iraq across the borders from Syria,'' Bremer said. 'We have discussed this with the Syrians and we hope to see better cooperation.'''

"Saddam Deputy Ramadan Captured in N. Iraq" (Huda Majeed Saleh, Reuters, 2003/08/19)
"Saddam Hussein's vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, has been captured in Mosul, the Iraqi city where the fugitive dictator's sons were cornered and killed last month, U.S. and Kurdish officials said on Tuesday.
The seizure by Kurdish forces of such a high-profile member of Saddam's inner circle will fuel speculation that U.S. forces are still hot on the trail of the ousted Iraqi leader himself.
Ramadan, a ruthless and long-serving lieutenant who once suggested President Bush fight a duel with Saddam, may have been betrayed by an informant in Mosul - like Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay - or captured after a tip-off."

"Saddam's Orphans" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2003/08/19)
"Ba'athists are not the only political and financial orphans left by Saddam. The Iraqi dictator financed hundreds of journalists, and supposedly independent politicians in virtually all Arab countries. Documents seized from the Iraqi Cultural Office in London include lists that read like a who's who of pan-Arab intellectual elite.
Over the years, Saddam financed dozens of Arab publications, including weeklies and dailies based in Beirut, Paris and London. Some prominent Arab journalists received "presidential presents" in the form of luxury homes in Europe, expensive cars and costly gold watches, the standard Arab gift.
Iraqi groups studying the documents estimate that Saddam spent more than $1 billion over 20 years to buy prominent Arabs, and finance Arab parties and politicians devoted to his personality cult. Arab writers were paid millions of dollars to produce hagiographical accounts of Saddam's life. Film-makers and TV producers received cash in exchange for footage devoted to the "Great Leader of Arabs." ...
Documents now being studied by the Iraqi research group also reveal that Saddam had a network of support in several European countries, notably Britain, France and Austria.
At least three French political parties received financial contributions from Saddam between 1975 and 1990. Several prominent French politicians, including former Cabinet ministers, received money from Saddam. Several British politicians, including at least one member of parliament, were among the recipients of Saddam's largesse."

"'Bush Good, Saddam Bad!'" (John R. Guardiano, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/08/19)
"In fact, there is another Iraq that the media virtually ignore. It is guarded by the First Marine Division, and, unlike Baghdad, it has been a model of success. The streets are safe, petty and violent crime are low, water and electrical services are almost universally available (albeit rationed), and ordinary Iraqis are beginning to clean up and rebuild their neighborhoods and communities. Equally important, a deep level of mutual trust and respect has developed between the Marines and the populace here in central and southern Iraq.
I know because I'm one of those Marines. My reserve unit was activated before the war, and in April my team arrived in this small city roughly 60 miles south of Baghdad. The negative media portrait of the situation in Iraq doesn't correspond with what I've seen. Indeed, we were treated as liberating heroes when we arrived four months ago, and we continue to enjoy amicable relations with the local populace. ...
"Bush good, Saddam bad!" many Iraqis tell us emphatically - and repeatedly. I'm not sure how George W. Bush is faring with the American public, but he's got a lock on Al Hillah."

Monday, August 18, 2003

News and commentary:

"Saudis in Iraq 'preparing for a holy war'" (Mark Huband, Financial Times, 2003/08/18)
"Increasing numbers of Saudi Arabian Islamists are crossing the border into Iraq in preparation for a jihad, or holy war, against US and UK forces, security and Islamist sources have warned.
A senior western counter-terrorism official on Monday said the presence of foreign fighters in Iraq was "extremely worrying". ...
According to Saad al-Faguih, a UK-based Saudi dissident, the Saudi authorities are concerned that up to 3,000 Saudi men have gone "missing" in the kingdom in two months, although it is not clear how many have crossed into Iraq.
Saudis who have gone to Iraq have established links with sympathetic Iraqis in the northern area between Baghdad, Mosul and Tikrit, where they have hidden in safe-houses, a Saudi Islamist source said on Monday." (See also: "Rising Tide of Islamic Militants See Iraq as Ultimate Battlefield" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2003/08/13))

"Drifting toward war with North Korea" (Stanley Kurtz, The Corner, 2003/08/18)
Kurtz on Henry Kissinger's Washington Post Op-Ed:
"The North Korean threat is America's most pressing and potentially deadly dilemma. I have thought for some time that we are drifting toward war, and nothing in Henry Kissinger's long Washington Post Op-Ed today changes my mind. Kissinger himself quotes with approval former defense Secretary William Perry’s recent warnings that once the spent fuel rods from Yongbyon are reprocessed, war with Korea is next to inevitable. ...
He does acknowledge the likelihood that the North Koreans will simply use protracted negotiations to complete the reprocessing of the fuel rods. But Kissinger is obviously pessimistic about our ability to enforce a time deadline on the North Koreans. Kissinger talks about containing a nuclear North Korea after failed negotiations with missile defense, but says absolutely nothing about the sale of nuclear material or weapons to terrorists – the real (and unpreventable) danger. And Kissinger says nothing about how verification of an agreement could be achieved. The truth is, Kim Jong Il will never give inspectors what they would need – free run of his vast underground military system. So we still seem to me on a path that is likely to end in either a terrible terrorist attack on the United States, war with North Korea, or both." (See also: "It's Either Nukes or Negotiation" (William J. Perry, The Washington Post, 2003/07/23) and "U.S., N. Korea Drifting Toward War, Perry Warns" (Thomas E. Ricks and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, 2003/07/15))

"Toward an East Asian security system" (Henry A. Kissinger, The Washington Post/Digital chosun, 2003/08/18)
"The bilateral route urged by North Korea is a trap and the demand for a non-aggression pact a canard. The proposition that the most Stalinist regime in the world would be reassured by promises from what it regularly vilifies as ''capitalist scum'' defies belief. Bilateral negotiations after a brief period of relief would strain America's relations with Seoul; South Korean nationalists would attack American diplomacy as making either too few concessions or too many. A bilateral agreement cannot engage the interests of other countries whose help is needed to sustain Northeast Asian stability. Of course, negotiators in any forum are free to exchange views with their colleagues. But the United States must resist the siren song of using the six-power forum as a facade for bilateral U.S.-North Korea talks as the key element or of luring Pyongyang to a conference with that prospect. ...
The current Pyongyang regime must reform - or it will erode - whatever American policy. All the six-power forum can do is to allow time for either process. The frequent speculation regarding the incentives required to encourage China (or others) to support American policy on North Korea misses the point. China - and other countries - will take the necessary measures only if they conceive them to be in a common interest; what we should seek is cooperation in a global design, not acquiescence in an American arms control formula. For if that effort fails, each nation will have to consider its options in ridding the world of the scourge of nuclear proliferation or of living with its disastrous consequences."

"The BBC's crooked time-line" (Andrea Levin, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/08/18)
"One window on BBC thinking can be found on the network's website, in its permanent background articles, posted there ostensibly to add context to daily reports.
A time-line entitled "A History of Conflict" captures the pervasive endorsement of Arab grievance and Zionist culpability. The introduction explains: "For the Palestinians the last 100 years have brought colonisation, expulsion and military occupation, followed by a long and difficult search for self-determination and for coexistence..."
Among the many tendentious assertions in that single sentence is the curious statement that Palestinians have been engaged in a "difficult search" for "coexistence" with Israel. Difficult, indeed, it has been, when classrooms are filled with maps of Palestine supplanting Israel and children are taught that it is both their right and duty to pursue that country's annihilation, and that they should seek paradise in the honorable act of killing as many Jews as possible. ...
But little can top BBC's rationalizing of Arab aggression in the Yom Kippur War: "Unable to regain the territory they had lost in 1967 by diplomatic means, Egypt and Syria launched major offensives against Israel on the Jewish festival of the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. The clashes are also known as the Ramadan War." Evidently BBC considers Arab rejectionism, embodied in the "three no's" of Khartoum issued in August 1967 - no recognition, no negotiation and no peace with Israel - a form of "diplomatic" effort." (See also: "Israel and the Palestinians - A History of Conflict" (BBC News))

"What Right?" (Saul Singer, National Review, 2003/08/18)
"Why is Israel being so restrained when it is clear that the PA is allowing the infrastructure of terror not only to survive, but to be rebuilt? Because Israel does not want to be blamed for the demise of the "ceasefire." Each time Israelis die and Israel does not react, Israel builds up victim credits. At the end of the day, after enough Israelis die, Israel hopes to redeem these victim credits for the right to fight back.
Both President George W. Bush and Sharon bear responsibility for setting the rules of this game. Sharon assesses that the U.S. has no Plan B for after the hudna falls apart, and therefore is not ready to back an Israeli "escalation" to the status quo ante, let alone something more drastic. At the same time, the U.S. position is based on an assessment that Sharon will accept American pleas for restraint.
The Palestinians, in the meantime, may rest assured that they can continue to kill Israelis in ones and twos (perhaps more) without being blamed for ending the hudna. Even better, from their perspective, there is a fair chance that further attacks will force Israel to respond in a way that creates a rift with the U.S. and shifts the blame for breaking the hudna onto Israeli shoulders.
How did Israel get into this predicament? The same way that the Oslo process died a death of a thousand violations, each deemed too small to blow the whistle and hold the Palestinians accountable for their commitments. Once commitments are replaced by arbitrary judgments by the U.S. and the Palestinians of what Israel will tolerate, the pressure on the Palestinians is not to comply, but to continue to push the envelope: In other words, to escalate." (See also: "Powell: Peace Process Will Not Be Stopped by Bombs" (Reuters, 2003/08/12))

"Ignorance" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2003/08/18)
"We take for granted the ability to separate fact from fiction, to identify that which looks, feels and smells reasonably like the truth. Yet the long Western struggle to view the world objectively is culturally unique. Especially in the Arab world, myth, comforting lies and cynical rumors trump facts that seem undeniable to us.
It makes things tough for our soldiers, who come from a Joe Friday, "just the facts, ma'am" civilization, yet must bring order to an Alice In Wonderland culture in which nothing is quite what it seems and things just grow "curiouser and curiouser."
Even in relatively "Western" countries, such as Russia or Greece, I've been astonished at the patently lunatic conspiracy theories to which even elites subscribe. Indeed, one of the many politically incorrect questions that needs to be asked is simply this: Is there a direct correlation between our appetite for accurate data and the success of American civilization? The answer seems obvious, but don't try raising that question at Columbia. ...
The Middle East is the "Through the Looking-glass" version of our society. In the United States, we expect that the surface reflects what lies beneath. In the Arab world, surfaces are constructed to deceive, to deflect, to shield. The first story is never the real story. Promises are empty. And conspiracy theories overpower facts."

"Saboteurs Hit Iraqi Oil, Water Supply" (D'Arcy Doran, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/08/18)
"Saboteurs blew up a water main in northern Baghdad on Sunday, forcing engineers to cut off water to the entire capital and raising new concerns that insurgents are hitting Iraq's infrastructure to slow its recovery.
The water main bombing came as two oil fires raged out of control along an oil pipeline to Turkey, halting exports just days after they started. The first blaze appeared to be sabotage, a coalition spokesman said.
In new violence, a mortar attack on a Baghdad prison being used by the United States killed six Iraqis. Hours later, a cameraman for the Reuters news agency was mistakenly shot and killed by U.S. soldiers while filming outside the prison."

Added in archive:
"It's Either Nukes or Negotiation" (William J. Perry, The Washington Post, 2003/07/23)
"U.S., N. Korea Drifting Toward War, Perry Warns" (Thomas E. Ricks and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, 2003/07/15)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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

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

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

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