Archived news and commentary: September 15 - 21, 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, September 21, 2003

"Washington deaf to reason" (Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram, from the 18 - 24 September 2003 issue)
The reason of hysterical conspiracy theorizing? Found via IMRA, who points out that Ibrahim Nafie "chairs the Al Ahram organization and is Mubarak's favorite journalist": "To me the US administration's adamant refusal to discuss the political dimension of the Iraqi problem and its determination to treat it exclusively from the security perspective clearly suggest that the architects of this scheme for the region are from the ultra- conservative and Zionist right. It is little wonder, therefore, that this scheme should be so heartily embraced by Israel which, having shored up the territorial edifice of the state, is now proceeding to the second phase of its project: regional domination. This makes it all the more imperative for Arab leaders to treat the situation in Iraq for what it really is. We are faced with a traditional occupation of a pivotal Arab nation, an occupation that is no more than a link in the chain of a fully-fledged plan to dismember the Arab world and destroy its identity in order to promote purely American interests, and the interests of Washington's number one ally in the region, Israel."

"Tunisian Intellectual Al-Afif Al-Akhdar On the Arab Identity Crisis and Education in the Arab World" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 576, 2003/09/21)
Translated excerpts from two articles by Tunisian intellectual Al-Afif Al-Akhdar on religious narcissism in the Arab world:
"Why is it that our countries are among the wealthiest in natural resources... and the poorest in human resources? Why does the world's human knowledge double every three years... while with us, what multiplies several times over is illiteracy, ideological fear, and mental paralysis? Why do expressions of tolerance, moderation, rationalism, compromise, and negotiation horrify us, but [when we hear] fervent cries for vengeance, we all dance the war dance? Why have the people of the world managed to mourn their pasts and move on, while we have established, hard and fast, our gloomy bereavement over a past that does not pass? Why do other people love life, while we love death and violence, slaughter and suicide, and [even] call it heroism and martyrdom...?
[The answer] to many of [these questions] lies in a contrast-ridden and explosive mixture of a collective narcissistic wound and religious narcissism that has caused us collective mental paralysis... In the head of almost every one of us [Arabs] is something of Dr. Jekyll and something of Mr. Hyde: a mind simultaneously demented and wretched." (See also: "What Went Wrong?" (Bernard Lewis, The Atlantic, from the January 2002 issue) and "Occidentalism" (Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma, The New York Review of Books, from the 2002/01/17 issue))

"Next weekend's 'peace' marches will perpetuate the lies of the Left" (Henry McDonald, The Observer, 2003/09/21)
"Next weekend, the far Left will once again seek to con tens of thousands of Irish people. Earlier this year, the unreconstructed Marxist-Leninists, under the banner of pacifism, brought the masses on to the streets of Dublin, Derry and Belfast. The M-Lers even managed to fool respected, usually erudite, commentators, writers and artists into believing in the justness of their 'cause'. ...
Marching for 'peace' back in January objectively (a word often used by the M-Lers) entailed support for the retention of the Baath. Now that all the apocalyptic predictions of the Irish peace movement have proved to be wrong, the anti-American Left is now seizing on every grenade attack, shooting and roadside bomb directed at allied forces and, yes, the United Nations, in Iraq. Some of the Irish ultra-Left groups are even abusing language and truth by describing those behind these sorties as the 'resistance to occupation'. ...
What this alliance of Baathists and Islamists fear more than anything (a fear shared by the Arab dictatorships) is the threat of a good example. If Iraq evolves from a one-party gangster state into a pluralist democracy, a process well underway in the northern Kurdish region with its free press and multi-party system, then it will become a beacon of hope for other oppressed people in the region."

"Attackers Wound an Iraqi Official in a Baghdad Raid" (Patrick E. Tyler, The New York Times, 2003/09/21)
"In an interview last week, Ms. Hashemi expressed pride and satisfaction in having represented the Governing Council in delegations to the United Nations Security Council and in private discussions this month in Paris with Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France. She planned to go to New York next week as part of a delegation to try to claim Iraq's seat at the United Nations.
She said in the interview that she had admonished the French not to try to drive a wedge between the United States and the new Iraqi government by offering tempting plans for quick sovereignty.
"Don't think the Iraqis will ever forget what the Americans did in liberating them," she said she told French officials, adding, 'we will not allow the Americans to fail.'"

Saturday, September 20, 2003

"Arafat Diverted $900 Million to Private Account, IMF Says" (Bloomberg.com, 2003/09/20)
"Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat diverted $900 million of his government's revenue to private bank accounts from 1995 through 2000, International Monetary Fund officials said.
Arafat moved Palestinian Authority gas taxes into an account at Bank Leumi Le-Israel in Tel Aviv, and diverted tobacco and alcohol taxes, as well as other revenue, into other accounts, according to an IMF report on the Palestinian economy. ...
Of the money sent to accounts controlled by Arafat and his financial adviser Mohammed Rashid, about $700 million has been accounted for and is in investments held by the Palestinian Authority, Nashashibi said. He said the $200 million gap may represent a decline in investment value, rather than a further diversion of money by Arafat.
The diverted revenue accounted for about 19 percent of the Palestinian Authority's $4.7 billion revenue from 1995 through 2000, according to the IMF report."

"Iraqi Councilwoman Wounded in Attack" (Tarek Al-Issawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/09/20)
"Six gunmen firing assault weapons from a Toyota pickup truck chased a member of Iraq's Governing Council in her car and seriously wounded her in the first assassination attempt targeting the U.S.-created leadership body.
The brazen, daytime attack was against Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on the council, a Shiite Muslim and a strong candidate to become Iraq's representative at the United Nations . ...
Saturday's attack came at 9 a.m., when gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade on al-Hashimi's car soon after she left her house in western Baghdad, members of her security detail said. The grenade missed, and the attackers opened fire with assault rifles.
Al-Hashimi, critically wounded in the abdomen, was rushed to the al-Yarmouk Hospital for surgery and was later moved in a convoy of American armored vehicles and military ambulances to the U.S. military hospital at Baghdad International Airport. Three of her bodyguards were also wounded.
There, she was reported in stable condition. "She is fine," said Haitham al-Husseini, an adviser to Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim."

"UN Day of Shame" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/09/20)
"Final results from the UN’s latest day of shame:

Vote on Illegal Israeli Actions in Occupied Palestinian Territory

The draft resolution on illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory (document A/ES-10/L.12) was adopted, as orally amended, by a recorded vote of 133 in favour to 4 against, with 15 abstentions, as follows:

In favour: Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gambia, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen.

Against: Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, United States."

(See also: "General Assembly, meeting in resumed emergency special session, demands Israel not deport or threaten safety of Yasser Arafat" (United Nations, 2003/09/19))

"Islamic chaplain is charged as spy" (Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times, 2003/09/20)
"An Army Islamic chaplain, who counseled al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base, has been charged with espionage, aiding the enemy and spying, The Washington Times has learned.
Capt. James J. Yee, a 1990 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., was arrested earlier this month by the FBI in Jacksonville, Fla., as he arrived on a military charter flight from Guantanamo, according to a law-enforcement source.
Agents confiscated several classified documents in his possession and interrogated him. He was held for two days in Jacksonville and transferred to a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., where two Army lawyers have been assigned to his defense.
The Army has charged Capt. Yee with five offenses: sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a general order. The Army may also charge him later with the more serious charge of treason, which under the Uniform Code of Military Justice could be punished by a maximum sentence of life."

Friday, September 19, 2003

News and commentary:

"Whose Side Is She On?" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/09/19)
That this has gone unnoticed for almost a week, at least as far as I know, is almost as disturbing as Janet Reno's outrageous comparison itself: "A reader calls our attention to this report in Sunday's Miami Herald:

Former Attorney General Janet Reno criticized the White House on Saturday, describing the Bush administration as filled with "secrecy and silence."
At a panel discussion on U.S.-Islamic relations at Nova Southeastern University, Reno said Americans should know the identities of the thousands of Muslims or Arabs detained after the Sept. 11 attacks.
She compared it to the detainment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor.
"I had the privilege as attorney general to send letters of apology and checks of compensation to Japanese-Americans. When the decision was made to intern them, there was no record that they were a security threat," Reno told the audience of about 100 people. "Fifty years later, I delivered letters of apology. We have got to get it right the first time."

This is a scurrilous comparison. The internment of Japanese-Americans was a genuine injustice - one committed, lest we forget, by Democratic hero Franklin D. Roosevelt. But the Bush administration isn't detaining American citizens who have done nothing wrong; it's detaining foreign nationals who've violated immigration laws, and it is doing so on the basis of laws that long predated the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Herald quotes an audience member, Sahar Ullah: "It was nice to see someone in government outright condemn government policies." It's even nicer to see Janet Reno out of government." (See also: "Reno criticizes White House over Muslim policies" (Jasmine Kripalani, The Miami Herald, 2003/09/14))

"These Are Historic Times" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/09/19)
"By May 1864, Abraham Lincoln was in real trouble. The spectacular victories of the past year at Gettysburg and Vicksburg were mostly forgotten — in the manner that we no longer talk much about the amazing campaign in Afghanistan or the historic three-week drive on Baghdad. ...
We are near the end of such a pivotal summer ourselves, the type that defines not just a presidency, but an entire nation for generations to come. After the spectacular victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, public ardor for the conflict is temporarily cooling. Because of the past recession, the effects of 9/11, the tax cuts, and the cost of the war, we are running up billions in projected annual budget deficits. Our own McClellans and contemporary Copperheads deride the president as a miserable failure cheek by jowl with major newspapers.
Few stop to appreciate that 50 million are now liberated with the first chance of real democracy in the history of the Middle East. We almost take for granted that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein are gone and that 90 percent of Iraq is functioning under local democratic councils — in an irreversible process that is taking on a culture and logic of its own. We are angry not that the situation in the occupied countries is stabilizing — so far at a cost of less than 300 — not 300,000 — American dead, but that they are not yet normal societies. Few Americans ask why and how Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran are suddenly whining privately rather than shouting defiance.
So beneath the hysterical headlines of quagmire, Vietnam, and stalemate, we have sorely hurt our enemies. We have driven the remnants of the Taliban into the Pakistani coffeehouses, the terrorists into caves, Saddam Hussein into a low-rent apartment, his sons into the Inferno — and replaced them all not with dictators, but real opportunities for freedom and consensual government. Instead of more skyscrapers exploding in American cities, 7,000 miles away jihadists and Islamic terrorists are being hunted down in their own once sacred enclaves."

"Symposium: Leftist Anti-Semitism" (Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/09/19)
An excerpt from the symposium, here with Roger S. Gottlieb and Sol Stern debating: "Gottlieb: ... More particularly: the racist character of Israeli society has just been the subject of a report produced by the Israeli government. The oppressive character of the occupation is something that's been commented on by numerous Israelis, including someone who was speaker of the Knesset for four years. God alone knows what you'd say if you were in a conversation with them. Perhaps you think all forms of dissent are traitorous — at least if it's dissent from a policy you think makes sense. The thing is, Professor Stern, I don't have to pretend that Israel is perfect, that it is not oppressive and racist, to believe that it has a right to exist. It has that right, even with its faults, just like the U.S., Argentina, China, Syria, and Nigeria, each of which is also oppressive and racist. ...
Stern: Israel does uphold the "prophetic impulse" in Judaism and behaves with greater justice and decency than any other country would have if it were confronted with such dire threats to its existence. Professor Gottlieb obviously doesn't agree, which is his right. But I also have a right to point out some of the objective political consequences of his excessive denunciations of Israel. Now he tells us that he actually doesn't think Israel is any more racist and oppressive than China, Argentina, Nigeria et. al. I'm thrilled by such a generous analysis. Funny, though, in my occasional browsing through the pages of Tikkun I never seem to see any articles in the "prophetic tradition" denouncing those countries for the sins of racism. In the meantime, in joining in the woldwide villification of Israel as racist and oppressive, Gottlieb and Tikkun manage to pour a little more oil on the bonfire of anti-Israel hatred that is fast becoming anti-semitism."

"Democrats and Nation-Building" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/09/19)
"For more than a year, the Democratic mantra on Afghanistan was that President Bush was not doing enough - not spending enough money, not building the army fast enough, not deploying troops to tame the warlords. The charge was neglect and aversion to nation-building. The result? Afghanistan is "falling back into chaos," said Al Gore last November. ...
This year, however, the Democrats have adopted the opposite tune, denouncing the administration for ambitious, budget-busting nation-building in Iraq. ...
This enthusiasm for nation-building in Afghanistan but not Iraq is not just incoherent, it is illogical. First of all, if you are choosing where to plant the American flag and open the treasury, Iraq is the far better place. ...
Iraq needs at least a modicum of rebuilding before even a coherent and unified government could hope to rule effectively - let alone the current Governing Council, which is indeed representative but for that very reason still divided, unused to compromise and therefore not ready to govern.
The whole French proposal is unserious - almost as unserious as the Democrats, whose only alternative to Bush's $87 billion is to get bailed out by France."

"'As Long as It Takes'" (Colin Powell, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/09/19)
"I have just returned from Iraq. What I saw there convinced me, more than ever, that our liberation of Iraq was in the best interests of the Iraqi people, the American people and the world.
The Iraq I saw was a society on the move, a vibrant land with a hardy people experiencing the first heady taste of freedom. Iraq has come a long way since the dawn of this year, when Saddam Hussein was holding his people in poverty, ignorance and fear while filling mass graves with his opponents. ...
How long will we stay in Iraq? We will stay as long as it takes to turn full responsibility for governing Iraq over to a capable and democratically elected Iraqi administration. Only a government elected under a democratic constitution can take full responsibility and enjoy full legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people and the world.
Anyone who doubts the wisdom of President Bush's course in Iraq should stand, as I did, by the side of the mass grave in Halabja, in Iraq's north. That terrible site holds the remains of 5,000 innocent men, women and children who were gassed to death by Saddam Hussein's criminal regime.
The Iraqi people must be empowered to prevent such mass murder from happening ever again. They must be given the tools and the support to build a peaceful and prosperous democracy. They deserve no less. The American people deserve no less."

"The land of delusion" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/09/19)
Glick on the upcoming celebration of Shimon Peres's 80th birthday: "In the world we live in, every promise of peace and a New Middle East has not only been broken, but has blown up in our faces. In the world we live in, the notion that it is either possible or desirable to negotiate a peace deal with the PLO has been rent asunder.
But in the Land of Peres, it is reality, not Peres, that is wrong. It is reality that is doomed to be remembered in history as a failure. It is reality that is to be condemned as not merely inconvenient but as impossible to countenance. ...
In the wreckage of Oslo it is important to note who its greatest beneficiaries were. The Israelis? Our lives have become a crapshoot. The Palestinians? Their standard of living was decimated by Arafat's kleptocracy, while their children were brainwashed by its jihadist media.
No. The real beneficiaries of the Oslo process were people on the political Left like Peres and Ross and Annan and Clinton and their peace-activist friends. At Oslo, where Yasser Arafat and his PLO were crowned in glory and legitimacy, these men finally found a way to be pro-PLO and "pro-Israel."
As long as Israel had a government that favored Arafat and Oslo, they could ignore the fact that Arafat's regime was among the greatest human-rights abusers in the world. They could, as the UN did this week, condemn every move that Israel takes to defend itself against aggression, never condemn the massacre of Israeli civilians, and still say they were friends of Israel because they believed in peace."

"Saddam Hussein's Defense Minister Surrenders" (AP/The New York Times, 2003/09/18)
"Former Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmad, Iraq's last defense minister under Saddam Hussein, surrendered to the American general in charge of the north of the country Friday after weeks of negotiations, a Kurdish mediator said.
Dawood Bagistani, who arranged the surrender to Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, said Ahmad was handed over "with great respect'' and was with his family at the time.
Bagistani said the American military had promised to remove Ahmad's name from the list of 55 most-wanted, meaning he would not face indefinite confinement and possible prosecution.
"We trust the promise,'' Bagistani said.
Special treatment for Ahmad could be an effort to defuse the guerrilla-style attacks that are taking a toll on American soldiers. Many of the attackers are thought to be former soldiers in Saddam's army. Seeing their former military leader well-treated by the Americans might encourage them to lay down their arms."

Added in archive:
"Iraqi debt, like war, divides the west" (David Mulford and Michael Monderer, Financial Times/Jubilee Iraq, 2003/06/22)
"'Squeezing blood from a stone'" (Harald Schumann, Der Spiegel, 2003/06/02)

Thursday, September 18, 2003

News and commentary:

"The Lady of Warka"
(Interpol, 2003)

"Ancient Iraqi sculpture found" (BBC News, 2003/09/18)
The Homecoming II: "A 5,000-year-old sculpture looted from Baghdad Museum in April has been recovered.
The relic was found by Iraqi police and US soldiers in an orchard on the outskirts of the city after a tip-off.
The 20-centimetre high marble sculpture of a female head was stolen after the fall of former leader Saddam Hussein.
Of the 15,000 pieces stolen since war began, about 13,000 are still missing, including 32 of great value.
The Lady of Warka was one of the most valuable exhibits stolen from the museum."

"The homecoming" (Johann Hari, Independent, 2003/09/18)
A must-read article on three members of The Iraqi Prospect Organisation who just have returned to London after visiting Iraq: "The IPO was set up to convince the world that the Iraqi people wanted and needed Saddam's regime to be overthrown, even if that meant an invasion, and for democracy to be established. They wanted to persuade people that the anti-war movement did not speak for the Iraqis or Kurdish people. After all, their Iraqi relatives were praying for the invasion to happen.
Opinion polls conducted in Iraq since the war - by reputable polling agencies that have predicted election results across the world - have vindicated this view, showing that a large majority of Iraqis wanted the invasion. And there was therefore reason to hope that this visit to Iraq would be a happy one. None the less, I have spent the summer fearing for Sama, Yasser and Abtehale. ...
They returned to London earlier this month. The minute they arrived at my flat, beaming and speaking at a hundred words a minute, my fears evaporated. Abtehale began: "We were so scared that we might have been wrong. We kept thinking, 'What if we get there and everybody hates us for supporting the war?' But it was amazing: almost everyone we met was more hawkish than us. All over the country, even people who really hated the Americans agreed it would have been a disaster if the war had been called off." ...
Swinging her legs, happy and relaxed like I have never seen her before, Sama says: 'If we hadn't been to Iraq, we'd be really depressed right now. I came back, saw the news and thought, 'Are they talking about the same Iraq?''" (See also: The Iraqi Prospect Organisation. UPDATE: The original link is down, but the article can also be found here.)

"'Discrepancies' revealed in Gilligan notes" (Owen Gibson and Julia Day, The Guardian, 2003/09/18)
Things that make you go Hm? III: "A computer expert has told the Hutton inquiry there were discrepancies between two sets of notes made by Andrew Gilligan during his meeting with David Kelly on his electronic organiser.
Gilligan revealed today that he made two sets of notes during the crucial meeting - one during his initial conversation and one at the end, as he checked quotes.
Computer expert Edward Wilding said that on the first set of notes there was no mention of Alastair Campbell, but that on a second set - which carried the following day's date - there was.
Mr Wilding said there were two files dated May 21 (the clock was wrong on his electronic organiser), one of which mentioned the word "Campbell" while the other did not.
"I don't really understand why the word Campbell is not there," said Mr Wilding, referring to the first set of notes.
"The version created of Kelly.txt dated 21st May 2003 is different to the one produced by Mr Gilligan to the inquiry. That concerns me," he added." (See also: "Gilligan questioned over 'anomalies'" (BBC News, 2003/09/18): "Explaining his findings, Mr Wilding said: "Somebody was looking at creating memos and seeing if dates and times could be changed.'")

"Al-Sahaf Talks about the US-UK War on Iraq" (Aljazeerah.info, 2003/09/18)
A translated summary of an interview from Abu Dhabi TV with the former Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed "Baghdad Bob" Sa'id Al-Sahaf: "Question 5: How did Iraq deal with members of the UN Security Council?
Al-Sahaf: We would contact any country which becomes a temporary member of the Council. We would send them delegations and materials to make our positions clear to them. More and continuous contacts were carried out with the three permanent members of the Council, France, Russia, and China. They were also given preference in oil contracts and trade to keep them as close as possible to the Iraqi side." (Note: Found via Little Green Footballs. )

"Spain Arrests Five More Al Qaeda Suspects" (Daniel Trotta, Reuters, 2003/09/18)
"Spanish police arrested five people of Syrian origin on Thursday for suspected ties to al Qaeda, including a highly trained guerrilla prepared to commit a major suicide attack, police sources said.
A separate source involved in the investigation said some of the suspects were linked to a journalist for Arab TV network Al Jazeera who is already charged in Spain with belonging to the militant group led by wealthy Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. ...
The man arrested in Alicante was identified as Sadeq Merizak, said to have achieved "third level" status within al Qaeda, the same as September 11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta, the source said. He said Merizak had trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.
He also said authorities had photographs of Merizak with Imad Eddim Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, currently in jail awaiting trial as the suspected al Qaeda cell leader in Spain and formally charged with a role in September 11.
One of the men arrested in Granada was found with false documents belonging to Senmaran Nasser, whom the police source said was one of the most wanted leaders of al Qaeda." (See also: "Al Jazeera Reporter Charged" (Sebastian Rotella and Cristina Mateo-Yanguas, Los Angeles Times, 2003/09/12))

"The Strib had a massive editorial today..." (James Lileks, The Bleat, 2003/09/18)
"In short: the same people who chide America for its short-attention span think we should have stopped military operations after the Taliban was routed. (And they quite probably opposed that, for the usual reasons.) The people who think it's all about oil like to snark that we should go after Saudi Arabia. The people who complain that the current administration is unable to act with nuance and diplomacy cannot admit that we have completely different approaches for Iraq, for Iran, for North Korea. The same people who insist we need the UN deride the Administration when it gives the UN a chance to do something other than throw rotten fruit.
The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one."

"365 Days of Campus Watch" (Martin Kramer, Sandstorm, 2003/09/18)
"In sum, Campus Watch has provided a real service and met a genuine need. And regular visitors to the site cannot but reach the conclusions that animated its launch: first, that the American campus has become an arena in which some professors openly propagandize on Middle Eastern issues; and second, that Middle Eastern studies — the supposed bastion of objectivity — are no exception. Indeed, on some campuses, they are the heart of the problem. ...
The fact is that Campus Watch plays within the rules of legitimate give-and-take. Its gloves are off, but it doesn't slug beneath the belt. And it more than proved its worth in its first year. That's because in the build-up to the Iraq war, many professors said and wrote things that perfectly exemplified their complete detachment from the realities of the Middle East and American politics. The statements that caught the headlines — such as the hope expressed by a Columbia professor that "a thousand Mogadishus" befall U.S. forces in Iraq — were not isolated blurtings by way-out extremists. They were extrapolations of ideas and arguments generated by professors in Middle Eastern studies. Thanks to the reporting of Campus Watch, it was possible to see patterns in this patter." (See also: Campus Watch and "Campus Watch to the rescue" (Daniel Pipes, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/09/17))

"Blix criticises UK's Iraq dossier" (BBC News, 2003/09/18)
Blix at his most charming, comparing British and American intelligence interpretation to Middle Age witch hunts: "Dr Blix argued that exaggeration, spin and hype damaged government credibility.
"We know that the advertisers will advertise a refrigerator in terms they do not quite believe in but you expect governments to be more serious and have more credibility," he said.
Dr Blix said he understood that information had to be simplified but people still expected it to be reliable.
He accused the British and American governments of over interpreting intelligence.
"They were convinced that Saddam was going in this direction and I think it is understandable against the background of the man," he said.
"But in the Middle Ages people were convinced there were witches. They looked for them and they certainly found them."
'This is a bit risky. I think we were more judicious, saying we want to have real evidence.'" (See also: "Blix believes Iraq's WMDs destroyed 10 yrs ago" (Rafael Epstein, ABC Radio, 2003/09/17))

"A Glimmer of Hope"
(Marc-Edouard Nabe, Editons Du Rocher, 2001/10/31)

"French State TV Book of the Month Club" (Merde in France, 2003/09/18)
"Frédéric 'Too drunk to fuck' Beigbeder finally made it to the set of 'Tout le Monde en Parle' this past Saturday. ... However, Beigbeder had to share air time with Marc Edouard Nabe, notorious anti-Americain, anti-semite, and pro radical islamist and in the face of Nabe's ranting (and perhaps looking forwards to the movie rights for his book) he toned it down quite a bit.
Meanwhile, Nabe led the charge against the Great Satan. The stage was set for Beigbeder 'The Nightclubber' versus Nabe 'Bin Laden's henchman' (a title which he would not dispute).
Nabe is back from Baghdad (paid for by the late great Baath Party) and has spawened a book called 'Printemps de Feu' ('Springtime of Fire'), a novel inspired from his travels, which tells all about what the big bad Americans are doing to the Middle East.
His previous book 'Une lueur d'espoir' ('A Glimmer of Hope') praised the World Trade Center attacks and has a photo of the flaming ruins on the cover. Nabe said that his future will be in the Middle East, but did not specify if he will be giving up his Paris appartment, with a view of the Arc du Triomphe, before leaving. Funny how these anarchist-ecologists live and work in the 8th arrondissement where they jawbone over brunch about the advantages of terrorist attacks and the downside of Yankee imperialism. In any case, it's a promise, they'll get out on the street and start the revolution as soon as they leave their PR firm at 7PM." (See also: "An excerpt from Windows on the World: read at your own risk" (Michele Catalano, A Small Victory, 2003/08/04) and "French pr0n" (Merde in France, 2003/08/01), for more on Beigbeder's book.)

"Our War With France" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2003/09/18)
"It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.
If you add up how France behaved in the run-up to the Iraq war (making it impossible for the Security Council to put a real ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that might have avoided a war), and if you look at how France behaved during the war (when its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, refused to answer the question of whether he wanted Saddam or America to win in Iraq), and if you watch how France is behaving today (demanding some kind of loopy symbolic transfer of Iraqi sovereignty to some kind of hastily thrown together Iraqi provisional government, with the rest of Iraq's transition to democracy to be overseen more by a divided U.N. than by America), then there is only one conclusion one can draw: France wants America to fail in Iraq."

"Norway's Terrorist Haven" (Michael Radu, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/09/18)
Radu on the case of Mullah Krekar: "Since there is now proof that Krekar raised funds for terrorism and had telephone contacts with known al-Qaeda operatives in Italy, he may be convicted, which would be egg on the faces of Norwegian immigration bureaucrats, but then what? At the very worst, a few years in a comfortable prison, liberation in Norway, and then residence there, since no country would accept, or be considered by Norwegian legal lights safe for, a terrorist.
The Krekar case is a clear indication of what Washington can expect from Europe. Hundreds of terrorists, most of them associated with al-Qaeda, Algerian Islamist murderers, or others of the same kind, have been arrested throughout Western Europe, but since most have not committed their most serious crimes there, they are only being charged with the bank robberies or credit card fraud, etc. they engaged in for fundraising purposes.
The most effective recruiters and religious enablers of Islamist terrorism are based in Europe, and they do not as a matter of course "kill" anyone. That almost all of them are also under life or death sentences in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Yemen and Morocco actually strengthens their case for asylum in Europe. After all, they have a right to freedom of speech, don't they? As long as Norwegians, British, Danes, Belgians, or Dutch do not get killed, they have a right to recruit murderers of Egyptians, Jordanians, Algerians — and Americans." (See also: "U.S. Expresses Concern About Islamist in Norway" (Alister Doyle, Reuters, 2003/09/01), "Terror victim to publish suspected terrorist's memoirs" (Gunnar Nyquist, WEBLOGG. DOCUMENT.NO, 2003/08/19) and "Rising Tide of Islamic Militants See Iraq as Ultimate Battlefield" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2003/08/13))

"Saudis consider nuclear bomb" (Ewen MacAskill and Ian Traynor, The Guardian, 2003/09/18)
"Saudi Arabia, in response to the current upheaval in the Middle East, has embarked on a strategic review that includes acquiring nuclear weapons, the Guardian has learned.
This new threat of proliferation in one of the most dangerous regions of the world comes on top of a crisis over Iran's alleged nuclear programme.
A strategy paper being considered at the highest levels in Riyadh sets out three options:
· To acquire a nuclear capability as a deterrent;
· To maintain or enter into an alliance with an existing nuclear power that would offer protection;
· To try to reach a regional agreement on having a nuclear-free Middle East. ...
It is not known whether Saudi Arabia has taken a decision on any of the three options. But the fact that it is prepared to contemplate the nuclear option is a worrying development."

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

News and commentary:

"U.S.: Iraq sheltered suspect in '93 WTC attack" (John Diamond, USA Today, 2003/09/17)
"U.S. authorities in Iraq say they have new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime gave money and housing to Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, according to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials. ...
Military, intelligence and law enforcement officials reported finding a large cache of Arabic-language documents in Tikrit, Saddam's political stronghold. A U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said translators and analysts are busy "separating the gems from the junk." The official said some of the analysts have concluded that the documents show that Saddam's government provided monthly payments and a home for Yasin.
Yasin is on the FBI's list of 22 most-wanted terrorist fugitives; there is a $25 million reward for his capture. The bureau questioned and released him in New York shortly after the bombing in 1993. After Yasin had fled to Iraq, the FBI said it found evidence that he helped make the bomb, which killed six people and injured 1,000. Yasin is still at large."

"Oprah chastised for pro-war bias" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2003/09/17)
Welcome to Sweden: "Sweden's broadcasting watchdog says it is censuring an Oprah Winfrey talk show for showing bias towards a U.S. military attack on Iraq.
The censure means Swedish television network TV4, which broadcast the show in February, must publish the decision but there are no legal or financial penalties, Annelie Ulfhielm, an official of Sweden's Broadcasting Commission, told Reuters.
"Different views were expressed, but all longer remarks gave voice to the opinion that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States and should be the target of attack," Sweden's Broadcasting Commission said on Wednesday."

"'Saddam' tape urges Iraqis to fight" (BBC News, 2003/09/17)
Excerpts from the new audio tape attributed to the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, broadcast on Al-Arabiya TV. As James Taranto points out: "But is this really Saddam? It sounds an awful lot like one of the Democratic presidential candidates, or maybe someone from MoveOn.org.":
"O Mujahideen, Iraqis, and glorious women, you must tighten the grip around and increase your attacks against your enemies to make them lose their balance. ...
To the US president, I say in the name of the great people of Iraq, that you lied to yourself, to your people, and to all others. You did this along with those who got involved with you. Or there might be some who lied to you, but you believed those lies after you were tempted to do some action. You even changed your slogans and the reasons you used several times as a pretext for your hostile military campaign against our country. ...
We hope that Europe will develop its relatively balanced position so that this position would become legitimate and clear enough. Everybody should look forward to the future."

"Gilligan admits to 'slip of the tongue'" (Jason Deans, The Guardian, 2003/09/17)
"Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter who sparked the cataclysmic row between the government and the corporation, today insisted the broad thrust of his story was true but admitted to a series of mistakes that threaten to undermine the corporation's case.
He said he did not mean to accuse the government of inserting the 45-minute WMD claim into last September's Iraq dossier "knowing it was wrong", describing the phrase as "slip of the tongue". ...
The counsel for the Hutton inquiry, James Dingemans QC, said that Gilligan had accused the government of a "conscious wrongdoing" when he reported in his 6.07am broadcast on May 29 that it had deliberately tried to mislead the country by saying it had inserted the 45-minute claim even though it knew it was wrong.
"My feeling on this was that it was an allegation less serious than that. That it was part of a political debate," Gilligan replied." (See also: "Reporter Admits BBC Report on Iraqi Arms Had Errors" (Warren Hoge, The New York Times, 2003/09/17): "It was not intentional, it was a kind of slip of the tongue that does happen quite often during live broadcasts," he said of his mistaken charge that Dr. Kelly had accused the government of falsifying intelligence. 'It is an occupational hazard.'")

"Blix believes Iraq's WMDs destroyed 10 yrs ago" (Rafael Epstein, ABC Radio, 2003/09/17)
"The former UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, believes nothing will be found.
HANS BLIX: The more time that has passed, the more I think it's unlikely that anything will be found. In the beginning they talked about weapons concretely, and later on they talked about weapons programs, and uh, maybe they'll find some documents of interest but that should have been surfaced and, I think, explained.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Speaking from his cottage on an island in the Baltic Sea, Hans Blix says the world's most powerful intelligence agencies were wrong.
HANS BLIX: I'm certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all almost of what they had in the summer of 1991. ...
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Doesn't that suggest that the best intelligence agencies in the world, and all of them, got it wrong?
HANS BLIX: Yes, it did.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: That's a big claim, isn't it?
HANS BLIX: Yes, but it has been surfacing already in the United States that the Iraq might have tried to fool them surreptitiously in believing that there was something. You see, if they didn't have anything after '91, there must be some explanation why they behaved as they did. They certainly gave the impression that they were denying access and so forth.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: And the supposition in the States is that Saddam Hussein wanted to maintain a threat to defer an attack?
HANS BLIX: That's right. I mean, you can put up a sign on your door, 'Beware of the Dog', without having a dog."

"Don't let the evil of extremism taint Islam's good name" (Inayat Bunglawala, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/09/17)
In Bunglawala's view the problem is not Islamist extremism and terrorism, but rather Western policies aimed against it. Ironically, his apologetics for Hamas is in itself a sad and telling example of how "moderate" Muslims "let the evil of extremism taint Islam's good name":
"Hamas also possesses an efficient social welfare network, while its leadership lives in the same dilapidated homes as ordinary Palestinians. America's unstinting diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel has only seen corresponding Muslim support for Palestinian resistance groups also increase.
Whereas in many Western eyes, the EU's decision last week to proscribe the political wing of Hamas will be seen as just retribution for the recent atrocity in Jerusalem when 22 Israelis died when a Hamas suicide bomber blew up a bus, much of the Muslim world sees the EU taking sides with the occupier, with Israel once again escaping any serious censure for its own systematic policy of illegal occupation, repression and assassination. ...
Similarly, the continuing US detention of hundreds of Muslims, including nine Britons, at Guantanamo Bay is causing mounting concern, especially as the US authorities, in defiance of world opinion, seem to be in no particular hurry to bring them to trial. ...
In the long run, it is surely that lack of balance in some of our policies which represents a greater challenge to relations between Islam and the West than the sorry antics of al-Muhajiroun." (Note: Inayat Bunglawala is Secretary of the Media Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain. See also: The Muslim Council of Britain - Articles and Essays for more articles by him. Here's an example, explaining why two UK Muslims ended up as suicide bombers in Tel Aviv by blaming it on Israel's "slow genocide"of Palestinians: "Why do UK Muslim turn to terrorism?" (Inayat Bunglawala, The Daily Express/MCB, 2003/05/02): "The depth of feeling which British Muslims have for their co-religionists in Palestine who are facing a slow genocide should not be underestimated.")

"The End of 'Arafat'" (The Wall Street Journal, 2003/09/17)
"The truth is that Yasser Arafat's moment in history has ended. The world would do well to think hard about how it came to pass, after so many years and so much talk and blood, that the era of Arafat arrived at this endpoint--with Israel saying that it may be worth the trouble simply to kill him. How far we've come from the Rose Garden in 1993.
It is a fine irony that Mr. Powell spoke of the need to soldier on with Yasser Arafat while the Secretary himself was standing in Baghdad for the first time. Mr. Powell is in Baghdad because President Bush concluded after September 11, and after the political failure of the first Gulf War, that the years of Western self-delusion about the nature of global terror must be brought to an end. Similarly, the delusions about Arafat also must now end.
"Arafat" should enter history not merely as the name of one autocratic man, but as the name we assign to an entire Western phenomenon of false thinking. "Arafat," we now see, has come to represent the act of self-delusion on a massive, international scale. "Arafat" is about refusing to believe that an adversary is simply irredeemable. Most importantly at this particular moment, "Arafat" is about allowing barbarism, or its techniques, to challenge the political tenets of civilized life."

"Campus Watch to the rescue" (Daniel Pipes, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/09/17)
Campus Watch celebrates "One Year of Improving Middle East Studies": "Trouble is, Middle East studies have become an intellectual Enron. Scholars of the Middle East are:
Incompetent: They consistently get the basics wrong. Militant Islam they portray as a democratizing force. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida they dismissed as irrelevant. The Palestinian Authority they predicted would be democratic. Academics are so consistently wrong that government officials infrequently ask them for advice. ...
Apologetic: Specialists generally avoid subjects that reflect poorly on their region such as repression in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Muslim anti-Semitism, and chattel slavery in Sudan. The MESA president recently discouraged studying what he called "terrorology." Specialists sometimes actively deceive, for example, by denying that jihad has historically meant offensive warfare."

"The Unhinged Left" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2003/09/17)
Sullivan on a column by Hugo Young: "There are the formulaic protests that he loves America, Americans, etc. And he's a good liberal. But he says he "loathes" this war. Loathes? I certainly respect pragmatic liberals who opposed the war and still do. But even they - especially they - can also see the benefits of releasing a people from a terrible and grotesque police state and removing Saddam from power. To lose sight of these things is a sign of a warped and increasingly unbalanced perspective. He refers to the American government as "Bush's gang" to which his country is in "abject thrall." And then he comes up with this assessment of Tony Blair's foreign policy:

For Blair, in his Bush-Iraq mode, [foreign policy] has been a lot more theoretical: the theory of pre-emptive intervention in a third country's affairs, for moral purposes, at the instigation of the power whose hyperdom he cannot resist. What does this mean? That we have ceased to be a sovereign nation. ... If there is one virtue in the unfinished history of the Iraq war, it is that the British may finally wake up to what the special relationship is doing to their existence.

Their existence? Suddenly this left-liberal sounds like the most fanatical of Tory Europhobes. ... There is, it seems to me, a poison out there, infecting minds that were once clear, blurring argument into a welter of hatred for the United States. And it's not just in Britain." (See also: "Under Blair, Britain has ceased to be a sovereign state" (Hugo Young, The Guardian, 2003/09/16))

"Official: No U.S. or British Citizens Held in Iraq Prison" (FOX News, 2003/09/17)
"Despite a report that six people claiming to be Americans and two who said they were Britons were being held in Iraq on suspicion of plotting attacks on coalition forces, Fox News has learned that there are currently "no U.S. or British citizens being held at Abu Ghraib Prison," according to a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad.
He said reports Tuesday about possible Americans held at the infamous prison near Baghdad were erroneous. "Several individuals tried to claim they were citizens to avoid arrest," the press officer said." (See also: "U.S. Says 8 Captives in Iraq Claim to Be American or British" (Ian Fisher, The New York Times, 2003/09/16))

"How Wahhabis fan Iraq insurgency" (Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 2003/09/17)
"Sheikh Tahma's case offers a rare window, say US officers and local clerics, into the way some adherents of the Wahhabi faith - a puritanical branch of Sunni Islam that calls for the expulsion of foreign infidels - figure in anti-US violence in Iraq. ...
The sheikh and three accomplices, on the morning of June 14, hid a homemade roadside bomb made of two 122mm artillery shells in a bit of sacking, and then lay in wait for a US convoy to pass.
The bomb failed to go off, and US troops aboard the convoy spotted the four beside the wall of the building, holding antitank weapons and assault rifles. They gave chase, and three of the attackers disappeared into tall elephant grass.
But the sheikh was too slow. ...
Inside the mosque, they found 1,500 assault rifle bullets.
In the compound and a nearby caretaker's compound, they found some 1,500 more rounds of ammunition, smoke and illumination flares, German detonation devices used for Claymore mines, and two switch timer devices in a plastic bag.
The information gleaned from the sheikh illustrated for these US units that violent resistance was not limited to pro-Saddam loyalists - but included Sunni religious elements also."

"Flow of Saudis' Cash to Hamas Is Scrutinized" (Don Van Natta Jr. and Timothy L. O'Brien, 2003/09/17)
"Nearly a year ago, Khalid Mishaal, a senior leader of Hamas, the militant Palestinian organization, attended a charitable fund-raising conference here where he talked at length with Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto Saudi ruler.
According to a summary of the meeting written by a Hamas official, Mr. Mishaal and other Hamas representatives thanked their Saudi hosts for continuing "to send aid to the people through the civilian and popular channels, despite all the American pressures exerted on them."
"This is indeed a brave posture deserving appreciation," the Hamas officials said, the document said.
Today Mr. Mishaal, who was recently added to the United States Treasury Department list of what it calls terrorist financiers, controls a wing of Hamas that advocates violent confrontation with Israel, including suicide bombings. ...
At least 50 percent of Hamas's current operating budget of about $10 million a year comes from people in Saudi Arabia, according to estimates by American law enforcement officials, American diplomats in the Middle East and Israeli officials. After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the Saudi portion of Hamas financing grew larger as donations from the United States, Europe and other Persian Gulf countries dried up, American officials and analysts said."

"U.S. probe focuses on Syria weapons" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2003/09/17)
"The U.S. government is investigating intelligence reports that Iraq sent weapons to Syria to hide them from U.N. inspectors and coalition troops in Iraq, a senior State Department official said yesterday.
John Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control, also told a House International Relations subcommittee that Syria is developing medium-range missiles with help from North Korea and Iran that could be fired in nerve gas attacks hundreds of miles from Syria's borders.
He testified in open and closed sessions that Syria continues to take hostile actions against U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq by permitting sympathizers of Saddam Hussein to enter Iraq to kill Americans. ...
Regarding reports that Iraq hid weapons in Syria, Mr. Bolton said: "We have seen these reports, reviewed them carefully, and see them as cause for concern."
"Thus far, we have been unable to confirm that such transfers occurred," he said. ...
Other U.S. officials said numerous intelligence reports from a variety of sources indicate that the transfers of Iraqi weapons took place.
Some of the reports have been in recent weeks, the officials said." (See also: "Testimony of John R. Bolton" (House International Relations Committee, 2003/09/16))

Added in archive:
"Panoply of the Absurd" (Dominik Cziesche et al., Der Spiegel, 2003/09/08)

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

News and commentary:

"U.S. Says 8 Captives in Iraq Claim to Be American or British" (Ian Fisher, The New York Times, 2003/09/16)
"A United States general said today that six people identifying themselves as American and two people saying they are British were being held prisoner in connection with guerrilla attacks here.
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who is in charge of prisoners in Iraq, provided no details on the captives except to say that they were among 4,400 "security detainees," a new category distinct from prisoners of war or common criminals. She said the detainees were suspected of carrying out or planning attacks on American troops or allied forces in Iraq.
It was the first mention of possible Western prisoners among some 10,000 people — most of them common criminals — who are in the custody of American forces. They are being held at Abu Ghraib prison, just west of Baghdad, the capital."

"US vetoes UN Arafat resolution" (BBC News, 2003/09/16)
"The United States has vetoed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council denouncing Israel's decision to "remove" the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.
US Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte said the resolution was "flawed" because it did not include a "robust condemnation of acts of terrorism". ...
The resolution put to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, which was sponsored by Syria, demanded that Israel would not harm or deport Mr Arafat.
Syria modified some of the resolution's language in an attempt to broaden support for the measure and avoid a US veto. ...
But Ambassador Negroponte said the resolution should have explicitly condemned militant groups including Hamas and the al-Aqsa brigades.
And he said the text should have called for the dismantlement of infrastructures which support them.
The US was the only one of the 15 countries on the Security Council to oppose the resolution.
Eleven other members approved the text, while Britain, Germany and Bulgaria abstained."

"Pre-emptive inaction?" (Brendan O'Neill, spiked, 2003/09/16)
"The critics' sudden interest in the alleged threat posed by Iraq's WMD is a striking turnaround. Up to last week, the key anti-war argument was that Blair and Bush had lied about Iraq having WMD and had launched a war on false premises. Now they criticise Blair for recklessly taking us into war when he had been warned that one of the consequences of war might be for Iraq's WMD to be turned against us in the West. What WMD? The anti-war lobby's about-face on whether Iraq's weapons are a threat ('no' when Bush and Blair say they are, 'yes' when they might be pointed at us) shows the problem with basing your opposition to war on exposing lies, damn lies and dossiers, rather than on anything like political principle.
Yet this notion that war should be avoided because it increases the threat to the West has been a recurring argument of the anti-war movement for the past two years. From the Afghan war of October 2001 to the second Gulf War in March 2003, anti-war activists and commentators have argued that wars abroad will result in 'Target Britain', where increasingly irate terrorists will take their angst out on us. This is no way to oppose war. It is a cowardly position that calls for a safety-first approach to international affairs, where inaction is elevated over action 'just in case' - and it is deeply prejudiced, buying into the argument that the real problem is the terrorists 'over there' who might be stirred up if we take irresponsible, risky action. It is an anti-war argument concerned more with saving ourselves than anybody else." (See also: "The truth is that Mr Blair said too much" (Matthew d'Ancona, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/09/14))

"What Makes The Bush Haters So Mad?" (Charles Krauthammer, TIME, from the 2003/09/22 issue)
"Democrats are seized with a loathing for President Bush — a contempt and disdain giving way to a hatred that is near pathological — unlike any since they had Richard Nixon to kick around. ...
Bush's great crime is that he is the illegitimate President who became consequential — revolutionizing American foreign policy, reshaping economic policy and dominating the political scene ever since his emergence as the post-9/11 war President.
Before that, Bush could be written off as an accident, a transitional figure, a kind of four-year Gerald Ford. And then came 9/11. Bush took charge, declared war, and sent the country into battle twice, each time bringing down enemy regimes with stunning swiftness. In Afghanistan, Bush rode a popular tide; Iraq, however, was a singular act of presidential will.
That will, like it or not, has remade American foreign policy. ...
The current complaint is that Bush is a deceiver, misleading the country into a war, after which there turned out to be no weapons of mass destruction. But it is hard to credit the deception charge when every intelligence agency on the planet thought Iraq had these weapons and, indeed, when the weapons there still remain unaccounted for. Moreover, this is a post-facto rationale. Sure, the aftermath of the Iraq war has made it easier to frontally attack Bush. But the loathing long predates it. It started in Florida and has been deepening ever since Bush seized the post-9/11 moment to change the direction of the country and make himself a President of note."

"Ariel, you're ruining our conspiracy!" (David Aaronovitch, The Guardian, 2003/09/16)
"Memorandum
To: Ariel Sharon
From: The Boss
Luxor Hotel, Las Vegas, Tuesday
Ariel, shalom! Or maybe not. I'm writing this in the crepuscular gloom of my enormous suite on the top floor, and I have to tell you that I am not a happy ancient man. For that matter, none of the other Elders are joyful Menschen. And for why are we kvetching? I'll tell you.
World domination is not an easy business, believe me. You don't get to run things globally unless you are almost diabolically clever. ...
But Ariel, Ariel, what do you do? First, you grab the world headlines from Abbas by telling everyone that you're thinking of kicking Yasser out of Palestine altogether. Now you're the bad guy again, because - for all his faults and appalling dress sense - Palestinians actually chose him. ...
It would take, my substantial friend, something of a negative genius to make things worse. And you, unfortunately, have one of those to hand. Your deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, goes on Israeli radio and starts discussing different ways of dealing with Arafat. "His expulsion is an option, his liquidation is another option. It is also possible to confine him to prison-like conditions," he says. "His liquidation is another option"! It is, as Isaiah Berlin points out (yes, he's still alive - the elixir works), like watching The Sopranos. Shall we whack him with a slug in the head, or drop him in the Dead Sea wearing concrete Ray-Bans?
Ariel, this is not snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This is thrusting your arm down victory's throat and rummaging around in its gizzards for the nastiest thing you can find. And it is no way - no way at all - to run a world conspiracy.
See to it,
Kofi."

Note: I started to add pictures to Watch's coverage less than a year ago and would like to fill the first year's coverage retrospectively. The problem is that it's difficult to find resources which not only have pictures, but also captions (preferably) and details of the date, source and photographer. Any tips on such resources/links would be very much appreciated. E-mail me at watch-at-windsofchange.net.

Monday, September 15, 2003

News and commentary:

"The August of Our Discontent" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, from the 2003/09/15 issue)
"The conundrum in Jerusalem and Baghdad should dispel the romance of Western elites that all cultures are more or less equal, or that our own past sins explain horrific homicide bombing and the dressing up of toddlers in "suicide" vests. ...
An increasing number of Americans grasp this cultural abyss and have quietly decided to cast their lot with civilization. They may disagree over the road map or Iraqi reconstruction, but they are beginning at last to see that there is a real moral difference between those who are building schools in Baghdad and those who are blowing them up, between the civilians who are trying to tear apart women and children in buses and the soldiers who seek to kill such killers. The Guardian may pontificate about the harshness of Israeli detention and the absence of habeas corpus for the detained of Hamas, but even its biased reporters really do know which side is packing explosives with rat poison and nails to rip apart infants and which is not.
The recent depressing news from this lazy August should remind all Americans that our civilization is only as viable as we in the here and now work to maintain it. Before we assume that our enemies are just like us and are troubled and confused rather than intent and murderous, we must not feel too wealthy or too educated to use force to defeat them, especially when appeasement in the past has not brought peace, but only greater aggression. Western civilization is admittedly increasingly complex and impersonal. I suppose at times it uses our resources inefficiently. And it can be arrogant and insensitive to the Other. But unless we realize that it is still far better than the alternative, and requires our daily appreciation and watchfulness, there is no reason that it cannot vanish in an instant. That is the real lesson of this most awful August 2003, when we saw glimpses of its demise." (Note: Thanks to Malcolm Smordin for the pointer.)

"Unfair and Unbalanced" (Joshua Muravchik, The Weekly Standard/AEI, 2003/09/15)
Muravchik on the media coverage of the Palestinian intifada: "Finally, there is an extreme disparity in veracity. Israeli spokesmen, like other Westerners, spin but rarely lie outright, knowing that a steep price would be exacted if they got caught. ...
Palestinian spokesmen, in contrast, lie shamelessly. Arafat claimed to have ordered a "very serious investigation" of the Ramallah lynching. Palestinian spokesmen heatedly denied knowledge of the arms ship Karine-A. They all claimed a "massacre" had occurred in Jenin: Saeb Erekat estimated the death toll at between 500 and 1,500. Arafat at various times claimed massacres in a half dozen other West Bank towns. PA spokesmen described the "reconstruction" of an ancient synagogue that had been set on fire in Jericho. (It was turned into a mosque.) All of these claims, and many more, were sheer nonsense.
American news organizations have general rules of balance that tell them to report both sides of a story. But how is this to be achieved? Some journalists contented themselves with formulating mindless equations, as when the New York Times's Jane Perlez wrote: "Mr. Sharon's provocative visit to Muslim holy sites atop Jerusalem's Old City, the destruction of the Jewish shrine known as Joseph's tomb . . . and the burning of an ancient synagogue . . . have challenged the very notion of respect for and sovereignty over religious sites." She was referring to Sharon's stroll around the Temple Mount, the third holiest site in Islam, which also happens to be probably the holiest site in Judaism. Was this visit really akin to torching a synagogue and destroying a biblical shrine?"

"Full text of Security Council speech given Monday by Israeli Ambassador to UN" (The Jerusalem Post, 2003/09/15)
From a speech delivered today by Ambassador Dan Gillerman at the Security Council: "Events of recent days have proven again that Mr. Arafat is determined to prevent any process of genuine reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. I dare say, there is hardly a diplomat in this room who would not admit privately that Mr. Arafat represents a significant obstacle to this process. He has shunned every outstretched hand, while placating the international community with pathetic rhetoric that has been belied almost daily by his actions. The result has been paid in the blood of Israelis and Palestinians.
He is amongst a select group of terrorist entrepreneurs who have brought airplane hijackings, massacres of Olympic athletes, the killing of children sleeping in the shelter of their own beds, and suicide terrorism, to a region that yearns for peace and stability. And he is at the helm of those who have been supporting mega-terror attacks, in the style of the bombing of the twin towers, to bring the region to the brink of catastrophe. Today such immoral tactics, stamped with Mr. Arafat's label of origin, are callously and indiscriminately exported beyond our region.
Knowing all this, for how long will there be states among us who are willing to continue the charade of touting Mr. Arafat as a legitimate leader committed to the welfare of his people and peaceful relations with his neighbors. The ruin that Mr. Arafat has left behind in Jordan, in Lebanon, and in the West Bank testify that he has brought nothing but despair and devastation to his own people and to other people in the region."

"Nazism Did not Dare take a Decision Like Sharon's: Abed Rabbo" (Palestine Media Center, 2003/09/15)
It takes chutzpah to accuse Israelis of "rudeness" while at the same time saying that they are worse than Nazis: "The Palestine National Authority (PNA) Minister of Cabinet Affairs condemned the Israeli government's decision to "remove" President Arafat as an unprecedented, racist and immoral measure that Nazism did not dare to take, and slammed the public debate on the matter in the Jewish state as "shameful."
"The government of (Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon has bestowed upon itself a moral, legal and political right to assassinate a legitimate president, who was elected by his people under (the Israeli) occupation," PNA Minister of Cabinet Affairs Yasser Abed Rabbo said in a press release on Sunday.
"Nazism, which represents the climax of moral, cultural and political degradation, did not dare to take a similar decision," Abed Rabbo added.
He described the public debate that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon initiated with its decision to "remove" Arafat as 'shameful, let alone that its rudeness has no precedent.'"

"Shiite cleric's killer held" (P. Mitchell Prothero, UPI, 2003/09/15)
"A former Baath Party official arrested in connection with the killing of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim last month has confessed to planning the operation that killed the senior Shiite cleric, United Press International has learned. ...
The Shiite Badr Brigade, SCIRI's militia wing, which is now controlled by Hakim's brother Abdul Aziz, arrested the official, the former head of security for Najaf, after a gunfight in the days after the car bombing. Identified as former Security Director Kareem Ghatheeth, the official had been removed from that position by U.S. military forces on charges of corruption and ties to the Baath regime, an Iraqi Police source said.
Abu Zualfakar al-Hussan, a top Badr Brigade official, who was involved in the raid, told UPI that Ghatheeth had confessed to his role in planning and executing the car bombing outside the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf that killed Hakim."

"Blaze Kills 67 Inmates at Saudi Prison" (Samia Nakhoul, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2003/09/15)
Things that make you go Hm? II: "A fire killed 67 prisoners when it swept through a jail near the Saudi capital Riyadh Monday, but officials said it was too early to say what caused the blaze, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. ...
It was not immediately known if the prison housed any of the more than 200 Islamic militants arrested in recent months in a nationwide hunt for supporters of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
"It is too early to tell whether the fire is an act of sabotage but an investigation is going on," a Saudi security source told Reuters in Dubai."

"Iran vow on nuclear inspections" (BBC News, 2003/09/15)
Things that make you go Hm? I: "Iran has said it will continue working with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), despite a row over its nuclear programme.
Iran's atomic energy chief, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said he would go ahead with talks with the United Nations agency on signing a protocol that would allow tougher inspections of his country's nuclear sites.
"Iran is fully committed to its NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) responsibilities, not only because of its contractual obligations, but also because of its religious and ethical considerations," said Mr Aghazadeh."

"John Burns: 'There Is Corruption in Our Business'" (Editor & Publisher, 2003/09/15)
A must-read "j'accuse" by the New York Times foremost correspondent on Saddam Hussein's Iraq about corruption and appeasement among fellow reporters. Found via Andrew Sullivan:
"There were correspondents who thought it appropriate to seek the approbation of the people who governed their lives. This was the ministry of information, and particularly the director of the ministry. By taking him out for long candlelit dinners, plying him with sweet cakes, plying him with mobile phones at $600 each for members of his family, and giving bribes of thousands of dollars. Senior members of the information ministry took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from these television correspondents who then behaved as if they were in Belgium. They never mentioned the function of minders. Never mentioned terror.
In one case, a correspondent actually went to the Internet Center at the Al-Rashid Hotel and printed out copies of his and other people's stories - mine included - specifically in order to be able to show the difference between himself and the others. He wanted to show what a good boy he was compared to this enemy of the state. He was with a major American newspaper.
Yeah, it was an absolutely disgraceful performance. ...
We now know that this place was a lot more terrible than even people like me had thought. There is such a thing as absolute evil. I think people just simply didn't recognize it. They rationalized it away. I cannot tell you with what fury I listened to people tell me throughout the autumn that I must be on a kamikaze mission. They said it with a great deal of glee, over the years, that this was not a place like the others."

"Iraq comes first, there is no second place" (Mustafa Alrawi, Iraq Today, 2003/09/15)
An editorial from Iraq Today, found via David Frum: "The truth is that most Iraqis would rather have an American dominated force here, than an Arab one.
The grim reality, particularly hard to hear for all those Arabs that felt they were supporting their Iraqi brethren when demonstrating to stop the war, is that most people here don't want anything to do with them.
On the walls of Mosul University, one of Iraq's oldest, warning signs are clearly displayed; "No Jordanians, No Palestinians". Iraqis are clearly still upset that other Arabs were able to study in Iraq, effectively on Saddam's payroll. Iraqis have had enough of seeing their own lives compromised for the benefit of Arabs from neighbouring countries.
Saddam Hussein played the Palestinian card to the max. It's widely believed that the support, both vocal and financial, he gave to the suicide bombers, are the reason behind the wrath of the "Zionists" in Tel Aviv and Washington. Whether that is true or not is beside the point - Iraqis saw other Arabs benefit from Saddam's regime while they were left to suffer.
In contrast, the US spilled the blood of its own people to liberate them from Saddam's tyranny. No matter how bad things are here right now, friends, colleagues and relatives assure me that with the pressure of living under the old regime gone, life is one hundred percent better."

"Arafat's assassination will not resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict" (Barbara Amiel, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/09/15)
"This fight between Arabs and Israelis is not about settlements or the establishment of a Palestinian state. It cannot be solved by Israel going back to the 1967 borders when it is the 1948 creation of a Jewish state the Palestinians want reversed. Now, for the first time, between the resurgence of Islam, the emergence of suicide bombers, the radicalisation of the Palestinians and the indifference of the world, this goal seems attainable. ...
But I am increasingly of the terrifying view that this conflict in the Middle East is not amenable to a peaceful solution and can only be solved by the total victory of one side. This means the Arabs annihilating the Israelis or the Israelis being forced to use every means, not excluding nuclear power, to defend themselves. If you are a nation of under six million people surrounded by 70 million enemies who don't accept your existence, the only option is to fight to the death.
There is one solution. It costs nothing, not one penny, not one human life or bullet and would turn the tide. If all major powers - preferably through the UN or simply in concert - were to make a joint declaration guaranteeing Israel's existence as a Jewish State, it would be clear to the rejectionists that they could not reach their goal. ...
If the platoons of liberals now talking of peace and understanding would turn their energies to obtaining a joint proclamation of the genuine right to existence for two states, the sands of Arabia might yet avoid being soaked in blood."

"End of the Road Map" (Ehud Olmert, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/09/15)
"Despite American and Israeli efforts to isolate Arafat, his malicious influence and control over the Palestinian leadership has not diminished in the least. His latest intrigues - the forced resignation of Mahmoud Abbas and the appointment as prime minister of his close associate, Ahmed Qureia - have once again struck a devastating blow to another peace effort. There is simply no pragmatic nor responsible Palestinian personality who can fill the leadership vacuum and confront Hamas and other terrorists.
The latest round of failed diplomacy has shown that an enduring peace agreement cannot be built on the rotten foundation that is the current regime. Palestinian leaders will neither dismantle the terrorist infrastructure nor allow anyone else to do it. The alleged line that separated the Fatah forces from Hamas and Islamic Jihad can no longer be claimed to exist. Arafat is the CEO of a full-fledged terrorist organization and no less a danger than the Islamic extremist leaders whom Israel has finally targeted. Today all sides of the Israeli political spectrum have drawn the same conclusion: Israel will have to destroy the Islamic terrorist groups along with Arafat's Fatah guerillas. There can be no short cuts when it comes to eradicating the terrorist groups."

"India's Muslim Time Bomb" (Pankaj Mishra, The New York Times, 2003/09/15)
"The four people arrested this month in connection with the [Bombay] attacks were Indian Muslims, part of a new group called the Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force. They may have received logistical support from a Pakistani militant outfit with links to Al Qaeda, but they were Indian citizens.
This can be only disturbing news — for India, the region and the United States. The radical Islamist movements that spread so quickly in the last decade in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan had heretofore left untouched India's 140 million Muslims, even as the Hindu nationalists rose to power in India by demanding, among other things, that Muslims adopt what they define as India's "Hindu culture." ...
It is exactly these sorts of local political frustrations that — in North Africa, the Middle East and, more recently, East Asia — have given the network of terrorism its global range and resilience. In historical retrospect, the explosions in Bombay may come to be seen as the moment when the recruiters of Al Qaeda, heartened by the mess in Iraq and by fresh gains in Indonesia, received news of some more unexpected bounty: militant disaffection among the second-largest Muslim population in the world."

"'I'm prepared to kill Jews wherever they are' Palestinian schoolgirl" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/09/15)
"'We want to defend [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat and kill the Jews wherever they are,' said 10-year-old schoolgirl Aysheh Muhammad as she gripped a poster of Arafat outside his battered office Sunday, chanting slogans in his support along with her classmates.
"I came here to defend President Arafat against the occupiers who are killing us every day. I'm prepared to make a big sacrifice. I'm prepared to go to the Jews myself and to kill them wherever they are just as they killed us and destroyed us," she said.
Muhammad and her friends were among hundreds of Palestinian children who flocked to Arafat's compound to express their solidarity for the man they fear has been marked for death by the Israeli government.
In their green- and white-striped school uniforms, the children from al-Amari refugee camp stood sweating in the midday sun, grasping bottles of water and hoping for a glimpse of their hero, who they know by his nom de guerre, Abu Amar.
"Abu Amar, show us your face, with our blood and souls, we will redeem you," they screamed until they were hoarse."

Added in archive:
"Victory: What it Will Take to Win" (Angelo M. Codevilla, Claremont Review of Books, from the Fall 2001 issue)

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)

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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