Archived news and commentary: October 6 - 12, 2003

2003/12/29 - 2004/01/04
2003/12/22 - 2003/12/28
2003/12/15 - 2003/12/21
2003/12/08 - 2003/12/14
2003/12/01 - 2003/12/07
2003/11/24 - 2003/11/30
2003/11/17 - 2003/11/23
2003/11/10 - 2003/11/16
2003/11/03 - 2003/11/09
2003/10/27 - 2003/11/02
2003/10/20 - 2003/10/26
2003/10/13 - 2003/10/19
2003/10/06 - 2003/10/12
2003/09/29 - 2003/10/05

Sunday, October 12, 2003

News and commentary:

"Baghdad coalition hotel base bombed" (BBC News, 2003/10/12)
"At least six people have been killed in the Iraqi capital in a suspected suicide car bomb attack near a hotel used by senior coalition officials and the Iraqi Governing Council.
Reports say the car exploded after being fired on as it broke through a security barrier and neared the Baghdad Hotel. ...
US military official Colonel Peter Mansoor told CNN television that six local Iraqis had died and 10 had been wounded. One coalition soldier had been slightly injured.
The blast caused extensive damage to buildings, but the hotel itself was not damaged."

"No justice for Bali's forgotten victims" (Shaheen Chughtai, Aljazeera.Net, 2003/10/12)
Aljazeera's heartfelt version of a memorial on the first anniversary of the Bali bombings: "But just a few hundred metres from the scene of last October's carnage lies a mass grave holding tens of thousands of bodies – victims of a far greater slaughter nearly 40 years before, with no justice or punishment to date.
The lack of similar Western pressure to try those responsible for the 1965-66 massacres highlights the complicit behind-the-scenes role the US and others played in the organised slaughter. ...
Pilger quoted British officials hailing their propaganda success in persuading the world's media the violence in Indonesia was both limited and for a good cause. ...
"On the island of Bali," wrote Pilger, "the 'reorientation' described by Prime Minister Holt meant the violent deaths of 80,000, although this is generally regarded as a conservative figure.
'The many Western, mostly Australian, tourists who have since taken advantage of cheap package holidays to the island might reflect that beneath the car parks of several of the major tourist hotels are buried countless bodies.'"

"Mourners remember Bali victims" (BBC News, 2003/10/12)
"Mourners have attended a special open air memorial service in Bali to mark the first anniversary of the nightclub bombings that killed more than 200 people.
Australia lost more than any other country in the attacks - 88 died - and Prime Minister John Howard was among many Australians who attended the service. ...
John Howard thanked the people of Bali for their support, and said Australians "had learnt to control our anger and direct it towards identifying and punishing and bringing to justice those who perpetrated this terrible deed".
Indonesia's senior security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, reaffirmed his government's determination to hunt the terrorists down. "They have no place in our society," he told the mourners." (See also: "Bali Remembered" (The Age, 2003/10/06) and "Paradise lost" - News and commentary on the Bali bombing.))

"Doubts tearing France apart" (Paul Webster, The Observer, 2003/10/12)
More on French declinism. Imagine the outrage if Colin Powell compared critics with Nazi-collaborators: "'Reading these books, France is in agony, powerless and irretrievably condemned to decline,' Dominique de Villepin, the suave but widely mistrusted Foreign Minister, complained over two pages in Le Monde last week, comparing today's prophets of doom to anti-republicans who collaborated with the Nazis. ...
Arguments on the inevitability of French decline are based on three premises: chaotic history up to the end of decolonisation, the domestic mess caused by lost opportunies and mistaken choices since 1970; and, finally, the months following Chirac's re-election in May 2002 with 82 per cent of the vote which has been followed by some of the worst economic statistics since the war, and an admission by Raffarin that the country is in recession. ...
It is not just the elites that come in for criticism; by implication it is the considerable number of ordinary Frenchmen who have put their faith in the rural campaigner, José Bové, a neo-Poujadist.
Much of this wave of populism, say the declinists, is fed by an insistence of both Left and Right on l'exception française, a modern form of chauvinism in which legal fences are built around French language and culture.
It is an 'exception' that is mocked in L'Arrogance française as a hallucinatory drug that spills over into all facets of life from haute cuisine to the heavily subsidised and introverted cinema industry.
It is all pretty apocalyptic stuff. But in one respect the declinists may be right: that their political masters seem somewhat blinkered to the way in which many, from the Murdoch press to the Bush White House, regard La Belle France.
And it is De Villepin who is most exposed in this regard. 'Abroad,' he writes in his answer to declinists: 'France rests a pole of thought and culture, a major economic, military and political power.'" (See also: "For its intellectuals, France falters" (John Vinicur, International Herald Tribune, 2003/10/02))

"A War-Weary People Reach Out in Pain — and Hope" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2003/10/12)
"To sojourn in the Holy Land these days is to be pitched into a miasma of mutual political recriminations, of action and reprisal, of a spiral of mutual dehumanization and cruelty, of violence and counterviolence, all to a point that sanity and compassion seem at risk of being lost. Yet traveling around Israel and the West Bank, there is every day the feeling that little of this proceeds from what ordinary people on both sides believe or want. It is as if many of the nine million people directly involved in the conflict, Jew and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian, are trapped in a moral and political maze that assures deepening misery for both, as if they are bound to a journey without comprehensible purpose, without expectable end."

"Unclear Danger: Inside the Lackawanna Terror Case" (Matthew Purdy and Lowell Bergman, The New York Times, 2003/10/12)
A detailed account of the case of "The Lackawanna Six": "Over time, Mr. Derwish developed a core of followers. "They just jumped head over heels into Islam, and that's what happened with them," Mr. Ahmed said.
Yasein Taher jumped perhaps the furthest. Voted "Friendliest" in the Lackawanna High class of 1996, he was a soccer team co-captain and dated a cheerleader named Nicole Frick. ...
Ms. Frick took to praying and attended a few women's study sessions. But nothing prepared her for the plunge Mr. Taher took in early 2001, when he began visiting the mosque nightly and imposing new rules.
"He didn't want to watch TV or listen to the radio," she said. "No pictures on the wall." He avoided family events for fear of contact with women.
The "Friendliest" of the class of 1996 was now stern and bearded. "We were all like, 'Who are you?' " Ms. Frick said. His answer, she said, was absolute: 'He's doing what's right, and we're not.'"

"Muhammad's Inexorable Slide" (Marcia Slacum Greene and Carol Morello, The Washington Post, 2003/10/12)
A detailed profile of John Allen Muhammad before the sniping spree began, which somehow manages to bypass his religious convictions almost completely, although it seems to be an important piece of the puzzle: "Muhammad met Lee Boyd Malvo, then 16, when he supplied Malvo's mother with forged documents that took her to Florida. Muhammad left his three children with Douglas for days and weeks at a time but still found time for Malvo, a precocious youth yearning for a father figure.
Malvo began mimicking Muhammad's American accent, pretending he had been born in the United States. He told the Douglas family that he was going to become a soldier, just like John.
"He said he read books about Islam when he was small and wanted to get into Islam because it was the best religion," Douglas said. "He said he didn't have anyone to guide him into it until he met John."
In time, Malvo called Muhammad dad."

"An Anti-American Iraqi Cleric Declares His Own Government" (Ian Fisher, The New York Times, 2003/10/12)
"An anti-American cleric, whose forces clashed on Thursday with American soldiers and killed two of them, has proclaimed his own government in Iraq.
The move failed to produce any signs of popular support on Saturday but did appear to notch up his defiance of the American-led occupation.
Mainstream Iraqi leaders roundly condemned the announcement by the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr. The Baghdad City Council denounced it, as did members of the Iraqi Governing Council, the overall leadership body appointed by the United States." ...
Mr. Sadr is the son of a revered Shiite cleric who was killed in 1999, many believe on Saddam Hussein's orders. He made his announcement during his weekly sermon on Friday in Kufa, near Najaf, a city south of Baghdad considered holy by the Shiites.
"I have decided, and I have formed a government made up of several ministries," he said. "If you agree, I ask you to demonstrate peacefully in order to express your support."
Several hundred followers reportedly took to the streets in Najaf, but there have been no other known demonstrations of support for the move."

Saturday, October 11, 2003

News and commentary:

"Anti-Semitism and Ethnicity in Europe" (John Rosenthal, Policy Review, from the October & November 2003 issue)
A perceptive essay on European anti-Semitism: "Even the most seemingly outrageous of Möllemann’s remarks — an outright apology for Palestinian suicide bombings as a legitimate form of resistance to "occupation" — was in substance no different from remarks one could already hear with mind-numbing regularity at virtually any meeting of "anti-globalization" activists across Europe. (In the meanwhile, of course, such observations have also passed into the vernacular of what counts as political debate on college campuses across America.) As the German political scientist Matthias Küntzel writes in his book Djihad und Judenhass (Ça ira Verlag, 2002), "while the escalation of the suicide bombings should have led to increased solidarity with the largely Jewish victims and a taking of distance from the organizers of the attacks, on the left exactly the opposite transpired: the more indiscriminately Palestinian commandos killed Israeli civilians, the more frenetically was the intifada covered with 'anti-imperialist' applause." ...
The outbreak of anti-Semitic violence in France has clearly been linked to this groundswell of support for the Second Intifada. For leftist commentators like Peter Beaumont, this is to be expected: It is only natural that France's North African immigrants would feel solidarity with their Muslim brethren in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and apparently also natural that they would seek to express this solidarity by way of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions." (See also: "The new anti-semitism?" (Peter Beaumont, The Observer, 2002/02/17) "But the problem with all this talk of a 'new anti-Semitism' is that those who argue hardest for its inexorable rise are dangerously conflating two connected but critically separate phenomena. The monster that they have conjured from these parts is not only something that does not yet exist - and I say 'yet' with caution - but whose purported existence is being cynically manipulated by some in the Israeli government to try to silence debate about the policies of the Sharon government.")

"Report: Mossad, IAF have plan for Iran nuke sites" (The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/11)
"The German newspaper Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Israel has prepared plans for a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities in order to halt Iran's progress towards attaining nuclear weapons.
Der Spiegel reported that a special unit of the Mossad received an order two months ago to prepare a detailed plan to destroy Iran's nuclear sites. According to the paper, the Mossad's plan is ready and has been delivered to the Israeli Air Force, which will carry out the strike."

"Saddam's Syrian Stash" (Adam Zagorin, TIME, 2003/10/11)
"Since the fall of Baghdad in April, American officials have scoured the globe in search of Saddam Hussein's legendary fortune. Now they think they have found a big chunk. According to a U.S. estimate, as much as $3 billion in Iraqi assets is sitting in Syrian government- controlled banks, a senior U.S. official tells TIME, and Washington is anxious to determine that the money is not funding violence against Americans in Iraq, or being drawn down by regime officials and supporters."

"Loathsome" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2003/10/11)
"There is a truly disgusting essay by Professor Tony Judt in the New York Review of Books. He argues for the destruction of Israel.
The very idea of a Jewish state, he sneers, is a 19th century anachronism. No mention of the anachronistic situation that led to the creation of a Jewish state - that medieval hatred of the Jews remained so prevalent across the world, with no country prepared to take them in after World War Two, that a state of their own was the only way of guaranteeing their safety.
In accordance with the left's doctrine that only a multicultural state is legitimate, Judt proposes that Israel becomes a 'binational' Jewish and Arab state. ...
Judt's modest proposal rehearses the usual libels and distortions about Israel. Thus: 'With American support, Jerusalem has consistently and blatantly flouted UN resolutions requiring it to withdraw from land seized and occupied in war'. No mention that these resolutions also require as a quid pro quo that the Arabs make peace with Israel. ...
Thus: 'pundits slander our European allies when they dissent, speak glibly and irresponsibly of resurgent anti-Semitism when Israel is criticized...' No mention of the blood libel promulgated by 'our European allies' over the massacre of Jenin that wasn't; no mention of the commonplace assertion by 'our European allies' of the canard that the Jews are a cabal which dictates American foreign policy; no mention of the dehumanisation of Israel by 'our European allies' through their vile daily distortion and moral inversion that represents Israel's attempts at self-defence as unwarranted aggression." (See also: "Israel: The Alternative" (Tony Judt, The New York Review of Books, from the 2003/10/23 issue) and "LA Times Self-Destructs" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/10/10))

"Sharon's Policies Disturbing" (Tariq A. Al-Maeena, Arab News, 2003/10/11)
Al-Maeena's Hysterical Anti-Semitism Disturbing: "Adolf Hitler is reborn. Only this time, rather than a swastika armband, he is adorned with a yarmulke. And his name is Ariel Sharon. And just as Hitler pursued his intent of forging the master race by putting millions in concentration camps and murdering them, so has Sharon pursued the policy of exterminating the innocent, except this time around it is a generous supply of tanks, Apache helicopters, and F-15s that do the dirty deed.
Zionism today runs ominously parallel to Nazism. And to peaceful Israeli Jews his murderous policies have become increasingly disturbing. Sharon, a transplanted Eastern European, is committed to eradicate the souls of those born and bred on this land. And all in the name of Zionism, a despicable alternative to racism." (Note: Found via Little Green Footballs.)

"Resistance in Iraq" (Jeffrey B. White and Michael Schmidmayr, Middle East Quarterly, from the Fall 2003 issue)
An interesting study of Iraqi resistance, with lots of statistics: "Any ideas about a benign occupation and period of quiet reconstruction have been laid to rest. Even though the regime and the Sunnis lost the war, they are still in the struggle. Whether Saddam is alive or dead, elements of his regime are fighting against the occupation, and they are doing this with the support of at least some of the Sunni population. Resistance by forces of the former regime could not continue unless it had that support. Moreover, resistance is not confined to regime "dead-enders." There are Islamists, terrorists, mercenaries, and outsiders involved. These categories probably do not exhaust the persons and groups with a hand in resistance."

"Dick Cheney Was Right" (Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/10/20 issue)
Hayes on Saddam and 9/11: "Although Shakir worked for Malaysian Airlines, the Iraqi embassy controlled his schedule - told him when to report to work, when to take a day off. On January 5, 2000, Shakir received an assignment from his embassy contact. He was to escort two recent arrivals through immigration at the airport. Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi - two of the chief September 11 hijackers - had come to Malaysia for an important al Qaeda meeting that would last four days. That gathering would become the focus of the extensive investigation into the planning of the attack on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon nearly a year later. ...
Also present that day, according to U.S. intelligence reporting, were Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational chief of the "Holy Tuesday" attacks, as 9/11 was known to the terrorists, and Tawfiz al Atash, a top-ranking bin Laden deputy, later identified as the mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole."

"'A Gift From God' Renews a Village" (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post, 2003/10/11)
Well, it is certainly not a gift from Michael Moore & Co: "The surging water from the Euphrates River first quenched the desiccated soil around this village. Then, with a steady crescendo, it smothered farming tracts, inundated several homes and enveloped the landscape to the horizon.
"Hamdulillah," intoned Salim Sherif Kerkush, the stout village sheik. Thank God.
Thin reeds now sprout on the glassy surface. Aquatic birds build nests on tiny islands. And lanky young boys in flowing tunics spend the first few hours of each day as generations of adolescent males in their families have: gliding across the water in narrow wooden boats to collect fish trapped in homemade nets.
"The water is our life," Kerkush said as he gazed at the marsh that now comes within a few feet of his house and stretches as far as the eye can see. 'It is a gift from God to have it back.'"

"Cheney Goes on Offensive Over Iraq" (Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, 2003/10/11)
"Vice President Cheney capped a White House effort to regain its equilibrium over the Iraq occupation by delivering a blistering rebuttal yesterday to critics of the administration's foreign policy and arguing that a consensus-based foreign policy is obsolete. ...
Cheney blasted the criticism "that the United States, when its security is threatened, may not act without unanimous international consent" - a clear reference to U.N. procedures, under which "the mere objection of even one foreign government would be sufficient to prevent us from acting."
"Though often couched in high-sounding terms of unity and cooperation, it is a prescription for perpetual disunity and obstructionism," Cheney said, adding that this would "confer undue power" on dissenters, "while leaving the rest of us powerless to act in our own defense. Yet we continue to hear this attitude in arguments in our own country - so often, and so conveniently, it amounts to a policy of doing exactly nothing.'" (See also the speech: "A Free Iraq Important to Winning War, Inaction Leaves U.S. Vulnerable" (Dick Cheney, GeorgeWBush.com, 2003/10/10): "It comes down to a choice between action that assures our security and inaction that allows dangers to grow. And we can see the consequences of these choices in real events. The contrast is greatest on the ground in Iraq. Had the United States been constrained by the objections of some, the regime of Saddam Hussein would still rule Iraq, his statues would still stand, and his sons would still be running the secret police.")

Added in archive:
"America the Forgiven" (Reem Al-Faisal, Arab News, 2003/10/03)

Friday, October 10, 2003

News and commentary:

"Legends of the Fall" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/10/10)
Another must-read column by the invaluable Victor Davis Hanson: "Of course, a single dead American soldier is a tragedy, both for the nation and for the aggrieved family. But, by any historical measure, what strikes students of this war so far in its first two years is the amazing degree to which the United States has hurt its enemies without incurring enormous casualties and costs. So far there have been five theaters of conflict: Washington, New York, Pennsylvania, Afghanistan, and Iraq. After suffering about 3,000 dead, $100 billion in direct material damage in Manhattan and D.C., and perhaps another $1 trillion hit to the economy at large in areas as diverse as airline losses, increased security expenditures, and tourist and travel drop-offs, the United States has lost under 400 soldiers in defeating the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and probably spent roughly $100 billion in direct military expenditures, with another $100 billion in slated reconstruction costs. ...
There is, however, a political crisis. Critics of the near-flawless military campaign of three weeks were stymied when none of their bleak scenarios came to pass: thousands killed; millions of refugees; governments toppled; terrorist attacks in the United States; mass starvation; and hundreds of U.N. camps. Thus in a frenzied election year they have turned to two backup positions: reconstruction as "quagmire" and WMDs as the sole (and fraudulent) reason for war. Both strategies are risky because they presuppose that a year from now Iraq will be worse, not better, and that there will be no forthcoming textual or eyewitness reports that such weapons in fact were hidden, exported, or secretly dismantled as some goofy gambit of an unhinged dictator."

"Al-Qaddafi: 'Libya Should Quit the Arab League… Women Must be Trained to Booby-Trap Cars, Houses, Luggage, and Children's Toys'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 587, 2003/10/10)
"In an October 4, 2003 speech delivered to a group of women in the city of Sabha, Libyan ruler Col. Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi spoke of Libya's work for the pan-Arab cause, accused the Arab countries of ingratitude, and apologized to the African states for bringing them into the Arab League. He also said that women should be trained to carry out suicide operations. The following are excerpts from his speech: ...
'The war changed and moved from the battlefields we learned about in books, into the homes. In the past, soldiers fought soldiers, and today soldiers fight women and children in Baghdad and Gaza… As long as the woman is home and she is the one targeted, she must be trained… The woman must be trained how to fight within the home, how to put together an explosive belt and blow herself up together with the enemy soldiers. Anyone who has a car must make preparations and know how to booby trap it and turn it into a car bomb… In the past they would say [to us in Libya]: 'Why do you train the women? It is not logical that the woman will go out to the battlefield…' Today the face of the battle has changed, and the arenas of fighting have moved to the place where the woman is…
We must train the women how to booby-trap the car and blow it up among the enemy, how to blow up the house so it falls on the enemy soldiers. Traps must be prepared. You have seen how [the enemy] check[s] luggage. These suitcases should be rigged so that when they open them they blow up. The women must be taught how to booby-trap their clothes closets, booby-trap their purses, booby-trap their shoes, booby-trap the children's toys, so they blow up on the enemy soldiers.'"

"LA Times Self-Destructs" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/10/10)
"Lots of readers emailed about this absolutely horrifying article in the LA Times by New York University history professor Tony Judt, in which he argues for the destruction of Israel: 'Jewish State' Has Become an Anachronism. ...
The final paragraph of this disgusting op-ed encapsulates everything that is loathsome about ivory tower creeps like Judt:

In a world where nations and peoples increasingly intermingle and intermarry, where cultural and national impediments to communication have all but collapsed, where more and more of us have multiple elective identities and would feel constrained if we had to answer to just one, in such a world, Israel is truly an anachronism. And not just an anachronism, but a dysfunctional one. In today's "clash of cultures" between open, pluralist democracies and belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-states, Israel actually risks falling into the wrong camp.

Apparently, Judt — the history professor — hasn't noticed that every other country in the Middle East is one of those "belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-states" he decries. So the solution, according to Judt, is for Israel to cease to exist — and for another intolerant Islamic nightmare state to take its place. Brilliant analysis, professor." (See also: "'Jewish State' Has Become an Anachronism" (Tony Judt, Los Angeles Times, 2003/10/10))

"Iranian activist wins Nobel prize" (BBC News, 2003/10/10)
"The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian campaigner for human rights, noted for her work in promoting the rights of women and children.
Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chairman of the five-member selection committee, paid tribute to Ms Ebadi's work both at home and abroad saying that she understood that "No society can be seen as democratic without women being represented".
On hearing of her victory 56-year-old Ms Ebadi, who is in Paris at the moment, said: "I'm a Muslim, so you can be a Muslim and support democracy. It's very good for human rights in Iran, especially for children's rights in Iran. I hope I can be useful."
Ms Ebadi, a lawyer well known throughout Iran, was the country's first female judge, but was forced to resign following the Islamic Revolution in 1979." (See also: "The Nobel Peace Prize for 2003" (The Nobel Peace Prize, 2003/10/10): "Ebadi is a conscious Moslem. She sees no conflict between Islam and fundamental human rights. It is important to her that the dialogue between the different cultures and religions of the world should take as its point of departure their shared values.")

"Wielders of mass deception?"
(The Economist, the 2003/10/04 issue)

"Loony lucubrations" (Arnaud de Borchgrave, The Washington Times, 2003/10/10)
"Under the headline "Wielders of mass deception?" on the cover of this week's Economist, President Bush sits, stroking his chin, mouth covered by his right hand, his brow furrowed, with an atrabilious, melancholy look that seems to say, "Now what?" Seated next to him is a chapfallen British Prime Minister Tony Blair, weary head propped up by his left hand, whose unspoken thought could easily be, "I'm not his poodle, but no one believes me."
The prestigious, global magazine, which was a staunch supporter of the war on Iraq, now feels betrayed by the Bush-Blair duo. There was little evidence for the apocalyptic talk with which American officials attempted to daunt and galvanize the public, said the Economist. "Why did Bush and Blair often omit the caveats and subjunctives with which the spies hedged their judgments?"
Even if the U.S. government were to spend another $1 billion buffing the Bush administration's credentials around the world, the image of an American president as both deceiver and deceived is firmly fixed in the corridors of power the world over. In most television, newspaper and magazine newsrooms outside the U.S., the question mark in the Economist's cover headline has long since been removed."

"WMD In a Haystack" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/10/10)
"Rolf Ekeus, living proof that not all Swedish arms inspectors are fools, may have been right.
Ekeus headed the U.N. inspection team that from 1991 to 1997 uncovered not just tons of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq but a massive secret nuclear weapons program as well. This after the other Swede, Hans Blix, then director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had given Saddam Hussein a perfectly clean bill of health on being non-nuclear. Indeed, Iraq had a seat on the IAEA board of governors.
Ekeus theorizes that Hussein decided years ago that it was unwise to store mustard gas and other unstable and corrosive poisons in barrels, and also difficult to conceal them. Therefore, rather than store large stocks of weapons of mass destruction, he would adapt the program to retain an infrastructure (laboratories, equipment, trained scientists, detailed plans) that could "break out" and ramp up production when needed. The model is Japanese "just in time" manufacturing, where you save on inventory by making and delivering stuff in immediate response to orders. Except that Hussein's business was toxins, not Toyotas. ...
But the question of whether he was still in the WMD business is no longer open. "We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities," Kay testified, "and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002" - concealed, that is, from the hapless Hans Blix."

"Islamic extremists recant" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2003/10/10)
Taheri on "River of Memories", written by "eight senior sheiks (leaders) of Gamaa al-Islamiyah (Islamic Society), a terrorist organization that waged a bloody campaign against the Egyptian state for 20 years":
"The sheiks write: "Egyptians should not shed the blood of Egyptians . . . What happened was wrong and should not happen again." They add, "Women and children should not be killed, even in war."
They sheikcall for "a complete and unconditional end to any act of violence, including verbal violence, against the Egyptian authorities inside or outside the country." ...
Finally, the sheiks are careful not to abandon such goals as making Islam the sole religion of all mankind, wiping Israel off the map and destroying "deviant" Muslims - such as Shiites, a majority in Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon - like "evil weeds."
In military terms, the Egyptian terrorist movement has lost the war it unleashed against the state. But it intends to pursue a political, social and cultural war in which psychological terror is the prime weapon.
The Gamaa's new strategy is, in a sense, not new at all. It has been practiced by the Ikhwan al-Moslemeen (The Muslim Brotherhood) in Egypt and half a dozen other Arab countries for years.
Allied to the despotic regimes in place, the Brotherhood promises not to challenge the political authority of the state. In exchange, it gets a free hand in "Islamicizing" society the way it likes.
In some countries, including Egypt, the strategy has worked. Today, many Egyptians feel less free than 25 years ago. Also compared to 25 years ago, Egypt is becoming a cultural desert upon which blows the murderous wind of bedouinisation."

"Guilt lies only with the killers" (Jake Ryan, Herald Sun, 2003/10/10)
Ryan is a survivor of the Bali bombings. Found via Tim Blair: "Everyone looks the same when they're on fire. This is something I learned searching for my brother Mitchell in the first minutes after the Sari Club exploded a year ago on Sunday.
I couldn't find him. I couldn't tell if Mitch was one of the dozens of burning people dying outside the club.
A friend and I ran back inside and found a girl sitting in a circle of flame. She was holding someone whose skin was totally blackened. We yelled at her to reach out, so we could lift her from the fire, but she screamed back that she couldn't: "I have no legs." I looked down. Both her legs were gone. She died looking me in the eyes.
Further inside, I saw a hand reaching out and I grabbed it. The skin peeled off like a glove. I grabbed it again and pulled the person out . . . dead, and so badly burned it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman."

"What we have achieved" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2003/10/10)
"Yesterday, Paul Bremer gave a brief overview. (And, believe it or not, even the anti-war New York Times covered it.) My highlights:

Six months ago there were no police on duty in Iraq.

· Today there are over 40,000 police on duty, nearly 7,000 here in Baghdad alone.
· Last night Coalition Forces and Iraqi police conducted 1,731 joint patrols.
· Today nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
· Today, for the first time in over a generation, the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
· On Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts — exceeding the pre-war average.
· Today all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
· Many of you know that we announced our plan to rehabilitate one thousand schools by the time school started — well, by October 1 we had actually rehabbed over 1,500.

Six months ago teachers were paid as little as $5.33 per month.

· Today teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
· Today we have increased public health spending to over 26 times what it was under Saddam.
· Today all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
· Today doctors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
· Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
· Since liberation we have administered over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's many children.

This is what some in this country want to stop. This is what would never have happened if we'd let Saddam Hussein stay in power. It's simply beyond me how anyone can describe this war as about "oil" or about "imperialism" or about "greed" or "militarism." It remains one of the most humanitarian acts in modern history. And, if successful, it could turn an entire region around - a region that has been the main source of real danger to itself and to the West in my lifetime. I'm banging on about this not simply because it's by far the most important issue in our politics right now, but because a wilful and petty disinformation campaign is being waged to distort this achievement, undermine it, and reverse it. We mustn't let that happen. We cannot let these people - and ourselves - down again." (See also: "L. Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator, Opening Remarks" (CPA, 2003/10/09))

Added in archive:
"Washington deaf to reason" (Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram, from the 18 - 24 September 2003 issue)

Thursday, October 9, 2003

News and commentary:

"Pakistan Haven Makes US War On Taliban Hard Win" (Ahmed Rashid, The Wall Street Journal/Pakistan Facts, 2003/10/09)
"As the United States government re-plans and refinances its troubled nation-building effort in Afghanistan and continues its long search for Osama bin Laden, its enemy, the Taliban, are living in plain sight just across the border. In Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province, thousands of Taliban fighters reside in mosques and madrassas with the full support of a provincial ruling party and militant Pakistani groups. Taliban leaders wanted by the U.S. and Kabul governments are living openly in nearby villages, and the families of Taliban have found safe haven in refugee camps inside Pakistan, where approximately 1 million Afghan refugees are living. ... "The puppet regime of [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai is on the verge of collapse and the Americans will flee Afghanistan," says a Taliban mullah in Quetta.
Adds Maulana Hafiz Hussain Sharodi, Baluchistan's information minister and a leader of the Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam (JUI), which openly backs the Taliban and is a partner in the coalition that rules the province, "Karzai's time is finished. Only the Taliban can constitute the real government in Afghanistan." ...
"We see the Pakistani army posts on the border waving in Taliban groups and then waving them out again," says a frustrated middle-ranking U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan. "Washington needs to do something." "We are fed up with Pakistan's policy," says Yousuf Pashtun, the governor of Kandahar province."

"Thursday" (Yossi Klein Halevi, The New Republic, 2003/10/09)
From the online debate "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" between Halevi and Leon Wieseltier:
"So yes, I appreciate your caution about excessive pessimism, even toward the Middle East. Still, in the last three years of terror and the pervasive demonization of Israel, I've come to value Brooklyn's warning against the temptation of self-delusion. For me, that means conceding that the peace process is over, that in fact there never was a peace process, if by that we mean a mutual process of reconciliation. ...
You write that "we can argue endlessly" about whether the victims of terror died because of Oslo or because of the failure of Oslo. But that's exactly what we should be arguing about. Because if Oslo was, as I believe, a Palestinian ruse - or Trojan Horse (the phrase belongs to the late Faisal Husseini) - then Oslo failed because it was meant to fail. And that requires a self-reckoning, yes, an atonement for self-deception, among those of us who initially supported Oslo. ...
We've made a mistake in demonizing Arafat. Not that he isn't demonic; but because the problem is hardly Arafat alone, but the widespread Palestinian and Arab refusal to grant us genuine recognition. Gambling on Arafat wasn't just a miscalculation about his personality, as the Israeli novelist David Grossman once suggested; it was symptomatic of our refusal to recognize the depth of Arab rejection. The widespread resistance in the Arab world to granting legitimacy to Jewish history, from Holocaust-denial to Temple-denial, isn't a side-effect of the conflict. It is the conflict."

"Muslim Politics 6: The European dilemma" (Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI, 2003/10/09)
Siemon-Netto on the "official naivité" in dealing with Muslim radicalism in Europe: "True, most Muslim immigrants in Western Europe, especially Germany's Turks, reject Islamic fundamentalism, according to most reliable polls. But Islamism is nonetheless rampant on the continent. ...
This ideology, claims Hildegard Becker, is subverting the German equivalent of France's Muslim Council. A specialist on Islam, Becker warns of the movement's two-faced nature: "Vis-à-vis Germans, and in the German language, (the Muslim organizations keep insisting that they are abiding) by the Basic Law (constitution) and desire... the 'dialogue' (with the rest of society). But speaking to Turks in their language, demagogic slogans against German democracy, pluralism and the allegedly morally rotten German society prevail."
As in other parts of Europe, a mushy liberalism, particularly in the judiciary and the churches, stands in the way of a democratic Islam taking root in Germany. As Ursula Spuler-Stegemann, an Islamic studies professor at the university of Marburg notes, "Our clergy have a goofy tendency to schmooze with Islamic umbrella organizations rather than talk to grassroots Muslims here."
"In truth," she goes on, 'these Muslim umbrella organizations are pushing purely national and Islamist ideologies, which in their countries of origin are justly suppressed.'"

"Arafat's Illness" (Tony Karon, TIME, 2003/10/09)
"Yasser Arafat's gaunt, fragile appearance during last weekend's inauguration of an emergency cabinet for the Palestinian Authority has raised a flurry of speculation over the state of the 74-year-old leader's health. Palestinian officials on Wednesday denied rumors that Arafat had last week suffered a mild heart attack and explained that Arafat has been suffering from a bad case of the flu or an intestinal infection. But according to a source inside the compound, the recent working diagnosis is that Arafat is suffering from stomach cancer." (See also: "Arafat has suffered heart attack, admits aide" (Chris McGreal, The Guardian, 2003/10/08))

"US mulling defensive missiles against Iran in Europe: report" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/10/09)
"The US government is considering stationing defensive missiles in a number of European countries against a potential attack from Iran.
State Department sources told Germany's Sueddeutsche newspaper that Washington was concerned because Iran is developing a satellite program and argued that if Tehran can send satellites into space, it could probably fire intercontinental missiles.
The daily quoted a high-ranking US diplomat as saying that the Americans would like to develop a defensive missile network with Europeans but doubted whether a deal could be reached quickly by NATO.
Because of these concerns, Washington may pursue bilateral agreements with individual European countries for deployment in 2006 anti-ballistic systems in exchange for economic aid, the Sueddeutsche said."

"Inspecting the truth" (Brendan O'Neill, spiked, 2003/10/09)
O'Neill on the "sudden turnaround" regarding the Iraqi WMD threat among inspectors — and others: "In Death of a Scientist - a documentary on the suicide of British weapons expert David Kelly shown on Channel 4 on 5 October 2003 - former BBC reporter Tom Mangold claimed that Kelly and other UN weapons inspectors knew that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
He contrasted the inspectors' commitment to the facts with Bush and Blair's 'sexing up' of the pre-war evidence. According to Mangold, during the 'dark years' - the four years between 1998, when the first lot of weapons inspectors left Iraq, and 2002, when under Hans Blix they returned - inspectors were aware that Iraq had not developed new WMD and did not pose a significant threat.
Mangold has a short memory. He seems to have forgotten that in 2000 - slap bang in the middle of the 'dark years' - he published a book containing detailed interviews with weapons inspectors, entitled Plague Wars: A True Story of Biological Warfare. Then Mangold described Iraq as 'one of the most dangerous rogue states in the world today.'"

"Protests from those who don't know ring hollow" (Sgt. N.J. Todd, Austin American-Statesman, 2003/10/09)
An eloquent Op-Ed by Todd, who is is in the U.S. Army Reserve: "I do not object to all those who oppose the war. I do object those who accuse the United States of war crimes and genocide in order to lend weight to their pacifism.
I have heard and seen those in Austin who call for the United States to leave Iraq, accusing the Bush administration of an unjust invasion, illegal occupation and genocide. Such people don't know what "genocide" means. ...
After I returned from Bosnia, I visited the "museum" at Dachau. I saw the rebuilt barracks and new barbed wire, the meticulously restored crematoria and killing grounds. I knelt there in a field that had been used to dump the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust, and lit a candle for the souls who suffered there. I cried and prayed there, remembering what had been done, and thought upon the words "never again." Somehow the thought of it made me cry more, because I couldn't stop thinking about how long it took us to decide to stop the madness in Bosnia. How no one even tried to stop the killings in Cambodia, Kurdish Iraq and the Sudan. How we walked away from Somalia after the tragic sacrifice of American soldiers fighting to build a better world. It occurred to me how much we have forgotten and how empty those brave words had become.
We cannot save the world by ourselves. We cannot stop all the genocides and massacres. We cannot make sure that "never again" becomes a fulfilled promise rather than a hope. But we can return a little meaning to those words, stop some killings and end some suffering. I hope we do, and I would be proud to serve again in Iraq to do so.
But I won't expect those who call for "peace" to help me." (Note: Found via Andrew Sullivan.)

"Bigger than Watergate" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2003/10/11 issue)
Steyn on the Plame affair: "It doesn't really matter which version you believe, because the end result's the same: an agency known to be opposed to war in Iraq sent an employee’s spouse also known to be opposed to war in Iraq on a perfunctory joke mission. And, after eight days sipping tea and meeting government officials in one city of one country, Ambassador Wilson gave a verbal report to the CIA and was horrified to switch on his TV and see Bush going on about what British Intelligence had learned about Saddam and Africa. ...
No political leader is obliged to accept a particular intelligence finding. Invariably, you're presented with contradictory pieces of information and evidence, and you're obliged to choose. If President Bush chooses to believe British and French Intelligence over the CIA, that's his prerogative. It's also a telling comment on the state of the agency. ...
If sending Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger for a week is the best the world's only hyperpower can do, that's a serious problem. If the Company knew it was a joke all along, that's a worse problem. It means Mr Bush is in the same position with the CIA as General Musharraf is with Pakistan's ISI: when he makes a routine request, he has to figure out whether they're going to use it to try and set him up. This is no way to win a terror war."

"The media ignored the real WMD news" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2003/10/09)
"Kay's report drew heavy media attention. "Tonight," began Tom Brokaw on NBC's evening news, "the man in charge of finding those weapons in Iraq, David Kay, went before Congress and said so far he has come up dry: no weapons, no mobile labs, no nuclear weapons or even an advanced program." Brokaw made clear that this was a black eye for the Bush administration, since it justified war on the grounds that "Saddam Hussein had to be overthrown because of his vast stocks of weapons of mass destruction."
The papers struck the same note. "Search in Iraq finds no banned weapons," was The Washington Post's headline the next day.
Other headlines sounded the same note: "No illicit arms found in Iraq, US inspector tells Congress" (New York Times), "Search yields no weapons" (Miami Herald), "US inspectors find no evidence of banned arms" (Baltimore Sun).
But Kay's report was only one summary of WMD findings in Iraq to be released last week. At about the same time that Kay was on Capitol Hill, an international organization called the Iraq Survey Group, or ISG, was disclosing what its highly regarded scientists - many of them former UN inspectors - had discovered about Saddam's weapons programs. Far from undermining the administration's rationale for war, many of the ISG's findings strengthened it - decisively. ...
In short, what President Bush asserted in his State of the Union address - "The dictator of Iraq is not disarming; to the contrary, he is deceiving" - has now been confirmed. The ISG has vindicated the administration's case for war: that Saddam continued to flout the UN's explicit mandates; that his WMD programs had not been dismantled; that he went to elaborate lengths to conceal them; and that it was only a matter of time before he used them to unleash another 9/11." (See also the report: "Statements by David Kay on the interim progress report on the activities of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG)" (CIA, 2003/10/02) and "Read the report" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2003/10/03))

"Muslim Students at Penn Sponsor Nazi" (Jonathan Calt Harris, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/10/09)
"This week the University of Pennsylvania’s Muslim Student Association (MSA) is celebrating its "Islam Awareness Week." For the keynote address on Thursday, October 9, the MSA invited "Reverend" William W. Baker, a former chairman of a racist and anti-Semitic organization, the Populist Party.
Baker, the founder and director of Christians and Muslims for Peace (CAMP) will be one of two invited speakers and the first non-Muslim ever invited to speak at this annual week-long event.
Baker’s selection as speaker is bad enough, but the use of university funds to pay for it is a scandal; the Office of the Chaplain and the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life helped MSA come up with nearly $5,000 for the week-long program.
Baker was in the news in 2002 when he was fired by Rev. Robert Schuller of Crystal Cathedral Ministries, following an exposé in the Orange County Weekly, for his ties to neo-Nazism and his anti-Semitic writings. (Schuller's California-based Crystal Cathedral is perhaps best known for its nationally syndicated television program "The Hour of Power.")
The weekly’s investigation revealed that Baker had served as the Populist Party's chairman in 1984 and organized its convention that year. The Populist Party was an initiative of Willis Carto, the well-known neo-Nazi figure also known for founding the Institute for Historical Review, a group devoted to Holocaust denial, and publisher of the nation’s foremost anti-Semitic newspaper, The SPOTLIGHT (now reorganized as the American Free Press)."

"Bush's betrayal" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2003/10/09)
"Judas drove a hard bargain compared to President Bush. At least the great betrayer got 30 pieces of silver. All Bush is going to get for delivering the Kurds unto their enemies will be 10,000 Turkish troops - who will act solely in Ankara's interests, not in the interests of Washington or the people of Iraq.
Bush's desire for Turkish forces is craven. Hoping to reduce U.S. troop commitments as an election looms, he verges on throwing away the practical and moral achievements won with our soldiers' blood.
His actions will backfire at home as surely as they will in Iraq. A Turkish presence will make things worse, not better.
Turkey has one enduring aim: the suppression of Kurdish freedom anywhere in the region. That will be Ankara's immutable goal in Iraq. ...
Even Iraq's American-backed Governing Council has protested the deployment of Turkish troops. Washington's response has been to tell them to shut up.
Doubtless, Bush's enforcers will bully most of the members of the council into accepting Washington's will. But our actions make a mockery of the values we have professed to the Iraqi people." (See also: "Iraq Council Seeks Compromise with U.S. on Turkey" (Huda Majeed Saleh, Reuters, 2003/10/08))

"Iraq: Moving Forward Despite Violence" (Nimrod Raphaeli, MEMRI, 2003/10/09)
"In one poll, the Saudi daily Okaz asked people if they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: "Iraq, and the people of Iraq, are today better off than they were in the past." 66 percent of the respondents "strongly agreed" and another 17 percent "agreed." Only 17 percent disagreed. One hundred percent of respondents disagreed with the statement: "It is possible that Saddam Hussein will return to govern Iraq because he is preferable to the Western coalition." ...
"For a thousand years," wrote the Iraqi daily Al-Watan, published by the Iraqi National Movement, in an editorial titled "Painstaking Efforts and Visible Improvement in Security:" "Baghdad has been under either domestic or external siege. And now Baghdad is free and is open to the world, but there are forces trying to put it back by destroying what is left of its infrastructure and by propagating fear and chaos." The editorial added: "the Iraqi citizen has begun to feel that the security situation has taken a powerful step forward when the Iraqi police force began to play a more noticeable role than before. The citizen is feeling that police presence close to him will assist him when assistance is needed…" In the words of a shopkeeper who sells television sets and refrigerators: 'Things have really changed since the end of July. In July we saw three or four robberies and killings a day. I don't think I've seen one since July.'"

"Suicide Car Bomber Kills at Least Eight in Baghdad" (Michael Georgy, Reuters, 2003/10/09)
"A suicide car bomber crashed through the gates of a Baghdad police station Thursday, killing at least three policemen and five civilians and wounding scores in the blast, Iraqi police said.
"It was definitely a suicide bomb," one policeman at the scene said. "We found the head of the attacker. It had been blown off his body. He was bearded, and his body was charred."
At the police station in the impoverished Shi'ite Muslim district of Sadr City, formerly known as Saddam City, the wreckage of a car lay beside the building."

"Shiites Again Protest Arrest at Mosque" (Theola Labbé and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post, 2003/10/09)
"The U.S. military squared off with angry Shiite Muslim protesters for the second straight day Wednesday after thousands marched to the headquarters of the U.S.-led administration in Iraq to demand the release of a local religious leader arrested this week by U.S. forces.
More than 3,000 Shiites shouting "No! No occupation!" snaked through the city streets carrying religious banners as OH-58D Kiowa helicopters hovered overhead. ...
The U.S. military arrested Moayed Khazraji, the leader of the blue-domed Bayaa mosque in southwest Baghdad, on Monday after receiving several tips that he had stashed weapons in the mosque, said the chief U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. George Krivo.
Soldiers found a box of .50-caliber ammunition, a box of hand grenades, numerous AK-47 assault rifles and other prohibited weapons at the mosque, and Khazraji was arrested on charges of being "in support of anti-American activities," Krivo said.
Khazraji is reportedly close to Moqtada Sadr, a Shiite cleric who has been outspoken against the occupation but has stopped short of calling for a holy war." (See also: "U.S. Troops Confront Protesters at Baghdad Mosque" (Reuters, 2003/10/07))

"U.S. set to impose sanctions on Syria" (Stephen Dinan and David R. Sands, The Washington Times, 2003/10/09)
"The United States took steps toward imposing sanctions on Syria yesterday, with the Bush administration dropping its opposition and a key House panel voting to penalize the Arab nation until it expels terrorists and limits its weapons programs. ...
The measure prevents sales of "dual-use" technology to Syria. It also requires that the president impose two other sanctions of his choice from among a list that includes prohibiting trade other than food or medicine, restricting diplomatic contacts, preventing Syrian airlines from entering U.S. airspace and prohibiting U.S. firms from operating in Syria.
To lift the sanctions, the president must certify that Syria has expelled terrorists, withdrawn troops from Lebanon, ended its missile and chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, and ceased supporting insurgents in Iraq."

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

News and commentary:

"Syria Says Ready to Fight if Israel Attacks Again" (Dan Williams and Dan Trotta, Reuters, 2003/10/08)
"Syria's ambassador to Spain said on Wednesday Damascus would respond militarily against Israel if the Jewish state carried out new attacks on Syrian territory. ...
"If Israel attacks Syria one, two and three times, of course the people of Syria and the government of Syria and the army will react to defend ourselves," Syrian Ambassador Mohsen Bilal told Reuters in Madrid.
Asked if that meant responding militarily, he said: 'By all means. If Israel continues to attack us and continues its aggression of course we shall react to the attacks in spite of the fact that we are fighting for peace and wish to reopen the (1991) Madrid (peace) conference.'"

"Not so innocent" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2003/10/08)
"Recently, I visited Germany to speak with our soldiers, many just back from Iraq. The situation depicted in the media was unrecognizable to them. They'd just left a country where every indicator of success was turning positive. Yet the media insist we are incompetent and failing.
The Kurds are prospering. The Shi'ites no longer live in fear. Even most Sunni Arabs feel relieved that Saddam's gone. The mullahs are behaving. Local markets are busy and full of goods. The electricity's back on - more reliably than before the war. Schools are open. Oil's flowing. The Iraqi media is booming, boisterous and free. The Governing Council has convinced previously hostile factions to cooperate. Iraqis provide more and more of their own local security. And the torture chambers are closed.
What do we hear from Iraq? Another soldier killed. The rest is silence. ...
This is not an argument for propaganda, or for turning our press into mindless red-white-and-blue cheerleaders. But the media must face up to the responsibility that goes with their influence.
Some degree of inaccuracy is inherent in any human system, including the media. But don't tell me you're reporting honestly, when you're only reporting the negative one-tenth of one per cent of what's happening, while playing up each terrorist attack.
The media form as decisive a strategic factor as our military. Their professed neutrality is a sham. Distorted reporting is at least as deadly as any bomb in our arsenal."

"Palestinian death cult" (Mark Steyn, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/08)
"I spent a short time on the West Bank earlier this spring. I would have spent longer, but to be honest it creeped me out, and I was happy to scram across the Allenby Bridge and on through Jordan to Iraq. Say what you like about the Sunni Triangle and RPG Alley, but I never once felt I was in a wholly diseased environment. On the West Bank, almost all the humdrum transactions of daily life take place in a culture that glorifies depravity: you walk down a street named after a suicide bomber to drop your child in a school that celebrates suicide-bombing and then pick up some groceries in a corner store whose walls are plastered with portraits of suicide bombers.
Nothing good grows in toxic soil. You cannot have a real peace with such people; you cannot even have the cold peace that exists between Israel and Jordan, where King Abdullah, host of the Arab-American-Israeli summit at the start of the road map, did not dare display the flag of the Zionist Entity, lest it provoke his subjects.
The problem is not the security fence, but the psychological fence — a chasm really — that separates a sizable proportion of the Palestinian population from all Jews."

"A partisan press sides with terror" (Jonathan Tobin, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/08)
"Virtually every major American newspaper, including the Times and the Inquirer, have decided, as a matter of policy, that members of Palestinian terrorist groups – such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al Aksa Martyrs Brigade – should be called "militants" rather than "terrorists." ...
Chinlun asserts that to "tag Hamas, for example, as a terrorist organization is to ignore its far more complex role in the Middle East drama." Getler chimes in by quoting the Post's style manual as saying that "we should not resolve the argument over whether Hamas is a terrorist organization." Huh? To even entertain the notion that there is a debate about whether a group that targets innocent civilians for death is a terrorist organization is itself an act of partisanship that gives murderers an unearned legitimacy.
Both newspapers are prepared to call specific Hamas attacks "terrorist" attacks, but insist that to attach this label to the group or its members would be wrong. This position is complicated by their approach to al-Qaida.
Chinlund defends this practice because "the definition of al-Qaida in the US is almost solely based on the 9/11 attacks," making it an "allowable exception." And what, we might ask, is Hamas known for in Israel, or anywhere else, except as the slaughterers of innocents?
Getler goes further and betrays his paper's bias by asserting America's innocence in contrast to Palestinian resistance to a "humiliating Israeli occupation." Yet isn't Getler's reference to Israel and its actions itself an acceptance of a slanted view of reality that takes the Palestinian viewpoint and rejects Israel's?
In other words, according to Getler and those who agree with him, Israelis deserve to be blown up in cafes and buses, but Americans do not deserve to be killed." (See also: "Who should wear the 'terrorist' label?" (Christine Chinlund, The Boston Globe/Camera, 2003/09/08) and "The Language of Terrorism" (Michael Getler, The Washington Post/Camera, 2003/09/21))

"Iraq Council Seeks Compromise with U.S. on Turkey" (Huda Majeed Saleh, Reuters, 2003/10/08)
"A statement from the Council's president, Iyad Allawi, acknowledged members were worried about Turkish troops on Iraqi soil but said no final decision had been made.
Governing Council member Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told Reuters on Wednesday a statement would be issued soon.
"The Governing Council views the presence of foreign troops in Iraq, especially those from neighboring countries, with anxiety and caution as those countries have interests that contradict the interests of the Iraqi people," he said. ...
Iraqi Kurds said Turks were not welcome, even if they stayed out of Kurdish areas in northern Iraq.
"We don't want them in the north, south, middle, east or west," Mahdi Herky, spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Mosul, told Reuters. 'We don't want them to come.'" (See also: "Turkish Parliament Approves Peacekeepers for Iraq" (Hidir Goktas, Reuters, 2003/10/07))

"Arafat has suffered heart attack, admits aide" (Chris McGreal, The Guardian, 2003/10/08)
"Yasser Arafat has suffered a mild heart attack but the Palestinian leadership has sought to keep his health problems secret for fear it will "create panic".
The 74-year-old Palestinian president, who is suffering from Parkinson's disease, disappeared from public view last week and re-emerged at the weekend looking extremely ill. His face was pale and pinched, he had lost weight and he was almost inaudible. He had trouble standing for more than a few minutes at a time. ...
Asked why it had not been made public at the time, the official said that it would 'have created panic at a critical time when the Israelis are threatening Arafat's life.'" (But see also: "Palestinians deny Arafat heart attack" (AP/Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 2003/10/09): "Yasser Arafat's advisers yesterday denied a report that he had suffered a mild heart attack, but said the 74-year-old Palestinian leader is suffering from a stomach flu and remains weak. ... A Palestinian cabinet minister, Saeb Erekat, yesterday denied Mr Arafat had suffered a heart attack, saying he was battling a stomach virus. On September 29 Mr Arafat's doctor, Ashraf al-Kurdi, rushed from Jordan to Mr Arafat's compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Mr Arafat had been unable to keep down his food for three days, and Palestinian sources said he feared he had been poisoned.")

Added in archive:
"After Shock" (Yasmine Bahrani, The Washington Post, 2003/10/05)

Tuesday, October 7, 2003

News and commentary:

"Turkish Parliament Approves Peacekeepers for Iraq" (Hidir Goktas, Reuters, 2003/10/07)
"Turkey's parliament approved a government motion on Tuesday permitting the dispatch of peacekeepers to neighboring Iraq as requested by its NATO ally the United States -- but Iraqis themselves criticized the move.
A Turkish deployment should help relieve pressure on U.S. forces in Iraq and repair Ankara's traditionally close ties with Washington, strained after parliament rejected plans in March to let U.S. troops attack Iraq from Turkish territory.
But in a sign that deployment might not be smooth, Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council initially said it would reject troops from any neighboring country. The council later toned down its criticism, speaking only of "concerns" about Turkish troops and saying no formal decision had been made."

"Sharon threatens to hit enemies anywhere" (Matt Spetalnick, Reuters, 2003/10/07)
"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has threatened to hit Israel's enemies anywhere following an air raid deep in Syria, drawing words of support and caution from U.S. President George W. Bush.
"The decisions that he makes to defend her people are valid decisions. We would be doing the same thing," Bush told reporters in Washington on Tuesday when asked about Sharon's remarks.
But the president, who said on Monday that Israel should not feel constrained in defending itself, injected a warning note, saying it was "important for the prime minister to avoid escalation".
Speaking at a memorial service marking the anniversary of the 1973 Middle East war, Sharon took a tough line but made no specific threats after Sunday's strike on what Israel said was a training camp for Palestinian militants.
"Israel will not be deterred from defending its citizens and will hit its enemies any place and in any way," Sharon said. 'At the same time we will not miss any opening and opportunity to reach an agreement with our neighbours and peace.'"

"U.S. Troops Confront Protesters at Baghdad Mosque" (Reuters, 2003/10/07)
"More than 2,000 Shi'ite protesters confronted hundreds of U.S. troops at a Baghdad mosque on Tuesday, demanding the release of a cleric they said was arrested by the Americans. ...
They said a local cleric, identified as Sheikh Muayad Khazraji, was arrested by the American military.
"The Americans asked me to set up a meeting for them with the sheikh at the mosque," said Saadi Reda, a local official. "When we arrived they took away the sheikh and another Shi'ite. They put plastic bags on their heads and drove them away."
Local leaders said the U.S. military told them that Sheikh Khazraji and Abdel Jalil al-Shimli, who also worked in the mosque, were accused of storing arms and calling on Iraqis to oppose the U.S.-led occupation."

"Agenda - Interview with Sweden's UN ambassador Pierre Schori" (SVT/Watch, 2003/10/05 [2003/10/07])
Andrew Sullivan keeps track on untruths about the pre-war narrative, including the "Imminent" Lie, i.e. the popular allegation that Bush's pre-war stance was that Iraq posed an imminent threat, when in fact he clearly stated the opposite — that the world had to act before the threat became imminent.
Here's another example of this lie not only taken for granted, but also alleged to be the fundamental argument for the war. It's from the Swedish television program Agenda, where Sweden's UN ambassador — and infamous Castro adulator — Pierre Schori critizices the latest US draft of a new Iraq resolution. Partial transcript, translation and italics by me:
"Lars Adaktusson: This week saw the report which says that the U.S. has not yet found any WMDs. Does the fact that they haven't found them affect the possibilities to find agreement over the reconstruction of Iraq?
Pierre Schori: No, it strengthens the opposition, not least in the U.S. itself, because these WMDs were said to constitute an imminent threat for the U.S., the American people and the region. So if they can't be found now, it removes the fundamental argument for the war completely, which of course has emboldened those who are critical to the administration, not least the Democrats. And here at the UN people say — didn't we tell you so? And now the U.S. is stuck there with a guerilla war, as an occupying power, with huge losses, both material and human..." (See also: "The Imminence Invention" (The Wall Street Journal, 2003/08/09). Here's Schori on Castro: "As late as 1986 Castro was described by Schori as some kind of superman (Sydsvenska Dagbladet 20/7 1986): 'He is one of the greatest of our time. Someone has said that he is too huge for his island. Castro sees everything in a very long perspective. His mind is encyclopedic and his traits are closest resembling those of a renaissance prince.'" (Per Ahlmark, "Vänstern och tyranniet" (Timbro, 1994)). My translation.)

"What Kay Found" (Colin L. Powell, The Washington Post, 2003/10/07)
"The interim findings of David Kay and the Iraq Survey Group make two things abundantly clear: Saddam Hussein's Iraq was in material breach of its United Nations obligations before the Security Council passed Resolution 1441 last November, and Iraq went further into breach after the resolution was passed.
Kay's interim findings offer detailed evidence of Hussein's efforts to defy the international community to the last. The report describes a host of activities related to weapons of mass destruction that "should have been declared to the U.N." It reaffirms that Iraq's forbidden programs spanned more than two decades, involving thousands of people and billions of dollars.
What the world knew last November about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs was enough to justify the threat of serious consequences under Resolution 1441. What we now know as a result of David Kay's efforts confirms that Hussein had every intention of continuing his work on banned weapons despite the U.N. inspectors, and that we and our coalition partners were right to eliminate the danger that his regime posed to the world. ...
President Bush was right: This was an evil regime, lethal to its own people, in deepening material breach of its Security Council obligations, and a threat to international peace and security. Hussein would have stopped at nothing until something stopped him. It's a good thing that we did."

"Iraq's Founding Moments" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2003/10/07)
"The Iraqis are only laying the groundwork for a constitutional convention, but there is already broad agreement on what the constitution should do. It should establish a democratic government, protect minority rights, guarantee the equality of all people (including women) and establish a government that is consistent with Islamic values without being subservient to theocratic law.
Things are also going well because while Americans are making most of the decisions about how Iraq is run now, they are not dominating the constitution-writing process. "It has to be an Iraqi product," a senior Bush administration official insists. ...
There's no way the Iraqis can resolve these issues within six months, the deadline Colin Powell once set. But this process is the ballgame. Washington will continue to get distracted by microscandals about leaks and such, but the Iraqi constitutional process is the most important thing that will be happening in the world in the next year. If it succeeds, Iraq really will be a beacon of freedom in the Middle East. The Americans who have died in Iraq will have given their lives in a truly noble cause."

"The 'military solution' works" (Evelyn Gordon, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/07)
"Last week marked three years since the outbreak of the intifada and 18 months since Israel started fighting back (in Operation Defensive Shield). Yet people are still being blown up in our streets. The unavoidable conclusion, proclaimed various media commentators, is that the Left was right all along: There is no military solution to terror.
The hard data, however, tell a very different story: that while the war on terror is still far from over, it has actually been making impressive progress.
In the intifada's grim second year, from October 2001 through September 2002, Palestinians killed 449 Israelis and foreigners present on Israeli soil, including both civilians and soldiers. Yet for the year that ended last week, this figure was down 47 percent, to 240. ...
Furthermore, two of the worst months of the past year were months in which military activity was drastically curtailed: June 2003, with 32 deaths, and August 2003, with 29. June was the month of the road map "peace process," during which Israel largely suspended military operations so as not to disrupt the "momentum toward peace." August was the month of the famous Palestinian cease-fire, to which Israel responded by restricting its own military activity. (In fact, the death toll that August was higher than in 22 of the 34 months without a truce!) One could thus reasonably assume that had Israel maintained the military pressure over the summer, the year's death toll would have been even lower."

"Fear of Sabotage by Mistranslation at Guantánamo" (Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, The New York Times, 2003/10/07)
"American interpreters at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who are under suspicion of espionage may have sabotaged interviews with detainees by inaccurately translating interrogators' questions and prisoners' answers, senior American officials said on Monday.
It is unclear in how many cases, if any, this may have happened, the officials said. But military investigators are taking the issue seriously enough to review taped interrogations involving the Arabic-language interpreters under scrutiny to spot-check their accuracy.
If the investigators' worst fears are realized, officials said, scores of interviews with suspected Qaeda or Taliban prisoners at the Cuban detention center could be compromised, and military officials could be forced to reinterview many of the camp's 680 detainees."

"Bush: Israel Must Defend Itself" (Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, 2003/10/07)
"President Bush yesterday defended Israel's decision to drop bombs on an alleged terrorist training camp deep inside Syria, telling reporters he had said to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that "Israel's got a right to defend herself; that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland." ...
"In order for there to be a Palestinian state, the Palestinian Authority must fight terror and must use whatever means is necessary to fight terror," Bush said. The road map calls for both Israelis and Palestinians to take steps to ease tensions, and Bush said, "All parties must assume responsibility."
But Bush did not outline Israel's responsibilities, instead emphasizing, 'The Palestinian Authority must defeat the terrorists who are trying to stop the establishment of a Palestinian state, a peaceful state, in order for there to be peace.'"

"Arafat reported seriously ill" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/07)
"Four ambulances that were seen entering Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah on Monday afternoon triggered off rumors that he was seriously ill.
Within minutes, senior officials in the compound were bombarded with phone calls from curious journalists. Arafat's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, dismissed reports that Arafat had been taken to a local hospital. He said Arafat suffered from exhaustion and was recovering.
But another senior official said Arafat's health has rapidly deteriorated over the past two weeks. "I don't think it's the flu as some people say," he said.'The president hasn't been feeling well for some time and his health seems to be worsening.'"

Added in archive:
"Pakistan's fundamentalists are on the rise - even at its top university" (Miranda Kennedy, The Boston Globe, 2003/10/05)
"Our media jihadis" (Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/04)
"Iraq Leaves U.N. In Confusion" (Stewart Stogel, NewsMax.com, 2003/10/03)
"Statement by Ahmad Chalabi, Head of the Iraqi Delegation, to the 58th UN General Assembly" (The United Nations, 2003/10/02)
"ABC Baghdad: Kids and bombs" (ABC Media Watch, 2003/09/29)

Monday, October 6, 2003

News and commentary:

"So what's new?" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2003/10/06)
"The new Palestinian Prime Minister, Ahmed Qureia, has said he will not use force to destroy Palestinian terror. "We will not confront, we will not go for a civil war," he says. "It's not in our interest. It's not in the interest of our people, and it's not in the interest of the peace process."
Oh really? Actually, this repudiates phase one, sentence one of the road map which says: 'In Phase 1, the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below...'. These include: 'Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis everywhere'. Note the words 'unequivocal', 'visible' and 'restrain', precisely what Ahmed Qureia and, before him, Mahmoud Abbas, have refused point blank to accept.
So where is the international outrage at the Palestinians' refusal to adhere to the first stage of the road map? Where is the American acknowledgement that their road map is a dead duck and that there will be no peace until they recognise that the Palestinian authority is the problem, not the solution? Don't hold your breath." (See also: "New Palestinian PM Hopes for Truce" (Karin Laub, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/10/06))

"Conversation With Khomeini" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2003/10/06)
An interview with the ayatollah's grandson, Hossein Khomeini: "Young Khomeini is convinced that the coming upheaval will depend principally on those who once supported his grandfather and have now become disillusioned. I asked him what he would like to see happen, and his reply this time was very terse and did not require any Quranic scriptural authority or explication. The best outcome, he thought, would be a very swift and immediate American invasion of Iran.
It hurt me somewhat to have to tell him that there was scant chance of deliverance coming by this means. He took the news pretty stoically (and I hardly think I was telling him anything he did not know). But I was thinking, wow, this is what happens if you live long enough. You'll hear the ayatollah's grandson saying, not even "Send in the Marines" but "Bring in the 82nd Airborne." I think it was the matter-of-factness of the reply that impressed me the most: He spoke as if talking of the obvious and the uncontroversial."

"ABC Baghdad update" (ABC Media Watch, 2003/10/06)
"Gina Wilkinson, who encouraged Iraqi children to pose on and around unexploded ordnance for an ABC report, has left the network: "Last Friday night ABC journalists were told that Gina Wilkinson had left. John Tulloh has told us

Gina Wilkinson is no longer filing for the ABC from Baghdad. She does not wish to continue her contract.
- John Tulloh statement to Media Watch

The ABC has a hard won reputation for international reporting and senior ABC journalists were extremely concerned that Wilkinson's "stupid behaviour" was putting that reputation at risk.
They should be just as worried that some of their managers were so reluctant to accept responsibility for this mess." (Note: Found via Tim Blair. See also: "ABC Baghdad: Kids and bombs" (ABC Media Watch, 2003/09/29))

"'Saddam We Love You!'" (Michael Fumento, National Review, 2003/10/06)
Fumento on the "Goebbels-like propaganda" in a report from Fallujah in Financial Times Deutschland: "While the entire first page of the "Agenda" section was devoted to what was presented as straight reporting, "agenda" was clearly the proper description. Titled, "Saddam, wir lieben dich!" ("Saddam, we love you!"), the words might as well have been from the German reporter, not the Iraqis who were allegedly shouting them. ...
"I'd like 100 Saddams and no Americans," cries the owner of "the best Kebab restaurant in Iraq," according to our investigative reporter-turned-gourmet. "There is no freedom so long as there's an American occupation of Iraq." The reporter apparently sees no irony in placing this quote immediately after saying the city was a major recruiting center for Saddam's secret police, a virtual carbon copy of Hitler's Gestapo. ...
There is simply nobody in all Fallujah who does not want all the Americans roasted slowly on a spit, according to the Financial Times Deutschland. "Mothers explain to their children that the Americans are monsters," we're told. Had the reporter bothered to interview the cats, dogs, and lizards, presumably he would have gotten a similar impression.
Ah, but the U.S. will pay for such crimes! "America will experience their second Vietnam," crows an Iraqi. Relief for the oppressed peoples of Iraq is at hand! The activities of the disparate groups will become coordinated, Financial Times Deutschland assures us. "We have enough money and weapons to struggle for years against the Americans," says an unidentified Iraqi. Thousands of young men stand ready to die for the country and "the great leader Saddam Hussein." Many 'men from Fallujah are ready to die to restore their lost honor and pride.'"

"Bali Remembered" (The Age, 2003/10/06)
The Age's Bali memorial, with articles and 88 personal stories. This is from "How they got the bombers" (Mark Forbes and John Silvester, The Age, 2003/10/06):
"Ashton also knew "to the second" the time of the Sari Club blast, eight minutes and 31 seconds past 11pm - it was massive enough to set off the seismic equipment used to record earthquakes in Bali. The impact could have been far worse, he says. Up to 1.2 tonnes of explosives were packed into the bomb van but, because of the terrorists' lack of experience, it had an effective charge of about 300 kilograms.
More than two thirds of the explosives burned, rather than boosting the blast, but the main ingredient, potassium chlorate, caused a fireball. The destruction was compounded through an accident of engineering. Much of the poorly packed blast shot away from the Sari Club and hit a partially built bank across the road, bouncing the fireball back into the club. Some who would have survived the initial bombing were caught in the second wave of fire." (See also: "Paradise lost" - News and commentary on the Bali bombing.)

"No Weapons Doesn't Mean No Threat" (Charles Duelfer, The Washington Post, 2003/10/06)
"Kay states that while no ready-to-use weapons have been found, Iraq is a big country and many depots and other locations are yet to be inspected. However, the Kay report does list evidence of continuing research and development (though not production) in each weapon category. It also describes activities and equipment that Iraq failed to declare to the United Nations and that were not discovered by the inspectors. ...
The apparent absence of existing weapons stocks, therefore, does not mean Hussein did not pose a WMD threat. In fact, fragments of evidence in Kay's report about ongoing biological weapons research suggest that Hussein may have had a quick "break-out" capacity to threaten his neighbors and, indeed, the United States with biological agents (possibly including infectious agents).
But clearly this is not the immediate threat many assumed before the war. Large stocks of chemical and biological munitions have not been found. The WMD threat appears to have been longer term. Assuming this finding does not change, it will be very important for the Iraq Survey Group to establish when all agents and weapons were eliminated. It will also be important to analyze why the picture Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the Security Council in February was so far off the mark." (See also: "Read the report" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2003/10/03))

"Shedding Light On a Symbol Of Iraqi Terror" (Peter Finn, The Washington Post, 2003/10/06)
An article on the Abu Ghraib prison — "the Iraqi gulag": "Prisoners were brought to Iraq's most feared prison in an ice-cream truck, a soft cone painted on its side. After sentencing at the nearby Revolutionary Court, following a perfunctory trial, the prisoners were hustled outside and loaded in the back.
"We were waddling like penguins because of the torture," recalled Ahmed Mohammed Baqer Attar, a 41-year-old Baghdad physician. "And then we saw an old ice-cream truck."
"It's hard to believe," he continued, a smoker's laugh rising from his chest. "But everything was hard to believe."