Archived news and commentary: October 13 - 19, 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 19, 2003

News and commentary:

"With friends like the Saudis..." (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2003/10/19)
"So how come two years after Sept. 11 groups with terrorist ties are still able to insert their recruiters into America's military bases, prisons and pretty much anywhere else they get a yen to go? It's not difficult to figure out: Wahhabism is the most militant form of Islam, the one followed by all 19 of the 9/11 terrorists and by Osama bin Laden. The Saudis - whose state religion is Wahhabism - fund the spread of their faith in lavishly endowed schools and mosques all over the world and, as a result, traditionally moderate Muslim populations from the Balkans to South Asia have been dramatically radicalized. How could the federal government be so complacent as to subcontract the certification of chaplains in U.S. military bases to Wahhabist institutions?
Here's an easy way to make an effective change: Less Wahhabism is in America's interest. More Wahhabism is in the terrorists' interest. So why can't the United States introduce a policy whereby, for the duration of the war on terror, no organization directly funded by the Saudis will be eligible for any formal or informal role with any federal institution? ...
Think about that. To investigate Saddam's attempted acquisition of uranium, the United States government sent a man in the pay of the Saudi government. The Saudis set up schools that turn out terrorists. They set up Islamic lobby groups that put spies in our military bases and terror recruiters in our prisons. They set up think tanks that buy up and neuter the U.S. diplomatic corps. And their ambassador's wife funnels charitable donations to the 9/11 hijackers.
But it's all just an unfortunate coincidence, isn't it? After all, the Saudis are our friends. Thank goodness."

"An anatomy of attacks against Americans" (Zeyad, Healing Iraq, 2003/10/19)
Healing Iraq is a new Iraqi weblog by Zeyad, here writing about "overrated" attacks: "I went out to find a crater in front of the house. My god that was close. By a miracle nobody in the street was hurt. The idiots who planted that bomb were dumb enough to put it inside a sewers drainage which absorbed the shock of the blast. The only damage was the sound it made. Most of our windows were shattered.
After a while the soldiers left the place. Suddenly a reporter and a cameraman from Al-Arabiyah station appeared, they were so fast. I crossed the street to take a look. They were talking to some bearded guy who I hadn't seen before in the neighbourhood. He was enthusiastically talking about the humvee that flew in the air, and the 4 injured soldiers. I didn't see any of that. I was bewildered. Someone next to me told me that nothing like that happened at all. My brother and a couple of friends of his started to chant in front of the camera: LIAR, LIAR,... Everyone laughed at this, but the bearded guy started to swear by Allah. Someone pointed out that the bearded guy wasn't even in the area when the bomb exploded. Uh oh, I thought, he seemed to know about it before it happened. The cameraman violently shoved my brother and his friend aside telling them to shut up. I stepped forward and gave hime a push from behind. He almost fell over. I warned him that the camera he was holding would be in a thousand pieces if he dared touch my brother again. He backed up. A neighbour of ours hollered them to come and see the damage in their house. They refused to do so and left.
In the evening, Al-Arabiyah reported the following: 3 Americans badly injured and one Jeep damaged at .... in Baghdad. They showed the bearded guy talking and edited the rest of it.
Thats the way media in present day Iraq works."

"The Longest Struggle" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2003/10/19)
"On the contrary, our worthy destruction of Saddam's regime can be seen as part of history's longest war: the battle for hegemony between Middle Eastern and Western civilization.
We don't have to like the idea of such an endless conflict before admitting its existence. Well-meant denials help no one, while hindering understanding. The historical record shows that the conflict between Islam and the (Judeo-) Christian West began in the middle of the seventh century, as Muslim armies burst from the Arabian peninsula, energized by a new vision, destroying or subjugating the Christian and Jewish populations of the eastern Mediterranean.
The war never really stopped. ...
Now we face something unique in history: the collapse, before our eyes, of the competitiveness and competence of a vast civilization, that of Middle Eastern Islam. None of its cherished values - the subjugation of women, religious intolerance, economic organization based on blood ties - works anymore. The people of the Middle East simply can't compete on their own terms. And the Arab world appears close to hitting bottom. ...
Our soldiers in Iraq aren't engaged in a religious crusade. But ours is, undeniably, a cultural crusade, based upon our belief that the values of our civilization, from human rights to popular sovereignty, are superior to archaic forms of oppression. It's an old, old struggle, fought on post-modern terms.
Today's Middle East has become a citadel of tyranny. And tyranny must be fought without compromise. If that's a crusade, there's no reason to deny it."

"Why the War Was Right" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2003/10/20 issue)
"Those who now oppose the war must recognize that there was no stable status quo on Iraq. The box that Saddam Hussein had been in was collapsing. Saddam's neighbors, as well as France and Russia, were actively subverting the sanctions against Iraq. And yet, while the regime was building palaces, the restrictions on Iraqi trade had a terrible side effect. UNICEF estimated that the containment of Iraq was killing about 36,000 Iraqis a year, 24,000 of them children under the age of 5. In other words, a month of sanctions was killing far more Iraqis than a week of the war did. This humanitarian catastrophe was being broadcast nightly across the Arab world. Policy on Iraq was broken. We had to move one way or the other. Either we could lift sanctions and welcome Saddam back into the community of nations, or we could rid Iraq and the world of one of the most evil dictatorships of modern times. ...
Iraq was a threat, but more important, it was an opportunity. "A pre-emptive invasion of a country gives one pause," I wrote in that August 2002 column, "but there is another massive benefit to it. Done right, an invasion would be the single best path to reform the Arab world. The roots of Islamic terror reside in the dysfunctional politics of the region, where failure and repression have produced fundamentalism and violence. Were Saddam's totalitarian regime to be replaced by a state that respected human rights, enforced the rule of law and created a market economy, it could begin to transform that world." I still believe that." (See also: "Invade Iraq, But Bring Friends" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek/FareedZakaria.com, from the 2002/08/05 issue))

"Bin Laden urges terror blitz" (Jason Burke, The Observer, 2003/10/19)
"The world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, has mounted an unparalleled propaganda offensive calling for renewed attacks on the West and on American and British troops in Iraq.
The Saudi-born leader of al-Qaeda has simultaneously released two audio tapes, a series of videotaped threats and several filmed statements by his group's suicide bombers who died in an attack on Riyadh in May. ...
Among the defiant messages in the tapes posted on the internet from five militants who died in the simultaneous strikes in Riyadh that killed 20 and injured 200 in May, is one in clear English. 'We want all Christians and Jews to go out from our Islamic countries and release our brothers from jail and stop killing Muslims or we will kill you,' the militant said.
'We promise we will not let you live safely and you will not see from us anything but bombs, fire, destroying homes and cutting heads. Our mujahideen are coming to you very soon to make you see what you didn't see before.'
All the militants appear in Saudi dress, each with an automatic rifle and a map of the Arabian peninsula behind them." (See also: "Al-Jazeera Airs Purported Bin Laden Tapes" (FOX News, 2003/10/18))

Saturday, October 18, 2003

News and commentary:

"Al-Jazeera Airs Purported Bin Laden Tapes" (FOX News, 2003/10/18)
"Arabic satellite news station Al-Jazeera on Saturday aired two new audio tapes of someone purporting to be Usama bin Laden, warning of more suicide attacks against U.S. interests inside and outside America and threatening countries helping the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
"We reserve the right to respond at the appropriate time and place against all the countries participating in this unjust war, particularly Britain, Spain, Australia, Holland, Japan and Italy," the voice said.
"No exception those participating from the countries of the Islamic world, and the Gulf, especially Kuwait, he added.
In the second message, to the Americans, the speaker said: "I tell the American people we will continue fighting you and we will continue martyrdom operations inside and outside the United States until you stop your injustice, and you end your foolishness."
"Jihad must continue until an Islamic government is established," he said." (See also: "Full text of message to Americans" (Aljazeera.Net, 2003/10/18))

"What is Not to be Done" (Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic, 2003/10/18)
Wieseltier on Tony Judt's "Israel: The Alternative": "He finds himself "implicitly identified" with Israel's actions in, say, Jenin. But he was nowhere near Jenin. He killed nobody. Indeed, he is ferociously opposed to the killings, and to the policies of the Sharon government in the territories generally. All he has to do, then, is to say so, and then to express his anger at the suggestion that he is in any way responsible for what he, too, deplores. For the notion that all Jews are responsible for whatever any Jews do, that every deed that a Jew does is a Jewish deed, is not a Zionist notion. It is an anti-Semitic notion. But Judt prefers to regard it as an onerous corollary of Zionism ("not least by Israel's own insistent claims upon their allegiance"). He refuses to place the blame for this unwarranted judgment of himself upon those who make it. Instead he accepts the premise of the prejudice, and turns on Israel. He makes a similar mistake in his evaluation of "the increased incidence of attacks on Jews in Europe." He knows that they are "misdirected," but still he describes them as "efforts, often by young Muslims, to get back at Israel." In what way, exactly, is the burning of a synagogue a method for getting back at Israel? In the anti-Semitic way, plainly. It is the essence of anti-Semitism, as it is the essence of all prejudice, to call its object its cause. But if you explain anti-Semitism as a response to Jews, and racism as a response to blacks, and misogyny as a response to women, then you have not understood it. You have reproduced it."(See also: "Israel: The Alternative" (Tony Judt, The New York Review of Books, from the 2003/10/23 issue), "The Alternative" (David Frum, National Review, 2003/10/14)and "Loathsome" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2003/10/11))

"Huge bill to let Abu Hamza preach" (Sean O'Neill, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/10/18)
"Hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money is being spent facilitating the delivery of public sermons by Abu Hamza, the Islamic extremist whose British citizenship David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, is trying to revoke.
Police in north London have entered into an agreement with Hamza to block off a road and allow him to preach to his followers in the street every Friday.
Each week at least 12 officers are on duty outside Finsbury Park mosque, which has been closed and boarded up since a police raid in January, as Hamza preaches and prays. The cost of policing is set to rise steeply because Hamza's citizenship hearing before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has been delayed until next April, 12 months after Mr Blunkett announced he was taking action. ...
Yesterday more than 150 people gathered to hear the Egyptian-born cleric describe Israel as a criminal state, attack the media as Zionist and denounce Western politicians as corrupt homosexuals. As Hamza arrived in his C-registered Mercedes around 1pm, officers closed St Thomas's Road to traffic using barriers and police tape."

"The Last Emperor" (Peter Maass, The New York Times Magazine, from the 2003/10/19 issue)
Maass on Kim Jong Il, including an interview with Hwang Jang Yop, "a man who knows Kim Jong Il better than anyone else outside North Korea":
'''As a politician or leader who can work for the development of the state and the happiness of the people, he is an F student, a dropout. But as a dictator he has an excellent ability. He can organize people so that they can't move, can't do anything, and he can keep them under his ideology. As far as I know, the present North Korean dictatorial system is the most precise and thorough in history.'
Hwang says that he believes foreign aid has helped Kim by providing the resources he needs to retain the loyalty of his core constituencies - the military and party elites. Hwang says he does not believe Kim would ever allow foreign aid and investment to benefit the people who need it; Kim has shown no interest in his people's material well-being, and given the choice between regime survival and national prosperity, it's pretty clear which he would prefer. A few years ago, Kim began letting South Koreans visit the north, and this was seen as a relaxation of the isolation of his information-starved subjects. But the tourists, whose visits provide much-needed hard currency to the regime, are shepherded in quarantinelike conditions that make them virtual prisoners; contact with ordinary North Koreans is nil. Hwang says outsiders are naive to believe that Kim is ready to open up his country.
''South Korea is being fooled, and the Chinese, who should know best,'' he said. 'A considerable number of people are being fooled, including the United States.'''

"Intellectuals Who Betray Freedom" (Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post Outlook, from the 2003/10/19 issue)
"American and European intellectuals have a history of distrusting politicians and thinkers from oppressed countries who clamor for the same political and economic freedoms that our savants enjoy. The clamorers cannot represent authentic nationalism if all they want is to be just like us, the reasoning seems to go. ...
Raymond Aron, the outstanding French intellectual of the 20th century, would recognize today's strange postwar climate. Western writers, Washington politicians and Arab monarchs who never bothered to issue a single critical word about Saddam Hussein as he killed or tortured millions of Arabs and Iranians harp upon the failings and "illegitimate" nature of the Governing Council. Some of them feign moral outrage over (trumped up) embezzling charges against Chalabi.
Writing in the 1950s, Aron denounced intellectuals who were "merciless toward the failings of the democracies but ready to tolerate the worst crimes as long as they are committed in the name of the proper doctrines." They have survived even the end of the Cold War. It would be tragic if Bush and his team were to give them comfort and legitimacy by sharing the savants' reflexive disdain for people who gave up their homeland for so long in order to regain it in freedom."

"Humphrys furious as BBC cuts interview" (Matt Wells and Stephen Bates, The Guardian, 2003/09/18)
This is doubly pathetic. BBC's John Humphrys sees a 12-second silence as the "best interview of my career" and Rowan Williams weasels his way out from stating his position:
"After questioning Dr Williams about the divisions in the Anglican Communion over homosexuality, Humphrys asked him whether the war in Iraq was "immoral".
A 12-second silence followed. Asked why he hesitated, Dr Williams said: "Immoral is a short word for a very, very long discussion."
When the interview was over, Dr Williams said he believed there had been an agreement not to talk about the war. The matter was referred to the programme editor, Kevin Marsh, who was not in the office. He agreed the disputed section should be removed.
But producers did not tell Humphrys, who told listeners just before the 8am news that they would hear Dr Williams's views on the Iraq war as well as the gay bishop row.
When he found out about the cut, Humphrys launched into a furious off-air tirade, part of which could be heard in the background to the news bulletin. Threatening to quit, he said it was the "best interview of my career" and castigated bosses for caving in. The 12-second silence, if broadcast, would have had a big impact. "In radio terms, it's an eternity," one BBC source said." (See also: "Terrorists can have serious moral goals, says Williams" (Jonathan Petre, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/10/15) and "Clergy protest against war on Iraq" (BBC News, 2002/08/06))

"Lieberman Heckled at Arab Forum" (Stephanie Simon, Los Angeles Times, 2003/09/18)
"He stood before them speaking of solidarity, introducing himself with words from the Bible: "I am Joseph, your brother." But Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was pelted with jeers as he brought his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination to an Arab-American leadership conference in this Detroit suburb on Friday.
"Go home to Tel Aviv," one woman called in disgust as Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, cast Israelis as victims of Palestinian terrorism. ...
The audience at first seemed receptive. Lieberman won applause several times when he railed against the Bush administration, saying it had trampled on civil liberties after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But the crowd of several hundred grew angry when Lieberman turned his remarks to the Middle East.
When the moderator asked Lieberman about Israel's policy of bulldozing homes in Palestinian territory after suicide attacks, an Arab American in the audience shouted out: "Isn't that terrorism?"
"It's not terrorism," Lieberman responded, to a crescendo of boos. Instead, the senator called the Israeli actions "regrettable" and "heartbreaking."
"He makes me so mad," said Hanan Rasheed, a Palestinian activist from Danville, Calif. During Lieberman's speech, she derided him under her breath, at one point muttering: 'He is such a Jew.'"

"Terror Probe Points to Va. Muslims" (Douglas Farah, The Washington Post, 2003/10/18)
"A secretive group of tightly connected Muslim charities, think tanks and businesses based in Northern Virginia were used to funnel millions of dollars to terrorists and launder millions more, according to court records unsealed yesterday.
An affidavit from Homeland Security agent David Kane said that the Safa Group, also known as the SAAR network, in Herndon had sent more than $26 million in untraceable money overseas and that leaders of the organization "have committed and conspired to . . . provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations."
The probe of the Herndon groups is the largest federal investigation of terrorism financing in the world, authorities have said. And the unsealing of Kane's report marks the first time the government has alleged the main purpose of the Virginia organizations, set up primarily with donations from a wealthy Saudi family, was to fund terrorism and hide millions of dollars."

"House and Senate Back Iraq Aid Plan" (Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post, 2003/10/18)
"The House and Senate yesterday overwhelmingly approved one of the largest foreign aid and military spending plans in U.S. history, earmarking nearly $87 billion to support U.S. troops abroad and to help rebuild Iraq's shattered roads, water systems and other facilities. ...
The House voted 303 to 125 to approve an $86.9 billion measure that lopped off $1.7 billion of Bush's $20.3 billion request for Iraq reconstruction aid. The deleted items included a maternity hospital, two maximum-security prisons and 40 garbage trucks, which many GOP lawmakers found politically indigestible. The surviving funds would be considered grants, not loans.
Eighty-three Democrats joined 220 Republicans to pass the bill, while six Republicans, 118 Democrats and one independent opposed it."

Added in archive:
"Unfair and Unbalanced" (Joshua Muravchik, The Weekly Standard/AEI, 2003/09/15)

Friday, October 17, 2003

News and commentary:

"Crawling from the Wreckage" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2003/10/17)
"When I was a child, in the '50s, I used to sit on the floor under my school desk during civil-defense drills wondering what the world would be like after the Big One. My impression of atomic-bomb blasts, shaped by having seen some photos in Life, was that they left everything pretty much flattened, so I figured the postwar world would probably be something Gobi-like — big, sandy, dry. I used to try to imagine what kind of creature (other than me and my mom and dad and my friends, of course) could survive such devastation. So I asked David Ralston, who was under the desk next to mine. His father was a doctor, so he would probably know.
"Cockroaches," he said.
Was he right? Happily, it's still too early to tell. But there are some analogous circumstances. For example, let's say you take a chunk of real estate the size of a small continent, devastate it with two of the biggest wars in the history of human conflict, then add a couple of massive genocides, a near-total collapse of most social structures, a megadose of intolerant secularism, a decline in educational standards, a flat-line birthrate and a truly impressive brain drain. Now try to imagine what kind of ideas would survive to emerge from the wreckage.
Right. You get nihilism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism, the three knee-jerk, irrational sentiments — they fail to rise to the level of actual "ideas" — that inform the modern intellectual life of Europe. In other words, you get cockroaches."

"Iraqi Daily: Saddam Ordered Training of Al-Qa'ida Members" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 592, 2003/10/17)
"The independent Iraqi weekly Al-Yawm Al-Aakher reveals details on the training of Al-Qa'ida members operating under the orders of Saddam's Presidential Palace two months before the September 11 attacks. The following are excerpts from the article: ...
'After a two-hour meeting with a select group of officers at the Special Forces School, we were informed that we would have dear guests, and that we should train them very well in a high level of secrecy - not to allow anyone to approach them or to talk to them in any way, shape, or form.
A few days later, about 100 trainees arrived. They were a mixture of Arabs, Arabs from the Peninsula [Saudi Arabia], Muslim Afghans, and other Muslims from various parts of the world. They were divided into two groups, the first one went to Al-Nahrawan and the second to Salman Pak, and this was the group that was trained to hijack airplanes. The training was under the direct supervision of major general (M. DH. L) [only identified by initials] who now serves as a police commander in one of the provinces. Upon the completion of the training most of them left Iraq, while the others stayed in the country through the last battle in Baghdad against the coalition forces.'"

"Malaysia Explains Anti-Jewish Remarks" (Patrick McDowell, AP/The Guardian, 2003/10/17)
"At their own summit in Brussels, Belgium, European Union leaders had drafted a harshly worded statement condemning Mahathir's remarks, but French President Jacques Chirac blocked the wording from becoming a part of a final declaration.
The text had said Mahathir's "unacceptable comments hinder all our efforts to further interethnic and religious harmony, and have no place in a decent world. Such false and anti-Semitic remarks are as offensive to Muslims as they are to others.''
Chirac, however, said there was no place in an EU declaration for such a text." (See also: "Malaysia Apologises for Mahathir's Attack on Jews" (PA/The Scotsman, 2003/10/17) and "Jews rule the world: Mahathir" (news.com.au, 2003/10/16))

"Iraqis Rediscover Kurdish North After Decade Away" (Andrew Gray, Reuters, 2003/10/17)
Tourism in northern Iraq: "With Saddam gone, thousands of Iraqis from the mainly Arab center and South of the country spent the summer rediscovering what used to be a favorite vacation area, its cooler climate and mountains a welcome change from intense heat and flat desert.
The tourism revival has allowed many Iraqi Kurds and Arabs to get to know each other again after a decade of separation. Younger Iraqi Arabs have been able to see one of the most beautiful parts of their country for the first time.
The reacquainting has not been without problems. But in many cases it has been notably free of rancor despite the repression Saddam's security forces inflicted on the Kurdish population and in contrast to widespread pre-war predictions of ethnic strife. ...
But the tourist season has generally been peaceful and the North's appeal is perhaps even greater than in the past. The whole Kurdish area gives Iraqis the chance to forget about post-war lawlessness, disorder and the U.S.-led military occupation.
The two Kurdish factions which took control of the North after the 1991 uprising built up police forces and local governments which remain in place, largely unaffected by the war.
Streets are tidier than elsewhere in Iraq. There are no U.S. military patrols. Most drivers even obey traffic lights.
"There's no kidnapping in this city, no killing, no cocaine, none of that - only car accidents," Mustafa said."

"Perle's horizons" (Michael Oren and Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/17)
An must-read interview with Richard Perle: "Oren: What do you think the American position should be vis-a-vis Syria?
Perle: Syria is itself a terrorist organization. America should be much tougher on the Syrians…. There's a leak coming out of Washington which seems to come from the Treasury that there is a substantial amount of Saddam's money in Syria and some of it is being used to finance these acts of terror in Iraq.
Stephens: If that is substantiated, do you think it will prompt the US to take action against Syria?
Perle: I hope so.
Oren: Regarding Saudi Arabia: You have two contradictory images. You have Bush giving his June 24 speech on the Middle East and then you have him, almost in the same week, bopping around his ranch on a pickup truck with the Prince of Saudi Arabia. Can you pursue both things at the same time? Can you fight terror and not fight the sources of the terror, the financing of it?
Perle: No, you've got to fight the sources. And I believe we’re doing it. I believe the president knows perfectly well what the Saudi role is. And he knows he must get them to stop. The way to get them to stop is not so easy. There is no single approach. I don't think he has any sympathy for the Saudis."

"The Poisoned Well" (Fouad Ajami, The New York Times, 2003/10/17)
"On Oct. 17, 1973, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries raised the price of oil to more than $5 a barrel from $3 a barrel; a day later it cut production by 5 percent a month; three days later, it imposed an embargo on petroleum exports to the United States. Then the shah of Iran struck with a rebellion of his own. In Tehran, just before Christmas, he secured the consent of the other oil-producing nations for yet another price increase, to $11.65 a barrel.
In the "Thousand and One Nights," the recurring theme is of the beggar becoming king and the king a beggar. So it was when OPEC imposed its embargo. It was an attempt to turn the stuff of fantasy into reality, to make the largest transfer of wealth in the annals of nations. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger was among those who realized this. "Never before in history," he wrote in his memoirs, 'has a group of such relatively weak nations been able to impose with so little protest such a dramatic change in the way of life of the overwhelming majority of the rest of mankind.'"

"New Al-Qa'ida Online Magazine Features Interview with a 'Most-Wanted' Saudi Islamist, Calls for Killing of Americans and Non-Muslims" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 591, 2003/10/17)
Excerpts from the first issue of a new on-line magazine, "The Voice of Jihad", launched by supporters of the Al-Qa'ida organization in Saudi Arabia. Remember to not ignore the "desirable" aim and the "serious moral goals" of Al-Qa'ida when reading it:
"The magazine featured an article by Sheikh Nasser Al-Najdi, who wrote: '…Dogs, like other animals, are not assigned [religious] missions and commandments, and [religious prohibitions] are not forbidden them; they were created according to a particular nature, and they do not deviate from their nature. They are different from the infidel, who was created by Allah in order to worship Him and in order to believe in His monotheism, but who denied Him, and took other gods beside Him.
Anyone who is satisfied with what is said above concludes that the heresy of that infidel and his rebellion against the religion of Allah requires the permitting of his blood and [sanctions] his humiliation, and that his blood is like the blood of a dog and nothing more.
What is said above is sufficient to cause the monotheist… to burn with desire for the blood of the infidel, to slaughter the enemy of Allah, and to cut him up into pieces. ...
My Jihad-fighting brother, don't you want Paradise? Don't you want to protect yourself from Hell?… Kill the polytheist, kill the one whose blood is like the blood of a dog, kill the one whom Allah ordered you to kill and whom the Prophet of Allah [Muhammad] incited you against.'"

"Al Qaeda pursued a 'dirty bomb'" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2003/10/17)
"A key al Qaeda terrorism suspect was in Canada looking for nuclear material for a "dirty bomb," The Washington Times has learned.
Adnan El Shukrijumah is being sought by the FBI and CIA in connection with a plot to detonate a dirty bomb — a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material.
According to an FBI informant, El Shukrijumah was spotted last year in Hamilton, Ontario, posing as a student at McMaster University, which has a 5-megawatt research reactor. U.S. officials believe El Shukrijumah, whose photograph was posted on the FBI's Web site in March, was in Hamilton trying to obtain radioactive material."

"Malaysia Apologises for Mahathir's Attack on Jews" (PA/The Scotsman, 2003/10/17)
Reactions to Mahathir's anti-Semitic speech: "Mahathir said the world's "1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews", but suggested the use of political and economic tactics, not violence, to achieve a "final victory". ...
The speech drew a standing ovation from the assembled leaders, who included Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo were special guests because of their large Muslim minorities.
Many focused more on the aspects of the speech that Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher called "a good road map" toward Muslim empowerment.
"This was a pep talk to the Muslim countries for them to work hard and look to the future," Maher said. 'But as soon as you have any criticism of Israel, then there are people who are very eager to rush to condemnation, without comprehending what it’s all about.'" (See also: "Jews rule the world: Mahathir" (news.com.au, 2003/10/16))

"Senate Defies Bush On Iraq Assistance" (Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post, 2003/10/17)
"Defying weeks of intense White House lobbying, a narrowly divided Senate voted last night to convert half of President Bush's $20.3 billion Iraq rebuilding plan into a loan that would be forgiven if other donor nations write off the debt incurred by the ousted government of Saddam Hussein.
The 51 to 47 vote came an hour after the Republican-controlled House defeated a similar loan amendment, 226 to 200, setting up potentially difficult House-Senate negotiations next week as lawmakers rush to conclude a final spending plan for Iraq before an international donors conference next Thursday in Madrid."

Thursday, October 16, 2003

News and commentary:

"Anti-Israel activists at Durban were funded by Ford Foundation" (Edwin Black, JTA, 2003/10/16)
Part 1 of "Funding Hate", a 4-part series on "the Ford Foundation's funding of Palestinian groups that engage in anti-Israel activity":
"As expected, anti-Israel agitation, anti-Zionist propaganda and blatant anti-Semitism permeated the eight-day Durban affair. Posters displaying Nazi icons and Jewish caricatures, anti-Israel protest marches, organized jeering, inciting leaflets and anti-Jewish cartoons were everywhere, as was orchestrated anti-American agitation.
A virulent resolution drafted by non-governmental organizations at the Durban conference declared Israel a “racist apartheid state” guilty of “genocide and ethnic cleansing.” The spectacle was so noxious that Powell withdrew the American delegation.
Who financed a number of the groups at Durban that printed and distributed these materials, purchased advertising and conducted workshops? ...
The Ford Foundation, one of America’s largest philanthropic institutions — and arguably the most prestigious — was a multimillion-dollar funder of many human rights NGOs attending Durban.
That is the conclusion of a two-month JTA investigation, involving interviews with dozens of individuals in seven countries, as well as a review of more than 9,000 pages of government and organizational documents." (See also: "Anti-Semitism at the United Nations: The World Conference Against Racism Becomes a World Conference For Racism" (Anne Bayefsky, Justice, from the Autumn 2001 issue))

"AMERICANS ARE LOSING THE VICTORY IN EUROPE - Destitute Nations Feel the U.S. Has Failed Them" (Jessica's Well, 2003/10/16)
Jessica's Well digs up a revealing defeatist article by John Dos Passos from 1946 (LIFE, 1946/01/07) on the post-war situation in Europe:
"The troops returning home are worried. "We've lost the peace," men tell you. "We can't make it stick."
A tour of the beaten-up cities of Europe six months after victory is a mighty sobering experience for anyone. Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. ...
Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. People never tire of telling you of the ignorance and rowdy-ism of American troops, of out misunderstanding of European conditions. ...
We know now the tragic results of the ineptitudes of the Peace of Versailles. The European system it set up was Utopia compared to the present tangle of snarling misery. The Russians at least are carrying out a logical plan for extending their system of control at whatever cost. The British show signs of recovering their good sense and their innate human decency. All we have brought to Europe so far is confusion backed up by a drumhead regime of military courts. We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease." (Note: Found via InstaPundit.)

"Palestinians: Israel behind Gaza attack" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/16)
"In a series of articles, interviews, and cartoons, the Palestinian Authority media on Thursday claimed that Israel was behind the attack on the American convoy in the northern Gaza Strip in which three US guards were killed. ...
"[Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and his generals are responsible [for the attack]," columnist Ali Sadek wrote in the daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda. "I don't rule out the possibility that they detonated the bomb with a remote control because their actions in the past, especially against the Americans, are known." ...
Fuad Abu Hijleh, a leading Palestinian political analyst living in Amman, claimed in an article published in Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda that he was confident that the attack on the US convoy was the work of Mossad. "Israel benefits from this explosion so it could convince the world about the effectiveness of the separation wall," he explained. ...
"Israel also benefits from this bombing so it could push towards expanding the war against the so-called terrorism. Perhaps American citizens are so naïve to believe the Israeli accusations against us, but we are confidant that the American Administration is aware that we know that the crime against the American citizens is an Israeli plot masterminded by the minds in Mossad."
A cartoon in Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda depicts an American vehicle driving towards Gaza. The wheels have been replaced with bombs carrying David's Star – a clear statement that Israel was behind the explosion."

"Back in the News: The Treaty of Hudaybiya" (Daniel Pipes, danielpipes.org, 2003/10/16)
"Yasir Arafat somewhat cryptically mentioned the Treaty of Hudaybiya in a 1994 speech in South Africa while discussing his views of the Oslo Accord ("I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.") and this reference prompted years of speculation about his intentions. Iin 1999, I took up the issue in "Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad's Diplomacy," in which I reviewed the historiography of the prophet's life, the treaty itself, modern assessments of it, and the post-1994 controversy about Arafat's reference. My key conclusion:

The Hudaybiya precedent implies that Arafat can choose any lapse or transgression [in the Oslo Accord] … and turn this into a casus belli for an all-out attack on the Jewish state.

The treaty is back in the news today with a prominent mention in Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad's opening speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference - the same one in which he flaunted his antisemitism. ...
Mahathir concludes with this bit of cleverness:

The Quran tells us that when the enemy sues for peace we must react positively. True the treaty offered is not favourable to us. But we can negotiate. The Prophet did, at Hudaybiya. And in the end he triumphed.

Translated into policy terms, Mahathir seems to be advising the Palestinians to accept any interim terms Israel's government offers, bide their time, consolidate their strength, and then 'triumph.'" (See also: "Jews rule the world: Mahathir" (news.com.au, 2003/10/16) and the full text of the speech: "Speech by the Prime Minister of Malaysia the Hon Dato Seri Dr Mahathir Bin Mohamad" (OIC Summit 2003, 2003/10/16))

"Shin Bet arrests PA official for smuggling weapons into Gaza" (Haaretz, 2003/10/16)
"The Shin Bet security service released Thursday that it had arrested Palestinian Authority official Akram Tubasi in September on suspicion of buying weapons in Egypt and smuggling them into the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported.
Defense sources also implicated former PA security affairs minister Mohammed Dahlan in the weapons-smuggling, Army Radio reported.
Tubasi, a 31-year-old Rafah resident who served in the Palestinian coast guard, told his questioners that he used tunnels in Rafah to smuggle the weapons to Gaza, security officials were quoted as saying." (See also: "Four Dead in Attack on American Convoy - Explosives From Egypt?" (Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 2003/10/15): "Brig.Gen (res.) Zvi Poleg told Israel Radio in an interview after the attack that the explosives could have been smuggled from Egypt through the smuggling tunnels.")

"UN backs Iraq resolution" (BBC News, 2003/10/16)
"The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of a revised US text on Iraq setting out its political future. ...
The resolution confirms that for the time being the Coalition Provisional Authority will remain the over-arching power in Iraq, although it stresses that the transfer of sovereignty and government back to the Iraqi people will happen as soon as practicable.
The United Nations is promised a strengthened vital role in the political and economic reconstruction process, but only as circumstances, particularly security, permit.
Still missing is a clear timetable, with dates, for a transfer of power and anything like the more dominant role that the UN had sought, our correspondent says.
But the resolution asks Iraqi leaders to draw up a plan for a new constitution and elections by 15 December." (See also: "Resolution 1511 - Provisional" (The United Nations, 2003/10/15))

"War critics to back Iraq resolution" (BBC News, 2003/10/16)
"France, Germany and Russia - three leading critics of the US-led war on Iraq - have agreed to back an amended UN resolution on Iraq.
But continuing concerns about the text mean they will not contribute troops or funds to the reconstruction effort.
"We agreed that the resolution is really an important step in the right direction," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said after talks on Thursday.
But he added that he did not think that the resolution was adequate for the situation in Iraq and that was why no additional military or material help would be offered."

"UK Protesters Aim to Humiliate Bush Like Saddam" (Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2003/10/16)
"Anti-war protesters plan to topple and dance on a mock statue of President Bush in the center of London as part of demonstrations to "blight" his visit to Britain next month.
Their re-working in Trafalgar Square of the famous humiliation of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad six months' ago will be among running protests including marches and a mock trial of Bush planned around his November 19-21 state visit.
"People are excited about the prospect of opposing George Bush because they feel this visit adds insult to the injury already caused by the Iraq war," said Lindsey German, of Stop the War Coalition, one of various groups planning the events. ...
"This will be a November to remember. I think it will be a bonfire of the vanities of Bush and Blair," said legislator George Galloway, whose radical anti-war rhetoric has seen him suspended from Blair's ruling Labour Party.
Galloway said he hoped images of protests in Britain would help turn the political tide against Bush in the run-up to the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
"Whilst we bear them (Americans) absolutely no ill will, indeed the opposite, we hate their president and think he is one of the world's most dangerous men," Galloway said."

"Three held over US convoy bombing" (Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters, 2003/10/16)
"Palestinian police have detained three suspected militants and hunted for two more over a bomb attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy that killed three security guards in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources say. ...
Security sources said on Thursday the three men belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group of militants that has taken responsibility for previous roadside bombings against Israeli forces. The group denied any role in the convoy attack."

"Palestinian children search a debris in the Joseph's Tomb..."
(Reuters/Abed Omar Qusini, 2003/10/16)
"Palestinian children search a debris in the Joseph's Tomb damaged by Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus, October 16, 2003. A group of Palestinian children threw burning tires into the tomb following the visit of some 500 Jewish worshippers overnight Wednesday with the consent of the Israel Defense Force." (See also: "Arabs Destroy Joseph's Tomb" (Arutz Sheva, 2003/02/23))

"Pharaohs-in-Waiting" (Mary Anne Weaver, The Atlantic, from the October 2003 issue)
An interesting article on likely successors to Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, found via Shark Blog:
"And yet the Brotherhood is the best-organized — indeed, the only — political opposition in Egypt. It cooperated for a time with Nasser, and was used by Sadat as a counterbalance to the left. I puzzled over whether such a coming together of the generals and the Islamists could happen again.
As I left al-Zayat's office and drove back to my hotel, I passed a number of butcher shops, where lamb carcasses hung from spikes encircled by strings of twinkling lights. Shoppers queued patiently outside the shops. It was the eve of the Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice, Islam's most important holiday. To mark the occasion, 861 Islamists — many of whom had never been charged or tried — were released from prison that night. Some 15,000 others remained inside.
I couldn't help wondering if the releases were connected with a message that al-Zayat had received (and posted on his Web site) a month or so before from Ayman al-Zawahiri — the Egyptian leader of al-Jihad and Osama bin Laden's chief aide — in which he had called for continuing attacks against Americans but had told his followers that those attacks should not be carried out in Egypt.
And not long after that, on the day of the Eid itself, bin Laden, in a sixteen-minute audiotape broadcast by the Arab satellite television station al-Jazeera, called on Muslims around the world to repel the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As he had sometimes done before, he cited a number of countries whose regimes should be overthrown. Egypt had usually been on his list. This time it was not."

"Dude, Where's My Intellectual Honesty?" (Bryan Keefer, Spinsanity, 2003/10/16)
A review of Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country?", which "cements Moore's reputation as one of our nation's sloppiest commentators": "Bush's policies towards Iraq come in for particular criticism - and, in several cases, gross distortions. Moore writes that "There were claims that the French were only opposing war to get economic benefits out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In fact, it was the Americans who were making a killing. In 2001, the U.S. was Iraq's leading trading partner, consuming more than 40 percent of Iraq's oil exports. That's $6 billion in trade with the Iraqi dictator." (page 69) In reality, that "trade" was done under the auspices of the United Nations oil-for-food program, which allowed Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil to purchase humanitarian supplies. ... One can only imagine what Moore would have said if the U.S. refused to purchase Iraqi oil and allowed its citizens to starve." (See also "a list of all the errors that we found in the book": "Moore's myriad mistakes" (Bryan Keefer, Spinsanity, 2003/10/16))

"Radical Islam's Move on Africa" (Paul Marshall, The Washington Post, 2003/10/16)
"Islamic extremists in Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania have turned to terrorism, and non-Islamic dictators, such as deposed Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, have developed economic links with al Qaeda. But more alarming is the spread of rigid forms of Islam, which are historically rare south of the Sahara and which are creating division, chaos and violence in both East and West Africa. ...
Tanzania is experiencing a similar push for Islamic law. Saudi Arabia is funding new mosques there, and fundamentalists have bombed bars and beaten women they thought inadequately covered. Mohammed Madi, a fundamentalist activist, told Time magazine last month, "We get our funds from Yemen and Saudi Arabia. . . . Officially the money is used to buy medicine, but in reality the money is given to us to support our work and buy guns." ...
Similar patterns are evident in West Africa. The civil war in Ivory Coast has complex roots, but like other conflicts spanning religious divides, such as in Serbia or Chechnya, it has taken on a fanatic coloration. Muslim rebels have been sporting T-shirts adorned with Osama bin Laden's face superimposed over a map of the country. Extreme Islamic law continues to spread and provoke violence in Nigeria, a country bin Laden has singled out as "ready for liberation." Meanwhile, Senegal, Gambia, Niger, Mauritania, Chad and even historically democratic Mali are also experiencing Islamist unrest, with riots and, in some cases, coup attempts."

"Saudi Arabia's Big Leap" (Kenneth M. Pollack, The New York Times, 2003/10/16)
"Saudi Arabia's announcement on Monday that within a year it will hold elections for municipal councils could be the first tremor in a slow-moving Middle Eastern earthquake.
First, some caveats. We don't have all the details yet and, as things often do in the Middle East, this might not live up to its advance billing. A year is a long time away. The initiative might get derailed. The elections may not be as fair and free as promised. We do not know if women will be allowed to vote. And it is only a baby step toward addressing vast structural flaws within the Saudi system.
But still, the Saudi announcement is potentially a very big deal, and the cynics should take note: more so than even the pluralist maelstrom in Iraq, moves toward democratization in Saudi Arabia could have ripples throughout the Middle East." (See also: "Saudis announce first elections" (BBC News, 2003/10/13))

"Jews rule the world: Mahathir" (news.com.au, 2003/10/16)
The OIC summit opens with a call for dialogue and democratization. Just kidding: "Jews rule the world, getting others to fight and die for them, but will not be able to defeat the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has told a major Islamic summit.
"The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them," Mahathir said, adding, "1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews."
The veteran Malaysian premier, who has become notorious for his controversial speeches during his 22 years as leader of this moderate Muslim country, was addressing the opening session of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit. ...
He called on Muslims to emulate the Jewish response to oppression, saying the Jews had "survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking".
"They invented and successfully promoted socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others.
'With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power.'" (See also full text of the speech: "Speech by the Prime Minister of Malaysia the Hon Dato Seri Dr Mahathir Bin Mohamad" (OIC Summit 2003, 2003/10/16), "Islam vs. The World" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2003/10/14) and "Malaysian govt. officials hand out copies of 'International Jew'" (Amir Mizroch, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/06/21))

"General Casts War in Religious Terms" (Richard T. Cooper, Los Angeles Times, 2003/10/16)
"Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, is a much-decorated and twice-wounded veteran of covert military operations. From the bloody 1993 clash with Muslim warlords in Somalia chronicled in "Black Hawk Down" and the hunt for Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar to the ill-fated attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, Boykin was in the thick of things.
Yet the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian and the enemy is a guy named Satan."
Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
"We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this," Boykin said last year.
On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: 'He's in the White House because God put him there.'"

"3 Americans Slain in Blast in Gaza Strip" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2003/10/16)
"One clue pointing to a deliberate attack on the Americans was that the vehicles in the convoy, gray-painted Suburbans with heavy steel armor, are widely recognized as the standard American Embassy transport here. Similar vehicles carrying Americans are seen several times a week. Although the vehicles bear no American flags, they carry black-on-white license plates with the number "22," signifying the United States. ...
At the site of the bombing, feelings ran high. Before the crowd began stoning foreigners, Jihad Salim, a young man in a white T-shirt, said many Palestinians would feel little sympathy for the United States. "America has to pay for its foreign policy, which is against Muslims," he said."

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

News and commentary:

"Ticking bomb" (Vered Levy-Barzilai, Haaretz/occupationalhazard.org, 2003/10/15)
A profile of female suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat: "Four months ago, Hanadi Jaradat stood over the freshly dug grave of her brother Fadi and vowed to avenge his death. "Your blood will not have been shed in vain," she is quoted as saying by the Jordanian daily Al-Arab al-Yum. "The murderer will yet pay the price and we will not be the only ones who are crying." Weeping bitterly, she added: "If our nation cannot realize its dream and the goals of the victims, and live in freedom and dignity, then let the whole world be erased." ...
[Jaradat's father] Taisir Jaradat said he was proud of what his daughter had done, and he asked those who wanted to pay condolence calls not to bother: "I will accept only congratulations for what she did," he told his interviewers. "This was a gift she gave me, the homeland and the Palestinian people. Therefore, I am not crying for her. Even though the most precious thing has been taken from me." ...
"She read the Koran from start to finish six times," he says. 'Every devout Muslim can appreciate that.'" (See also: "Suicide Bomber Kills 18 in Israeli Port" (Jason Keyser, AP/Yahoo! News!, 2003/10/04))

"Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No. 9" (PSR, 2003/10/15)
The results of a "public opinion poll in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the period between 07-14 October 2003":
"• 75% support the suicide attack at Maxim Restaurant in Haifa leading to the death of 20 Israelis. ...
• 96% believe that the US is not sincere when it says it works toward the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
• 92% believe that the US is not sincere when it says it wants political reforms and clean government in the PA.
• 78% believe the US is not serious in its declared opposition to the Israeli decision to expel or assassinate President Yasir Arafat.
• 97% believe the current US policy toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is biased in favor of Israel.
• But Palestinian evaluation of the current US conditions and policies varies on case by case basis. For example, positive evaluation reaches 85% when evaluating American medicine, science, and technology, and reaches 74% when evaluating the status of gender equality, and 63% when evaluating the status of US economic conditions. Positive evaluation drops to 53% with regards to arts and entertainment, 53% with regard to freedom of press and expression, and 44% to democracy and respect for human rights. Positive evaluation drops further when it comes to treatment of minorities (17%), respect for religious freedom (27%), or foreign policy (23%)."

"Tense aftermath of Gaza bomb blast" (BBC News, 2003/10/15)
"Crowds of angry Palestinians confronted American officials in the aftermath of the Gaza Strip bomb attack on the US diplomatic convoy.
Stone-throwing youths surrounded the American investigators, who had just arrived at the scene near the village of Beit Hanoun.
The US officials were rescued by the intervention of Palestinian police who dispersed the youths. ...
The BBC's James Rodgers witnessed the angry reaction to the American investigators' arrival.
'When the American diplomatic staff arrived, apparently to begin their investigation, the crowd had gathered, and gathered in a close circle around them.
Some people then began chanting. Then they began throwing stones and the American personnel were forced at that point to withdraw.
They ran back to their cars with the rocks bouncing off the roof of their cars and the Palestinian security forces then began firing into the air to disperse the crowd, to drive them away, in order to let the Americans leave.'"

"Gaza blast kills 3 Americans" (CNN.com, 2003/10/15)
"At least three Americans were killed and another seriously wounded Wednesday when an explosion hit a U.S. Embassy convoy in northern Gaza near the border with Israel, according to U.S., Israeli and Palestinian sources.
A senior administration official in Washington confirmed that the four American casualties were employed by the U.S. Embassy to provide security. The official described the Americans as government contractors.
Following the attack, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, issued an advisory calling on all U.S. citizens to leave Gaza.
Palestinian police cars were leading the U.S. convoy when a roadside bomb was triggered, hitting the lead U.S. vehicle near Beit Hanoun, Palestinian sources said. ...
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei strongly condemned the attack, offered his condolences, and promised an investigation.
Erakat also offered his condolences and condemned the attack.
"These people were here to help us," Erakat insisted, saying an attack on what he described as U.S. monitors was not in the interest of the Palestinian people. 'I don't think this was a deliberate attack against the Americans.'" (See also, for one example of thousands, the virulently anti-American sermon broadcasted on Palestinian Authority TV last Friday: "PA sermon: Defends Haifa bombing, "We will not forget you, O Here's Jerusalem, Haifa, Yafo, Lod, and Ramle" 'take vengeance on the Jews and their allies'" (IMRA, 2003/10/14): "We hear statements by the little US President. We hear unfair and tyrannical statements in which he says Israel has the right to defend itself. These statements carry destruction for the United States itself.")

"Sen. Jay Rockefeller looked shocked" (Hugh Hewitt, WorldNetDaily, 2003/10/15)
Hewitt on the Imminent Lie gone awry: "He had expected to say anything he wanted and escape without challenge.
But Fox News Channel's Tony Snow had a different idea. Snow thought it might be interesting to stick to the facts for a change.
This Sunday past, Sen. Rockefeller took a play from the Terry McAuliffe playbook and simply invented a convenient history. He told Snow and a national television audience that President Bush has alarmed the nation with a speech warning that an attack from Iraq was imminent.
Snow coolly played a tape of the president's State of the Union speech where he in fact said exactly the opposite. Bush warned the Congress that the United States could not wait for a threat to become imminent, to appear suddenly and without warning.
Snow then read from a speech that Rockefeller himself had given, one in which the West Virginia Democrat had proclaimed the threat from Iraq to be imminent.
Sen. Rockefeller was exposed and embarrassed and babbled on incoherently about what an average American should have inferred from the president's speech. I think he was close to proclaiming psychic powers when the interview – mercifully for him – ended." (Note: Found via Tim Blair, who has links to the sources. UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan keeps on tracking the historical revisionism of Dowd & Co.)

"Is it time to assasinate [sic] George Dubya Bush?" (The Guardian, 2003/10/15)
The Guardian hosts a discussion thread calling for the assassination of president Bush. Found via Little Green Footballs: "He is perhaps the most dangerous man currently to inhabit the earth. A hypocritical lunatic, his family have been sponsoring terrorism around the globe for decades - first he was cosy with Saddam and then he was'nt, then he was cosy with Bin Laden and then he changed his mind. His motivations are greed and he cares little for the sanctity of human life, and will support any state, no matter how brutal their administration, as long as they are compliant with US companies." (UPDATE 2003/10/16: The thread has been closed down.)

"Germans as Victims" (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 2003/10/15)
Yesterday I browsed through the September edition of the Swedish far left magazine Ordfront, which remembers the "first 9/11" in Chile 1973 and also equals the "fundamentalism" of Bush with that of Bin Laden in an article advertising a book by Tariq Ali, illustrated with a photomontage where their faces are morphed into one. I pointed out that by the same bizarre logic of moral equivalence you could just as well morph Churchill into Hitler. Both were warmongers. Both bombed civilians. Both were war criminals.
Well, here we are:
"Not one but two books have become popular through their descriptions of the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945, which resulted in fires that caused tens of thousands of deaths. One of the authors used the word "crematoria" to describe the burning buildings, described the Allied bomber pilots as the equivalents of Nazi police units that murdered Jews and concluded by wondering whether Winston Churchill, who ordered the bombings, ought to have been condemned as a war criminal.
These books have also been effective: According to another opinion poll, more than a third of the Germans now think of themselves as "victims" of the Second World War - just like the Jews. ...
Lately momentum has gathered behind a movement to build a new museum in Berlin dedicated to Germans expelled from their homes at the end of the war - just like the Holocaust museum. It's not wrong for Germans to remember their relatives who suffered, but the tone of the campaigners is disturbing, because they seem, at times, almost to forget why the war started in the first place. ...
That point of view, always popular on the far right of the German political spectrum, has spread rapidly leftward in recent years, attracting supporters among Social Democrats, bank presidents and others. Not everybody agrees by any means, but the subject is shockingly raw, even difficult to discuss politely. As I can attest, there are German politicians who will shout down other guests at dinner parties if their right to victimhood is questioned too harshly."

"Let Iraqis run Iraq" (Daniel Pipes, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/15)
Pipes predicts failure in Iraq: "These are valid reasons not to pull out – but they lose their pertinence if one expects, as I do, that the mission in Iraq will end in failure. I predict that unhappy outcome not due to shortcomings on the American side but by calculating the US motivation for being there versus the Iraqi motivation to remove them.
The latter strikes me as more formidable. It reflects the intense hostility commonly felt by Muslims against those non-Muslims who would rule them. For examples, note the violence undertaken by (among others) Palestinians, Chechens, Kashmiris, and Moros.
From this pattern, I draw a rule of thumb: unless a non-Muslim ruler has compelling reasons to control a Muslim population, it will eventually be worn down by the violence directed against it and give up. Note that the US government has already given up twice in recent years, in Lebanon and Somalia.
The US-led effort to fix Iraq is not important enough for Americans, Britons, or other non-Muslim partners to stick it out. That is why I advocate handing substantial power over to the Iraqis, and doing so the sooner the better."

"Terrorists can have serious moral goals, says Williams" (Jonathan Petre, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/10/15)
The head of the Anglican Church finds al-Qa'eda's aim "desirable". James Taranto sums it up succinctly — "So let's see if we have this straight: The head of the Anglican Church is telling us that the wanton murder of thousands of innocent people is a sign of "serious moral goals," while the liberation of millions from one of the world's most vicious dictatorships is, as he has put it, 'immoral and illegal.'":
"The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday urged America to recognise that terrorists can "have serious moral goals".
He said that while terrorism must always be condemned, it was wrong to assume its perpetrators were devoid of political rationality. "It is possible to use unspeakably wicked means to pursue an aim that is shared by those who would not dream of acting in the same way, an aim that is intelligible or desirable."
He said that in ignoring this, in its criticism of al-Qa'eda, America 'loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a self-referential morality.'" (See also: "Clergy protest against war on Iraq" (BBC News, 2002/08/06) and "Tales of Canterbury's Future?" (Peter Mullen, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/07/12). See also Tim Blair who tries his best to "turn the Archbishop of Canterbury's vile speech into something sensible".)

"Three Countries Give U.S. a Key Iraq Concession" (Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2003/10/15)
"France, Russia and Germany on Tuesday dropped their demands that the United States grant the United Nations a central role in Iraq's reconstruction and yield power to a provisional Iraqi government in the coming months.
The move constituted a major retreat by the Security Council's chief antiwar advocates, and signaled their renewed willingness to consider the merits of a U.S. resolution aimed at conferring greater international legitimacy on its military occupation of Iraq.
All three countries seem willing to accept a resolution that would retain U.S. authority over Iraq's political future while extending only a symbolic measure of sovereignty to Iraqis. But a major sticking point remains: The three governments made new demands, including setting a timetable for ending the U.S. military occupation in Iraq and strengthening the Security Council's role in monitoring Iraq's political transition."

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

News and commentary:

"US sniper 'linked to terror cult'" (James Langton, Evening Standard, 2003/10/14)
"Evidence has emerged linking Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad with an Islamic terror group.
Muhammad has been connected to Al Fuqra, a cult devoted to spiritual purification through violence.
The group has been linked to British shoe bomber Richard Reid and the murderers of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan last year. ...
Until now many believed that the killing spree, which left 10 dead, was the work of a loner. But investigators suspect the 42-year-old former soldier was an Islamic terrorist and believe his insanity plea is a cover story to disguise his support for fundamentalists.
It seems clear that Muhammad saw his actions as linked to earlier terrorist outrages in America. He bought his Chevrolet Caprice car used in the attacks on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks." (See also: "Muhammad's Inexorable Slide" (Marcia Slacum Greene and Carol Morello, The Washington Post, 2003/10/12))

"Israel's security fence under fire at UN" (Melissa Radler, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/10/14)
"Israel's security fence, dubbed the "racist colonial wall" and "expansionist conquest wall" by Arab envoys at the United Nations, is currently coming under harsh criticism by members of the UN Security Council. ...
Calling Israel's actions in the West Bank "worse than colonization apartheid," the PLO's permanent observer to the UN, Nasser al-Kidwa, stated that Israel is using the threat of terror as an excuse to settle Jews on the West Bank. Before he spoke, he handed out pictures of the fence and a map of the fence's route to delegates, he said.
"Israel is committing an immense war crime against the Palestinian people in the magnitude of a crime against humanity," he said. "It is the biggest war crime of its kind in our contemporary history."
Syrian Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad was more specific on Israel's alleged source for justifying the fence as a self-defense measure: Hitler chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels' 'Big Lie' theory."

"Saudi police quash protest rally" (BBC News, 2003/10/14)
"Police in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, have broken up a rare demonstration which was calling for political reform.
The protest took place close to where the Saudi Government was hosting its first human rights conference.
Reports said police fired shots into the air to disperse a crowd of a few hundred people, who were led by bearded men chanting "God is great". ...
Opposition of any kind is banned in the conservative kingdom, and experts say the incident is deeply embarrassing for the Saudi Government." (See also: "Saudis announce first elections" (BBC News, 2003/10/13))

"The second American civil war: what it's about" (Dennis Prager, Town Hall, 2003/10/14)
"Whatever your politics, you have to be oblivious to reality to deny that America today is torn by ideological divisions as deep as those of the Civil War era. We are, in fact, in the midst of the Second American Civil War.
Of course, one obvious difference between the two is that this Second Civil War is (thus far) non-violent. On the other hand, there is probably more hatred between the opposing sides today than there was during the First Civil War. ...
Here, then, is Part One of the list of the major differences that are tearing America apart: ...
The Left regards America as morally inferior to many European societies with their abolition of the death penalty, cradle-to-grave welfare and religion-free life; and it does not believe that there are distinctive American values worth preserving. The Right regards America as the last best hope for humanity and believes that there are distinctive American values -- the unique combination of a religious (Judeo-Christian) society, a secular government, personal liberty and capitalism - worth fighting and dying for. ...
The Left believes that "war is not the answer." The Right believes that war is often the only answer to governmental evil.
Any one of these differences is enough to create an entirely different America. Added together, the differences suggest people who live in different worlds that are on a collision course."

"The Alternative" (David Frum, National Review, 2003/10/14)
Frum on Tony Judt's "Israel: The Alternative", in which he "proposes to solve the problems of the Middle East by destroying the state of Israel": "There has been much anguish over whether to describe the new European anti-Zionism as "anti-semitism." Judt, for one, evinces no animus against Jews as individuals or as a community. Indeed, he reports on the rise of anti-semitism in Europe in tones of sorrow – even as he makes clear that he believes that the Jews have brought this scourge upon themselves. "Today, non-Israeli Jews feel themselves once again exposed to criticism and vulnerable to attack for things they didn't do. But this time it is a Jewish state, not a Christian one, which is holding them hostage for its own actions." His intentions are high, his conscience is clear, he hates nobody. His solution, however, is one that would expose millions of Jews – and not just those living in the Middle East – to persecution, expropriation, political oppression, exile, and murder. We cannot describe this outlook as anti-semitism. We need some new term. Here's my nomination: genocidal liberalism." (See also: "Israel: The Alternative" (Tony Judt, The New York Review of Books, from the 2003/10/23 issue) and "Loathsome" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2003/10/11))

"Title VI in Congress: Not on Our Dime" (Martin Kramer, Sandstorm, 2003/10/14)
Kramer on Title VI — the program of government subsidies for area studies in universities — and critics of the new bill: "Second, the bill establishes that academic programs supported by Title VI, including outreach programs, should "reflect diverse perspectives and represent the full range of views" on international affairs. Activities under Title VI should "foster debate on American foreign policy from diverse perspectives." When the Coalition of International Education, one of the higher education lobbies, saw this wording, it assured members it was lobbying toward "eliminating language about diverse perspectives, debate and range of views." Diversity is one of the great mantras of academe — provided the diversity isn't intellectual. ...
I have a word of advice to Professor Merkx and other academics who fear that government might peek into the principalities over which they rule: Don't take taxpayers' money. There are plenty of university programs in international and area studies that don't get Title VI funding. Become one of them. Get off the public dole and find other subsidies — perhaps from one of those rich Saudi princes on an academic shopping spree. Then you can run your program without any diversity of perspectives, just like they do in Saudi Arabia. You won't be missed, and other worthy recipients will benefit."

"Egyptian filmmaker faces wrath of colleagues over Israel" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/10/14)
"Egyptian filmmakers urged organizers of the Cairo International Film Festival to withdraw the sole Egyptian film from the official competition because its director backs normalization of ties with Israel.
Dozens of filmmakers and critics met Sunday to demand the withdrawal of "Girls' Loves" because its director Khaled Al-Hagar made a previous film backing normalization with the Jewish state, said a statement obtained by AFP.
The group was critical of the 1993 film, "A Barrier That Divides Us," which tells the story of an impossible love between an Egyptian man and young Jewish woman in London.
The film was sharply criticized when it was shown during the meeting at the offices of the Bar Association."

"PA sermon: Defends Haifa bombing, "We will not forget you, O Here's Jerusalem, Haifa, Yafo, Lod, and Ramle" 'take vengeance on the Jews and their allies'" (IMRA, 2003/10/14)
From a sermon by Shaykh Ibrahim Mudayris broadcasted on Gaza Palestine Satellite TV Channel in Arabic: "'There will be no security or peace on earth unless the Palestine question is settled justly by returning Al-Aqsa Mosque to its rightful owners.' "The world," he adds, "will never enjoy security unless our children enjoy it here in Palestine. We hear statements by the little US President. We hear unfair and tyrannical statements in which he says Israel has the right to defend itself. These statements carry destruction for the United States itself." "From this place," the imam says, "we warn the American people that this President is dragging them to the abyss."
The imam says: "If Israel has the right to defend itself, then the Palestinians also have the right to defend their blood and children. We have the right to defend our houses, which are being demolished right now in Rafah. We have the right to defend our children's blood, which is being spilled right now in Rafah."
The imam defends the girl who carried out the Haifa operation, saying: 'We have to defend our rights, land, and sanctities by all legitimate means. The terrorist is the one butchering innocent people there in Iraq and Afghanistan. The terrorist is the one butchering our brothers and children now in besieged Janin, Tulkarm, Ramallah, and all the villages of Palestine. They are the real terrorists.'"

"Poll: Most in Baghdad Want Troops to Stay" (Will Lester, AP/The Guardian, 2003/10/14)
"When Gallup set out recently to poll Baghdad residents, the biggest surprise may have been the public's reaction to the questioners: Almost everyone responded to the pollsters' questions, with some pleading for a chance to give their opinions.
"The interviews took more than an hour to do, people were extremely cooperative with open-ended questions," said Richard Burkholder, director of international polling for Gallup. "People went on and on."
But many of those Iraqis still have sharply mixed feelings about the U.S. military presence.
The Gallup poll found that 71 percent of the capital city's residents felt U.S. troops should not leave in the next few months. Just 26 percent felt the troops should leave that soon.
However, a sizable minority felt that circumstances could occur in which attacks against the troops could be justified. Almost one in five, 19 percent, said attacks could be justified, and an additional 17 percent said they could be in some situations.
These mixed feelings in Baghdad come at a time when many in the United States are urging that the troops be brought home soon.
Almost six in 10 in the poll, 58 percent, said that U.S. troops in Baghdad have behaved fairly well or very well, with one in 10 saying "very well." Twenty 20 percent said the troops have behaved fairly badly and 9 percent said very badly."

"Tariq Ramadan accused of anti-Semitism" (Caroline Monnot and Xavier Ternisien, Le Monde/Watch, 2003/10/10 [2003/10/14])
"Is Tariq Ramadan an anti-Semite? The question was put clearly by André Glucksmann in Le Nouvel Observateur of 9 October and by Bernard-Henri Lévy who, in his “note-pad” column of the 10 October issue of Le Point, wrote: “This clever intellectual, trained at the school of the Muslim Brotherhood, (...) had until now always been able to present a smooth, socially acceptable self-image. (...) He has lowered his mask. He has dishonored himself.” For his part, André Glucksmann has written of the “anti-Semitic obsession” of the Muslim intellectual: “What is astonishing is not that Mr. Ramadan is an anti-Semite but that he should dare to admit this publicly.”
This serious accusation comes after the appearance on the Internet (at the Web site oumma.com and on the mass email list of the European Social Forum) of an essay by Tariq Ramadan entitled “Criticism of the (new) communitarian intellectuals,” above which it is noted that the essay was rejected by the newspapers Le Monde and Libération. Its author criticizes “French Jewish intellectuals whom we had thought of until then as universalist thinkers,” who have, according to Ramadan, begun “to develop analyses increasingly oriented toward a communitarian concern.”
Tariq Ramadan cites in order Pierre-André Taguieff (who isn’t Jewish), Alain Finkielkraut, Alexandre Adler. He also criticizes Bernard Kouchner, André Glucksmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy for their support for the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq. He reproaches Bernard-Henri Lévy for having “vilified Pakistan” in his book on the murder of Daniel Pearl." (Note: Translation by Douglas. See also the French original: "Tariq Ramadan accusé d'antisémitisme" (Caroline Monnot and Xavier Ternisien. Le Monde, 2003/10/10) and "Critique des (nouveaux) intellectuels communautaires" (Tariq Ramadan, Oumma.com, 2003/10/03))

"Islam vs. The World" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2003/10/14)
Taheri on the upcoming summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Kuala Lumpur: "The modern world order is based on the common heritage of mankind, including the teachings of ancient Greece and the three monotheistic religions of the Middle East. It is the expression of common values in the shaping of which Islam played a crucial role, at least in part of its history.
The principle that governments should not imprison and murder their critics is not exclusively Western or Judeo-Christian. Nor is it necessarily Islamic for rulers to plunder their countries and place the proceeds in Western investment accounts. Killing women on the flimsiest pretexts, denying them basic rights and treating them as chattel are not necessarily Islamic either.
The division of the world between Islamic and non-Islamic tells us nothing. The real division is between tyrannies and democracies. North Korea is not a Muslim nation, but its government is in the same league as that of Libya, a 100 percent Muslim land. Turkey, a 99 percent Muslim country, is certainly more democratic than the predominantly Catholic Cuba or Buddhist Vietnam.
The truth is that many of those who will be gathering in Kuala Lumpur next week are tyrants hiding their ugly faces behind an Islamic mask. Knowing that they cannot justify their often illegitimate hold on power in political terms, they try to do so with reference to religion.
When taken to task for killing and robbing their citizens, they present such criticism as an attack on Islam. When Iraq is freed from Saddam Hussein, they ignore the fact that he was a monster and a mass murderer; to them, he was a Muslim ruler toppled by an "anti-Muslim" coalition."

"Affluent Genocide" (Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/10/14)
Spencer on apologetics for suicide bombings: "'At first blush,' says Fawaz Turki of Arab News, "one is tempted to wonder . . . why Hanadi Jaradat, a young law school graduate, who had her whole life ahead of her, would choose to become a suicide bomber." Jaradat was the Palestinian in her late twenties who murdered 19 people and wounded 40 by blowing herself up in a Haifa restaurant on October 5. ...
Jaradat's father adds: "I can tell you that our people believe that what Hanadi has done is justified. Imagine watching the Israelis kill your son, your nephew, destroying our house — they are pushing our people into a corner, they are provoking actions like these by our people." Hanadi Jaradat, we are told, turned to suicide bombing after her brother and cousin were killed by the Israelis. But Fadi Jaradat and Saleh Jaradat were not innocent bystanders in a restaurant; they were already at war with Israel as members of the terrorist group Islamic Jihad, which recruited Hanadi after their deaths last June. Islamic Jihad, for its part, said the attack was revenge for Israel’s attacks on movement leaders. But again: leaders and soldiers in a movement that is opposed to all negotiations and dedicated to the death of Israel by any means necessary are not equivalent to patrons in a restaurant. To suggest that they are is to do the gravest disservice to the Palestinian cause, by associating that cause indelibly with terror, mayhem, and the intentional murder of innocents."

"Guerrillas in Iraq Tap Unsecured Arms Caches, Officials Say" (Raymond Bonner, The New York Times, 2003/10/14)
"The two most recent suicide bombings here and virtually every other attack on American soldiers and Iraqis were carried out with explosives and matériel taken from Saddam Hussein's former weapons dumps, which are much larger than previously estimated and remain, for the most part, unguarded by American troops, allied officials said Monday.
The problem of uncounted and unguarded weapons sites is considerably greater than has previously been stated, a senior allied official said." (See also: "How did this happen" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2003/10/14): "It seems to me that the anti-Bush crowd has been missing the real story, as usual. Instead of attempting to parse the administration's arguments before the war, they'd do better to focus on the Pentagon's massive incompetence after the war. Two things spring to mind: why weren't forces directed to secure all possible WMD sites immediately? And why were troops not sent to secure Saddam's conventional weapon sites immediately?")

"Bin Laden Son Plays Key Role in Al Qaeda" (Douglas Farah and Dana Priest, The Washington Post, 2003/10/14)
"Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden's oldest sons, has emerged in recent months as part of the upper echelon of the al Qaeda network, a small group of leaders that is managing the terrorist organization from Iran, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.
Saad bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda operatives were in contact with an al Qaeda cell in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the days immediately prior to the May 12 suicide bombing there that left 35 people dead, including eight Americans, European and U.S. intelligence sources say. The sources would not divulge the nature or contents of the communications, but the contacts have led them to conclude that the Riyadh attacks were planned in Iran and ordered from there.
Although Saad bin Laden is not the top leader of the terrorist group, his prese