Archived news and commentary: November 24 - 30, 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, November 30, 2003

News and commentary:

"U.S. Kills 46 Iraqi Fighters in the North" (Niko Price, AP/Yahoo News!, 2003/11/30)
"In the deadliest reported firefight since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, U.S. soldiers fought back coordinated attacks Sunday using tanks, cannons and small arms in running battles throughout the northern city of Samarra. The troops killed 46 Iraqi fighters, and five Americans were wounded. ...
Lt. Col. William MacDonald of the 4th Infantry Division said attackers, many wearing uniforms of Saddam's Fedayeen militia, opened fire simultaneously on two U.S. supply convoys on opposite sides of Samarra.
After barricading a road, the attackers opened fire from rooftops and alleyways with bombs, small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, he said. U.S. troops responded with rifles, 120mm tank rounds and 25mm cannon fire from Bradley fighting vehicles.
U.S. fire destroyed three buildings the attackers were using, MacDonald said." (See also BBC's, sorry, Al Jazeera's version: "Innocents killed in Samarra bloodbath" (AlJazeera.net, 2003/11/30): "US troops in the Iraqi town of Samarra have admitted to perpetrating a bloodbath, with one occupation spokesman confirming nearly four dozen people were killed."
A search for "bloodbath" on Al Jazeera's site gets only one result, i.e. this article. Not even the recent ghastly suicide bombings in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Israel were described as such.)

"Inside story of how Washington is losing its bottle" (Andrew Neil, The Scotsman, 2003/11/30)
A doom-laden analysis of the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq:
"In New York the mood is buoyant as the American economy continues to purr at a satisfying rate, but 250 miles to the south in Washington DC there is increasing private gloom among those in the know that events in Afghanistan and Iraq are going badly wrong — and growing despair about what to do about it.
President Bush's bold Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad gave US troops a much-needed fillip and he said all the right things. But behind the scenes the war on terror is going badly wrong in its two main theatres. "In both places it is worse than you think," I was warned before arriving in the US capital for a series of off-the-record briefings. The warning was accurate. ...
Bush is fond of saying that America did not spend so much in men and materiel to liberate 25 million Iraqis only to succumb to a ragbag of insurgents. Yet it looks as if that is exactly what is happening. The insurgents have noted that a few very big bombs have already forced Washington to speed up its exit strategy; that can only result in even bigger bombs.
No wonder the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration are in retreat: their policy of replacing Middle East tyrants with democracy and functioning economies is in grave danger of falling at the first hurdle, largely from lack if American willpower. The consequences of defeat and retreat, of course, are so grave that I cannot believe any US president can contemplate it for long; but what exactly Bush plans to do about it is a mystery which nobody I met in Washington was able to resolve."

"Inside 'The Wire'" (Nancy Gibbs and Viveca Novak, TIME, 2003/11/30)
A report on Guantanamo: "So far, the processing of detainees, whether for trial or release, has been slow; the Supreme Court's intervention, however, may have delivered a jolt. A U.S. military official tells Time that at least 140 detainees — "the easiest 20%" — are scheduled for release. The processing of these men has sped up since the Supreme Court announced it would take the case, said the source, who believes the military is "waiting for a politically propitious time to release them." U.S. officials concluded that some detainees were there because they had been kidnapped by Afghan warlords and sold for the bounty the U.S. was offering for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "Many would not have been detained under the normal rules of engagement," the source concedes. 'We're dealing with some very, very dangerous people, but the pendulum is swinging too far in the wrong direction.'"

"Fatah official: Initiative designed to divide Israelis" (Khaled Abu Toameh and Lamia Lahoud, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/11/30)
"Faced with a campaign of terror and intimidation, a number of Palestinians have decided to stay away from the signing ceremony of the Geneva Accord, due to be held in Switzerland on Monday.
Those who decided to boycott the ceremony include Fatah officials Hatem Abdel Kader and Muhammed Hourani, who played a major role in the behind-the-scenes talks that resulted in the Geneva Accord.
Abdel Kader told The Jerusalem Post that the main goal of the Geneva Accord was to create a schism inside Israel and undermine the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Our aim was to create divisions inside Israel and block the growth of the right-wing in Israel."
Kader said that he decided not to travel to Geneva after PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Fatah Central Council refused to endorse the agreement. "We didn't get the OK from Arafat," he said, 'and this paved the way for street protests. We can't go to Geneva without Arafat's consent.'"

"Saudi Columnist: 'We Have Bred Monsters ... We Are the Problem and Not America'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 617, 2003/11/30)
"On November 30, 2003, Dr. Muhammad Talal Al-Rasheed, columnist for the English language daily The Saudi Gazette, wrote an article titled "Senseless Violence, Senseless Death." The article is in reaction to the murder of Saudi Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Rasheed of Hail by 'Islamists' in Algeria. The following are excerpts from the article: ...
'We have bred monsters. We alone are responsible for it. I have written as much before my personal tragedy and will continue to do so for as long as it takes. We are the problem and not America or the penguins of the North Pole or those who live in caves in Afghanistan. We are it, and those who cannot see this are the ones to blame. ...
I don't think this will be published in the Arab News, as it should be. If not, I understand their point of view and their perpetual selectiveness. But one thing is sure, we are here to stay even if it takes giving our best to the madness of religion and the wrong of fanaticism. Nothing, but nothing, is worth the life of an innocent... may the Americans add Talal to their list of loved ones lost to the same indiscriminate madness that took 3,000 on a certain day in September.'" (See also: "Senseless Violence, Senseless Death" (Muhammad Talal Al-Rasheed, The Saudi Gazette, 2003/11/30), "Saudi prince killed in Qaeda ambush: Report" (The Peninsula, 2003/11/30) and "Saudi Chutzpah" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/05/01))

"Imperial Majesty" (Amr Mohammed Al-Faisal, Arab News, 2003/11/30)
Imperial majesty, indeed. Al-Faisal advocates blackmailing America:
"The conditions that must be met before we lift a finger to help the Americans get out of Iraq honorably are the following:
• The adoption by the US of Crown Prince Abdullah's peace plan as the center piece of US policy in the Middle East.
• The halt to the vicious campaign of hatred and lies propagated in the US against Saudi Arabia. Administration officials starting with President Bush himself must spare no occasion to praise Saudi Arabia and inform the American people how lucky they are to have us as allies.
• The release of all Saudis detained in the US or in Guantanmo Bay into Saudi custody.
This list is by no means exhaustive, and other things may be added. Once these conditions are met, we should spare no effort to help the Americans get out of the Iraqi quagmire.
We should do this for our own and the region's interest, capitalizing on the current administration's weakness."

"The pardoner's tale" (Joshua Glenn, The Boston Globe, 2003/11/30)
Sometimes it's more embarassing than usual to be a Swede:
"But Swedish anthropologist Magnus Fiskesjo finds nothing charming about our pre-Thanksgiving tradition. Making jokes about a bird during a "symbolic, public pardon where death is the explicit alternative,'' he told Ideas, is "a strange way to celebrate one's freedom.'' In a new pamphlet, "The Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon, the Death of Teddy's Bear, and the Sovereign Exception of Guantanamo'' (Prickly Paradigm Press), Fiskesjo argues that the true significance of the annual rite is a demonstration of the president's power of "sovereign exception.''
"Power and pardon are very closely related,'' according to Fiskesjo, who calls the Thanksgiving turkey pardon a ritual performance "as exotic as any piece of strange ethnographica out of Africa or the Amazon jungle.'' He compares it to other pardoning gestures, from an ancient Chinese king's decision to spare a sacrificial ox to Teddy Roosevelt's famous refusal to shoot a captured bear. These acts of mercy, he argues, serve to establish a leader's undemocratic power to decide when and where "normality and legality are suspended - whether for birds or bears or for human beings.''
Fiskesjo compares the turkey's situation to that of the 660 alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters detained at Guantanamo Bay, whose fate is also dependent on the president's wishes." (Note: Found via The Corner.)

"Debased Death Cult Society" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/11/30)
"Last Wednesday every news agency in the world carried a story that a 9-year old Palestinian boy had been shot in the head and killed by the IDF, quoting "Palestinian medical sources"...
Today the Palestinian Authority has been forced to admit that the boy was killed by his own brother — and his father helped cover up the crime, hoping to get a martyr payoff from the terror gangs...

Palestinian Authority has admitted that IDF troops were not responsible for Thursday's killing of a 9 year-old boy on Thursday in Rafah, accusing instead his brother.
Earlier, the PA had accused Israeli troops of shooting the boy, but IDF sources say that there were no troops in the area.
The IDF has speculated that the boy's father put blame on the Israelis in order to receive funds from one of the terror organizations, such as Hamas.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Reuters, AP, and AFP to correct their scandalous willingness to believe and report the words of many-times-proven liars." (See also: "Boy shot in Rafah by brother" (Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/11/30) and "Palestinian boy shot dead by Israelis in Gaza" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/11/26))

"The reformer" (Laura Secor, The Boston Globe, 2003/11/30)
An article on Tariq Ramadan: "But is Ramadan trying to square the circle when he says a reformed Islamic system is compatible with secular values?
Take, for instance, the harshest Islamic corporal punishments, such as stoning adulterous wives or cutting off the hands of thieves. Ramadan personally finds such penalties unacceptable and un-Islamic. He believes a moratorium should be called on them while Islamic scholars ask themselves three questions: What is in the texts? How does the contemporary context affect how we read the texts? Is the policy implementable?
Ramadan seems confident that this reevaluation will lead to radical reform. What's more, he believes he is providing language and tools to dismantle abuses from the inside, rather than simply flatly condemning the Islamic system from without, as secular critics do.
But what if the best efforts of Muslim scholars still reveal a God who insists on cruel and discriminatory punishments? There can be no recourse to extrinsic principles, such as human rights or equality. The final word lies in the Koran and with those who interpret it.
So are reformists like Ramadan mitigating the worst excesses of a cruel political system, or are they simply sugarcoating it? If the former, moderate Islamism is perhaps the greatest hope for human rights in countries ruled by sharia (Islamic law). If the latter, moderate Islamism, whatever its advocates' intentions, looks more like a potentially deceptive sales pitch." (See also: "Tariq Ramadan, target for European intelligence services" (Christophe Dubois, Le Parisien/Watch, 2003/11/14 [2003/11/17]) and "Tariq Ramadan accused of anti-Semitism" (Caroline Monnot and Xavier Ternisien, Le Monde/Watch, 2003/10/10 [2003/10/14]))

"The Chant Not Heard" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2003/11/30)
"I stood on the sidewalk in London the other day and watched thousands of antiwar, anti-George Bush, anti-Tony Blair protesters pass by. They chanted every antiwar slogan you could imagine and many you couldn't print. It was entertaining — but also depressing, because it was so disconnected from the day's other news.
Just a few hours earlier, terrorists in Istanbul had blown up a British-owned bank and the British consulate, killing or wounding scores of British and Turkish civilians. Yet nowhere could I find a single sign in London reading, "Osama, How Many Innocents Did You Kill Today?" or "Baathists — Hands Off the U.N. and the Red Cross in Iraq." Hey, I would have settled for "Bush and Blair Equal Bin Laden and Saddam" — something, anything, that acknowledged that the threats to global peace today weren't just coming from the White House and Downing Street.
Sorry, but there is something morally obtuse about holding an antiwar rally on a day when your own people have been murdered — and not even mentioning it or those who perpetrated it. Watching this scene, I couldn't help but wonder whether George Bush had made the liberal left crazy. It can't see anything else in the world today, other than the Bush-Blair original sin of launching the Iraq war, without U.N. approval or proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction."

"One law for the West" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2003/11/30)
"I have heard many of the usual people fulminating about the crimes of the Americans at Guantanamo Bay, and thought that they probably had a point, but what else was one to do? By all means, release the kids (all four of them), bring as many of the others to trial quickly, and that's about it. After all, what could be worse than effectively opening the gates and letting out several hundred hardened jihadis, free to blow up Washington, Riyadh or Stoke Poges leisure centre?
But the senior law lord Lord Steyn is not one of the usual people. He isn't a kneejerk single-issue campaigner or a parti pris semi-politician. So his lecture last week on Guantanamo constituted a butt in the ribs to those of us who have been turning the other way when it has been mentioned. Turning away because we could see that there might be merit in the Administration argument that many detainees were, 'among some of the worst of the worst of the al-Qaeda with whom we have fought'. ...
At what point does our behaviour become as bad in consequence as the thing which we desire to prevent? There are men languishing in Guantanamo Bay who have probably done nothing or who are no danger, have not been assessed, do not know when or if they will be tried, and who have not seen their homes and families for 20 months and wonder if they ever will.
If this sounds familiar it is because — somehow — we have become the state versions of the hostage-takers of Beirut." (See also: "Guantánamo: A monstrous failure of justice" (Johan Steyn, International Herald Tribune, 2003/11/27))

"Rumsfeld in Denial" (Barry R. McCaffrey, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/11/30)
"Iraq is a military and political mess, and it's not getting better. The insurgency by Sunni Baathist cadres backed up by a presence of foreign terrorists is going to grow more violent. ...
In my judgment, the manner in which we intervened, and ended the regime, has been a major source of our subsequent problems. It's not enough to achieve victory — which we did; you've got to achieve a situation in which your adversary recognizes that he's been defeated, and that violent resistance is futile — which we didn't. We went in with a small force that, while unstoppable militarily, was incapable of the sort of "takedown" of an entrenched opposition that our troops now face. We should have front-loaded our military power and withdrawn forces as things got better; instead, we went in light, and augmented power after the regime's fall. ...
The president acted with political and moral courage to strike down Saddam while we had the window of opportunity. Our counterterrorist deterrent posture has been enormously strengthened. The question is whether we have the political will to carry out the required political, economic and security operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan in the next 36 months. Now is the time for resolute leadership."

"7 Spanish Agents and 2 Japanese Are Slain in Iraq" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2003/11/30)
"Seven Spanish intelligence officers and two Japanese diplomats were killed Saturday in separate ambushes in Iraq, the latest in a series of attacks against America's allies that seemed intended to drive a wedge between them.
Iraqi guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades at two cars that eight Spaniards were riding in as they made their way through the town of Mahmudiya, a conservative Sunni Arab town about 18 miles south of the capital.
The two Japanese diplomats were killed in an apparent ambush in the city of Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein and a center of the anti-American insurgency."

Saturday, November 29, 2003

News and commentary:

"Iraqi's celebrate over the bodies..."
(AP Photo/Sky News, 2003/11/29)
"Iraqi's celebrate over the bodies of killed members of a Spanish military intelligence team on a street, south of Baghdad, Saturday, Nov 29, 2003. At least six people where killed and one injured in the attack on the Spanish military intelligence team in Iraq, Spanish official said."

"Agents killed in ambush" (Sky News, 2003/11/29)
"Six members of Spain's National Intelligence Centre have been killed in an attack south of Baghdad, Spanish media have reported.
Sky News correspondent David Bowden said he saw four bodies at the scene.
The men were members of an eight-man team returning from a mission, a Spanish defence spokesman said.
Bowden arrived at the scene of the attack, near Hillah, shortly after it happened.
He said he was told by eyewitnesses guerillas had killed eight people in three vehicles and had captured two.
Two hostages were driven away in the third vehicle, locals said. ...
The team were forced to leave after the crowd turned on them.
"We filmed for a couple of minutes but the crowd were shouting 'Praise to Saddam', so we left," Bowden said.
Sky cameraman Adam Murch said the crowd were kicking the bodies."

"Mullah Omar seen in Quetta: Karzai" (rediff.com, 2003/11/29)
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammed Omar was spotted last week in Pakistani city of Quetta and charged Islamabad with "turning a blind eye" to terrorism in its border areas.
"We have received information that Mullah Omar was seen praying in a mosque ten days ago," Karzai said in an interview to The Times, London.
Identifying the mosque as one in Quetta, Karzai accused Pakistan of "turning a blind eye" to terrorism in its border regions.
Mullah Omar, who has a $ 25 million bounty on his head, comes after Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein on the US most wanted list."

"Good, bad and ugly" (Julie Burchill, The Guardian, 2003/11/29)
Burchill says goodbye to the Guardian: "But if there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the state of Israel. Which, for all its faults, is the only country in that barren region that you or I, or any feminist, atheist, homosexual or trade unionist, could bear to live under. ...
If you take into account the theory that Jews are responsible for everything nasty in the history of the world, and also the recent EU survey that found 60% of Europeans believe Israel is the biggest threat to peace in the world today (hmm, I must have missed all those rabbis telling their flocks to go out with bombs strapped to their bodies and blow up the nearest mosque), it's a short jump to reckoning that it was obviously a bloody good thing that the Nazis got rid of six million of the buggers. Perhaps this is why sales of Mein Kampf are so buoyant, from the Middle Eastern bazaars unto the Edgware Road, and why The Protocols of The Elders of Zion could be found for sale at the recent Anti-racism Congress in Durban.
The fact that many Gentiles and Arabs are rabidly Judeophobic, while many others are as horrified by Judeophobia as by any other type of racism, makes me believe that anti-semitism/Zionism is not a political position (otherwise the right and the left, the PLO and the KKK, would not be able to unite so uniquely in their hatred), but about how an individual feels about himself. I can't help noticing that, over the years, a disproportionate number of attractive, kind, clever people are drawn to Jews; those who express hostility to them, however, from Hitler to Hamza, are often as not repulsive freaks." (Note: Thanks to Malcolm Smordin for the pointer.)

"Anti-Zionism is anti-semitism" (Emanuele Ottolenghi, The Guardian, 2003/11/29)
"If Israel's critics are truly opposed to anti-semitism, they should not repeat traditional anti-semitic themes under the anti-Israel banner. When such themes — the Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, linking Jews with money and media, the hooked-nose stingy Jew, the blood libel, disparaging use of Jewish symbols, or traditional Christian anti-Jewish imagery — are used to describe Israel's actions, concern should be voiced. Labour MP Tam Dalyell decried the influence of "a Jewish cabal" on British foreign policy-making; an Italian cartoonist last year depicted the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as an attempt to kill Jesus "again". Is it necessary to evoke the Jewish conspiracy or depict Israelis as Christ-killers to denounce Israeli policies? ...
Despite piqued disclaimers, some of Israel's critics use anti-semitic stereotypes. In fact, their disclaimers frequently offer a mask of respectability to otherwise socially unacceptable anti-semitism. Many equate Israel to Nazism, claiming that "yesterday's victims are today's perpetrators": last year, Louis de Bernières wrote in the Independent that "Israel has been adopting tactics which are reminiscent of the Nazis". This equation between victims and murderers denies the Holocaust. Worse still, it provides its retroactive justification: if Jews turned out to be so evil, perhaps they deserved what they got. Others speak of Zionist conspiracies to dominate the media, manipulate American foreign policy, rule the world and oppress the Arabs. By describing Israel as the root of all evil, they provide the linguistic mandate and the moral justification to destroy it. And by using anti-semitic instruments to achieve this goal, they give away their true anti-semitic face."

"Vive le Checkbook" (Michael Gonzalez, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/11/29)
"'Follow the money' is an old adage, and it means that economic interest will eventually explain much human behavior. That France opposed the removal of Saddam Hussein because he owed millions to French banks is proof of this. Less well known, but much more troubling, are key French financial links with other U.S. enemies. They raise the belief that the Franco-American conflict over Iraq was just one slice of the action. For France was not just Baathist Iraq's largest contributor of funds; French banks have financed other odious regimes. They are the No. 1 lenders to Iran and Cuba and past and present U.S. foes such as Somalia, Sudan and Vietnam.
This type of financing is shared by Germany, France's partner. German banks are North Korea's biggest lenders, and Syria's — and Libya's. But France is the most active. In Castro's sizzling gulag, French banks plunked down $549 million in the first trimester this year, a third of all credit to Cuba. The figure for Saddam's Iraq is $415 million. But these pale in comparison with the $2.5 billion that French banks have lent Iran. The figures come from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, and were interpreted by Iñigo Moré for a Madrid think-tank, the Real Instituto Elcano. As he says, 'one could think that Parisian bankers wait for the U.S. to have an international problem before taking out their checkbooks.'"

"That Man in the White House" (Andrew Ferguson, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/12/08 issue)
A review of eight "Bush-hating" books, here on David Corn's "The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception":
"So we are back to lies — the engine of the Bush dreadnought. Yet what's a lie? It's a straightforward question, and a crucial one for the Bush-haters, but they're confused about the answer. ...
The form that Corn's confusion takes is important, because it is so widely shared by the Bush-hating books. Through them all runs a chasm separating the language used, which is sustained at the highest pitch, from the events being described, which are often mundane. The technique is usually called hype, and it's an essential feature of politics nowadays, thanks to the influence of television in all its absurdity, but on the page, between book covers, it's harder to shrug off. Corn's particular method, in the body of his book, is to print a Bush lie in bold type, and then to try manfully to expose its falsity in several hundred words.
A few examples will give you an idea. "I don't get coached," Bush once said. But Corn, through his own reporting and that of others, has discovered that Bush operatives use focus groups to test some of their rhetorical formulations. ...
Bush: "It's time to listen to each other." Corn: "Bush's call for a wide-open and respectful debate with plenty of listening was hokum."
Bush, a month after the September 11 attacks: "[We are] taking every possible step to protect our country from danger." Corn: 'Plenty of steps were not taken.'"

"About That Memo..." (The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/12/08 issue)
More on the Saddam-Osama memo: "Consider the introduction to the relevant part of the Pentagon memo, called "Summary of Body of Intelligence Reporting on Iraq-al Qaeda Contacts (1990-2003)."

Some individuals have argued that the al Qaeda ties to Iraq have not been "proven." The requirement for certainty misses the point. Intelligence assessments are not about prosecutorial proof. They do not require juridical evidence to support them nor the legal standards that are needed in law enforcement. Intelligence assessments examine trends, patterns, capabilities, and intentions. By these criteria, the substantial body of intelligence reporting — for over a decade, from a variety of sources — reflects a pattern of Iraqi support for al Qaeda's activities. The covert nature of the relationship has made it difficult to know the full extent of that support. Al Qaeda's operational security and Iraq's need to cloak its activities have precluded a full appreciation of the relationship. Nonetheless, the following reports clearly indicate that Osama bin Laden did cooperate with Iraq's secular regime despite differences in ideology and religious beliefs in order to advance al Qaeda's objectives and to defeat a common enemy — the U.S.

As it happens, we agree with the conclusions in this analysis; others will disagree. But make no mistake — contrary to what Defense now says — these are conclusions and this is analysis." (See also: "Newsweek's 'Case'" (Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, 2003/11/20), "Case Open" (Jack Schafer, Slate, 2003/11/18) and "Case Closed" (Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/11/17 issue))

"Turks Arrest Suspected Synagogue Bomber" (Susan Fraser, AP/The Guardian, 2003/11/29)
"Police arrested a man suspected of ordering one of four deadly suicide bombings earlier this month, officials said Saturday.
Istanbul Deputy Police Chief Halil Yilmaz said the man was arrested Tuesday while trying to leave Turkey through a border crossing with Iran. The man, whom he did not identify, made plans for the Beth Israel attack and ordered it, Yilmaz said."

"Iraqis say 'no to terrorism'" (The Washington Times, 2003/11/29)
"Hundreds of pro-coalition demonstrators chanting "yes to Iraq, no to terrorism" marched through Baghdad yesterday amid a huge security operation mounted by American and Iraqi forces.
Led by the relatives of two policemen killed in twin suicide bombings last Saturday and protected by two U.S. helicopters and scores of heavily armed Iraqi policemen, the marchers rallied in Firdus Square, where a large bronze statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled by Iraqis and U.S. Marines on April 9 after the fall of Baghdad in the U.S.-led invasion. ...
Aziz al-Yasser, the coordinator of the demonstration organized by the Alliance of Iraqi Democratic Forces, said hundreds of people stayed away because of fears that the protest march could be attacked.
"We want democracy and reconstruction. Terror is delaying both," he said."

Added in archive:
"Why the antiwar left must confront terrorism" (Mark Follman, Salon, 2003/11/15)

Friday, November 28, 2003

News and commentary:

"An Iraqi holds up a picture of his brother..."
(AP Photo/Karim Kadim, 2003/11/28)
"An Iraqi holds up a picture of his brother, who was killed during the last suicide attack on a police station in Baghdad, as he joins hundreds of Iraqis demonstrating against terrorism and condemned Saddam Hussein, at a rally on a square in downtown Baghdad, Friday, Nov 28, 2003."

"I was there" (Omar, Iraq the Model, 2003/11/28)
Omar on the anti-terrorism demonstration in Baghdad:
"I arrived at al-Tahrir square from where the demo. should start, and I was surprised to find that the numbers of police men and journalists were more than the demonstrators themselves.
We needed some men to hold the sign boards (these were also more than us).
I was a little bit disappointed, because I was dreaming of a huge demo. but when I took a minute to think about what this demo. represents, I restored some of the hope to my heart.
There were 3 cars carrying symbolic coffins for the victims of terrorism.
There were people from some Iraqi ethnic minorities and others who represented no particular party or group.
We decided — regardless of the small number — to march to al-Firdows square where the statue of the tyrant was knocked down on the 9th. of April.
The people who were standing or passing by through the ever crowded (Saadoon street) were watching carelessly and reading our signs.
After a while some men joined us, ordinary simple people with their simple clothes telling their suffering.
Fear started to vanish away from their hearts and people continued to join us and the small crowd grew bigger.
We became several thousands, and I saw the future in their eyes, I didn't feel they were strangers; we were closer to each other than ever, carrying the same feelings and ambitions. ...
I've been there, and I came back stronger with a deeper belief that there are others who care for us, and next time, the participation will be wider.
Our victory in this challenge is a victory for all the honest, good and free people on earth."

"Foreigners in Iraq say Koran requires fighting U.S." (Vivienne Walt, San Fransisco Chronicle, 2003/11/28)
Via Little Green Footballs: "In a rare interview with a foreign fighter battling U.S. troops in Iraq, a middle-class university student from Jordan described this week how he has spent months launching attacks on American soldiers, after being smuggled across the Jordanian border during his summer recess, and trained at a guerrilla camp in central Iraq.
The well-dressed, slight-built mechanical engineering student from the University of Jordan said he was drawn to fight in Iraq purely by religious conviction — not because of any link to al Qaeda or other terror organizations, and despite his intense dislike for Saddam Hussein's supporters.
"There's no way for al Qaeda to contact us, and we don't need al Qaeda to bring us here," he said during a 90-minute interview, sitting in a tiny village on the outskirts of Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad.
"If you read the Koran closely, it says you must fight against infidels who occupy your country," said the student, 25, who asked to be named in print as Abu Zobayer. 'This is clear. There is no choice.'"

"Telling the Truth, Facing the Whip" (Mansour Al-Nogaidan, The New York Times, 2003/11/28)
Al-Nogaidan is a former Wahhabi extremist who now is sentenced to 75 lashes "because of articles I had written calling for freedom of speech and criticizing Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's official religious doctrine":
"The most recent government crackdown on terrorism suspects, in response to this month's car-bombing of a compound housing foreigners and Arabs in Riyadh, is missing the real target. The real problem is that Saudi Arabia is bogged down by deep-rooted Islamic extremism in most schools and mosques, which have become breeding grounds for terrorists. We cannot solve the terrorism problem as long as it is endemic to our educational and religious institutions.
Yet the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs have now established a committee to hunt down teachers who are suspected of being liberal-minded. ...
I cannot but wonder at our officials and pundits who continue to claim that Saudi society loves other nations and wishes them peace, when state-sponsored preachers in some of our largest mosques continue to curse and call for the destruction of all non-Muslims. As the recent attacks show, now more than ever we are in need of support and help from other countries to help us stand up against our extremist religious culture, which discriminates against its own religious minorities, including Shiites and Sufis.
But we must be aware that this religious extremism, which has been indoctrinated in several Saudi generations, will be very difficult to defeat. ...
Those in charge must realize that to avert disaster we will have to pay the expensive price of reforms, to be ready to live with the sacrifices that starting over entails. Only then will I be hopeful of the future of my country." (Note: The Op-Ed can also be found here.)

"Geneva Sellout" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/11/28)
Krauthammer on the Geneva Accord: "This is scandalous. Israel is a democracy, and this agreement was negotiated in defiance of the democratically (and overwhelmingly) elected government of Israel. If a private U.S. citizen negotiated a treaty on his own, he could go to jail under the Logan Act. If an Israeli does it, he gets a pat on the back from the secretary of state.
Moreover, this "peace" is entirely hallucinatory. It is written as if Oslo never happened. The Palestinian side repeats solemn pledges to recognize Israel, renounce terror, end anti-Israel incitement, etc. — all promised in Oslo. These promises are today such a dead letter that the Palestinian side is openly bargaining these chits again, as if the Israelis have forgotten that in return for these pledges 10 years ago, Israel recognized the PLO, brought it out of Tunisian exile, established a Palestinian Authority, permitted it an army with 50,000 guns and invited the world to donate billions to this new Authority.
Arafat pocketed every Israeli concession, turned his territory into an armed camp and then launched a vicious terror war that has lasted more than three years and killed more than 1,000 Israelis. It is Lucy and the football all over again, and the same chorus of delusionals who so applauded Oslo — Jimmy Carter, Sandy Berger, Tom Friedman — is applauding again. This time, however, the Israeli surrender is so breathtaking it makes Oslo look rational. ...
This is not a peace treaty, this is a suicide note — by a private citizen on behalf of a country that has utterly rejected him politically. That it should get any encouragement from the United States or from its secretary of state is a disgrace." (See also: "US actor Richard Dreyfuss to host launch of Geneva Initiative" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/11/26))

"Anti-Terror Raids Target Islamists Across Europe" (Emilio Parodi and Mark Trevelyan, Reuters, 2003/11/28)
"Police hunting Islamic militants across Europe capped a dramatic series of anti-terror raids in three countries with the arrest of a suspected Algerian extremist in the German port of Hamburg on Friday.
Abderrazak Mahdjoub, 29, was held at the request of Italian authorities investigating an alleged network involved in recruiting Islamists to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq.
A copy of an arrest warrant, obtained by Reuters, showed that one of the recruits was suspected of complicity in an October rocket attack on a Baghdad hotel where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying.
Separately, British police were questioning a suspected would-be suicide bomber arrested in southwest England on Thursday. The government has said the 24-year-old Muslim man may have links with al Qaeda.
The European police operations coincided with the charging of three Kenyans in connection with a previously undisclosed plot to blow up the U.S. embassy in Nairobi — the same mission that was destroyed by suspected al Qaeda bombers in 1998."

"Muslim street talk" (Erik Schechter, The Jerusalem Post, 2003/11/28)
A report from Istanbul on reactions to the terror attacks:
"But many, especially the more religious, have a hard time believing the perpetrators are Islamist radicals.
Rushing to afternoon prayers, Murat Kabaaðaç apologizes for not having much time to elaborate. But the bearded 29-year-old supporter of the Felicity Party, a tiny Islamist spin-off of the Virtue Party, insists that it was the Mossad — and not al-Qaida or local Turkish sympathisers — that were responsible for the suicide bombing campaign in Istanbul.
"A Muslim never kills anyone unless he is attacked," he says, and then passes under the arch leading to the Imperial Fatih Mosque.
No, George W. Bush was the mastermind, says Musa Azak, a 45-year-old bus driver.
"The US instigated these attacks so that it could interfere in Turkish affairs like it did in Iraq," says Azaka, filling a plastic container with water from a fountain attached to the same mosque. "It wants to take control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits."
Perhaps, it is easier to believe conspiracy theories than to accept that the Islamist worldview spawned something like al-Qaida."

"Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali" (The Daily Telegraph, 2003/11/28)
"Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, who died on Wednesday aged 77, was the "hanging judge" of the Iranian revolution, responsible for sending hundreds, possibly thousands, of people to their deaths; he became notorious in the West after he appeared on television poking the charred corpses of American servicemen killed in an unsuccessful bid to rescue hostages held in the American embassy in Tehran.
Khalkhali, known as "the butcher" to his compatriots, brought to his job as Chief Justice of the revolutionary courts a relish for summary execution that would have made Judge Jeffries seem like a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform. ...
Some of Khalkhali's victims were no more than children. When a 14-year-old boy he had had executed turned out to be innocent, Khalkhali remarked that the child was not on his conscience because he had "sent him to heaven". His critics maintained that in his early life Khalkhali had spent time in a mental institution for torturing cats; it was said that strangling cats remained one of his favourite pastimes."

"Bush Surprises Troops in Iraq" (Mike Allen and Robin Wright , The Washington Post, 2003/11/28)
"Because of the tense security situation, even troops celebrating Thanksgiving in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone at the airport were unaware that Air Force One had landed. L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, told the troops he had Thanksgiving greetings from the president. Hamming it up, Bremer then looked toward the stage and said, "Let's see if we've got anyone more senior here."
When the president emerged, the room erupted, with soldiers standing on chairs and tables to bark, hoot, yell and "hoo-ah" their approval. In a boisterous mood, Bush told the troops he was 'just looking for a warm meal somewhere. Thank you for inviting me to dinner.'"

Thursday, November 27, 2003

News and commentary:

"US President George W. Bush holds a Thanksgiving turkey..."
(AFP/Tim Sloan, 2003/11/27)
"US President George W. Bush holds a Thanksgiving turkey for US troops stationed at Baghdad International Airport in Baghdad. Under unprecedented secrecy, the President was flown without public knowledge from Waco, Texas, to Washington, DC, where he changed planes onto Iraq where he spent two and a half hours on the ground to salute US troops on the US Thanksgiving Holiday."

"Bush Pays Surprise Thanksgiving Visit to Troops in Iraq" (Terence Hunt, AP/The Washington Post, 2003/11/27)
"President Bush made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to American troops in Baghdad Thursday, flying secretly to violence-scarred Iraq to thank U.S. forces for serving there. It was the first trip ever by an American president to Iraq — a mission tense with concern about his safety.
"You are defending the American people from danger and we are grateful," Bush told some 600 soldiers who were stunned and delighted by his appearance.
The president's plane — its lights darkened and windows closed to minimize chances of making it a target — landed under a crescent moon at Baghdad International Airport."

"EU fraud office investigates aid diversion to bombers" (Leonard Doyle and Stephen Castle, Independent, 2003/11/27)
Via Shark Blog: "European Union funds may have been channelled to Palestinian militant groups responsible for the deaths of scores of people in suicide bombings.
The EU's anti-fraud unit and Belgian police are investigating claims that money earmarked for aid was paid to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades through Belgian and German affiliate organisations.
Belgian judicial sources said yesterday that the inquiry began in Aachen in Germany but also involves an organisation based in Verviers, in eastern Belgium.
The allegation is that groups "have asked for European subsidies for some kind of immigrant project and that this was then transferred towards Al-Aqsa", the source said. Al-Aqsa is on the EU's list of banned terrorist organisations."

"Oldest hatred, latest chapter" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2003/11/27)
"Sickening and all-too revealing award of the top prize in the British Cartoon Society's annual competition to the vile Independent image of a grotesque Ariel Sharon biting the head off a Palestinian baby. What a terrible message this sends, not just to Israel but to Britain's increasingly beleaguered Jewish community.
For it's not just that this image was grossly antisemitic, but people deny that this was so because it was about Sharon, the 'legitimate' target for opprobrium. As a result, those of us who say this cartoon was an astounding piece of antisemitism get the same reaction as when we talk about the revival in Britain and Europe of antisemitism, period — we are marked down as the paranoid Jewish conspiracy, waving the shroud of the Holocaust to sanitise the crimes of the 'Nazi' Sharon. ...
What does this tell us? That Britain has become a place where such obscenities, once limited to the far right, are not only published in reputable places; in addition, it puts up two fingers to Jewish protest by sealing such excrescences with the stamp of public approval." (See also: "Cartoon of naked Sharon devouring infant wins top U.K. prize" (Haaretz, 2003/11/26))

"These five regimes must go" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2003/11/29 issue)
Steyn argues that the five regimes of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and North Korea must go "if you want to be able to get to anything like a victory in this war": "Profound changes in the above countries would not necessarily mean the end of the war on terror, but it would be pretty close. It would remove terrorism's most brazen patron (Syria), its ideological inspiration (the prototype Islamic Republic of Iran), its principal paymaster (Saudi Arabia), a critical source of manpower (Sudan) and its most potentially dangerous weapons supplier (North Korea). They're the fronts on which the battle has to be fought: it's not just terror groups, it's the state actors who provide them with infrastructure and extend their global reach. Right now, America — and Britain, Australia and Italy — are fighting defensively, reacting to this or that well-timed atrocity as it occurs. But the best way to judge whether we're winning and how serious we are about winning is how fast the above regimes are gone. Blair speed won't do."

"Turkey's Islamist monster" (Amir Taheri, National Post, 2003/11/27)
"The truth, however, is that the terrorist attacks that have hit Istanbul are, in part at least, a result of almost a quarter of a century of attempts to "Islamicize" Turkish politics — attempts in which Erdogan's party, and its four predecessors, played a leading part.
Turkey today is experiencing what Iran and several Arab states have experienced since the 1960s: an Islamist monster created by the establishment that ends up turning against it. ...
Erdogan has made the mistake that Menderes, Demirel and Erbakan made before him: assuming that the Islamist ideology could be exercised in moderation.
What they did not realize is that even if you are Islamist yourself, there will always be someone to pretend he is more Islamist than you.
In Iran, the Khomeinists who had seized power in the name of Islamism were the first victims of their own ideology. Between 1979 and 1983, more than 400 Khomeinist mullahs and politicians were murdered by Islamist militants who regarded them as not being quite Islamist enough. And in Algeria, for example, even Abbasi Madani and Ali Benhadj, the two leaders of the Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS) ended up top of the hit list of the GIA (The Islamic Armed Group) that regards them both as "pagans who must be put to death."
The terrorist attacks that have hit Turkey have little to do with Iraq or even rising hatred for the United States. Both Iraq and hatred for the United States are used as pretext by Islamist groups who wish to destroy Erdogan's government because they believe it is not 'Islamic enough.'"

"Canada preparing to enforce Islamic law" (WorldNetDaily, 2003/11/27)
"Canadian judges soon will be enforcing Islamic law, or Sharia, in disputes between Muslims, possibly paving the way to one day administering criminal sentences, such as stoning women caught in adultery.
Muslims are required to submit to Sharia in Muslim societies but are excused in nations where they live as a minority under a non-Muslim government.
Canada, however, is preparing for its 1 million-strong Muslim minority to be under the authority of a Sharia system enforced by the Canadian court system, according to the Canadian Law Times.
Muslim delegates at a conference in Etobicoke, Ont., in October elected a 30-member council to establish the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice.
The institute is classified in Islamic law as a Darul-Qada, or judicial tribunal. Its bylaws are scheduled to be drafted and approved by Dec. 31.
Cases will be decided by a Muslim arbitrator, but the local secular Canadian court will be the enforcer." (See also: "First steps taken for Islamic arbitration board" (Judy Van Rhijn, Canadian Law Times, 2003/11/25): "The president of the convention was barrister Syed Mumtaz Ali, who struck the first blow in the campaign for recognition of Islamic law in 1962. He was the first lawyer to swear his oath of allegiance on the Koran. Syed explained the law of minorities as it is set down by the Shariah. Muslims in non-Muslim countries are required to follow the Shariah to the extent that it is practical. "The law applies as if to Bedouin wanderers," he said. 'We are required by our own law to follow the laws of the country and to follow our own laws. We have a double obligation. You don't have to be the wisest man to see there will be conflicts.'")

"Guantánamo: A monstrous failure of justice" (Johan Steyn, International Herald Tribune, 2003/11/27)
Steyn is a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, one of 12 judges who sits on Britain's highest court:
"As matters stand at present the U.S. courts would refuse to hear a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay who produces credible medical evidence that he has been and is being tortured. They would refuse to hear prisoners who assert that they were not combatants at all. They would refuse to hear prisoners who assert that they were simply soldiers in the Taliban army and knew nothing about Al Qaeda. They would refuse to examine any complaints of any individuals. The blanket presidential order deprives them all of any rights whatever.
As a lawyer brought up to admire the ideals of American democracy and justice, I would have to say that I regard this as a monstrous failure of justice.
The question is whether the quality of justice envisaged for the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay complies with minimum international standards for the conduct of fair trials. The answer can be given quite shortly: It is a resounding No. The term kangaroo court springs to mind. It conveys the idea of a preordained, arbitrary rush to judgment by an irregular tribunal which makes a mockery of justice. Trials of the type contemplated by the United States government would be a stain on United States justice. The only thing that could be worse is simply to leave the prisoners in their black hole indefinitely."

"Attacks on G.I.'s in Mosul Rise as Good Will Fades" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2003/11/27)
A report from Mosul: "As places like Ramadi and Falluja and Tikrit burned and their residents rebelled against the American occupation this summer, Mosul stayed calm, the one city with a Sunni Arab majority where most people still seemed to regard the Americans as their friends. A vigorous and far-reaching effort by the 101st Airborne Division to rebuild the city's roads, schools and public buildings seemed to cement an unusually warm bond.
That appears to be changing very fast. The money the American occupiers once doled out freely has dried up, and other reconstruction aid has yet to arrive. Attacks on Americans, which have killed more than 25 in the Mosul area this month, have highlighted what local Iraqis say is a rapidly deteriorating relationship. ...
A network of former members of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party, stretching from the universities to government offices, openly flout the Americans' edicts and, some Iraqis say, quietly support the resistance.
"I would say that the number of people who are opposed to the Americans here numbers in the thousands, the tens of thousands," said Hunien Kadu, a professor of economics at Mosul University and a city council member. 'There are deans and assistant deans who were high-ranking members of the Baath Party. There are Baathists all through the government. The Americans can't continue to let these people operate.'"

"Top Cleric Faults U.S. Blueprint For Iraq" (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post, 2003/11/27)
"Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric believes a new American plan to form a sovereign provisional government in Iraq does not give Iraqis a large enough role in shaping the transition and lacks safeguards for the country's "Islamic identity," a prominent Shiite political leader said Wednesday.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani expressed "deep concern over real loopholes" in the plan "that must be dealt with, otherwise the process will be deficient and will not meet the expectations of the people of Iraq," Abdul Aziz Hakim, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said at a news conference in the holy city of Najaf."

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

News and commentary:

"Europe and Transatlantic Futures" (Joschka Fischer, The Globalist, 2003/11/26)
An excerpt from German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's very important speech at Princeton University:
"A new totalitarianism — Islamist terrorism and its inhumane Jihad ideology — poses a threat to peace and stability, regionally and globally.
Its goal is to upset the existing power system in the Islamic Arab world, especially in the Arabian Peninsula and in the Gulf region, and to destroy Israel in the long run.
Its instruments are suicide attacks and the terror of brutal, cynical force.
Its tactic is to create bloody chaos, while its strategy aims at the withdrawal of the United States and the West from the entire region. ...
This new threat is comprehensive. It is no longer a question of opposing systems.
In contrast to the German Reich, the Japanese Empire — or the Soviet Union — this threat is not directed at the strategic potential of the United States and the West.
That was the case in the fight against the traditional totalitarianism of the 20th century.
Today, we are faced with an even greater danger, aimed at a religious and cultural clash of civilizations between the Islamic Arab world and the West, led by the United States." (See also the full speech: "Europe and the Future of the Transatlantic Relations - Speech by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer at Princeton University on November 19, 2003" (Amwärtiges Amt, 2003/11/19))

"No Victory, No Peace" (Angelo M. Codevilla, The Claremont Review of Books, from the Winter 2003 issue)
Codevilla keeps on reminding us that the enemy is not terrorism, but rather the regimes behind it: "In October 2003, having occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, imprisoned some 2,000 foreigners, refocused U.S. law enforcement, reorganized the U.S. government, and made "security specialist" the biggest new endeavor in America, President Bush claimed that "the world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership and America more secure."
In 1966, Daniel Boorstin's The Image: A Guide To The Pseudo Event In America, showed that advertising by government as well as business aims to counter reality. If the toilet tissue really were "soft," there would be no need for an ad campaign to persuade us that it is. Russians knew when their government trumpeted good harvests that they had better hoard potatoes. By the same token, if contemporary Americans felt victorious and at peace, claiming credit for that feeling would be superfluous. Since reality tells us otherwise, such claims recall Groucho Marx's story of the husband caught in flagrante: "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" In short, as 2004 loomed, there was no peace from terror, and no prospect of any, because there was no victory. ...
Beginning just after September 11, I have sought to show that America's peace depends on America's victory, and to show that the path to victory is the destruction of the main regimes without which terrorism would not exist, pour encourager les autres. The obstacles to our peace, our victory, flow not from the strength or cleverness of our enemies, but rather from the tendency of America's leaders to deal with images rather than with reality."

"Iraqis wrestle with Jewish factor" (Nir Rosen, Asia Times, 2003/11/26)
An article on Iraqi and Muslim anti-Semitic paranoia: "When Imam Mahdi al-Jumeili of the small Hudheifa mosque in Baghdad's Shurti neighborhood met three American officers to resolve a dispute over soldiers entering the grounds of his mosque, his first question to them was "are any of you Jews"? When he was satisfied that none were, he allowed the meeting to proceed. Prior to the arrival of the Americans, he made his prejudices about them clear: "We are sure they came here to steal the country and protect Israel," he said, adding that "Judaism and Masonism are at war with Islam". ...
For a journalist, not a day goes by without mention of Jews and Israel. Even taxi drivers talk about the Jews when they grumble about the occupation. "We are Muslims!" one declared proudly during an evening ride to a hotel, "and Jews come to our land?" When asked who he was referring to, he said, "They are all Jews. The Americans are all Jews and mercenaries. We know their religion." When asked if he wanted a Sunni or Shi'ite leader in Iraq, this driver said. 'We are all Muslims, it makes no difference. Only the Jews want to separate Sunnis and Shi'ites, they are non-believers.'" (Note: Found via Jihad Watch.)

"An Ugly American" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2003/11/26)
The great divide: "In this case, the Chronicle posed the odd question: "Is it wrong to root for the Iraqis?" Another participant, David Cutting of Truckee, unpacks the question and gives an answer that is spot on:

If you mean the barbarians that are murdering coalition soldiers, aid workers, and Iraqi police officers and government officials, then the question is too despicable to even deserve a reasoned answer. If you mean the majority of Iraq's population, then by all means, root for a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Iraq. What could be more American?

Now, here is Laurel Eby's answer:

I'm definitely torn, because I obviously don't want any more of our soldiers getting killed, but I also wouldn't mind the quagmire going on just long enough to ruin Bush's re-election chances."

(See also: "Two Cents - Is it wrong to root for the Iraqis?" (San Francisco Chronicle, 2003/11/23) and "The Great Divide" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2003/11/21))

"US actor Richard Dreyfuss to host launch of Geneva Initiative" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/11/26)
The song of the sirens: "US actor Richard Dreyfuss will host the launch of an alternative Middle East peace plan in Geneva next week before a rare audience of celebrities, business heads and ordinary people from both sides of the conflict, officials said.
The 56-year-old acted in Stephen Spielberg's 1975 "Jaws" as well as the science fiction tale "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".
"Richard Dreyfuss will run the ceremony," said Ghaith Al Omari, a representative from the Palestinian delegation who helped to draft the so-called Geneva Initiative.
Monday's ceremony, which is due to last two hours, will attract about 700 people, including 200 from the Israeli and Palestinian sides, representing "all sectors of civil society," said Daniel Levy, an official from the Israeli delegation. ...
A song had even been written for the occasion, said Levy."

"Eid marked by calls for jihad" (SA/News24, 2003/11/26)
Via Jihad Watch: "Pakistan's 138 million Muslims flocked to mosques on Wednesday to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, with hopes for peace with India tempered by defiant calls for jihad from Islamic radicals.
Hafiz Saeed, founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrillas fighting India in Kashmir, attracted one of the largest congregations in the eastern city of Lahore. He exhorted 150 000 worshippers to support jihad in Kashmir and threatened destruction of the United States. ...
'Jihad is inevitable for the glory of Islam. The jihad process is continuing in Kashmir, Bosnia, Palestine and Iraq. Jihad has made Jews and Christians worried. They call jihad terrorism.
Jews, Hindus and Christians have united themselves against Muslims of the world. They are trying to eliminate Muslims.
The scenario is changing steadily. The Americans and their allies will face destruction sooner.'"

"Multilateral Mantras" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/11/26)
"So how good were the good old multilateral days?", wonders Victors Davis Hanson: "Just consider: Before September 11, Saudi Arabia was not seen for what it in fact was — the world's foremost treasurer of terror, with its subsidies to madrassas, ransom to al Qaeda, and billions for plausible denial in Washington — but rather as a reliable pro-Western and anticommunist oil spigot. Arafat was accepted as somewhat unsavory, but nevertheless an adherent to the new global acceptance of reason in place of fanaticism. Sadists like the al Qaedists in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq were kept down in "boxes" by cruise missiles and tens of thousands of air sorties — as if they were naughty children sent to "time out" zones. ...
Then came 9/11 — and the last decade's groupspeak and apparition of multilateral "stability" simply floated away on the first breeze across lower Manhattan.
In response, during the last two years we have had to start completely over, in some ways rethinking everything from 1945 onward — including the location of and need for 171 bases in some 32 foreign countries. It isn't easy, since millions have invested so much in the present comforting delusions — both the champions of a reassuring appeasement and enemies enraged that they are now confronted rather than bought off or ignored."

"A Tale of Two Babies" (Stefan Sharkansky, Shark Blog, 2003/11/26)
Sharkansky comments on the fact that a cartoon of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon eating the head of a Palestinian baby won first prize in the Cartoon of the Year competition at the very same day as this:
"Meanwhile, in the real world today,

A week-old Iraqi infant has arrived in Israel to undergo an operation to correct a congenital heart defect, with the aid of the Israeli organization Save a Child's Heart.

Save a Child's Heart has given medical treatment to almost 1,000 children, including more than 300 Palestinians and several Jordanians. Now that Saddam is out of the way, Iraqi children have access to the treatment too." (See also: "Iraqi baby arrives in Israel for medical treatment" (AP/Haaretz, 2003/11/26))

"Cartoon of naked Sharon devouring infant wins top U.K. prize" (Haaretz, 2003/11/26)
"That the mainstream British media could publish such a vile depiction of the Israeli leader speaks volumes about the anti-Israel climate sweeping Europe today," noted HonestReporting in January. Now it has won first prize in the Cartoon of the Year competition:
"A cartoon of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon eating the head of a Palestinian baby against the backdrop of a burning Palestinian city has won first prize in the British Political Cartoon Society's annual competition.
There were 35 entries in the Cartoon of the Year competition, sponsored by the British Independent newspaper, from some of the country's leading cartoonists.
Dave Brown's winning cartoon was published in the Independent a few months ago, when it was claimed that it was inspired by a Goya painting.
In the cartoon, Sharon says: "What's wrong? Have you never seen a politician kissing a baby?" The background shows Apache attack helicopters sending missiles from the cockpit with the message "Vote Likud" - the prime minister's party.
In his acceptance speech, Brown thanked the Israeli Embassy for its angry reaction to the cartoon, which he said had contributed greatly to its publicity." (See also the cartoon: "'What's wrong .... You never seen a politician kissing babies before?" (Dave Brown, Independent, 2003/01/27) and "Der Sturmer in the UK?" (HonestReporting, 2003/01/28))

"French magazine publishes photos of attack on DHL plane in Iraq" (AFP, 2003/11/26)
Cooperating with Iraqi barbarians II: "French weekly magazine, Paris Match, is to publish exclusive pictures of what it says are Iraqi rebels launching a missile attack on a German DHL cargo plane over Baghdad that led to a shutdown of commercial air traffic to the Iraqi capital.
The images were taken by one of the magazine's photographers, Jerome Sessini, who was with the attackers - described in the accompanying article as "Iraqi guerrillas" - at the time of Saturday's missile strike, editor-in-chief Alain Genestar told AFP on Wednesday."

"Rumsfeld: Arab TV Worked With Insurgents" (Robert Burns, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/11/26)
Cooperating with Iraqi barbarians I: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his top military adviser said Tuesday they have evidence the Arab television news organizations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya cooperated with Iraqi insurgents to witness and videotape attacks on American troops.
Rumsfeld said the effort fit a pattern of psychological warfare used by remnants of the Baathist government, who want to create the impression that no amount of U.S. firepower can end the insurgency.
"They've called Al-Jazeera to come and watch them do it (attack American troops), and Al-Arabiya," he told a Pentagon news conference. "'Come and see us, watch us; here is what we're going to do.'"
Pressed for details, Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both indicated that U.S. forces in Iraq had collected more than just circumstantial evidence that one or both of the Arab news organizations might have cooperated with the attackers."

"Campus Rally for Terror" (Lee Kaplan, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/11/26)
"The "Skill Share Discussion Workshop" was entitled "Deconstructing Zionist Responses On Your Campus." The topic? How to dismiss concern over suicide bombings while debating the Israel/Palestine issue. "Refuse to discuss it", said one student. “Don’t get defensive,” said one. "Blame it on Israel," said another. Still another advised protesters to ask, "Would it be better if it wasn't a suicide bomber? Is this tactic so beneath reproach?"
Was this discussion of defending suicide bombers held in some clandestine basement setting? Actually, it was held publicly on the campus of Ohio State University, which hosted The Third Annual National Student Conference On Palestine Solidarity from November 7th to 9th. For three days, Islamist radicals gathered in America’s heartland to openly call for the destruction of Israel, the overthrow of the U.S. government and to take the side of the murderers in the War on Terrorism.
This meeting was originally set to take place at Rutgers University, but organizers moved it to OSU when Rutgers University had the good sense to cancel it. However, the cancellation only took place after Rutgers organizer Charlotte Kates publicly declared that Israeli children are "legitimate" targets of suicide bombers. Kates took part in the OSU meeting, where she was joined by many other radical activists advocating the destruction of Israel 'by any means necessary.'"

"Reviving Mideastern Democracy" (Saad Eddin Ibrahim, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/11/26)
Ibrahim is chairman of the board of the Cairo-based Ibn Khaldun Center:
"In the Middle Ages there used to be something called the Silk Road, which was an overland trade route that ran from the Atlantic shores of Morocco to the Great Wall of China. It was a famous path, steeped in lore and plied by picturesque caravans. When I heard of Prof. Aghajari and then of dissidents in Tunisia also languishing in jail, another picture popped into my head: The romantic Silk Road of yesteryear has in our time become a kind of Despots' Alley or Tyrants' Row, with various sorts of unfree governments lying end-to-end on the map from Beijing right on through to North Africa.
But then I reflected some more and thought, in all these storied lands there are people who are working for the same things that I am working for. Whatever might happen — whether prison or even death might await us — we could all feel that we were part of a larger freedom struggle whose value and significance humbled us even while they lifted us up.
I've never believed anything more strongly in my life. This is not just about Egypt, or the Middle East, or the Arab peoples — this is a global struggle, a battle for the world. Those who are carrying it on in countries and regions such as mine need the help of citizens in mature democracies. Reach out to us, engage us in dialogue, give us a hand if and when you can, and let our message be heard in the West so our culture and our religion will not be unjustly condemned as intrinsically against freedom and democracy, because they are not." (See also: "Broaden the Road Map" (Saad Eddin Ibrahim, The Washington Post, 2003/05/12))

"The "Islamic Affairs Department’ of the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C." (Steven Stalinsky, MEMRI, 2003/11/26)
"Who is barbaric, who chops heads?" Ehrm, Saudia Arabia?:
"Saudi Arabia's embassy in Washington, D.C. recommends the homepage of its Islamic Affairs Department (IAD) to Americans who want to learn about Islam and Muslims... ... All material in this report appears in its original English as published by the IAD." ...
The website also contains many documents answering Western criticism of Saudi Arabia and Islam. One example states, "Islam is not a terrorist group as the stereotype would have one believe… We are told that Muslims are terrorists, barbaric and what not. But let us recall what the Christian authorities did… over 12 million people were put to death through the authority of the 'Inquisitions.' Such barbaric act has never been committed by any Islamic authority in the history of Islam. Where was the media then and where are they now - let us judge. Who is barbaric, who chops heads?…" ...
The IAD also cites the Qur'an as an authoritative source on the obligations of those living under Islamic law, including Muslims, to obey authority: 'The Noble Prophet (pbuh) said: 'It is obligatory upon a Muslim to listen and obey (to the authority) whether he likes it or not... If somebody else opposes and contests the authority of that leader (Imam), the said opponent should be beheaded.'" (See also: Islamic Affairs Department.)

"U.N 'Strongly Deplores' Iran Nuclear Coverup" (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, 2003/11/26)
"United Nations nuclear monitors condemned Iran over an 18-year coverup of its nuclear energy program on Wednesday and said future violations of non-proliferation obligations would not be tolerated.
The United Nations' Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stopped short of reporting Iran to the Security Council, which could have imposed sanctions. However, arms experts suspect Tehran has more secrets and may face the U.N.'s supreme body in the future. ...
Iran hailed the resolution as an "achievement" for Tehran.
"This resolution...proved that Iran has followed its peaceful nuclear activities with transparency and truthfulness," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.
Washington would be unlikely to agree with that interpretation.
The United States had hoped to send Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions for violating its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But the Europeans opposed this and Washington eventually acquiesced."

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

News and commentary:

"Souad, author of "Quemada viva" ["Burned Alive"]..."
(Gorka Lejarcegi, El Pais, 2003/11/25)
Souad, author of "Quemada viva" ["Burned Alive"], a first person account of her extraordinary survival of an attempted honor killing. Born and raised in Jordania, she was drenched with gasoline and literally burned alive by her brother-in-law when she was 17, but was saved by her neighbours. At the hospital her mother tried to kill her again with poisoned water. The picture is from the front page of El Pais.

"Yemen Arrests Mastermind of Attacks on USS Cole" (FOX News, 2003/11/25)
"One of the top Al Qaeda members in Yemen was captured by security forces Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said, calling him a suspected mastermind of the homicide bombings of the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the country's coast.
Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal was arrested after Yemeni forces surrounded his hide-out west of the capital, San'a, the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried on the official SABA news agency.
Al-Ahdal, also known as Abu Assem al-Makky, is one of the two main leaders of Usama bin Laden'sAl Qaeda network in Yemen, according to security reports published in the Yemeni press."

"The Israelization of Turkey" (Tulin Daloglu, The Globalist, 2003/11/25)
"The real fear is that the bomb blasts of November 20, 2003 signaled the moment of Turkey's Israelization. That is why people felt this different fear and much higher levels of personal insecurity.
Turks immediately started fearing a possible third explosion. People realized that — unlike the PKK’s attacks — this was a much bigger, well-connected international terrorist network going after them.
Even before any official announcements were made, people knew it was al Qaeda's work.
They knew that radical Islamic terrorists did not show any mercy, not even on a Ramadan day. These terrorists did not make any distinctions between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Isn’t that the same fear they feel in Israel?
Day after day, whether there is a break of two days or a week-long interval, there is always at least an attempted suicide bomb attack — and the constant realization that the peaceful daily routine has been broken."

"Protocols of the Elders of Zion, courtesy of UNESCO" (Stefan Sharkansky, Shark Blog, 2003/11/25)
"The Museum of Manuscripts at Egypt's recently renovated Alexandria Library is exhibiting a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion — next to the Torah in a display of "holy books for the monotheistic religions". The director of the Museum of Manuscripts, a one Dr. Youssef Ziedan decided to include the Protocols in the display of holy books because:

When my eyes fell upon this rare copy of this dangerous book, I decided immediately to display it next to the Torah. Although it is not a monotheistic holy book, it has become a holy book for the Jew, their primary law, their way of life. ...

The Museum of Manuscripts was created with funding and support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)."

"Identifying Muslim Moderates" (Daniel Pipes, CNSNews.com, 2003/11/25)
How to differentiate between militant and moderate Islam:
"Useful questions might include:
- Violence: Do you condone or condemn the Palestinians, Chechens, and Kashmiris who give up their lives to kill enemy civilians? Will you condemn by name as terrorist groups such organizations as Abu Sayyaf, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, Groupe islamique arm, Hamas, Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, and Al-Qaeda?
- Modernity: Should Muslim women have equal rights with men (for example, in inheritance shares or court testimony)? Is jihad, meaning a form of warfare, acceptable in today's world? Do you accept the validity of other religions? Do Muslims have anything to learn from the West?
- Secularism: Should non-Muslims enjoy completely equal civil rights with Muslims? May Muslims convert to other religions? May Muslim women marry non-Muslim men? Do you accept the laws of a majority non-Muslim government and unreservedly pledge allegiance to that government? Should the state impose religious observance, such as banning food service during Ramadan? When Islamic customs conflict with secular laws (e.g., covering the face for drivers' license pictures), which should give way?
- Islamic pluralism: Are Sufis and Shi'ites fully legitimate Muslims? Do you see Muslims who disagree with you as having fallen into unbelief? Is takfir (condemning fellow Muslims one has disagreements with as unbelievers) an acceptable practice?
- Self-criticism: Do you accept the legitimacy of scholarly inquiry into the origins of Islam? Who was responsible for the 9/11 suicide hijackings?
- Defense against militant Islam: Do you accept enhanced security measures to fight militant Islam, even if this means extra scrutiny of yourself (for example, at airline security)? Do you agree that institutions accused of funding terrorism should be shut down, or do you see this a symptom of bias?
- Goals in the West: Do you accept that Western countries are majority-Christian and secular or do you seek to transform them into majority-Muslim countries ruled by Islamic law?" (Note: Found via Little Green Footballs.)

"Liberal & Pro-Israel" (Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, 2003/11/25)
An interview with Phyllis Chesler on her book "The New Anti-Semitism":
"What's new is that Jew-hatred (disguised as anti-Zionism) has itself become "politically correct" among these so-called intellectuals. They have one standard for Israel: an impossibly high one. Meanwhile, they set a much lower standard for every other country, even for nations in which tyranny, torture, honor killings, genocide, and every other human rights abuse go unchallenged.
Today anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism. Israel has increasingly come to represent the Jews of the world, and is treated as they have been treated for thousands of years. She is demonized, isolated, and attacked while the world either actively rejoices, or simply does nothing to stop it. Israel has also become the symbolic scapegoat for America and for Western values such as democracy, religious freedom, and individual and women's rights.
The intellectuals control the masses with linguistic distortions that would make George Orwell weep. The way language is being used to misrepresent both the truth and Jews is relatively new. The intelligentsia tell us that Israelis are the "new Nazis" and "worse than Nazis." This is a new form of Holocaust denial. It lets Europeans off the hook: they no longer must wrestle with their own formidable colonial pasts and their persecutory-collaborationist-bystander roles in the Holocaust.
The propagandists go further, calling Israel the apartheid state. This is a lie. Islam is the largest practitioner of both gender and religious apartheid in the world: It persecutes all non-Muslims. Jews cannot apply for citizenship in Jordan, for example, and yet no Western group has called for divestment campaigns there. Meanwhile, the Arab leadership continues to terrorize the last Jewish enclave in the Middle East."

"Reactions in the Arab Press to President Bush's Address on Democracy in the Middle East" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 615, 2003/11/25)
"Arab and Islamic peoples prefer to be ruled by a dictator such as Saddam Hussein", according to this Egyptian columnist:
"Columnist Bassyouni Al- Hilwani wrote in the Egyptian government weekly 'Aqidati: 'It appears that the American president, Little Bush, relies on a group of hashish-smoking advisors. Not a week passes without him addressing the world with naïve proposals, false and random accusations, and idiotic demands, as if he were living on a desert island with his spoiled dogs…
Bush has forgotten that the Arab and Islamic peoples prefer to be ruled by a dictator such as Saddam Hussein than by a democratic president of the likes of Bush, who lies to the world every day, deceives his people, sows hatred towards it in the souls of all the peoples of the world, and annihilates the lives of his people in battles that do not concern them at all. Oh Mr. Bush, if you were a democratic president as you claim to be, you would abandon your post immediately and disperse all your Zionist aides and advisors, since your lies, your fraud, and the fact that you do not respect Iraqi and Afghan human rights have been exposed to the eyes of the entire world — particularly since your forces, your planes, and your missiles have executed more than 50,000 Iraqis and Afghans who sinned not at all towards you and your people.'"

"An open-and-shut case of hypocrisy" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/11/25)
"Meanwhile, while Islamic lobby groups and the most distinguished semiotics professors in America are analysing Johnny Hart's outhouse joke, the European Union's Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia has decided to shelve its report on the rise of anti-Semitism on the Continent. The problem, as reported in The Telegraph, is that the survey had found that "many anti-Semitic incidents were carried out by Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups", and so a "political decision" was taken not to publish it because of "fears that it would increase hostility towards Muslims".
Let's go back over that slowly and try not to get a headache: the EU's main concern about an actual epidemic of hate crimes against Jews is that it could provoke a hypothetical epidemic of hate crimes against Muslims. You couldn't ask for a better illustration of the uselessness of these thought-police bodies: they're fine for chastising insufficiently guilt-ridden whites in an ongoing reverse-minstrel show of cultural self-abasement, but they don't have the stomach for confronting real racism. A tolerant society is so reluctant to appear intolerant, it would rather tolerate intolerance." (See also: "EU body shelves report on anti-semitism" (Bertrand Benoit, Financial Times, 2003/11/21) and "CAIR Goes Ballistic Over B.C., Dr. Laura" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/11/21))

"After the bombs" (Maureen Freely, The Guardian, 2003/11/25)
Via Andrew Sullivan, who argues that "Now is surely the time to bring Turkey into the EU and to reassure them of our solidarity." Let's just say that I'm extremely skeptical about bringing Turkey into EU, based on economical, cultural and geopolitical considerations:
"This was Istanbul's September 11. They thought they were safe from the war on terror because they thought all Muslims were brothers. Now they know otherwise, and are unified in their condemnation of the terrorists, who cannot be "true Muslims". The fact that the terrorists staged this attack in the last days of Ramadan has added to their outrage. But no one is in any doubt why the city has become a terrorist target. How its residents respond to their new status depends very much on how much support they get (or fail to get) from the allies who dragged them into this. As one shopkeeper put it, "Surely, now that we have suffered this, the EU must open its arms to us." If it doesn't, or if the US gives the impression, as it has sometimes done in the past, that it is taking Turkey's "sacrifice" for granted, the sense of betrayal could be huge."

"The grim task in Iraq" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2003/11/25)
"Here's a story that gives you some idea of the huge task still ahead in Iraq. The new recruits to the Iraqi police and civil defense corps are loathed by their fellow-countrymen in the Sunni Triangle. They risk death every day doing their job. Only money keeps them in uniform. How on earth will they become loyal to a new Iraqi government that does not represent Sunni privilege? I don't know. Here's my worry, and it can be summed up in a simple dialogue from the piece:

"Their destin