Archived news and commentary: December 29 - January 4, 2003 - 2004

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, January 4, 2004

News and commentary:

"Blind Into Baghdad" (James Fallows, The Atlantic, from the January/February 2004 issue)
"But the Administration will be condemned for what it did with what was known. The problems the United States has encountered are precisely the ones its own expert agencies warned against. Exactly what went wrong with the occupation will be studied for years—or should be. The missteps of the first half year in Iraq are as significant as other classic and carefully examined failures in foreign policy, including John Kennedy's handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion, in 1961, and Lyndon Johnson's decision to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam, in 1965. The United States withstood those previous failures, and it will withstand this one. Having taken over Iraq and captured Saddam Hussein, it has no moral or practical choice other than to see out the occupation and to help rebuild and democratize the country. But its missteps have come at a heavy cost. And the ongoing financial, diplomatic, and human cost of the Iraq occupation is the more grievous in light of advance warnings the government had. ...
Leadership is always a balance between making large choices and being aware of details. George W. Bush has an obvious preference for large choices. This gave him his chance for greatness after the September 11 attacks. But his lack of curiosity about significant details may be his fatal weakness. When the decisions of the past eighteen months are assessed and judged, the Administration will be found wanting for its carelessness. Because of warnings it chose to ignore, it squandered American prestige, fortune, and lives." (Note: The full article can also be found here. See also: "The Fifty-first State?" (James Fallows, The Atlantic, from the November 2002 issue))

"We owe Arabs nothing" (Robert Kilroy-Silk, Sunday Express/AEMJ, 2004/01/04)
"We are told by some of the more hysterical critics of the war on terror that "it is destroying the Arab world". So? Should w e be worried about that? Shouldn't the destruction of the despotic, barbarous and corrupt Arab states and their replacement by democratic governments be a war aim? After all, the Arab countries are not exactly shining examples of civilisation, are they? Few of them make much contribution to the w elfare of the rest of the world. Indeed, apart from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the West - what do they contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful? Anything really valuable? Something we really need, could not do without? No, nor can I. Indeed, the Arab countries put together export less than Finland.
We're told that the Arabs loathe us. Really? For liberating the Iraqis? For subsidising the lifestyles of people in Egypt and Jordan, to name but two, for giving them vast amounts of aid? For providing them with science, medicine, technology and all the other benefits of the West? They should go down on their knees and thank God for the munificence of the United States. What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the w ay they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders?
That we admire them for the cold-blooded killings in Mombasa, Y emen and elsewhere? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, womenrepressors? I don't think the Arab states should start a debate about what is really loathsome."

"MoveOn.org features ad comparing Bush to Hitler..." (Drudge Report, 2004/01/04)
Script of an ad featured on MoveOn.org:
"GRAPHIC: Pictures Of Hitler
HITLER: (Speaking In German)
CHYRON: We have taken new measures to protect our homeland,

GRAPHIC: Pictures Of Hitler
HITLER: (Speaking In German)
CHYRON: I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator,

GRAPHIC: Pictures Of Hitler
HITLER: (Speaking In German)
CHYRON: God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them,

GRAPHIC: Pictures of President Bush
HITLER: (Speaking In German)
CHYRON: and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did.

CHYRON: SOUND FAMILIAR?
BACKGROUND: Cheering German Crowd" (Note: The disputed (and in my opinion quite unlikely) Bush quote ("God told me...") comes from the then Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas via this Haaretz article: "'Road map is a life saver for us,' PM Abbas tells Hamas" (Arnon Regular, Haaretz, 2003/06/26). See also: Bush in 30 Seconds, where the ad is removed now. Also: Republican National Committee hosts both this and a subsequent MoveOn.org video comparing Bush to Hitler [QuickTime]: "MoveOn.org Should Apologize for Ads Comparing Bush to Hitler" (RNC, 2004/01/05))

"Al-Jazeera Airs Purported Bin Laden Tape" (Maamoun Youssef, AP/myway, 2004/01/04)
"The Al-Jazeera satellite channel broadcast an audiotape Sunday purportedly from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, in which he urged Muslims to continue fighting a holy war in Iraq and the Middle East rather than cooperate with peace efforts.
The speaker, who referred to recent events - including the December capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, called on Muslims to "continue the jihad to check the conspiracies that are hatched against the Islamic nation." He said the U.S.-led war against Iraq was the beginning of the "occupation" of Gulf states for their oil.
"My message is to incite you against the conspiracies, especially those uncovered by the occupation of the crusaders in Baghdad under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and also the situation in (Jerusalem) under the deceptions of the road map and the Geneva initiative," the speaker said."

"Last-Ditch Effort Secures Afghan Charter" (Stephen Graham, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/01/04)
"Afghanistan's constitutional convention agreed on a historic new charter on Sunday, overcoming weeks of division and mistrust to hammer out a compromise meant to bind together the war-ravaged nation's mosaic of ethnic groups.
Just a day after warning that the meeting, or loya jirga, was heading toward a humiliating failure, chairman Sibghatullah Mujaddedi announced that last-ditch diplomacy had secured a deal.
After the new draft was circulated, the 502 delegates gathered under a giant tent in the Afghan capital rose from their chairs, standing in silence for about 30 seconds to signal their support for the new charter." (See also: "Afghan Talks Adjourn, Deeply Divided on Ethnic Lines" (Carlotta Gall, The New York Times, 2004/01/02))

"Four Thai soldiers killed, 18 schools torched in restive Muslim south" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/01/04)
"Four soldiers were shot dead and 18 schools burnt by unidentified attackers in the worst unrest in Muslim-majority southern Thailand for months, officials told AFP.
"A group of 30 armed men launched a series of three attacks in nine districts of two provinces in southern Thailand early Sunday morning," army spokesman Colonel Somkuan Saengpattaranetr said.
The killings occured when several of the attackers raided a military base in the province of Narathiwat, which borders Malaysia, and stole a cache of about 100 weapons, officials said.
No one was injured in the burning of the 18 schools, 16 of which are in Narathiwat and two in neighbouring Yala province. Two police checkpoints were also torched in the attacks, Somkuan added."

"Professors at war - Searching for dissent at the MLA" (Scott Jaschik, The Boston Globe, 2004/01/04)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A report on the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association in San Diego, where about "8,000 professors and graduate students gathered":
"Not that there was much actual debate. In more than a dozen sessions on war-related topics, not a single speaker or audience member expressed support for the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan. The sneering air quotes were flying as speaker after speaker talked of "so-called terrorism," "the so-called homeland," "the so-called election of George Bush," and so forth. ...
The MLA's deliberative body, the Delegate Assembly, adopted by a landslide margin of 122-8 a resolution supporting "the right of its members to conduct critical analysis of war talk" despite government efforts to "shape language to legitimate aggression, misrepresent policies, conceal aims, stigmatize dissent, and block critical thought."
Sometimes that critical analysis was aimed at elements of the antiwar left. While denouncing the "particularly evil cabal" that runs the country, Barbara Foley of Rutgers urged leftist critics to look beyond the distraction of "Bush's cowboyism" to "the Leninist notion of intra-imperialist rivalry" to explain US-European competition for domination of the oil-rich Middle East.
Anthony Dawahare of California State University at Northridge said that "whoever wins the war in Iraq, the working class people in Iraq and in the US will be subject to a dictatorship of the rich." In an interview, he said that unless Howard Dean challenged capitalism itself, student activism on his behalf would be 'a waste of time.'"

"Dhimmitude on the gridiron" (Robert Spencer, Dhimmi Watch, 2004/01/04)
"The Washington Post has had it up to here with all us yahoos getting upset about those Muslim football teams named Intifada, Mujahedin, etc. In a phrase that must have sent the editorial board cackling with the joys of turnabout-is-fair-play, they call it "political correctness run amok." ...
"The critics should take a deep breath and cut the Muslim football players some slack. The young men just want to play football. What kind of subversives are these? Why, instead of agitating, they're assimilating."
Terrific. What would the Post say to a German football team named "Hitler Youth" or "SS"? Or to a Russian team named, say, the Mighty Stalinists?" (See also: "It's Just Football, Not Jihad" (Ruben Navarrette Jr., The Washington Post, 2003/01/03) and "Taking the Intifada to the Football Field" (William Lobdell, Los Angeles Times, 2003/12/07))

"Don't leave Saddam trial to the 'jet set'" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004/01/04)
Steyn II: "Well, it's January, December's come and gone, so let's add up the final score:
Coalition of the Willing: Saddam captured, Gadhafi neutered.
The ''International Community'': Milosevic elected to Parliament in Belgrade.
Yes, indeed. On the last weekend of the year, Slobo won a seat in Serbia's legislature, as did his fellow "alleged'' (as Wes Clark would say) war criminal Vojislav Seselj, and Seselj's extreme nationalist Serbian Radical Party won more seats than anybody else.
But hang on a minute. Aren't Milosevic and Seselj in jail at the Hague and facing the stern justice of an ''international tribunal''? Why, yes. Slobo's been on trial for two years already, and they're only just wrapping up the prosecution. ...
This is the justice Clark wants for Saddam Hussein. If he gets his way, Saddam seems a shoo-in for the Iraqi presidential election circa 2009."

"How the West will win and continue to deny it" (Mark Steyn, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/01/04)
Steyn I: "Two years ago, in The Telegraph, I suggested that the massed ranks of naysayers predicting doom and gloom for America should make a New Year's resolution to stop doubting George W Bush's resolution. Alas, they failed to heed me, and as a result the traditional New Year predictions column is a mite trickier than it used to be. Never mind events that have not yet occurred: we now live in a world where there is no agreement on events that have already happened.
For example, last year I thought the Americans won an amazing military victory in Iraq; the European media, by contrast, thought the Yanks were bogged down in a bloody Vietnam-style quagmire from which there was no escape save ignominious retreat. ...
I predict that this trend will continue throughout 2004. In November, after Howard Dean, the Democrats' Mister Angry, gets trounced in the Presidential election, the BBC's Washington correspondent will declare that the Bush landslide represents a devastating setback for the Administration and is said to have left the President "badly shaken". For those of us in the real world, the Bush victory will be seen as a victory for Bush."

"Rumors of rape fan anti-American flames" (Charles A. Radin, The Boston Globe, 2004/01/04)
Via Tim Blair: "The allegations can be heard almost everywhere in Turkey now, from farmers' wives eating in humble kebab shops, in influential journals, and from erudite political leaders: American troops have raped thousands of Iraqi women and young girls since ousting dictator Saddam Hussein.
Articles in Turkey's Islamist press reporting the allegations have fanned opposition here to the US invasion of Iraq to white-hot anger - and even, apparently, to murder. ...
The articles in the Islamist press are based in part on comments allegedly made by a US sex therapist who denies having written or said anything about soldiers raping women. The therapist, in an online column, explicitly and graphically described the US invasion as a rape, but says that this was clearly a metaphor unrelated to the actions of individual US soldiers, and that she has no knowledge of any physical rapes.
The initial reports in the Turkish press were published in Yeni Safak, a leading Islamist journal.
The first, a front-page article on Oct. 22, stated: "In addition to the occupation and despoilation, thousands of Iraqi women are being raped by American soldiers. There are more than 4,000 rape events on the record." The article's primary source was identified as "Dr. Susan Block," who was reported to have said that a wave of rapes began with the occupation and was ongoing." (See also: "Rape of Iraq" (Susan Block, drsusanblock.com, 2003/12/04))

"Palestinian NGOs reject antiterrorism pledge" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/04)
A brand new cause for Mr Fridolin perhaps?: "Palestinian nongovernmental organizations are refusing to sign a US-sponsored commitment stating they will not transfer funds to individuals or groups that engage in terrorism.
The organizations said Saturday they are planning a popular campaign in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to express their opposition to the document. ...
The new conditions set for financing the NGOs have enraged the Palestinians, who accuse the US of trying to blackmail them by asking them to sign the antiterror document. ...
"While NGOs are against any form of terrorism, including state terrorism practiced by the Israeli army against Palestinians, it is imperative to note that Palestinian NGOs have affirmed their opposition, on several occasions, to any and all acts of violence against civilians — whether Israelis, Palestinians, or internationals," said a statement issued by a large number of Palestinian NGOs.
"It is not clear on what basis and upon which criteria the definition of 'terrorist acts' has been set, especially in light of Israeli attempts to portray the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom and independence as 'violent and terrorist acts,'" the statement added. ...
Some Palestinian NGOs have already declared that they would not sign the document. These include the Mizan Center for Human Rights, the Palestinian Red Crescent, and the Federation of Sanitation Activities."

Saturday, January 3, 2004

News and commentary:

"Tehran worshipers cry 'Death to France!' over head scarves" (AFP/IHT, 2004/01/03)
A report from Tehran: "Thousands of Muslim worshipers shouted "Death to France!" during weekly prayers here Friday in response to a sermon denouncing a proposal to prohibit Muslim schoolgirls in France from wearing head scarves.
Ayatollah Ahmad Janati called on Islamic countries to "threaten France with canceling contracts and to reconsider their relations with France" over the issue. ...
But Janati assured worshipers that all that was necessary was "a roar from Muslims, and the French would back off." He called on the French authorities to "let Muslim women express their freedom and carry out their religious obligations."
His comments were welcomed by shouts of "Death to France!" ...
On Monday, 150 students, including women in the head-to-foot chador, protested in front of the French Embassy in Tehran shouting "Death to France!" and 'Death to Chirac the Zionist!'"

"From Rogue Nuclear Programs, Web of Trails Leads to Pakistan" (David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, The New York Times, 2004/01/03)
"As investigators unravel the mysteries of the North Korean, Iranian and now the Libyan nuclear projects, Pakistan — and those it empowered with knowledge and technology they are now selling on their own — has emerged as the intellectual and trading hub of a loose network of hidden nuclear proliferators.
That network is global, stretching from Germany to Dubai and from China to South Asia, and involves many middlemen and suppliers. But what is striking about a string of recent disclosures, experts say, is how many roads appear ultimately to lead back to the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta, where Pakistan's own bomb was developed. ...
In public, the White House says it has received "assurances" from Pakistan that if there ever were nuclear exports they are finished.
"There is this almost empty-headed recitation of assurances that whatever Pakistan did in the past it's over, it's no longer a problem," said one senior European diplomat with access to much of the intelligence about proliferation. 'But there's is no evidence that it has ever stopped.'"

"She Bomber" (Jeff Edwards et al., The Daily Mirror, 2004/01/03)
"A BA flight to Washington was cancelled at the last minute yesterday after an intelligence tip-off that a woman suicide bomber planned to blow up the plane over the US capital.
It was the third day running that a major security scare had hit the afternoon Flight 223 service from Heathrow to Washington.
US security services told Scotland Yard the woman - almost certainly linked to al-Qaeda - intended to hide eight to 12 ounces of plastic explosive in her vagina.
She would then go to the toilet during the Boeing 747 flight, remove the material and detonate a blast that would down the aircraft."

"British Cancel Another Flight as Allies Query U.S." (Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times, 2004/01/03)
"In another indication of the turmoil resulting from the increased security measures, an American official said that the cancellation of the British Airways flights was not in response to United States safety concerns, but rather was prompted by the refusal of British pilots to fly with armed marshals on board. The United States put other nations on notice earlier this week that it would not allow certain suspicious flights into its airspace without armed marshals on board. ...
But with that aggressive approach have come questions about the quality of the intelligence information. In the case of the Air France cancellations, for instance, the discovery of a name on the passenger manifest similar to that of a Tunisian pilot with possible extremist links ratcheted up concern. But officials said it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity; the name of the passenger was that of a child, a senior official said in an interview. Other apparent "hits" from American terror watch lists turned out to be an elderly Chinese woman who owned a restaurant and a Welsh insurance agent, an F.B.I. official said."

Friday, January 2, 2004

News and commentary:

"Iraq's Future — and Ours" (Victor Davis Hanson, Commentary, from the January 2004 issue)
"Above and beyond this, we must acknowledge the nature of the wider war against terrorism, and of the dark times we are in. We of the postmodern age will lose many more of our own in this struggle, and must kill far more of our premodern enemies to achieve victory. The alternative to that depressing prospect is not a brokered peace but abject defeat, punctuated by more September 11's.
Even apart from the toll in Israel and Iraq, all of the deadly terrorism since 9/11 — against the synagogue in Tunisia, against French naval personnel in Pakistan, Americans in Karachi, tourists in Bali, Israelis in Kenya, Russians in both Moscow and Chechnya, and foreigners in Saudi Arabia, the suicide car bombings in Morocco, the Marriott bombing in Indonesia, the mass murder in Bombay, the killings in Turkey, and so forth — has been perpetrated by Islamic fanatics and directed at Westerners, Christians, Hindus, Jews. In this respect, our efforts are better seen in comparison to World War II than by analogy to Panama or Serbia. Over 400 dead is a shocking figure if we are fighting a Noriega-type adversary; in a war to rid the world of the contemporary avatars of Nazism and Japanese militarism, it is proof of our competence so far but also, alas, only a down payment. ...
In an era of the greatest affluence and security in the history of civilization, the real question before us remains whether the United States — indeed, whether any Western democracy — still possesses the moral clarity to identify evil as evil, and then the uncontested will to marshal every available resource to fight and eradicate it. In that sense, our willingness to use unremitting force to eliminate vast cadres of proven killers, in Iraq and elsewhere, is a referendum on modern democracy itself."

"Ansar leader arrested in Norway" (Gunnar Nyquist, document.no, 2004/01/02)
"A leader of the radical extremist group Ansar al-Islam has been arrested in Norway. Mullah Krekar (aka Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad) was arrested in Oslo on Friday, on suspicion of involvement in recent suicide attacks by Ansar al-Islam in Northern Iraq.
The move by Norwegian law enforcement comes after recent reports that Ansar al-Islam has been active recruiting islamist extremists in Europe for the jihad in Iraq. Italian police in December interviewed Krekar in Oslo, and Ansar was suspected of planning an attack on an American military hospital in Germany this week, which German police managed to prevent." (See also: "Spiritual Leader Is Arrested in Norway" (William Stoichevski, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/01/02): "Mullah Krekar, the spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, was arrested Friday on charges of helping a plot to try to murder his rivals in northern Iraq in 2000-01, his lawyer told The Associated Press.")

"Jews and France, a trust to reestablish" (Gilles Bernheim et al., Le Monde/Watch, 2003/12/29 [2004/01/02])
An essay on the necessity of a reintegration of Judaism in France, translated by Douglas:
"It is difficult to debate the Middle-East tragedy when one has the feeling that the "vital link" that Jews have with Israel has become publicly inadmissible, that the situation over there is reduced to a confrontation between innocent victims and their executioner, that, consciously or not, criticism of the Israeli government's policies slowly devolves into the reprobation of the very existence of a Jewish state. On seeing the disappearance of a space of good faith, in which one can confront opinions, many Jews reacted in an exasperated or disconsolate manner, denouncing the media as a whole and, for the time being, suppressing their denunciations of the Israeli policies the better to form a common front.
This impasse, this hostile intertwining of mentalities results in the recourse to generalizations. In fact, it is other people's hidden agendas that one suspects, that one can no longer bare, and it is not easy to discuss hidden agendas. It is trust in the freedom to speak honestly that is absent. One measures this trust deficit by the prevalence of emigration fantasies, as by the rise of the view that in France, Jews have "too much influence."
To restore trust is, believe us, to regain, to redefine what could be, both for the Jews and others, not a total settlement but a common ground, a common world, shared values and a shared historical ideal." (See also the French original: "Les juifs de France et la France, une confiance à rétablir" (Gilles Bernheim et al., Le Monde, 2003/12/29))

"The left's year of living in lunacy" (Tim Blair, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/02)
"After September 11, however, the global left gathered into two main groups: the sane and the insane.
The sane left realised that the threat represented by fundamentalist Islamic terrorism was directed mainly at them; Osama bin Laden and his supporters would sooner put progressive, pro-feminist, pro-equality activists against the wall than they would any right-wing businessmen. ...
And on the insane left, we found . . . well, every single leftist who opposed the war in Iraq. What were these people thinking? Let's keep nice old Saddam in power until he is able to hand over Iraq to sweet Uday and darling Qusay, bless their raping, bloodlusting little hearts? Let's behave like our brains have been stolen by the CIA?
A great many of them did. 2003 was the year of the Crazy Leftoid, of people who seriously believed they could influence global events by taking off their clothes, painting the Opera House, or hosting The 7.30 Report.
The good news is, for those of us who enjoy watching these groups disintegrate, that 2004 promises total, China Syndrome-level meltdown. You thought the left went berko last year, what with the liberation of Iraq, the capture of Saddam, and the sudden friendly co-operation of Libya's Gaddafi? Just wait for this years entertainment."

"Iraq through history's lens" (William Goldcamp, The Washington Times, 2004/01/02)
"Disingenuous and facile people always point to war as the ultimate evil. This position is intellectually bankrupt and is one of the main reasons why tyranny repeatedly reconstitutes itself to threaten liberty. A new University of Chicago study challenges the left's and the religious pacifists' naive contention that containing Saddam's ambitions would have obviated the need to go to war.
The study concluded containment would have cost $380 billion, as opposed to $200 billion to drive Saddam from power and rebuild Iraq. It also estimated Saddam would have continued to brutalize his people and would have murdered as many as 200,000 more Iraqis. ...
Today there is no alternative to the benevolent exercise of American power for the benefit and liberty of all, as there was none after World War II. Those who claim there is, are ignorant and are whistling past the graveyard." (See also [PDF]: "War in Iraq versus Containment: Weighing the Costs" (Steven J. Davis et al., Chicago GSB, 2003/03/20))

"Saddam's in-laws fight for justice from their mansions" (Harry de Quetteville, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/02)
"From the marble mansions of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's in-laws are leading the world's least likely human rights organisation, as families of the coalition's 55 most wanted men band together to appeal for fair treatment for them. ...
For many Iraqis, however, any treatment short of a slow painful death is too good for the stalwarts of the former regime.
"These relatives of Saddam are monsters," said Assad Majid, from central Baghdad. "They stole businesses and raped girls. We were always afraid they would take my younger sister. There was no justice then but jungle law.
"If they accused you, maybe you could bribe them. If not, there were daily beatings and executions."
The point is not lost on Saef Fadil Mahmoud, the son of Fadil Mahmud Gharib, a Ba'ath Party regional command chairman and No 47 on the coalition's most-wanted list.
"At least with the Americans I know I will see my father again, that he will not simply disappear," he said, pointing to a photograph of him on the wall of his comfortable Baghdad sitting room."

"Afghan Talks Adjourn, Deeply Divided on Ethnic Lines" (Carlotta Gall, The New York Times, 2004/01/02)
"The constitutional grand council adjourned in disarray Thursday, leaving the entire process of drawing up a new constitution badly damaged.
The crisis has revealed a bitter struggle between the leaders of the country, with President Hamid Karzai and his Pashtun kinsmen on one side, and on the other the Islamist leaders and ethnic minorities of the north, who are seeking to preserve some of their wartime power. ...
The president and his supporters got their way, but at great political cost. Some 48 percent of the delegates did not vote and the amendments in question were not even the most important ones.
"It is a technical win but a political loss," a Western diplomat said. 'There is a very high degree of mistrust. It gets harder and harder to resolve.'"

"N. Korea OKs U.S. visit to complex" (Barbara Slavin, USA Today, 2004/01/02)
"North Korea has agreed to allow a U.S. delegation that includes a top nuclear scientist to visit its nuclear complex at Yongbyon next week ahead of likely negotiations with its neighbors and the United States. The delegation would be the first to see the site since North Korea expelled foreign weapons inspectors a year ago.
Members of the U.S. delegation say it includes Sig Hecker, director from 1985 to 1997 of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which produced the first U.S. nuclear bomb and still constructs weapons. Hecker has been told he can visit Yongbyon, where the North Koreans restarted a reactor last year and may have reprocessed used fuel to make plutonium for a half dozen bombs.
By inviting Hecker to Yongbyon, the regime of Kim Jong Il may want to prove that it has nuclear weapons as a way of bolstering a tough negotiating stance. It may also want to try to defuse tensions by showing that its nuclear sites will be open to inspection if a deal is reached."

Thursday, January 1, 2004

News and commentary:

"The demons of Europe" (Josef Joffe, Commentary/likud.nl, from the January 2004 issue)
A must-read essay on "the new anti-Semitism": "Lacking certain murderous elements of the classical type, it is nevertheless rife with some of its most ancient motifs. What is new about it is the projection of these old fantasies onto two new targets: Israel and America. Indeed, the United States is an anti-Semitic fantasy come true: the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in living color.
Do not Jews, their first loyalty to Israel, control the Congress, the Pentagon, the banks, the universities, and the media? Having captured the "hyperpower," do they not finally rule the world? That at least seems to be the consensus of the Europeans, who in a recent EU poll declared Israel and the United States, in that order, to be the greatest threats to world peace. ...
The routine pairing of Israel and America is surely the most interesting new motif in our old story, and has been well dissected by Natan Sharansky in these pages. ...
Like any proper target of anti-ism, America is seen as omnipotent and omni-causal. America's is the hand that pulls all strings. The U.S. is the cause of poverty, despotism, and exploitation in the third world. Like any target of anti-ism, the U.S gets it coming and going: it is a threat to peace when it uses its fearsome power (Iraq) and a traitor to humanity when it does not (Rwanda as well as Bosnia/Kosovo before the bombing campaign).
The similarities with anti-Semitism are hard to escape. Like Jews, Americans are selfish and arrogant. Like Jews, they are in thrall to a fundamentalist religion that renders them self-righteous and dangerous." (Hat tip: Angus Cook. See also: "On Hating the Jews" (Natan Sharansky, Commentary, from the November 2003 issue))

"What We Will Do in 2004" (Colin L. Powell, The New York Times, 2004/01/01)
"While our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq will continue in 2004, we are resolved as well to turn the president's goal of a free and democratic Middle East into a reality. We will expand the Middle East Partnership Initiative to encourage political, economic and educational reform throughout the region. We will also stand by the Iranian people, and others living under oppressive regimes, as they strive for freedom.
This struggle will not be confined to the Middle East. We are working for the advent of a free Cuba, and toward democratic reform in other countries whose people are denied liberty. And we are resolved to support the young democracies that have risen in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The consolidation of freedom in many new but often fragile democracies will shape the aspirations of people everywhere, assuring that the 21st century will be a century of liberty worldwide."

"Swedish MP detained, to be deported" (Margot Dudkevitch and Herb Keinon, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/01)
In the last election campaign Gustav Fridolin maintained that it is racist to even use the word "immigrants". He is not only a useful idiot — he has the silliest haircut in the Swedish Parliament as well: "A Swedish member of parliament was among eight demonstrators detained by Judea and Samaria Police on Wednesday following a violent clash in Budrus, a West Bank village some four kilometers from Modi'in. They were protesting the construction of the security fence on the village's lands. ...
The Swedish parliamentarian, Gustav Fridolin, together with his friend, Frederich Butsler, will be detained at Samaria police headquarters and the two American women, Katherine Refael and Kimberley Gray, will be held at another facility. ...
"Budrus sits on the Green Line," said Marc Luria, of the Security Fence for Israel group. 'We have been pushing for the fence for about three years. It is the government's fault for being so slow in building the fence; today's protest exemplifies that they [the Palestinians] will oppose it wherever it is. It is indicative of their opposition to building the fence in general, that is why the Palestinian leadership is involved in supporting such actions.'"

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

News and commentary:

"Car Bomb Kills 5 at Baghdad Restaurant" (Sarah El Deeb and Matthew Rosenberg, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/12/31)
"A car bomb ripped through an elegant restaurant crowded with diners at a New Year's Eve party featuring belly dancers, live music and fine wine. The blast killed five Iraqis and wounded 35 others, including at least two Americans.
"The glass came flying. Everything else blew up. People were blown apart," said Basam Sarhan, a 25-year-old baker working in the kitchen at the back of the restaurant, located in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood. ...
The Nabil restaurant serves fine wine and other expensive alcoholic drinks — a rarity in Baghdad — and a menu of Western and Arabic dishes. The tables had red and white tablecloths, and it was dimly lit. Musicians played live Arabic music on an electronic keyboard and other instruments.
Inside Nabil, big round tables set for dinner were covered with food. A bottle of White Horse scotch was still standing but its neck was blown off."

"The United States should not try to play..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2003/12/31)
Reynolds on the Middle East conflict (and on why he so seldom touches the subject: "I also don't write about it much because the Palestinians, fundamentally, are the cannon fodder of other people who don't like the United States, and the real way to resolve this problem is to deal with those other people. And so it's those other people who get the bulk of my attention."):
"The United States should not try to play a "neutral arbiter" in the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. We should, in fact, be doing our best to make the Palestinians suffer, because, to put it bluntly, they are our enemies. ...
These folks are our enemies, and deserve to be treated as such. They don't deserve a state of their own. It's not clear that they even deserve to keep what they've got. I don't think this means that the Bush Administration should be taking direct action against them — closing off their funding via shutting down Saddam is a good start, and a policy of slow strangulation directed at Arafat and his fellow terrorists is probably the most politic at the moment. We need to try to squeeze off the EU funding, too, especially now that it's been admitted to be part of a proxy war by the EU not just against Israel, but America.
But let's stop pretending that what's going on between Israel and the Palestinians is some sort of family misunderstanding. It's war, and the Palestinians — and their EU supporters — think it's a war not just against Israel, but against us. We should tailor our approach accordingly."

"The 10 Worst Quotes From The Democratic Underground For 2003" (John Hawkins, Right Wing News, 2003/12/31)
A top ten list revealing the mindset of posters at Democratic Underground: "'What we MUST realize in order to win — Americans are stupid and uninformed. This is very important because in order to win we must understand the way the average American thinks. I'm afraid WE have nothing in common with them.
I came to the two following conclusions when I saw the large number of people who voted for Bush back in 2000.
#1 — I would dare to assume that most of us here are in the upper 1%-20% of the population intelligence-wise. We must come to the realization that the majority of the population is in the lower 80% to 99% percent of the bell-curve. WE are not the norm. ...
In addition, people of average or lower intelligence tend to not be as logical or reasoned as those of higher intelligence - they deal with emotion. Therefore they are more likely to get riled up about someone burning a flag rather than a illogical tax cut. ...
THIS is what we are fighting against people. In order to win we will need to start pandering to the masses.' — Janekat."

"Tough times for the terrorists" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2003/12/31)
"The autumn of 2001 saw our initial counterattacks, while 2002 broadened the international struggle and improved our domestic preparedness. But 2003 was our breakthrough year — 12 months of successes that changed the course of history. ...
Those naive or disingenuous voices insisting that our liberation of Iraq was a diversion from the War on Terror refuse to accept that the problem isn't a few deadly fanatics but a suffocating civilization.
The administration's resolve to force change in the Middle East was as crucial as it was courageous. We can't force Iraqis - or anyone else — to succeed, but we've done what no others have dared: We've given tens of millions of long-oppressed human beings a chance to live in freedom.
Much of this century will be shaped by what they make of that great chance. ...
Whether facing down Taliban remnants in Afghanistan or shaming the rest of the world into providing more assistance to Africa's struggle against AIDS, we've made an epochal break with the tradition of wealthy states embracing easy short-term solutions instead of engaging long-term problems. Future historians will regard 2003 as one of the dates when history made a great turn, as a global 1776."

"Brazil to fingerprint US citizens" (BBC News, 2003/12/31)
A late contestant for the most loony Nazi analogy of 2003. And a likely winner at that: "A Brazilian judge has announced that US citizens will be fingerprinted and photographed on entering the country.
Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva was reacting to US plans to do the same to Brazilians entering the United States. ...
"I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis," Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva said in the court order. [Emphasis added.]"

"Hawks tell Bush how to win war on terror" (David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/12/31)
"President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites.
The manifesto, presented as a "manual for victory" in the war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies.
The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington.
In the battle for the president's ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass.
Their publication, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, coincided with the latest broadside from the hawks' enemy number one, Colin Powell, the secretary of state."

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

News and commentary:

"Al Qaeda videos found in Iraq weapons raid" (CNN.com, 2003/12/30)
"U.S. forces operating in the so-called Sunni Triangle - the region of Iraq most loyal to captured former dictator Saddam Hussein - found a significant weapons cache that included al Qaeda literature and videotapes, the U.S. military said Tuesday. ...
In addition to the al Qaeda literature and videos, the troops found nearly 8,000 rounds of ammunition; 160 mortar rounds and six mortar tubes; 43 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 79 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs); and 19 AK-47 assault rifles, as well as dozens of other weapons.
The military also said a significant amount of C4 and TNT explosives material was found, as was material to make improvised explosive devices — the crudely made bombs that have killed or maimed dozens of coalition troops.
That was just one of several large weapons caches uncovered in Iraq in the last two days."

"The Western Disease" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2003/12/30)
"There is something terribly wrong, something terribly amoral with the Western intelligentsia, most prominently in academia, the media, and politics. We don't need Osama bin Laden's preschool jabbering about "the weak horse" to be worried about the causes of this Western disease: thousands of the richest, most leisured people in the history of civilization have become self-absorbed, ungracious, and completely divorced from the natural world — the age-old horrific realities of dearth, plague, hunger, rapine, or conquest. ...
If a pundit from Paris was riled that Saddam was not yet advised by an international human-rights lawyer, the masses on the West Bank trumped that concern by lamenting that he had not even machine-gunned an American on his way out — or indeed done anything to restore Arab tribal pride. Lost between the shared loony sympathies of the first-world elite and the third-world clan, between refined postmodern and uncouth premodern societies, was an iota of lamentation for the dead, those rotting and dried-out bones that appear in the thousands in desert sands outside Baghdad.
Both Western pontificators and the mob in the Middle East feed off each other. Paul Krugman would rarely write a column about how abjectly immoral it was that thousands mourned the death of a mass murderer when one can say worse things about an American president who chose not to use American dollars to hire French companies to rebuild Iraq. Bob Herbert can falsely rant about a Florida election "rigged," but seldom about an election never occurring in the Arab world."

"The pundits in love with doom and gloom" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/12/30)
Politics of Hatred II: "'It is hard not to hate George Bush,' wrote Hastings the other day. "His ignorance and conceit, his professed special relationship with God, invite revulsion. A few weeks ago, I heard a British diplomat observe sagely: 'We must not demonise Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.' Why not? The US defence secretary and his assistant have implemented coalition policy in Iraq in a fashion that makes Soviet behaviour in Afghanistan in the 1970s appear dextrous."
Does that sound like a Daily Telegraph editor? Former editor, I hasten to add, thank God. Wolfowitz is a demonic figure to the anti-war types for little reason other than that his name begins with a big scary animal and ends Jewishly. ...
The real story of this past year is not Saddam, but something deeper, symbolised by the bizarre persistence of the "anti-war" movement even after the war was over. For a significant chunk of the British establishment and for most of the governing class on the Continent, if it's a choice between an America-led West or no West at all they'll take the latter. That's the trend to watch in the year ahead." (See also: "Bush wants Saddam to hang, but we must resist" (Max Hastings, The Guardian, 2003/12/20))

"Bush-Hatred: Fearful Loathing . . ." (Robert J. Samuelson, The Washington Post, 2003/12/30)
Politics of Hatred I: "The political story of 2003 was, in some ways, the fashionableness of "hate." It became respectable not simply to disagree with George W. Bush or to dislike him and criticize him — but to go further and declare your everlasting hate for the man. ...
More than the language is butchered. Once disagreement turns into self-proclaimed hate, it becomes blinding. You can see only one all-encompassing truth, which is your villain's deceit, stupidity, selfishness or evil. This was true of Clinton haters, and it's increasingly true of Bush haters. A small army of pundits and talking heads has now devoted itself to one story: the sins of Bush, Cheney and their supporters. ...
On one level, their embrace of hatred aims to make others share their outrage; but on another level, it's a self-indulgent declaration of moral superiority — something that makes them feel better about themselves. Either way, it represents another dreary chapter in the continuing coarsening of public discourse."

"Why did so many have to die in Bam?" (David Aaronovitch, The Guardian, 2003/12/30)
Bam III: "So why, despite the loss of 40,000 lives in the Gilan earthquake of 1990, had nothing been done? The same question was being asked back in the queue outside the clinic. Fariba Hemati told the Guardian what she thought of official efforts, "Our government is only preoccupied with slogans: 'Death to America', 'Death to Israel', 'Death to this and that'. We have had three major earthquakes in the past three decades. Thousands of people have died but nothing has been done. Why?" ...
The answer to Hemati is that, after a quarter of a century, Iran is still being ruled by a useless, incompetent semi-theocracy, which is fatalistic, complacent, unresponsive and often brutal. And such a system does not deliver to its citizens one fraction of what the Great Satan, for all its manifest faults, manages to guarantee to ordinary Americans.
Following the fall of the Berlin wall there was, as the philosopher John Gray put it, a "false dawn" of the New Age of Liberal Democracy, in which all problems everywhere could be expected to be solved by a free market and free elections. But this triumphalism has been replaced, in some quarters at least, by the equally vacuous tropes of the anti-globalisation movement and its demonisation of liberal capitalism.
What, I wonder, has Arundhati Roy to say now about the superiority of traditional building methods over globalised ones? Some Iranians might think that it's a shame there wasn't a McDonald's in Bam. It would have been the safest place in town." (See also: "We should have been ready for this, say Iranians" (Maziar Bahari and Tim Radford, The Guardian, 2003/12/28))

"Iran clarifies the Middle East" (Dennis Prager, Town Hall, 2003/12/30)
Bam II: "If you want to understand the Middle East conflict, Iran has just provided all you need to know.
A massive earthquake kills between 20,000 and 40,000 Iranians, and the government of Iran announces that help is welcome from every country in the world . . . except Israel.
This little-reported news item is of great significance. It begs commentary. ...
Western naifs like to believe platitudes such as "Deep down, all people are really the same," "All people want peace," and the great untruth of multiculturalism that no culture is morally superior to another. That is why they choose not to face the truth about the Nazi-like hatred that permeates the Arab/Muslim world and the consequent moral gulf that exists between it and Israel. It shatters too many of their illusions. ...
The two reactions - Iran's preference for Iranian deaths to Israeli help and the Jewish state's instinctive offer to help save Iranian lives - ought to be enough anyone needs to understand the source of the Middle East conflict. But they won't. Because those who are anti-Israel or "evenhanded" are not so because of the facts, but despite them." (Hat tip: Malcolm Smordin. See also: "Iran's arch-foe Israel offers condolences on quake" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2003/12/27))

"Iran's political quake" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2003/12/30)
Bam I: "One thing is certain: The earthquake has dealt a serious blow to the dwindling fortunes of the so-called pro-reform coalition led by President Muhammad Khatami. The anger it has provoked throughout the country is unlikely to ebb soon.
It may, in fact, overshadow the general election that is now less than two months away. What is already known as "the Bam effect" could produce either a mass boycott of the polls or an unexpected victory for the more hard-line Khomeinists who insist that Khatami's talk of reform has led the country into an impasse.
Khatami was able to take the measure of things himself when he was booed and boycotted during his whirlwind visit to the stricken regions four days after the quake. In fact, he had to cancel the best part of his program because the local authorities could not ensure his security. At least two of Khatami's ministers, visiting the affected areas, narrowly escaped being beaten up by angry survivors.
To be sure, blaming Khatami for a natural disaster is unfair. But he represents a regime that, to many Iranians, is at least partially responsible for the tragedy."

"Banned Arms Flowed Into Iraq Through Syrian Firm" (Bob Drogin and Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times, 2003/12/30)
"A Syrian trading company with close ties to the ruling regime smuggled weapons and military hardware to Saddam Hussein between 2000 and 2003, helping Syria become the main channel for illicit arms transfers to Iraq despite a stringent U.N. embargo, documents recovered in Iraq show.
The private company, called SES International Corp., is headed by a cousin of Syria's autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, and is controlled by other members of Assad's Baath Party and Alawite clan. Syria's government assisted SES in importing at least one shipment destined for Iraq's military, the Iraqi documents indicate, and Western intelligence reports allege that senior Syrian officials were involved in other illicit transfers.
Iraqi records show that SES signed more than 50 contracts to supply tens of millions of dollars' worth of arms and equipment to Iraq's military shortly before the U.S.-led invasion in March."

Note: Free Iran has a useful page covering the Arg-e-Bam Earthquake & it's aftermath, with news, commentary, pictures and a forum.

Monday, December 29, 2003

News and commentary:

"Outrage of the Day" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2003/12/29)
"Trent University professor Michael Neumann recently carried on an email correspondence with a foul antisemitic web site called the Jewish Tribal Review, in which he wrote:

"My sole concern is indeed to help the Palestinians, and I try to play for keeps. I am not interested in the truth, or justice, or understanding, or anything else, except so far as it serves that purpose."
The Web site quotes Neumann as writing, "I should perhaps have said I am very interested in truth, justice and understanding, but right now I have far more interest in helping the Palestinians. I would use anything, including lies, injustice and obfuscation, to do so. If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don’t come to light, I don't care. If an effective strategy means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism or reasonable hostility to Jews, I don't care. If it means encouraging vicious racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the State of Israel, I still don't care."

When these remarks came to light, Neumann was forced to apologize; he should have been fired and disgraced.
But none of this matters to the Los Angeles Times, who today publish a truly loathsome commentary piece by Michael Neumann, in which he "argues" that antisemitism is A Minor Problem, Overblown. ... Go read it, and keep Neumann’s own words in mind as you do. His commentary for the LA Times is very much in line with his openly antisemitic philosophy." (See also: "CJC confronts Trent U over professor" (Anna Morgan, CJC, 2003/08/13) and "A Minor Problem, Overblown" (Michael Neumann, Los Angeles Times, 2003/12/28): "Concentration camp survivors still alive deserve sympathy and justice, but they are few. Myself, I'd feel a bit embarrassed saying to a homeless person on the streets of Toronto, much less to the inhabitants of a Philippine garbage dump: 'Oh yeah? You think you know suffering? My grandmother died in a concentration camp!'")

"A Conspiracy So Vast" (Byron York, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/12/29)
York on George Soros's "The Bubble of American Supremacy":
"In particular, Mr. Soros believes, the president and some top officials in his administration were influenced by the Project for a New American Century, the Washington think tank that the anti-Bush left sees as the nerve center of the neoconservative conspiracy. Mr. Soros seems positively obsessed with the Project; in this short book, he reprints its entire mission statement, along with a description of each founder.
According to Mr. Soros's theory, the ideologues at the Project had a longstanding war plan to impose American supremacy on the world. But they faced two obstacles: George W. Bush, their chosen president, did not have a mandate to take such drastic action, and America had no clearly defined enemy. Then, almost as if by magic, Sept. 11 "removed both obstacles in one stroke," Mr. Soros writes.
The newly empowered president declared war on terrorism, and the nation went along. "The administration deliberately fostered the fear that has gripped the country," Mr. Soros continues. "It then used the war on terrorism to pursue its dream of American supremacy." And a sensible course of foreign aid and trade policy was abandoned in favor of war. ...
At any given time, there is some small sliver of the American population that believes the president — any president — is a Nazi. Those people are usually thought of as nut cases. Now they can count among their number one of the world's richest and most influential men." (See also: "The Bubble of American Supremacy" (George Soros, The Atlantic, from the December 2003 issue))

"Journalist fired for book critical of French newspapers" (John Vinocur, IHT, 2003/12/29)
More on the Hertoghe affair: "Last week Hertoghe said that his "problem" was not "anyone's opinion on the war, but that there were no diverse and opposing views on its legitimacy. Readers were not offered a debate."
"What bothered me more," he continued, "was that reporting, when it was uncertain what was going on, fell into predictions of disaster because there were so many who wanted for everything to go wrong. As soon as there were problems on the ground for the United States, it was Vietnam."
Hertoghe said newspapers ignored reports from journalists traveling with U.S. forces, including those from Agence France-Presse, when they did not indicate insurmountable difficulties.
"The papers wanted disaster, and when the reporting didn't reflect it, they predicted it," he said.
"Le Monde went the furthest," he added. "I wrote that Le Monde became 'Saddam's Gazette.' It gave a picture from Baghdad of Saddam's units perfectly controlling the situation. The difference between Le Monde and Le Figaro was that Le Figaro insisted that American tanks would operate easily on Baghdad's wide streets."
'Then when the Americans made their move, we read how they were massacring the Iraqis. The explanation for the collapse was that Saddam's fedayeen had so much compassion for the population that they stopped fighting.'"

"France's excesses in opposition to war" (Daniel Schneidermann, Liberation/Watch, 2003/12/26 [2003/12/29])
Schneidermann on the silence surrounding the firing of Alain Hertoghe from the daily newspaper La Croix, because of his new book criticizing last spring's coverage of the Iraq war by five French dailies — including La Croix:
"The matter made little noise: a few bulletins in the aforementioned dailies. On reading the book, one understands better this indifference. It is surely due to the fact that Alain Hertoghe commits not only the crime of criticizing his own newspaper but also of running counter to the majority of French opinion. Had he criticized the media for their support of the American war, his having been fired would surely have aroused greater emotion. But the facts are to the contrary. For him, the five dailies, over which he poured day after day, saw through a “a triple partisan prism: demonize the Bush administration, adhere to the Chirac-Villepin line and make common cause with anti-war public opinion.” ...
The national French press is in crisis for several reasons, particularly because its readers accuse it of not fully and honestly informing them. It isn’t by quietly firing those of its journalists who share this view that it will regain its lost credibility." (Note: Translated by Douglas, who has more comments on the affair: "Yet Another Outrage" (Douglas, Last of the Famous International Playboys, 2003/12/29). See also the French original: "Les outrances françaises de l'antiguerre" (Daniel Schneidermann, Liberation, 2003/12/26))

"Miracle of Baghdad" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2003/12/29)
"Startling new Army statistics show that strife-torn Baghdad — considered the most dangerous city in the world — now has a lower murder rate than New York.
The newest numbers, released by the Army's 1st Infantry Division, reveal that over the past three months, murders and other crimes in Baghdad are decreasing dramatically and that in the month of October, there were fewer murders per capita there than the Big Apple, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. ...
According to the Army, there were 92 murders in Baghdad, a city of 5 million people, in July. The number dropped to 75 in August, 54 in September and 24 in October.
In New York, a city of 8 million people, there were 52 murders in July, 51 in August, 52 in September and 45 in October.
John Lott of the American Enterprise Institute, who recently published an extensive analysis on Iraqi crime figures, says the numbers indicate that Baghdad's murder rate dropped from 19.5 per 100,000 people in July to a rate of five killings per 100,000 people in October."

"Saddam Giving Info on Weapons and Funds-Official" (Reuters, 2003/12/29)
"Saddam Hussein has given his U.S. captors information on hidden weapons and as much as $40 billion he may have seized while he was Iraq's president, an Iraqi official was quoted as saying on Monday.
"Saddam has confessed the names of people he told to keep the money and he gave names of those who have information on equipment and weapons warehouses," Iyad Allawi, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, told the London-based Asharq al-Awsat daily.
"The Governing Council is searching for $40 billion worth of funds seized by Saddam when he was in power and which has been deposited in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and other countries under the names of fictitious companies," Allawi said."

 

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

Copyright © Watch 2001-2006.
Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.

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

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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

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

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

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

› From 2001/09/11 -



Monthly index

December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006

› From September 2001 -



Author index

› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat



Support Watch

Please feel free to donate if you enjoy the daily content and links Watch provides:

Contact Watch

Email:
watch-at-windsofchange.net