Archived news and commentary: September 24 - 30, 2001

2001/12/24 - 2001/12/31
2001/12/17 - 2001/12/23
2002/12/10 - 2001/12/16
2002/12/03 - 2001/12/09
2001/11/26 - 2001/12/02
2001/11/19 - 2001/11/25
2001/11/12 - 2001/11/18
2001/11/05 - 2001/11/11
2001/10/29 - 2001/11/04
2001/10/22 - 2001/10/28
2001/10/15 - 2001/10/21
2001/10/08 - 2001/10/14
2001/10/01 - 2001/10/07
2001/09/24 - 2001/09/30
2001/09/17 - 2001/09/23
2001/09/11 - 2001/09/16

Sunday, September 30, 2001

News and commentary:

"Afghan chaos explodes across region" (Ian Traynor et al., The Observer 2001/09/30)
"As thousands of Afghans yesterday attempted to flee across the borders into Tajikistan, Pakistan and Iran, the first accounts of how the Taliban are involved in ethnic attacks against their own people began to emerge. The violence being dealt out within the country's closed borders, and the resulting refugee crisis, were yesterday plunging into chaos a huge swath of Central Asia that could have devastating consequences for the rest of the world."

"The secret war" (Martin Bright et al., The Observer, 2001/09/30)
"French investigators now believe Beghal was returning to France to give the go-ahead for a suicide attack on the US embassy in the Place de la Concorde in central Paris, using a lorry or even a helicopter. By last week Beghal - who spent two years in London recruiting for his violent and bizarre organisation of fanatics - was emerging as one of the key British links at the centre of a worldwide conspiracy; the point of contact between bin Laden's group and a wider network of allied Islamist terror groups. ... The group, once thought beyond the pale - even by bin Laden's al-Queda organisation - believes that everyone who does not adhere to their views, including less devout Muslims, should be counted as infidels and were legitimate targets in any Holy War. ... Thanks to his evidence, the full scale and scope of what was intended finally began to become clear to police and intelligence agencies across Europe and the US. It consisted of a loose network of groups in Germany, France, Spain and UK, all with the same aim in mind: attacks on US interests across the globe. Among the planned attacks, police now know, was one on the US consulate in Marseille, and a plot to kill President Bush and other G8 leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialised nations."

"I was one of the Taliban's torturers: I crucified people" (The Daily Telegraph, 2001/09/30)
An interview with Hafiz Sadiqulla Hassani, a defected former Taliban secret police: "'Basically any form of pleasure was outlawed,' Mr Hassani said, 'and if we found people doing any of these things we would beat them with staves soaked in water - like a knife cutting through meat - until the room ran with their blood or their spines snapped. Then we would leave them with no food or water in rooms filled with insects until they died.'"

"The Case for Force" (The Washington Post, 2001/09/30)
An editorial examining the arguments of the antiwar protesters: "Finally, it is argued that striking back will only perpetuate the "cycle of violence." This is the most alluring argument, and the one that is flat-out wrong. There is a cycle of violence, but it has nothing to do with tit-for-tat. It is a cycle that includes the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attack on Khobar Towers in Saudia Arabia in 1996, the bombing of U.S. embassies in east Africa in 1998 and the attempted sinking of the USS Cole in Yemen last year. These were attacks by Islamic terrorists that killed service members and civilians, American and foreign; the terrorists received shelter and support from anti-American governments; the governments paid no price. It is precisely to break that cycle of violence that the United States now must act."

"Hijacking suspects linked to Afghanistan" (CNN.com, 2001/09/30)
"At least four of the 19 suspected hijackers implicated in this month's terrorist attacks against the United States trained at camps in Afghanistan run by suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, an intelligence source familiar with the federal investigation said Saturday. Additionally, the source said that "most" of the hijackers had connections to al Qaeda, the network run by bin Laden. Previously, sources had named three alleged hijackers with connections to al Qaeda."

"Bin Laden's Journey From Rich Pious Lad to the Mask of Evil" (Robert D. McFadden, The New York Times, 2001/09/30)
"To the United States government, the 44-year-old Saudi exile is the most wanted fugitive in history, the founder and leader of a terrorist network known as Al Qaeda (The Base), which has in a decade trained 5,000 or more militants in Sudan and Afghanistan and posted them to perhaps 50 countries to await their turn to strike. And strike they have, American officials assert, with bin Laden plans, money or inspiration behind the bombings of the trade center in 1993 (6 dead), two American embassies in Africa in 1998 (224 dead) and the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000 (17 dead), and the jetliners that collapsed the trade center towers, damaged the Pentagon and crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11 (more than 6,500 feared dead). ... To millions in the Islamic world who hate America for what they regard as its decadent culture and imperial government, he is a hero who shunned the easy life to battle the infidels for Allah, who has justified killings with arcane interpretations of the Koran, and carried them out with encrypted e-mail, and plots stored on CD-ROM's." (See also "Issue in depth" (The New York Times), with links to articles about bin Laden from The New York Times archives and "License to Kill: Usama bin Ladin's Declaration of Jihad" (Bernard Lewis, Foreign Affairs, from the November/December 1998 issue), about the "Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders", a statement attributed to bin Laden.)

Saturday, September 29, 2001

News and commentary:

"The algebra of infinite justice" (Arundhati Roy, The Guardian, 2001/09/29)
A longwinded editorial, which perfectly captures the algebra of moral equivalence, equating Bush with bin Laden: "But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He's America's family secret. He is the American president's dark doppelgänger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America's foreign policy... ... Now that the family secret has been spilled, the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable."

"The fascist sympathies of the soft left" (Christopher Hitchens, The Spectator, 2001/09/29)
"The very first step that we must take, therefore, is the acquisition of enough self-respect and self-confidence to say that we have met an enemy and that he is not us, but someone else. ... But straight away, we meet people who complain at once that this enemy is us, really. Did we not aid the grisly Taleban to achieve and hold power? ... I have no hesitation in describing this mentality, carefully and without heat, as soft on crime and soft on fascism. No political coalition is possible with such people and, I’m thankful to say, no political coalition with them is now necessary. It no longer matters what they think."

"Fundamentally wrong" (Damian Thompson, The Spectator, 2001/09/29)
"It might also be worth looking at the way in which strands of Christian eschatology are beginning to find their way into the Islamic world. Arab fundamentalists long ago woke up to the potential of European anti-Semitic literature such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, in a truly bizarre piece of cultural miscegenation, they are turning to the Bible belt for inspiration. Supporters of Osama bin Laden have taken to putting quotes on their websites from Safar al-Hawali, a 47-year-old sheikh who has become Saudi Arabia's answer to Hal Lindsey. His book Day of Wrath seizes on exactly the same verses in the Books of Daniel and Revelation as The Late Great Planet Earth does; but, instead of prophesying the victory of Christ, it describes the annihilation of Israel and America by Islam."

"Injunctions to Pray, Instructions to Kill" (The New York Times, 2001/09/29)
Written instructions link hijackers on 3 flights: "When the confrontation begins, strike like champions who do not want to go back to this world. Shout, "Allahu Akbar," because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers. God said: "Strike above the neck, and strike at all of their extremities." Know that the gardens of paradise are waiting for you in all their beauty, and the women of paradise are waiting, calling out, "Come hither, friend of God." They have dressed in their most beautiful clothing." (Full text)

"Roots Of Rage" (Lisa Beyer, TIME, from the 2001/10/01 issue)
"But to get to the virulence of antipathy exhibited by the kamikaze 19 and their abettors and apologists, another element is required. That element is the idea that the U.S. is not just the enemy of the Arabs or even of Muslims generally but also the enemy of God. It is an idea encouraged by the Ayatullah Khomeini, who proclaimed the U.S. "the Great Satan," spread by Islamic extremists throughout the Arab world and now given potent expression by, it would seem, the biggest player among all such militants today, Osama bin Laden."

Added one new section and two new links in Links:
Hoaxes and rumours of war.

Urban Legends Reference Pages
CSICOP Hoax Watch

Note: Apart from crackpot hoaxes about UFO:s and demons seen in conjunction with the attacks, there are more devious ones, as for example one which states that "Four thousand Jews employed by companies housed in the World Trade Center stayed home from work on September 11, warned in advance of the impending attack on the World Trade Center." This hoax was reported as a fact by, for example, Al-Manar Television. Urban Legends Reference Pages comments: "In this case, there are plenty of anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, and anti-Israeli groups eager to use the horrors of September 11 as fodder for propaganda to serve their own political ends."

Friday, September 28, 2001

News and commentary:

"The Last Totalitarians" (Brink Lindsey, National Review, 2001/09/28)
"But the fundamental nature of our present adversaries, once seen plainly, is all too familiar. The evil we confront today is the evil of totalitarianism: Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and their coconspirators are the modern-day successors of Lenin and Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot. ... In the tragic, broken societies of the Islamic world - where free markets have gained little foothold, and democracy even less - radical hostility to modernity still festers on a large scale. And it has given rise to a distinctive form of totalitarianism: one that uses a perverted form of religious faith, rather than any purely secular ideology, as its reactionary mythos. For the past quarter-century, radical Islamist fundamentalism has roiled the nations in which it arose. Now it has reached out to wage a direct, frontal assault on its antithesis - its "Great Satan": the United States."

"Is globalisation doomed?" (The Economist, 2001/09/28)
"Is there no limit to the crimes for which globalisation must be held to account? Not only does it oppress the consumers of the rich West, undermine the welfare state, emasculate democracy, despoil the environment, and entrench poverty in the third world; we knew all that already. In addition, we now find, it is a utopian scheme for global ideological conquest - like Stalinism, minus the compassion. Truly, the idea that people should be left free to trade with each other in peace must be the most wicked and dangerous doctrine ever devised. Either that, or a lot of people are talking nonsense. In fact, this is a distinct possibility. ... Globalisation undermines neither the welfare state nor democracy, our survey argues; it is entirely consistent with sound environmental policies; above all, far from increasing poverty in the third world, it is the most effective force for reducing poverty known to mankind." (See also: "Economic man, cleaner planet" (The Economist, 2001/09/27))

"Islamic religious law dictates that we join the Taliban's Jihad" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 277: Terror in America, 2001/09/28)
Sheikh Yussuf Al-Qaradhawi, a leading Sunni Muslim religious authority and the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood: "A Muslim is forbidden from entering into an alliance with a non-Muslim against another Muslim. Allying with others to kill [Muslims] is collaborating in sin and aggression. It is also forbidden to hand over Muslims to others. Something like this is inconceivable. Islamic (Shari'ah) law says that if a Muslim country is attacked, the other Muslim countries must help it, with their souls and their money, until it is liberated."

"Justice takes on a different meaning in Afghanistan" (Sam Handlin, Court TV, 2001/09/28)
"For crimes in which the punishment is not so clear, the Taliban's mullahs convene to consider the proper sentence. 'We have a dilemma on this,' the Taliban announced in one edict concerning the case of two men found to be homosexuals. 'The difficulty is this: One group of scholars believes you should take these people to the top of the highest building in the city, and hurl them to their deaths. [The other group] believes in a different approach. They recommend you dig a pit near a wall somewhere, put these people in it, then topple the wall so that they are buried alive.'"

"Civilization Envy - On Muslims, Israel, and McDonald’s" (Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 2001/09/28)
"A Reuters story this morning begins, "Muslims around the world today demanded an apology from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the European Union recoiled with horror after the Italian asserted that Western Civilization was superior to Islam." ... While critics have called his remarks "unacceptable," "barbaric," "silly," and - of course - "racist," I am at a loss to find a single untrue word in his remarks..."

"Berlusconi Comment About Superiority of West Stirs Furor" (The New York Times, 2001/09/28)
"A declaration by the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, that Western civilization is superior to the culture of the Islamic world drew a furious outcry yesterday in Italy, Europe and beyond. ... In Cairo, Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said: 'Either a denial is issued that he did not utter this, or an apology should be offered to the Muslim nation of more than one billion people. I consider his remarks racist, and by such remarks he has crossed the limits of reason and decency.'"

"The New Anti-Americanism of the Academic Left" (Candace de Russy and Winfield Myers, FrontPageMagazine.com, 2001/09/28)
"Yet our nation’s day of death, September 11, has given the academic left new reason to live. Enraged that a people could so unite behind their president and flag, left-wing professors, students, and vagrant activists are holding rallies, teach-ins, demonstrations, and vigils to protest America’s will to defend herself against the war the terrorists have brought to our shores."

"Relentlessly and Thoroughly" (Paul Johnson, National Review, from the 2001/10/15 issue)
"Bold and uncompromising words were spoken by American (and British) leaders in the immediate response to the Manhattan Massacre. But they may be succeeded by creeping appeasement unless public opinion insists that these leaders stick to their initial resolve to destroy international terrorism completely. One central reason why appeasement is so tempting to Western governments is that attacking terrorism at its roots necessarily involves conflict with the second-largest religious community in the world."

"Why America Has Already Lost the War" (Moshe Feiglin, IsraelNationalNews.com, 2001/09/28)
"America will never admit that it is involved in a war of cultures, in fact in a religious war. Such an admission implies that, as in the case of Israel, American values are fundamentally at question. They are not as universal as Americans would like to believe. ... Bin Laden will enter the pantheon of the Shahids [martyrs for Islam], but another million are waiting their turn and they are impatient."

"Food fight" (Michael Rubin, The New Republic, 2001/06/18)
As it seems quite commonplace to blame U.S.A. for the plight of the Iraqi people, and weigh that against the terror attacks, this article, published in June, is an interesting read: "But incredibly, even as Saddam's regime milks its people's suffering for international sympathy, it sells food abroad that is earmarked for Iraqi citizens. ... When you throw in the fact that per capita income in Iraq (approximately $1,000) remains higher than in Syria ($900) and Yemen ($270), where few people go hungry, it becomes clear that there's no reason why Iraqis should be suffering - particularly when Saddam's regime has found $2 billion to build palaces, and even an amusement park for party officials, since the sanctions began."

"The Clash of Civilizations?" (Samuel P. Huntington, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993)
Published 1993, this seminal essay is often quoted in the aftermath of the terror attacks: "It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. ... The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future."

Thursday, September 27, 2001

News and commentary:

"The roots of hatred" (The Economist, 2001/09/27)
"Whatever its mistakes, the idea that America brought the onslaught upon itself is absurd. ... America defends its interests, sometimes skilfully, sometimes clumsily, just as other countries do. Since power, like nature, abhors a vacuum, it steps into places where disorder reigns. On the whole, it should do so more, not less, often. Of all the great powers in history, it is probably the least territorial, the most idealistic. Muslims in particular should note that the armed interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, both led by America, were attacks on Christian regimes in support of Muslim victims. In neither did the United States stand to make any material gain; in neither were its vital interests, conventionally defined, at stake. Those who criticise America's leadership of the world's capitalist system - a far from perfect affair - should remember that it has brought more wealth and better living standards to more people than any other in history."

"Italy's Premier Calls West Superior to Islamic World" (Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, 2001/09/27)
The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, in a briefing for journalists, praised Western civilization today as superior to that of the Islamic world and urged Europe to 'reconstitute itself on the basis of its Christian roots.' ... 'We should be confident of the superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion,' Mr. Berlusconi said. 'This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries.'"

"Against 'Nation Building'" (Claudia Rosett, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/09/27)
"This is a fight to establish civilized international codes of conduct and persuade all relevant parties that they will pay an unbearably high price for such rogue behavior as helping terrorists. This is a war to define and enforce some clear and overdue rules for the post-Cold War era. In two brief lines at a press conference Tuesday, Mr. Bush summed up this policy: 'We're not into nation building. We're focused on justice.'"

"Backlash and backtrack" (Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly, 2001/09/27)
"If only more Americans and others can grasp that the main long-range hope for the world is this community of conscience and understanding, that whether in the protection of constitutional rights, or in reaching out to the innocent victims of American power (as in Iraq)... ... Perhaps this constituency may grow in the United States, but speaking as a Palestinian, I must also hope that a similar constituency should be emerging in the Arab and Muslim world. We must start thinking about ourselves as responsible for the poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, and repression that have come to dominate our societies, evils that we have allowed to grow despite our complaints about Zionism and imperialism."

"Bin Laden Recruits With Graphic Video" (Michael Powell, The Washington Post, 2001/09/27)
"Shot at training bases in Afghanistan, and drawing on powerful and horrific news images of soldiers beating and killing Muslim women and children, the two-hour video offers a window into the worldview of the man who has led his followers into a war with the United States. ... The film opens with a Holocaust-like montage of horrors perpetrated on Muslims. Dead boys, eyes vacant, stare up. Children scream, dirt is tossed on a coffin, a woman's face is soaked with blood. And, repeatedly, footage shows Israeli soldiers hitting children and shooting at civilians. An Israeli soldier is shown putting a dead baby into a garbage bag after a wartime attack on a Lebanese village. The film refers to Jews as "dogs" and "pigs." The faces of Clinton and members of the Saudi royal family are often superimposed. The message, Bulliet notes, is simple: The Jews are killing your men, women and children, backed by complicit Arab rulers and the United States."

Wednesday, September 26, 2001

News and commentary:

"Many American Right-Wing Racial Extremists Applaud Sept. 11 Attacks" (Jim Nesbitt, Newhouse News Service, 2001/09/26)
Interesting how closely related the sentiments among racial extremists and some left-wing liberals are: "In newsgroup postings, Web site articles and Internet radio broadcasts, they have expressed everything from outright admiration for the Arab terrorists to more measured communiques. The latter condemn the terrorists, but blame the attacks on an American foreign policy that unabashedly backs Israel, calling for an "America First" shift toward isolationism. ... There is also a parroting of the anti-free trade, anti-global capitalism rhetoric commonly found among the left-leaning street protesters who have hounded meetings of the World Trade Organization and World Bank, sparking riots in Seattle and in Italy, experts say."

"The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky" (David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine, 2001/09/26)
"Without question, the most devious, the most dishonest and -- in this hour of his nation’s grave crisis – the most treacherous intellect in America belongs to MIT professor Noam Chomsky. ... For forty years, Noam Chomsky has turned out book after book, pamphlet after pamphlet and speech after speech with one message, and one message alone: America is the Great Satan; it is the fount of evil in the world. In Chomsky’s demented universe, America is responsible not only for its own bad deeds, but for the bad deeds of others, including those of the terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

"U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts" (Robert Jensen, HoustonChronicle, 2001/09/26)
Yet another study in moral equivalence and anti-Americanism: "Like everyone in the United States and around the world, I shared the deep sadness at the deaths of thousands. But as I listened to people around me talk, I realized the anger and fear I felt were very different, for my primary anger is directed at the leaders of this country and my fear is not only for the safety of Americans but for innocent civilians in other countries. ... For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism."

"Arafat closes 'suicide bombing' art show" (BBC News, 2001/09/26)
"A security official confirmed that Mr Arafat ordered the early closure of the show which featured a recreation of last month's attack on a Jerusalem pizzeria. "The president was gravely disturbed and offended by the images in the exhibit," the official said. The room-sized installation had broken tables splattered with fake blood and body parts. A university branch of the militant Palestinian group Hamas built the exhibit, which recreates the scene of last month's attack on Sbarro Pizza house in Jerusalem."

"Murder was their only motive" (Christopher Hitchens, The Guardian, 2001/09/26)
"Every liberal twit talks about the danger of "over-reaction" to the Taliban, when the actual danger is, and has for some time been, one of under-reaction. There's also non-reaction, or non-sequitur reaction. The Federal Aviation Authority, which has been wrongly reported as having forbidden Salman Rushdie to fly to or from the United States, has been even more pseudo-vigilant than that. It has, for now, asked American domestic airlines not to take him as a passenger. ... So let's see if I have this right: an author with a long record of opposing violence and fundamentalism is denied the right to travel freely, while two men who were on international "watch lists" were able to buy tickets in their own names. Feel safer now? Get ready for more such stupidity: the brave American civilians who fought off the hijackers over Pennsylvania would now not be allowed the in-flight cutlery or the cellphones that permitted them to mount a desperate resistance and to inform their families and friends that they weren't going gentle. Had it been otherwise, I would be looking out at a gutted Capitol or charred White House, and reading Pinter or Pilger on how my neighbourhood had been asking for it."

"... Pacifist Claptrap" (Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, 2001/09/26)
"The pacifists' argument is rooted entirely in this appeal: Two wrongs don't make a right; violence only begets more violence. There can be truth in the pacifists' claim to the moral high ground, notably in the case of a war that is waged for manifestly evil purposes. So, for instance, a German citizen who declined to fight for the Nazi cause could be seen (although not likely by his family and friends) as occupying the moral position. But in the situation where one's nation has been attacked - a situation such as we are now in - pacifism is, inescapably and profoundly, immoral. Indeed, in the case of this specific situation, pacifism is on the side of the murderers, and it is on the side of letting them murder again. ... You are either for doing what is necessary to capture or kill those who control and fund and harbor the terrorists, or you are for not doing this. If you are for not doing this, you are for allowing the terrorists to continue their attacks on America. You are saying, in fact: I believe that it is better to allow more Americans - perhaps a great many more - to be murdered than to capture or kill the murderers."

"Islam's flawed spokesmen" (Jake Tapper, Salon.com, 2001/09/26)
"CAIR and the AMC have emerged as possibly the two most outspoken U.S. Muslim organizations in the wake of the tragedy, protesting "hate crimes" against Muslims and Arab-Americans, explaining why increased security need not preclude civil liberties for those from the Middle East and Near East, and trying to put a moderate face on a religion Americans only seem to hear about when it rears up in its most extreme incarnations. … In fact, there are those in American Muslim communities as well as law enforcement who consider CAIR and the AMC to be part of the problem, because both have been seen as tacitly - if not explicitly - supportive of extremist groups guilty of terrorism. ... Both groups also refuse to outright condemn Islamic terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. In fact, leaders from both groups have, in recent years, been quoted defending or exhorting organizations that the U.S. State Department classifies as "foreign terrorist." ... And CAIR's founder, Nihad Awad, wrote in the Muslim World Monitor that the World Trade Center trial, which ended in the conviction in 1994 of four Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, was "a travesty of justice." According to Awad - and despite the confessions of the terrorists from the 1993 attack - 'there is ample evidence indicating that both the Mossad and the Egyptian Intelligence played a role in the explosion.'"

"Anti-Terrorism" (William Saletan, Slate, 2001/09/26)
"In the war on terrorism, what are we fighting for? ... Bush concluded, "This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom." It sounds good, but it doesn't add up. A coalition of governments that believe in all these principles can't include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Jordan. According to the U.S. State Department's latest Human Rights Report, all three countries restrict freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, and movement."

Tuesday, September 25, 2001

News and commentary:

"Whose Side are You on - an International Perspective" (Bryan Appleyard, The Times/Online TV, 2001/09/25)
Appleyard on anti-Americanism: "Let us ponder exactly what the Americans did in that most awful of all centuries, the 20th. They saved Europe from barbarism in two world wars. After the second world war they rebuilt the continent from the ashes. They confronted and peacefully defeated Soviet communism, the most murderous system ever devised by man, and thereby enforced the slow dismantling - we hope - of Chinese communism, the second most murderous. America, primarily, ejected Iraq from Kuwait and helped us to eject Argentina from the Falklands. America stopped the slaughter in the Balkans while the Europeans dithered. ... "People should think," David Halberstam, the writer, says from the blasted city of New York, "what the world would be like without the backdrop of American leadership with all its flaws over the past 60 years." Probably, I think, a bit like hell."

"There is no alternative to war" (David Rieff, Salon.com, 2001/09/25)
"Some on the left - there are, it seems, still a few good Fanonists left - all but legitimized the attacks. Writing in the London Guardian, Dutch migration expert Saskia Sassen wrote, "The attacks are a language of last resort; the oppressed and persecuted have used many languages to reach us so far, but we seem unable to translate the message. So a few have taken the personal responsibility to speak in a language that needs no translation." ... There is still less reason to assume that if the United States supported Arafat, or made peace with Saddam Hussein, that the Islam bin Laden represents would be mollified. But if these are not the real root causes, then one is left with the prospect that what is actually at the root of all this is not the violence of one empire - that is, the American empire - but a war declared on the United States by another empire, that of the Islamic fascism of which bin Laden is only an emblem."

"Why are men willing to die to kill Americans?" (Ian Buruma, The Guardian, 2001/09/25)
"In fact, modern Japan is rather interesting in the light of current events. For one question needs to be explained: what made so many highly educated young men in 1944 want to kill themselves for their emperor, just to drag as many Americans as possible down with them? ... In Japan, the cult of the Emperor, the samurai spirit and the spiritual purity of Japaneseness were promoted as antidotes to western influences, which the elite itself had helped to unleash. ... In 1930s Japan, after the economic crash and the failure of democracy, the spiritual antidote became a national pathology. Young army officers assassinated government ministers and business leaders for ignoring "the imperial will". Dying for the emperor became the highest ideal. Britain and America became symbols of hate. Liberal democracy and capitalism had to be destroyed, inside and outside the country. General Tojo, one of Japan's wartime leaders, spoke about "overcoming western civilisation". The death cult began to take hold."

"Saudi Arabia Cuts Ties With Taliban" (The Washington Post, 2001/09/25)
"Saudi Arabia cut all ties with Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia on Tuesday, saying its leaders were defaming Islam by harboring and supporting terrorists. The move by one of the most influential nations in the Islamic world leaves Pakistan as the only country to maintain diplomatic relations with the hard-line Islamic Taliban, and hands the United States a major success in its effort to isolate the Taliban over their refusal to surrender Osama bin Laden."

"And our flag was still there" (Barbara Kingsolver, San Francisco Chronicle, 2001/09/25)
Since the terror attacks many anti-American comments have used the words "terror" and "terrorist" to describe the American society: "Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth who've spent years learning our culture and contributing their talents to our economy. It has specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil Liberties Union. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder? Who are we calling terrorists here?"

"'I felt like someone delivered from the grave...'" (Special Dispatch No. 275, MEMRI, 2001/09/25)
Translated editorial by Syrian Arab Writers Associations chairman 'Ali 'Uqleh 'Ursan about his feelings after the terror attacks in the US: "When the twin towers collapsed and the New York skyline, which had been obstructed by them, was revealed to me – I felt deep within me like someone that was delivered from the grave; I [felt] that I was being carried in the air above the corpse of the mythological symbol of arrogant American imperialist power, whose administration had prevented the [American] people from knowing the crimes it was committing… My lungs filled with air and I breathed in relief, as I had never breathed before." (Al-Usbu' Al-Adabi)

Monday, September 24, 2001

News and commentary:

"Of Sin, the Left & Islamic Fascism" (Christopher Hitchens, The Nation, 2001/09/24)
"Not all readers liked my attack on the liberal/left tendency to "rationalize" the aggression of September 11, or my use of the term "fascism with an Islamic face," and I'll select a representative example of the sort of "thinking" that I continue to receive on my screen, even now. This jewel comes from Sam Husseini, who runs the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington, DC: "The fascists like Bid-Laden could not get volunteers to stuff envelopes if Israel had withdrawn from Jerusalem like it was supposed to - and the US stopped the sanctions and the bombing on Iraq." You've heard this "thought" expressed in one way or another, dear reader, have you not? I don't think I took enough time in my last column to point out just what is so utterly rotten at the very core of it. ... As before, the deed announces and exposes its "root cause." The grievance and animosity predate even the Balfour Declaration, let alone the occupation of the West Bank. They predate the creation of Iraq as a state. The gates of Vienna would have had to fall to the Ottoman jihad before any balm could begin to be applied to these psychic wounds. And this is precisely, now, our problem. The Taliban and its surrogates are not content to immiserate their own societies in beggary and serfdom. They are condemned, and they deludedly believe that they are commanded, to spread the contagion and to visit hell upon the unrighteous."

"We must ignore the peace lobby and show no restraint" (Bruce Anderson, Independent, 2001/09/24)
"We will have to go on holding our nerve – and disregarding the peace movement. Those who are urging restraint are doubly mistaken. In the first place, the Americans are already showing restraint. They have not rushed into action; they have waited to marshal their forces, their allies and their intelligence. Second, if restraint meant that Mr bin Laden survived, it would in no way diminish his hatred of the West or his ability to strike again and he would have learned that he has nothing to fear from retaliation. This crisis has occurred because of America's weakness. By allowing Saddam Hussein to survive the Gulf War and by allowing Bin Laden to live on after murdering large numbers of Americans, the United States sent every wrong signal to its enemies, actual and potential. President Bush is now sending different and stronger right signals. It only remains to turn the words into deeds."

"Life Inside Al Qaeda: A Destructive Devotion" (Mark Fineman and Stephen Braun, Los Angeles Times, 2001/09/24)
"But it was only at the end of Gaudin's week of exhausting interviews with Al-'Owhali that the agent asked him what so many Americans are groping to understand now. 'What would it take for this fighting to stop, you know, how can we prevent this? How can we end this?' Gaudin said he asked Al-'Owhali. What Gaudin got was boilerplate Al Qaeda: Stop supporting Israel; pull all U.S. forces out of the Arabian Peninsula; and stop 'preventing Muslims from instituting sharia [Islamic law] worldwide.'"

"Cult of the Holy Warrior Flourishes" (Paul Watson and Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times, 2001/09/24)
"To Baig, a shop owner, and legions of others like him in the Muslim world, the Saudi-born millionaire suspected of ordering the most horrific foreign attack on U.S. soil is not a terrorist but a freedom fighter. In their view, Bin Laden is leading the latest phase of a war that began centuries ago when medieval Christian crusaders tried to crush Islam. Such hero worship is widespread and deeply felt in Pakistan, a Muslim nation of 140 million souls. The man seen by Americans as the personification of evil has over the last 12 days taken on a kind of mythical quality in the bazaars and back streets of this country. He has become a figure deemed worthy of unlimited adoration and respect."

"Bin Laden Urges Pakistanis to Rise Up" (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post, 2001/09/24)
"Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, urged Muslims in Pakistan to fight a holy war against "America's crusader forces" that are preparing to strike his bases in Afghanistan, according to a statement broadcast today by an Arab television station. ... "We incite our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to deter with all their capabilities the American crusaders from invading Pakistan and Afghanistan," said the typed statement, which was received by Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite television channel this afternoon."

"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