Watch - Articles and opinion: October 8

Archived news and commentary: October 8 - 14, 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, October 14, 2001

News and commentary:

"Koran and Country" (BBC News/Panorama, 2001/10/14)
An excellent documentary about sentiments in the Muslim community in Birmingham on the war against terror: "Dr Naseem: We were with them in mourning that tragedy. We are not with them in executing a further tragedy. This is barbarism. This is the route which Hitler took. He justified his action because he believed that he was right and he had a right to cross through different countries because he believed so. This kind of one sided belief was not acceptable to the civilised community then, it should not be acceptable now. We condemn it wholeheartedly. White: And afterwards, the elders, from the Committee of the Mosque agreed that it was reasonable in this case to compare President Bush to Hitler." (Full transcript)

"No Glory in Unjust War on the Weak" (Barbara Kingsolver, Los Angeles Times, 2001/10/14)
Barbara Kingsolver is back. This time she proposes that American taxpayers should give "a few billion dollars" to the Taliban as a response to the terror attacks: "Uncivilized criminals are still held accountable through civilized institutions; we abolished stoning long ago. The World Court and the entire Muslim world stand ready to judge Osama bin Laden and his accessories. If we were to put a few billion dollars into food, health care and education instead of bombs, you can bet we'd win over enough friends to find out where he's hiding."

"Half of Pakistanis believe Israel behind US terrorist attacks" (hindustantimes.com, 2001/10/14)
An article on the results of a poll by Gallup commissioned by Newsweek: "The poll showed 48 percent of Pakistanis believe Israel carried out the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington, compared to 12 percent who blame Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden. It said 25 percent of people polled believe a US group carried out the attacks, which killed more than 5,000 people, while five percent blame the Palestinians. ... Only three percent sympathised with the United States in the conflict, compared to 87 percent with Afghanistan's Taliban Islamic militia, and 75 percent opposed the use of Pakistani airfields by US forces. Bin Laden, the Afghanistan-based Islamic militant accused by the United States of masterminding the September 11 attacks, is viewed by 82 percent as a "mujahid" or freedom fighter, while just six percent consider him a terrorist. ... A Newsweek statement said Gallup Pakistan polled 978 adults across the country on October 11 and 12. It said the survey had a margin of error of three to four percentage points."

"Give war a chance" (The Sunday Telegraph, 2001/10/14)
"When Nato launched its first air raids in the Kosovo conflict in March 1999, many of the very people in this country who had been calling for action against Slobodan Milosevic were the first to quail. It was argued that the bombing of Pristina and Belgrade was not working quickly enough, that it would strengthen Milosevic and that the number of civilian casualties could not possibly be justified. ... A week after the first Allied raids on Afghanistan, it is instructive to remember how firmness of purpose - notably the Prime Minister's - was ultimately rewarded in the Kosovo war. Barely had the raids on Kandahar and Jalalabad begun on Sunday night, than professional commentators were claiming that the action was not working quickly enough, that the number of civilian casualties would be too high, that the capture of Osama bin Laden had been made harder."

"Don't Impose Our Values - Stability is more important than democracy in the Mideast" (Robert D. Kaplan, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/10/14)
"Thus far, throughout the Middle East, with a few notable exceptions, only monarchs and emirs have had the requisite legitimacy to remain in power without resort to a radical ideology. That is why kingdoms like Morocco's, Jordan's, Saudi Arabia's and Oman's have been pro-American, while secular, modernizing regimes like Syria's and Iraq's have not. ... In countries such as Iraq and Syria - to a much greater extent than in Eastern Europe under communist rule - entire intellectual classes have been wiped out over the decades, leaving only Islamists and sectarian nationalists to inherit the void. ... Democracy, in its early phases, is more likely to lead not to peace, but to demagogic politicians competing with each other over who can be more anti-American and more anti-Semitic. Iranian voters have displayed moderation only because they - unlike most Arabs - have an actual, negative experience with Islamic revolution, rather than a foggy, romantic notion of one."

Saturday, October 13, 2001

News and commentary:

"Al-Qaeda threatens US and UK" (BBC News, 2001/10/13)
"The al-Qaeda organisation of Islamic militant Osama Bin Laden has threatened fresh terror attacks against both the United States and the United Kingdom. Spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith said there would be strikes in retaliation for the military action being taken against Afghanistan by US and British forces. He advised Muslims in the US and UK not to travel by plane and not to live in skyscrapers - a clear reference to the 11 September suicide attacks on New York's World Trade Center using hijacked aircraft. ... Ghaith warned the US and UK to leave the Arabian peninsula or else "the land will be set on fire under their feet". Ghaith added: "The storm will not calm as long as you [the United States and Britain] do not end your support for the Jews in Palestine, lift your embargo from around the Iraqi people, and have left the Arabian peninsula." He threatened US President George W Bush and his father, former President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for their "terrible crimes and the worst crimes". "Millions of Muslims, men, women and children, have died without doing anything," he said. ... The al-Qaeda statement was made in a recorded message broadcast on the Qatari satellite TV network al-Jazeera." ("In full: Al-Qaeda statement" (BBC News, 2001/10/14))

"Taliban Rejects Bush's Second Offer" (Adam Entous and Sayed Salahuddin, Los Angeles Times, 2001/10/13)
"The Taliban flatly rejected Bush's offer to halt the bombing raids if they handed over the Saudi-born militant. 'We once again want to say that their [the U.S.] intention is a war against Muslims and Afghans,' said Information Minister Mullah Qudratullah Jamal. 'Osama is not the issue and people have realized this by the crimes they are committing. Our jihad [holy struggle] ... will continue until the last breath for the defense of our homeland and Islam.' Mullah Omar, in a message reported by the Afghan Islamic Press, appealed for Muslim solidarity. 'You the Muslims of the world, who are watching with your own eyes the American atrocities on Afghanistan, does your faith allow you to sit silent or to support America?'"

"Anti-war protesters rally in London" (BBC News, 2001/10/13)
"Crowds of anti-war protesters have marched through London in a demonstration against the military air strikes on Afghanistan. ... Police said about 20,000 people had taken part in Saturday's demonstration, which followed the sixth night of US air strikes on Afghanistan. ... Speakers at the rally included Darren Johnson, leader of the Green group on the Greater London Assembly. ... He said those responsible for the US terror attacks should be brought to justice by legal means in an international court. 'War is not the answer, you can't fight fire with fire. It will only create more bin Ladens.'"

"Anti-US protests worldwide" (John Aglionby et al., The Guardian, 2001/10/13) Reports on Islamist protests against the American attacks: "Muslims poured on to the streets of major Indian cities after Friday prayers shouting anti-American slogans. About 10,000 chanted "Death to America, Death to Israel, Taliban, Taliban, we salute you" at the country's biggest mosque, the Jama Masjid in New Delhi."

"How Afghan people led Taleban a dance" (Catherine Philp, The Times, 2001/10/13)
"Shah Ahmed had only one regret when bombs began to fall on his home city of Kandahar. The women stopped dancing. Every night for the past month, as Taleban soldiers and police fled the city in fear of airstrikes, the residents of Kandahar came out to enjoy long-forbidden freedoms without fear of punishment by the religious police. 'When night came and the Taleban were gone, people would hold weddings and parties with music and women danced because there was no-one there to stop them,' Mr Ahmed said. 'For just a few weeks, it was like another time, long ago.'"

Friday, October 12, 2001

News and commentary:

"Anthrax case reported in New York" (MSNBC, 2001/10/12)
"An NBC News employee has tested positive for anthrax after handling “suspicious mail” that was sent to NBC’s New York headquarters, network officials said Friday. The case of "cutaneous anthrax" - which is contracted through the skin rather than by breathing - is being investigated by the FBI and federal and local health officials, the network said. ... The anthrax case was the first recent one reported outside Florida, where investigators have been attempting to identify the source of the deadly bacteria that has been detected in three workers at a company that publishes tabloid newspapers. One of the employees died of the disease." (See also: "Anthrax as a Biological Weapon" (JAMA, 1999/05/12))

"Sir John Keegan is wrong: radical Islam could win" (Spengler, Asia Times, 2001/10/12)
"'In this war of civilizations, the West will prevail,' argues the distinguished historian Sir John Keegan, the Defense Editor of the Daily Telegraph, in a commentary on October 8. Why is he so sure? If Sir John were in command on the Western side, I would be inclined to bet on a different outcome. ...
Readers who reproached me for using the word "racism" to qualify Washington's orientation toward the Islamic world should read Keegan's essay carefully. Here we have the upright Westerner against the underhanded Oriental. Kipling (who wrote vividly about the sneakiness of the British in the Great Game) would blush.
It's all completely, totally, revoltingly wrong. The West confronts not a throwback to medieval Islam, but a Westernized version of Islam transformed into a totalitarian political ideology. Although it draws upon Islamic sources and overlaps with some strains of Muslim belief, the ideology of Al-Qaeda has greater kinship with Nazism, another synthetic pagan religion, than with traditional Islam.
Like Nazism, it is a deadly threat. Remember that Hitler very nearly won. ...
Al-Qaeda wants no territory, no conversions, no loot, no slaves. It wishes to destroy the West and happily will sacrifice millions of Muslim lives in order to do so." (See also: "In this war of civilisations, the West will prevail" (John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/08) and "Washington's racism and the Islamist trap" (Spengler, Asia Times, 2001/09/22))

"Saudi clerics issue edicts against helping 'infidels'" (Nicolas Pelham, The Christian Science Monitor, 2001/10/12)
"In what could be one of the most significant internal challenges to the Al Sauds in their 80-year dominance of the Arabian peninsula, Sheikh Hamoud bin Oqla al-Shuaibi, a senior cleric, issued his fatwa just days after the Sept. 11 attacks. "Whoever supports the infidel against Muslims is considered an infidel.... It is a duty to wage jihad on anyone who supports the attack on Afghanistan." ... Four days into the aerial bombardment, the wave of dissent the fatwas promised to inaugurate has not materialized. But a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a German couple, and a Canadian was shot dead in Kuwait. And Saudi security officials remain on high alert following the killing of two Americans by a suspected suicide bomber on Oct. 6 in Al Khobar, a city in Eastern Province where 13,000 Americans live."

"Trade Center warning baffles police" (Jonathan Alter, MSNBC, 2001/10/12)
"I went to Brooklyn this week in search of an "urban myth" about the World Trade Center attacks. What I came back with was no longer a myth - it was cold, chilling fact. ... The story I was looking for had circulated less widely and in more general form. It recounted the story of a kid who bragged around school before the attacks that the World Trade Center was going to be destroyed. On October 11, an aggressive young reporter for The JournalNews of Westchester, N.Y. - Jeffrey Scott Shapiro - published a article that tracked the story down to New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn. Shapiro identified a teacher who witnessed a freshman in her class saying: "Do you see those two buildings? They won’t be standing there next week." ... There is no doubt in my mind that the story is true. But what does it mean? There are only three possibilities: 1.) the youth was clairvoyant; 2.) the youth, knowing about the 1993 bombing, was just venting anger in a particularly timely way; 3.) word of the attack on the World Trade Center was rumored in his family or neighborhood and he heard about it." (See also: "Police: Student spoke of attacks before Sept. 11" (Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, The Journal News, 2001/10/11))

"Bush Warns Taliban to Surrender Bin Laden or Face Years of Attacks" (James Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times, 2001/10/12)
"President Bush gave the Taliban regime in Afghanistan a new chance Thursday to turn over Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants and bring an end to the war there. But barring such surrender, he said, the campaign could last two years. ... The president's remarks, in a nationally televised news conference Thursday night, came at the end of the fifth day of an air war directed at terrorist forces in Afghanistan." (Full text of the News Conference.)

Added two new sections and 14 new links in Links:
Islam. Information on Islam; history, civilization, culture, online english translation of The Quran etc.
The Taliban. History, ideology, MSNBC Special Coverage, Amnesty reports, travel reports, web links etc.
Special coverage. Added:
The Atlantic - The Triumph of Terrorism (Four previously published articles on international terrorism.)
The Atlantic - Coming to Grips With Jihad (Four previously published articles on Islamic fundamentalism: especially recommended is Bernard Lewis "The Roots of Muslim Rage" (September 1990))

Thursday, October 11, 2001

News and commentary:

"Uncivil" (Michael Rubin, The New Republic, 2001/10/11)
A report from Sudan: "'Anyone who thinks Islam is a religion of peace has never been to the Sudan,' said the county commissioner in Malual Kon, a small village nestled among farms and swampy grassland about ten miles from the front line of the country's civil war. There, where Christians and animists have spent almost 20 years resisting the Sudanese government's self-declared jihad, political correctness is in short supply. "They teach their children that killing a non-Muslim is a key to paradise," the Christian official explained further. 'If you are too weak to kill, then you enslave.'"

"Muslims and the West - The need to speak up" (The Economist, 2001/10/11)
"In other words, the West can live in peace with Islam. What is unclear is whether Islam can live in peace with the West. Many Muslims in many parts of the world flatly say it cannot. The anti-western and specifically anti-American rage that animates the most militant strands of Muslim fundamentalism brooks no compromise. ... It helps Arab governments no doubt to blame that [material] failure on outsiders. Plenty of western intellectuals are happy to agree that the economic plight of North Africa and the Middle East is more to do with American oppression than with its real, domestic, causes. (Causes that do not include Islam, by the way: blame decades of socialism followed by statism, corruption and incompetence.) Yet to think this way—to see the West as an infidel oppressor and capitalist exploiter, rather than as a partner with whom a fruitful friendship is possible - is to rule out all possibility of peaceful coexistence. Arab leaders and their western apologists should reflect on that."

"Islam 'hijacked' by terror" (Kate Goldberg, BBC News, 2001/10/11)
A mindboggling version of the art of victimology and moral equivalency: "However, [Hamra] Yusuf believes that the West also has an obligation to recognise Muslim grievances, and recognise what he calls the 'moral ambiguities' of the current situation. 'Portraying the Taleban as evil is very stupid,' he said. 'They are by-products of the Cold War. They have been flooded with weapons from the West, and they're as much victims as the Twin Tower victims.'"

"Complex Nonsense" (Rich Lowry, National Review, 2001/10/11)
Lowry analyses Edward W. Said's "The Clash of Ignorance" (The Nation, 2001/10/09): "Said says this hopeless intermingling [of Islamic and Western cultures] was brought to mind "when information on the September 11 terrorists started to come in: how they had mastered all the technical details required to inflict their homicidal evil on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the aircraft they had commandeered. Where does one draw the line between 'Western' technology and, as Berlusconi declared, "Islam's' inability to be a part of 'modernity'?" Well, the line seems pretty clear - developing mass commercial aviation and soaring skyscrapers was the West's idea; slashing the throats of stewardesses and flying the planes into the skyscrapers was radical Islam's idea. ... In other words, insofar as Western ideas have seeped into radical Islam, they have been the harshly anti-American ones of intellectuals like Edward Said. And this sophisticated anti-Westernism, unlike airplanes and skyscrapers, is one invention of which the West cannot be proud." (See also: "Kumbaya Watch: Said What?" (Ross Douthat, National Review, 2001/10/11): "For Said, of course, there are no "civilizations" at all, and so any attempt to see Osama bin Laden and his cohorts as representative of a broader "Islamic" world is as foolish as taking "cults like the Branch Davidians or the disciples of the Rev. Jim Jones at Guyana" as representatives of the West. One might point out, of course, that David Koresh and Jim Jones were never abetted by Western governments — nor were they hailed as heroes by mainstream Western clerics — nor did their crimes prompt cheering New Yorkers or Bostonians to take to the streets, as many of Said's precious Palestinians did on September 11.")

"FBI fears more terror attacks" (BBC News, 2001/10/11)
"The American Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a warning that there may be more attacks within the United States in the next few days. The FBI also warned that US interests overseas may be at risk. "Certain information, while not specific as to target, gives the government reason to believe that there may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States and against US interests overseas over the next several days," the FBI said in a statement."

"Silence, bagpipes mark World Trade Center memorial" (CNN.com, 2001/10/11)
"Bagpipes rang over the jumbled concrete and mangled steel remains of the World Trade Center Thursday as hundreds of New York recovery workers gathered for a memorial service one month after deadly terrorist attacks brought down the symbol of U.S. prosperity."

"Bin Laden Said to 'Own' The Taliban" (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post, 2001/10/11)
"Osama bin Laden has provided an estimated $100 million in cash and military assistance to the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan over the last five years, making bin Laden the single greatest supporter of the Afghan regime, according to intelligence information presented recently to President Bush and his senior national security advisers."

"The Arab Paradox" (The Washington Post, 2001/10/11)
"Behind this contradictory rhetoric lies one of the central problems for U.S. policy in the post-Sept. 11 world: The largest single "cause" of Islamic extremism and terrorism is not Israel, nor U.S. policy in Iraq, but the very governments that now purport to support the United States while counseling it to lean on Ariel Sharon and lay off Saddam Hussein. Egypt is the leading example. ... Mr. Mubarak, who checked Islamic extremists in Egypt only by torture and massacre, has no modern political program or vision of progress to offer his people as an alternative to Osama bin Laden's Muslim victimology. ... Instead, Mr. Mubarak props himself up with $2 billion a year in U.S. aid, while allowing and even encouraging state-controlled clerics and media to promote the anti-Western, anti-modern and anti-Jewish propaganda of the Islamic extremists. The policy serves his purpose by deflecting popular frustration with the lack of political freedom or economic development in Egypt. It also explains why so many of Osama bin Laden's recruits are Egyptian."

"A fight to the finish" (Tim Luckhurst, The Spectator, from the 2001/10/13 issue)
"And Barak does not hesitate to push the analogy further. 'There will be no world order, no way of life of the West, if this struggle is not decided in an unconditional surrender of terror. I believe Bush and Blair understand that. It remains a challenge to convince people of the need to stand firm against many painful moments. I expect bin Laden to launch counterblows. But in the end we have the resources, the fighting spirit and the leadership that are appropriate for this challenge. This is the kind of war in which the magnitude of the meaning for future generations is the equivalent of what happened in World War Two.'"

"Islamic Conference Accepts Attacks on Taliban" (Daniel Williams, International Herald Tribune, 2001/10/11)
"In effect, the meeting of the 56-member Organization for the Islamic Conference gave a green light to the Bush administration's use of military means to uproot and destroy parts of Osama bin Laden's Qaida network, said to be based in Afghanistan. ... The group rejected linkage between terrorism and the rights of Islamic and Arab people 'to self-determination, self-defense, sovereignty,' and 'resistance against Israeli and foreign occupation.'"

"Even Pacifists Must Support This War" (Scott Simon, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/10/11)
Simon sees the pacifists stance as reminiscent of that of the Oxford Union in 1933: "They saw no moral difference between Western colonialism and world fascism. The Oxford Union ended that debate with this famous proclamation: "Resolved, that we will in no circumstances fight for king and country." Von Ribbentrop sent back the good news to Germany's new chancellor, Hitler: The West will not fight for its own survival. Its finest minds will justify a silent surrender. In short, the best-educated young people of their time could not tell the difference between the deficiencies of their own nation, in which liberty and democracy were cornerstones, and a dictatorship founded on racism, tyranny and fear."

Wednesday, October 10, 2001

News and commentary:

"Good Terrorist, Bad Terrorist" (Steven Plaut, National Review, 2001/10/10)
"In order to fight a no-compromise war of annihilation against the Islamist fascists and terrorists in Afghanistan, the U.S. has decided that the only way to deal with Palestinian Islamist terrorists is by capitulating to their demands, coddling them, holding talks with them, and making goodwill gestures toward them. This is a central plank in the new Bush antiterrorist platform. There would seem to be good Islamist fascist terrorists and bad Islamist fascist terrorists. The PLO and its affiliates are suddenly on the administration's list of good ones. ... As part of the war against terrorism, Israel is now expected to parley with the PLO, despite the fact that PLO atrocities continue every single day, because the best way to deal with good Islamist fascist terrorism is to meet its demands. And even as the PLO continues to murder Jewish civilians every day, Israel - under U.S. pressure - is expected to negotiate with the PLO about implementing the Mitchell Commission agreement, with its concessions to and appeasements of PLO terror (or what the BBC describes as "what Israel calls terror"). ... This war is either going to be a war against terrorism or merely a war against Afghanistan. If it is to be a war against terrorism, then the U.S. must stop sucking up to Arab terrorist regimes, and it must endorse a broadside assault by Israel against the Islamist fascists and terrorists of the PLO and its affiliates. Israel must be encouraged to deal with the PLO in exactly the same way the U.S. is dealing with the Taliban, and with the same international support."

"Syria's position: Define Terrorism Not Fight It" (Special Dispatch No. 283, MEMRI, 2001/10/10)
"Fighting terrorism is like fighting windmills. Terrorism cannot be fought; we have to fight the root causes of terrorism. Poverty is a cause of terrorism; and the U.S. can contribute with her billions to fight the root against poverty. Oppression is another cause; and half the world population are oppressed and the U.S. can do something on this front. Treating people and the 'third world countries' as supremacists is a root cause." (Dr. Y. Alaridi, Syria Times, 2001/09/30)

"City Council Fails to Consider Resolution to Denounce Violence" (The Daily Californian, 2001/10/10)
Moral equivalence #517: "A last-minute condemnation of the ongoing U.S. military action against Afghanistan fell short of the support needed for the resolution to be heard Tuesday by the Berkeley City Council, but is expected to be considered next week. ... 'Berkeley has always been an island of sanity in terms of the war madness that has prevailed in this country,' [progressive Councilmember Dona] Spring said. 'The U.S. is now a terrorist. According to the Taliban these are terrorist attacks.'"

"Bush announces 'most wanted' terrorist list" (CNN.com, 2001/10/10)
"The White House released Wednesday a "most wanted" list of 22 suspected terrorists that includes not only Osama bin Laden and some of his top allies, but those thought responsible for a range of other deadly strikes." (See also: "Most Wanted Terrorists" (FBI, 2001/10/10))

"The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky: Part II Method and Madness" (David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine 2001/10/10)
As Noam Chomsky's anti-American writings are very influential I think it's important to post Horowitz' examination of them: "The illusion that socialism promises a better future is also the cause of the Chomsky cult. It is the illusion at the heart of the messianic hope that creates the progressive left. This hope is a chimera, but insofar as it is believed, history presents itself in terms that are Manichaean -- as a battle between good and evil. Those who oppose socialism, Marxism, Communism embody worldly evil. They are the party of Satan, and their leader America is the Great Satan himself. Chomsky is, in fact, the imam of this religious worldview on today’s college campuses. His great service to the progressive faith is to deny the history of the last hundred years, which is the history of progressive atrocity and failure. In the 20th century, progressives in power killed one hundred million people in the attempt to realize their impossible dream. As far as Noam Chomsky is concerned, these catastrophes of the left never happened." (See also: "The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky" (David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine, 2001/09/26))

"On the road from Durban racism and terror converge" (Shimon Samuels, Haaretz, 2001/10/10)
"The vacuum of post-Communism was filled by a coalition of so-called "anti-globalization" human rights and Islamic groups that hold fundamentalist world views and a pathological contempt for America and those who share its values. ... ...the moral justifiers [of hate] exposed themselves in the Durban process, for it was here that "anti-racism" and terrorism converged, endorsed by positions of the principal human rights organizations. ... So-called distinctions drawn between "anti-Zionism" and "anti-Semitism" were forever effaced when "Third World" demonstrators on Friday afternoon forced the closure of the Jewish Center, while distributing "The Protocols of Zion" chanting "Hitler didn't finish the job." ... The United States and Israel drew a red line, by their departure, for Europeans, Canadians and Australians to belatedly enter the breach and fend off Islamo-Arab extremism in the final documents. But the atmosphere had been poisoned and deep, almost geological, hate-lines exposed." (See also: "Anti-Semitism at the United Nations: The World Conference Against Racism Becomes a World Conference For Racism" (Anne Bayefsky, Justice, from the Autumn 2001 issue))

"This is a war on more that terrorism" (Linda Chavez, Town Hall, 2001/10/10)
"We are not fighting a war on terrorism. Terrorism is the means by which our enemy chooses to wage war against us, but we should not confuse its tactics with the nature of the enemy itself. The enemy has an ideology. It has a command structure. It has troops. And it is clear in its aim - nothing short of the destruction of our civilization. The enemy is militant Islamic fundamentalism. The command structure is made up of hundreds of mullahs around the world, including some living in this country, who preach death to the infidels. Its troops include not just the thousands of trained terrorists but the millions of others who support the mullahs and finance the terrorists through their donations to radical Islamic groups. To pretend otherwise risks not only our own defeat, but that of the moderate Moslem world as well."

"The real threat is Iraq - as Bush's men have said for years" (Stephen Pollard, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/10)
"Instead of wooing Iran and Syria, [Powell's] own words demand that he orders them not only to end all financial, military and political support to Hizbollah, but that they also play an active role in handing over its members and destroying its capabilities. And if they refuse, they, too, should be classified as enemy states. ... The point of a war on terrorism is, surely, to stamp it out - not to build a coalition that includes its most prominent sponsors and that ignores the single greatest threat - Iraq."

"Bin Laden 'free to wage war'" (BBC News, 2001/10/10)
"Afghanistan's ruling Taleban has given Osama Bin Laden free rein to battle the United States, after a third successive night of US air strikes on Afghanistan. "Now that America has begun its war against Muslims, the situation is totally changed, and there are no restrictions on Osama," Abdul Hai Muttman, spokesman for the regime told the BBC's Pashtu service. "Jihad is an obligation on all Muslims of the world. We want this, Bin Laden wants this and America will face the unpleasant consequences," he said."

"At home with the Taliban" (Asra Q. Nomani, Salon.com, 2001/10/10)
An interesting report from inside the Taliban "White House" in Pakistan: "I ask what [Shaheen] thinks about bin Laden, and his alleged involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. "If he is involved, then many of the Taliban will not accept him," he says. ... He wonders aloud about the "Yahudhi" conspiracy, the Jewish conspiracy, that underlies the doubts of many Muslims about bin Laden's guilt. In Urdu, he says he prays to find the aslee mujrim, the culprit behind the Sept. 11 transformation of reality. He rattles off as fact a rumor that has taken strong hold over here: That 4,000 Jews didn't report to work at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11." (See also "4,000 Jews, 1 Lie - Tracking an Internet hoax" (Bryan Curtis, Slate, 2001/10/05))

"What Are We Fighting For?" (Natan Sharansky, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/10/10)
"The democratic world must export freedom throughout the Middle East not only for the sake of people who live under repressive regimes, but for the sake of our own security. For only when the world is free will the world be safe. ...
The logic of why democracies do not go to war with each other is ironclad. When political power is a function of popular will, the incentive system works towards maintaining peace and providing prosperity. For nondemocratic regimes, war and terror are essential to survival. In order to justify the internal repression that is inherent in nondemocratic rule, dictators and autocrats must mobilize their nation for wars against both internal and external enemies."

"U.S. Says It Controls Skies Over Afghanistan" (Edward Cody and Molly Moore, International Herald Tribune, 2001/10/10)
"President George W. Bush said in Washington as he met with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany that he considered the military operation thus far to be a success. "The skies are now free" over Afghanistan, Mr. Bush said, presumably for a new phase of the campaign."

Added one new section and 16 new links:
Transcripts. Key speeches and statements by George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Osama bin Laden/al-Qaida.

Tuesday, October 9, 2001

News and commentary:

"Mosque Mission - Dealing with radical Islamism" (John O'Sullivan, National Review, 2001/10/09)
"For the truth is that radical Islamism does not derive solely from Islam. It has Western as well as Islamic roots. Indeed, it has been well-described by the UPI commentator, James C. Bennett, as the "bastard child" of Islamic fundamentalism and neo-Marxist Western scholarship. ... Its Western elements rest upon the theory...that the wealth and power of the West are based upon its robbery and exploitation of the Third World. No economic historian believes in this nonsense any more - it is amply refuted by the fact that the Western colonial powers like Britain and France actually became much richer after giving up their colonies - but it is preached by radical Islamist mullahs from Dearborn to Dubai."

"'Allah Says Fight' - Transcript of Statement by al Qaeda Spokesman" (ABC News.com, 2001/10/09)
From a transcript of the translated statement broadcast Tuesday by an al Qaeda spokesperson: "The jihad today is a duty of every Muslim, if they haven't got an excuse. Allah says fight, and for the sake of Allah and uphold the name of Allah. ... I want to talk on another point, that those youths who did what they did and destroyed America with their airplanes, they've done a good deed. They have moved the battle into the heart of America. America must know that the battle will not leave its land until America leaves our land; until it stops supporting Israel; until it stops the blockade against Iraq. The American must know that the storm of airplane will not stop, and there are yet thousands of young people who look forward to death like the Americans look forward to living."

"Arabs warn against wider attacks" (BBC News, 2001/10/09)
"Arab leaders have warned the US-led alliance not to extend its attack on Afghanistan to other Muslim or Arab countries. "Launching strikes against any Arab country under any pretence would lead to severe complications," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told Egyptian radio as the league's foreign ministers gathered on Tuesday. ... Mr Moussa said the Arab position would be "fierce" if Arab countries were attacked within the context of the ongoing campaign."

"Syria as peacemaker?" (The Washington Times, 2001/10/09)
"Yesterday, the U.N. General Assembly elected Syria to one of the 10 rotating seats on the Security Council, a development that Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos rightly decried as a "mockery of the council's recent counterterrorism resolution." ... For years Syria has provided a safe haven for some of the most extreme members of the Palestine Liberation Organization. It strongly supports Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In short, Syria deserves to be in the crosshairs of the anti-terrorism campaign, not on the U.N. Security Council."

"The battle to frame the battle" (Howard LaFranchi et al., The Christian Science Monitor, 2001/10/09)
"In the coming days and weeks, the public-opinion war - particularly in Afghanistan and the Muslim world - is likely to be as crucial as the military campaign. ... ...some worry that the widespread dissemination of bin Laden's words, the first graphic installment in the propaganda war, make the 'war' more difficult to win. 'We never saw Hitler making his speeches except in newsreels. Here you have bin Laden on everybody's television set,' says Henry Graff, a history professor and presidential scholar at Colombia University in New York. 'The propaganda is being spread all over the world by American television, by world television.'"

"Why They Hate Us - The nature of the enemy" (Ray Takeyh, National Review, 2001/10/09)
"Bin Laden and his cohort form a specific subculture of Islam that has been evolving in the murky terrain of Southwest Asia. This species of Islam views violence and terror as legitimate tools against the infidel West. As such, bin Laden is not an exceptional case but representative of a genre and a new radical religious movement. ... ...the U.S. also has to move beyond dealing with generals and princes and compel the region's clergy that have long winked at their radical brethren who have used religion to legitimize suicide bombings and demonization of the West to move to the forefront of the antiterrorism struggle."

"Taboos Are Put to Test in West's View of Islam" (John Vinicour, International Herald Tribune, 2001/10/09)
"Indeed, a kind of no-go zone has developed surrounding the international offensive against terrorism, closing off in large part a basic discussion about Islam, its nature, history, and deepest political implications. ... For the foreseeable future, the coalition's Western leaders seem to show little interest in a more nuanced analysis that reality may require in the longer run. ... However well Western democracies succeed in not rising to Mr. bin Laden's cataclysmic bait, the question of whether profound, conflictual differences exist between the West and Islam haunts consciences in Europe and the United States as well as the anti-terrorist campaign."

"U.S. launches first daylight attacks on Afghanistan" (CNN.com, 2001/10/09)
"Explosions rocked the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday morning in the first daylight attacks since the U.S.-led war on terrorism began. Taliban officials said their headquarters was hit. East of Kabul, at least four local employees of a U.N.-funded mine-clearing operation were killed during an overnight airstrike by U.S. planes, according to United Nations officials in Islamabad, Pakistan."

Monday, October 8, 2001

News and commentary:

"Against Rationalization" (Christopher Hitchens, The Nation, 2001/10/08)
"It is worse than idle to propose the very trade-offs that may have been lodged somewhere in the closed-off minds of the mass murderers. The people of Gaza live under curfew and humiliation and expropriation. This is notorious. Very well: Does anyone suppose that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would have forestalled the slaughter in Manhattan? It would take a moral cretin to suggest anything of the sort; the cadres of the new jihad make it very apparent that their quarrel is with Judaism and secularism on principle, not with (or not just with) Zionism. They regard the Saudi regime not as the extreme authoritarian theocracy that it is, but as something too soft and lenient. The Taliban forces viciously persecute the Shiite minority in Afghanistan. The Muslim fanatics in Indonesia try to extirpate the infidel minorities there; civil society in Algeria is barely breathing after the fundamentalist assault. ... But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about "the West," to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content. Indiscriminate murder is not a judgment, even obliquely, on the victims or their way of life, or ours."

"Scheer Deception: The Lies and Jargon of Robert Scheer" (Ben Fritz, Spinsanity, 2001/10/08)
"Many pundits sling jargon or make blithely irrational arguments. Some, however, seem to specialize in twisting the facts to fit their ideology, continually making assertions that are at best unsupported and at worst blatantly false until they - and presumably their readers - come to accept these false tropes as truth. Robert Scheer, a nationally syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has established himself as the leader of this breed, with some of his worst spin coming since the September 11 attack. ...
An excellent example of this tactic can be found in what my co-editor Brendan Nyhan has labeled the "Taliban aid trope." Scheer created this trope in May, when he attacked a "gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan," saying it "makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that 'rogue regime' for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God."
Drawing on work by Bryan Carnell of Leftwatch, Brendan pointed out that the $43 million was not aid to the Taliban government. Instead, the money was a gift of wheat, food commodities, and food security programs distributed to the Afghan people by agencies of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Secretary of State Colin Powell specifically stated, in fact, that the aid "bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it."
Since the US began focusing on the Taliban for harboring Osama Bin Laden, whose Al-Qaeda network is the primary suspect in the September 11 attacks, Scheer has repeated this false assertion about U.S. aid to Afghanistan, and in fact twisted it even further. ...
In column after column, his favored tactics have been irrational criticism, distortion, and spin. ... For those concerned about the rise of irrational discourse in American politics, Robert Scheer stands out as one of the worst offenders." (See also: "Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban" (Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times/robertscheer.com, 2001/05/22))

"What proof? Terrorism alone is cause for action" (Bruce Herschensohn, Jewish World Review, 2001/10/08)
"When President Roosevelt requested a declaration of war against Japan, he did not say: "Yesterday we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, and we are going to do everything possible to find out who those individual pilots, navigators and bombardiers were and bring them to justice." That would have been a guarantee of losing the war. Those individuals were nothing more than tools of a larger enemy. Today, we are no longer simply searching for individual terrorists when we can find them. We are at war against terrorism, and we have found it. Terrorism has declared war against the U.S. with tremendous loss of American lives. The war has begun."

"The 100th suicide bomber" (Amos Harel, Haaretz, 2001/10/08)
"Ahmed abd al-Muneim Daraghmeh, 17, an Islamic Jihad activist who carried out the attack at Kibbutz Shluhot yesterday, killing Yair Mordechai, has the dubious "honor" of being the one-hundredth Palestinian suicide bomber, according to Israeli security sources. Thirty of these suicide attacks have come within the past year. This number of suicide attacks, beginning in 1993, is unprecedented in its scope."

"Bin Laden stirs up Arab world" (Frank Gardner, BBC News, 2001/10/08)
"Over the last few weeks, the West's message of the need to get tough with Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban has singularly failed to permeate through to most Arabs. They are not really listening to what President George W Bush or Prime Minister Tony Blair have to say. Instead, they are too busy watching the latest vitriolic interview with Osama Bin Laden himself on al-Jazeera, the popular Qatari satellite TV channel. ... Despite his extremist Wahhabite interpretation of Islam, his declared motives tap into a rich vein of Arab discontent. "I swear by Almighty God," he told the Arab world on Sunday, "that neither the United States nor he who lives in the United States will enjoy security before we can see it as a reality in Palestine and before all the infidel armies leave the land of Mohammed". Palestinians clapped for joy when they heard these words. Some Saudis even wept with tears of emotion. This is a man who speaks the language of the Arabs in more ways than one."

"Palestinian police kill two protesters" (BBC News, 2001/10/08)
"Palestinian police have shot dead two demonstrators at a violent rally supporting Osama Bin Laden in Palestinian-controlled Gaza City. Witnesses said the police were dispersing stone-throwers at the Hamas-organised protest, which had been banned by the Palestinian Authority. ... It was the first time Palestinians have died at the hands of their own security forces since the beginning of the intifida, or uprising, against Israel." (See also: "Violent backlash in Pakistan" (Daniel Lak, BBC News 2001/10/08))

"Bin Laden's Vision Thing" (James S. Robbins, National Review, 2001/10/08)
Robbins analyses the mentioning of "80 years" ("When the sword reached America after 80 years...") in bin Laden's latest speech: "Bin Laden is talking about the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres imposed on the Turks after World War One, which detached their Arab provinces and spelled the end of the Ottoman Empire. ... So the World Trade Towers had to come down because some psychopath can't come to grips with the end of World War I? Basically, yes. In bin Laden's universe, that was when everything started to go wrong."

"Rumsfeld: Attacks 'very successful'" (CNN.com, 2001/10/08)
"U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday described the weekend attacks in Afghanistan as 'very successful,' with two or three dozen military targets. Among the targets, Rumsfeld said, were airfields, artillery and training camps that 'support the al Qaeda network.'"

"This War's Purpose" (The Wall Street Journal, 2001/10/08)
"The complex political nature of the task is clear from the early bombing targets. They are carefully chosen military targets, intended to cripple command and control and air defenses but also to minimize Afghan civilian casualties. This is in direct moral contrast to the terrorist method, which seeks to kill as many civilians as possible as at the World Trade Center. Mr. Bush pointed out the extraordinary fact that the U.S. is airlifting food and medicine to the Afghan people at the same time it is bombing their Taliban rulers. The humanitarian effort also underscores that these strikes are not aimed at Islam but against bin Laden's perversion of that religion."

"In this war of civilisations, the West will prevail" (John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/08)
"News of the first strikes against Afghanistan indicate that a tested Western response to Islamic aggression is now well under way. It is not a crusade. The crusades were an episode localised in time and place, in the religious contest between Christianity and Islam. This war belongs within the much larger spectrum of a far older conflict between settled, creative productive Westerners and predatory, destructive Orientals. It is no good pretending that the peoples of the desert and the empty spaces exist on the same level of civilisation as those who farm and manufacture. ... September 11 was a declaration of war. October 7 was the declaration of a counter-offensive. The counter-offensive will prevail."

"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)

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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)

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