Watch - Articles and opinion: October 15

Archived news and commentary: October 15 - 21, 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 21, 2001

News and commentary:

"The wimps of Europe" (Martin Walker, UPI, 2001/10/21)
"For a brief moment after the terrorist atrocities of Sept. 11, the European allies rose to the occasion. At NATO, they invoked Article V of the original treaty, to declare the attack on the United States to be an attack on them all. At the 15-nation European Union, they pledged "to work together with the United States to bring to justice the perpetrators, the instigators and the accomplices involved in committing these barbaric acts." It was too good to last, too good to be true. Much of Europe is drifting back to normal. "Europe will not follow Britain and America blindfold," sniffed Belgium's foreign minister, Louis Michel. He went on to criticize British Prime Minister Tony Blair - who has almost single-handed convinced Americans that they do have reliable allies and friends across the Atlantic - as "bellicose". (The French word could equally well be translated as "war-mongering.") Belgium? Who cares about Belgium? Well, under the rules of the 15-nation EU, every country gets to hold the presidency of the European Council for six months on a rotating basis. They host and organize all the intergovernment meetings, set the agenda, and speak for Europe. Just now it is Belgium's turn, so for once this dysfunctional little amalgam of mutually loathing Flemings and Walloons actually matters. ... Belgium's Michel is rare only in that he had the guts to talk publicly. In private, at dinner parties and diplomatic receptions, the euro-sneers about Blair as Bush's poodle, or Britain trying to punch above its weight, or Britain's instinctive loyalties to America disqualifying "the Anglo-Saxons" from any true European vocation, thicken the air."

"Apec unites against terrorism" (BBC News, 2001/10/21)
"Leaders of Asia and Pacific countries have condemned the 11 September attacks in the United States as "murderous deeds" and urged international cooperation in fighting terrorism.
It is the first major political statement in the twelve-year history of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group (Apec), a body normally dedicated to trade. ... But there was no direct mention of Afghanistan or Osama Bin Laden in the statement, which the BBC's Adam Brookes in Shanghai says highlights the discomfort felt by mainly-Muslim Malaysia and Indonesia over the US attacks on the country."

"US attacks Taleban front line" (BBC News, 2001/10/21)
"US aircraft have bombed Taleban front-line positions north of the Afghan capital Kabul, in the first verified strike of its kind. A local opposition commander said the planes had targeted Taleban positions around the Bagram airfield, and there were reports of attacks near Darra-e Sof - an opposition-held enclave outside the strategic northern city of Mazar-e Sharif. ... Earlier, the Washington Post revealed that President Bush has authorised the CIA to use lethal force to eliminate Osama Bin Laden and key members of his al-Qaeda organisation."

"The view from the mosque: the Taliban are not all that bad" (The Observer, 2001/10/21)
"Three visitors to the Shahjahan mosque in Woking, Surrey - Britain's oldest place of Muslim worship - voice their growing resolve against the war before Friday prayers": "'I am obviously against the attacks on Afghanistan: in fact, I hate everything this "war on terrorism" stands for. Not that I am with the Taliban - I wouldn't go as far as to say that I support them in any way. But I have heard from friends that they are not all that bad. So when I see reports on TV about executions and the way they treat women, I'm not always sure I should believe them. People say that the Taliban ban everything - don't the West ban their journalists from telling the truth as well?' [Nasir Ahmed, 31]" (See also: "The view from the mosque: more riots to come" (The Observer, 2001/10/21) and "The view from the mosque: they're demonising Islam" (The Observer, 2001/10/21))

"Islam has become its own enemy" (Ziauddin Sardar, The Observer, 2001/10/21)
"Terrorism is a Muslim problem for some very good reasons. To begin with, most of the terrorist incidents actually occur within the Muslim world. In Pakistan, for example, terrorist violence is endemic. ... In Egypt, militants of Islamic Jihad have killed tourists, and members of the extremist organisation Gama-e-Islami have made the life of ordinary Muslims a living hell. The Abu Sayyaf group of the Philippines, far from fighting for 'liberation', is nothing more than a band of ruthless kidnappers who kill other Muslims without hesitation. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Algeria, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Iran - there is hardly a Muslim country that is not plagued by terrorism. ... Yet, while they have been shocked and sympathise with the victims of the atrocities in the US, Muslims have stubbornly refused to see terrorism as an internal problem. While the Muslim world has suffered, they have blamed everyone but themselves. It is always 'the West', or the CIA, or 'the Indians', or 'the Zionists' hatching yet another conspiracy."

"There are some people even Blair can't persuade" (Matthew d'Ancona, The Sunday Telegraph, 2001/10/21)
"The fact remains, however, that for there to be any purpose in 'reaching out' you must first believe that the other hand might grasp your own. The assassination by Palestinian terrorists of Rehavam Ze'evi on Wednesday, the growing evidence of links between the anthrax scares and Iraq, and the burning of Mr Blair's effigy by militant Islamic crowds in Peshawar show that the other hand is still firmly clenched. The Prime Minister may read and quote the Koran on his travels in hope of finding common ground. But he should heed the words of the new Nobel Prize winner, V.S. Naipaul, in a lecture given before the attacks. Naipaul warned that, in parts of the world, 'religion has been turned by some into a kind of nihilism' by people who 'are enraged at the world and wish to pull it down', and that no negotiation was possible with those who espouse such a twisted creed, 'because it holds that your life is worthless and your beliefs are criminal and should be extirpated'."

Saturday, October 20, 2001

News and commentary:

"Toasted Danish Anyone?" (Steven Plaut, OpinioNet, 2002/10/20)
"And now the Danish Foreign Minister has come up with a new bon mot: JERUSALEM (October 19) - Danish Foreign Minister Mogens Lykketoft infuriated Israeli diplomatic officials following tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi's assassination, when he said on a Danish television program Wednesday night that there is no difference between the assassination and Israel's targeted killing of terrorists. "Political murder in that area is not anything new," Lykketoft said. Victor Harel, the Foreign Ministry's deputy director-general for Europe, said the ministry was "shocked" by Lykketoft's comments. One is tempted to respond by saying that we see no difference between the Danish Foreign Minister and a bucket of manure. SO let us be clear. The Dane official position is that when Israel assassinates a Palestinian terrorist who has perpetrated mass murders of children, this is exactly the moral equivalence of Palestinian fascist terrorists murdering the elected cabinet minister in a democratic country." (See also:"Israeli Cabinet minister assassinated" (USA Today, 2001/10/17))

"Radical Islam In U.K." (Yoni Fighel, ICT, 2001/10/20)
"It is not by chance that this fatwa was first published in England, where its publication was protected by democratic rights and freedom of speech. This is only one more example of the cynical exploitation of the freedoms of Western civilization by radical Islamists for the advancement of their extremist goals, including the abolition of those very freedoms. In order to launch their Jihad against the "Infidels" of the West, the Islamists have established a kind of forward base among their enemies, operating under the protective umbrella of democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech and religion. The U.K. has thus become a safe haven for the launching of Jihad against the rest of the Western world."

"U.S. Special Operations troops in commando raid" (CNN.com, 2001/10/20)
"U.S. Special Operations troops launched and completed an overnight raid into Afghanistan, U.S. officials told CNN Friday night. ... ...more than 100 troops, including U.S. Army Rangers, flew in helicopters to their unspecified target near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and stayed there for several hours, the officials said. There was no word on what the commandos' mission was or whether it was achieved, but apparently it involved a Taliban leadership target."

"We will not be silenced" (George Galloway, The Guardian, 2001/10/20)
The Labour MP speaks out against the "new imperialism" with some highly selective examples: "So what are the "allies" bombing? The four UN mine-clearing staff, the shepherds and their families in the village of Khorum, the Red Cross compound in Kabul, the residents of Kandahar, the trucks full of terrified refugees. More of these human and public relations disasters will conspire to "bury" the government's message. An already restless audience here, never mind among the 1.3bn Muslims nursing their wrath, will not sit through this unequal fight with equanimity. And without a change of policy, the winter snows will soon begin to tilt this disaster into an international catastrophe."

Added one new section and six new links in links:
Antisemitism. Six links on anti-Semitism: resources, linkcollections, country-by-country examination, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion etc.

Friday, October 19, 2001

News and commentary:

"Cynthia McKinney: Today's Hanoi Jane" (Debbie Schlussel, WorldNetDaily, 2001/10/19)
Schlussel on McKinney:
"Take [Congresswoman Cynthia] McKinney's pandering letter to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, in which she apologized for the valorous actions of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Talal, nephew of Saudi King Fahd, recently visited New York to see the World Trade Center remains and gave Giuliani a $10 million check for relief efforts. ...
Last Friday, McKinney, in a ludicrous letter, apologized to the prince for Giuliani's actions, accusing Giuliani of denying the prince's "right to speak and make observations about a part of the world you know so well."
Huh?
Nobody denied the prince's speech rights – which nobody in his country, Saudi Arabia, has, by the way. He made his statement without being tortured to death, a la Middle-Eastern civil liberties.
But McKinney is right about one thing: The prince and his family know that part of the world well – which is why, according to New York Times and Wall Street Journal reports, there is significant evidence that the Saudi government had their hands in the attacks and that they tacitly continue to support Osama bin Laden through his family, which lives comfortably in Saudi Arabia and hasn't cut their brother off.
McKinney's letter was so disgusting, even her Georgia Democratic colleague, Senator Zell Miller called it "disgraceful" and denounces her on his website. Not only did McKinney agree with the prince's "remarks," but in her own shameful moral equivocation, she attacked America because, "Your Royal Highness, the state of Black America is not good." McKinney wrote, "There are many people in America who desperately need your generosity," making the false assertion that a black baby born in Harlem has a worse life expectancy than one born in Bangladesh." (See also the letter: "McKinney's Letter to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal" (GoodbyeCynthia.com, September 2001). Also: "Cynthia McKinney Must Go" (Bruce Bialosky, FrontPageMagazine, 2001/10/19))

"Love-bombing bin Laden" (David Rieff, Salon.com, 2001/10/19)
Rieff on the peace-loving people of Berkeley: "It is a satirist's dream and must be any sensible Berkeleyite's nightmare: Five weeks after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and little more than a week after the United States began its retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan and on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, the Berkeley City Council called for the United States to stop fighting. ... Would the Berkeley City Council have passed a similar resolution after Germany declared war on the United States in 1941? And would ordinary Berkeleyites who felt themselves to be highly moral people have insisted with equal confidence that violence solved nothing and that, by fighting the Nazis we would become Nazis ... sorry, "the evil we deplore?" It seems unlikely. But then again, perhaps they would have. After all, there were plenty of good Communists in America in the wake of the Hitler-Stalin pact who derided the British declaration of war on Germany as ushering in a conflict in which no good leftist need take sides. That is more or less the Berkeley position today: a plague on bin Laden and a plague on the United States."

"Anti-Western and Extremist Views Pervade Saudi Schools" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2001/10/19)
"The textbook for one of the five religion classes required of all 10th graders in Saudi public high schools tackles the complicated issue of who good Muslims should befriend. After examining a number of scriptures which warn of the dangers of having Christian and Jewish friends, the lesson concludes: "It is compulsory for the Muslims to be loyal to each other and to consider the infidels their enemy." That extremist, anti-Western world view has gradually pervaded the Saudi education system with its heavy doses of mandatory religious instruction, according to Saudi officials and intellectuals. ... The United States seeks to build a coalition against terror with the kingdom, long a Western business and military ally, and yet the country has revealed itself as the source of the very ideology confronting America in the battle against terrorism."

"It is a clash of civilizations" (Robert S. Wistrich, The Jerusalem Post, 2001/10/19)
"The fact is that America and Israel have long been twinned as the "Great" and the "Little" Satan by a resurgent Islam. Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran of 1979 (a pivotal event in 20th century history), both have been demonized and targeted as the source of all evil in the world and the greatest single danger to the Muslim umma (nation). ... Like most of the Western establishment, many Jews (and even some Israelis) are equally reluctant to grasp how profoundly anti-Semitic the Muslim radicals - and indeed the bulk of the Muslim world (by no means only the Arabs) - have become as a result of more than two decades of relentless intoxication by their medias, by their own intellectuals and religious as well as political leaderships." (UPDATE: The original link is down, but the article can be found here, via the Wayback Machine.)

"Idiocy Watch #6" (The New Republic, 2001/10/19)
The close affinity between antisemitic racists such as David Duke and some forms of Muslim anti-Americanism is shown in these examples: "I read the article by David Duke and I'm not going to deny that I agreed with some of its content.... If I had known his history I would not have sent it out. If the article was written by somebody else I would've still sent it out. I feel like the article is valid. I don't feel like whether the article is anti-Semitic is something I need to explain." - Nadeen Al-jijakli, president of the Arab Students Union at New York University, quoted by Washington Square News explaining why she distributed an article by David Duke over the Internet. ... "The primary reason we are suffering from terrorism in the Untied States is because our government policy is completely subordinated to a foreign power: Israel and the efforts of worldwide Jewish Supremacism.... Israel is the only winner in this tragedy."--The aforementioned David Duke article, September 17." (See also: "An open letter to the President of the United States" (David Duke, Stormfront.org, 2001/09/21))

"'I would be honoured to meet bin Laden'" (Sean O'Neill, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/19)
"A radical Muslim cleric accused of inciting and supporting terrorism from his London home was defiant yesterday despite having his social security benefits stopped and being investigated for fraud. Sheikh Abu Qatada had a bank account containing £180,000 frozen after he was named on a Treasury list of individuals and organisations suspected of committing or providing material support for terrorist acts. Investigators were surprised to find a six-figure sum among the assets of the Palestinian, who has been unemployed and receiving benefits since arriving in Britain in 1993. ... Qatada, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment in his absence in Jordan for his alleged role in bombing incidents and the financing of a terror plot, denied being involved in terrorism and said he had no knowledge of the £180,000 account. ... He denied meeting bin Laden when working as a teacher in Peshawar, Pakistan, where the al-Qa'eda network has a strong presence. He said: 'If he spent only a few minutes in my house I would be arrested. I have not met him, but it would not be a crime to do so. I would be honoured, as a Muslim, if I did meet him.'"

"Campus protesters ignite U.S. flags" (Patrick Johnson, The Union News, 2001/10/19)
Anti-American quote of the day. In fact, this one will be hard to beat: "Amherst College students were stunned moments after a pro-America rally involving more than 100 people ended yesterday when several protesters emerged from the crowd to set fire to a U.S. flag. ... Most of those protesting the flag declined to be interviewed. One who did, 19-year-old Dan Griffin of Minneapolis, Minn., said the protest sought to show that the United States is responsible for much of the pain and suffering in the world. The United States has helped continue a spree of genocide that dates back to Columbus in 1492, he said."

"Uzbeks Near Border Praise Attacks on Taliban" (C.J. Chivers, The New York Times, 2001/10/19)
A report from Uzbekistan, with this really cool remark about the prospect of the Taliban taking over: "Others spoke of risks that would accompany vices. 'They would prohibit us from drinking vodka, and to make love to another man's wife would become a dangerous thing, with maybe a chance at execution,' said Ismat Islamov, a bus driver visiting the city. 'Uzbeks don't want that.'"

"Questions for the Anti-War Crowd, Part II - What if someone took them seriously?" (Michael Long, Jewish World Review, 2001/10/19)
"Here's a flash for the anti-war movement: politics is rarely a matter of pure choices between good and evil. The protesters are afraid of moral imperfection, so they damn anything less than the ideal. And while they wait for that ship to come in, innocent people pay the price; lately in the form of greater exposure to terrorism. Because she is imperfect, the protesters cannot stand the thought of supporting her. But the question is not of America's perfection. She isn't perfect. The real question is this: Is America - or any other nation, for that matter - good enough and tolerant enough to merit defending against her enemies?"

"The snakes or Araby" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2001/10/20 issue)
"Bring back colonialism, says Mark Steyn. The hands-off approach never works": "If, as the bonehead peaceniks parrot, poverty breeds instability, then what’s the best way to tackle poverty? The rule of law, a market economy, emancipation of women - all the things you’re never going to get under most present Middle East regimes or any of the ones likely to overthrow them. ... The viability of America’s non-imperial strategy was demolished on 11 September. For its own security, it needs to do what it did to Japan and Germany after the war: civilise them. Kipling called it "the white man’s burden"— the "white man" bit will have to be modified in the age of Colin Powell and Condi Rice, and it's no longer really a "burden", not in cost-benefit terms. Given the billions of dollars of damage done to the world economy by 11 September, massive engagement in the region will be cheaper than the alternative."

"Religion is Not the Enemy" (David F. Forte, National Review, 2001/10/19)
"But Osama bin Laden's version of Islam is different even from Wahhabism. And it certainly is different from more moderate forms of Islamic fundamentalism, let alone traditional Islam. Bin Laden's Islam has even gone beyond being a religious sect. It has become, like the Leninism it in significant ways replicates, a political ideology. Even his calls to action are political war cries: the crusades, the land of the two holy mosques, the 80-year-old political betrayal of the Arabs. He would, and has, killed Muslims who disagree with his beliefs - or rather, with his need for control. He joyfully makes war on innocent civilians, war even the most passionate partisans of the Sharia have difficulty justifying."

"US special forces 'inside Afghanistan'" (BBC News, 2001/10/19)
"A Pentagon official has said that a small number of United States special forces are operating on the ground inside Afghanistan.
The official, who asked not be identified, said it could be the first phase of a larger US troop presence in the country." (See also: "Special Forces Open Ground Campaign" (Thomas E. Ricks and Vernon Loeb, The Washington Post, 2001/10/19))

"Syrian defense minister blames WTC, Pentagon attacks on Israel" (Arieh O'Sullivan, The Jerusalem Post, 2001/10/19)
"Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass has blamed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center on Israel. At a meeting in Damascus last week with a delegation from the British Royal College of Defense Studies, Tlass said the Mossad planned the ramming of two hijacked airliners into the WTC's towers as part of a Jewish conspiracy. He also told the British visitors that the Mossad had given thousands of Jewish employees of the WTC advance warning not to go to work that day. ... Historian Richard Levy, an expert on anti-Semitism at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said such conspiracy theories have flourished after years during which Arab governments have encouraged crude Jewish conspiracy theories. "They have encouraged their peoples to explain politics and history by means of myth, lie, and fear. This sort of demagogy will come back to bite them," he said." (See also: "The American attack against Afghanistan is terrorism…" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 288, 2001/10/17), "Half of Pakistanis believe Israel behind US terrorist attacks" (hindustantimes.com, 2001/10/14) and "4,000 Jews, 1 Lie - Tracking an Internet hoax" (Bryan Curtis, Slate, 2001/10/05))

"Sudan Hides Its Regime of Terror Behind a Mask of Diplomacy" (Michael Rubin, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/19)
"I spent the last week of September in Sudan, which I had entered illegally in order to talk to the Sudanese without being subject to government minders. I spoke not only to Christians and animists in the non-Arab portions of southern Sudan, but also to Arab traders and merchants. An Arab businessman who had recently returned from Khartoum drew a map showing where a terrorist training camp lay, only three miles from the city centre. Other training camps, I was told by others, operate under the cover of the secretive African Centre for Islamic Studies, which trains numerous Palestinian, Iranian, and Iraqi students. In the wake of the World Trade Centre attacks, operatives from larger camps in northern Sudan have relocated to towns further south, away from the eyes of foreign journalists. Terrorist cells are not the only thing moving south. If you want to find chemical weapons, one former member of the Sudanese army told me, take a look in Juba airport. ... There can be no doubt: the Sudanese government remains a host to terrorists, and continues to engage in the brutal ethnic cleansing of non-Arab Sudanese. Coalitions are important, but London and Washington should judge states by their actions, and not by their rhetoric."

"Idealising the other side" (Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Guardian, 2001/10/19)
"The trouble is that, even though the peace party may be right about war in general or a particular war, it is all too often wrong about the enemy. Acting on the unspoken principle "their country right or wrong", the liberal left has a fatal tendency to idealise and extenuate the other side. This has happened again and again over the past hundred years, going back to the most dramatic example of all. ... And yet history is tragic, human nature is not essentially benign, the Boers were not noble heroes, the Kaiser and Hitler were not much-maligned men pushed to the end of their tether. And Bin Laden and his followers are not Fanon's wretched of the earth avenging injustice, they are bloodthirsty religious maniacs. The world is not as simple - or as lovable - as liberals would sometimes wish."

Thursday, October 18, 2001

News and commentary:

"The tenets of terror" (Robert Marquand, The Christian Science Monitor, 2001/10/18)
"A special report on the ideology of jihad and the rise of Islamic militancy": "What is new - and appears to be gathering momentum with every US air strike in Afghanistan - is the intensity of feelings this ideology has created among younger Muslims. Even in the traditionally more "moderate" Muslim nations of Southeast Asia, a culture of jihad is now spreading. One's credentials as a "true Muslim" are increasingly based on a willingness to use violence. ... This generation of poorly educated mullahs look at Islam through the lens of a violent jihad - rather than looking at jihad through the lens of Islam, experts say."

"Shifting Sympathies" (Newsweek, 2001/10/18)
A report on a gallup poll made in Pakistan: "Pakistan is one of the few Muslim countries that allows scientific opinion polling. Polls are banned, for instance, in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. ... Almost half of Pakistanis (48 percent) believe that Israel is behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Twelve percent blame bin Laden; 25 percent say "some American group" is responsible for the assaults." (See also: "Half of Pakistanis believe Israel behind US terrorist attacks" (hindustantimes.com, 2001/10/14))

"Israeli ultimatum as tanks move in" (BBC News, 2001/10/18)
"A schoolgirl and two security force members have been killed by Israeli tank fire in the West Bank, hours after Israel delivered an ultimatum to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to hand over the killers of a slain ultra-nationalist politician. The Palestinian authorities have arrested at least three prominent members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which said it carried out Wednesday's assassination of Rehavam Zeevi, but are refusing to hand anyone over."

"U.S. propaganda to Taliban: 'You are condemned'" (Jamie McIntyre, CNN.com, 2001/10/18)
"The Pentagon is sending radio broadcasts into Afghanistan telling the Taliban they are "condemned," and the messages seem to suggest that U.S. troops will eventually be on the ground in that country. ... 'Attention Taliban! You are condemned. Did you know that? The instant the terrorists you support took over our planes, you sentenced yourselves to death. The Armed Forces of the United States are here to seek justice for our dead. Highly trained soldiers are coming to shut down once and for all Osama bin Laden's ring of terrorism, and the Taliban that supports them and their actions.'"

"Israel's right of defence" (The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/18)
"Yet the Americans should ask themselves what they would do in Ariel Sharon's position. The assassination of a cabinet minister is an outrageous assault on the Israeli state and its elected representatives. ... America and Britain have built an impressive coalition against terrorism. But Israel's right to self-defence should not be sacrificed to its maintenance. Rather than seeking to tie Mr Sharon's hands, Messrs Bush and Blair should support Israeli counter-measures and demand that Mr Arafat bring the criminals to justice and that Syria close PFLP offices in Damascus."

"The Enemy Is Not Islam. It Is Nihilism" (Charles Krauthammer, The Weekly Standard, from the 2001/10/22 issue)
"Reading conventional notions of class struggle and anti-colonialism into bin Laden, the Taliban, and radical Islam is not just solipsistic. It is nonsense. If poverty and destitution, colonialism and capitalism are animating radical Islam, explain this: In March, the Taliban went to the Afghan desert where stood great monuments of human culture, two massive Buddhas carved out of a cliff. At first, Taliban soldiers tried artillery. The 1,500-year-old masterpieces proved too hardy. The Taliban had to resort to dynamite. They blew the statues to bits, then slaughtered 100 cows in atonement - for having taken so long to finish the job. Buddhism is hardly a representative of the West. It is hardly a cause of poverty and destitution. It is hardly a symbol of colonialism. No. The statues represented two things: an alternative faith and a great work of civilization. To the Taliban, the presence of both was intolerable."

Wednesday, October 17, 2001

News and commentary:

"New anthrax exposure cases in Senate" (CNN.com, 2001/10/17)
"Three additional Senate staffers have tested positive for anthrax exposure, bringing the Capitol Hill tally to 34 people who have been exposed to the bacteria. Earlier Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said nasal swabs of 25 members of his staff and six Capitol security officers indicated they had been exposed to anthrax."
"The American attack against Afghanistan is terrorism…" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 288, 2001/10/17)
An interview with the Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Al-Gamei'a, the Al-Azhar University representative in the U.S. and Imam of the Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque of New York City, who returned to Egypt after September 11. Keep in mind that he is one of the leading Muslim leaders in the United States while reading his virulent antisemitic and anti-American ramblings: "During my conversations with this group, it became clear to me that they knew very well that the Jews were behind these ugly acts, while we, the Arabs, were innocent, and that someone from among their people was disseminating corruption in the land. Although the Americans suspect that the Zionists are behind the act, none has the courage to talk about it in public. ... You see these people (i.e. the Jews) all the time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs. [Because of them] there are strip clubs, homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world."

"The New Cold War" (David Pryce-Jones, National Review, 2001/10/17)
"The moment the new organizing principles emerged, the same Cold War objectors of yesterday appeared as if they had been ready in the wings for a reprise. That too is spooky. Without a hiccup, the professors and students, actresses and clergymen, and all who used to hold that an aggressive United States was responsible for starting and pursuing the Cold War against a peace-loving Soviet Union, have adapted this self-accusation to present circumstances. The Left is again collecting petitions against war, mobilizing demonstrations in major cities, pleading that humanitarian considerations ought to exclude any military measures — never mind the victims of September 11 — and calling for bin Laden to be brought before a court, an Alice-in-Wonderland prospect."

"Idiocy Watch #5" (The New Republic, 2001/10/17)
The fifth installment of "all the dumb and outrageous things being said and written about America and the terrorists.": "'I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House.' - Eric Foner, London Review of Books, October 4"

"Israeli Cabinet minister assassinated" (USA Today, 2001/10/17)
"One or more gunmen, lurking in hotel hallway, shot and killed an Israeli Cabinet minister on Wednesday with three bullets to the head and neck. A radical Palestinian faction said it carried out the assassination to avenge the killing of its leader by Israel two months ago. The killing of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, 75, who advocated the ouster of all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, threatened to re-ignite the cycle of violence that has wracked the holy land for the last year. It came at a time when the U.S. supported Sept. 26 cease-fire appeared to be holding in many areas." (See also: "Ultimatum to Arafat: Turn over PFLP leaders, Ze'evi murderers" (Haaretz, 2001/10/17): "Israel will present an ultimatum to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and will demand that he take severe actions against the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and hand over to Israel those responsible for the murder of Ze'evi. If the PA does not take action and does not hand over the wanted individuals, Israel will take serious measures.")

"Of course it's a war on Islam" (Faisal Bodi, The Guardian, 2001/10/17)
Bodi argues that the war on terrorism is really a war on Islam and "against liberty" (the liberty to commit massmurder?): "For the rank and file believer, a drawn-out military offensive against terrorist groups and those that harbour them can only mean one thing: the extirpation of Islam as a political threat to the west's exploitation of our countries. With the help of a handful of western states, the US-led coalition is attempting to deal once and for all with those who refuse to yield to the American world order." (See also: "Koran and Country" (BBC News/Panorama, 2001/10/14))

"Bin Laden 'to take part in television interview'" (Audrey Gillan, The Guardian, 2001/10/17)
"CNN and the Arabic satellite network al-Jazeera have been asked by a man claiming to represent al-Qaida to submit questions that will be answered on video by Osama bin Laden, it emerged last night. The man asked the networks to provide written questions for the terrorist leader, which he will answer on a videotape to be delivered back to al-Jazeera, the station that has received video recordings and statements from Bin Laden and his spokesmen."

"Two Clarifying Exchanges" (Seth Lipsky, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/10/17)
"On Monday, a reporter asked State Department spokesman Phillip Reeker about Israel's decision to shoot the mastermind of the suicide bombing attack that claimed 22 lives at a Tel Aviv discotheque. ... Mr. Reeker interrupted: "It is the same position that we have said over and over again. And that is that we oppose a policy of targeted killings." "Just to follow on that and to broaden it," a reporter continued, "can you expand on your opposition . . . to the Israeli policy of targeted killings vis-à-vis U.S. policy to target Osama bin Laden [and] Mullah Omar?" Mr. Reeker's reply: "I can't really draw a parallel between the two..." ... Then there was a fantastic exchange on CNN's "Larry King Live" Monday evening, between New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Dana Suyyagh, a producer for the Qatar-based TV network Al-Jazeera. ...Ms. Miller asked this question: "Do you call a people who blow themselves up on the West Bank and in Gaza and in Israel martyrs . . .?" "Yes, we do," Ms. Suyyagh replied. "And do you think that's objective?" "Yes." "Did you call the people who blew the Twin Towers up martyrs?" Ms. Miller asked. "No," Ms. Suyyagh replied. "We never called them martyrs. That is an act of terror. We go with international opinion on that one, yes. . . . The West Bank is a different issue altogether." "So terrorists who kill . . . civilians in Israel are martyrs, and terrorists who kill Americans are terrorists?" Ms. Miller asked. "Is that your news standard?" Ms. Suyyagh's explanation? 'We have a standing policy that people who are martyrs are people who give themselves for a cause. What happened in New York and Washington, we believe, was causeless.'"

"Coalition of the Unwilling" (Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, 2002/10/17)
"Bismarck said every alliance has a horse and a rider, and one should endeavor to be the rider. The same goes for international coalitions. You're either leading them or they're leading you. Of course, we're all interested in what "the coalition" feels may be necessary. We'd like to have as many nations on our side as possible. But with many thousands of Americans dead, and who knows how many more at risk, Washington ought to be making its own decisions about the war on terrorism. This is not the voice of unilateralism speaking. Contrary to fashionable wisdom, the debate today is not between multilateralism and unilateralism. It's between effective multilateralism and paralytic multilateralism. ... It's important to have partners in this struggle. But a little sober realism is in order, too. At the end of the day, there are a limited number of nations we can trust to look out for our most vital interests, and an even smaller number strong enough and stable enough to be of real help. If we make our goals and strategy plain, those close allies will likely join us, in Afghanistan and beyond, to do what we think is necessary to win the war. But if we let the coalition of the unwilling call the shots, they'll gladly drag us down to defeat, everywhere."

"Our war against the Taliban is no Vietnam" (Janet Daley, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/17)
"Of course, it is disturbing to see a large, rich country attacking a small, poor one. But it is the poor country (or those whom it protects) that has declared war, and done it in the most iniquitous way it is possible to imagine. There can be no confusion about who the good guys are in this. It is a war, as much as the one against fascism was, between open and closed societies, between freedom and totalitarianism, between enlightenment and enforced ignorance. If we cannot keep hold of that fundamental principle, then we are truly lost."

Added one new section and seven new links in Links:
Moral equivalence. 13 articles on moral equivalence: especially recommended is Jeane J. Kirkpatrick's seminal "The Myth of Moral Equivalence" (Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Liberty Haven/Imprimis, January 1986)

Tuesday, October 16, 2001

News and commentary:

"Kumbaya Watch: Kingsolver, Again" (Ross Douthat, National Review, 2001/10/16)
Douthat examines Kingsolver's latest ramblings: "But before we get swept away by Kingsolver's global vision of peace, love, and "efficient public transit," we should remember that she is, first and foremost, a creative writer. So spare a thought, if you please, for this noted novelist's choice of simile to describe America's war on terrorism: 'I feel like I'm standing on a playground where the little boys are all screaming at each other, "He started it!" and throwing rocks that keep taking out another eye, another tooth. I keep looking around for somebody's mother to come on the scene saying, "Boys! Boys! Who started it cannot possibly be the issue here. People are getting hurt." I am somebody's mother, so I will say that now: The issue is, people are getting hurt.'"

"Anti-Americanism Revisited" (Paul Hollander, The Weekly Standard, from the 2001/10/22 issue)
"...I suggest that the suicide attacks were the purest expression of pathological hatred and fanaticism, the most intense and irrational manifestation of anti-Americanism legitimated by religious beliefs and the conviction that modernity, with all the moral uncertainties it creates--embodied by the United States--is the source of evil in the world. Understanding the pathology of murderous hatred does not require a new round of collective self-flagellation and guilty soul-searching. These crimes were committed by individuals who chose their actions freely and with utmost deliberation and under no compulsion other than the prodding of their irrational beliefs. The perverted idealism of the perpetrators no more legitimates their actions than other types of idealistic beliefs justified the mass murders of the past, also undertaken to cleanse the world."

"Arabs Have Nobody to Blame But Themselves" (Fouad Ajami, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/10/16)
"A darkness, a long winter, has descended on the Arabs. Nothing grows in the middle between an authoritarian political order and populations given to perennial flings with dictators, abandoned to their most malignant hatreds. Something is amiss in an Arab world that besieges American embassies for visas and at the same time celebrates America's calamities. Something has gone terribly wrong in a world where young men strap themselves with explosives, only to be hailed as "martyrs" and avengers. No military campaign by a foreign power can give modern-day Arabs a way out of the cruel, blind alley of their own history."

"To court Arafat is to succour the enemy of our ally Israel" (Daniel Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/16)
"If 5,500 people had not been horribly murdered in America on September 11, would Tony Blair have invited Yasser Arafat to Downing Street? Why, in the midst of a war against terrorism, does the Prime Minister embrace the man who, more than any other, invented international terrorism? ... Terrorism in its modern form - the hijacking and destruction of airliners - is a consequence of the failure to annihilate Israel by military assault. Its emergence created the climate in which messianic revolutionaries such as Osama bin Laden could flourish. He is merely the latest in a long sequence of demagogues - Nasser, Gaddafi, Arafat, Khomeini, Saddam - who have used terrorism not only against Israel, but against the West. Terrorism is a continuation of jihad by other means. It cannot be appeased, only defeated."

"Muslim Students Weigh Questions Of Allegiance" (Marc Fisher, The Washington Post, 2001/10/16)
"Is it reasonable to ask students at the Muslim Community School in Potomac whether there is a conflict between being an American and being a Muslim? It certainly seemed fair after six young people, all born in this country, all American citizens, told me that no, they did not believe that Osama bin Laden was necessarily the bad guy the president says he is, and no, they did not think the United States should be attacking Afghanistan, and, no, they might not be able to serve their country if it meant taking up arms against fellow Muslims. "What does it really mean to be an American?" asked seventh-grader Miriam. "Being American is just being born in this country." "If I had to choose sides, I'd stay with being Muslim," said eighth-grader Ibrahim. 'Being an American means nothing to me. I'm not even proud of telling my cousins in Pakistan that I'm American.'"

"Arafat Joins Blair's Call for 'Reinvigorated' Talks" (Warren Hoge, International Herald Tribune, 2001/10/16)
"Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, urged Israel on Monday to resume immediate negotiations for peace in the Middle East, and Prime Minister Tony Blair said at a news conference at No. 10 Downing Street, "We are in complete agreement that now is the time to reinvigorate this process." In remarks that appeared aimed at easing Washington's path while putting pressure on Jerusalem, the two men argued that the attacks on the United States last month had made pursuit of a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians more urgent than ever."

Added one new section and 13 new links in Links:
Anti-Americanism. 13 articles on anti-Americanism in the Muslim world, Europe and the U.S..

Monday, October 15, 2001

News and commentary:

"The Case for American Empire" (Max Boot, The Weekly Standard, from the 2001/10/15 issue)
Max Boot argues that Afghanistan and Iraq should be occupied: "Many have suggested that the September 11 attack on America was payback for U.S. imperialism. If only we had not gone around sticking our noses where they did not belong, perhaps we would not now be contemplating a crater in lower Manhattan. The solution is obvious: The United States must become a kinder, gentler nation, must eschew quixotic missions abroad, must become, in Pat Buchanan's phrase, "a republic, not an empire." In fact this analysis is exactly backward: The September 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition; the solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their implementation. ...
Over the years, America has earned opprobrium in the Arab world for its realpolitik backing of repressive dictators like Hosni Mubarak and the Saudi royal family. This could be the chance to right the scales, to establish the first Arab democracy, and to show the Arab people that America is as committed to freedom for them as we were for the people of Eastern Europe. To turn Iraq into a beacon of hope for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East: Now that would be a historic war aim.
Is this an ambitious agenda? Without a doubt. Does America have the resources to carry it out? Also without a doubt. Does America have the will? That is an open question."

"What We Have to Lose" (Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal, from the Autumn 2001 issue)
"The word civilization itself now rarely appears in academic texts or in journalism without the use of ironical quotation marks, as if civilization were a mythical creature, like the Loch Ness monster or the Abominable Snowman, and to believe in it were a sign of philosophical naïveté. Brutal episodes, such as are all too frequent in history, are treated as demonstrations that civilization and culture are a sham, a mere mask for crassly material interests - as if there were any protection from man's permanent temptation to brutality except his striving after civilization and culture. At the same time, achievements are taken for granted, as always having been there, as if man's natural state were knowledge rather than ignorance, wealth rather than poverty, tranquillity rather than anarchy. It follows that nothing is worthy of, or requires, protection and preservation, because all that is good comes about as a free gift of Nature. To paraphrase Burke, all that is necessary for barbarism to triumph is for civilized men to do nothing: but in fact for the past few decades, civilized men have done worse than nothing - they have actively thrown in their lot with the barbarians."

"The Conflict at Home" (Theodore Dalrymple, National Review, 2001/10/15)
"Multiculturalists hold these truths to be self-evident: that all cultures are created equal and are endowed by their creators with equal and compatible virtues. There can thus be no fundamental conflict between cultures. The lion can truly lie down with the lamb, not at some unspecified time in the future, but here and now, in the gardens of the West. ...
One conflict between two liberal shibboleths — feminism, even of the mildest and most reasonable kind, and multiculturalism — has been passed over with a silence that can only be described as deafening. Liberals who mistake pieties for thought can keep their orthodoxies intact only by averting their gaze from the most elementary reality.
It is perfectly clear from my clinical experience in the hospital in which I work that large numbers of Muslim girls of Pakistani descent are being betrothed at or soon after birth to first cousins in villages back "home," whom they are subsequently inveigled into marrying by psychological pressure, subterfuge, or outright force, including the credible threat of death. ...
Given the exquisite tenderness of feminists on such matters as the replacement of the word "chairman" by "chair," one might have supposed that the existence of the customs I have mentioned would excite their ire, arouse their righteous indignation (in this case truly righteous), and fire their eloquence. On the contrary, such customs go almost completely unremarked and uncommented upon."

"Oliver Stone's Chaos Theory" (The New Yorker, 2001/10/15)
"As hisses filled the air, Oliver Stone, another panelist, shook his head in disbelief. ... "They control culture, they control ideas. And I think the revolt of September 11th was about 'Fuck you! Fuck your order -'" "Excuse me," a fellow-panelist, Christopher Hitchens, said. " 'Revolt'?" "Whatever you want to call it," Stone said. "It was state-supported mass murder, using civilians as missiles," said Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and The Nation. ... Stone sat in a booth, cradling a glass of white wine in his hands, and remarked that he hadn't slept in days. "The new world order is about order and control," he said. 'This attack was pure chaos, and chaos is energy. All great changes have come from people or events that were initially misunderstood, and seemed frightening, like madmen. Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Gates. I think, I think . . . I think many things.'"

"Anthrax sent to Senate leader" (BBC News, 2001/10/15)
"A letter opened in the office of US Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle had anthrax in it, President George W Bush has revealed. Mr Bush said members of staff who had been exposed were being treated and warned all Americans about letters coming from unknown senders. It is unclear how many staff are being treated, but Mr Daschle said that 40 people were based in his office across the street from the Capitol building. There have been 12 other cases concerning anthrax sent through the post in the US..."

"Idiocy Watch #4" (The New Republic, 2001/10/15)
The fourth installment of the dumbest, most outrageous things said or written about America and the terrorists: "'[But we must also think about] the terrorists who are creating such horrible future lives for themselves because of the negativity of this karma. ... If you can see [the terrorists] as a relative who's dangerously sick and we have to give them medicine, and the medicine is love and compassion. There's nothing better.' - Richard Gere, in an interview with ABCNEWS Radio, October 10."

"Shooting snakes while supporting snake farms" (Don Feder, TownHall, 2001/10/15)
"'The Palestinian-Israeli problem is the cause of all violence and chaos,' says Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. He's right. If it weren't for the Zionist entity, Pakistani terrorists wouldn't be blowing up government buildings in Kashmir, Sudan wouldn't be committing genocide against the nation's Christians, and Algeria's civil war would have ended years ago."

"Journalists are shown homes 'hit by US'" (Ben Fenton, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/10/15)
"The Taliban escorted Western journalists into Afghanistan last night to show them the remains of what it claimed was a village bombed by American aircraft. It was the first time Western journalists have been allowed into Taliban-controlled areas of the country since the air strikes began. They were kept under close supervision, being taken only to areas that their armed guards allowed. ... The Taliban said 200 people were killed last Thursday. There were about 18 fresh graves to be seen in Karam itself, marked with jagged pieces of slate. ... Ian Williams, Asia reporter for Channel 4 News, said what he had seen suggested "a terrible mistake was made". He counted 30 fresh graves in three hillside locations."

"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)

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