Archived news and commentary: December 17 - 23, 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, December 23, 2001

News and commentary:

"Flight forced to land; explosives in shoes suspected" (CNN.com, 2001/12/23)
"A commercial flight from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida, made an emergency landing in Boston on Saturday after a passenger attempted to light what may have been some sort of explosive in his shoes, authorities said. ... The man, about 28, was carrying a British passport that appeared to have been issued about three weeks ago in Belgium in the name of Richard Reid, Kinton said. "The passport of the individual was checked and appears to have several problems with it," he said."

Saturday, December 22, 2001

News and commentary:

"Karzai takes power in Kabul" (BBC News, 2001/12/22)
"Hamid Karzai has been sworn in as Afghanistan's new leader at an emotionally-charged ceremony in Kabul. In the first peaceful transfer of power in Afghanistan for decades, Mr Karzai embraced former president Burhanuddin Rabbani and called on Afghans to "forget the painful past". ... The new government is to run Afghanistan for the next six months - the first stage in a process which should culminate in elections within two and a half years. Mr Karzai, 44, said his administration would respect all Islamic rules, the freedom of speech and the rights of women."

"Saudi Arabia's Apartheid" (Colbert I. King, The Washington Post, 2001/12/22)
"Then he threw in this grabber: 'One of the (still) untold stories, however, is the cooperation of U.S. and other Western companies in enforcing sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia. McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other U.S. firms, for instance, maintain strictly segregated eating zones in their restaurants. The men's sections are typically lavish, comfortable and up to Western standards, whereas the women's or families' sections are often run-down, neglected and, in the case of Starbucks, have no seats. Worse, these firms will bar entrance to Western women who show up without their husbands. My wife and other [U.S. government affiliated] women were regularly forbidden entrance to the local McDonald's unless there was a man with them.'"

Note: Watch will not be updated for a couple of days because of the approaching arrival of Santa Claus. Merry Christmas!

 

Friday, December 21, 2001

News and commentary:

"Eagan flight trainer wouldn't let unease about Moussaoui rest" (Greg Gordon, Star Tribune, 2001/12/21)
"When a Twin Cities flight instructor phoned the FBI last August to alert the agency that a terrorist might be taking lessons to fly a jumbo jet, he did it in a dramatic way: "Do you realize how serious this is?" the instructor asked an FBI agent. "This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon!" The aviation student he was talking about was Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested the following day and last week was charged in a federal indictment with conspiring with Osama bin Laden and others to carry out the Sept. 11 attacks. ... Moussaoui first raised eyebrows when, during a simple introductory exchange, he said he was from France, but then didn't seem to understand when the instructor spoke French to him. Moussaoui then became belligerent and evasive about his background, Oberstar and other sources said. In addition, he seemed inept in basic flying procedures, while seeking expensive training on an advanced commercial jet simulator."

"Retrospective: A bin Laden Special on Al-Jazeera Two Months Before September 11" (Special Dispatch No. 319, MEMRI, 2001/12/21)
"On July 10, 2001, on the Al-Jazeera talk show "Opposite Direction," Dr. Faysal Al-Qassem dedicated a program to "Bin Laden – The Arab Despair and American Fear." ... Concluding the program, host Al-Qassem said: "Al-Hatem 'Adlan, there was an opinion poll in a Kuwaiti paper which showed that 69% of Kuwaitis, Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, and Palestinians think bin Laden is an Arab hero and an Islamic Jihad warrior... 65% claimed that attacking American targets was justified, because it [is implementation of the principle of] 'an eye for an eye,' and because the American slogan is 'Might is Right'... 76% would be sorry if bin Laden were caught. You demand democracy and such things – here's democracy for you. This is [the opinion of] the people. Besides, I have a poll on the [Al-Jazeera] Internet site. Out of 3,942 people who responded, 82.7% saw bin Laden as a Jihad fighter, 8.8% as a terrorist, and 8.4% didn't know. This is an actual result about which there can be no argument… There is an Arab consensus from the Gulf to the [Atlantic] ocean."

"How to Save the Arab World" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2001/12/24 issue)
"America's allies in the Middle East are autocratic, corrupt and heavy-handed. But they are still more liberal, tolerant and pluralistic than what would likely replace them. If elections had been held last month in Saudi Arabia with King Fahd and Osama bin Laden on the ballot, I would not bet too heavily on His Royal Highness’s fortunes. ... A similar dynamic is evident in the kingdoms of the gulf from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. In Jordan and Morocco, on virtually every political issue, the monarchs are more liberal than the societies over which they reign. ... In most societies dissidents force their country to take a hard look at its own failings. In the Middle East, the democrats are the first to seek refuge in fantasy, denial and delusion. The state-owned media do not need to promote crazed conspiracy theories about the Mossad's secret role in bombing the World Trade Center or the CIA's fabrication of the bin Laden videotape. The "free" television station, Al-Jazeera, does it voluntarily - and the public laps it up."

 

Thursday, December 20, 2001

News and commentary:

"The patient accumulation of successes" (The Economist, 2001/12/20)
"Along with the Taliban and al-Qaeda armies in Afghanistan, the armchair critics in the West have been routed. American troops have not suffered the humiliation meted out to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Bombing did not prove pointless or reckless. There has been no "humanitarian disaster". Other Islamic countries, notably Pakistan, the Gulf states and Egypt, have not erupted in popular fury against the West. Americans have not "lashed out", and nor have they been "arrogant" or "triumphalist". Instead they have been sober, well-organised, well-supported, determined and remarkably successful."

"Brazen anti-Semitism" (Uri Dan, The Jerusalem Post, 2001/12/20)
"For elderly Jews, who were saved from the clutches of the Nazis and the Frenchmen who collaborated with them, and who are living in Paris, the attacks of the French media against Israel remind them of the anti-Semitic publications during the Vichy regime. In Brussels, a similar, and perhaps even graver, anti-Semitic offensive is being waged. The Belgian media are frequently even more venomous and primitive than those in France in their attacks on Israel and Ariel Sharon's government. ... The leftist French weekly Novel Observateur recently printed a blood libel copied from a British newspaper, according to which IDF soldiers were raping Palestinian women to cause their murder by members of their families, because the family honor had been sullied."

News and commentary:

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)
An English translation of Fallaci's article which originally was published in Corriere della Sera (2001/09/29). With the article Fallaci broke a decade of silence:
"You ask me to speak, this time. You ask me to break at least this once the silence I’ve chosen, that I’ve imposed on myself these many years to avoid mingling with chattering insects. And I’m going to. Because I’ve heard that in Italy too there are some who rejoice just as the Palestinians of Gaza did the other night on TV. “Victory! Victory!” Men, women, children. Assuming you can call those who do such a thing man, woman, child. I’ve heard that some of the insects of means, politicians or so-called politicians, intellectuals or so-called intellectuals, not to mention others not worthy of the title of citizen, are behaving pretty much the same way. They say: "Good. It serves America right." And I am very very, very angry. Angry with an anger that is cold, lucid, rational. An anger that eliminates every detachment, every indulgence. An anger that compels me to respond and demands above all that I spit on them. I spit on them." (UPDATE. The complete article can also be found at the Italian About site as "The Rage and the Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, About, 2001[?]). Also as "Rage & Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, borg.com, 2001[?]))

"Recent Statements by Yasser Arafat" (Special Dispatch No. 317, MEMRI, 2001/12/19)
While Arafat called for a stop of all "terrorist activities...especially the suicide bombings that we have already condemned" in his latest television speech he continues to give another message in statements not widely reported by Western media: "Arafat boasted that despite Israeli pressure 'no one [amongst the Palestinians said] 'Ahh' [i.e., no one sighed]... Let me give you an example... do you know what a mother of a martyr does when she is informed of the martyrdom of her son? She goes out to the street with cheers of joy saying 'Allah be praised, my son, that you married Palestine rather than your cousin.' This is the Palestinian people.'"

"Non-Judgment Day at Yale" (Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, 2001/12/19)
"Hornstein is a student at Yale University, and she has written a column for the Dec. 17 issue of Newsweek in which she attempts to come to terms with what for her and her friends at Yale is the most troublesome question arising out of Sept. 11: Did somebody do something really bad here? ... Hornstein is clear as to why she and her peers find it so difficult to judge: They were trained all their lives to be this way. Hornstein spent 14 years in a public school in Manhattan "with students who came from a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds" being tutored in an "open-minded curriculum." ... In high school, Hornstein and her fellow students agreed that although they personally found the practice of female genital mutilation to be abhorrent, they must accept it as part of the culture of other societies."

"Peace in our time: the positives outweigh the rest" (Polly Toynbee, The Guardian, 2001/12/19)
"Just 14 weeks after September 11, the unthinkable has happened. Absolutely no one predicted this. Had the text of the Bonn peace agreement been mooted three months ago, every expert in the world would have laughed at such fantasy. Victory with so little fighting was beyond the wildest imaginings of the Pentagon: Geoff Hoon talked of fighting into next summer and beyond. Afghanistan, reputed to be pre-historic, war-addicted, incapable of peace, unfit for democracy, turns out to value life and freedom from oppression by a psychotic cult, as people do."

 

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

News and commentary:

"Democracy and Islam" (Claudia Winkler, The Weekly Standard, 2001/12/18)
"Seven out of ten of the least-free countries in the world have Islamic majorities. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and Turkmenistan join Burma, Cuba, and North Korea in the dubious distinction of achieving the lowest possible ratings in the latest global survey of political rights and civil liberties put out by Freedom House. ... Still, the present challenge is gigantic: Not a single one of the 16 majority Arab countries is truly democratic or free. And the threat from fanatical Islamists gives weak regimes new excuses for holding onto the machinery of repression." (See also: "Freedom in the World 2002: The Democracy Gap" (Freedom House))

"The Left blinds itself to the truth about bin Laden" (Robert Harris, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/12/18)
"And this syndrome - this stubborn refusal to accept what is plainly obvious - has, it strikes me, been the hallmark of many Left-wing intellectuals over the past three months. Anyone who ever wondered about the extraordinary blindness of clever people towards the Soviet Union 70 years ago - all those Shaws, and Wellses, and Webbs, and G D H Coleses; all those subscribers to the Left Book Club - anyone, indeed, who thought we would never see such naivety again, has been able to enjoy a little trip down memory lane since September 11. ... At least Shaw and the Western sympathisers for Stalin believed in something: for all their folly, they had a kind of intellectual grandeur about them, a coherent philosophy to defend. Today, the Left doesn't even offer an alternative - just endless nit-picking raised to the level of an ideology."

News and commentary:

"The Ends of War" (Christopher Hitchens, The Nation, 2001/12/17)
"The United States of America has just succeeded in bombing a country back out of the Stone Age. This deserves to be recognized as an achievement, even by those who want to hasten past the moment and resume their customary tasks (worrying about the spotty human rights record of the Northern Alliance is the latest thing). ... No possible future government in Kabul can be worse than the Taliban, and no thinkable future government would allow the level of Al Qaeda gangsterism to recur. So the outcome is proportionate and congruent with international principles of self-defense. This is the best news for a long time. It deserves to be said, also, that the feat was accomplished with no serious loss of civilian life, and with an almost pedantic policy of avoiding "collateral damage." The hypocritical advice of the Pakistani right wing (keep it short, don't bomb, don't bomb during Ramadan, beware of the winter, leave Kabul alone) was finally ignored as the insidious pro-Taliban propaganda that it actually was. Those ultraleftists and soft liberals who repeated the same stuff - in presumable ignorance of its real source and intention - could safely be ignored then and needn't be teased too much now. The rescue of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991 taught them nothing; they were for leaving Bosnia and Kosovo to the mercy of Milosevic; they had nothing to say about the lack of an international intervention in Rwanda. The American polity is now divided between those who can recognize a new situation when they see it, and those who cannot or will not."

"Arafat calls for halt to suicide attacks" (Lamia Lahoud and Herb Keinon, The Jerusalem Post, 2001/12/17)
"Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, who just last week was declared "irrelevant" by the government, responded to international pressure last night by calling directly upon Palestinians to halt all "terrorist activities," including suicide bombings, against Israelis."

"Islamists overplay their hand but London salons don't see it" (Barbara Amiel, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/12/17)
"Recently, the ambassador of a major EU country politely told a gathering at my home that the current troubles in the world were all because of "that shitty little country Israel". "Why," he asked, "should the world be in danger of World War Three because of those people?" At a private lunch last month, the hostess - doyenne of London's political salon scene - made a remark to the effect that she couldn't stand Jews and everything happening to them was their own fault. When this was greeted with a shocked silence, she chided her guests on what she assumed was their hypocrisy. "Oh come on," she said, "you all feel like that." Once that remark would have cost her licence as a serious political hostess, but clearly she believes the zeitgeist is blowing her way."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

Copyright © Watch 2001-2006. Copyrights of quoted materials
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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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

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

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

Weekly archive

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

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