Archived news and commentary: December 24 - 31, 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

 

Monday, December 31, 2001

News and commentary:

"The Year Ahead; The U.S. and Europe" (Martin Walker, UPI, 2001/12/30)
"The Bush administration, flush from its triumph in the brisk 9-week war against the Taliban and still outraged by the Sept. 11 attacks, is in no mood to pay much heed to European complaints about U.S. "unilateralism." Still less will it listen to European fretting over the next phase of the war against terrorism, at least while rich European allies like Germany reject the kind of defense spending that might give the European Union a serious military voice. Germany spends 1.5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, compared to America's 3.3 percent and Britain's 3 per cent. If the Germans paid more, they might get the kind of respect that Britain still enjoys in Washington. ... With the U.S. and Japan and the EU all facing recession together, it will be critical for the two 900-pound gorillas of the global economy to cooperate closely. But the Europeans are nervous of offending the Arab world. They declared their continued support for Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Yasser Arafat at their EU summit in Belgium on Dec. 16, and promised to continue their funding for the PA. The U.S. has seldom seen eye to eye with its European allies over the Middle East. None of the Europeans, not even the usually reliable Britain, allowed American military cargo planes to use their bases for the emergency arms airlift to Israel during the Yom Kippur war. And only Britain offered its bases for the 1985 air strikes against Libya. So the deepening crisis between Israel and the Palestinians could cleave new divisions in the transatlantic relationship."

"Surprise! It really is a world war on terror" (Daniel Pipes, New York Post/danielpipes.org, 2001/12/31)
"Stepping back from the details, we see here something very major indeed, perhaps even (to use the term made notorious by the first President Bush) a new world order. It is characterized by an assertive United States using its power to protect itself, stand by its friends, and intimidate its enemies. Yes, this involves dangers, as shown by the growing worry of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. But the only way to defeat militant Islam is through a willingness to fight it; and the sooner it is confronted, the less bloody the fight will be."

"Saudi Columnists: Urbanization and Development in Southern Saudi Arabia, Not Poverty, Led to September 11" (Special Dispatch No. 323. MEMRI, 2001/12/31)
"In principle, I agree with him that the link drawn between terrorism and poverty and unemployment is not true at all, and recent events attest to this. Most of the perpetrators were from families that had been favored by fortune. In most cases, they weren’t even middle class, but higher. If poverty was a cause of terrorism, we wouldn’t hear about a single Saudi in this affair; the accusations would be directed at Somalia, Burundi, Chad, Bangladesh, and other countries classified as below the poverty line. ... If poverty and unemployment were the fuel of terrorism, [terrorism] would have engulfed other regions. The 'Asir region is, according to all assessments and statistics, the fastest-developing region [of Saudi Arabia]. ... The problem is not one of development. Laying [the responsibility] for the problem on development diverts the blame to the wrong address. [The right address] is, using religion as a cover beneath which venom is disseminated…" ['Ali Sa’ad Al-Mussa, Al-Watan, 2001/12/24]"

News and commentary:

"Many Say U.S. Planned for Terror but Failed to Take Action" (Judith Miller et al., The New York Times, 2001/12/30)
"An extensive review of the nation's antiterrorism efforts shows that for years before Sept. 11, terror experts throughout the government understood the apocalyptic designs of Osama bin Laden. But the top leaders never reacted as if they believed the country was as vulnerable as it proved to be that morning. Dozens of interviews with current and former officials demonstrate that even as the threat of terrorism mounted through eight years of the Clinton administration and eight months of President Bush, the government did not marshal its full forces against it. The defensive work of tightening the borders and airport security was studied but never quite completed. And though the White House undertook a covert campaign to kill Mr. bin Laden, the government never mustered the critical mass of political will and on-the-ground intelligence for the kind of offensive against Al Qaeda it unleashed this fall."

"The making of a human timebomb" (Paul Harris et al., The Observer, 2001/12/30)
"Yet Reid could be just the first of a wave of bombers to come. Behind the 28-year-old Londoner lies a network of international terror links that stretch from Brixton to Afghanistan. An Observer investigation has shown that Reid trained and travelled with Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 'twentieth hijacker' in the World Trade Centre attacks now facing charges in New York that carry the death penalty. The two spoke on the phone late last year in a flurry of calls intercepted by British security services."

News and commentary:

"How to Define a Muslim American Agenda" (Mohammed Ayoob, The New York Times, 2001/12/29)
"While this is true, many American Muslims fail to recognize that the link between Islam and terrorism is also the result of extremist groups' appropriation of the Islamic idiom to legitimize their actions. Worse, such appropriations were rarely, if ever, denounced by mainstream American Muslim organizations before Sept. 11. Had responsible Muslim leaders in America been vigilant and forceful in condemning such extremism, the connection between terrorism and Islam would not have been so readily fixed in the public's mind. The Muslim community is now paying dearly for this failure."

News and commentary:

"Egyptian Government-Sponsored Scientific Journal: On American and Israeli Bio-Warfare and Jews Spreading AIDS to Asia and Africa" (Special Dispatch No. 322, MEMRI, 2001/12/28)
Translation of a "scientific" article on Bio-Warfare by Dr. Husniya Hassan Moussa, published in the the November issue of the Egyptian science magazine Al-'Ilm: "The cases of anthrax infection in the U.S. emerged simultaneously with the beginning of the American war against Afghanistan. News coming from Afghanistan mentions symptoms of a strange disease… causing fever, headaches, and hemorrhaging. ... Also, Jewish tourists infected with AIDS are traveling around Asian and African countries with the aim of spreading the disease. ... It is no coincidence that the U.S. is the only member of the United Nations that has not signed the agreement on punishment for the collective annihilation of people… Israel continues to use germ warfare to destroy the Palestinian people on its occupied land, while it challenges the international community."

"Saudi Government Daily: The Jews are Taking Over the World" (Special Dispatch No. 321, MEMRI, 2001/12/28)
Translation of an anti-Semitic article from the Saudi daily Al-Watan by Abdallah Aal Malhi entitled "The Jewish organizations are implementing their strategic hellish plan to take over the world.": "At the end of the last century, the Jewish organizations consolidated a hellish plan to take over the world by sparking revolutions or taking control of the keys to governments in various countries, first and foremost the US and Russia. ... The arrogance and tyranny of the Jews, who manage to hide it from the Western public, has reached such proportions that anyone who talks about them, their hegemony, and their racism knows that he will pay a high price. ... So as to prove our words, we will not address Jewish control of the media in Western countries, primarily in the US… but we will give an example of the Jews' infiltration and control of the top positions in the American administration. This control aroused astonishment in the days of the Clinton administration…: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, FBI chief George Tenet, Defense Secretary William Cohen, Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger – all Jews. Through this infiltration of the various American administrations, and through controlling the media and money, the Jews impose their agenda on the other peoples, and the Jewish sense of superiority, whose aim is to recruit the peoples and their resources for the good of Jewish interests and their racist state Israel, remain unchanged."

"War between America and Europe" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2001/12/29 issue)
"They are also under no illusions as to the kind of state an Arafat-led Palestine would be: if you gave him Switzerland to run, he’d turn it into a sewer. So Republicans look at Israel and see not Jews but a liberal democracy. Funnily enough, that’s also what the Arabs see. They don't hate America because it backs Israel; they hate Israel because it looks like America - it’s a functioning state. If you get out a map of the world and look at the vastness of the Arab lands from North Africa to the Gulf with a tiny Israeli sliver in the middle (if you accept the 1967 borders, it’s only 11 miles wide at one point), it’s simply not possible for any rational human being to blame the tiny sliver for all the woes of the surrounding vastness. At least in the old days Muslim victim culture sought out more plausible oppressors."

"Bin Laden's Private TV Channel" (Amir Taheri, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/12/28)
"The secret of al Jazeera's undoubted success, however, lies not in its craven approach to Arab leaders, but elsewhere. It tells Arabs what they already think the mythical "Arab street" feels. It assumes that radical Islamism is on the rise in all Arab countries and that it's secretly supported by the majority. This is why al Jazeera talk shows, the backbone of its programming, favor radical Islamists. The situation also takes for granted that the average Arab is deeply anti-West and especially anti-American. The channel creates the impression that the West, and the U.S. in particular, are behind all of the Arabs' woes, including the presence of incompetent and corrupt regimes."

"Bin Laden is winning the battle in Britain" (The Daily Telegraph, 2001/12/28)
"The chilling story of the "shoe bomber" makes it plain just how comfortable Britain has been for Islamist terrorists. ... Abdul Haqq Baker, the chairman of the Brixton mosque where Reid is alleged to have been recruited by Muslim extremists, estimates that there are at least 1,000 other young fundamentalists like Reid in Britain; at least 100 may be potential suicide bombers. He told Radio 4 listeners that he and others in Brixton had warned the police repeatedly over the past four or five years of the danger, but had merely been told that these groups were being "monitored". Mr Baker added that the town hall had been used for extremist meetings, and that the local authority, though aware of the problem, felt that it had to be fair to all sides. ... The suffocating atmosphere of multicultural political correctness has, at least until very recently, paralysed the police and the legal system. Now it may be too late."

 

News and commentary:

"Hypocrisy at the heart of the Taliban" (Rory Carroll, The Guardian, 2001/12/27)
"How a regime which seemed so solid evaporated so quickly has puzzled many, but not Shahbaddin. Where the west saw fanatical warriors willing to kill and die for an Islamic utopia, he saw frauds and hypocrites hungry for dollars. ... "The music cassettes we confiscated were sold in the market. If someone was arrested for talking to a woman or trimming his beard he would be out of jail in hours if he had the money." The arrival of Arab and especially Pakistani forces - "our historic enemies" - clinched his disillusionment. Shahbaddin says he did his best to rein in violence and extortion when on patrol. "But I wasn't there at night when they used to raid houses. They'd say they were looking for televisions but often it was an excuse to swipe cash and jewellery." It is a refrain repeated by families and shopkeepers throughout Kabul: Taliban soldiers beat people to attend mosques but skipped prayers themselves; Taliban soldiers robbed the thieves they arrested; Taliban soldiers blackmailed prostitutes for sexual favours."

"Bin Laden calls Sept. 11 attacks 'blessed terror'" (CNN.com, 2001/12/27)
"In a five-minute excerpt of a new videotaped statement broadcast Wednesday, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called the September 11 attacks against the United States "blessed terror" and accused the West of hating Islam. "Three months after our blessed attack against the main infidel West, especially America, and two months after the infidel's attacks on Islam, we would like to talk about some of the implications of those incidents," bin Laden said. ... "We say our terror against America is blessed terror in order to put an end to suppression, in order for the United States to stop its support to Israel," bin Laden said." (See also: "Transcript: Bin Laden video excerpts" (BBC News, 2001/12/27))

 

Wednesday, December 26, 2001

News and commentary:

"The bomber from Bromley" (Dominic Kennedy et al., The Times, 2001/12/26)
"A possible link to Osama bin Laden emerged when The Times discovered that the alleged bomber, Richard Reid, 28, who was identified by British police from fingerprints sent by the FBI, was a worshipper at a London mosque also attended by one of the suspected conspirators of September 11. The leader of Brixton Mosque in South London said that Mr Reid was incapable of acting alone and was probably on a test mission for a new terrorist technique when he apparently tried to detonate C4 plastic explosive packed into his shoes on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami last Saturday."

"An Islamic Fifth Column" (Farrukh Dhondy, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/12/26)
"All this came to light in the most significant divide in Britain's multicultural history: the Rushdie affair, which uncovered a fifth column whose literary criticism entailed book burning and death threats. The British Muslim community echoed the call of Ayatollah Khomeini to kill the writer. There were denunciations of Salman Rushdie in every mosque. Not one mullah - not one - raised a voice in support of freedom of creativity; no mullah ventured the opinion that the fatwa was wrong. ... Before the fatwa, the politically correct position was that, with a few concessions, and with some welcome additions to British cuisine, the new immigrant communities would be assimilated into British life with hiccups but not convulsions. The fatwa affair - when the entire Islamic community united behind the condemnation - should have put an end to the idea. After all, if you prostrate yourself to an all-powerful being five times a day, if you are constantly told that you live in the world of Satan, if those around you are impervious to literature, art, historical debate and the values of Western civilization, your mind becomes susceptible to fanaticism. Your mind rots. Worse, it can become the instrument of others who send you on suicidal missions."

Tuesday, December 25, 2001

News and commentary:

"Bush to terror victims' kin: 'America grieves with you'" (CNN.com, 2001/12/25)
"President Bush expressed compassion for the victims of the September 11 terror attacks and gratitude to U.S. service members Tuesday in his Christmas radio address. 'This Christmas finds many facing hurt and loss, especially the families of terror victims and of our young men killed in battle,' he said in the address, which was released at midnight. 'America grieves with you, and we hope you'll especially find the comfort and hope of Christmas.'"

"EU stands by the PA" (Evelyn Gordon, The Jerusalem Post, 2001/12/25)
"Yet the EU appears to have neglected to ask itself one crucial question: How can it help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when it has lost the trust of virtually all Israelis? That this is so represents a radical change in Israeli politics. ... In a scathing op-ed on November 20, [Aluf] Benn described how the EU team arrived in Israel trumpeting its "balanced" policy and its desire to serve as "honest brokers." Unfortunately, he wrote, "the European balance lasted barely five minutes. When their joint press conference [with Sharon] ended, the European visitors... rushed to attack their host." But Yasser Arafat "was treated differently." The Europeans gushed that he "had even arrested a terrorist." They "were so impressed... that Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, said he feared the Palestinian Authority would request funding for a new prison to hold all the terrorists it was going to arrest." Arafat, Benn noted, didn't ask. ... Just last Wednesday, [EU] decided to give the PA another 30 million euros a month for the next three months - which PA Planning Minister Nabil Sha'ath correctly interpreted as a statement that the EU "stands by [the PA's] side," whether or not it ever does anything about terror. But in that case, one wonders why it bothers with the expensive diplomatic missions. Because there is, quite clearly, a new consensus in Israel: As long as Europe continues to support Palestinian terror, it will simply be irrelevant."

Monday, December 24, 2001

News and commentary:

"Person of the Year 2001: Rudy Giuliani" (Eric Pooley, TIME, from the 2001/12/31 issue)
"Giuliani's performance ensures that he will be remembered as the greatest mayor in the city's history, eclipsing even his hero, Fiorello La Guardia, who guided Gotham through the Great Depression. Giuliani's eloquence under fire has made him a global symbol of healing and defiance. World leaders from Vladimir Putin to Nelson Mandela to Tony Blair have come to New York to tour ground zero by his side. French President Jacques Chirac dubbed him "Rudy the Rock." As Jenkins, author of the biography that inspired Giuliani on the night of Sept. 11, told TIME, 'What Giuliani succeeded in doing is what Churchill succeeded in doing in the dreadful summer of 1940: he managed to create an illusion that we were bound to win.'"

"Inside the War Room" (James Carney and John F. Dickerson, TIME, from the 2001/12/31 issue)
"'People started worrying that we were on the same track the Soviets had been on,' says Rumsfeld, '[and] some people in the neighboring countries were characterizing it as being bogged down.' But at a meeting in late October, the President stopped the debate, aides said. 'We did all agree on the plan, didn't we?' he asked the table. Everyone nodded. He turned to Franks and asked, 'Tommy, is this plan working?' Franks said yes. Concluded Bush: 'I've made it clear to the American people. I've got confidence in this plan. We should all have confidence in this plan. Be patient, people. It's going to work.'Days later, Mazar-i-Sharif fell, then Kabul. Within a few more days, complaints about a quagmire gave way to talk of collapse. 'The Taliban fell faster than we thought,' Bush told TIME, looking back a few weeks later. 'But it's not over. We still need to close.'"

"Bomb suspect held for Friday hearing" (BBC News, 2001/12/24)
"The man suspected of trying to blow up a transatlantic airliner with explosives hidden in his shoes has been ordered to appear in a Boston court on Friday. ... [Richard Reid] allegedly tried to detonate explosives packed in the heels of his shoes during a flight from Paris to Miami on Saturday before being overpowered by passengers and crew. US officials are reported to have no evidence linking Mr Reid to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, which the US accuses of carrying out the 11 September suicide attacks. But security experts say it is unlikely that he was acting alone, given the sophisticated explosives he was allegedly carrying."

"New York: a tale of two cities" (John Ibbitson, The Globe and Mail, 2001/12/24)
"There are those who argue that we need to get past this, past these 3,000 horrid deaths, that we need to gain some perspective. There are larger issues, they say, issues of what they claim is America's complicity in the disaster, of wrong horses backed, right ones ignored. They argue, passionately, that we need to concentrate, instead, on the innocents killed in the Afghan campaign, which they say is an evil at least as great as that of the terrorist attacks. Some of them go far. John McMurtry, a professor of philosophy at Guelph University, recently delivered an address at the University of Toronto in which he claimed that the American and coalition response to the attacks was simply "the latest expression of a deeper and wider terrorist campaign of an emergent totalitarian pattern of instituting world corporate rule." Comparing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to President George W. Bush and the American government, he said "there is little difference in moral substance between these atavistic gangs. Both are mass killers." And he suggested that "the evidence confirming U.S. and allied security awareness of, and possible complicity in, the 9/11 attack is considerable." He also doesn't like professional sport."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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Jacques Barzun

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