Archived news and commentary: January 5 - 11, 2004

2004/03/29 - 2004/04/04
2004/03/22 - 2004/03/28
2004/03/15 - 2004/03/21
2004/03/08 - 2004/03/14
2004/03/01 - 2004/03/07
2004/02/23 - 2004/02/29
2004/02/16 - 2004/02/22
2004/02/09 - 2004/02/15
2004/02/02 - 2004/02/08
2004/01/26 - 2004/02/01
2004/01/19 - 2004/01/25
2004/01/12 - 2004/01/18
2004/01/05 - 2004/01/11
2003/12/29 - 2004/01/04

Sunday, January 11, 2004

News and commentary:

"Don't turn a blind eye to terror in our midst" (Tim Priest, The Australian, 2004/01/12)
Multiculturalists vs. Middle Eastern crime gangs, found via Charles Johnson:
"The problems in Paris's Muslim communities are being replicated in Sydney at an alarming rate. Paris has seen an explosion of rapes committed by Middle Eastern males against French women in the past 15 years. The rapes are almost identical to those in Sydney. The rapes are committed not only for sexual gratification: there are also deep racial undertones, along with threats of violence and retribution.
What is more alarming is the identical reaction among some sections of the media and criminologists in France: they downplay the race factor and even gang up on those who try to draw attention to the widening gulf between Middle Eastern youths and the rest of French society.
That is what we are seeing in Australia. The usual suspects come out of their institutions and libraries to downplay and even cover up the growing problem of Middle Eastern crime. ...
Of course, the critics still refuse to concede that we have a problem. They are still clinging to the multicultural theme. To highlight the problems with Middle Eastern communities in Sydney is to tear down the multicultural facade." (Note: The article can also be found here.)

"The Soft-Line Ideologues: Hard-liners are the real pragmatists" (David Frum and Richard Perle, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/01/11)
Soft-liners vs. Hard-liners: "Pick up almost any newspaper account of the war on terror — such as the worshipful profile of State Department adviser retired general Anthony Zinni in the Dec. 22 Washington Post — and you'll learn that the hard-liners are "ideologues," bent on democratizing the Middle East through war, heedless of the dangers in their way. The soft-liners are "moderates," "pragmatists," "realists," whose hesitations, fears, and resentments are represented as subtle, nuanced foreign-policy wisdom.
Yet the truth is the opposite. It is the soft-liners who are driven by ideology, who ignore or deny inconvenient facts and advocate unworkable solutions. It is the hard-liners who are the realists, the pragmatists. ...
Since the election of Mohammad Khatami in 1997, Western diplomats have again and again hailed the imminence of "reform" in Iran — and called for negotiations and Western concessions to hasten those reforms along. Again and again, the Iranian regime has revealed its true character. Mr. Powell's Dec. 30 announcement of a "new attitude" in Iran that opens the way to a dialogue is only the latest episode of this embarrassing story.
Aren't the real "ideologues" the people who refuse to let hard facts and adverse experience alter their thinking or change their behavior?"

"The EU directly funds anti-Semitism" (Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/01/11)
"Moreover, underlying the abject EU failure to confront anti-Semitism is another, less visible truth: the Palestinian Authority, which receives millions of euros from the EU annually, vigorously promotes explicit anti-Semitism in its schools and on television. In other words, the EU directly funds anti-Semitism.
Furthermore, the Commission reflects a widespread EU woolliness about the Middle East. Most Europeans apparently think that there is some simple path to peace: that if the Israelis lighten up on security here, and the Palestinian Authority cracks down (ha!) on extremists there, the West Bank would soon be like The Sound of Music. More probably, some school-bus packed with Jewish children is blown to smithereens. ...
We can tell benign lies about humankind and its nature, and then incorporate those affable falsehoods in the laws and the political culture of the EU. But then we will have neither the legal instruments nor the organisational will to face the many perils which lie ahead. For believing in the innate goodness of human nature and in the inevitable triumph of virtue, is invariably the cheery and optimistic precursor to the victory of evil."

"Kilroy strikes back" (The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/11)
Kilroy III. Zero tolerance towards prejudiced views? Wouldn't that kind of close down all religions and virtually all media permanently?:
"BBC talk-show host Robert Kilroy-Silk defended his right to free speech after his show was pulled off the air for an anti-Arab column published last week in the Sunday Express.
He criticized the "bullying ethos of political correctness" and defended his right to free speech. ...
In an interview published in this week's Sunday Express, Kilroy-Silk, 61, said he regretted causing offense but said he reserved the right to criticize despotic Middle Eastern regimes.
"That was a perfectly fair, reasonable and justifiable thing to do," he said. "I didn't intend to say that all Arabs are uncivilized because clearly I don't believe that. That's stupid. That's nonsense." ...
The secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Iqbal Sacranie, said that Kilroy-Silk was "trying to defend the indefensible."
"If anything good has come out of this nasty episode, it is a very powerful message that there should be zero tolerance towards racism and prejudiced views," Sacranie added."

"BBC chiefs accused of 'double standards' over TV presenter" (Fiona Govan and Chris Hastings, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/01/11)
Kilroy II: "The BBC was accused last night of operating double standards over its suspension of Robert Kilroy-Silk for his comments about Arabs while it continues to use a contributor who has called for Israelis to be killed.
Tom Paulin, the poet and Oxford don, has continued to be a regular contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review arts programme, despite being quoted in an Egyptian newspaper as saying that Jews living in the Israeli-occupied territories were "Nazis" who should be "shot dead".
Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP, said he found it hard to understand why the BBC had moved against Mr Kilroy-Silk but had not taken any action against Mr Paulin.
"I am not defending anything Mr Kilroy-Silk has said, but I was greatly upset by what Mr Paulin said, and I think the rules should apply to people equally," said Mr Dismore. 'Mr Paulin said awful things about Israel and Jewish people. He should have been kept off BBC screens while his own comments were investigated. I was surprised that that did not happen. It smacks of double standards on the part of the BBC.'" (See also: "Oxford poet 'wants US Jews shot'" (Neil Tweedie, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/04/13))

"Kilroy-Silk is right about the Middle East, say Arabs" (Ibrahim Nawar, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/01/11)
Kilroy I: Ibrahim Nawar is the Head of the Board of Management of Arab Press Freedom Watch, a "non-profit organisation based in London that works to promote freedom of expression in the Arab world":
"I fully support Robert Kilroy-Silk and salute him as an advocate of freedom of expression. I would like to voice my solidarity with him and with all those who face the censorship of such a basic human right.
I agree with much of what he says about Arab regimes. There is a very long history of oppression in the Arab world, particularly in the states he mentions: Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, as well as in Sudan and Tunisia. ...
I condemn the decision to axe his programme and call for the BBC to reinstate him forthwith. Indeed, the treatment of Mr Kilroy-Silk is very worrying because it indicates that censorship is now taking place in liberal, Western countries like the United Kingdom. These countries should instead be setting an example to the oppressive Arab regimes that violate freedom of expression on a daily basis." (See also: "Kilroy 'regrets' anti-Arab comments" (BBC News, 2004/01/10))

"Terror cells regroup - and now their target is Europe" (Antony Barnett et al., The Observer, 2004/01/11)
"Previously seen as a relative backwater in the war on terror, Europe is now in the frontline. 'It's trench warfare,' said one security expert. 'We keep taking them out. They keep coming at us. And every time they are coming at us harder.'
An investigation by The Observer has revealed the extent of the new networks that Islamic militants have been able to build in Europe since 11 September — despite the massive effort against them. The militants' operations go far beyond the few individuals' activities that sparked massive security alerts over Christmas and the new year. Interviews with senior counter-intelligence officials, secret recordings of conversations between militants and classified intelligence briefings have shown that militants have been able to reconstitute, and even enlarge, their operations in Europe in the past two years."

"UK police arrest man in suicide bomb plan: report" (Reuters/ABC News, 2004/01/11)
"British police arrested a man before Christmas who was suspected of preparing himself for a suicide bombing and who had links to Al Qaeda, British newspaper The Sunday Times said.
The paper, which did not give a source, said the man in his late twenties was arrested after leaving notes to his family saying he planned to "martyr" himself.
The paper said he was an Algerian asylum seeker.
The man had also shaved off all his body hair, a religious act often observed by would-be suicide bombers so that they are "clean" before entering heaven, the newspaper said.
"I hope you treat me as a hero and a martyr," the man wrote to his sister and mother."

Saturday, January 10, 2004

News and commentary:

"Possible Iraqi blister gas weapons found" (Reuters, 2004/01/10)
"Danish troops have found dozens of mortar rounds buried in Iraq which initial tests show could contain blister gas, the Danish army says.
The tests were taken after Danish troops found 36 120mm mortar rounds on Friday in southern Iraq. The Danish army said they had been buried for at least 10 years.
"All the instruments showed indications of the same type of chemical compound, namely blister gas," the Danish Army Operational Command said on its Web site on Saturday, cautioning that further tests were needed.
Blister gases, such as mustard gas, are used in chemical weapons.
Blister gas, an illegal weapon which former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein said he had destroyed, was extensively used against the Iranians during the 1980 to 1988 war.
Although it can kill if it enters the lungs, its use is primarily to debilitate infantry by causing the skin to break out in excruciatingly painful blisters."

"An extremist takes over the opposition" (Blandine Grosjean and Olivier Voge, Libération/Watch, 2004/01/03 [2004/01/10])
The profile of Mohammed Ennacer Latrèche, founder of the Strasbourg-based French Muslims' party (PMF), which Caldwell refers to in the article below:
"The son of an Algerian Imam from Strasbourg, Latrèche founded his party in 1997, after studies in Syria. His ambition was then to “liberate Muslims from the influence of the Socialist Party, the Zionist party.” ...
In 2001, he took aim at the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and the journalist Alexandre Adler. In 2002, he distributed pamphlets including maps from which Israel had been excised. The start of the war in Iraq gave him his 15 minutes of fame. He organized and participated in an operation of human-shields in Baghdad with several youths from Strasbourg neighborhoods. He also appears publicly with the Holocaust denier Serge Thion and co-edits “the Judeo-Nazi manifesto of Ariel Sharon” with Ginette Skandrani, the militant pro-Palestinian. Those close to him explain the silence of the local media regarding Latrèche by claiming that the former are “controlled by the Jews.” ...
On December 20, Latrèche called together a thousand veiled girls in Strasbourg. “Fear must change sides. It must go from the veiled women to politicians who will vote in favor of this law,” was his threat." (Note: Translated by Douglas. See also the French original: "Main basse extrémiste sur l'opposition" (Blandine Grosjean and Olivier Voge, Libération, 2004/01/03))

"Veiled Threat" (Christopher Caldwell, The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/01/19 issue)
Caldwell on secularism versus the veil in France, here on an upcoming march against the proposed law organized by Mohammed Ennacer Latrèche, founder of the Strasbourg-based French Muslims' party (PMF):
"Religious parties are a violation of French laïcité (the PMF is another of those ad hoc exceptions mentioned above), but in fact, Latrèche's is not a Muslim party — its program consists almost purely of anti-Semitism. At Latrèche rallies, lists are handed out that detail American and Jewish products to boycott; the "Jewish" ones are accompanied by a Nazi yellow star bearing the word "Jude" (German for Jew). Latrèche was the subject of a telling profile in early January by the journalists Blandine Grosjean and Olivier Vogel of Libération, in which it was noted that he has taken to referring to France's Socialist party as the Zionist party, and now associates with one of France's notorious Holocaust deniers. He coedited a work called "The Judeo-Nazi Manifesto of Ariel Sharon" and took several Parisian youths to Baghdad to serve as human shields before the invasion of Iraq. "Fear is going to have to change sides," Libération quoted Latrèche as saying. 'It's going to have to pass from the side of veiled women to the side of those politicians who are going to vote for this law.'" (Hat tip: Malcolm Smordin.)

"N Korea shows 'nuclear deterrent'" (BBC News, 2004/01/10)
"North Korea says it has revealed its "nuclear deterrent" to an unofficial delegation from the United States.
The US team confirmed they had seen the secret nuclear complex that Washington believes is being used to develop nuclear weapons.
They were the first group from outside North Korea to visit the Yongbyon facility since the North expelled UN inspectors at the end of 2002. ...
But North Korea's official KCNA news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying: "As everybody knows, the United States compelled the DPRK to build a nuclear deterrent.
'We showed this to Lewis and his party this time.'"

"Kilroy 'regrets' anti-Arab comments" (BBC News, 2004/01/10)
"Television presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk has apologised for a newspaper article in which he made anti-Arab comments.
He said he greatly regretted the offence caused by the Sunday Express article, which was written in April but "republished last weekend in error".
In it, he branded Arabs "suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors" and asked what they had given to the world other than oil.
Earlier, the BBC suspended the Kilroy show while it investigates the matter. ...
In a statement, Mr Kilroy-Silk said: "I greatly regret the offence which has been caused by the article published in last weekend's Sunday Express."
"The article contains a couple of obvious factual errors which I also regret."
Mr Kilroy-Silk said the article had not prompted such an outcry the first time it was published, adding it was 'not what I would have said today.'" (See also: "BBC halts Kilroy for race 'rant'" (BBC News, 2004/01/09) and "Kilroy-Silk investigated for anti-Arab comments" (Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 2004/01/08))

"Saddam's Ouster Planned In 2001?" (CBS News, 2004/01/10)
"The Bush Administration began laying plans for an invasion of Iraq, including the use of American troops, within days of President Bush's inauguration in January of 2001 — not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks as has been previously reported.
That's what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider. O'Neill talks to Correspondent Lesley Stahl in the interview, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," he tells Stahl. ...
Suskind says O'Neill and other White House insiders he interviewed gave him documents that show that in the first three months of 2001, the administration was looking at military options for removing Saddam Hussein from power and planning for the aftermath of Saddam's downfall -- including post-war contingencies like peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of Iraq's oil.
"There are memos," Suskind tells Stahl, 'One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.''"

"U.S. Says It Has Proof of Sales to Iraq" (Paul Richter and Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, 2004/01/10)
"U.S. officials have found evidence corroborating the Bush administration's allegations that Russian companies sold Saddam Hussein high-tech military equipment that threatened U.S. forces during the invasion of Iraq last March, a senior State Department official said Friday.
The United States has found proof that Russian firms exported night-vision goggles and radar-jamming equipment to Iraq, the official said. The evidence includes the equipment itself and proof that it was used during the war, said the official.
Such exports would violate the terms of United Nations sanctions against Baghdad."

Friday, January 9, 2004

News and commentary:

"Soaad Abdullah, a muslim widow..."
(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, 2004/01/09)
"Soaad Abdullah, a muslim widow, whose husband, an Iraqi police officer, was killed by a suicide bomber, stands on a stage after receiving a medal for his sacrifice, during a ceremony Friday, Jan. 9, 2004 in Baghdad."

"Survival of the Fittest - An interview with Benny Morris" (Ari Shavit, Haaretz/FreeRepublic, 2004/01/09)
"For a left-winger, you sound very much like a right-winger, wouldn't you say?" A must-read interview with Benny Morris, author of "Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001" and "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited":
"There is a deep problem in Islam. It's a world whose values are different. A world in which human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy, openness and creativity are alien. A world that makes those who are not part of the camp of Islam fair game. Revenge is also important here. Revenge plays a central part in the Arab tribal culture. Therefore, the people we are fighting and the society that sends them have no moral inhibitions. If it obtains chemical or biological or atomic weapons, it will use them. If it is able, it will also commit genocide."
I want to insist on my point: A large part of the responsibility for the hatred of the Palestinians rests with us. After all, you yourself showed us that the Palestinians experienced a historical catastrophe.
"True. But when one has to deal with a serial killer, it's not so important to discover why he became a serial killer. What's important is to imprison the murderer or to execute him." ...
Are you a neo-conservative? Do you read the current historical reality in the terms of Samuel Huntington?
"I think there is a clash between civilizations here [as Huntington argues]. I think the West today resembles the Roman Empire of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries: The barbarians are attacking it and they may also destroy it." ...
The title of the book you are now publishing in Hebrew is "Victims." In the end, then, your argument is that of the two victims of this conflict, we are the bigger one.
"Yes. Exactly. We are the greater victims in the course of history and we are also the greater potential victim. Even though we are oppressing the Palestinians, we are the weaker side here. We are a small minority in a large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us. So it's possible than when their desire is realized, everyone will understand what I am saying to you now. Everyone will understand we are the true victims. But by then it will be too late."

"Looking back on Saddam Hussein" (Fred Halliday, openDemocracy, 2004/01/09)
A brilliant essay on Saddam Hussein's Iraq with recollections from Halliday's visit to Baghdad in 1980: "The Syrian Ba'athis brought another element to Iraq, one that reinforced an existing prejudice which was inculcated through the nationalist school textbooks of the monarchical period: hostility to Persians. These neighbours ("Zionists of the East") were presented as the greatest, long-term enemies of the Arabs – far more than their more recent, and less populous, counterparts in the west.
The mass expulsion of people with Persian antecedents or names from Iraq in the 1980s, no less than the making of an epic film celebrating the Arab victory over the Persians at Qadissiya in 637 CE, rested on this deep ideological morass: this is exemplified in the title of a book written by one of Saddam's uncles, Khairallah Tulfah, and made compulsory reading in schools, Three Things Which God Should Never Have Created: Persians, Jews and Flies – note the order. ...
I have visited some unsavoury regimes – from Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran (where I saw 100,000 people march by shouting "Death to Liberalism" and realised that, among others, they meant me) to Ethiopia’s Red Terror; but never have I sensed such fear as in Iraq. One could cut it with a knife. A professor said to me, resignedly: 'When I open the paper in the morning I do not know if I have been appointed ambassador to the UN or condemned to death. In either case I would not know why.'" (Hat tip: Douglas.)

"Bush team 'distorted the threat from Iraq'" (Alec Russell, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/09)
"President George W Bush's administration "systematically misrepresented" the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, a prominent liberal American think-tank said yesterday.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which opposed the war, said administration officials lumped nuclear, chemical and biological weapons together as a single threat despite the "very different" degree of danger that they posed.
The distortions and failings in intelligence exaggerated the threat of Iraq even though it was not an immediate threat to the Westor the Middle East, said the report. ...
The report, WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications, said: "The intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers' views." Administration officials insisted without evidence that Saddam Hussein would give WMD to terrorist groups, it added." (See also the report: "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications" (Joseph Cirincione et al., CEIP, January 2004))

"Freedom of Speech... but only if you don't upset the Guardian reading classes" (Perry de Havilland, samizdata.net, 2004/01/09)
Perry de Havilland on the Kilroy-Silk affair: "I was just interviewed on BBC News 24 to put my views on this affair and I pointed out that whilst I found his remarks full of nasty collectivist generalization, many of the points he made about what passes for civilization in the Arab world are simply facts... people do indeed get their limbs chopped off as punishment in Saudi Arabia, women are indeed second class citizens (if they are even citizens at all), human rights are ghastly across a great swathe of the Middle East, the last time the Muslim world was a hive of innovation was in the 12th Century etc. etc... all these things are simply facts.
Yet my point is not to defend Kilroy-Silk, of whom I am not a particular fan but rather to wonder why it is that Robert Fisk and John Pilger can make equally sweeping and egregiously collectivist statements about Israel and the United States without so much as a murmur from the Guardian reading classes?"

"BBC halts Kilroy for race 'rant'" (BBC News, 2004/01/09)
"The Kilroy programme will be taken off air immediately following comments made by Robert Kilroy-Silk in a newspaper article, the BBC has announced.
The presenter branded Arabs "suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors" and asked what they had given to the world other than oil.
The BBC stressed the comments did not reflect its views as a broadcaster.
It said the BBC One programme would be suspended from Monday while it investigated the matter fully." (See also: "Kilroy-Silk investigated for anti-Arab comments" (Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 2004/01/08))

"The Same Old Thing" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/01/09)
"Indeed, America has no time to worry about dress codes. Instead it is has embarked on the most radical policy in the history of the region — one whose unorthodox nature has stymied even our worst critics from the mullahs in Iran to Muammar Khaddafi. Power — destroying and humiliating the Baathists in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan — coupled with idealism in supporting indigenous democracy rather than a shah-like strongman, offers some chance of ending the old way of doing business.
We must continue hacking away the terrorist Hydra in the Sunni Triangle, and hope that the ongoing cultural, economic, and military fallout from Iraq begins to erode fascism and theocracy in Syria and Iran faster than such nearby pathologies can ruin us in Iraq. We are in a race for civilization like none other since World War II. And yet, due solely to the courage and skill of an amazing generation of American professional soldiers battling in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are winning — as this difficult war is beginning to resemble 1944 far more than 1939. ...
Yet in truth we are witnessing a radical change in the world's landscape, a much-needed honesty that will soon curtail both the deceitful rhetoric and hypocritical behavior that have insidiously warped us all in the West during the last 20 years."

"Silence of the Lambs" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2004/01/09)
Boyles on the Hertoghe affair: "Hertoghe, 44, is the former deputy editor of the online version of La Croix. His book, La guerre à outrances: Comment la presse nous a désinformés sur l'Irak (roughly, and more pointedly, "All-out war: How the press lied to us about Iraq"), was published by Calmann Levy, France's oldest publishing house, with impeccable timing last October, just as several other introspective books critical of France were flourishing on the best-seller lists and stimulating debate among the yakking-classes. But there was one little thing different about Hertoghe's book. It wasn't critical of France. It was critical of the French press.
Specifically, it was critical of the misleading and incompetent reporting that appeared not only in his own paper, but also in Le Figaro, Le Monde, Libération, and Ouest-France, the largest regional newspaper, during the first few weeks of the war in Iraq. Hertoghe's book appeared in bookstores around the country and he waited for the debate to begin.
It never started. Instead, Hertoghe told me, "I experienced collective and spontaneous silence." Other than a paragraph in a column in Le Figaro and an item in a free paper distributed to commuters, no major French newspaper has reviewed the book, or even mentioned it." (See also: "France's excesses in opposition to war" (Daniel Schneidermann, Liberation/Watch, 2003/12/26 [2003/12/29]) and "Journalist fired for book critical of French newspapers" (John Vinocur, IHT, 2003/12/29))

"Why We Are Safer" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/01/09)
"The idea that we are not safer (a) because we are still losing troops and (b) because al Qaeda has not been extinguished, amounts to an open-court confession of cluelessness on foreign policy. ...
It is hard to believe that serious people can have so absurdly narrow a vision of American national security. The fact is that we have other enemies in the world.
Saddam Hussein was one of them, and he is gone. Libya was another, and it has just retired from the field, suing for peace and giving up its weapons of mass destruction. (Gaddafi went so far as to go on television to urge Syria, Iran and North Korea to do the same.) Iran has also gone softer, agreeing to spot inspections, something it never did before it faced 130,000 American troops about 100 miles from its border.
These gains are all a direct result of the Iraq war. ...
From Libya to India, ice is breaking and the region is changing. In this part of the world, there is no guarantee of success. But if this is not progress — remarkable, unexpected and hugely significant — then nothing is."

"Guantanamo prisoners told of capture of Saddam" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/09)
"Deprived of most world news since their capture, some of the hundreds of prisoners at this U.S. base expressed shock when told recently of the capture of Saddam Hussein, a U.S. general said Thursday.
Interrogators told some detainees of the war in Iraq in June, and word of Saddam's capture reached others during interrogations in December, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller told reporters in an interview.
The entire prison population was later informed of Saddam's capture by loudspeaker after officials determined there was no risk to security or intelligence-gathering, Miller said, without specifying the date.
"We told them we had a war with Iraq, we told them the United States won, and we told them we captured Saddam Hussein," Miller said. 'There was some shock.'"

"Iran denies shipping arms on aid transports" (Arieh O'Sullivan, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/09)
"Iran has dismissed the charge that it sent weapons to Hizbullah in Lebanon on Syrian earthquake aid transports as a "lie".
Speaking to Reuters, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi called the accusation a "baseless and a sheer lie."
"After the Israelis observed the... world's solidarity with the Iranian nation they became angry and they're continuing their policy based on lies and cheating by fabricating such news," he said.
Syrian officials had no immediate comment on Friday.
Israeli officials said Thursday that Syria has reportedly allowed Teheran to resume their supplies of weapons to Hizbullah through Damascus by taking advantage of the massive airlift of humanitarian aid to earthquake victims in Iran.
According to Channel 1, cargo planes filled with weapons began landing in the Syrian capital last week brimming with weapons for the Iranian-backed Hizbullah organization. It was the first time since the Syrians halted the weapons flow under American pressure prior to the invasion of Iraq a year ago.
Sources in the Defense Ministry confirmed the reports, calling it a "cynical manipulation of humanitarian aid". They said that there has always been a trickling of weapons and propaganda to the Hizbullah but that the weapons transferred recently were larger quantities than in the past."

Thursday, January 8, 2004

News and commentary:

"Sudan: 16-year-old Girl to be Flogged for 'Crime' of Adultery" (Amnesty International UK, 2004/01/08)
Via Dhimmi Watch: "Amnesty International is calling for the sentence of 100 lashes, passed on a 16-year-old school girl in the Sudanese capital Khartoum for the 'crime' of adultery, to be commuted immediately.
Following the postponement of the punishment from 20 December to 23 January due to the girl's poor health, Amnesty International is also asking people all over the world to write to the Sudanese authorities asking them to stop the punishment going ahead.
Intisar Bakri Abdulgader gave birth to a child in September after becoming pregnant outside marriage. She was convicted of adultery and sentenced by a local court in the Khartoum suburb of Kalakla in July when she was seven months pregnant. The sentence was upheld by the appeal court in August. The alleged father of the child has reportedly not been charged but will have a blood test to establish paternity.
Intisar is caring for her four-month-old son, Dori. She is said to be very frightened at the prospect of the punishment and is reportedly eating and sleeping very little.
Under article 146 of Sudan's Penal Code, adultery is punishable by execution by stoning if the offender is married, or by one hundred lashes if the offender is not married."

"Taliban sorry for "mistake" that killed 16" (Reuters, 2004/01/08)
A small mistake: "Afghanistan's ousted Taliban has apologised for a bomb attack in the southern city of Kandahar that killed 16 people, including many children, and called it a botched attempt to target U.S. troops.
The ousted Islamic militia initially denied involvement in Tuesday's explosion near a military compound as children were passing on their way home from school.
The blast came just two days after a new constitution was adopted in Kabul, which Afghans hope will usher in a period of peace and stability after a quarter of a century of bloodshed.
"It was a mistake by our mujahideen (holy warriors)," senior Taliban commander Mullah Sabir Momin said by satellite telephone on Wednesday.
"We wanted to target the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) office in the city, but because of a small mistake, this plan failed," he told Reuters." (See also:"Eight children killed in bomb attack near school in Afghanistan" (Hamida Ghafour, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/07))

"Saddam and 9/11" (Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/01/08)
An interview with Laurie Mylroie, who has "provided substantial evidence implicating Saddam's involvement in four terrorist attacks: the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing; the 1995 bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the 1998 bombings of two African embassies.":
"Before the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center — one month into Clinton's first term in office — the prevailing assumption was that major terrorist attacks against the US were state-sponsored. Thus, terrorism was considered a national security issue and the key question after any attack was which terrorist state was responsible.
But starting with the attack on the World Trade Center, the Clinton administration claimed that a new kind of terrorism had come into being that did not involve states. It turned terrorism into a law enforcement issue, with the focus on arresting and convicting individual perpetrators. ...
Moreover, once the idea took hold that major terrorist attacks against the U.S. were not state-sponsored, we gave a pass to any terrorist state that wanted to attack us. The 1993 Trade Center bombing set a precedent for the assaults to follow. Iraq worked systematically with Islamic militants to attack the United States and just as systematically, the Clinton administration turned a blind eye to the evidence suggesting an Iraqi role, while focusing on the militants alone. We faced state-sponsored terrorism; we dealt with it by convicting individual perpetrators; and that is what created our vulnerability on 9/11." (Note: Mylroie also criticizes Victor David Hanson: "When I read an author like Victor Davis Hanson, I'm appalled. He supports the Iraq war, but he hasn't made the effort to understand why that war was fought and why Iraq, rather than Iran or Saudi Arabia, for example, was the country we went to war with. There are many reasons why we should be clear about that, including the fact that we are daily asking US soldiers to risk life and limb. They certainly deserve to understand why that sacrifice is being asked of them, and the Victor Hansons of this world don't provide the reasons.")

"We must free our minds to use the brains..." (Ogram N'otsgnik, The Age, 2004/01/08)
The poetics of anti-Americanism. From reader responses to the question, "Do you believe Michael Moore? Does he do more harm than good?", prompted by Daniel Thompson's "The truth about Michael Moore". Via Tim Blair:
"We must free our minds to use the brains and Michael Moore provides the information and conceptual relevance to frame the context of the ongoing debate about America's hegemonic lust for flag-planting and the cannabilistic murder and consumption of its own poor people and children. ("Yes," says George W. "let the NRA pass me some dark meat from the ghetto to go with my blood pudding.") ...
On Mars the Stars and Stripes flies — the Red Planet, how appropriate, red with the blood of workers poisoned by the toxic byproducts of the imperialist war machines march on the high frontier of space in its phallic symbols of globalised corporate power. Did you know that every rocket that takes off from Cape Canavaral kills 73 seabirds (on average) and has led to nervous conditions amongst neighbouring manatees.
Michael Moore sees and speaks these truths in a simple, down-to-earth way that people who have been denied the benefits of tertiary education (unlike me and most Age readers) can understand.
His truths are such a challenge to the patriarchal power structure and its Zionist puppetmasters that it requires definite bravery to articulate them." (See also: "The truth about Michael Moore" (Daniel Thompson, The Age, 2004/01/08))

"War of Ideas, Part 1" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2004/01/08)
"Airline flights into the U.S. are canceled from France, Mexico and London. Armed guards are put onto other flights coming to America. Westerners are warned to avoid Saudi Arabia, and synagogues are bombed in Turkey and France. A package left on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art forces the evacuation of 5,000 museumgoers. (It turns out to contain a stuffed snowman.) National Guardsmen are posted at key bridges and tunnels.
Happy New Year.
What you are witnessing is why Sept. 11 amounts to World War III — the third great totalitarian challenge to open societies in the last 100 years. As the longtime Middle East analyst Abdullah Schleiffer once put it to me: World War II was the Nazis, using the engine of Germany to try to impose the reign of the perfect race, the Aryan race. The cold war was the Marxists, using the engine of the Soviet Union to try to impose the reign of the perfect class, the working class. And 9/11 was about religious totalitarians, Islamists, using suicide bombing to try to impose the reign of the perfect faith, political Islam."

"One Nation, Under Secularism" (Susan Jacoby, The New York Times, 2004/01/08)
Jacoby on the role of religion in the the 2004 Campaign, with this brilliant quote by Lincoln: "Abraham Lincoln, whose spiritual beliefs were so elusive that both atheists and the devoutly religious have tried to claim him as their own, spoke eloquently on this point during his long period of deliberation before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
"I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the divine will," he told a group of ministers in September 1862. 'I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed that he would reveal it directly to me. . . . These are not, however, the days of miracles. . . . I must study the plain, physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.'" (See also: "The God Gulf" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2004/01/07))

"Kilroy-Silk investigated for anti-Arab comments" (Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 2004/01/08)
While anti-American comments are haute rigeour, anti-Arab comments are considered to be completely beyond the pale:
"The chat show host Robert Kilroy-Silk came under fire yesterday for attacking Arabs in a newspaper article at a time when the BBC's other employees are being forbidden to express controversial views in the press.
In a column for the Sunday Express last weekend, headed We owe Arabs nothing, Kilroy-Silk said: "Apart from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the west - what do they contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful? Anything really valuable? Something we really need, could not do without? No, nor can I.
"What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors?"
A BBC spokeswoman said last night: "We are looking into how the Sunday Express column which Robert Kilroy-Silk writes in his capacity as a freelance fits with his on-screen work for the BBC." ...
Several organisations complained yesterday that the content of Kilroy-Silk's column was incompatible with his work for the BBC.
Describing him as "a man who positively revels in airing his anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views," the Muslim Council of Britain urged the BBC to 'take the necessary disciplinary action.'" (UPDATE: Here's the column in question: "We owe Arabs nothing" (Robert Kilroy-Silk, Sunday Express/AEMJ, 2004/01/04), in which it's very clear that Kilroy-Silk's target is "despotic, barbarous and corrupt Arab states" rather than Arabs per se.)

"Thailand probes foreign links, seeks Jakarta's aid" (Sasithorn Simaporn, Reuters, 2004/01/08)
"Thailand is investigating links between a wave of violence in the mainly Muslim south and foreign militant groups and has asked Indonesia to monitor Thai Muslim students for signs of radicalism, officials said on Thursday.
As Thailand tightened a security net over its restive south, some officials said they were convinced those responsible for a series of attacks since Sunday had ties to foreign groups such as Jemaah Islamiah, the Southeast Asian network linked to al Qaeda.
Officials said the separatist Gerakan Mujahideen Islam Pattani may be behind Sunday's attacks and one of its leaders, Jehbemae Buteh, was among four suspects being hunted and believed to be hiding in Malaysia." (See also: "Four Thai soldiers killed, 18 schools torched in restive Muslim south" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/01/04))

Added in archive:
"Professors at war - Searching for dissent at the MLA" (Scott Jaschik, The Boston Globe, 2004/01/04)

Wednesday, January 7, 2004

News and commentary:

"An Ace in the Hole"
(Military.com, 2004/01/07)
Military.com has published a new photograph purportedly showing Saddam Hussein during his arrest. According to itv.com, "There has been no confirmation that it is genuine."

"Sudan Gov't, Rebels Sign Oil Revenue Deal" (Andrew England, AP/The Guardian, 2004/01/07)
"Sudanese government and rebel officials signed an agreement Wednesday on sharing the nation's wealth, eliminating a key obstacle to reaching a comprehensive peace accord in Africa's longest-running war.
Among the riches to be shared by the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army is revenue from the 250,000 barrels of oil per day coming from the south. ...
"It's a historic day in the process of peace in Sudan," said Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha. "This moment in which we have signed a wealth-sharing agreement spells an end to the long episode of war and conflict in our country. It confirms the mutual desire and will to go on with the process."
Both Taha and John Garang, leader of the southern-based rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army, said the agreement proved they were committed to reaching a final deal to end the war, in which more than 2 million people have perished, mainly through war-induced famine.
Garang said he hoped a full agreement will be reached this month and promised to start a process to release all prisoners of war as a goodwill gesture."

"New Opinion Poll Results in Iraq: 48% View US Positively" (Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 2004/01/07)
Via Douglas: "The results of an opinion poll done in 5 of Iraq's provinces (Baghdad, Basra, Diwaniyah, al-Hillah, Kirkuk), with 1300 respondents late fall, 2003, have been announced by a Baghdad social research institute and reported in az-Zaman newspaper.
Some results:
80% of Iraqis believe that bringing back, employing, and training members of the old Iraqi police and army would produce greater security.
91% of Iraqis believe that returning sovereignty to the Iraqis will be an essential factor in stabilizing the security situation.
48% said that the current role of the US in Iraq is positive.
38% said that the British role is positive.
15% said that they thought Iran was playing a positive role in Iraq.
75% say that they would feel a lack of security were the American forces to decide to leave the country.
On the other hand, 75% said that the US should leave once an independent [sic] is established.
55% disagreed with the proposition that the attacks are aimed at liberating Iraq.
80% agreed that the guerrilla attacks aim at destabilizing the country.
65% have confidence in the Interim Governing Council."

"And if a sparrow..."
(Dick Cheney Christmas Card/3 Blind Mice, 2003/12/27)
Detail from Vice President Dick Cheney's 2003 Christmas Card.

"The God Gulf" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2004/01/07)
"America is riven today by a "God gulf" of distrust, dividing churchgoing Republicans from relatively secular Democrats. A new Great Awakening is sweeping the country, with Americans increasingly telling pollsters that they believe in prayer and miracles, while only 28 percent say they believe in evolution. All this is good news for Bush Republicans, who are in tune with heartland religious values, and bad news for Dean Democrats who don't know John from Job.
So expect Republicans to wage religious warfare by trotting out God as the new elephant in the race, and some Democrats to respond with hypocrisy, by affecting deep religious convictions. This campaign could end up as a tug of war over Jesus.
Over the holidays, Vice President Dick Cheney's Christmas card symbolized all that troubles me about the way politicians treat faith — not as a source for spiritual improvement, but as a pedestal to strut upon. Mr. Cheney's card is dominated by a quotation by Benjamin Franklin: 'And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?'"

"Eight children killed in bomb attack near school in Afghanistan" (Hamida Ghafour, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/07)
"A bomb killed sixteen people - at least eight of them children - in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar yesterday.
The explosion, near an Afghan army barracks housing commandos fighting remnants of the Taliban and al-Qa'eda, took place about 20 minutes after a much smaller device exploded close by, injuring a child.
Bikes and blood lie strewn on the street after the multiple bomb blast
Passers-by were helping the victim, with curious pupils who had come out of a nearby school looking on, when the second bomb, attached to a bicycle or cart, exploded.
Bodies, pools of blood, shoes and a turban littered the blast site, along with wrecked bicycles and shattered glass.
"At first there was a small explosion in which a child was injured," said one witness. 'When people gathered to help the child, the big explosion happened.'"

"'Dirty Bomb' Was Major New Year's Worry" (John Mintz and Susan Schmidt, The Washington Post, 2004/01/07)
"With huge New Year's Eve celebrations and college football bowl games only days away, the U.S. government last month dispatched scores of casually dressed nuclear scientists with sophisticated radiation detection equipment hidden in briefcases and golf bags to scour five major U.S. cities for radiological, or "dirty," bombs, according to officials involved in the emergency effort. ...
The new details of the government's search for a dirty bomb help explain why officials have used dire terms to describe the reasons for the nation's fifth "code orange" alert, issued on Dec. 21 by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. U.S. officials said they remain worried today — in many cases, more concerned than much of the American public realizes — that their countermeasures would fall short."

"'Saddam's Chemical Weapons Were Smuggled Out of Iraq'" (James Lyons, PA/The Scotsman, 2004/01/07)
"Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons were smuggled out of Iraq, a leading Syrian dissident claimed tonight.
His weapons of mass destruction were hidden at three sites in Syria, said human rights campaigner Nijar Nijjof, who is now based in Paris.
They were pin-pointed by a senior source inside Syrian Military Intelligence, Mr Nijjof told Channel Five News.
The source revealed weapons were smuggled across the border in ambulances in the months before war, he said." (See also: "Report: Syria hiding Iraqi WMD" (WorldNetDaily, 2004/01/06))

"Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper" (Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, 2004/01/07)
"In public statements and unauthorized interviews, investigators said they have discovered no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a new designer pathogen — combining pox virus and snake venom — that led U.S. scientists on a highly classified hunt for several months. The investigators assess that Iraq did not, as charged in London and Washington, resume production of its most lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in storage. And they have found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a "grave and gathering danger" by President Bush and a "mortal threat" by Vice President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s."

Tuesday, January 6, 2004

News and commentary:

"Report: Syria hiding Iraqi WMD" (WorldNetDaily, 2004/01/06)
"A relative of Syrian President Bashar Assad is hiding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in three locations in Syria, according to intelligence sources cited by an exiled opposition party.
The weapons were smuggled in large wooden crates and barrels by Zu Alhema al-Shaleesh, known for moving arms into Iraq in violation of U.N. resolutions and for sending recruits to fight coalition forces, said the U.S.-based Reform Party of Syria. ...
One weapons-cache location identified by the sources is a mountain tunnel near the village of al-Baidah in northwest Syria, the report said. The tunnel is known to house a branch of the Assad regime's national security apparatus.
Two other arms supplies are reported to be in west-central Syria. One is hidden at a factory operated by the Syrian Air Force, near the village of Tal Snan, between the cities of Hama and Salmiyeh. The third location is tunnels beneath the small town of Shinshar, which belongs to the 661 battalion of the Syrian Air Force."

"PMO plays down reports of diplomatic contacts with Libya" (Amos Harel and Tsahar Rotem, Haaretz, 2004/01/06)
"A high-ranking Israeli delegation is expected to visit Libya with the aim of reaching a mutual understanding on the signing of a peace agreement, Kuwaiti newspaper A-Siyasa, quoted on the Al Bawaba website, reported Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in comments published Tuesday, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi was quoted as saying he is ready to compensate Libyan Jews whose properties were confiscated. He also said he is prepared to allow Libyans to travel to Israel, according to Arab press reports.
According to Al Bawaba, the delegation, comprised of officials from the Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry and the Mossad, will visit Tripoli toward the end of this month, with the aim of discussing the end of a formal state of hostility between Libya and Israel, and building normal ties between both countries."

"'Historic' Kashmir talks agreed" (BBC News, 2004/01/06)
"Pakistan and India say they will start talks next month to resolve their differences, which include the bitterly divisive issue of Kashmir.
The countries' leaders are "confident" the talks will bring peace - "History has been made," Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf told journalists.
The news was announced at the end of a South Asian regional summit in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
A BBC correspondent in Islamabad says the move is a major breakthrough.
Recent months have seen a gradual thaw in relations between the two nuclear rivals after a period of prolonged military confrontation."

"Today's comment"
(The Guardian, 2004/01/06)
George Monbiot has a new colleague at The Guardian.
(See also: "Resist the new Rome" (Osama bin Laden, The Guardian, 2004/01/06))

"The Era of Distortion" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2004/01/06)
"The proliferation of media outlets and the segmentation of society have meant that it's much easier for people to hive themselves off into like-minded cliques. Some people live in towns where nobody likes President Bush. Others listen to radio networks where nobody likes Bill Clinton.
In these communities, half-truths get circulated and exaggerated. Dark accusations are believed because it is delicious to believe them. Vince Foster was murdered. The Saudis warned the Bush administration before Sept. 11.
You get to choose your own reality. You get to believe what makes you feel good. You can ignore inconvenient facts so rigorously that your picture of the world is one big distortion.
And if you can give your foes a collective name — liberals, fundamentalists or neocons — you can rob them of their individual humanity. All inhibitions are removed. You can say anything about them. You get to feed off their villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue. You will find books, blowhards and candidates playing to your delusions, and you can emigrate to your own version of Planet Chomsky. You can live there unburdened by ambiguity.
Improvements in information technology have not made public debate more realistic. On the contrary, anti-Semitism is resurgent. Conspiracy theories are prevalent. Partisanship has left many people unhinged.
Welcome to election year, 2004."

"Osama's shell game" (Richard Schwartz, New York Daily News, 2004/01/06)
Via RealClear Politics: "Here's a hypothetical: What if all the recent terror chatter turned out to be idle? What if Al Qaeda's perceived threats to strike at America during the Code Orange Christmas season turned out to have been a grand diversion? ...
Half a world away, in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, mayhem rules. In the past month, Al Qaeda-linked operatives nearly twice have liquidated Pakistan's pro-American leader,, President Pervez Musharraf. Simultaneously, Osama Bin Laden's assassins have attempted to bump off a few top Saudi security officials.
Should this political terrorism succeed, the consequences would be devastating. Were the radical Islamists - aided and abetted by Al Qaeda - to grab power in Pakistan, they would have control of that nation's nuclear arsenal. If the same were to happen in the Saudi kingdom, the fanatics would command the world's biggest oil reserves.
And there would sit Bin Laden, a doomsday bomb in one hand, a barrel of oil in the other. ...
Should these rickety regimes fall, the world order could come undone. Bin Ladenism would be ascendant, instead of on the run. The terrorists, with just a few targeted executions, could take over two key nations.
If that happens, Code Orange would be a good day. Code Red would reign."

"Afghanistan's Milestone" (Zalmay Khalilzad, The Washington Post, 2004/01/06)
"The constitutional loya jirga that concluded in Kabul Sunday was a milestone on the Afghan people's path to democracy. ...
There was a powerful reversal of symbolism when the Kabul soccer stadium — used less than three years ago by the Taliban to execute women accused of adultery — was used by thousands of women to choose their representatives to the constitutional loya jirga. Of the voting delegates, 102 were women — more than 20 percent of the total delegates. ...
Afghanistan has sent a compelling message to the rest of the world that by investing in that country's development, the United States is investing in success. Americans can take pride in the role we have played in leading the multilateral effort to support Afghan democratization. The toppling of the Taliban and the stabilizing presence of the coalition and NATO International Security Assistance Force troops have enabled the seeds of political progress to sprout. President Bush's decision to increase aid to Afghanistan — which will likely total more than $2 billion in fiscal 2004 — will accelerate reconstruction of the country's national army, police force, economic infrastructure, schools and medical system." (See also: "Last-Ditch Effort Secures Afghan Charter" (Stephen Graham, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/01/04))

"We won't scrap WMD stockpile unless Israel does, says Assad" (Benedict Brogan, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/06)
"Syria is entitled to defend itself by acquiring its own chemical and biological deterrent, President Bashar Assad said last night as he rejected American and British demands for concessions on weapons of mass destruction.
In his first major statement since Libya's decision last month to scrap its nuclear and chemical programmes, he came closer than ever before to admitting that his country possessed stockpiles of WMD. ...
Asked about American and British claims that Syria had a WMD capability, he stopped short of the categorical denial that has been his government's stock response until now. ...
He called on the international community to support the proposal that Syria presented to the United Nations last year for removing all WMD from the Middle East, including Israel's nuclear stockpile.
'Unless this applies to all countries, we are wasting our time.'"

"Masquerading as 'mainstream'" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/01/06)
A report on how "extremist Muslims intimidate press, true moderates into silence." Here on Imam Abdul Malik's speech at an Orlando conference titled "Islam for Humanity":
"Malik has a sharp word for those who say "Muslim terrorists are going after your way of life" and "freedoms."
In a speech called "American Dream or Nightmare," Malik explains that the target of "Muslim terrorists" really is the imperialist way of life, not "your personal freedoms."
"No, its not the freedoms we're going after. It's the fact that you control our countries. We've got these kings here that you want in. We want to be free; that's what it is."Malik says that the Quran divides non-Muslims into three categories: those who will help and are friendly, those who are neutral, and category three who "want to kill us. They want to take us out!"
In terms of the argument that terrorists are going after Americans' freedoms, Malik says: "That's the third category talking to the first and second category of non-Muslims. And then they use these ayats [verses], 'Slay them wherever you find them and kill them.' That's for the third category [laughter in audience], but they make it sound like it's for the first and second category."
The verses in the Quran about fighting, Malik says, are only for those who "hate us or want to kill us." He advises followers to ask people concerned about the ayats, "Are you taking up for oppressors? That's what it's talking about," or 'You're not in that third category are you?'" (See also: "WND goes inside 'mainstream' Muslim conference" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/01/03) and "How U.S. extremists fund terror" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/01/05))

"Egypt Muzzles Calls for Democracy" (Glenn Frankel, The Washington Post, 2004/01/06)
"In what was widely regarded as one of his most important speeches of 2003, President Bush proclaimed in November that it was time for the United States to support democracy in the Middle East. ...
"The great and proud nation of Egypt has shown the way toward peace in the Middle East, and now should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East," Bush declared.
U.S. officials insist they are seeing slow but positive changes in human rights conditions here. But rights advocates, opposition politicians and analysts interviewed here paint a darker portrait: of an authoritarian government that tightens or loosens the screws of repression depending upon how it perceives threats, that is obsessed with its Islamic opposition and feels harassed by human rights activists, and that wields a powerful state security apparatus that operates under far-reaching emergency laws and often deals brutally with opponents.
And they contend that, contrary to Bush's pronouncements, U.S. aid — nearly $2 billion per year over the past two decades — has propped up an unpopular government, its army and police, and helped suppress democracy."

"Pakistan Called Libyans' Source of Atom Design" (Patrick E. Tyler and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 2004/01/06)
"Pakistan was the source of the centrifuge design technology that made it possible for Libya to make major strides in the last two years in enriching uranium for use in nuclear weapons, Bush administration officials in Washington and other Western experts said Monday. ...
The timing of the transfer of the centrifuge design from Pakistan calls into question General Musharraf's ability to make good on his vow to President Bush that he would rein in Pakistani scientists selling their nuclear expertise around the globe. The general made that pledge shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. Yet the main aid to Libya appears to have come since those attacks, suggesting that Pakistani scientists may have continued their trade even after the explicit warning." (See also: "From Rogue Nuclear Programs, Web of Trails Leads to Pakistan" (David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, The New York Times, 2004/01/03))

"N. Korea Offers to Halt Nuke Facilities" (Soo-Jeong Lee, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/01/06)
"North Korea offered Tuesday to refrain from producing nuclear weapons as a "bold concession" to rekindle talks over its arms programs.
The move comes as the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas scramble to arrange a new round of negotiations, with South Korea and Russian saying they are unlikely this month.
North Korea has said before it is willing to freeze its "nuclear activities" in exchange for U.S. aid and being delisted from Washington's roster of terrorism sponsoring nations.
Tuesday's developments come as a delegation of U.S. congressional aides heads to North Korea to possibly tour the communist country's disputed nuclear plant at Yongbyon. A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity that they were to stay in the North from Tuesday to Saturday." (See also: "N. Korea OKs U.S. visit to complex" (Barbara Slavin, USA Today, 2004/01/02))

"U.S. Begins Screening Program for Monitoring Foreign Visitors" (Abby Goodnough and Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times, 2004/01/06)
"United States immigration officers began fingerprinting and photographing tens of thousands of foreign visitors required to have visas on Monday, in what federal authorities described as a sophisticated new security measure to monitor who enters the country and how long they stay.
A total of 115 airports with international flights, including several in Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean with United States customs booths, introduced the extra layer of screening on Monday, along with cruise ship terminals at 14 major seaports."

Monday, January 5, 2004

News and commentary:

"The Kingdom of Silence" (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker/lawrencewright.com, 2004/01/05)
A must-read report on Wright's experiences as a trainer of journalists in Saudi Arabia: "The following day, with the meeting set for an hour earlier, three black-shrouded figures slipped into the Gazette conference room. Once they were seated, the male reporters followed, arraying themselves on the opposite side of the table. I sat awkwardly at the head. The women were all in black abayas and hijabs — the obligatory robes and head scarves — and one of them veiled her face as well. Only a pair of gold-rimmed glasses peeked out from the mask of cloth surrounding her eyes. Hanging from her chair was an alligator purse with a long gold chain.
The self-effacement of an entire sex, and, in consequence, of sexuality itself, was the most unnerving feature of Saudi life. I could go through an entire day without seeing any women, except perhaps some beggars sitting on the curb outside a prince’s house. ... It felt to me as if the women had died, and only their shades remained. ...
"Traditions say that eating alone with your female relatives is shameful," Raid Qusti, a journalist, wrote earlier this year in a daring column for the Arab News. "Where in our religion does it say that sitting with your own family is forbidden?" Qusti complained that many Saudi men thought it was taboo to utter a woman's name in public. "Ask any Saudi male in the street what the names of his wife or daughters are, and you will either have embarrassed him or insulted him. Islamic? Not in any way." There are some parts of the country where a woman never unveils — her husband and children see her face only when she dies."

"Neo-Nazi Invited to Speak at Toronto Islamic Conference" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2004/01/05)
Pluralism is key...: "At a three-day Islamic conference in Toronto titled "Reviving the Islamic Spirit," one of the featured speakers was William Baker — a neo-Nazi "evangelist" with a long history of connections to antisemitic groups... The Toronto Star spends the first part of their account of the conference painting a rosy picture of the "pluralistic" atmosphere, before mentioning the fact that a neo-Nazi was invited to speak. ...
The Orange County Weekly did a story on William Baker when he was fired from Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral after his affiliations with extremist groups came to light:

The Reverend Robert Schuller has quietly told self-styled "interfaith leader" William Baker to vacate his Crystal Cathedral office. The order came after an investigation published in OC Weekly revealed that Baker, who runs Christians and Muslims for Peace (CAMP), has a long history of anti-Semitic politics and held a leadership position in neo-Nazi organizations. The investigation also revealed that Baker had manufactured much of his alleged academic qualifications."

(See also: "Pluralism is key, Muslim forum told" (Kerry Gillespie, Toronto Star, 2004/01/05) and "Das Boot! -Crystal Cathedral evicts preacher with neo-Nazi ties" (Stan Brin, Orange County Weekly, 2002/05/17))

"A Farewell to Allies" (Charles Krauthammer, TIME, 2004/01/05)
"These countries are not allies. It is sheer laziness now that counts France and Germany as old allies, sheer naivete that counts Russia as a new one.
It should not surprise us. Countries have different interests. For a half-century, anticommunism papered over those differences, but communism is gone. Europe lives by Lord Palmerston's axiom: nations have no permanent allies, only permanent interests. Alliance with America is no longer a permanent interest. The postwar alliance that once structured and indeed defined our world is dead. It died in 2003. ...
When the existential enemy was Nazism or communism, the world rallied to the American protector. But Arab-Islamic radicalism is different. Its hatreds are wide, but its strategic focus is America. Its monument is ground zero. Ground zero is not in Paris.
The neutrals know that perhaps in the long run they too will be threatened. For now, however, they are quite content to see the U.S. carry the fight against the new barbarians. The U.S. was attacked; it will carry the fight regardless. ...
The neutrals may wax poetic about America's sins, but they do not hate us. The problem is not emotion, but calculation. At root, it is a matter of interests. Interests diverge. No use wailing about it. The grand alliances are dead. With a few trusted friends, America must carry on alone."

"America and the Middle East After Saddam" (Kenneth M. Pollack, FPRI Wire, from the January 2004 issue)
"Right now, there have traditionally been only two visions out there in the Arab world. There's the vision offered by the state autocrats, which basically says "Our political system's fine. The only problem is the Americans and Israelis. If Washington would just fix the peace process, everything would be beautiful." The only voice of opposition with any strength is the Islamists, who offer their own vision of an alternative. But in the last ten or fifteen years, another voice has been developing in the Middle East. It's still very small and weak, but it's the voice that we should all be supporting. That's a group of liberal democratic Arabs who have been standing up and saying "These two alternatives are both equally bankrupt. Our choice should not be Mubarak's Egypt or the Ayatollah’s Iran. Why can't we do what 140, 150 other countries around the world have done and start to democratize, open up our economies, and build a free-market economy and a democratic system? We can build a democratic system that is perfectly compatible with Islam and with traditional Arab values."
It's a small, still voice right now, and if we get Iraq wrong, that voice is going to die. ... If democracy fails in Iraq, it won't matter how we explain why the effort failed. To the Arabs, all that will matter is "The U.S. tried to build democracy and free-market economics in Iraq, threw 130,000 troops and $100 billion at it, and failed." And all the autocrats and all the Islamic fundamentalists are going to say, "If the Americans couldn't do it in Iraq, then it can’t work anywhere in the Arab world. So the only alternatives you have are us." That's a lot at stake."

"The Healing Power of Therapy" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/01/05)
"Musing on the world post-September 11, Rod Dreher once said: "Words matter as they haven't in a generation."
He was right. Just ask Californian sex therapist Dr. Susan Block, who last month published at her website an anti-war piece entitled Rape of Iraq:

The supreme victory for the rapist is proof that his victim "enjoyed" it. Though he may force his way into her property, demolish her home, murder her loved ones, pillage her belongings, though he may terrify and humiliate her, beat and batter her, break her bones and tear her flesh, spill her blood, wound her organs and lay waste to her very soul, if, in the midst of the rape, between tears and shrieks of agony, if his victim should, for a moment, for some reason, any reason, if she should smile, or, better yet, orgasm, the rapist is redeemed; he is even (in his mind) heroic.

Block's perverse symbolism was noted and subsequently warped by Islamist media in Turkey, which used the Block piece to promote the idea that US soldiers were physically raping Iraqis. Words matter, Susan:

Nurullah Kuncak says his father, Ilyas Kuncak, was boiling about the rumored rapes just before he killed himself delivering the huge car bomb that devasted the Turkish headquarters of HSBC bank last month, killing a dozen people and wounding scores more.
"Didn't you see, the American soldiers raped Iraqi women," Nurullah said in a recent interview. 'My father talked to me about it. . . . Thousands of rapes are in the records. Can you imagine how many are still secret?'"

(See also: "Rape of Iraq" (Susan Block, drsusanblock.com, 2003/12/04) and "Rumors of rape fan anti-American flames" (Charles A. Radin, The Boston Globe, 2004/01/04))

"Vatican appeasement" (Joseph D'Hippolito, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/05)
"Why would a Roman Catholic cardinal who leads a papal commission express public sympathy for a murderous, sadistic tyrant?", wonders Joseph D'Hippolito:
"The Pope's goals, while noble, reflect a simplistic, almost naive world view.
"For Karol Wojtyla, religious dialogue is necessary – to foster the common good of humanity," Guolo writes. "This dialogue is sustained by the awareness (of) common values across cultures, because these values are rooted in human nature. He seems to believe that only the prophetic message, the utopian perspective, the mystical leap powered by an intense spirituality, can achieve this objective." ...
Two years earlier, Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, the head of a Vatican delegation to Baghdad, called his visit "one of solidarity with the Iraqi people in the face of the international embargo against their country" and "thanked Iraq for its moral and material support for the Palestinian cause." ...
Or, take Martino's comments five months later: "Not only the United States but the entire West should make an examination of conscience of how we oppress the rest of the world – unkept promises, spreading ways of life that are not moral or acceptable to the rest of the world."
Unkept promises? To whom? For what? Osama bin Laden could not have said it any better." (See also: "John Paul II's Vision of the Church and Islam" (Renzo Guolo,www.chiesa, 2003/09/08) and "Cardinal Says U.S. Treated Saddam 'Like a Cow'" (Philip Pullella, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2003/12/16))

"A nation stuck in the mindset of the Beagle" (Stephen Pollard, Independent/stephenpollard.net, 2004/01/05)
The success of The Spirit vs. the failure of Beagle 2: "A caller to a phone-in which I heard yesterday took umbrage at the underhand tactics employed by Nasa: "It's so typically bloody American. If they want to do something they spend billions, buying up all the talent and swaggering around as if they've got all the answers." As opposed, that is, to the Brits who, when we want to do something, spend as little as we can get away with, come over all coy about it, deny it really matters to us and then, when someone else succeeds, behave like a kid who's had his toy taken away from him."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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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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