Archived news and commentary: January 12 - 18, 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 18, 2004

News and commentary:

"Making Differences"
(Watch, 2004/01/18)
Stockholm, January 2004: A gigantic advert with a picture of smiling female mass murderer Manadi Jaradat, captioned "Making Differences", is displayed in all underground stations. The adverts are for the cultural and artistic program "Making Differences". The ad in the center is for the project "God Made Me Do It", combining art and "material such as... the palestinian suicide-bomber Manadi Jaradat and the American talkshow host Geraldo Rivera." (Note: Thanks to Vitali Fridliand for the picture.)

A round-up of Swedish news on the "Snow White" scandal:
Svenska Dagbladet reports (not online) about a new sabotage attack against "Snow White". A "Jewish activist", Dmitri Vasserman, placed another boat in the blood coloured pool with a picture of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh's murderer instead of female suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat. This was followed by an outburst by Dror Feiler, who crumpled the picture and accused Vasserman of acting dictatorially.
Expressen reports (picture below) about a "Graffiti attack against the Israeli embassy this morning" (Tommy Schönstedt, Expressen, 2004/01/18). The slogan "CRUSH NAZISM. FREE PALESTINE." might seem as self-contradictory as the peace sign does seem out of place.
In the lefty tabloid Aftonbladet — the largest newspaper in Sweden — political analyst Wolfgang Hansson sees yesterday's attack by the Israeli ambassador Zvi Mazel as "Tragic proof that Israel is stuck in hatred and violence" (Wolfgang Hansson, Aftonbladet, 2004/01/18), uses biblical imagery to characterize Israel and distastefully compares art provocations with suicide bombers: "An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. Never listen to your adversary. Misunderstand and distrust him instead. Art is as explosive as a suicide bomber."
UPDATE: Dagens Nyheter reports that Thomas Nordanstad, head curator and creative director of "Making Differences", has been attacked by an unknown assailant at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities. The attacker tried to push Nordenstad down a staircase.
There have also been a number of continuing protests at the museum, with demonstrators throwing pictures of dead Israelis in the pool and others offering leaflets protesting the exhibit.

"CRUSH NAZISM. FREE PALESTINE."
(Sauli Pulkkinen, Expressen, 2004/01/18)
Graffiti outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, made during a "graffiti attack" on Sunday morning: "CRUSH NAZISM. FREE PALESTINE."

"Zvi Mazel, iconoclast" (Herb Keinon, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/18)
In the difference between this editorial, praising Ambassador Mazel's attack, and Swedish Wolfgang Hansson seeing it as a "Tragic proof that Israel is stuck in hatred and violence" lies the very abyss which the "Snow White" row has exposed: "As for "diplomacy," Mazel was communicating his point in the only way possible. A formal protest would merely have been "duly registered," filtered and lost in the back channels of European diplomacy. So he chose to scream. But screaming was the only option Europe now gives Israel.
Now we are told that Mazel's response was inapropriate. But what would have been the apropriate response by Israel's representative to depicting the spilt blood of its citizens by "Snow White" as a form of art? Perhaps a strongly-worded letter to the editor? ...
Mazel went against the grain and smashed this particularly vile little icon. If this is his way of capping a distinguished diplomatic career, it is an honorable way indeed."

"PM: Gov't supports terror exhibit wrecking" (Herb Keinon, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/18)
"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the cabinet Sunday that he fully supports Israel's ambassador to Sweden Zvi Mazel, who sparked a diplomatic incident when he wrecked a museum display Friday that he said glorified the suicide bomber who murdered 21 Israelis at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa last year.
Sharon said that he called the ambassador to thank him for taking action at the Stockholm museum.
"I thanked him for standing up against the growing anti-Semitism and I told him that the government stands behind his action," Sharon said. 'I think that our ambassador acted as was necessary, the phenomenon was so grave that it was impossible not to react on the spot.'" (Note: Little Green Football links to videos of Ambassador Mazel's sabotage from Dutch television.)

"France's Americans have the blues" (Frédéric Gerschel and Charlotte Deliry, Le Parisien/Watch, 2004/01/16 [2004/01/18])
An article about Americanophobia in France, translated by Douglas:
"While the number of Americans who visited France dropped in 2003, a great part of those who live in, or pass through France complain of a genuine harassment. “We've had it,” they say. ...
Last September, Justine says she hit bottom: “I was shopping in a store near porte d'Orléans. At the check-out, I asked if I could pay by transferring money from the United States. The guy behind started shouting: 'I'm fed up with these Americans. Fuck Clinton. Fuck Bush and fuck you, too.' He was hysterical. Before leaving, he spat on me. I was so upset I started to cry.” A fifth-year student at the Center for International Research in Paris, Nicolas Dumont, from New Jersey, has also had an unpleasant experience. “I was in a café with a girl I know and we were speaking in English,” he says. 'A woman of a certain age got up and shouted at us cruelly [in English]: 'Go and defend your president now!' I'd never seen this person before. How could she talk to me this way? I don't support Bush's politics but neither do I accept gratuitous criticism of my country. This unreasonable anti-Americanism is tiresome.'" (See also the French original: "Le blues des Américains de France" (Frédéric Gerschel and Charlotte Deliry, Le Parisien, 2004/01/16))

"Erez bomber's family denies coercing her to suicide" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/18)
"The family of suicide bomber Reem Salah al-Rayashi, the Gaza City mother of two who killed four in last week's suicide attack at the Erez crossing, on Sunday dismissed as lies reports that she had been forced to blow herself up after her husband discovered that she had been unfaithful.
Quoting military sources, Yediot Aharonot said that Rayashi was forced to carry out the suicide attack as punishment for cheating on her husband. ...
According to military sources, Rayashi paid a cruel price for being involved in an illicit love affair and was forced to sacrifice herself in order to "clear" her name and the honor of her family.
The paper quoted IDF sources as saying that Rayashi's husband, Ziad Anwar, a Hamas activist, not only knew about his wife's plans in advance but even encouraged her to carry out the suicide attack.
The sources said the man chosen to recruit and equip Rayashi with the explosive belt was none other than the lover with whom she cheated on her husband. The Sunday Times reported that the husband even drove his wife to the Erez crossing."

"Suicide Bomber Kills 18 in Iraq" (Sarah El Deeb, AP/The Washington Post, 2004/01/18)
"A suicide bomber detonated 1,000 pounds of explosives in a pickup truck outside the headquarters compound of the U.S.-led coalition Sunday, killing 18 bystanders, including two U.S. Defense Department workers, American officials said.
At least 28 people, including six Americans, were wounded by the blast, which occurred at about 8 a.m. near the "Assassin's Gate" to Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace complex, now used by the U.S.-led occupation authority for headquarters. The gate is used by hundreds of Iraqis employed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the formal name of the U.S.-led occupation authorities, as well as U.S. military vehicles. ...
At the nearby Yarmouk Hospital, more than a dozen people were admitted with bomb blast injuries. At least one man was taken in on a stretcher, his body covered in blood and a transfusion bottle held above him by an attendant.
"I can't hear you, I can't hear," cried Raqad Iyas Ibrahim, sitting on a bed with her head bandaged and blood congealing across her face.
"I saw a car, I really don't know what happened, I saw windows smashing, then I just fell. I don't know, I don't understand," she said, breaking down in sobs."

"War of Ideas, Part 4" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2004/01/18)
Friedman argues that "American policy today toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is insane" and advocates that Israel should "get out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as soon as possible":
"Second, three dangerous trends are converging around Israel. One is a massive population explosion across the Arab world. The second is the worst interpersonal violence ever between Israelis and Palestinians. And the third is an explosion of Arab multimedia — from Al Jazeera to the Internet. What's happening is that this Arab media explosion is feeding the images of this Israeli-Palestinian violence to this Arab population explosion — radicalizing it and melding in the heads of young Arabs and Muslims the notion that the biggest threat to their future is J.I.A. — "Jews, Israel and America."
Israel's withdrawal is not a cure-all for this. Israel will still be despised. But if it withdraws to an internationally recognized border, it will have the moral high ground, the strategic high ground and the demographic high ground to protect itself. After Israel withdrew from Lebanon, the Hezbollah militia, on the other side, went on hating Israel and harassing the border — but it never tried to launch an invasion. Why? Hezbollah knew it would have no legitimacy — in the world or in Lebanon — for breaching that U.N.-approved border. And if it tried, Israel would be able to use its full military weight to retaliate. Demographically speaking, if Israel does not relinquish the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians will soon outnumber the Jews and Israel will become either an apartheid state or a non-Jewish state."

"Ridley Scott's new Crusades film 'panders to Osama bin Laden'" (Charlotte Edwardes, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/01/18)
"Sir Ridley Scott, the Oscar-nominated director, was savaged by senior British academics last night over his forthcoming film which they say "distorts" the history of the Crusades to portray Arabs in a favourable light.
The £75 million film, which stars Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson, is described by the makers as being "historically accurate" and designed to be "a fascinating history lesson". ...
The Knights Templar, the warrior monks, are portrayed as "the baddies" while Saladin, the Muslim leader, is a "a hero of the piece", Sir Ridley's spokesman said. "At the end of our picture, our heroes defend the Muslims, which was historically correct."
Prof Riley-Smith, who is Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, said the plot was "complete and utter nonsense". He said that it relied on the romanticised view of the Crusades propagated by Sir Walter Scott in his book The Talisman, published in 1825 and now discredited by academics.
"It sounds absolute balls. It's rubbish. It's not historically accurate at all. They refer to The Talisman, which depicts the Muslims as sophisticated and civilised, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality." ...
Prof Riley-Smith added that Sir Ridley's efforts were misguided and pandered to Islamic fundamentalism. 'It's Osama bin Laden's version of history. It will fuel the Islamic fundamentalists.'"

"Straw accused of covering up Libya weapons seizure" (Colin Brown, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/01/18)
"Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was last night accused of a diplomatic cover-up over Colonel Gaddafi after refusing to answer questions about the seizure of uranium-enrichment equipment bound for Libya's nuclear weapons programme last October.
The capture by the United States of thousands of centrifuges on board a German-owned vessel, the BBC China, en route to Libya has raised suspicions in Washington and London that Col Gaddafi offered to abandon his weapons programme after threats from America, rather than the lengthy British and American diplomacy vaunted by Tony Blair."

"The eyes of a Palestinian woman peer out from her veil..."
(AFP/Said Khatib, 2004/01/17)
"The eyes of a Palestinian woman peer out from her veil during a demonstration at the Rafah refugee camp in the southern part of the Gaza strip against plans by the French government to ban the Islamic headscarf from schools."

"Muslim women protest scarf ban" (Elaine Ganley, AP/The Washington Times, 2004/01/19)
"Thousands of Muslim women, waving the French flag or wearing it as a head scarf, marched yesterday through Paris, the center of a worldwide protest against France's plan to ban head scarves from public schools.
From Baghdad and Beirut to London and Stockholm, protesters condemned the law as an attack on religious freedom. Even in the West Bank city of Nablus and in the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Srinagar, women came out to support French Muslims.
"The veil is my choice," the crowd shouted during the four-hour march through Paris. ...
The Party of Muslims of France, a small group known for its radical views, organized the march. However, the huge Union of Islamic Organizations of France, a fundamentalist group, gave its blessing and encouraged people to take part." (See also: "An extremist takes over the opposition" (Blandine Grosjean and Olivier Voge, Libération/Watch, 2004/01/03 [2004/01/10]))

Saturday, January 17, 2004

News and commentary:

"Snow White and the Madness of Truth"
(AFP/Sven Nackstrand, 2004/01/17)
"Swedish artists Gunilla Skoeld Feiler (L) and Israeli born Dror Feiler stand behind their restored art installation, called Snow White in Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities courtyard." (See also: "Hanadi Jaradat" (AP Photo, 2003/10/04))

"Israeli attack against work of art" (Björn Malmström, Svenska Dagbladet, 2004/01/17)
"Snow White" III. Ambassador Mazel goes way too far not only with his attack, but also in his portrayal of Swedish media (My translation):

Is your way of acting the best way to protest?
When the dialogue has died, yes. Israel is attacked everywhere right now. Especially in Sweden. There are daily agitations in Swedish media to kill Jews.
So you mean that Swedish media encourage the killing of Jews?
Let's say that Swedish media generally is indifferent regarding anti-Semitism. Swedish media doesn't combat hate.

It's wrong to say that the dialogue has died, because there is no dialogue on this subject in Swedish media and culture — only a perpetual monotonous monologue.
I'm the first one to be daily upset by the all-pervasive pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli bias in Swedish media, but it is hardly the worst in the world and I have thankfully yet to see actual agitation for killing Jews in Swedish media (with the possible exception of neo-Nazi sites that is). And much less so on a daily basis. Mazel's exaggarations are all the more a pity as he clearly has a point, both when it comes to the moral obscenity of "Snow White" and on the anti-Israeli bias in Swedish media. But physical attacks against works of art and exaggarations beyond reason is hardly the way to go. That said, I think "Snow White" is reprehensible, disturbingly insensitive and a work of really bad art as well.

"Snow White and The Madness of Truth" (Making Differences, January 2004)
"Snow White" II: From the text accompanying the installation — an arty elegy for the female suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat, interfoliating passages from the Grimm Brothers "Snow White" and from news accounts of Jaradat (a third part of the installation is Bach's cantata "Mein Herz schwimmt in Blut" ["My heart swims in Blood"]):

Before the engagement took place, he was killed in an encounter with the Israeli security forces
and she ran over sharp stones and through thorns
She said: Your blood will not have been shed in vain
and was about to pierce Snow White's innocent heart
She was hospitalized, prostrate with grief, after witnessing the shootings
The wild beasts will soon have devoured you
After his death, she became the breadwinner and she devoted herself solely to that goal
”Yes”, said Snow White, "with all my heart”
Weeping bitterly, she added: 'If our nation cannot realize its dream and the goals of the victims, and live in freedom and dignity, then let the whole world be erased'"

(See also one of the articles which is sampled in the text: "Ticking bomb" (Vered Levy-Barzilai, Haaretz/occupationalhazard.org, 2003/10/15))

"Israeli ambassador kicked out of Swedish museum after vandalizing art" (AFP, 2004/01/17)
"Snow White" I: "Israel's ambassador to Sweden [Zvi Mazel] was kicked out of Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities after he destroyed an artwork featuring a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber, the artists said.
The incident, widely reported in the Swedish media, occurred at the opening on Friday of the "Making Differences" exhibit, part of an upcoming international conference on genocide hosted by the Swedish government and in which Israel is scheduled to participate. ...
The art installation, called Snow White and located in the museum's courtyard, featured a basin filled with red water, designed to look like blood.
A sailboat with the name Snow White floated on the water, and placed like a sail was a photo of a smiling Hanadi Jaradat, the female lawyer who blew herself up in the Haifa suicide bombing attack in October which killed 21 Israelis.
"For me it was intolerable and an insult to the families of the victims. As ambassador to Israel I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality," the ambassador told Swedish news agency TT.
According to museum director Kristian Berg, the ambassador went berserk in front of the 400 specially-invited guests when he saw the piece." (See also: "Ambassador wrecks suicide bomber exhibit in Sweden" (The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/17): "Israel has threatened to boycott the conference if the museum's "Making Differences" exhibit on the Middle East conflict is not dismantled, Army Radio reported, saying that the exhibition breaks understandings Israel reached with Sweden. ... As a political activist, Feiler is president of Jews for Israeli Palestinian Peace, which initiated a campaign entitled "Jewish Manifesto: Sharon is Israel's Worst Enemy." Feiler describes himself as the 'eye-bleeding ultimate composer of intifadic and eruptive lung-outs.'"
Also: "Jewish Manifesto: Sharon is Israel's Worst Enemy." (JIPF), signed by "1700 persons from 37 countries", including Noam Chomsky and the eminent Bergman actor Erland Josephson: "In our view, he and his policies have almost single-handedly brought the Middle East to the point where disaster could strike at any moment. Sharon is the biggest threat to the Israeli people and to Jews around the world.")

"Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani"
(Reuters, 2004/01/17)
"Undated file photo of Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has refused to support the U.S. plan for regional caucuses to select a transitional assembly that will pick an interim government for sovereignty by July and demanded direct elections."

"The Mullah Behind the Curtain" (Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, 2004/01/17)
A profile of the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, "the most powerful man in Iraq at the moment": "Indeed, if Sistani continues his current strategy of mild confrontation with Washington, the aging ayatollah — who is described as "frighteningly intelligent" by one political ally — will likely emerge as the most dominant and revered figure in post-occupation Iraq. He is also likely to be the man (and here's the good news) who can best realize the dreams of both his fellow Shiites and the Americans: creating a stable democracy that could potentially transform the Arab world. ...
The stakes could not be higher. Suspicions remain in the Bush administration that Sistani’s long-term goal is to get the Americans out and the Koran in — in other words, to create another mullah state as in Iran. That is unlikely. In fact, some Iraqis say, the Americans don’t fully comprehend the historic gift Sistani is offering them, if only they have the wisdom to take it. The grand ayatollah and the millions of Shiites who revere him "have made a paradigm shift" away from the militancy of Hezbollah, their traditional political voice, and towards the Americans and the international system of democratic capitalism that Washington oversees, says a Sistani ally in Baghdad. The Americans, he says, have not yet "seen the distance the Shia traveled over to them." If Washington plays it right, this change in sensibility in the Shiite world could prove to be George W. Bush's most signal victory in the war on terror."

"A dissident in Paris" (Nir Boms and Erick Stakelbeck, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/17)
Found via James Taranto, who appropriately files the case of Syrian dissident Nizar Nayouf under "Weasel Watch":
"Nayouf was granted political asylum in France in July 2002 and fully expected his vocal opposition to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's regime to be welcomed by his new hosts. After all, it was former French prime minister Lionel Jospin who, in 2001, urged Assad to release Nayouf so he could receive proper medical attention in France.
Assad, eager to strengthen Syria's European ties, quickly consented. But after a promising start, Nayouf's French experience quickly turned sour.
Despite repeated requests by Nayouf during the last 18 months, the French government has refused to grant him access to official documents that would allow him to travel freely and continue his human rights work. Moreover, upon asking French authorities last month for the political refugee passport he was legally granted in 2002 (and is due to him by French law), Nayouf was denied yet again and told, much to his surprise, that he "already had" a Syrian passport. ...
As a result, Nayouf remains confined to Paris, denied permission to attend Syrian human rights conferences, where he has often been invited as a featured speaker. Most recently he was unable to attend a November conference of Syrian democracy advocates in Washington, D.C. that spawned a fledgling Syrian Democratic Coalition led by the Syrian-born Farid Ghadry.
Nayouf says he was "advised" by French police not to attend the conference and speak out against the Ba'ath Party."

"Kilroy-Silk agrees to quit BBC in face-saving deal" (Matt Wells, The Guardian, 2004/01/17)
Dhimmitude in Londonistan: "The axe fell on Robert Kilroy Silk's 17-year career as the doyen of daytime TV talkshow hosts last night, when the BBC finally secured his resignation for making anti-Arab comments. After a marathon eight-hour meeting, a face-saving deal was reached in which the former Labour MP's production company will continue to make the programme, but he will step down as its presenter.
In a joint statement with the BBC, Kilroy-Silk claimed the decision to quit was his and the BBC said it may work with him again, but the Guardian understands that most BBC executives were determined he should not return." (See also: "Kilroy-Silk investigated for anti-Arab comments" (Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 2004/01/08). Here's the original Sunday Express column: "We owe Arabs nothing" (Robert Kilroy-Silk, Sunday Express/AEMJ, 2004/01/04), in which it's clearly stated in the very first paragraph that Kilroy-Silk's target is "despotic, barbarous and corrupt Arab states" rather than Arabs per se.)

Added in archive:
"We owe Arabs nothing" (Robert Kilroy-Silk, Sunday Express/AEMJ, 2004/01/04)
"Ticking bomb" (Vered Levy-Barzilai, Ha'aretz/occupationalhazard.org, 2003/10/15)

Friday, January 16, 2004

News and commentary:

"Va. Jihad Activist Pleads Guilty" (Jerry Markon, The Washington Post, 2004/01/16)
Former CAIR official and, ironically enough, Antiwar contributor Todd Royer pleads guilty: "A key member of an alleged Virginia jihad network pleaded guilty to federal weapons and explosives charges today, denying that he intended to harm Americans but acknowledging that he and his co-defendants had sought to fight on behalf of Muslim causes abroad.
Randall Todd Royer, 30, of Falls Church, entered his surprise plea in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. He faces at least 20 years in prison when he is sentenced April 9. Another of the 11 men originally charged in the case, Ibrahim Ahmed al-Hamdi, 26, of Alexandria, pleaded guilty to similar charges and faces at least 15 years in prison." (See also: "'Pro-Democracy' Think Tank is Front for Israeli Lobby" (Ismail Royer, Antiwar, 2002/09/26))

"Our Moment of Vainglory" (Michael Ledeen, National Review, 2004/01/16)
"We are now making the Afghans and the Iraqis pay a terrible price for American political correctness, and the price is being exacted by our diplomats and misnamed "strategists." The fundamental error — enshrined, as the splendid Diane Ravitch has recently explained in her stellar work on American history textbooks — is the belief that American political and civic culture is just one among many, no better and quite likely considerably worse, than most. Hence we have no right to tell anyone, here or elsewhere, how they should behave. ...
We do nothing to support the pro-democratic, basically secular groups and parties, we in fact have long withheld funding (despite laws and appropriations to the contrary) from the Iraqi National Congress — a pro-American, democratic, inclusive, and even multicultural umbrella group — and we have recently acquiesced in legislation in both Iraq and Afghanistan that gives Islamic law — sharia — privileged standing, specifically in civil marriage and inheritance procedures. ...
We've made a terrible mess. As "riverbend" — another Iraqi blogger — puts it: "This is going to open new doors for repression in the most advanced country on women's rights in the Arab world! Men are also against this (although they certainly have the upper-hand in the situation) because it's going to mean more confusion and conflict all around." But our guys won't risk criticism for being politically incorrect, by fighting for our values, and insisting that our wisdom be used to create a better and freer Middle East." (See also: "Shari'a and Family Law..." (river, Baghdad Burning, 2004/01/15) and "Women in Iraq Decry Decision To Curb Rights" (Pamela Constable, The Washington Post, 2004/01/16))

"Our Primordial World" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/01/16)
"The old truth that resurfaced was that the United States destroyed the Spanish empire in 1898, and was pivotal in derailing the Prussian imperial dream in 1918 and in annihilating the Third Reich. It inherited by default much of the role of the British dominion, did nothing in Suez, Algeria, or Southeast Asia to rescue the tottering French Empire, and almost alone bankrupted and dismantled the Soviet imperium. In other words, past notions of European grandeur are no more — and somewhere in that equation of ruin were the mongrel, tasteless Americans, who are now at it again, ending rather easily the fascistic cabals of Milosevic, Mullah Omar, and Saddam Hussein.
Reasonable people might suggest that Europeans and Russians would welcome these events, as no sane person could be fond of today's megalomaniacs, or even the legacy of monsters like Napoleon, Hitler, or Stalin. But then Dominique de Villepin wrote a hagiography of the little emperor, and Russians talk grandly of the old days when Soviets were feared and respected, not denizens of a motley conglomeration of squabbling, corrupt republics from Chechnya to Georgia."

"Prison chief is attacked over race sacking" (David Sapsted, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/16)
A brief moment of moral clarity: "A prison officer, who was left "a broken man" after being sacked for being rude about Osama bin Laden following the September 11 attacks, won his claim for unfair dismissal yesterday.
In a damning indictment of political correctness and incompetence within the Prison Service, an employment tribunal described a governor's conduct as "reprehensible".
It was wholly disproportionate to the off-the-cuff remark made by Colin Rose, who was fired after 21 years' impeccable service.
The Norwich tribunal said Jerry Knight, then governor of Blundeston Prison, appeared to have been swayed by his keenness to "parade his racial awareness qualifications".
Panel members questioned whether the governor lived in the real world." (See also: "Prison officer sacked for bin Laden 'insult'" (David Sapsted, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/12/03))

"Nation-Building 101" (Francis Fukuyama, The Atlantic, from the January/February 2004 issue)
"The problems that the Administration faced in Iraq were not so much the results of specific misjudgments as the predictable by-products of the Administration's poorly thought-out institutional structure. Fixing that structure would involve at least four things.
First, the United States needs to create a central authority, backed by a permanent staff, to manage ongoing and future nation-building activities. One possibility, recommended by the Commission on Post-conflict Reconstruction of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is to appoint a director of reconstruction. ...
A standing U.S. government office to manage nation-building will be a hard sell politically, because we are still unreconciled to the idea that we are in the nation-building business for the long haul. However, international relations is no longer just a game played between great powers but one in which what happens inside smaller countries can have a huge effect on the rest of the world. Our "empire" may be a transitional one grounded in democracy and human rights, but our interests dictate that we learn how better to teach other people to govern themselves."

"Dutch PM hits out at supporters of 'teacher killer'" (Expatica, 2004/01/15)
"Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has publicly criticised the group of students who held a demonstration in support of one of their peers who is accused of gunning down a teacher in a school canteen in The Hague earlier this week.
Balkenende made his comments after students and staff in Terra College in The Hague gathered Friday for a ceremony of remembrance for teacher Hans van Wieren, 49, who was shot dead by a student on Tuesday 13 January.
"There are young people who have no feeling for a respectful society. The see nothing in this (the shooting) that was unacceptable," Balkenende said." (See also: "Rally to support Dutch 'teacher killer'" (Expatica, 2004/01/15))

"Israel Says Hamas Leader Yassin 'Marked for Death'" (Jeffrey Heller and Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters/my way, 2004/01/16)
"Israel has "marked for death" Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin, following a suicide bombing that killed four Israeli security personnel in Gaza, Israel's deputy defense chief said on Friday.
The wheelchair-bound Muslim cleric attended Friday prayers as usual at a mosque near his Gaza City home and told reporters he would embrace "martyrdom." ...
"He is marked for death and he had better dig deep underground, where he won't be able to tell the difference between day and night," Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said of Yassin.
"We will find him in his tunnels and liquidate him," he told Army Radio."

"Women in Iraq Decry Decision To Curb Rights" (Pamela Constable, The Washington Post, 2004/01/16)
"For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.
Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia.
This week, outraged Iraqi women — from judges to cabinet ministers — denounced the decision in street protests and at conferences, saying it would set back their legal status by centuries and could unleash emotional clashes among various Islamic strains that have differing rules for marriage, divorce and other family issues."

"U.S. Joins Iraqis to Seek U.N. Role in Interim Rule" (Steven R. Weisman and John H. Cishman Jr., The New York Times, 2004/01/16)
"The Bush administration, trying to rescue its troubled plan to restore sovereignty to Iraq, is joining Iraqi leaders to press the United Nations to play a role in choosing an interim government in Baghdad, administration officials said Thursday.
L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Baghdad, and an Iraqi delegation led by Adnan Pachachi, the current chairman of the Iraqi Governing Council, will make an urgent appeal on Monday for greater United Nations involvement, the officials said. ...
As it begins to reach out for help, and as European nations indicate that they may provide some, the administration is also considering reversing itself and allowing businesses in countries that opposed the war, including France, Germany and Russia, to bid on contracts to rebuild Iraq, officials said."

Thursday, January 15, 2004

News and commentary:

"Reem Raiyshi a mother of two from Gaza..."
(AP/Hamas HO, 2004/01/15)
"Reem Raiyshi a mother of two from Gaza, posses holding a Quran, the Muslim holy book, and a machine gun in this image released by Hamas and taken at an unkown location in the Gaza Strip in recent days. Raiyshi was named as the woman who blew herself up Wednesday at the major crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, killing at least four Israelis and wounding seven others."

"Family of would-be bomber demands PA probe" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/15)
"The family of a Palestinian teenager who was killed earlier this week when an explosive belt he was wearing exploded prematurely is demanding the Palestinian Authority find out who recruited their son to carry out a suicide attack.
Iyad al-Masri, 17, of Nablus, was killed and no one else hurt on Sunday in the northern West Bank as he was on his way to carry out a suicide bombing inside Israel. Iyad's brother, 15-year-old Amjad, was killed by the IDF two weeks ago during clashes with stone-throwers in Nablus. Hours later, during the funerals for Amjad and two others killed in clashes that day, the IDF opened fire on the procession, killing Iyad's cousin, Muhammad al-Masri.
The PA daily Al-Ayyam said that the Masri family, which is one of the largest clans in Nablus, has urged the PA to investigate who recruited their son to a mission doomed to failure because of strict Israeli security measures.
The paper quoted the family as saying that Iyad was dispatched on a suicide mission "that had no chances of succeeding. Those who sent him did not care about the prospects of him succeeding or failing, and they knew that death would be his fate." ...
"Those who sent him are heartless and have no fear of Allah," said Yasser al-Masri, a cousin. "His brother and cousin were just killed. How can we have three dead in the family in one week?" The family said that Iyad's mother, Abir, has been in a state of shock since the death of her two children, unable to talk or cry."

"Rally to support Dutch 'teacher killer'" (Expatica, 2004/01/15)
Us vs. them in the Netherlands: "Several dozen students held a rally Thursday morning in support of a fellow student arrested for the shooting and killing of teacher Hans van Wieren in a school in The Hague earlier this week.
The students gathered outside Terra College in the morning and placed a large poster with the text "Murat, we love you" on a car window. The group also banged on cars and shouted "We love you Murat" to get their message across.
They told reporters that they were angered by the way the suspect was being portrayed in the media.
"Van Wieren stopped and confronted Murat in every break between classes. Murat tried everything to solve the problem between them, but everyone has a limit," one of the pupils told newspaper De Telegraaf during the rally.
Claiming the suspect had no option but to shoot the teacher, one of the pupils said: "He (the suspect) was one of us and he never even hurt a fly".
'If he has to leave school, he will have to leave all his friends behind. We hope he will be freed quickly.'" (See also: "Dutch school shooting shocking, but unpreventable" (Expatica, 2004/01/15): "But improved security failed to protect Hans van Wieren, 49, who was shot in the head at about 1.15pm at Terra College in The Hague on Tuesday. He died in hospital at about 10pm and the suspected killer, believed to be a 17-year-old student, reported to police at about 9pm. ... Students also said that fourth-year student Murat is of Turkish ancestry. The shooting is thus likely to spark renewed concerns about ethnic crime.")

"The Brian Whitaker rules" (Brian Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/15)
Whitaker vs. Kilroy-Silk: "There was a touching meditation in The Guardian the other day by Brian Whitaker, the paper's Middle East editor, on the subject of racism and stereotypes, racist Arab stereotypes in particular. "People happily write and say racist things about Arabs that they would not dream of saying about blacks and Jews," he says, "and usually they get away with it." ...
So now let's talk about Brian Whitaker's sense of restraint.
According to Whitaker, Israeli setters are best described as "thieves and brigands," who "live on stolen land and have been known to shoot Palestinian neighbors for quietly going about their own business picking olives." As for Palestinian attacks on settlers, these can be excused because settlements are "quasi-military targets." ...
And so on. An archival search of the Guardian's Web site lists 711 of Whitaker's articles. I trolled through the first 240. I did not find a single article about suicide bombings against Israelis, except tangentially. Israeli victims of terror – the murdered, the bereaved, the maimed – escape his notice. ...
His characterization of Israelis is every bit as one-sided and caricatured as Kilroy-Silk's is of Arabs. Indeed, it is infinitely more so. Kilroy-Silk may have written crassly, but what he says is abundantly substantiated by the UN's 2002 Arab Human Development Report, written by a team of Arab scholars led by former Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Rima Khalaf Hunaidi." (See also: "Another rule for the Arabs" (Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 2004/01/12))

"Source of Rotterdam Yellowcake Probed" (Toby Sterling, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/01/15)
"A recycling company found uranium oxide — a radioactive material also known as yellowcake — in a shipment of scrap steel it believes originally came from Iraq, the company said Thursday.
Paul de Bruin, spokesman for Rotterdam-based Jewometaal, said that the shipment was passed on last month from a Jordan metal dealer who was unaware it contained any forbidden materials.
"I've dealt with this man for 15 years and he says he's sure it came from Iraq," De Bruin said. He said Jewometaal had been asked not to reveal the name of the Jordanian exporter while the find was being investigated.
Nuclear experts say that although not highly radioactive, uranium oxide can be processed into enriched uranium usable in a nuclear weapon — but highly advanced technology is needed." (Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.)

"Iraqi demonstrators demand elections" (Abdel Razzak Hamid, Reuters, 2004/01/15)
"Tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched through Basra in support of a call by Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric for direct elections to be held within months to select a sovereign Iraqi government.
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has objected to U.S. plans for a transitional Iraqi assembly to be selected by regional caucuses rather than an election. The assembly will select an interim government that is due to take over sovereignty by end-June. ...
A senior Basra cleric, Ali al-Hakim al-Safi, told the crowd at the mosque that Shi'ites would seek their goals by peaceful means -- for now.
'We do not need to use violence to get our rights while there are still peaceful ways we can work together," he said. "But if we find peaceful means are no longer available to us we will have to seek other methods.'"

"Palestinians Hail Female Bomber As Hero" (Ibrahim Barzak, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/01/15)
"The first female Hamas suicide bomber was given a hero's funeral Thursday, a day after killing four Israeli border guards, and Israel sealed the Gaza Strip to review security at border crossings. ...
"She is not going to be the last (attacker) because the march of resistance will continue until the Islamic flag is raised, not only over the minarets of Jerusalem, but over the whole universe," Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said."

"Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War" (Fareed Zakaria, Slate, 2004/01/15)
"I've often been associated with the "democratization spillover" argument, so let me point out that the elimination of Saddam Hussein has been a big plus for American national security. The most anti-American and expansionist regime in the Middle East has disappeared. An actual and potential threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Kuwait has been eliminated. A violent, rejectionist state has faced consequences. This has had a sobering effect on the region: See Syria and Libya's recent behavior. Given our interest in a stable Middle East, this is good.
Given our growing interest in a more decent Middle East it is even better. ...
This is the real connection to 9/11. After 9/11 we came to realize that we couldn't let the Middle East keep festering in its dysfunction and hatreds. It was breeding anti-Americanism and terror. With Iraq in particular, business as usual was becoming increasingly difficult. Throughout this discussion we have assumed that there was a simple, viable alternative to war with Iraq, the continuation of the status-quo, i.e., sanctions plus the almost weekly bombing of the no-fly zones. In fact, that isn't really true. America's Iraq policy was broken. You have to contrast the dangers of acting in Iraq with the dangers of not acting and ask what would things have looked like had we simply kicked this can down the road." (See also: "Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War" (Paul Berman, Slate, 2004/01/12))

"Sources: Terrorists Planning Iraq Attack" (FOX News, 2004/01/15)
"MANSOOR IJAZ, FOX NEWS FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: Well, Brit, what I have learned in the last 24 hours is that about three days ago in the northern part of Iraq, a convoy of trucks and jeeps and cars was brought across from Iran where some of the Kurdish Peshmergah — these are these Kurdish rebels that are sort of like Mujahideen, if I may put it that way, from the old Afghan War.
They intercepted one of those trucks that were carrying a large warhead that had extremely sophisticated plastic — C- 4 plastic explosives in it. And when the driver of that truck was put under interrogation, he then admitted that as many — there were a total of 30 warheads that apparently were scheduled to come across.
One of them got caught, and 29 made it across somehow or the other. Of those 29, we are told now that somewhere between six and 12 of them may have, in fact, been laden with chemical explosives that would be then attached to a rocket of some sort inside Iraq that's already there in a separate convoy. And that those warheads would then be exploded over, for example, an encampment near the Coalition Provisional Authority or something like that.
Now, what alarmed me about this and the reason that I felt it was necessary to get this out as soon as possible, is because I have now heard three times in the last week, from separate sources that I have been talking to that something big is being planned for Baghdad. In which the idea that is being put forward is to kill as many as 3,000 to 5,000 people at one shot; something that would be similar to a World Trade Center type of attack. In that part of the world, the only way you could get that done is if you launched a massive chemical or biological attack." (Hat tip: Moshe Vardi.)

"Arab Mother Cried For Mercy, They Responded - And She Murdered Them" (Arutz Sheva, 2004/01/15)
"It is now known that she made her way to the checkpoint without arousing suspicion, but when she passed through the electronic door, the alarm sounded, and the guard on duty turned her away. She began to cry that she had a metal implant in her leg, and the same guard then apparently took pity on her, and allowed her in for a body check - and then she killed him. ...
The results of Arab/PA incitement and hatred for Israel were manifest not only in yesterday's attack, but in the videotape the terrorist mother made before her death. Smiling and cradling a rifle, she said that she had dreamed since she was 13 years old of "becoming a martyr" and dying for her people. "It was always my wish to turn my body into deadly shrapnel against the Zionists and to knock on the doors of heaven with the skulls of Zionists," she said." (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

"Preacher jailed for 'wife-beating manual'" (The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/15)
"A prominent Muslim preacher was sentenced to 15 months in prison yesterday for writing a book advising men on how best to beat their wives without leaving tell-tale marks on their bodies.
A jury in Barcelona found Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, the imam of a mosque in the southern tourist resort town of Fuengirola, guilty of inciting violence against women and also fined him £1,500. ...
In his book Women in Islam, published three years ago, Mustafa wrote that verbal warnings followed by a period of sexual inactivity can be used to discipline a disobedient wife.
If that failed he said that according to Islamic law, beatings could be then judiciously administered.
"The blows should be concentrated on the hands and feet using a rod that is thin and light so that it does not leave scars or bruises on the body," wrote Kamal."

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

News and commentary:

"For the record" (Benny Morris, The Guardian, 2004/01/14)
Morris on the "right of return": "Even if the return were spread over a number of years or even decades, the ultimate result, given the Arabs' far higher birth rates, would be the same: gradually, it would lead to the conversion of the country into an Arab-majority state, from which the (remaining) Jews would steadily emigrate. Would Jews really wish to live as second-class citizens in an authoritarian Muslim-dominated, Arab-ruled state? This also applies to the idea of replacing Israel and the occupied territories with one, unitary binational state, a solution that some blind or hypocritical western intellectuals have been trumpeting.
To many in the west, the right of refugees to return to their homes seems natural and just. But this "right of return" needs to be weighed against the right to life and well-being of the five million Jews who currently live in Israel, about half of whom were born in the country, have known no other country and have no other homeland. Wouldn't the destruction or, at the least, the forced displacement of these 5 million - and this would be the necessary upshot of a mass Palestinian refugee return, whatever Arab spokesmen say - constitute a far greater tragedy than what befell the Palestinians in 1948 and, currently, a graver injustice than the perpetuation of the refugeedom of fewer than 4 million Palestinians?"

"'Over There'" (Murad Kalam, Granta 84, January 2004)
An American Muslim on the Arab world: "As a Muslim in America I was already used to being treated with ignorance and suspicion and now I was increasingly sickened by the prospect of a reckless but inevitable war in Iraq. Of course, I was impossibly naive: the Middle East existed for me, like all things Islamic, in a sort of exotic orientalist ether of veiled women, the Ka‘ba and the Virgins of Paradise. I set off for Egypt convinced that, unlike America, there was no corruption and hypocrisy in the Arab Muslim world and that it bore no responsibility for its own appalling condition. People told me that Egypt was, like its Muslim neighbours, a ruthless dictatorship, but until I lived there I refused to admit this to myself. I wanted only to be an expatriate novelist, a dissident, and to enjoy the celebrity of being a convert in a Muslim country.
For a week I managed to persist in the happy belief that I was not living in a brutal police state. ...
In Mecca, I found the same mixture of confusion, oppression and apathy I thought I had left behind in Egypt. But as in Egypt, nothing worked, even at the blessed hajj, for we were visitors not to an Islamic state but to yet another cynical Arab kleptocracy which only pretended to adhere to the true ideals of Islam. ...
I fled home the next week, leaving all my illusions of the Arab world in my Cairo flat. I couldn’t wait to be in America again. On the long flight home, I promised myself I would never accept anything less than full democracy for my fellow Muslims in the Arab world or apologize for the tyranny that now masquerades as Islam." (Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds.)

"The Irish of the World" (John Derbyshire, National Review, 2004/01/14)
"If this analogy is right, the Arabs are, in a sense, the Irish of the world. Their threat to us is the one the Irish terrorists posed to Britain: decades of bombings and shootings, occasional sensational atrocities like the assassination of a national personality or the destruction of a large building. All of this rooted in a nagging sense of inferiority, of social and cultural failure, that failure believed to be the result of historical wrongs committed by malign foreigners, those wrongs constantly magnified by telling and re-telling. ...
Do we have the stomach for a "long, twilight struggle" of this kind, with the stakes not nuclear annihilation, not national conquest and subjugation, but only repetitive, spirit-sapping local atrocities, some of them on our own soil, year after year after year? To judge from Lawrence Wright's article, the Arab world looks set fair to provide the raw material for such a fight for decades to come. And if Irish history is a guide, this may continue to be the case even after the Arab world acquires rational, constitutional forms of government, if it ever does. It only takes one percent of one percent, encouraged and sheltered by one percent. Plenty of room for that, even in a tidy west-European-style social order." (Hat tip: David Levine. See also: "The Kingdom of Silence" (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker/lawrencewright.com, 2004/01/05), which provides the background for Derbyshire's article.)

"Hamas backs woman suicide bomber" (BBC News, 2004/01/14)
"The militant groups identified the bomber as Hamas member Reem Raiyshi, a mother-of-two in her early 20s, from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas said it sent a woman because of growing Israeli security "obstacles" facing its male bombers, Reuters news agency reported.
"For the first time [Hamas] used a female fighter and not a male fighter and that was a new development in resistance against the enemy," Reuters quoted Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as saying."

"Suicide bomber kills four in Gaza" (Margot Dudkevitch and Matthew Gutman, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/01/14)
"Four Israelis were killed and ten injured when a suicide bomber blew herself up at the Erez checkpoint in the Gaza Strip at 10:30 Wednesday morning.
The explosion took place at the security check, where thousands of Palestinian workers pass each day to work at the nearby industrial zone. ...
The bomber was identified as Fatah member Rim Salah a-Rishi, 21 from Gaza. ...
The female suicide bomber entered the security check building and blew herself upcausing vast damage inside the building, which is a new facility with extensive security measures.
Army Radio reports the Al Aksa Martyrs' brigade claimed the attack, but Reuters say an official declaration by Fatah and Hamas have taken responsibility for the operation.
An Islamic Jihad official told Ynet that the attack was a joint Islamic Jihad - Fatah operation in retaliation for the attempt on the life of Zakariah Zubeidi, the leader of the Islamic Jihad's Al Aksa Brigade in the northern West Bank."

"Investigation of Attacks on Musharraf Points to Pakistani Group" (John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, The Washington Post, 2004/01/14)
"Building on clues from a cell phone data card, investigators probing last month's assassination attempts against Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, say they are increasingly convinced that the bombings were partly orchestrated by militants associated with the radical Muslim group Jaish-i-Mohammed, a onetime ally of Pakistan's security services with links to al Qaeda. ...
Among those detained for questioning over the weekend were students and teachers at several seminaries in Punjab province affiliated with hard-line Sunni Muslim religious parties that constitute the core of the political opposition in Pakistan's parliament."

Added in archive:
"The Kingdom of Silence" (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, 2004/01/05)

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

News and commentary:

"This piece by Joe Conason..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2004/01/13)
Surely, but...: "This piece by Joe Conason may be the dumbest bit of oil-based conspiracy-theory yet. First he recycles the already-debunked Paul O'Neill Iraq oil-memo story, but then he suggests that Bush's Mars plan is all about Halliburton getting oil from Mars, an idea that could only occur to someone utterly ignorant of the laws of physics:

Yes, the firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney — fabled beneficiary of no-bid multibillion-dollar military contracts and high-priced provider of Kuwaiti oil — is determined to drill on Mars and the moon. Surely this scheme has nothing to do with the Bush space initiative. But somehow, no matter what worthy motivations lie behind the president's policies, he and Cheney always appear to be shilling for their corporate clientele. . . .
Dreams about drilling on Mars date back several years at least. In 1998, a handful of top firms, including Halliburton, Shell and Schlumberger, showed up for a NASA "workshop" at Los Alamos, N.M., to discuss the prospects. Research seems to have intensified since 2001, with Halliburton and other firms engaged in proprietary research on such advanced technologies as laser-powered drills.

Maybe this is just a brilliant send-up of the left's increasingly absurd "it's all about OILLLL!" arguments. Er, well, intentionally or unintentionally, it is!" (See also: "Halliburton on Mars: Take me to your CEO" (Joe Conason, Salon.com, 2004/01/12))

"Raw Rage At Bush During MoveOn.org Awards; Transcript Revealed" (Drudge Report, 2004/01/13)
The Fear! And the Bravery!: "JULIA STILES (Actress)
* 'I was worried that some soldiers over in Iraq who are actually younger than I am would see some salacious report on MSNBC and think that I was attacking them and not the government that put them there. And I was afraid that Bill O'Reilly would come and, with a shotgun at my front door and shoot me for being unpatriotic. But I decided that that's actually, that fear that was silencing me is actually why it's so important that MoveOn exist and do this ad contest...'" (See also: "MoveOn.org features ad comparing Bush to Hitler..." (Drudge Report, 2004/01/04))

"Can PM appease Bush?" (Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star, 2004/01/13)
Comparing Bush with Hitler part 491: "True, both came to power constitutionally (although under dubious circumstances and with the support of only a minority of voters). True, both masterfully used traumatic events at home (the 1933 Reichstag fire for Hitler; 9/11 for Bush) to make a frightened and resentful populace accept restrictions on civil liberties. ...
Still, for Canada and novice Prime Minister Paul Martin — currently trying to engage Bush in Monterrey, Mexico — there are certain similarities. Like central European nations of the 1930s, Canada finds itself next door to a powerful nation led by an unusually aggressive and perhaps slightly unhinged man. What to do?
It's generally forgotten now, but in the mid-'30s Hitler was not universally condemned as evil personified. Indeed, he had many admirers in Europe and North America — people who lauded his "leadership," who lionized his moral certainty (no namby-pamby moral relativism there) and who either forgave, or actively applauded, what was then called anti-Semitism and today would be labelled racial profiling." (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

"Can We Make Iraq Democratic?" (George F. Will, City Journal, from the Winter 2004 issue)
Will on the "assault on the nation-state" and "the belief that nations are like Tinkertoys": "Last July, Prime Minister Tony Blair, addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress, said: It is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture," and he added: "Ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, anytime people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police."
That assertion is important. But is it true? Everyone everywhere does not share "our attachment to freedom." Freedom is not even understood the same way everywhere, let alone valued the same way relative to other political goods such as equality, security, and piety. Does Blair really believe that our attachment to freedom is not the product of complex and protracted acculturation by institutions and social mores that have evolved over centuries — the centuries that it took to prepare the stony social ground for seeds of democracy? ...
It is counted realism in Washington now to say that creating a new Iraqi regime may require perhaps two years. One wonders: Does Washington remember that it took a generation, and the United States Army, to bring about, in effect, regime change — a change of institutions and mores — in the American South? Will a Middle Eastern nation prove more plastic to our touch than Mississippi was? Will two years suffice for America — as Woodrow Wilson said of the Latin American republics — to teach Iraq to elect good men? We are, it seems, fated to learn again the limits of the Wilsonian project." (See also: "Bush at His Side, Blair Is Resolute in War's Defense" (Richard W. Stevenson, The New York Times, 2003/07/18))

"What Makes a Terrorist?" (James Q. Wilson, City Journal, from the Winter 2004 issue)
"The central fact about terrorists is not that they are deranged, but that they are not alone. Among Palestinians, they are recruited by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, among others. In Singapore, their recruitment begins with attendance at religious schools. If ardent and compliant, they are drawn into Jemaah Islamiyah, where they associate with others like themselves. Being in the group gives each member a sense of special esteem and exclusivity, reinforced by the use of secrecy, code names, and specialized training. Then they are offered the chance to be martyrs if they die in a jihad. Everywhere, leaders strengthen the bombers’ commitment by isolating them in safe houses and by asking them to draft last testaments and make videotapes for their families, in which they say farewell. ...
But Islamic terrorism poses a much more difficult challenge. These terrorists live and work among people sympathetic to their cause. Those arrested will be replaced; those killed will be honored. Opinion polls in many Islamic nations show great support for anti-Israeli and anti-American terrorists. Terrorists live in a hospitable river. We may have to cope with the river."

"Old Conspiracies, New Beliefs" (Daniel Pipes, New York Sun/danielpipes.org, 2004/01/13)
Pipes on Michael Barkun's "A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America":
"Some people believe in the lost continent of Atlantis and in unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Others worry about an 18th-century secret society called the Bavarian Illuminati or a mythical Zionist-Occupied Government secretly running the United States.
What if these disparate elements shared beliefs, joined forces, won a much larger audience, broke out of their intellectual and political ghetto, and became capable of challenging the premises of public life in the United States? ...
The connection of conspiracy theorists and occultists follows from their common, crooked premises. First, "any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false." Second, rejected knowledge — what the establishment spurns — must be true.
The result is a large, self-referential network. Flying saucer advocates promote anti-Jewish phobias. Anti-Semites channel in Peru. Some anti-Semites see extraterrestrials functioning as surrogate Jews; others believe the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are the joint product of "the Rothschilds and the reptile-Aryans." By the late 1980s, Mr. Barkun found that 'virtually all of the radical right's ideas about the New World Order had found their way into UFO literature.'"

"We are falling under the imam's spell" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/13)
Kilroy III: "But it's not really about Kilroy or Paulin or Jews, or the Saudis beheading men for (alleged) homosexuality, or the inability of the "moderate" Jordanian parliament to ban honour killing, or the fact that (as Jonathan Kay of Canada's National Post memorably put it) if Robert Mugabe walked into an Arab League summit he'd be the most democratically legitimate leader in the room. It's not about any of that: it's about the future of your "multicultural" society.
One reason why the Arab world is in the state it's in is because one cannot raise certain subjects without it impacting severely on one's wellbeing. And if you can't discuss issues, they don't exist. According to Ibrahim Nawar of Arab Press Freedom Watch, in the last two years seven Saudi editors have been fired for criticising government policies. To fire a British talk-show host for criticising Saudi policies is surely over-reaching even for the notoriously super-sensitive Muslim lobby.
But apparently not. "What Robert could do," suggested the CRE's Trevor Phillips helpfully, "is issue a proper apology, not for the fact that people were offended, but for saying this stuff in the first place. Secondly he could learn something about Muslims and Arabs – they gave us maths and medicine – and thirdly he could use some of his vast earnings to support a Muslim charity. Then I would say he has been properly contrite."
Extravagant public contrition. Re-education camp. "Voluntary" surrender of assets. It's not unknown for officials at government agencies to lean on troublemaking citizens in this way, but not usually in functioning democracies." (See also: "Kilroy-Silk 'Trying to Defend the Indefensible', Says Race Equality Chief" (Neville Dean, PA/The Scotsman, 2004/01/11))

"Talk about double standards" (Stephen Pollard, Evening Standard/stephenpollard.net, 2004/01/13)
Kilroy II: "His treatment has instead become a symbol of the hypocrisy which infects our liberal establishment, and of the double standards which govern the way it operates.
There are some countries and people one can condemn with impunity. But lay into others and you should prepare to be visited by the vengeance of polite society.
Attack America as a genocidal empire bent on world domination and you will be lauded for your sagacity. Argue that Americans as a nation are ignorant and brutal and you will merely be demonstrating your civilised values. ...
Clearly the BBC, acting like reservoir of the liberal establishment it is, has no problem when one of its best known cultural commentators calls for Jews to be shot. Pointing out, however, as Mr Kilroy Silk has, that that there is another side to the story is a grotesque offence against a decent world view and grounds for instant action."

"Kill-roy! Kill-roy! Kill-roy!" (Richard Littlejohn, The Sun, 2004/01/13)
Kilroy I: "The BBC has agreed to reinstate Robert Kilroy-Silk after suspending him for describing Arabs as "suicide bombers, limb amputators and women repressors".
But he has had to agree to new producer guidelines designed to prevent him causing offence to anyone. This column sat in on his comeback show. ...
KILROY: ... My next guest is from al-Muhajiroun. What would you like to say to the viewers, sir?
AL-MUH: September 11 2001 was a towering day in history — a mighty blow against the Great Satan. It is the duty of the faithful to rise up and join the jihad. ... Can I just mention that we're holding a recruiting drive in Tipton on Tuesday?
KILROY: Of course you can. I'm from Birmingham, by the way. (Turns to camera). And don't forget, if you're watching at home, if you'd like to make a donation to Hezbollah In Need just ring the number at the bottom of your screen. Our operators are standing by.
(AUDIENCE: Death to Israel!) ...
KILROY: My next guest is a young man, Ali, from Salford. He's just volunteered to go to work in Jerusalem as a suicide bomber. That's an interesting career choice.
ALI: I've always wanted to travel and kill Jews.
(AUDIENCE: Death to Israel! Death to The West!)"

Monday, January 12, 2004

News and commentary:

"A Palestinian woman screams anti-Israeli slogans..."
(AP/Oded Balilty, 2004/01/12)
"A Palestinian woman screams anti-Israeli slogans in front of the newly installed 8-meter-tall blocks of concrete, part of a separation barrier Israel is building between the outskirts of Jerusalem and the West Bank in the village of Abu Dis Monday Jan. 12, 2004."

"Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong" (Kenneth M. Pollack, The Atlantic, from the January/February 2004 issue)
A balanced — and therefore all the more devastating — assessment of "why we overestimated Iraq's WMD capabilities":
"The one action for which I cannot hold Administration officials blameless is their distortion of intelligence estimates when making the public case for going to war. ...
Some defenders of the Administration have reportedly countered that all it did was make the best possible case for war, playing a role similar to that of a defense attorney who is charged with presenting the best possible case for a client (even if the client is guilty). That is a false analogy. A defense attorney is responsible for presenting only one side of a dispute. The President is responsible for serving the entire nation. Only the Administration has access to all the information available to various agencies of the U.S. government — and withholding or downplaying some of that information for its own purposes is a betrayal of that responsibility. ...
Finally, the U.S. government must admit to the world that it was wrong about Iraq's WMD and show that it is taking far-reaching action to correct the problems that led to this error. Iraq is not going to be the last foreign-policy challenge in which we must make choices based on ambiguous evidence. When the United States confronts future challenges, the exaggerated estimates of Iraq's WMD will loom like an ugly shadow over the diplomatic discussions. Fairly or not, no foreigner trusts U.S. intelligence to get it right anymore, or trusts the Bush Administration to tell the truth. The only way that we can regain the world's trust is to demonstrate that we understand our mistakes and have changed our ways." (See also the declassified version of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's WMD: "Key Judgments: Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction" (FAS, 2003/07/18))

"Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War" (Paul Berman, Slate, 2004/01/12)
A dialogue with Pollack, Friedman and other "liberal hawks". Here Paul Berman on "the single largest fact in the modern history of the world":
"That largest of facts is the rise of a certain kind of political movement — movements animated by paranoid hatreds, by apocalyptic fantasies, and by the fanatical desire to kill people en masse. These have been the big totalitarian movements, Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, and a few others — movements whose greatest goal was to destroy liberal civilization. ...
Sept. 11 showed that totalitarianism in its modern Muslim version was not going to stop at slaughtering millions of Muslims, and hundreds of Israelis, and attacking the Indian government, and blowing up American embassies. The totalitarian manias were rising, and the United States itself was now in danger. A lot of people wanted to respond, as any mayor would do, by rounding up a single Bad Guy, Osama.
But Sept. 11 did not come from a single Bad Guy — it was a product of the larger totalitarian wave, and the only proper response was to comprehend the size and depth of that larger wave, and find ways to begin rolling it back, militarily and otherwise — mostly otherwise. To roll it back for our own sake, and everyone else's sake, Muslims' especially. Iraq, with its somewhat antique variation of the Muslim totalitarian idea, was merely a place to begin, after Afghanistan, with its more modern variation."

"Interview with Algerian Terror Leader Associated with Al-Qa'ida: The Islamic State Will Arise Only Through Blood and Body Parts" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 642, 2004/01/13)
A revealing interview with Nabil Sahrawi, "also known as Abu Ibrahim Mustafa, a leader of the Salafi Group for Da'wa and Fighting in Algeria":
"Question: 'After the September 11 raid, America put you on the list of organizations it is fighting. What is your response to this?'
Sahrawi: 'We classified ourselves even before America classified us. The world is divided into two parts: the part of belief, and the part of unbelief and falsehood. There is no third part. Anyone who desires Islam and a regime in accordance with the Qur'an is classified by the infidels on their list of enemies and opponents... Anyone who says 'There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah,' is on this list, and his turn will come, whether he is armed or not...
Question: 'Is there a final message you want to send to the Algerian Muslim people in these difficult times...?'
Sahrawi: 'The conflict in the world today is a conflict between belief and unbelief. The war in Palestine, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Algeria, in Chechnya, and in the Philippines is one war. This is a war between the camp of Islam and the camp of the Cross, to which the Americans, Zionists, Jews, their apostate allies, and others belong. ...
America and its allies the Jews, the Christians, and the apostates will not cease their war on Islam before they remove the last Muslim from his religion and bring him into apostasy. We must be wary of this terrible plot that the enemies of Islam aspire to realize.
During this time, Jihad is one of the greatest personal commandments. Every Muslim must know that defending Islam and the Muslims in this war is an obligation incumbent upon him, with his soul, his money, and his tongue. Support for Muslims is an obligation. The Islamic State will not arise through means of slogans, demonstrations, parties, and elections, but through blood, body parts, and [sacrifice of] lives...'"

"The Open Society Institute and Its Enemies" (Stephen Schwartz, Tech Central Station, 2004/01/12)
"The fallacy of the Soros approach to the Balkans is a simple one: belief that the erection of "civil society" precedes and encourages the growth of capitalism, when, in reality, the opposite is obviously the case. The United States began as an entrepreneurial society based on investment, contract, and accountability, which gave it the resources, both economic and political, to establish a democracy. Every society that has grown into capitalist prosperity and stability begins on a sound economic base and proceeds to develop institutions embodying civility and commonwealth.
The belief that Croatians, Bosnians, Kosovar Albanians, Macedonian Slavs, Montenegrins, Serbs, and other victims of the Yugoslav tragedy must be nice to each other again, and only afterward can be blessed with substantial economic assistance, runs through all aspects of the Soros approach. It is also visible in the other ex-Communist states Soros has favored. Reduced to its basics, this sensibility holds that Communism, ethnic conflict, and economic collapse occurred because people were bad, and that if they can now be induced to be good, they will flourish.
Blaming the victims of Communism for their plight is about as heartless a concept as one can imagine, but it matches the cockeyed, quack mentality visible in Soros's generosity to American political groups that believe Bush is evil personified. It is the outlook of a rich man separated from the real world of enterprise — a speculator."

"Tape Shows General Clark Linking Iraq and Al Qaeda" (Edward Wyatt, The New York Times, 2004/01/12)
"The statement by General Clark in October 2002 as he endorsed a New Hampshire candidate for Congress is a sign of how the general's position on Iraq seems to have changed over time, though he insists his position has been consistent
"Certainly there's a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda," he said in 2002. "It doesn't surprise me at all that they would be talking to Al Qaeda, that there would be some Al Qaeda there or that Saddam Hussein might even be, you know, discussing gee, I wonder since I don't have any scuds and since the Americans are coming at me, I wonder if I could take advantage of Al Qaeda? How would I do it? Is it worth the risk? What could they do for me?"
At numerous campaign events in the past three months and in a book published last year, General Clark has asserted that there was no evidence linking Iraq and Al Qaeda."

"Muslims' fears hinder fight on polio" (John Donnelly, The Boston Globe/miami.com, 2004/01/12)
"Muslim leaders in hundreds of northern Nigerian communities limited or halted door-to-door polio immunization last year. They told millions of faithful in this Muslim-dominated region that the American government had tainted the vaccine with either infertility drugs or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS — statements later proved false by independent laboratory tests.
Some leaders admitted in interviews late last year that they never believed such a thing. But they remained silent, they said, in order to stop anything associated with the United States.
The U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, several said, had led them to believe that America wants to control the Islamic world, and the polio vaccination effort gave them an opportunity to resist a U.S.-funded initiative.
They vowed to preach against polio vaccinations as long as the United States pays for them, even though it puts their own children at risk.
''People believe that America hates Muslims, and so whatever comes from the United States, no matter how good it is, people will reject it,'' said Sheik Muhammed Nasir Muhammed, chief imam at the second largest mosque in Kano, the Muslim political center in northern Nigeria." (See also: "Polio and rumors spreading in Nigeria" (Glenn McKenzie, AP/The Seattle Times, 2003/10/25))

"Al-Qaida terror plot foiled, say French police" (Jon Henley, The Guardian, 2004/01/12)
"An interior ministry official said evidence from Islamist militants arrested in the Lyon area last week made it "very plain" that an attack with the deadly botulism or ricin toxins was being actively prepared.
The eight suspects arrested on Tuesday were mainly relatives of Menad Benchellali, the son of a radical imam in the Lyon suburb of Venisseux, who has been in jail since December 2002, when he was arrested during a police investigation of French Islamists' efforts to send young Muslim volunteers to fight the Russian forces in Chechnya. ...
"It now seems a cell around the Benchellali family was trying to manufacture chemical and biological weapons for attacks around Europe."
Those arrested last week included Mr Benchellali's father, Chellali, a well-known and controversial radical imam; his mother; his brother Hafed; and his sister Anissa.
Another of his brothers, Mourad, is among six French nationals suspected of having ties to al-Qaida held by the US authorities at Guantanamo Bay." (See also: "Ghetto sectarianism 20 years after the integration movement" (Frédéric Chambon, Le Monde/Watch, 2003/02/11 [2003/03/08]))

Added in archive:
"Bush team 'distorted the threat from Iraq'" (Alec Russell, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/01/09)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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