Archived news and commentary: March 1 - 7, 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, March 7, 2004

News and commentary:

"Shias to sign Iraq constitution" (BBC News, 2004/03/07)
"Shia leaders in Iraq say they will sign the interim constitution despite initial objections from their spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
A member of the US-appointed Governing Council Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said the document would be signed on Monday.
The son of the current Council president said the constitution would be signed as it stood, unchanged. ...
Mr Rubaie and fellow Council member Ahmad Chalabi, along with Abdel Adel Mahdi, a representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), held talks with Ayatollah Sistani at his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf."There is going to be very good news very soon," Mr Rubaie said.
Ayatollah Sistani has been calling for early elections
"We are glad that the grand ayatollah understood our position," he added."

"The Radicals Are Desperate" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2004/03/15 issue)
"If you're wondering how Al Qaeda and its type of militant Islamic groups are doing these days, there was interesting news last week. The tragic bombings of Shiites during their Ashura commemoration, apparently planned by one such group, exposed the weakness of the radicals. That Islamic extremist groups are now targeting Shiites is surely a sign of desperation. Unable to launch major terrorist attacks in the West, unable to attract political support in the Middle East, militant Islam is searching for enemies and causes. ...
It's one thing for Sunnis to want to maintain their dominance, another altogether to want to kill the Shia. Mainstream Sunnis are more likely to be shocked and embarrassed by the airing of this hatred. Like all bigotry, it's a difficult one to justify; shining light on it could prove to be an effective disinfectant. It will also remind people how extreme the Islamic radicals are. Highlighting anti-Catholic bigotry discredited the extreme forms of Protestant fundamentalism, so exposing the hatred behind Al Qaeda's creed will further discredit it.
Most important, by waging war on fellow Muslims, Islamic radicals are proving that the war against terror is not a clash between civilizations, but a clash within a civilization. And the bad guys are losing."

"Say what you like about Jews" (Stephen Pollard, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/03/07)
"Sometimes the loudest sound of all is the sound of silence. The reaction - or rather, non-reaction - to the description last weekend by Ian McCartney of Oliver Letwin as "Fagin" speaks volumes about how the Left views anti-Semitism. ...
What is of interest, however, is that he has suffered barely a whisper of criticism from the Left-wing media or political classes. It is, it seems, just fine to make anti-Semitic remarks.
We have, of course, been here before. When, last May, the Labour MP Tam Dalyell remarked that Tony Blair is "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers", his words prompted a similarly deafening silence of criticism.
Imagine, however, if Mr Letwin were a Muslim, and that Mr McCartney had accused him of behaving like Ali Baba, stealing from the 40 thieves. There would, be sure, have been the mother and father of all rows. Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, would doubtless have called for Mr McCartney's resignation. His fellow Lefties would have disowned him. The Guardian would have condemned him. He would be in disgrace. The penalty for describing a Jew as a thieving hook-nosed monster is, however, nothing." (See also: "Jewish fury as Labour calls Letwin 'Fagin'" (Melissa Kite et al., The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/02/29))

"The Long, Blinding Road to War" (Rick Atkinson, The Washington Post, 2004/03/07)
Atkinson was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division during the war in Iraq and followed their commander, Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus. This is the first article in a three-part series adapted from Rick Atkinson's "In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat":
"U.S. forces had yet to encounter the Republican Guard, but Iraqi irregulars seemed much more aggressive than anticipated and the Shiite south, contrary to expectations, had hardly welcomed the invaders as liberators. The battlefield was what soldiers call nonlinear, with only a vague distinction between the front and the rear.
"No one really saw this coming, did they?" I said.
"No," he replied. No prewar estimates had anticipated a defense of Najaf by Iraqi regular army or Republican Guard troops, nor did those estimates predict stiff resistance from paramilitary forces. 'We did worst-case scenarios, where the enemy really put up a fight, but no one took it very seriously. We need to get lucky. The CIA really needs to pull one out.'"

"The Jihadi Who Kept Asking Why" (Elizabeth Rubin, The New York Times Magazine, 2004/03/07)
A profile of Saudi reformist Mansour Al-Nogaidan, "a 33-year-old former radical imam and a columnist for Al Riyadh":
"Mansour is in a virtual war. Jihadi sympathizers routinely flood his e-mail and cellphone text messages with death threats and insults. Earlier last year, Mansour replied in kind — calling one jihadi the Arabic word for ''bitch.'' Insults are punishable by lashings under Islamic law, and the recipient of Mansour's retort filed a complaint with the judicial authorities, who are all Wahhabi scholars in law. In fact Mansour's curse was a pretext for the plaintiff and judge to threaten him for his recent heretical writings. When the confrontation came to a head, Mansour was sentenced to 75 lashes. ...
The isolation is bruising for Mansour. ''I feel like I am in a community where everyone hates me,'' he explained. His mother, who adores him, is silently disappointed by his transformation, he says, and by his Sufi understanding of Islam that "it's enough to have the spiritual flame inside our hearts." In other words, organized religion is not necessary, nor can he stand its hypocrisy. 'If you ask our sheiks, Can we marry a Christian or Jewish woman, they will say, 'Yes, and you can live together in love, but deep in your heart you must hate her.' How can you divide your heart? Human beings cannot accept such contradictions. Yet that is at the core of our culture.'" (See also: "Telling the Truth, Facing the Whip" (Mansour Al-Nogaidan, The New York Times, 2003/11/28))

Saturday, March 6, 2004

News and commentary:

"Betrayed by Europe: An Expatriate's Lament" (Nidra Poller, Commentary, from the March 2004 issue)
"Will the pacifist and pacified French stand up and defend their nation? Or will we have to leave?
That is what it boils down to. Things have gone from shouting "death to the Jews" to firebombing schools and synagogues, to persecution, attacks, even murder. We have Muslim rage in schools, hospitals, and courtrooms. Police headquarters are attacked, hospital personnel beaten, judges threatened. The Republic is under siege, and what are the French doing about it? They are trashing America.
This, it seems, is their new Maginot line: the sneer of hatred. Hand in hand with the government and the intellectual classes, the French media are channeling the national dismay over lost grandeur into contempt for America. Watch these suave Europeans, snickering to themselves because American soldiers are getting killed in Iraq. Is that (they sneer) any way to risk your life? Go on a crusade to fight incurable disease, cross in front of a moving car, smoke a cigarette. But fight to defend your own country? It’s indecent!
For me, the monuments are crumbling. The glistening golden dome of Les Invalides. The châteaux and the triumphal arches, the obelisks, the bux om fountains, the wrought-iron balconies, the slightly tipsy 18th-century apartment buildings, the rivers winding through those darling towns and cities. How can so much beauty cover such deep cowardice? I lash myself to the mast and close my senses to the sirens, while my heart rings with pride for 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.'"

"Cuba? It was great, say boys freed from US prison camp" (James Astill, The Guardian, 2004/03/06)
Remember Dan Jönsson's assertion that Guantanamo proves Bush's America to be even worse than Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet? Astill has met teens released from the camp and, as he points out, their descriptions "seem to jar with the prevailing opinion of Guantanamo among human rights groups.":
"I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great," said the 14-year-old [Asadullah], knotting his brow in the effort to make sure he is understood. ...
Tracked down to his remote village in south-eastern Afghanistan, Naqibullah has memories of Guantanamo that are almost identical to Asadullah's. Prison life was good, he said shyly, nervous to be receiving a foreigner to his family's mud-fortress home.
The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. "Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don't have anything against them," he said. "If my father didn't need me, I would want to live in America." ...
Asadullah is even more sure of this. "Americans are great people, better than anyone else," he said, when found at his elder brother's tiny fruit and nut shop in a muddy backstreet of Kabul. "Americans are polite and friendly when you speak to them. They are not rude like Afghans. If I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer — or an American soldier."

"Libya Details Its Chemical Weapons Hoard" (AP/The Washington Post, 2004/03/06)
"Libya acknowledged stockpiling 44,000 pounds of mustard gas and, in a declaration submitted Friday to the world's chemical weapons watchdog, disclosed the location of a production plant.
Col. Mohamed Abu Al Huda handed over 14 file cartons disclosing Libya's chemical weapons programs to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said the group's general director, Rogelio Pfirter.
The organization, based in The Hague, oversees compliance with the 1993 international treaty banning chemical weapons, which Libya joined last month.
Libya also declared thousands of tons of substances that could be used to make the highly toxic nerve gas sarin, and two storage facilities, Pfirter said. The production and storage facilities were near Tripoli and in the south of the country, Pfirter said."

"Iraqi Shiites, in a Blow to U.S., Fail to Sign Temporary Charter" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2004/03/06)
"A group of Shiite leaders refused to sign Iraq's temporary constitution on Friday unless changes were made that would strengthen Shiite power, throwing the political process here into disarray and posing a major embarrassment for American officials.
Five Shiite leaders said they had decided to back out of the agreement reached earlier this week after meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most powerful religious leader. They said they wanted to strike from the temporary constitution a provision that would allow a relatively small minority of the country's voters to block the passage of a permanent constitution, which is to be written next year.
After nearly 12 hours of negotiations on Friday, the other Iraqi leaders rejected the changes and quit for the night. ...
The disputed provision was inserted to help gain the support of the Kurds, who have been pressing to maintain the large measure of autonomy they gained in northern Iraq over the last 13 years."

Friday, March 5, 2004

News and commentary:

"Annan responsible for genocide" (Per Ahlmark, Dagens Nyheter/Watch, 2004/03/05 [2004/03/04])
Translated excerpts from an Op-Ed by Per Ahlmark, former deputy prime minister of Sweden and my favourite Swedish political commentator:
"No organisation is regarded with such broad scaled and partly superstitious respect as the United Nations. In many ways it's only natural. The United Nations embodies some of the most beautiful and important dreams in the history of mankind: about peace and international cooperation.
The problem is precisely that the UN has become dogma bordering on political religion. Let's examine the admiration which surrounds the General Secretary. Not since Dag Hammarskjöld has any UN-boss been as intensively honoured and acclaimed as Kofi Annan. He is probably one of the most respected men in the world and not solely because of the commission he is representing. ...
But a man in a leading position should be judged foremostly by his performance during the worst of crises, when enormous values are at stake. And the remarkable thing is that the world's mass media and governments almost always remain silent about how Kofi Annan has failed at those times.
[Ahlmark recounts the failures of UN — and Kofi Annan — in Srebrenica and Rwanda.]
One would perhaps imagine that Kofi Annan was so compromised by then that he was unthinkable as a candidate for the position as General Secretary. But the United Nation doesn't work that way. Annan had made a 30-year long career in the UN without offending any powerful persons or countries. It was exactly his ability to not choose a fight unnecessarily, or take political risks in other ways, that made his position stronger. Instead of being forced to resign after the genocides he was promoted to the highest post at the United Nations. ...
Excuses made afterwards are of course better than no excuses at all. But some mistakes are so serious that sorrowful words when everything is too late matters less, especially when the mistakes form the contour of a character.
Kofi Annan folded especially quickly in those concrete situations when thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives, directly or indirectly, were in mortal danger — and when he had the opportunity and the duty to ward off or mitigate the dangers, or at least sound the alarm about the risks.
Does it say something about the hypocrisy surrounding UN that such a man is honoured and acclaimed more intensely than any other man in the world?" (See also: "Sending in a dupe to disarm Saddam" (Per Ahlmark, The Washington Times, 2002/11/01))

"The Deal" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, from the 2004/03/08 issue)
A report on the nuclear black market in general ("a seismic shift — the globalization of the nuclear world") and the pardon of Abdul Qadeer Khan in particular ("the worst nuclear-arms proliferator in the world and he’s pardoned — with not a squeak from the White House"):
"According to past and present military and intelligence officials, however, Washington’s support for the pardon of Khan was predicated on what Musharraf has agreed to do next: look the other way as the U.S. hunts for Osama bin Laden in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan dominated by the forbidding Hindu Kush mountain range, where he is believed to be operating. American commanders have been eager for permission to conduct major sweeps in the Hindu Kush for some time, and Musharraf has repeatedly refused them. Now, with Musharraf’s agreement, the Administration has authorized a major spring offensive that will involve the movement of thousands of American troops. ...
The spring offensive could diminish the tempo of American operations in Iraq. “It’s going to be a full-court press,” one Pentagon planner said. Some of the most highly skilled Special Forces units, such as Task Force 121, will be shifted from Iraq to Pakistan. Special Forces personnel around the world have been briefed on their new assignments, one military adviser told me, and in some cases have been given “warning orders” — the stage before being sent into combat." (Hat tip: Angus Cook.)

"Do We Want to Go Back?" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/03/05)
"For two decades the Western world lamented the spread of nuclear materials, but chose to avoid the messy work of coercing crazy regimes to reveal their arsenals. The old American policy was based on two flawed premises: trust in the power of international agencies, and bribery. That led to the nuclearization of both Pakistan and North Korea — and a number of other lunocracies like Libya and Iran reaching the penultimate state of getting the bomb. ...
The United States is waking up from a serious malady. Once upon a time state-supported terrorism was seen as a criminal problem, not war, requiring yellow police tape, not GPS bombs. Afghanistan was turned into an anti-American terrorist base. Saddam Hussein required never-ending patrols to "box" him in. Osama bin Laden was too "hot" to be apprehended when offered up by potential captors. Pakistan and North Korea went nuclear — the greatest failure of many of the Clinton administration. Iran and Libya bought arsenals with impunity. Yasser Arafat systematically destroyed twenty years of economic progress on the West Bank and violated every accord he signed. Anti-Americanism grew in Europe without rejoinder or consequences. Saudi Arabia expected protection while our own female soldiers on patrol there hid their faces and arms — and promised not to drive. Terrorist funds flowed freely throughout the globe, as anti-Semitism and Islamicist-inspired hatred of Israel became the new pillar of trendy left-wing thought. All that has at least been recognized, checked, and is well on the way to being stopped."

"PM warns of continuing global terror threat" (Tony Blair, 10 Downing Street, 2004/03/05)
A brilliant speech by Tony Blair, spelling out the terror threat facing the UK and defending the Iraq war:
"September 11th was for me a revelation. What had seemed inchoate came together. The point about September 11th was not its detailed planning; not its devilish execution; not even, simply, that it happened in America, on the streets of New York. All of this made it an astonishing, terrible and wicked tragedy, a barbaric murder of innocent people. But what galvanised me was that it was a declaration of war by religious fanatics who were prepared to wage that war without limit. They killed 3000. But if they could have killed 30,000 or 300,000 they would have rejoiced in it. The purpose was to cause such hatred between Moslems and the West that a religious jihad became reality; and the world engulfed by it. ...
From September 11th on, I could see the threat plainly. Here were terrorists prepared to bring about Armageddon. Here were states whose leadership cared for no-one but themselves; were often cruel and tyrannical towards their own people; and who saw WMD as a means of defending themselves against any attempt external or internal to remove them and who, in their chaotic and corrupt state, were in any event porous and irresponsible with neither the will nor capability to prevent terrorists who also hated the West, from exploiting their chaos and corruption. ...
This is not a time to err on the side of caution; not a time to weigh the risks to an infinite balance; not a time for the cynicism of the worldly wise who favour playing it long. Their worldly wise cynicism is actually at best naivete and at worst dereliction. When they talk, as they do now, of diplomacy coming back into fashion in respect of Iran or North Korea or Libya, do they seriously think that diplomacy alone has brought about this change?"

"Russian Engineers Reportedly Gave Missile Aid to Iraq" (James Risen, The New York Times, 2004/03/05)
"A group of Russian engineers secretly aided Saddam Hussein's long-range ballistic missile program, providing technical assistance for prohibited Iraqi weapons projects even in the years just before the war that ousted him from power, American government officials say.
Iraqis who were involved in the missile work told American investigators that the technicians had not been working for the Russian government, but for a private company. But any such work on Iraq's banned missiles would have violated United Nations sanctions, even as the Security Council sought to enforce them."

Thursday, March 4, 2004

News and commentary:

"Honour Killing Debate Without Honour" (Hanne Kjöller, Dagens Nyheter/Watch, 2004/03/04)
Translation of a brilliant (at least in Swedish...) review of the Swedish anthology “The Debate on Honour Killings - Feminism or Racism”:
"We who are of the opinion that there actually is a connection between which 15-year-old girls who risk to get a bullet in the head when they go to the cinema with a boy and where their parents come from, we who are of the opinion that it actually not is a typical Scandinavian phenomenon to throw 5-year-old girls on the kitchen table to cut off her clitoris and labia, we who are of the opinion that it actually not is in Denmark that unfaithful women are stoned to death — we are happily bundled together with racial biologists and assorted movements on the extreme right.
Our stand — that there is a honour related violence which doesn't look the same all over the world — is dismissed as an expression of racism, nationalism, islamophobia, ignorance and even stupidity. Without naming anyone or particularizing, editor Larsson maintains that the culture critics at Expressen argue “exactly as if they have gone through the party’s [Sverigedemokraternas] cadre schooling”.
Javeria Rizvi, head of projects at the women’s centre Terrafem, writes on the connection between honour killings and Islam, “that it is extremely ignorant to presume that a billion of the world's population is a homogenous unit”. Indeed. But who has done that? Who has said that all Muslim/Kurdish/Syrian/Christian men are prepared to kill their daughters? That there exists a concept of honour in certain cultures doesn’t mean that everyone kills, as little as our brännvinskultur [vodka culture] means that everone is boozing."

"Saddam Hussein, France and the bad guys" (Véronique Maurus, Le Monde/EuroPundits, 2004/03/04)
A translation of a Le Monde article: "In France, the publication on January 25 of a detailed list of those with reasons to be thankful to Saddam Hussein had all the effect of a damp squib. This astonishing inventory, unearthed by an Iraqi journalist and confirmed by the authorities, names 271 people in 50 countries who received "allowances" in the form of crude oil as a reward for their lobbying. In Switzerland, in Great Britain, in Jordan, in Bulgaria and in the majority of the countries concerned the judicial and political authorities have opened inquiries. In Paris, as in Moscow, nothing. A few denials have been enough. ...
Who, in Paris, would want to investigate the old links tying France to the Baathist regime? Even those who once denounced the weakness of the "military-industrial complex" for the fallen dictator today prefer to leave those things in the dark which if brought to light might risk undermining the country's international position.
For, for all its faults, the list from the newspaper Al Mada is true. Evidence collected throughout the world as well as from oil circles constantly confirms it. Certainly, it only relates to one year and errors in translation (from English to Arabic then from Arabic to English) explain certain imprecisions." (Hat tip: Douglas. See also: "The Saddam Oil Vouchers Affair" (Nimrod Raphaeli, MEMRI, 2004/02/20))

"Despite the bombings, Iraqis are answering the call of freedom" (Patrick Bishop, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/03/04)
"Drawing up the legislation took months of difficult committee work, as Islamists and secularists, the Kurds and the rest of the country struggled to settle their differences. Several issues were fudged and a deadline was missed. But what emerged was a truly democratic document in which no one got everything they wanted, and everyone got something they could live with.
This achievement has taken Iraq a big step along the road to becoming the first genuinely free society in the Arab Middle East. It is an extraordinary prize and one that most Iraqis seem willing to make compromises and sacrifices to achieve.
Despite the bloodletting that has punctuated the first post-war year, the story has been one of remarkable restraint, particularly from the Shias, whose most powerful cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has emerged as a vital stabilising force.
And stability, after three wars, decades of fear and murderous repression and economic misery, is what most Iraqis desperately want. ...
For all the complaints and the suspicion and dislike of the Americans, virtually no one I have spoken to here would turn the clock back.
Freedom is beckoning and most Iraqis are answering its call. The killings in Karbala and Baghdad will never be forgotten. But of the two major events last week, it is the signing of the interim constitution that will prove to be of far greater historical significance."

"Reality Check on Arab TV" (Melik Kaylan, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/03/04)
Kaylan on the closing down of the Arab world's first reality TV shows: "Openness as a self-evident evil held many nuances. In women, casualness, natural gestures, the rejection of guardedness — de rigeur television manners in the West — were a kind of provocation to the gods. They would lead to some ineffable civil disorder. The young of both sexes being open to each other — another scary prospect. Immediate disaster would follow. In short, neither collective nor individual reactions could be trusted to stay within bounds. Fear that the wrong notions might flood in suddenly like jinn and carry all before them underlay everything. It was the fear precisely of an open market in ideas.
Above all, it troubled my interlocutors that I couldn't see what they saw — a circle of causality, like interlocking natural laws. If girls appeared on such public spectacles with no resulting marriage to seal the exposure, disgrace was written on their brows. So they would have to be shunned. Ergo, disgrace would actually result. Nobody had publicly broken that logic. In Turkey, that logic had cracked long since. "The Dating Game" prospered. Bachelorettes lived to date another day without stigma. In many Arab countries, however, the logic remains unbroken. Now that the Arabic "Hawa Sawa" is silenced, its disgrace is confirmed." (See also: "Arab 'Marriage' TV Show Ends After Sparking Furor" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/03/02) and "Arab Big Brother show suspended" (BBC News, 2004/03/01))

"How Tiny Swiss Cellphone Chips Helped Track Global Terror Web" (Don Van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler, The New York Times, 2004/03/04)
"The terrorism investigation code-named Mont Blanc began almost by accident in April 2002, when authorities intercepted a cellphone call that lasted less than a minute and involved not a single word of conversation.
Investigators, suspicious that the call was a signal between terrorists, followed the trail first to one terror suspect, then to others, and eventually to terror cells on three continents.
What tied them together was a computer chip smaller than a fingernail. But before the investigation wound down in recent weeks, its global net caught dozens of suspected Qaeda members and disrupted at least three planned attacks in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, according to counterterrorism and intelligence officials in Europe and the United States."

Wednesday, March 3, 2004

News and commentary:

"Swedish uranium may be missing" (AFP/Aftenposten, 2004/03/03)
Not much about this in Swedish media, except for the two articles from Expressen which this dispatch is based on:
"Large amounts of uranium may have gone missing from a nuclear technology company in Sweden. The American Central Intelligence Agency fears a worst-case scenario where the material has already fallen into terrorist hands, newspaper Expressen reports.
"The company (Ranstad Mineral) is a security risk and we have taken the matter to top level to get the Swedes to stop them," a CIA spokesman told the Swedish newspaper.
The CIA operative claims to know that the little Swedish company has educated Syrian nuclear physicists in the treatment of uranium. He also has information that a Swedish consultancy has sold nuclear equipment to Syria that can be used in the treatment of radioactive material." (Hat tip: Little Green Footballs. See also: "Swedish nuclear watchdog allays fears about missing uranium" (AFP/SpaceWar, 2004/03/03): "Sweden's nuclear watchdog on Wednesday rejected claims, attributed to a US secret service agent, that up to 100 kilos of Swedish uranium may have fallen into the wrong hands. "We keep close tabs on this stuff. None of the uranium is missing," said Anders Joerla, a spokesman for the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI)."
Also: "He sells nuclear technology" (Johan Wallqvist, Expressen/Watch, 2004/02/19 [2004/02/28]) and "Syria's Swedish Nukes?" (Stefan Sharkansky, Shark Blog, 2004/02/28))

"The Arab World's Scientific Desert" (Daniel del Castillo, The Chronicle of Higher Education, from the 2004/03/05 issue)
An interesting article on the state of science in the current Arab world: "Last October the United Nations' Development Program and the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development released a study showing how dire the situation is. Among the findings:

• No Arab country spends more than 0.2 percent of its gross national product on scientific research, and most of that money goes toward salaries. By contrast, the United States spends more than 10 times that amount.

• Fewer than one in 20 Arab university students pursue scientific disciplines.

• There are only 18 computers per 1,000 people in the Arab world. The global average is 78 per 1,000.

• Only 370 industrial patents were issued to people in Arab countries between 1980 and 2000. In South Korea during that same period, 16,000 industrial patents were issued.

• No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium, equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year."

(See also: "9/11 Restrictions Harm Arab World, Report Says" (Peter Slevin, The Washington Post, 2003/10/20))

"Iraqis Put Shiite Bombing Toll at 271" (Tarek Al-Issawi and Jim Krane, AP/My Way, 2004/03/03)
"Shiite Muslim mourners chanted slogans against the United States Wednesday, venting their anger at Iraq's instability after a series of suicide bombings against pilgrims. As the country began three days of mourning, officials said 15 people, some possibly Iranians, were detained in the attacks.
Iraq Governing Council President Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum said 271 people were killed and 393 wounded in Tuesday's near-simultaneous bombings at Baghdad's Kazimiya shrine and holy sites in Karbala.
U.S. officials, however, put the combined death toll at 117, down from 143 that they reported Tuesday. It was impossible to reconcile the discrepancy immediately. ...
Several thousand joined a funeral procession in the afternoon, taking three bodies to the tombs of Islamic saints Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas for blessings before heading to bury then at the cemetery in this city 50 miles south of Baghdad.
"No, no, Americans! No, no Israel! No, no, terrorists!" they chanted, carrying red, black and green flags, symbols of martyrdom traditionally used for Ashoura ceremonies."

"At Least 143 Die in Attacks at Two Sacred Sites in Iraq" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2004/03/03)
"Suicide bombers and other attackers detonated mortars, grenades and roadside bombs on Tuesday among crowds of Shiite Muslims gathered for one of the holiest occasions in the Shiite calendar.
Within a few hours, the death toll was at 143; counts made in the evening put it as high as 170. Some of the dead were reportedly pilgrims from Iran.
It was the deadliest day in the 11 months since American troops toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim-dominated government. Both attacks began around 10 a.m., at mosques in Baghdad and Karbala, a Shiite holy city some 70 miles southwest of the capital.
Scenes of horror at the sites caused waves of anger and hysteria, much of it focused on the American occupation. In Baghdad, streaks of blood and bits of flesh were strewn across the walls of golden tile and stone floors at the shrine to Imam Musa al-Khadam, considered the city's most sacred Shiite site. In Karbala, groups of wailing survivors outside two revered mosques loaded the dead and wounded onto wooden carts, leaving trails of blood as they rushed in search of help."

Tuesday, March 2, 2004

News and commentary:

"Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind" (Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News, 2004/03/02)
"With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.
But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.
The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council."

"42 Killed in Attacks on Pakistani Shiites" (Mohammed Arshad, AP/The Guardian, 2004/03/02)
"Attackers sprayed gunfire and lobbed grenades into a solemn religious procession of Shiite Muslims on Tuesday, then blew themselves up as survivors scattered. Authorities said at least 42 people died, and more than 160 were wounded.
Outraged Shiite Muslims rioted after the massacre, prompting authorities to call out troops and paramilitary police to quell gunbattles and arson in this southwestern city of 1.2 million. Shiite mobs set fire to a Sunni Muslim mosque, shops and a TV station. ...
As worshippers marched through a congested neighborhood, three gunmen opened fire and hurled grenades at the crowd, said Mayor Abdul Rahim Kakar, who was nearby at the time.
Walking among the survivors with more explosives lashed to their bodies, the men blew themselves up as police moved in, Kakar said."

"Explosions Kill 81 in Two Iraqi Cities" (Tarek Al-Issawi and Hamza Hendawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/03/02)
"A series of coordinated blasts struck Shiite Muslim shrines here [in Karbala] and in Baghdad on Tuesday as thousands of pilgrims converged on the climactic day of the sect's most important religious festival. At least 81 people were killed and dozens wounded, hospital and police officials said.
There were varying reports on the cause of the blasts. Stunned witnesses blamed suicide bombers or planted explosives. But a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad and an Iraqi police spokesman in Karbala reported that mortars were fired at the shrines. ...
In Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, five blasts killed 31 people and wounded 100 others, Iraqi police officer Muhammed Saad said. In Baghdad, officials at three hospitals reported 50 killed from explosions at the Kazimiya shrine in a northern neighborhood of the city. An unknown number of victims were taken to other hospitals."

"The new Israelophobes" (Robert Wistrich, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/03/02)
"The progressive mania of solidarity with the Palestinians has done much over the past 30 years to push the British Left into its chronic anti-imperialism of fools – one in which Israel becomes an ersatz America. As I discovered on a recent visit to Britain, it has become impossible in such circles to discuss an issue like Israel's security fence except as an "apartheid barrier" or a manifestation of the "racist" ideology of Zionism.
Anti-Semitism and loathing for Israel is no longer merely a phenomenon of marginal extremists. Last December an ugly caricature of Ariel Sharon devouring the flesh of a Palestinian baby won first prize in the British Political Cartoon's Annual Competition for 2003. It would not have looked out of place in Der St rmer —a mark of how far a section of liberal-Left opinion has begun to cross all red lines. ...
The new Israelophobes insist that they are true humanists and some even claim to love the Jews, but their compassion appears to be highly selective. Perhaps the time has come to bring a bombed-out Jerusalem bus to the streets of London to jolt the sleeping British conscience."

"Islam to Rule Iraq?" (Daniel Pipes, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/03/02)
"Unfortunately, the debate is already over, before it could begin: Iraqis have decided, with the blessing of coalition administrators, that Islamic law will rule in Iraq.
They reached this decision at about 4:20 in the morning on March 1, when the Iraqi Governing Council, in the presence of top coalition administrators, agreed on the wording of an interim constitution. This document, officially called the Transitional Administrative Law, is expected to remain the ultimate legal authority until a permanent constitution is agreed on, presumably in 2005.
The council members focused on whether the interim constitution should name the Shari'a as "a source" or "the source" for laws in Iraq. "A source" suggests laws may contravene the Shari'a, while "the source" implies that they may not. In the end, they opted for the Shari'a being just "a source" of Iraq's laws. ...
First, the compromise suggests that while all of the Shari‘a may not be put into place, every law must conform with it. As one pro-Shari‘a source put it, “We got what we wanted, which is that there should be no laws that are against Islam.” The new Iraq may not be Saudi Arabia or Iran, but it will include substantial portions of Islamic law.
Second, the interim constitution appears to be only a way-station; Islamists will surely try to gut its liberal provisions, thereby making Shari‘a effectively "the source" of Iraqi law. Those who want this change — including Ayatollah Sistani and the Governing Council's current president — will presumably continue to press for their vision. Iraq’s leading militant Islamic figure, Muqtada al-Sadr, has threatened that his constituency will "attack its enemies" if Shari'a is not "the source"and the pro-Tehran political party in Iraq has echoed Sadr’s ultimatum.
When the interim constitution does take force, militant Islam will have blossomed in Iraq." (See also: "Outline of Iraq's new temporary constitution" (Middle East Online, 2004/04/01))

"A Decent Regard" (Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, 2004/03/02)
"The problem the United States faces today is harder to quantify but arguably more profound. It is a problem of legitimacy. Contrary to the claims of partisan critics, moreover, it is a problem that neither began with nor will end with the Bush administration. It is, rather, the product of the end of the Cold War, the emergence of a unipolar order and the nervousness the new circumstances can create even among America's friends. ...
The problem is, to the liberal democratic mind there is something inherently illegitimate about a unipolar world, regardless of whether the superpower is led by George W. Bush or John F. Kerry. As the British scholar-statesman Robert Cooper argues in his new book, "The Breaking of Nations," "Our domestic systems are designed to place restraint on power. . . . We value pluralism and the rule of law domestically and it is difficult for democratic societies — including the USA — to escape from the idea that they are desirable internationally as well."
Will the United States use its power to serve only its own narrow interests, at the expense of others? That is what worries even friends and admirers of the United States these days. "The difficulty with the American monopoly of force in the world community," Cooper argues, 'is that it is American and will be exercised, necessarily, in the interests of the United States. This will not be seen as legitimate.'"

"Arab 'Marriage' TV Show Ends After Sparking Furor" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/03/02)
Entertainment for Animals II: "The first Arab reality TV show ended on Monday after three months of controversy over its format — parading women before suitors in a luxury apartment for 24 hours a day.
Critics damned the ground-breaking dating show Al Hawa Sawa (On Air Together) as too liberal, but fans writing on Internet diary sites said it supported traditional values of limited contact before marriage.
Suitors could view the girls 24 hours a day and contact them before a possible meeting in the flat to propose marriage. In a region of 280 million Arabic speakers, such shows have huge potential audiences and provoke much public debate." (See also: Hawa Sawa.)

"Reality TV Show Takes Arab World by Storm" (Zeina Karam, AP/ContraCostaTimes, 2004/03/02)
Entertainment for Animals I: "'Star Academy,' which began airing on the leading Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation television in December, is an Arabic version of France's TF1 show by the same name. ...
The dean of Kuwait's Islamic Law College, Mohammed al-Tabtabi, recently issued a fatwa, or religious edict, deeming the program sacrilegious and calling on Muslims to boycott it for its "shamelessness" and "decadence."
His call was dismissed by many of the program's fans in Kuwait, whose own Bashar al-Shatti is a participant. When contestant Sophia was nominated to be ousted from the show, Kuwaitis were asked to vote strongly to keep her — because she is Bashar's "special" friend.
"Banning people from watching it is not right, we have to be open-minded," said Bader Nasser, a 16-year-old Kuwaiti high school student.
Mohammed al-Ohaideb, writing in the Saudi Al-Riyadh newspaper, called the set of the program a "whorehouse" and the program a platform for a group of men and women's 'cheap and immoral behavior.'" (See also: Star Academy and "Arab Big Brother show suspended" (BBC News, 2004/03/01))

Monday, March 1, 2004

News and commentary:

"A Thousand and One Fronts" (Ulrich Fichtner, Der Spiegel, 2004/03/01)
A balanced report on the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq: "Petraeus must have sensed just how complex his task is. Before coming to Iraq, he worked in Haiti and Bosnia, both major experiments in "nation building." Both situations did not end successfully, and both may suggest possible scenarios for Iraq's future. Haiti is currently descending into chaos. Bosnia is stuck in the exhausting, poisonous minutiae of ethnic strife. Will Iraq fare better?
It is not just Saddam loyalists who are fighting against success. In the north, the Americans are capturing religious warriors with Syrian and Yemeni passports, Jordanians, Saudis, hordes of people from throughout the region who hate America. Today, says Petraeus, the foreigners form the third group of "bad guys," the third source of sabotage and chaos after common criminals and Saddam loyalists.
They force the general and his soldiers into a life-threatening dilemma. They provoke more and more severe raids and force the Americans to behave more like a hostile occupying regime and less like a friendly army of liberators. Successes on the front against terror are turning into failures on the front of daily life. ...
These are the final hours of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, and its commanding general, David Petraeus, must think about his balance sheet. On the streets, some children wave while others yell "fuck you." There is no balance sheet at this point. This is a still a battle on many fronts, fronts that cut straight through daily life. Every day, the war returns to the new Iraq. At the same time, however, the peace begins on a thousand street corners." (Hat tip: Malcolm Smordin.)

"Afghanistan: Self-Immolation Of Women On The Rise In Western Provinces" (Golnaz Esfandiari, Radio Free Europe, 2004/03/01)
A terrifying report about self-immolation of women in the Afghan province Herat:
"There, Virdee met several women who had attempted to kill themselves through self-immolation. The most tragic case, Virdee says, involved a young pregnant woman who survived despite suffering severe burns over 60 percent of her body.
"One of the women that I met, she was about 29. She already had four children, [and] she was seven months pregnant when she burned herself. She was experiencing problems with her husband and family; they wouldn't allow her to go and visit her own family. She set fire to herself. She then gave birth to a baby with no painkillers, nothing. The baby girl was taken by her aunt to look after her, and [the mother] died three weeks after giving birth," Virdee said.
A government delegation that traveled to Herat last week said at least 52 women in the province have killed themselves in recent months through self-immolation.
A Herat regional hospital last year recorded 160 cases of attempted suicide among girls and women between the ages of 12 and 50. But Virdee says the real number is probably much higher. ...
Afghan officials say poverty, forced marriages, and lack of access to education are the main reasons for suicide among women in Herat. Domestic violence is also widespread.
"A lot of women are saying that their husbands don't allow them to go and visit their families. There are severe restrictions on their movement, and also there is violence towards them — both physical and psychological — and intimidation and isolation," Virdee said." (See also: Medica Mondiale.)

"Arab Big Brother show suspended" (BBC News, 2004/03/01)
We don't want to be the cause of differences of opinion. Sort of sums up the fundamental problem doesn't it?:
"The Arabic satellite TV channel MBC has announced it has suspended its version of the reality TV show, Big Brother.
The show, which began on 22 February, has caused a public outcry in Bahrain where it is being filmed.
On Friday 1,000 people protested against the show and a group of Bahraini MPs threatened to question the information minister on the issue.
A spokeswoman for the station told BBC News Online the show was unlikely to be put back on air.
"We don't want to be the cause of differences of opinion, so MBC decided to suspend production of the programme Big Brother from the kingdom of Bahrain, in order to evaluate it so that it is compatible with the channel's policy," said an MBC statement quoted by the AFP news agency. ...
"I have watched the show and it must be stopped," said 34-year-old teacher Shahnaz Rabi'i, who helped organise the demonstration.
"Our religion has strong values which say boys and girls should not mix together," said Ms Rabi'i.
'This programme is a threat to Islam. This is entertainment for animals.'" (See also: "No booze, no bathroom cameras, and absolutely no sex. Welcome to Bahrain's Big Brother house" (Madeleine Holt, Independent, 2004/02/28). Note: Entertainment for animals is a very good slogan by the way. One week into the current season of the Swedish Big Brother a couple had sex on the show, followed by a sexual harrassment scandal last week, when a drunken man did a 9 1/2 Weekish food stunt on a sleeping woman.
Hey, I'd like a whole network dedicated to Entertainment for animals. Which doesn't mean I like Big Brother, which after the first season quickly detoriated into some kind of entertainment by animals. Not that there is anything wrong with that.)

"From Russia With Terror" (Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/03/01)
An interview with Ion Mihai Pacepa, the former acting chief of Communist Romania's espionage service:
"FP: Why has the American and Israeli leadership been deceived so long about Arafat’s criminal and terrorist activities?
Pacepa: Because Arafat is a master of deceit — and I unfortunately contributed to that. In March 1978, for instance, I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest to involve him in a long-planned Soviet/Romanian disinformation plot. Its goal was to get the United States to establish diplomatic relations with him, by having him pretend to transform the terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile that was willing to renounce terrorism. Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev believed that newly elected US president Jimmy Carter would swallow the bait. ...
My former boss was able to persuade Arafat into tricking President Carter only by resorting to dialectical materialism, for both were fanatical Stalinists who knew their Marxism by heart. Ceausescu sympathetically agreed that "a war of terror is your only realistic weapon," but he also told his guest that, if he would transform the PLO into a government-in-exile and would pretend to break with terrorism, the West would shower him with money and glory. "But you have to keep on pretending, over and over," my boss emphasized." (See also: "A Matter of Trust" (Ion Mihai Pacepa, National Review, 2004/03/01))

"A Revival for Iraq's Oil Industry as Output Nears Prewar Levels" (Neela Banerjee, The New York Times, 2004/03/01)
"Iraq's oil industry has undergone a remarkable turnaround and is now producing and exporting almost as much crude oil as it did before the war, according to officials with the American-led occupation and the Iraqi oil ministry.
A month before the April 1 deadline set by Iraq and American officials for restoring the industry to prewar levels, the country is producing 2.3 million to 2.5 million barrels a day, compared with 2.8 million barrels a day before the war.
With additional production increases expected, oil exports this year could add $14 billion to Iraq's threadbare budget, compared with a little more than $5 billion last year, said a senior official with the Coalition Provisional Authority, the occupation government."

"Outline of Iraq's new temporary constitution" (Middle East Online, 2004/04/01)
"The basic points in an English-language version of the draft document are:
PREAMBLE - The temporary constitution strives to reclaim the Iraqi people's freedom "which was usurped by the previous tyrannical regime."
ROLE OF ISLAM - Article 7 states: "Islam is the official religion of the state and is to be considered a source of legislation."
"This law shall respect the Islamic identity of the majority of the people of Iraq, but guarantees the complete freedom of all religions and their religious practices."
PRESIDENCY - Iraq will have one president and two vice presidents. The selection of the president depends on whether Iraq becomes a parliamentary or presidential state, which has yet to be decided, a council member said.
FEMALE REPRESENTATION - The representation of women in Iraq's new political bodies is targeted at a minimum of 25 percent.
FEDERAL IRAQ - On a dispute over setting up a federal state, Kurdistan will retain its federal status and the rest of Iraq will be given the right to prepare to form states.
LANGUAGE - Arabic and Kurdish are described as the two official languages, while all other minorities have the right to use their own language in education.
DIRECT ELECTIONS - A body, yet to be decided, will take back sovereignty from the US-led coalition on June 30 and prepare for direct elections for a transitional national assembly "if possible, before December 31, 2004 and, in any case, no later than January 31, 2005."
How this post-June 30 body is chosen will be decided in the next couple of months, taking into account future recommendations by the United Nations, a senior coalition official said.
PERMANENT ASSEMBLY - The transitional national assembly will draw up a permanent constitution by August 15, 2005, which will be put to a national referendum by no later than October 15, 2005.
If this timeframe is maintained, another general election will take place by December 15, 2005."

"Iraqi Leadership Gains Agreement on Constitution" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2004/03/01)
"Iraqi leaders agreed early Monday morning to an interim constitution that would serve as the framework for the government through next year, Iraqi officials said.
The deal, struck at 4:20 a.m. after a lengthy meeting, was approved unanimously by the Iraqi Governing Council, the Iraqi officials said. It included "full consensus on each article," said Intifad Qanbar, an aide to Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the council, the Iraqi authority appointed by the American occupation administration. ...
If approved, the interim constitution would be the most progressive such document in the Arab world. Even before the hard bargaining began, there was wide agreement on many of its major features, including the freedom of speech, press and assembly and the free exercise of religion."

 

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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