Archived news and commentary: April 5 - 11, 2004

2004/06/28 - 2004/07/04
2004/06/21 - 2004/06/27
2004/06/14 - 2004/06/20
2004/06/07 - 2004/06/13
2004/05/31 - 2004/06/06
2004/05/24 - 2004/05/30
2004/05/17 - 2004/05/23
2004/05/10 - 2004/05/16
2004/05/03 - 2004/05/09
2004/04/26 - 2004/05/02
2004/04/19 - 2004/04/25
2004/04/12 - 2004/04/18
2004/04/05 - 2004/04/11
2004/03/29 - 2004/04/04

Sunday, April 11, 2004

News and commentary:

"How Bush Caused 9/11" (Orson Scott Card, The Ornery American, 2004/04/11)
"For the past two years, I could have sworn it was a bunch of fanatical Muslims under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden that hijacked four planes and crashed three of them into American buildings.
But now I learn that these events were actually caused by George W. Bush. I know this because I've heard noble patriots like Richard Clarke come forward and blame him for it.
It's time for a few doses of reality. ...
The political leaders of the Left are now criticizing the Bush administration for not doing the very things for which, if they had done them, they would have been savagely attacked by the very same people. ...
Right now, though, the Left is doing everything it can to blame him for everything he did and everything he didn't do. He's being blamed for not taking preemptive action in Afghanistan, and for taking preemptive action in Iraq.
In other words, Bush's critics are simply taking hold of every tool they can find to try to block his reelection.
It's the lowest form of politics, to throw rocks at the guy who's leading us with amazing success in a war that was forced upon us by our enemies." (Hat tip: Malcolm Smordin.)

"New threat made to Japanese hostages" (Reuters, 2004/04/11)
"A man described as Muzhir al-Duleimi, head of the League for the Defence of the Rights of the Iraqi People, told a correspondent for Al Jazeera station in Baghdad on Sunday that previous reports that the hostage-takers were about to free the Japanese had been untrue. ...
"I made an effort to save them today but the resistance said I had only 24 hours and gave me this statement... which says the (Japanese) vice foreign minister should visit Falluja to see the mass graves and massacres committed by American forces," he said.
'The Japanese government should apologise to the Iraqi people and withdraw forces from Iraq and they have 24 hours after which the first hostage will be killed and 12 hours later the rest of them will be killed.'"

"600 Iraqis reported killed last week in Fallujah" (AP/Toronto Star, 2004/04/11)
"More than 600 Iraqis have been killed in fighting in Fallujah since U.S. marines began a siege against Sunni insurgents in the city a week ago, the head of the city's hospital said today.
Statistics of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from the Fallujah General Hospital, said the hospital's director, Rafie al-Issawi. The dead totalled more than 600, most of them women, children and the elderly, since the siege of Fallujah began early Monday, he said. ...
Asked about the report of 600 dead, Marine Lt.-Col. Brennan Byrne said, "What I think you will find is 95 per cent of those were military age males that were killed in the fighting."
"The marines are trained to be precise in their firepower. ... The fact that there are 600 goes back to the fact that the marines are very good at what they do," he said."

"Why we must never abandon this historic struggle in Iraq" (Tony Blair, The Observer, 2004/04/11)
"We are locked in a historic struggle in Iraq. On its outcome hangs more than the fate of the Iraqi people. Were we to fail, which we will not, it is more than 'the power of America' that would be defeated. The hope of freedom and religious tolerance in Iraq would be snuffed out. Dictators would rejoice; fanatics and terrorists would be triumphant. Every nascent strand of moderate Arab opinion, knowing full well that the future should not belong to fundamentalist religion, would be set back in bitter disappointment. ...
In every country, including our own, the fanatics are preaching their gospel of hate, basing their doctrine on a wilful perversion of the true religion of Islam. At their fringe are groups of young men prepared to conduct terrorist attacks however and whenever they can. Thousands of victims the world over have now died, but the impact is worse than the death of innocent people. ...
They know it is a historic struggle. They know their victory would do far more than defeat America or Britain. It would defeat civilisation and democracy everywhere. They know it, but do we? The truth is, faced with this struggle, on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find. ...
But our greatest threat, apart from the immediate one of terrorism, is our complacency. When some ascribe, as they do, the upsurge in Islamic extremism to Iraq, do they really forget who killed whom on 11 September 2001? When they call on us to bring the troops home, do they seriously think that this would slake the thirst of these extremists, to say nothing of what it would do to the Iraqis?"

"Everyone got it wrong before 9/11" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2004/04/11)
"Prior to 9/11, no president from Jimmy Carter through George W. Bush properly understood the swelling danger of Islamist terrorism. None recognized that we were under attack by a ruthless enemy bent on global conquest and the destruction of Western liberty. Neither did leaders in Congress, nor elite opinion makers in the media.
Far more significant is what has happened since 9/11: The Bush administration went to war. It destroyed Al Qaeda's base in Afghanistan, toppled Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, turned Pakistan into a terror-war ally, and intimidated Libya into ending its hunt for nuclear weapons. Crucially, it has demolished the perception of America as — in bin Laden's words — a "weak horse" that bolts at the first gunshot. And it did it all in the face of withering political fire at home and abroad.
How you regard that performance — as invaluable wartime leadership by the president or as a fraud "made up in Texas" — is likely to decide how you vote this November. For what matters now isn't who was wrong before 9/11. It is who has been right since."

"The delusions of war" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2004/04/11)
"It is amazing what people will tell you. An educated Iraqi who loathed Saddam nevertheless retailed to me the legend of how the Iraqis alone had fought well against Israel in the various wars between 1948 and 1973. An Iraqi brigade, I was told, had defeated an Israeli thrust against Damascus at the end of the Yom Kippur War, thus saving Syria from total, ignominious collapse. But two days of research has failed so far to turn up any record of this glorious victory, and instead has simply made me more aware of the catalogue of military defeats and stalemates inflicted upon Iraqi arms. Still, if this is what Iraqis believed, imagine the psychological effect upon them of the coalition's decision last August to dissolve the Iraqi army. ...
In Falluja the Americans who, in many ways, have acted in Iraq with extraordinary restraint, have delivered a myth gift-wrapped to many Iraqis. Expect the 'hero' city of Falluja to join the people of the intifada as one of the Arab world's great delusions. It was the last myth that anyone needed, least of all those who loathe the notion of intractability." (Note: I've just read the excellent "Rightous Victims - A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001" by Benny Morris and here's how he describes the Iraqi participation in the October 12 battle:
"They proved to be not very effective. As Eitan later put it, from the first their actions were characterized by "confusion. ... They moved from place to place [without reason]. They lacked maps. The Syrian guides failed to reach them. ... [Occasionally] the Syrians fired at them [thinking that they were Israelis] ... and the Iraqis fired back." ... The Iraqis bought the Syrians time to regroup, absorb replacement equipment, and build new defense lines. The Iraqis were later to claim that their intervention had 'saved Damascus.'" (499))

"What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us" (Heather MacDonald, City Journal, from the Spring 2004 issue)
"Immediately after 9/11, politicians and pundits slammed the Bush administration for failing to “connect the dots” foreshadowing the attack. What a difference a little amnesia makes. For two years now, left- and right-wing advocates have shot down nearly every proposal to use intelligence more effectively — to connect the dots — as an assault on “privacy.” Though their facts are often wrong and their arguments specious, they have come to dominate the national security debate virtually without challenge. The consequence has been devastating: just when the country should be unleashing its technological ingenuity to defend against future attacks, scientists stand irresolute, cowed into inaction.
“No one in the research and development community is putting together tools to make us safer,” says Lee Zeichner of Zeichner Risk Analytics, a risk consultancy firm, “because they’re afraid” of getting caught up in a privacy scandal. The chilling effect has been even stronger in government. “Many perfectly legal things that could be done with data aren’t being done, because people don’t want to lose their jobs,” says a computer security entrepreneur who, like many interviewed for this article, was too fearful of the advocates to let his name appear." (See also: "The 'Privacy' Jihad" (Heather MacDonald, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/04/01))

"Our Last Real Chance" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2004/04/19 issue)
"There are many differences between Britain's experience in Iraq and America's current course. But there is a distinct danger that what we are witnessing in Iraq could turn the national mood against the United States. ...
Images of America's massive operations in Fallujah have generated anti-American sentiment across Iraq. The United States could be entering a ruinous cycle. As attacks on its troops grow, it uses full-blown military might, which produces anti-Americanism, which helps insurgents. When pro-American members of the Governing Council resign in protest, it must be that they sense a shift in the public mood. ...
It is conventional wisdom that the United States should stay engaged with Iraq for years. Of course it should, but for this to work Iraqis must welcome the help. In the face of escalating anti-Americanism, U.S. involvement in Iraq will be unsustainable. For one thing, the American people are not likely to want to keep spending blood and treasure in Iraq. It will be the end of Washington's grand plans for a new Iraq, and the United States will face the dilemma that Britain did in 1920: how to get out while still saving face, maintaining stability and preserving its interests."

"Pilgrims Throng Iraq Holy City, Bloodshed Feared" (Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/11)
"Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims thronged the Iraqi city of Kerbala on Sunday for a Shi'ite ceremony overshadowed by an uprising by supporters of a radical cleric and fears of attacks by Sunni militants. ...
The ceremonies commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, more than 13 centuries ago. The fall of Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-dominated regime ended decades of oppression for the 60-percent Shi'ite majority and left them free to observe Ashura and Arbain. ...
Inside the city, there were processions to the shrine of Imam Hussein, with men carrying mock tents and leading women in chains to reenact the Shi'ite tragedy of the death of Hussein. Men and women wept and flagellated themselves."

"Bush's Pre-9/11 al-Qaida Memo Released" (Scott Lindlaw, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/11)
"President Bush was told more than a month before the Sept. 11 attacks that al-Qaida had reached America's shores, had a support system in place for its operatives and that the FBI had detected suspicious activity that might involve a hijacking plot.
Since 1998, the FBI had observed "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," according to a memo prepared for Bush and declassified Saturday." (See also the memo: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S" (The White House/The New York Times, 2004/04/11))

Saturday, April 10, 2004

News and commentary:

"A Palestinian chants slogans..."
(Nasser Shiyoukhi, AP, 2004/04/10)
"A Palestinian chants slogans while carrying portraits of former Iraqi leader Sadam Hussein, left, and Osama Ben Laden during a demonstration against the US-led war in Iraq in the West Bank town of Hebron, Saturday April 10, 2004. An Iraqi flag can be seen in the background."

"U.S. Seeks Truce With Fallujah Militants" (Lordes Navaroo, AP/The Guardian, 2004/04/10)
"Hundreds of reinforcements joined Marines besieging Fallujah on Saturday, and the military said it would move to take the entire city if negotiations fail. Fighting raged through the center of the country, killing 40 Iraqis and an American airman.
Gunfire crackled in Fallujah even as Iraqi government negotiators met with city leaders, trying to persuade them to hand over militants who killed and mutilated four Americans in the city last week. ...
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt called on Fallujah's insurgents to join a bilateral cease-fire. But he said a third battalion of Marines had moved to the city - joining two battalions totaling 1,200 troops and a battalion of Iraqi security forces already in place.
Kimmitt warned that if talks between city leaders and members of the Iraqi Governing Council did not produce results, the military would consider renewing its assault on Fallujah. Marine commanders in Fallujah were skeptical the talks would succeed."

"Militant cleric issues demands of coalition" (CNN.com, 2004/04/10)
"Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia has been fighting with U.S. troops throughout Iraq, issued demands to the coalition through his deputy on Saturday.
Al-Sadr accuses the coalition of starting the violence, and said the coalition's shutdown of a pro-Sadr newspaper was the catalyst.
Clerical deputy Sheikh Raed al-Kadhim, interviewed by CNN, said the al-Sadr people "have a peaceful position" and al-Sadr is a peaceful man.
Among other points, al-Kadhim said the cleric wants "to get back the voice of Iraq" and to have Saddam Hussein tried in a Supreme Court.
Al-Sadr is also asking for release of all of his followers who have been arrested and for a guaranteed date for withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq."

"Iraqi Kidnappers Threaten to Kill U.S. Hostage" (Andrew Hammond, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/10)
Hostages V: "Iraqi kidnappers said in a tape aired on an Arabic television station on Saturday they would kill and maim a U.S. hostage they had seized unless American forces lifted the siege of Falluja.
"If not, he will be dealt with worse than those who were killed and burned in Falluja," the voice added in the tape, which also showed the man in front of an Iraqi flag."

"Families Rejoice at Report Iraq Hostages to Be Freed" (George Nishiyama, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/10)
Hostages IV: "An Iraqi group holding three Japanese hostages said on Saturday it would free them within 24 hours, a move which surprised Tokyo officials working to secure their release ahead of a deadline to kill them on Sunday.
"They will release them within 24 hours in response to a call from the Muslim Clerics Association," Arabic television station Al Jazeera said, referring to a body of Iraqi religious scholars.
Abdel Satar Abdel Jabar, a senior official in the Muslim Clerics Association in Iraq, told Reuters his group had issued a call that all abducted foreigners not linked to the U.S.-led occupation forces should be freed.
"We believe that the kidnapping of foreign civilians not connected to the occupation forces is forbidden," he said."

"Japan appeals for Iraq hostage release" (George Nishiyama, Reuters, 2004/04/10)
Hostages III: "Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi has appealed for the release of three Japanese hostages in Iraq as protesters called for Tokyo to withdraw its troops to save the captives' lives.
"The three Japanese hostages are private individuals, and friends of Iraq...The people of Japan and I strongly demand for an immediate and safe release of the three hostages," he said on Saturday.
The video message comes with less than 24 hours to go until a deadline set by the kidnappers, who have threatened to burn the hostages alive if Japanese troops do not pull out of Iraq."

"Iraq Group Says Has 30 Foreign Hostages-Arabiya TV" (Reuters, 2004/04/10)
Hostages II: "An Iraqi group said in footage aired by an Arab TV station on Saturday it was holding 30 foreign hostages and threatened to decapitate them unless U.S. forces lifted their blockade of the town of Falluja.
"We are calling for the withdrawal of American and coalition forces. We have Japanese, Bulgarian, Israeli, American, Spanish and Korean hostages. Their numbers are 30," a masked man holding a Kalashnikov rifle said.
"If America doesn't lift its blockade of Falluja their heads will be cut off," he said in the footage in Arabic, which Al Arabiya said it obtained from news agencies. It did not show any of the alleged hostages.
The speaker of the group of eight masked men said they were called the "Brigades of the Hero Martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin," in reference to the founder of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, whom Israel assassinated last month."

"A television image aired on an Arabic television..."
(Reuters, 2004/04/10)
"A television image aired on an Arabic television station April 10, 2004 shows a U.S. hostage in front of an Iraqi flag who Qatar-based Al Jazeera television said identified himself as Thomas Hamill. Iraqi kidnappers said in a tape aired on an Arabic television station they would kill and maim a U.S. hostage they had seized unless American forces lifted the siege of Falluja."

"Two US soldiers, several civilians missing in Iraq: Pentagon" (ABC News, 2004/04/10)
Hostages I: "The Pentagon has confirmed that two US soldiers and several US civilians are missing following an attack by Iraqi insurgents on a fuel convoy west of Baghdad, as the fierce fighting in south and central Iraq continues.
Defence officials say it is not immediately known if the missing Americans have been captured.
ABC foreign editor Peter Cave was on the scene shortly after the attack on the convoy, where he saw several fuel trucks in flames.
A group of masked gunmen pulled up in a car and briefly showed him an injured American contractor they had taken hostage." (See also: "TV Shows Apparent U.S. Prisoner in Iraq" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/10): "The footage was apparently filmed Friday. The prisoner identified himself as Thomas Hamill to the cameraman, from Australia's ABC television, and said he was part of a convoy that was attacked.")

"The Magic of Images: Word and Picture in a Media Age" (Camille Paglia, Arion, from the Winter 2004 issue)
"As a classroom teacher for over thirty years, I have become increasingly concerned about evidence of, if not cultural decline, then cultural dissipation since the 1960s, a decade that seemed to hold such heady promise of artistic and intellectual innovation. Young people today are flooded with disconnected images but lack a sympathetic instrument to analyze them as well as a historical frame of reference in which to situate them. I am reminded of an unnerving scene in Stanley Kubrick's epic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, where an astronaut, his air hose cut by the master computer gone amok, spins helplessly off into space. The new generation, raised on TV and the personal computer but deprived of a solid primary education, has become unmoored from the mother ship of culture. Technology, like Kubrick's rogue computer, HAL, is the companionable servant turned ruthless master. The ironically self-referential or overtly politicized and jargon-ridden paradigms of higher education, far from helping the young to cope or develop, have worsened their vertigo and free fall. Today's students require not subversion of rationalist assumptions—the childhood legacy of intellectuals born in Europe between the two World Wars—but the most basic introduction to structure and chronology. Without that, they are riding the tail of a comet in a media starscape of explosive but evanescent images."

"Is fascism behind the terror?" (Nick Cohen, New Statesman, from the 2004/04/12 issue)
Cohen on the Islamist irrationalism and its affinity with the "rantings of Europe's extreme right in the 19th and 20th centuries":
"Type "Masons" and "Islam" into Google and you get about 14,000 hits. The Masons, you learn, hide subliminal messages in The Simpsons as well as the music of the Eagles, Michael Jackson and Madonna, the better to brainwash the world. (Should you be inclined to play "Hotel California" backwards, you will hear "yeah Satan", apparently.) Abu Hamza, who extolled the glories of martyrdom from the Finsbury Park mosque in London, told the Independent: "I am not saying every American government figure knew about [11 September 2001]. But there are a few people [in the US government] who want to trigger a third world war. They are sponsored by the business lobby. Most of them are Freemasons, and they have loyalty to the Zionists."
The Saudi-educated London preacher Abdullah el-Faisal, who was jailed for inciting racial hatred, ranted about "cabals of Jews and Freemasons plotting to take over the world". Hamas said that its enemies "formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, the Rotary Club, the Lions and others". Saddam Hussein's Iraq announced that the penalty for "who-ever promotes or incites Zionist principles including Freemasonry" was death. Islamist Iran executed 200 Masons after the clerics seized power in 1979. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the country that has done most to pump money to fundamentalists, announced in the 1970s that the Freemasons were "a very evil and dark fraternity.'"

"A Shiite War?" (Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/04/10)
"Sadr has now astutely decided to take refuge in Najaf — a town that has been unfriendly to him and his followers (the Sadriyyin have in the past been evicted from Najaf by Ayatollah Sistani's followers). The U.S. military obviously cannot enter the sacred town in great force. Any serious counterinsurgency operation would immediately pit us against the far more powerful paramilitary forces loyal to Sistani — armed Shiite tribesmen, the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the lesser-known but lethal forces attached to the Dawa al-Islamiyya (the "Islamic Call" Party). Any attack on Najaf would collapse the Iraqi Governing Council. All of the Shiite members, including secular pro-American Shiites like Ahmad Chalabi, would refuse to deal with the CPA. If Sadr can continue to direct a Shiite insurrection from Najaf, flouting Ayatollah Sistani's control of the shrine city, he will effectively establish himself as a major political player, equal perhaps to the grand ayatollah. He could conceivably shift the dynamic inside the Shiite community from cooperation to confrontation. ...
Many commentators now think we've descended into another Vietnam. This simply isn't true. The vast majority of Shiites — the overwhelming bulk of their paramilitary forces — are still on our side. (American soldiers would be dying by the hundreds if this were not the case.) Hell is when Ayatollah Sistani calls for a jihad — that is the 1920 parallel."

"'We have to fight to a safe haven - but they are all under attack'" (Rory McCarthy et al., The Guardian, 2004/04/10)
"The last message Mike Bloss sent from Iraq was earnest but optimistic. The ex-paratrooper and the electrical engineers he was guarding were surrounded by gunmen. Escape seemed improbable. And yet the Welsh security guard sounded confident that he could shoot a way out.
"We are expecting to be overrun tonight," he emailed friends in Colorado. "We may have to fight our way to a safe haven. Unfortunately all the safe havens are already under attack ... We'll probably be OK! I'll email when I'm safe."
Mr Bloss didn't send another email. He managed to keep the assailants at bay long enough to enable the contractors he was protecting to escape. But he was killed in a gun battle — and with him a little more of what optimism is left in Iraq."

"Bush Was Warned of Possible Attack in U.S., Official Says" (Eric Lichtblau and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 2004/04/10)
"President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday.
The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford.
The disclosure appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the Qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect a Qaeda attack within American borders."

Note: Watch is listed in Tim Gillin's Guide to Websites on the War and U.S. Foreign Policy (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2004/04/10), which is cool, but Gillin has misunderstood the name, which is a little bit frustrating as it happens all the time. Nota bene: Watch is affiliated with the excellent Winds of Change, but they are two different and distinct sites.

Friday, April 9, 2004

News and commentary:

"Iraqi Mums Send Kids Into Battle" (EURSOC, 2004/04/09)
"When the Robert Fisks of this world publish their reports on the aftermath of this week's battle in Iraq, complete with hand-wringing accounts of dead children, bear this exchange in mind. It comes from an Instant Messenger conversation between two brothers in Ramadi:

Al-Anbari: "All of the people in the area have started to move, men and women. I didn’t think that the people in this area were so heroic. The mothers are even pushing their children into the fight."
Kamal: "Whatever God wants! Blessed be the Almighty!"
Al-Anbari: "Imagine: I encountered a boy who was not even 15 years old who was carrying a weapon, but without ammunition (…). When I saw this heroic impetuousness, I pulled my magazine out and gave it to him."
Kamal: 'Oh God! God is great!'"

"U.S. Gunships Rake Targets in Fallujah" (Lee Keath, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/09)
"In Fallujah, Marines halted their assault on Sunni insurgents to allow U.S.-picked Iraqi leaders — angry at the United States over the bloodshed from five days of heavy fighting — to hold talks with city leaders about how to reduce the violence.
Throughout the afternoon, fighting was reduced to sporadic gunfire. But when night fell, heavy explosions resumed as an AC-130 gunship strafed targets and soldiers and insurgents engaged in a mortar battle.
Iraq's top U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, said the unilateral pause was also aimed at allowing humanitarian aid to enter the city and Fallujah residents to tend to their dead.
Many families, emerging from their homes for the first time in days, buried slain relatives in the city football stadium.
A stream of hundreds of cars carrying women, children and elderly headed out of the city after Marines announced they would be allowed to leave. Families pleaded to be allowed to take out men, and when Marines refused, some entire families turned back. ...
One of the strongest pro-U.S. voices on the council, also a Sunni, Adnan Pachachi, denounced the U.S. siege. "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal," Pachachi told Al-Arabiya TV. ...
Al-Sadr on Friday demanded U.S. forces leave Iraq, saying they now face "a civil revolt."
"I direct my speech to my enemy Bush and I tell him ... you are fighting the entire Iraqi people," al-Sadr said in a sermon, delivered by one of his deputies at the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, Shiite Islam's holiest site."

"Japanese public backs role for troops" (Michiyo Nakamoto, Financial Times, 2004/04/09)
"However, the overwhelming public response has been that Japan should not cave in. An online poll conducted by the left-leaning Mainichi newspaper on Friday, showed that 70 per cent supported the government's decision to keep the SDF in Iraq, while 26 per cent thought it should leave the country. ...
Depending on the fate of the hostages the kidnappings could yet turn into a political nightmare for Mr Koizumi.
"This is the first time for the Japanese public to face such a situation. The Koizumi government is facing its most difficult crisis," says Shigeru Okazaki, political analyst at UBS in Tokyo."

"Iraqi youths celebrate near a convoy of burning fuel trucks..."
(Akram Saleh, Reuters, 2004/04/09)
"Iraqi youths celebrate near a convoy of burning fuel trucks after they were attacked in the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib April 9, 2004."

"At least nine dead in attack on U.S. convoy west of Baghdad" (Reuters, 2004/04/09)
"Insurgents attacked a U.S. convoy carrying fuel west of Baghdad on Friday, killing at least nine people, witnesses said.
A Reuters photographer on the scene said he saw bodies burning inside the vehicles, which were still on fire near Abu Ghraib. He said the convoy included U.S. military vehicles and fuel tankers.
Huge clouds of black smoke hung over the area, visible from several kilometres away. There was heavy fighting between U.S. troops and guerrillas in Abu Ghraib on Thursday.
Truckloads of people from the area have also tried to head further west to help other insurgents battling U.S. forces in Falluja and Ramadi."

"On the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad..."
(Jerome Delay, AP, 2004/04/09)
"On the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, an American soldier removes posters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that were hanging Friday April 9 2004 on a statue on Firdos Square in Baghdad, Iraq. One year ago, U.S. soldiers pulled down Saddam Hussein's statue from this very place." (See also: "A U.S. soldier watches as a statue..." (Goran Tomasevic, Reuters, 2003/04/09))

"Iraqi Insurgents Say Seize Six Foreigners" (Reuters, 2004/04/09)
"Iraqi insurgents said they had seized four Italians and two Americans on the western outskirts of Baghdad on Friday.
A Reuters journalist saw two captive foreigners, said by the insurgents to be Italians, in a mosque in a village in the Abu Ghraib district. One was wounded in the shoulder. Both were weeping.
U.S. soldiers in a tank in the area near the village of al-Dhahab al-Abyad said they knew some Americans had been taken hostage, but had no details.
"That's why we are sealing off the road," said one soldier.
Insurgents told Reuters they had captured four Italians traveling in a four-wheel-drive vehicle with weapons in it. They said they had seized the Americans in a separate attack.
They took the journalist to a mosque, surrounded by about 40 fighters with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, where they said all the hostages had been taken.
The two foreigners could be seen from a distance, but the fighters did not allow them to be filmed."

"Wider war" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/04/09)
The Iranian Connection III: "Iran and Syria are at war with the United States. In Iraq. Now.
Washington refuses to admit it. The Bush administration claims that the struggle in Iraq is about the future of the entire Middle East, but won't concede publicly that other countries in the region are extensively involved. And the outcome they seek is exactly the opposite of what we hope to achieve.
The bloody combat throughout Iraq this past week didn't only involve Iraqi Ba'athist insurgents and al Qaeda. The Iranians vigorously prepared and supported killer-cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's "Mahdi" militia. Iranians are active agents in the widespread terrorism in southern Iraq. And, according to intelligence shared exclusively with The Post, approximately 30 al Qaeda executives have been allowed to operate from Teheran, feeding agents into Iraq with the collusion of the Iranian government.
To the West, Syria has been increasingly bold in its support of the Sunni-Arab insurgents in Fallujah and elsewhere in the Sunni triangle. Our Marines killed Syrians in Fallujah. They'll find and kill more. Syrian security services are deeply involved in this fight - and in murdering Americans." (Also: "Intelligence shared with this paper indicates that the Coalition's enemies plan another wave of attacks over the Easter weekend, with a series of dramatic strikes on Sunday. At present, our forces are doing their best to block the terrorists, but it's a desperate struggle against time. If we're successful, Easter Sunday may be blessedly quiet. But our enemies are determined to cover Christianity's holiest day in blood.")

"Time to take off the gloves" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/04/09)
"The battles in the Sunni Triangle and against Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia in a suburb of Baghdad and three other cities are nothing but overdue pacification operations. ...
The idea was that, excluded from the Governing Council, Sadr should not be unduly antagonized. This echoed the arguments used to justify the softly-softly approach to Saddamites gathered in the safe havens of the Sunni Triangle. In every case, U.S. restraint was mistaken for weakness, encouraging the Saddamites and the Sadrites in their agitations. ...
The scoundrels trying to prevent the handover of power to the Iraqi people may pose as Arab nationalists and/or defenders of the Islamic faith. But the truth is that they are making a naked bid for despotic power for themselves.
In a sense, therefore, the Coalition, having liberated Iraq from one form of fascism, is now fighting to make sure that other forms of fascism do not emerge to threaten the nation's democratic aspirations."

"A Year After Liberation" (Barham Salih, The Washington Post, 2004/04/09)
Barham Salih is prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Sulaymaniyah: "The terrorists, the fundamentalist extremists — and their sponsors — know that Iraq is the decisive battle in their war against freedom. They are determined and resourceful. The violence of the past 10 days is a testament to the grave challenge they pose to Iraq's new political process. We have to respond to the present threat but also anticipate that this challenge may escalate as June 30 and then the U.S. presidential election approach. While a robust military response from the coalition is unavoidably the immediate requirement, Iraqis must be empowered to assume a more active role in protecting their country and taking responsibility for their own fate. Iraqi political leaders must be unequivocal in facing their responsibilities. There is no margin for political opportunism in confronting terrorism and extremism in our midst. If the terrorists and extremists are seen to win in any way, seen in any manner to inflict setbacks upon Iraq's burgeoning democracy, then the whole of the Middle East could be set ablaze. If the terrorists lose, then there is hope not just for the stability of the Middle East but for the rest of the world and our common battle against terrorism."

"A year after the fall of Saddam" (Matthew Gutman, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/04/09)
"Ali Muhsen, 55, a moneychanger in Paradise Square for the past 15 years, remembers well the day "Saddam" fell. "It could not be compared with any other happiness, for that at least we are in debt to the Americans," he said.
For 15 years, Muhsen worked with one eye on his money, the other for Mukhabarat [secret police] agents. Minutes before the last time he was arrested, Muhsen had bought a tire. He told his captors that he worked as a mechanic, not a black-marketer. "They sent me to prison along with my tire. It was very useful, actually. I sat on it to stay above all the sewage that overflowed from the cell's toilet." ...
Sleeping with their wives, Baghdadis like to say, was only thing they could do without the written permission of the government. "Now a year later, we can say anything to anyone we like," Muhsen said.
In addition, power plants churn out more electricity than before the war. Salaries have increased tenfold and more. Still, construction, save for the concrete pylons protecting government and Western sites, remains at a standstill. Unemployment is rife, a critical failure that padded the ranks of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army with those who have nothing better to do.
And while there is a glimmer of hope, the bulk of Iraqis remain as destitute, if not more so, as under Saddam."

"So this is free Baghdad" (David Aaronovitch, The Guardian, 2004/04/09)
Aaronovitch reports from Iraq: "A year on, and in the west we still tend to think that everything in Iraq is about the occupation and the Americans. But it isn't. It is mostly about what comes next, with the occupation forces as a medium of political exchange. The various forces haven't yet dared attack each other openly on any real scale, though it is hard to imagine Sciri and Sistani tolerating Sadr's takeover of the holy shrine in Najaf. The US-led occupiers, it is true, are not loved or thanked, and often blamed. Neither are they, incidentally, universally hated. But it is hard to know whether the occupation has frozen Iraqi rivalries, so they will break out when it ends, or — as I hope — has permitted these possible emnities to be politicised.
If Iraq gets through the next week it may be OK. Baghdad at the moment is actually far less chaotic than Gaza. It isn't Beirut in the 70s or 80s, with private armies fighting for territory. It is, however, mostly worse than I expected a year ago. And more depressing."

"Iran's Role in the Recent Uprising in Iraq" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 692, 2004/04/09)
The Iranian Connection II: "The London Arabic-Language Daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat quoted extensively the former Iranian intelligence official in charge of activities in Iraq, identified as Haj Sa'idi, who recently defected from Iran:
'Haj Sa'idi told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that the Iranian presence in Iraq is not limited to the Shi'ite cities. Rather, it is spread throughout Iraq, from Zakho in the north to Umm Al-Qasr in the south, and the infiltration of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Al-Quds Army into Iraq began long before the war, through hundreds of Iranian intelligence agents, amongst them Iraqi refugees who were expelled by Saddam Hussein in the 1970's and 1980's to Iran, allegedly because of their Iranian origin, and who infiltrated back into Iraq through the Kurdish areas that were out of the Iraqi Ba'th government control. ...
Haj Sa'idi said that the assassination last summer of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Hakim, who headed the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was a successful operation carried out by the intelligence unit of the Iranian Al-Quds Army. He also revealed that there was a failed attempt on the life of the highest Shi'ite Marja, Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, at the Eid Al-Adha holiday last year, and that there was another plan to assassinate Ayatollah Ishaq Al-Fayadh. ...
He also mentioned that the Iranian money allocations for activities in Iraq, both covert and overt, reached $70 million per month. He claimed that 2,700 apartments and rooms were rented in Karbala and Najaf, in order to serve agents of the Al-Quds Army and the Revolutionary Guards.'"

"Hizbullah's Iraqi campaign" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/04/09)
The Iranian Connection I: "While press coverage of Sadr has portrayed him as a young firebrand who acts autonomously, his connections to Hizbullah and to Iran are long-standing. Nasrallah is personally tied to Sadr's family. In 1976, he studied under Sadr's father Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr in Najaf. Back in Lebanon, Nasrallah joined the Shi'ite Amal militia when it was led by its founder, Sadr's uncle Musa.
Aside from his personal ties to Nasrallah, Sadr takes his direction from Ayatollah Henri, one of the most ardent extremists in Iranian ruling circles. And on the family level, Sadr's aunt is reportedly the first lady of Iran, Mrs. Muhammad Khatami. Iranian Revolutionary Guards reportedly comprise the backbone of Sadr's fighting force."

"Syria's Gulag" (Farid N. Ghadry and Nir T. Boms, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/04/09)
A harrowing tale by a 14 year old Kurdish boy, who was one of over 1200 Kurds arrested after riots in Syria last month:
"They forced me into a basement, then into a dark room full of people with a stench smell of feet and sweat and another smell that reminded me of a butcher shop. I stretched my leg to enter the dark room but instead I hit a body lying on the floor. He emitted a crying sound, so I tried to step away from the body and then I hit another one who sounded even worse than the first and then I froze. I started crying and fear gripped my whole body. I felt like I was in hell, all I could hear were the different sounds of pain coming from the different corners of the dark room. ...
A person shouted my name and I said “Present” as if I was in school. The man said ‘you are a Kurd, right? Come with me you son of a whore’.
Then someone called to bring me downstairs. I started crying again, uncontrollably. While still blindfolded, one asked to strip me down. They did. Then cold water hit me and I started shivering. The beating restarted but I slipped because of the water and they continued beating me with their feet while still on the ground. Someone stepped on my stomach hard, which I did not expect. All I remember next is that someone saying, place it in his mouth. It was my own feces.
Then they took me to another room, still naked, blindfolded and shivering. I felt them kneeling and attaching something to my toes, then to my fingers. Then, without any warning, I felt being electrocuted, yes uncle, electrocuted and I started crying again, not knowing what else to do. I was electrocuted twice while there for seven days. And each time, I cried like a baby, oh uncle, like a baby." (See also: "Gains by Kin in Iraq Inflame Kurds' Anger at Syria" (Neil MacFarquhar , The New York Times, 2004/03/24) and "Police fire on Kurds in fifth day of Syria riots" (Robin Gedye, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/03/18))

"Arabs Worry Over Extremism While Evoking Vindication" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2004/04/09)
"Arab news reports tended to concentrate more on events in Falluja than events in the Shiite community. "Falluja Is Burning" said a huge red headline in the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahrar, while Al Wafd, an opposition daily, screamed: "A Massacre Against Muslims in Falluja."
Many commentators drew parallels between Israeli repression in the occupied territories — and its failure to pacify the Palestinians after more than three decades — and United States actions in Iraq. Indeed, there have been frequent accusations that the Bush administration is mistakenly following the Israeli model. ...
Among critics of the United States, and they are legion, there was satisfaction that chances are growing more remote by the day that Iraq will serve as a model that would eventually reshape the region. There is a sense that Syria and Iran are off the hook, while on a broader scale the violence is further undermining Washington's credibility and making Americans ever more unpopular.
"Freedom, democracy, the rule of law and other such promises have been transformed in the occupation's lexicon into violations, invasions, sieges, curfews, bombardments from Apache helicopters and the terrorization of a people," the daily Al Khaleej in the United Arab Emirates wrote in a typical editorial."

"Japan firm on Iraq hostage demand" (BBC News, 2004/04/09)
"Japan is refusing to withdraw troops from Iraq despite the death threats hanging over three of its citizens.
The families of the three Japanese have pleaded with their government to give in to the demands of the Iraqi kidnappers and pull out of Iraq.
The Iraqi insurgents have threatened to burn the hostages alive unless Japan withdraws its forces within three days.
But Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said: "We should not give in to these despicable threats."
Japan has been stunned by video footage showing the three hostages blindfolded, and with a gun to their heads.
They are: Noriaki Imai, 18, who had planned to research the effects of depleted uranium weapons; 32-year-old photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama, and aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34."

Thursday, April 8, 2004

News and commentary:

"Japanese civilian detainees..."
(AP/APTN, 2004/04/08)
"Japanese civilian detainees are seen at an undisclosed location in this image made from video released Thursday, April 8, 2004. The captives were identified as Noriaki Imai, Soichiro Koriyana and Nahoko Takato. Eight South Koreans and three Japanese were kidnapped Thursday by insurgents in Iraq, and captors armed with automatic rifles and swords threatened to burn the Japanese alive if Tokyo did not withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition. Associated Press Television News obtained a copy of a full tape, which shows four armed, masked men pointing knives and swords at the captives' chests and throats."

"Iraqi Insurgents Threaten to Burn Hostages" (Jason Keyser, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/08)
"Insurgents threatened in a video released Thursday to burn three Japanese hostages alive if Tokyo does not withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition within three days, the first such ultimatum involving foreign civilians in Iraq.
Armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, the kidnappers shouted "Allahu akbar" — God is great — in the video and held knives to the throats of the Japanese, who screamed and whimpered in terror. ...
The Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera, broadcasting to Iraq and the rest of the Arab world, aired portions of the video of the Japanese hostages released by a previously unknown group calling itself the "Mujahedeen Squadrons." It showed two men and one woman — all blindfolded — surrounded by gunmen wearing black, and close-ups of the captives' passports. ...
Associated Press Television News obtained a copy of the full video, in which four masked men point knives and swords at the captives as they lay on the floor of a room with concrete walls.
At one point, a gunman holds a knife to the throat of one of the men, whose blindfold has been removed; his eyes widen in panic and he struggles to try to get free. The woman screams and weeps.
On Al-Jazeera, an announcer read a statement he said came with the video declaring a three-day ultimatum for Japan to announce its withdrawal of troops.
"Three of your sons have fallen into our hands," the announcer read. 'We offer you two choices: either pull out your forces, or we will burn them alive. We give you three days starting the day this tape is broadcast.'"

"Seven S.Koreans Freed Unharmed in Iraq" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/08)
"Seven South Koreans, seized by armed men in Iraq (news - web sites) while doing missionary work, have been freed unharmed, Seoul's foreign ministry said on Friday.
The church group members were taken hostage near Baghdad on Thursday.
YTN TV quoted the seven as telling South Korean journalists at a Baghdad hotel the Iraqi group had given them a ride back to the city after confirming their nationality.
U.S.-ally South Korea has 600 military engineers and medics in Iraq and plans to send 3,000 more for reconstruction."

"Report: Two E. Jerusalem residents taken captive in Iraq" (The Jerusalem Post, 2004/04/08)
"Two residents of East Jerusalem have been taken captive by Iraqi gunmen belonging to the Ansar-Al-Din extremist group, the Iranian television network Al-Alam reported Thursday afternoon.
Al-Alam TV identified the men as Ahmed Yassin Tokati and Nabil George Yaakub Razuq, Christians from East Jerusalem. At least one of the men is the holder of an Israeli ID document and passport, channel One reported.
The two men were shown on video released by the kidnappers. When asked where they were from, the hostages replied "from Israel". ...
The Ansar kindappers called their captives "agents of the Zionist enemy" and demanded the release of Iraqi Sunni and Shiite prisoners held by coalition forces in Iraq."

"Rice Defends Bush Pre-9/11 Terror Plans" (Hope Yen, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/08)
"Under contentious questioning, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice testified Thursday "there was no silver bullet that could have prevented" the deadly terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and disputed suggestions that President Bush failed to focus on the threat of strikes in advance.
Bush "understood the threat, and he understood its importance," she told a national commission investigating the worst terror attacks in the nation's history.
In nearly three hours in the witness chair, Rice stoutly defended Bush when Democrats on the commission raised questions based on an Aug. 6 classified memo titled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside United States." ...
Rice said the president came into office determined to develop a "more robust" policy to combat al-Qaida. "He made clear to me that he did not want to respond to al-Qaida one attack at a time. He told me he was 'tired of swatting flies'," she told the commission delving into the attacks that killed nearly 3,000, destroyed the twin World Trade Center towers in New York and blasted a hole in the Pentagon.
But she also said, 'Tragically, for all the language of war spoken before Sept. 11, this country simply was not on a war footing.'"

"At the Shahbandar café" (Rémy Ourdan, Le Monde/Last of the Famous Playboys, 2004/04/08)
Le Monde returns to Baghdad's oldest café one year after the fall of Saddam:
"'Yes, something has changed,' murmurs Najid Hamid, a photographer who has documented life in Baghdad's oldest café for over a decade.
"When I look at all these faces in my photographs after I've got home, I realize that something has changed..." He looks around the room, all the men sitting on benches, discussing, complaining, laughing.
"The difference is joy," says Nahid. "Before the faces were closed and sad ; today they are open and joyous." The funniest part is that even those who can't stop cursing and predicting a "catastrophe," those who say "it was better before," reveal in Najid's photos a shining face that they did not show a year ago. ...
Almost all the Baghdadis at café Shahbandar are happy with the change that occurred last year. The young men Esam Pasha and Ahmed al-Safi, a painter and a sculptor, also talk of "liberation." Still, each one adds a few sour notes.
"To be Iraqi is to have the feeling of being handcuffed since birth, and this war was the feeling that at last someone came to remove our handcuffs," says Esam Pasha. "Artists now feel freer than they ever have. Of course, we are afraid of the unknown, of chaos. It is human. But I believe that Iraq will survive these trials and that it is destined for a brilliant future. Since last year, I've really had the feeling of being free for the first time in my life. Before, a painting could get you sent to prison; today, I can paint freely and dream of seeing the world..." While everyone claims to be disappointed with the Americans, Esam displays an especial disappointment with... the Iraqis.
'The worst was the looting. It was horrible. I cried when I saw my fellow Iraqis burn the National Library... With the Americans, it was a different disappointment. I worked for six months with them as an interpreter, because I wanted to help them understand Iraq and establish better relations with the population. Wasted effort...'" (See also: "France's policy is still sharply criticized by Iraqis" (Rémy Ourdan, Le Monde/Watch, 2004/03/18 [2004/03/20]))

"Western Cannibalism" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/04/08)
"It has been almost three years now and many Americans are becoming sickened by this continual procession of collective madness delivered up in doses of twenty-four-hour new cycles. This country has gone from the shouting and screaming about quagmire in Afghanistan, its high peaks, Ramadan taboos, the supposed unreliable Northern Alliance, Guantanamo meals, our failure to get bin Laden — to "millions" of refugees in Iraq, the toppling of moderate governments in the region, an envisioned 5,000 American dead in battle, Saddam and his sons forever uncatchable, worry over legal rights of the Husseins, Bush's landing on a carrier, looting of museums, WMD acrimony, tell-all books from ex-Bush-administration employees, and the present election-year 9/11 inquiry circus.
And this culminates now in the animus toward Condoleezza Rice, who has weathered it all and never for a moment evidenced the slightest lack of resolve. I suppose we are witnessing a sort of American pop version of the French revolution — journalists and politicians on the barricades and guillotines constantly searching for an ever-expanding array of targets, their only consistency blind and mindless fury at the old regime."

"Murderous rhetoric" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2004/04/10 issue)
Steyn on Markos Zuniga's infamous "Screw them" post:
"...Zuniga is the epitome of the post-9/11 re-primitivised political activist. By ‘re-primitivised’, I mean the armchair insurgent’s version of that Fallujah carnival. He doesn’t want to dance in the street when he sees dead Americans hanging from a bridge, but he does think: screw ’em. ...
If you take a walk on the wilder side with the cyber crazies, you realise that the real liability for the Democratic party is not the loonies but the leadership: though they’re more tonally savvy and use fewer four-letter words, the party’s most prominent figures have signed on to the same worldview as the nutters — the war in Iraq was a crock cooked up by Cheney to enrich his oil buddies, etc. Somewhere between Afghanistan and Iowa, a bunch of hitherto dull, unremarkable senators bought into the central tenet of the deranged Left — that hatred for the Bushitler trumps all other considerations. Or as Al Gore recently howled, trying out his latest new accent, ‘Heee-aaaah be-aaah-tray-ud us!’ The degrees of separation between the fringe and the mainstream have vanished: Ted Kennedy quotes approvingly Karen Kwiatkowski, who calls the US a ‘maturing Fascist state’ and predicts senior administration officials will wind up 'sitting beside Hussein in the war crimes tribunal.'" (See also: "'Screw Them'" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/04/02))

"Orientalism as Racism" (Lee Harris, Tech Central Station, 2004/04/08)
"Orientalism is sophistry; but one that worked quite well as an ideology, as sophistries so often do. Because the West could not see the East from the East's point of view, it could not judge the actions of Easterners by our own ethical standards.
Now there are two ways to take this. One is defensible, and it means that no one in the West has the right to interfere with the ethical standards that the Easterners chose for themselves, when they are on their own lands and around their own hearths. The other is madness, and it means that we are not permitted to judge the actions of the Easterners even when these actions are directed toward us; and even when they are clearly meant to harm us.
Does it need to be pointed out that such an ideology dehumanizes the very people whose interests it is supposed to be defending? ...
This lowering of the standards for the Arabs has had a diabolical effect not only on the Middle East, but on the entire world order. It has allowed the Arab world to get away with murder, when the same actions by any other group of humans is greeted with horror — an ethical asymmetry that explains the other inexplicable double standard that is applied to acts of violence committed by Israel against Palestinians, and acts of violence committed by Palestinians against Israel. The Jews know better; the poor Arabs don't."

"Al-Jazeera, Al-Manar reporters aided terrorists" (Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/04/08)
"The Samaria Military Court on Thursday indicted Daib Abu Zeid, a reporter for Hizbullah's al-Manar television for transferring funds on behalf of the Hizbullah to Palestinian terror cells in the West Bank and recruiting Israeli Arabs to Hizbullah's ranks.
Also on Thursday, security services arrested a correspondent of the Al-Jazeera Arab satellite television network suspected of aiding Palestinian terrorists. ...
Dib Abu Zayad, 38, from Jenin, was arrested three months ago in Nablus. According to the Shin Bet, Zayad supplied terrorists with weapons, money, clothes and modes of transportation.
Zayad served as a liaison between a Fatah leader in Lebanon and Fatah cells in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, passing money and information between the two countries."

"Anti-U.S. Uprising Widens in Iraq" (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post, 2004/04/08)
"Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, issued his first official comments about the violence Wednesday evening, condemning the U.S. approach to dealing with the Shiite uprising. In a written statement bearing his seal, Sistani called for both sides to pursue a peaceful resolution and "refrain from escalating steps that will lead to more chaos and bloodshed."
But across Baghdad, Sistani's moderate message appeared to have been drowned out by an increasingly vocal cry from mosque minarets for people to resist the occupation and to donate money and blood to help resistance fighters in Fallujah. In perhaps the clearest sign yet of the convergence of Sunni and Shiite uprisings, announcements from Shiite mosques called on people to help Sunnis in Fallujah, while residents of Sunni neighborhoods lauded Sadr and his followers.
Portraits of Sadr and graffiti praising him have appeared on mosques and government buildings in Sunni towns west of Baghdad, according to Arab media reports. On Monday night, gunmen loyal to Sadr joined with Sunni insurgents in Baghdad in attacking U.S. soldiers on patrol in the first reported act of collaborative Sunni-Shiite resistance activity."

Wednesday, April 7, 2004

News and commentary:

"Marines: U.S. bombed Iraqi mosque wall" (CNN.com, 2004/04/07)
"The U.S. military dropped two 500-pound bombs on a wall surrounding a mosque compound in Fallujah, but the Muslim house of worship was not the target, a U.S. Marine source in Al Anbar province said.
"We specifically did not target the mosque as we felt we could engage the enemy in the area with disciplined and well-aimed fire from our Marines without needing to cause extensive damage to the mosque and surrounding structures," the source said.
"This mosque was repeatedly used as a base to target Iraqi and coalition forces throughout the day," the source said. "The breach of the wall was a graduated response to the threat."
The source could not provide a casualty report, but said that if there were "enemy" casualties at the Abdul Aziz Shakir Mosque it was the result of gunfire from U.S. Marines' rifles."

"U.S. Hits Mosque Compound; 40 Said Killed" (Bassem Mroue and Abdul-Qader Saadi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/07)
"U.S. Marines in a fierce battle for this Sunni Muslim stronghold fired rockets that hit a mosque compound filled with worshippers Wednesday, and witnesses said as many as 40 people were killed. Shiite-inspired violence spread to nearly all of the country.
The fighting in Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi, where commanders confirmed 12 Marines were killed late Tuesday, was part of an intensified uprising involving both Sunni and Shiites that now stretched from Kirkuk in the north to the far south.
An Associated Press reporter in Fallujah saw cars ferrying the dead and wounded from the Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque. Witnesses said a helicopter fired three missiles into the compound, destroying part of a wall surrounding the mosque but not damaging the main building.
The strike came as worshippers had gathered for afternoon prayers, witnesses said. Temporary hospitals were set up in private homes to treat the wounded and prepare the dead for burial."

"For the Mahdi Army, it's the 'glory of jihad'" (Matthew Gutman, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/04/07)
"Some 25 Palestinian fighters volunteered as suicide bombers against American troops, Sa'id Amr al-Husseini, one of Sadr's leading lieutenants said Wednesday at the headquarters of the Mahdi Army in Sadr City, Baghdad's largest Shi'ite neighborhood.
"Yesterday the Palestinians came to these headquarters and expressed their desire to be martyrs, ready for sacrifice at the order of the Hawza," Husseini said.
The Hawza is Iraq's leading Shi'ite clerical order, believed to wield immense power among Shi'ites.
The Mahdi Army's claim could not be independently confirmed, though Sunni leaders are increasingly willing to share in the "glory of jihad with the Shi'ites," said Abd Satar Jabani, imam of Baghdad's largest Wahhabi mosque on Tuesday."

"Support grows for firebrand Iraqi Shiite cleric in Baghdad" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/07)
"Many of Baghdad's Shiite and Sunni Muslims rallied behind embattled firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr whose banned militia is facing a nationwide assault by US-led coalition forces.
Sadr, who is subject to an arrest warrant in connection with the murder of a rival Shiite cleric last year, meanwhile called for power in Iraq to be handed over to "honest men" and not to collaborators of the US-led occupation.
In a statement issued in the holy city of Najaf, the cleric urged 'American people to take sides with the Iraqi people, oppressed by (US) leaders and the occupation army, to help them so that power is transferred to honest Iraqis.'"

"Here's a picture of John Ashcroft's face..."
(HubLog, 2004/04/07)
The Ugly Face of the War on Pornography: "Here's a picture of John Ashcroft's face, made entirely of little porn people." (See also: "Administration wages war on pornography" (Laura Sullivan, The Baltimore Sun, 2004/04/06))

"Sovereignty can't protect mass killers" (Robert Horvath, The Age, 2004/04/07)
Horvath on John Pilger's "latest diatribe": "For Pilger, the coalition's principal "crime" in Iraq was its violation of state sovereignty. He recalls that the judges at Nuremberg had called the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country "the supreme international crime". According to Pilger, "that principle guided more than half a century of international law, until Bush and Blair and Howard tore it up".
What Pilger ignores is the fact that the Nuremberg charter reflected the norms of an international legal order that privileged the prerogatives of states over the victims of tyranny.
For generations of lawyers and diplomats, it had been a self-evident truth that human rights abuses were an internal matter of sovereign states. ...
Every despot, every military junta, every secret policeman knew that in the final analysis, international law was on their side.
As they unleashed all the firepower of the modern state against helpless civilians, whether in the name of social revolution or ethnic animosity, the perpetrators knew that the prevailing understanding of state sovereignty, fortified by article 2(7) of the UN Charter, was a potent deterrent against any state intervening to stop the slaughter." (See also: "The crime committed in our name" (John Pilger, The Age, 2004/03/20))

"Like It or Not, Israel's War With Hamas Is America's, Too" (Jonathan Rauch, The National Journal/The Atlantic, 2004/04/07)
"On March 22, in Gaza, Israel shot a helicopter-fired missile at Yassin. Reaction was swift and scathing. The British condemned the attack as an "unlawful killing." The European Union said that extrajudicial killings were "contrary to international law." Turkey's prime minister said, "This was a terrorism incident." Most of the United Nations Security Council lined up behind an Algerian resolution condemning "the most recent extrajudicial execution committed by Israel" and denouncing "all attacks against any civilians as well as all acts of violence and destruction."
The United States vetoed the resolution but did not directly challenge its premises, which were that Yassin was a civilian, that civilians are subject only to civil punishment, and that extrajudicial violence of any sort is therefore illegitimate. Instead, the Bush administration said it was "deeply troubled" by the Yassin killing but that the resolution should also have mentioned Hamas's attacks against Israel. See? Everyone is a terrorist, but the resolution should have named all the terrorists. Or something.
If those are the rules, then former President Clinton is a terrorist, for he, too, ordered a hit. Clinton attacked Osama bin Laden with a cruise missile and only narrowly missed. According to The New York Times, President Clinton's national security advisers have testified to the September 11 commission "that Mr. Clinton wanted Mr. bin Laden dead."
The rap on Clinton, of course, is not that he tried to kill bin Laden but that he failed. Last week, while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was being fricasseed for hitting Yassin, the September 11 commission was grilling Clinton's former secretaries of State and Defense for missing bin Laden. Even by Washington's standards, the inconsistency was glaring. Whatever the tactical differences between the two cases, morally they are indistinguishable."

"Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq..."
(Christof Stache, AP, 2004/04/07)
"Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq charged with helping the Sept. 11 hijackers leaves a justice building after he was freed by a court in Hamburg, northern Germany, Wednesday, April 7, 2004."

"Jailed Sept. 11 Plotter Released Pending Retrial" (Reuters, 2004/04/07)
The European version of the war on terror: "The only man jailed over the September 11 attacks was freed in Germany on Wednesday pending a forthcoming retrial, the court said.
The Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq was sentenced by a German court to 15 years in 2003 for conspiring to murder around 3,000 people in the 2001 plane attacks in the United States. The same court ruled on Wednesday he should be released from jail.
But he will not be allowed to leave the city of Hamburg before his trial, expected to begin in June, and must report regularly to police, a representative of his lawyer Gerhard Strate said.
The 29-year-old had also been found guilty of belonging to a terrorist organization — a German al Qaeda cell that included three of the suicide hijackers."

"Spaniards say war makes them a target" (Katrin Bennhold, International Herald Tribune, 2004/04/07)
"Still shaken by the March 11 train bombings and the discovery of further plots to bomb the city since then, people here increasingly blame the American-led war in Iraq, fought with the support of the outgoing center-right government, for making Spain the focus of Islamist militants. ...
"This is all the fault of the United States; they got us into this," said Santiago Ruíz, a 55-year-old electrician who lives in suburban Leganés, a block from where the four suspects killed themselves and a police officer on Saturday. "The way to combat terrorism isn't the way Bush has done. Spain is paying the consequences of its solidarity with the United States."
In the city center, Alejandro Rodríguez, 36, agreed: 'We should withdraw from Iraq right now. Why wait until June? Do we want to wait for more attacks?'"

"Ukraine troops leave Iraqi city in hands of radical Shiites" (AFP, 2004/04/07)
"Ukrainian troops withdrew from the Iraqi city of Kut, south of the capital Baghdad, after heavy fighting with supporters of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr who now control the city, the defence ministry said.
"At the request of the Americans, and to preserve the life of our military, the commander of the Ukrainian contingent decided to evacuate the civil administration staff and Ukrainian troops from Kut," the ministry said in a statement.
"The operation began at dawn on Wednesday ... under escort from attack helicopters," the ministry added."

"Up to 12 U.S. Marines Die in Worsening Iraq Violence" (Alistair Lyon, Reuters, 2004/04/07)
"U.S.-led forces battled Sunni guerrillas and grappled with an uprising by Shi'ite militiamen on Wednesday in a war on two fronts that has killed more than 30 soldiers and 160 Iraqis in three days.
A U.S. defense official said up to 12 Marines had been killed on Tuesday in an attack at the governor's palace in Ramadi in central Iraq's Sunni heartlands west of Baghdad. ...
In Falluja, where Marines were pursuing a major crackdown after last week's killings of four American private security guards, doctors said 36 people had been killed on Tuesday.
Among the dead were 25 civilians in a house destroyed by what locals said was a U.S. helicopter strike. A U.S. military spokeswoman in Baghdad said she had no word on the incident."

"At Word of U.S. Foray, a Baghdad Militia Erupts" (Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, 2004/04/07)
"Within minutes this entire Shiite neighborhood in central Baghdad had mobilized for war.
"We're going to attack a tank!" yelled Majid Hamid, 32, waving an assault rifle.
The incident was another example of the power vacuum spreading across Iraq — during the disturbance in Khadamiya, there were no American soldiers, no Iraqi police and no order. It also cut to the heart of the militia issue, which remains a problem despite the occupation authorities' insistence that private armies disband. And it showed the depth of support for Mr. Sadr, the firebrand cleric who is blamed for the most serious insurrection yet and is now wanted by the Americans. ...
"This man is not a firefighter," said Lt. Mohammed Abu Kadar, tapping one of his men on the shoulder outside a fire station in Khadamiya. "He is Mahdi Army."
"This man, too," the lieutenant, a two-star officer of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, said, grabbing another firefighter. "He may wear this uniform, but he is Mahdi Army."
Then the lieutenant tapped his own chest. "We may work for the government now," Lieutenant Kadar said. 'But if anything happens, we all work for Sadr.'"

"Iran, Hezbollah support al-Sadr" (Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times, 2004/04/07)
"Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery Iraqi Shi'ite cleric who ordered his fanatical militia to attack coalition troops, is being supported by Iran and its terror surrogate Hezbollah, according to military sources with access to recent intelligence reports. ...
Sheik al-Sadr, who has traveled to Iran and met with its hard-line Shi'ite clerics, is an ardent foe of the United States who wants all foreign troops to leave.
The United States suspects that his goal is to create a hard-line Shi'ite regime in Iraq modeled after Tehran's government. Military sources said Sheik al-Sadr is being aided directly by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which plays a large role in running that country, and by Hezbollah, an Iranian-created terrorist group based in Lebanon.
One of the sources said these two organizations are supplying the cleric with money, spiritual support and possibly weapons. "Iran does not want a success in Iraq," the source said.
'A democratic Iraq is a death knell to the mullahs.'"

"Anxious Moments in Grip of an Outlaw Iraqi Militia" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2004/04/07)
Burns and his crew were briefly taken hostage by Sadr's militia: "Some of the militiamen were in their 50's and 60's, but most were young, some no more than 12 or 13. Weapons training among them appeared virtually nonexistent; Kalashnikovs with loaded magazines and safety catches off were nonchalantly waved in the air.
Pinned to their robes were photographs of Mr. Sadr, a 31-year-old bushy-bearded cleric, and of his father, assassinated by agents of Saddam Hussein in 1999. ...
With magnesium flares fired by militia outposts lighting the night sky outside Kufa, the man, who said he was 40 and a technical college graduate, explained how he had had spent two years in prison under Saddam Hussein for belonging to a banned Shiite religious party.
But when he was asked if he had not welcomed the American forces who toppled Mr. Hussein almost exactly a year ago, as many Shiites did, he turned suddenly combative.
"It was God who finished Saddam, not the Americans," he said. 'The Americans broke all their promises to us, and they have brought their infidel beliefs to Iraq. We hate them, and they are worse than Saddam.'"

Tuesday, April 6, 2004

News and commentary:

"A U.S. marine driving a Humvee with a smashed windshield..."
(Maurizio Gambarini, EPA, 2004/03/06)
From the slideshow "Marines Under Attack in Ramadi" (The New York Times, 2004/03/06): "A U.S. marine driving a Humvee with a smashed windshield after a gunfight in Ramadi, near Falluja, Iraq. The attack in Ramadi was on an American base at the governor's palace, and it involved several dozen insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons."

"Sadr: A new Arab hero in the making" (Claude Salhani, UPI, 2004/04/06)
"In short, the United States' gamble to go after Sadr may have grossly backfired. ... Instead, they have created a new pan-Islamic, pan-Arab hero on the same level with Osama bin Laden.
This new fight with Sadr is rapidly creating a no-win situation for the coalition. Having declared him an outlaw, the Coalition Provisional Authority now has no choice but to go after him, no matter what it takes. Failure to follow through would make the CPA loose face vis-à-vis the Iraqi public and reinforce the belief that the resistance can get away with murder - literally. It would also give the future Iraqi government an enormous handicap with which to begin their mandate, and therefore reduce their credibility. This would simply be disastrous for the future of a stable and democratic Iraq.
Allowing Sadr to remain at large now only amplifies his status as a leader of the revolt. By Tuesday afternoon, the revolt appeared to be expanding with Sadr's followers reported to have captured a number of official buildings in the holy city of Najaf.
Already, a number of Sunni chiefs have accepted Sadr as the unchallenged new leader of Iraq's resistance to the American-led occupation. The events of the last few days have, in short, given the Iraqi resistance a face and an icon it was missing.
On the other hand, if the Americans capture him, they will only encourage further acts of resistance and possibly incite new acts of terrorism against Coalition troops by Sadr's supporters demanding his release.
If the coalition were to kill him while attempting to capture him, they would create an even more volatile situation. The Shiite would never believe Sadr's death was not intentional and besides inciting an unprecedented level of violence, his death would raise his standing to that of a martyred imam."

"In quotes: Moqtada Sadr's fiery rhetoric" (BBC News, 2004/04/06)
A selection of recent quotes by Moqtada Sadr and his newspaper Al-Hawza:
"Terrorise your enemies as we cannot remain silent at their violations. Otherwise, we will reach a stage when the consequences will be serious... I am concerned about you because demonstrations are useless... Your enemy loves terrorism and scorns nations and all Arabs. It seeks to silence the opinions of others. I appeal to you not to resort to demonstrations because they have become useless. You should resort to other methods.
Quoted by Iraqi web site Sharja Al-Khalij, 5 Apr 04 ...
The United States did not only come to overthrow Saddam only or take our oil. It came with the intention of destroying the whole cultural, moral, and humanitarian structure of Iraqi civilization and replace it by a structure producing thorns, moss, and a defeated nation.
Quote from editorial in Sadr's Al-Hawza newspaper, 7 Aug 2003" (See also: "Shiite cleric tells supporters fighting US troops to "terrorize" enemy" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/04))

"Former Iraqi enemies unite to fight U.S." (P. Mitchell Prothero, UPI, 2004/04/06)
"Before last week the primary forces resisting the U.S. occupation were a combination of former Baath Party members and Sunni religious figures, but after fighting broke out between the coalition and a militia led by a young radical Shiite cleric, much of Iraq turned to complete chaos.
There are also indications that the two groups have come to an agreement to join with an al-Qaida affiliated terrorist group thought to have conducted widespread terrorist attacks against U.S. and Iraqi targets alike. ...
Inside the Sadr office building, which was defended by about 100 armed and 400 unarmed men and boys, was cordoned off by the U.S. military, three obviously Sunni clerics arrived with a letter for the leaders of the Mehdi Army.
"We have come to see how our friends are doing," Sheikh Hudor al-Abari told United Press International.
Abari carried a letter from Sheikh Harrath Selman al-Tey, the leader of the largest Sunni tribe in Iraq and a man that holds massive sway over the Sunni triangle.
"The letter (to Moqtada Sadr) declares that we are the Army of Mohammed and all of Ramadi and Fallujah (offer) our army and people and souls and hearts and weapons under your command," he told UPI. 'There is no more Shiite and Sunni, only Muslims and now we will fight each other no more and together fight the same enemy.'"

"Coalition forces under fire in Ramadi" (CNN.com, 2004/04/06)
"As many as a dozen U.S. Marines were killed Tuesday in heavy fighting in the western Iraq town of Ramadi, the latest in a series of clashes with anti-coalition elements, Pentagon officials said.
The large-scale attack was mounted by suspected remnants of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, officials said.
A high-ranking military source said initial reports indicated several government buildings had been seized by fewer than 100 insurgents.
The insurgents attacked a Marine position near the governor's palace.
The source said as many as 20 Marines were wounded. There also were heavy Iraqi casualties."

"Saddam being held in Qatar: report" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/04/06)
"Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is being held at a US military base in Qatar, rather than in Iraq.
Following his capture by US forces in December last year, Saddam was first moved to a US aircraft carrier in the Gulf for interrogation, a British newspaper reported, without citing its sources.
He was then - at a time not specified by the report - transferred to Qatar under great secrecy, with even the state's royal family not informed of his presence."

"Battles Flare as Iraqi Shi'ites Vow Resistance" (Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Reuters, 2004/04/06)
"Followers of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr fought pitched battles with foreign troops in Shi'ite Muslim strongholds Tuesday and vowed to pursue an uprising that has claimed more than 130 lives in three days. ...
In Nassiriya, gun battles erupted before dawn between Italian troops and pro-Sadr militiamen who had taken control of key bridges in the town. Paola della Casa, a spokeswoman for the occupation authority in the area, said 15 Iraqis had been killed, some of them civilians but most of them militiamen.
The Italian military said 12 soldiers had been wounded.
Fighting between militiamen and security forces in Amara, in the British army area of responsibility, killed 15 Iraqis in the last 48 hours, Britain's ministry of defense said. ...
In Falluja, armored columns of Marines entered the city center Tuesday afternoon, with helicopters buzzing overhead. Hospital doctors said at least three Iraqis had been killed in fighting, including a teenage girl, and seven wounded."

"Purported Tape by Top Militant Urges Anti-US Raids" (Samia Nakhoul, Reuters, 2004/04/06)
"An audio tape purportedly recorded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, considered by Washington a top al Qaeda operative, urged Islamic militants Tuesday to step up attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and their Shi'ite "collaborators."
Zarqawi, widely believed to be in Iraq, was sentenced to death in absentia by Jordan Tuesday in connection with the killing of a U.S. diplomat.
The voice on the tape, posted on an Islamist Internet site, claimed responsibility for a string of attacks in Iraq, including the killing in August of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, head of the country's largest Shi'ite group.
"Fight the Americans, fight the rejectionists (Shi'ites) and the agents and hypocrites," the voice said, calling Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority traitors who had allied themselves with "the enemies of Islam" to seize control of the country."

"Sadr leaves mosque as battles spread" (Hamza Hendawi, AP/The Guardian, 2004/04/06)
"The Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr is reported to have left the fortress-like mosque where he has been holed up for days.
The news of his departure came as uprisings continued across Iraq, involving not only American forces, but also British, Spanish and Italian troops. ...
But in a statement released by his office in the nearby city of Najaf, Sadr said he had left the mosque, fearing it would be damaged in an assault.
"I feared that the sanctity of a glorious and esteemed mosque would be violated by scum and evil people," he said.
Al-Sadr did