Archived news and commentary: May 31 - June 6, 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, June 6, 2004

News and commentary:

"German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder hugs French President Jacques Chirac..."
(Vincent Kessler , Reuters, 2004/06/06)
"German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (L) hugs French President Jacques Chirac (R) at the end of Chirac's speech during the France-German ceremony at the Memorial for Peace in Caen, June 6, 2004 as part of D-Day ceremonies in Normandy."

"World Leaders Hail D-Day Heroes, Pledge Unity" (Steve Holland, Reuters, 2004/06/06)
"Hailing the presence of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the first German leader to attend D-Day anniversary events in France, Chirac said: "We hold up the example of Franco-German reconciliation, to show the world that hatred has no future."
The two men embraced warmly after both spoke at a memorial in Caen, during which Schroeder acknowledged Germany and France had different memories of D-Day but shared a desire for peace.
"In Germany, we know who caused the war. We're aware of our responsibility and take it seriously," said Schroeder, whose father was killed in the war." (See also: "Text of Gerhard Schröder's Historic Speech" (AFP/Deutsche Welle, 2004/06/06))

"President Bush, President Chirac Mark 60th Anniversary of D-Day" (The White House, 2004/06/06)
"Remarks by President Bush and President Chirac on Marking the 60th Anniversary of D-Day, The American Cemetery, Normandy, France:

PRESIDENT CHIRAC: ... France will never forget. She will never forget that 6th of June, 1944, the day hope was reborn and rekindled. She will never forget those men who made the ultimate sacrifice to liberate our soil, our native land, our continent from the yoke of Nazi barbarity and its murderous folly. Nor will it ever forget its debt to America, its everlasting friend, and to its allies — all of them — thanks to whom Europe, reunited at last, now lives in peace, freedom and democracy. ...
America is our eternal ally, and that alliance and solidarity are all the stronger for having been forged in those terrible hours. ...

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... Always our thoughts and hearts were turned to the sons of America who came here and now rest here. We think of them as you, our veterans, last saw them. We think of men not far from boys who found the courage to charge toward death and who often, when death came, were heard to call, "Mom," and, "Mother, help me." We think of men in the promise years of life, loved and mourned and missed to this day."

"A Canadian veteran reflects as he sits on the waters edge at Juno beach..."
(Adrian Wyld, AP, 2004/06/06)
"A Canadian veteran reflects as he sits on the waters edge at Juno beach in Courseulles-sur-Mer, France on the Normandy coast Sunday June 6, 2004. Canadian veterans were honoured in a ceremony on the 60th Anniversary of D-Day."

"BBC man dies in Saudi capital shooting" (Samia Nakhoul, Reuters, 2004/06/06)
"Gunmen have fired at a two-man BBC crew in an Islamist militant area of the Saudi capital Riyadh, killing the Irish cameraman and severely wounding the British journalist.
The British state broadcaster named the cameraman as Simon Cumbers, 36, and the journalist as its security correspondent, 42-year-old Frank Gardner, and said Gardner was being treated in hospital in Riyadh.
It was the fourth deadly attack on Westerners in the kingdom, the world's biggest oil exporter, in five weeks.
A Western diplomat said the two men were in a car with a Saudi driver in the Suweidi district, filming the house of an al Qaeda militant killed last year in a security crackdown, when they came under fire.
Saudi television pictures from the scene showed a Western man, alive but bloodied, lying in the middle of the road before being helped into a vehicle by Saudi security men."

"Barghouti Gets Five Life Terms in Israel" (Peter Enav, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/06/06)
"An Israeli court sentenced Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti to five consecutive life terms and 40 years Sunday for his role in attacks that killed four Israelis and a Greek monk — the maximum possible sentence.
A defiant Barghouti, seen as a possible successor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was greeted by applause from his supporters as he walked into the courtroom, dressed in a brown prison uniform.
He reiterated that he does not recognize the court's authority. "The Israeli courts are a partner to the Israeli occupation," Barghouti said before the reading of the verdict. "The judges are just like pilots who fly planes and drop bombs."
The three-judge panel sentenced him to five consecutive life terms for his involvement in attacks that killed four Israelis and Greek monk. He was also given two consecutive terms of 20 years each for a botched car bombing at a Jerusalem mall and membership in a terror organization."

"The Popular Resistance Committee proudly announce the falling of three Shahids of the Great Islam"
(PA/PMW, 2004/06/06)
From Palestinian Media Watch's newsletter, which often has interesting news before it is published on the site, making a subscription recommended for anyone interested in Palestinian propaganda.

"Child Soldiers of the Palestinian Authority" (Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, PMW/IMRA, 2004/06/06)
"During a long interview today, PA TV displayed the pictures of two 15-year-old combatants holding an assault rifle and a pistol. These children were killed while attacking an Israeli town in 2003, and have been honored by PA society for their deed as heroic Shahids (Martyrs). The text on picture of the dead children reads: "The Popular Resistance Committee proudly announce the falling of three Shahids of the Great Islam."
This picture, shown throughout the interview with the dead children's parents, presents a strong message to viewers — and especially to children — that the dead combatants are role models for children.
The interviewer praised 15 year-old Mohammed who 'always aspired Shahada (Martyrdom) despite his young age.. He said the 2 dead combatants "became outstanding for all Palestinians, outstanding in their medals of honor — Shahada.'"

"The prisoners' conscience" (Natan Sharansky, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/06/06)
Reagan IV: "In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan's "provocation" quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth – a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.
At the time, I never imagined that three years later, I would be in the White House telling this story to the president. When he summoned some of his staff to hear what I had said, I understood that there had been much criticism of Reagan's decision to cast the struggle between the superpowers as a battle between good and evil.
Well, Reagan was right and his critics were wrong."

"Time for some serious art about war" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004/06/06)
"Flash forward 60 years: The old Allies are gathered at Normandy for the D-Day anniversary at a time when we're well into a new war. This time around, the only pop star in uniform is Madonna. On her current world tour, she wears a blue burqa and, when she disrobes, as she inevitably does, she's wearing a U.S. army uniform underneath. Geddit? The Taliban and the Bush administration are both equally oppressive, see? ...
Something has gone badly wrong when (with the exception of a few country songs) our popular culture visibly recoils from the biggest event of our time. Hollywood has plenty of ''courage'' when it comes to Michael Moore conspiracies or Madonna's bottom. But ask them to make a post-9/11 thriller in which Americans are the good guys and the enemy is, well, the enemy, and they'd tell you there's no audience for it. Just like they told Mel he'd lose his shirt on ''The Passion of the Christ.'' It's not about economics, it's about the loss of that ''cultural confidence'' James Lileks wrote about.
Which is a big problem, because the smarter Islamists have figured out that's the way to beat us. Imagine our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at ceremonies 60 years from now: Where's the soundtrack?"

"Tenet's fall shows that spies can't rely on television for intelligence" (Mark Steyn, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/06/06)
"Scratch around the roots of the war on terror and you keep running into the Saudis. Scratch around the screw-ups in the war on terror and you keep running into the CIA. ...
Everything that is wrong with the agency was made plain a few weeks ago with the much-anticipated release of a classified CIA "Presidential Daily Brief" from August 6 2001. This was supposed to be the smoking gun which would reveal that Bush knew 9/11 was coming. It turned out to be far more damaging than that. It revealed somewhat carelessly that the CIA — the most sinister acronym in the world, the all-knowing spooks behind the dirty tricks in a thousand Hollywood thrillers — crib most of their info from television shows and foreign intelligence services.
Under the headline "Bin Ladin [sic] Determined To Strike In US", the most lavishly funded intelligence agency in the Western world led off its analysis with its top piece of "classified" "intelligence": "Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and 'bring the fighting to America'."
Terrific. Your crack CIA operative knows how to go into deep cover in his living room and pose as an average American couch potato by switching on the television. Then, just when the rest of the country is settling in for the Friends rerun, he surreptiously flips the remote to the Osama interview on CNN."

"How they misjudged the Reagan I knew" (Richard Perle, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/06/06)
Reagan III: "What made Reagan different from his predecessors was his contrarian optimism about Communist tyranny. To the consternation of conventionally-wise foreign ministries around the world, Reagan saw and proclaimed that the "evil empire" was headed for the "ash heap of history". ...
Editorial writers ridiculed what they regarded as Reagan's lack of sophistication, especially concerning the Soviet Union. They deplored his defence build-up. They caricatured him as a cowboy with six guns blazing. But Reagan was indifferent to praise from journalists and the admiration of diplomats. Though he was not an intellectual, he knew what he was doing and why. ...
Reagan made clear that the democratic West could and would counter Soviet military power, outperform the Communist world in science and technology, and provide material well-being for citizens beyond Moscow's wildest dreams. He would not miss an opportunity to contrast Western freedom with the misery of Soviet tyranny.
Ronald Reagan embodied American optimism. His leadership, confident and cheerful, was instrumental in the demoralisation of the Soviet leadership that produced a Western victory without war and ended half a century of conflict between East and West."

"The good soldier" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2004/06/06)
"One anti-war newspaper on its front page on Saturday contrasted the feelings of a D-Day widow with that of a soldier killed in Iraq. The first told her interviewer that 'the difference then is that we believed what we were doing', and would do it again. The second said that the comparison made recently by George Bush between the last World War and the war on terror was 'insulting'. Her husband and she originally felt 'he was fighting for the right reasons, but with hindsight I am beginning to feel differently'.
The whole point of that front page was, of course, to make the unfavourable comparison between Iraq and D-Day. One is idealised, the other is beyond redemption. And to its many other sins is added the notion that the Iraq invasion has 'fractured the transatlantic alliance'; an alliance which existed between the US and Europe since the moment when American troops landed on the Continent in the last war.
Watching Newsnight on Friday night I was particularly struck by an interview with Dominique Moisi, deputy director of the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, and something of a bell-wether for informed opinion in France. M. Moisi volunteered his view that 'the American soldiers of 1944 are not the soldiers of 2004'. Back then, he said, they were fired by idealism, whereas now they are animated 'by the spirit of revenge'. This was an almost perfect example of constructing the world to one's own prejudices and beliefs. You could almost paraphrase this sophisticated man's entire world view as 'America in 1944: good. America in 2004: bad.'"

"In Sudan, Staring Genocide in the Face" (Jerry Fowler, The Washington Post, 2004/06/06)
"I went to Chad last month on behalf of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Committee on Conscience, which has issued a genocide warning for Sudan. Having now heard firsthand the refugees' accounts of the terror they faced in Sudan and of being driven into the desert, where their government is blocking assistance from the outside world, I have no doubt whatsoever that mass death will ensue in Darfur unless far more international assistance is immediately allowed to reach the displaced who are still there. In short, I fear the specter of genocide. ...
When asked why their villages were attacked and burned, most of the refugees said it was because of their black skin. They believe that the Khartoum-based government of President Omar Hassan Bashir wants to give their land to his Janjaweed allies who, like him, are Arab. Members of the Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other black African tribes will simply have to go. Like the Janjaweed, the Darfurians are Muslims. But culturally and ethnically they retain an African identity, of which they are proud. They also tend to be more settled than the nomadic Janjaweed. Racism undoubtedly does play a part in Bashir's support of the Janjaweed, as the blacks are seen as inferior." (See also:"Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan" (Human Rights Watch, 2004/04/02))

"The Saudis Fight Terror, but Not Those Who Wage It" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2004/06/06)
"A recent fatwa posted on a popular Islamic Web site in Saudi Arabia explains when a Muslim may mutilate the corpse of an infidel.
The ruling, written by a Saudi religious sheik named Omar Abdullah Hassan al-Shehabi, decrees that the dead can be mutilated as a reciprocal act when the enemy is disfiguring Muslim corpses, or when it otherwise serves the Islamic nation. In the second category, the reasons include "to terrorize the enemy" or to gladden the heart of a Muslim warrior. ...
"The perpetrators of these heinous crimes are influenced by ideologies alien to our country and to the nature of our people, who throughout the ages advocated tolerance and coherence," Prince Mohammed bin Fahd, governor of the Eastern Province and the son of King Fahd, was quoted as saying in Saudi press reports after the Khobar attacks.
Even the most open-minded in the religious establishment are reluctant to concede that the violence within the kingdom might be the fault of Saudis themselves.
"Those militants are the outcome of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Sharon and the American policy in the region; they are angry against anything foreign and want to retaliate against anything foreign," said Muhsen Awaji, a prominent Islamist lawyer. "It was not Wahhabism which produced them, it is the other circumstances in the region.'"

Saturday, June 5, 2004

News and commentary:

"President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan..."
(Ron Edmonds, AP, 1984/06/06)
"President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan peer out of a World War II bunker in this June 6, 1984 file photo, during his visit to Pointe du Hoc, France, the site of the Normandy invasion during World War II."

"Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion (D-Day)" (Ronald Reagan, TeachingAmericanHistory.org, 1984/06/06)
Reagan II. President Reagan's speech to veterans of the 2nd Ranger Battalion in Pointe du Hoc, France on June 6, 1984:
"The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. ...
We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. ...
Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."
Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died."

"Former President Ronald Reagan Dies at 93" (Jeff Wilson and Terence Hunt, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/06/05)
Reagan I: "Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America," died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer's disease.
"My family and I would like the world to know that President Ronald Reagan has passed away after 10 years of Alzheimer's disease at 93 years of age. We appreciate everyone's prayers," Nancy Reagan said in a statement." ...
In Paris, President Bush called Reagan's death "a sad day for America." The U.S. flag over the White House was lowered to half-staff." (See also: "Queen and Thatcher Lead Tributes to Ex-President Reagan" (James Lyons and Matt Adams, The Scotsman, 2004/06/05): "Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher hailed Mr Reagan as "a truly great American hero". ... 'Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired. To have achieved so much against so odds and with such humour and humanity made Ronald Reagan a truly great American hero.'")

"BUSH ASSASSIN"
(paris.indymedia.org, 2004/06/05)
From "Bush in Paris" photos posted on Indymedia Paris.

"Bush, Chirac stress cooperation, discuss Iraq ahead of D-Day celebrations" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/06/05)
"US President George W. Bush and his French counterpart, Jacques Chirac, put on a show of cordiality as they met in Paris to discuss their differences over Iraq on the eve of celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the D-Day allied landings.
While they emphasized their countries' cooperation in several world troublespots and expressed a search for common goals, Chirac rebuffed an attempt by Bush to draw a parallel between World War II and the conflict in Iraq, where he said "disorder reigns". ...
"There is no alternative to restoring peace in Iraq, and therefore to restoring security in Iraq," he said. ...
Bush left talks with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi earlier Saturday expressing confidence that France and the other members of the UN Security Council would "soon" pass the US resolution, and said he felt "a spirit of unity" among his partners on the subject of Iraq." (See also: "Remarks by President Bush and President Chirac in a Joint Press Availability" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/06/05))

"BUSH TERRORISTE No1"
(Jockel Finck, AP, 2004/06/05)
"Thousands of protesters carry posters depicting U.S. President George W. Bush as Terrorist No 1 during a peaceful protest, in Paris Saturday, June 5, 2004."

"Thousands Rally in Paris Against Bush, Iraq War" (Kerstin Gehmlich and Joelle Diderich, Reuters, 2004/06/05)
"Thousands of people in the French capital demonstrated against the war in Iraq on Saturday as President Bush met France's Jacques Chirac ahead of ceremonies commemorating the D-Day landings in Normandy.
Wearing T-shirts depicting Bush as a war criminal and carrying banners reading "Bush — Terrorist number one!" and "U.S. troops out of Iraq," a colorful crowd of students, housewives and office workers marched through central Paris.
Police estimated 12,000 took part in the protest. Organizers were not available to give their own estimate.
Demonstrators chanted "Go home" and "Bush — Assassin," but were banned from the area round the Elysee presidential palace, where the two leaders held their talks."

"Teenager Stabbed in Anti-Semitic Attack" (Pierre-Yves Roger, AP/The Guardian, 2004/06/05)
"A Jewish teenager was stabbed in the chest by a man crying "God is great," officials said. It was the second attack in a week on a young Jewish man.
The 17-year-old victim, who was not identified, was attacked Friday afternoon as he left a Jewish school in Epinay-sur-Seine, north of Paris in the rough Seine-Saint-Denis district, said local officials on condition of anonymity.
The victim was taken to a hospital in serious condition, and the attacker fled. Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin visited the site where the attack occurred.
Witnesses said a man shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) then plunged a knife into the young man before fleeing.
The victim's injuries were not life-threatening, said Gilles Taieb, a spokesman for the Jewish Consistoire, which directs Jewish religious life.
Last Sunday, the 17-year-old son of a rabbi was attacked by a group of young men as he was about to enter his home in suburban Paris. The group of young hit the son of rabbi Victor Bellahcem, while yelling anti-Semitic insults."

"Springtime for Germany; Winter for the US" (Douglas, Last of the Famous Playboys, 2004/06/05)
A survey of French D-Day coverage: "In The New York Times, former ambassador to France Felix Rohatyn wrote that he had "seen France at its most tragic in 1940" and that the French are "grateful." Almost as a rejoinder to Rohatyn, Le Monde published on the same day an essay by documentary filmmaker and screenwriter Alain Moreau who wrote about "the hidden face of some liberators." His essay contends that American GIs deployed in Europe committed some 17,000 rapes (2,500 of them in France) from 1944 to 1945. (Moreau's assertions depend heavily on a book by J. Robert Lilly, professor of sociology and criminology at Northern Kentucky U., who also points out that thousands of Italian women were raped by French soldiers.)
Not only did Americans rape on D-Day, they killed the innocent, too. On June 1, we were treated to a heart-rending portrait of a man who lost his entire family to allied bombs on the very day of the landings in a town that was 90% destroyed." (See also: "Jour J: Were Germans the real victims of Germany?" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2004/06/04))

"Liberation Forgotten" (Kenneth R. Timmerman, New York Post, 2004/06/05)
"In Basse-Normandie, where the allied landings occurred, two vice presidents of the regional council announced they were refusing to take part in any ceremonies where Bush or Russian President Vladimir Putin were present. "What image will we send of Normandy to Arab and Islamic countries by receiving Bush and Putin with pomp and circumstance?" one of them asked the French daily, Le Monde.
What image will France send to Arab and Islamic countries? How about the message France sends to its own citizens, or to its former allies across the Atlantic, who left 66,000 of their fellow citizens behind while liberating France twice from tyranny in the 20th century?
"The paradox of June 6," opinined former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, a Socialist, is that Bush "is the exact opposite of the values that make us love America." Le Monde apparently agreed: "Should we even offer this podium to Bush, since he never hesitates to compare the struggle for freedom in Europe that was the battle of Normandy to today's war in Iraq?" a reporter editorialized.
While the U.S. press has been full of personal accounts of veterans of the D-Day landings over the past week, the only eye-witness report in Le Monde recounts the horrifying tale of the forgotten casualties of D-Day — the French civilians who perished in the saturation bombing of strategic towns in Normandy such as Lisieux and St. Lo. When the head of the local resistance cell met the first American soldiers, Le Monde's correspondent writes, it was by raising his 'clenched fist.'" (See also: "More like D-Day" (Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/06/04) and "Jour J: Were Germans the real victims of Germany?" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2004/06/04))

"90 days to stop another disaster in Africa" (Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2004/06/05)
"A huge operation to tackle the world's worst unfolding humanitarian crisis will swing into action today following a warning that up to 300,000 people in Sudan could die within months even if essential aid gets through.
The United Nations will launch a 90-day emergency programme after securing promises of funds from the US and other countries at a conference in Geneva. ...
About 1.2 million people, who fled their villages after being terrorised by government-armed Arab militia, are living in makeshift camps in Darfur and 100,000 in neighbouring Chad. The flow of refugees to the border with Chad was continuing yesterday.
Andrew Natsios, head of USaid, a government agency, told the conference, which was held in private: 'If we get relief in, we could lose a third of a million. If we do not, it could be a million.'"

Friday, June 4, 2004

News and commentary:

"U.S. flag with swastika"
(italy.indymedia.org, 2004/06/04)
From Indymedia Italy's galleries from the anti-war demonstrations in Rome.

"'Not a single American flag in Paris'" (Erik, ¡No Pasarán!, 2004/06/04)
"One of France's prettiest maidens just walked in the door.
She is énervée. Here, the girl (an apolitical cynic who is not particularly pro- or anti-American or pro- or anti-anything-at-all) explains why.

There is not a single American flag in Paris.
Not on the Champs-Élysées, not anywhere.
I don't care what the French think of Bush's policies. The minimum of respect would have been to put out the Stars and Stripes for the US president's arrival. It is not Bush who is arriving, it is the president of the United States.
The Champs-Élysées are filled with flags when any other leader arrives, no matter what their régimes' policies or what their leaders have done. They even turned the Eiffel Tower red…
But… the French they dare to resist the United States. Quel courage!"

"Tens of Thousands Protest Bush Visit to Rome" (AP/Los Angeles Times, 2004/06/04)
"A small group of stone-throwing demonstrators clashed with police at a march today by tens of thousands of people to protest President Bush's visit to the Italian capital, with streets sealed off and guarded by officers in riot gear. ...
Protest organizers claimed that 150,000 marchers turned out, while police put the crowd at about 25,000. In the weeks before the war began in 2003, an anti-war march in Rome drew 1 million participants. ...
While most of the march was peaceful, the slogans on many of the banners and placards were stinging. "Heil Bush," began one sign's slogan, which ended in profanity.
Opposition to the Iraq war among Italians is high. Berlusconi contends the 2,900 Italians in the occupation forces are on a humanitarian mission.
Much of central Rome was deserted. Most shops were closed, and for those that there open, there were few customers. Tourists wandered around bewildered by the blocked streets."

"Pope Denounces Events in Iraq to Bush" (Tom Raum, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/06/04)
"President Bush got a sharp dose of Europe's opposition to his Iraq policy Friday, quietly in the halls of the Vatican from Pope John Paul II and loudly in the streets of Rome from thousands of demonstrators.
The ailing pontiff complained about recent "deplorable events," an apparent reference to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops. In the absence of a commitment to shared human values, "neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome," he said, struggling to speak.
However, the pope welcomed the recent establishment of an interim government and called for a speedy transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis." (See also Bystander (via InstaPundit): "Let me get this straight — the Pope is criticizing Bush for recent "deplorable events", that is the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, which came to attention a few months ago and is not only being investigated but prosecuted, whereas the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal has lasted decades (under the current pope's watch)? centuries? a millenia before being investigated by the institution."). Also: "Pope Worries About 'Soulless' U.S. Life" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/28))

"Fars News Agency: First International gathering of candidates for suicide bombers" (Fars News Agency/activistchat.com, 2004/06/04)
"As part of the anniversary ceremonies of Iman Khomeini's death, an international gathering of candidates for suicide bombing will take place in Tehran under the title "Suicide in Tehran." The "Center for the appreciation of the Shahid" of the world Islamic Movement, declared today that an international gathering of "Shahids" (martyr bombers) is to take place with the object of presenting suicide bombing as the most effective and influential method to compel occupying forces to flee from Muslim territories.
The ceremony will include participants in various Jihad movements and will take place on 02/06/04 in the AL-SHOHADAH HALL at 7th Batir square.
Among the speakers at the gathering will be ZAHRA Mustafai the great grand daughter of Iman Khomeini, Member of the Majles. Mehdi Kushk, Sardar Salamati head of operations at the H.Q of the Revolutionary Guards, Hassan Abbasi head of the Institute of the doctrine of "Defense without borders" and IRI's Television terrorism proponent a and finally Sardar Kazemi, a Veteran officer who participated in the Iran Iraq war."

"Why I've changed my mind on vilification laws" (Amir Butler, The Age, 2004/06/04)
"As someone who once supported their introduction and is a member of one of the minority groups they purport to protect, I can say with some confidence that these laws have served only to undermine the very religious freedoms they intended to protect.":
"The problem is that as long as religions articulate a sense of what is right, they cannot avoid also defining - whether explicitly or implicitly - what is wrong.
If we love God, then it requires us to hate idolatry. If we believe there is such a thing as goodness, then we must also recognise the presence of evil. If we believe our religion is the only way to Heaven, then we must also affirm that all other paths lead to Hell. If we believe our religion is true, then it requires us to believe others are false.
Yet, this is exactly what this law serves to outlaw and curtail: the right of believers of one faith to passionately argue against or warn against the beliefs of another.
It is obvious that criticism of one's religion is likely to offend, but just as Muslims should be entitled to aggressively criticise other faiths, likewise those same faiths should be afforded the right to voice their concerns about Islam.
The idea that such speech - regardless of how wrong-headed or offensive it might appear - must be banned to protect these religious communities is a furphy: discrimination on the basis of religion was already outlawed; incitement to commit violence was already illegal; and slander was already covered by existing legal instruments.
All these anti-vilification laws have achieved is to provide a legalistic weapon by which religious groups can silence their ideological opponents, rather than engaging in debate and discussion." (See also: "The moral decay of Australia" (Peter Costello, The Age, 2004/06/01))

"Iranian Leader: 'The Source of Human Torment and Suffering is Liberal Democracy'; Iranian President: 'The Root of All Terrorist Activity is the Violence of the Superpowers'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 727, 2004/06/04)
"Recently, several high-ranking Iranian leaders, among them Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Muhammad Khatami, expressed views on the achievements of Iran's Islamic Revolution and the legacy of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, and on the relationship between Islam and Western culture and values. ...
In an address to the organizers of the annual ceremony commemorating the 1989 death of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ... stressed the need for instilling Khomeini's doctrine in the coming generations, and said ... "Despite the propaganda [against Khomeini's thought by his opponents], his political thought is appropriate to humanity's primary needs, because the source of all human torment and suffering is the 'liberal democracy' promoted by the West as 'progressive political thought.'
The torment of the Iraqis, of the Palestinians, and even of the Americans are the direct outcome of liberal Western democracy, and this must serve as an important lesson to the rest of the world, [which must] open its eyes and understand that those who call themselves advocates of human rights and democracy are in fact the main supporters of crimes against humanity… ...
Iranian President Muhammad Khatamisaid, 'We condemn all forms of violence, but we must understand that the roots of all terrorist activity lie in the violence of the superpowers…'"

"Saddam's very own party" (Nick Cohen, The New Statesman, from the 2004/06/07 issue)
"...for the first time since the Enlightenment, a section of the left is allied with religious fanaticism and, for the first time since the Hitler-Stalin pact, a section of the left has gone soft on fascism.":
"Just before the war against Iraq I began to receive strange calls from BBC journalists. Would I like information on how the leadership of the anti-war movement had been taken over by the Socialist Workers Party? Maybe, I replied. It was depressing that a totalitarian party was in the saddle, but that's where the SWP always tries to get. Why get excited?
Oh there are lots of reasons, said the BBC hacks. The anti-war movement wasn't a simple repetition of the old story of the politically naive being led by the nose by sly operators. The far left was becoming the far right. It had gone as close to supporting Ba'athist fascism as it dared and had formed a working alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain, which, along with the usual misogyny and homophobia of such organisations, also believed that Muslims who decided that there was no God deserved to die for the crime of free thought. In a few weeks hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, would allow themselves to be organised by the opponents of democracy and modernity and would march through the streets of London without a flicker of self-doubt. Wasn't this a story?
It's a great story, I cried. But why don't you broadcast it?
We can't, said the bitter hacks. Our editors won't let us." (Hat tip: Harry's Place.)

"More like D-Day" (Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/06/04)
"According to a report in The Guardian, "advisers close to Jacques Chirac have let it be known that any reference to Iraq during the 60th anniversary of the Allied invasion of France on Sunday would be ill-advised and unwelcome." Readers of that newspaper were more to the point: "D-Day vs. Iraq war... is Bush comparing himself to Hitler?" asked one. "The only way in which the two would be comparable is if Iraq invaded the USA and overthrew George Bush," wrote another. ...
In other words, if, like the Guardian readers, you think it's outlandish to compare the current war on terror with the past war on fascism, then you must also subscribe to views that are themselves outlandish. It is outlandish for Blix to say he is most worried about global warming when London could tomorrow be the target of a terrorist mega-attack. It is outlandish to suggest that Saddam's regime was anything but an unremitting horror. It is outlandish to say the French deserved their liberation but the Iraqis did not. It is outlandish to argue that Bush went to war for Israel, or for oil, or for Halliburton, or because he was striking a blow for dear-old dad (who anyway was against the war). And it is outlandish to say the US has so dishonored itself with its conduct in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or wherever that it may as well pull up stakes.
Indeed, what's most striking is how completely a generation raised on calling people like Margaret Thatcher and John Ashcroft "fascist" cannot spot a real fascist in plain sight. In Saudi Arabia the other day, al-Qaida terrorists went through housing compounds separating Muslims from non-Muslims and killing the latter. In Iraq, Saddam put his opponents through plastic shredders, alive. Islamists state quite openly their intention to take over Europe and kill four million Americans, half of them children. And then there is their contempt for everything the fashionable Left holds most dear: women's rights, gay rights, minority rights, pluralism, tolerance, freedom, progress, sex, art, music."

"War politics, local politics" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/06/04)
"'By the end of 2005, not one Jew will remain in Gaza.' Thus spake Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Wednesday morning.
Sharon's statement is troubling on many levels. First, the triumphalism: Why is the prime minister of the Jewish state acting as if it is a good thing to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Jews? It sounds like something Yasser Arafat would say. It is unseemly. ...
This week, The New Yorker published a long article by Jeffrey Goldberg on the Israeli settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The gist of the article was, as the prime minister now intimates, that there is a direct correlation between the proximity of peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the speed and scope of the removal of Jews from Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Yet, in spite of Goldberg's best efforts to show this to be the case, the thesis was dispelled by two key voices. First, PLO lawyer, Michael Tarazi explained quite frankly that the notion of viewing the Jewish settlements in the territories as the core of the conflict was based on a misunderstanding of the conflict. In his words, "Stop scapegoating the settlers! I think you're [Goldberg] in denial, I really do. It's very typical. You want to find a reason for why all of this is happening, but you don't look at the practice of Zionism itself." So, from the perspective of the PLO, as from the perspective of the Mufti and the Arab League in the past, the problem is not the size or scope of the Jewish state. It is its very existence." (See also: "PM Sharon´s Confidence Leaves Observers Confused" (Arutz Sheva, 2004/06/02): "Afterwards, he was widely quoted as having said that he is confident he will be able to pass his full withdrawal/expulsion plan in the Cabinet this coming Sunday, and that, 'by the end of 2005, there will be no Jews in Gaza or the northern Shomron.'")

"The Paranoid Style of Journalism" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/06/04)
"From an online chat with Robert G. Kaiser, an associate editor of the Washington Post (quoting verbatim):

Atlanta, Ga.: I do not believe in conspiracy theories, but as of late, things that were once dismissed as laughable, impossible or "unpatriotic" are turning out to be at least partially true e.g. Halliburton's White House ties, intra-agency turf wars, U.S. government knowingly releasing "untruths," etc. My question to you, do you easily dismiss conspiracists or do you at least consider the possibility they may be speaking truths? How does this affect as you as journalist (assuming if affects you at all)?

Robert G. Kaiser: ... To answer your specific questions, I do personally react against theories of vast conspiracies. This is just part of my skeptical makeup, I guess. But I try never to reject the possibility entirely.
So, for example, I do think there was what amounted to a kind of conspiracy to get the U.S. into a war against Iraq, if we define the term as a secretive plot involving a group within the government but excluding many important officials, who bent events and information to their undeclared purpose. Although you'd have to say it was a barely undeclared purpose.

Now, as we recall, the liberation of Iraq was preceded by a lively debate, a congressional vote and a U.N. resolution, the 17th in a series. Kaiser calls this a "secretive plot." What does this tell us about the Post's coverage of Iraq?" (See also: "Instant Analysis: Tenet Resigns" (Robert G. Kaiser, The Washington Post, 2004/06/04))

"North Korea recalls mobile phones" (AFP/The Sydney Morning Herald, 2004/06/04)
"North Korea has recalled mobile phones from its citizens, nearly a year and a half after the service was introduced in the communist country, South Korean media reports say.
A North Korean official attending an inter-Korean economic meeting in Pyongyang confirmed that mobile phones were banned from May 25, according to pool reports. ...
North Koreans were seen using mobile phones last month when the two Koreas held minister-level rapprochment talks, it said.
Experts believe North Korea had introduced the mobile technology to make communications convenient but later realised the device caused floods of foreign culture into the reclusive country, Yonhap said."

"Iraq PM: U.S. Departure Would Be Disaster" (Hamza Hendawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/06/04)
"Iraq's new prime minister made his first address to the nation Friday, saying security was his top priority, calling for an end to guerrilla attacks and telling Iraqis that the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops now would be a "major disaster."
The televised speech by Iyad Allawi — a longtime exile with close ties to the CIA and State Department but with little popular support in Iraq — was the first by an Iraqi head of government since Saddam Hussein fell a year ago. ...
He defended the continued presence of 138,000 U.S. troops and thousands of troops from other nations on Iraqi soil even after the handover of sovereignty.
"The targeting of the multinational forces under the leadership of the United States to force them to leave Iraq would inflict a major disaster on Iraq, especially before the completion of the building of security and military institutions," Allawi said.
"And I would like to mention here that the coalition forces, too, have offered up the blood of their sons as a result of terror attacks," he said. ..
The prime minister thanked the United States, Britain and other coalition nations for their role in ousting the former regime. But he added "Iraqis can never accept occupation."
"We are ready to end the occupation and receive sovereignty on June 30 and our government has begun effective participation in the ongoing discussions in the (U.N.) Security Council to adopt a new resolution regarding the transfer of full sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government," he said."

"The New Defeatism" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/06/04)
"We do have a grave problem in this country, but it is not the plan for Iraq, the neoconservatives, or targeting Saddam. Face it: This present generation of leaders at home would never have made it to Normandy Beach. They would instead have called off the advance to hold hearings on Pearl Harbor, cast around blame for the Japanese internment, sued over the light armor and guns of Sherman tanks, apologized for bombing German civilians, and recalled General Eisenhower to Washington to explain the rough treatment of Axis prisoners.
We are becoming a crazed culture of cheap criticism and pious moralizing, and in our self-absorption may well lose what we inherited from a better generation. ...
These depressing times really are much like the late 1960s, when only a few dared to plead that Hue and Tet were not abject defeats, but rare examples of American courage and skill. But now as then, the louder voice of defeatism smothers all reason, all perspective, all sense of balance — and so the war is not assessed in terms of five years but rather by the last five hours of ignorant punditry. Shame on us all.
Historic forces of the ages are in play. If we can just keep our sanity a while longer, accept our undeniable mistakes, learn from them, and press on, Iraq really will emerge as the constitutional antithesis of Saddam Hussein, and that will be a good and noble thing — impossible without America and its most amazing military."

"Jour J: Were Germans the real victims of Germany?" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2004/06/04)
Boyles on Bush's D-Day visit to Europe: "Why all this angst about something so triumphant? As a report in l'Humanité — the Communist daily that has become a monument to the moral flexibility of the Left by being the only paper in France to have been published before, during, and after the occupation — suggests, for France, that the real war began with the Normandy invasion. It's the battle against American influence.
The French war with America is perhaps the only passive-aggressive war in human history; in the immediate aftermath of Normandy, it was fought with equal and allied fervor by both the Gaullists and the Communists, and it continues now as the animating principle behind French foreign policy and colors the way the French see Americans. It isn't accidental that Michael Moore and Jerry Lewis are France's two favorite American comics. And of course even a casual glance at the front page of Le Monde demonstrates the new moral math of modern Europe at work: Abu Ghraib=Buchenwald. Iraq=Vietnam. Bush=Hitler. Seeing a handful of bad American soldiers as symbols of American culture is the way racists think whenever they see a black gang terrorize a subway train in the south Bronx. In France, it's the way history is written, redacted, and then written again." (See also: "Politicus" (John Vinicus, International Herald Tribune, 2004/06/01))

"Too Much, Too Late: Baby boomers heap insincere praise on the 'greatest generation'" (David Gelernter, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/06/04)
Gelernter on the attitude of American intellectuals in 1939: "Before Pearl Harbor but long after the character of Hitlerism was clear — after the Nuremberg laws, the Kristallnacht pogrom, the establishment of Dachau and the Gestapo — American intellectuals tended to be dead against the U.S. joining Britain's war on Hitler.
Today's students learn (sometimes) about right-wing isolationists like Charles Lindbergh and the America Firsters. They are less likely to read documents like this, which appeared in Partisan Review (the U.S. intelligentsia's No. 1 favorite mag) in fall 1939, signed by John Dewey, William Carlos Williams, Meyer Schapiro and many more of the era's leading lights. "The last war showed only too clearly that we can have no faith in imperialist crusades to bring freedom to any people. Our entry into the war, under the slogan of 'Stop Hitler!' would actually result in the immediate introduction of totalitarianism over here. . . . The American masses can best help [the German people] by fighting at home to keep their own liberties." The intelligentsia acted on its convictions. "By one means or another," Diana Trilling later wrote of this period, "most of the intellectuals of our acquaintance evaded the draft."
Why rake up these Profiles in Disgrace? Because in the Iraq War era they have a painfully familiar ring."

"Iraq History Lesson" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/06/04)
"The panic-mongers had been telling us that all was chaos, that the June 30 date for the handover of power to an interim Iraqi government was approaching with nothing but violence and bickering and no one to hand the reins to.
As of this week, we have an interim Iraqi government, remarkably balanced in terms of ethnicity, region and tribe. Such encouraging developments, however, are apparently not to be permitted to puncture the current defeatism.
A moderate Shiite is appointed prime minister, and the headlines prominently mention that he was supported by the CIA, thus implicitly encouraging the notion that the man is illegitimate.
First of all, from where was an Iraqi exile, hunted by Saddam Hussein, to get help, if not from the CIA and MI6? From France? Germany? Russia? Kofi Annan? George Soros? ...
Yes, Iraq is a mess. Postwar settlements almost invariably are. Particularly in a country where the removal of a totalitarian dictator leaves a total political vacuum. Of course there are difficulties and dangers ahead, and no guarantee of success. But the transition to Iraqi rule is underway. The first critical step has just been taken." (See also: "History tells us that most conflicts end in chaos" (John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/06/01))

Thursday, June 3, 2004

News and commentary:

"Republicans 'Should Be Exterminated'" (Jason Van Steenwyk, Iraq Now, 2004/06/03)
"So says Michael Feingold, writing for The Village Voice, by way of a theatrical review:

Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don't give a hoot about human beings, either can't or won't. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.

You'd think someone with a last name like "Feingold" would be a little more circumspect about calling for anyone's extermination.
Nevertheless, I'm sure he applied journalism's rigorous code of professional ethics, to balance his story, right?" (Hat tip: InstaPundit. See also: "Foreman's Wake-Up Call" (Michael Feingold, The Village Voice, 2004/01/21))

"Spooked?" (Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 2004/06/03)
Tenet II: "But congressional sources said the timing seemed to be influenced by the impending release of a massive Senate Intelligence Committee report that one official described as a “devastating indictment” of the agency’s handling of pre-war intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Another report expected next month from the national commission investigating the September 11 attacks is expected to roundly criticize the agency’s failure to develop sources inside Al Qaeda and piece together evidence — including information in its files on two of the hijackers — that might have helped uncover the plot. ...
The CIA had at first bitterly challenged some of the findings in the still-secret Senate report on Iraqi WMD and insisted that the committee hadn’t heard the full story. But in recent days, sources tell NEWSWEEK, agency officials told congressional investigators that they were resigned to the report’s findings and would no longer contest them. Tenet—who according to Bob Woodward’s recent book, “Plan of Attack,” once called the agency’s case for Saddam’s WMD a “slam dunk"—knew that his leadership of the CIA was about to be strongly criticized. “He didn’t want to go through this,” said one congressional source familiar with the panel’s findings. 'There was nowhere for [agency officials] to go and [Tenet] was in charge of the whole mess.'"

"CIA Director Tenet Resigns" (William Branigin, The Washington Post, 2004/06/03)
Tenet I: "CIA Director George J. Tenet has submitted his resignation and will leave the agency in mid-July, President Bush announced today.
Bush and CIA officials said the resignation was for personal reasons. The CIA officials denied that Tenet quit or was pressured to leave because of criticism of U.S. intelligence over the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or missed clues to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plot.
"He told me he was resigning for personal reasons," Bush said. 'I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people.'"

"Top Shi'ite Cleric Backs New Iraqi Government" (Suleiman al-Khalidi, Reuters, 2004/06/03)
"Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric issued a precious vote of confidence in the new interim government Thursday, urging it to erase the marks of occupation and secure full sovereignty from the United Nations.
As Baghdad's foreign minister prepared to put his case to the U.N. Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell made clear, however, the sovereignty Washington is offering on June 30 will be subject to 138,000 American soldiers having the last word on any actions they deem essential.
New President Ghazi al-Yawar said Iraq must rebuild its own security forces to replace foreign troops and that former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party should be welcomed back for their expertise — at least those innocent of grave crimes."

"Female desire and Islamic trauma" (Daniel Pipes, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/06/03)
An interesting article as always, but with an unusually sloppy opening: "The pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq touched such a nerve in the Muslim world that one analyst said that the rape pictures "would equal a nuclear explosion" if seen in Muslim countries." On the face of it, this seems to implicitly acknowledge that there exists real rape pictures from Abu Ghraib when in fact all alleged "GI rape pictures" are bogus, as Sherrie Gossett has shown in a series of articles for WorldNetDaily:
"Considering the Muslim reputation for archaic customs, it is ironic to note that Islamic civilization not only portrays women as sexually desirous, but it sees them as more passionate than men.
Indeed, this understanding has determined the place of women in traditional Muslim life.
In the Islamic view, men and women both seek intercourse, during which their bodies undergo similar processes, bringing similar pleasures. If Westerners traditionally saw the sexual act as a battleground where the male exerts his supremacy over the female, Muslims saw it as a tender and shared pleasure.
Indeed, Muslims generally believe female desire to be so much greater than the male equivalent that the woman is viewed as the hunter and the man as her passive victim. If believers feel little distress about sex acts as such, they are obsessed with the dangers posed by women. So strong are her needs thought to be, she ends up representing the forces of unreason and disorder.
Women's rampant desires and irresistible attractiveness give them a power over men that even rivals God's. She must be contained, for her unbridled sexuality poses a direct danger to the social order. (Symbolic of this, the Arabic word fitna means both "civil disorder" and "beautiful woman.")
The entire Muslim social structure can be understood as containing female sexuality."

"Saudi Officials Reinforce Crown Prince Abdallah's Accusation that Zionists Are Behind Terror Attacks in Saudi Arabia" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 726, 2004/06/03)
"On May 6, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Abd Al-'Aziz told the Yemenite weekly September 26 that blaming Al-Qa'ida for attacks in Saudi Arabia does not contradict the words of Crown Prince Abdallah that the Zionists are behind these operations, because Israel and Zionism are behind Al-Qa'ida, which is responsible for all attacks in Arab countries." (See also: "Saudi Crown Prince on Yunbu' Attack: 'Zionism Is Behind Terrorist Actions In The Kingdom… I Am 95% Sure Of That'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 706, 2004/05/03))

"Chretien and Kazemi" (Stephan Hachemi, National Post, 2004/06/03)
"To former prime minister Jean Chretien:
Like many Canadians, I recently learned of your coming visit to Iran as a representative of a Calgary-based oil company. It is reported that the purpose of your trip is to conclude a deal with the Iranian government on behalf of this firm.
I write to congratulate you.
Your failure to ensure justice was served in the case of my mother, Zahra Kazemi — who was murdered by the Iranian regime while you were prime minister — has apparently paid off: You are now most welcome in Tehran.
Last June, my mother was arrested without cause by agents of the Iranian government, who then beat and tortured her to death. No doubt, you remember the case and so are well-informed of the systematic violations of human rights that take place in Iran, as well as the circumstances that surround the killing of my mother.
And yet, knowing this, you are off to shake hands with representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the executioners who less than a year ago had my mother murdered.
I can only thank you for doing this now, Mr. Chretien — for you are demonstrating clearly what a charade Canada's fervent defence of human rights is. Despite your speeches about human rights when you were at the head of our government, you are now conferring your personal prestige on Iran's regime, and by extension its crimes against humanity.
Bravo, Mr. Chretien. I knew I could count on you to take the veil off your government's hypocrisy. The politics that you practice now show how your government favours "business as usual" before human rights. Congratulations.
Stephan Hachemi, Montreal." (See also: "Iranian Officials Raped Reporter, Then Killed Her" (Adan Daifallah, New York Sun/IRVAJ, 2003/08/22), "Iran says Kazemi was questioned for 77 hours" (Janice Tibbetts and Clare Demerse, National Post, 2003/07/21), "Canadian journalist 'beaten to death'" (BBC News, 2003/07/16), "Detained Canadian Journalist Dies in Iran" (AP/The Guardian, 2003/07/12) and "Quebec woman in coma after arrest in Iran" (CBC News, 2003/07/09))

"Back from Iraq" (Steve Cartwright & Alice McFadden, The Free Press Online, June 2004 [?])
Lt. Col. Leidinger, a Maine MD, recalls his tour of duty in Iraq:
"But above all, Leidinger worked as a healer, in a tent on the barren base (there was one tree on the base besides a Christmas tree made of coat hangers), performing routine, as well as life-saving, surgery on accident victims, people with shrapnel wounds, as well as men and women with everyday medical problems. He treated US military, Iraqi civilians, Iraqi police, as well as EPWs (enemy prisoners of war).
Calm under stress, Leidinger said it’s necessary “to control your fear.… I knew I could get killed, but I felt why I’m here is to help the people, to try and maybe make a little bit of difference. And ultimately what it’s for is to make a safer world for our kids. So our kids don’t ever have to witness some of the things we’ve seen. Ultimately, that’s what it’s about.”
He believes the war is “absolutely worthwhile,” and that the continuing violence is a result of “the growing pains of a free society.” Adding that “freedom is not free,” Leidinger believes that if the U.S. and its allies can establish a democratic Iraq, it will stabilize the Middle East. ...
Speaking of Hussein, Leidinger barely mentioned the fact that his unit received a citation for “outstanding treatment of and professionalism in” treating Iraqi people badly hurt in a humvee-taxi crash last November 30. The Iraqi families were so grateful for the medical care that, the citation reads, 'they in turn risked their lives to notify coalition forces of Saddam Hussein’s whereabouts. By treating these injured Iraqis with the highest standard of care, you directly contributed to the capture and detainment of the Ace of Spades.'" (Hat tip: Malcolm Smordin.)

"Reality check" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2004/06/05 issue)
"Right now, which would you bet on? That Crown Prince Abdullah, Prince Sultan, Prince Nayef and co’s brilliant strategy of denying that there’s a problem, buying off the terrorists, letting them escape and saying they’re all Zionists will be able to reform their failing state or at least hold the lid on? Or that the current spate of attacks will increase and intensify, driving out Westerners, destabilising the oil markets, undermining the economy and gradually, remorselessly conscripting more and more of the population into al-Qa’eda’s ranks? ...
And, given that it’s the Saudi government that funds all the madrasahs that form the ideological backbone of Islamist terrorism, is there any point in pretending that the House of Saud and al-Qa’eda are on opposite sides rather than twin manifestations of the same problem? The West backs the Saudi regime as a bulwark against local destabilisation, in return for which they underwrite destabilisation of the West across the entire planet. ...
What exactly is ‘realist’ about continuing to back the Frankensaud monster? The present policy is all but certain to wind up delivering the peninsula and its oil into the hands of Osama’s buddies. ... Saudi Arabia can’t be saved, and the more we postpone reaching that conclusion and acting on it, the messier it’s going to be. Whoever you’re backing in November, the quiet life isn’t on the ballot."

"Soros: Abu Ghraib = September 11" (Byron York, National Review, 2004/06/03)
Outrageous Analogies Alert: "Billionaire financier George Soros, the financial power behind a number of anti-Bush movements on the left, today directly compared the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq with the terrorist attacks of September 11.
"The picture of torture in Saddam's prison was a moment of truth for us," Soros said Thursday morning in Washington at a meeting of the liberal activist group Campaign for America's Future.
"I think that those pictures hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself," Soros continued, "not quite with the same force, because in the terrorist attack, we were the victims. In the pictures, we were the perpetrators and others were the victims."
"But there is, I'm afraid, a direct connection between those two events, because the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators."
The audience, made up of left-wing activists from around the country, broke into enthusiastic applause."

"Risky Path for Pacifist Europe" (Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 2004/06/03)
"All we know for sure is that the Great War solved nothing and improved nothing. We know something else as well: The conflict caused the Lost Generation to recoil from war-making altogether. Because one war had been senseless, many concluded that all wars must be senseless. The myopic militarism of the pre-1914 generation produced, in reaction, an equally myopic pacifism among the post-1918 generation that gave free rein to predatory states like Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. The children of 1945, in turn, spurned appeasement and held the line against communism for almost half a century.
Now a new generation is in charge in Europe: the children of 1989. Their political sensibility was shaped by the end of the Cold War. Though they will celebrate the 60th anniversary of D-day on Sunday, World War II — a struggle between good and evil — no longer speaks to them. World War I exemplifies their vision of warfare: cruel and senseless. They do not want to fight alongside the United States, in Iraq or anywhere else; they see nothing worth fighting for.
It is a great mistake they are making, but an understandable one. Walking around the neatly tended graveyards of Verdun or the Somme, it is easy to see why Europeans would want to forget about war. But has war forgotten about them?"

"The Real Roots of Muslim Hatred" (Andrew G. Bostom, Front PageMagazine, 2004/06/03)
The Endless Jihad. Bostom on an "obvious alternative explanation for the etiology and persistence of Muslim animus toward non-Muslims - what Muslim children, for generations, have been taught to think about the infidel "other," regardless of the geopolitical circumstances.":
"Over five decades later, in Tunis, 1888, the following personal account reveals further evidence of the visceral abhorrence and hostility inculcated in Muslim children, specifically, toward non-Muslims:

(The Jew) can be seen to bow down with his whole body to a Muslim child and permit him the traditional privilege of striking him in the face, a gesture that can prove of the gravest consequence. Indeed, the present writer has received such blows. In such matters the offenders act with complete impunity, for this has been the custom from time immemorial.” (Emphasis added.) ...

Vilification of non-Muslims has been intrinsic to the religious education of Muslim children and young adults for centuries, an ignoble (and continuing) tradition that long antedates the modern or even pre-modern Muslim “fundamentalist” revival movements. We must acknowledge this reality and begin to think and act beyond the well-intentioned but limited constructs of even our most respected doyens. Perhaps it would be wise to heed the sober advice of this courageous madrassa dropout and secular Muslim “apostate” Ibn Warraq:

First, we who live in the free West and enjoy freedom of expression and scientific inquiry should encourage a rational look at Islam, should encourage Koranic criticism. Only Koranic criticism can help Muslims to look at their Holy Scripture in a more rational and objective way, and prevent young Muslims from being fanaticized by the Koran’s less tolerant verses… We can encourage rationality by secular education. This will mean the closing of religious madrassas where young children from poor families learn only the Koran by heart, learn the doctrine of Jihad - learn , in short, to be fanatics… ...

Until Warraq’s recommendations are heeded, we can look forward to an endless jihad."

"D-Day: The liberation of Europe has lessons for today's war leaders" (Paul Johnson, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/06/03)
"Geopolitics is like a game of chess: You have to think a dozen moves ahead. This is as true today as in 1944-45. When President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to destroy Saddam Hussein's military power, they took a risk that was abundantly justified both geopolitically and morally. But they paid insufficient attention to the possible political consequences.
Unlike Montgomery in 1944, who never underestimated the German genius for counterattack, and made provision against it, the allies this time did not study and prepare for the peculiar Arab genius for counterattack, which is to carry out prolonged and vicious guerilla warfare, completely disregarding human life, including their own. Moreover they did not study and prepare for the difficulties of meeting this form of counterattack against the political background of a free society at home, reacting nightly to what it sees on TV, and reading highly critical reports from the front written by journalists who have their own opinions and agendas and feel under no obligation to pursue the war (and peace) aims of the allied commanders. Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are currently suffering from their lack of provision and foresight.
Given patience and determination, all will be well in time: Democracy and the rule of law will grow in the Middle East, and the roots of terrorism will be destroyed. But we are learning, once again, that the lessons history has to teach are inexhaustible and that statesmen should never plunge into the future, as we did in Iraq, without first examining what guidance the past could supply."

Added in archive:
"Darfur's agony is world's shame" (Emma Bonino and William Shawcross, Financial Times/williamshawcross.com, 2004/05/20)

Wednesday, June 2, 2004

News and commentary:

"A black bag covers the head of an angel's statue..."
(Max Rossi, Reuters, 2004/06/02)
"A black bag covers the head of an angel's statue during anti-war demonstrations at Republic Day parades in central Rome June 2, 2004."

"Italian Hostages Shown Alive on Arab TV" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/06/02)
"Weeks after their capture, three Italians taken hostage in Iraq were shown in a video broadcast Wednesday in Italy.
Four Italian men working as private guards in Iraq were kidnapped April 12. Soon after, the captors executed one, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, and issued a videotape of his killing.
The latest footage came with a written message from the captors that urged the Italian people to demonstrate against the policies of President Bush and the government of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi. The previous video in April came with a similar demand. ...
One of the hostages, Salvatore Stefio, addressed the camera and stated the date as Monday, May 31.
"This message is directed to the official Italian establishments, the government, the pope, and our families," he said. 'We have been treated excellently until now. We are in excellent condition. We haven't met any problems from the people who are keeping us in this place.'"

"President Bush speaks at Air Force Academy Graduation" (The White House, 2004/06/02)
"In some ways, this struggle we're in is unique. In other ways, it resembles the great clashes of the last century — between those who put their trust in tyrants and those who put their trust in liberty. Our goal, the goal of this generation, is the same: We will secure our nation and defend the peace through the forward march of freedom.
Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless, surprise attack on the United States. We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy.
Like the murderous ideologies of the 20th century, the ideology of terrorism reaches across boarders, and seeks recruits in every country. So we're fighting these enemies wherever they hide across the earth.
Like other totalitarian movements, the terrorists seek to impose a grim vision in which dissent is crushed, and every man and woman must think and live in colorless conformity. So to the oppressed peoples everywhere, we are offering the great alternative of human liberty. ...
Like their kind in the past, these murderers have left scars and suffering. And like their kind in the past, they will flame and fail and suffer defeat by free men and women."

"Besides Normandy, There Is a Second 60th Anniversary… in Iraq" (Erik, ¡No Pasarán!, 2004/06/02)
Speaking of analogies: "I have been having a busy week referencing all the anti-American matter in Le Monde, on the occasion of the coming 60th anniversary of D-Day. One prime example: "Here in France, we do not care too much for the analogy that George W. Bush has been making openly for some time between the fight for freedom in Europe that the Normandy battle was and the current intervention in Iraq."
It's refreshing to learn that the French don't appreciate the analogy. Might it be that there are people, American and otherwise, who do not appreciate the practice that has become a habit in France, to compare Bush to Hitler, to compare the U.S. army to the Nazis, to compare Saddam Hussein's Iraq to 1939 Poland (and no, not because those persons are particularly enamored of Dubya ; no, because they find, from an objective viewpoint, those comparisons ever so slightly exagerrated, self-serving (to those making the comparisons), scornful, and, from a historical point of view, completely false).
In this article, which turns out to be another complete apology for the French government (not a single quote which is not from "a member of Jacques Chirac's inner circle" or from a member of the Paris élite or which is not supposed to show Americans in an ironic light), Claire Tréan asks the following question (while repeating the previous expression so that the wording cannot be mistaken): "Should we have gone so far and offered this platform to Mr. Bush, who does not shrink from making an analogy between the fight for freedom in Europe that the Normandy battle was and the current intervention in Iraq?"
So let there be no doubts. It's without a single shadow of a doubt that the Normandy battle does represent the fight for freedom (no disagreement, there; au contraire) just as much as it is without a single shadow of a doubt that the the current intervention in Iraq does not represent the fight for freedom."

"Press Notes" (David Frum, National Review, 2004/06/02)
Add the Amritsar massacre to Vlad the Impaler, the destruction of Guernica and Gulag on the list of the most idiotic Abu Ghraib analogies made so far. Frum laments the current state of The Spectator:
"It is truly sad to report that in recent months, the magazine seems to have lost both its mind — and its standards.
There are more examples to recount than you have patience to hear, but consider just this one: a recent cover story by the magazine’s political correspondent Peter Oborne.
Oborne acknowledges that he has been driven to choking fury by the Iraq war. Here he is in the May 15 edition: “Today there is no pleasure in being British. We are almost a pariah nation. … We have been collaborators with the Americans in something so gross, murderous, barbaric and obscene that it defies belief.” Oborne suggests that the Abu Ghraib prison abuse story is worse than the Amritsar massacre, when British troops opened fire on an unarmed Sikh political protest, killing 379 people and wounding 1200. That was a mere “blot” on British history in comparison to the horror of forcing Iraqi prisoners to pose nude." (See also: "Blair’s willingness to follow Bush into any torture chamber shames Britain" (Peter Oborne, The Spectator, from the 2004/05/15 issue). Also: "Sorry Spectator" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2004/04/23))

"Arab NGOs: Arab League Summit Declarations are Not for Reform, But for Deceiving Arab Public Opinion and the International Community" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 724, 2004/06/02)
"The London-based pro-Saddam daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi published a joint statement by 34 Arab non-government organizations (NGOs) condemning the declarations issued by the Arab League following its summit in Tunisia on May 22-23, 2004. ... The following is a translation of the NGOs' statement, along with a list of signatories: ...
'[The fact] that the purpose of these rhetorical declarations is not reform, but rather to deceive Arab public opinion and the international community, is emphasized by what happened in some Arab countries when the draft of these reform declarations was being prepared – namely, when the oppression of the political opposition in Syria, and of those who defend human rights, was heightened, at the peak of which came the recent arrest of the Committees for the Defense of Human Rights [in Syria] President Aktham Na'isa, and other activists, and the limiting of the freedom of opinion and expression and the rights of assembly. ...
The summit ignored the wide-ranging killings going on in the Darfour region of the Sudan, and the grave violations of human rights and international law being committed there – which have reached the level of ethnic cleansing – by militias supported by the Sudanese government. [This is being done] in disregard of what was written in the report issued by a fact-finding delegation sent by the Arab League that confirmed serious human rights violations in Darfour by the local Sudanese administration.'" (See also: "International Islamic Conference: Genuine Call for Tolerance or Reiteration of Hollow Slogans?" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 721, 2004/05/24))

"The ambulances-for-terrorists scandal" (Michelle Malkin, WorldNetDaily, 2004/06/02)
"Last week, an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Palestinian gunmen used the UNRWA emergency vehicle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers in Gaza City on May 11. ...
International relief officials are in stubborn denial about the abuse of their emergency vehicles and hospital credentials by terrorists. They claim the videotaped May 11 ambulance-assisted attack was an isolated incident and that the driver was forced to transport the gunmen. But this ambulances-for-terrorists program has been going on for years. And "humanitarian" workers have been willing collaborators.
According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, senior UNRWA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah confessed to using his official U.N. vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives and terrorists to and from attacks. He was in charge of distributing food supplies to Palestinian refugees. Nidal 'Abd al-Fataah 'Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist, worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and admitted he had used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists." (See also: "Terrorists' use of UN ambulances" (Backspin, 2004/05/27))

"Chalabi Reportedly Told Iran That U.S. Had Code" (James Risen and David Johnston, The New York Times, 2004/06/02)
"Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration, disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran's intelligence service, betraying one of Washington's most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials. ...
American officials said that about six weeks ago, Mr. Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security that the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service, one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East.
According to American officials, the Iranian official in Baghdad, possibly not believing Mr. Chalabi's account, sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, using the broken code. That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off American officials to the fact that Mr. Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the American officials said."

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

News and commentary:

"The Neoconservative Moment" (Francis Fukuyama, The National Interest/AIB, 2004/06/01)
A critique of Charles Krauthammer's "Democratic Realism": "Reading Krauthammer, one gets the impression that the Iraq War-the archetypical application of American unipolarity-had been an unqualified success, with all of the assumptions and expectations on which the war had been based fully vindicated. There is not the slightest nod towards the new empirical facts that have emerged in the last year or so: the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the virulent and steadily mounting anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East, the growing insurgency in Iraq, the fact that no strong democratic leadership had emerged there, the enormous financial and growing human cost of the war, the failure to leverage the war to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front, and the fact that America's fellow democratic allies had by and large failed to fall in line and legitimate American actions ex post.
The failure to step up to these facts is dangerous precisely to the neo- neoconservative position that Krauthammer has been seeking to define and justify. As the war in Iraq turns from triumphant liberation to grinding insurgency, other voices-either traditional realists like Brent Scowcroft, nationalist-isolationists like Patrick Buchanan, or liberal internationalists like John Kerry-will step forward as authoritative voices and will have far more influence in defining American post-Iraq War foreign policy. The poorly executed nation-building strategy in Iraq will poison the well for future such exercises, undercutting domestic political support for a generous and visionary internationalism, just as Vietnam did." (See also: "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World" (Charles Krauthammer, AEI, 2004/02/12))

"President Bush Discusses the Iraqi Interim Government" (The White House, 2004/06/01)
"Today in Baghdad, U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, announced the members of Iraq's new interim government. Consulting with hundreds of Iraqis from a variety of backgrounds, Mr. Brahimi has recommended a team that possesses the talent, commitment and resolve to guide Iraq through the challenges that lie ahead.
On June 30th, this interim government will assume full sovereignty and will oversee all ministries and all functions of the Iraqi state. Those ministries will report to Prime Minister Allawi, who will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of Iraq's interim government. Dr. Allawi is a strong leader. He endured exile for decades and survived assassination attempts by Saddam's regime. He was trained as a physician, has worked as a businessman and has always been an Iraqi patriot. ...
The new 33-member cabinet announced today reflects new leadership, drawn from a broad cross section of Iraqis. Five are regional officials, six are women, and the vast majority of government ministries will have new ministers. The foremost tasks of this new interim government will be to prepare Iraq for a national election no later than January of next year, and to work with our coalition to provide the security that will make that election possible. That election will choose a transitional national assembly, the first freely elected, truly representative national governing body in Iraq's history."