Archived news and commentary: July 12 - 18, 2004

2004/09/27 - 2004/10/03
2004/09/20 - 2004/09/26
2004/09/13 - 2004/09/19
2004/09/06 - 2004/09/12
2004/08/30 - 2004/09/05
2004/08/23 - 2004/08/29
2004/08/16 - 2004/08/22
2004/08/09 - 2004/08/15
2004/08/02 - 2004/08/08
2004/07/26 - 2004/08/01
2004/07/19 - 2004/07/25
2004/07/12 - 2004/07/18
2004/07/05 - 2004/07/11
2004/06/28 - 2004/07/04

Sunday, July 18, 2004

News and commentary:

"Special: Dan Gillerman's UN speech" (The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/18)
The full text of Dan Gillerman's speech at the UN General Assembly on Friday 16 July 2004:
"For years, if not decades, this Assembly has entertained the Palestinian representative's attempts to manufacture a virtual reality. An alternate world in which there is but one victim and one villain, in which there are Palestinian rights but no Palestinian responsibilities, in which there are Israeli responsibilities but no Israeli rights.
This persistent campaign has contributed little to the credibility of the United Nations, and nothing to the cause of peace. It has pushed the parties further apart. With each successive partisan initiative we are left to wonder how can the United Nations contribute to the welfare of both peoples, if it sees the suffering of only one?
Last December, despite the reservations of many States, including the members of the Quartet, the International Court of Justice was dragged into that virtual reality. To add the ICJ to the list of United Nations organs harnessed to this one-sided agenda, a grotesquely distorted question was devised that placed the response to terrorism on trial, but ignored the terrorism itself. The hope was to create so perverted a process that the Court would be compelled to ignore the suffering of innocent Israelis from terrorism, and the obligations of the Palestinian side to prevent it. Last Friday, sadly, that hope was realized." (See also: "Palestinians Seek Support on Wall Issue" (Edith M. Lederer, AP/The Guardian, 2004/07/16))

"Was it legitimate?" (Omar, Iraq the Model, 2004/07/18)
"You cannot tell a man that saving him and his family from torture, humiliation and death was a mistake and it should’ve not been done because it’s illegal. This is almost an insult to Iraqis to hear someone saying that this war was illegal. It means that our suffering for decades meant nothing and that formalities and the stupid rules of the UN (that rarely function) are more important than the lives of 25 million people."

"French Jews 'must move to Israel'" (BBC News, 2004/07/18)
"Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has urged all French Jews to move to Israel immediately to escape anti-Semitism.
He told a meeting of the American Jewish Association in Jerusalem that Jews around the world should relocate to Israel as early as possible.
But for those living in France, he added, moving was a "must" because of rising violence against Jews there.
France's foreign ministry said it had asked Israel for an explanation of the 'unacceptable comments.'"

"Gunmen Burn Palestinian Offices in Gaza" (Lara Sukhtian, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/18)
"Militants sacked and burned Palestinian government offices Sunday, the latest sign of growing anger over Yasser Arafat's decision to reach into his old guard and choose a loyalist relative as new security chief. ...
The divide between the two sides grew with the appointment of Moussa Arafat, Arafat's cousin, as the new head of Palestinian security. Many Palestinians rejected Moussa as a symbol of corruption and cronyism, propelling long-held dissatisfaction into the open. ...
Protesting the appointment, militants broke into a building of the Palestinian Authority in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis early Sunday and burned two offices. A security guard was wounded in a gunfight.
Hundreds of Palestinians, many of them carrying assault rifles, demonstrated in Gaza's streets against Moussa Arafat."

"Tehran admits 9/11 hijackers were in Iran" (Ali Akbar Dareini, AP/Toronto Star, 2004/07/18)
"Iran said today some Al Qaeda operatives blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States may have illegally passed through Iran from Afghanistan months before the terror strike, but Tehran dismissed as "fabrications" U.S. reports that Iran may have helped in the assault.
"It's normal that five or six people may have crossed the border within a couple of months without our knowledge. ... Our borders are long and it's not possible to fully control them," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
Asefi was responding to a September 11 Commission report, expected out Thursday, that says Iran may have facilitated the 2001 attacks in the United States by providing eight to 10 Al Qaeda hijackers with safe passage to and from terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
"Even more people may (illegally) cross the border between Mexico and the United States," he said."

"Al-Qaeda 'dismantled' in Iran" (BBC News, 2004/07/18)
"Iran says it has located and dismantled all branches of the al-Qaeda network in the country.
Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said his ministry had stopped al-Qaeda's terrorist acts, state TV reported.
However, the broadcast gave no details of the operation and did not say how many people had been detained."

"Iraq's New S. O. B." (Babak Dehghanpisheh and Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, from the 2004/07/26 issue)
"Baghdad's streets are as mean as any in the world, and since Ayad Allawi took office, the stories people tell in them are even meaner. Soon after he became prime minister of the interim government last month, many Iraqis whisper, he ordered two suspected insurgents shot in front of him. Or, goes another account, he shot seven captive terrorists himself, one after another. Or he personally chopped off the hand of a suspect with an ax. ...
The Australian newspaper The Age reported last week that two anonymous witnesses saw Allawi shoot seven suspected insurgents as his American bodyguards looked on. Asked by NEWSWEEK if he had killed anyone since taking office, Allawi chuckled and said, "This is a big lie, this is not true, I deny it categorically, No. 1. No. 2, we will spare no effort to secure our people."
After 15 months of chaos, Iraqis are desperate for someone who will impose order. Allawi knows that, and plays on it." (See also: "Rumours Repeated" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/07/17))

"9/11: The Iran Factor" (Michael Isikoff and Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, from the 2004/07/26 issue)
"U.S. intelligence believes that in faraway Tehran, the hard-line Islamist clerics who now exercise near total control over Iran directed their border guards to help jihadists coming from Afghanistan. And sometime between October 2000 and February 2001, according to the forthcoming final report of the 9-11 Commission, eight to 10 of the "muscle" hijackers of the September 11 plot were among those who benefited from this Iranian good-fellowship. ...
According to a December 2001 memo buried in the files of the National Security Agency, obtained by the commission, Iranian officials instructed their border inspectors not to place Iranian or Afghan stamps in the passports of Saudi terrorists traveling from Osama bin Laden's training camps through Iran. Such "clean" passports undoubtedly helped the 9/11 terrorists pass into the United States without raising alarms among U.S. Customs and visa officials, sources familiar with the report told NEWSWEEK.
The 9-11 Commission report emphasizes there is no evidence suggesting that Iranian officials had advance knowledge of the September 11 plot. Still, the report raises new, sharper questions about whether the Bush administration was focused on the right enemy when it decided to remove Saddam Hussein. The NSA memo adds to a large accumulation of intelligence indicating that Iran has had more suspicious ties to Al Qaeda than Iraq did. Among those who once had a base in Iran: Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, allegedly the No. 1 terrorist in Iraq today. Meanwhile the commission found there was no "collaborative, operational" relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda." (See also: "9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran" (Adam Zagorin and Joe Klein, TIME, 2004/07/16))

"The Tories must confront Islam instead of kowtowing to it" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/18)
"This is because Islam is not, or not only, a religion. According to the Hadith and the Koran, where we find the messages Allah wishes Mohammed to convey to mankind, Islam is a supranational army and state. It is the only state to which Muslims may bear allegiance, and its purpose is to bring all men under its political sway.
A famous "moderate", Dr Zaki Badawi, the Egyptian director of the Muslim College in Ealing, has written: "Islam endeavours to expand in Britain . . . It hopes that one day the whole of mankind will be one Muslim community, the Umma."
In 1999, the Vatican hosted a conference of Muslim and Christian leaders, attended by the Titular Archbishop of Smyrna. He reports that a Muslim participant was disarmingly frank about the purpose of Islamic settlers in pluralistic Western societies. Addressing the Christian delegates from Europe, he allegedly said: "Because of our religion, we will invade you; because of your democracy, we will destroy you."
There were 23,000 Muslims in Britain in 1954. Today there are 100 times that many. In the next 50 years those 2.3 million Muslims will increase at an even swifter rate. The political implications of such an expansion are vast. The Muslim's kingdom is very much of this world. Our kingdom will therefore be very much of the Muslim's world." (See also: "We must be allowed to criticise Islam" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/11) and "Dr Williams, beware of false prophets" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/04))

"How a serial liar suckered Dems and the media" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004/07/18)
"Well, the week went pretty much as I predicted seven days ago:
BUSH LIED!! Not.
BLAIR LIED!!! Not.
But it turns out JOE WILSON LIED! PEOPLE DIED. Of embarrassment mostly. At least I'm assuming that's why the New York Times, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, PBS drone Bill Moyers and all the other media bigwigs Joseph C. Wilson IV suckered have fallen silent on the subject of the white knight of integrity they've previously given the hold-the-front-page treatment, too. ...
The obvious explanation for Wilson's deceit about what he found in Africa is that his hatred of Bush outweighed everything else. Or as the novelist and Internet maestro Roger L. Simon put it, "He is a deeply evil human being willing to lie and obfuscate for temporary political gain about a homicidal dictator's search for weapons-grade uranium." ...
Either he's profoundly wicked or he's as deranged as that woman on the Paris Metro last week who falsely claimed to have been the victim of an anti-Semitic attack. The Paris crazy was unmasked within a few days, but the Niger crazy was lionized for a full year."

"No, I am not 'devastated' by Butler" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2004/07/18)
"So, in his post-Butler swipe at his unworthy successors, Lord Hurd called for Blair to resign, arguing that the world now was a more dangerous place than in March 2003, the Muslims were seething, and that 'after yesterday, I do not see how anyone who cares for the good name of this country can support a party that he leads'. ...
Douglas Hurd, it is true, operated in a very different way as Foreign Secretary. Look at what happened on his watch. On 25 April 1994, day 20 of the Rwandan slaughter, with 144,000 dead and 600,000 to die, Hurd was asked: 'When will the government put pressure on the United Nations to bring back its troops to prevent further slaughter?' He replied: 'I am not sure how maintaining a United Nations force on the original scale will help assuage those horrors ... There is no magic in keeping troops there if there is nothing useful that they can do.' ...
Then there was Bosnia. Over three years, as one author puts it, 'a European country was destroyed. Tens of thousands of its inhabitants were murdered.' Western inaction, sculpted into a strategy of arms embargoes and humanitarian lorry runs by Hurd in particular, caused fury in the Muslim world. One Arab journalist wrote: 'Diplomats and ambassadors amicably explaining Western actions will be talking to the deaf. Only when blood flows in their own cities and bodies are strewn in their own streets will they really understand.' ...
After Rwanda and Bosnia, however, there were no Huttons, no Butlers to scrutinise such massive foreign policy failures, and no one suggested that Hurd should visit the graves of those who died as a consequence of his studied inaction. Which is just as well, because there are too many of them."

"Despite Appeals, Chaos Still Stalks the Sudanese" (Marc Lacey, The New York Times, 2004/07/18)
"Days after the American secretary of state and the United Nations secretary general ended their tour, witnesses said, gunmen stormed a girls' school in the desert region of Darfur, chained a group of students together and set the building on fire. The charred remains of eight girls were still in shackles when military observers from the African Union arrived on the scene.
That is a gruesome reminder of the kind of violence that the Sudan government has promised to stop by reining in the Janjaweed militias that it once encouraged when the government's focus was on quelling a civil war that swept Darfur. But since the visits, killing and raping continues, and health conditions are more dangerous."

"Palestinian Premier Offers to Resign" (Joseph Berger and Greg Myre, The New York Times, 2004/07/18)
"The Palestinian leadership was embroiled in a crisis on Saturday when the prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, submitted his resignation, citing the government's inability to enforce security, and the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, rejected his move. ...
Mr. Arafat also appointed a new police chief for Gaza, Saeb al-Ajez, to replace the one who had been embarrassed by his own kidnapping. A spokesman for the kidnappers, the Jenin Martyrs Brigade, said the group was delighted with the change.
Mr. Arafat also appointed his cousin, Mousa Arafat, as the head of public security in Gaza. The move sparked a protest in Gaza City on Saturday night, with demonstrators saying that the move did not amount to reform, and that Mousa Arafat would not bring changes to the way the security forces were run."

Saturday, July 17, 2004

News and commentary:

"Rumours Repeated" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/07/17)
Zeyad at Healing Iraq reported on July 1:

Another widespread and preposterous rumour is that Ayad Allawi has been showing up at IP stations and executing criminals himself, and I have heard this one from a very large number of people.

This rumour has now reached the Sydney Morning Herald’s Paul McGeough:

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs.
They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death".

The ABC has more: ...

Dr Allawi's office has denied the claims.
A written statement to Mr McGeough says that Dr Allawi has not visited the prison and does not carry a gun.
But Mr McGeough stands by his claims.
He says he cannot name the witnesses, but describes what the two Iraqis allege they saw.

Strong enough for a major SMH piece." (See also: "Allawi shot prisoners in cold blood: witnesses" (Paul McGeough, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2004/07/17) and "Iraqi PM shot inmates: reports" (ABC News, 2004/07/17))

"Al-Qaida group threatens attacks against Italy" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/17)
"A statement purportedly written by an al-Qaida-linked group threatened to launch attacks on Italian soil if Premier Silvio Berlusconi remains in office, warning that the Italian leader "is dragging you into more blood."
The statement, signed by the Brigades of Abu Hafs al-Masri and posted Friday on an Internet site known for carrying extremist Islamic content, follows the expiration of a three-month offer of a terrorism truce purportedly made by Osama bin Laden to European states, including Italy.
"Either you get rid of the inefficient Berlusconi, or we will really burn Italy," the undated statement said, adding, "Berlusconi is dragging you into more blood plus absolute slavery to America." ...
"We are in Italy, and not one of you is safe so long as you refuse our sheik's (bin Laden's) offer (for a truce)," said the statement, which appeared in Italian and Arabic.
"We will turn his promise into reality. A bloodbath similar to Sept. 11 awaits you," the statement said. 'We are able to aim at qualitative targets with unconventional weapons that will cause a grand catastrophe.'"

"Chaos in Gaza as French Hostages Seized, Then Freed" (Cynthia Johnson, Reuters, 2004/07/17)
Gaza III: "The Palestinian Authority declared a state of emergency in Gaza Saturday as a sense of growing anarchy gripped the tiny territory following the kidnapping of four French aid workers and two Palestinian officials. ...
The four French nationals, seized by Palestinian gunmen demanding sweeping reforms President Yasser Arafat has resisted, were freed unharmed, as was Gaza police chief Ghazi al-Jabali, who was abducted in a separate incident on Friday. ...
The four French nationals were abducted while drinking coffee in a restaurant in the town of Khan Younis on Friday. They were taken to the local Red Crescent building, where militants fired from windows to ward off police.
The gunmen said they would let the hostages go only if Arafat met their demands — rooting out corruption, implementing major political reforms and easing the hardships of the poor.
But after a few tense hours, the gunmen first released the two women hostages and then freed the two men.
Abu Qusai, leader of the hostage takers, said the peaceful end to the four-hour drama was due to intervention by Arafat, U.N. officials and French diplomats."

"The Missing Link: What the Senate report really says about Iraq and al Qaeda" (Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/07/26 issue)
"We are left, then, with the following scenario. Before the Iraq war, the U.S. intelligence community reported that from 1996 to 2003 the Iraqi Intelligence service had focused its terrorist activity on Western interests, including the United States; "throughout 2002, the IIS was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests"; Saddam Hussein was open "to enhancing bin Laden's operational capability" and may have provided training to al Qaeda; bin Laden had made direct and specific requests for Iraqi assistance; al Qaeda had demonstrated an "enduring interest" in WMD expertise from Iraq; the Iraqi regime "certainly" knew that al Qaeda agents were operating in Baghdad and northern Iraq; and Saddam Hussein had made a "standing offer" to Osama bin Laden for safe haven in Iraq."

"Jesus and Jihad" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2004/07/17)
"If the latest in the "Left Behind" series of evangelical thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into everlasting fire:
"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."
These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. The latest is "Glorious Appearing," which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from the planet. It's disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of piety. ...
As my Times colleague David Kirkpatrick noted in an article, this portrayal of a bloody Second Coming reflects a shift in American portrayals of Jesus, from a gentle Mister Rogers figure to a martial messiah presiding over a sea of blood. Militant Christianity rises to confront Militant Islam." (See also: "Why Jesus Is Becoming More Macho" (David Kirkpatrick, The New York Times/HNN, 2004/04/04): "But some scholars who study religion say that the phenomenal popularity of their "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic thrillers - now the best-selling adult novels in the United States - are part of a shift in American culture's image of Jesus. The gentle, pacifist Jesus of the Crucifixion is sharing the spotlight with a more muscular warrior Jesus of the Second Coming, the Lamb making way for the Lion.")

Friday, July 16, 2004

News and commentary:

"The Fence, With English" (Steve North, The Jewish Week, 2004/07/16)
North tours the security fence together with two British journalists — "Harriet, a foreign editor of the influential UK publication The Guardian, and Martin, a correspondent for the Times of London":
"As our tour concluded, I asked some questions of my own.
“It seems to me that most of the British coverage I’ve seen of this story is inordinately focused on the inconveniences suffered by the Palestinians due to this fence, as opposed to the Israeli lives it is apparently saving. Why might that be?” I wondered.
After heated denials by both journalists, Martin said, “I could turn the question around. Why is there no coverage in America given to the root causes of terrorism? We try to understand why Palestinian people feel driven to take such extreme measures as suicide bombings. I understand why Israel is building a wall to stop terror, but terrorists only flourish if they have grievances to exploit.”
“Grievances? You know, I’m from New York,” I said. “Should I try to understand the grievances of the terrorists who flew into the World Trade Center?”
“Well, yes,” answered Martin. “I think bin Laden tapped into grievances.”
Harriet chimed in, 'Do you think they just did it for fun? They have reasons.'"

"Terror in the Skies III" (Michelle Malkin, michellemalkin.com, 2004/07/16)
Skies IV: "Just got off the phone with Annie Jacobsen. She has been writing business reports and articles for WomensWallStreet.com and print magazines for the past two years. Recounting the flight, she told me "My legs were like rubber...It was four and a half hours of terror." She is working on a follow-up story for WomensWallStreet.com on Monday and will appear on NBC Nightly News Monday night. I asked how she felt about suspicions that her story had been a hoax. She hadn't heard of these suspicions and instead has been hearing overwhelming corroboration of her experience in thousands of e-mails, many from pilots and flight attendants reporting similar incidents.
She has been shocked that 'for whatever reason, the story didn't develop" in the mainstream media.'"

"A group of masked gunmen..."
(APTN, 2004/07/16)
"A group of masked gunmen appear atop the steps at the front of the Red Crescent Society headquarters building in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, late Friday July 16, 2004, where five French citizens are believed to be held captive. Five French citizens, including two women, were kidnapped by Palestinian gunmen late Friday as they drank coffee in Khan Youonis, and according to witnesses the five were taken to this Red Crescent building."

"Five French citizens kidnapped in Gaza" (Ibrahim Barzak, AP/Salon.com, 2004/07/16)
Gaza II: "Five French citizens were kidnapped by Palestinian gunmen late Friday in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said, the third abduction in the territory in less than 10 hours.
The officials said the two women and three men were abducted by gunmen as they drank coffee in the southern town of Khan Younis.
Witnesses said the five were taken to the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the center of the town and the building was surrounded by about 25 armed men.
Earlier Friday, Col. Khaled Abu Aloula, director of military coordination in the southern part of the territory was taken from his car as he returned to Gaza City from Khan Younis.
Palestinian security officials said the kidnappers were Palestinian policemen who had recently been fired from their jobs. The officials said that earlier in the day Aloula had refused their request to help reinstate them."

"Gunmen release Gaza police chief" (BBC News, 2004/07/16)
Gaza I: "The Palestinian police chief in Gaza Strip has been released after being abducted by gunmen south of Gaza City.
Witnesses said Ghazi Jabali was travelling in a motorcade on the coastal road when gunmen opened fire and kidnapped him.
Mr Jabali was taken to the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, where he was held for several hours.
He was freed after negotiations between Palestinian officials and the Jenin Martyrs' Brigades group holding him.
Mr Jabali was reportedly held in a house in the refugee camp, where armed and masked militants were said to have manned surrounding rooftops.
A delegation from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction went to the camp to negotiate his release."

"Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations..."
(Mark Garten, AP, 2004/07/16)
"Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations in NewYork, Friday, July 16, 2004, Orlando Requeijo Gual, addresses the United Nations General Assembly during an emergency session on Israel's actions in the occupied Palestinian Territories."

"Palestinians Seek Support on Wall Issue" (Edith M. Lederer, AP/The Guardian, 2004/07/16)
"Palestinians called on the United Nations on Friday to impose sanctions against Israel if refuses to accept a world court opinion and tear down its West Bank security barrier. ...
The Palestinian draft says that in case of Israeli "noncompliance," the General Assembly would reconvene "to consider further actions to bring to an end the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall."
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman countered that the court's ruling was "a dark day for the International Court of Justice and a dark day for the United Nations" because the advisory opinion ignored Palestinian terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis that forced construction of the barrier.
"We are not impressed by lectures from Palestinian representatives about respect for the rule of law'' when they are supporting "a brutal campaign of terrorism which violates every basic legal norm," he said." (See also: "Palestinians seek UN help against barrier" (Irwin Arieff, Reuters, 2004/07/17): But Israel ridiculed Palestinian leaders over the fact that gunmen had just abducted the Gaza Strip police chief. "They should not lecture anyone about the rule of law or accuse others of being outlaws. We have indeed reached the point where the inmates are running the asylum," Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman told assembly delegates.")

"9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran" (Adam Zagorin and Joe Klein, TIME, 2004/07/16)
"A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers — passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards — in some cases not to put stamps in the passports of al-Qaeda personnel — and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks."

"'Terror in the Skies, Again' — But Is It True?" (Tom Veal, Stromata Blog, 2004/07/16)
Skies III: "Before drawing conclusions, however, I should like to enter a caveat. Elements of Mrs. Jacobsen's story do not have the ring of truth. That doesn't mean that they are necessarily false; real life does not have to be probable. On the other hand, hoaxes, exaggerations and misunderstandings do occur. Here are points that need, I believe, further explication:
First, despite all of the suspicious activity, nothing dangerous occurred. Mrs. Jacobsen suggests that the 14-man group that she observed was rehearsing a future action, such as the in-flight construction of a bomb, but their reported movements — successive visits to the lavatories, ignoring "fasten seat belt" signs and congregating in the aisles — scarcely fit that or any other hypothesis. It doesn't take fourteen operatives to smuggle bomb parts on board an airplane, and calling attention to themselves in the obvious way that these men allegedly did would truly be a 'stupid terrorist trick.'"

"Terror in the Skies (Continues)" (Michelle Malkin, michellemalkin.com, 2004/07/16)
Skies II: "Regarding Annie Jacobsen's intriguing article, I just got word from Dave Adams of the Federal Air Marshals Service (FAM). Adams confirmed that he spoke to Annie Jacobsen, was quoted accurately in her story, and confirmed some of the basic facts outlined in her article (there were 14 Syrians on the flight; they were questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department, FBI, FAM, and so on; they were a musical band)."

"Terror in the Skies, Again?" (Annie Jacobsen, WomensWallStreet, 2004/07/16)
Skies I. Via Best of the Web Today. A chilling account of a flight where a group of 14 men, flying on Syrian passports, conducted "what appeared to be a "dry run" for a plan to build a bomb in flight - a terror scenario about which the FBI has warned":
"So here's my question: Since the FBI issued a warning to the airline industry to be wary of groups of five men on a plane who might be trying to build bombs in the bathroom, shouldn't a group of 14 Middle Eastern men be screened before boarding a flight?
Apparently not. Due to our rules against discrimination, it can't be done. During the 9/11 hearings last April, 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman stated that "...it was the policy (before 9/11) and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory."
So even if Northwest Airlines searched two of the men on board my Northwest flight, they couldn't search the other 12 because they would have already filled a government-imposed quota. ...
There were 14 Syrians on NWA flight #327. They were questioned at length by FAM, the FBI and the TSA upon landing in Los Angeles. The 14 Syrians had been hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert. Adams said they were scrubbed. None had arrest records (in America, I presume), none showed up on the FBI's no fly list or the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List. The men checked out and they were let go." (See also: "Terrorist bid to build bombs in mid-flight" (Jason Burke, The Observer, 2004/02/08))

"Information warfare 101" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/16)
"At the beginning of the month, Agence France Presse photographer Mohammed Abed took a picture of two Palestinian terrorists in ski caps assembling a bomb in Rafah refugee camp. The photograph was shot from a distance of less than a meter. How was he allowed to get so close? In Iraq there have been several instances of reporters arriving at the scene of terror attacks against coalition forces before the attacks take place. They have admitted that they were tipped off by the terrorists in order to enable them to take real time footage of dying Americans....
All the above vignettes point to the fact that the ability to harness the media and to control the images of the war is one of the chief components of the terrorist war doctrine. The enemy hides behind press credentials in order to gain operational cover. It stage-manages terrorist theater by giving "scoops" of attacks to fellow travelers with cameras, tape recorders and notepads. It reenacts battlefield defeats as victories before the cameras. It uses its video footage of its own atrocities to both frighten its foes and encourage its sympathizers.
In the strategic use of the media to advance their war aims, the terrorists are assisted by Western press agencies. "Reporters" from Al Manar, Al Jazeera, Hamas and Al Qaida websites and other propaganda organs are viewed as "colleagues" rather than agents of jihad and participants in the war. ...
Getting the story out is now of equal if not greater importance than defeating enemy forces in any particular engagement. Because without the story, the battlefield victory will eventually become a strategic defeat." (See also: "Palestinian guerilla fighters prepare a homemade bomb..." (Mohammed Abed, AFP, 2004/07/01))

"History’s Verdict: The summers of 1944 and 2004" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/07/16)
"But if in our war we look at the larger picture, we likewise come away with a different verdict from the one those details might lead us to. For all our Normandy-like mistakes, we are left with one truth that won't go away: A fascist, terrorist government is gone and something better is in its place, with a chance that it just might help alter the landscape of the region. ...
As far as the war itself, we removed Saddam from power in three weeks under impossible conditions of driving nearly 400 miles from a single small front without tactical surprise. We have paid a steep price for the reconstruction — perhaps 900 combat dead, tragically. Yet due to our soldiers' courage and sacrifice, after little more than a year there is the beginning of the first consensual government in the Arab Middle East, and elections are slated on a schedule far ahead of our efforts after World War II. Just as the liberation of France and the final defeat in Germany overshadowed the horror and stupidity of the war on the ground in 1944, so too, when all is said and done, the fact of a free Iraq — not the hysteria about Abu Ghraib, Joe Wilson, or Richard Clarke — will remain."

"French Schools - Islamist Lessons" (Stephen Brown, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/07/16)
"'Show up in the clothes you choose to wear.'
In a direct challenge to the French government, that is the advice one prominent Muslim group in France is giving to young Muslim girls concerning the law, passed last March, prohibiting the wearing of any religious garb in French public schools.
In a letter "to the Muslims of France", the Union of Islamic Organizations of France, is promising to support Muslim female students legally and educationally in case of expulsion, if they show up back at school this September wearing their banned head scarves. In a case that became famous worldwide, two Turkish girls attending a French public school were expelled last June for refusing to remove their scarves, causing a furor in France on both sides of the religious argument.
For its part, the UIOF is made up of about 200 Muslim associations and is described as being one of the principal pillars of the French Council of the Muslim Religion, the national Muslim umbrella organization for France. By its uncompromising stance, the UIOF is directly challenging the French government's commitment to keep French public schools secular. ...
But the furor over the wearing of religious dress in public schools may be the least of the French education establishment's problems, according to a recently published report. Compiled by the Inspection General for National Education, the report describes an alarming trend in French schools and neighborhoods that is "rapid and recent", and which will lead to "Islamisation in a few years" of entire areas. This disturbing development, the report points out, is not just occurring in the Muslim ghettos, the 'banlieues', surrounding French cities, but in the France's rural towns as well."

"Travesty at The Hague" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/07/16)
"Among various principles invoked by the International Court of Justice in its highly publicized decision on Israel's security fence is this one: It is a violation of international law for Jews to be living in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. If this sounds absurd to you — Jews have been inhabiting the Old City of Jerusalem since it became their capital 3,000 years ago — it is. And it shows the lengths to which the United Nations and its associate institutions, including this kangaroo court, will go to condemn Israel. ...
Israel will rightly ignore the decision. The United States, acting honorably in a world of utter dishonor regarding Israel, will support that position. It must be noted that one of the signatories of this attempt to force Israel to tear down its most effective means of preventing the slaughter of innocent Jews was the judge from Germany. The work continues."

"Philippines to begin Iraq withdrawal" (BBC News, 2004/07/16)
Pullout IV: "The Philippines government says the commander of the country's military force in Iraq will leave the country on Friday, along with 10 other members.
Foreign Secretary Delia Albert said the remainder of the 51-strong contingent would be withdrawn "shortly".
The move is part of efforts to secure the release of a Filipino hostage.
Angelo de la Cruz is being held in Iraq by militants who have threatened to behead him if Philippine troops do not leave by the end of this month.
On Thursday, the hostage was shown in a videotape broadcast on Arabic television station al-Jazeera, in an apparent attempt to show that he was alive."

Thursday, July 15, 2004

News and commentary:

"TV code calls for 'bias' warnings" (Tom Leonard, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/07/15)
First the proposed law against "religious hatred" and now this: "Foreign news channels such as Rupert Murdoch's Fox News may be made to carry on-screen "health warnings" under proposed new guidelines published yesterday covering accuracy and impartiality on television.
The broadcasting regulator Ofcom is to ask broadcasters and viewers for their opinion on the idea, which it said was a response to complaints about coverage of the Iraq war.
The requirement would compel foreign news channels to carry labelling to alert viewers that their content was originally intended for viewers in other countries. The foreign broadcasters would still have to comply with Ofcom's rules on accuracy and impartiality." (Hat tip: Denis Boyles. See also: "Hating America" (Bruce Bawer, The Hudson Review, from the Spring 2004 issue): "During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the only time I saw pro-war arguments fairly represented in the Scandinavian media was on an episode of “Oprah” that aired on Sweden’s TV4. Not surprisingly, a Swedish government agency later censured TV4 on the grounds that the program had violated media-balance guidelines.")

"African leaders play the fiddle while Sudan burns" (Patrick Van Rensberg, Mmegi, 2004/07/15)
"The situation cannot be defined as genocide." An analysis of the Darfur crises from a Botswanian newspaper, found via InstaPundit: "The African Union took note of the crisis only last week, and refrained from describing the massacres that took place as “genocide” or as “racist”, according to press reports.
“Though the crisis in Darfur is grave, with unacceptable levels of deaths, human suffering, and destruction of homes and infrastructure, the situation cannot be defined as genocide,” reads the communiqué of the Heads of State summit in Addis Ababa issued late last week.
This is probably technically correct, given that genocide means “the deliberate extermination of a people or nation”, but was it necessary to make this qualification, which, to some extent, modifies and limits the gravity and unacceptability of the Darfur killings? It’s almost like saying “It’s bad, but not so bad”. Was it meant to downplay the earlier intervention of the UN and US, or to spare the Sudanese regime?"

"Headless body in orange jumpsuit found in Tigris River" (Jamie Tarabay, AP/Boston.com, 2004/07/15)
"A decapitated body in an orange jumpsuit was discovered in the Tigris River in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said Thursday, raising fears that it belonged to a Bulgarian hostage killed the day before.
The identity of the body, discovered by Iraqi police Wednesday night northwest of the city of Beiji, 170 miles north of Baghdad, was not known, the military said.
Police turned the body over to the U.S. military for identification, and the Bulgarian government said fingerprints had been sent to Bulgaria for possible identification."

"Iraqis step on a page of a local newspaper..."
(Ahmad Al-Rubaye, AFP, 2004/07/15)
"Iraqis step on a page of a local newspaper featuring pictures of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein as they participate in a demonstration against Saddam in Baghdad."

"Thousands of Iraqis Demand Saddam's Execution" (Mussab Al-Khairalla, Reuters, 2004/07/15)
Thousands of Iraqis marched through central Baghdad on Thursday demanding the execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein and denouncing Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Noisy protesters waved Iraqi flags, chanted anti-Saddam slogans and held up posters depicting mass graves.
"Let every fool listen, Saddam has to be executed," "No, No to Tikrit" shouted the crowd in reference to Saddam's hometown north of Baghdad. Protesters also shouted slogans denouncing the United States, Zionism and terrorism.
"Death to Wahabis! Death to Zarqawi!" shouted several hundred people in the heart of Baghdad's commercial district, referring to a strict Sunni Muslim sect based in Saudi Arabia."

"Nearly 400 Al-Qaeda members living in Iran - London-based report" (AFX/Ample, 2004/07/15)
"Hundreds of alleged members of Al-Qaeda, including 18 of its top leaders, and other terror groups are living in Iran, some under tight security, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported.
"More than 384 members of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations are present in Iran, including 18 senior leaders of Osama bin Laden's network," the daily said, citing a senior source in the Iranian presidency.
The Saudi-owned newspaper said the terrorist leaders were living under tight protection, some of them in villas in the Namak Abrud region, near the town of Chalous on the Caspian coast, 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Tehran.
Others are living in Lavizan, in the north-west of the capital, and which also houses a large military complex, it added." (Hat tip: ActivistChat.com.)

"Hating America" (Bruce Bawer, The Hudson Review, from the Spring 2004 issue)
A must read essay on European anti-Americanism. Hertsgaard's justifications for anti-Americanism inadvertently captures its basic world-view very succinctly:
"Yet the endlessly reiterated claim that George W. Bush “squandered” Western Europe’s post-9/11 sympathy is nonsense. The sympathy was a blip; the anti-Americanism is chronic. Why? In The Eagle’s Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, American journalist and NPR commentator Mark Hertsgaard purports to seek an answer. His assumption throughout is that anti-Americanism is amply justified, for these reasons, among others:

Our foreign policy is often arrogant and cruel and threatens to “blow back” against us in terrible ways. Our consumerist definition of prosperity is killing us, and perhaps the planet. Our democracy is an embarrassment to the word, a den of entrenched bureaucrats and legal bribery. Our media are a disgrace to the hallowed concept of freedom of the press. Our precious civil liberties are under siege, our economy is dividing us into rich and poor, our signature cultural activities are shopping and watching television. To top it off, our business and political elites are insisting that our model should also be the world’s model, through the glories of corporate-led globalization.

America, in short, is a mess—a cultural wasteland, an economic nightmare, a political abomination, an international misfit, outlaw, parasite, and pariah. ...
Item by item, [in "Anti-Americanism"] Revel refutes the European media’s picture of America. Poverty? An American at the poverty level has about the same standard of living as the average citizen of Greece or Portugal. (Indeed, according to a recent study by the Swedish Trade Research Institute, Swedes have a slightly lower standard of living than black Americans — a devastating statistic for Scandinavians, for whom both the unparalleled success of their own welfare economies and the pitiable poverty of blacks in the racist U.S. are articles of faith.)" (Hat tip: Fredrik K.R. Norman. See also: "Swedes are Poorer than Blacks in the US" (Dagens Nyheter/InstaPundit, 2002/09/07): "- The median (not average) American household, has a yearly income before taxes which is 50% higher than the Swedish one. The median Black household in the US is better off than the median Swedish one
- If Sweden had been an American state, we would have been the poorest one, together with Hispanics and Blacks, and there would have been a debate about the 'Swedish Problem.'")

"Some Arguments Against a Religious-Hatred Law" (David G. Green, CIVITAS, July 2004)
A brilliant critique of the proposed British law against religious hatred: "A law banning religious hatred will begin to unravel the delicate balances on which freedom and democracy depend. It will involve using the law to benefit one faction at the expense of others. It will be used to persecute non-believers by dragging them through the courts. It will silence critics of religion by allowing legitimate criticism, voiced during the ordinary cut and thrust of debate, to be interpreted as incitement of hatred. It will encourage prickliness instead of forbearance and touchiness instead of restraint. We already speak of ethnic groups 'playing the race card'; soon groups will have the chance to 'play the religion card'.
Mr Blunkett's particular intention is to give protection to Islam, but of all the major religions it is the one that should remain open to free criticism, for its own good. A great battle is currently going on between moderates and fundamentalists. For moderates, religious faith offers moral guidance for free and responsible individuals. For fundamentalists, the Koran contains absolute truths that must never be questioned. Both are concerned with right and wrong, but moderates speak the language of chiding, reproach, remorse and forgiveness; extremists think in terms of heresy, apostasy and punishment. The fatwah against Salman Rushdie, calling for him to be put to death for stepping out of line, should have been warning enough. And yet Mr Blunkett wants to protect extremists and their fatwahs from liberal criticism." (Hat tip: The Corner. See also: "Speech impediments" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2004/07/11))

"Sudan's Ravines of Death" (John Prendergast, The New York Times, 2004/07/15)
A report from northern Darfur: "I was not prepared for the far more sinister scene I encountered in a ravine deep in the Darfur desert. Bodies of young men were lined up in ditches, eerily preserved by the 130-degree desert heat. The story the rebels told us seemed plausible: the dead were civilians who had been marched up a hill and executed by the Arab-led government before its troops abandoned the area the previous month. The rebels assert that there were many other such scenes.
The government's deadly portfolio in Darfur already includes the wanton burning and bombing of villages, the raping of women and girls, and the denial of humanitarian aid, all of which have so far claimed tens of thousands of lives. But judging from the scene in the ravine, executions may also be part of the assault. ...
The international community has called on the government to disarm the same militias it helped create and arm, and to use the government police to patrol the same camps the regime has been terrorizing. A mere 300 African Union troops spread over an area the size of France are meant to ensure the government's change of heart.
This formula guarantees that six months from now the Janjaweed will still be in a position to kill, rape and pillage, leaving unchallenged the ethnic cleansing campaign that has changed the map of Darfur."

"'Saddam Hussein had link with Al Qaeda'" (AFP/The Daily Times, 2004/07/15)
"Saddam Hussein had links with terrorists like Carlos the Jackal and Abu Nidal and groups connected to Al Qaeda, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Wednesday.
“The record of Saddam shows very well his connections to international terrorists, like Carlos and Abu Nidal,” Allawi told BBC radio. “We know for sure that he had established links with chieftains in Sudan, to work closely with Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda style organisations,” he said.
Allawi also defended the US-led coalition’s move to go to war against Saddam, describing it as “a moral decision taken on ethical grounds.” Speaking on the day an inquiry is due to report on the use of Britain’s intelligence to justify the invasion, Allawi thanked British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush.
“The Iraqi people, we are deeply appreciative of both the role of Tony Blair and President Bush in helping Iraq to liberate itself,” he said." (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan. See also: "Allawi: Saddam connected to al-Qaida" (Tom Brokaw, NBC News, 2004/06/29))

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

News and commentary:

"Statement on Butler Report" (Tony Blair, 10 Downing Street, 2004/07/14)
Prime Minister Tony Blair's response to the Butler Report in the House of Commons:
"No-one lied. No-one made up the intelligence. No-one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services.
Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty. That issue of good faith should now be at an end. ...
But I have to accept: as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy.
The second issue is therefore this: even if we acted in perfectly good faith, is it now the case that in the absence of stockpiles of weapons ready to deploy, the threat was misconceived and therefore the war was unjustified?
I have searched my conscience, not in a spirit of obstinacy; but in genuine reconsideration in the light of what we now know, in answer to that question. And my answer would be: that the evidence of Saddam's WMD was indeed less certain, less well-founded than was stated at the time. But I cannot go from there to the opposite extreme. ... And I say further: that had we backed down in respect of Saddam, we would never have taken the stand we needed to take on WMD, never have got the progress for example on Libya, that we achieved; and we would have left Saddam in charge of Iraq, with every malign intent and capability still in place and every dictator with the same intent everywhere immeasurably emboldened.
As I shall say later: for any mistakes, made, as the Report finds, in good faith I of course take full responsibility, but I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all. Iraq, the region, the wider world is a better and safer place without Saddam."

"Inquiry: U.K. Iraq Intelligence 'Flawed'" (Ed Johnson, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/14)
"An official inquiry into the quality of British intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction said Wednesday that some sources were "seriously flawed" or "unreliable" but found no evidence of "deliberate distortion or culpable negligence."
The report contradicted a central claim made by Prime Minister Tony Blair and found that, before the outbreak of war in March 2003, Iraq "did not have significant, if any, stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment or developed plans for using them." ...
Lord Butler was highly critical of British intelligence-gathering in Iraq and his findings closely mirrored those of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee which has recently found American intelligence also highly flawed.
"Validation of human intelligence sources after the war has thrown doubt on a high proportion of those sources and of their reports, and hence on the quality of the intelligence assessments received by ministers and officials in the period from summer 2002 to the outbreak of hostilities," it said." (See also the report: "Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction" (Butler Inquiry, 2004/07/14) and "At-a-glance: Butler report" (BBC News, 2004/07/14))

"Is Ba'thism Secular?" (Joshua Landis, Syria Comment, 2004/07/14)
"The whole notion of a “secular” Ba`th needs correcting. Ba`thism is often referred to as a secular movement and non-religious version of Arab nationalism, but this just isn’t true. ...
Secularism as it has evolved in the historically Christian countries of the West is based on the idea that politics should be carried out in a different sphere than private morality or faith. The one is based on a notion of “truth” with a small “t” that is at its heart relative and subject to compromise, the other is based on Truth with a capital “T” which has its foundation in transcendent morality and is resistant to compromise and skepticism. Private faith is another matter and may be absolutist. That is why secularism insists on such a clear divide between public belief (politics) and private belief (church).
Ba`thism is based on the big “T” Truth and is a transcendent faith. Both the founders of Ba`thist thought, Michel `Aflaq (Greek Orthodox)and Zaki al-Arsuzi (Alawite Muslim), discovered early in their careers that their party would never appeal to the broad masses of the Sunni heartland without making it perfectly clear that Ba`thism was not secular or based on earthly truths. They both insisted that Ba`thism was part and parcel of the Islamic worldview embraced by most Syrians. `Aflaq was so adamant about placating Muslim and religious sensibilities that he became known among his friends as Muhammad `Aflaq (and indeed he converted to Islam before his death). His genius lay in his ability to align Ba`thism with Islam."

"Arafat Blames Israel for Tel Aviv Bombing" (Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, PMW/IMRA, 2004/07/14)
"The Palestinian Authority (PA) as policy attempts to portray itself as victim — even when those killed are Israelis and even when it bears full responsibility. This pattern repeated yesterday as a bomb in Tel Aviv killed a 19-year old Israeli woman soldier and wounded 34. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the terror arm of the Arafat's Fatah, took responsibility for the bombing. ...
When Arafat and Prime Minister Qurei condemned the bombing, a routine expected by the world media and international community, it was explained not in terms of human loss to Israel but political loss to the Palestinians... ...
Moreover, Arafat argued that since Israel was the one benefiting politically from the bombing it was likely that Israel was behind it:

"You know that we are against bombings of this type. We most not forget who stands behind them, as was in Beit Lid [= bombing in 1995 that killed 21 for which Arafat repeatedly blames Israel]. Who stands behind Beit Lid, who murdered [Israeli minister] Zeevi, who is behind Zeevi... [Israel] ...attempts to cover up what happened in Hague." [PA TV July, 12, 2004]

Thus according to the PA, though it was the PA terror wing that planted the bomb and an Israeli who was killed — they are the political victims of Israeli scheming." (See also: "Tel Aviv bomb kills one" (Jonathan Saul, Reuters, 2004/07/11) and "'Israel Committed Netanya Bombing'- Arafat" (IRIS, 1995/04/13): "Yediot Aharonot reports (13 April) that Yasser Arafat blamed Israel for the Beit Lid terrorist bombing in January which killed 22 Israelis. The paper reports that in a recent meeting with Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, USA, Arafat told his stunned listeners that, "The attack in Beit Lid is the work of the heads of the security services in Israel." Arafat claimed that Israel had supplied the terrorists with uniforms, transportation and explosive devices to carry out the attack.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, which was one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Israel's history.")

"Car Bomb Rocks Baghdad, Killing 11" (Saamer N. Yacoub, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/14)
"A suicide attacker detonated a massive car bomb Wednesday at a checkpoint near the British Embassy and the interim Iraqi government's headquarters in Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding 40, including a U.S. soldier, authorities said.
It was the worst attack in the capital since the United States transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government on June 28."

"Philippines starts pulling troops out of Iraq to save hostage" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/14)
Pullout III: "The Philippines said it has begun pulling its troops out of Iraq to save the life of a Filipino hostage, despite warnings by allies the United States and Australia that it was sending the wrong signal to terrorists.
Foreign Secretary Delia Albert announced the dramatic change of policy by the key US ally in Southeast Asia after Islamic militants in Iraq beheaded one of two kidnapped Bulgarian truck drivers.
Albert suggested eight members of the tiny 51-strong contingent of soldiers and police doing reconstruction work in Iraq had left the war-torn country. She declined to give details.
"The foreign ministry is coordinating the pullout of the humanitarian contingent with the ministry of defense," the Filipino foreign secretary said in a statement. "As of today, our head count is down from 51 to 43."
Philippine TV station ABS-CBN reported from Iraq, quoting unnamed Filipino negotiators, that father-of-eight Angelo de la Cruz, who was abducted last week, was now in "safe hands", but gave no other details."

"Freed Swede Says Was Tortured at Guantanamo" (Reuters/My Way, 2004/07/14)
"Mehdi Ghezali, the son of an Algerian-born immigrant, told Swedish media in interviews published or aired Wednesday that he was interrogated almost every day at the U.S. naval base on Cuban soil. ...
In April the military changed their tactics, he said.
"They put me in the interrogation room and used it as a refrigerator. They set the temperature to minus degrees so it was terribly cold and one had to freeze there for many hours -- 12 to 14 hours one had to sit there, chained," he said, adding that he had partially lost the feeling in one foot since then.
Ghezali said he was also deprived of sleep, chained for long periods in painful positions, and exposed to bright flashes of light in a darkened room and loud music and noise. ...
Ghezali said he went Pakistan to study Islam in August 2001, before the September 11 attacks which triggered President Bush's war on terrorism and the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.
He said he was visiting a friend in the Afghan town of Jalalabad near the Pakistani border when the U.S. invasion started. He decided to return to Pakistan when he heard that villagers were selling foreigners to U.S. forces.
Pakistani villagers seized him as crossed the border from Afghanistan and sold him to Pakistani police, who turned him over to the U.S. military."

"The New Groupthink" (William Safire, The New York Times, 2004/07/14)
"Today, as Election Day approaches, groupthink has swung back again, to this: Saddam not only had no terror weapons, but he had little or nothing to do with Al Qaeda — therefore, our liberation of Iraq was a waste of lives and money.
Consider the official pressure to get with the latest groupthink: the 9/11 commission staff assured us recently that repeated contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda (including the presence in Baghdad and Kurdistan of the reigning terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), "did not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee chimed in, saying these contacts "did not add up to an established formal relationship." (Italics mine.)
Think about that. Do today's groupthinkers believe that Osama bin Laden would sit down with Saddam in front of the world's cameras to sign a mutual assistance pact, establishing a formal relationship? Terrorists and rogue states don't work that way. Mass killers collaborate informally, without a photo op, even secretly."

"The Misunderstood Osama: How to read Imperial Hubris" (Bryan Curtis, Slate, 2004/07/14)
A fast-forward reading guide for "Imperial Hubris": "Page 8: The fundamental flaw in our thinking about Bin Laden is that "Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than what we do." Muslims are bothered by our modernity, democracy, and sexuality, but they are rarely spurred to action unless American forces encroach on their lands. It's American foreign policy that enrages Osama and al-Qaida, not American culture and society. ...
Page 114-6: Bin Laden isn't a loose cannon trying to bring the world to Armageddon. He's an eloquent and rational actor, more CEO than gangster. He often blames Muslims for their failure to repel Western invaders. His analyses of al-Qaida's victories and defeats are often more cogent than Western leaders' tirades against him.
Page 124: One element American commentators underestimate is Muslim love for Osama — 'love for his defense of the faith, the life he lives, the heroic example he sets, and the similarity of that example to other heroes in the pantheon of Islamic history.'" (See also: "The secret history of Anonymous" (Jason Vest, The Boston Phoenix, 2004/07/02) and "CIA Analyst Assails War on Terrorism" (Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, 2004/06/26))

"Aide to Bin Laden Surrenders" (Abdullah al-Shihri, AP/The Washington Post, 2004/07/14)
"A Saudi confidant of Osama bin Laden surrendered in Iran and was flown to his home country Tuesday, Saudi officials said. The man, who in 2001 appeared in a videotape with bin Laden, is a potentially valuable asset in the hunt for the fugitive al Qaeda chief.
Khaled Harbi was shown Tuesday on Saudi television being pushed in a wheelchair through the Riyadh airport. He surrendered under a Saudi government amnesty that promises to spare the lives of radicals who turn themselves in. ...
U.S. officials consider Harbi, also known as Abu Suleiman Makki, a sounding board for the al Qaeda chief rather than an operational planner for his network, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another U.S. official said Harbi was not a senior member of al Qaeda. The official, who declined to be identified, called him "an aging mujaheddin," or holy warrior."

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

News and commentary:

"Ayatollah: U.S. Supports Iraq Insurgency" (AP/The New York Times, 2004/07/13)
"Iran's supreme leader on Tuesday accused U.S. and Israeli agents, not Muslims, of responsibility for the wave of beheadings and kidnappings in Iraq, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also described terrorism as a "loathsome, horrible" and said fighting it was "of great importance."
In comments made during a meeting with visiting Singaporean Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong, Khamenei said: 'We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.'"

"Bulgarian hostage in Iraq beheaded: Al-Jazeera" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/13)
"A Bulgarian truck driver taken hostage in Iraq has been beheaded by his captors, the Arab satellite television Al-Jazeera said.
The Doha-based station said it had received a video of the execution purportedly made by the Tahid wal Jihad group (Unity and Holy War) of suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
The group threatened to kill another Bulgarian hostage it is holding unless its demand was met for the release within 24 hours of Iraqi prisoners detained by the US military in Iraq, Al-Jazeera said."

"Philippines Says Coordinating Iraq Troop Pullout" (Reuters, 2004/07/13)
Pullout II: "Philippine officials were preparing on Wednesday to withdraw troops from Iraq following demands for a pullout from militants holding a Filipino hostage, but the military said it had yet to receive orders to leave.
Militants have threatened to behead truck driver Angelo de la Cruz unless Philippine troops leave by July 20. The Philippine air force said it had put two transport planes on standby in Manila to begin an evacuation of troops. ...
"The Department of Foreign Affairs is coordinating with the defense ministry for the withdrawal of troops," Foreign Affairs Secretary Delia Albert said in a statement."

"Philippines Pleads to Save Hostage's Life" (Danica Kirka, AP/My Way, 2004/07/13)
Pullout I: "The Philippine government made a direct appeal Tuesday to insurgents holding a Filipino hostage, pleading with them to show mercy for the man they threatened to kill if the country did not agree to pull its troops from Iraq early.
Philippine Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Rafael Seguis went on Arab TV station Al-Jazeera to try to secure the release of Angelo dela Cruz.
Insurgents had said they would kill the truck driver by Monday evening if the Philippines did not agree to pull its 51-member peacekeeping force by July 20. Manila on Monday restated its troop commitment ended Aug. 20.
Seguis said Tuesday the Philippines would pull its troops out "as soon as possible." When questioned by the newscaster as to when that would be, he said a pullout would come according to the government's commitments." (See also: "Al-Jazeera broadcasts video tape of Filipino hostage" (Maamoun Youssef, AP/San Diego Union Tribune, 2004/07/07))

"French woman admits she made up anti-Semitic attack" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/13)
Swastika V: "A French woman who claimed last week she had been the victim of a vicious anti-Semitic attack admitted to police that she had made up the entire incident, and was detained for falsely reporting a crime. ...
"The first declarations of the young woman reveal that her accusations were lies and that she had been making it all up," the public prosecutor's office said in a statement.
The woman admitted to "having made knife cut marks on herself, cut off a lock of her own hair and drawn swastikas on her body," it said."

"'Swastika Attack' Mother Held by Police" (The Scotsman, 2004/07/13)
Swastika IV: "A young mother who claimed to have been the victim of a train attack that stunned France was today detained by police as doubts were raised about the truth of her story.
Four days after the woman said she was robbed by a knife-wielding gang that mistook her for a Jew and scrawled swastikas on her body, police had no witnesses and few clues. Media suggested the woman had a history of crying wolf.
Police said the woman was detained so investigators could “clarify the obscure points” of her account. ...
Newspapers gave the story front-page prominence on Monday with headlines like “The Train of Hate”.
But by today, front pages were universally sceptical. “Questions on an attack,” blared Liberation, which said the woman’s account was full of “grey areas” and 'contradictions.'" (See also: "Doubts amid swastika attack hunt" (CNN.com, 2004/07/12))

"A Big Fat Stupid Man" (Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/07/13)
An interview with David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke, the authors of "Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man". I'm certainly no fan of Moore, but I do think that the very title of the book is disturbing, as it panders to bigotry and demonizes its object. That Moore does exactly the same thing endlessly in his own works doesn't excuse the use of the method against him. Even more disturbing is the focus on the alleged "mental illness" of Moore. A political climate in which opponents accuse each other of being mentally ill is, well, somewhat mentally ill:
"Hardy: ... In our book we explore the parallels between his behavior and an emotional illness known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder — an illness which also features in totalitarian leaders. It combines an apparent, and I stress apparent, overblown ego with an inner self-loathing. Look at what Moore most loathes — and he IS it. A very wealthy, white, American male. He is what he hates. ...
In his heart, it may well be that Moore's opinion of himself is far worse than anything his critics have ever said. Even his girth -- as an Irish Catholic, he can hardly contemplate suicide. But he can engage in actions which will clearly shorten his lifespan. What advice is he getting from his doctor? Given his size, his blood pressure must be astronomical, and diabetes is a big risk, yet he seems to continue on his course. If this is true, then Moore's career is one of acting out a form of mental illness...a most interesting understanding."

"Europe and the Jews" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2004/07/13)
"Meanwhile, we get the following veiled threat from Deutsche Welle:

Since the territories before the Six Day War in 1967 weren't part of a sovereign state, one couldn't speak of an "occupation," therefore the Geneva Convention wasn't applicable, the argument went. But out of "generosity," Israel said it was prepared to follow parts of the convention. But after the ruling in The Hague, the days of such selective generosity should be over. Now, it's official: Israel is an occupying force, and does have to abide by international law if it doesn't wish to be treated as a pariah.

How about finding a way to defend itself from terror? Or do murdered Jews no longer concern the Germans?" (See also: "Israel: Future as Pariah" (Davids Medienkritik, 2004/07/12))

"Boycott The Guardian" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/07/13)
"The Guardian urges its creepy readers to boycott, among other things, Budweiser ("Why? Keeping orcas in captivity"), Adidas ("Mistreating kangaroos"), Bacardi ("Counter-revolutionary activities"), Lonely Planet ("Producing a travel guide to Burma"), and George W. Bush ("Kyoto, farm subsidies, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay ...")." (See also: "Just say no?" (Leo Benedictus, The Guardian, 2004/07/12))

"Blunkett's ban will fan the flames" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/07/13)
"A couple of years back, I mentioned the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and received a flurry of lively e-mails. It was Valentine's Day 1989, you'll recall, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his extraterritorial summary judgment on a British subject, and shortly thereafter large numbers of British Muslims were marching through English cities openly calling for Rushdie to be killed.
A reader in Bradford recalled asking a West Yorkshire officer on the street that day why the various "Muslim community leaders" weren't being arrested for incitement to murder. The officer said they'd been told to "play it cool". The calls for blood got more raucous. My correspondent asked his question again. The policeman told him to "F--- off, or I'll arrest you."
Isn't that pretty much how it's likely to go once David Blunkett's new protection for Islam is in place? If you're the "moderate" Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, you'll be invited to speak at the "Our Children Our Future" conference sponsored and funded by the Metropolitan Police and the Department for Work and Pensions. But, if you express concern about ol' Mullah Moderate, an Islamic lobby group will file an official complaint about you." (See also: "A Woman's Right To Choose" (Daniel Pipes, danielpipes.org, 2004/07/07) and "Controversial cleric visits UK" (BBC News, 2004/07/07))

"A Report From Iraq 2.0" (David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 2004/07/13)
"Outside the walls, Iraq is still fragmented and violent — far too chaotic and insecure to operate as a functioning state. The U.S. military is still the only force that can combat lawlessness and terrorism, and its presence still bitterly offends Iraqi pride. But for all that, this does feel like a slightly different country since the occupation officially ended June 28 with the departure of the proconsul in desert boots and rep tie, L. Paul Bremer. ...
Rebuilding Iraq will remain a fantasy unless the new government can restore stability. Yawar says he's glad he has a tough ex-Baathist, Ayad Allawi, as prime minister. And he says that by the end of the week, the government will announce a general amnesty for those who committed crimes during the U.S. occupation. The only ones automatically excluded will be rapists, hostage-takers or those who have been identified by witnesses as having killed people.
"Blood draws more blood . . . and we have to stop it," he says. Though Americans may be upset about leniency toward those who killed U.S. soldiers, he argues that "opening a new page" is the only route to stability. "We don't want to be a Saigon government that vanishes with the last helicopter," he says."

"Can the C.I.A. Really Be That Bad?" (Michael O'Hanlon, The New York Times, 2004/07/13)
A sober assessment of the intelligence debacles of the C.I.A. (but is "several more years" for "even" a crude bomb in the hands of Saddam Hussein really so reassuring?):
"It is only on the nuclear question — admittedly a very important one — that the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies truly dropped the ball. They bought into the idea that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons programs largely on the basis of flimsy reports of possible Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium and centrifuge components from abroad. Even if those reports had all been true, the imports would have been nothing more than raw materials for a nuclear program that would have required several more years to produce even a crude bomb.
Again, less-than-credible reports from less-than-credible people were used to confirm assumptions that intelligence analysts should not have allowed themselves to believe so strongly in the first place. It seems likely that the intelligence community, which had been surprised in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war at how far Saddam Hussein had gotten in his nuclear programs before 1991, did not want to make the same mistake again. So it overcompensated."

"Zarqawi's Journey: From Dropout to Prisoner to Insurgent Leader" (Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, 2004/07/13)
"Saleh al-Hami, Mr. Zarqawi's brother-in-law - who, like many former guerrillas who fought in Afghanistan, has a long black beard and a plastic leg - said Mr. Zarqawi arrived in Khost, in eastern Afghanistan, in the spring of 1989 to join the jihad, or holy war, against the Russians. But he got there a little late. The Russians had just pulled out. So instead of picking up a gun, Mr. Zarqawi picked up a pen. ...
One night while they were camping in a cave, he recalled, Mr. Zarqawi shared a special dream. He said he had seen a vision of a sword falling from the sky. "Jihad" was written on its blade.
Mr. Zarqawi returned to Zarqa in 1992 and fell in with a militant Islamic group, Bayaat al Imam, or Loyalty to the Imam. He was arrested in 1993 after the Jordanian authorities discovered assault rifles and bombs stashed in his house. ...
His religious views became increasingly severe. They had been marinating in a stew of militant beliefs served up by the imams and sheiks in the iron bunks next to him. He lashed out at cellmates if they read anything but the Koran.
Mr. Abu Doma said he got a threatening note for reading "Crime and Punishment."
"He spelled Dostoyevsky 'Doseefski,' Mr. Abu Doma said, laughing. "The note was full of bad Arabic, like a child wrote it."
Fellow inmates said that around that time, 1998, just as Al Qaeda was emerging as a serious threat blamed for the two bombings of United States Embassies in Africa, Mr. Zarqawi started talking about killing Americans."

Note: I'm desperately looking for someone who can help me out with Dreamweaver. Specifically, I want to add a left column (with the same properties as the one on the right) in the template, but I haven't the faintest idea of how to do it. Well, I've had a couple of ideas, but they ended up as mutant templates from hell. So if you know the basics of Dreamweaver and want to help out, I'd appreciate it very much. Email: watch-at-windsofchange.net.

Monday, July 12, 2004

News and commentary:

"President Bush Discusses Progress in the War on Terror" (The White House, 2004/07/12)
"To overcome the dangers of our time, America is also taking a new approach in the world. We're determined to challenge new threats, not ignore them, or simply wait for future tragedy. We're helping to build a hopeful future in hopeless places, instead of allowing troubled regions to remain in despair and explode in violence. Our goal is a lasting, democratic peace, in which free nations are free from the threat of sudden terror. Our strategy for peace has three commitments: First, we are defending the peace by taking the fight to the enemy. We will confront them overseas so we do not have to confront them here at home.
We are destroying the leadership of terrorist networks in sudden raids, disrupting their planning and financing, and keeping them on the run. Month by month, we are shrinking the space in which they can freely operate, by denying them territory and the support of governments. ...
We have followed this strategy — defending the peace, protecting the peace and extending the peace — for nearly three years. We have been focused and patient, firm and consistent. And the results are all now clear to see. ...
Three years ago, the world was very different. Terrorists planned attacks, with little fear of discovery or reckoning. Outlaw regimes supported terrorists and defied the civilized world, without shame and with few consequences. Weapons proliferators sent their deadly shipments and grew wealthy, encountering few obstacles to their trade.
The world changed on September the 11th, and since that day, we have changed the world."

"Judges' ruling rewrites UN Charter on self-defence" (Leanne Piggott, The Australian, 2004/07/12)
"The advisory opinion brought down by the International Court of Justice last Friday in relation to Israel's separation barrier has implications far beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Buried deep in the text of its opinion is a bombshell that purports to radically rewrite the rules of international law governing the inherent right of states to defend themselves and their citizens.
The ICJ recognises that this right is enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. But the ICJ then says that this right is limited to self-defence in the case of armed attack "by one state against another state". That limitation does not appear anywhere in the text of Article 51 itself. Article 51 recognises that states have an inherent right of self-defence "if an armed attack occurs". It does not say that the armed attack must have been carried out by, or be attributable to, another state.
The distinction is critical in the on-going struggle against international terrorism. Although every act of terrorism necessarily originates in territory (or aboard a ship or aircraft) that is owned or occupied by a sovereign state, it does not follow that every such act of terrorism is supported by that state, and attributable to it in a legal sense.
The ICJ is now saying that if terrorists based in the territory of state A attack state B without the passive or active support of state A, state B may not have the right to defend itself from future attack by striking back at the terrorist base – despite Article 51. ...
In the long run, the ICJ's pronouncements on a state's right of self-defence will be of more lasting significance than its conclusions about Israel's separation barrier. Many states are likely to reject the ICJ's attempt to confine the right of self-defence to responses to armed attacks by state actors. The ICJ's opinion not only departs from the text of Article 51 of the UN Charter, it also defies common sense."

"Terrorists slice off 14-year-old's nose, ears and tongue" (Reuters/The Sydney Morning Herald, 2004/07/12)
"Suspected Muslim guerillas sliced off the nose, ears and tongue of a 14-year-old girl in Indian Kashmir today, believing her to be an informer for the Indian army, police said.
Mariam Begum was abducted by a group of militants from her house in Doda district south of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital.
"The abductee was let off by the terrorists. However her ears, nose and tongue have been chopped off," a police spokesman said in Srinigar."

"John Kerry, Reactionary" (Thomas Donnelly and Vance Serchuk, The Weekly Standard/AEI, 2004/07/12)
"With his July 4 op-ed in the Washington Post, "A Realistic Path in Iraq," presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry lays claim to being the genuinely conservative foreign-policy voice in this fall's election. Arguing that, in Iraq and in the greater Middle East, the United States needs "a policy that finally includes a heavy dose of realism," Kerry sounds more like Henry Kissinger tha