Archived news and commentary: July 26 - August 1, 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, August 1, 2004

News and commentary:

"After the blast..."
(Ahmad Al-Rubaye, AFP, 2004/08/01)
"After the blast: An injured Iraqi Christian (L) waits outside a hospital after treatment following two car bombs that explosion near two Baghdad churches, causing many casualties."

"Gov't Warns of Threats Against Buildings" (Jennifer C. Kerr, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/01)
"The federal government warned Sunday of possible terrorist attacks against "iconic" financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, N.J., saying a confluence of intelligence over the weekend pointed to a car or truck bomb.
Specifically, the government named these buildings as potential targets:
— The Citicorp building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York City.
— The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank buildings in Washington.
— The Prudential building in Newark.
"The preferred means of attack would be car or truck bombs," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a briefing with journalists. ...
The government provided a wealth of detail that it had picked up in the past 36 hours, but a senior intelligence official described it only on condition of anonymity. The official described "excruciating detail" and meticulous planning 'indicative of al-Qaida.'" (See also: "Big Apple Terror?" (ABC News 2004/07/31))

"Smoke billows next to a church..."
(Atef Hassan, Reuters, 2004/08/01)
"Smoke billows next to a church after an explosion in Baghdad, August 1, 2004. Car bombs exploded outside at least six Christian churches in Iraq, killing at least three people and wounding many more in an apparently coordinated attack timed to coincide with evening prayers."

"Coordinated Blasts Hit Iraqi Churches" (Todd Pitman, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/01)
Churches I: "A series of coordinated bombings targeted churches in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul during evening services Sunday, wounding at least 20 people in the first attacks on Christian places of worship in Iraq's 15-month insurgency.
The church attacks came amid a flurry of other bombings in and around the two cities that killed at least 10 Iraqis and an American soldier. The U.S. military confirmed two other explosions in Baghdad in the evening, but their target was not immediately clear.
The church attacks in Baghdad appeared to be car bombs. The two blasts exploded just minutes apart outside two nearby churches — one Armenian and one Catholic — in the Karada neighborhood. ...
At nearly the same time, two blasts struck outside a church in Mosul and a third blast hit a bridge, Iraqi officials said. There was no immediate word on casualties." (See also: "At Least 12 Killed in One of Baghdad Church Blasts" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/01): "At least 12 people were killed in one of the four attacks on churches in Baghdad Sunday, a Reuters witness said. He said a car raced into the parking lot of the Chaldean church in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Doura and exploded as people were leaving a service. He said he saw at least 12 people dead and body parts scattered across the area.")

"Qaeda-Linked Group Gives Italy 15 Days to Leave Iraq" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/01)
"A militant group claiming links to al Qaeda has given Italy a 15-day deadline to withdraw its troops from Iraq or face attacks, in a statement sent to the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper Sunday.
"We are mobilizing our cells everywhere in Rome and other Italian cities and we give (Italian Prime Minister Silvio) Berlusconi 15 days to withdraw from Iraq, said the statement signed by Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades — al Qaeda Organization.
"After that we will not be responsible for any loss of lives," said the statement, which was made available to Reuters ahead of publication.
"We had already sent you an earlier message asking you to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible but have not seen anything yet ... and this is why the language of blood is on its way to you," the Arabic-language statement, which was addressed to Berlusconi's government, added."

"Into Africa, now" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2004/08/01)
Aaronovitch on UN's Darfur resolution: "This is a depressing moment for us multilateralists who want to believe in the United Nations as the best agency of intervention. The Security Council has given edge to the arguments of isolationists and unilateralists that there just aren't sufficient shared values for the UN to be effective in dealing with the most appalling internal crises. Look at the others. Could the Russians, for example, have been influenced in their opposition to sanctions by a recent oil-exploration/arms deal signed with the Sudanese government? Or what about Hossam Zaki, a spokesman for the Arab League, speaking after the weakened resolution was passed? 'How come,' he asked, 'the Security Council and those with a humanitarian agenda are so active when it comes to (Darfur), when they turn a blind eye to the miserable situation in the Palestinian territories?' One smaller reason for wanting a Middle East settlement is to deprive men like Zaki of his eternal alibi.
But this is where we are. Now we just have to hope like hell that the Sudanese government sees it as sufficiently in its long-term interest to disarm the militias, otherwise we will back here again in a month, with a month's worth more ethnic cleansing on our consciences, arguing about what Article 41 does or doesn't mean. And hoping that the spokesman for Amnesty International was wrong when he described Friday's events as representing, 'the abandonment of the people of Darfur and an abdication of the Security Council's role as a human rights enforcing agent.'
Here's one you can't blame on the Yanks." (See also: "UN demands Sudan action on Darfur" (BBC News, 2004/07/30))

"Warlords, Drugs and Votes" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2004/08/09 issue)
"Disbanding the warlords' forces is the key challenge facing Afghanistan. The political scientist Max Weber once defined a state as that entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of force in the country. In Afghanistan, the state has no such monopoly. Winding down militias is the only path to that goal. The Pentagon had made it so clear that the U.S. would have nothing to do with this that Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.'s special envoy, used to jokingly call it "the American fatwa" on demobilization. By the end of 2003, the fatwa was revoked. Now finally the United States is actively assisting in the process, urging warlords to disband their militias and incorporate into the new Afghan Army.
There are other positive trends in the country. Afghans have approached the national elections with huge enthusiasm, exceeding all predictions of voter registration. Polls show that they are highly supportive of Karzai, the United States and the international efforts at reconstruction. The problem in Afghanistan has not been with the Afghans but with the U.S. government.
U.S. policy toward Afghanistan is now on the right track. America and its allies are extending security outside Kabul, helping to build up the Afghan Army and police, weakening the warlords, strengthening the central government, funding reconstruction projects, offering farmers alternatives to opium. But it might be too late. Instability is rampant, the drug trade is flourishing and the warlords are entrenched. As in Iraq, the administration seems to have learned from its mistakes, but the education of George Bush has been mighty costly." (See also: "Optimism in Afghanistan" (Ryan Sager, New York Post, 2004/07/27))

"Kidnappings, Beheadings and Defining What's News" (Jacques Steinberg, The New York Times, 2004/08/01)
"Kidnappings are becoming a tactic of choice in the Middle East, and nearly every group that has recently captured a foreigner in Iraq has produced an accompanying video. Presumably filmed by the perpetrators themselves, the tapes often follow a theatrical ritual announcing the abduction: A list of demands is outlined. Deadlines are set. Hostages plead for their lives. In several grotesque instances, the hostages are killed.
The existence of such footage, which the kidnappers have distributed to the news media by courier (or at times directly via the Internet) has drawn Arabic and American news organizations, particularly the 24-hour cable networks, into the web of modern warfare, raising a question: At what point does a media organization become a tool of war? ...
But by not broadcasting such tapes, the networks may well be sending another message, however unintended: that the kidnappers, to maintain their access to the airwaves, may need to devise even more outrageous tactics. For example, Mr. Ballout observed that the newsworthiness of a beheading, however novel it may have seemed in April, had begun to wane this summer.
"It's nothing new anymore that hostages are being taken," he said. 'This is becoming somewhat monotonous. It's not like before.'"

Note: Bruce Bawer addresses European anti-Americanism in general and an outrageous Op-Ed by "peace professor" Johan Galtung in particular in today's Norwegian Dagbladet: "Galtung compares USA with Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union. USA has after all "attacked three countries" since 1999 in order to 'expand its empire.'"
See also [both articles in Norwegian]: "Karikaturene av USA lever" (Bruce Bawer, Dagbladet, 2004/08/01) and "USA og USA-imperiet i norske hjerter" (Johan Galtung, Dagbladet, 2004/07/25).
Also: "Hating America" (Bruce Bawer, The Hudson Review, from the Spring 2004 issue)

Saturday, July 31, 2004

News and commentary:

"Palestinian girls from Islamic Jihad carry toy guns..."
(Hatem Moussa, AP, 2004/07/31)
"Palestinian girls from Islamic Jihad carry toy guns as they take part in a demonstration against the ongoing Israeli army operation in the northern Gaza Strip, at the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza City, Saturday, July 31, 2004. The Israeli army has been operating in the northern town of Beit Hanoun for more than one month in an effort to prevent Palestinian militants from firing rockets into Israel."

"Foreigners Abducted, Buildings Torched in West Bank" (Atef Saad, Reuters, 2004/07/31)
"Palestinian gunmen briefly abducted three foreign church volunteers and militants torched government buildings in the West Bank Saturday, confronting Yasser Arafat with a fresh wave of lawlessness. ...
Armed Palestinians seized the men — an American, a Briton and an Irishman — as they returned to their rented home in Nablus and whisked them away at gunpoint, Palestinian security sources said.
The foreigners, members of a Christian charity believed to be affiliated with the Union Church in the United States, had been teaching English classes in Nablus, said Yousef Saadeh, the head priest at a local Roman Catholic Church, who had hosted them.
They were released unharmed overnight after police surrounded the place where they were being held in the Balata refugee camp, the sources said. ...
Militants with grievances against Arafat's political appointees and security services set fire to two Palestinian Authority buildings in the West Bank town of Jenin. Both structures were completely gutted, witnesses said."

"Big Apple Terror?" (ABC News 2004/07/31)
"ABC News has learned that federal and New York City officials have received credible intelligence that al Qaeda has been plotting to carry out suicide attacks on corporations based in the city.
Sources at several law enforcement agencies tell ABC News that an "overseas source" has provided the information about the threat to New York and that it is more significant than the usual "chatter" intercepted from likely terrorists that has prompted warnings in the past.
Officials from dozens of local and federal agencies met into the night Friday and again this morning.
"Intelligence reporting indicates that al Qaeda continues to target for attack commercial and financial institutions, as well as international organizations, inside the United States," the New York City Police Department said in a statement released today on the "ongoing al Qaeda threat." ...
Intelligence sources say al Qaeda plans to move non-Arab terrorists across the border with Mexico.
Authorities already have in custody a woman of Pakistani-origin arrested after crossing into Texas. She carried a South African passport with several of the pages torn out, $7,000 in cash and an airplane ticket to New York."

"U.S. Muslim leader admits role in Libya plot" (CNN.com, 2004/07/31)
Here's Daniel Pipes, from "Mainstream Muslims?" (New York Post/danielpipes.org, 2002/06/18): "[FBI director] Mueller accepted this invitation, his spokesman Bill Carter explains, because the FBI regards the AMC as 'the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States.'":
"A prominent American Muslim leader has acknowledged his involvement in an alleged Libyan plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
Abdurahman Alamoudi, 52, a naturalized citizen who lives near Washington D.C., pleaded guilty in a U.S. court on Friday to charges that included illegal financial transactions with Libya.
Under a plea agreement, Alamoudi admitted violating the U.S. trade and travel ban with Libya, impeding an IRS investigation and illegally obtaining U.S. citizenship.
He confirmed the accuracy of a 20-page statement of facts which described his role in the alleged assassination plot. He was not charged in the conspiracy.
Alamoudi, president of the American Muslim Federation and founder of the American Muslim Council, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria, Virginia.
He could face up to 23 years in prison. His lawyers say he will make extensive statements when he is sentenced on October 15.
In court documents, Alamoudi admits he contacted anti-government Saudi expatriates for Libyan officials who wanted the dissidents to assassinate Abdullah." (See also: "What say you now, Grover Norquist?" (Michelle Malkin, michellemalkin.com, 2004/07/30): "Despite this defiant public declaration of support for terrorists, Alamoudi was welcomed in GOP elite circles at the behest of power player Grover Norquist. Insight magazine reported: 'Norquist was Alamoudi's most influential Washington facilitator, authorities believe, noting that Norquist reminds friend and foe alike that he is close to the president's powerful political strategist, Karl Rove.'")

For more on Alamoudi, see also:
"Alleged Plot to Kill Saudi Ruler Detailed" (John Mintz and Peter Slevin, The Washington Post, 2004/06/11)
"Two Are Said to Tell of Libyan Plot to Kill Saudi Ruler" (Patrick E. Tyler, The New York Times, 2004/06/10)
"U.S. Indicts Prominent Muslim Here - Affidavit: Alamoudi Funded Terrorists" (Douglas Farah, The Washington Post, 2003/10/24)
"Alamoudi and Those Bags of Libyan Cash" (J. Michael Waller, Insight on the News, 2003/10/13)
"'Mainstream' Muslims?" (Daniel Pipes, New York Post/danielpipes.org, 2002/06/18)

"Sudan next?" (Al-Ahram Weekly, from the 29 July - 4 August 2004 issue)
Darfur II. This short editorial on Darfur captures the moral meltdown of the Arab world in a nutshell. To call the ethnic cleansing by its name and pointing out the Sudanese government's apparent collusion is "even more alarming" than the acknowledged humanitarian catastrophe itself. To mention the ethnic character of the conflict is nothing but a "pretext for further perpetuating a negative image of the Arab and Muslim worlds."
And, of course, the underlying reality is not the humanitarian catastrophe at all, but rather "an American conspiracy to gain control of Sudanese oil":
"No observer could possibly deny that conditions in Darfur in western Sudan are sharply deteriorating. The war-torn region is undeniably experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe, facilitated by the absence of an effectual central government.
Even more alarming, however, is the increasing discourse claiming that the Sudanese government is undertaking operations of ethnic cleansing against the inhabitants of Darfur, and especially against non-Arab tribes. ...
When attention was drawn to Sudan, the conflict in Darfur was portrayed as one between Arabs and Africans, a pretext for further perpetuating a negative image of the Arab and Muslim worlds. ...
The conflict is not about ethnic cleansing. Due to the weakness of the Sudanese security apparatus, the Janjaweed have become more powerful than the Sudanese police forces. Even the Sudanese army, exhausted by war in the south, is unable to confront the Janjaweed . The decision of the United States Congress to impose sanctions will negatively impact the Sudanese people throughout the country and can, therefore, only be seen as a form of collective punishment. Suspicion in the Arab world is that the US' eagerness to intervene in Darfur is an American conspiracy to gain control of Sudanese oil." (Hat tip: IMRA.)

"Death and Deception in Darfur" (Daniel Wolf, The Washington Post, 2004/07/31)
Darfur I: "On the morning of July 12, hell descended on the village of Donki Dereisa. Shortly before sunrise, Fatima Ibrahim, 28, awoke to the deafening sound of exploding ordnance falling from the sky. As she emerged from her mud hut with her 10-year-old daughter, she saw fires blazing all around and scores of heavily armed men on horseback attacking from every direction. With bullets whistling past, Ibrahim and her daughter ran for their lives, ducking into a nearby ravine, where they hid without food or water for the next two days.
From the ditch, Ibrahim witnessed a horrific avalanche of violence that will haunt her for life. With Sudanese foot soldiers at their side, the mounted attackers shot the panicked and unarmed villagers in cold blood. Approximately 150 people, including 10 women, were killed. But the worst was to come.
Ibrahim told Refugees International about a week after the attack that among those captured during the assault were four of her brothers and six young children, including three of her cousins. As Ibrahim watched in horror, several of the attackers began grabbing the screaming children and throwing them one by one into a raging fire. One of the male villagers ran from his hiding place to plead for their lives. It was a fatal error. The raiders subdued the man and later beheaded him and dismembered his body. All six of the children were burned. Ibrahim's four brothers have not been heard from since." (Also: "But recent events suggest that in making these commitments, Khartoum's objective was to stall for time in the hope it might deceive the international community into believing the crisis had been brought under control. This cynical approach is graphically illustrated by the recent arrest and prosecution of a group of alleged Janjaweed militiamen on charges of robbery and murder in southern Darfur's provincial capital of Nyala. According to reliable sources inside the government, the "Janjaweed" were in fact common criminals plucked from a Nyala jail, who were informed that they would be sentenced to death unless they agreed to pose as Janjaweed and confess to the crimes. The true killers remain at large.")

"An Oil-for-Food Connection?: On whether any of Saddam's loot made its way into Osama's pockets" (Claudia Rosett, The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/08/09 issue)
"So let's do some imagining. Unfashionable though it may be, let's even imagine a money trail that connects Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda.
By 1996, remember, bin Laden had been run out of Sudan, and seems to have been out of money. He needed a fresh bundle to rent Afghanistan from the Taliban, train recruits, expand al Qaeda's global network, and launch what eventually became the 9/11 attacks. Meanwhile, over in Iraq about that same time, Saddam Hussein, after a lean stretch under United Nations sanctions, had just cut his Oil-for-Food deal with the U.N., and soon began exploiting that program to embezzle billions meant for relief. ...
In 1996, Sudan kicked out bin Laden. He went to Afghanistan, arriving there pretty much bankrupt, according to the 9/11 Commission report. His family inheritance was gone, his allowance had been cut off, and Sudan had confiscated his local assets. Yet, just two years later, bin Laden was back on his feet, feeling strong enough to issue a public declaration of war on America. In February 1998, in a London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, he published his infamous fatwa exhorting Muslims to "kill the Americans and plunder their money." ...
An intriguing feature of this fatwa was its prominent mention of Iraq, not just once, but four times. Analysts at the CIA and elsewhere have long propounded the theory that secular Saddam and religious Osama would not have wanted to work together. But Saddam's secular style seemed to bother bin Laden not a whit. ...
But it is at least intriguing that the month after bin Laden's fatwa, in March 1998, as the 9/11 Commission reports, two al Qaeda members visited Baghdad. And in July 1998, 'an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with bin Laden.'"

"Alas for Kerry, the days of transatlantic amity are gone" (Niall Ferguson, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/07/31)
Kerry III: "Well, here's another reality for you, Mr Kerry. Even if you are elected in November, and even if the European leaders do fawn over you in a way not seen since the days of JFK, I don't expect much in the way of burden-sharing, least of all from the French. Sure, with you in the White House, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder would spout all sorts of fine words about restoring transatlantic harmony. But I would be quite astonished if practical support, whether in the form of money or men, were to be forthcoming.
This is not a fashionable view, least of all in academic circles. A clear majority of those who think, write and talk about international relations for a living take the view that the transatlantic alliance system can and must be restored. ...
Let's not kid ourselves that the French and the Germans — or, for that matter, we British — were passionately pro-American during the Cold War. On the contrary, American experts constantly fretted about the levels of popular anti-Americanism in Europe. But as long as there was the Soviet Union menacing us with its array of missiles, troops and spooks, there was one overwhelming practical argument for the unity of "the West". ...
Of course, there actually is a very grave threat – that of Islamic fundamentalism. Yet Europeans quite clearly do not see this as a threat that requires transatlantic solidarity. On the contrary, since the Spanish elections earlier this year, they have acted as if the optimal response to the growing threat of Islamist terrorism is to distance Europe from America."

"The Wrong War" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/07/31)
Kerry II: "Kerry also says: "We need to build our alliances, so that we can get the terrorists before they get us." Yet he also says: "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security." ...
But who are these allies?
A majority of NATO members backed the United States in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, as did a majority of the European Union members, plus Japan. In the Balkans, Greece alone of NATO members led the opposition to U.S. policies. In the case of Iraq, France played that role.
Thus what Kerry's offers amounts to nothing but bringing occasional dissidents such as Greece and France on board. Is that so important in the larger scheme of things? Americans might be surprised to learn that "we will win" if, and only if, French President Jacques Chirac agrees to join Kerry in fighting al Qaeda or in deploying NATO forces to Iraq. ...
Kerry's position on Iraq is an exercise in ambiguity. In 1991, he voted against the use of force to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, although that had been unanimously approved in the U.N. Security Council. Later, he said he regretted that vote. In 2002, he voted for toppling Saddam by war, although this did not have specific U.N. support. And now he implies that he regrets that vote, too.
As a multilateralist, Kerry should have voted for intervention in Kuwait in '91 and against intervention in Iraq in '02. But, each time, he did the opposite."

"All Things to All People" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2004/07/31)
Kerry I: "What an incoherent disaster. When you actually read for content, you see that the speech skirts almost every tough issue and comes out on both sides of every major concern. The Iraq section is shamefully evasive. He can't even bring himself to use the word "democratic" or to contemplate any future for Iraq, democratic or otherwise. He can't bring himself to say whether the war was a mistake or to lay out even the most meager plan for moving forward. For every gesture in the direction of greater defense spending, there are opposing hints about reducing our commitments and bringing the troops home. ...
And it all brings back the memories of Kerry the senator. For though convention viewers may not be aware of it, Kerry has actually had a career since his four months in Vietnam — mostly in the Senate. It's not true that Kerry is a flaming lefty (he's a genuine budget hawk and he voted for welfare reform), but he was wrong about just about every major foreign policy judgment of the last two decades. He voted against the first gulf war, against many major weapons systems. He fought to reduce the defense budget. He opposed the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in the early 1980's. He supported the nuclear freeze. His decision to authorize war in Iraq but vote against financing the occupation is the least intellectually coherent position of all possible alternatives." (See also: "Invoking His Past, Kerry Vows to Command 'a Nation at War'" (Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, 2004/07/30))

"Sudan rejects Darfur resolution" (BBC News, 2004/07/30)
"Sudan has rejected a new UN resolution, which says Khartoum must halt atrocities by Arab militias in the western Darfur region within 30 days.
Information Minister Al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik said the document was incorrect.
But Sudan's UN ambassador Elfatih Erwa said the government would nonetheless comply with the US-drafted resolution. ...
Aid agencies believe the resolution has been fatally weakened by the changes.
"The Security Council have today proved unanimous in their inaction," the representative of one major aid agency working in Darfur, which wanted to remain anonymous, told BBC News Online.
'The only thing the UN Security Council has delivered is... another 30 days in which civilians will continue to live in fear of being killed or raped.
The government of Sudan will be celebrating yet another failure to call them to account.'"

Added in archive:
"The Conservative Party" (Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times/andrewsullivan.com, 2004/07/25)

Friday, July 30, 2004

News and commentary:

"Egypt's Ruling Party Newspaper: The Holocaust is a Zionist Lie Aimed at Extorting the West" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 756, 2004/07/30)
"Dr. Rif'at Sayyed Ahmad, director of the "Jaffa Research Center" in Cairo and columnist for Al-Liwaa Al-Islami, which is the Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party's paper, published a two-part article titled 'The Lie About The Burning of the Jews.' ...
' The Zionist enterprise on the land of Palestine succeeded by means of lies and myths, from the myth of the 'Chosen People' and the 'Promised Land' to the lie about the burning of the Jews in the Nazi gas chambers during World War II. When these means were scientifically examined, it was proven that they were untrue, that their reasoning was weak, and that they cannot withstand the test of solid fact.
What interests us here is that this lie [about] the burning of the Jews in the Nazi crematoria has been disseminated throughout the world until our time in order to extort the West and make it easier for the Jews of Europe to hunt [sic] Palestine and establish a state on it, in disregard of the most basic principles of international law and the right of peoples to independent life without occupation. [This lie] was raised [also] so that [the Jews] would receive financial, technological, and economic aid from the West.'"

"A suicide attacker, center, approaches the driver's door..."
(Geo TV/AP, 2004/07/31)
"A suicide attacker, center, approaches the driver's door of a car of Pakistani Prime Minister-designate Shaukat Aziz in Fateh Jang, southwest of Islamabad, Pakistan, Friday, July 30, 2004 in this image from Geo TV."

"Pakistan's PM-Designate Survives Assassination Bid" (Simon Cameron-Moore, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/30)
"Pakistan's prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz escaped unhurt in a suicide bomb attack Friday that killed at least six people, including his driver, witnesses and officials said.
Another 45 people were wounded, seven of them seriously, in the attack near Fatehjung, a rural constituency close to the town of Attock in the central province of Punjab, where Aziz was campaigning for a by-election. ...
The attack took place immediately after a political meeting on open ground close to a railway track near a village called Jaffar Moar, in the Fatehjung constituency.
"He (Aziz) was sat in the rear of his car, behind the driver and they were just about to move off when a bearded man of about 30 approached and when he came in contact with the driver's door he blew himself up," Mushahid Hussain, secretary general of the PML, told Reuters.
Hours after the attack, a Reuters correspondent could see a head and a hand, that police say belonged to the bomber, still lying at the scene of the blast along with the body of the dead driver in Aziz's damaged black Mercedes and another white Toyota with bloodstains on its windows."

"UN demands Sudan action on Darfur" (BBC News, 2004/07/30)
"The UN Security Council has warned the Sudan government that it must halt atrocities by Arab militias in the western Darfur region within 30 days.
A US-drafted resolution demanding that Khartoum disarm the fighters was passed with two abstentions.
The resolution also says that those responsible be arrested and tried.
The vote was only passed after the US dropped the word "sanctions" in exchange for the threat of economic and diplomatic "measures".
Up to 50,000 people have died and more than a million have fled their homes in Darfur.
The Janjaweed, the main Arab militia group allied with the government, has been blamed for mass rapes, killings and burning of villages in Darfur.
The resolution was backed by 13 council members. Two members, China and Pakistan, abstained. ...
It notes that the council "expresses its intention to consider further actions - including measures as provided for in Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations - on the government of Sudan, in the event of non-compliance". Article 41 provides for sanctions to be applied."

"'Fahrenheit' shown on TV in Cuba" (Reuters, 2004/07/30)
"U.S. director Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been shown on prime time Cuban state-run television after playing to packed cinemas for a week.
In a country with a deep-seated distrust of U.S. governments, the film has generated widespread public interest and added to a recent barrage of official criticism of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Cubans have stood in long lines to buy tickets to see rough DVD copies projected at 120 cinema theatres across the island to unfailing applause. ...
In a speech on Monday, Castro portrayed Bush as a "sinister" religious fundamentalist bent on destroying Cuban socialism and lengthily discussed the U.S. president's past drinking problems as the root of his "bellicosity."
Castro drew laughter from his audience quoting Moore's book "Stupid White Men" which questions Bush's reading abilities." (See also: "Fahrenheit 9/11 gets help offer from Hezbollah" (Samantha Ellis, The Guardian, 2004/06/17))

"If the Dead Could Talk" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/07/30)
"July has been a bad month for our civilization. Islamic terrorists right out of Gibbon's pages on Attila are caught with heads of their victims in their refrigerators in Saudi Arabia — while Britain and the United States squabble over the extradition of an Islamic fascist whose career was dedicated to convincing Muslims in the West to destroy the United States while whining that infidels were occupying the ancient caliphate. In fact, the opposite is true: Detroit is the largest community of expatriate Arabs in the world outside the Middle East. Emigrants flock to gracious hosts in Michigan to live under tolerance and freedom impossible in their own Arab countries.
In response, crazy al Qaeda videos keep airing on their official mouthpiece, al Jazeera, depicting Western interlopers squatting on "Arab lands." Can someone please tell the Arab world that its millions are stampeding to the Christian infidel West, while very few Americans want to go to the "Holy Lands." Saying that Mr. Johnson had no business in Saudi Arabia is like saying that a million Arabs have no business in the American Midwest. ...
Meanwhile, the U.N. scolds Israel about its fence to keep out suicide murderers to the applause of the European and Arab worlds. Yet both sit mostly powerless while Arabs in turn systematically mass murder black Africans in the Sudan. Can we at least drop the falsity: In the new global CNN media circus, an Arab must kill 1,000 innocents deliberately to warrant the condemnation that the world allots to a Jew who kills one Arab inadvertently."

"France - Kerry's Israel problem" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/30)
Glick deconstructs the meaning of "acting unilaterally":
"As former Clinton administration official and current Kerry foreign policy adviser Richard Holbrooke put it to the Post, the Bush administration advocated "extremist ideas" that had "never had a voice in the policymaking bodies of the executive branch." One such idea, the Post paraphrased, was "acting unilaterally." But what does "acting unilaterally" mean? It does not mean "going it alone." After all, there are several dozen other countries actively involved in US operations in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan.
Neither does "acting unilaterally" mean that in Iraq the US is acting outside of a clear UN Security Council mandate. Ahead of the US-led operations in Kosovo in 1999, in which Holbrooke played a key role, Russia used the threat of its Security Council veto to prevent the US from taking action under a UN umbrella. Yet no one has ever accused the US of acting unilaterally in Kosovo.
What "acting unilaterally" actually means to Holbrooke and Kerry is that the multilateral coalition Bush assembled in Iraq does not include France. It was France that prevented a UN Security Council resolution backing the US-led invasion, and it was France that led the EU and NATO to reject US requests to forge coalitions under whose aegis the US would lead the war against Saddam's regime.
With its UN Security Council veto, its membership in NATO and its leading position in the EU, France has fashioned itself the indispensable ally for Eurocentric Americans. This it has done in spite of the fact that France has opposed almost every single US foreign policy initiative since September 11. Yet, in spite of France's overt hostility, administration critics still believe that the US cannot garner a politically palatable coalition for action on the international stage without French involvement." (See also: "A Nostalgia for The Consensus Of the 1990s" (John F. Harris, The Washington Post, 2004/07/29). Glick also points to this outrageous quote by former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard which I'd missed: "From the French ambassador to Britain's statement calling Israel a "sh-tty little country," to former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard's declaration that the creation of Israel was "a mistake", to its persistent support of Arafat despite mountains of evidence implicating him as a current and active mastermind of terror, France has made it plain that it is an opponent, not an ally, in the Arab-Muslim war to destroy us." See also: "Former French PM: Israel's creation a 'historic mistake'" (Ellis Shuman, israelinsider, 2004/07/21))

"The Holy War Foundation" (Stephen Schwartz, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/07/30)
Schwartz on the "so-called Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which, as I have previously argued, would be better called the Holy War Foundation":
"According to defectors from the conspiracy, the HLF web server was used by virtually the entire “Wahhabi lobby”: the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada, and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the latter being the Western Hemisphere arm of the Jama’at-i-Islami, a murderous Wahhabi movement wreaking chaos in Pakistan.
The HLF network has also included such other terrorist front groups as the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP) and the American Muslims for Jerusalem. These groups appeared independent of one another, but nearly all of them drew from the common financial and technical pool at HLF. ...
When we look back to September 11, we can say that many legal victories against the terrorist conspiracy have been achieved: Randall “Ismail” Royer, the buddy of “antiwar” screecher Dennis “Justin” Raimondo is doing 20 years in prison; Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who once pranced before the White House shouting his allegiance to Hamas, is behind bars and facing trial; HLF is now history. But there is much more to be done, beginning with serious inquiries into the financing of CAIR and their cohort, and the investigation and arrest in Saudi Arabia of members of the 'Golden Chain.'" (See also: "Muslim charity charged in U.S. with funding Hamas" (Reuters/Haaretz, 2004/07/27))

"The 9/11 Commission and Jihad" (Andrew G. Bostom, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/07/30)
A crash course in the concept of Jihad for the 9/11 commissioners:
"Jihad wars have been waged continuously for well over a millennium, through the present, because jihad, which means “to strive in the path of Allah,” embodies an ideology and a jurisdiction. ...
In Khaldun (d. 1406), jurist (Maliki), renowned philosopher, historian, and sociologist, summarized these consensus opinions from five centuries of prior Muslim jurisprudence with regard to the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad:

In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force...The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense...Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations. ...

And in 1996, Bassam Tibi wrote this:

At its core, Islam is a religious mission to all humanity. Muslims are religiously obliged to disseminate the Islamic faith throughout the world. “We have sent you forth to all mankind” (Q. 34:28). If non-Muslims submit to conversion or subjugation, this call (da’wa) can be pursued peacefully. If they do not, Muslims are obliged to wage war against them. In Islam, peace requires that non-Muslims submit to the call of Islam, either by converting or by accepting the status of a religious minority (dhimmi) and paying the imposed poll tax, jizya. World peace, the final stage of the da’wa, is reached only with the conversion or submission of all mankind to Islam…Muslims believe that expansion through war is not aggression but a fulfillment of the Qur’anic command to spread Islam as a way to peace."

"Invoking His Past, Kerry Vows to Command 'a Nation at War'" (Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, 2004/07/30)
"Kerry promised to take charge of "a nation at war.'' He invoked his service in Vietnam 35 years ago as he vowed to protect Americans from terror in the 21st century.
"I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president," Mr. Kerry said, according to a text of his remarks prepared for delivery. "Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response." ...
"We have it in our power to change the world again, but only if we're true to our ideals - and that starts by telling the truth to the American people," Mr. Kerry said. "That is my first pledge to you tonight. As president, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House."
Expanding on that theme, Mr. Kerry said, according to the text: 'I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.'" (See also: "Senator John Kerry's Remarks to the Democratic National Convention" (The New York Times, 2004/07/30))

Added in archive:
"Waking Up From the American Dream" (Sasha Abramsky, The Chronicle, 2004/07/23)
"Former French PM: Israel's creation a 'historic mistake'" (Ellis Shuman, israelinsider, 2004/07/21)
"For love of liberty" (Charles Moore, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/11)

Thursday, July 29, 2004

News and commentary:

"Guess who forgot Sudan" (Amotz Asa-El, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/29)
Asa-El on the disproportionate media coverage of the Middle East: "The disaster in Sudan did not begin this year, and is not confined to the Darfur region which is now in the headlines. The recent deaths of 30,000 Sudanese are but a subchapter in a conflict that has been raging for more than two decades, and which according to modest estimates has taken the lives of more than 1.2 million people. ...
While all this raises many harsh questions — where, for instance, were the Vatican, the UN, the Arab League, and the Organization of African Unity — one seems even more perplexing: where was the media?
Where was everybody while a few hours' flight south of Rome, the largest African country's air force was systematically bombarding civilian populations, and at one point even hospitals, in an ongoing campaign that resulted in the biggest mass murder anywhere since the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia during the late 1970s? ...
As far as the media is concerned, the Middle East is Israel and Palestine. Yet in reality the Middle East is well more than a quarter-of-a-billion Arabs who populate a vast landmass that stretches from Morocco on the shores of the Atlantic to Oman on the shores of the Indian Ocean. These generally ignored masses are so politically oppressed and so frequently destitute, that their plight ultimately generates religious wars in Africa, festering slums in Europe, and terror attacks in America. Yet their stories, which beg to be told, remain untold."

"Let me be the first to say this about Kerry’s speech..." (James Lileks, The Bleat, 2004/07/29)
Lileks on the Democratic convention: "Right now I have a browser window open to Fark, and a T-shirt ad shows Bush’s face with the logo “American Psycho.” What else do you need to know? As Teddy Kennedy said in his convention speech: “The only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush.” It’s really quite simple, isn’t it? We live in a manufactured climate of fear ginned up by war-crazed neocon overlords. There is no threat. The only thing we have to fear is Bush, who sits as we speak in the Oval Office sucking the marrow from Whoopi’s shin-bones.
If so, I wonder why anyone agreed to the stringent security policies that characterize this year’s conventions. Why the bomb-sniffing dogs? Why the snipers? Why the metal detectors, the invasive inspection of bags? Is it all an elaborate defense against Bush crashing the party and setting off a bomb belt, shouting God is Great, y’all!
No, they’re fearful of something else.
Damned if I know what, though. Damned if I know." (See also: "'All we have to fear is Bush'" (The Guardian, 2004/07/29): "'In the depths of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt inspired the nation when he said, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself'. Today, we say the only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush,' [Edward Kennedy] roared and went on to accuse Mr Bush of deepening insecurities about healthcare, jobs, racism and pollution)")

"Here's the text of Michael Moore's Tuesday speech..." (Hugh Hewitt, hughhewitt.com, 2004/07/29)
"Here's the text of Michael Moore's Tuesday speech following his Monday appearance with former President Jimmy Carter. Moore is the authentic voice of the Democratic Party in 2004, so read his remarks very closely: ...
'Now the other side, the unelected side, who occupy our White House, they are not going to go peacefully. They like being in charge with no mandate. They actually believe they could take us to war with no mandate from the people. And they knew they had to lie to the people to get them believing that Saddam Hussein had something to do with September 11th , and that there were weapons of mass destruction, this this and that. So they’re not going to go without a fight, and believe me they are better fighters than we are. They have proven…you have to give them their props for that. I mean they are up at six in the morning trying to figure out which minority group they’re going to screw today. The hate that they eat for breakfast…I mean our side, we never see six in the morning (laughter) unless we’ve been up all night.'" (See also: "Michael Moore in Presidential Box at Convention..." (CNN/Drudge Report, 2004/07/27))

"Key al-Qaeda suspect 'arrested'" (BBC News, 2004/07/29)
"Pakistan says it has arrested a key suspect in the bombings of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998.
He has been named as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, an al-Qaeda militant who has a $5m American bounty on his head.
Pakistan Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat said the Tanzanian was captured during a raid in a small town in central Pakistan on Sunday. ...
Mr Ghailani has been indicted in the US over the bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, nearly six years ago.
More than 200 people were killed in the two explosions, including 12 American citizens. Most of the victims were Kenyans and Tanzanians.
Mr Ghailani is on the FBI's list of 22 'most wanted terrorists.'"

"Defectors kidnapped, North Korea says" (IHT, 2004/07/29)
"North Korea has called this week's defection of nearly 460 of its citizens to South Korea a "planned kidnapping" and on Thursday lashed out at Seoul and other parties involved in the operation. ...
North Korea's statement on Thursday, delivered by a spokesman from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, was Pyongyang's first public response to the defector airlift.
According to North Korea's official press agency, KCNA, the spokesman said:
'This is an organized and planned kidnapping, as well as a terror crime that took place in broad daylight. The South Korean government will be fully responsible for the outcome of this situation, and other forces that cooperated in this affair will also pay a big price.'" (See also: "Largest ever group flees North Korea" (The Guardian, 2004/07/27))

"Terminator or girlie man?" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2004/07/31 issue)
"By sheer coincidence, I happened to hear of the girlie-men ruckus just after reading a piece in the July issue of Foreign Policy, in which Parag Khanna of the Brookings Institution argues that Europe is ‘the world’s first metrosexual superpower’. ...
This may well be the dumbest essay the usually sober Foreign Policy has ever published. I had trouble keeping my Howard Dean metrosexual riff going beyond the second paragraph, but old Khanna flogs his metaphor into the ground and then scrapes it off the floor for more:
'The EU has become more effective — and more attractive — than the United States on the catwalk of diplomatic clout... Metrosexuals always know how to dress for the occasion (or mission). Spreading peace across Eurasia serves US interests, but it’s best done by donning Armani pinstripes rather than US army fatigues...' ...
Mr Khanna comes close to the truth when he notes that metrosexuals ‘spend a long time standing in front of the mirror’. In so far as this demographic exists at all, what defines metrosexuals isn’t that they’re gay or straight but that they’re in love with themselves: it’s a cult of narcissism. And so is geopolitical metrosexuality. You look great, you feel great, but you do nothing. You go to endless multilateral meetings with other presidents and prime ministers and you trumpet the merits of ‘soft power’, but nothing happens. It’s a way of advertising your own virtue, nothing more. At a certain level, fixing Sudan involves going in there and killing people, and if your main worry is how you look, you’re not going to be up to that." (See also: "The Metrosexual Superpower" (Parag Khanna, Foreign Policy, From the July/August 2004 issue))

"Her Virtual Prison" (Danielle Crittenden, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/08/29)
Crittenden on "Inside the Kingdom" by Carmen bin Laden, the ex-wife of Osama's older brother Yeslam:
"Shrouded in her unfamiliar and suffocating black robes, Carmen entered what sounds like a luridly decorated marble tomb. From then on, she was no longer free.
Each day, Yeslam vanished to work. Carmen and her young daughter passed the hours in the company of his mother and sister. Rarely could she leave the house — rarely, even, did she see sunlight. Courtyards had to be cleared of male servants before she could poke her head outside; she was not even permitted to cross the street alone to visit a relative. When she did venture out, she had to wear a choking abaya and thick socks to hide her ankles. "It was like carrying a jail on your back," she writes. ...
She has emerged from her ordeal with some urgent insights into the kingdom from which she escaped: 'Osama bin Laden and those like him didn't spring, fully formed, from the desert sand. They were made. They were fashioned by the workings of an opaque and intolerant medieval society that is closed to the outside world. It is a society where half the population have had their basic rights as people amputated, and obedience to the strictest rules of Islam must be absolute. Despite all the power of their oil-revenue, the Saudis are structured by a hateful, backward-looking view of religion and an education that is a school for intolerance . . . .When Osama dies, I fear there will be a thousand men to take his place.'"

"Zionists regain control of Margostan" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/08/29)
"Margo Kingston's "statement of fact" continues to amuse. Now the ridiculous woman claims to be "inexperienced in this debate" and describes her "statement" as "a throwaway line that I deeply regret".
Zionist controllers no doubt forced that retraction. But that's not the only comment Margo needs to address; The Australian has evidence of Margo rewriting history in a bid to dodge further trouble:

After commenting in her online "Webdiary" last Thursday that "the fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia", online journalist Margo Kingston went into damage control on Monday, apologising to those she'd offended. However, Diary understands Kingston posted the following even more incendiary remark on her website on Friday night: "Far from protecting Jewish people against future atrocities, the Fundamentalist Zionist lobby is actually promoting anti-Semitism by its actions and tactics. Neither major party in either country is game to protest, because the power of the lobby is such that careers can be ruined. It is becoming increasingly obvious that John Howard is the lobby's strong choice to win the election, and that means big money and big power will be behind him." Mysteriously, as Kingston confronted claims of anti-Semitism over her earlier remark, the later comment disappeared from her website. We're waiting to see how this squares with Webdiary's own code of ethics, which states: "I will let you know when archives have been changed except when changes do not alter their substance, for example corrections to spelling or grammar." Pretty rich from someone who frequently attacks the ethical standards of other media outlets."

(See also: "The post-apology debate" (Margo Kingston, Sydney Morning Herald, 2004/08/27), "Fundamental foibles" (The Australian, 2004/08/29) and "Statement of fact" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/07/27))

Added in archive:
"Beyond 9/11" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/07/25)
"Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror" (Michiko Kakutani, NYT/IHT, 2004/07/19)
"The Misunderstood Osama: How to read Imperial Hubris" (Bryan Curtis, Slate, 2004/07/14)
"The secret history of Anonymous" (Jason Vest, The Boston Phoenix, 2004/07/02)
"CIA Analyst Assails War on Terrorism" (Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, 2004/06/26)

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

News and commentary:

"The Terror Web" (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, from the 2004/08/02 issue)
"On April 2nd, two weeks after the election, a security guard for the ave, Spain’s high-speed train line, discovered a blue plastic bag beside the tracks forty miles south of Madrid. Inside the bag were twenty-six pounds of Goma-2.":
"An Al Qaeda statement posted on the Internet after the March 11th bombings declared, “Being targeted by an enemy is what will wake us from our slumber.” Seen in this light, terrorism plays a sacramental role, dramatizing a religious conflict by giving it an apocalyptic backdrop. And Madrid was just another step in the relentless march of radical Islam against the modern, secular world.
Had the Madrid cell rested on its accomplishment after March 11th, Al Qaeda would properly be seen as an organization now being guided by political strategists — as an entity closer in spirit to ETA, with clear tactical objectives. April 2nd throws doubt on that perspective. There was little to be gained politically from striking an opponent who was complying with the stated demand: the government had agreed to withdraw troops from Iraq. If the point was merely humiliation or revenge, then April 2nd makes more sense; the terrorists wanted more blood, even if a second attack backfired politically. (The Socialists could hardly continue to follow the terrorist agenda with a thousand new corpses along the tracks.) April 2nd is comprehensible only if the real goal of the bombers was not Iraq but Spain, where the Islamic empire began its retreat five hundred years ago. “Spain is a target because we are the historic turning point,” Aristegui said. 'After this, they are going to try to hit Rome, London, Paris, and the U.S. harder than they did before.'"

"Qaeda-linked group vows 'bloody war'" (Reuters, 2004/08/28)
"Muslim militants claiming links to al Qaeda have vowed to launch a "bloody war" on Europe and say Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is its first target.
In a statement posted on an Islamic website, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades made the threats after a "truce" offered by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden expired earlier this month.
"Today, we have declared a bloody war on you and we will not stop raids against you until you return to the correct path," said the statement, which called on European countries to pull out of Iraq and quit their alliances with the United States.
"After the truce determined by our sheik Osama bin Laden ended, and after you have not returned to the correct path, we declare a war in your faces and in the face of your silent people whose silence proves their support to you," it added.
The group warned it would start by attacking Berlusconi.
"We will shake the cities of Europe and we will start with you Berlusconi and we will make it bloody until you return to the correct path. Wait for us Berlusconi and your other allies as well, wait for our promise which we have revealed to you and are now revealing to Europe." ...
"Leaders and peoples of Europe withdraw your killer missions from Iraq and follow the way taken by others before you taste the bitterness of blood," said the new statement, the authenticity of which could not be immediately verified."

"Arabs shock Europeans, refuse to condemn anti-Semitism" (Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz, 2004/07/28)
Europeans suddenly shocked by glaring decades-old reality: "Arab states at the United Nations are trying to foil a proposal to raise a vote condemning anti-Semitism in the General Assembly this September.
At a closed meeting held recently in New York, UN ambassadors from Arab and EU countries met and the Arabs made clear that they do not accept the initiative for the UN General Assembly to condemn anti-Semitism.
The blunt language used by the Arabs describing their opposition, and their plans to use diplomatic means to prevent the resolution from reaching a vote, shocked the Europeans, said a UN source.
According to UN sources, the Arab delegates were also critical of a UN seminar on anti-Semitism held last month. A senior Western diplomat said that among the Arabs who spoke with the Europeans was PLO observer Nasser al Kidwe, and he was particularly outspoken in his objections to a UN General Assembly resolution on anti-Semitism.
The source said Kidwe attacked the content of UN Secretary general Koffi Anan's speech to the seminar last month, particularly Annan's pride in the cancelation of the 1975 Zionism equals racism resolution. "The Europeans were depressed when they left the meeting," said the source."

"Suicide Bomber Kills 70 in Attack North of Baghdad" (Faris Mehdawi , Reuters, 2004/07/28)
"A minibus packed with explosives blew up near a police station and a market north of Baghdad Wednesday, killing 70 people and wounding 30 in the worst attack since the handover of power one month ago.
The powerful suicide bomb obliterated market stalls and destroyed several buildings. It raised fears of a fresh insurgent campaign just days before Iraq holds a major political conference to chart its future.
It was the worst death toll from a single bomb attack in Iraq since a blast outside a mosque in the holy city of Najaf last August killed more than 80 people. ...
Reuters television pictures showed bodies scattered across a street after the Baquba blast, some of them still on fire.
A severely wounded man, his clothes burned and torn and his body covered in blood, sat among smoldering ruins near several dead, some of whom looked like children.
A Health Ministry official said 70 people were killed and 56 wounded in the mid-morning blast in the violent town 40 miles north of Baghdad. She said the toll was expected to rise. ...
Twenty-one people in a minibus alongside the one that detonated were killed, an Interior Ministry source said. ...
Firefighters arrived to douse the flames, sometimes having to point their hoses at still burning dead bodies. "God bless them, what have they done?" shouted one man, referring to the victims." (Also: "The brother of one of two Jordanian drivers kidnapped in Iraq this week defended the captors. "We believe that any person in any Islamic country who is defending his himself, his right and land is one of the mujahideen and not a terrorist," Hassan Ahmed Salamah told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television.")

"Report: N. Korean using gas chambers" (The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/27)
"North Korea is experimented with lethal gas on political prisoners according to an alleged former Korean scientist interviewed Wednesday on the BBC.
The scientist described a similar glass chamber, saying he watched as prisoners were gassed to death. He said he had "participated in the murder of people" using a cyanide-based poison beginning in 1979.
"The purpose of this experiment was to determine how long it takes for a human being to die when x amount of gas is put into x cubic metres of space," the scientist said.
'Since this was for military purposes, we wanted to determine how much gas was necessary to annihilate the whole city of Seoul.'"

"Freed Egyptian Thinks Remorse Turned Captors" (Somini Sengupta, The New York Times, 2004/07/28)
"In the end, Muhammad Mamdouh Qutb figures it was his captors' remorse that led to his freedom.
Yes, they roughed him up and bundled him into a car, took him hostage for four days and told the world they would kill him. But then, said Mr. Qutb, an Egyptian diplomat, it dawned on them that he was far from an ideal target: he prayed five times a day, he fasted, and as they learned from a television report, he was known for teaching the Koran to children at the neighborhood mosque. ...
When his captors watched a segment of a television news program about his kidnapping, Mr. Qutb said, they saw that he had been teaching the Koran at the mosque where they snatched him. "One of my pupils said he is missing me," he recalled. "They said they cannot stand to see these things and decided to set me free." ...
As mementos, the Lions of Allah Brigade gave him a knife, a set of prayer beads and a bandanna that reads, "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet."
"They apologized a lot; they said they chose the wrong man to do such an action," he said. 'I felt they were feeling guilty. They were human beings. As persons they are good. They have some ideas which are not good.'" (See also: "Sources: Egypt paid ransom for diplomat" (CNN.com, 2004/07/27))

"Villagers burned alive in Sudan atrocity" (David Blair, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/07/28)
"One of the most savage atrocities yet recorded in Sudan was laid bare yesterday when it was reported that Janjaweed militia shackled villagers and burned them alive during a raid in the Darfur region.
Monitors from the African Union reported that on July 3 the black African village of Suleia was attacked "by militia elements believed to be Janjaweed".
The Arab raiders, mounted on horses and camels, "killed civilians, in some cases by chaining them and burning them alive".
"However, the team could not substantiate the allegation that Sudanese forces fought alongside the Janjaweed," said the report, which was seen by the Reuters news agency."

Added in archive:
"'Multitude': An Antidote to Empire" (Francis Fukuyama, The New York Times, 2004/07/25)

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

News and commentary:

"Prominent Hebronite Publishes Unprecedented Indictment of Arafat" (DEBKA, 2004/07/27)
A report on pro-reform Palestinian legislator Nabil Amer's indictment of Arafat: "The 40-page indictment published in Paris called Arafat a liar, a cheat and a traitor. For the first time, a senior Palestinian accused the chairman of the Palestinian Authority of practicing terrorism. Arafat, he says, personally directs the al Aqsa Martyrs (Suicides) Brigades of Fatah, telling them what attacks to carry out. “With one hand,” Natshe charges, “he funds the al Aqsa Brigades and, with the other, he sells them out.”
The accuser does not say to whom, but suggests that the sale goes to the highest bidder.
Abu Shakar exposes what he calls the Egyptian Cement affair in some detail.
Egypt sold the Palestinian Authority large quantities of cement at low, subsidized prices for the purpose of building new dwellings for Palestinian families whose homes had been blown up or damaged in Israeli military operations. Instead, prime minister Ahmed Qureia and trade minister Maher Masri sold the cement to the Israeli firms building Israel’s security barrier (while at the same time, the Palestinian Authority demanded that the UN General Assembly and World Court declare the barrier illegal – which they did!)
The profit cleared by the pair is estimated by Natshe as ranging from 60 to 100 million shekels ($13-22m).
Additional revelations in the Paris document:
-- Ninety-seven percent of all donations made to the Palestinians came from Saudi royal princes. For some years, the infusion totaled $32 million a year. But then Riyadh whittled its donations down to the present $1.1m in light of the discovery of how the putative aid was systematically embezzled by Arafat and his cronies.
-- Arafat has recently transferred $11m to his wife Suha in Paris." (See also: "Arafat aware of wall corruption" (Gulf News, 2004/07/26))

"Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi: 'There is No Dialogue between Us and the Jews Except by the Sword and the Rifle'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 753, 2004/07/27)
"Iraqi émigré writer Hassan Assad, who resides in Sweden, published a satirical article on the reformist website www.elaph.com about the unholy alliance between London's "Marxist" mayor Ken Livingstone and the Islamist cleric Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi. ...
'Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi is the preacher who concludes each of his Friday sermons with a supplication to Allah to annihilate all those who do not embrace Islam. He has television programs all year round that have made him a star of the small screen, in a way that arouses jealousy in the hearts of the stars of Arab television series… That is, by virtue of his calls for Jihad against all those of other religions, he incites against every opinion that is different.
Today, [Al-Qaradhawi] is the guest of the 'Marxist' mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, blessed be He Who changes one thing into another. Responding to accusations that he supports terrorism and crime, which he terms Jihad, Al-Qaradhawi denied this. Even though he knows that these things are documented on tape and in books and newspapers, he dissimulates, presenting views that he does not believe in his heart.
The mayor of London understands very well who his guest really is… However, he helps Al-Qaradhawi deny the accusations against him because he shares his hostility for that civilization that removed from the world the totalitarian Marxist ideology, represented by the Soviet Union and its satellites." (See also: "Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi in London to Establish 'The International Council of Muslim Clerics'" (Steven Stalinsky, MEMRI, 2004/07/08), "A Woman's Right To Choose" (Daniel Pipes, danielpipes.org, 2004/07/07) and "Controversial cleric visits UK" (BBC News, 2004/07/07))

"Iran resumes nuclear activity, breaks EU deal" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/27)
"Breaking an agreement with Europe's big powers, Iran has resumed building and installing equipment that can be used to make nuclear weaponry, diplomats said Monday. ...
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that several weeks ago, Iranian officials broke seals placed on the equipment by the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor the moratorium on assembling and installation of centrifuges and then restarted the process."

"Muslim charity charged in U.S. with funding Hamas" (Reuters/Haaretz, 2004/07/27)
"A Texas-based Muslim charity and seven of its directors and fundraisers have been charged with supporting the militant Palestinian group Hamas and with money laundering and conspiracy.
A federal grand jury in Dallas returned the 42 charges against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the seven men in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
Holy Land Foundation, which once called itself the largest U.S.-based Muslim charity, was shut down when the U.S. government seized its assets after the September 11, 2001, attacks." (See also: "Charity's Fate Seen as Test of Wider War on Terror" (Stephen Braun, Los Angeles Times, 2003/09/14) and "Hamas Leader and Seven Others Are Indicted in Terror Probe" (AP/The New York Times, 2002/12/18))

"Sources: Egypt paid ransom for diplomat" (CNN.com, 2004/07/27)
"The Egyptian government paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure the release of an Egyptian diplomat who had been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents last week, sources in Baghdad told CNN Tuesday.
Egyptian officials deny paying any ransom for Momdoh Kotb, the country's third-ranking diplomat in Iraq.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Cairo told CNN the release took place "under the umbrella of good relations between brotherly people."
U.S. and Iraqi officials strongly discourage paying ransom — or acquiescing to kidnappers' demands in any way — for fear it will inspire insurgents to use the tactic more frequently.
But a security source in Baghdad told CNN that hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid to a group calling itself the Lions of God Brigade for Kotb's release.
Another highly placed Iraqi source confirmed that a ransom was paid, but added that Egypt made no concessions regarding its security commitment to Iraq." (See also: "Iraq militants free Egypt envoy" (BBC News, 2004/07/26))

"Michael Moore in Presidential Box at Convention..."
(CNN/Drudge Report, 2004/07/27)

"The return of the left" (Tod Lindberg, The Washington Times, 2004/07/27)
"No, the left that is back is the snarling, Michael Moore left. This is a left that hates poverty, war and injustice in general, and Republicans, oil companies, corporate fat cats and defense contractors in particular. America is a great country in principle, but in practice, which is to say under the thumb of those just listed, it is a corrupt system of cronyism in which the rich and well-connected rig the game to their own benefit, leaving everyone else out. In the left's America, politicians — especially Republican politicians — send young Americans off to die in wars whose real purpose is to win lucrative contracts for those who finance the careers of politicians. These wars, moreover, are invariably imperialist in character, bent on imposing American colonial will on subject peoples. American foreign policy can therefore be seen as imperial subjugation to serve the business interests of favored American corporations. ...
I have heard people say of Mr. Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," "it makes you think." OK, and what it makes you think about is the possibility that the left-wing critique of a corrupt militarist, imperialist, anti-democratic America is true. And this is, to put it mildly, deranged. Now, derangement is not necessarily fatal to the American body politic. Far from it. But that's provided it remains fairly marginalized, confined to such precincts as Hollywood, the Upper West Side of Manhattan and major university campuses.
The real test is how Democratic officialdom deals with the resurgent left. Do they distance themselves from it? Or do they embrace it? Or do they try to do both?"

"Old Tricks: Clinton was controlled by Zionists; the U.S. was to blame for the Cole, and other familiar motifs..." (Steven Stalinsky, National Review, 2004/07/27)
Here's another version of "the fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia" for Margo Kingston:
"Over the past few years, many commentators have claimed that anti-Americanism has reached unprecedented levels — especially in the Arab world. However, the Arab media have not been any more anti-American over the past four years than they had been previously. The major difference is that less attention was paid to the Arab media prior to September 11.
During both the Clinton and Bush administrations, many articles in the Arab media compared the U.S. to Nazi Germany and the medieval crusaders. In the Egyptian Islamic opposition Labor-party daily Al-Shaab, columnist Hilmi Mahmoud Al-Qaoud wrote on March 3, 2000: "... The Nazism of the Crusaders is not represented by Hitler or Joerg Haider alone, but also by Clinton and Jospin — they are all of the same dynasty and Jewish Nazism is no different from the Nazism of the crusaders." ...
During the Clinton administration, as is the case today, the Arab media often published conspiracy theories claiming that Jews control Washington. The Arab media often label non-Jews as "Jews" to explain U.S. governmental policies that are not popular among Arabs. The Arab media often label non-Jews as "Jews" to explain U.S. governmental policies that are not popular among Arabs. In an article in the aforementioned Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on May 15, 1998, one columnist wrote: "In his second term in office, Clinton found himself racked in a horrible 'cage' built and shaped by all the strength, corruption, base aims, and full control of the Zionists over the U.S., its parliaments, its media, its banks, its Protestant churches and preachers, and the American political parties which exchange the reins of government among themselves. President Clinton found himself surrounded by an extraordinarily corrupt gang of new Zionist knights..." The article listed the Jewish 'gang,' which included Madeline Albright, William Cohen, and 'Al Gore, the president's deputy, who is Jewish on his mother's side...'"

"How Europe Became Eurabia" (Bat Ye’or, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/07/27)
"Eurabia cannot change direction; it can only use deception to mask its emergence, its bias and its inevitable trajectory. Eurabia’s destiny was sealed when it decided, willingly, to become a covert partner with the Arab global jihad against America and Israel. Americans must discuss the tragic development of Eurabia, and its profound implications for the United States, particularly in terms of its resultant foreign policy realities. Americans should consider the despair and confusion of many Europeans, prisoners of a Eurabian totalitarianism that foments a culture of deadly lies about Western civilization. Americans should know that this self-destructive calamity did not just happen, rather it was the result of deliberate policies, executed and monitored by ostensibly responsible people. Finally, Americans should understand that Eurabia’s contemporary anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism are the spiritual heirs of 1930s Nazism and anti-Semitism, triumphally resurgent."

"Optimism in Afghanistan" (Ryan Sager, New York Post, 2004/07/27)
"There's good news from the forgotten front of the War on Terror: The first-ever public opinion poll in Afghanistan shows that people there are optimistic about the future and excited about upcoming elections.
But you wouldn't know it from the mainstream press, which received the poll with a level of skepticism usually reserved for Yeti sightings and money transfers originating in Nigeria. The most coverage given to the poll so far: a five-sentence news brief in The Washington Post.
Perhaps some folks worry that the news is a bit too convenient for President Bush.
With the situation in Iraq seen by many as a mess, Afghanistan has a constitution, is registering voters and is moving toward holding a presidential election in October. And the survey of 804 randomly selected male and female Afghan citizens, commissioned by the Asia Foundation notes that:
* 64 percent say the country is heading in the right direction.
* 81 percent say that they plan to vote in the October election.
* 77 percent say they believe the elections will "make a difference."
* 64 percent say they rarely or never worry about their personal safety, while under the Taliban only 36 percent felt that way.
* 62 percent rate President Hamid Karzai's performance as either good or excellent." (See also: "Majority of Afghans Say Country Heading in Right Direction, Despite Security, Economic Concerns" (The Asia Foundation, 2004/07/13))

"Statement of fact" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/07/27)
I don't know what's most depressing — that a major Australian paper published it or that it just was seen as a non-controversial and obvious "statement of fact" for Kingston. Probably the latter, as it speaks of a view which is taken for granted in her own fundamentalist lobby. The loony Left is quick to paint Bush and Sharon as Nazis, but isn't it ironic how much their own mindset resembles a certain Volkish ideology. For one thing, they have the same enemies: America, Britain and — behind it all — the Jews. And the same basic ideology: anti-Capitalism interlaced with anti-Semitism. Not to mention the fact that the Left has been in its most hysterical and outraged mode since Vietnam over the disposal of the worst fascist dictatorship since the 30's:
"An innocent, off-hand remark from Margo Kingston — "the fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia" — has somehow got the crusading truth-teller in trouble. Margo is mystified:

Obviously, I did not mean what many people believed I meant. I am not anti-semitic, and I thought what I wrote was a statement of fact. Is there a language problem here?

A language problem? In Webdiary? What are the odds? Responding to one reader, Margo writes:

I admit I'm at a loss to understand the anti-semetic charge.

She’s also at a loss to spell it.

I'd really appreciate your advice on this - it seemed so uncontroversial when I wrote it - I suppose because I mix largely with left wing Jewish Australians. Is there another form of words which won't offend people but makes the same point?

Let’s help. Please supply your alternative version of "the fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia" in comments." (See also: "Zionism: too many meanings make communication too hard?" (Margo Kingston, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2004/07/26) and "On the road again" (Margo Kingston, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2004/07/22): "Hi Margo. Please see below our e-mail to Minister Downer today concerning Australia’s vote in the UN General Assembly on the West Bank wall. This one has really slipped under the radar. Why, we can all ask, was there no public debate about this? (Margo: Because the fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia. A chapter in my book by Antony Loewenstein includes an indictment of the tactics of these people by Bob Carr. For an example of the Libs in the Zionists pockets, see Award honours PM’s support for Israel.)")

"Scrutinizing the Saudi Connection" (Gerald Posner, The New York Times, 2004/07/27)
Report IX: "Perhaps even more startling is the report's conclusion that the panel has "found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually" helped to finance Al Qaeda. It does say that unnamed wealthy Saudi sympathizers, and leading Saudi charities, sent money to the terror group. But the report fails to mine any of the widely available reporting and research that establishes the degree to which many of the suspect charities cited by the United States are controlled directly by the Saudi government or some of its ministers.
The report makes no mention, for example, of an October 2002 study by the Council of Foreign Relations that draws opposite conclusions about the role of Saudi charities and how "Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem." The 9/11 panel also misses an opportunity to more fully explore an intelligence coup in 2002, when American agents in Bosnia retrieved computer files of the so-called Golden Chain, a group of Mr. bin Laden's early financial supporters.
Reported to be among the 20 names on this list were a former government minister in Saudi Arabia, three billionaire banking tycoons and several top industrialists. Yet the report neither confirms nor denies this. Nor does it address what, if anything, the Saudis did with the information, or whether the men were ever arrested by Saudi authorities."

"Early Steps, Maybe, Toward a Democracy in Iraq" (Ian Fisher, The New York Times, 2004/07/27)
"Caucuses like the one Dr. Abu-Raghif attended have been convening around Iraq to select roughly 1,000 delegates, who will hold a national conference in Baghdad in the next week.
The concrete goal of the conference is to vote - openly and freely - on a 100-seat transitional council that will oversee the government of Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, until national elections are held in January. But the conference is also meant to function as an opportunity for a national dialogue, in which for the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqis from all religions, regions and political and ethnic groups begin to discuss the way forward. ...
The biggest problem so far, organizers say, is that among the groups that want to take part, there has been an almost unmanageable number of candidates. In Kut, a Shiite city south of Baghdad, 1,248 people competed for 22 seats. In Najaf, a city considered sacred by Shiites because of its shrines, there were 920 candidates for 20 seats, prompting complaints from Mr. Sadr's group and other leaders that the process was not inclusive or democratic enough.
At the caucus in Baghdad, one of four for this city of five million people, 436 people competed for 40 seats, 10 of which were set aside for women. Women are to hold 25 percent of the seats on the council."

Added in archive:
"Wheels of Fortune" (Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The New York Times, 2004/07/24)

Monday, July 26, 2004

News and commentary: