Archived news and commentary: August 16 - 22, 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 22, 2004

News and commentary:

"Iran is Our Enemy's Enemy But Not Our Friend" (Michael Gove, The Sunday Times/ActivistChat, 2004/08/22)
"My enemy’s enemy isn’t always my friend. Sometimes he’s just another enemy, as Jack Straw is now painfully discovering. In the past three months one of the major planks of British diplomacy has collapsed underneath the Foreign Secretary.
For the past three years Mr Straw has been practising a policy of “constructive engagement” towards Iran. He, and his advisers, believed that the regime in Tehran was uniquely placed to be wooed and won. ...
The Germans, British and French may well have succeeded in influencing Iranian policy by their actions. But it is hard to see how Iran’s actions recently can be considered friendly. Even by French standards.
In the past three months Iran has kidnapped eight British servicemen, compelling Britain to truckle for their release; used its agents to foment insurgency and unrest in Iraq; arranged a summit with Syria to discuss future terrorist co-operation; and started a process designed to secure itself an atomic bomb in defiance of international agreements. The best estimates, from European diplomats, put Iran just one year away from having the raw material for a bomb and three years from deploying a deliverable device. ...
Having argued in this space that constructive engagement with Iran was an error, since the policy began, it seems to me inexplicable that more voices have not been raised to oppose Mr Straw’s appeasement. The regime in Tehran has never been a plausible potential ally in the War on Terror for the simple reason that it has been one of the main sponsors of terrorism across the world since its inception."

"Elite's pitiful excuse for evil" (Andrew Bolt, The Herald Sun, 2004/08/22)
"In polite society today, no one -- not even terrorists or rapists -- is evil.
Unless, of course, they're one of us and conservative. Like, say, John Howard. Or a priest. ...
Another example: Bob Ellis is an author, popular in the Left, who writes speeches for New South Wales Premier Bob Carr.
He is now oozing from one ABC studio to the next, selling his book, Night Thoughts in Time of War. Naturally, the far-Left Age ran a hunk of it without gagging, not even over this passage:
"In most war propaganda a bogyman kills or tortures children . . . It's all so vulgar and creepy. I mean I assume Saddam, a ruthless, ambitious fan of Stalin, did bad things and killed a lot of people in his time. But kill them pointlessly? I don't think so. He was too shrewd for that; to shrewd to make enemies needlessly."
This apologia for mass-murder -- "but kill them pointlessly? I don't think so" -- recalls how Age writer Ken Davidson opposed toppling Saddam, saying he might be "a monster", but 'arguably . . . Iraq can only be held together by a monster.'"

"Besieged Al-Sadr keeps grip on shrine" (Luke Harding, The Observer, 2004/08/22)
"Over the past 17 days the standoff between Sadr's Shia militia and Iraq's US-backed interim government has been portrayed as a conflict that the renegade cleric will eventually lose. In fact, he is winning.
On Friday afternoon Iraq's interior minister claimed his police had taken control of Najaf's Imam Ali shrine and arrested several hundred 'lightly armed' fighters.
It was a boast that might have come from Saddam Hussein's notoriously unreliable information minister, 'Comical Ali'.
Arriving at the mosque a couple of hours later, I found nothing had changed. Hundreds of unarmed supporters of Sadr still loafed on mats inside the shrine's courtyard.
In the narrow alleyways around the mosque, Mahdi army fighters - one wearing a black Manchester United strip - chatted in the late afternoon sunshine.
Yesterday Sheikh Azhar Kenani, head of Kufa mosque, told The Observer that his fighters would mow down Iraqi troops, should they attempt to storm the shrine.
'One hundred per cent there will be a massacre,' the sheikh predicted. 'The Iraqi police are agents of the Americans. We will not allow the US's agents or the Americans themselves to occupy this holy site.'"

Saturday, August 21, 2004

News and commentary:

"What Went Wrong in Iraq" (Larry Diamond, Foreign Affairs, from the September/October 2004 issue)
"Because of the failures and shortcomings of the occupation — as well as the intrinsic difficulties that any occupation following Saddam's tyranny was bound to confront — it is going to take a number of years to rebuild the Iraqi state and to construct any kind of viable democratic and constitutional order in Iraq. The post-handover transition is going to be long, and initially very bloody. It is not clear that the country is going to be able to conduct reasonably credible elections by next January. And even if those elections are held in a minimally acceptable fashion, it is hard to imagine that the over-ambitious transition timetable for the remainder of 2005 will be kept. Nevertheless, the end of occupation and the transfer of authority to an interim government on June 28 offered at least a chance for a new beginning. And there is no alternative to this transitional program that does not involve one awful scenario or another: civil war, massive renewed repression, the establishment of a safe haven for terrorist organizations — or quite possibly all three.
The transition in Iraq is going to need a huge amount of international assistance — political, economic, and military-for years to come. Hopefully, the U.S. performance will improve now that Iraqis are in charge of their own future. It is going to be costly and it will continue to be frustrating. Yet a large number of courageous Iraqi democrats, many with comfortable alternatives abroad, are betting their lives and their fortunes on the belief that a new and more democratic political order can be developed and sustained in Iraq. The United States owes it to them — and to itself — to continue to help them." (See also: "Universal Democracy?" (Larry Diamond, Policy Review, from the June 2003 issue))

"Pakistan 'foils al-Qaeda attacks'" (BBC News, 2004/08/21)
"Pakistani security forces have arrested several suspected al-Qaeda members who they claim were planning to attack US and government targets, officials say.
Up to a dozen suspects have been captured, and police are searching for others, ministers said.
The suspects' targets included President Pervez Musharraf's residence, the army headquarters and the US embassy in Islamabad, ministers said.
Pakistan says it has captured more than 60 suspected militants in recent weeks.
The BBC's Zaffar Abbas in Islamabad says it was perhaps the biggest and the most organised plan by suspected al-Qaeda militants to eliminate the country's top civilian and military leadership.
Suicide bombers allegedly planned to strike President Musharraf's official residence, parliament, the US embassy, the army's headquarters and some government ministers.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said security forces had seized missiles, rockets, detonators, surveillance equipment and ammunition.
The attacks were to be carried out on Pakistan's Independence Day on 14 August, officials said."

"Islam is not an exotic addition to the English country garden" (Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/08/21)
"Islam seeks an ever greater share of the British public space. That is why Muslims were so keen on introducing a religious question into the latest census, why they seek legal acceptance of their marriage laws, and why they want state money for Muslim schools.
Once there are Islamic financial institutions, how long will it be before Muslims insist that the state and business direct all their monetary dealings with Muslims through these institutions (boycotting businesses with Jewish connections en route)? How long before Muslims, extending the logic of their concentration in places like Bradford and Leicester, seek to establish their own law within these areas, the germ of a state within a state? And how diverse would such a state be?"

"Clashes Slow as Cleric's Grip on Mosque Seems to Slip" (Alex Berenson and Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, 2004/08/21)
"Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel Shiite cleric, still seemed to retain control of the shrine of Imam Ali here late on Friday, though there were signs his grip might be weakening as the number of fighters loyal to him in the mosque dwindled to a few hundred.
Earlier in the day, forces loyal to Mr. Sadr said he had promised to "turn over the keys" of the sacred mosque to aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, building optimism about an imminent end to the two-week standoff between Mr. Sadr's guerrillas, American forces and the interim Iraqi government. ...
During the day, the fighters who make up Mr. Sadr's militia, called the Mahdi Army, slowly trickled out of the shrine, as American tanks and Humvees exchanged fire with enemy snipers less than half a mile from the entrance. "Many people have left," said a man who identified himself as Abu Mustafa, a Mahdi Army fighter. 'The shrine is emptying.'"

Friday, August 20, 2004

News and commentary:

"Sadr Militia Still Controls Iraq Shrine - Witness" (Michael Georgy, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/20)
Najaf II: "Shi'ite fighters appeared to be in control of a holy shrine in Najaf on Friday hours after Iraq's interim government said it had overcome a bloody uprising by seizing the Imam Ali mosque without a shot being fired.
Witnesses in the southern city said Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr controlled the narrow alleyways leading to the mosque, although the firebrand leader's whereabouts were unknown. Police were nowhere to be seen.
Police in Najaf told CNN they did not control the site, Iraq's holiest Shi'ite Muslim shrine, the broadcaster reported.
The confusion over the fate of the mosque swirled as the rebellion that has killed hundreds and driven world oil prices to record highs entered its third week."

"Iraqi Police Enter Najaf Shrine, Arrest Militiamen" (Michael Georgy, Reuters, 2004/08/20)
Najaf I: "Iraqi police took control of the Imam Ali Mosque in the holy city of Najaf on Friday after entering the shrine and arrested some hundreds of militiamen, Interior Ministry and an Iraqi government source said.
Police had not found radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the source said.
"The Iraqi police are now in control of the shrine, along with the religious authorities," said senior Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim.
He said Sadr may have escaped overnight and he appealed to the firebrand cleric to turn himself in.
"We urge him to come and turn himself in and he might be covered by the amnesty," Kadhim said.
Kadhim said the city was now calm, but witnesses said fighting was continuing near the shrine. ...
At least 77 Iraqis were killed and around 70 wounded in ferocious U.S. air strikes and heavy fighting in the past 24 hours, health officials said."

"Alice slams anti-Bush rockers" (cnews, 2004/08/24)
"In the eyes of Alice Cooper, all the rock stars campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry are guilty of one thing: treason. The shock-rock legend, a staunch Republican who attends NBA games in Phoenix with Arizona Senator John McCain, was disgusted when he learned of plans by Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, R.E.M. and other bands to hold a series of concerts aimed at unseating U.S. President George W. Bush.
"To me, that's treason. I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics," says the 56-year-old Cooper, who begins a 15-city Canadian tour on Aug. 20 in Thunder Bay, Ont.
"When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I'd run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick."
'If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.'"

"Olympic Games Reflect Sacrifice By the U.S.A." (Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/08/20)
"Even Howard Dean's heart had to skip a beat when the Iraqi athletes walked in to Santiago Calatrava's magnificent stadium at the Olympics opening ceremony. Boy, did they look happy. Genuinely happy. Compare their elation — reaching toward he crowd, tapping their hearts — with the athletes from Iran or Saudi Arabia, who had that smile-or-disappear look Olympic athletes forlornly wore when they represented the Soviet Union or the "Eastern bloc" nations. In a word, the Iraqis looked free.
It occurred to me watching this pageant of superb sportsmen and sportswomen that much the same true freedom of spirit could be seen on the faces of athletes from a list of nations with familiar names — Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Afghanistan, Grenada, Kuwait, South Korea, the former captive nations of Romania, Bulgaria, the Czechs, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania (all holding elections since the early 1990s), and the other former Soviet republics.
These Olympians have one thing in common: They come from the nations the U.S. has liberated since the end of World War II." (See also: "Running free after escaping iron rule of the Taliban" (Harry de Quetteville, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/07/05))

"Anti-Americanism a Hit With Egyptian Audiences" (Daniel Williams, The Washington Post, 2004/08/20)
"In Cairo's entertainment world these days, it's hard to escape a wave of anti-Americanism. Often, a sure way to fill a theater is to lambaste U.S. foreign policy, cultural habits or military activity. One recent comedy lampooning the United States featured an exploding Statue of Liberty outside the lobby. Another stage production included a randy caricature of an American general and played to packed houses for four months. ...
This spring, Abdel Rehim recorded "Hey, Arab Leaders," in which he says the United States has made the world a "jungle." The song complains that the country flexes "her muscles on Syria and Iran, but when someone utters North Korea, she keeps her mouth shut." In "Attack on Iraq," he goads the U.S. government to inspect Israel — widely believed to possess a nuclear arsenal — instead of Iraq. "Enough!" he sings. 'Chechnya, Afghanistan, Palestine, South Lebanon, the Golan Heights and now Iraq!'" (See also: "U.S. Struggles to Win Hearts, Minds in the Muslim World" (Robin Wright, The Washington Post, 2004/08/20))

Thursday, August 19, 2004

News and commentary:

"The Heartbreaking And Enraging Story of a 16 Year Old Girl’s Execution Past Sunday in the Town of Neka, Iran" (ActivistChat, 2004/08/19)
"On Sunday August 15, 2004, a 16 year old girl by the name of Atefe Rajabi, daughter of Ghassem Rajabi, was executed in the town of Neka, located in the province of Mazandaran, for “engaging in acts incompatible with chastity”. The execution was carried out by the order of Neka’s “judicial administrator” and was approved by both the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic and the chief of the nation’s “judiciary branch.”
Although according to her birth certificate she was only 16 years old, the local court falsely claimed that she was 22.
Three months ago, during her appearance before the local court, fiercely angry the young girl hurled insults at the local judge, Haji Reza, who is also the chief judicial administrator of the city, and it is said as another expression of protest took off some of her clothes in the courtroom. This act by the young girl made the administrator so furious that he evaluated her file personally and in less than three months received a go-ahead from the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Court for her execution. The animosity and anger of Haji Reza was so strong that he personally put the rope around the girl’s delicate neck and personally gave the signal to the crane operator, by raising his hand, to begin pulling the rope."

"Cleric Rejects Iraq Ultimatum, Aide Says" (Abdul Hussein Al-Obeidi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/19)
"Militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Thursday rejected a government ultimatum to disarm his militia immediately and pull them out of a revered Shiite shrine here or risk a massive onslaught by Iraqi forces, an aide to the cleric said. In Baghdad, Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi issued a "final call" Thursday to Shiite militants in Najaf to disarm and vacate the Imam Ali Shrine.
News of al-Sadr's rejection of the ultimatum came soon after militants, presumably from his Mahdi Army militia, bombarded a Najaf police station with mortars rounds, killing seven policemen and injuring 31 others, hospital officials said."

"U.S. Eyes Money Trails of Saudi-Backed Charities" (David B. Ottaway, The Washington Post, 2004/08/19)
"The collision of Saudi missionary work and suspicions of terrorist financing in San Diego illustrates the perils and provocations of a multibillion-dollar effort by Saudi Arabia to spread its religion around the world. Mohamed worked on the front lines of that effort, a campaign to transform what outsiders call "Wahhabism," once a marginal and puritanical brand of Islam with few followers outside the Arabian Peninsula, into the dominant doctrine in the Islamic world. The campaign has created a vast infrastructure of both government-supported and private charities that at times has been exploited by violent jihadists — among them Osama bin Laden."

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

News and commentary:

"We must be free to criticise without being called racist" (Polly Toynbee, The Guardian, 2004/08/18)
"What is the rationalist to do? Atheists, feminists and anti-racists are paralysed by Islam. Whichever way they turn, they find themselves at risk of alliances with undesirables of every nasty hue.
Last month, the website of an organisation called the Islamic Human Rights Commission made me the "winner" of their "Most Islamophobic media personality" award. ... I had challenged the legitimacy of the idea of Islamophobia and warned of the danger to free speech of trying to make criticism of a religion a crime akin to racism. ...
To give a flavour of the Islamic Human Rights Commission awards, Nick Griffin of the BNP won the most Islamophobic British politician award, Jacques Chirac and Ariel Sharon shared the international Islamophobic politician award and Islamophobe of the year was George Bush. That's the company I found myself in. ...
The government wants to make incitement to religious hatred a crime, caving in to a vociferous Muslim campaign, although it is unlikely to make a spit of difference to these rabid religious enmities. ...
Fear of offending the religious is gathering ground on all sides. It is getting harder to argue against the hijab and the Koran's edict that a woman's place is one step behind. It is beginning to be racist for teachers or social workers to object to autocratic patriarchy and submission of women within many Muslim communities. Islamic ideas that find the very notion of democracy incompatible with faith are beginning to be taken seriously by those who should defend liberal democracy."

See also:
"Some Arguments Against a Religious-Hatred Law" (David G. Green, CIVITAS, July 2004)
"We must be allowed to criticise Islam" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/11)
"Speech impediments" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2004/07/11)
"Crucifying public debate: If we aren't free to 'incite religious hatred', we aren't free" (Josie Appleton, spiked online, 2004/07/07))

"Darfur exposes trait of Arab politics" (Salim Mansur, London Free Press, 2004/08/18)
"The one constant in the history of Arab states over the past five decades is the abuse of people by power-holders in a part of the world -- between the Atlantic Ocean and the Persian Gulf -- where regimes rule without popular legitimacy.
It is understandable, though inexcusable, that there are no demonstrations in the streets of Cairo, Damascus, Beirut, Tunis, Algiers or elsewhere in the wider Arab-Muslim world, denouncing the Khartoum regime for its crimes in Darfur.
Freedom and democracy are sorely lacking among the Arab League members, and popular condemnation of an Arab regime would not be tolerated.
Arabs and Muslims, however, now live in growing numbers in cosmopolitan centres of the West, and enjoy freedoms denied their people elsewhere.
Here they came out in unprecedented numbers, protesting American-led wars to liberate Afghans and Iraqis from despots. But in their unconscionable silence over Darfur, they disclose how selective is their outrage.
This silence is also revealing of culturally entrenched bigotry among Arabs, and Muslims from adjoining areas of the Middle East.
Blacks are viewed by Arabs as racially inferior, and Arab violence against blacks has a long, turbulent record. The Arabic word for blacks ('abed) is a derivative of the word slave ('abd), and the role of Arabs in the history of slavery is a subject rarely discussed publicly.
Here, the contrast between the Arab treatment of blacks, irrespective of whether they are Muslims or not, and the Israeli assimilation of black Jews of Ethiopia, known as Falashas, cannot go unnoticed.
The tragedy of Darfurians ironically has exposed to the world the racial dimension of Arab-Muslim culture and the hollowness of rhetoric proclaiming the brotherhood of Muslims."

"Delegate: Al-Sadr Agrees to Withdraw" (Abdul Hussein Al-Obeidi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/18)
"Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accepted a peace plan Wednesday to end the fighting in Najaf that would disarm his militia and remove them from a holy shrine where they are based, according to a letter read by a delegate at the Iraqi National Conference.
There was no immediate confirmation from al-Sadr's office of the acceptance, which came shortly after Iraq's defense minister threatened to raid the Imam Ali Shrine in a final push to root out the Shiite militants."

"Hunger-Strike Leader Barghouti Sneaks A Meal" (Arutz Sheva, 2004/08/18)
"The terrorists' hunger strike continues for its fourth day — although some leading terrorists feel that they need not starve as "intensively" as their underlings. Marwan Barghouti, head of the Tanzim terrorist group who considers himself a potential candidate to succeed Yasser Arafat, was photographed yesterday sneaking a well-balanced meal in his prison cell, while his fellow terrorists have not had a bite since Saturday night.
Israel Prison Service officials, who are closely monitoring the strike to ensure that no one collapses or dies, say that Barghouti is not alone, and that at least ten other top terrorists - leaders of the hunger strike - have taken advantage of their solitary confinement to grab a quick bite.
"Once again we see that in Palestinian society, the corrupt leaders send the ordinary people to fight to the death, while they themselves take special privileges," Prison Service spokesman Ofer Lefler said."

"Kerry wins the Arab vote" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/08/18)
"The anti-Bush sentiment of the ruling elites in the Middle East is reflected in efforts to screen "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's celluloid attack on the U.S. president. Last week, the mullahs running the Farabi Cinema complex in Tehran scrapped the season's program to screen Moore's "documentary."
"This film unmasks the Great Satan America," a spokesman said. "It tells Muslim people why they are right in hating America. It is the duty of every believer to see [this film] and learn the truth."
With the exception of Kuwait, which has banned it, Moore's film is shown or sold in pirated cassette form throughout the Arab world. Anti-American Arab television stations, including one owned by the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah, have broadcast chunks of Moore's attack on Bush with commentaries more virulent than the original." (See also: "'Fahrenheit' shown on TV in Cuba" (Reuters, 2004/07/30) and "Fahrenheit 9/11 gets help offer from Hezbollah" (Samantha Ellis, The Guardian, 2004/06/17))

"Police chief in Najaf deals with attacks on his family" (Michael Georgy, Reuters/The Washington Times, 2004/08/18)
"Militants had just kidnapped and dragged his ailing 80-year-old father through the streets. They also beat his brothers until they collapsed. Forty of his men were killed and several were beheaded.
It's tough being the police chief of Najaf — the Iraqi city that is sacred to millions of Shi'ites and a battleground pitting Shi'ite militia against U.S. Marines and Iraqi police and national guardsmen.
"They told me that I could go in the place of my father," said Chief Ghalib al-Jezairy who is high on the militant hit list. As he spoke late Monday night his father was still being held. ...
"What they did to my father was inhuman. He is a dying old man. They beat my brothers until they fainted," Chief al-Jezairy told reporters as the sound of mortars being fired could be heard in a nearby cemetery that has turned into a battle zone.
They beheaded one of his relatives and Sheik al-Sadr's Mahdi's Army militants have gouged out the eyes of some of his officers and boiled them in water, he said."

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

News and commentary:

"Arab-Islamic World Is a Hostage of Its Own Delusions" (Leon de Winter, The Wall Street Journal/American Outlook, 2004/08/17)
"Anyone who follows the developments in the Arab Islamic world will be struck by the complete absence of self-knowledge and introspection that characterizes these vexed cultures. Almost every problem is attributed to hostile external forces. The poverty and underdevelopment that plague most of the Arab world are the result of malicious machinations of Americans and Jews. This is no less true of the disaster in Darfur. Last week UPI reported that the Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail had told journalists in Cairo that his government possessed "information that confirms media reports of Israeli support (for the rebels in Darfur)." He added that he was "sure the next few days will reveal a lot of Israeli contacts with the rebels."
What Mr. Ismail said, and the eagerness with which the Arab Islamic press publicized it, highlights the hopeless position of the forces for modernization in North Africa and the Middle East. Within the existing cultural context it is practically impossible to subject the widespread abuses in Arab countries to reflection and objective analysis in order to obtain a clear picture of their causes and effects. Not only are "self-reflection" and "objective research" alien concepts, there is no need to analyze causes and effects since both are by definition already known. The causes are always the diabolical forces of Jews and Christian crusaders, a central dogma even among Arabs and Muslims who have not yet joined the queue to blow up some Iraqi police station for al Qaeda. The effects are always the sufferings of the Arab nation and the ummah, the global Islamic community. Infidels, in pact with the devil, have hoodwinked and deceived the ummah, depriving it of its God-given right to rule supreme over the world." (See also: "Sudan: Israel supporting Darfur rebels" (UPI/The Washington Times, 2004/08/08))

"Bashing America comes before the starving" (Stephen Pollard, The Times/stephenpollard.net, 2004/08/17)
"Let me offer a brief summary of the left-liberal approach to foreign policy: we should stop Africans dying but Iraqis can go to hell. How else can one explain the hypocrisy that surrounds the now overwhelming calls for intervention in Sudan emanating from the same mouths which so opposed intervention in Iraq? ...
Sir Menzies is far from alone in adhering to the warped moral calculus which dictates that action against a vile Sudanese Government is fine but action against a vile Iraqi Government not. The unspoken reason is clear. As ever, it comes down to antipathy towards the US. Action against Iraq was led by the US; that against Sudan will not be. And action is only justified if it is not led by the US.
The revolting truth is that such sentiments are shared by most of the liberal Left, who rank their belief in humanitarian action below their antipathy towards President Bush and, more generally, the United States.
So much for the fabled internationalism of the Left. So much for the idea that human beings are what count. To the anti-war liberal mindset, human misery is less important than hatred of America."

"Britain Charges 8 in Terror Plot Tied to U.S. Alert" (Peter Graff, Reuters, 2004/08/17)
"Britain charged eight terrorism suspects Tuesday and said one had plans which could be used in terror attacks on U.S. financial targets in New York, New Jersey and Washington.
The charges were the first official confirmation that the British suspects, seized in raids two weeks ago, were linked to a high-profile security scare in the United States this month and an unfolding terrorism probe spanning three continents.
All eight were accused of planning to commit murder and public nuisance "by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and/or explosives to cause disruption, fear or injury," police said in a statement.
One of them, Dhiren Barot, 32, was also accused of having "reconnaissance plans" of the Prudential building in New Jersey, the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup headquarters in New York, and the International Monetary Fund in Washington." (See also: "British Arrest 13 in Anti-Terror Sweep" (Beth Gardiner, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/08/03))

"Do you want to sing Waterloo or fight it?" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/08/17)
"As Stephens points out, European countries now have attitudes in inverse proportion to the likelihood of their acting upon them. They're like my hippy-dippy Vermont neighbours who drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. Every couple of years, they trade in the Volvo for a Subaru, and painstakingly paste a new "Free Tibet" sticker on the back.
What are they doing to free Tibet? Nothing. Tibet is as unfree now as it was when they started advertising their commitment to a free Tibet. And it will be just as unfree when they buy their next car and slap on the old sticker one mo' time. ...
At Friday's Olympics ceremony, for example, I noticed the team from liberated Afghanistan drew far more enthusiastic cheers from the Athens crowd than the team of the country that actually liberated them.
Fair enough. But what then is the practical value of their professed support for the Afghans? At the time of the Afghan liberation, a poll found only 5.2 per cent of Greeks supported the war.
A wealthy continent liberated from the burdens of military expenditure is also liberated to a large degree from reality." (See also: "The attitude problem" (Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/08/13))

Added in archive:
"Arafat 'heaped cash' on cronies" (Justin Sparks and Tom Walker, The Sunday Times/HonestReporting, 2004/08/15)

Monday, August 16, 2004

News and commentary:

"Shake-up for US troops overseas" (BBC News, 2004/08/16)
"US President George W Bush has unveiled plans for a major shake-up of US forces around the world.
Mr Bush said the world had changed and was now faced with new threats and the US military line-up had to follow suit.
He said the US would deploy "agile and more flexible forces" to face the challenges of the future.
Up to 70,000 US troops — from Europe and Asia — would return home, but the US would complete its mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the US leader. ...
He said 60,000-70,000 troops would be brought back to the US in the next 10 years, alongside 100,000 members of their families and support personnel.
The Pentagon sees many of the largely fixed US forces and bases in places like Germany and South Korea as outdated, says our Pentagon correspondent.
On his way back from a tour of Russia and Central Asia, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the changes would take four to six years."

"Egyptian Government Weekly Magazine on 'The Jews Slaughtering Non-Jews, Draining their Blood, and Using it for Talmudic Religious Rituals'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 763, 2004/08/17)
"Hussam Wahba, a columnist for the religious Egyptian weekly magazine 'Aqidati, published by the Al-Tahrir foundation which is linked to the ruling National Democratic Party , wrote an article based upon blood libels and accusing Judaism of promoting ritual murder. The following are excerpts from his article: ...
'Dr. Jama al-Husseini Abu Farha, instructor in theology at the University of Suez , points out that what the media shows us every day about Israeli conduct in the occupied territories is no different than what their history shows us about their inhumane practices towards humanity as a whole. One need only point out that they are 'blood suckers' according to the Talmudic dictates, which urge them to murder and draw the blood of Muslims in particular, and Christians even more so, and to use this blood in religious Israeli rituals. ...
Since admission is the highest form of evidence, we will present to the reader a letter of confession written by the Jewish Rabbi known as 'Neophytos the Convert [to Christianity].' The letter has to do with the Jews slaughtering non-Jews, draining their blood, and using it for Talmudic religious rituals. Neophytos called his letter 'The Secret of the Blood'; in it he said that 'from a young age, the Jewish Rabbis teach their students how to use non-Jews' blood to treat illnesses and for sorcery...'"

"World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win" (Norman Podhoretz, Commentary, from the September 2004 issue)
The mother of all essays on World War IV [PDF]: "As a “founding father” of neoconservatism who had broken ranks with the Left precisely because I was repelled by its “negative faith in America the ugly,” I naturally welcomed this new patriotic mood with open arms. ... The new patriotic mood therefore seemed to me a sign of greater intellectual sanity and moral health, and I fervently hoped that it would last. But I could not fully share the confidence of some of my younger political friends that the change was permanent — that, as they exulted, nothing in American politics and American culture would ever be the same again. As a veteran of the political and cultural wars of the 1960’s, I knew from my own scars how ephemeral such a mood might well turn out to be, and how vulnerable it was to seemingly insignificant forces. ...
At first, September 11 did seem to resemble Pearl Harbor in its galvanizing effect, while by all indications the first battle of World War IV — the battle of Afghanistan — was supported by a perhaps even larger percentage of the public than Vietnam had been at the beginning. Nevertheless, even though the opposition in 2001 was still numerically insignificant, it was much stronger than it had been in the early days of Vietnam. The reason was that it now maintained a tight grip over the institutions that, in the later stages of that war, had been surrendered bit by bit to the anti-American Left. ...
But I never imagined that the new antiwar movement would so rapidly arrive at the stage of virulence it had taken years for its ancestors of the Vietnam era to reach."

"Journalists ordered out of Najaf" (BBC News, 2004/08/16)
"Journalists have been ordered out of the holy city of Najaf where fighters loyal to Shia clerk Moqtada Sadr have clashed with US and Iraqi forces.
Observers say the move indicates a major assault on the city is imminent.
"From now on this city is closed," a senior police officer told correspondents, who face arrest if they decide to stay on. ...
"A major assault by forces will be launched quickly to bring the Najaf fight to an end," said interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim.
'This matter has to be brought to conclusion as fast as possible and we want to bring the situation to normalcy soon.'"

"Iraqi Conference on Election Plan Sinks Into Chaos" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2004/08/16)
"A conference of more than 1,100 Iraqis chosen to take the country a crucial step further toward constitutional democracy convened in Baghdad on Sunday under siege-like conditions, only to be thrown into disorder by delegates staging angry protests against the American-led military operation in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. ...
The fighting in Najaf, which resumed Sunday after the Allawi government walked out of truce talks, is part of a wider insurrection across southern Iraq by militiamen loyal to Mr. Sadr, who has cast himself as a tribune of the Shiite underclass and as the leader of a national resistance movement against American troops. ...
Taken together, the events in Baghdad and Najaf appeared to catch Iraq at a new tipping point. Many Iraqis believe that events in the days ahead are likely to signal as clearly as anything in recent months whether the wider American enterprise in Iraq can emerge from a seemingly endless sequence of reverses and achieve at least a part of what President Bush and other advocates of the war have said they are seeking here. That is the midwifing of a new, peaceful, democratic Iraq - or, contrarily, a further descent into bloodshed and chaos, at a continuing heavy cost in Iraqi and American lives."

"Saddam agents on Syria border helped move banned materials" (Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times, 2004/08/16)
"Saddam Hussein periodically removed guards on the Syrian border and replaced them with his own intelligence agents who supervised the movement of banned materials between the two countries, U.S. investigators have discovered.
The recent discovery by the Bush administration's Iraq Survey Group (ISG) is fueling speculation, but is not proof, that the Iraqi dictator moved prohibited weapons of mass destruction (WMD) into Syria before the March 2003 invasion by a U.S.-led coalition.
Two defense sources told The Washington Times that the ISG has interviewed Iraqis who told of Saddam's system of dispatching his trusted Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) to the border, where they would send border inspectors away.
The shift was followed by the movement of trucks in and out of Syria suspected of carrying materials banned by U.N. sanctions. Once the shipments were made, the agents would leave and the regular border guards would resume their posts."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

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