Archived news and commentary: December 6 - 12, 2004

2004/12/06 - 2004/12/12
2004/11/29 - 2004/12/05
2004/11/22 - 2004/11/28
2004/11/15 - 2004/11/21
2004/11/08 - 2004/11/14
2004/11/01 - 2004/11/07

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, December 12, 2004

News and commentary:

"Censor and sensibility" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2004/12/12)
"The idea that Index could have been at the centre of a scandal would once have been absurd. ... Yet when it contemplated the warm corpse of a film-maker who had been ritually slaughtered for dramatising violence against Muslim women, its instinctive reaction was so hateful it still has the power to shock six weeks on.
Index giggled.
Rohan Jayasekera, the associate editor, invited readers of its website to see van Gogh's murder as a smart business move - 'Applaud Theo van Gogh's death as the marvellous piece of street theatre it was,' he cried. 'What timing! Just as his long-awaited film of Pim Fortuyn's life is ready to screen. Bravo, Theo! Bravo!' Jayasekera slyly suggested the film maker was suffering from an inherited strain of insanity because he was 'a descendant of the mad genius Dutch painter,' before going on to say that you couldn't be surprised that his film had provoked a furious response because it was 'furiously provocative'.
You may be able to guess the rest of the argument. As has become commonplace, the perpetrator was whisked away from the crime scene while the blame was piled on the stricken victim. The real censor wasn't the murderer, but van Gogh, who was guilty of roaring 'his Muslim critics into silence with his obscenities'. The real extremist wasn't the murderer but van Gogh, who was 'a free speech fundamentalist'. The real murderer wasn't the assassin who fired eight bullets into a defenceless man, sliced open his throat and stabbed him in the chest, but van Gogh who was on 'a martyrdom operation' and so, presumably, was responsible for his own death." (See also: "The British Inquisition" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2004/12/13). Also: "'Take that article down. In Index it's disgraceful'" (Frank Fisher, Index on Censorship, 2004/11/18) and "Index on Censorship" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2004/11/11))

"The high cost of succeeding Arafat" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/12/12)
"One of the main reasons that "only" 10 Palestinians are running for the January 9 election to succeed Yasser Arafat is the relatively high fee set by the Palestinian Authority's Central Elections Committee.
In addition to collecting 5,000 signatures, each candidate was required to pay $3,000 to register for the election. For many Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, the sum is almost equivalent to an entire year's income.
About 16 Palestinians had declared their intention to run in the election, but not all of them were able to raise $3,000.
One of them is Hassan Nurani, a psychologist from Gaza City who complains that he was forced to abandon his dream to follow Arafat simply because he could not afford to pay the fee.
As the deadline for presenting the application forms to the elections committee approached, Nurani decided to sell his home furniture, hoping that he would be able to raise enough money to pay the fee. But he only got 200 Jordanian dinars (approximately NIS 1,200) for his bedroom set. No one was interested in other items, including an old salon.
A bitter Nurani was eventually forced to announce his decision to drop out of the race."

"Tariq Aziz wins 'unofficial support' from Vatican" (Colin Freeman and Bruce Johnston, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/12/12)
"Saddam Hussein's former foreign minister and right-hand man has persuaded sympathisers in the Vatican to arrange free legal advice for his defence against war crimes.
Tariq Aziz, a practising Christian who acted as foreign spokesman for the Iraqi dictator, secured the services of Italian lawyers after contacting a group of Roman Catholic priests and bishops.
He wrote to his family from jail in Baghdad urging them to contact Father Jean-Marie Benjamin, a Left-wing priest who had previously brokered a controversial meeting between Aziz and the Pope before the war last year. ...
Fr Benjamin has assembled a team of five Italian lawyers and fellow clergy, including a bishop, Diego Bona, the president of the Assisi-based Beato Angelico Foundation, which promotes Muslim-Christian relations."

"Abbas Apologizes to Kuwait for Saddam Support" (AP/The Washington Post, 2004/12/12)
"KUWAIT CITY -- Palestinian leader Mahmound Abbas apologized to Kuwaitis on Sunday for Palestinian support of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his army invaded Kuwait in 1990, making the long-awaited remarks on the first leg of a Middle East tour to repair relations with Arab nations.
Asked by reporters about the Palestinians' support for Saddam's invasion, Abbas responded: "Yes, we apologize for what we have done." ...
A group of lawmakers said in a statement Saturday that they 'absolutely reject the visit ... before the PLO offers an official apology to the Kuwaiti people for the sin it committed against Kuwait.'"

"Tension rises as Iran is accused of trying to rig Iraq poll" (Tony Allen-Mills, The Sunday Times, 2004/12/12)
"Claims of an Iranian plot to manipulate forthcoming elections in neighbouring Iraq have complicated plans for next month’s polls and heightened tension between the Sunni and Shi’ite factions in Baghdad.
Scrutiny of Tehran’s role in allegedly attempting to influence the Iraqi poll has risen after a claim by King Abdullah of Jordan that more than 1m Iranians have crossed their 900-mile long border with Iraq.
Abdullah claimed last week that many of the Iranians were hoping to register and vote for pro-Iran Shi’ite parties.
“It is in Iran’s vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq . . . that is very pro-Iran,” he told The Washington Post.
The king’s warnings were echoed by Ghazi al-Yawar, the interim Iraqi president, who claimed that Iran’s Shi’ite leaders were coaching Iraqi candidates and putting “huge amounts of money” into the campaign in the hope of producing a Shi’ite-led government."

"Moore's paedophile 'slur' angers Muslims" (Nicholas Pyke, The Independent, 2004/12/12)
"Charles Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph, provoked a storm of criticism from British Muslims yesterday for an article in which he championed the right to call the Prophet Mohamed a paedophile.
Mr Moore, who opposes new legislation banning incitement to religious hatred, chose the sensitive issue of the Prophet's marriage to a nine-year-old to illustrate his case. "It seems to me that people are perfectly entitled - rude and mistaken as they may be - to say that Mohamed was a paedophile, but if David Blunkett gets his way, they may not be able to," he wrote in his weekly column.
Responding with a mixture of astonishment and fury, Muslims yesterday described the remarks as inflammatory and deliberately provocative." (See also: "Is it only Mr Bean who resists this new religious intolerance?" (Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/12/11))

"IAEA Leader's Phone Tapped" (Dafna Linzer, The Washington Post, 2004/12/12)
"The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials. ...
Although eavesdropping, even on allies, is considered a well-worn tool of national security and diplomacy, the efforts against ElBaradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned U.S. intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran.
The intercepted calls have not produced any evidence of nefarious conduct by ElBaradei, according to three officials who have read them. But some within the administration believe they show ElBaradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programs. Others argue the transcripts demonstrate nothing more than standard telephone diplomacy.
"Some people think he sounds way too soft on the Iranians, but that's about it," said one official with access to the intercepts."

Saturday, December 11, 2004

News and commentary:

"Please Help to Save "Leila" from Execution by Mullahs!" (Blog-Iran!, 2004/12/11)
"Leila, a 19 year old woman, faces imminent execution in Iran. What childhood she has had has been marred with physical and sexual abuse from the age of 8, giving birth to her first child at the age of 9. Having become a concubine to an Afghan man at the age of 12, Leila was forced into prostitution by him until the age of 14 when she gave birth to twin daughters. Leila was then given to a 55 year old married man who continued her history of abuse until her arrest at the age of 18, when she was found guilty of prostitution. Prostitution carries the death penalty under the Islamic laws of Iran." (Note: Sign the petition here. See also: "The crinkling of the door woke little Leila up..." (Zohreh Torkamani, Etemad Newspaper/zaneirani, 2004/11/30))

"Sean Penn in Al Qaida Fantasy Film" (NewsMax.com, 2004/12/11)
"In a movie that's being described as "the feel-good al Qaida date flick of 2005," Bush-hating actor Sean Penn will star as a suicidal hijacker who tries to crash a commercial airliner into Bush's official residence, the White House.
The Penn presidential assassination movie is fiction, of course, as clearly indicated by the title: "The Assassination of President Nixon."
Still, Penn's decision to make a film that parallels the only part of the 9/11 attacks that wasn't successfully executed (thanks to the brave passengers aboard United Flight 93) has even Bush-hating Hollywood nervous.
"It was very hard to find distribution for the film," director Neils Mueller told the New York Daily News. "People have such a profound reaction."
No kidding."

"Getting Serious About Syria" (Jack Fairweather, The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/12/20 issue)
"By Bush Doctrine standards, Syria is a hostile regime. It is permitting and encouraging activities that are killing not just our Iraqi friends but also, and quite directly, American troops. So we have a real Syria problem.Of course we also have--the world also has--an Iran problem, and a Saudi problem, and lots of other problems. The Iran and Saudi problems may ultimately be more serious than the Syria problem. But the Syria problem is urgent: It is Bashar Assad's regime that seems to be doing more than any other, right now, to help Baathists and terrorists kill Americans in the central front of the war on terror. ...
What to do? We have tried sweet talk (on Secretary Powell's trip to Damascus in May 2003) and tough talk (on the visit three months ago by Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman and Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt). Talk has failed. Syria is a weak country with a weak regime. We now need to take action to punish and deter Assad's regime." (See also: "All aboard the terrorists' bus to Iraq" (Jack Fairweather, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/12/02))

"Is it only Mr Bean who resists this new religious intolerance?" (Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/12/11)
"If a law against religious hatred is passed, even when blessed by St David Blunkett, the natural consequence will be a rise in the hatred of religion.
Particularly hatred of Islam. The BNP website describes Islam in the hands of some of its adherents as "less a religion and more a magnet for psychopaths and a machine for conquest". If a law says they can't say that, the BNP will, in the minds of many, be proved right. ...
The push for a religious hatred law here is an attempt to advance the legal privilege that Muslims claim for Islam. True, Muslim leaders are happy that the same protection should be extended to other religions in this country. But to a modern liberal society which claims the freedom to attack all beliefs, this should be no comfort. It says a good deal about the quality of churchmen and politicians in Britain that the most prominent opponent of the Bill is Mr Bean. The Archbishop of Canterbury is more or less invisible. The Government is on the side of repression." (See also: "Atkinson defends right to offend" (Toby Helm, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/12/07))

"Mockery, calumny and scorn: these are the weapons to fight zealots" (Matthew Parris, The Times, 2004/12/11)
"The whole religious complexion of the modern world, said the writer and clergy-baiter Havelock Ellis early in the last century, “is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum”. It is to be a crime, says David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, for a person to use abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or to display any written material which is abusive or insulting, “if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred”. ...
“Bad weather”, declared the comedian Rowan Atkinson in Blackadder, “is God’s way of telling us to burn more Catholics.” Those responsible for stage plays and broadcasts, says Mr Blunkett, or for “distributing, showing or playing a recording”, may be prosecuted if “having regard to all the circumstances the performance is likely to be attended” (or the recording seen or heard) “by any person in whom the performance (taken as a whole) is likely to stir up religious hatred.” . ...
Religion can oppress. I hate — yes hate — the sect and its followers who are stopping women in Saudi Arabia from voting. Religion can bully, it can cow, it can coerce. One of the ways it does so is by impressing upon its adherents the idea that none dare offend it, twit it or tweak its tail. Such sects or faiths cast a spell — cultural, even political, as well as theological — over their adherents. Such spells must be broken. A necessary weapon in the hands of those who would do so is ridicule, contempt and the power of real anger. Ask Voltaire: scorn, laughter, calumny and abuse are vital to those who confront bullies."

"Europe's failed multiculturalism" (Claude Salhani, The Washington Times, 2004/12/11)
"PARIS. — For nearly 50 years Western Europe has weathered the storm of the Cold War, living with the threat of the Soviet Union on its doorstep. Now Europe is waking up to a new threat, only this time the danger comes from within.
From Paris to Amsterdam and from Brussels to Berlin, decades of liberal open-door immigration policies are bearing their mark on Europe's domestic politics, not to mention the demographics of the Old Continent.
The arrival of several million immigrants — mostly from North Africa, Turkey and Southwest Asia, and mostly Muslims — has forever changed the face of a once largely white, overwhelmingly Christian Europe. Germany alone has some 7 million non-German residents, the majority of them Turks.
This influx of immigrants has caused a knee-jerk reaction from worried Europeans who have turned to right-wing parties for answers. Witness France's National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen who came close to winning the last presidential election. ...
Europeans today are quick to complain their cities have been transformed, many will argue not for the better. They will blame, often without justification, much of what goes wrong — rising crime, hooliganism and drugs — on the new arrivals. "Something need to be done about who we let in," complained a Parisian woman after a teenage girl with a slightly dark complexion accidentally bumped into her as she ran out of school. "Ah, poor France," lamented the woman."

"Exodus as Dutch middle class seek new life" (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/12/11)
Theo van Gogh LXX: "Escaping the stress of clogged roads, street violence and loss of faith in Holland's once celebrated way of life, the Dutch middle classes are leaving the country in droves for the first time in living memory.
The new wave of educated migrants are quietly voting with their feet against a multicultural experiment long touted as a model for the world, but increasingly a warning of how good intentions can go wrong. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand are the pin-up countries for those craving the great outdoors and old-fashioned civility. ...
Frans Buysse, the head of Buysse Immigration Consultancy, said he received more than 13,000 hits on his emigration website in November, four times the usual level. His office in Culemburg is flooded with fresh applications.
"Van Gogh's death was a confirmation for them of what they already sensed was happening," he said. "They're accountants, teachers, nurses, businessmen and bricklayers, from all walks of life. They see things going on every day in this country that are quite unbelievable. They see no clear message from the government, and they are afraid it's becoming irreversible, that's why they are leaving." ...
Europe's leader for much of the last century in social experiments, Holland may now be pointing to the next cultural revolution: bourgeois exodus."

Added in archive:
"Melbourne Anti-semitism Watch - this time it's official!" (Tom Paine, Silent Running, 2004/05/03)

Note: I'm back from the week-long hiatus and will update ) the missing days retrospectively as usual, although it may take a while as I will be very busy a couple of days.

Friday, December 10, 2004

News and commentary:

Pictures of four Palestinian terrorists killed by Israel, exhibited in Melbourne, Australia
(Tom Paine, Silent Running, 2004/12/10)
From Silent Running's post below: "The Four light boxes each contain a stylised photograph of a Hamas murderer, with the date they met their missile."

"Rust Never Sleeps" (Tom Paine, Silent Running, 2004/12/10)
"Tom Paine" reports from Melbourne on the exhibition, "which is part of the City Lights project", pictured above:
"This attempt at sanctifying Hamas terrorists is only one block from my apartment. Ugh. ...
The four light boxes each contain a stylised photograph of a Hamas murderer, with the date they met their missile. Apparently we are supposed to revere them as martyrs for the cause of ending Zionazi opression of the innocent Palestinian people. Or something. I don't really pay any attention to the nuances these days, I just know a filthy jew-hating peice of shit when I see it." (Hat tip: Tim Blair. See also: "Jewish group blasts 'offensive' artwork" (The Age, 2004/12/10): "The privately funded exhibition, on the exterior of an office building off a busy Melbourne laneway, depicts the faces of four Palestinians killed by Israelis.
Two of the faces belong to former Hamas leaders, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abdul Aziz Rantisi, both of whom were killed by Israelis.
"I think that it is appropriately located at the end of an alley right next to the garbage cans," Australian and Jewish Affairs Council senior policy analyst Ted Lapkin said.")

"Pizza courier 'targeted' Amsterdam sex zone" (Expatica, 2004/12/10)
"AMSTERDAM — Justice authorities arrested a Moroccan man last month after receiving a tip-off that Islamic extremists were allegedly planning an attack on the Red Light District in Amsterdam, it was reported on Friday.
The pizza-delivery courier allegedly conducted reconnaissance of the capital's prostitution zone while riding through the area during work hours on his scooter. He was arrested on 5 November. Newspaper De Telegraaf described him as a "radical Moroccan pizza courier".
The National Detectives Unit was alerted to the supposed attack plan by three anonymous emails, the first of which was received on 14 September. Emails dated 27 September and 11 October gave further details of the suspects and addresses.
The emails warned that "terrorists in Amsterdam East" were plotting an attack on the Wallen area in Amsterdam, De Telegraaf reported. Muslim extremists, the paper said, were allegedly furious at the lack of morals in the prostitution zone." (Hat tip: Pieter Dorsman.)

"The Ents of Europe" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/12/10)
"So will the old Ents awaken, or will they slumber on, muttering nonsense to themselves, lost in past grandeur and utterly clueless about the dangers on their borders?":
"Today the continent is unarmed and weak, but deep within its collective mind and spirit still reside the ability to field technologically sophisticated and highly disciplined forces — if it were ever to really feel threatened. One murder began to arouse the Dutch; what would 3,000 dead and a toppled Eiffel Tower do to the French? Or how would the Italians take to a plane stuck into the dome of St. Peter? We are nursed now on the spectacle of Iranian mullahs, with their bought weapons and foreign-produced oil wealth, humiliating a convoy of European delegates begging and cajoling them not to make bombs — or at least to point what bombs they make at Israel and not at Berlin or Paris. But it was not always the case, and may not always be. ...
Turkey's proposed entry into the EU has become some weird sort of Swiftian satire on the crazy relationship between Europe and Islam. Ponder the contradictions of it all. Privately most Europeans realize that opening its borders without restraint to Turkey's millions will alter the nature of the EU, both by welcoming in a radically different citizenry, largely outside the borders of Europe, whose population will make it the largest and poorest country in the Union — and the most antithetical to Western liberalism. Yet Europe is also trapped in its own utopian race/class/gender rhetoric. It cannot openly question the wisdom of making the "other" coequal to itself, since one does not by any abstract standard judge, much less censure, customs, religions, or values."

"U.N. Power Play" (John O'Sullivan, New York Post, 2004/12/10)
"No one is ever asked to resign for wrongdoing at the United Nations. Indeed, since Minnesota Sen. Norman Coleman suggested that the secretary general should fall on his sword for presiding over the Oil-for-Food scandal, there has been a positive rush of diplomats and governments from all over the world to his defense. ...
Americans tend to be baffled by these reactions. They look at the multiplying scandals around the United Nations and wonder how the man in charge can avoid being held responsible for any of it by other countries.
But the explanation is simple: Kofi Annan is the symbol of the United Nations' lack of accountability. He is never held responsible for what goes wrong, because the United Nations is never held responsible, either. It sails in a cloud of noble idealism over the actual failures, hypocrisy, corruption and outright criminality that attend some U.N. actions on the ground below."

"The Afghan Miracle" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/12/10)
"For almost a decade before Sept. 11, we did absolutely nothing about Afghanistan. A few cruise missiles hurled into empty tents, followed by expressions of satisfaction about the "message" we had sent. It was, in fact, a message of utter passivity and unseriousness.
Then comes our Pearl Harbor, and the sleeping giant awakens. Within 100 days, al Qaeda is routed and the Taliban overthrown. Then the first election in Afghanistan's history. Now the inauguration of a deeply respected democrat who, upon being sworn in as the legitimate president of his country, thanks America for its liberation.
This in Afghanistan, which only three years ago was not just hostile but untouchable. What do liberals have to say about this singular achievement by the Bush administration? That Afghanistan is growing poppies."

Thursday, December 9, 2004

News and commentary:

"Furor in Italy Over Scrapping of Christmas Play" (Philip Pullella, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/12/09)
"ROME (Reuters) - An Italian school's substitution of a Nativity play with Little Red Riding Hood so as not to offend Muslim children has raised the Vatican's ire and sparked debate on how much traditions should change to accommodate immigrants.
The episode was the latest in a series in recent weeks which made headlines as overwhelmingly Catholic Italy comes to grips with an ever-growing Muslim population which some see as a blessing for the economy and others as a threat.
Pope John Paul, in a message for the Catholic Church's World Day of Migrants, weighed in indirectly, saying Christians had to respect cultural differences but had to proclaim the gospel and defend traditions.
Last week, a public elementary school in the northern city of Treviso decided that Little Red Riding Hood would be this year's Christmas play instead of the Christmas story.
The teachers said the famous tale was a fitting representation of the struggle between good and evil and would not offend Muslim children. The school's traditional nativity scene was scrapped for the same reason.
In another school near Milan, the word "Jesus" was removed from a Christmas hymn and substituted with the word "virtue." In Vicenza province an annual contest for the best Nativity scene in schools was canceled."

"'Madrid attack' averted in London" (BBC News, 2004/12/09)
"Police have prevented a terror attack in London on the scale of the Madrid bombings, according to a police chief.
Speaking to BBC London on Thursday, Met Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said terrorism was a major issue for the UK capital.
He said a number of terror attacks had been thwarted and hundreds of people were going through the courts.
"The risk of an attack to London has not changed; an attack is still inevitable," he said.
"Thank God to date, and we have had to work extremely hard, we've thwarted attacks, " he added.
When asked if the force had stopped an attack on the scale of Madrid he said: "Yes, I can't discuss it because of court proceedings but yes we have stopped a Madrid."
The 11 March attacks on four commuter trains in Madrid which killed 200 people was Europe's worst terror attack since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing."

"Why U.N. Stays Mired in Its Defects" (Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 2004/12/09)
"Imagine if U.S. troops were accused of sexually exploiting children in impoverished nations. Imagine if a U.S. Cabinet secretary were accused of groping a female subordinate, whose complaint was then swatted aside by the president. Imagine if the head of a U.S. government agency and the president's own offspring stood accused of complicity in the biggest embezzlement racket in history.
Those would be pretty big stories, no? Above-the-fold, top-of-the-newscast stories. Yet the United Nations has been mired in all these scandals and until just recently hardly anybody outside the right-wing blogosphere has noticed. ...
Where's the outrage? It's easy to find among conservatives, but then they never liked the U.N. to begin with. Why didn't the mainstream media and the Democrats (pardon the redundancy), not to mention various European governments, devote more attention to these scandals? Far from demanding high-level resignations, they are circling the wagons."

"Religious hatred Bill is being used to buy Muslim votes" (Michael Burleigh, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/12/09)
"The Home Office airily explains that the proposed legislation "will not interfere with legitimate debate or religious activities". The proposals "carry a high threshold in order to protect freedom of speech", whatever that means. Offensive words or actions "must be threatening, abusive or insulting and must either be intended or likely to stir up hatred". "Hatred", we are informed, "is a strong term going beyond simply causing offence or hostility", and aimed at "groups" rather than "ideologies". The ultimate arbiter of whether to bring a prosecution will be the Attorney General.
Rarely can legislation touching on so many historic freedoms and rights have been botched up and inserted in such an inappropriate context, allegedly at the behest of "key leaders in all the major faith communities", none mentioned by name. ...
If such a law had existed in the 1980s, Salman Rushdie might have been prosecuted for writing Satanic Verses rather than being protected by the British state. It will soon be illegal to criticise, say, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who, on a recent trip to Britain, entertained Mayor Ken Livingstone with the chilling intelligence that homicide bombers can "legitimately" kill women and children in Israel, husbands can beat their wives everywhere and that homosexuals should be put to death."

"The Suicide Supply Chain" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2004/12/09)
"You know all those masked Iraqi youth you see in the Al Jazeera videos, brandishing weapons and standing over some foreigner whose head they are about saw off? They are the product of the last decade of Saddamism and sanctions. Those youth were 10 years old when the U.N. sanctions began. They are the mushrooms that Saddam and the sanctions were growing in the dark. The Bush team had no clue they were there.
These deracinated, unemployed, humiliated Sunni Iraqi youth are our biggest problem today. Some clearly have become suicide bombers. We can't say what percentage, because, unlike the Palestinians, the Iraqi suicide bombers don't even bother to tell us their names or do a farewell video for mom. They not only are ready to commit suicide on demand, but they are ready to do it anonymously. That bespeaks a very high level of commitment or psychosis, or both.
I would estimate that U.S. forces have been hit with over 200 of these human missiles, and we still are not sure how they are recruited and deployed. What we are facing, I think, is a crude underground suicide supply chain - a mutant combination of Wal-Mart and Wahhabism."

Wednesday, December 8, 2004

News and commentary:

"The swearing in of Afghanistan's new president"
(Steve Bell, The Guardian, 2004/12/08)
Hat tip: "Meanwhile, back at the Kindergarten" (Clive Davis, clivedavis.blogspot.com, 2004/12/08): "You can rely on the Guardian's Steve Bell to mock Afghanistan's historic moment. How witty. But a model of understatement compared with Martin Rowson's image of Bush and Rumsfeld as Christian Nazis."

"The Media and Medievalism" (Robert D. Kaplan, Policy Review, from the December 2004 issue)
"Ours is not an age of democracy, or an age of terrorism, but an age of mass media...":
"Like the priests of ancient Egypt, the rhetoricians of ancient Greece and Rome, and the theologians of medieval Europe, the media represent a class of bright and ambitious people whose social and economic stature gives them the influence to undermine political authority. Like those prior groups, the media have authentic political power — terrifically magnified by technology — without the bureaucratic accountability that often accompanies it, so that they are never culpable for what they advocate. ...
To the extent that the left is still vibrant, I am suggesting that it has mutated into something else. If what used to be known as the Communist International has any rough contemporary equivalent, it is the global media. The global media’s demand for peace and justice, which flows subliminally like an intravenous solution through its reporting, is — much like the Communist International’s rousing demand for workers’ rights — moralistic rather than moral. Peace and justice are such general and self-evident principles that it is enough merely to invoke them. Any and all toxic substances can flourish within them, or manipulate them, provided that the proper rhetoric is adopted. For moralizers these principles are a question of manners, not of substance. To wit, Kofi Annan can never be wrong. ...
But another type of tyranny rears its head. It is a mob I worry about: unelected, uncontrollable, moving from one lynching-of-sorts to the next, fighting amongst itself, dispersing, falling apart, and regrouping again and again. It can never be wrong because its cause is that of the weak and oppressed: Therein lies its power of oppression."

"Taliban contact US on amnesty proposal" (AFP/Daily Times, 2004/12/08)
"KABUL: The US-led military in Afghanistan said on Wednesday that it had been contacted by Taliban members willing to lay down their weapons following an arms-for-amnesty offer by the US envoy to the country.
US military commanders operating in south and southeastern Afghanistan have been contacted by Taliban members declaring their desire to “join the peaceful political process,” the US-led military spokesman, Major Mark McCann, told a news briefing in Kabul."

"Who poisoned Yushchenko?" (Jeremy Page, The Times, 2004/12/08)
Off topic of the day: "Medical experts have confirmed that Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s opposition leader, was poisoned in an attempt on his life during election campaigning, the doctor who supervised his treatment at an Austrian clinic said yesterday.
Doctors at Vienna’s exclusive Rudolfinerhaus clinic are within days of identifying the substance that left Mr Yushchenko’s face disfigured with cysts and lesions, Nikolai Korpan told The Times in a telephone interview.
Specialists in Britain, the United States and France had helped to establish that it was a biological agent, a chemical agent or, most likely, a rare poison that struck him down in the run-up to the presidential election, he said. Doctors needed to examine Mr Yushchenko again at the clinic in Vienna to confirm their diagnosis but were in no doubt that the substance was administered deliberately, he said.
“This is no longer a question for discussion,” Dr Korpan said. 'We are now sure that we can confirm which substance caused this illness. He received this substance from other people who had a specific aim.'" (See also: "Mystery surrounds Yushchenko ailment" (CNN.com, 2004/11/27))

"At Inauguration, Karzai Vows Action On Tough Issues" (John Lancaster, The Washington Post, 2004/12/08)
"Sworn in Tuesday as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president, Hamid Karzai immediately vowed to tackle the daunting challenges ahead, such as curbing the influence of regional warlords and rolling back the country's booming opium trade. ...
He vowed to disarm regional militias, root out corruption, overcome obstacles to parliamentary elections tentatively scheduled for the spring and -- perhaps most significant -- eliminate the poppy cultivation that has turned Afghanistan into the world's leading opium producer. ...
But the capital had a festive air. Traffic circles and major thoroughfares were festooned with colored lights and the red, green and black Afghan flag. Portraits of Karzai were displayed on the sides of office buildings. Blue banners declared in English, "Today the Afghan People Celebrate Their First Elected President."
"This is the birth of our nation," Merajuddin Patan, the governor of Khost province, said in an interview several hours before the ceremony. 'I believe the real history of Afghanistan -- modern history -- will begin with this.'"

Tuesday, December 7, 2004

News and commentary:

"Poll: Over 50% of Germans equate IDF with Nazi army" (Etgar Lefkovits, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/12/07)
This is completely outrageous in several dimensions simultaneously:
"Six decades after the mass extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany, more than 50 percent of Germans believe that Israel's present-day treatment of the Palestinians is similar to what the Nazis did to the Jews during World War II, a German survey released this weekend shows.
51 percent of respondents said that there is not much of a difference between what Israel is doing to the Palestinians today and what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Holocaust, compared to 49% who disagreed with such a comparison, according to the poll carried out by Germany's University of Bielefeld.
The survey also found that 68 percent of Germans believe that Israel is waging a "war of extermination" against the Palestinians, while some 32% disagreed with such a statement."

"Hamid Karzai Sworn in As Afghan President" (AP/ABC News, 2004/12/07)
"KABUL, Afghanistan Dec 7, 2004 — Hamid Karzai was sworn in Tuesday as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president, calling for sustained help from the international community to bolster a young democracy that still faces the twin threats of terrorism and drugs.
The U.S.-backed leader, wearing a traditional green robe and a black lambskin hat, took the oath of office in a solemn ceremony in a restored hall of the war-damaged former royal palace.
Vice President Dick Cheney, the highest-ranking American official to visit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were among those who gave Karzai a standing ovation when he arrived."

"Bright Side" (Andrew Sullivan, The New Republic, 2004/12/07)
"Sure, the odds for success are still long. There will never be an excuse for the Bush administration's undermanning of the occupation, or its reckless disbandment of the Iraqi army, or its being blindsided by a highly predictable insurgency. Many Sunni political parties may still boycott the election. And violence may spike as the election nears. But we are seeing signs that Bush's error-strewn perseverance is starting to pay off. The election itself will perhaps tell us more, providing the crucible in which a new Iraq can either be born or die a long and painful death. We can and should hope. The polls, after all, show that a vast majority of Iraqis intend to vote. Why discount the chances of an Afghanistan-like experience in which the silent majority finally finds a way to tell the theocrats, terrorists, and propagandists whose country Iraq truly is? Why bet against democracy? Sixty-five percent of Iraqis surveyed tell us they are optimistic about their future. Maybe it's time we joined their ranks."

"Atkinson defends right to offend" (Toby Helm, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/12/07)
Atkinson II: "Rowan Atkinson defended the right of comedians to poke fun at other people's religion last night as he joined the campaign against Government plans to create a new offence of incitement to religious hatred.
The star of the BBC's Blackadder television series lined up with leading barristers, writers and politicians to oppose the proposed law. ...
Speaking at a press conference in the House of Commons, Atkinson said the proposals would destroy one of society's fundamental freedoms - the right to cause offence.
It would also threaten the livelihoods of all those whose job it is "to question, to analyse and to satirise". These included authors, academics, writers, actors, politicians and comedians.
There was a "fundamental difference" between cracking a joke about someone's religion and being offensive about their race which was, rightly, already an offence, he said.
"To criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous but to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom," he said. ...
'It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended.'"

"Freedom of expression is vital, says Atkinson" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/12/07)
Atkinson I: "In the 1980s BBC satirical show Not the Nine O'Clock News there was a sketch in which Muslim worshippers were shown in a mosque bowing to the ground with the voiceover: "And the search goes on for the Ayatollah Khomeini's contact lens."
Funny, maybe. Offensive, perhaps. But unlawful? Rowan Atkinson, one of the stars of the programme, is again spearheading a campaign against Government plans to criminalise ''incitement to religious hatred'' contained in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, which gets its Second Reading in the Commons today. ...
The clause would create a new offence of incitement to religious hatred, based on the existing offence relating to racial hatred contained in the Public Order Act 1986.
It says that religious hatred ''means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief''. An offence would carry a maximum seven years in jail."

"Consulate Attack Ends Calm in Saudi Arabia" (Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post, 2004/12/07)
"Nine people died Monday in an armed attack on the U.S. Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, as Islamic radicals ended six months of relative calm in the desert kingdom with a new multiple-casualty assault on a Western target.
Saudi officials blamed the strike on a network affiliated with al Qaeda that has killed more than 80 people in Saudi Arabia since May 2003, when suicide bombers devastated a housing compound in Riyadh, the capital, where many foreigners, including Americans, lived. Five consulate employees -- none of them Americans -- and three gunmen died in Monday's attack. Saudi forces took two wounded assailants into custody, one of whom died later in a hospital. Thirteen others, including five Saudi security officers, were wounded. ...
Last month, 26 prominent Saudi clerics jointly issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling on Iraqi Muslims to fight "the invader occupiers" in their country and saying that armed resistance was "a legitimate right." Two former religious mentors to bin Laden, Salman Ouda and Safar Hawali, were among those who issued the edict."

Monday, December 6, 2004

News and commentary:

"The mythical martyr" (Stephane Juffa, The Wall Street Journal/Backspin, 2004/12/06 [2004/11/26])
Juffa on the Mohammed Al Dura affair: "And yet, it was nothing but a hoax. For those readers who recognize the famous image reproduced here, it might be difficult to believe that the scene was actually staged. ... I will elaborate later how it has been proven that Israeli soldiers could not have killed the boy. Some might ask why it still matters. Haven't too many innocent people on both sides died since then, and is it not time to look ahead now?
Well, it matters for exactly those same reasons. Mohammed al-Durra became more than just the poster boy of the intifada. According to the Mitchell report, drafted in May 2001 by a joint U.S.-European committee, this story was one of the events that sparked the intifada. For peace we need reconciliation and for reconciliation we need the truth. But French state-owned TV channel France 2, which produced and distributed the damning footage, refuses to release the facts. ...
Three years ago I interviewed Mr. Shahaf, and after viewing all his evidence I realized that this might be one of the greatest media manipulations the world has ever seen. We started our own investigations and wrote over 150 articles on the issue, concluding that the French report is, beyond any reasonable doubt, pure fiction." (See also: "Who Shot Mohammed al-Dura?" (James Fallows, The Atlantic, from the June 2003 issue))

"Saudi Militants Attack U.S. Consulate" (AP/ABC News, 2004/12/06)
"Militants lobbing explosives forced their way into the heavily guarded U.S. consulate in Jiddah on Monday before Saudi security forces stormed the compound and fought a gunbattle to end a four-hour standoff. Eight people, none American, were killed. ...
Five consulate employees were killed, said a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Riyadh. Three of the five attackers also died in the shootout, the Saudi Interior Ministry said. One American was slightly injured. ...
The two other attackers were captured wounded, the Interior Ministry said.
The attack prompted the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to urge thousands of Americans in the country many of whom already live under extraordinarily tight security to 'exercise utmost security precautions.'"

"Muslims File Complaint Over Dutch TV's Airing of Excerpts From Film by Slain Dutch Filmmaker" (Jan M. Olsen, AP/TBO.com, 2004/12/06)
"COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Danish Muslims have filed complaints against Denmark's two state-run television stations for having repeatedly shown excerpts of Theo van Gogh's film "Submission" after his slaying last month.
The 12-minute film, released in August, was sharply critical of Islam and the status of women in Muslim communities.
Since Van Gogh's killing in Amsterdam on Nov. 2, the Danish Broadcasting Corp. and TV2 have aired excerpts several times during news shows about the death and the debate that followed it across Europe.
In a letter mailed Saturday to police, Laue Traberg Smidt, the group's lawyer, said the Danish Broadcasting Corp.'s "massive coverage of the case and its repeated use" of excerpts "seems rather an attempt to contribute to a confrontation and whip up a sentiment against Danes of Muslim faith."

"How the Abusive Protect the Repressive at the U.N." (Joanne Mariner, FindLaw, 2004/12/06)
"Sudan, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Russia: one thing these countries have in common is that their governments violate human rights flagrantly and systematically. But another thing they share, astonishingly enough, is membership on the U.N. body meant to monitor and prevent human rights violations.
Pakistan, China, Egypt, Congo--the list goes on. When it comes to rights-abusing countries, the 53-member U.N. Commission on Human Rights has plenty of depth.
An official U.N. report released last week owns up to the problem. Acknowledging the commission's "eroding credibility," it notes that counties that "lack a demonstrated commitment" to human rights are not particularly well-suited to the task of promoting respect for human rights globally. (This is a diplomatic way of saying that known robbers should not be hired as cops.)" (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

"Students heckle Iranian president" (BBC News, 2004/12/06)
"Iranian students have interrupted a speech by President Mohammad Khatami to mark Student Day at Tehran university.
Students chanted "Shame on you" and "Where are your promised freedoms?" to express their frustration with the failure of Iran's reform movement.
A visibly-shaken Khatami defended his record and criticised the powerful hardliners who have closed newspapers and jailed dissidents.
He asked students to stop heckling and accused his critics of intolerance.
Students were once some of President Khatami's strongest supporters."

 

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.

"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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