Archived news and commentary: January 3 - 9, 2005

2005/01/03 - 2005/01/09
2004/12/27 - 2005/01/02
2004/12/20 - 2004/12/26
2004/12/13 - 2004/12/19
2004/12/06 - 2004/12/12
2004/11/29 - 2004/12/05

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, January 9, 2005

News and commentary:

"Abbas Claims Victory in Poll to Succeed Arafat" (Mohammed Assadi, Reuters, 2005/01/09)
"Mahmoud Abbas won a landslide victory on Sunday in a Palestinian election to succeed Yasser Arafat, securing a strong mandate to talk peace with Israel after years of bloodshed and end corruption at home.
"We offer this victory to the soul of the brother martyr Yasser Arafat and to all Palestinians," said Abbas in his victory speech. ...
Waving flags and honking horns, Abbas supporters celebrated after exit polls indicated he won some 65 percent of the vote — as high as any had predicted. Turnout looked healthy despite a boycott by Islamist militants opposed to his call for a truce. ...
Five other presidential candidates, ranging from a Marxist ex-guerrilla to an academic under U.S. house arrest on suspicion of funneling funds to Hamas militants, trailed far behind."

"Coalition of the giving" (Mark Steyn, The Australian, 2005/01/10)
"Today's all-star cricket match between a World XI and an Asian XI at the MCG will do more for the beleaguered Muslims of Banda Aceh than Libya, Syria and Egypt combined.
In fairness to the Saudis, they've just upped their pledge to $US30 million. But for purposes of one final comparison, consider this: a single Saudi telethon in 2002 managed to raise $US56 million. That was for widows and orphans of Palestinian suicide bombers, those deceased as well as those yet to blow. It seems nothing gets the wealthy elite of Riyadh and Jeddah adding the zeroes to the cheques like self-detonating on an Israeli bus. ...
I found myself behind a car the other day bearing the bumper sticker, "War Is Costly. Peace Is Priceless" — which is standard progressive generic autopilot boilerplate, that somehow waging war and doing good are mutually exclusive. But you can't help noticing that when disaster strikes, it's the warmongers who are also the compassion-mongers. Of the top six donor nations to tsunami relief, four are members of George W. Bush's reviled "coalition of the willing". ...
The Arab world's principal contribution these past two weeks has been the usual paranoia: "Was it caused by American, Israeli and Indian nuclear testing?" wondered Mahmoud Bakri in the Egyptian weekly Al Usbu. 'The three most recent tests appeared to be genuine American and Israeli preparations to act together with India to test a way to liquidate humanity.'" (See also: "Brothers in Alms" (Peter Bergen, The New York Times, 2005/01/08) and "Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Tsunami: It was a Punishment from Allah for Celebrating Christmas and Other Sins; It was Caused by the U.S., Israel, India" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 842, 2005/01/07))

"Cowards of the left" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2005/01/09)
"Last week occured an event which was scarcely reported but which further called into question the notion of a principled liberal-left, let alone one coherent and confident enough to form an elite.
Hadi Salih, international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was tied and blindfolded and tortured by Baathist 'insurgents' loyal to Saddam Hussein before being forced to kneel, strangled by electric cord and shot.
I shouldn't be shocked that there hasn't been a squeak of protest from the anti-war movement at the killing of a brave socialist, but I am. Two years ago I believed that after the war people who opposed it for good reasons would vow to pursue Blair and Bush for what they had done to their graves, but have the intellectual honesty to accept that Saddam's regime was fascist in theory and in practice and the good nature to offer fraternal support the Iraqi socialists, democrats and liberals in their deadly struggle.
More fool me. The Stop the War Coalition, which organised one million people to march through the streets of London, told the kidnappers and torturers from the Baath Party and al-Qaeda that the anti-war movement 'recognises once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessary'. Its leading figures purport to be on the left, but have cheered on the far-right and betrayed their comrades by denouncing Iraqi trade unionists as 'Quislings' and 'collaborators.'" (See also: "Saddam's assassins unleash new horrors in war against democracy" (Borzou Daragahi, Scotland on Sunday, 2005/01/09) and "A leading Iraqi trade unionist has been murdered. Where is the left?" (Johann Hari, Independent/johannhari.com, 2005/01/07))

"I don't mean to be rude..." (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2005/01/09)
"The editor of Granta, Ian Jack, writing following the Sikh demonstrations that forced the play's closure, seemed to suggest that some lines were unlikely to crossed, and crystallised the argument: 'The state has no law forbidding a pictorial representation of the Prophet,' he wrote, 'but I never expect to see such a picture. On the one hand, there is the individual's right to exhibit or publish one; on the other hand, the immeasurable insult and damage to life and property that the exercise of such a right would cause. In this case, we understand that the price is too high.'
Back came a furious Salman Rushdie, pointing out that there was a tradition of depictions of the Prophet, and then asking, 'should we now censor ourselves because the current potentates of the Islamic faith are more repressive than their predecessors? Do we have no principles of our own?'" (See also: "Beyond belief" (Ian Jack, The Guardian, 2005/01/01) and "Hold to our principles" (Salman Rushdie, The Guardian, 2005/01/06))

"Bush’s new sheriff reveals a double standard on torture" (Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times, 2005/01/09)
"I write about this with extreme anguish. I believe in this war as a war of liberation and increased security. I never believed America would stoop to this kind of horror. I still find it hard to believe.":
"We know for certain that the US has tortured five inmates to death. We know that 23 others have died in US custody in suspicious circumstances. We know that torture has been practised by almost every branch of the US military in sites all over the world — from Abu Ghraib to Tikrit, Mosul, Basra, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. ...
This is America? While White House lawyers were arguing about what separates torture from legitimate “coercive interrogation techniques”, the following was taking place. Prisoners were hanged for hours or days from bars or doors in semi-crucifixions; they were repeatedly beaten unconscious, woken and then beaten again for days on end; they were sodomised; they were urinated on, kicked in the head, had their ribs broken, and were subjected to electric shocks.
Some Muslims had pork or alcohol forced down their throats; they had tape placed over their mouths for reciting the Koran; many Muslims were forced to be naked in front of each other, members of the opposite sex and sometimes their own families. It was routine for the abuses to be photographed in order to threaten the showing of the humiliating footage to family members."

"Captivity Is Over, but Not Fear" (Roger Cohen, The New York Times, 2005/01/09)
"PARIS — GLASSES of gin fizz are served at the bar of the Hotel Crillon, the well-heeled of Paris recline in chairs of red velvet, and Georges Malbrunot, recently released after four months in the hands of Islamic militants in Iraq, gives a blunt assessment of where America's Iraqi war is headed: "Straight into a wall." ...
Captured on Aug. 20 on the road from Baghdad to Najaf, held in five different locations, tried by a self-styled Islamic court, Mr. Malbrunot and his Arabic-speaking colleague Christian Chesnot, 38, of Radio France Internationale, came away with an impression of a well-organized movement that had a clear strategy. A militant who said he had trained in Osama bin Laden's Afghan camps listed the objectives as: the overthrow of the Egyptian and Saudi regimes; the defeat of American forces in Iraq; the driving of a wedge between Europe and the United States; the re-creation of the Arab caliphate; and the prosecution on a wide front of a war against the West, depicted as one of self-defense."

Saturday, January 8, 2005

News and commentary:

"Militants Said to Send Fighters to Europe" (Tony Czuczka, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/01/08)
"BERLIN - Islamic extremists accused of plotting to kill Iraq's prime minister in Germany are smuggling battle-hardened fighters from Iraq to Europe, raising a potential new terrorist threat on the continent, according to German officials.
More than 20 alleged supporters of Ansar al-Islam have been arrested in Europe in the past year as authorities move against the group that has links with al-Qaida and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who's been leading bloody attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq.
Ansar al-Islam is suspected of spiriting dozens of fired-up young Muslims to Iraq to join the insurgency, but the latest raids in Germany — the most spectacular yet against the group — heightened concerns that the organization also could pose a menace outside Iraq, too."

"Brothers in Alms" (Peter Bergen, The New York Times, 2005/01/08)
"Around the Islamic world it is common currency that Muslims are perpetual victims of Western and Zionist conspiracies. ...
Yet when Muslims are suffering, it is usually the West, and often the United States, that takes the lead in helping. For instance, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Washington mounted its largest covert aid program since Vietnam to help the Afghan resistance; when Somalis were starving in the early 1990's, President George H. W. Bush sent 25,000 American troops to help relief efforts; when Serbs were massacring Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990's President Bill Clinton (belatedly) directed the United States Air Force to bomb Serbian positions, which led to the Dayton accords. ...
Now the same pattern - action by Western countries and inertia from Muslim states - can be seen in the efforts to provide relief for those hardest hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami. While 100,000 of the victims are from Aceh, the most Islamic of Indonesia's provinces, Muslim countries are contributing a relative pittance. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is contributing the most: a paltry $30 million, about the same as what Netherlands is giving and less than one-tenth of the United States contribution. And no Arab governments participated in the conference in Jakarta on Thursday where major donors and aid organizations conferred over reconstruction efforts."

"Iraqi militant admits ties with Iran, Syria" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2005/01/08)
"A militant leader suspected of involvement in beheadings and bloody attacks in Iraq confessed to Iraqi authorities his group's links with Iran and Syria, according to footage aired by the US-based and funded Alhurra television.
Moayad Ahmed Yasseen, the leader of Jaish Muhammad, Arabic for Muhammad's Army, was shown in the program aired in Iraq Friday, nearly two months after his capture in Fallujah, the guerrilla stronghold west of Baghdad. ...
Yasseen, a former colonel in Saddam Hussein's army, said two former military officers were sent "to Iran in April or May, where they met a number of Iranian intelligence officials."
He said Iranian officials provided money, weapons "and as far as I know even car bombs" for the group. He said among the officials they met in Iran was its supreme leader Ali Khamenei."

"U.S. Said to Hold More Foreigners in Iraq Fighting" (Douglas Jehl and Neil A. Lewis, The New York Times, 2005/01/08)
"After raids in recent months that captured hundreds of insurgents in Iraq, the United States has significantly increased the number of prisoners it says are foreign fighters, a group the Bush administration contends are not protected by the Geneva Conventions, American officials said.
A Pentagon official said Friday that the United States was now holding 325 foreign fighters in Iraq, a number that the official said had increased by 140 since Nov. 7, just before the invasion of Falluja. Many of the non-Iraqis were captured in or around that city.
Many of them are suspected of links to Al Qaeda or the related terror networks supporting the insurgency in Iraq, senior Bush administration officials said this week."

"Christians flee genocide as fear sweeps Iraq" (Jack Fairweather, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/01/08)
"Churches have been bombed, priests kidnapped and Christian neighbourhoods subjected to random shootings, the terrorists' revenge for the community's shared religion with the "Christian" invaders.
According to Church leaders, some 300,000 Christians - roughly a quarter of the population - have fled their homes since the US-led invasion.
It is too early to speak of a humanitarian crisis, with many from the community, one of Iraq's more affluent, able to leave the country in civilised fashion or find shelter in the Kurdish-controlled north. But in the minds of Church leaders there is little doubt as to the nature of the exodus.
"It's genocide. You can see it with your own eyes," said Bishop Putres Harbori, head of the Christian community in Dohuk, near the Turkish border, where 350 families have found sanctuary.
Many fear that Iraq's ancient Christian community is leaving for ever, some nostalgic for better times under Saddam Hussein. Life was good when the Ba'athists were in charge, said Paula Sliwa, 71, one of 60,000 Christians to flee Mosul in recent months."

Friday, January 7, 2005

News and commentary:

"The Disenchanted American" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/01/07)
"Imagine a world in which there was no United States during the last 15 years. Iraq, Iran, and Libya would now have nukes. Afghanistan would remain a seventh-century Islamic terrorist haven sending out the minions of Zarqawi and Bin Laden worldwide. The lieutenants of Noriega, Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Saddam, and Moammar Khaddafi would no doubt be adjudicating human rights at the United Nations. The Ortega Brothers and Fidel Castro, not democracy, would be the exemplars of Latin America. Bosnia and Kosovo would be national graveyards like Pol Pot's Cambodia. Add in Kurdistan as well — the periodic laboratory for Saddam's latest varieties of gas. Saddam himself, of course, would have statues throughout the Gulf attesting to his control of half the world's oil reservoirs. Europeans would be in two-day mourning that their arms sales to Arab monstrocracies ensured a second holocaust. North Korea would be shooting missiles over Tokyo from its new bases around Seoul and Pusan. For their own survival, Germany, Taiwan, and Japan would all now be nuclear. Americans know all that — and yet they grasp that their own vigilance and military sacrifices have earned them spite rather than gratitude. And they are ever so slowly learning not much to care anymore."

"How to Interrogate Terrorists" (Heather Mac Donald, City Journal, from the Winter 2004 issue)
"Reeling under the PR disaster of Abu Ghraib, the Pentagon shut down every stress technique but one — isolation — and that can be used only after extensive review. An interrogator who so much as requests permission to question a detainee into the night could be putting his career in jeopardy. Even the traditional army psychological approaches have fallen under a deep cloud of suspicion: deflating a detainee’s ego, aggressive but non-physical histrionics, and good cop–bad cop have been banished along with sleep deprivation. ...
Soldiers on the ground are noticing the consequences. “The Iraqis already know the game. They know how to play us,” a marine chief warrant officer told the Wall Street Journal in August. “Unless you catch the Iraqis in the act, it is very hard to pin anything on anyone . . . . We can’t even use basic police interrogation tactics.”
And now the rights advocates, energized by the Abu Ghraib debacle, are making one final push to halt interrogation altogether. In the New York Times’s words, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is now condemning the thoroughly emasculated interrogation process at Guantánamo Bay as a “system devised to break the will of the prisoners [and] make them wholly dependent on their interrogators.” In other words, the ICRC opposes traditional interrogation itself, since all interrogation is designed to “break the will of prisoners” and make them feel 'dependent on their interrogators.'" (Hat tip: Malcolm Smordin.)

"Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Tsunami: It was a Punishment from Allah for Celebrating Christmas and Other Sins; It was Caused by the U.S., Israel, India" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 842, 2005/01/07)
"The Egyptian nationalist weekly Al-Usbu' has published an investigation by correspondent Mahmoud Bakri, titled "Humanity in Danger," claiming that the earthquake and tsunami in Asia may have resulted from joint nuclear testing by the U.S., Israel, and India. The following are excerpts from the article:
'Was [the earthquake] caused by American, Israeli, and Indian nuclear testing on 'the day of horror?' Why did the 'Ring of Fire' explode? ...
The second possibility is that it was some kind of human intervention that destabilized the tectonic plates, an intervention that is caused only in nuclear experiments and explosions. What strengthens this direction [of thought] are the tectonic plates [under] Indian soil [sic], since in the recent few months, India conducted over seven nuclear tests to strengthen its nuclear program against the Pakistani [nuclear program]. ...
The three most recent tests appeared to be genuine American and Israeli preparations to act together with India to test a way to liquidate humanity.'"

"What hate?" (Kenan Malik, The Guardian/kenanmalik.com, 2005/01/07)
"Everyone from anti-racist activists to government ministers wants us to believe that Britain is in the grip of Islamophobia — a morbid fear and hatred of Islam and of Muslims.":
"But I also think that Islamophobia is a myth — at least in the way that most people conceive of it. There is clearly ignorance and fear of Islam in this country. Muslims do get harassed and attacked because of their faith. Yet I believe that the hatred and abuse of Muslims is being exaggerated to suit politicians' needs and silence the critics of Islam. ...
The more that the threat of Islamophobia is exaggerated, the more that ordinary Muslims come to accept that theirs is a community under constant attack. It helps create a siege mentality, stoking up anger and resentment, and making Muslim community more inward looking and more open to religious extremism.
Exaggerating the level of anti-Muslim hatred also creates a climate of censorship in which any criticism of Islam can be dismissed as Islamophobic. ...
Marayam Namazie is an Iranian refugee who has long campaigned for both women's rights and against Islamic repression. As a result she has been condemned as an Islamophobe, even by anti-racist organisations. 'On the one hand', she says, 'you are threatened by the political Islamic movement with assassination or imprisonment or flogging. And on the other you have so-called progressive people who tell you that what you say in defence of humanity, in defence of equal rights for all, is racist. I think it's nothing short of an outrage." (See also: "Transcript of Kenan Malik's film 'Are Muslims Hated?'" (Kenan Malik, kenanmalik.com, January 2005))

"Arafat's Heir" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2005/01/07)
"Has no one learned anything?
On Sept. 13, 1993, I was on the White House lawn watching the signing of the Oslo accords. I also watched the intellectual collapse of the entire Middle East intelligentsia -- journalists, politicians, "experts" -- as they swooned at the famous handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin and refused, that day and for years to come, to recognize what was obvious: that Arafat was embarking not on peace but on the next stage of his perpetual war against Israel, this one to be launched far more advantageously from a base of Palestinian territory that Israel had just suicidally granted him.
Why was this so obvious? Because Arafat said so -- that very night (in an Arabic broadcast to his own people on Jordanian television) and many times afterward. The Middle East experts refused to believe it. They did not want to hear it. Then came the intifada. Thousands of dead later, they now believe it. The more honest ones among them even admit they were wrong.
Now Arafat is dead, Mahmoud Abbas is poised to succeed him and the world is swooning again. Abbas, we are told, is the great hope, the moderate, the opponent of violence, the man who has said the intifada was counterproductive.
The peacemaker cometh. Once again, euphoria is in the air. Once again, no one wants to listen to what is being said." (See also: "Palestinian Leader Assails 'Zionist Enemy'" (Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters/My Way, 2005/01/04) and "Abbas embrace of militant elicits Israelis’ concerns" (AP/MSNBC, 2004/12/30))

"Anti-Islamic Torture" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2005/01/07)
"One of the remarkable features of this whole disgusting phenomenon is the anti-Muslim techniques. We now have the use of sexual humiliation, rape, the force-feeding of pork, forcible pouring of liquor down an inmate's throat, wrapping someone in the Israeli flag, forcing inmates to kneel and pray and then kicking them in the head, and now placing duct tape over the mouth of someone reciting the Koran. Here's a revealing piece of evidence - a first-hand sworn Red Cross deposition of an interrogation in Abu Ghraib:

They took me inside the building and started to scream at me. They stripped me naked, they asked me, "Do you pray to Allah?" I said, "Yes." They said, "Fuck you" and "Fuck him." ... Someone else asked me, "Do you believe in anything?" I said to him, "I believe in Allah." So he said, "But I believe in torture and I will torture you. When I go home to my country, I will ask whoever comes after me to torture you." Then they handcuffed me and hung me to the bed. They ordered me to curse Islam and because they started to hit my broken leg, I cursed my religion. They ordered me to thank Jesus I am alive. And I did what they ordered me. This is against my belief. They left me hang from the bed and after a while I lost consciousness."

And we wonder why we have all but lost this war." (See also: "Terror Suspect Alleges Torture" (Dana Priest and Dan Eggen, The Washington Post, 2005/01/06) and "Torture Again" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2005/01/06))

"Gonzales Defends His White House Record" (Dan Eggen and R. Jeffrey Smith, The Washington Post, 2005/01/07)
"Attorney general nominee Alberto R. Gonzales strongly defended his tenure as White House counsel yesterday, including his conclusion that the protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply to alleged terrorists, and he suggested that the United States should consider renegotiating the international treaties to better wage its war on terrorism.
During a day-long hearing dominated by a debate over the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies, Gonzales pledged to pursue any allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that fall within the Justice Department's jurisdiction. He said he would honor the obligations of the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements on the treatment of detainees.
"Torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration," Gonzales said. 'I will ensure the Department of Justice aggressively pursues those responsible for such abhorrent actions.'"

"Rumsfeld Seeks Broad Review of Iraq Policy" (Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker , The New York Times, 2005/01/07)
"The Pentagon is sending a retired four-star Army general to Iraq next week to conduct an unusual "open-ended" review of the military's entire Iraq policy, including troop levels, training programs for Iraqi security forces and the strategy for fighting the insurgency, senior Defense Department officials said Thursday.
The extraordinary leeway given to the highly regarded officer, Gen. Gary E. Luck, a former head of American forces in South Korea and currently a senior adviser to the military's Joint Forces Command, underscores the deep concern by senior Pentagon officials and top American commanders over the direction that the operation in Iraq is taking, and its broad ramifications for the military, said some members of Congress and military analysts."

Thursday, January 6, 2005

News and commentary:

"Saddam Hussein and Al-Jazeera" (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, The Counterterrorism Blog, 2005/01/06)
Gartenstein-Ross on the Al-Jazeera/Saddam link:
"From the description provided on FDD's website, the new information that was found in Iraq seems nothing short of explosive. The FDD reports that one of the appointments to al-Jazeera's editorial staff that Uday praises is Ahmad Mansour, "a prominent reporter who has since been criticized for providing greatly exaggerated reports of civilian deaths during U.S. couterinsurgency operations in Fallujah." Al-Jazeera anchor Dr. Faysal Qassem is also shown on tape meeting with Iraqi officials, including Iraqi intelligence officers in Doha.
It also appears that journalist Hamida Nahnah may be implicated in the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food corruption scandal. Nahnah, who received oil vouchers from Saddam's regime estimated to be worth millions of dollars, is shown on tape embracing Uday, thanking him for his generosity, and stating, "The campaign to defend Saddam's regime is about to start worldwide, thanks to the support."
It is unclear at this point how deep the corruption runs, but this is surely a story worth following. Footage of the newly discovered videotapes will be aired by Alhurra beginning today." (Note: The Counterterrorism Blog is a new blog, which I found via Donald Sensing. See also: "New Footage Links Al-Jazeera, Media Figures to Saddam's Regime" (The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 2005/01/06) and "Tape shows Al-Jazeera, Saddam link" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2005/01/02))

"Two True Pictures of the Terror War" (Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 2005/01/06)
"During World War II, Frank Capra made a series of films called "Why We Fight" to rally Americans behind the war effort. Imagine a filmmaker doing that today. Actually, it's impossible to imagine.":
"If you want to know why we fight, check out the movie "Osama" and the documentary "Voices of Iraq."
"Osama," the first film made in liberated Afghanistan, opens with a scene of Taliban enforcers breaking up a demonstration by burka-clad women upset about their inability to work. The action then shifts to a hospital that is being closed, throwing a female doctor out of work. Without a male wage earner in the family — both her husband and brother have been killed — starvation looms. So she cuts her 12-year-old daughter's hair and sends her out to work disguised as a boy called Osama. ...
Ultimately, Osama's masquerade unravels, and she faces a gruesome punishment from an Islamic court. The ending, which I won't give away, is enough to make anyone shudder — and give thanks that U.S. troops have toppled the Taliban. Yet I don't recall a single Hollywood feminist expressing gratitude to the U.S. military or its commander in chief for the liberation of Afghan women. No doubt Streisand, Sarandon & Co. were too busy inveighing against the horrors perpetrated by John Ashcroft."

"The Country We've Got" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2005/01/06)
"Each day we get closer to the Iraqi elections, more voices are suggesting that they be postponed. This is a tough call, but I hope the elections go ahead as scheduled on Jan. 30. We have to have a proper election in Iraq so we can have a proper civil war there. ...
We don't want the kind of civil war that we have in Iraq now. That is a war of Sunni and Islamist militants against the U.S. and its Iraqi allies, many of whom do not seem comfortable fighting with, and seemingly for, the U.S. America cannot win that war. That is a civil war in which the murderous insurgents appear to be on the side of ending the U.S. "occupation of Iraq" and the U.S. and its allies appear to be about sustaining that occupation.
The civil war we want is a democratically elected Iraqi government against the Baathist and Islamist militants. It needs to be clear that these so-called insurgents are not fighting to liberate Iraq from America, but rather to reassert the tyranny of a Sunni-Baathist minority over the majority there. ...
We cannot liberate Iraq, and never could. Only Iraqis can liberate themselves, by first forging a social contract for sharing power and then having the will to go out and defend that compact against the minorities who will try to resist it."

"Torture Again" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2005/01/06)
"Today will be an important opportunity to see what this administration has wrought with respect to the humane treatment of prisoners in U.S. military custody. Let's retire at the start the notion that the only torture that has been used by the U.S. has been against known members of al Qaeda. This is not true. Many innocent men and boys were raped, brutally beaten, crucified for hours (a more accurate term than put in "stress positions"), left in their own excrement, sodomized, electrocuted, had chemicals from fluorescent lights poured on them, forced to lie down on burning metal till they were unrecognizable from burns - all this in Iraq alone, at several prisons as well as Abu Ghraib. I spent a week reading all the official reports over Christmas for a forthcoming review essay. Abu Ghraib is but one aspect of a pervasive pattern of torture and abuse that, in my view, is only beginning to sink in. ...
After Abu Ghraib, you might expect some kind of reckoning. But what's stunning about this president is his complete indifference to these facts. His nomination of Gonzales to attorney general is a de facto statement that he believes that someone who enabled these things needs rewarding, not censuring. This from a president elected in part on something called "moral values." If "moral values" mean indifference to torture, they are literally meaningless." (See also: "Does the Right Remember Abu Ghraib?" (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 2005/01/05))

"Mohammed the lad leaps up league of names" (Alexandra Frean, The Times, 2005/01/06)
"Mohammed was the fifth most popular boys’ name in England and Wales in 2004, according to new government data that also illustrates the growing cultural diversity of England and Wales. ...
Mohammed made it into the top 20 for the first time in 2004, up two places from 2003. But when all 16 spellings (including Muhammad and Mohammad) of the name are added up, it moves to fifth place in the chart, close behind Jack, Joshua, Thomas and James.
In 2004 5,358 babies were named Mohammed (or another spelling of it). Fifty years ago there were 604."

Wednesday, January 5, 2005

News and commentary:

"Dutch Muslim Site Spoofs Hirsi Ali's Death" (Rogier van Bakel, Nobody's Business, 2005/01/05)
"Www.elqalem.nl is a website by and for young Dutch muslims. It bills itself as a "completely neutral information platform." The editors say the site should be considered a "part of the neutral, informative news media."
There is no shortage of articles on El-Qalem that put that assertion to the test, however. ...
There is a sarcastic screed called "The Ayaan Manifesto," announcing the death of Ayaan Hirsi Ali... It was written by Moroccan-born editor Mohammed Jabri. Jabri says Hirsi Ali was blown to bits in a car bomb attack, and he asks her, in an article that goes from macabre obituary to open letter, "Don't you think it's weird that you kicked the bucket exactly one month after Theo van Gogh's murder?" He mentions the film "Submission" that Hirsi Ali made with van Gogh (it condemns traditional Islam's treatment of women as property); in a humorously-intended aside, Jabri says that he has begun beating his sisters "because otherwise the movie would have missed its mark." ...
Jabri (who is also on the record as saying that gay people may be thrown off the roofs of high buildings) is thinking about starting an Islamic political party. By all accounts, he's already a busy man, what with his day job at the Dutch Department of Social Affairs, a government body." (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

"Report: Rise in global anti-Semitism" (Janine Zacharia, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/01/05)
"A combination of traditional anti-Jewish prejudice, strong anti-Israel sentiment, and Europe's growing Muslim population, have contributed to a recent rise in global anti-Semitism, a new report to Congress released Wednesday by the State Department says. ...
"The increasing frequency and severity of anti-Semitic incidents since the start of the 21st century, particularly in Europe, has compelled the international community to focus on anti-Semitism with renewed vigor," the report says. ...
The report provided a country-by-country breakdown of attacks, both verbal and physical, over the past 18 months. France reported 510 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2004 alone, compared with 593 for all of 2003." (See also the report: "Report on Global Anti-Semitism" (U.S. Department of State, 2005/01/05))

"Mosul Massacre: The Saudi Role" (Stephen Schwartz, New York Post, 2005/01/05)
"On Dec. 21, a terrorist blew himself up in the U.S. military mess hall in Mosul, in northern Iraq. Twenty-two people were killed, including U.S. soldiers and contractors.
And now comes big news: The perpetrator was the oldest son of a diplomat from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, our alleged ally in the War on Terror.
On Monday, the Saudi-owned daily Asharq Al-Awsat identified the butcher responsible: 20-year old Ahmad Sayyid Ahmad al-Ghamdi, a Saudi medical student.
The bomber acted as a member of Ansar al-Sunnah (Volunteers of Sunni Islam), one of the most violent terror groups in Iraq, and an al Qaeda ally.
The name "al-Ghamdi" should ring bells; the family is large, and three of its members were involved in the 9/11 assault.
The Saudi daily, and Western media, identified the Mosul bomber, and even said they had spoken with his father. But no one has mentioned who the father is: Sayyid al-Ghamdi, former head of the Saudi diplomatic mission in Sudan, a country ruled by an Islamist regime that once played host to Osama bin Laden himself."

"The Intifada Comes to Duke" (Eric Adler and Jack Langer, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/01/05)
Adler and Langer on the annual conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, held at Duke University in October 2004:
"One scheduled speaker, Charles Carlson, had openly called for lethal attacks against Israeli youth, declaring that "every young Israeli is military — they are all proper war targets," and that "each wedding, Passover celebration, or bar mitzvah [in Israel] is a potential military target."
Another scheduled participant, Abe Greenhouse, had been arrested in 2003 after smashing a pie in the face of Israeli minister Natan Sharansky as he was about to give a lecture at Rutgers. An organizer of the 2002 PSM gathering, Fadi Kiblawi, had written that the Palestinian plight made him "want to strap a bomb to [his] chest and kill those [Zionist] racists," while an erstwhile PSM speaker, Hatem Bazian, had called for "an intifada in this country" (i.e., the U.S.) and asserted that the sacred texts of Islam require its adherents to "fight the Jews." ...
One posting, beside providing a link to an online article blaming the Jews for the outbreak of World War II, called for "an investigation into the Jewish community's practices and leadership during the past 150 years." "Whenever anyone says anything negative about the Jews," expostulated still another writer, 'they go after them with Mafia-style ruthlessness. . . . This is the reason Jews are the most hated people on earth and why they have always been kicked out of every country.'" (See also: "The Jews" (Philip Kurian, The Chronicle, 2004/10/18), "Conference at Duke University equates Zionism, apartheid" (Janine Zacharia, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/10/17), "Duke University's Weekend Hate Fest" (Lee Kaplan, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/10/15) and "Duke's Platform for Terror" (Lee Kaplan, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/09/15))

"Does the Right Remember Abu Ghraib?" (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 2005/01/05)
"Although many people bear some responsibility for these abuses, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is among those who bear the most responsibility. It was Gonzales who led the administration's internal discussion of what qualified as torture. It was Gonzales who advised the president that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to people captured in Afghanistan. It was Gonzales who helped craft some of the administration's worst domestic decisions, including the indefinite detention, without access to lawyers, of U.S. citizens Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi.
By nominating Gonzales to his Cabinet, the president has demonstrated not only that he is undisturbed by these aberrations, but that he still doesn't understand the nature of the international conflict which he says he is fighting. ...
In fact, anyone who has ever wanted the United States to play a role in promoting and supporting democracy and human rights around the world — and this includes a wide swath of the conservative movement — ought to oppose the appointment of Alberto Gonzales, if only on the grounds that he is associated with bad legal advice that has damaged our ability to do so." (See also: "Don't throw me into that torture patch" (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2005/01/05))

"In Angry Waves, the Devout See an Angry God" (Edward Cody, The Washington Post, 2005/01/05)
"Aceh's highly influential Islamic clerics have explained the giant wave that devastated this overwhelmingly Muslim region as a warning to the faithful that they must more strictly observe their religion, including a ban on Muslims killing Muslims.
The infusion of religious meaning into the tragedy, in a province already known as Indonesia's most fervently Muslim area, suggested the consequences of the Dec. 26 tsunami could extend well beyond the death toll. The sweeping destruction has torn apart the infrastructure on the northern part of Sumatra island.
The idea that the killing on both sides of a years-old conflict between secessionist rebels and Indonesia's military helped bring divine wrath could affect the way Aceh's 4.7 million residents view the central government in Jakarta. At the same time, the devout people of this region, who seem to have embraced their clerics' views, could demand even tighter strictures in Aceh, which is already governed by Islamic law, or sharia."

"Briton is accused of missile plot in US" (Tom Leonard, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/01/05)
"A British businessman offered to sell 200 shoulder-launched missiles to be used in a plot to terrorise the United States, a court heard yesterday.
Hemant Lakhani told an undercover FBI agent that they could be used to shoot down 10 to 15 airlines simultaneously on the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. ...
It is alleged that Lakhani was arranging the sale of 50 more missiles, saying America could be terrorised if 10 to 15 commercial jets were shot down simultaneously.
Stuart Rabner, prosecuting, said: 'He spent more than a year and a half eagerly trying to make this deal happen, actively trying to smuggle 200 shoulder-fired missiles into the United States, all the time issuing advice on how to shoot planes out of the sky in order to shake the US economy.'"

Tuesday, January 4, 2005

News and commentary:

"IAEA: Evidence of Egyptian nuke program" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2005/01/04)
"The UN atomic watchdog agency has found evidence of secret nuclear experiments in Egypt that could be used in weapons programs, diplomats said Tuesday.
The diplomats told The Associated Press that most of the work was carried out in the 1980s and 1990s but said the watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency - is also looking at evidence that suggests some were as recent as a year ago.
Specifically, said one of the diplomats, the Egyptians "tried to produce various components of uranium" without declaring it to the IAEA, as they were bound to under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

"Iraqi insurgents now outnumber coalition forces" (James Hider, The Times, 2005/01/04)
Via Andrew Sullivan: "I don't think I've read a more depressing statement than that in long time. We may not have lost the war in Iraq yet, but there's little doubt that we are currently losing it.":
"Iraq's rapidly swelling insurgency numbers 200,000 fighters and active supporters and outnumbers the United States-led coalition forces, the head of the country’s intelligence service said yesterday.
The number is far higher than the US military has so far admitted and paints a much grimmer picture of the challenge facing the Iraqi authorities and their British and American backers as elections loom in four weeks.
“I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people,” General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, director of Iraq’s new intelligence services, said. ...
General Shahwani said that there were at least 40,000 hardcore fighters attacking US and Iraqi troops, with the bulk made up of part-time guerrillas and volunteers providing logistical support, information, shelter and money.
“People are fed up after two years without improvement,” he said. 'People are fed up with no security, no electricity, people feel they have to do something. The army (dissolved by the American occupation authority) was hundreds of thousands. You’d expect some veterans would join with their relatives, each one has sons and brothers.'"

"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi reportedly arrested in Iraq" (Itar-Tass, 2005/01/04)
"DUBAI, January 4 (Itar-Tass) - Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, whom the US occupation authorities declared to be the "target number one" in Iraq, has been arrested in the city of Baakuba, the Emirate newspaper al-Bayane reported on Tuesday referring to Kurdish sources. Al-Zarqawi, leader of the terrorist group Al-Tawhid Wa'al-Jihad, was recently appointed the director of the Al-Qaeda organisation in Iraq.
The newspaper's correspondent in Baghdad points out that a report on the seizure of the terrorist, on whom the US put a bounty of 10 million dollars, was also reported by Iraqi Kurdistan radio, which at one time had been the first to announce the arrest of Saddam Hussein.
There have been no official reports about the arrest of the terrorist."

"Palestinian Leader Assails 'Zionist Enemy'" (Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters/My Way, 2005/01/04)
BackSpin notes: "Recognizing that such talk can’t be described as “moderate," Reuters calls the Palestinian presidential candidate a 'relative moderate.'":
"Moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called Israel "the Zionist enemy" for the first time on Tuesday after an Israeli tank killed seven Palestinian youths in a Gaza strawberry field.
The words were certain to stir concerns in Israel where images of Abbas embracing fighters during the campaign for a Jan. 9 election have led some to question hopes for reviving peace talks after Yasser Arafat's death.
The Israeli army said it had targeted militants who had crept into the strawberry field and fired mortar bombs into a nearby Jewish settlement in the occupied territory. ...
"We are praying for the souls of our martyrs who fell today to the shells of the Zionist enemy," Abbas told a rally in the south Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis, a hotbed of militants.
It was Abbas's first known resort to the language of radicals sworn to Israel's destruction. Abbas, 69, long known as a relative moderate, has raised peace hopes since Arafat's death by condemning militant violence in favor of talks with Israel."

"Governor of Baghdad Region Assassinated" (AP/ABC News, 2005/01/04)
"Insurgents assassinated the highest-ranking Iraqi official in eight months Tuesday, gunning down the governor of Baghdad province and six of his bodyguards, and a suicide truck bomber killed 10 people at an Interior Ministry commando headquarters, the latest in a string of violence ahead of Jan. 30 elections.
Five American troops were slain in three separate attacks, officials said, in the deadliest day for the U.S. military in Iraq since a suicide bombing at a mess tent in Mosul on Dec. 21 killed 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers and three American contractors.
The militant group of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for killing Gov. Ali al-Haidari and his bodyguards, according to a statement posted on a Web site known for carrying such claims.
"We tell every traitor and supporter of the Jews and Christians that this is your fate," the statement said. Its authenticity could not immediately be verified."

"American stinginess is saving lives" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/01/04)
"But the waters recede and the familiar contours of the political landscape re-emerge - in this case, the need to fit everything to the Great Universal Theory of the age, that whatever happens, the real issue is the rottenness of America. ... On our Letters Page, Robert Eddison dismissed the "paltry $15 million from Washington" as "worse than stingy. The offer — since shamefacedly upped to $35 million — equates to what? Three oil tycoons' combined annual salary?" ...
If America were to emulate Ireland and Norway, there'd be a lot more dead Indonesians and Sri Lankans. Mr Eddison may not have noticed, but the actual relief effort going on right now is being done by the Yanks: it's the USAF and a couple of diverted naval groups shuttling in food and medicine, with solid help from the Aussies, Singapore and a couple of others. The Irish can't fly in relief supplies, because they don't have any C-130s. All they can do is wait for the UN to swing by and pick up their cheque." (See also: "American donations flood relief agencies" (The Union Leader, 2005/01/04): "American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, has pledged $35 million for tsunami relief. That is $2 million more than the Canadian government has pledged. And Americans are supposed to be the “stingy” ones.
The American Red Cross alone has raised more donations than the government of France has pledged.")

Monday, January 3, 2005

News and commentary:

"Top Ten Arab and Iranian Conspiracy Theories Ending 2004" (Steven Stalinsky, Jewish World Review, 2005/01/03)
"The following top ten list represents conspiracies which were published in the Arab and Iranian media during the last months of 2004. ...
5) Jews Tamper with The Koran: The Kuwaiti English daily Arab Times published an article on September 21 titled "New Education Plan 'Enforced'; Jews tamper with Holy Quran." The article reported on the Dean of the College of Sharia and Islamic Studies of Kuwait University, Dr. Mohammad Abdul Razak Al-Tabtabaei, who had "warned citizens and residents of some versions [of the Koran] which have been manipulated by Jews…" Al-Tabtabaei explained, "For long Jews have been plotting against Muslims using various means… They have been damaging the Holy book by the changing and deleting verses with the aim of hiding the truth."
4) U.S. To Invade Pakistan and Annihilate Muslims: Maqdoom Mohiuddin favorably reviewed a book in the Saudi Gazette on October 19, which advances the theory that "there have been rumors about a possible invasion of Pakistan… The U.S. has started implementing its program… The book also reveals that the other possible targets of the U.S. will be Sudan, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey…" Mohiuddin claims that President Bush's true goal is the 'total annihilation of the Muslims.'"

"How the Left Betrayed My Country - Iraq" (Naseer Flayih Hasan, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/01/03)
"After those, and many other, experiences, we finally comprehended how little we had in common with these “peace activists” who constantly decried American crimes, and hated to listen to us talk about the terrible long nightmare that ended with the collapse of the regime. We came to understand how these “humanitarians” experienced a sort of pleasure when terrorists or former remnants of the regime created destruction in Iraq — just so they could feel that they were right, and the Americans wrong! ...
And so I have become disillusioned, at least with the Leftists I met in Iraq. So noble in their rhetoric, they looked to the stars, yet ignored what was happening around them, caring only about what was inside their minds. So glorious in their ideals, their thoughts were inflexible and their deeds unnecessary, even harmful. In the end, they proved to me how dogma and fanaticism had transform peace activists into — lifeless peace 'statues.'"

"Suicide Blast Kills 29 in Iraq" (Karl Vick and Salih Saif Aldin, The Washington Post, 2005/01/03)
"A car bombing killed 29 people north of Baghdad Sunday morning when attackers pulled up in a vehicle alongside a bus carrying Iraqi National Guardsmen and detonated explosives. The violence spurred angry accusations between the city's Shiite Muslim population and its Sunni Muslim police force about who was responsible. ...
"This operation, they did it to stop the elections," said Haider Abdulzahra Mehdi, 32, standing beside the body of his brother, Abbas, in a Shiite community center in Balad. His head was bowed in grief, his eyes rimmed in red.
"All the people of Balad will be sure to go through with this election on time no matter what happens," he said, then repeated the sentence for emphasis."

Added in archive:
"God Help Them - It Sure Ain't Funny" (Douglas, Last of the Famous International Playboys, 2004/12/31)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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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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