Archived news and commentary: January 10 - 16, 2005

2005/01/10 - 2005/01/16
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

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Sunday, January 16, 2005

News and commentary:

"Report: U.S. Conducting Secret Missions Inside Iran" (Reuters/My Way, 2005/01/16)
"The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.
The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.
Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."
One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, 'This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign.'"

"Saddam Agents, Militants Plan 'Vicious' Poll Attacks" (Michael Georgy, Reuters/My Way, 2005/01/16)
"Saddam Hussein's former agents are funding a sophisticated alliance with foreign Muslim militants to carry out vicious attacks on polling stations during Iraq's elections, the deputy prime minister said on Sunday.
Barham Salih said intelligence gathered from dozens of Saddam's former intelligence and army officers and foreign fighters arrested in the past week points to a major offensive during the polls.
Members of Saddam's toppled Baath Party and foreign militants inspired by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his key ally in Iraq, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, may have suffered setbacks but have plenty of cash.
"We do have, I think, some good ideas about what they are planning to do as a way of attacking polling stations and creating an insecure environment to prevent the population from going to the polling stations," he told Reuters in an interview."

"Desert desperadoes" (Kit R. Roane, usnews.com, from the 2005/01/24 issue)
"Fallen behind on your scandal news lately? Well, don't look now, but the doozy the United Nations has brewed up in its Iraqi oil-for-food program is about to come to full boil. The Treasury Department, the Department of Justice, the Manhattan district attorney's office, five legislative committees, at least three foreign governments, and, oh yes, the United Nations itself are asking who's responsible for the more than $4 billion in illegal kickbacks on Iraqi oil sales and goods from suppliers exporting food, medicine, and other materials to Baghdad. Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, who is heading the U.N.'s investigation of itself, is due to weigh in later this month with his findings and has already given a glimpse of the mess with a "provisional" assessment of a program plagued by sloppy, myopic management that may or may not turn out to have included criminal conduct."

"Bush can still pull off a Reagan triumph" (Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times, 2005/01/16)
"Bush’s real chance is in the Middle East. In Iraq we are on the brink of a new era — either of democratic renewal or catastrophe. My bet is on renewal, simply because it is in the interests of the 80% of Iraqis who are Kurds or Shi’ites and because that 80% has the resources of the US army to help it to crush resistance.
In Afghanistan we have the inklings of an Islamic democracy. In the West Bank we may have a Palestinian leader who has democratic legitimacy and can negotiate with Ariel Sharon, the Israeli leader. These are real achievements for Bush.
Without the Afghan war, the West would still be beset by a terror factory and Afghans by theocratic fascists. Without Bush’s support, Sharon would not have moved towards a secure peace. Without Bush’s refusal to deal with the mobster Yasser Arafat, we might never have broken the cycle of Palestinian terror (we still may not). Without Bush and Tony Blair we would be facing the evil of Saddam, aided by a corrupt UN and the threat of a possible terrorist-WMD alliance.
If Bush manages to nudge these hopeful developments to a more peaceful and democratic solution, then he will have pulled off a feat almost rivalling Reagan’s."

"So no one's guilty in Guantanamo" (Alasdair Palmer, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/01/16)
"It is a remarkable testament to how low the reputation of the US has sunk that so many people find it much easier to believe the men in Guantanamo when they say they are entirely innocent victims who pose no threat at all to anyone than to accept that the Americans may have had good reasons for detaining them in the first place.
Few people believe that the Americans are telling the truth when they say they cannot hold trials of the men at Guantanamo without revealing their intelligence sources which led to arrests and therefore jeopardising any progress they may have made in the "war on terror".
That explanation, however, is very often true. It is also why the UK government has not organised trials for the 12 foreign nationals held in Belmarsh prison. ...
The reality, of course, is that the US and the UK governments are actually rather less eager to destroy Western society and its liberties than members of al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, it seems it will take another act of mass terrorism on the scale of the destruction of the World Trade Center to persuade people of that fact."

"Tsunami was all Allah's doing" (Ross Clark, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/01/16)
"Well, if it wasn't Allah's work, suggested Mahmoud Bakri in the Egyptian weekly newspaper Al-Usbu, then "it was some kind of human intervention that destabilised the tectonic plates, an intervention that is caused only in nuclear experiments and explosions – 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". ...
At least Midwesterners who believe that we are being controlled by Martians or that God heaves around tectonic plates in anger tend to be confined to internet chatrooms.
In the Islamic world, on the other hand, bizarre conspiracy theories and a belief in divine retribution are part of respectable thought.
Typifying the Western response to the tsunami last week, Gordon Brown said that the disaster "shows just how closely and irrevocably bound together are the fortunes of the richest persons in the richest country to the fate of the poorest persons in the poorest country".
This might be true, in that Westerners and Asians died on the same beaches and are sharing in the relief effort. But to compare the response to the disaster between Islam and the West is to remind oneself just how large a philosophical divide lies between us." (See also: "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))

"'Islamic Hate' Eyed In Slays" (Douglas Montero and Stefan C. Friedman, New York Post, 2005/01/16)
"The father of a murdered New Jersey family was threatened for making anti-Muslim remarks online — and the gruesome quadruple slaying may have been the hateful retaliation, sources told The Post yesterday.
Hossam Armanious, 47, who along with his wife and two daughters was found stabbed to death in his Jersey City home early Friday, would regularly debate religion in a Middle Eastern chat room, one source said.
Armanious, an Egyptian Christian, was well known for expressing his Coptic beliefs and engaging in fiery back-and-forth with Muslims on the Web site paltalk.com. ...
The married father of two had recently been threatened by Muslim members of the Web site, said a fellow Copt and store clerk who uses the chat room.
"You'd better stop this bull---- or we are going to track you down like a chicken and kill you," was the threat, said the clerk, who was online at the time and saw the exchange.
But Armanious refused to back down, according to two sources who use the Web site." (See also: "Family Of 4 Slaughtered" (Lorena Mongelli et al., New York Post, 2005/01/15): "The bodies of Hossam Armanious, 46, his wife, Amal Garas, 36, and their two young daughters — Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8 — were found gagged with their throats slit at 4 a.m. yesterday inside the green, two-story, wood-frame home they had moved into five years ago.")

"CIA gives grim warning on European prospects" (Nicholas Christian, Scotland on Sunday, 2005/01/16)
"THE CIA has predicted that the European Union will break-up within 15 years unless it radically reforms its ailing welfare systems.
The report by the intelligence agency, which forecasts how the world will look in 2020, warns that Europe could be dragged into economic decline by its ageing population. It also predicts the end of Nato and post-1945 military alliances.
In a devastating indictment of EU economic prospects, the report warns: "The current EU welfare state is unsustainable and the lack of any economic revitalisation could lead to the splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the EU, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role." ...
The EU is also set for a looming demographic crisis because of a drop in birth rates and increased longevity, with devastating economic consequences.
The report says: "Either European countries adapt their workforces, reform their social welfare, education and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations [chiefly from Muslim countries] or they face a period of protracted economic stasis."
As a result of the increased immigration needed, the report predicts that Europe’s Muslim population is set to increase from around 13% today to between 22% and 37% of the population by 2025, potentially triggering tensions." (See also: "EU: Estimated and Projected Ratios of Muslims to Ethnic Europeans, 1985-2025" (National Intelligence Center, January 2005))

"Rising Violence and Fear Drive Iraq Campaigners Underground" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2005/01/16)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 15 - The threat of death hung so heavily over the election rally, held this week on the fifth floor of the General Factory for Vegetable Oil, that the speakers refused to say whether they were candidates at all.
"Too dangerous," said Hussein Ali, who solicited votes for the United Iraqi Alliance, a party fielding dozens of candidates for the elections here. "It's a secret."
And then Mr. Ali and his colleagues left, escorted by men with guns. ...
With only two weeks to go to before the vote, scheduled for Jan. 30, guerrillas have stepped up their attacks and driven most candidates deep indoors, and on Saturday, the authorities said they would restrict traffic and set up cordons around polling places on election day.
A result, in large swaths of the country, is a campaign in the shadows, where candidates are often too terrified to say their names. Instead of holding rallies, they meet voters in secret, if they meet them at all. Instead of canvassing for votes, they fend off death threats."

"When the Price for Speaking Out Is Death" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2005/01/16)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 15 - Wijdan al-Khuzai would not give in.
The threats came usually by cellphone, a sinister voice promising a terrible end if Ms. Khuzai pursued a seat in Iraq's national assembly. ...
Ms. Khuzai, a 40-year-old mother of five, saw in the elections on Jan. 30 a rare moment to steer her country in a more humane direction. She was determined to make the most of it.
"Wijdan always said, 'If you have a goal, go after it, and don't let anything stop you,' " recalled her sister, Nada. "She thought God would save her."
The Americans found Wijdan al-Khuzai's body on Dec. 24, on the airport highway, a grim stretch rife with insurgents. Ms. Khuzai had been shot five times, once in the face. Her shoulder blades had been broken, and her hands had been cuffed behind her back so tightly that her wrists bled.
"The police said she had been tortured," said her brother, Haider Jamal al-Khuzai."

"Bush Says Election Ratified Iraq Policy" (Jim VandeHei and Michael A. Fletcher, The Washington Post, 2005/01/16)
"'We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections,' Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me." ...
In the interview, the president urged Americans to show patience as Iraq moves slowly toward creating a democratic nation where a dictatorship once stood. But the relentless optimism that dominated Bush's speeches before the U.S. election was sometimes replaced by pragmatism and caution.
"On a complicated matter such as removing a dictator from power and trying to help achieve democracy, sometimes the unexpected will happen, both good and bad," he said. 'I am realistic about how quickly a society that has been dominated by a tyrant can become a democracy. . . . I am more patient than some.'"

"Graner Gets 10 Years for Abuse at Abu Ghraib" (T.R. Reid, The Washington Post, 2005/01/16)
"FORT HOOD, Tex., Jan. 15 -- Former Army prison guard Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr. was sentenced to 10 years in a military stockade Saturday for his role in abusing Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison, an episode that sparked a wave of anti-American indignation around the world last spring.
The 10-member military jury passed sentence three hours after hearing Graner deliver an unsworn presentencing statement, not subject to cross-examination, in which he said that superior officers instructed him take actions at the prison that he knew would "violate the Geneva Conventions."
Graner spent 2 1/2 hours laying out an often harrowing tale of a chaotic, Dickensian prison where the rules of permissible conduct were constantly changing and most guards were young reservists with little or no training." (See also: "Guard Convicted In the First Trial From Abu Ghraib" (T.R. Reid, The Washington Post, 2005/01/15))

Saturday, January 15, 2005

News and commentary:

"EU: Estimated and Projected Ratios of Muslims to Ethnic Europeans, 1985-2025"
(National Intelligence Center, January 2005)
A graph from Mapping the Global Future: Global Trends 2020, found via Daniel Drezner.

"Germans intolerant of immigrants" (Tom Goeller, The Washington Times, 2005/01/15)
"According to "German Conditions 2004," a study published by Bielefeld University and conducted by Wilhelm Heitmeyer, two thirds of the Germans consider the conduct of Israelis toward the Palestinians the same as the conduct of the Nazis toward the Jews and willingly express their disdain toward Jews living in Germany.
The study, released in Berlin just before Turkey was invited to begin negotiations to join the European Union, found that xenophobia in Germany, especially toward Muslims, has "dramatically" increased in the past two years.
Some 60 percent of Germans, according to the study, believe their country is "too foreign." Germany currently is home to about 6 million foreigners, out of 82 million, about 7 percent. United States has an immigrant population of about 11 percent.
The main target of German xenophobia is its community of 3 million Muslims, mainly Turks. Seventy percent of the Germans surveyed said that Muslims do not fit in with Western society, and German society in particular. That figure is up from 55 percent of Germans who felt uncomfortable with Muslims two years ago."

"Babylon wrecked by war" (Rory McCarthy and Maev Kennedy, The Guardian, 2005/01/15)
"Troops from the US-led force in Iraq have caused widespread damage and severe contamination to the remains of the ancient city of Babylon, according to a damning report released today by the British Museum.
John Curtis, keeper of the museum's Ancient Near East department and an authority on Iraq's many archaeological sites, found "substantial damage" on an investigative visit to Babylon last month.
The ancient city has been used by US and Polish forces as a military depot for the past two years, despite objections from archaeologists.
"This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain," says the report, which has been seen by the Guardian.
Among the damage found by Mr Curtis, who was invited to Babylon by Iraqi antiquities experts, were cracks and gaps where somebody had tried to gouge out the decorated bricks forming the famous dragons of the Ishtar Gate.
He saw a 2,600-year-old brick pavement crushed by military vehicles, archaeological fragments scattered across the site, and trenches driven into ancient deposits."

"Guard Convicted In the First Trial From Abu Ghraib" (T.R. Reid, The Washington Post, 2005/01/15)
"FORT HOOD, Tex., Jan. 14 -- In the first full-scale court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, a military jury Friday convicted Army Reserve Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr. on five counts of assault, maltreatment and conspiracy in connection with the beating and humiliation of Iraqi detainees.
The 10-member jury, composed of both officers and enlisted men, spent less than five hours deliberating and rejected Graner's defense that he was just following orders. ...
The 36-year-old prison guard from Uniontown, Pa., also was acquitted of some of the specific allegations within the charges and now faces up to 15 years in a military prison."

Friday, January 14, 2005

News and commentary:

"Sharon Cuts Ties With Abbas Over Violence" (Gabin Rabinowitz, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/01/14)
"JERUSALEM - In a startling reversal, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cut all contact Friday with the newly elected Palestinian leader and said Mahmoud Abbas must halt militant attacks if he wants peace talks. The timing of the decision — on the eve of Abbas' inauguration — was a major snub. ...
"Israel informed international leaders today that there will be no meetings with Abbas until he makes a real effort to stop the terror," Sharon spokesman Assaf Shariv said. ...
Shariv said Israel decided to cut ties because Thursday night's bombing-and-shooting attack at the Karni crossing, Gaza's main lifeline, was launched from a Palestinian Authority base." (See also: "Militants defy Abbas with deadly Gaza bombing" (Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2005/01/14))

"Triangulating the War" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/01/14)
"Almost all who supported the war now are bailing on the pretext that their version of the reconstruction was not followed: While a three-week war was their idea, a 20-month messy reconstruction was surely someone else's. Yesterday genius is today's fool — and who knows next month if the elections work? Witness Afghanistan where all those who recently said the victory was "lost" to warlords are now suddenly quiet. ...
There are many constants in all this pessimistic confusion — beside the fact that we are becoming a near hysterical society. First, our miraculous efforts in toppling the Taliban and Saddam have apparently made us forget war is always a litany of mistakes. No conflict is conducted according to either antebellum planning or can proceed with the benefit of hindsight. Iraq was not Yemen or Qatar, but rather the most wicked regime in the world, in the heart of the Arab world, full of oil, terrorists, and mass graves. There were no helpful neighbors to keep a lid on their own infiltrating jihadists. Instead we had to go into the heart of the caliphate, take out a mass murderer, restore civil society after 30 years of brutality, and ward off Sunni and Baathist fomenters in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria — all the while keeping out Iranian-Shiite agents bent on stopping democracy. The wonder is not that there is violence and gloom in Iraq, but that less than two years after Saddam was removed, elections are still on track."

"Let Iraqis Vote" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2005/01/14)
"From Islamic terrorists to The New York Times, the enemies of free elections in Iraq have a common goal: They desperately want the American experiment in bringing democracy to the Middle East to fail — the first for reasons of power, the latter to regain its lost prestige. ...
Shouldn't we raise an eyebrow when we find America's self-proclaimed "newspaper of record" shoulder-to-shoulder with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the leftovers of Saddam Hussein's regime? Does the NYT really want the terrorists to win? Is their editorial vanity so great? ...
Do they imagine that an election delay would make the violence subside? On the contrary, the terrorists and insurgents would believe — rightly — that they had triumphed. Attacks would increase, more recruits would flock to terror's cause (everybody loves a winner), and democracy would recede beyond the far horizon." (See also: "Facing Facts About Iraq's Election" (The New York Times, 2005/01/12): "When the United States was debating whether to invade Iraq, there was one outcome that everyone agreed had to be avoided at all costs: a civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that would create instability throughout the Middle East and give terrorists a new, ungoverned region that they could use as a base of operations. The coming elections - long touted as the beginning of a new, democratic Iraq - are looking more and more like the beginning of that worst-case scenario.
It's time to talk about postponing the elections.")

"Rather Biased" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2005/01/14)
Krauthammer on Rathergate: "This is not an isolated case. In fact the case is a perfect illustration of an utterly commonplace phenomenon: the mainstream media's obliviousness to its own liberal bias.
I do not attribute this to bad faith. I attribute it to (as Marx would say) false consciousness -- contracted by living in the liberal media cocoons of New York, Washington and Los Angeles, in which any other worldview is simply and truly inconceivable. This myopia was most perfectly captured by Pauline Kael's famous remark after Nixon's 1972 landslide: 'I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don't know anybody who voted for him.'"

"In Cafe Debate, a Victory for Elections" (Anthony Shadid, The Washington Post, 2005/01/14)
BAGHDAD, Jan. 13 -- In Shahbandar, a storied Baghdad cafe whose name evokes a time (the past) and a milieu (the highbrow), three men sat over cigarettes and hourglass cups of sweet tea Thursday and debated what the coming elections meant for a country scarred by three decades of tyranny, war and bitter disillusionment.
"Going to the polling stations is a victory for the Iraqi people," said Ali Danif, a 45-year-old writer.
"The elections are more important than the candidates," insisted Jamal Karim, his garrulous friend.
Not to be outdone, a smiling Suheil Yassin jumped in. "It's one of my wishes to die at the gate of the polling station," he said, a gesture that was self-consciously dramatic. 'I want to be a martyr for the ballot box.'"

"Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground" (Dana Priest, The Washington Post, 2005/01/14)
"Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.
Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. 'There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries.'"

"Militants defy Abbas with deadly Gaza bombing" (Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2005/01/14)
"Mahmoud Abbas, the newly elected Palestinian president, faced his first big test last night when Palestinian militants detonated a bomb on the edge of the Gaza Strip, killing at least five Israelis.
The attack, by far the biggest since he was elected on Sunday, blatantly defied his call for an end to the violence and a revival of some form of peace process with Israel. ...
Rescue workers said the five Israeli dead all appeared to be civilians.
One of the factions involved was the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, part of Mr Abbas' Fatah movement."

Thursday, January 13, 2005

News and commentary:

"U.S. Lance Cpl. Chelsee A. Rattray..."
(Reuters, 2005/01/13)
"U.S. Lance Cpl. Chelsee A. Rattray, landing support specialist, Combat Service Support Battalion 7, blocks her face from the wind while ensuring the external lift of an unserviceable Assault Amphibious Vehicle, near al-Asad air base, some 209 km (130 miles) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, January 9, 2005."

"The British Inquisition" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2005/01/13)
"This afternoon, I attended a meeting called by organisations supporting the government's proposed new law against incitement to religious hatred, which I believe threatens to suppress legitimate debate and criminalise people for simply telling the truth. Lined up in support of this bill were the Commission for Racial Equality, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), Justice, the British Humanist Association and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). ...
Then I asked Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the MCB,whether he thought that any public statements about Islamic terrorism, or any speculation about the number of Muslims in Britain who might support Islamic terrorism, would constitute incitement to religious hatred. He said: 'There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive. Saying Muslims are terrorists would be covered by this provision'.
So now we know what the MCB wants to prosecute under this proposed new law."

"The deadly threat of a nuclear Iran" (Douglas Davis, The Spectator, from the 2005/01/15 issue)
"The Middle East is on the brink of going nuclear, and the rest of the world is fiddling or looking the other way. The United States is draining its energies in Iraq, the Europeans are fussing over ‘soft power’ diplomacy, and the UN monitoring agencies are dithering. ‘We are not asking the tough questions,’ a senior official in the Vienna-based UN nuclear-monitoring industry told me this week. ‘We are not being persistent. We are too afraid to offend. We are failing.’ ...
Iran is not the only country in the world that is governed by Islamic law, actively nurtures Islamic terrorists and has a problem relating to the non-Islamic world. Uniquely, though, it has pledged to destroy a fellow UN member: Israel. The rhetoric of the mullahs was encapsulated in a five-word slogan inscribed on Iran’s Shihab-3 missiles when they were paraded through Tehran on Revolution Day in 2003 — ‘Israel must be wiped out.’
This is a danger which my Vienna source — neither Jewish nor, indeed, Western — believes is most acute. Israel is facing a very serious threat, he says, and the nuclear-monitoring industry has ‘utterly failed to address the profound and legitimate concerns it has about its national security’. A senior Israeli intelligence source echoes the anxiety. With the characteristic caution of his craft, he estimates that 'since the Iranians are so bent on the destruction of Israel, there is a probability that they will use their nuclear weapons aggressively against Israel.'" (See also: "Iran nearing nuclear capability" (David Rudge, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/01/11))

"The 'Media Party' is over" (Howard Fineman, Newsweek, 2005/01/13)
"A political party is dying before our eyes — and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about the "mainstream media," which is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards. At the height of its power, the AMMP (the American Mainstream Media Party) helped validate the civil rights movement, end a war and oust a power-mad president. But all that is ancient history. ...
In this situation, the last thing the AMMP needed was to aim wildly at the president — and not only miss, but be seen as having a political motivation in attacking in the first place. Were Dan Rather and Mary Mapes after the truth or victory when they broadcast their egregiously sloppy story about Bush's National Guard Service? The moment it made air it began to fall apart, and eventually was shredded by factions within the AMMP itself, conservative national outlets and by the new opposition party that is emerging: The Blogger Nation. It's hard to know now who, if anyone, in the "media" has any credibility.
And, as Walter Cronkite would say, that's the way it is."

"Atrocities in Plain Sight" (Andrew Sullivan, The New York Times, 2005/01/13)
"The official government and Red Cross reports on prisoner torture and abuse, compiled in two separate volumes, ''The Abu Ghraib Investigations,'' by a former Newsweek editor, Steven Strasser, and ''Torture and Terror,'' by a New York Review of Books contributor, Mark Danner, are almost numbingly exhaustive in their cataloging of specific mistakes, incidents and responsibilities.":
"What's notable about the incidents of torture and abuse is first, their common features, and second, their geographical reach. No one has any reason to believe any longer that these incidents were restricted to one prison near Baghdad. They were everywhere: from Guantánamo Bay to Afghanistan, Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and Tikrit and, for all we know, in any number of hidden jails affecting ''ghost detainees'' kept from the purview of the Red Cross. They were committed by the Marines, the Army, the Military Police, Navy Seals, reservists, Special Forces and on and on. The use of hooding was ubiquitous; the same goes for forced nudity, sexual humiliation and brutal beatings; there are examples of rape and electric shocks. Many of the abuses seem specifically tailored to humiliate Arabs and Muslims, where horror at being exposed in public is a deep cultural artifact."

"Ballots and Boycotts" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2005/01/13)
"In trying to think through whether we should press ahead with elections in Iraq or not, I have found it useful to go back and dig out my basic rules for Middle East reporting, which I have developed and adapted over 25 years of writing from that region.
Rule 1 Never lead your story out of Lebanon, Gaza or Iraq with a cease-fire; it will always be over by the time the next morning's paper is out.
Rule 2 Never take a concession, except out of the mouth of the person who is supposed to be doing the conceding. If I had a dime for every time someone agreed to recognize Israel on behalf of Yasir Arafat, I would be a wealthy man today.
Rule 3 The Israelis will always win, and the Palestinians will always make sure that they never enjoy it. Everything else is just commentary.
Rule 4 In the Middle East, if you can't explain something with a conspiracy theory, then don't try to explain it at all — people there won't believe it.
Rule 5 In the Middle East, the extremists go all the way, and the moderates tend to just go away — unless the coast is completely clear.
Rule 6 The most oft-used phrase of Mideast moderates is: "We were just about to stand up to the bad guys when you stupid Americans did that stupid thing. Had you stupid Americans not done that stupid thing, we would have stood up, but now it's too late. It's all your fault for being so stupid."
Rule 7 In Middle East politics there is rarely a happy medium. When one side is weak, it will tell you, "How can I compromise?" And the minute it becomes strong, it will tell you, "Why should I compromise?"
Rule 8 What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in Arabic, in Hebrew or in any other local language. Anything said in English doesn't count."

"In praise of blasphemy" (Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian, 2005/01/13)
"We can try to defend an ever growing number of "cultures", defined by religion, race, ethnic tradition or sexual preference, from public comment they regard as grossly offensive. There's a case for this, but let's be clear what it will mean. The result must inevitably be that we shall have less free speech. ...
Alternatively, we can take the view that, precisely because Britain is increasingly multicultural, all variations of religion, all "cultures" - including, of course, atheism, devout Darwinism, etc - should get used to living with a higher degree of public offence. Either you try to protect everyone from offence, or you allow offence equally for all. I'm emphatically of the offence-to-all persuasion. ...
If our goal is to achieve a multi-cultural society that is both free and peaceful, then what we need is not the multiplication of taboos but the expansion of tolerance. The belief in the value of tolerance is not like a belief in Jesus Christ, the prophet Muhammad, Ahura Mazda or, for that matter, the scientific wisdom of Darwin; it's the belief that alone makes it possible for all other beliefs to coexist."

Added in archive:
"In the Name of the Other: Reflections on the Coming Anti-Semitism" (Alain Finkielkraut, Azure, from the Autumn 2004 issue)

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

News and commentary:

"The War Against World War IV" (Norman Podhoretz, Commentary, from the February 2005 issue)
An essay on "the coalition against the Bush Doctrine":
"Suppose, then (as I do), that in a year or so, a duly elected coalition government is in place in Baghdad; that it is guided by a constitution guaranteeing political freedom and minority rights; that the economy is improving; that Iraqi soldiers and policemen have taken over most of the responsibility for dealing with a severely weakened insurgency; that the number of American troops has been reduced to the size of a backup force; and that fewer and fewer Americans are being killed or wounded. What then? Will the realists and their liberal allies bow to this reality? Will they be mugged by reality?
I think not. I think they will do unto a success in Iraq what they did when Hamid Karzai was sworn in as the president of Afghanistan this past December. In a powerful report on how the press chose to cover that story, Peter H. Wehner of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives reminds us of what the realists always said about Afghanistan: that it "was too backward; too fractious; too medieval and religiously fanatical; and too ungovernable to ever move toward democracy." Yet only three years after the war to liberate Afghanistan from the horrific Taliban regime, "a free election was held and a civilized, modern, pro-American president was sworn in." Wehner then describes how the press treated what he calls "this momentous event":

The New York Times carried the story on page A8. The Washington Post carried the story on page A13. USA Today had the briefest mention possible on page A5. The Los Angeles Times carried the story on page A3."

(See also: "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win" (Norman Podhoretz, Commentary, from the September 2004 issue))

"Iraq Without a Plan" (Michael E. O’Hanlon, Policy Review, from the December 2004-January 2005 issue)
"The post-invasion phase of the Iraq mission has been the least well-planned American military mission since Somalia in 1993, if not Lebanon in 1983, and its consequences for the nation have been far worse than any set of military mistakes since Vietnam. ...
The first three phrases of the operation, including the buildup, initial preparatory actions (largely by covert teams), and the main air-ground thrust, were impressive. But what is now commonly called Phase IV was handled so badly that its downsides have now largely outweighed the virtues of the earlier parts of the operation. ...
The problem was simply this: The war plan was seriously flawed and incomplete. Invading another country with the intention of destroying its existing government yet without a serious strategy for providing security thereafter defies logic and falls short of proper professional military standards of competence. It was in fact unconscionable.
Lest there be any doubt about the absence of a plan, one need only consult the Third Infantry Division’s after-action report, which reads: 'Higher headquarters did not provide the Third Infantry Division (Mechanized) with a plan for Phase IV. As a result, Third Infantry Division transitioned into Phase IV in the absence of guidance.'" (Hat tip: David Adesnik.)

"New Year's Eve 'plot' to kill Dutch MP Hirsi Ali" (Expatica, 2005/01/12)
"AMSTERDAM — Members of the suspected terror network Main City Group were planning to murder MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali at midnight on New Year's Eve, it was reported on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the public prosecutor said police seized a document at the work premises of terrorist suspect, Jermaine W., 17, indicating that the murder was planned for midnight when a large amount of fireworks would be set off and muffle the sounds of shooting.
The document gave a precise description of the whereabouts of Hirsi Ali, who went into hiding following the 2 November murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Justice officials are investigating whether the document's description matches one of Hirsi Ali's safe houses."

"Ayatollah alarms Sunnis with pledge of security force purge" (James Hider, The Times, 2005/01/12)
"AN IRANIAN-BACKED Ayatollah tipped to become Iraq’s first elected leader in decades said yesterday that he would carry out a purge of Iraq’s intelligence and security structures if his party wins power.
Ayatollah Abdelaziz al-Hakim told The Times that under US occupation and the interim administration the security forces had become infested with former officers of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime and needed to be shaken up. His comments are likely to worry Sunnis, who already fear that their grip on government is slipping. ...
Asked if he planned a sweeping purge of the intelligence and security forces that the Americans built up piecemeal after the war, the Ayatollah, who once commanded Sciri’s 10,000-strong militia, said: “For sure. If we want to improve the security situation. It’s natural and it’s one of our priorities.”
In their place, he said he would install “loyal Iraqis and the believers (in God), and those who believe in the process of change in Iraq”. His words caused alarm among Iraq’s liberal commentators.
“If he forms the government, that will be a disaster. He’ll purge the army, purge the police and put his own men in it,” said Ghassan al-Atiyyah, a secular Shia commentator, who is trying to build bridges with the Sunni community and defuse the uprising. 'This is the road to civil war.'"

"Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month" (Dafna Linzer, The Washington Post, 2005/01/12)
"The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.
In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas. ...
Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence official said that possibility is very small."

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

News and commentary:

"Iran nearing nuclear capability" (David Rudge, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/01/11)
"Iran is in advanced stages of trying to attain enriched uranium for use in atomic weapons, according to the head of army intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi (Farkash).
If it is not stopped, Iran will be capable of producing its own enriched uranium within six months, Ze'evi told an audience at the University of Haifa on Tuesday night.
He maintained that with this capability, Iran would be able to produce its first nuclear bomb by 2008 to 10 - an event that would likely cause a domino effect in countries in the Middle East. ...
He noted that Iran, in parallel to its nuclear program, has been developing ballistic missiles and that its Shihab 3 rocket has sufficient range to reach the heart of Israel."

"Britain has been in denial for too long" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/01/11)
"For example, last week the Guardian forced itself to consider the awkward fact that many young black males are "homophobic". This would be a disadvantage if one were hoping to make a career in the modern Tory party, but, on the other hand, if one's ambitions incline more to becoming a big-time gangsta rapper, it's a goldmine. Don't blame Jamaican men, though.
After all, who made them homophobic? The "vilification of Jamaican homophobia", says Decca Aitkenhead, is just an attempt to distract from the real culprit: "It's a failure to recognise 400 years of Jamaican history, starting with the sodomy of male slaves by their white owners as a means of humiliation.
"Slavery laid the foundations of homophobia," writes Miss Aitkenhead. "For us to vilify Jamaicans for an attitude of which we were the architects is shameful. Jamaicans weren't the architects of their ideas about homosexuality; we were." ...
When, say, Mahmoud Bakri of the Egyptian weekly al-Usbu, writes that the tsunamis were caused by Zionist nuclear testing, we roll our eyes.
But, in the mass derangement stakes, blaming everything on the Jews is, if anything, marginally less loopy than blaming everything on yourself. ...
But "multiculturalism" is really a suicide cult conceived by the Western elites not to celebrate all cultures, but to deny their own." (See also: "Their homophobia is our fault" (Decca Aitkenhead, The Guardian, 2005/01/05) and "Beyond parody" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2005/01/05))

"Stop the Genocide" (Jon S. Corzine and Sam Brownback, The Washington Post, 2005/01/11)
"It has been five months since Congress declared that genocide was occurring in that region of western Sudan. Since then, however, the situation has deteriorated. ...
As the tragedy of Darfur unfolds, history is watching, and we will be judged by only one test: Did we stop the genocide? Unless the answer is yes, then no summit, no U.N. Security Council resolution, no act of Congress or the administration has any meaning. ...
Twenty months after the conflict in Darfur began, not one punitive measure has been imposed on the government of Sudan. It is time for Khartoum to understand that anything other than demonstrable progress will result in sanctions. We should also be laying the groundwork for accountability."

"Iraqi Security Forces: Hunters and Hunted" (Karl Vick, The Washington Post, 2005/01/11)
"Opinion surveys show Iraqis support the new security services nearly as strongly as they support the country's religious leadership, a group that receives higher approval than any other institution.
Support is particularly high for police, whose officers are recruited from the towns they serve. ...
At the same time, insurgents have worked to infiltrate the Iraqi security services. U.S. and Iraqi commanders openly acknowledge that the ranks of the new army and police are routinely compromised by insurgents.
The same subterfuge threatens Iraq's civilian government: In October, a senior official in the office of the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, was arrested on suspicion of providing insurgents with home addresses and other personal details of government employees being targeted for assassination."

"Iraqi prisoners 'treated no worse than cheerleaders'" (Alec Russell, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/01/11)
"The lawyer for Charles Graner, the alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, yesterday compared heaping naked Iraqi prisoners in a tangled pyramid to choreographed displays by high-school cheerleaders.
"Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year? Is that torture?" Guy Womack asked a 10-member military jury in Fort Hood, Texas.
On the opening day of the court martial of the first of four soldiers accused of abusing Iraqis in the Baghdad jail, he also defended the tethering of prisoners on a leash as a legitimate method of control.
"You're keeping control of them. A tether is a valid control to be used in corrections," he said. 'You've probably been at a mall or airport and seen children on tethers - they're not being abused.'" (See also: "The Limbaugh Defense" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2005/01/11) and "Lawyer: Iraqi Abuse Was Like Act of 'Cheerleaders'" (Adam Tanner, Reuters/My Way, 2005/01/11): "Womack said using a tether was a valid method of controlling detainees, especially those who might be soiled with feces. ... 'In Texas we'd lasso them and drag them out of there.'")

"Abbas: Palestinians ready for peace" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/01/11)
"A day after his election, Abbas said the Palestinians "are ready for peace" with Israel. He said he is eager to resume peace talks, adding: "We extend our hands to our neighbors. We are ready for peace, peace based on justice. We hope that their response will be positive."
Abbas called for a resumption of peace talks based on the road map. ...
In a victory speech Sunday night, Abbas told supporters that he would work toward establishing an independent Palestinian state. ...
'The small jihad is over and the big jihad has begun. We are facing a tough and difficult mission to build our state, to achieve security for our people, to give our prisoners freedom, our fugitives a life in dignity, to reach our goal of an independent state.'"

"Baghdad police chief who warned of force's vulnerability is killed" (James Hider, The Times, 2005/01/11)
"A DOWNBEAT Brigadier Amer al-Nayef told The Times last week how his police force had been pushed to fight terrorists — a job that he said should be done by secret service forces. Yesterday, his point was proven in the most dramatic way possible: he and his son, also a police officer, were assassinated on their way to work. ...
It was a mistake, the brigadier said, to have ordinary community policemen taking on the most deadly terror groups in the world. ...
Yesterday morning he and his son, Khalid, a police lieutenant, set out from their home in the dangerous southern district of al-Doura for the police headquarters across town. A few hours later, photographers were capturing images of their bullet-riddled corpses in the city mortuary.
The killings were the latest in a series of high-profile assassinations by insurgents, who murdered Baghdad’s Governor last week in another well-planned ambush in broad daylight."

Added in Links/Blogs:
Austin Bay Blog
The Counterterrorism Blog

Added in archive:
"Militants Said to Send Fighters to Europe" (Tony Czuczka, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/01/08)
"Saddam Hussein and Al-Jazeera" (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, The Counterterrorism Blog, 2005/01/06)

Monday, January 10, 2005

News and commentary:

"Americanism - and Its Enemies" (David Gelernter, Commentary, from the January 2005 issue)
"By Americanism I mean the set of beliefs that are thought to constitute America’s essence and to set it apart; the beliefs that make Americans positive that their nation is superior to all others — morally superior, closer to God. ...
Where did that view of America come from? It came from Puritanism — Puritanism being not a separate type of Christianity but a certain approach to Protestantism. And here is a strange fact about Puritanism. It originated in 16th-century England; it became one of the most powerful forces in religious if not all human history. It consistently elicited bitter hatred—and was directly responsible for (at least) two world-changing developments. It provoked the British Civil War (in which the Puritans and Parliament asserted their rights against the crown and the established church), and the first settlements by British religious dissenters in the new world.
And then it simply disappeared. ...
I believe that Puritanism did not drop out of history. It transformed itself into Americanism. This new religion was the end-stage of Puritanism: Puritanism realized among God’s self-proclaimed “new” chosen people — or, in Abraham Lincoln’s remarkable phrase, God’s “almost chosen people.”
Many thinkers have noted that Americanism is inspired by or close to or intertwined with Puritanism. One of the most impressive scholars to say so recently is Samuel Huntington, in his formidable book on American identity, Who Are We? But my thesis is that Puritanism did not merely inspire or influence Americanism; it turned into Americanism."

"CBS Ousts 4 For Bush Guard Story" (CBS News, 2005/01/10)
"Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been ousted for their role in preparing and reporting a disputed story about President Bush’s National Guard service.
The action was prompted by the report of an independent panel that concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece. The panel also said CBS News had compounded that failure with a “rigid and blind” defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report.
Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.
“We deeply regret the disservice this flawed 60 Minutes Wednesday report did to the American public, which has a right to count on CBS News for fairness and accuracy,” said CBS President Leslie Moonves." (See also the full report [PDF].)

"The Birth Pangs of Arab Democracy" (Joshua Muravchik, Los Angeles Times, 2005/01/10)
"For the Arab world, 2005 may be remembered as the year of the election. Today, Palestinians will choose a new president. Three weeks later, Iraqis will elect a national assembly. This will be only the beginning. Palestinians will go to the polls no fewer than three more times before the year is out, to elect municipal councils, a new legislative body and new leadership within Fatah, the dominant political party. ...
From February through April, Saudi Arabia will hold municipal elections throughout the kingdom, a landmark step of popular participation for an absolutist regime that has imprisoned academics merely for advocating constitutional monarchy.
This spring, Lebanon will hold parliamentary elections. These are nothing new, but for the first time, a multiethnic opposition to the Syrian puppet regime might actually win a significant share.
Late in the year, Egypt will hold parliamentary elections, the first step toward choosing a president. ...
It's an extraordinary moment in a region that until now has resisted the tide of democratization that has reached every other corner of the world. Even such distant climes as sub-Saharan Africa can boast that 19 of its 48 governments (40%) have been chosen by the people in competitive elections. But among Arab states the record is zero out of 22."

"Stratfor on the war" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2005/01/10)
"Like many other smart analysts, the pro-war Stratfor military experts have concluded that the war to control the Iraq insurgency or to erect democratic institutions in Iraq has been lost (subscription required). I think it's time to start truly absorbing this possibility. Why lost? Because we blew the opportunity to control the terrain with insufficient troops and terrible intelligence; because all the institutions required to build democracy in Iraq have already been infiltrated by insurgents; because at key moments — they mention the fall of 2003 or spring of 2004 — we simply failed to crush the insurgency when we might have had a chance of success. Short version: we had a brief window of opportunity to turn our armed intervention into democratic liberation and we blew it. Money quote:

The issue facing the Bush administration is simple. It can continue to fight the war as it has, hoping that a miracle will bring successes in 2005 that didn't happen in 2004. Alternatively, it can accept the reality that the guerrilla force is now self-sustaining and sufficiently large not to flicker out and face the fact that a U.S. conventional force of less than 150,000 is not likely to suppress the guerrillas. More to the point, it can recognize these facts: 1. The United States cannot re-engineer Iraq because the guerrillas will infiltrate every institution it creates. 2. That the United States by itself lacks the intelligence capabilities to fight an effective counterinsurgency. 3. That exposing U.S. forces to security responsibilities in this environment generates casualties without bringing the United States closer to the goal. 4. That the strain on the U.S. force is undermining its ability to react to opportunities and threats in the rest of the region. And that, therefore, this phase of the Iraq campaign must be halted as soon as possible.

They recommend withdrawing U.S. forces to the periphery of Iraq and letting the inevitable civil war take place in the center."

"Sudan peace treaty ends long conflict – but not the fears" (Adrian Blomfield, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/01/10)
"One of Africa's longest and deadliest civil wars was declared at an end yesterday when Sudan's government signed a peace treaty with southern rebels after decades of conflict.
But jubilation at a cacophonous ceremony in Kenya was tempered by the fact that the deal does not take into account a separate clash in the western provinces of Darfur, described by the United Nations as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Nor, on a continent littered with failed accords, was there overwhelming confidence of a lasting peace in the south, where two million have died and another four million have been forced to flee since fighting in 1983 opened the latest chapter in a historic conflict.
Britain and Norway were leading brokers for the talks that led to yesterday's ceremony and Tony Blair has taken a keen interest. But the role, and pressure, of the United States has been most crucial."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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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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