Archived
news and commentary: January 31 - February 6, 2005
2005/01/31 - 2005/02/06
2005/01/24 - 2005/01/30
2005/01/17 - 2005/01/23
2005/01/10 - 2005/01/16
2005/01/03 - 2005/01/09
2004/12/27 - 2005/01/02
Sunday,
February 6, 2005
News and
commentary:
"U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice..."
(Murad Sezer, AP, 2005/02/06)
"U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, with a portrait of Turkey's founder Ataturk in the background, talks at Ankara Esenboga Airport, Turkey, Sunday, Feb. 6, 2005, during a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, not seen.""Drinking with Christopher Hitchens and the Iraqis" (Michael J. Totten, michaeltotten.com, 2005/02/06)
"We went to The Palm in downtown Washington. “We” included the following big-shots, along with little-shot me: Christopher Hitchens, author, journalist, and cantankerous polemicist; Andrew Apostolou, Director of Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Ahman Al Rikaby, former Director of Radio Free Iraq and current Director of Iraq's Radio Dijla; Entifadh Qanbar, Special Envoy from the Iraqi National Alliance; Ghassan Atiyyah, Director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy; and Hassan Mneimneh, Director of the Iraq Memory Foundation.":
"Christopher Hitchens said to Ghassan Atiyyah: “If the Iraqis were to elect either a Sunni or Shia Taliban, we would not let them take power.” And of course he was right. We didn’t invade Iraq so we could midwife the birth of yet another despicable tyranny. “One man, one vote, one time” isn’t anything remotely like a democracy.
But Atiyyah would have none of that. He exploded in furious rage. “So you’re my colonial master now, eh?!” You have to understand – this man’s voice really carries. ...
“I agree with Christopher,” I said. “We didn’t invade Iraq to let it turn into another Iran.” I knew damn well all the Iraqis at the table were staunch opponents of religious fascism. This shouldn’t have been a point of contention. But, boy, was it ever.
“Who the hell are you?” Atiyyah said to Hitchens as if I weren’t the last one to speak. “Some Brit who lives in New York!”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but it wasn’t up to me where I was born,” Hitchens said.""Iraq Shiite leaders demand Islam be the source of law" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/06)
"NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - Iraq's Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and another top cleric staked out a radical demand that Islam be the sole source of legislation in the country's new constitution.
One cleric issued a statement setting out the position and the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites made it known straight away that he backed demands for the Koran to be the reference point for legislation. ...
The surprise statement was released by Sheikh Ibrahim Ibrahimi, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq al-Fayad, another of the marja.
"All of the ulema (clergy) and marja, and the majority of the Iraqi people, want the national assembly to make Islam the source of legislation in the permanent constitution and to reject any law that is contrary to Islam," said the statement.
A source close to Sistani announced soon after the release of the statement that the spiritual leader backed the demand. ...
"We warn officials against a separation of the state and religion, because this is completely rejected by the ulema and marja and we will accept no compromise on this question." ...
No law that "contradicts the universally agreed tenets of Islam" would be accepted, said the final draft of the so-called 'fundamental law.'""Religious hatred, Saudi-style" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2005/02/06)
Jacoby on the newly released study "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques":
"IN WHICH country are Muslims being taught the following lessons?• "Everyone who does not embrace Islam is an unbeliever and must be called an unbeliever. . . . One who does not call the Jews and the Christians unbelievers is himself an unbeliever."
• "Whoever believes that churches are houses of God . . . or that what Jews and Christians do constitutes the worship of God . . . is an infidel."
• To offer greetings to a Christian at Christmas -- even to wish "Happy holidays" -- is ''a practice more loathsome to God . . . than imbibing liquor, or murder, or fornication."
• Jews ''are worse than donkeys." They are the corrupting force "behind materialism, bestiality, the destruction of the family, and the dissolution of society.
• Muslims who convert to another religion "should be killed because [they] have denied the Koran."
• Democracy is ''responsible for all the horrible wars" of the 20th century, and for spreading ''ignorance, moral decadence, and drugs."If this sounds to you like the kind of fanaticism you might encounter in Saudi Arabia -- where the established creed is Wahhabism, an intolerant and extremist version of Islam -- you're right." (See also the report [PDF]: "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques" (Freedom House, 2005/01/28). Also: "Saudi Venom in U.S. Mosques" (Daniel Pipes, New York Sun/danielpipes.org, 2005/02/01) and "Group cites Saudi 'hate' tracts" (Katherine Clad, The Washington Times, 2005/01/29))
"The Truth About War" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2005/02/06)
"In San Diego on Tuesday, I had the privilege of sitting beside Lt.-Gen. Jim Mattis, a Marine who knows how to fight. ... In the course of a blunt discussion of how our military has to prepare for future fights, the general spoke with a frankness that won the hearts of the uniformed members of the audience. Instead of trotting out politically correct clichés, Mattis told the truth:
'You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil . . . it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.'":
"What was the media's reaction? A B-team news crew saw a chance to grab a headline at the military's expense (surprise, surprise). Lifting the general's remarks out of context, the media hyenas played it as if they were shocked to learn that people die in war. ...
Gen. Mattis may have been unusual in his honesty, but he certainly isn't unusual in our history. We picture Robert E. Lee as a saintly father figure, but Lee remarked that it's good that war is so terrible, since otherwise men would grow to love it too much. He was speaking of himself. Andy Jackson certainly loved a fight, and Stonewall Jackson never shied from one. Sherman and Grant only found themselves in war.
We lionize those who embraced war in the past, but condemn those who defend us in the present. George S. Patton was far blunter than Jim Mattis — but Patton lived in the days before the media was omnipresent and biased against our military.
The hypocrisy is stunning. Gen. Mattis told the truth about a fundamental human activity — war — and was treated as though he had dropped a nuclear weapon on an orphanage.""Would you trust these men with $64bn of your cash? Of course not" (Mark Steyn, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/02/06)
Steyn on the Volcker report about the Oil-for-Food program:
"'The Secretary-General is shocked by what the report has to say about Mr Sevan,' declared Kofi Annan's chief of staff, Britain's own Mark Malloch Brown.
That's how bad things are at the UN: even the Brits sound like Claude Rains. Of course, the Secretary-General isn't "shocked" at all. And nor are the media, which is why the major news organisations can barely contain their boredom with the biggest financial scam of all time – bigger than Enron, Worldcom and all the rest rolled into one. If ever there were a dog-bites-man story, "UN Stinkingly Corrupt Shock!" is it. ...
In other words, the system didn't fail. This is the transnational system, working as it usually works, just a little more so. One of the reasons I'm in favour of small government is because big government tends to be remote government, and remote government is unaccountable, and, as a wannabe world government, the UN is the remotest and most unaccountable of all. If the sentimental utopian blather ever came true and we wound up with one "world government", from an accounting department point of view, the model will be Nigeria rather than New Hampshire. ...
The Bush Administration is now said to be considering using Kofi's "shock" to effect a regime change of its own at the UN. But to whom and to what? I'd be in favour of destroying the UN – or, failing that, at least moving its headquarters to Rwanda, but either of those options would require a level of political will hard to muster in modern sentimental democracies." (See also: "Inquiry Faults U.N.'s Oil-for-Aid Program" (Judith Miller, The New York Times, 2005/02/03))"Still they won't admit they got Iraq wrong" (Con Coughlin, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/02/06)
"Some people are just bad losers. The BBC, together with a significant section of the media, could not bring itself to acknowledge that Iraq's liberation from Saddam was being ratified by the democratic process. When a reporter said that voter turn-out exceeded 60 per cent, far higher than expected, I heard one of the producers remark, sotto voce, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.'":
"As the week progressed and the results of the election began to emerge, it was gleefully predicted by the usual suspects that the United Iraqi Alliance backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's leading cleric who spent many years in exile in Iran, was heading for victory at the expense of Dr Allawi's "Iraq List". This would make Iraq likely to follow neighbouring Iran in becoming an Islamic republic, thereby creating the much-feared "Shia Crescent" stretching from Syria to Pakistan, and posing a dangerous threat to the oil-rich Sunni states of the Gulf – just what the coalition sought to prevent.
Before the doom-mongers get too carried away with this exciting prospect, a few words of caution are necessary. Arab Shi'ism is very different to the Iranian tradition, and despite his years in exile in Iran, Ayatollah Sistani has made it clear on several occasions that he does not want a clerical government in Iraq. His preference would be for a secular Shi'ite politician, such as the much-maligned Dr Allawi, to run the country. Whether it is Allawi or another secular Shi'ite who takes control, those who foresaw an election disaster should be eating humble pie for a long time - but of course they won't.""If Bush is now gunning for anyone, it’s Syria not Iran" (Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times, 2005/02/06)
"What will be the Bush administration’s foreign policy in the second term? Condoleezza Rice, the newly confirmed secretary of state, will have briefed her British counterpart by now but much of Washington is out of the loop.
One theory can, I think, be largely dismissed. Pioneered by Seymour Hersh, the journalist, and the more paranoid set is the notion that the United States is about to embark on a new series of military invasions in the Middle East. Hersh is an excellent reporter. But the problem with his analysis is that he has no relevant sources.
If you are a disaffected bureaucrat or a special forces officer appalled at the sanctioning of torture, you have Hersh on your mobile phone speed dial. I have no doubt, for example, that there may indeed be American operatives under cover in Iran trying to figure out where the nuclear facilities are. I very much hope so.
But this does not mean that the Bush administration is about to invade Iran — or any other country." (See also: "The Coming Wars" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2005/01/17))"I will bring al-Sadr into government, says the man tipped to be Iraq's new PM" (Toby Harnden, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/02/06)
"A leading contender to become Iraq's new prime minister has offered to welcome Moqtadr al-Sadr, the demagogic Shia cleric behind bloody uprisings against coalition forces, into a new government expanded to include those who boycotted the election.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a moderate Shia whose United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) list is certain to top last weekend's poll, told The Telegraph that Sadr, wanted for alleged involvement in the hacking to death of a fellow cleric, was "a good person" who could play a constructive role in the new Iraq.
"Moqtadr Sadr's father was killed by Saddam Hussein," he said. "He has a large number of followers. We can involve them. If they are not killers, and if we have no evidence against them, then we can give them a chance to share in the political process."
His comments show the lengths to which Iraq's likely new leaders are prepared to go in order to divide the insurgency and marginalise its most fanatical elements.""Top Shiite Welcomes Overtures By Sunnis" (Anthony Shadid and Doug Struck, The Washington Post, 2005/02/06)
"The leading Shiite candidate to become Iraq's next prime minister welcomed overtures on Saturday by groups that boycotted national elections and declared that he and others were willing to offer "the maximum" to bring those largely Sunni Arab groups into the drafting of the constitution and participation in the new government.
But Adel Abdel-Mehdi, the current finance minister and a powerful figure in the coalition expected to dominate Iraq's parliament, rejected a key demand of those groups -- a timetable for a withdrawal of the 150,000 U.S. troops in the country. ...
Many Sunni Arabs stayed away from the polls, crystallizing the divide between groups that engaged in the U.S.-backed process and those opposed to it while U.S. troops occupy the country.
Beginning this week, however, influential figures among Sunni and anti-occupation factions signaled their willingness to take part in the process that has followed the election, a recognition by some that the vote may have created a new dynamic." (See also: "Iraq's Sunnis Rethink Strategy" (Anthony Shadid, The Washington Post, 2005/02/05))"What Bin Laden Sees in Hiroshima" (Steve Coll, The Washington Post, 2005/02/06)
"At a conference on the future of al Qaeda sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory last month, I posed a dark question to 60 or so nuclear weapons scientists and specialists on terrorism and radical Islam: How many of them believed that the probability of a nuclear fission bomb attack on U.S. soil during the next several decades was negligible -- say, less than 5 percent?
At issue was the Big One -- a Hiroshima-or-larger explosion that could claim hundreds of thousands of American lives, as opposed to an easier-to-mount but less lethal radiological attack. Amid somber silence, three or four meek, iconoclastic hands went up. (More later on the minority optimists. They, too, deserve a hearing.)
This grim view, echoed in other quarters of the national security bureaucracy in recent months, can't be dismissed as Bush administration scaremongering. ...
A startling number of U.S. nuclear and terrorism specialists I have talked with during the last year believe that the threat of a jihadi nuclear attack in the medium term is very serious. They recognize that as a technical and scientific matter, such an attack can be very difficult for private groups to pull off. They fear it anyway. They may have professional incentives to conjure the worst case, but I believe this to be their honest assessment." (See also: "Q&A: ElBaradei, Feeling the Nuclear Heat" (The Washington Post, 2005/01/30))"Iraqis defiant despite intimidation" (Miranda Devine, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005/02/06)
"In the sweet-tea shops and mixed businesses of bustling Auburn Road, where Sydney's Iraqi community has taken root, the blue fingers of last weekend's election have disappeared prematurely.
Displayed proudly at first as a symbol of new-found freedom in their former homeland, the ink-stained fingers soon became a liability for locals as, all week, violent outsiders punished them for voting.
Brawls, gunshot wounds, a broken arm, vandalised shops, a bomb scare and death threats led Sheik Haydar Naji, 37, of Auburn's Ahl Albait Islamic Centre, to advise voters to scrub their fingers clean of blue ink, as he had done. ...
Others in the community say the trouble began last Saturday, after the polling booth on Queen Street opened. At first the only protesters were peaceful, members of communist and socialist parties. But at about 11am, 20 to 25 men, said by locals to be from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon, but not Iraq, arrived and began to intimidate voters.
They unfurled a banner which declared in Arabic: "You vote You die". They waved the ominous black flag of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the same flag which features in grisly video beheadings of foreign hostages." (Hat tip: Tim Blair.)
Saturday,
February 5, 2005
News and
commentary:
"A Realigning Election" (Robert Kagan and William Kristol, The Weekly Standard, from the 2005/02/14 issue)
"THE DAY AFTER IRAQIS WENT to the polls, the London Independent commented, "In the long term, it is possible that yesterday's elections in Iraq may be seen as marking the start of great change across the whole region." Needless to say, the editors hastened to add that it would be "utterly wrong, now or in the future, for President Bush or the prime minister to claim that Iraq's elections vindicate their invasion." But the first statement was by far the more striking, both because it came from an antiwar, anti-Bush newspaper and because it was undeniably true. ...
Not so long ago, indeed right up until the day of the elections, this kind of thinking was treated as delusional. The vast majority of the American foreign policy establishment -- Democrat and Republican, left, right, and center -- ridiculed the whole notion that "democracy" should be America's goal in Iraq, not to mention across the broader Middle East and Muslim world. Even the community of professional democracy "experts" cluck-clucked at the Bush administration's "childish fantasies." Larry Diamond, perhaps the dean of that community, flatly declared several weeks before the elections in Iraq that they would "grease the slide to civil war." ...
Here in the United States, the partisan reaction to the recent successes has been truly stunning. Never have so many been so miserable in the face of such good news. The Middle East experts who predicted disaster have not been able to bring themselves to acknowledge that it wasn't a disaster after all. Instead, they have simply shifted to predicting disaster in the future, or to falsely claiming that Iraqi Shia, who follow Ayatollah Sistani's lead, are tools of Iran. The democracy experts have been particularly egregious as well. Has their hatred of Bush made it impossible for them actually to applaud democratic elections when they occur?""Birth of a Democracy" (Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Weekly Standard, from the 2005/02/14 issue)
"ALL RIGHT. LET US make an analytical bet of high probability and enormous returns: The January 30 elections in Iraq will easily be the most consequential event in modern Arab history since Israel's six-day defeat of Gamal Abdel Nasser's alliance in 1967. Israel's pulverizing defeat of the Arab armies dethroned Nasserism, the romantic pan-Arab dictatorial nationalism that had infected much of the Arab world, particularly its intelligentsia, during the 1950s and '60s. With the collapse of Nasserism, the overtly secular socialist-cum-fascist age in the Middle East closed--except in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Its spirit would soon die there, too, a victim of Saddam's long and disastrous war against Iran (1980-88), which encouraged the Butcher of Baghdad to emblazon "God is Great" upon the Iraqi flag. Responding to the spiritual agony and internal rot of the pan-Arab dream, Islamic activism gained speed throughout the Middle East and has remained--outside of Iraq and now possibly Palestine--the only serious opposition to the vagaries, incompetence, and corruption of princely and dictatorial rule.
The January 30 elections will do for the people of Iraq, and after them, in all likelihood, the rest of the Arab world, what the end of the European imperial period did not: show the way to sovereignty without tyranny.""Muslim apostates cast out and at risk from faith and family" (Anthony Browne, The Times, 2005/02/05)
"While Christians who turn to Islam are feted, the 200,000 Muslims who turn away are faced with abuse, violence and even murder":
"The victim of a three-year campaign of religious hatred, Mr Hussein’s car has also been rammed and torched, and the steps to his home have been strewn with rubbish.
He and his family have been regularly jostled, abused, attacked, shouted at to move out of the area, and given death threats in the street. His wife has been held hostage inside their home for two hours by a mob. His car, walls and windows have been daubed in graffiti: “Christian bastard”. ...
The police have not charged anyone, but told him to leave the area. “We feel completely isolated, utterly helpless. I have been utterly failed by the authorities. If it was white racists attacking an Asian guy, there would be an absolute outcry,” he said. “They are trying to ethnically cleanse me out of my home. I feel I have to make a stand as an Asian Christian.” ...
The family of an 18-year-old girl whom Yasmin was helping found that she had been hiding a Bible in her room, and visiting church secretly. “I tried to do as much as possible to help her, but they took her to Pakistan ‘on holiday’. Three weeks later, she was drowned — they said that she went out in the middle of the night and slipped in the river, but she just wouldn’t have done that,” said Yasmin." (Hat tip: Melanie Phillips. See also: "When Muslims Convert" (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Commentary, from the February 2005 issue))"Iraq's Sunnis Rethink Strategy" (Anthony Shadid, The Washington Post, 2005/02/05)
"Influential Sunni Arab leaders of a boycott of last Sunday's elections expressed a new willingness Friday to engage the coming Iraqi government and play a role in writing the constitution, in what may represent a strategic shift in thinking among mainstream anti-occupation groups.
The signs remain tentative, and even advocates of such change suggest that much will depend on the posture the new government takes toward the insurgency and the removal of former Baath Party officials from state institutions. But in statements and interviews, some Sunni leaders said the sectarian tension that surged ahead of the vote had forced them to rethink their stance. ...
The Association of Muslim Scholars, one of the most influential groups, sent mixed signals this week -- saying it would respect the election results, while arguing that the new government will lack the legitimacy to draft a constitution. But the sermon Friday at the association's headquarters, the Um al-Qura mosque, was decidedly conciliatory. Directing most of his words at the new government, the preacher called Iraq its "trusteeship" and said the people's welfare was 'a great responsibility on your shoulders.'"
Friday,
February 4, 2005
News and
commentary:
"Stylish anti-Semitism" (Avi Beker, Haaretz, 2005/02/04)
More on Labour's Fagin/Howard poster in particular and their campaign in general:
"There is no doubt that this is a systematic and sophisticated anti-Semitic campaign, in the style of British understatement. A few weeks ago, Trade Minister Mike O'Brien wrote an article for a Muslim newspaper in which he argued that only Labor will protect Muslim rights and bring about the establishment of a Palestinian state. "Ask yourselves, what will Michael Howard do for the Muslims of Britain? Would his foreign policy aim to help Palestine?" asked O'Brien. A few months earlier, the chairman of the British Labor Party, Ian McCarthy, attacked Letwin for his economic approach and called him a "21st century Fagin." ...
Ben Cohen, a former producer and journalist for the BBC, argues that it is impossible to disassociate the anti-Semitic incidents in Britain from the hostile coverage of Israel and the fashion in the radical left to challenge the legitimacy of Israel's existence. On the other hand, he explains, for electoral reasons, many British politicians refuse to condemn forthrightly the anti-Semitic incitement coming from some Muslim leaders. He particularly accuses London Mayor Ken Livingstone, for whom the Muslim vote was so important he hosted the Egyptian radical clergyman Yusuf el Karadawi a few months ago, despite Karadawi's declarations that there is no room for dialogue with Jews, "except with the sword and rifle."
Blair's government, which has often come out strongly against violent anti-Semitism, has to recognize the danger of more sophisticated anti-Semitism sometimes hiding behind a mask of intellectualism and sometimes behind media spins for the sake of electoral politics." (Hat tip: Rochi Ebner. See also: "Fagin, Shylock and Blair" (William Rees-Mogg, The Times, 2005/01/31))"The Global Throng" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/02/04)
"What explains this automatic censure of the United States, Israel, and to a lesser extent the Anglo-democracies of the United Kingdom and Australia? Westernization, coupled with globalization, has created an affluent and leisured elite that now gravitates to universities, the media, bureaucracies, and world organizations, all places where wealth is not created, but analyzed, critiqued, and lavishly spent.
Thus we now expect that the New York Times, Harper's, Le Monde, U.N. functionaries who call us "stingy," French diplomats, American writers and actors will all (1) live a pretty privileged life; (2) in recompense "feel" pretty worried and guilty about it; (3) somehow connect their unease over their comfort with a pathology of the world's hyperpower, the United States; and (4) thus be willing to risk their elite status, power, or wealth by very brave acts such as writing anguished essays, giving pained interviews, issuing apologetic communiqués, braving the rails to Davos, and barking off-the-cuff furious remarks about their angst over themes (1) through (3) above. What a sad contrast they make with far better Iraqis dancing in the street to celebrate their voting.""Free to Dance in Iraq" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2005/02/04)
"Leading Democrats are discomfited by this demonstration of Iraqi support for the Bush Doctrine. John Kerry urges that we not "overhype this election." At the very moment when the first seed of democracy is planted, the Democratic leaders want the United States to turn its attention immediately to withdrawal. Kennedy demands a timetable. Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid demand a definitive exit strategy.
This might be terrifying to Iraqis who just risked their lives to get democracy underway, and who still remember the Baathist slaughter of tens of thousands 14 years ago when the United States urged them to rise up against their oppressors and then abandoned them. But it will not be terrifying to Iraqis, because they know that this is a different time and a different Bush. He won't listen to the Saudis. He won't listen to the Democrats. If the world knows anything about George W. Bush, it is that he does what he says. Iraq's president called this talk about withdrawal "complete nonsense." Which is why the Iraqis could dance.""Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, Iraq's elections will change world history" (Gerard Baker, The Times, 2005/02/04)
"If the world could only strip away some of its blind resentment it might start to see without prejudice what Mr Bush and Tony Blair are seeking to achieve in their grand and noble venture in the Middle East. But in the end, it will matter not how the world reports a president’s or a prime minister’s words. It will be the inescapable logic and reality of events that will eventually persuade even the most cynical critic. ...
There is an unstoppable momentum for change in the Middle East now. In just two years tyrannies have been felled in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Palestine, the inexorable clock of human mortality has ended another. But the crucial element was always going to be the voluntary and courageous act of self-assertion that democratic and free elections represent — a message heard around the region and the world.
The way is open now, as it has never been, for an end to the servitude and alienation that have been the lot of the people of the Middle East for centuries. Long after the rhetoric has been ridiculed and scorned, the reality will stand as a magnificent monument to the possibilities of liberty.""The silence of the feminists" (Pamela Bone, The Age, 2005/02/04)
"The great silence by left-leaning Western feminists, and other large parts of the left, to human rights abuses carried out in the name of Islam is, to see it as its kindest, caused by an overdeveloped sense of tolerance or cultural relativism. But it is also part of the new anti-Americanism. Look at American Christian fundamentalism, they say.
Dislike of George Bush's foreign policy has led to an automatic support of those perceived to be his enemies. Paradoxically, this leaves the left defending people who hold beliefs that condone what the left has long fought against: misogyny, homophobia, capital punishment, suppression of freedom of speech. The recent reaffirmation by Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie has been met by virtual silence; as has the torture and murder in Iraq of a man who would be presumed to be one of the left's own - Hadi Salih, the international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. The hard left these days is soft on fascism, or at least Islamofascism. ...
The problem with politely ignoring abuses of human rights because "it's their culture" is that it lets down the brave liberals and democrats and human rights defenders who are trying to change things that so badly need to change for the welfare of women and men in their own communities and in the world.""Shiite Coalition Takes a Big Lead in Early Vote Count in Iraq" (John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2005/02/04)
"Preliminary election returns released Thursday by Iraqi authorities showed that 72 percent of the 1.6 million votes counted so far from Sunday's election went to an alliance of Shiite parties dominated by religious groups with strong links to Iran. Only 18 percent went to a group led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who favors strong ties to the United States. Few votes went to Sunni candidates.
Although the early votes were drawn only from Baghdad and from five southern provinces where the Shiite parties were expected to score strongly, and from only 10 percent of the 5,216 polling stations, the scale of the vote for both religious and secular Shiites underscored the probability of a crushing triumph and a historic shift from decades of Sunni minority rule in Iraq.
The religious alliance, an amalgam of political parties and independents forged by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most powerful religious leader, took nearly 1.2 million votes, more than a third of them in Baghdad, against about 295,000 for the coalition led by Dr. Allawi."
Thursday,
February 3, 2005
News and
commentary:
"Scène d'amour"
(Louzla Darabi, Galerie Peter Herrmann, 2003)"Death Threats Nix Love Painting" (Mats Lilja, Expressen, 2005/02/03)
Partial translation of an article in Swedish about the removal of an erotic painting plastered with verses from the Koran from an exhibition at the World Culture Museum in Gothenburg:
"Here is the erotic painting with verses from the Koran which is not allowed to be shown at the World Culture Museum in Gothenburg.
Veiled death threats frighten the management of the museum.
The threats came only three months after the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
”You and your disgusting work will set the Muslims in Sweden on fire, take a look at Holland! The greatest superpower in the world can't protect you so the question is how will you protect yourself.”
So reads one of the threatening e-mails to the AIDS-exhibition at World Culture Museum in Gothenburg. After several more or less veiled death threats the controversial erotic painting was hurriedly taken down from the World Culture Museum's aids-exhibition." ...
Jette Sandahl, director of the World Culture Museum in Gothenburg, has received 700 e-mails regarding Darabi's painting.
GT has has been shown most of them – a few are aggressively threatening. Most are polite and kind messages from people who were hurt, saddened and felt insulted and ridiculed by the painting. They ask the management of the museum to take it down because it threads on their belief in God and their holy religion." (See also: "Museum removes erotic art after Muslim anger" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/02))"When Muslims Convert" (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Commentary, from the February 2005 issue)
Gartenstein-Ross on Syed Mumtaz Ali, the president of the Canadian Society of Muslims:
"As he declared in defending the shari’a tribunal, “freedom of religion as guaranteed under Canada’s constitution means not only freedom to practice and propagate religion but also to be able to be governed by one’s religious laws in all aspects of one’s life — spiritual as well as temporal.”
What Mumtaz Ali meant by this portentous remark is made clear in an astonishing essay under his name that can be found on the website of the Canadian Society of Muslims. Not only does he affirm there the traditional proposition that apostates must “choose between Islam and the sword,” but he argues that, if Canada is to be true to its own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it must allow the country’s Muslim community to punish those of its members who renounce or traduce their faith. ...Failing [to incorporate Islamic law concerning apostasy and blasphemy into the laws of Canada] will be a flagrant breach of equality rights. . . . Failing to interpret the guaranteed rights and freedoms of Muslims in accordance with the true spirit of multiculturalism results in the effective denial of this fundamental philosophy of the Canadian constitution. This is a tragic departure from that cherished “tolerance” (the real tolerance) which is the distinguishing quality of a cultured people.
Mumtaz Ali allows that recognizing Islamic law in this context “does not necessarily entail any obligation to enforce the Islamic punishment for blasphemy/apostasy within the Canadian jurisdiction” (emphasis added). Apostates, that is, will not have to be stoned or beheaded. But plainly some punishment by the community itself is in order, and Canada, as Mumtaz Ali would have it, has no right to stand in the way." (See also: "Apostasy and Blasphemy in Islam" (Syed Mumtaz Ali, Canadian Society of Muslims))
"No tolerance, please, we’re Dutch" (Rod Liddle, The Spectator, from the 2005/02/05 issue)
"The Dutch model seemed to be this: we’ll have our whores and our homosexuals and our cannabis over here and you can smack your women around over there in your Maghrebian ghetto. Live and let live. Mutual tolerance.
But all that is changing. What’s happened in Holland is a warning: one commentator calls it ‘Education By Death’ — the process which made the silent majority in America become militant after 9/11, which galvanised the Australians after the Bali bomb, which led to the fall of the Aznar government after the Madrid train bombing. The transformation of achingly liberal and endlessly tolerant Western people into resolute neocons. And in the case of Holland, the death which has been doing the educating was that of an iconoclastic film-maker and broadcaster, Theo van Gogh, a distant relative of that one-eared painter. ...
There are broader fears at large. One recent study suggested that within six years at least three large Dutch cities will have an effective Muslim majority. There’s also the nightmare scenario of the Low Countries’ caliphate. There are enormous and growing Muslim populations in towns and cities dotted along the coast from Lille to Rotterdam — populations which will one day be in the majority. That’ll put an end to the booze cruises, then." (See also: "'Education By Murder' in Holland" (Daniel Pipes, New York Sun/danielpipes.org, 2004/11/16))"A crushing defeat for the insurgents" (Toby Harnden, The Spectator, from the 2005/02/05 issue)
"Sunday’s watershed election certainly marked a political defeat for the insurgents, but it was also a crushing military one. Despite having 5,200 polling stations to target, they could not bring off a major attack on a single one; one hapless suicide bomber apparently had Down’s Syndrome.
Iraq’s insurgency is not about to end. Indeed, there is every chance that it has several years to run. Despite the loss of thousands, it has consistently been able to regenerate and regroup. Even Stockmoe acknowledges its resilience. The election, however, showed that while ordinary Iraqis are no fans of American troops, they hate the insurgents more." (See also: "Down syndrome youth used as suicide bomber" (Paul McGeough, The Age, 2005/02/02))"Reporting Auschwitz, then & now" (Tom Gross, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/02/03)
"Last week's media coverage marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was surprisingly comprehensive and accurate. Even many of those news outlets that have a poor record of covering Jewish issues such as anti-Semitism and the Middle East covered the story well. . ...
The Guardian, too, had some good pieces – although at the same time, true to form, it supplemented its lead editorial, titled "Holocaust Memorial Day: Eternal memory," with an accompanying commentary by former Oxford University professor Terry Eagleton, in which he justified suicide bombing "in Israel" and likened suicide bombers to their victims.
The Guardian also couldn't resist greatly exaggerating the numbers of Roma (Gypsies) who died in the camps. (Perhaps the paper isn't aware that inflating the number of Roma and homosexuals killed by the Nazis, in order to try to de-emphasize the Jewish centrality of the Holocaust, is now a favorite trick of revisionist historians.) ...
In the Arab world, most media simply ignored last week's anniversary altogether. In Iran, the government-linked Tehran Times marked the occasion by explicitly denying that "the so-called Holocaust" happened and accusing "Zionist leaders" of 'conjuring up images of gas chambers.'" (See also: "Abundant Life All Around" (Tim Blair, timblair.net, 2005/01/27))
"U.S. President George W. Bush bows his head in prayer..."
(Kevin Lamarque, Reuters, 2005/02/03)
"U.S. President George W. Bush bows his head in prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, February 3, 2005.""George Bush Talks Big, and He Delivers" (Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 2005/02/03)
"I am not a weeper, but as I watched television coverage of the voting I found myself on the verge of tears. Tears of relief and jubilation and astonishment. ...
It was almost enough to make a hardened cynic think that indeed "the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul." Those words are from President Bush's much-mocked inaugural address, which struck even some of the president's supporters as too preachy and too utopian. Yet Bush doesn't simply talk big. He delivers, notwithstanding the nonstop naysaying of most of the nation's allies and our own foreign policy establishment.
Who, four years ago, would have dreamed that Afghans and Iraqis by the millions would take part in free and fair elections? That it has happened is primarily because of the men and women of those countries who have made clear their desire to cast off despotism, and because of the men and women of the coalition armed forces who have paid a heavy price to defeat terrorists and tyrants. But it's also a tribute to Bush, who has never wavered from his belief that the forces of civilization will prevail.""A Day to Remember" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2005/02/03)
"In other words, this election has made it crystal clear that the Iraq war is not between fascist insurgents and America, but between the fascist insurgents and the Iraqi people. One hopes the French and Germans, whose newspapers often sound more like Al Jazeera than Al Jazeera, will wake up to this fact and throw their weight onto the right side of history.
It's about time, because whatever you thought about this war, it's not about Mr. Bush any more. It's about the aspirations of the Iraqi majority to build an alternative to Saddamism. By voting the way they did, in the face of real danger, Iraqis have earned the right to ask everyone now to put aside their squabbles and focus on what is no longer just a pipe dream but a real opportunity to implant decent, consensual government in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world.""My thanks to the British people" (Iyad Allawi, The Times, 2005/02/03)
"But none of this would have happened without Britain, the United States and your coalition partners. It is the steadfastness of your leaders and your citizens and, above all, the courage of your forces which have given our country this opportunity. I know that this has come at a very high cost.
The terrible loss of life on Sunday was the latest sacrifice Britain has made. I want to express my gratitude to your country and my sympathy to the families. You can be as proud of the role that your country and its forces have played in giving Iraq this chance of a democratic future as I am of my fellow countrymen and women in seizing that opportunity with both hands on Sunday.
I know, too, how divisive the conflict was in Britain, and many other countries, and the legacy of bitterness that remains. I ask, however, that just as our country must put its divisions behind us so you, too, unite to support the march for democracy and peace in Iraq. There can surely be no choice now for any democrat.
The terrorists and fanatics offer nothing but despair and pain to Iraq. Sunday’s vote showed they speak for no one and represent no one. Thanks to the courage of the Iraqi people and the support and sacrifice of our friends, our country has taken a huge step towards a peaceful and democratic future and the whole world should rejoice.""Insurgents kill 12 Iraqi army recruits" (CNN.com, 2005/02/03)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgents killed 12 Iraqi army recruits and critically wounded two others in an ambush on their bus southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, an Iraqi army spokesman said.
The insurgents stopped the bus, made the recruits disembark and then shot them one by one Wednesday in the village of Zab, said Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin.
Amin said that most of the recruits were under 25 and that they were unarmed and headed for home.
Zab is about 45 miles (70 kilometers) southwest of Kirkuk.""Inquiry Faults U.N.'s Oil-for-Aid Program" (Judith Miller, The New York Times, 2005/02/03)
"An interim report by a United Nations-appointed panel investigating the oil-for-food program in Iraq severely criticizes its director and depicts the program as "tainted" for failing to follow the organization's own procedures.
In an essay appearing today in The Wall Street Journal, Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who heads the three-member commission investigating the oil-for-food program, said its procurement system had failed to follow "the established rules of the organization designed to assure fairness and accountability."
He said the report, which is scheduled to be made public today, also accuses Benon Sevan, the Cypriot who had headed what was once the world body's largest humanitarian effort, of "irreconcilable conflict of interest."
Citing what he called "conclusive" evidence, Mr. Volcker wrote that by "effectively participating in the selection of purchasers of oil under the program," Mr. Sevan had violated both 'specific United Nations rules and of the broad responsibility of an international civil servant to adhere to the highest standards of trust and integrity.'" (See also the full report [PDF]: "Independent Inquiry Committee into the Untied Nations Oil-for-Food Programme" (ic-offp.org, 2005/02/03))"In Speech, Bush Sketches a Bold Domestic and Foreign Agenda" (Richard W. Stevenson and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 2005/02/03)
"Delivering his State of the Union address three days after Iraqis went to the polls in their first free election in half a century, Mr. Bush promised not to end the American mission there before the Iraqis are capable of providing their own security against the bloody insurgency.
"We will not set an artificial timetable for leaving Iraq, because that would embolden the terrorists and make them believe they can wait us out," he said.
Turning to the Middle East, where Israelis and Palestinians are embarking on a new effort at peace, he asked Congress for $350 million to support the Palestinians under their new president, Mahmoud Abbas.
He also expanded on the promise in his Inaugural Address to fight tyranny, saying to the Iranian people, "As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you," and urging Saudi Arabia and Egypt to 'show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.'" (See also: "State of the Union Address" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2005/02/02))
Wednesday,
February 2, 2005
News and
commentary:
"Janet Norwood hugs Safia Taleb al-Suhail..."
(Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP, 2005/02/02)
"Janet Norwood, right, of Pfugerville, Texas whose son was killed in Iraq last year, hugs Safia Taleb al-Suhail, leader of the Iraqi Women's Political Council, during the State of the Union address Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005, at the Capitol in Washington.""State of the Union Address" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2005/02/02)
"To promote peace in the broader Middle East, we must confront regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act -- and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom. (Applause.) Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you. ...
As Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, "Each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth." And we live in the country where the biggest dreams are born. The abolition of slavery was only a dream -- until it was fulfilled. The liberation of Europe from fascism was only a dream -- until it was achieved. The fall of imperial communism was only a dream -- until, one day, it was accomplished. Our generation has dreams of its own, and we also go forward with confidence. The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable -- yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom.""Understanding Jihad" (Mark Gould, Policy Review, from the February 2005 issue)
"In Islam, God gives men the will to act for good or evil, but he predetermines the outcome of their actions. I contend that the requirement to act in accordance with God’s decrees, possible but nonetheless difficult to fulfill, thus attaining salvation, may be short-circuited when fulfilling the religious obligation of jihad. There, either one accomplishes good works (as decreed by God) or dies a martyr; if the former, one enhances one’s chances of being sent to heaven at the Last Judgment; if the latter, one goes directly to heaven.
Thus, I argue that there is an authentic Islamic tradition that partially explains the predisposition to the use of force, in jihad, that is diffused widely among contemporary Muslims. Of course, this does not mean either that all or even most Muslims are disposed to use force, or that Muslims will use force in all situations or any particular situation. It does suggest, however, that contemporary activities cannot be explained in purely situational terms: for example, that Muslims are simply reacting to external impingement on Muslim lands. While the specific form of their reaction may be situationally constituted, the reaction itself must, in part, be explained by the logic of Islamic religious conviction.""Honor Thy Father -- Or Else" (Val MacQueen, Tech Central Station, 2005/02/02)
MacQueen on "honor killings" in Britain and Europe:
"But despite the conspiracy of silence, the one-way overseas trips and cover-ups, police estimate that there are 117 "honor killings" still unsolved in Britain. According to London's Daily Telegraph, Scotland Yard, announcing an initiative, said there is "growing evidence that women in the Asian community [British media code for Muslim] are being subjected to violence and sometimes murdered for defying cultural traditions." According to the same article, the initiative was prompted by the conviction of Abdalla Yones, who stabbed his 16-year-old daughter 11 times and cut her throat after she began seeing a Christian boy, was jailed for life. London police say that at least two young Asian women are reported missing under mysterious circumstances every week.
In October of 2003, 21-year-old Sahjda Bibi was at home getting dressed for her wedding when her male cousin burst into the house, knifed her 22 times and left her dying on the floor covered with blood, in her wedding dress. A father of three, her cousin's dainty feelings had been offended because she had broken the family tradition of only marrying first cousins. In addition, the man she had fallen in love with and was preparing to marry, was divorced. ...
The fingers of "honor" killings snake through the EU, with its great masses of unassimilated Muslims living in self-imposed ghettoes and seething with contempt for their host societies. In Holland, 60 percent of women in women's shelters are Muslim." (Hat tip: Rochi Ebner. See also: "Muslim cut his daughter's throat for taking a Christian boyfriend" (Sue Clough and Sean O'Neill , The Daily Telegraph, 2003/09/30))"Fashionable anti-Americanism" (Dominic Hilton, openDemocracy, 2005/02/02)
"In essence, what we are witnessing is a pseudo-rejection of the USA. All this “I hate America as much as you hate America!” baloney is a cultural phenomenon, little to do with any meaningful or cultivated sense of “politics”. Across Europe, gigantic music stores stuffed to the gunwales with American pop, rock and urban do a sideline in hipster books. Virtually without exception these dazzling paperback digests are rabidly anti-American (Why do we hate America?), anti-Bush/anti-American (The Bush-haters’ handbook), anti-globalisation/anti-American (American Dream/Global Nightmare), anti-American culture/anti-American (Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World).
For the most part adorned with colourful depictions of the universally attractive symbols of Americana, the covers tell a story of their own: as beacon or pariah, America sells. Here lies the reading choice of today’s youth, of societies most cool, and these cash-in volumes are horribly high in the sales charts. It’s not just the dreadlocked, nose-ringed student-acolytes who pack the theatres to hear the nasal drone of the world’s Noam Chomskys, it’s the kids who lap up American culture, obese and spotty from a diet of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, baggily clad in Nike, Gap and Levi’s, plugged into their iPods digitally replete with Eminem or 50 Cent. These are the kids whose street cred relies on their miserable detestation of the shallow, candied, military behemoth that is the USA. ...
Our rebels are American. So are our anti-Americans. Michael Moore is one of America’s biggest exports. America makes anti-Americanism profitable for America. What a country!" (Hat tip: Larry Allen.)"The Media Two-step" (HonestReporting, 2005/02/02)
"On Monday (1/31), 10-year-old Nuran Deab was struck by a bullet in southern Gaza and died shortly thereafter. The IDF immediately suggested the gunshots may have come from nearby Palestinians firing celebratory shots in the air. Further, Reuters stated that 'it did not appear that Israeli soldiers some 600 meters away could have seen into the [school] compound from their position behind high walls.'
Despite this, many news agencies were quick to promote the Palestinian version of events, backed by the UN:
• Agence France-Presse, under the headline 'Palestinian schoolgirl shot dead by Israeli troops in Gaza,' prominently quoted the PA prime minister condemning it as 'a crime.' The Israeli denial of responsibility was buried at the very end of the AFP report.
• The Independent based its story on a UN official who directly accused the IDF of firing on Deab, then passed off IDF spokespersons who denied culpability as 'plainly embarrassed.'
• Knight Ridder-Tribune quoted both Ahmed Qurei decrying the shooting as an IDF 'war crime,' and a UN official condemning 'the Israeli military's indiscriminate firing into civilian areas.' ...
This lopsided version of events appears all the more ludicrous given the Jerusalem Post's report that PA police have now arrested a Palestinian man for the shooting.""Museum removes erotic art after Muslim anger" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/02)
"STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish museum dedicated to world culture has removed an erotic painting plastered with verses from the Muslim holy book, the Koran, from an exhibition about AIDS after Muslims complained it was obscene.
Jette Sandahl, director of the World Culture Museum, which opened in Gothenburg a month ago, said on Wednesday that the painting by an Arab artist living in France was replaced by another less offensive one.
Sweden is home to 400,000 Muslims. The row over artist Louzla Darabi's painting comes amid tensions in Europe about a perceived increase in Islamic militancy since a Dutch filmmaker critical of Islam was murdered in the Netherlands late last year.
Sandahl told Reuters that most of the hundreds of e-mails and letters sent were "respectful and polite but some were more aggressive."
"It was the combination of the image and text from the Koran which was problematic," she added.""Paper Over" (Joseph Braude, The New Republic, 2005/02/02)
A brilliant overview and analysis of reactions to the Iraqi election in the Arab world's pro-government newspapers:
"The other tactic -- and the more popular one -- takes into account the fact that most Arab majorities have alternative sources of information, making a news blackout on the Iraqi elections infeasible. In these countries, the role of the pro-government press isn't to hide facts, but rather to spin them to the benefit of the ruling regime. Which explains why so many Arab newspapers dwelled on the negative Monday in their pieces on the Iraqi election. In Tunis, Al Sabah led with the headline, BLOODY ELECTION DAY: A GIANT BRITISH PLANE CRASH, NINE AMERICAN SOLDIERS KILLED, and EXPLOSIONS IN VOTING CENTERS LEAVE 36 IRAQIS DEAD." The coverage is in keeping with a trope routinely expressed by apologists for the Tunisian regime: that full-blown Arab democracy stands to yield full-blown violence. (For example, in an Al-Jazeera debate on democratization two months ago, the Tunisian writer Burhan Bsayyis asked: "Do you want us to embark on a democratic experiment that could result in 100,000 dead, like in Algeria? Do you want us to allow a freedom of the press that could result in vituperation and calumny that could pit the society against the state and result in violent conflict -- civil war?")" (Hat tip: Rochi Ebner.)"Groundhog Day" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/02/02)
Taranto points out this gem in Russert's interview with John Kerry:
"Did regime change in Iraq make us safer? No and yes, says Kerry:Tim Russert: Do you believe that Iraq is less a terrorist threat to the United States now than it was two years ago?
Kerry: No, it's more. And, in fact, I believe the world is less safe today than it was 2 1/2 years ago. . . .
Russert: Is the United States safer with the newly elected Iraqi government than we would have been with Saddam Hussein?
Kerry: Sure. And I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone, and I've said that a hundred times."(See also: "Transcript for Jan. 30" (Meet the Press, 2005/01/31))
"The Times responds" (Jeff Jarvis, Buzz Machine, 2005/02/02)
Response II: "Dan Okrent put up a response to my complaint about Sarah Boxer's story on the Iraq The Model bloggers. ... Dan [full disclosure: a former colleague of mine at Time Inc.] tells the story of the story and then says: ...Among the many readers who wrote to me, one, a Boston Globe reporter, was especially direct: “This story was, quite simply, vile. It repeats unsupported allegations that three guys in Iraq who run a pro-American blog are actually C.I.A. agents. It produces not a shred of evidence for such claims. And by giving the claims the prestige of The New York Times, the story has put a bull's eye on the heads of those bloggers. This story was beneath contempt.” ...
Okrent asked arts editor Jonathan Landman to respond and here are my responses, in turn: ...
Buzzmachine is run by the well known conservative blogger Jeff Jarvis who, Ali wrote in one of his Internet exchanges with critics, has helped set up blogs run by some of his (Ali’s) Iraqi friends. So Buzzmachine is possibly not the most dispassionate source of analysis on this subject. ...
You bet I am passionate about this. I know these men. They have become friends online and in person. I respect them for their bravery defending their nation and building their democracy. I fear for them. I bear some responsiblity for the chain that led to them blogging and all the rest. You bet I am passionate about an attack on them." (See also: "The Times's Coverage of 'IraqTheModel.com'" (Daniel Okrent, The New York Times, 2005/01/31). Also: "Shame on the New York Times" (Jeff Jarvis, Buzz Machine, 2005/01/18))
"Response from Eason Jordan" (Carol Platt Liebau, carolliebau.blogspot.com, 2005/02/02)
Response I: "Our friend, formerly of CNN, passed along this statement from Eason Jordan. It seems that he is making a semantic argument, i.e., that when he said that the journalists had been "targeted", he didn't mean to imply that the U.S. military realized that they were journalists. (That is, soldiers intended to shoot the people who were killed -- they just didn't know they were journalists.) Perhaps that's true. Perhaps. But why wouldn't he have made the point about mistaken identity clear in the original remarks?
Here is the statement:'To be clear, I do not believe the U.S. military is trying to kill journalists in Iraq. I said so during the forum panel discussion. But, nonetheless, the U.S. military has killed several journalists in Iraq in cases of mistaken identity. ...
When someone aims a gun at someone and pulls the trigger and then learns later the person fired at was actually a journalist, an apology is appropriate and is accepted, and I believe those apologies to be genuine. But such a killing is a tragic case of mistaken identity, not a case of "collateral damage." That is the distinction I was trying to make even if I did not make it clearly at the time.'"(Hat tip: InstaPundit. See also: "How Crazy Are They?" (Hindrocket, Power Line, 2005/02/01))
"Democracy is bad news for terrorists" (Janet Daley, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/02/02)
"An understandably bitter little missive was posted on the headhackers' website on Monday. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi wanted the world to know that the elections in Iraq were not going to slow him down. The cause of terrorism was not daunted. In bloodcurdling terms, he swore vengeance on those who had had the temerity to ask the Iraqi people how they would like to be governed: "Let Bush and Blair know that we are the enemies of democracy."
Fair enough. We may as well all lay our cards on the table. Democracy is certainly out to get Zarqawi - and this is a fight to the death. ...
Their only hope was to create a campaign of such vicious, anarchic violence that the democratic initiative would have to be aborted. And every European know-it-all who shook his head sagely, and said that elections should be delayed indefinitely because of that campaign, was playing into their hands.
Democracy is not a delicate plant to be kept under wraps until the perfect conditions are achieved for it to flourish. It is the only possible antidote to terrorism which, whatever its claims of popular support, is inherently totalitarian in its structure and its contempt for life." (Note: Daley also quotes from Zarqawi's letter to al-Qaeda, intercepted last year: "Their cause and their activities could, he said, be dealt a disastrous blow by the prospect of democratic elections in Iraq. ... 'Democracy is coming and there will be no excuse thereafter.'". See also: "Text from Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi Letter" (Coalition Provisional Authority, 2004/02/12). Also: "Al-Zarqawi's Group Slams Iraqi Elections" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/01/31))"Down syndrome youth used as suicide bomber" (Paul McGeough, The Age, 2005/02/02)
"Amar was 19, but he had the mind of a four-year-old. This handicap didn't stop the insurgency's hard men as they strapped explosives to his chest and guided him to a voting centre in suburban Al-Askan. ...
He had Down syndrome or, as the Iraqis say, he's a mongoli, and when his parents, Ahmed, 42, and Fatima, 40, went to vote with their two daughters Amar was left in the family home. ...
But one of Amar's cousins, a 29-year-old teacher who asked not to be named, retreated to a distracted state in which Iraqis often discuss death to tell their story as best they can. "They must have kidnapped him," he said. "He was like a baby. He had nothing to do with the resistance and there was nothing in the house for him to make a bomb. He was Shiite. Why bomb his own people?
"He was mindless, but he was mostly happy, laughing and playing with the children in the street. Now, his father is inconsolable; his mother cries all the time," the teacher said. ...
Apparently, Amar triggered the bomb before he got to the intended target. It exploded while he was crossing open ground.""U.N. Expert Calls Iraq Election Moving" (Nick Wadhams, AP/The Guardian, 2005/02/02)
"UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Abandoning diplomatic circumspection, the top U.N. electoral expert on Tuesday praised the vote in Iraq as one of the most moving she had ever seen.
Carina Perelli, who has helped advise on dozens of elections from East Timor to the Palestinian territories, called the Jan. 30 election a "dignified, peaceful demonstration" of Iraqis' will.
About 40 people were killed but she told a news conference it had been a feat that no polling station was closed for the day because of security fears.
"I have participated in many elections in my life and I usually say that the day you lose your ability to be moved by people going to vote, you should change your career," said Perelli, who had insisted for months that U.N. advisers would leave pronouncements on the election to Iraq's electoral commission. 'This was probably one of the most moving elections I have ever seen.'""Naysayers tight-lipped since success of Iraq vote" (James G. Lakely, The Washington Times, 2005/02/02)
"Skeptics of President Bush's attempt to bring democracy to Iraq have been largely silent since Iraqis enthusiastically turned out for Sunday's elections.
Billionaire Bush-basher George Soros and left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore were among critics of the administration's Iraq policy who had no comment after millions of Iraqis went to the polls in their nation's first free elections in decades. ...
There has been no comment since the Iraq elections from Mr. Moore, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker who characterized the Iraqi insurgents as "Minutemen," and predicted "they will win."
The last posting from Mr. Moore on his Web site (www.michaelmoore.com) is dated Jan. 10 and concerns "Fahrenheit 9/11" being named best dramatic movie in the People's Choice Awards. An e-mail to Mr. Moore requesting comment was not returned.
On the day before the elections, Mr. Moore featured a link to a column in the New York Times with the headline, "A Sinking Sensation of Parallels between Iraq and Vietnam." On the day after the elections, Mr. Moore linked to a story in the left-wing Nation magazine titled 'Occupation Thwarts Democracy.'" (Note: The day before the election Moore also posts this story: "The streets of Baghdad are empty. It feels like a city preparing for war" (Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad, Independent, 2005/01/29))"Iraqis Who Died While Daring to Vote Are Mourned as Martyrs" (Edward Wong, The New York Times, 2005/02/02)
"NAJAF, Iraq, Feb. 1 - Salim Yacoubi bent over to kiss the purple ink stain on his twin brother's right index finger, gone cold with death.
"You can see the finger with which he voted," Shukur Jasim, a friend of the dead man, said as he cast a tearful gaze on the body, sprawled across a washer's concrete slab. "He's a martyr now."
The stain marked the hard-won right to vote that Naim Rahim Yacoubi exercised Sunday, and the price he paid for that privilege.
Mr. Yacoubi, 37, was one of at least 50 Iraqis who died in bomb and mortar attacks as millions of people marched to polling centers in the first free elections in decades. At least nine suicide bombs exploded in Baghdad alone. In one of those, the bomber detonated his device outside Kurdis Primary School near the airport, sending dozens of shards of shrapnel into Mr. Yacoubi.
The victims of election day violence are being hailed by many Iraqis as the latest martyrs in a nearly two-year-long insurgency that has claimed the lives of thousands. They were policemen who tried to stop suicide bombers from entering polling centers, children who walked with elderly parents to cast votes, or - in the case of Mr. Yacoubi - a fishmonger who, after voting, took tea from his house to electoral workers at the school.
At polling centers hit by explosions, survivors refused to go home, steadfastly waiting to cast their votes as policemen swept away bits of flesh."Added in archive:
"The UN's PR coup" (Anne Bayefsky, israelinsider, 2005/01/30)
"Arafat's tomb a shrine in Mukata" (Mitch Potter, Toronto Star, 2005/01/30)
"If Palestinians want an independent state, their new chairman must coalesce forces and disarm terrorists" (Emanuele Ottolenghi, Newsday/emanueleottolenghi.com, 2005/01/26)
Tuesday,
February 1, 2005
News and
commentary:
"'There Can Be No End to Jihad'" (Anthony McRoy, Christianity Today, 2005/02/01)
An interview with Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, "the leader of one of the most controversial Islamist groups in the U.K., Al Muhajiroun (which means "the emigrants" in Arabic). He attracted global media scrutiny on the first anniversary of 9/11 by staging a meeting entitled "A Towering Day in History," and unveiled a poster that depicted the second airplane advancing toward the World Trade Center."
"Do you believe that 9/11 was in any way Islamically justifiable?
Speaking objectively as a Muslim scholar, and not inciting such acts, jihad can be effected outside the battlefield — it is not restricted by time, place, building, event, people, transport food, water (both of which may be legitimately poisoned in jihad), or by clothing — there is no need to wear a uniform.
Any weapons are legitimate in jihad. Even animals may be used as "suicide bombers"! It is not restricted by target — even Muslims or children, if used by the enemy as human shields, can be killed. Only one thing can restrict jihad — a Covenant of Security [Treaty]. Non-combatant women, children, elders, clergy, insane, disabled are restricted, and non-Muslim children go to Paradise. However, if such are killed in crossfire or if used as human shields, they become collateral damage. ...
You have talked about the Islamic flag flying over Downing Street, and I have seen a hadith on your website saying that the end would not come until the White House is captured. How do you envisage these goals being achieved?
"The final hour will not come until the Muslims conquer the White House" is a hadith related by Tabarani, a great Muslim scholar. How?
The Khilafah is necessary for offensive jihad, though it could occur if Muslims warred to liberate captive Muslims. Realistically, it will probably occur through intellectual da'wah [Islamic missionary activity]."
"Photo taken off an Islamist website..."
(AFP, 2005/02/01)
"Photo taken off an Islamist website and attributed to the militant group 'Mujahedeen Squadrons - Iraq.' The photograph of what Islamist militants claimed was a captured US soldier may be instead a toy figure sold at US military bases in the Middle East, the toy's manufacturer said.""US 'hostage' may be doll: company" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/01)
"WASHINGTON (AFP) - A photograph of what Islamist militants claimed was a captured US soldier may be instead a toy figure sold at US military bases in the Middle East, the toy's manufacturer said.
A Pentagon official said no US soldiers had been reported missing, and a spokesman for Dragon Models USA Inc. said the figure in the photograph resembles "Cody," an action figure based on US special forces soldiers fighting in Iraq.
"For us, it bears a striking resemblance," spokesman Liam Cusack said from the company's headquarters in City of Industry, California.
The photograph posted on an Islamic website along with the claim purported to show a soldier seated on the ground with a gun pointed at his head.""Zarqawi and other Islamists to the Iraqi People: Elections and Democracy are Heresy" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 856, 2005/02/01)
A long excerpt from Zarqawi's latest speech, in which he "raised seven arguments for why democracy equals heresy." Basically, all democratic and humanistic ideals are deemed heretic by their very nature:
"What harvest has the American aggressors and their Shi'ite allies reaped from the invasion of and aggression against the peaceful lands of Islam? Their outrages and blatant lies have become apparent to the entire world, and their arguments and false claims of achieving security and safety for the apostate Iraqi government have all collapsed. Now they are completely preoccupied with making the big American lie called 'democracy' successful. Americans have been playing with the minds of many peoples with the lie of 'civilized democracy'... ...
First: Democracy is based on the principle that the people are the source of all authority, including the legislative [authority]. This is carried out by choosing representatives who act as proxies for the people in the task of legislating and making laws. That means that the one who is worshiped and obeyed and deified, from the point of view of legislating and prohibiting, is man, the created, and not Allah. That is the very essence of heresy and polytheism and error, as it contradicts the bases of the faith [of Islam] and monotheism... ...
Allah has decided this matter: 'I do not worship what you worship, nor do you worship what I worship' [Koran 109:1], and at the end of the same chapter [He says]: 'You have your religion and I have mine' [109:6]. The matter, then, is a matter of principle; it is non-negotiable, and there can be no concession regarding it whatsoever… It is a matter relating to the principles of our creed — nay, it is the very essence of our creed.""Zarqawi: 'Kennedy Is the Only One That Understands Us''' (Jeremy Robb, ChronWatch, 2005/02/01)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq --- A day after Ted Kennedy called for surrender and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi praised Kennedy as a hero and tearfully claimed Kennedy is the only one who "gets us."
"Finally, someone who understands us and our cause," said Zarqawi. 'He gets us. He understands that American troops must leave Iraq in order for us to destroy democracy and create a terrorist state. He knows that America must not protect its borders or profile Muslims to keep out terrorists and prevent massive terror attacks. I knew Kennedy was a wise man. For his assistance, we plan to try and kill him last when our jihad claims the lives of all American infidels.'""Egypt opposition leader detained" (BBC News, 2005/02/01)
"A court in Egypt has extended the detention of an opposition party leader to 45 days.
Ayman Nour is the leader of al-Ghad (or the Tomorrow) Party and a member of the Egyptian parliament.
He is alleged to have forged the documents he submitted for the recognition of his party last year.
Mr Nour was stripped of his parliamentary immunity on Saturday and detained by police on leaving the parliament building.
He appeared in court for the second time on Monday and said that his arrest would hinder the democratic process and reform in the country.
Mr Nour, a wealthy lawyer, set up Al-Ghad to campaign for political, economic and constitutional reforms in Egypt.
He was given permission to create the new party after three previous applications had been rejected.""How Crazy Are They?" (Hindrocket, Power Line, 2005/02/01)
"There has been a lot of buzz about absurd comments made by Eason Jordan, the number one guy at CNN, at the "World Economic Forum" in Davos, Switzerland. Here is how the forum's blog tells the story:During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others. ...
Eason seemed to backpedal quickly, but his initial statements were backed by other members of the audience (one in particular who represented a worldwide journalist group). The ensuing debate was (for lack of better words) a real "sh--storm". What intensified the problem was the fact that the session was a public forum being taped on camera, in front of an international crowd. The other looming shadow on what was going on was the presence of a U.S. Congressman and a U.S. Senator in the middle of some very serious accusations about the U.S. military.I suppose a short refutation of Jordan's theory would be that if the U.S. military really set out to "target" journalists in Iraq, there wouldn't be anywhere near so many journalists swarming over that country. ... Jordan is the same guy who admitted that CNN sucked up to Saddam Hussein and didn't report what they knew about his regime. So he's a really, really credible source.
Could someone please put CNN out of its misery?" (See also: "Do US Troops Target Journalists in Iraq?" (Rony, Forumblog.org, 2005/01/28))"Vietnam and Iraq: A Revelatory Analogy" (Tom Veal, Stromata, 2005/02/01)
Vietnam II: "The point of this particular parallel is obvious: The South Vietnamese overwhelmingly backed democratic government against a totalitarian takeover, but their opinions didn’t matter. The international Left was able to cut off American aid and leave free Vietnam helpless in the face of foreign invasion. (In the last stages of the war, Congress banned even the sale of fuel and ammunition to the Saigon government.) The Kossacks believe and hope that the same sequence of events will occur again, that anti-war agitation will lead the U.S. to kick the legs out from under a fledgling democracy. The message for the leftist troops is, Don’t despair just because our buddies couldn’t disrupt this election; in the end, the evil principle of democracy will succumb.""Sigh" (Jonah Goldberg, The Corner, 2005/02/01)
Vietnam I: "Daily Kos posted this excerpt from a 1967 New York Times article:U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote:
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terrorby Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.Me: And the guy's point is....what, exactly? That we were right to abandon our Vietnamese allies? That we should do the same to Iraqis? That the left wing of his party hasn't been moved by the democratic aspirations of those facing totalitarianism for four decades? Or maybe his point is to illustrate that the only foreign policy prism he and his kind can see through is Vietnam, even though the two conflicts have exactly nothing in common -- save their ability to elicit incoherent rage and bad historical analogies from the left." (Hat tip: Tom Veal. See also: "Beating a Dead Parrot" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2005/01/31))
"Saudi Venom in U.S. Mosques" (Daniel Pipes, New York Sun/danielpipes.org, 2005/02/01)
Pipes on the newly released study "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques":
"What they found can only be described as horrifying. These writings - each and every one of them sponsored by the kingdom - espouse an anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, misogynist, jihadist, and supremacist outlook. For example, they:• Reject Christianity as a valid faith: Any Muslim who believes "that churches are houses of God and that God is worshiped therein is an infidel."
• Insist that Islamic law be applied: On a range of issues, from women (who must be veiled) to apostates from Islam ("should be killed"), the Saudi publications insist on full enforcement of Shariah in America.
• See non-Muslims as the enemy: "Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law."
• See America as hostile territory: "It is forbidden for a Muslim to become a citizen of a country governed by infidels because this is a means of acquiescing to their infidelity and accepting all their erroneous ways."
• Prepare for war against America: "To be true Muslims, we must prepare and be ready for jihad in Allah's way. It is the duty of the citizen and the government." ...
The Bush administration needs to confront the domestic menace that the Wahhabi kingdom presents to America. That means junking the fantasy of Saudi friendship and seeing the country, like China, as a formidable rival whose ambitions for a very different world order must be repulsed and contained." (See also the report [PDF]: "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques" (Freedom House, 2005/01/28) and "Group cites Saudi 'hate' tracts" (Katherine Clad, The Washington Times, 2005/01/29))
Planet Earth
(Reuters, 2005/02/01)
"Britain, arguing that climate change is now unstoppable, urged the United States on February 1, 2005 to sign up to life-saving cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as environmentalists warned of approaching Armageddon."
