Archived
news and commentary: February 21 - 27, 2005
2005/02/21 - 2005/02/27
2005/02/14 - 2005/02/20
2005/02/07 - 2005/02/13
2005/01/31 - 2005/02/06
2005/01/24 - 2005/01/30
2005/01/17 - 2005/01/23
Sunday,
February 27, 2005
News and
commentary:
"Lebanese opposition supporters protest..."
(Hussein Malla, AP, 2005/02/27)
"Lebanese opposition supporters protest whilst waving Lebanese flags as they shout anti-Syrian slogans during a demonstration against Syria and the Lebanese government at the Martyrs square in down town Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday Feb. 27, 2005.""Thousands Defy Protest Ban in Beirut" (Lucy Fielder, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/27)
"BEIRUT (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators massed in central Beirut overnight to defy a government ban on protests on Monday ahead of a fiery debate in parliament over the assassination of the country's former prime minister.
Opposition groups have called a demonstration at central Martyrs Square and a one-day strike to coincide with the debate on Rafik al-Hariri's killing on Feb. 14 that for many recalled Lebanon's bitter 1975-90 civil war.
Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh called on security forces in a statement on Sunday "to take all necessary steps to preserve security and order and prevent demonstrations and gatherings on Monday." ...
Late on Sunday, soldiers manning barriers set up in central Beirut stopped hundreds of protesters from entering Martyrs Square, which is near Hariri's grave.
Thousands of demonstrators draped in Lebanese flags had already gathered in the square, where patriotic songs blared from loudspeakers.
Protesters demanded the government resign and chanted "Syria get out" and 'Freedom, sovereignty, independence.'""Syria Hands Saddam's Half-Brother to Iraq" (Salah Nasrawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/27)
"CAIRO, Egypt - Iraqi officials said Sunday that Syrian authorities had captured Saddam Hussein's half-brother and 29 other officials of the deposed dictator's Baath Party in Syria and handed them over to Iraq in an apparent goodwill gesture.
Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, a former Saddam adviser suspected of financing insurgents after U.S. troops ousted Saddam, was captured in Hasakah in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press by telephone on condition of anonymity. Hasakah is about 30 miles from the Iraqi border.
They added that al-Hassan was captured and handed over to Iraqi authorities along with 29 other members of Saddam's collapsed Baath Party, whose Syrian branch has been in power in Damascus since 1963." (See also: "Iraqis Capture Saddam's Half Brother" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/27): "Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan was No. 36 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis released by U.S. authorities after American troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, and among a recent group of 29 most-wanted supporters of insurgents in Iraq. The U.S. had a $1 million bounty on his head. ... According to the U.S. Central Command, only 11 of the 55 most-wanted remain at large following al-Hassan's capture.")"Rating the Roadshow" (Richard Wolffe, Newsweek, from the 2005/03/07 issue)
"When Bush confronted his Russian counterpart about the freedom of the press in Russia, Putin shot back with an attack of his own: "We didn't criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS."
It's not clear how well Putin understands the controversy that led to the dismissal of four CBS journalists over the discredited report on Bush's National Guard service. Yet it's all too clear how Putin sees the relationship between Bush and the American media — just like his own. Bush's aides have long feared that former KGB officers in Putin's inner circle are painting a twisted picture of U.S. policy.So Bush explained how he had no power to fire American journalists. It made little difference. When the two presidents emerged for their joint press conference, one Russian reporter repeated Putin's language about journalists getting fired. Bush (already hot after an earlier question about his spying on U.S. citizens) asked the reporter if he felt free. "They obviously planted the question," said one of Bush's senior aides.""Saudi Arabia may look at votes for women" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/27)
"Saudi Arabia may allow women to vote in future elections, but the West must stop pushing the oil-rich kingdom for reforms, its foreign minister has said.
Prince Saud al-Faisal on Sunday said the first municipal elections earlier in February, open to men only, had been such a success it was possible the vote might be extended to women. ...
The prince said modernisation would come about because of what the government was doing and "because of the actions of the women themselves".
But he said pressure from other countries to speed up the process was not welcome.
"We know we want to reform, we know we want to modernise, but for God's sake leave us alone," he said.""Iran Signs Nuclear Fuel Deal With Russia" (Ali Akbar Dareini, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/27)
"BUSHEHR, Iran - Iran and Russia ignored U.S. objections and signed a nuclear fuel agreement Sunday that is key to bringing Tehran's first reactor online by mid-2006.
The long-delayed deal, signed at the heavily guarded Bushehr nuclear facility in southern Iran, dramatized President Bush (news - web sites)'s failure to persuade the Russians to curtail support for the Iranian nuclear program during his summit with Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) on Thursday in Slovakia.
Under the deal, Russia will provide nuclear fuel to Iran, then take back the spent fuel, a step meant as a safeguard to ensure it cannot be diverted into a weapons program." (See also: "The Bear Is Back: Russia’s Middle Eastern adventures" (Ilan Berman, National Review, 2005/02/18))"Minds are changing" (Michael Barone, USNews.com, from the 2005/03/07 issue)
Tipping Point II: "Nearly two years ago I wrote that the liberation of Iraq was changing minds in the Middle East. ... I think I overestimated how much progress was being made at the time. But the spectacle of 8 million Iraqis braving terrorists to vote on January 30 seems to have moved things up to breakneck speed. ...
And minds are changing in the United States. On Nightline, the New York Times 's Thomas Friedman and, with caveats, the New Yorker 's Malcolm Gladwell agreed that the Iraqi election was a "tipping point" (the title of one of Gladwell's books) and declined Ted Koppel's invitation to say that things could easily tip back the other way. In the most recent Foreign Affairs, Yale's John Lewis Gaddis credited George W. Bush with "the most sweeping redesign of U.S. grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt," criticized Bush's implementation of that strategy in measured tones, and called for a 'renewed strategic bipartisanship.'""The Tipping Points" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2005/02/27)
Tipping Point I: "The other night on ABC's "Nightline," the host, Ted Koppel, posed an intriguing question to Malcolm Gladwell, the social scientist who wrote the path-breaking book "The Tipping Point," which is about how changes in behavior or perception can reach a critical mass and then suddenly create a whole new reality. Mr. Koppel asked: Can you know you are in the middle of a tipping point, or is it only something you can see in retrospect? ...
Mr. Koppel was raising the question because he wanted to explore whether the Iraqi elections marked a tipping point in history. I was on the same show, and in mulling over this question more I think that what's so interesting about the Middle East today is that we're actually witnessing three tipping points at once. ...
Indeed, in the Middle East playground - as Friday's suicide bomb in Israel reminds us - tipping points are sometimes more like teeter-totters: one moment you're riding high and the next minute you're slammed to the ground. Nevertheless, what's happened in the last four weeks is not just important, it's remarkable. And if we can keep all three tipping points tipped, it will be incredible." (See also the transcript: "The Middle East at a 'Tipping Point'" (ABC News/FrontPageMagazine, 2005/02/24 [2005/02/22]))"All but won: The media can't see that Iraq is close to secure" (Jack Kelly, Post-Gazette, 2005/02/27)
"It will be some months before the news media recognize it, and a few months more before they acknowledge it, but the war in Iraq is all but won. The situation is roughly analogous to the battle of Iwo Jima, which took place 60 years ago this month. It took 35 days before the island was declared secure, but the outcome was clear after day five, with the capture of Mt. Suribachi. ...
Those who get their news from the "mainstream" media are surprised by developments in Iraq, as they were surprised by our swift victory in Afghanistan, the sudden fall of Saddam Hussein, the success of the Afghan election and the success of the Iraqi election.
Journalists demand accountability from political leaders for "quagmires" which exist chiefly in the imagination of journalists. But when will journalists be held to account for getting every major development in the war on terror wrong?" (See also: "Counting on failure?" (Norman Geras, normblog, 2005/02/26))"Soft Power, Hard Truths" (Victor Davis Hanson, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/02/27)
Europe VIII: "America is watching enormous historical forces being unleashed on the [European] continent from its own depopulation, new anti-Semitism, and rising Islamicism to Turkish demands for EU membership and further expansion of the EU into the backwaters of Eastern Europe that will bring it to the doorstep of Russia. Whether its politics and economy will evolve to embrace more personal freedom, its popular culture will integrate its minorities, and its military will step up to protect Western values and visions is unclear. But what is certain is that the U.S. cannot remain a true ally of a militarily weak but shrill Europe should its politics grow even more resentful and neutralist, always nursing old wounds and new conspiracies, amoral in its inability to act, quite ready to preach to those who do.
We keep assuming that Europeans are like Britain and Japan when in fact long ago they devolved more into a Switzerland and Sweden — friendly neutrals but no longer real allies. In the meantime, let us Americans keep much more quiet, wait, and watch — even as we carry a far bigger stick.""U.S. can sit back and watch Europe implode" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2005/02/27)
Europe VII: "The president, in other words, understands that for Europe, unlike America, the war on terror is an internal affair, a matter of defusing large unassimilated radicalized Muslim immigrant populations before they provoke the inevitable resurgence of opportunist political movements feeding off old hatreds. Difficult trick to pull off, especially on a continent where the ruling elite feels it's in the people's best interest not to pay any attention to them. ...
Europe's problems — its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed — are all of Europe's making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches — and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature. ...
Until the shape of the new Europe begins to emerge, there's no point picking fights with the terminally ill. The old Europe is dying, and Mr. Bush did the diplomatic equivalent of the Oscar night lifetime-achievement tribute at which the current stars salute a once glamorous old-timer whose fading aura is no threat to them. The 21st century is being built elsewhere." (Note: Austin Bay questions Steyn's pessimistic view of Europe's future ("Europeans will leave the Flower Generation and join the New Greatest Generation.") and Mark Steyn responds in the comments section ("Progressive secular welfarism is a great life - but only for a generation or two. After that, it’s a death cult."))"'European dream' fantasy - stuff of which nightmares are made" (Dominic Cummings, Scotland on Sunday, 2005/02/27)
Europe VI: "The psychology of those now preaching "the European dream" and "the European century" — their preference for supranational bureaucracy over Hayekian markets and national self-government — will combine with remorseless demographic decline to prove their latest fantasy predictions as false as those of 1999 about the euro’s success and Europe becoming 'the most dynamic economy in the world.'":
"Fertility rates in Germany, France, and Italy are far below replacement levels, while life expectancy grows. Germany’s population will shrink by around 11 million by 2050 and its working-age population by over 10%. Overall, the EU-24’s population will decline by about 35 to 40 million; the rest will age rapidly, putting a huge strain on collectivist welfare systems and pay-as-you-go pensions.
By 2050, the unfunded pension commitments of Britain (as a percentage of GDP) are expected to be merely 5%; the equivalent figures are 70% for Italy, 105% for France, and 110% for Germany.
The economic consequences of these pension obligations are enormous: an 8% fall in real wages by 2030, a 13% fall by 2050; a rise in total taxes on wages from about 40% now to about 50% by 2030, and 70% by 2050.
By the middle of this century, barring the privatisation of pensions, there will be a relative fall in living standards for Europeans of about 40%.""Is there an enemy within?" (Martin Bright and Jason Burke, The Observer, 2005/02/27)
Europe V: "There is growing belief that the war on terror has failed to win hearts and minds where it matters most: within Muslim communities. This applies not just to the Islamic world, but to the Muslim diaspora in the West, where a growing minority has been drawn to radical Islam.
Earlier, Hazel Blears, Home Office minister with responsibility for combating terrorism, made the ominous claim that Britain was now threatened more by its own people than those of other countries. The Observer has discovered that her comments came as a result of briefings by the police and MI5 that the threat from British Muslim extremists is now at least as great as that from foreign terrorists. ...
A paper with the title International Terrorism: The Threat states: 'The leaders of al-Qaeda have made clear in repeated statements that the UK and its citizens are targets for attack.
'Terrorist networks in the UK have acted on these instructions. Police and intelligence agencies have disrupted a number of attacks in the UK before they could be mounted. Many involved in these terrorist conspiracies have been overseas nationals, but we have been increasingly aware of the involvement of British nationals.'""More Dutch Plan to Emigrate as Muslim Influx Tips Scales" (Marlise Simons, The New York Times, 2005/02/27)
Europe IV: "Leave this stable and prosperous corner of Europe? Leave this land with its generous social benefits and ample salaries, a place of fine schools, museums, sports grounds and bicycle paths, all set in a lively democracy?
The answer, increasingly, is yes. This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class. Dutch people pulling up roots said they felt a general pessimism about their small and crowded country and about the social tensions that had grown along with the waves of newcomers, most of them Muslims. "The Dutch are living in a kind of pressure cooker atmosphere," Mr. Hiltemann said. ...
Ruud Konings, an accountant, has just sold his comfortable home in the small town of Hilvarenbeek. In March, after a year's worth of paperwork, the family will leave for Australia. The couple said the main reason was their fear for the welfare and security of their two teenage children.
"When I grew up, this place was spontaneous and free, but my kids cannot safely cycle home at night," said Mr. Konings, 49. "My son just had his fifth bicycle stolen." At school, his children and their friends feel uneasy, he added. "They're afraid of being roughed up by the gangs of foreign kids."
Sandy Sangen has applied to move to Norway with her husband and two school-age children. They want to buy a farm in what she calls 'a safer, more peaceful place.'""Putting the fear of God into Holland" (Brian Moynahan, The Sunday Times Magazine, 2005/02/27)
Europe III: "The Dutch may be drawing the wrong conclusions, but they are surely right to be asking the questions. Western Europe is undergoing the largest population shift since the 7th and 8th centuries. This is happening just as the advent of a federal Europe, and the decline of traditional faith, are already straining its old identity.":
"Not long ago, Holland prided itself as being the most tolerant and welcoming country in Europe for immigrants and asylum seekers. It had the credentials to prove it. So many have settled there, ethnic "minorities" are often in a majority. In the great Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague, the newcomers already outnumber the native Dutch among under-20-year-olds. They will soon be an absolute majority. ...
No longer. A sea change has taken place. ...
Multiculturalism is damned. A recent poll found 80% in favour of stronger measures to get immigrants to integrate — and 40% said they "hoped" Muslims "no longer feel at home here". ...
The debate can be highly sensitive. Ethnic minorities account for 40% of social-security recipients, with a rate six times higher than for the native Dutch. They have a high unemployment rate, and they make up a large majority of the prison population. This is seen as undermining the accepted wisdom that immigrants are vital to the economy.
It includes marriage patterns. Three-quarters of young Muslims, including those who are Dutch born, marry a partner from their country of origin.""Discrimination bill snubs gays to save Muslim vote" (David Cracknell, The Sunday Times, 2005/02/27)
Europe II: "GAY RIGHTS campaigners have been snubbed by the government for fear of upsetting Muslim voters who are regarded as more important to Labour’s election campaign.
This week a new bill giving Muslims protection against religious discrimination will be published, but there will be no equivalent right for gays, as had been planned by ministers
Downing Street fears that Muslims, whose votes could be the key to saving the seats of many Labour MPs, might feel offended if they were “lumped together” with homosexuals.""'How many more women have to die before this society wakes up?'" (Tony Paterson, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/02/27)
Europe I. More on the "honour killing" of Hatin Sürücü: "Asked by teachers what they thought of the murder, several 13-year-old pupils are said to have implied that they thought Mrs Sürücü had "earned" her death. "Well, she lived like a German, didn't she?" remarked one. ...
"This type of thinking is latent in their minds," said the head of another predominantly Turkish immigrant school in the district, who asked not to be identified. Their remarks, he said, reminded him of the spontaneous "victory dances" which immigrant pupils at his school had staged after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. ...
Karl Mollenhauer, a Berlin police psychologist, blamed Islamic religious leaders for failing to address the problem. Last week, he also suggested that the German authorities were at fault for failing to intervene in case they were branded racist.
"We have silently allowed a parallel society to develop because of fears that we would sow hatred by talking openly about its injustices. The women have paid the price for this," he said. Serap Cileli, a German-born Turkish woman who finds homes for women threatened by "honour murders", said: "If I criticise the Islamic community over these problems, I find that the Germans criticise me for being anti-foreigner. At the same time, many Turks say I am fouling my own nest.
'I am sad to say that we have a Turkish problem in Germany. Official claims that the majority of Turks are well integrated here are pure eyewash.'" (See also: "When Freedom Gets the Death Sentence" (Deutsche Welle, 2005/02/24))Added in archive:
"Democracy's Trojan horse" (John Fonte, National Interest/Hudson Institute, from the Summer 2004 issue)
Saturday,
February 26, 2005
News and
commentary:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
(The Wandering Jew, 2005/02/07)"The World Turned Upside Down" (Wretchard, Belmont Club, 2005/02/26)
"Don't that beat all. When the blog Dutch Report reported that two parliamentary representatives, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders had been kept in prison cells to protect them against Islamic death threats, I refused at first to believe it. ... But the more I read, even in translation, the less it seemed like a parody. For example:Parliamentary chairman [Frans] Weisglas now says he is “shocked by the disinterested reactions” in parliament after the protest of representatives Hirsi Ali and Wilders. ”I think the parliamentary members accept it way to easy that a colleague, has to sleep for months in a prison cell”. He describes it as a “disgrace” and “a pathetic show” that Wilders is in prison to protect him against terrorism. ...
According to the Dutch Report, members of the press are asking why Hirsi Ali simply doesn't quit politics to avoid further unpleasantness.
The press and other parliamentary members, some even of her own liberal (VVD) party have attacked Hirsi Ali in the past and suggested that her work as representative is under pressure and said she could better stop.
That would solve the problem for sure, but what happens if Europe is threatened by more than a handful of Islamic terrorists? What to do for an encore?" (See also: "Wilders in Prison (2)" (DutchReport, 2005/02/22), "Wilders in prison" (DutchReport, 2005/02/18) and "Threatened Dutch MP reveals living on navy base" (Reuters, 2005/02/18))
"Counting on failure?" (Norman Geras, normblog, 2005/02/26)
"In the March issue of Prospect magazine Bartle Bull, who has reported on Iraq for the New York Times, wonders whether the big media were hoping for the failure of the election in Iraq. He writes (subscription required): ...Elections are one of the few news occasions that provide editors and reporters with the clarity of numbers to help us to judge whether or not we are doing a decent job. January 30th turned out to be a better day for Iraqis than it was for reporters.
The failure of "hotel journalism" might be forgivable if it were truly about prudence or even laziness. But there has been something wilful about the bad reporting of this story. It is weirdly personal: Iraq must fail. It is in fact the press that failed, on a scale for which I cannot think of a precedent. Will the big media outlets demand the same accountability of themselves that they demand of everyone else? They should, for the success of these elections was not so surprising to those who dug below the surface of Iraq."(See also: "Iraq's bad press" (Bartle Bull, Prospect, from the March 2005 issue))
"Mubarak Orders Egypt Election Law Changes" (Maamoun Youssef, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/26)
"CAIRO, Egypt — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered a revision of the country's election laws Saturday and said multiple candidates could run in the nation's presidential elections, a scenario Mubarak has not faced since taking power in 1981.
The surprise announcement, a response to critics' calls for political reform, comes shortly after historic elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, balloting that brought a taste of democracy to the region. ...
The step came as a dispute sharpened with the United States over Egypt's arrest of one of the strongest proponents of multi-candidate elections.
Ayman Nour, head of the Al-Ghad Party, was detained Jan. 29 on allegations of forging nearly 2,000 signatures to secure a license for his party last year. He has rejected the accusation, and human rights groups have said his detention was politically motivated.
The prosecutor general has denied that charge.
His detention has been strongly criticized by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Rice canceled a Mideast visit planned for next week, a decision believed to be in protest of Nour's detention." (See also: "Egypt opposition leader detained" (BBC News, 2005/02/01))"After 1/30/05" (William Kristol, The Weekly Standard, from the 2005/03/07 issue)
"Just four weeks after the Iraqi election of January 30, 2005, it seems increasingly likely that that date will turn out to have been a genuine turning point. The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, ended an era. September 11, 2001, ended an interregnum. In the new era in which we now live, 1/30/05 could be a key moment — perhaps the key moment so far — in vindicating the Bush Doctrine as the right response to 9/11. And now there is the prospect of further and accelerating progress. ...
The Bush short-sellers — in the Middle East, in Europe, and here at home — are being squeezed. But now is no time for the president to let up, or to cash in. Now that Bush has gathered momentum, he needs to forge ahead. There will be bumps, and setbacks. But if Bush can succeed in Iraq, force Syria out of Lebanon, and undermine the mullahs in Iran, then historians will say: Bush was willing to fight — and Bush was right.""Iraq: moment of truth is coming" (Tony Parkinson, The Age, 2005/02/26)
"What event, what change of circumstances, what new facts, might persuade the anti-war movement in Australia to think again about the nature of the epic struggle under way across the Middle East?
As far back as August 2003, I thought the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad might shake some of the misconceptions about the sort of people, the sort of ideology, driving the violent insurgency in Iraq. Sadly, I was wrong.
What about using ambulances for suicide missions? Beheadings and hostage-taking? Terrorist attacks on school buses? Did these not suggest a need to confront a poisonous ideology emanating from the heartlands of the Middle East? No, no and no again.
What about the passage of UN resolution 1546, which from June last year gave the coalition operations in Iraq unquestioned international legitimacy and obliged member states to do all in their power to aid the country's post-Saddam reconstruction? Stubborn silence.
What, then, of the sight only a month ago of 8.5 million Iraqis voting in free elections? Did the symbolism of those purple fingers count for nothing among opponents of the war?
There had to come a time, surely, when the scales would fall from their eyes. There had to come a moment when they stopped chanting the mantra long enough to start listening to the authentic voices of liberation emerging in the Arab world.
Or so I thought. But no.""Israel blames Syria for bombing" (BBC News, 2005/02/26)
"Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has accused Syria of involvement in Friday's Tel Aviv suicide bombing in which four people were killed.
He was speaking hours after Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad's Damascus office said it carried out the attack.
The group's leaders in Gaza deny any involvement, suggesting a split, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Jerusalem. ...
A statement issued by Mr Mofaz's office said the defence minister had ruled that "Israel sees Syria and the Islamic Jihad movement as those standing behind the murderous attack in Tel Aviv".
However, he did not immediately threaten retaliation against Damascus." (See also: "Islamic Jihad official claims Tel Aviv bombing" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/26): "An official of the radical Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad, speaking on a videotape, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack in Tel Aviv on Friday which killed four Israelis.")"Suicide Bombing Kills at Least 4 at Tel Aviv Club" (Alan Cowell and Greg Myre, The New York Times, 2005/02/26)
"A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of young Israelis waiting to enter a nightclub near the Tel Aviv beachfront Friday night, killing at least four, wounding dozens and threatening to shatter a truce that had largely been holding.
The bombing was the first major attack since Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, called for an end to violence at a Feb. 8 summit meeting in Egypt. ...
The Israeli crowd was waiting on the sidewalk outside the Stage nightclub, just across the street from the beach, when the bomber struck around 11:30 p.m., the police said. Much of Israel shuts down for the Jewish Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, but in secular Tel Aviv, clubs were just beginning to open at the time of the blast.
The explosion sent bodies sprawling and covered the street and sidewalk with blood, body parts and debris. Cars were mangled and windows were blown out. Store signs came crashing down and wires dangled from buildings along the beachfront strip." (See also: "Suicide bombing at Tel Aviv Stage Club" (Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2005/02/25))Added in archive:
"Wilders in prison" (DutchReport, 2005/02/18)
"Threatened Dutch MP reveals living on navy base" (Reuters, 2005/02/18)
Friday,
February 25, 2005
News and
commentary:
"In Hindsight, The War On Terror Began With Salman Rushdie" (Jonathan Rauch, National Journal, 2005/02/25)
"Osama bin Laden is a very different creature from Khomeini, and the scale of 9/11 obviously dwarfs the Rushdie affair. But it is not outlandish to think of the World Trade Center towers as The Satanic Verses, magnified immeasurably but not beyond all recognition. Bin Laden is Khomeini's heir, and Rushdie and 9/11 are points on the same line. (Another point was November's murder of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker, by an Islamist who promised that America, Europe, and Holland "will be destroyed.")
Khomeini's torch passed to bin Laden, and if bin Laden is captured or killed, the torch will pass again. The adversary is a movement, not a man. A poll conducted last year by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that bin Laden got favorable ratings from 65 percent of respondents in Pakistan, 55 percent in Jordan, and 45 percent in Morocco (against ratings of 8 percent or lower for President Bush). In 2003, another Pew poll found that "majorities of Muslims, in 10 of the 12 nations in which this question was asked, reject the idea that Islam should tolerate diverse interpretations of its teachings."
Pew cautioned, "This question is not a measure of Islamic fundamentalism or tolerance toward other religions and faiths." Maybe not. By a long shot, most Muslims are not Islamists, and most Islamists are not terrorists. Nonetheless, the Rushdie affair was, in retrospect, no flash in the pan. It was a prairie fire. On that February 14, what Americans now call the war on terror began in earnest.""Merchants of Despair" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/02/25)
"It is wise to cite and publicize our errors — and there have been many in this war. Humility and circumspection are military assets as well. And we should not deprecate the danger of our enemies, who are cruel and ingenious. Moreover, we should never confuse the sharp dissent of the well-meaning critic with disloyalty to the cause.
But nor should we fall into pessimism, when in less than four years we have destroyed the two worst regimes in the Middle East, scattered al Qaeda, avoided another promised 9/11 at home, and sent shock waves of democracy throughout the Arab world — so far at an aggregate cost of less than what was incurred on the first day of this unprovoked war. Car bombs are bad news, but in the shadows is the real story: The terrorists are losing, and radical reform, the likes of which millions have never seen, is right on the horizon. So this American gloominess is not new. Yet, if the past is any guide, our present lack of optimism in this struggle presages its ultimate success.
A final prediction: By the end of this year, formerly critical liberal pundits, backsliding conservative columnists, once-fiery politicians, Arab "moderates," ex-statesmen and generals emeriti, smug stand-up comedians, recently strident Euros — perhaps even Hillary herself — will quietly come to a consensus that what we are witnessing from Afghanistan and the West Bank to Iraq and beyond, with its growing tremors in Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, and the Gulf, is a moral awakening, a radical break with an ugly past that threatens a corrupt, entrenched, and autocratic elite and is just the sort of thing that they were sort of for, sort of all along — sort of...""The mullah has no clothes" (Saul Singer, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/02/25)
"Two things happened in the past few weeks that greatly increased freedom's prospects. In his second inaugural address, President George W. Bush dedicated America to "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." And in Iraq, a people that has never experienced democracy demonstrated a commitment to that goal so powerful that it overcame the threat of death.
Many will think it a stretch to read so much into one speech and one election. Here's why I do, and why, if you check back a year or two from now, you will see it, too.
Iraq's election let the cat of the bag for an entire region, just as the fall of the Berlin Wall did for Central Europe in 1989. The terrorists said, "you vote, you die," and the people gave the terrorists the finger — stained with purple ink.
It is no longer possible to credibly argue that Arabs are uniquely indifferent to freedom or democracy. It is no longer possible for the surrounding dictatorships to defend their oppressive ways as the immutable order of things. The mullah has no clothes. ...
If Bush has his way, 2005 will be this region's 1989. There will be — as already happened in Ukraine and Iraq, is happening in Lebanon and could happen in Iran — a clash between two forces: the Bush-oppressed people's alliance and the axis of evil. Oppressed peoples will be the 2005 equivalent of the 82nd Airborne."
"U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza..."
(Kevin Lamarque, Reuters, 2005/02/23)
"U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza is applauded by soldiers of the 1st Armored Division as she steps out to speak before U.S. President George W. Bush at Weisbaden Army Airfield Base in Germany, February 23, 2005.""Condoleezza Rice's Commanding Clothes" (Robin Givhan, The Washington Post, 2005/02/25)
"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf. The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the "save humanity" ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix."
As Rice walked out to greet the troops, the coat blew open in a rather swashbuckling way to reveal the top of a pair of knee-high boots. ...
Rice looked as though she was prepared to talk tough, knock heads and do a freeze-frame "Matrix" jump kick if necessary. Who wouldn't give her ensemble a double take — all the while hoping not to rub her the wrong way?
Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power — such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal. When looking at the image of Rice in Wiesbaden, the mind searches for ways to put it all into context. It turns to fiction, to caricature. To shadowy daydreams. Dominatrix!" (See also: "Do Not Offend Our Future Rulers" (Tim Blair, timblair.net, 2005/02/24))"Israel Draws the Line" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2005/02/25)
"The fence decision makes clear that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza is only part of a larger strategy, the first serious strategic idea Israel has had since its period of utter confusion and demoralization at the beginning of the 2000 intifada. The idea is this: Israel must (unilaterally, if necessary) rationalize its defensive lines — in order to (1) protect its citizens, (2) permanently defuse the Palestinian terrorist threat and thus (3) open the door to a final peace.
Evacuating Gaza and completing the fence are complementary parts of that strategy. Both Gaza and the northern West Bank are separated from Israel by fences. Not a single suicide bomber has infiltrated through them. As a result, northern Israel enjoys calm. ...
Everyone wants peace, but Sharon's real obsession is terrorism. From his days as a young commando in the 1950s, he has been a fanatic about fighting terrorism. Take away the terror weapon and everything else follows: safety, stability and the conditions for a final peace. A peace based not on the good will of a Sharon or a Mahmoud Abbas but on the new reality on the ground: separate nations delineated by a temporary barrier to produce a temporary peace — and the possibility of a final one."
Thursday,
February 24, 2005
News and
commentary:
Hatin Sürücü
(Polizei Berlin/Deutsche Welle, 2005/02/24)
"Hatin Sürücü: Was her move to live life on her own terms her undoing?""When Freedom Gets the Death Sentence" (Deutsche Welle, 2005/02/24)
"The murder of a Turkish woman and the applauding of the crime by some students have left Berlin shaken and officials pushing for ethics class. But how deep does the concept of honor run among some immigrant communities?":
"On Feb. 7, 23-year-old Hatin Sürücü was gunned down at the aforementioned bus stop. She died on the spot. Shortly afterwards, three of her brothers — who reportedly had long been threatening her — were arrested. Investigators suspect it was a so-called "honor killing," given the fact that Sürücü's ultra-conservative Turkish-Kurdish family strongly disapproved of her modern and "un-Islamic" life. ...
Days after Hatin Sürücü was killed, some male students of Turkish origin at a high school near the scene of the crime reportedly downplayed the act. During a class discussion on the murder, one said, "She (Hatin Sürücü) only had herself to blame," while another remarked "She deserved what she got — the whore lived like a German." The school's director promptly dashed off a letter to parents and students, castigating the students and warning that the school didn’t tolerate incitement against freedom.
The comments have sparked outrage and left many asking if it was just a one-off or whether such thinking is in fact not entirely uncommon among sections of the Muslim community in the city.
According to some, it isn't. "There isn't a single school with a high foreign population where teachers haven't faced this kind of thing, where individual students sometimes regard murder as a just sentence," said Heinz Wagner, head of school and education policy at the VBE teachers trade union and a school director himself." (Hat tip: Rochi Ebner.)
"A cheerleader performs for soldiers of the 1st Armored Division..."
(Kevin Lamarque, Reuters, 2005/02/23)
"A cheerleader performs for soldiers of the 1st Armored Division as they await the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush at Wiesbaden Army Airfield in Wiesbaden, Germany, February 23, 2005.""Do Not Offend Our Future Rulers" (Tim Blair, timblair.net, 2005/02/24)
"The BBC’s Justin Webb warns us all to behave:Some amazement at the warm-up act for the President at his US airbase visit before he left Germany.
Cheerleaders - scantily-dressed and provocatively choreographed - charged around the stage, shaking their assets at the assembled troops …
Admittedly, this was an all-American affair, and cheerleading is an all-American, wholesome sport.
But these pictures were available to any TV station in the world - including the Muslim world.Those cheerleaders are going to look great in burkas." (See also: "The politically sexy Condi Rice" (Justin Webb, BBC News, 2005/02/23))
"Charming and offensive" (Hal Lindsey, WorldNetDaily, 2005/02/24)
Lindsey sums up the result of Bush's fence-mending tour in Europe:
"France agreed to aid in training Iraqi police, offering to send a single French national to Belgium, where he will serve as a coordinator in transferring unspecified "equipment" to the Iraqi security services.
Germany agreed to aid in training Iraqi troops as well, provided the Iraqis can come to the United Arab Emirates, since Germany won't send any of its troops to Iraq.
Belgium, not to be outdone by French and German cooperation, promised to send 10 driving instructors to Qatar, where, if they find any Iraqi police officers walking around, they will teach them how to drive back to Baghdad.
And tiny Estonia also made the list of European donors, offering to send a single staff officer to Iraq, equipped with a reconstruction budget of $65,000. It is unclear whether that amount is over and above, or if it includes, the staff officer's salary and expenses. (But at least Belgium can brag it has [a] troop on the ground in Iraq.)
Overall, as a consequence of President Bush's fence-mending tour, the assembled heads of the European Community met at NATO headquarters to announce a joint pledge of just over $5 million to offset America's $5 billion commitment to aid the Iraqi people.
Given the price tag for security and travel for the president and his entourage, the E.U. pledge should come to just about half what it cost the United States to ask for it.""Taking on Tehran" (Kenneth Pollack and Ray Takeyh, Foreign Affairs, from the March/April 2005 issue)
"With Tehran divided over how to balance its nuclear ambitions with its economic needs, Washington has an opportunity to keep it from crossing the nuclear threshold. Since the economy is a growing concern for the Iranian leadership, Washington can boost its leverage by working with the states that are most important to Tehran's international economic relations: the western European countries and Japan, as well as Russia and China, if they can be persuaded to cooperate. Together, these states must raise the economic stakes of Iran's nuclear aspirations. They must force Tehran to confront a painful choice: either nuclear weapons or economic health. ...
On one course, Iran would agree to give up its nuclear program, accept a comprehensive inspection regime, and end its support for terrorism. In exchange, the United States would lift sanctions and settle Iran's claims over the assets of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The West would also consider bringing Iran into international economic organizations such as the World Trade Organization, granting Iran increased commercial ties, and perhaps even providing it with economic assistance. ...
If, on the other hand, Iran decided to stay its current course, U.S. allies would join Washington in imposing precisely the sort of sanctions the mullahs fear would scuttle Iran's precarious economy. These sanctions could take the form of everything from barring investment in specific projects or entire sectors (such as the oil industry) to severing all commercial contacts with Iran if it proved utterly unwilling to address Western demands.""Saudi 'Soldier'" (Stephen Schwartz, New York Post, 2005/02/24)
"In Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday, a 23-year-old Northern Virginia man of Saudi Arabian background named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was charged with conspiring to assassinate President Bush. ... What's most remarkable about this case is the degree to which this would-be assassin is a Saudi creation.
In 1999, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was the valedictorian for the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), a K-12 school with campuses in Fairfax and Alexandria, Va., that is directly controlled by the Royal Saudi Embassy in Washington.
ISA is dedicated to teaching Wahhabism, the hate-cult that serves as the de facto Saudi state religion. The curriculum: defiance of the authority of "unbeliever" governments, including ours; repudiation of democracy; cultivation of hatred of non-Muslims as well as Muslims who do not follow the fundamentalist Wahhabi creed. ...
Story after story appears in our media, and Saudi subjects continue to figure at the center of terrorist conspiracies. Americans have the right to say: Enough.
The U.S. government has the duty to roll up the Saudi-Wahhabi hate conspiracy in this country once and for all, and to demand that the kingdom turn off the flow of cash that keeps it going." (See also: "Man Charged in Alleged Plot to Kill Bush" (Matthew Barak, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/22))"The Middle East at a 'Tipping Point'" (ABC News/FrontPageMagazine, 2005/02/24 [2005/02/22])
"Below is the transcript from last night's Nightline, which featured Malcolm Gladwell, author of the best-selling book Tipping Point, and The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.":
"TK: All right. Let's look at the elections last month. And Tom Friedman, I'm an avid reader of your column. So, I know that you, in fact, believe that something fundamental has shifted here. Have we reframed the way we think about Iraq, as seen through the prism of those elections? And if so, why?
TOM FRIEDMAN: I think we have, Ted. And I like the way Malcolm really defined the tipping point as a reframing. I would argue that before the election in Iraq, Iraq was perceived -- the meta-story in Iraq was "Iraqi insurgents, against American occupiers and their Iraqi lackeys." I would argue after the election, the whole issue in Iraq has been reframed much more as a civil war between a tiny Jihadist insurgency and Baathist insurgency, against what is clearly an overwhelming Iraqi majority that aspires to some form of constitutionalism and pluralism. And so, I like the way Malcolm has defined it because in that sense, Iraq -this election is a tipping point. I believe it has begun to reframe the issue. I think for it to successfully reframe the issue, the insurgency has to be defeated now by that Iraqi majority. ...
I think the chance for a decent outcome there has been elevated enormously because of the election, Ted. But, you know, as I noted the other day, I think if we put all the events in the Middle East together, we're seeing the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall there. That is truly good news.""The Unheralded Revolution" (Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post, 2005/02/24)
The revolution is not only unheralded — Amnesty actually alleges that women in Iraq are "no better off than under the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein":
"Look beyond the jockeying for jobs in Iraq's embryonic transitional government. Focus instead on the final results in that Arab country's matrix-breaking election. They reveal a little-publicized result that President Bush, feminist organizations and democracy advocates should be shouting from the rooftops.
Nearly one-third of the 140 winning candidates on the Shiite parliamentary list are women. Moreover, those 45 women from the list supported by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tend to be more educated, better informed and more committed to change than are their male counterparts, who include a number of political hacks. ...
But the president's failure thus far to highlight the success of women in the elections -- 31 percent of Iraq's newly elected 275 parliamentarians are women -- suggests that not even he fully appreciates the forces of change that he may have unleashed by toppling dictatorships in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nor do gender liberationists in the West seem eager to publicize this stunning result. Could they not want to accept even implicitly the notion that war can create the conditions needed for a positive social revolution?" (See also: "Iraqi women no better off post-Saddam - Amnesty" (Jeremy Lovell, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/21))"Syria Ready to Work with U.N. on Lebanon Pullout" (Inal Ersan, Reuters, 2005/02/24)
"Syria said Thursday it was ready to work with the United Nations to implement a Security Council resolution requiring Syrian troops to leave Lebanon.
"Syria expresses its keen interest in cooperating with the envoy of the secretary-general of the United Nations to accomplish his mission in the best formula possible," Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed al-Mualem told reporters.
"The important withdrawals that have been carried out so far and will be carried out later will be done in agreement with Lebanon against the backdrop of the Taif Accord and the mechanisms it entails," he said. ...
Mualem's remarks were the clearest official response Syria has made so far to the outcry against its role in Lebanon.""Syria elite seeks Lebanon pullout" (Nicholas Blanford, The Times, 2005/02/24)
"About 140 Syrian intellectuals and human rights activists yesterday published an open letter urging Damascus to withdraw its estimated 14,000 troops from Lebanon to avoid further international censure.
The letter, addressed to the Lebanese opposition, said: “We support your demand for the withdrawal of the Syrian Army from Lebanon and in correcting the Syrian-Lebanese relationship.”
Syria deals harshly with political dissent. The intellectuals who signed the letter criticising their Government risk being jailed. ...
Mr Hariri’s death has spurred an outpouring of anti-Syrian anger in Lebanon. A dormitory for Syrians in north Lebanon was burnt down last week and mobs in Hariri’s home town of Sidon have attacked Syrian workers.
Thousands of Syrian labourers have fled in the past week, fearing further reprisals."
Wednesday,
February 23, 2005
News and
commentary:
"A protestor with her face painted white..."
(Pawel Kopczynski, Reuters, 2005/02/23)
"A protestor with her face painted white marches during an anti U.S. President George W. Bush demonstration in the south-western German city of Mainz February 23, 2005.""German protesters call Bush 'No. 1 Terrorist'" (Alexandra Hudson, Reuters, 2005/02/23)
And the prize for the most stupid banner of the rally goes to — "WAR IS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY". Before the war Iraq was one of the worst tyrannies in history. Because of the war it is closer to democracy than ever before. It's also pretty rich for Germans to allege that you can't be bombed into peace:
"MAINZ, Germany (Reuters) - Some 7,000 protesters, some carrying banners saying "Bush go home", "War Monger" and "No. 1 Terrorist", marched through the German town of Mainz on Wednesday but were kept away from the visiting U.S. president. ...
Ignoring snow and freezing temperatures, the demonstrators held banners chastising Bush in English with slogans such as: "You can bomb the world to pieces but not into peace." Many had pre-printed posters reading: "Bush, No. 1 Terrorist".
Before the march, one speaker told the crowd: "Mr. Bush, please leave our country. You started an illegal war against Iraq."
German police confiscated one poster that read: "We had our Hitler, now you have yours."
Some protesters praised Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for his opposition to the Iraq war and refusal to send troops.
"Schroeder's opposition to the Iraq war made me so proud to be German," said Helmut Bach, 50, a pilot who marched with his 20-year-old daughter. 'That's why I voted for him.'""Iraqi TV Airs Tape of Purported Confession" (Maggie Michael, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/23)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi state television aired a video Wednesday showing what the U.S.-funded channel said was the confession of a captured Syrian officer who said he trained Iraqi insurgents to behead people and build car bombs to attack American and Iraqi troops.
The video also showed an Iraqi who said the insurgents practiced beheading animals to train for decapitating hostages. ...
In the video, the man, identified as Lt. Anas Ahmed al-Essa of the Syrian intelligence service, said his group had been recruited to "cause chaos in Iraq ... to bar America from reaching Syria."
"We received all the instructions from Syrian intelligence," al-Essa, 30, said on a video broadcast by state-run Iraqiya TV, which can be seen nationwide. ...
In the video, the bearded al-Essa, dressed in a gray jacket and shirt, claimed to be leader of the al-Fateh Army, which has not been heard of before.
He was one of 11 men claiming in front of the camera that they were recruited by Syrian intelligence officers. The other 10 were identified as Iraqis.""Anatomy of a French Media Scandal" (Ricki Hollander, CAMERA, 2005/02/23)
CAMERA "sorts out the claims and counter-claims" regarding the Mohammed Al Dura affair:
"Denis Jeambar and Daniel Leconte are among the few independent journalists who viewed France 2's raw footage. ... Jeambar describes faked injuries which make up most of France 2's raw footage.… In the 24 minutes of film preceding the footage of Al Dura, young Palestinians are performing for the television cameras. They "fall and when they think that no one is around, they get up. ...it was interesting to realize that the narrator had this perspective. This is a behind-the-scene that was never shown [on TV]. They completely fake their injuries, the comings and goings of an ambulance that evacuates people who do not actually have any injury. ..." [Denis Jeambar, in interview with RCJ radio, February 1, 2005.]
Leconte suggests that the French public's anti-Israeli preconceptions may have influenced Enderlin's misleading commentary.
"[The report that Israel shot the boy] generally corresponded to what the global French opinion wanted to hear at that time, and that, I think, is what seems to me to be the most alarming as a whole. I have the feeling that one has a pre-patterned version of what happens in the Middle East and that, in the end, the facts are assembled to preserve that pattern. And I believe that, if you will, it isn't the role of a journalist to do that... Nobody is immune from error... But the minimum when one makes mistakes such as these which are also serious with many consequences, is to admit them." [Daniel Leconte, in interview with RCJ radio, February 1, 2005.]"
(Hat tip: Rochi Ebner.)
More on Mohammed Al Dura:
"French TV Sticks by Story That Fueled Palestinian Intifada" (Eva Cahen, CNS News, 2005/02/15)
"Photo of Palestinian Boy Kindles Debate in France" (Doreen Carvajal, The New York Times, 2005/02/07)
"The Israeli Crime That Wasn’t" (Alyssa A. Lappen, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/12/28)
"The mythical martyr" (Stephane Juffa, The Wall Street Journal/Backspin, 2004/12/06 [2004/11/26])
"Who Shot Mohammed al-Dura?" (James Fallows, The Atlantic, from the June 2003 issue)"Could George W. Bush Be Right?" (Claus Christian Malzahn, Der Spiegel, 2005/02/23)
"Quick quiz. He was re-elected as president of the United States despite being largely disliked in the world -- particularly in Europe. The Europeans considered him to be a war-mongerer and liked to accuse him of allowing his deep religious beliefs to become the motor behind his foreign policy. Easy right?
Actually, the answer isn't as obvious as it might seem. President Ronald Reagan's visit to Berlin in 1987 was, in many respects, very similar to President George W. Bush's visit to Mainz on Wednesday. ...
When Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate -- and the Berlin Wall -- and demanded that Gorbachev "tear down this Wall," he was lampooned the next day on the editorial pages. He is a dreamer, wrote commentators. Realpolitik looks different. ...
Yet three years later, East Germany had disappeared from the map. Gorbachev had a lot to do with it, but it was the East Germans who played the larger role. When analysts are confronted by real people, amazing things can happen. And maybe history can repeat itself. Maybe the people of Syria, Iran or Jordan will get the idea in their heads to free themselves from their oppressive regimes just as the East Germans did. When the voter turnout in Iraq recently exceeded that of many Western nations, the chorus of critique from Iraq alarmists was, at least for a couple of days, quieted. Just as quiet as the chorus of Germany experts on the night of Nov. 9, 1989 when the Wall fell.
Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on: Bush might be right, just like Reagan was then.""Despite the folly of it, Iraq was the right war" (Roger Cohen, International Herald Tribune, 2005/02/23)
"'Iraq,' [Iraq's human rights minister, Bakhtiar Amin] says, "is a museum of crimes."
The layout of the museum is a work in progress. Amin is assembling a data base that will list all the dictator's murders; a delegation is being sent to Bosnia and to Kosovo to learn how to organize the data. "We are working with bones, with teeth," he says. "It's hard work to identify victims."
How many are there? Amin does not know. He says his ministry was sifting through 150,000 files and 60 kilograms, or 130 pounds, of material recently delivered by the Red Cross. Perhaps half a million Kurds were killed, he suggested, and hundreds of thousands of Shiites. "For the total numbers, we need time" he says.
Amin knew one of the dead well. His father-in-law, Sheik Taleb al-Suhail, a prominent opponent of the former regime, was murdered by three agents of Saddam in Beirut in 1994. Nobody has been punished for the crime.
"We owe our freedom to Americans," the minister says.
"The real occupation is not theirs, but the one we suffered for 35 years by the group of thugs who brutalized my nation."
It is hard to argue with Amin. He wields the weapon of truth with directness. ...
How many such stories are there? Too many for the Germans and the French to be so comfortable in their conviction that the war was wrong. This war was falsely portrayed, poorly planned, and hurt by hubris. But it was the right war.
Some people in Europe should have the courage to tell that to George W. Bush this week.""Freedom? Why Europe's not bothered" (Janet Daley, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/02/23)
"Europe has had disillusionments too great to permit a return to that purist belief in the transforming power of democratic institutions. What was left standing in the ruins of the Bonapartist experiment was effectively demolished by the two world wars. The people - with nothing but the raw franchise - will never be allowed to run amok again. Europeans cannot be trusted to govern themselves. Their affairs will be administered by an EU oligarchy. And if they do not trust their own populations, European leaders are scarcely going to support handing out freedom to anarchic tribal societies that scarcely know what the right to vote is for. (Never mind that the only way to learn the value of democracy is to practise it.)
Europeans have found something better, and more readily controlled, as a substitute for personal liberty. They have found wealth: mass prosperity and the kind of government-subsidised economic security that their countries, traumatised by generations of war and unrest, have never known. Since the Cold War ended, they have been able to consolidate the post-war economic miracle with a "peace dividend": all that money that used to be spent on arms could go into more and more generous welfare and pension arrangements. So now they are not even fit to defend themselves, or to sort out a mess in their own Balkan backyard. Why should they join in any crazy scheme to bring peace to the rest of the world?""Reactions to Former Lebanese PM Al-Hariri's Assassination" (C. Jacob, MEMRI, 2005/02/24)
Hariri XXIV. It's interesting times indeed when a British left-wing daily's "Blame Israel" reflex is criticized by a Saudi government daily:
"On the other hand, the Saudi government daily Al-Watan rejected the accusations against Israel: "What is Israel's interest in assassinating Al-Hariri, or in rekindling civil war in Lebanon…? Using Israel as an element on which to blame all our failures, missteps, and disappointments is a sad, stupid affair, because it is an escape from criticizing ourselves and admitting error and powerlessness." ...
Columnist Ihsan Al-Taraboulsi wrote on the progressive website www.elaph.com: 'If only Allah would bless the Mossad and ['Abdallah] bin Saba, who have become the pretext for all the criminal murderers' crimes. This morning 'Azmi Bishara, Israeli MP and ally of Syria, comes out to us with a declaration broadcast and welcomed by Al-Jazeera, in which he said that the Mossad agent 'Abdallah bin Saba is the murderer. If the Mossad or 'Abdallah bin Saba did not exist, we would have to create them ourselves so that we could blame all our crimes on them.'""Who killed Rafik Hariri?" (Patrick Seale, The Guardian, 2005/02/23)
Hariri XXIII. Seale joins Eric Margolis in insinuating that Israel is responsible for the assassination:
"So attributing responsibility for the murder to Syria is implausible. The murder is more likely to be the work of one of its many enemies. ...
If Syria did not kill Hariri, who could have? There is no shortage of potential candidates, including far-right Christians, anxious to rouse opinion against Syria and expel it from Lebanon; Islamist extremists who have not forgiven Syria its repression of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 80s; and, of course, Israel.
Israel's ambition has long been to weaken Syria, sever its strategic alliance with Iran and destroy Hizbullah. Israel has great experience at "targeted assassinations" - not only in the Palestinian territories but across the Middle East. Over the years, it has sent hit teams to kill opponents in Beirut, Tunis, Malta, Amman and Damascus." (See also: "Blame game redux" (Backspin, 2005/02/20))"Beirut's Berlin Wall" (David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 2005/02/23)
Hariri XXII: "BEIRUT -- "Enough!" That's one of the simple slogans you see scrawled on the walls around Rafiq Hariri's grave site here. And it sums up the movement for political change that has suddenly coalesced in Lebanon and is slowly gathering force elsewhere in the Arab world.
"We want the truth." That's another of the Lebanese slogans, painted on a banner hanging from the Martyr's Monument near the mosque where Hariri is buried. It's a revolutionary idea for people who have had to live with lies spun by regimes that were brutally clinging to power. People want the truth about who killed Hariri last week, but on a deeper level they want the truth about why Arab regimes have failed to deliver on their promises of progress and prosperity. ...
"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains [Walid] Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. 'The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.'""The Secret Genocide Archive" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2005/02/23)
Kristof on a secret archive gathered by African Union monitors of thousands of photos and reports that document the genocide under way in Darfur:
"One wrenching photo in the archive shows the manacled hands of a teenager from the girls' school in Suleia who was burned alive. It's been common for the Sudanese militias to gang-rape teenage girls and then mutilate or kill them.
Another photo shows the body of a young girl, perhaps 10 years old, staring up from the ground where she was killed. Still another shows a man who was castrated and shot in the head.
This archive, including scores of reports by the monitors on the scene, underscores that this slaughter is waged by and with the support of the Sudanese government as it tries to clear the area of non-Arabs. Many of the photos show men in Sudanese Army uniforms pillaging and burning African villages. I hope the African Union will open its archive to demonstrate publicly just what is going on in Darfur.
The archive also includes an extraordinary document seized from a janjaweed official that apparently outlines genocidal policies. Dated last August, the document calls for the "execution of all directives from the president of the republic" and is directed to regional commanders and security officials.
"Change the demography of Darfur and make it void of African tribes," the document urges. It encourages 'killing, burning villages and farms, terrorizing people, confiscating property from members of African tribes and forcing them from Darfur.'"Added in archive:
"When Jews wax anti-Semitic" (Cathy Young, The Boston Globe 2005/02/07)
Tuesday,
February 22, 2005
News and
commentary:
"Iran Jails Editor for 14 Years for Insulting Leaders" (Reuters, 2005/02/22)
Free Mojtaba and Arash Day II: "TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian journalist was jailed for 14 years on charges ranging from espionage to insulting the country's leaders in an unusually heavy sentence in Iran, where tens of journalists have been tried in recent years.
Rights activists said on Tuesday that Arash Sigarchi, 28, was convicted by the Revolutionary Court in the Caspian province of Gilan in northern Iran.
Sigarchi, a newspaper editor in Gilan who also wrote an Internet journal or "weblog," was arrested last month after responding to a summons from the Intelligence Ministry.
"In total, he has been given 14 years in prison," Mohammad Saifzadeh, a member of Center for Defense of Human Rights in Tehran told Reuters by telephone. ...
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said Sigarchi had been updating a weblog in which he had spoken out about the arrest of more than 20 Internet journalists, technicians and webbloggers late last year.""Global blogger action day called" (BBC News, 2005/02/22)
Free Mojtaba and Arash Day I: "The global web log community is being called into action to lend support to two imprisoned Iranian bloggers.
The month-old Committee to Protect Bloggers is asking those with blogs to dedicate their sites on Tuesday to the "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day".
Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran. ...
"I hope this day will focus people," Curt Hopkins, director of the Committee, told the BBC News website.
The group has a list of actions which it says bloggers can take, including writing to local Iranian embassies.
The Committee has deemed Tuesday "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day" as part of its first campaign."
"GO AHEAD, PISS ON ME!!"
(The Weekly Standard, 2005/02/22)"Piss Off" (Paul Belien, The Weekly Standard, 2005/02/22)
"WHEN JOHAN VANDE LANOTTE, Belgium's Vice Prime Minister, goes to the toilets today, he finds the urinals in the offices of his ministry decorated with stickers. They show an American flag and the head of George W. Bush. "Go ahead. Piss on me," the caption says.
Vande Lanotte is one of Bush's hosts in Brussels. Is peeing on your guest's head appropriate? In Belgium it is. After all, Brussels' best known statue is that of "Manneken Pis," a peeing boy.
The piss stickers, specially made to be used in urinals, can be seen these days in the public toilets of Belgian schools, youth clubs, and pubs. They were designed by Laurent Winnock, president of the Young Socialists, the youth branch of Vande Lanotte's Socialist party. Winnock did his creative work during his office hours, which would not be worth mentioning if Winnock did not work in the offices of Vice Prime Minister Vande Lanotte, as one of his press spokesmen.""Wilders in Prison (2)" (DutchReport, 2005/02/22)
"Earlier I reported that representative Wilders is in Prison, because he is under threat by Dutch Islamic extremist. This is part 2 of the story:
Parliamentary chairman [Frans] Weisglas now says he is “shocked by the disinterested reactions” in parliament after the protest of representatives Hirsi Ali and Wilders. ”I think the parliamentary members accept it way to easy that a colleague, has to sleep for months in a prison cell”. He describes it as a “disgrace” and “a pathetic show” that Wilders is in prison to protect him against terrorism. ...
Security expert Hans Salman says in NRC newspaper that he nearly couldn’t believe the news: “Wilders? In a prison?”. ... Salman who has now 25 years experience says he is “very surprised” how the two are housed. “This is asking for trouble” he says and continues with: 'Every body knows that nobody can endure something like this. Staying for moths in a cell in Zeist or the Amsterdam Marine complex – I know both locations – generates a lot of emotional resistance: nobody can sustain that.'" (Hat tip: Wretchard. See also: "Wilders in prison" (DutchReport, 2005/02/18) and "Threatened Dutch MP reveals living on navy base" (Reuters, 2005/02/18))"Prejudice for the Day" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2005/02/22)
"The row over the Thought for the Day broadcast by the Scottish cleric Rev Dr John Bell has taken an even more surreal and sinister turn. As I noted in a previous post, BBC Radio Four allowed Bell to broadcast a totally unsubstantiated smear that the Israel Defence Force ordered its soldiers to shoot unarmed Palestinian children. ... Now, an official in the Church of Scotland has weighed into the controversy — by comparing Bell to Jesus! In a letter to the Herald, Sandy Gemmill, a deputy treasurer in the church, has written:‘Two thousand years ago there was a man in Israel who used such uncorroborated tales of Samaritans, servants, agricultural workers, sheep, weddings and the like to illustrate various controversial points. Clearly the passage of time has not dampened the enthusiasm of the Israeli authorities to speak out against such tales and take action to suppress apparent lies.’ ...
So faced with a libel perpetrated against the Jews, Gemmill concludes that the Jews who are protesting are trying to suppress the truth and crucify the perpetrator, just like he thinks they did to Jesus! One is aghast at this calumny piled upon calumny, at the anti-Jewish prejudice that is here revealed and at the brazen revelation of the ancient theological underpinning of this prejudice." (See also: "Uncorroborated tales" (Sandy Gemmill, The Herald, 2005/02/21). Also: "BBC's deep thoughts" (Backspin, 2005/02/13))
"Man Charged in Alleged Plot to Kill Bush" (Matthew Barak, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/22)
"ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A Virginia man was charged Tuesday with plotting with al-Qaida to kill President Bush in a conspiracy prosecutors said was hatched while the man studied in Saudi Arabia.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, a U.S. citizen, had been held without charges in Saudi Arabia since June 2003. He was returned to the United States and made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court shortly after his arrival Tuesday morning at Dulles International Airport. ...
According to the indictment, Abu Ali discussed Bush-assassination plans with an unidentified al-Qaida member in 2002 and 2003, while Abu Ali was attending college in Saudi Arabia.
They discussed two scenarios, the indictment said, one in which Abu Ali "would get close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" and, alternatively, "an operation in which Abu Ali would detonate a car bomb." ...
More than 100 friends and family jammed the courthouse to show their support for Abu Ali. Many of them laughed in the courtroom when government lawyers described the alleged assassination plot.
"It's lies. It's all lies," his father Omar Abu Ali, a Falls Church, Va., resident, said after the hearing. 'The government lied from the very first day.'""Al-Jaafari Likely to Become Next Iraqi PM" (Maggie Michael, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/22)
"Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the head of a religious party who fought Saddam Hussein and took refuge in Iran for a decade, was chosen Tuesday as the dominant Shiite ticket's candidate for prime minister — making him the overwhelming favorite for the post.
Al-Jaafari's selection came after former Washington ally Ahmad Chalabi dropped out of the race following three days of round-the-clock bargaining. Al-Jaafari has been seen as having close ties to Iran's ruling clergy, though he denies any links to a government that President Bush has said is part of an "axis of evil."
Al-Jaafari told the AP last week that Islam should be the official religion of Iraq "and one of the main sources for legislation, along with other sources that do not harm Muslim sensibilities." ...
He skirted his party's official position, which explicitly urges for the "Islamization" of Iraqi society and the state, including the implementation of Shariah, or Islamic law.
'Theory is different from practice,' al-Jaafari said.""Atlanticist small talk is all that's left" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/02/22)
"Nato will not be around circa 2015 — which is why the Americans are talking it up right now. An organisation that represents the fading residual military will of mostly post-military nations is marginally less harmful than the EU, which is the embodiment of their pacifist delusions. But, either way, there's not a lot to talk about. Try to imagine significant numbers of French, German or Belgian troops fighting alongside American forces anywhere the Yanks are likely to find themselves in the next decade or so: it's not going to happen.
America and Europe both face security threats. But the difference is America's are external, and require hard choices in tough neighbourhoods around the world, while the EU's are internal and, as they see it, unlikely to be lessened by the sight of European soldiers joining the Great Satan in liberating, say, Syria. That's not exactly going to help keep the lid on the noisier Continental mosques.
So what would you do in Bush's shoes? Slap 'em around a bit? What for? Where would it get you? Or would you do exactly what he's doing? Climb into the old soup-and-fish, make small talk with Mme Chirac and raise a glass of champagne to the enduring friendship of our peoples: what else is left? This week we're toasting the end of an idea: the death of 'the West.'""People Power Hits Lebanon" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2005/02/22)
Hariri XXI: "Until a week ago, the courtyard of the Muhammad Ali-Amin Mosque in central Beirut was a quiet place where elderly citizens took time off to feed the pigeons. Yesterday, however, it held the largest gathering Lebanon has ever seen.
This was the culmination of a week in which an endless flow of people from all walks of life and different faiths had continued in and out of the mosque united by a single purpose: to call for a restoration of Lebanon's freedom and independence as a nation. ...
The genie of people power has come out of the bottle and no amount of political chicanery will send it back in. Nor can Syria dispatch its tanks to crush the demonstrators on the streets of Beirut as the Soviet Union did in Prague in 1968.
"This is the start of Lebanon's second war of independence," says parliamentarian Marwan Hamade. "We are determined that Hariri's tragic death be transformed into the rebirth of our nation."
Those who have wondered where next the flame of freedom may rise in the Middle East have their answer. After free and fair elections in Iraq, it is now the turn of Lebanon to break the shackles of tyranny and take the path of democracy.""Lebanon's Liberation Approaches" (Daniel Pipes, New York Sun/danielpipes.org, 2005/02/22)
Hariri XX: "There can be little doubt that Assad was behind the massive (probably underground) blast on Feb. 14 that gouged a 20-yard wide crater, killing Hariri and sixteen others. With his flair for incompetence, Assad presumably decided that the former prime minister had to die for this betrayal. But, quite contrary to Assad’s presumed expectations, far from reducing pressures on Syria to leave Lebanon, the atrocity magnified and intensified them. ...
For the first time in three decades, Lebanon now seems within reach of regaining its independence. “I don’t see how Syria can stay now,” observes Lebanon’s former president, Amin Gemayel.
The reassertion of Lebanon’s independence will fittingly reward an unsung steadfastness. The Lebanese may have once squandered their sovereignty, starting with the Syrian invasion of 1976 and culminating in the nearly complete occupation of 1990, but they showed dignity and bravery under occupation. Against the odds, they asserted a civil society, kept alive the hope of freedom, and retained a sense of patriotism.
Lebanon’s independence will also serve as a large nail in the coffin of the brutal, failed, and unloved Assad dynasty. If things go right, Syria’s liberation should follow on Lebanon’s.""Writing a Wrong" (David Andreatta, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/02/22)
"The city Department of Education, red-faced over Brooklyn sixth-graders who slammed a GI with demoralizing anti-Iraq-war letters as part of a school assignment, will send the 20-year-old private a letter of apology today. ...
[Pfc. Rob] Jacobs is stationed 10 miles from the North Korean border and who has been told he may be headed to Iraq in the near future.
The GI got the ranting missives last month from pint-sized pen pals at JHS 51 in Park Slope.
Filled with political diatribes, the letters — excerpts of which were printed in yesterday's Post — predicted GIs would die by the tens of thousands, accused soldiers of killing Iraqi civilians and bashed President Bush. ...
In an accompanying letter to Jacobs, Kunhardt had written that the students "come from a variety of backgrounds and political beliefs, but unanimously support the bravery and sacrifice of American soldiers around the world."
"Support" was not the word that came to Jacobs' mind when he read the letters.
One girl wrote that she believes Jacobs is "being forced to kill innocent people" and challenged him to name an Iraqi terrorist, concluding, "I know I can't."
Another girl wrote, "I strongly feel this war is pointless," while a classmate predicted that because Bush was re-elected, "only 50 or 100 [soldiers] will survive."
A boy accused soldiers of 'destroying holy places like mosques.'""Rocket man gives up rebellion to put the Taliban on road to peace" (Thomas Coghlan, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/02/22)
Via Captain's Quarters, who wonders: "Will anyone report that the war is over when the Taliban come out of the hills and join the free Afghan people? Doubtful. The American media have all fled the success of Afghanistan and only one or two reporters remain to document Karzai's bold and effective initiative to entice lower-level Taliban to come in from the cold.":
"One of the Taliban's most senior and charismatic commanders has become a key negotiator as more and more members of the Islamic militia in Afghanistan give up the fight against the Americans.
The commander, Abdul Salam, earned the nickname Mullah Rockety because he was so accurate with rocket propelled grenades against Russian troops. ...
After the Taliban's three-year struggle against a superior US force, there is growing optimism among the Americans and Afghan government that the end is close. ...
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, said yesterday that a group of Taliban militia including senior officials will soon join the Afghan government's peace initiative.
"They are in Kabul seeking peace and to boost the reconciliation process," he said, adding that he was hopeful that the Taliban surrender would take place before the parliamentary elections, expected in the summer."
Monday,
February 21, 2005
News and
commentary:
"IT'S TIME FOR 1559"
(Hussein Malla, AP, 2005/02/21)
"A Lebanese woman opposition supporter holds a fake clock that shows the time of the explosion that killed the Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri a week ago during a moment of silence in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday Feb. 21, 2005. ... The slogan on top of the clock refers to United Nations resolution 1559.""Europeans, lend him your ears" (Reginald Dale, Interna
