Archived news and commentary: February 28 - March 6, 2005

2005/02/28 - 2005/03/06
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

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Sunday, March 6, 2005

News and commentary:

"La mia veritá"
(il manifesto, 2005/03/06)

"My truth" (Giuliana Sgrena, il manifesto, 2005/03/06)
Sgrena IV: "The car kept on the road, going under an underpass full of puddles and almost losing control to avoid them. We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating. Losing control of the car in a street full of water in Baghdad and maybe wind up in a bad car accident after all I had been through would really be a tale I would not be able to tell. Nicola Calipari sat next to me. The driver twice called the embassy and in Italy that we were heading towards the airport that I knew was heavily patrolled by U.S. troops. They told me that we were less than a kilometer away...when...I only remember fire. At that point, a rain of fire and bullets hit us, shutting up forever the cheerful voices of a few minutes earlier.
The driver started yelling that we were Italians. "We are Italians, we are Italians." Nicola Calipari threw himself on me to protect me and immediately, I repeat, immediately I heard his last breath as he was dying on me. I must have felt physical pain. I didn't know why. But then I realized my mind went immediately to the things the captors had told me. They declared that they were committed to the fullest to freeing me but I had to be careful, "the Americans don't want you to go back." Then when they had told me I considered those words superfluous and ideological. At that moment they risked acquiring the flavor of the bitterest of truths, at this time I cannot tell you the rest."

"Italy Paid More than $10 Million" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2005/03/06)
Sgrena III: "The Australian’s Natasha Bita fills in another piece of the puzzle, as Giuliana Sgrena reminisces about the halcyon days of her captivity.

But the veteran reporter said her kidnappers had treated her well and had assured her they did not plan to kill her.
“The kidnappers seemed to me to be a very religious group, praying continually from the Koran,” she wrote. “One of the guards came up to me, surprised that the television was showing posters of me in cities across Europe and that (Francesco) Totti, his favorite soccer player, had gone on to the field with ‘Free Giuliana’ written on his shirt.”
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported yesterday that the Italian Government had paid a ransom of between E6-8million ($10-13.4million) to buy Sgrena’s freedom. It also claimed the car’s injured driver told Italian investigators the Americans “knew everything about our mission”.

Ten to $13.4 million. If true, that buys an awful lot of IEDs." (See also: "Fury at death on freedom road" (Natasha Bita, The Australian, 2005/03/07))

"Hostage fears troops targeted her" (BBC News, 2005/03/06)
Sgrena II: "Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena has suggested US troops deliberately tried to kill her moments after she was released by her kidnappers in Baghdad.
Ms Sgrena, writing in her left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto, described how her car came "under a rain of fire".
At that moment, she said she recalled her captors' words that some Americans "don't want you to go back". ...
Upon her release, she said, "They [the kidnappers] said they were committed to releasing me, but that I had to be careful 'because there are Americans who don't want you to go back'."
In another interview with Sky Italia TV, she said it was possible the soldiers had targeted her because Washington opposed the policy of negotiating with kidnappers.
"Everyone knows that the Americans do not like negotiations to free hostages, and because of this I don't see why I should exclude the possibility of me having been the target," she said."

"Wounded Italian Reporter Recalls Ordeal" (Maria Sanminitelli, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/06)
Sgrena I: "Giuliana Sgrena, who writes for the communist newspaper Il Manifesto, described how she was wounded and Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was killed as she was celebrating her freedom on the way to the airport. The shooting Friday has fueled anti-American sentiment in a country where people are deeply opposed to U.S. policy in Iraq.
"I remember only fire," she said in her article. "At that point a rain of fire and bullets came at us, forever silencing the happy voices from a few minutes earlier."
Sgrena said the driver began shouting that they were Italian, then "Nicola Calipari dove on top of me to protect me and immediately, and I mean immediately, I felt his last breath as he died on me."
Suddenly, she said, she remembered her captors' warning her 'to be careful because the Americans don't want you to return.'"

"The vanishing Jews of the Arab world: Baghdad native tells the story of being a Middle East refugee" (Semha Alwaya, San Fransisco Chronicle, 2005/03/06)
"In discussions about refugees in the Middle East, a major piece of the narrative is routinely omitted, and my life is part of the tapestry of what's missing. I am a Jew, and I, too, am a refugee. Some of my childhood was spent in a refugee camp in Israel (yes, Israel). And I am far from being alone.
This experience is shared by hundreds of thousands of other indigenous Jewish Middle Easterners who share a similar background to my own. However, unlike the Palestinian Arabs, our narrative is largely ignored by the world because our story -- that of some 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries dispossessed by Arab governments -- is an inconvenience for those who seek to blame Israel for all the problems in the Middle East. ...
There once was a vibrant presence of nearly 1 million Jews residing in 10 Arab countries. Our Middle Eastern Jewish culture existed long before the Arab world dominated and rewrote the history of the Middle East. Today, however, fewer than 12,000 Jews remain in these lands -- almost none in Iraq. ...
All of this was conducted under the guise of law by Arab governments. This forced Jews to flee lands where we had lived for thousands of years before the Arab-Islamic conquests." (Hat tip: Rochi Ebner.)

"www.FreeNoor.com"
(Nasser Nouri, AP, 2005/03/06)
"Gamila Ismail, the wife of Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour and his deputy in the al-Ghad or Tomorrow party, at a rally of his supporters at Egypt's High Court, Sunday March 6, 2005, in protest of his arrest. The arrest of Nour, detained in January on allegations he forged documents to officially register the party, caused US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to refer to Nour as a 'hero' of democracy and cancel a recent visit to Egypt. Arabic slogans reads as Freedom for Ayamn Nour." (See also: FreeNoor.com.)

"A Crack in the Sphinx" (Saad Eddin Ibrahim, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/03/06)
"The surprise decision by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to propose a constitutional amendment, opening up the process of electing the president by direct competitive balloting, may well be a giant step for democracy in Egypt and the Arab World. Western readers used to pluralistic democracy may find it hard to understand what a potentially huge shift this will be in a country used to imposed military rulers for over 50 years. The most an Egyptian citizen could engage in this process was to show up on the day of a presidential referendum every six years, to say yes or no to the single name appearing on the ballot. This explains why someone like Mr. Mubarak always received over 90% from an indifferent voter turnout. Syrian and Iraqi strongmen did even better, no doubt because Saddam Hussein demanded names and addresses at the bottom of each ballot.
Many area specialists have long maintained that democratization in the Middle East will not get far until Egypt is fully engaged in the process. And Egypt could not truly set out on a path of democratization without first amending its constitution--to downsize the pharaonic powers of its president and set limits on his term in office. (Mr. Mubarak is already into his 24th year.) So the announcement is an important first step, one that the regime may assume it will be able to control to its own advantage, but which may not be that easy to contain once people begin to feel empowered. The genie is out of the bottle."

"A war of words" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2005/03/06)
Aaronovitch on "Lawless World" by Philippe Sands, in which the "central proposition is that the war on terror and the war on Iraq, as prosecuted by America and supported by Britain, pose a unique threat to a valuable system of international justice":
"Sands is against what he sees as American and British illegality because 'relying on bad legal arguments destroys the credibility of governments', but he doesn't recognise that negligence in the face of mass murder, tyranny, the sponsorship of terror or massive abuses of human rights is a much worse destroyer of credibility. He observes that such events as Rwanda and the Balkans 'and most bitterly in the spring of 2003, Iraq, raised serious questions about the adequacy of international rules to protect fundamental human rights'. But why does the overthrow of a vile regime raise questions 'more bitterly' than the world's toleration of the murder of more than 800,000 people? ...
In these circumstances, it is an act of epic solipsism to argue this outcome is negated by the affront the action posed to the international legal system, a system that seemed to permit ill-doing and penalise its prevention. And if the law prevents good actions and objectively protects bad ones, it needs to be changed. Any non-lawyer could tell you that."

"The Bush revolution has only just begun" (Con Coughlin, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/03/06)
"All through the White House last week they talked of little else. Everywhere Bush Administration officials looked they could see the first spring-like buds of freedom starting to appear amid the barren political landscape of the Middle East.
In Beirut crowds of flag-waving demonstrators clamoured for their "cedar revolution", eventually forcing the Syrian-backed government of Omar Qarami to resign. In Cairo the Pharaonic Hosni Mubarak, who has held undisputed power for 25 years, announced that when Egyptians vote in a referendum later this year other candidates will be allowed to challenge his president-for-life status.
These, along with developments such as the recent municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, were just the latest manifestations of a dramatic climate change in the politics of the region. Some of the more enthusiastic pro-democracy supporters are talking of a Prague-like spring sweeping through the tired autocracies of the Arab world."

"Help Us, America!: Germany is finding George W. Bush harder to hate" (Mathias Dopfner, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/03/06)
"Germany currently finds itself experiencing a resurgence of its old anti-Americanism. Or better put, its anti-Americanisms, since there has always been both a left-wing, anti-capitalist and a right-wing nationalist, culturally conservative variety. A new anti-Americanism has been added in the younger generation: the idea being to live American, but talk anti-American. Surveys show that some 50% of the population is in the grip of this phenomenon. Nine out of 10 Germans dislike Mr. Bush. Vladimir Putin is more trusted in this country than the American president. Only 44% think that German foreign policy should be more closely coordinated with the U.S. and 70% are convinced that they no longer owe the Americans a debt for their help in rebuilding the country and in supporting reunification. This is the bad news. The good news: the German case is different from France. France is lost, from a trans-Atlantic point of view. Germany is still uncertain--that is, it can be won. For the Germany that has emerged from the postwar shadow has no real foreign policy concept."

"Unexpected Whiff of Freedom Proves Bracing for the Mideast" (Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, 2005/03/06)
"The entire Middle East seems to be entering uncharted political and social territory with a similar mixture of anticipation and dread. Events in Lebanon and Egypt, following a limited vote for municipal councils in Saudi Arabia and landmark elections in Iraq, as well as the Palestinian territories, combined to give the sense, however tentative, that twilight might be descending on authoritarian Arab governments. ...
In Beirut on Saturday, a crowd of mostly young demonstrators hooted through a speech by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as he repeated too-familiar arguments for pan-Arab solidarity, without committing to a timetable for withdrawing Syrian soldiers from Lebanon. ...
In Lebanon, young demonstrators with gelled hair or bare midriffs serve as an unlikely model for popular uprisings across the Arab world, especially since their goals do not quite apply elsewhere.
They seek to rid themselves of an outside power, Syria, and their movement, the region's first modern mass democratic one, was galvanized by a horrific one-time event: the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri removed a real estate tycoon turned politician who embodied all the country's hopes to rebuild after the civil war from 1975 to 1990. ...
"This is something unknown for the Arab world - it is pacifist, it is democratic and it is spontaneous," Ms. Mourad, 24, said."

"Syria defiant on Lebanon withdrawal" (Damien McElroy and Toby Harnden, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/03/06)
"A defiant President Bashar al-Assad of Syria yesterday rebuffed demands for his 14,000 troops to be withdrawn immediately from Lebanon, announcing that he would redeploy them to the east of the country, closer to the Syrian border. "We will withdraw our forces completely to the Bekaa valley," he said.
In a rare address to parliament in Damascus, Mr Assad attempted to divide the global bloc ranged against him by offering a partial pull back from Lebanon that he thought might satisfy Arab states.
"Our way is to withdraw gradually in co-operation with the Lebanese establishment," he said, in a long speech. ...
Several thousand demonstrators gathered in Beirut's Martyrs' Square to watch the address on video screens. The nightly protests have already led to the resignation of Omar Karami, the pro-Syrian prime minister, and there was satisfaction that Mr Assad was offering concessions.
Most people, however, insisted that all troops should leave and that the Syrian intelligence apparatus in Lebanon be dismantled. "Our goal is full independence and freedom," said Samar Tabchouri, 22, a student."

Saturday, March 5, 2005

News and commentary:

"Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena arrives at Ciampino airport..."
(Max Rossi, Reuters 2005/03/05)
"Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena arrives at Ciampino airport in Rome, March 5, 2005. Sgrena, an Italian reporter, was held hostage in Iraq for more than a month and freed on Friday but was wounded when U.S. forces opened fire on her car as it approached Baghdad airport, killing an Italian secret service agent traveling with her."

"U.S. Forces Injure Freed Italian Reporter" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/05)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nursing an injured shoulder, an Italian journalist held by Iraqi insurgents for a month headed home Saturday, a day after she came under gunfire from U.S. troops while on her way to freedom. An intelligence agent who had helped negotiate her release was killed.
President Bush expressed regret and promised to investigate the incident, which happened at a checkpoint in Baghdad. The military said U.S. soldiers, not knowing the car was carrying journalist Giuliana Sgrena, fired after it failed to slow down.
But Bush's phone call late Friday to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi did little to assuage anger In Italy, which has been holding its breath over Sgrena's fate for weeks. ...
Friday's shooting occurred shortly after her release. It was about 9 p.m. in Baghdad at the time.
The U.S. military said the car was speeding as it approached a coalition checkpoint in western Baghdad on its way to the airport. It said soldiers shot into the engine block only after trying to warn the driver to stop by "hand and arm signals, flashing white lights, and firing warning shots."
The intelligence agent was killed when he threw himself over Sgrena to protect her from U.S. fire, Apcom quoted Gabriele Polo, the editor of the leftist Italian newspaper Il Manifesto, as saying. Sgrena works for Il Manifesto."

"When Rapists Walk Free" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2005/03/05)
"One of the gutsiest people on earth is Mukhtaran Bibi. And after this week, she'll need that courage just to survive.
Mukhtaran, a tall, slim young woman who never attended school as a child, lives in a poor and remote village in the Punjab area of Pakistan. As part of a village dispute in 2002, a tribal council decided to punish her family by sentencing her to be gang-raped. She begged and cried, but four of her neighbors immediately stripped her and carried out the sentence. Then her tormenters made her walk home naked while her father tried to shield her from the eyes of 300 villagers.
Mukhtaran was meant to be so shamed that she would commit suicide. But in a society where women are supposed to be soft and helpless, she proved indescribably tough, and she found the courage to live. She demanded the prosecution of her attackers, and six were sent to death row. ...
Until two days ago, she was thriving. Then - disaster.
A Pakistani court overturned the death sentences of all six men convicted in the attack on her and ordered five of them freed. They are her neighbors and will be living alongside her. Mukhtaran was in the courthouse and collapsed in tears, fearful of the risk this brings to her family.
"Yes, there is danger," she said by telephone afterward. 'We are afraid for our lives, but we will face whatever fate brings for us.'" (See also: "Mukhtar Mai, victim of a gang rape, sheds tears..." (Khalid Tanveer, AP, 2005/03/03))

"The law against religious hatred is – in effect – an invitation to it" (Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/03/05)
Shabina's case II: "A more fundamental question is raised: who decides what is an authentic manifestation of a religious belief? Because white British people are so bored by these questions, most of us vaguely assume that the Muslim religion dictates that certain garments be worn. But in fact this is not so. As in most faiths, there is a dispute about what the rules are. Our "human rights" culture seems to mean that we defer to the stricter versions of the rules.
Shabina's case was supported in the courts by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation that is banned in several countries, although not in Britain. She said the decision was "a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry". Those don't sound like the words of a schoolgirl concerned only with becoming modesty: they sound political, and other Muslim pupils have criticised her for this. What she has been given in Luton would not be permitted in a school in Muslim countries such as Tunisia or Turkey. It is rather as if a Sinn Fein-supporting pupil had won a case claiming that her Irishness required her to wear a beret and a balaclava helmet." (See also: Blasphemy - News and commentary on free speech cases and blasphemy law apologetics.))

"Why Muslim girls cover up for Islam" (Thair Shaikh, The Guardian, 2005/03/05)
Shabina's case I: "A growing number of British Muslim girls are embracing a strict version of Islam in a similar manner to Shabina Begum, who won a landmark ruling earlier this week to wear religious dress to school.":
"According to the Muslim Council of Britain, an increasing number of teenage girls are wearing Islamic clothes and are embracing the religion more intensely than their parents. ...
Miss Begum, 16, is an almost perfect case study of how a happy, integrated schoolgirl can suddenly turn her back on Western values and adopt the strictest form of Islam. The Court of Appeal ruled that she had been denied “the right to education and to manifest her religious beliefs” when Denbigh High School in Luton excluded her for wearing a jilbab.
The circumstances that caused her suddenly on the first day of term in September 2002 at the age of 13 to stop wearing the school uniform of shalwar kameez are complex but tell a story that is being repeated daily in Luton and other Muslim communities. She had been a model student and wanted to be a doctor. She is studying for seven GCSEs at another school in Luton. ...
The influence of Muslim groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and the now disbanded al-Uhajiroun are undeniable. ... Former classmates of Miss Begum, who did not want to be named, said she had gone from being a “normal”, girl to one who had become a devout Muslim almost overnight." (See also: "British Schoolgirl Wins Right to Wear Muslim Dress" (Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters, 2005/03/02))

"From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber" (Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd, The Guardian, 2005/03/05)
"He seemed the model British Muslim citizen - a poster boy for integration whose knowledge of the Qu'ran and achievement at grammar school made Gloucester's close-knit Islamic community proud.
When in November 2003 anti-terrorist police turned up at the terraced house in the Barton and Tredworth district of the city that Saajid Badat shared with his parents, Muhammed and Zubeida, his father never suspected a thing.
Seeing officers at the end of his road, he invited them in for tea only to be told it was his house they were raiding, and his son they were after. Even when police found plastic explosive, a specially adapted shoe and a length of detonating cord hidden in a green case under Saajid's bed, his family and neighbours could not believe the charges.
Badat, 25, was a Hafiz - a person who could recite by heart all 30 chapters of Islam's holy book. Now with his guilty plea on Monday he admitted that he had signed up for a plot of mass murder - the most significant terrorist conviction of an al-Qaida inspired conspirator in Britain since the September 11 attacks." (See also: "The shoe bomber from a Gloucester grammar" (Sean O’Neill and Stewart Tendler, The Times, 2005/03/01) and "Man Pleads Guilty in U.K. Shoe-Bomb Plot" (Sue Leeman, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/28))

Friday, March 4, 2005

News and commentary:

"Lebanese youths wave their national flag..."
(Kevin Frayer, AP, 2005/03/04)
"Lebanese youths wave their national flag as they take part in an anti-Syria demonstration at Martyr's Square, central Beirut , Lebanon Friday, March 4, 2005. Syrian President Bashar Assad is widely expected to address his country's parliament on Saturday, and a Lebanese politician said he was expected to announce a redeployment of troops to eastern Lebanon, near the Syrian border."

"Eurospeak" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/03/04)
"President Bush supposedly charmed the Europeans, and now they purportedly don't hate us any more. But from the recent trip, it is clear that Americans can still expect two things from the European public and its leadership: deep-seeded anti-Americanism and embarrassing contradictions.":
"One reason that Europe understands so well the braggadocio and sense of inferiority of the impotent Muslim world is that it suffers precisely from some of these same maladies in its own problematic relationship with the United States. A Muslim in Europe who puts a picture of bin Laden on his wall is the equivalent of a European chanting that Bush is Hitler: The Arab does not really wish to destroy the opulent European network that he counts on, nor does the European in jeans with a cell phone truly wish the U.S. would stop protecting his lifestyle. Yet each feels terrible about his own hypocrisy and accompanying appetites for what he professedly hates, and so looks to express angst on the cheap.
The world as we knew it is now in flux, and in one of greatest transformations since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Middle East is slowly rejoining civilization. In response, Europe snores, awakening only to chastise the United States, which alone set off the chain reaction of liberty."

"The Face of Iraqi Terrorism" (Stephen Schwartz, The Weekly Standard, 2005/03/04)
"The Global Research in International Affairs Center in Israel, a highly reputable and reliable think-tank, has published a paper titled "Arab volunteers killed in Iraq: an Analysis," available at e-prism.org. Authored by Dr. Reuven Paz, the paper analyzes the origins of 154 Arab jihadists killed in Iraq in the last six months, whose names have been posted on Islamist websites.
The sample does not account for all jihadists in Iraq, but provides a useful and eye-opening profile of them. Saudi Arabia accounted for 94 jihadists, or 61 percent of the sample, followed by Syria with 16 (10 percent), Iraq itself with only 13 (8 percent), and
Kuwait with 11 (7 percent.) The rest included small numbers from Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Algeria, Morocco (of which one was a resident in Spain), Yemen, Tunisia, the Palestinian territories (only 1), Dubai, and Sudan. The Sudanese was living in Saudi Arabia before he went to die in Iraq.
The names of most of the dead appeared on the websites after the battle of Falluja, and they were all supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda. ...
Paz concludes his study with words difficult to surpass for their clarity and relevance:

"The intensive involvement of Saudi volunteers for Jihad in Iraq is . . . the result of the Saudi government's doublespeak, whereby it is willing to fight terrorism, but only if directly affected by it on its own soil. Saudi Arabia is either deliberately ignoring, or incapable and too weak, to engage in open and brave opposition to Jihadi terrorism outside of the Kingdom . . . Their blind eyes in the face of the Saudi Islamic establishment's support of the Jihad in Iraq may pose a greater threat in the future, as the hundreds of volunteers return home."

Only one thing needs to be added: it's time to close Saudi Arabia's northern border, silence the jihadist preachers, and cut off the financing of international Wahhabism." (See also: "Arab volunteers killed in Iraq: an Analysis" (Reuven Paz, Global Research in International Affairs/IMRA, 2005/03/04))

"What have the Americans ever done for us? Liberated 50 million people..." (Gerard Baker, The Times, 2005/03/04)
"'All right, all right. But apart from liberating 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining dictatorships throughout the Arab world, spreading freedom and self-determination in the broader Middle East and moving the Palestinians and the Israelis towards a real chance of ending their centuries-long war, what have the Americans ever done for us?'":
"It’s too early, in fairness, to claim complete victory in the American-led struggle to bring peace through democratic transformation of the region. Despite the temptation to crow, we must remember that this is not Berlin 1989. There will surely be challenging times ahead in Iraq, Iran, in the West Bank and elsewhere. The enemies of democratic revolution — all the terrorists and Baathists, the sheikhs, the mullahs and the monarchs — are not going to give up without a fight.
But something very important is happening now, something that will be very hard to stop. And, although not all of it can be directly attributed to the US strategy in the region, can anyone seriously argue that it would have happened without it? Neither is it true, as some have tried to argue, that all of this is merely some unintended consequence of an immoral and misconceived war in Iraq.
It was always the express goal of the Bush Administration to change the regime in Baghdad, precisely because of the opportunities for democracy it would open up in the rest of the Arab world."

"The Road to Damascus" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2005/03/04)
"Revolutions do not stand still. They either move forward or die. We are at the dawn of a glorious, delicate, revolutionary moment in the Middle East. It was triggered by the invasion of Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and televised images of 8 million Iraqis voting in a free election. ...
Revolution is in the air. What to do? We are already hearing voices for restraint about liberating Lebanon. Flynt Leverett, your usual Middle East expert, took to the New York Times to oppose the immediate end of Syria's occupation of Lebanon. Instead, we should be trying to "engage and empower" the tyranny in Damascus.
These people never learn. Here we are on the threshold of what Arabs in the region are calling the fall of their own Berlin Wall and our "realists" want us to go back to making deals with dictators. It would be not just a blunder but a tragedy. It would betray our principles. And it would betray the people in Lebanon who have been encouraged by those principles. ...
This is no time to listen to the voices of tremulousness, indecision, compromise and fear. If we had listened to them two years ago, we would still be doing oil for food, no-fly zones and worthless embargoes. It is our principles that brought us to this moment by way of Afghanistan and Iraq. They need to guide us now -- through Beirut to Damascus." (See also: "Democratic Rumblings in Lebanon Are All Well and Good, But..." (Der Spiegel, 2005/03/02))

"Saudis Tell Syria To Leave Lebanon" (Scott Wilson, The Washington Post, 2005/03/04)
"BEIRUT, March 3 – Saudi Arabia's rulers warned Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday to begin withdrawing his country's troops from Lebanon or risk damaging relations between their countries, adding a leading Arab voice to a chorus of demands from Washington and European capitals, according to news reports from Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Crown Prince Abdullah, who has effectively ruled the kingdom since King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, told Assad to start getting Syrian forces out of Lebanon soon or face deeper isolation, according to a Saudi official quoted anonymously by the Associated Press. The Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed Saudi official saying: 'They know what they should do. They should withdraw immediately. This is what we told them, and this is what the whole world is telling them.'"

Thursday, March 3, 2005

News and commentary

"Mukhtar Mai, victim of a gang rape, sheds tears..."
(Khalid Tanveer, AP, 2005/03/03)
"Mukhtar Mai, victim of a gang rape, sheds tears after a court's decision in Multan, Pakistan on Thursday, March 3, 2005. The Pakistani court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a village elder and four other men who had been sentenced to death for allegedly ordering a woman gang-raped as punishment for her brother's illicit sex with a woman from another family, a defense lawyer said."

"Pakistani Court Acquits Five Gang-Rape Convicts" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/03)
"MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistani court acquitted on Thursday five of six men sentenced to death for the gang-rape of a woman on the orders of a village council.
The sixth man had his death sentence commuted to life in prison, said Ramzan Khalid Joya, the lawyer for the 30-year-old victim.
The attack in 2002 shocked the country and and focused international attention on the plight of women in rural areas of the male-dominated society.
The victim, Mukhtaran Mai, broke into tears upon hearing the ruling by a two-judge High Court bench and said her life now had no purpose. But she vowed to get justice.
"I will go to appeal. I will go anywhere, wherever is necessary ... to get my right," she told Reuters. ...
Mai had asked the village council to intervene after her 12-year-old brother was kidnapped and sodomised by men of the powerful Mastoi clan as punishment for having an illicit affair with one of their women folk.
The council ruled that to save the honor of the Mastois, the brother should marry the woman with whom he was linked and Mai should be given away in marriage to a Mastoi man.
When she rejected the decision, she was gang-raped by the four Mastoi men and made to walk home nearly naked in front of hundreds of people."

"The right side of history" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2005/03/05 issue)
"The other day in the Guardian Martin Kettle wrote: ‘The war was a reckless, provocative, dangerous, lawless piece of unilateral arrogance. But it has nevertheless brought forth a desirable outcome which would not have been achieved at all, or so quickly, by the means that the critics advocated, right though they were in most respects.’
Very big of you, pal. And I guess that’s as close to a mea culpa as we’re going to get: even though Bush got everything wrong, it turned out right. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? ...
By the way, when’s the next Not In Our Name rally? How about this Saturday? Millions of Nionists can flood into Trafalgar Square to proclaim to folks in Iraq and Lebanon and Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority that all the changes under way in the region are most certainly Not In Their Name. ...
But what I’d like to know is this: when Martin Kettle says he and the Nionists were right ‘in most respects’, which respects is he thinking of? What exactly did the Nionist Entity get right?"

"Neocons May Get the Last Laugh" (Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 2005/03/03)
"In 2003, more than a month before the invasion of Iraq, I wrote in the Weekly Standard that the forthcoming fall of Baghdad "may turn out to be one of those hinge moments in history — events like the storming of the Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall — after which everything is different. If the occupation goes well (admittedly a big if), it may mark the moment when the powerful antibiotic known as democracy was introduced into the diseased environment of the Middle East, and began to transform the region for the better."
At the time, this kind of talk was dismissed by pretty much everyone not employed by the White House as neocon nuttiness. Democracy in the Middle East? Introduced by way of Iraq? You've got to be kidding! The only real debate in sophisticated circles was whether those who talked of democracy were simply naive fools or whether their risible rhetoric was meant to hide some sinister motive.
Well, who's the simpleton now? Those who dreamed of spreading democracy to the Arabs or those who denied that it could ever happen? Of course, the outcome is far from clear, and even in Iraq democracy is hardly well established. Yet some pretty extraordinary things have been happening in the last few weeks. ...
Maybe, just maybe, those neocons weren't so nutty after all."

"Al Jazeera has a good effect on the Arab street" (Ali, Free Iraqi, 2005/03/03)
"This might look strange especially that it comes from someone who repeatedly had criticized Al Jazeera harshly and even accused it of being the terrorists' mouthpiece but it's still true as I believe, despite I would never withdraw my accusations that are more than well founded and that so many people share. Al Jazeera is still a pillar for terrorists and fanatics and it still serve the agenda of dictatorships in the region but they do have some good effect too. ...
But Al Jazeera and Al Arabyia served another role whether they wanted or not. ... For example, Al Jazzera focused, as part of its coverage for the "deteriorated situations in Iraq" on every single demonstration against the interim government or the American presence in Iraq even if it was 10 people that are demonstrating! But this coverage, that was missed in the official Arab media most of the times, showed the Arab street an unusual scene. 'Arab' citizens demonstrating freely against their government and the supposed brutal occupiers under the eyes of police! ...
These days we hear every now and then about demonstrations almost everywhere in the Arab world. Excuse me, but this is far from usual! I haven't seen *any* demonstration against Saddam all my life and similarly I haven't heard of any in Syria or Saudi Arabia prior to the 9th of April. Most of us think it's what happened in Iraq that encouraged Arabs to demand more rights, but how could Arab citizens know the details of what's happening in Iraq if it wasn't for Al Jazeera and Al Arabyia?" (Hat tip: Best of the Web Today.)

"Heroic herald of freedom" (Michael Gove, The Times, 2005/03/03)
"To have helped to bring about one revolution, liberating millions, must be considered heroic. To have helped to start a second, with the chance of freeing millions more, is beyond doubt historic.
Natan Sharansky spent nine years of his life as a political prisoner in the Soviet Union, accused of high treason because he fought for human rights. He has spent the past nine years as a politician in Israel, dismissed alternately as a dreamer and a die-hard, because of his implacable insistence on standing up for the same democratic principles which guided him in the gulag.
But this week Sharansky is enjoying a vindication. The man who helped to bring about the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe is the inspiration behind the new wave of democratisation sweeping through the Middle East. ...
The steps towards freedom that Arab nations have taken are still tentative. But we in the West can continue to help — by supporting today those dissidents pushing for democracy in the Middle East as we once supported Sharansky, Andrei Sakharov and Vaclav Havel. The names of some of these brave men and women, such as the Palestinian Omar Karsou, are listed in Sharansky’s book. In our world turning upside down we can follow no better lead than Sharansky’s."

More on and by Natan Sharansky:
"Closing the Neocon Circle" (Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, 2005/01/25)
"Wanted: Israeli neocons" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/12/17)
"The Case for Democracy" (Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/12/17)
"Two Great Dissidents" (Joel C. Rosenberg, National Review, 2004/11/19)
"The View from the Gulag" (The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/06/21 issue)
"The prisoners' conscience" (Natan Sharansky, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/06/06)
"On Hating the Jews" (Natan Sharansky, Commentary, from the November 2003 issue)
"Free Palestine Can Become a Reality" (Natan Sharansky, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/07/03)
"What Are We Fighting For?" (Natan Sharansky, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/10/10)

"And now the Syrians sniff freedom" (Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/03/03)
"I am sad to say that I have friends and colleagues whose first reaction, on seeing the bunting of the Cedar Revolution, was to scoff. "Huh," I heard someone say, "just look at those flags - I bet they were all provided by the CIA. You could never run off a load of flags that quickly. It's all an American plot," he said, "just like that business in the Ukraine."
"Yeah," said someone else, "and the last time I was in Beirut I talked to a taxi driver who said he liked the Syrian army. These neo-cons don't understand that the Syrians have brought stability to Lebanon. The Lebanese like having all those Syrians standing around with guns."
Well, my friends, I can understand your pique at the way in which history is apparently vindicating Mark Steyn. If there is one thing worse than a stridently triumphalist American neo-con, it is a stridently triumphalist American neo-con who seems to be right.
But in so far as the Americosceptics think the Syrian army has been good for Lebanon, they seem to be at odds not only with the Lebanese people, but also with most of Arab opinion. The Syrians have been intermittently brutal in their occupation; they have taken Lebanese water; they have kidnapped and detained without trial. It is time that Bashar Assad removed all 14,000 of them, and so say 77 per cent of the Arab world, according to Al-Jazeera, and newspapers from Jordan to Kuwait to Egypt." (See also: "The Arabs' Berlin Wall has crumbled" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/03/01))

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

News and commentary:

"British Muslim schoolgirl Shabina Begum..."
(Adam Butler, AP, 2005/03/02)
"British Muslim schoolgirl Shabina Begum, 16, leaves The Royal Court of Justice in London, Wednesday March 2, 2005, after a panel of three judges in the Court of Appeal ruled that her human rights were violated by her school's ban on her wearing the jilbab, a long, flowing gown covering all of her body except her hands and face."

"British Schoolgirl Wins Right to Wear Muslim Dress" (Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters, 2005/03/02)
"A 15-year-old Muslim girl won the right Wednesday to wear full Islamic dress at her British school in the latest European case pitting the religious rights of minority communities against Western ways of life.
Widening a gulf between Britain and continental Europe on the issue, the Court of Appeal upheld Shabina Begum's case against her school's refusal to let her wear a jilbab, which covers the whole body except for hands and face.
Speaking outside court, Begum, of Bangladeshi origin, said she was a victim of what she called a general vilification of Islam since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
"As a young woman growing up in post-9/11 Britain, I have witnessed a great deal of bigotry from the media, politicians and legal officials," she said.
"This bigotry resulted from my choice to wear a piece of cloth ... It is amazing that in the so-called free world I have to fight to wear this Islamic dress." ...
"Our belief in our faith is the one thing that makes sense in a world gone mad. A world where Muslim women, from Uzbekistan to Turkey, are feeling the brunt of policies guided by western governments," Begum added in her statement Wednesday.
'I sincerely hope, therefore, that my small victory -- to gain an education -- brings hope to millions of Muslim women round the world.'"

"A Lebanese woman holds a poster..."
(Kevin Frayer, AP, 2005/03/02)
"A Lebanese woman holds a poster of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri during an anti-Syria demonstration in Martyr's Square, central Beirut, Wednesday, March 2, 2005."

"Democratic Rumblings in Lebanon Are All Well and Good, But..." (Der Spiegel, 2005/03/02)
And now a German message to the people of Beirut: don't even bother trying, there's "simply no basis for a functioning democtracy":
"The center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung feels that, while the list of Middle Eastern democratic dominos is indeed impressive, it is still too early to imagine democracy quickly spreading across the region. After all, the paper points out, "If elections were held today in the countries in the region, radical Islamists would be voted into power almost everywhere. The Arab societies are under-developed, conservative, characterized by clan relations and ethnically divided. There is simply no basis for a functioning democracy." ...
Finally, the economic daily Financial Times Deutschland, in a piece entitled "The Ignored Revolution," accuses Europe of not paying enough attention to the events in Lebanon. The piece argues that Europe is horrified at the scenario of US President George W. Bush being proven right. "It is bizarre that here in Germany, where the Berlin Wall once stood, this development (in Lebanon) is greeted with hardly a shrug." Taking an idea from the New Yorker [sic] columnist Kurt Andersen, the paper says that Europe is engaging in political "short selling" -- hoping for bad news to back up the continent's "ideological investment." "Short Selling," the paper concludes, "is an honorable strategy on the stock exchange but in terms of democracy, it is looking more and more like a major mistake. Indeed, it isn't honorable at all." (Note: Kurt Andersen's column was published in The New York Magazine. See also: "When Good News Feels Bad" (Kurt Andersen, New York Magazine, from the 2005/02/22 issue))

"'But as an American . . .'" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/03/02)
"We hardly ever watch Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," but our TV happened to be tuned to it last night when erstwhile Clinton aide Nancy Soderberg, author of "The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might" (foreword by Bill Clinton, blurb by Madeleine Albright) came on. We're not sure what possessed us to turn on the sound and watch, but we're glad we did, for it was a fascinating interview. Here's a TiVo-assisted transcript of most of it: ...

Stewart: But what do you make of -- here's my dilemma, if you will. I don't care for the way these guys conduct themselves -- and this is just you and I talking, no cameras here [audience laughter]. But boy, when you see the Lebanese take to the streets and all that, and you go, "Oh my God, this is working," and I begin to wonder, is it -- is the way that they handled it really - it's sort of like, "Uh, OK, my daddy hits me, but look how tough I'm getting." You know what I mean? Like, you don't like the method, but maybe -- wrong analogy, is that, uh--?

Soderberg: Well, I think, you know, as a Democrat, you don't want anything nice to happen to the Republicans, and you don't want them to have progress. But as an American, you hope good things would happen. ...

... But I think that there is also going on in the Middle East peace process -- they may well have a chance to do a historic deal with the Palestinians and the Israelis. These guys could really pull off a whole --

Stewart: This could be unbelievable!

Soderberg: -- series of Nobel Peace Prizes here, which -- it may well work. I think that, um, it's --

Stewart: [buries head in hands] Oh my God! [audience laughter] He's got, you know, here's--

Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.

Stewart: He's gonna be a great -- pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.

Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us. ... There's always hope that this might not work."

"The Cedar Rebellion" (The Christian Science Monitor, 2005/03/02)
"A popular uprising against Syria's occupation of Lebanon felled the pro-Syrian government in Beirut this week, less than a month after the killing of Lebanon's most popular politician.
For the Middle East, this is the latest bloom of liberty that began in 2003 with Iraqis cheering the downing of the Hussein statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square. For Syria, its reaction to this setback in Lebanon remains in sharp contrast to the way it's handled rebellions in the past. In 1982, for instance, it wiped out the entire Syrian city of Hama - nearly 10,000 people - after an uprising there. Now it appears to be in retreat.
The world has changed in 23 years. Syria, like other Middle Eastern dictatorships, is boxed in by democratic trends that began in the 1980s with the growth of freedom and democracy in Asia, Latin America, and the former Soviet empire. The "cedar rebellion" in Lebanon puts that trend squarely on Damascus's doorstep. ...
Any possible US misstep in altering Syria's course could bring this progress to a halt. But as Lebanese have shown, the people of the Middle East really do want freedom - now."

"Managing A Mideast Revolution" (David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 2005/03/02)
"There's an obscure branch of mathematics known as "catastrophe theory," which looks at how a small perturbation in a previously stable system can suddenly produce dramatic change. A classic example of the theory is the way a bridge, after bearing immense weight for many years, can suddenly collapse because of a new stress.
We are now watching a glorious catastrophe take place in the Middle East. The old system that had looked so stable is ripping apart, with each beam pulling another down as it falls. The sudden stress that produced the catastrophe was the American invasion of Iraq two years ago. But this Arab power structure has been rotting at the joints for a generation. The real force that's bringing it down is public anger.
It's hard not to feel giddy, watching the dominoes fall. ...
There's no stopping the Middle East's glorious catastrophe now that it has begun. We are careening around the curve of history, and it's useful to remember a basic rule for navigating slippery roads: Once you're in the curve, you can't hit the brakes. The only way for America to keep this car on the road is to keep its foot on the accelerator."

"A New Era of Democracy in the Middle East?" (AP/NewsMax.com, 2005/03/02)
"KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia -- It was a scene the Arab world's autocratic regimes have dreaded - and through the power of satellite TV, it could catch on as fast as the latest hit music video: Peaceful, enormous crowds carrying flags and flowers bringing down a government.
What happened in Lebanon this week, analysts say, is the beginning of a new era in the Middle East, one in which popular demand pushes the momentum for democracy and people's will can no longer be disregarded. ...
"I wish this could happen in Yemen," Ahmed Murtada, an unemployed Yemeni, said in San'a. "But here, tanks would prevail."
Anas Khashoggi, a 46-year-old management consultant in the Saudi city of Jiddah, said he followed Monday's events from beginning to end. "I wanted ... to see how the government reacts to the will of the people," he said.
Was he disappointed? "Not at all," he said. ...
But Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi talk show host on Dubai TV, had a warning for Arab governments, pointing to Ukraine's Orange Revolution: 'Either they embrace the orange, or they will find themselves slipping on the peels of bananas.'"

"What Became of the CIA: How is it that America's intelligence analysts don't recognize ham and think bin Laden is 'gentle'?" (Gabriel Schoenfeld, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/03/02)
Schoenfeld on Michael Scheuer: "Sentiments like these mark the author of "Imperial Hubris" as something of a political hybrid -- a cross, not to put too fine a point on it, between an overwrought Buchananite and a raving Chomskyite. This alone, one might think, should have unfitted him for a high position of trust within the CIA. But that is not the end of it. Even as he lambastes the U.S. from his isolationist position, reserving special fury not only for America's alliance with Israel but for our "hallucinatory crusade for democracy," Mr. Scheuer also swivels to assail Washington for being insufficiently hawkish in waging the war on terror. ...
It is, then, on the basis of his own, contrasting "willingness to review the checkables" -- belied by his book's numerous misspellings of easily checkable names -- that Mr. Scheuer asks us to accept his judgment of Osama bin Laden as a "gentle, generous, talented, and personally courageous" leader, his assessment of our campaign in Afghanistan as "wretchedly ill-conceived," and his conclusion that the collapse of that country's government is guaranteed to happen, perhaps not "tomorrow, the day after, or even next year . . . but come it will."
All of which leaves only two questions. How did a person of such demonstrable mediocrity of mind and unhinged views achieve the rank he did in the CIA, and how could so manifestly wayward and damaging a work have been published by someone in the agency's employ?" (Hat tip: Barry Kaplovitz.)

"Women challenge 'honor' killings" (Alasdair Soussi, The Christian Science Monitor, 2005/03/02)
"So-called "honor" killings - the murder of a woman who is accused of tainting family honor - account for one-third of all violent deaths in Jordan, a country which otherwise has low crime rates. ...
Rana Husseini was barely four months into her new job as a crime reporter for the country's only English-language daily, The Jordan Times, when she came across a shocking incident involving the death of a 16-year-old girl at the hands of her 31-year-old brother.
"It was May 1994, and I was at the beginning of my career," says Ms. Husseini, speaking of the story that propelled her to take an active interest in the issue. The young woman was killed by one brother because she had been raped by another brother.
Unable to understand the logic behind such an attack, and unwilling to ignore the gravity of the issue, Husseini began a relentless public-awareness campaign, writing about the subject, attending court proceedings, and analyzing the manner in which women were treated by the judicial system." (See also: "'How many more women have to die before this society wakes up?'" (Tony Paterson, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/02/27) and "When Freedom Gets the Death Sentence" (Deutsche Welle, 2005/02/24))

"2 Members of Hussein Tribunal Are Assassinated in Baghdad" (Rovert F. Worth, The New York Times, 2005/03/02)
"A judge and a lawyer with the special tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein and former members of his government were shot and killed Tuesday by gunmen outside their home here, Iraqi officials said.
It was the first time a member of the tribunal is known to have been assassinated, though a number of criminal and civil judges have been killed here in recent months. ...
The judge, Parwiz Muhammad Mahmoud al-Merani, 59, was killed a day after the Iraqi special tribunal announced the first charges in the approaching trials of former senior officials in Mr. Hussein's government. His son, Aryan Mahmoud al-Merani, 26, who also worked at the tribunal as a lawyer, was killed with him, according to officials at Iraq's Interior Ministry."

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

News and commentary:

"Two Lebanese opposition demonstrators..."
(Hussein Malla, AP, 2005/03/01)
"Two Lebanese opposition demonstrators stand in a car as they flash victory signs and wave a Lebanese flag during a celebration one day after the Lebanese government's resignation in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 1, 2005."

"Protesters Back on Beirut Streets; U.S. Offers Support" (Nadim Ladki, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/01)
"BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters waving Lebanese flags returned to central Beirut Tuesday to demand Syria quit Lebanon and the United States welcomed what it called moves to restore democracy in Lebanon. ...
Newspapers hailed the role of the Lebanese in trying to bring change.
"Government falls under the pressure of the people and the hammer of the opposition," said Al-Mustaqbal daily, owned by the late Hariri.
"People power brings down Karami's cabinet," the headline in Beirut's English-language Daily Star newspaper read.
"Electricity is in the air. Beirut is a sea of excitement, and activity and turmoil," it said in an editorial. "The word 'revolution' is on many lips."
The Daily Star urged the opposition and loyalists alike to grasp the full magnitude of the popular movement and heed its wishes for a new Lebanon.
"And Syria should consider what is happening in a somber manner and not thwart the ideals demonstrated by Lebanon's youth: It is, indeed, the time for change," it said." (See also: "Lebanon's youth electrifies hope for a new beginning" (The Daily Star, 2005/03/01))

"Abbas wins global support for Palestinian reforms at London meeting" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/01)
"What happened to Terrorism?" wonders reader Rochi Ebner, noting that "The word terrorism only appears once, on page 1" in the final version of the meeting's conclusions:
"LONDON (AFP) - Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas won global support for reforms to his administration at a key meeting in London, promising in return to "put our house in order" and renew peace talks with Israel.
Foreign ministers and top officials from 23 nations and six international institutions -- including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- joined the day-long meeting, seen as a stepping stone to a genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace conference.
Israel, as planned from the outset, did not attend the gathering.
The final version of the meeting's conclusions, seen by AFP, applauded the Palestinian Authority's blueprint for reforms, calling it 'a major step in implementing its roadmap commitments.'" (See also [PDF]: "Conclusions of The London Meeting On Supporting the Palestinian Authority" (Fireign & Commonwealth Office, 2005/03/01))

"French Hostage in Iraq Pleads for Help" (Michael Georgy, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/01)
"Kidnapped French journalist Florence Aubenas, taken hostage with her driver in Baghdad more than seven weeks ago, made a desperate appeal for help in a video tape released by Iraqi insurgents Tuesday.
"My name is Florence Aubenas. I'm French. I'm a journalist with Liberation," she said on the undated tape, speaking in broken English and looking distraught and exhausted.
"My health is very bad. I'm very bad psychologically also," she said, staring at the camera intently. Dressed in a gray sweatshirt and black trousers, she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest in front of a dark red background. ...
The tape is the first of Aubenas, 43, to be released since she and her Iraqi driver Hussein Hanun al-Saadi were seized in Baghdad on Jan. 5, and the first indication that she is alive. The driver does not appear in the tape.
Looking frail, Aubenas sounded desperate and appealed for help to a French parliamentarian.
"I ask particularly for the help of the French deputy Didier Julia. Help me Mr. Julia, help me. It's urgent," she said."

"Web Site: Al Qaeda in Iraq Claims Hilla Bombing" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/01)
"Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq said on Tuesday it was behind a suicide car bomb attack that killed 125 people in the town of Hilla, according to a Web statement.
"A lion from our martyrdom brigade plunged into a gathering of apostates in front of a police and National Guard registration center, blowing up his loaded car and killing 125 apostates," said the statement by Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq, posted on an Islamist Web site.
"The blood of the apostates was helping the Americans. They had sold their religion and their honor," it added."

"And The New York Times? And The New York Times." (Charles Paul Freund, Hit and Run, 2005/03/01)
"The NYT is astonished.

"[T]his has so far been a year of heartening surprises," according to Tuesday's lead editorial about developments in the Mideast, "each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance."

That's a nice line about what "few in the West thought," isn't it? But the Times may be confusing "the West" with its one-dimensional and utterly predictable editorial staff. There's no shortage of Westerners who took Arab liberalism seriously, if only because they were paying attention to Arab liberals." (See also: "Mideast Climate Change" (The New York Times, 2005/03/01))

"Revolution" (Michael Ledeen, National Review, 2005/03/01)
"The Cedar Revolution in Beirut has now toppled Syria's puppets in Lebanon, and I will be surprised and disappointed if we do not start hearing from democratic revolutionaries inside Syria — echoed from their counterparts in Iran — in the near future.":
"Our most lethal weapon against the tyrants is freedom, and it is now spreading on the wings of democratic revolution. It would be tragic if we backed off now, when revolution is gathering momentum for a glorious victory. We must be unyielding in our demand that the peoples of the Middle East design their own polities, and elect their own leaders. The first step, as it has been in both Afghanistan and Iraq, is a national referendum to choose the form of government. In Iran, the people should be asked if they want an Islamic republic. In Syria, if they want a Baathist state. In Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Libya, if they want more of the same. We should not be deterred by the cynics who warn that freedom will make things worse, because the ignorant masses will opt for the fantasmagorical caliphate of the increasingly irrelevant Osama bin Laden. Mubarak and Qadaffi and Assad and Khamenei are arresting democrats, not Islamists, and the women of Saudi Arabia are not likely to demand to remain shrouded for the rest of their lives.
Faster, please. The self-proclaimed experts have been wrong for generations. This is a revolutionary moment. Go for it."

"The Arabs' Berlin Wall has crumbled" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/03/01)
"Left to their own devices, the House of Saud - which demanded all US female air-traffic controllers be stood down for Crown Prince Abdullah's flight to the Bush ranch in Crawford - would stick to their traditional line that Wahhabi women have no place in a voting booth; instead, they have to dress like a voting booth - a big black impenetrable curtain with a little slot to drop your ballot through. Likewise, Hosni Mubarak has no desire to take part in campaign debates with Hosno Name-Recognition. Boy Assad has no desire to hand over his co-Baathists to the Great Satan's puppets in Baghdad.
But none of them has much of a choice. In the space of a month, the Iraq election has become the prism through which all other events in the region are seen. ...
What's happening in the Middle East is the start of a long-delayed process. Eight million Iraqis did more for the Arab world on January 30 than 7,000 years of Mubarak-pace marching."

"Bin Laden Enlisting Al-Zarqawi for Attacks" (Lara Jakes Jordan and Katherine Shrader, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/01)
"Osama bin Laden is enlisting his top operative in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to plan potential attacks on the United States, U.S. intelligence indicates.
Al-Zarqawi, who rivals bin Laden as the nation's public enemy No. 1, has been involved in attacks in the Middle East but has not been known before to have set his sights on the United States.
The Homeland Security Department issued a classified bulletin to officials over the weekend about the intelligence, which spokesman Brian Roehrkasse described Monday as "credible but not specific." ...
Bin Laden was in contact with al-Zarqawi within the past two months in an effort to enlist him in attacks, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. The move may reflect the al-Qaida leadership's desire to involve al-Zarqawi in activities outside Iraq, the official said."

"The shoe bomber from a Gloucester grammar" (Sean O’Neill and Stewart Tendler, The Times, 2005/03/01)
"Badat, 25, a grammar school boy with four A levels, was part of the same terrorist unit as Richard Reid — the British shoe bomber now in prison in the United States. ...
Badat, who was born and raised in Gloucester, is the first person to admit his involvement in a significant al-Qaeda plot before a British court.
When Reid was flying from Paris to Miami, in December 2001, Badat was supposed to have been on board another transatlantic flight from a European airport, possibly Schipol in Amsterdam.
In the middle of the night, the two aircraft were to be blown out of the sky. But something — maybe conscience, maybe fear — persuaded Badat to withdraw from the plot to commit mass murder.
On December 14 2001, he e-mailed his al-Qaeda handler in Pakistan and indicated that he was not going to complete his mission.
Then he tried to pick up the threads of the life he had led before his dalliance with suicide terrorism. He once again became the earnest young man whom his family and friends had known for years." (See also: "Man Pleads Guilty in U.K. Shoe-Bomb Plot" (Sue Leeman, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/28))

Monday, February 28, 2005

News and commentary:

"A Lebanese opposition demonstrator..."
(Hussein Malla, AP, 2005/02/28)
"A Lebanese opposition demonstrator, with Lebanese flags painted on her face attends a protest against Syria and the Lebanese government in central Beirut, Lebanon, Monday Feb. 28, 2005."

"Revolution May Be Under Way in Lebanon" (Barry Schweid, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/28)
"WASHINGTON - Czechoslovakia had its Velvet Revolution, the former Soviet republic Georgia the Rose Revolution, and Ukraine an Orange Revolution.
In Lebanon, at least according to a State Department official, a less-colorful but catchy "Cedar Revolution" may be under way.
The reference to Lebanon's majestic trees — celebrated in the Bible as a symbol of well-being — came Monday from Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky. Lebanon is struggling to get out from under the control of Syria.
"In Lebanon, we see growing momentum for a Cedar Revolution that is unifying the citizens of that nation to the cause of true democracy and freedom from foreign influence," Dobriansky said while releasing the State Department's annual report on human rights abuses around the world."

"Lebanese Government Resigns Amid Protests" (Bassem Mroue, AP/The Guardian, 2005/02/28)
"BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - With shouts of "Syria out!," more than 25,000 flag-waving protesters massed outside Parliament on Monday in a dramatic display of defiance that swept out Lebanon's pro-Syrian government two weeks after the assassination of a former prime minister.
Cheering broke out among the demonstrators in Martyrs' Square when they heard Prime Minister Omar Karami's announcement on loudspeakers that the government was stepping down. Throughout the day, protesters handed out red roses to soldiers and police. ...
The protesters went further, immediately shouting for the resignation of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud.
"Lahoud, your turn is coming!" they said.
Others in the sea of red, white and green flags chanted, "Syria Out!" and "Freedom, sovereignty, independence!" ...
"The battle is not over. It is just beginning. We want to know who killed Prime Minister Hariri," opposition legislator Faris Saeed said, addressing the crowd.
The crowd responded loudly and in unison: 'Syria! Syria!'"

"Thousands join anti-Syria rally in Lebanon as MPs hold stormy debate" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/28)
"BEIRUT (AFP) - Thousands of people defied a government ban and massed in the heart of Beirut as Lebanese parliament held a stormy debate set to culminate in a vote of no-confidence in the pro-Syrian regime.
The anti-Syria rally came exactly two weeks after the assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri which triggered a wave of public opposition against the Lebanese government and its backers in Damascus who are blamed for the murder.
Waving large red and white Lebanese flags and shouting "Syria out!" protesters descended on Martyrs' Square where Hariri is buried as hundreds of heavily armed troops and police guarded surrounding streets but did not prevent the rally.
Many stayed on throughout the night despite the ban on demonstrations coming into force and media reports put the size of the crowds at 50,000, while an army officer said there were about 20,000 demonstrators."

"A Lebanese opposition supporter distributes roses..."
(Ramzi Haidar, AFP, 2005/02/28)
"A Lebanese opposition supporter distributes roses to a Lebanese riot policeman in Beirut. Thousands of people defied a government ban and massed in the heart of Beirut as Lebanese parliament held a stormy debate set to culminate in a vote of no-confidence in the pro-Syrian regime."

"Man Pleads Guilty in U.K. Shoe-Bomb Plot" (Sue Leeman, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/28)
"LONDON - A British man accused of plotting with "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to blow up a U.S.-bound aircraft in 2001.
Saajid Badat, 25, who prosecutors said dismantled his bomb after having second thoughts, was to be sentenced at a later date. It was the first major conviction for a terrorist plot in Britain since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
Badat, of Gloucester, England, was charged with conspiring with Reid, who was convicted in the United States, and with a Tunisian to make the bomb.
"It is clear the plan was that Reid and Badat would bring down a passenger aircraft at similar times in late December" of 2001, Prosecutor Richard Horwell said."

"Israeli 'hasbara' campaign against Syria" (Gil Hoffman and Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/02/28)
"Israel said Sunday that it would use intelligence information to prove Syria was behind Friday night's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet Sunday.
What the two called irrefutable evidence to this effect has been sent to the US and select European allies. ... Foreign Ministry officials said they hope the Security Council will condemn the attack and perhaps even censure Syria on Monday.
"We have intelligence information that the orders came from the Islamic Jihad in Syria," a senior source close to Sharon said. "We know where the orders for the attack were issued, we know where they were sent, and we know Syrian intelligence was involved and provided logistical support."
Mofaz told the cabinet that an Islamic Jihad cell in Jenin recruited the bomber from Tulkarm under orders from Damascus."

"Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 106 in Iraq" (Sameer N. Yacoub, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/28)
"A suicide car bomber blew himself up Monday in a crowd of police and Iraqi National Guard recruits south of Baghdad, killing at least 106 and wounding 133, police and witnesses said. It was one of the deadliest insurgent attacks since President Bush declared the war over in May 2003.
Associated Press Television News footage showed large pools of blood outside the medical clinic, located on a dusty street in Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad. Scorch marks infused covered the clinic walls and dozens of people gathered to help put body parts into blankets. Soles of shoes and tattered clothes were piled up in a corner. ...
Dozens of bodies could be seen laying on the ground after the blast, and half a dozen ambulances ferried casualties to a nearby hospital, witnesses said. The huge blast damaged nearby shops and parked cars, and sent panicked people fleeing."

"The Peculiar Institution: Understanding Why Palestinian Terror Is Different" (Lee Harris, Tech Central Station, 2005/02/28)
"Terrorism is a Palestinian tradition that must end. But in order to bring about this desperately needed change, not only must the Palestinian people cease to show sympathy with their indigenous terrorist organizations, so too must Westerners, both in Europe and in the United States. Sympathy with the Palestinian people is in order, but not sympathy for the institution that has held them back from all progress toward a genuinely responsible civic polity.
For that is what terrorism has become among the Palestinians -- it is their peculiar institution, the way slavery was the peculiar institution of the American South in the nineteenth century. For, like the slave system, terrorism, deployed as a means of achieving political goals, ends by poisoning the society that permits it to flourish in its midst. The only group that draws any advantage from its use are those who are ruthless enough to use it. Like slavery, it corrupts whatever it touches, and is of value only to those who live off it. Like slavery, it appears to be an institution that can only be destroyed by those who are willing to use extreme and drastic measures to eradicate it. And, lastly, like American slavery, Palestinian terrorism has its defenders, many of them decent and well-intentioned individuals."

"The Arab Street: A vanquished cliché" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2005/02/28)
"The return of politics to Iraq has had many blissful secondary consequences, one of them apparently minor but nonetheless, I think, important. When was the last time you heard some glib pundit employing the phrase "The Arab Street"? I haven't actually done a Nexis search on this, but my strong impression is that the term has been, without any formal interment, laid to rest. And not a minute too soon, either.
In retrospect, it's difficult to decide precisely when this annoying expression began to expire, if only from diminishing returns. There was, first, the complete failure of the said "street" to detonate with rage when coalition forces first crossed the border of Iraq, as had been predicted (and one suspects privately hoped) by so many "experts." But one still continued to hear from commentators who conferred street-level potency on passing "insurgents." (I remember being aggressively assured by an interviewer on Al Franken's quasi-comedic Air America that Muqtada Sadr's "Mahdi Army" in Najaf was just the beginning of a new "Tet Offensive.") Mr. Sadr duly got a couple of seats in the recent Iraqi elections. And it was most obviously those elections that discredited the idea of ventriloquizing the Arab or Muslim populace or of conferring axiomatic authenticity on the loudest or hoarsest voice."

"Syria: W's Next Win?" (Peter Brookes, New York Post, 2005/02/28)
"The last few weeks have seen multiple vindications of President Bush's policies in the Muslim World. It should now be widely recognized that the President's unwavering push for Muslim democracy has reaped significant results.
The most recent manifestation is the unexpected decision over the weekend by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to amend his country's constitution to allow for direct, multiparty presidential elections in the Arab World's most populous nation. This is certainly welcome news.
But more important in the near term is Syria. ...
Bad guys are falling left and right due Bush's relentless pressure for change. Even a Syrian alliance with the hard-line, fundamentalist Iranian mullahs isn't going to stem the spread of freedom in the region. ...
No, Syria is unlikely to go quietly, as evidenced by the (probable) Syrian-backed Islamic Jihad terrorist attack in Tel Aviv last week.
But Syria is swimming against the tide of history — revolutionary, democratic change is taking place in the Middle East. Thanks to President Bush's unwavering stance on freedom and democracy, a new, free Muslim world is just over the horizon."

"A Mideast Makeover?" (Jackson Diehl, The Washington Post, 2005/02/28)
"As thousands of Arabs demonstrated for freedom and democracy in Beirut and Cairo last week, and the desperate dictators of Syria and Egypt squirmed under domestic and international pressure, it was hard not to wonder whether the regional transformation that the Bush administration hoped would be touched off by its invasion of Iraq is, however tentatively, beginning to happen.
Those who have declared the war an irretrievable catastrophe have been gloating for at least a year over the supposed puncturing of what they portray as President Bush's fanciful illusion that democracy would take root in Iraq and spread through the region. They may yet be proved right. But how, then, to explain the tens of thousands who marched through Beirut last Monday carrying red and white roses and scarves — the colors of what they call the "independence intifada" — and calling for "freedom, independence and sovereignty" from neighboring Syria? Or the hundreds of Egyptian protesters who gathered that same day at Cairo University, in defiance of thousands of police officers, to chant the slogan of "kifaya," or "enough," at 76-year-old President Hosni Mubarak? ...
Still, less than two years after Saddam Hussein was deposed, the fact is that Arabs are marching for freedom and shouting slogans against tyrants in the streets of Beirut and Cairo — and regimes that have endured for decades are visibly tottering. Those who claimed that U.S. intervention could never produce such events have reason to reconsider."

See also:
"Thousands Defy Protest Ban in Beirut" (Lucy Fielder, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/27)
"Syria Hands Saddam's Half-Brother to Iraq" (Salah Nasrawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/27)
"Saudi Arabia may look at votes for women" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/27)
"Mubarak Orders Egypt Election Law Changes" (Maamoun Youssef, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/26)
"Syria Ready to Work with U.N. on Lebanon Pullout" (Inal Ersan, Reuters, 2005/02/24)
"Beirut's Berlin Wall" (David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 2005/02/23)
"Egyptians Hold Largest Anti-Mubarak Protest Yet" (Jonathan Wright, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/21)
"Syria says it will withdraw troops from the Lebanon" (Jenny Booth, The Times, 2005/02/21)
"Thousands of Lebanese Protesters Demand 'Syria Out'" (Lucy Fielder, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/21)

"A blinkered view from the Baghdad Hilton" (Katie Grant, The Scotsman, 2005/02/28)
"The thought is heretical, but I’m having it all the same. Iraq, notwithstanding future setbacks that will undoubtedly occasionally spin it off course, is slowly turning into a good-news story.":
"You would never guess that from some British media reports, which are about as cheerful as coverage of a funeral. There is no difficulty telling the difference between the BBC’s Caroline Hawley and a ray of sunshine. You get the impression that most commentators are disappointed that the elections happened at all and, when they did, were secretly hoping for an outrage so dreadful it would turn 30 January into a day of wailing rather than cheering. ...
The truth is that hatred for George Bush and all he stands for is so entrenched in the eyes of bien pensant western commentators, that using the word "success" about Iraq would choke them. If word ever slips out, in relation, for example, to the highly influential Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani’s rejection of an Iranian-style theocracy, or that both Sunni and Shia openly state that they must get on together and not destroy the country through civil war, it comes hedged with such portentous and lugubrious caveats that it sounds more like a distasteful disease." (See also: "Counting on failure?" (Norman Geras, normblog, 2005/02/26))

"U.S. Pressure Helped Prompt Egypt's Call for Competitive Race" (Sonni Efron and Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times, 2005/02/28)
"Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's dramatic decision to allow a competitive presidential election comes amid a behind-the-scenes struggle by the Bush administration and Congress to require Cairo to spend part of its annual $2 billion in U.S. aid on political and economic reform. ...
But officials said they did not believe that U.S. pressure alone forced Mubarak's hand.
"U.S. pressure was certainly material," said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But [Mubarak's] people are sitting watching TV. You've seen free elections in Palestine, free elections in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating on the streets in Lebanon, illegitimate elections overturned in Georgia, illegitimate elections being overturned in Ukraine…. It's a combination of all these things." (See also: "Mubarak Orders Egypt Election Law Changes" (Maamoun Youssef, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/02/26))

"Pressed, Iran Admits It Discussed Acquiring Nuclear Technology" (Elaine Sciolino and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 2005/02/28)
"As the International Atomic Energy Agency prepares to open a meeting today to review Tehran's nuclear program, Iranian officials have reluctantly turned over new evidence str