Archived news and commentary: May 23 - 29, 2005

2005/05/23 - 2005/05/29
2005/05/16 - 2005/05/22
2005/05/09 - 2005/05/15
2005/05/02 - 2005/05/08
2005/04/25 - 2005/05/01
2005/04/18 - 2005/04/24

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Sunday, May 29, 2005

News and commentary:

"NON"
(Pascal Rossignol, Reuters, 2005/05/29)
"A French election official counts ballot papers after the European constitution referendum in Cambrai, northern France, May 29, 2005."

"France 'rejects EU constitution'" (BBC News, 2005/05/29)
Just say Non: "French voters have rejected the proposed EU constitution in Sunday's referendum, according to exit polls.
The polls give the "No" side 55% - in line with surveys published in the run-up to the vote.
If confirmed, the result will be a blow to President Jacques Chirac and France's two main political parties, which campaigned for a "Yes".
It could deal a fatal blow to the EU constitution, which the Union has been working on since the start of 2002.
The constitution cannot come into force unless it is ratified by all 25 EU members.
So far, nine countries have ratified it.
Eight other national referendums are still to come, including one in the Netherlands on Wednesday, where the "No" side is also leading in the polls."

"What Arabs Really Think" (James Dunnigan, Strategy Page, 2005/05/29)
"What do Arabs really think about the problems that afflict them, and how is this related to the issues Islamic terrorists are fighting and dying (and killing) for? A recent "Opinion Survey of the Arab Street 2005" by Al Arabiya news network provides some interesting answers. The survey sought to see what Arabs thought about the relative lack of economic progress in the Arab world. In answer to the question, “What is stalling development in the Arab world?,” 81 percent chose "Governments are unwilling to implement change and reform", 8 percent citing "The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict," 7 percent "Civil society is failing to convince governments", and 4 percent chose "Terrorism".
Another question, "What is the fastest way to achieve development in the Arab world?", had 67 percent choosing "Ensuring the rule of law through justice and law enforcement", 23 percent chose "Enhancing freedom of speech", and 10 percent chose 'Resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.'" (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

"Europe At the Precipice" (George F. Will, The Washington Post, 2005/05/29)
"The European Union, which has a flag no one salutes and an anthem no one knows, now seeks ratification of a constitution few have read. Surely only its authors have read its turgid earnestness without laughing, which is one reason why the European project is foundering. Today in France, and Wednesday in the Netherlands, Europe's elites -- political, commercial and media -- may learn the limits of their ability to impose their political fetishes on restive and rarely consulted publics. ...
The constitution says member states can "exercise their competence" only where the European Union does not exercise its. But the constitution gives E.U. institutions jurisdiction over foreign affairs, defense, immigration, trade, energy, agriculture, fishing and much more. Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, is scurrying crabwise away from his vow to hold a referendum on the constitution even if France rejects it. But, then, how could any serious prime minister countenance a constitution that renders his office a nullity?
T.S. Eliot, a better poet than philosopher, wrote: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
Nonsense. If the French and Dutch reject the constitution, they will do so for myriad reasons, some of them foolish. But whatever the reasons, the result will be salutary because the constitution would accelerate the leeching away of each nation's sovereignty.
Sovereignty is a predicate of self-government. The deeply retrograde constitution would reverse five centuries of struggle to give representative national parliaments control over public finance and governance generally."

"Asia's Democratic Values" (Francis Fukuyama, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/05/29)
"In the democratic transformation of Asia over the past generation, the U.S. often played a critical role when it ceased to hold back, and indeed encouraged, local demands for accountable government. The East Asia of 2005 that resulted is incomparably more hospitable to U.S. interests than the one we faced when Mr. Suharto first came to power in the 1960s. It is something to keep in mind as we contemplate the trade-off between familiar dictators and uncertain democracies in other parts of the world.":
"Both South Korea and Taiwan have moved dramatically to the left over the past decade; their foreign policies are scarcely recognizable compared with what they were during the Cold War. South Korea has sought rapprochement with the Communist North, making impossible a hard-line U.S. policy to turn back Pyongyang's drive for nuclear weapons, while Taiwan has threatened cross-Straits stability by making noises about independence from mainland China. The process of political change has been accelerated in these countries by winner-take-all presidential systems that contrast with the slower-moving parliamentary one in Japan. But there is no question that these reorientations in the policies of the two countries represent genuine democratic choices on the part of their populations, reflecting generational change in the Korean case, and the rise of indigenous Taiwanese in Taiwan's.
It is Indonesia that most vividly demonstrates the fallacy of much of the contemporary conventional wisdom about democracy. Observers have argued at different times that, first, "Asian values" did not support democracy; that Islam was similarly an insuperable obstacle; and that paternalistic authoritarians like Mr. Suharto presented a good model for development. Contemporary Indonesia contradicts all three points. It is unquestionably Asian and Muslim, and yet has evolved into a credible democracy in the difficult years since the crisis that brought Mr. Suharto down in 1998."

"The Military You Don't See" (Frank Schaeffer, The Washington Post, 2005/05/29)
"I never served in the military, and before my son unexpectedly volunteered, I was too busy writing novels to give much thought to the men and women who guard us. To me the military was the "other." After my son joined the Marines, however, casualty reports from Afghanistan and Iraq were no longer mere news items but gut-churning family bulletins. And reports about prisoner abuse cut me to the quick. They also made me angry at the media. Sure, this was an emotional, don't-impugn-my-son's-honor reaction, but I wonder if there is also something fundamentally amiss with the way the media report on our military. ...
As a military parent, why do I read the most positive stories about our troops in a sort of military-family samizdat e-mail underground network and not on Page One? And how many times does the same type of editorial about the same handful of abused prisoners have to be repeated before an inaccurate impression of our military is given?
Maybe reporters and editorial writers think that reporting too often on the many selfless acts our troops undertake will reflect well on an undeserving president who likes to grandstand with our troops in photo ops. But is the truth about the character of our military being accurately, or should I say proportionately, reported? Does the public, which has woefully little personal contact with our military, know that most men and women in our services are not torturers but people like them trying to do the best they can with compassion and honor? Does the public know that acts of kindness are routine and acts of abuse are rare?" (Hat tip: Barry Kaplovitz.)

"Death of a Marine" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2005/05/29)
"So here is the story behind just one of the names ''Nightline" will enumerate on Memorial Day: Sergeant Rafael Peralta of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines. He was killed in action on Nov. 15 during Operation Dawn, the epic battle to retake the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah. ...
On the day he died, Rafael Peralta was 25 years old, a Mexican immigrant from San Diego who had enlisted in the Marines as soon as he became a legal resident. He earned his citizenship while on active duty and reupped in 2004. He was a Marine to the core, so meticulous that when Alpha Company was training in Kuwait, he would send his camouflage uniform out to be pressed.
He was no less passionate about his adopted country: His bedroom wall was adorned with a picture of his boot camp graduation and replicas of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. ''Be proud of being an American," he wrote to his kid brother Ricardo, 14. ''Our father came to this country and became a citizen because it was the right place for our family to be." It was the first letter he ever wrote to Ricardo -- and the last. It arrived in San Diego the day after he died."

"A freedom to oppress" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2005/05/29)
"Far from eradicating illiberalism, anti-blasphemy laws actually encourage it":
"The same pattern is being repeated across the democratic world. In Italy, a journalist, Oriana Fallaci, faces trial for writing a book which is 'unequivocally offensive to Islam'. The alleged crime of The Rage and the Pride is to insist there is an unbridgeable divide between the Islamic world and the West. What she says may not be true, although it certainly is true of Islamism and the West, which have armies at war to prove it. It's also the case that even by the standards of Italian journalism, Fallaci is a raging prima donna. Still, since when has it been a criminal offence for prima donnas to sing, however tunelessly?
If Tony Blair has his way, his government will soon be censoring critics of each and every religion for the crime of inciting religious hatred. ... In the Queen's Speech, the government went further and announced it would create a new Commission for Equality and Human Rights, which sounds liberal and cuddly. It's only when you get to the detail you find that the commission will fight all those who have prejudices about 'gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, age, religion and belief'.
Belief? What beliefs? Are the censors planning to take their ideas to the conclusion and prohibit the incitement of hatred against all other beliefs. It makes as much sense (or as much nonsense) to have a law preventing offensive attacks on Blairism or romanticism or Europeanism as Judaism and Hinduism and satanism. Unless, that is, you somehow imagine that religious beliefs - all of them and all at the same time - are truer than the ideas of mortal men." (See also: "Fallaci charged in Italy with defaming Islam" (Crispian Balmer, Reuters/The Washington Post, 2005/05/25). Also: Blasphemy - News and commentary on free speech cases and blasphemy law apologetics.)

"The extraordinary pleas of Saddam's right-hand man" (Antony Barnett, The Observer, 2005/05/29)
This must surely be the worst human rights scandal since the accidental bumping into the Koran disclosure:
"Today The Observer publishes several letters from the former cigar-smoking Deputy Prime Minister handwritten from Camp Cropper prison in Baghdad. [Tariq] Aziz scribbled these notes on pages from his lawyer's diary who was with him when he was questioned recently by the CIA and US politicians.
Two are in Arabic, the other three in English and addressed to: 'The world public opinion.' Aziz pleads for international help to end his 'dire situation'. ...
Writing in Arabic, Aziz says: 'We are totally isolated from the world. There are 13 other detainees here, but we have no meetings or telephone contacts wth our families. I have been accused unjustly, but to date no proper investigation has taken place. It is imperative that there is intervention into our dire situation and treatment. It is totally in contradiction to international law, the Geneva Convention and Iraqi law as we know it.'"

"Lebanese Seek To Map a Future Mired in Past" (Anthony Shadid, The Washington Post, 2005/05/29)
"It's politics as usual in Lebanon, more than two months after hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese poured into downtown Beirut this spring, furious over the assassination Feb. 14 of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, which they blamed on Syria. In what they proclaimed the Cedar Revolution, they demanded the end of a generation of Syrian dominance over their tiny, mountainous country. The Syrians have since left, but Lebanon is perhaps most remarkable for how little else has changed.
In past weeks, Jumblatt and other sheiks, power brokers, tycoons and their sons have struck backroom deals in the best Levantine tradition, ensuring victory in all but a handful of seats in parliamentary elections that begin Sunday. The fragile coalition that helped drive out Syria has split along ingrained religious fault lines, dominated by many of the same figures who fought in the civil war.
In language redolent of a decade ago, Hezbollah, in a rally of tens of thousands of its Shiite Muslim followers this past week, vowed never to disarm and never to end its struggle against Israel. The haggling along sectarian lines has unleashed disenchantment, especially among the hopeful youth who drove the protests in Beirut's Martyrs' Square."

"Zarqawi Followers Clash With Local Sunnis" (Ellen Knickmeyer, The Washington Post, 2005/05/29)
"BAGHDAD, May 28 -- For four days this month, U.S. Marines were onlookers at just the kind of fight they had hoped to see: a battle between suspected followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a foreign-born insurgent, and Iraqi Sunni tribal fighters at the western frontier town of Husaybah.
In clashes sparked by the assassination of a tribal sheik, which was commissioned by Zarqawi, the foreign insurgents and the Iraqi tribal fighters pounded one another with small weapons and mortars in the town's streets as the U.S. military watched from a distance, tribal members and the U.S. military said. ...
The Sunni Arab tribe involved in the clashes, the Sulaiman, lost four men, Salman Reesha Sulaiman, a member of the tribe, said in an interview after the fighting, which occurred during the first week of May.
On the Zarqawi side, 11 foreign fighters were killed outright, plus an unknown number of other foreign fighters and their Iraqi allies in U.S. bombing runs after local tribes tipped off their location to the Americans."

"On Way to Baghdad Airport, One Eye on the Road and One on the Insurgents" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2005/05/29)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 28 - Iraqis call it Death Street. To American soldiers, it is "I.E.D. Alley," after the improvised explosive devices - bombs - that are lethally common on the 10 miles of expressway and city streets that make up Baghdad's airport road.
Suicide bombers in cars packed with explosives lurk at on-ramps, waiting for American convoys or other targets.
Insurgents in cars with darkened windows mingle in traffic, then lower windows for bursts of machine-gun fire. Disguised as members of a road crew, they bury daisy-chained artillery shells beneath the roadway, then trigger them with garage-door openers and cellphones.
In the past year, American and British diplomats and visiting V.I.P.'s have been barred from using the road, and are flown to and from the airport on helicopter gunships, a 10-minute roof-skimming journey to the Green Zone. On a visit in February, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton noted that she had driven along the road on a previous journey, in December 2003, and cited the change as a measure of how much security in Iraq had deteriorated.
Iraqi drivers, especially those working for foreigners, prefer to race down the six-lane expressway, veering away from on-ramps and keeping to the right lane to avoid bombs buried in the median. Some weave as they approach overpasses, to foil insurgents who might drop explosives from above. But just as often, the journey is an intimidating crawl lasting up to an hour, as traffic backs up behind American convoys - or the chaos caused by the frequent attacks."

"Wounded terror chief flees Iraq for emergency surgery" (Hala Jaber and Tony Allen-Mills, The Sunday Times, 2005/05/29)
Zarqawi II: "Iraq's most wanted terrorist has fled the country for emergency surgery after an American airstrike left him with shrapnel lodged in his chest, according to a senior insurgent commander in close contact with his group.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has a $25m bounty on his head after being blamed for suicide bombings, assassinations and the beheadings of western hostages — including Ken Bigley, the Liverpool engineer — is now believed to be in Iran.
He has suffered from bouts of high fever since being wounded by a missile that struck his convoy three weeks ago as he fled an American offensive near the town of al-Qaim in northwestern Iraq, the commander said.
His condition late last week was described as stable, but supporters were said to be preparing to move him to another “non-Arab” country for an operation to remove the shrapnel."

"Trail of the wounded terror chief" (Hala Jaber and Tony Allen-Mills, The Sunday Times, 2005/05/29)
Zarqawi I: "When an American warplane opened fire on a speeding car in the Jazira desert northwest of Baghdad earlier this month, the pilot had no way of knowing that among the insurgents fleeing a US military advance was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq.
An air-to-ground missile struck close to one of three cars that had been spotted leaving the area near al-Qaim, where more than 1,000 US marines had launched Operation Matador, a sweep aimed at insurgent hideouts in small towns close to the Syrian border.
The other cars raced for cover as the warplane disappeared. When the smoke from the blast cleared, the insurgents found Zarqawi seriously wounded with a piece of shrapnel lodged in his chest."

Saturday, May 28, 2005

News and commentary:

"A supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez..."
(Howard Yanes , Reuters, 2005/05/28)
"A supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez holds a poster that portrays U.S. President George W. Bush as a devil during a march against terrorism in Caracas May 28, 2005. The U.S. rejected on Friday Venezuela's first move to extradite a Cuban exile wanted for an airliner bombing, in a case that could challenge the U.S. commitment to fight all forms of terrorism."

"French journalists defame Israel" (JTA, 2005/05/28)
"Two reporters and the directors of the Le Monde newspaper were found guilty of racist defamation for an article about Israel.
The Versailles court of appeals ruled on an article that ran June 4, 2002, called “Israel-Palestine: The Cancer.” The court ordered the directors, Edgar Morin and Jean-Marie Colombani, as well as the two authors, to pay a symbolic one Euro in damages to a human-rights alliance and to Lawyers Without Borders, and ordered Le Monde to publish a condemnation of the article.
Two particular passages were cited for their racist character. The first reads, “One has trouble imagining that a nation of refugees, descendants of the people who have suffered the longest period of persecution in the history of humanity, who have suffered the worst possible scorn and humiliation, would be capable of transforming themselves, in two generations, into a dominating people, sure of themselves, and, with the exception of an admirable minority, into a scornful people finding satisfaction in humiliating others.”
The second incriminating citation reads, 'The Jews, once subject to an unmerciful rule, now impose their unmerciful rule on the Palestinians.'" (Hat tip: The Eclectic Econoclast. See also: "Israel-Palestine: The Cancer" (Edgar Morin, Sami Naïr and Danièle Sallenave, Le Monde/Watch, 2002/06/03 [2003/01/07]))

"Iran very anxious to get nuclear bomb, says Musharraf" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/28)
"BERLIN (AFP) - Iran is very anxious to obtain a nuclear bomb, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview published here, while stating his opposition to any preventive attack on the fellow-Muslim nation.
Asked by Germany's Der Spiegel weekly how to prevent Iran from developing a military nuclear program, Musharraf said: "I do not know. They are very anxious to have the bomb."
But a preventive war against Tehran would lead to "a disaster considering the current state of the world," the Pakistani leader said on Saturday.
"It would provoke a rebellion in the Muslim world. Why open up new fronts?" he was quoted by the weekly as saying." (See also: "'Who Is Fighting al-Qaida other than Pakistan?'" (Der Spiegel, 2005/05/28))

"'Would I have sent my son to his death?'" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/05/28)
"The family of the 15-year-old boy who was arrested last week by IDF soldiers when he tried to carry out an attack at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus has condemned those who sent him as "criminals." ...
The IDF and the family have accused Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, of dispatching the boy on a suicide mission. However, Mohammed Subuh, a senior official with the Palestinian Authority's Information Minister, claimed that Israel was behind the incident, staging the near-attack in attempt to undermine PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas's talks with US President George W. Bush. ...
Leaders of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in Nablus have denied that the group was using minors for launching attacks on the IDF. But several sources in the city, including the boy's family and PA security officials, insist that the group was behind the botched attack.
They said members of the group in Balta refugee camp, which is also in the Nablus area, had recruited Mohammed after persuading him that he would be rewarded in heaven for killing Jews. They also promised to support his family after he becomes a shahid (martyr). ...
The mother said that if she had known about her Mohammed's scheme she would have stopped him. "He's like any Palestinian child – he loves his homeland and wants to be a martyr," she said. 'But if he would have told me that he was going to do that I would have prevented him. Would I have sent my son to his death?'" (See also: "IDF nabs teen wearing bomb belt" (Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/05/22))

"Islamic militants suspected as bombs kill 20 in Indonesia's Sulawesi" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/28)
"JAKARTA (AFP) - Two bombs exploded in a busy market on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, killing 20 people and wounding 40 others in the worst attack in the country since the October 2002 Bali bombings.
Police in Jakarta said the attack bore hallmarks of Islamic militants behind a string of other atrocities in Indonesia, including the Bali blasts in which 202 mainly Western tourists died.
The latest bombs detonated within minutes of each other in the centre of the Christian-dominated town of Tentena in the island's Central Sulawesi province, which has been a flashpoint of sectarian violence in recent years.
The second explosion struck outside a police station as people rushed to help those hit by the first blast near a bank 15 minutes earlier. A Christian cleric and an infant were among those killed.
"The first bomb was placed to attract the crowd's attention so that they would gather in the area and become the target of the second bomb," said First Inspector Adam, a policeman on duty in the nearby city of Poso."

"Amnesty's 'Gulag'" (The Wall Street Journal, 2005/05/28)
"At a press conference Wednesday releasing its annual human rights report, William Schultz, the executive director of Amnesty's U.S. branch, called the U.S. a "leading purveyor and practitioner" of torture. He urged foreign governments to investigate and arrest U.S. officials. "The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera," he said, "because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998." The "apparent" is a nice touch, perhaps an unconscious bow to the fact that multiple probes and courts martial have found no evidence that the U.S. condones or encourages torture.
"Our list," as Mr. Orwell--er, Mr. Schultz--puts it, is too long to print in full. But it includes Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith and William Haynes at Defense; Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Jack Goldsmith, and Patrick Philbin from Justice; Tim Flanigan, just nominated to be Deputy Attorney General; George Tenet, former head of the CIA; and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.
It's old news that Amnesty International is a highly politicized pressure group, but these latest accusations amount to pro-al Qaeda propaganda. A "human rights" group that can't distinguish between Stalin's death camps and detention centers for terrorists who kill civilians can't be taken seriously." (See also: "Republican crisis biggest in US since Second World War. Well, almost" (Gerard Baker, The Times, 2005/05/27), "'American Gulag'" (The Washington Post, 2005/05/26) and "Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo" (Paisley Dodds, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25))

"Birth of a Nation" (Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/05/28)
A report from Beirut: "What is remarkable is that what began as an alliance of convenience between Christians, Sunnis and Druze to expel Syria has not only survived Syria's departure, but has deepened into an alliance of shared convictions. Saad Hariri, the son of Rafik and likely the next prime minister, is running an interdenominational slate of candidates in the parliamentary elections tomorrow. Across nearly the entire political spectrum, candidates advocate the same things: Eradicate what remains of Syria's influence in the army, intelligence services and the government; establish an independent judiciary; use the discipline of Lebanon's $34 billion debt to trim the budget and privatize state-owned assets.
"We need to keep this momentum for reform going," says Yassin Jaber, a Shiite parliamentarian. "To the Arab world, the revolution in Ukraine meant nothing. But Lebanon really means something. If we're going to be the ones carrying the message of change, we have to make sure the change is good." Even more surprising is how wide the support is for ending the confessional system. "Muslims as well as Christians consider that they need to rebuild a country based on freedom and democracy beyond the logic of communities," says Amin Gemayal, a Maronite former president whose community has the most to lose from ending the system."

"King Fahd gravely ill in hospital" (Michael Theodoulou, The Times, 2005/05/28)
"Saudi Arabia put its security forces on alert last night as its frail king was taken to hospital with high fever and suspected pneumonia.
Security sources in the country, the world’s biggest oil exporter, said that princes from the Royal Family had begun arriving in the capital, Riyadh, in the past few days, suggesting that the condition of King Fahd, believed to be 82, was “serious and worrying”.
A palace statement urged Saudis to pray for the king’s recovery. “We ask God to keep and care for the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and grant him health and well- being,” it said.
A Saudi source in Washington claimed last night that the king had already died."

Friday, May 27, 2005

News and commentary:

"Hirsi Ali: the empowered apostate" (Andrew G. Bostom, The American Thinker, 2005/05/27)
"Leaving Islam can be hazardous. Apostasy is a capital crime in a number of Islamic countries. But even in elite conservative circles in the United States, there is a tendency to dismiss or at least ignore some important former Muslims who have a lot to teach us about their former faith, as we face an era in which religious war on the West has been declared by radical Islam. ...
Hirsi Ali, condemned Muslim “apostate”, and intrepid politician committed to maintaining the democratic vitality of her adopted Dutch society, epitomizes the powerful, effective voice Ibn Warraq foresaw in Leaving Islam. Recalling The God that Failed, a collection of testimonial essays by ex-Communist intellectuals and their warnings about the all-encompassing oppression of body and spirit intrinsic to Soviet-style Communism, Warraq noted that the accounts of these ex-Communist “Cassandras” appeared eerily similar to the ex-Muslim apostates whose testimonies he had compiled. Warraq concluded,

'Communism has been defeated, at least for the moment…unless a reformed, tolerant, liberal kind of Islam emerges soon, perhaps the final battle will be between Islam and Western democracy. And these ex-Muslims…on the side of Western Democracy, are the only ones who know what it is all about, and we would do well to listen to their Cassandra cries.'"

See also:
"Danger woman" (Alexander Linklater, The Guardian, 2005/05/17)
"'We Must Declare War on Islamist Propaganda'" (Der Spiegel, 2005/05/14)
"Daughter of the Enlightenment" (Christopher Caldwell, The New York Times Magazine, 2005/04/03)

"Our Spoiled and Unhappy Global Elites" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/05/27)
"Arundhati Roy, the Booker-prize-winning novelist, has developed a second career critiquing the United States, especially its promotion of the free markets and capitalism that she believes are the catalysts for righteous hatred against America.
Roy doesn’t quite get that the reason that the UK recognizes an Indian novelist like her, writing halfway across the globe — and that she is able to jet over to the United States for lucrative speaking engagements, and that her books are mass-produced and hawked aggressively over global Internet book marts — is precisely the system that this child of capitalism so vehemently detests. ...
The anti-Americanism that we frequently see and hear, then, is often a plaything of the international elite — a corporate grandee, a leisured athlete, or a refined novelist who flies in and out of the West, counts on its globalizing appendages for wealth, and then mocks those who make it all possible — but never to the point that their own actions would logically follow their rhetoric and thus cost them so dearly. ...
No, these ungracious operators all seem to gravitate to, profit from, and then spite the paradigm that created rich global business, media, publishing, and entertainment conglomerates — and themselves."

"Amnesty gets Bushwhacked" (Tony Parkinson, The Age, 2005/05/27)
Gulag II: "It is another example of the sad loss of perspective among some global opinion leaders opposed to US policy in Afghanistan and Iraq. This has become a debate in which intellectual rigour takes a back seat to ideological prejudice, where souped-up assertions portraying the US and its allies in the worst possible light override calm contemplation of the facts.
How many people, for example, still swear blind that 100,000 civilians have been killed in the war in Iraq? For some, it has become an article of faith that this is the cost of an illegal war of aggression waged by a ruthless imperial power. ...
Having consistently campaigned against unlawful detention and torture, Amnesty is right to demand a thorough investigation. And, yes, the United States, Australia and other strong, successful democracies should always be treated as exemplars on human rights, and be held to the highest standards possible, including in times of conflict.
Even if that means allowing legal counsel and other basic rights for men who have never raised a glass to liberty, and who believe they have a licence from God to kill all who do not submit to the will of Allah.
Even if it means probing allegations of prisoner abuse, despite knowing that Rule One, Lesson Eighteen, of the al-Qaeda training manual instructs that any brothers taken captive "must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them". Even when it means taking TV cameras, international media, and foreign diplomats to Guantanamo for occasional inspections - an unusual practice, it has to be said, for any government intent on hiding guilty secrets of crimes against humanity." (Hat tip: Tim Blair. See also: "Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo" (Paisley Dodds, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25))

"Republican crisis biggest in US since Second World War. Well, almost" (Gerard Baker, The Times, 2005/05/27)
Gulag I: "We no longer live in the real world. We have all been forced to inhabit the semi-fictional world of the headline writer, in which every incremental nudge forward in humanity’s progress is Epoch-Making, in which the banal setbacks of everyday life are Catastrophic Defeats.
This hyperbole addiction can impair our moral discernment, dim our sense of history, and render us insensitive to genuinely important events. In this world Amnesty International can, as it did this week, call Guantanamo Bay “the gulag of our times”.
Perhaps my own sense of history has already been impaired too much by life in the headline world but I seem to recall that the gulag was a Soviet slave labour camp system in which millions died simply because they were deemed in some way injurious to the communist project.
Guantanamo has hosted a thousand or so men, almost all of them captured in the middle of plotting acts of terror, and an unlucky few who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one has died. No one has suffered grievous injury. In the gulag system, the innocent were starved to death or mercifully executed while the West had a lively debate about the merits of communism. At Guantanamo someone might have flushed a few pages from the Koran down a lavatory and the civilised world is in uproar." (See also: "Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo" (Paisley Dodds, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25))

"Hamas and the rebirth of illusion" (Jonathan Spyer, Haaretz, 2005/05/27)
"There have been reports of an imminent major shift in British policy, toward open engagement with Palestinian Islamism. In the U.S., too, a growing number of veteran advocates of a similar position are using the space provided by reports of the "Arab Spring" to advance their views. The argument now made is, well, if elections are the answer, and Islamists win elections, then Islamists must be welcomed as partners. Thus, Mark Perry, of the Washington-based Alliance for Security, describes Hamas as one of a number of movements that have made the "historic choice" to "build their societies on values we hold dear - of justice and peace, of accountability and transparency." ...
History is replete with examples of movements that sought to combine the use of the tools of democracy with the substantive rejection of its goals, and the desire eventually to subvert and destroy it. The totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century were examples of this type. The continued health and existence of democracies required that they identify those threats in good time, and did not lack the will to act against them. Such requirements also hold for the threat represented by the Hamas, which seeks both to destroy Israel and to enslave the Palestinians.
It is therefore essential to make clear that the continued ascendance of this movement means the termination of hope for progress toward improved relations between the two peoples. The disarming of Hamas and the defeat of its ideas is the common, urgent interest of Israelis, Westerners and Palestinians alike."

"Pentagon Confirms Koran Incidents" (Josh White and Dan Eggen, The Washington Post, 2005/05/27)
Apparently, Andrew Sullivan can't count beyond single digits, as he describes "a dozen allegations" as "countless". He then proceeds to use "the sheer scope" of allegations as a proof in itself that the "U.S. has deliberately and consciously had a policy of using religious faith as a lever in interrogation of terror suspects."
Perhaps, but the accidental bumping into the Koran can hardly be used as a proof of this. Or of "torture" or "psychological abuse" for that matter. Unless, of course, you are spinning this out of all proportions:
"Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said investigators have looked into 13 specific allegations of Koran desecration at the prison dating to early 2002 and have determined eight of them to be unfounded, lacking credibility or the result of accidental touching of the holy book. Of the five cases of mishandling, three were "very likely" deliberate and two were "very likely accidental," he said. But Hood declined to provide details, citing an ongoing investigation. ...
He said most of the 13 cases involved accidental or inadvertent touching of the Koran by guards and interrogators -- such as someone bumping into the holy book, or one case in which an interrogator stacked two Korans on a television set." (See also: "Inmates Alleged Koran Abuse" (Dan Eggen and Josh White, The Washington Post, 2005/05/26))

"Just Shut It Down" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times/Der Spiegel, 2005/05/27)
Friedman argues that foreign columnists should dictate American policy. But if the goal is to placate the staff at the Guardian, shutting down Gitmo would of course just wet their avaricious appetites. Prepare for a complete Borg assimilation:
"Shut it down. Just shut it down.
I am talking about the war-on-terrorism P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay. Just shut it down and then plow it under. It has become worse than an embarrassment. I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the Gitmo prison open than if we shut it down. So, please, Mr. President, just shut it down.
If you want to appreciate how corrosive Guantánamo has become for America's standing abroad, don't read the Arab press. Don't read the Pakistani press. Don't read the Afghan press. Hop over here to London or go online and just read the British press! See what our closest allies are saying about Gitmo. And when you get done with that, read the Australian press and the Canadian press and the German press."

"Deputy Editor of Al-Ahram: Israel is Behind the Cairo Attacks" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 914, 2005/05/27)
"In an article in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram titled "From Al-Aqsa to Darfour," the paper's deputy editor, Mahmoud Murad, accused Israel of involvement in the April 7, 2005 bombing near Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo. This bombing, he said, was meant to distract from "the Zionist attempts to destroy Al-Aqsa," the "cruel attack on Sudan," and "the conspiracy against Syria." The following are excerpts from the article: ...
'If we place these four [puzzle] pieces next to each other, and read the events, beginning with Al-Aqsa, through Darfour, and to the [terror] incident at Al-Azhar [in Cairo], it appears that the aim is to intimidate, shock the stability, and distract the Arab countries from defending themselves and building themselves. It is so they won't notice the division of the region, and so Israel will be able to turn its attention to realizing its aspirations of expansion, using all means including carrying out heinous operations such as setting death traps of explosive charges, such as happened at Al-Azhar, and half a century ago…
In light of the above, can it be said that the [terror] operation on Gowhar Al-Siqqili street is far from [being linked] to the Mossad? Wasn't its aim to intimidate and distract Egypt so that it wouldn't notice what is happening at Al-Aqsa, and would ignore what is being plotted against Syria, and would not focus on its neighbor Sudan in its terrible distress[?]…'"

"Egypt 'backed protester beatings'" (BBC News, 2005/05/27)
"Human Rights Watch has called on Egypt to investigate what it labels state-sponsored brutality against opposition demonstrators.
The group said plain clothes security officers and government supporters beat protesters during Wednesday's vote on partial electoral reform. ...
There have been widespread reports of opposition protesters being beaten and intimidated by government supporters and security men on the day of the referendum.
In some cases, police reportedly stood by as demonstrators were beaten by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak's party.
There were also reports of women being targeted for beatings and their clothes being ripped off.
"We were shocked when our members were beaten and dragged on the streets. Some female colleagues were subjected to humiliation of a sexual nature. It was completely shocking," Kifaya opposition movement spokesman George Ishak said." (See also: "Beatings, arrests at Egyptian referendum" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25))

"12 Dead in Bomb Blast at Muslim Shrine" (Sadaqat Jan, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/27)
"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A suicide bombing Friday at a Muslim shrine near Pakistan's capital killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens, officials said. Witnesses said they counted at least 20 bodies.
The motive for the attack was not immediately clear, but this Islamic country has a long history of violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Hundreds of Shiites were gathered at the Bari Imam shrine on the outskirts of Islamabad for a religious festival when the bomb went off.
"About 12 people have been killed and it seems to have been a suicide attack," said Information Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. He said the death toll may rise.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene counted at least 20 bodies, many of them in pieces. An intelligence official said at least 20 were killed and 150 were wounded."

"Many Iraqis See Sectarian Roots in New Killings" (Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, 2005/05/27)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 26 - No one knows who tortured and killed Hassan al-Nuaimi, a Sunni Arab cleric whose body was found in an empty lot here last week, with a hole drilled in his head and both eyes missing. But the various theories have a distinctly sectarian tinge.
The Shiite police chief investigating the death said he suspected Sunni Arab extremists who have driven much of the insurgency in Iraq, much of it aimed at Shiites. The Sunni family mourning the cleric pointed the finger at the Badr Organization, a Shiite militia. But with Mr. Nuaimi buried, the truth, as so often with killings in Iraq, seems to be lost in rumor and allegations. ...
For the past year Shiites have been attacked at mosques, weddings, funerals and crowded marketplaces. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most ruthless insurgent leader, has urged still more killing, calling Shiites "apostates" and usurpers of the Sunni Arab primacy in Iraq that ended with the overthrow of Mr. Hussein. On Wednesday his group boasted of killing Shiites in the northern city of Tal Afar.
But when Iraq got its first-ever Shiite majority government three weeks ago, the transition was accompanied by a new wave of terror that included attacks on Sunni Arab leaders, including clerics, and even fruit and vegetable sellers. Sunni leaders have blamed Shiite militias that they say work behind the scenes with official army and police forces, a charge that Shiites deny."

"40,000 Iraqis to Form Shield in Baghdad" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/27)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq announced plans Thursday to deploy 40,000 police and soldiers in the capital and ring the city with hundreds of checkpoints "like a bracelet" in the largest show of Iraqi force since the fall of
Saddam Hussein. Two U.S. soldiers died when their helicopter was shot down.
In a reminder of the difficulty Iraqi security forces face in stopping insurgent attacks, violence claimed at least 15 lives Thursday in Baghdad including a car bomb that exploded near a police patrol, killing five people and wounding 17. ...
In Baghdad, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari told a small group of Western reporters that next week's planned crackdown, dubbed Operation Lightning, was designed "to restore the initiative to the government." Insurgents have killed more than 620 people since his government was announced on April 28.
"We will establish, with God's help, an impenetrable blockade surrounding Baghdad like a bracelet surrounds a wrist," Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi said."

Thursday, May 26, 2005

News and commentary:

"What happens after North Korea falls?" (Michael Barone, USNews.com, 2005/05/26)
"It pays to take a look at the books George W. Bush hands out to his staffers. Last year Bush's book was Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, which argues that countries that do not protect individual rights cannot be reliable partners for peace. You could hear Sharansky's arguments in Bush's extraordinary second inaugural speech in which he promised to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East and around the world. Bush's critics like to mock him as the sort of person who never read books. But he does, and his reading has consequences.
This year Bush has been handing out copies of The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Kang Chol-Hwan. ...
Kim Jong Il's regime seemingly has a tight hold on power and has been willing to imprison even minor critics. But dictatorial regimes have fallen, suddenly, when ordinary people refuse to follow orders. Washington lawyer Michael Horowitz, who helped construct the alliance of evangelical Christian and Jewish organizations that lobbied for the North Korea Liberation Act, has predicted that the North Korean government will fall before the end of this year. Many others regard this prediction as unduly optimistic. The truth is that when tyrannical regimes fall peacefully, they do so with great suddenness and against the predictions of almost all area experts and foreign policy elites. George W. Bush has accelerated that outcome in the Middle East: It's impossible to imagine the peaceful uprising in Lebanon and the swift departure of Syrian forces from the country they had ruled for decades without the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime and the holding of free elections in Iraq last January 30. Now it seems that Bush is pursuing a policy designed less to accommodate the North Korean regime than to create the conditions in which it may fall."

"The 18 things you can't say about Muslims in Italy" (Chris Newman, Dagger in hand, 2005/05/26)
"Thanks to Ilario Vige, my indefatigable source of Oriana intel, I now have a pdf copy of an article from the Italian newspaper Libero, which reproduces the text of the complaint filed against Fallaci. ...

12) the terrorist attacks of the last twenty years have caused six thousand deaths “to the glory of the Koran. In obedience to its verses.”

13) “Our Jesus of Nazareth . . . they put him in their Danna where he eats like Trimalchio, drinks like a drunkard, screws like a sexual maniac.”

14) “. . . the revolting, reactionary, obtuse, feudal Right is found today only in Islam. It is Islam.”

15) infibulation is “the mutilation that the Muslims force on little girls to prevent them, once they are grown . . . from enjoying the sexual act. It is a female castration that the Muslims practice in twenty-eight countries of Islamic Africa and because of which two million persons die each year from sepsis or loss of blood . . .”

16) the Italians afflicted by atavistic loss of pride “are not offended when Islamic immigrants urinate on their monuments or soil the sacristies of their churches or toss their crucifixes out the window of a hospital.”

17) “. . . Islam is a pond. And a pond is a trough of stagnant water. . . it is never purified . . . it is easily polluted, like a watering hole for livestock of little value. The pond does not love life: It loves death . . .”

18) " . . .despite the massacres through which the sons of Allah have bloodied us and bloodied themselves for over thirty years, the war that Islam has declared against the West . . . is a cultural war. . .they kill us in order to bend us. To intimidate us . . . Their goal is not to fill cemeteries. Not to destroy our skyscrapers . . . It is to destroy our soul, our ideas. Our feelings and our dreams. It is to subjugate the West once again.'"

(Hat tip: Instapundit. See also: "Fallaci charged in Italy with defaming Islam" (Crispian Balmer, Reuters/The Washington Post, 2005/05/25))

"'American Gulag'" (The Washington Post, 2005/05/26)
"IT'S ALWAYS SAD when a solid, trustworthy institution loses its bearings and joins in the partisan fracas that nowadays passes for political discourse. It's particularly sad when the institution is Amnesty International, which for more than 40 years has been a tough, single-minded defender of political prisoners around the world and a scourge of left- and right-wing dictators alike. True, Amnesty continues to keep track of the world's political prisoners, as it has always done, and its reports remain a vital source of human rights information. But lately the organization has tended to save its most vitriolic condemnations not for the world's dictators but for the United States.
That vitriol reached a new level this week when, at a news conference held to mark the publication of Amnesty's annual report, the organization's secretary general, Irene Khan, called the U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the "gulag of our times." ...
Worrying about the use of a word may seem like mere semantics, but it is not. Turning a report on prisoner detention into another excuse for Bush-bashing or America-bashing undermines Amnesty's legitimate criticisms of U.S. policies and weakens the force of its investigations of prison systems in closed societies. It also gives the administration another excuse to dismiss valid objections to its policies as 'hysterical.'" (See also: "Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo" (Paisley Dodds, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25))

"With a Little Help From Our Friends" (Sarah Chayes, The New York Times, 2005/05/26)
"Are Pakistan and Iran to blame for riots in Afghanistan?": "For me, after three years in southern Afghanistan, something felt not quite right about the more virulent demonstrations across the country. The instant tip-off was that they were initially led by university students. Afghans and Westerners living in Kandahar have often wondered at the number of Pakistani students in what passes for a university here. The place is pathetically dilapidated, the library a locked storeroom, the medical faculty bereft of the most elementary skeleton or model of the human body. Why would anyone come here to study from Pakistan? Our unshakable conclusion has been that the adroit Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, is planting operatives in the student body. These students can also provoke agitation at Pakistani officials' behest, while affording the government in Islamabad plausible deniability.
In both Kandahar and Kabul, alert Afghan government officials were able to calm demonstrations by holding discussions with student leaders, an indication of the degree to which protesters' actions were manipulated and not the result of spontaneous outrage.
In other words, it's a mistake to focus on the Newsweek article as the cause of the recent demonstrations in Afghanistan. Instead, the reason was President Hamid Karzai's May 8 announcement that Afghanistan would enter a long-term strategic partnership with the United States. ...
The Iranian government, too, is likely to observe the tightening ring of American military installations around its country's borders with concern. Several Afghan investigators looking into the instigation of the recent riots, especially in Kabul, told me that if anything, the involvement of Iranian agents was even more pronounced than that of Pakistanis."

"Syria Arrests 1,200 Headed for Iraq" (Edith M. Lederer, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/26)
"UNITED NATIONS - Syria has arrested more than 1,200 people trying to cross the border into Iraq in recent weeks and sent many back to their home countries because of suspicions they were trying to join the insurgency, Syria's U.N. ambassador said.
Fayssal Mekdad also denied rumors that terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may be seeking shelter in Syria.
Mekdad said Syria suspected that those arrested — mostly foreigners — intended to carry out illegal activities in Iraq. They were sent back to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya and other countries, he said."

"New Al Qaeda boss in Iraq" (Sky News, 2005/05/26)
Zarqawi II: "Al Qaeda chiefs in Iraq say they have appointed a new deputy leader after Abu Musab al Zarqawi was wounded.
In a statement posted on an Islamist website they said Abu Hafs al Qarni would take charge until Zarqawi had recovered from his injuries.
It has led to renewed speculation the Jordanian terrorist - the United States' most wanted person in Iraq - may be dying.
The statement said: "The leaders met after the wounding... and decided to appoint a deputy to assume the leadership until the return of our Sheikh safely."
It said Qarni had been selected "for he was renowned for carrying out the most difficult operations," adding Zarqawi had chosen him for such attacks.
The statement, by the al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq, gave no details of Zarqawi's condition."

"Reports: Zarqawi Shot in Lung" (Ellen Knickmeyer, The Washington Post, 2005/05/26)
Zarqawi I: "Insurgents said Wednesday in interviews and statements on the Internet that the leader of the group al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was struggling with a gunshot wound to the lung. One of Zarqawi's commanders said the Jordanian guerrilla was receiving oxygen, heightening suspicion that the groundwork was being laid for an announcement of his replacement or death. ...
On the second day of reporting about Zarqawi's condition, insurgents offered no tangible evidence that he had suffered a potentially fatal wound. Some of Zarqawi's rank-and-file fighters and one of his top lieutenants have said he was wounded in an ambush by U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces over the weekend around the western city of Ramadi. A U.S. military official, Lt. Col. David Lapan, said Wednesday that he had found no record of such an ambush.
The insurgents' accounts suggested that steady U.S. and Iraqi military pressure was taking a toll on Zarqawi's group. In an interview Tuesday, the Zarqawi lieutenant, Abu Karrar, said his group was weighing both foreigners and Iraqis as possible successors to Zarqawi if he died."

"Inmates Alleged Koran Abuse" (Dan Eggen and Josh White, The Washington Post, 2005/05/26)
"Detainees told FBI interrogators as early as April 2002 that mistreatment of the Koran was widespread at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and many said they were severely beaten by captors there or in Afghanistan, according to FBI documents released yesterday.
The summaries of FBI interviews, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of an ongoing lawsuit, include a dozen allegations that the Koran was kicked, thrown to the floor or withheld as punishment. One prisoner said in August 2002 that guards had "flushed a Koran in the toilet" and had beaten some detainees.
But the Pentagon said yesterday that the same prisoner, who is still in custody, was reinterviewed on May 14 and "did not corroborate" his earlier claim about the Koran.
"We still have found no credible allegations that a Koran was flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement last night." (See also: "Guantánamo Prisoners Told FBI of Koran Desecration in 2002, New Documents Reveal" (ACLU, 2005/05/25))

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

News and commentary:

"An Egyptian woman screams..."
(Cris Bouroncle, AFP, 2005/05/25)
"An Egyptian woman screams as she and other members of the left-wing umbrella organization Kefaya (Enough) are roughed-up by supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak while participating in a protest in Cairo against the referendum on changing the electoral system."

"Beatings, arrests at Egyptian referendum" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25)
"CAIRO (Reuters) - Plainclothes supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak beat up activists protesting against a referendum on Wednesday on a presidential election system that sets tough conditions for opposition candidates. ...
In central Cairo, riot police penned in dozens of members of the Kefaya (Enough) protest movement while men in plain clothes dragged some away by force, hitting them as they went.
The men, summoned by police officers, pushed prominent journalist and Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Abdel Qaddous to the ground, then kicked and punched him, witnesses said.
Prominent journalist Mohamed Gamal Fahmi received similar treatment, apparently to keep him away from the Kefaya group.
Essam Sultan, one of the witnesses, said: "I saw and heard one of the police generals give orders to the thugs, telling them to go and surround the Kefaya kids and hit them." ...
"I saw a girl of 19 or 20 being pulled by the hair and being pulled along the pavement by an Interior Ministry officer. Then the riot police hit her with batons," Sultan said.
Kefaya supporter Mohamed Shafiq told reporters: "I was in Kefaya protesting ... suddenly I found myself surrounded by police. They started beating me with their fists."
Outside the Journalists Syndicate later, Mubarak supporters manhandled three women journalists, tearing their clothes and pulling the headscarf off one, witnesses said. One woman had blood on her face."

"Galloway calls for global unity between Islamic and Left forces" (Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha, Iraq News Network, 2005/05/25)
An interview with George Galloway: "M.B.H.S.: You often call for uniting Muslim and progressive forces globally. How far is it possible under current situation?
Galloway: Not only do I think it's possible but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressivemovement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies. Their enemies are the Zionist occupation, American occupation, British occupation of poor countries mainly Muslim countries.
They have the same interest in opposing savage capitalist globalization which is intent upon homogenizing the entire world turning us basically into factory chickens which can be forced fed the American diet of everything from food to Coca-Cola to movies and TV culture. And whose only role in life is to consume the things produced endlessly by the multinational corporations. And the progressive organizations & movements agree on that with the Muslims. Otherwise we believe that we should all have to speak as Texan and eat McDonalds and be ruled by Bush and Blair. So on the very grave big issues of the day-issues of war, occupation, justice, opposition to globalization-the Muslims and the progressives are on the same side." (Hat tip: David Horowitz.)

"10 reasons not to kill Bush" (Jennifer McBride, Oregon Daily Emerald, 2005/05/25)
"If the assassin were looking for a way to hurt America, blowing up the president would be a good idea. Bush's martyrdom would put the last nail in the coffin of the liberal agenda. So, for those Bush-haters out there, here are 10 reasons you should stop praying for an assassinated G.W.B.:

1) Killing the president immediately generates sympathy for his cause. If the president died tomorrow, there would be no question that all of his nominees for the judicial branch would make it through the Senate.

2) A dead President Bush leaves a live Dick Cheney in charge. Need I say more? ...

10) Slaying President Bush is simply immoral. Anyone who advocates purposefully killing someone defenseless (and a democratically elected leader, no less) is clearly value-challenged. I don't understand the logical contortions some people must go through to be anti-death penalty yet pro-assassination.

In all seriousness, I don't hate President Bush. I dislike a lot of his administration's choices, but I think he's a good man doing a difficult job. As a leader, you're always going to be hated. I am too often shocked by the vitriolic repulsion many people feel for our leader and America in general, especially because the loathing is often poorly informed. I've met people on this campus who see America as the worst human rights abuser in the world (unlike the angelic paradise of Cambodia) and people who sway liberal not because they actually know anything about issues but because it's popular.
Liberalism has to be more than a college fad or a collection of loudmouths whose idiotic comments stir headlines. The rabid dislike some people feel for a man they've never even met makes me ashamed to be a Democrat." (Hat tip: Drudge.)

"Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo" (Paisley Dodds, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25)
So according to Amnesty, 500 emprisoned enemy combatants and (correct me if I'm wrong) zero deaths at Guantanamo equal 29 million prisoners and three million deaths in the Gulag?*
Personally, given the enormity of the crimes, I think it is quite obscene to compare anything in our time with either the Gulag or the Holocaust, but if Amnesty necessarily wants to name "the gulag of our time", they should perhaps rather focus on North Korea: "It is estimated that the system of political prisons and labor camps in North Korea holds more than 200,000 people, and that, given the harsh conditions in these camps, some 400,000 prisoners have perished in the past three decades.":
"'Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time,' Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said as the London-based group issued a 308-page annual report that accused the United States of shirking its responsibility to set the bar for human rights protections.
The prison camp has been in the spotlight over the past year since the FBI cited cases of aggressive interrogation techniques and detainee mistreatment. The U.S. government has also been criticized for not charging or trying prisoners who are classified as enemy combatants, a vague distinction with fewer legal protections than prisoner of wars get under the Geneva Conventions.
Some prisoners have challenged their detentions in U.S. courts but their cases are stalled by appeals filed by the U.S. government and subsequent arguments.
"Not a single case from some 500 men has reached the courts," Khan said." (*Note that these are conservative estimates. R.J. Rummel's estimation is 39,000,000 deaths "due to lethal forced labor in gulag and transit thereto." See also: "Amnesty International Report 2005" (Amnesty International, 2005/05/25))

"Here we go again..." (Chris Newman, Dagger in hand, 2005/05/25)
Fallaci II: "The European populace is apparently so enlightened and sophisticated that the only adequate response to publication of a book containing harsh rhetorical swipes (backed by a fair amount of factual research) at a religious group is to legally suppress it. Otherwise, who knows what those gullible mobs might do.
At least one Italian commentator gets this. Pierluigi Battista has a piece on the front page of the Corriere:

It will be a sad day for the law if we discover that in Italy crimes of opinion exist, and are not confined, as they should be, to the antique shop. It will be a sad day for liberty of expression if The Force of Reason is dragged into court and a judge decides … to credit the complaint filed by Adel Smith in which Fallaci is accused of nothing less than “vilifying relgion.”

It will be a sad day if the only protest to have emerged is that of the minister Castelli, who properly termed this judicial tenacity against a book as “coercion of thought.”

It will be a sad day if no-one, but no-one, among those who have legitimately criticized Oriana Fallaci’s opinions, raises his voice to say that ideas, even the most extreme ones, can never be put on trial. A final and bitter confirmation of the Italian malaise, in which we are incapable of thinking that principles apply even to those who disagree with us and that diverse opinions are to be treated and respected as opinions and not as crimes. Far, very far from courts of law."

"Fallaci charged in Italy with defaming Islam" (Crispian Balmer, Reuters/The Washington Post, 2005/05/25)
Fallaci I: "ROME (Reuters) - A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book. ...
Fallaci lives in New York and has regularly provoked the wrath of Muslims with her outspoken criticism of Islam following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.
In "La Forza della Ragione," Fallaci wrote that terrorists had killed 6,000 people over the past 20 years in the name of the Koran and said the Islamic faith "sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom." ...
Adel Smith, a high-profile Muslim activist who brought the original law suit, hailed the decision.
"It is the first time a judge has ordered a trial for defamation of the Islamic faith," he told reporters. "But this isn't just about defamation. We would also like (the court) to recognize that this is an incitement to religious hatred."
Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, who has a prickly relationship with the Italian judiciary, said the ruling represented an attack on freedom of expression.
"In Europe we are seeing the birth of a movement that is looking to silence those who don't follow a single mindset, within which it is forbidden to speak ill of Islam, of homosexuals or of the children of homosexuals," Castelli was quoted as saying in an interview with Radio Padania." (See also: Blasphemy - News and commentary on free speech cases and blasphemy law apologetics.)

"EU call to re-run treaty referendums" (John Thornhill et al., Financial Times, 2005/05/25)
Democracy according to Eurocrats [emphasis added]:
"France and the Netherlands should re-run their referendums to obtain the "right answer" if their voters reject Europe's constitutional treaty in imminent national ballots, Jean-Claude Juncker, the holder of the EU presidency, said on Wednesday.
The Luxembourg prime minister said all 25 EU member countries should continue their attempts to ratify the treaty whatever the outcome of the French and Dutch votes.
His comments reflect a mood of deepening pessimism among Europe's leaders about the outcome of the referendums.
"The countries which have said No will have to ask themselves the question again. And if we don't manage to find the right answer, the treaty will not enter into force," he said in an interview with the Belgian Le Soir newspaper.
The French and the Dutch governments have for the moment ruled out the prospect of a second referendum and hope they can win their votes on Sunday and Tuesday respectively." (See also: "Keep up the pressure for a No vote, Left warned" (David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/05/25): "Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and holder of the rotating EU presidency, told Le Soir newspaper in Belgium that he would act swiftly on Sunday night if France voted No. ... "If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue'," he said.")

"A Conspiracy Theory Spreads Polio" (Daniel Pipes, New York Sun/danielpipes.org, 2005/05/25)
"A worldwide campaign begun in 1988 to eradicate the polio infection was on the verge of success when, early in 2003, a conspiracy theory took hold of the Muslim population in northern Nigeria. That conspiracy theory has single-handedly returned polio to epidemic proportions.
The theory's source seems to be a physician and the president of Nigeria's Supreme Council for Shari'a Law, Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, 68. Dr. Ahmed, an Islamist, accuses Americans of lacing the vaccine with an anti-fertility agent that sterilizes children (or, in an alternate theory, it infects them with AIDS) and considers them, according to John Murphy of the Baltimore Sun, "the worst criminals on Earth … Even Hitler was not as evil as that." ...
The polio-vaccine conspiracy theory has had direct consequences: Sixteen countries where polio had been eradicated have in recent months reported outbreaks of the disease – twelve in Africa (Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Sudan, and Togo) and four in Asia (India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen). Yemen has had the largest polio outbreak, with more than 83 cases since April. The WHO calls this "a major epidemic."
The common element, the New York Times notes, is that incidents of polio are now located "almost exclusively in Muslim countries or regions." That's because, scientists hypothesize, the polio infection traveled from Nigeria in a uniquely Muslim way – via the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, which took place in January 2005. Testing confirms that all three Asian strains of the disease originated in northern Nigeria."

See also:
"Polio Detected in Indonesia, Indicating It Crossed an Ocean" (Donald G. McNeil Jr., The New York Times, 2005/05/02)
"Polio outbreak threatens Africa" (Sarah Boseley, The Guardian, 2004/06/23)
"Official Defends Polio Vaccine Boycott" (AP/ABC News, 2004/02/26)
"Nigeria Boycotts Polio Vaccination Drive" (Glenn McKenzie, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/02/22)
"Muslims' fears hinder fight on polio" (John Donnelly, The Boston Globe/miami.com, 2004/01/12)
"Polio and rumors spreading in Nigeria" (Glenn McKenzie, AP/The Seattle Times, 2003/10/25)

"Al-Qaeda Comes to Gaza" (P. David Hornik, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/05/25)
"'Al-Qaeda-Linked Terrorists in Gaza' was the title of a Jerusalem Post report last Friday by Khaled Abu Toameh. It cites Palestinian Authority security officials saying that a new terrorist group called Jundallah, or “Allah’s Brigades,” composed mostly of former Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, has already started operating in Gaza and launched its first attack there on Israeli soldiers, wounding four of them, last week. One of the officials said Jundallah “has close ties with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.” ...
To cap off the unfolding security nightmare, a report in Haaretz on Sunday quotes Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a staunch supporter of disengagement, saying that “Israel is willing to gradually give up control of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, handing it over to the Egyptians within a few months of . . . disengagement.” ...
In other words, it sounds as if the sole lasting achievement of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty — the demilitarization of Sinai — is well on the way to unraveling. It sounds, that is, like territorial continuity for jihad from Cairo to the Negev." (See also: "Al-Qaeda gains Palestine foothold" (Annette Young, Scotland on Sunday, 2005/05/22), "PA: Al-Qaida-linked terrorists active in Gaza" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/05/20) and "Will a Gaza 'Hamas-stan' Become a Future Al-Qaeda Sanctuary?" (Yaakov Amidror and David Keyes, Jerusalem Viewpoints, November 2004))

"Bahraini bloggers fall foul of government" (Jane Kinninmont, The Guardian, 2005/05/25)
"Three Bahraini bloggers are facing criminal charges, including defaming the king, for running a web forum that allows free political debate.
Ali Abdulemam, who founded Bahrain's first website, BahrainOnline.org, in 1999, was arrested along with the site's two other moderators.
Although the state telecoms' monopoly has been trying to block it since 2002, Bahrain Online is the country's most popular website. It has has 26,000 registered users. ...
The lawyer for the three accused said the charges against them were based on articles they did not write, something a government source also confirmed.
Mr Abdulemam said: 'I hadn't even seen the postings they [the authorities] showed me but I could face up to 10 years in prison just for publishing a website.'"

"Syria's Voices of Change" (Anthony Shadid, The Washington Post, 2005/05/25)
"DAMASCUS, Syria -- Ayman Abdel Nour's contest with censorship began with a term not uncommon in Syria: "forbidden."
Last spring, the word appeared on the screen of his Compaq computer, barring him entry to his Web site, all4syria.org. His computer was the problem, he thought at first. Perhaps the server was down. Then he realized the government had blocked his site -- a forum for unprecedented dialogue among groups, parties and thinkers in Syria -- nearly a year after he had inaugurated it.
Abdel Nour, a 40-year-old reformer from within the ruling Baath Party, lost little time. ...
Since then, Abdel Nour's e-mail list has grown to 15,200 subscribers, including secular and religious dissidents, intellectuals, businessmen, party leaders, ministers and Syrian embassies. Through its content and as a symbol, the bulletin has emerged as a crucial interlocutor in the tentative, precarious space permitted to dissent in a country where nearly everyone suspects that change is ahead, even if they clash over the shape and direction it might take." (See also: "Syria in new clampdown on dissidents" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/24))

Added in archive:
Terror International Meets in Damascus (Bassem Tellawi, AP, 2005/05/22)
"Al-Qaeda gains Palestine foothold" (Annette Young, Scotland on Sunday, 2005/05/22)
"Polio Detected in Indonesia, Indicating It Crossed an Ocean" (Donald G. McNeil Jr., The New York Times, 2005/05/02)
"Will a Gaza 'Hamas-stan' Become a Future Al-Qaeda Sanctuary?" (Yaakov Amidror and David Keyes, Jerusalem Viewpoints, November 2004)

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

News and commentary:

"Syria in new clampdown on dissidents" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/24)
"DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syrian security forces arrested all eight members of the country's only active political forum in the latest crackdown against dissident activists, a prominent human rights lawyer said.
The participants in the Al-Atassi Forum for National Dialogue were taken from their homes in dawn raids, Anwar al-Bunni told AFP.
Paris and Washington, which led the international campaign that resulted in Syria's withdrawal of troops and intelligence agents from neighbouring Lebanon last month, both expressed concern about the arrests.
"We hope that those who were arrested will be freed," said French foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei.
"We've certainly seen these reports and we're very concerned about them at a time when Syria should be moving more in step with the rest of the region, moving more toward a more open society," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
"We think it's certainly a negative development to see that they're arresting people who are advocating for change."
The Atassi Forum was one of a number set up in a brief political honeymoon after President Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father Hafez in 2000 but was the only one still operating amid an intensifying crackdown by the authorities."

"Web Posting: Iraq al-Qaida Leader Injured" (Sarah El Deeb, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/24)
"Al-Qaida's branch in Iraq, blamed for numerous terror attacks on U.S. and Iraqi targets, said Tuesday in an Internet posting that its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded and called on supporters to pray for his recovery. The posting's authenticity could not be verified, but it was posted on a Web site known for carrying prior statements by al-Qaida in Iraq and other militant groups. ...
"Let the near and far know that the injury of our leader is an honor, and a cause to close in on the enemies of God, and a reason to increase the attacks against them," the statement said.
It ended with prayers for al-Zarqawi, calling on the nation of Islam to "pray for our Sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to recover from an injury he suffered for God's sake."
Media reports earlier this month said the U.S. military was investigating whether al-Zarqawi was being treated at a Ramadi, Iraq, hospital. The reports were never confirmed." (See also: "Bin Laden henchman 'seriously wounded'" (Hala Jaber and Ali Rifat, The Sunday Times, 2005/05/15))

"Egyptian Christian held in mental hospital" (WorldNetDaily, 2005/05/24)
"Doctors in a Cairo mental hospital are holding an Egyptian Christian against his will, telling the man he'll be a permanent resident there until he recants his faith and returns to Islam, reports a leading monitor of Christian persecution.
Reminiscent of the tactics of Communists in the USSR who put dissidents in mental hospitals, the forced stay, according to Voice of the Martyrs, has been in effect since January. At that time, the adoptive parents of Gaser Mohammed Mahmoud, 30, committed him to the El-Khanka Hospital after learning he had converted from Islam to Christianity two years earlier.
Reports Voice of the Martyrs:
'The hospital medical committee placed Mahmoud under the care of a female physician identified only as Dr. Nevine, whom sources describe as a 'fanatic Muslim.' Since his forced confinement, Mahmoud has reportedly endured beatings, whippings and potentially fatal injections.'"

"Syria Ending Cooperation With U.S., Envoy Says" (Douglas Jehl and Thom Shanker, The New York Times, 2005/05/24)
"Syria has halted military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, its ambassador to Washington said in an interview, in a sign of growing strains between the two nations over the insurgency in Iraq.
The ambassador, Imad Moustapha, said in the interview on Friday at the Syrian Embassy here that his country had, in the last 10 days, "severed all links" with the United States military and Central Intelligence Agency because of what he called unjust American allegations. The Bush administration has complained bitterly that Syria is not doing enough to halt the flow of men and money to the insurgency in Iraq."

"Car Bombings Across Iraq Kill Dozens" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/24)
"A string of car bombs and suicide attacks across Iraq killed at least 49 Iraqis and wounded more than 130 Monday, striking a Baghdad restaurant popular with police, a Shiite mosque and the home of a community leader near Mosul.
In central Baghdad Tuesday, a car bomb exploded near a girls school, killing six people and injuring at least three others, a police official said. ...
In Monday's deadliest attack, two car bombs exploded in the town of Tal Afar, 50 miles west of the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 20 people and injuring 20 more, officials said. The blasts apparently targeted the home of Hassan Baktash, a Shiite Muslim with close ties to the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
A suicide car bomber carried out the second worst strike when he blew himself up outside a Shiite mosque shortly before evening prayers in Mahmoudiya, a town 20 miles south of Baghdad. Police said it killed at least 10 people and wounded 30 — many of them children. ...
In Baghdad's worst attack in recent days, a car bomb killed at least eight people and wounded more than 80 when it exploded at lunchtime outside the Habayibna restaurant in the Talibia neighborhood. It is a popular gathering spot for police."

Added in archive:
"Nightmare in Dhaka" (Shoaib Choudhury, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/05/19)

Monday, May 23, 2005

News and commentary:

"Iraq: Former PM reveals secret service data on birth of Al-Qaeda in Iraq" (AKI, 2005/05/23)
"Baghdad, 23 May (AKI) - The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period.
"Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza Ibrahim Al-Douri – then deputy head of the council of the leadership of the revolution - to take part in the congress, along with some 150 other Islamic figures from 50 Muslim countries," Allawi said.
According to Allawi, important information has been gathered regarding the presence of another key terrorist figure operating in Iraq - the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"The Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi entered Iraq secretly in the same period," Allawi affirmed, "and began to form a terrorist cell, even though the Iraqi services do not have precise information on his entry into the country," he said. ...
In Allawi's view, Saddam's government "sponsored" the birth of al-Qaeda in Iraq, coordinating with other terrorist groups, both Arab and Muslim. "The Iraqi secret services had links to these groups through a person called Faruq Hajizi, later named Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and arrested after the fall of Saddam's regime as he tried to re-enter Iraq. Iraqi secret agents helped terrorists enter the country and directed them to the Ansar al-Islam camps in the Halbija area," he said." (Hat tip: Melanie Phillips.)

"Stop the Masochistic Insanity" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2005/05/23)
"The violent response to the report of "Quranic abuse" isn't about faith, it's about intolerance":
"That great religion expert Kenneth Woodward, who used to write with extreme lenience on such subjects as miracles (for Newsweek, as it happens), has now written a solemn article for the Wall Street Journal saying that Muslims revere the Quran, or "recitation," much, much more than Christians revere the Bible. The Bible is only a first draft of God's will, set down by mere mortals, whereas the Quran is the unmediated word of God himself. No wonder, then, that pious Muslims will hear of a Newsweek capsule story, assume it to be infallible, and immediately begin to kill and burn. What could be more understandable?
Well, first, most Muslims did not do any such thing, and those who did should not be indulged in the Wall Street Journal. ...
A Wahhabist version of the Quran, containing distortions of the original and calling for war against "unbelievers" of all sorts, is now handed out by imams in our very own prison system! Do we demand in return that Saudi Arabia allow churches and synagogues and free-thought centers on soil where the smallest heresy is punishable by death? No, we do not. Instead, we saturate ourselves in masochism and invent the silly, shallow term "Quran abuse." ...
Some of us can be offended at insults to our culture, and we, too, possess unalterable convictions and principles. Many people take the same view of the desecration of Old Glory. But we would never dream of venting ourselves in random assaults on mosques or Muslims, and if anyone on our soil did dare to commit such atrocities, I hope and believe that they would not receive moist and sympathetic treatment in the pages of the American press." (See also: "Newsweek and the Quran" (Kenneth L. Woodward, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/05/21))