Archived news and commentary: May 30 - June 5, 2005

2005/05/30 - 2005/06/05
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

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, June 5, 2005

News and commentary:

"'FOX News Sunday' Transcript: Amnesty Int'l USA Chief William Schulz" (FOX News, 2005/06/05)
A transcript of an interview with the apparent high-level architect of moral equivalence — executive director of Amnesty International USA, William Schulz:
"WALLACE: Mr. Schulz, the Soviet gulag was a system of slave labor camps that went on for more than 30 years. More than 1.6 million deaths were documented. Whatever has happened at Guantanamo, do you stand by the comparison to the Soviet gulag?
SCHULZ: Well, Chris, clearly this is not an exact or a literal analogy. And the secretary general has acknowledged that.
There's no question. But what in size and in duration, there are not similarities between U.S. detention facilities and the gulag. People are not being starved in those facilities. They're not being subjected to forced labor.
But there are some similarities. ...
WALLACE: ... In your presentation of the report, you listed what you called high-level torture architects, including Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Gonzales. Then you went on to say, and let's put it up: "The apparent high-level architects of torture should, therefore, think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera, because they may well find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet, famously did in London in 1998."
Now, Pinochet was a Chilean dictator who presided over the death or disappearance of 3,000 of his own people. Do you stand by the comparison of Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales to a brutal dictator?
SCHULZ: No, that wasn't the comparison. My point was very simple... ...
WALLACE: Now, Secretary Rumsfeld did, we believe, approve putting prisoners in stress positions for prolonged periods of time, stripping them naked and even using dogs to frighten them.
Mr. Schulz, do you have any evidence whatsoever that he ever approved beating of prisoners, ever approved starving of prisoners, the kinds of things we normally think of as torture?
SCHULZ: It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea..." (Hat tip: USS Neverdock.)

"A Policy of Rape" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2005/06/05)
"NYALA, Sudan - All countries have rapes, of course. But here in the refugee shantytowns of Darfur, the horrific stories that young women whisper are not of random criminality but of a systematic campaign of rape to terrorize civilians and drive them from "Arab lands" - a policy of rape.
One measure of the international community's hypocrisy is that the world is barely bothering to protest. More than two years after the genocide in Darfur began, the women of Kalma Camp - a teeming squatter's camp of 110,000 people driven from their burned villages - still face the risk of gang rape every single day as they go out looking for firewood.
Nemat, a 21-year-old, told me that she left the camp with three friends to get firewood to cook with. In the early afternoon a group of men in uniforms caught and gang-raped her.
"They said, 'You are black people. We want to wipe you out,' " Nemat recalled. After the attack, Nemat was too injured to walk, but her relatives found her and carried her back to camp on a donkey.
A neighbor, Toma, 34, said she heard similar comments from seven men in police uniforms who raped her. "They said, 'We want to finish you people off,' " she recalled."

"The Woman Who Went To the Front of the Mosque" (Teresa Wiltz, The Washington Post, 2005/06/05)
"MORGANTOWN, W.Va. It was two days after she appeared on "Nightline" talking about her fight to change her mosque that the death threats began. The first call came on her cell phone. The caller left a message, in Urdu: "If you want to stay alive, keep your mouth shut." Otherwise, he said, he would "slaughter" her, halal style, saying a prayer as he slid a knife across her throat. If she didn't shut up, he'd slaughter her mother and her father, too. Think before you speak, he said. I know where you live. I know where your parents live.
Then he called her parents' home 10 minutes later. Just to reinforce the message.
It's not a message that Asra Nomani, Muslim, unwed mother, former Wall Street Journal reporter, author and left-leaning feminist, is planning to heed (although she did contact the FBI and her local police). Yes, she's started locking her doors now, a rarity for her here in her hilly home town. But she won't be shutting up, definitely not, never.
There are those who see Nomani, a self-described "overambitious child of immigrants," as a crusader, an activist lobbying for the right of Muslim women to pray side by side with men. This spring she launched the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, traveling from city to city (including a stop in April at the Islamic Center of Washington on Massachusetts Avenue NW) to encourage Muslim women to assert themselves in their mosques. As part of the tour, women pray in halls usually reserved for men and participate in mixed-gender prayer services led by women." (See also: asranomani.com.)

"Opponents of Syrian Ba'athists murdered before party conference" (Inigo Gilmore, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/06/05)
"Syria's ruling Ba'athist regime has launched a brutal crackdown on dissenters in the run-up to a landmark gathering of senior party leaders this week.
Damascus's feared secret police have detained at least 14 opposition figures and have been blamed for the murders of two more.
Last Wednesday, the body of Sheik Mohamed Maashuk Khaznawi, a prominent Kurdish leader, was found dumped on a street three weeks after he vanished. According to his family, he had been tortured.
Hours later, Samir Qassir, a prominent Lebanon-based journalist, was killed when a bomb exploded in his car in Beirut.
The streets of Damascus have also seen a new mood of intolerance. Last Tuesday, a gathering of a few dozen activists was quickly dispersed by riot police who threatened to beat up anyone taking photographs. Only two weeks previously, hundreds of demonstrators were able to rally outside the trial of three Kurdish activists at Syria's state security court in Damascus, chanting for freedom and an end to the 42-year state of emergency. Riot police were present but did not intervene."

Saturday, June 4, 2005

News and commentary:

"An American Gulag?" (Kenneth Anderson, The Weekly Standard, from the 2005/06/13 issue)
Anderson on Amnesty International and, here, Human Rights Watch:
"HRW's latest world report, for instance, opens with an essay by its executive director, Kenneth Roth, which compares Sudan and the United States, Darfur and Abu Ghraib. Roth opens in lawyerly fashion, claiming that "no one would equate the two." He then spends the rest of the essay doing little else. ...
To start with, HRW has said that someone -- preferably the U.N. Security Council, but failing that a coalition that must necessarily involve the United States -- should intervene in Darfur.
There is much to be said for that position morally, and I admire Human Rights Watch for overcoming its bias for international organizations and against ad hoc coalitions of the willing, in the interests of the people of Darfur.
But if the United States is what HRW says it is, why would the arch-criminals -- in Washington, that is -- care about doing anything so obviously, well, good? Which is it to be? The United States government and its leadership are a gang of criminals who should be isolated, sanctioned, arrested, and condemned as in principle no better than the undeniably criminal Sudanese government -- but, by the way, it would be excellent if the Great Satan would also mount its noble charger, rattle its weapons, gird up its loins, and intervene to defend the people of Sudan. Please report to the International Criminal Court's dock in The Hague to be tried for torture and war crimes and what-not -- but on your way, could you stop by Darfur, using military force if necessary to protect the people from genocide, make sure the peace treaty ending the war in the south doesn't fall apart, and don't do anything that we might regard as unnecessary collateral damage (we'll be watching, and we'll add anything we don't like to the list of your crimes). And, oh yes, be sure to arrest and bring the wicked Sudanese leaders and militias along with you to The Hague, so they can be prosecuted after we finish with you."

"Detainees, not soldiers, flushed Quran" (CNN.com, 2005/06/04)
Ed Morrissey sums up the recent Koran/Gulag hysterics: "...this week represents the nadir of responsible thought about the war on terror." The headline for this AP dispatch provides a graphic example of this rock bottom moment: "U.S. CONFIRMS URINE TOUCHED QURAN AT GITMO."
WaPo has more details on that particular incident: "In the March incident, as described in the report, the guard had left his observation post to go outside to urinate. The wind blew his urine through an air vent into the cell block. The guard's supervisor reprimanded him and assigned him to gate guard duty, where he had no contact with detainees, for the rest of his assignment at Guantanamo Bay.":
"A U.S. military investigation into the mishandling of the Muslim holy book at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists has determined that detainees -- not U.S. soldiers -- attempted to flush the Quran down the toilet there.
However, the report did find four confirmed incidents in which U.S. personnel at the base mishandled the Quran, including guards kicking a detainee's Quran; a guard's urine "splashed" a detainee and his holy book after coming through an air vent; and guards got in a water balloon fight that resulted in two detainees' Qurans getting wet.
In a fifth confirmed incident, it could not be determined whether a guard or a detainee wrote a two-word obscenity in a detainee's Quran.
The findings of the report, issued by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the detention center in Cuba, were released late Friday. They found no evidence to support allegations that U.S. soldiers attempted to flush the Muslim holy book down the toilet." (See also the report [PDF]: "Koran Inquiry: Description of Incidents" (southcom.mil, 2005/06/03). Also: "Military releases Koran-abuse findings" (Guy Taylor, The Washington Times, 2005/06/04): "The findings show that al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at the detention center themselves mishandled Korans on 15 occasions, three times more than the military prison's guards and interrogators. 'These included using a Koran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Koran, attempting to flush a Koran down the toilet, and urinating on the Koran.'")

Friday, June 3, 2005

News and commentary:

"Our Strange War" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/06/03)
"A third edge for the terrorists lies in the West itself. After 40 years of multiculturalism and moral equivalence — the wages of wealth and freedom unmatched in the history of civilization — many in the United States believe that they have evolved beyond the use of force. Education, money, dialogue, conflict resolution theory — all this and more can achieve far more than crude Abrams tanks and F-16s. ...
As September 11 fades in the memory, too many Americans feel that it is time to let bygones be bygones. Some now consider Islamic fascism and its method of terror a “nuisance” that will go away if we just come home. We are a society where many of our elite believe the killer bin Laden is less of a threat than the elected George Bush. Al Qaeda keeps promising to kill us all; meanwhile Ralph Nader wants the wartime president impeached for misuse of failed intelligence.
Fourth, in an asymmetrical war the cult of the underdog is a valuable tool. Europeans march with posters showing scenes from Abu Ghraib, not of the beheading of Daniel Pearl or the murder of Margaret Hassan. They do not wish, much less expect, al Qaeda to win, but they still find psychic satisfaction in seeing the world’s sole superpower tied down, as if it were the glory days of the Vietnam protests all over again. How else can we explain why Amnesty International claims that Guantanamo — specialized ethnic foods, available Korans, and international observers — is comparable to a Soviet Gulag where millions once perished? So there is a deep, deep sickness in the West."

"Gitmo Grovel: Enough Already" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2005/06/03)
"The self-flagellation over reports of abuse at Guantanamo Bay has turned into a full-scale panic. There are calls for the United States, with all this worldwide publicity, to simply shut the place down. ...
The self-flagellation has gone far enough. We know that al Qaeda operatives are trained to charge torture when they are in detention, and specifically to charge abuse of the Koran to inflame fellow prisoners on the inside and potential sympathizers on the outside.
In March the Navy inspector general reported that, out of about 24,000 interrogations at Guantanamo, there were seven confirmed cases of abuse, "all of which were relatively minor." In the eyes of history, compared to any other camp in any other war, this is an astonishingly small number. ...
Does the Koran deserve special respect? Of course it does. As do the Bibles destroyed by the religious police in Saudi Arabia and the Torahs blown up in various synagogues from Tunisia to Turkey.
Should the United States apologize? If there were mishandlings of the Koran, we should say so and express regret. And that should be in the context of our remarkably humane and tolerant treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners, and in the context of a global war on terrorism (for example, the campaign in Afghanistan) conducted with a discrimination and a concern for civilian safety rarely seen in the annals of warfare.
Then we should get over it, stop whimpering and start defending ourselves." (See also: "Just Shut It Down" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times/Der Spiegel, 2005/05/27))

"European civilisation has sown the seeds of its own decline and fall" (Gerard Baker, The Times, 2005/06/03)
"In their different ways, the two referendums were surely symbolic events, marking the culmination of a decade or more of European disintegration and decline. ...
At home, the same moral relativism, bred by years of pampered prosperity, was creating its own destructive forces. Again, egged on by intellectual elites, Europeans were encouraged to despise the civilisation that had nurtured them. The nation state was pronounced a hateful anachronism that had to be replaced by a pan-European superstate. The West’s defining values of enlightened tolerance and freedom were not superior to anyone else’s. Crime was the fault of its own unfair societies.
Immigrants who came to its countries were not to be forced to live by its own rules but by theirs, even if that meant “honour” killings and jihad. The effort to produce tolerant, multicultural societies resulted in the paradox of radical liberal democracies such as the Netherlands enthusiastically nurturing forces at home that sought to destroy the freedoms in which they were being incubated. ...
But the challenge is now upon Europe. The longer it puts off the inevitable reforms — economic, social and political — the harder it will get. And if it chooses to defer a real response for ever, the greatest civilisation in the history of the planet will simply continue to sink beneath the waves of its own economic irrelevance and moral ennui."

"Europe battles young terrorists" (Shaun Waterman, UPI/The Washington Times, 2005/06/03)
"European counterterrorism officials say they are facing a new, more dangerous generation of Islamic extremists, who are younger and more radical than their forebears, and in some cases trained and battle-hardened in Iraq.
Judge Balthazar Garzon, an investigating magistrate who is leading Spain's effort to prosecute Islamic terrorists, said at a conference in Florence, Italy, that this was the "second generation." ...
Recent investigations by authorities in several European countries have discovered networks of Islamic extremists recruiting and making travel arrangements for young radicals, who want to go to fight the U.S. military in Iraq.
Cofer Black, who until recently was the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, said at the conference that despite U.S. successes in killing or capturing foreign insurgents, the capabilities the survivors are acquiring are changing the odds.
"Not many have to get past you when they are trained so well in explosives," he said, referring to skills needed to make suicide-bomb belts and car bombs." (Hat tip: Farmann [In Norwegian].)

"Syria Test-Fires 3 Scud Missiles, Israelis Say" (Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, 2005/06/03)
"Syria test-fired three Scud missiles last Friday, including one that broke up over Turkish territory and showered missile parts down onto unsuspecting Turkish farmers, Israeli military officials revealed Thursday.
These were the first such Syrian missile tests since 2001, the Israelis said, and were part of a Syrian missile development project using North Korean technology and designed, the Israelis contend, to deliver air-burst chemical weapons. The missiles included one older Scud B, with a range of about 185 miles, and two Scud D's, the Israelis say they believe, with a range of about 435 miles.
Little was especially startling about the tests, Israeli officials said, except the embarrassment to Turkey - a member of NATO - and the timing, during the Lebanese elections."

"Iraq Puts Civilian Toll at 12,000" (Ellen Knickmeyer, The Washington Post, 2005/06/03)
"Violence in the course of the 18-month-long insurgency has claimed the lives of 12,000 Iraqis, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Thursday, giving the first official count for the largest category of victims of bombings, ambushes and other increasingly deadly attacks.
At least 36 more Iraqi civilians, security force members and officials were killed Thursday in attacks that underscored the ruthlessness and growing randomness of much of the violence. The day's victims included 12 people killed when a suicide attacker drove a vehicle loaded with explosives into a restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk.
In Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a market area crowded with civilians, killing nine, the Defense Ministry said. ...
nterior Ministry statistics showed 12,000 civilians killed by insurgents in the last year and a half, Jabr said. The figure breaks down to an average of more than 20 civilians killed by bombings and other attacks each day. Authorities estimate that more than 10,500 of the victims were Shiite Muslims, based on the locations of the deaths, Jabr said."

Thursday, June 2, 2005

News and commentary:

"Vigil for Kassir"
(Ramzi Haidar, AFP, 2005/06/02)
"Vigil for Kassir: Lebanese women hold candles at the site of the bomb explosion in which opposition journalist Samir Kassir was killed in Beirut."

"Leading anti-Syrian journalist killed in Beirut blast" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/02)
BEIRUT (AFP) - Prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir was assassinated when his car blew up in a residential sector of mostly Christian east Beirut in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Lebanese opposition figures blamed the blast on the government and its political masters in Syria, which was forced to end its 29-year troop presence in the country after the February murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri.
"The blood-stained hands that assassinated Rafiq Hariri are the same ones that assassinated Samir Kassir," said Hariri's son and political heir Saad, whose father's killing was blamed by many on Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services.
Kassir's murder comes just days after the first round of general elections in Lebanon, held just a month after the last Syrian solider left Lebanese soil.
Calling the murder a "terrorist act," Saad Hariri said it 'proves that the military-police regime to which the martyred journalist was opposed cracks down and continues to defy the Lebanese and the international community.'"

"U.N.: Weapons Equipment Missing in Iraq" (Edith M. Lederer, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/02)
"U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in
Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.
In the report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased. ...
A third of the chemical items removed came from the Qaa Qaa industrial complex south of Baghdad which the report said "was among the sites possessing the highest number of dual-use production equipment," whose fate is now unknown." Significant quantities of missing material were also located at the Fallujah II and Fallujah III facilities north of the city, which was besieged last year." (See also: "Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq" - News and commentary on the missing explosives in Iraq.)

"Saudis Outraged Over Women-Drive Proposal" (Donna Abu-Nasr, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/02)
"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - He just wanted his colleagues in the government's legislative arm to discuss the possibility of conducting a study into the feasibility of reversing the ban on women drivers — the only prohibition of its kind in the world.
But Consultative Council member Mohammad al-Zulfa's proposal has unleashed a storm in this conservative country where the subject of women drivers remains taboo.
Al-Zulfa's cell phone now constantly rings with furious Saudis accusing him of encouraging women to commit the double sins of discarding their veils and mixing with men. He gets phone text messages calling on Allah to freeze his blood. Chat rooms bristle with insulting accusations that al-Zulfa is "driven by carnal instincts with 454 horsepower."
There even have been calls to kick al-Zulfa from the council and strip him of his Saudi nationality. ...
"Driving by women leads to evil," Munir al-Shahrani wrote in a letter to the editor of the Al-Watan daily. 'Can you imagine what it will be like if her car broke down? She would have to seek help from men.'"

"J'Accuse" (Tom Gross, The Wall Street Journal/defenddemocracy.org, 2005/06/02)
"A French court last week found three writers for Le Monde, as well as the newspaper's publisher, guilty of "racist defamation" against Israel and the Jewish people. In a groundbreaking decision, the Versailles court of appeal ruled that a comment piece published in Le Monde in 2002, "Israel-Palestine: The Cancer," had whipped up anti-Semitic opinion. ...
"Israel-Palestine: The Cancer" was a nasty piece of work, replete with lies, slanders and myths about "the chosen people," "the Jenin massacre," describing the Jews as "a contemptuous people taking satisfaction in humiliating others," "imposing their unmerciful rule," and so on.
Yet it was no worse than thousands of other news reports, editorials, commentaries, letters, cartoons and headlines published throughout Europe in recent years, in the guise of legitimate and reasoned discussion of Israeli policies. ...
Grotesque and utterly false comparisons such as these should have no place in reporting or commenting on the Middle East. Yet although the French court ruling -- the first of its kind in Europe -- is a major landmark, no one in France seems to care. The country's most distinguished newspaper, the paper of record, has been found guilty of anti-Semitism. One would have thought that such a verdict would prompt wide-ranging coverage and lead to extensive soul-searching and public debate. Instead, there has been almost complete silence, and virtually no coverage in the French press.
And few elsewhere will have heard about it. Reuters and Agence France Presse (agencies that have demonstrated particularly marked bias against Israel) ran short stories about the judgment in their French-language wires last week, but chose not to run them on their English news services. The Associated Press didn't run it at all. Instead of triggering the long overdue reassessment of Europe's attitude toward Israel, the media have chosen to ignore it." (See also: "French journalists defame Israel" (JTA, 2005/05/28) and "Israel-Palestine: The Cancer" (Edgar Morin, Sami Naïr and Danièle Sallenave, Le Monde/Watch, 2002/06/03 [2003/01/07]))

"Bad law is making a Just War so much harder to fight" (John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/06/02)
Keegan on the "effect that using international criminal law has on the morale of the Army":
"The mobilisation of legal procedures within a law-abiding army, such as the British, against its own people, has the most undesirable effects. No one wants law-breakers to go unpunished. The reality is, however, that once military police and military lawyers start investigations, the normal understandings and assurances of mutual confidences on which normal army life subsists go out of the window. ...
Those who were in the front line, an intrinsically lonely place, suddenly find themselves lonelier still, without any protectors among those they are taught to regard as their natural protectors.
The legal code, in short, is highly destructive of the emotions, comradeship, mutual concern and responsibility of seniors for juniors on which the military system operates. Traditionally, the British Army always recognised that the intrusion of civilian law into its way of life was undesirable. In consequence it maintained its own legal system in which, under court martial, soldiers were judged by other soldiers.
There was a lot that was wrong with the court martial system, which produced much rough justice. There was, however, also a lot that was right. Under court martial, it is unlikely that officers or soldiers, pleading that their actions should be understood within the military realities of fear, confusion and concern for each other's safety, would be condemned for lack of understanding of such circumstances. Good civil law is likely to make for bad military law. Only a lawyer would argue otherwise."

"Europe's dirty little secret" (Anatole Kaletsky, The Times, 2005/06/02)
"Whatever you think of European integration, there is something inspiring about 20 million people who, having been told what to do by their most respected politicians and after listening attentively, then do the exact opposite.
This week’s referendums in France and the Netherlands are probably the most significant event in European history since the end of the Cold War. As in Germany after its citizens found that they could smash symbolic chunks out of the Berlin Wall with impunity, everyday life in Europe may go on as before, but nothing will ever be quite the same. But don’t expect to hear much serious debate about the significance of this popular revolt against “the idea of Europe” for many months. The first reaction will be to pretend, or even to believe sincerely, that nothing much has happened."

"Now the Dutch say no" (David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/06/02)
"The Netherlands dealt an apparent death blow to the European Union constitution last night, with 63 per cent of the electorate rejecting the treaty, computer projections predicted.
Coming only three days after French voters rejected the constitution, the Dutch No vote was so decisive that the treaty seems to have no future in its current form. ...
Geert Wilders, an anti-immigration campaigner and the most prominent figure in the No camp, said: "I had not expected such a massive result. I am extremely happy with it.
"If you realise that two thirds of parliament supported the constitution and two out of three people are against, it means a lot is wrong in the country". ...
Some senior officials at the European Commission in Brussels remain in denial about the crisis they face and have tried to portray the No vote in France as a Yes to greater integration.
They noted that many French Left-wing No voters had said they wanted more European harmonisation and rejected the constitution as insufficiently socialist. The French result could be seen, in the eyes of federalist optimists, as a mandate for greater political union.
The Dutch vote makes a mockery of such wishful thinking."

Added in archive:
"Galloway calls for global unity between Islamic and Left forces" (Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha, Iraq News Network, 2005/05/25)
"Turkey's Spiritual Submission" (Steven Stalinsky, New York Sun/MEMRI, 2005/03/23)

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

News and commentary:

"BOE!"
(Peter Dejong, AP, 2005/05/25)
"Dutch cows wear protest signs against the Netherland's referendum on the EU constitution in Oosthuizen, 32 km north of Amsterdam, Wednesday, May 25, 2005. The Dutch word 'Boe' refers to the sound cows make and, like the English 'boo,' signals disapproval."

"Dutch Voters Reject EU Constitution" (Arthur Max, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/01)
Just say Nee: "AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Dutch voters worried about social benefits and immigration overwhelmingly rejected the
European Union constitution Wednesday in what could be a knockout blow for a charter meant to create a power rivaling the United States.
With nearly all votes counted, the charter lost 62 percent to 38 percent, an even worse defeat than the 55 percent "no" vote delivered in a French referendum Sunday.
"The Dutch people have spoken tonight. It is a clear result. Naturally I am very disappointed," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said in conceding defeat in his campaign for ratification. ...
Geert Wilders, a prominent opponent who argued that the charter would open the Netherlands to more migrants and lead to Turkey joining the EU, said voters were angry about "the country's identity slowly being eaten away."
"I'm incredibly happy that the Dutch voter has rubbed their noses in it," said Wilders, referring to the governing elite.
It was the first chance the Dutch public had to rule on their country's deepening involvement in Europe, since the process had never been an issue in any domestic election. The result was not only a rejection of the EU's expanding power over their daily lives but also a repudiation of the politicians who many voters believe are sacrificing the Dutch identity."

"Intimidated by extremists" (Frida Ghitis, International Herald Tribune, 2005/06/01)
"One day, when historians study this first major war of the 21st century, they will scratch their heads in disbelief, wondering how it came to pass that Muslim extremists managed to intimidate moderates of every religion - including Islam - on every continent on earth.
The whole planet, it seems, twisted itself into knots trying to untangle the forces at work behind the retracted Newsweek story about desecration of the Koran. Journalistic practices came under attack, while experts on Islam tried to soothe the less erudite, not quite justifying, but more than thoroughly explaining why desecration of the Holy Book leads to mob rampage and murder in a Muslim society.
No question, insulting any religion is beyond reprehensible. It appears, however, that nothing is more reprehensible than insulting the Muslim religion. And the extremists now decide what constitutes an insult. ...
While Muslim moderates get swept away by the tide of extremism, unprotected by so-called moderate governments, the rest of the world frets in well-intentioned angst. Moderates everywhere now seem terrified of making missteps that might upset the extremists, while they obsess over the question, "What can we do to avoid offending Muslims?" Standing Pentagon orders instruct those touching the Koran that "clean gloves will be put on" and that 'two hands will be used at all times.'"

"The truth about Guantanamo Bay" (Michelle Malkin, Town Hall, 2005/06/01)
"The mainstream media and international human rights organizations have relentlessly portrayed the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as a depraved torture chamber operated by sadistic American military officials defiling Islam at every turn. It's the "gulag of our time," wails Amnesty International. It's the "anti-Statue of Liberty," bemoans New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.
Have there been abuses? Yes. But here is the rest of the story -- the story that the Islamists and their sympathizers don't want you to hear.
According to recently released FBI documents, which are inaccurately heralded by civil liberties activists and military-bashers as irrefutable evidence of widespread "atrocities" at Gitmo:
A significant number of detainees' complaints were either exaggerated or fabricated (no surprise given al Qaeda's explicit instructions to trainees to lie). One detainee who claimed to have been "beaten, spit upon and treated worse than a dog" could not provide a single detail pertaining to mistreatment by U.S. military personnel. Another detainee claimed that guards were physically abusive, but admitted he hadn't seen it.
Another detainee disputed one of the now-globally infamous claims that American guards had mistreated the Koran. The detainee said that riots resulted from claims that a guard dropped the Koran. In actuality, the detainee said, a detainee dropped the Koran then blamed a guard. Other detainees who complained about abuse of the Koran admitted they had never personally witnessed any such abuse, but one said he had heard that non-Muslim soldiers touched the Koran when searching it for contraband."

More on Amnesty's 'Gulag':
"Amnesty International's irresponsible charges" (Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune, 2005/05/30)
"General slams Amnesty report" (Audrey Hudson, The Washington Times, 2005/05/30)
"Amnesty's 'Gulag'" (The Wall Street Journal, 2005/05/28)
"Amnesty gets Bushwhacked" (Tony Parkinson, The Age, 2005/05/27)
"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)
"Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo" (Paisley Dodds, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25)

More on Newsweek's Koran report
2005/05/23 - 2005/05/29:
"Pentagon Confirms Koran Incidents" (Josh White and Dan Eggen, The Washington Post, 2005/05/27)
"Just Shut It Down" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times/Der Spiegel, 2005/05/27)
"Inmates Alleged Koran Abuse" (Dan Eggen and Josh White, The Washington Post, 2005/05/26)
"Stop the Masochistic Insanity" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2005/05/23)
"Painted With Horns That Won't Retract" (Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post, 2005/05/23)

2005/05/16 - 2005/05/22:
"The Qur'an Question" (Evan Thomas and Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, from the 2005/05/30 issue)
"Protesters chant 'bomb New York'" (The Evening Standard, 2005/05/20)
"Our Two-Front Struggle" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/05/20)
"The Best P.R.: Straight Talk" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2005/05/20)
"Hypocrisy Most Holy" (Ali Al-Ahmed, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/05/20)
"Why Islam is disrespected" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2005/05/19)
"Bashing Newsweek" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2005/05/19)
"Suicidal Tendencies in the West" (Bruce Thornton, VDH's Private Papers, 2005/05/18)
"Seeking sanity in the asylum" (Kathleen Parker, Chicago Tribune, 2005/05/18)
"The Real Lesson of Newsweekgate" (Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/05/18)
"Our Insular Media" (Claudia Rosett, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/05/18)
"Outrage and Silence" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2005/05/18)
"The Smug Delusion of Base Expectations" (Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 2005/05/17)
"Do Riots Save Islam's Honor?" (Irshad Manji, Los Angeles Times, 2005/05/17)
"Journalists and the Military" (The Wall Street Journal, 2005/05/17)
"Newsweek Says It Is Retracting Koran Report" (Katharine Q. Seelye and Neil A. Lewis, The New York Times, 2005/05/17)
"Newsweek retracts story on Koran under pressure" (Steve Holland, Reuters/My Way, 2005/05/16)

2005/05/09 - 2005/05/15:
"The Press’ Abu Ghraib: Newsweek Apologizes, After 15 People Are Dead" (Austin Bay, austinbay.net, 2005/05/15)
"Newsweek says Koran desecration report is wrong" (David Morgan, Reuters/My Way, 2005/05/15)
"Newsweek sparks global riots with one paragraph on Koran" (Catherine Philp, The Times, 2005/05/14)
"Protests Against U.S. Spread Across Afghanistan" (Carlotta Gall, The New York Times, 2005/05/13)
"Four Killed in Afghan Anti-U.S. Riots" (AP/FOX News, 2005/05/11)

"Just Say 'Non'" (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 2005/06/01)
"On the Sunday evening and Monday morning after the French voters' definitive non to the European constitution, the French president worked the phones. According to his spokesman, he called, among others, the German chancellor, the British prime minister, and sundry European bureaucrats and commissioners, assuring all of them of France's commitment to the construction of Europe and urging all of them to keep the ratification process on track. Everyone should go on, in other words, as if nothing important had happened. ...
Indeed, one of the most remarkable characteristics of the European Union is the ability of its leaders to keep building their institutions and expanding their power, not only ignoring but self-righteously ignoring European voters. In the months before its adoption, when opinion polls showed that most Germans were also opposed to a single European currency, I asked a German politician whether this bothered him. No, he said: The job of a politician is to explain to the people what is good for them, not the other way around." (See also: "Dutch Support Sought for EU Constitution" (Anthony Deutsch, AP/Yahooo! News, 2005/05/31) and "EU call to re-run treaty referendums" (John Thornhill et al., Financial Times, 2005/05/25))

"Iraq: The Killers Keep Losing" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2005/06/01)
"The insurgency may continue for many more months, if not years, in the area known as Jazirah (island), which accounts for about 10 per cent of the Iraqi territory, plus parts of Baghdad. It may continue killing large numbers of people but will not be able to stop the political process. Its history is one of a string of political failures.
Over the past two years it has failed to prevent the formation of a Governing Council, the writing of an interim constitution, the transfer of sovereignty, the holding of local and general elections and the creation of a new government. This year it will fail to prevent the writing of a new constitution, already being drafted, the referendum to get it approved, the holding of fresh parliamentary elections and the formation of a new elected government in Baghdad.
As the Arabic saying has it: The caravan will continue its journey even if the wolves howl along the way."

"What Insurgency?" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2005/06/01)
"More than 40 percent of the suicide bombers dispatched by terror leader Abu Musab al- Zarqawi to attack Iraqis and U.S. troops hailed from Saudi Arabia, according to a new study.
Only 9 percent of the bombers were Iraqis, said the report by the SITE Institute, a counterterror group.
The analysis bolsters the Bush administration's claims that the Iraqi borders are not well policed and fanatical foreign jihadists have been streaming into the country to wreak deadly havoc.
SITE recently discovered a "Martyrs' List" that Zarqawi posted on a Web site to commemorate the fanatics who were recruited as foot soldiers in the group's deadly campaign of car bombings and other attacks to undermine Iraq's transition to democracy.
An analysis of 107 bombers whose names and backgrounds Zarqawi's group published revealed that 45 of the dead extremists, or 42 percent, came from Saudi Arabia, said Rita Katz, SITE director.
Many other bombers were Syrian, Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Afghani, Libyan and even French, while only 10 of the attackers, or 9 percent, were Iraqi-born."

"17 Killed in Blast Inside Afghan Mosque" (Noor Khan, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/01)
As Arnold Ahlert notes regarding the suicide bombing at a Muslim shrine in Pakistan:
"They were attending a religious festival in which passages from the Koran were being recited aloud by the faithful. How many Korans were "desecrated" by the blast?
Considering the number of bombings by Islamo-fascists, one could make a reasonable case that the Koran is being desecrated daily — by Muslims.":
"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A bomb attack Wednesday at a mosque in Kandahar killed at least 17 people and wounded dozens others during the funeral of a cleric who spoke out against the Taliban, officials said.
Kandahar's deputy police chief, Gen. Salim Khan, said the bomb exploded inside the mosque near where people remove their shoes before praying. He said the blast killed and wounded more than 40 people.
Mohammed Hashim Alokozai, chief of Kandahar Hospital, said at least 17 people were killed and 72 wounded, four gravely.
An Associated Press reporter at the site in the southern Afghan city saw body parts and clothes strewn around the building. Pools of blood lay on the mosque's floor." (See also: "12 Dead in Bomb Blast at Muslim Shrine" (Sadaqat Jan, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/27))

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

News and commentary:

"Dutch independent right-wing deputy Geert Wilders..."
(Juan Vrijdag, AFP, 2005/05/31)
"Dutch independent right-wing deputy Geert Wilders (C), surrounded by body guards, campaigns in Leidschendam against the EU constitution."

More on the security situation for Geert Wilders:
"The World Turned Upside Down" (Wretchard, Belmont Club, 2005/02/26)
"Wilders in Prison (2)" (DutchReport, 2005/02/22)
"Wilders in prison" (DutchReport, 2005/02/18)
"In Netherlands, Anti-Islamic Polemic Comes With a Price" (Keith B. Richburg, The Washington Post , 2005/02/01)

"Pressure Points" (Lawrence F. Kaplan, The New Republic, 2005/05/31)
"With democratic elections either recently held or soon to take place in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Ukraine, and Georgia, a fight over foreign policy bragging rights has broken out, the likes of which has not been seen since the debate over whether Ronald Reagan or Mikhail Gorbachev deserved more credit for demolishing the Soviet Union. As in that earlier contest, when it comes to the sources of today's democratic resurgence, history's first draft has already degenerated into competing black-and-white cartoons.
To hear President Bush's critics tell it, the latest democratic wave amounts to a big coincidence, owing nothing to a president who speaks of democracy and little else and even less to the example of Iraq. ...
On the other side of the divide, Bush likens the fall of Saddam Hussein to the fall of the Berlin Wall, casting it as a "watershed event in the global democratic revolution" and even touting Iraq as a sufficient explanation for the "Arab spring" as well as democratic uprisings further afield.
Both arguments reflect what Georgetown University's Robert Lieber calls a reductio ad Iraqum, in which every accomplishment or setback of U.S. foreign policy traces back to Iraq. ...
What neither mentions is that, absent direct U.S. intervention, not one of these movements would have succeeded. This holds true in Egypt, Ukraine, Georgia, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, and wherever else democracy has gained a foothold since the invasion of Iraq. Has that invasion changed the world directly? Maybe. Maybe not. What we do know is that it changed the orientation of U.S. foreign policy. And that is changing the world."

"In Defense of Certainty" (Charles Krauthammer, TIME, from the 2005/06/06 issue)
"The Op-Ed pages are filled with jeremiads about believers -- principally evangelical Christians and traditional Catholics -- bent on turning the U.S. into a theocracy. Now I am not much of a believer, but there is something deeply wrong -- indeed, deeply un-American -- about fearing people simply because they believe. It seems perfectly O.K. for secularists to impose their secular views on America, such as, say, legalized abortion or gay marriage. But when someone takes the contrary view, all of a sudden he is trying to impose his view on you. And if that contrary view happens to be rooted in Scripture or some kind of religious belief system, the very public advocacy of that view becomes a violation of the U.S. constitutional order. ...
Nothing has more aroused and infuriated the sophisticates than the foreign policy of a religiously inclined President, based on the notion of a universal aspiration to freedom and of America's need and duty to advance it around the world. Such liberationism, confident and unapologetic, is portrayed as arrogant crusading, a deep violation of the tradition of American pluralism, ecumenism, modesty and skeptical restraint.
That widespread portrayal is invention masquerading as history. You want certainty? You want religiosity? How about a people who overthrow the political order of the ages, go to war and occasion thousands of deaths in the name of self-evident truths and unalienable rights endowed by the Creator? That was 1776. The universality, the sacredness and the divine origin of freedom are enshrined in our founding document. The Founders, believers all, signed it. Thomas Jefferson wrote it. And not even Jefferson, the most skeptical of the lot, had the slightest doubt about it."

"Is America abandoning the fight?" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/05/31)
"However, judging from US actions over the past several weeks, it would seem that in his second term in office, US President George W. Bush and his administration have transformed their activist policy from the first term into one best characterized by speaking loudly and carrying no stick. Indeed, an assessment of recent American moves toward Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians gives little reason to take seriously the notion that the president and his team are planning to advance the cause of fighting global jihad at all in the coming years.":
"Speaking of what awaits the world under a repeat Rafsanjani presidency last Friday Hojatolislam Gholam Hasani, a representative of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told worshipers at a mosque: "You need to vote for Rafsanjani. This way we will finally be able to have for ourselves the atomic bomb to fairly stand up to Israeli weapons." According to a report by Adnkronos news agency, Hasani continued, "Freedom, democracy and stupidities of this type cannot be carried over to any part, and these concepts are out of sync with the principles of Islam. Islam always spoke with the sword in the hand, and I don't see why now we should change attitudes and talk with other civilizations." ...
A revised US strategy toward fighting global jihad that placed in the crosshairs the regimes that indoctrinate hundreds of millions of people to believe in jihad would be a welcome policy development. And yet, from the Bush administration's actions on the ground from Teheran to Riyadh to Ramallah, it seems that rather than placing these terror regimes in the crosshairs, the president and his advisers are strengthening them. If this is the case, then Israel is in for one of the toughest periods in its history." (See also: "Iran: Vote for Rafsanjani and we will have nuclear bombs, says religious leader" (adnki, 2005/05/27))

"Dutch Support Sought for EU Constitution" (Anthony Deutsch, AP/Yahooo! News, 2005/05/31)
Democracy according to Eurocrats II [emphasis added]:
"THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Officials in the Netherlands launched a last-ditch media offensive to persuade Dutch voters to support the European constitution, but the possibility of that happening looked a lot less likely after French voters rejected the charter.
A second electoral defeat in four days, and by another founding member of the EU, would be a stinging rebuke to the bloc's decision makers. ...
Unlike France's referendum, which was binding on the government, the Dutch vote is advisory. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's governing party said Monday it will accept a "no" verdict only if turnout reaches at least 30 percent and if 55 percent of those who vote reject the charter." (Hat tip: PoliPundit. See also: "EU call to re-run treaty referendums" (John Thornhill et al., Financial Times, 2005/05/25))

"Submission to Islam" (P. David Hornik, The American Spectator, 2005/05/31)
A review of "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis" by Bat Ye'or:
"Europe baffles many people. Why does this continent of democracies persistently favor Arab dictatorships while pouring vitriol on the United States and Israel? Why, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, did the streets of Europe fill with millions of demonstrators supporting Saddam Hussein while hurling epithets at George Bush and Ariel Sharon? Why does a continent that is historically, and still demographically, Christian let itself be inundated with Muslim immigrants who are allowed to keep their culture and fealties instead of assimilating to Western values? ...
As an "aging, confused, and timorous" civilization that has affiliated itself with "an assertive, demographically booming, Arab-Muslim world," a reassertion of identity is "highly improbable" and the decline "may be irreversible." "One may hope," however -- the sole hope Bat Ye'or offers in this sobering book -- "that America's resolute policy has opened...new opportunities for the world to eschew a former order of political connivance with hate and crime." As she has stated in lectures and elsewhere, she sought specifically to publish this book in America as a means of alerting Americans both to Europe's advanced state of decay and to the United States' role as the last bulwark against Islamic encroachment and last possible force for Western moral revival."

"Europe is an indulgence we can't afford" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/05/31)
"Incidentally, that "lunatic fringe" in France now accounts for about 60 per cent of the electorate. That's another lesson for the decayed Euro-elite. One of the most unattractive features of European politics is the way it insists certain subjects are out of bounds, and beyond politics. That's the most obvious flaw in Giscard's flaccid treaty: it's not a constitution, it's a perfectly fine party platform for a rather stodgy semi-obsolescent social democratic party. Its constitutional "rights" - the right to housing assistance, the right to preventive action on the environment - are not constitutional at all, but the sort of things parties ought to be arguing about at election time.
Instead, Europe's "consensus" politics has ruled more and more topics unfit for discussion, leaving voters with a choice between Eurodee and Eurodum, a left-of-right-of-left-of-centre party and a right-of-left-of-right-of-left-of-centre party. None of these plodding technocratic parties seems eager to talk about any of the faintly unrespectable subjects on the minds of voters - Muslim immigration, increasing crime, Turkey, EU labour mobility. So voters, naturally, are turning elsewhere, and in five years' time the entire Continent could end up with the same flight from the centre as we've seen in Ulster." (See also: "EU call to re-run treaty referendums" (John Thornhill et al., Financial Times, 2005/05/25))

"Outrage as US troops arrest moderate Sunni leader" (Adrian Blomfield, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/05/31)
"US troops outraged Iraq's new government yesterday by arresting one of the country's foremost Sunni leaders only to release him later and call the whole episode a mistake.
Firing stun grenades, American soldiers burst into the home of Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, head of the largest Sunni Arab political party, shortly after dawn. They forced a hood over his head and dragged him away along with his three sons.
A number of Sunni politicians and religious leaders have been accused of links to Iraq's insurgency - but never Mr Abdul-Hamid.
A Sunni Kurd, he is widely considered a moderate and played a leading role in bringing Sunni Arabs who boycotted January's elections back into the political process.
He was freed 10 hours later, but the US military offered no explanation for his detention and stopped short of apologising.
"It was determined that he was detained by mistake and should be released," US central command said in a statement." (See also: "Iraqi Muslim Leader Detained; 20 Killed" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/30))

Added in archive:
"'We Must Declare War on Islamist Propaganda'" (Der Spiegel, 2005/05/14)

Monday, May 30, 2005

News and commentary:

"A Girl Scout pauses to rearrange a bundle of flags..."
(Reed Saxon, AP, 2005/05/28)
"A Girl Scout pauses to rearrange a bundle of flags she is carrying past the headstones of veterans' graves during the traditional placement of flags in preparation for Memorial Day ceremonies at the Los Angeles National Cemetery, Saturday, May 28, 2005. Hundreds of boy and girl scouts placed flags on each one of nearly 85,000 graves."

"Al-Zarqawi Message Now Says Wounds Minor" (Salah Nasrawi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/30)
"Iraq's insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi purportedly made an audio address to Osama bin Laden on Monday to assure the al-Qaida leader that he was in good health after being wounded in a fire fight with U.S. troops.
There was no way to confirm that the voice was that of Jordanian-born terror leader al-Zarqawi. However, the recording was carried by a Web site frequently used by militant Islamic groups, and the voice sounded similar to that previously attributed to al-Zarqawi.
"I am sure you have heard through the media that I was wounded and treated in a Ramadi hospital. I would like to assure you and the Muslim nation that these were pure allegations. It was a light wound, thank God. We are back fighting them in the land of the two rivers."
The speaker addressed the message as "a letter from a soldier on the firing line to his commander."
The speaker purporting to be al-Zarqawi addressed bin Laden as his "emir," or commander, asked bin Laden for guidance on conducting the insurgency. He said he sent bin Laden a war plan and asked for comments or approval.
Al-Zarqawi also claimed that his insurgent followers had won this month's bloody battle against U.S. troops at the town of Qaim near the Syrian border.
"It was one of the greatest battles of Islam," the speaker said. 'We would like to assure you that we are continuing on the path of jihad, we are committed to our pledge. We will either win or die trying.'"

"Iraqi Muslim Leader Detained; 20 Killed" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/30)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. troops detained the head of Iraq's largest Sunni Muslim political party on Monday, according to party officials, police and the man's wife. South of the capital, two suicide bombers attacked a crowd of policemen in Hillah, killing 20 and wounding nearly 100.
Iraq's president condemned the arrest of Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, and demanded his immediate release. ...
Al-Samarei accused American soldiers of raiding Abdul-Hamid's home and confiscating various items, including a computer. U.S. military officials could not immediately confirm the detentions. Iraqi officials were also reluctant to talk about the issue.
"This is a provocative and foolish act and this is part of the pressure exerted on the party," al-Samarei said.
"At the time when the Americans say they are keen on real Sunni participation, they are now arresting the head of the only Sunni party that calls for a peaceful solution and have participated in the political process," he added.
The party had in recent weeks taken steps to become more involved in the political process following what essentially amounted to a boycott of political life by the group. Sunni Muslim Arabs are also thought to make up the core of an insurgency."

"The Way Forward" (Fouad Ajami, USNews.com, 2005/05/30)
"Forgive the writer's personal pronoun, but I am calmest about Iraq when I am in Iraq. Last month, I was there for my fourth visit since the fall of the despot. There were pockets of air and civility of unusual promise. ...
An idea of Iraq at peace, the promise of a country less lethal to its own people and to the peoples of neighboring lands, seems tantalizingly close. "My dream is to be the Tip O'Neill of Iraq," said Hajem al-Hassani, speaker of the National Assembly, a Sunni Arab who had emerged as the consensus candidate when other contenders had proved unacceptable to the Shiites. The reference to O'Neill was no accident. Hassani had spent most of two decades in the United States. Amid the mayhem of Iraq, he exuded unmistakable optimism. ...
The effort that matters for Iraq's future is the training of Iraqis to claim, and defend, their own country. In his headquarters in Baghdad, the indefatigable Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who has been overseeing this enterprise, has a PowerPoint presentation that quotes a maxim borrowed from T. E. Lawrence: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them." A stranger, given the gift of a limited time among the Iraqis, can only wish them well and watch them, amid the violence, building a better country." (Hat tip: Barry Kaplovitz.)

"Amnesty International's irresponsible charges" (Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune, 2005/05/30)
Gulag II: "Either Amnesty International isn't aware of this history, or it knows of it but is lying for the sake of a good sound bite. In either case, the group has lost credibility to speak on behalf of the victims of human-rights violations. Moreover, Amnesty International has dishonored millions of gulag victims.
Of course, the media took the bait. Mindlessly and without hesitation, they repeated the gulag charge, as if Amnesty International says it is so, it must be so. If the media felt compelled to report that kind of remark, at least in the interests of balance and accuracy, they should have added a brief sentence noting that the gulag was a network of old Soviet concentration camps to which millions were sent to suffer and die. An Associated Press report, found on The New York Times Web site, took that course, but only made matters worse by asserting that "thousands," not millions, died in the gulag. Haven't Times editors read the newspaper's own review of Applebaum's book? No wonder the media deserve such public contempt. ...
On this Memorial Day, it might be worth a moment to remember that Guantanamo Bay is run by Americans who do not deserve to be lumped together with a mass slaughter of historic proportions. Certainly, we must be vigilant to prevent any human-rights violations committed by all nations, including ours. But, we need not tolerate this slander against the men and women of the American military and the citizens who support them."

"General slams Amnesty report" (Audrey Hudson, The Washington Times, 2005/05/30)
Gulag I: "Gen. Richard B. Myers yesterday condemned as "absolutely irresponsible" an Amnesty International report that compared prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay to the Soviet gulag, adding that 100 out of 68,000 detainees held in the war against terrorism were abused.
"It's very small compared to the population of detainees we've handled," said Gen. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also noted that many of the abuses have produced courts-martial and other punishments.
The London-based human rights organization called the U.S. facility in Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our time," comparing it to the Soviet Union's slave-labor camps where millions of people died. ...
"I think it's irresponsible. I think it's absolutely irresponsible," Gen. Myers told "Fox News Sunday."
"I think I'd ask them to go look up the definition of gulag as commonly understood. We've had 68,000 detainees since this conflict against violent extremism started. We've had 325 investigations into alleged abuse. We've had 100 cases of substantiated abuse and there are 100 individuals that have had some sort of action taken, either court-martial or administrative action," Gen. Myers said." (See also: "Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo" (Paisley Dodds, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/05/25))

"The plight of 'submission'" (Diana West, Town Hall, 2005/05/30)
"Still, maybe the creators of "24" deserve a medal, considering the total silence of their fellow movie- and television-makers when it comes to the war on jihadist terror. War, what war? Culture clash? What culture clash? Freedom -- what kind of freedom? Hollywood and the media may be "brave" and "bold" in fearlessly depicting sexuality, violence and the perversions therein, but they're cultural cowards when it comes to depicting, even mentioning, matters of war, Islam and jihad. Call it dhimmitude, Hollywood-style.":
"While the term dhimmitude, coined by historian Bat Ye'or, refers to the inferior status of Jews and Christians living under Islamic rule, she also points to disturbing signs of dhimmitude throughout the free West. These concerns range from the politically correct fear of giving offense, which curtails freedom of speech (think Fox punting Islam), to the fear of jihadist violence, which curtails freedom of movement, and even the free practice of religion (think armed guards at synagogues).
An unlikely moviemaker who refuses to accept dhimmi conditions is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is the amazingly courageous 35-year-old Somali-born ex-Muslim and Dutch parliamentarian whose first foray into screenwriting is a provocative 11-minute film called "Submission." Directed by Theo van Gogh -- who was ritualistically murdered on an Amsterdam street last fall, his head nearly severed from his body, a jihadist rant pinned to his chest with a knife -- "Submission" depicts the brutalized plight of all too many women at the hands of men under Islam, a political issue championed by Ali. For exercising her freedom of speech, Ali now lives under an Islamically imposed death sentence (fatwa). She also lives under lock and key, guarded 24 hours a day, and transported everywhere in an armored vehicle.
Such is the going price of freedom in Holland, just another ultra-liberal, Western country besieged by jihadists. 'This fatwa isn't just directed against me," she explains, 'but against Holland, against the entire Western world. We are all targets. In the eyes of radical Muslims, any country in which Muslims can be criticized openly is an enemy of Islam.'" (Hat tip: Barry Kaplovitz.)

"Iraqi Offensive Met by Wave of New Violence From Insurgents" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2005/05/30)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 29 - The largest Iraqi-led counterinsurgency operation since the downfall of Saddam Hussein set off a violent backlash on Sunday across Baghdad. At least 20 people were killed in the capital, 14 of them in a battle lasting several hours when insurgents initiated sustained attacks on several police stations and an army barracks.
The violence, including at least four suicide car bombings, was a bloody start to an operation that Iraq's new Shiite-majority government had presented as a new get-tough policy toward Sunni Arab insurgents, first in Baghdad and then countrywide. The government has said it will commit 40,000 uniformed Iraqis to the Baghdad operation in an effort to crush insurgents who reacted to the government's swearing-in four weeks ago with one of the war's biggest rebel surges. ...
At least initially, the crackdown in Baghdad appeared to have been met by a stiff, coordinated response that brought the toll to about 700 from the intensified rebel attacks this month. The heaviest battle raged across the districts of Abu Ghraib, Amariya and Khudra on the capital's western edge.
In the space of 30 minutes in midafternoon, the insurgents answered attempts by government forces to cordon off the districts with a sequence of attacks. They appeared to catch Iraqi forces by surprise, and prompted commanders to call for backup from American troops garrisoned nearby. Iraqi witnesses said Apache attack helicopters with loaded missile racks swooped overhead as the insurgent attacks flared into protracted gun battles below."

"Fault Lines Apparent At the Polls" (Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post, 2005/05/30)
Beirut II: "The map of election day emotions almost exactly mirrored the division of this religiously atomized city into Christian and Muslim enclaves.
Sunni Muslims, buoyed by their almost certain sweep of the Beirut parliamentary seats, voted in large numbers, and turned their polling places into festive spectacles. Overall turnout was low, 28 percent by the government's estimate. Shiite Muslims were cautious and expressed hope that the new government would tend to the problems of unemployment and poverty. And many Christians, angry about a 2000 election law that limits their influence in national parliamentary elections, stayed home.
"They're watching TV," Ramy said."

"Hariri campaign claims victory in Beirut parliamentary election" (Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 2005/05/30)
Beirut I: "Lebanese voters went to the polls yesterday at the start of the first parliamentary election in 30 years that has not been marred by civil war or heavy-handed Syrian meddling.
The campaign, led by Saad Hariri, 35, the son of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister who was assassinated in February, was celebrating victory after incomplete results showed it had swept Beirut's 19 parliamentary seats. ...
After the heady days of street demonstrations that toppled the Syrian-backed government and helped to drive Syrian forces out of the country just a few weeks ago, the first phase of the election, in the capital, Beirut, proved an anti-climax.
Amid complaints of a carve-up by political leaders - 10 of the 19 Beirut seats have already returned candidates unopposed - the big question was how many of the city's 420,000 electors would bother to vote.
Last night, Hassan al-Sabaa, the interior minister, put turnout at 28%, which was less than the 35% for the last election under Syrian domination in 2000, an embarrassment to the Hariri bloc."

"NON: EU thrown into turmoil as French reject constitution" (Colin Randall and David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/05/30)
"The future of European integration was in doubt last night after French voters humiliated President Jacques Chirac and dealt a devastating blow to the EU constitution by rejecting it by a landslide.
The interior ministry said that, with 83 per cent of votes counted, more than 57 per cent of voters had rejected the treaty, a far larger margin than had been predicted by any recent opinion polls and one that puts Mr Chirac's future in question.
He had staked his reputation on calling the referendum and urging the country to vote Yes. In his final appeal to the nation, he had begged voters to remember their responsibilities to the EU. But the majority preferred to heed the Non campaign, a motley alliance of Left and Right with no charismatic leader.
In a brief televised address, Mr Chirac conceded defeat with the words: "It is your decision; it is your sovereign decision and I take note of it."
Outside his party headquarters, a small crowd braving the rain gasped loudly when the word "Non" flashed up on a giant television screen."

Added in archive:
"The Military You Don't See" (Frank Schaeffer, The Washington Post, 2005/05/29)
"French journalists defame Israel" (JTA, 2005/05/28)
"Amnesty gets Bushwhacked" (Tony Parkinson, The Age, 2005/05/27)
"10 reasons not to kill Bush" (Jennifer McBride, Oregon Daily Emerald, 2005/05/25)

 

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

› From 2001/09/11 -



Monthly index

December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006

› From September 2001 -



Author index

› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat



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