Archived news and commentary: June 13 - 19, 2005

2005/06/13 - 2005/06/19
2005/06/06 - 2005/06/12
2005/05/30 - 2005/06/05
2005/05/23 - 2005/05/29
2005/05/16 - 2005/05/22
2005/05/09 - 2005/05/15

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, June 19, 2005

News and commentary:

"A Lebanese Forces supporter points to her t-shirt..."
(Joseph Barrak, AFP, 2005/06/19)
"A Lebanese Forces supporter points to her t-shirt, which shows a picture of jailed former Christian warlord Samir Geagea and reads in Arabic, 'Leave it as is' in a reference to the Future Movement alliance list, in the town of Beshare, during the fourth and final round of Lebanon's parliamentary poll. Lebanon's main anti-Syrian opposition bloc said it was headed for a majority in parliament after claiming a stunning win in the decisive final round of elections."

"Rumsfeld and al-Jazeera: the wrong target?" (Carol Gould, current viewpoint, 2005/06/19)
"The fundamental problem is that in the USA nobody, not even the most erudite and highly placed, understands that it is NOT just al Jazeera that is affecting world and Muslim opinion but the British and European news media, who powerfully influence the 15-odd million highly literate Muslims living in the UK and continental Europe. What, one may ask, does an irate columnist in a London tabloid have to say that could inspire an otherwise rational young man or woman to strap themselves with explosives or arm themselves with box cutters bent on bombing or hijacking Americans and Jews?
For the past five years in the UK AN Wilson; Brian Sewell; Polly Toynbee, the 'Daily Mirror' and its own John Pilger; 'The New Statesman' of 'Kosher Conpsiracy' fame; Margaret Drabble; Richard Ingrams; Robert Fisk, Sir David Hare; Ahdaf Soueif; Faisal Bodi and many others including Kate Adie of BBC Radio 4 and Jon Snow of Channel Four have waged a biased and often vituperative campaign of journalistic vilification of the USA, Israel and the 'Zionist cabal' running America. Often their content is distorted and flawed; one fears the exaggerated claims of Zionist and American imperialism being promulgated across Britain and Europe by these journalists does indeed have a profound effect on impressionable young minds across the globe. I believe that a group of young Muslims -- we have already seen this in Brixton-based Richard Reid and Zaccarious Moussaoui -- being fed a daily dose of invective about Jews, Israelis and evil Americans will eventually commit acts to express their outrage." (Hat tip: Melanie Phillips.)

"10 Questions for Porter Goss" (Timothy J. Burger, TIME, 2005/06/19)
"He had been director of the Central Intelligence Agency for just seven months when the onetime CIA spy had to cede much of his power to the new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte. But Porter Goss, 66, says he now has more time to run America's largest human intelligence agency. He sat down for his first interview with TIME's Timothy J. Burger.
WHEN WILL WE GET OSAMA BIN LADEN? That is a question that goes far deeper than you know. In the chain that you need to successfully wrap up the war on terror, we have some weak links. And I find that until we strengthen all the links, we're probably not going to be able to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice. We are making very good progress on it. But when you go to the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play. We have to find a way to work in a conventional world in unconventional ways that are acceptable to the international community.
IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA OF WHERE HE IS. WHERE? I have an excellent idea of where he is. What's the next question?"

"Iraq Restaurant Blast Kills 23, Hurts 36" (Frank Griffiths, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/19)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bombing ripped through a popular Baghdad kebab restaurant at lunchtime, killing at least 23 people and wounding 36 Sunday as insurgents stepped up attacks nationwide, defying two major U.S.-led offensives aimed at routing foreign fighters.
The U.S. military also announced that a Marine died Saturday during Operation Spear — the first American death reported in the twin offensives.
The bomber detonated a vest laden with explosives at about 2:45 p.m. in the Ibn Zanbour restaurant, just 400 yards from the main gate of the heavily fortified Green Zone and is especially popular with Iraqi police and soldiers.
The explosion killed seven police officers, while the injured included 16 police officers and the bodyguards of Iraqi Finance minister Ali Abdel-Amir Allawi, police Lt. Col. Talal Jumaa said. The minister was not in the restaurant."

"Lao Buddhist workers beheaded in Thai Muslim south" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/19)
"Muslim militants have beheaded two Lao migrant workers in Thailand's mainly Muslim south, police said on Sunday, believing it may be the same group that beheaded a Thai Buddhist teacher last week.
The bodies of the young Buddhist couple, who left neighboring Laos two months ago to work on a Thai chicken farm, were found on Saturday in Pattani province, one of three deep south provinces where more than 700 people have died in violence since January 2004. ...
"Beheading has now become part of the unrest in southern Thailand. Police are facing difficulty getting cooperation from local people. They are too afraid to report or provide us with any clues," [Pattani Police Major Uthai Chaimala] said.
Muslim militants have carried out almost daily bomb attacks, arson and ambushes despite Bangkok's olive-branch approach in recent months." (See also: "Buddhist man found beheaded in Thailand's troubled Muslim-dominated south" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/15))

"Durbin slanders his own country" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2005/06/19)
"Now let us turn to the ranking Democrat, the big cheese on the committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Leahy thinks Gitmo needs to be closed down and argues as follows:
"America was once very rightly viewed as a leader in human rights and the rule of law, but Guantanamo has drained our leadership, our credibility, and the world's good will for America at alarming rates."
So, until Guantanamo, America was "viewed as a leader in human rights"? ... Not the weekend before 9/11 when the human rights grandees of the U.N. "anti-racism" conference met in South Africa to demand America pay reparations for the Rwandan genocide and to cheer Robert Mugabe to the rafters for calling on Britain and America to "apologize unreservedly for their crimes against humanity." If you close Gitmo tomorrow, the world's anti-Americans will look around and within 48 hours alight on something else for Gulag of the Week.
And this is where it's time to question Durbin's patriotism. As Leahy implicitly acknowledges, Guantanamo is about "image" and "perception" -- about how others see America. If this one small camp of a few hundred people has "drained the world's good will," whose fault is that?
The senator from Illinois' comparisons are as tired as they're grotesque. They add nothing useful to the debate. But around the planet, folks naturally figure that, if only 100 people out of nearly 300 million get to be senators, the position must be a big deal. Hence, headlines in the Arab world like "U.S. Senator Stands By Nazi Remark." That's al-Jazeera, where the senator from al-Inois is now a big hero -- for slandering his own country, for confirming the lurid propaganda of his country's enemies. Yes, folks, American soldiers are Nazis and American prison camps are gulags: don't take our word for it, Senator Bigshot says so." (See also: "Durbin Supports the Troops" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/06/15))

"Whether This War Was Worth It" (Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, 2005/06/19)
"To assess whether the Iraq war was worth it requires seriously posing the question: What would have happened if the Bush administration had not gone to war in March 2003? That is a missing but essential piece of the current very legitimate debate. We all know what has gone wrong since the Iraq war began, but it is not as if, in the absence of a war, everything would have gone right. Those who want to have this debate cannot simply point to the terrible toll in casualties. They have to address the question of what the alternative to war really would have meant. ...
There is a strong argument to be made that Hussein would have pushed toward confrontation and war at some point, no matter what we did. His Hitler-like megalomania does not seem to be in question. ...
For another fact not in dispute is that Hussein remained keenly interested in and committed to acquiring weapons of mass destruction, that he maintained secretive weapons programs throughout the 1990s and indeed right up until the day of the invasion, and that he was only waiting for the international community to lose interest or stamina so that he could resume his programs unfettered. This is the well-documented, unrefuted -- and unnoticed -- conclusion of both David Kay and Charles Duelfer. Whether Hussein would have eventually succeeded in acquiring these weapons would have depended on other nations' will and ability to stop him."

"A Free Woman" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2005/06/19)
"After the Pakistani government tired of kidnapping Mukhtaran Bibi, holding her hostage and lying about it, I finally got a call through to her.
Pakistani officials had just freed Ms. Mukhtaran and returned her to her village. She was exhausted, scared, relieved, giddy and sometimes giggly - and also deeply thankful to all the Pakistanis and Americans who spoke up for her. ...
President Pervez Musharraf's government is still lying about Ms. Mukhtaran, saying that she is now free to travel to the U.S. Well, it's true that government officials removed her name from the blacklist of those barred from leaving Pakistan, but at the same time they confiscated Ms. Mukhtaran's passport. ...
Mr. Musharraf admitted to reporters on Friday that he had ordered Ms. Mukhtaran placed on the blacklist. And although Pakistan had claimed that Ms. Mukhtaran had decided on her own not to go to the U.S. because her mother was sick (actually, she wasn't), the president in effect acknowledged that that was one more lie. "She was told not to go" to the U.S., Mr. Musharraf said, according to The Associated Press.
"I don't want to project a bad image of Pakistan." he explained." (See also: "Pakistan Lifts Travel Restrictions on Rape Victim" (Salman Masood, The New York Times, 2005/06/16))

"Iran Moderate Says Hard-Liners Rigged Election" (Michael Slackman, The New York Times, 2005/06/19)
"TEHRAN, June 18 - The race for the presidency in Iran was thrown into turmoil on Saturday when the third-place finisher accused conservative hard-liners of rigging the election and cutting him out of the runoff vote next week, which will be between a former president and the conservative mayor of Tehran.
The accusation of voting irregularities came from Mehdi Karroubi, a cleric and former speaker of Parliament known as a conciliator, who said he would continue to press his case publicly unless the country's supreme religious leader ordered an independent investigation. ...
The Interior Ministry issued final figures Saturday night, saying the former two-term president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, would face off against the hard-line mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a runoff it said would probably be held next Friday. It was unclear what, if any, effect the accusations of fraud would have on the planned vote.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's strong showing came as a shock to the political establishment here. He had hovered at the back of the field of candidates in pre-election opinion surveys and his political base was said to be limited to the capital city. An element of the bizarre in the events on Saturday came as Mr. Ahmadinejad announced that he would be in the runoff hours before the ministry issued its own results."

"Iraqis Found in Torture House Tell of Brutality of Insurgents" (Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, 2005/06/19)
"The manual recovered - a fat, well-thumbed Arabic paperback - listed itself as the 2005 First Edition of "The Principles of Jihadist Philosophy," by Abdel Rahman al-Ali. Its chapters included "How to Select the Best Hostage," and 'The Legitimacy of Cutting the Infidels' Heads.'":
"KARABILA, Iraq, Sunday, June 19 - Marines on an operation to eliminate insurgents that began Friday broke through the outside wall of a building in this small rural village to find a torture center equipped with electric wires, a noose, handcuffs, a 574-page jihad manual - and four beaten and shackled Iraqis. ...
The men said they told the marines, from Company K, Third Marines, Second Division, that they had been tortured with shocks and flogged with a strip of rubber for more than two weeks, unseen behind the windows of black glass. One of them, Ahmed Isa Fathil, 19, a former member of the new Iraqi Army, said he had been held and tortured there for 22 days. All the while, he said, his face was almost entirely taped over and his hands were cuffed.
In an interview with an embedded reporter just hours after he was freed, he said he had never seen the faces of his captors, who occasionally whispered at him, "We will kill you." He said they did not question him, and he did not know what they wanted. Nor did he ever expect to be released.
"They kill somebody every day," said Mr. Fathil, whose hands were so swollen he could not open a can of Coke offered to him by a marine. "They've killed a lot of people." ...
His town has always been a good place, he said, but the militants have made it hell.
"These few are destroying it," he said, his face streaked with tears. 'Everybody they take, they kill. It's on a daily basis pretty much.'"

Saturday, June 18, 2005

News and commentary:

"In this photograph, made available by the U.S. Marines..."
(Neill A. Sevelius, USMC/AP, 2005/06/19)
"In this photograph, made available by the U.S. Marines an Iraqi man sits on the floor with welts and lacerations across his back and arms from being tortured with electricity while held captive, according to the Marines. The man, along with three others, were discovered by Iraqi Security Forces and Marines from 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment inside what the Marines say was an insurgent torture chamber in the city of Karabilah, Iraq during Operation Spear."

"Arraf: Marines rescue tortured hostages as battle rages" (CNN.com, 2005/06/18)
"KARABILA, Iraq (CNN) -- The joint U.S.-Iraqi Operation Spear continued Saturday as Marines, sailors and Iraqi security forces fought insurgents in Karabila, near the Syrian border. ...
Jane Arraf, CNN's senior Baghdad correspondent, is embedded with U.S. troops taking part in the mission. She spoke with CNN anchor Betty Nguyen by phone during the pitched battle.
ARRAF: What I see in front of me is absolutely heartbreaking. It's two of four hostages who are being taken away, rescued. They were rescued this morning. They're Iraqi, and they were found in this complex that Marines first thought was a car-bomb factory. In fact, they did find what they believe was a potential car bomb or suicide car bomb.
But inside this complex, they found something even more sinister -- four Iraqis who were handcuffed, their hands and feet bound with steel cuffs. They're now being taken away for medical treatment, one being borne away on a stretcher.
The man in intense pain that they're trying to get into a vehicle, has been tortured, he says, and has all the marks of being tortured with electricity. His back is crisscrossed with welts. The other man is even ... in worse shape. Their crime was to be part of the border police. ...
... the Marines showed us the room where he says he was hung by his feet, his head dipped in water and then tortured with electric shocks repeatedly.
One of the other men, the other border police, was too weak, really, to tell us what had happened. But he obviously was in very, very bad shape."

"Springtime for Dictators?" (William Kristol, The Weekly Standard, from the 2005/06/27 issue)
"On May 13, Islam Karimov, the Uzbek dictator, crushed a demonstration in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijon, causing over 500 deaths. This was his response to what had happened in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in recent months. There, autocrats had bowed to popular sentiment and foreign pressure, and yielded power. Karimov chose another path. He was quickly supported by his fellow strongmen Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao. But U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who values our military base in Uzbekistan, has apparently (so far) blocked attempts by others in the U.S. government to insist on an investigation of the massacre, or to withhold U.S. aid. ...
Combine our inaction with respect to Karimov with our passivity in the face of crackdowns in places ranging from China to Zimbabwe to Saudi Arabia in the past couple of months, and there is a real danger that the democratic momentum from earlier this year could be lost. The global story of 1989 happily turned out to be more Berlin Wall than Tiananmen Square -- but that wasn't inevitable. Nor is it inevitable that the story of 2005 will turn out to be one of democratic triumphs rather than regressions toward dictatorship. One thing is sure: Dictators around the world (and democrats, too) are watching our actions in response to their various efforts." (See also: "U.S. Opposed Calls at NATO for Probe of Uzbek Killings" (R. Jeffrey Smith and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, 2005/06/14))

"No American 'Gulag'" (Pavel Litvinov, The Washington Post, 2005/06/18)
"Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet "prisoner of conscience" adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the "gulag of our time."
"Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?" I asked him.
"Sure," he said, "but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees." ...
By any standard, Guantanamo and similar American-run prisons elsewhere do not resemble, in their conditions of detention or their scale, the concentration camp system that was at the core of a totalitarian communist system.
For example, incidents of desecration of the Koran in Guantanamo by U.S. personnel have been widely reported. But those Korans were surely not brought to Guantanamo by the prisoners themselves from Afghanistan. They were supplied by the U.S. administration -- in spite of the obvious fact that most of the prisoners misguidedly found in the Koran the inspiration for their violent hatred of the United States. ...
Words are important. When Amnesty spokesmen use the word "gulag" to describe U.S. human rights violations, they allow the Bush administration to dismiss justified criticism and undermine Amnesty's credibility. Amnesty International is too valuable to let it be hijacked by politically biased leaders."

"No Candidate Wins Majority in Iranian Presidential Election, Forcing a Second Round" (Michael Slackman, The New York Times, 2005/06/18)
"TEHRAN, Saturday, June 18 - For the first time since the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran will have a runoff election to choose a president after voters on Friday failed to give any one of the seven candidates in the race the 50 percent of the vote needed to win, an Interior Ministry spokesman announced early Saturday. ...
On the streets of this city on Friday, voters seemed most concerned about whether to vote or to defy the leadership by staying home. The conflict was evident at polling places in both the wealthy northern neighborhood of Tehran, where people live in well-appointed homes behind iron gates, and in the gritty neighborhoods of the south.
"Who's going to listen to what I have to say," Fatahen Ahmadzadeh, 34, said as she walked by a polling place in the southern portion of Tehran. 'We have to choose between bad and worse.'"

Friday, June 17, 2005

News and commentary:

"Politics & Policies: Iran's elections" (Claude Salhani, UPI, 2005/06/17)
"President Bush's denouncing of Iran's electoral system a day before the Islamic Republic went to the polls to choose a new president was seen by Iranian opposition groups as a sign of encouragement and support.
Vowing that "America would support those seeking freedom," Bush called the Islamic Republic's electoral system "undemocratic."
"Today, Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world," he said in a statement released by the White House. "Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy."
"The June 17th presidential elections are sadly consistent with this oppressive record," added Bush.
Opponents of the regime in Tehran welcomed the president's comments.
"This is a rare recognition by any Western country that Iran's election process is neither free nor fair," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, an Iranian activist living in Washington who is president of Strategic Policy Consulting. "Rather it is designed to keep the ruthless clerics in power."
Jafarzadeh sees Bush's statement as having the following ramifications:
1. It offers the Iranian people a view that the United States is serious in recognizing their right to determine their own future.
2. Opposition groups in Iran will view Bush's statement as a signal to step up their efforts to unseat the regime of the clerics.
3. The American president's statement will be viewed by countries of the European Union as a warning that the United States is serious on Iran and is tightening its political screws on the regime of the mullahs.
4. It sends a signal to "rogue states" and "Tehran-sponsored terrorist groups" that the world is increasingly intolerant of their activities." (See also: "Statement by the President on Iranian Elections" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2005/06/16))

"Dutch MP plans new Islam film" (BBC News, 2005/06/17)
"Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali has told the BBC she intends to make a follow-up to the Theo van Gogh film Submissions Part One, which resulted in the director being killed, allegedly by a radical Muslim. ...
"Deciding not to make Part Two after Theo van Gogh's murder would be, I think, really wrong," Ms Ali told BBC World Service's The Interview programme.
"It would reward the killers of Theo van Gogh, it would reward violence, suggesting it can get people to do what you want them to do." ...
"Now, regardless of the risks, I am going to make it, in order to show that we should not bow to violence."
Ms Ali lives under police protection. Earlier this year, she spent two months in hiding.
She said she accepted that making Submissions Part Two would mean her life would never return to "normal" - but said this would have been the case anyway.
"Remember Salman Rushdie - he wrote the book [The Satanic Verses] in 1989, and he'll never have a normal life again," she added.
"That's the case - once, as a Muslim, you say you are not a Muslim, or you make statements the radicals regard as apostasy, then they believe that by killing you they will go to Heaven.
'So I am going to live, to prove to them that there is no Heaven - or Hell, for that matter.'"

"A Leading Egyptian Government Daily Al-Akhbar: 'Al-Zarqawi is an American Agent'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 923, 2005/06/17)
"In a June 15, 2005 editorial titled "All the Evidence Proves that Al-Zarqawi is an American Agent," a leading Egyptian government daily Al-Akhbar's states that Al-Zarqawi is working for the U.S. and is massacring Iraqis in an effort to extend the occupation in Iraq. The following are excerpts from the article:
All the evidence proves that Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi is working for America, because his victims are Iraqis and not [members of] the coalition forces under the command of the American occupation forces in Iraq. Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's official title is 'leader of Al-Qa'ida's faction in Iraq.' Osama bin Laden is the commander of the Al-Qa'ida organization, and this proves that [Al-Zarqawi's commander,] bin Laden, has [also] been an American agent ever since he operated against the USSR forces in Afghanistan in favor of the Americans!"

"Qaeda's Zawahri says peaceful reform impossible" (Heba Kandil, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/17)
"DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri called for an armed struggle to expel "crusader forces and Jews" from Muslim states and said peaceful change was impossible, in a video tape aired by Al Jazeera on Friday.
A calm-looking Zawahri also urged Palestinian militant groups not to lay down arms against Israel or take part in parliamentary polls.
"Expelling the invading crusader forces and Jews from our Muslim homes cannot be realized solely through demonstrations and speaking out in the streets. Reform and expelling the invaders from Muslim countries cannot be accomplished except by fighting for the sake of God," Zawahri said.
"We cannot imagine any reform while our countries are occupied by crusader forces which are spreading throughout our land," said Zawahri, wearing a white turban with a rifle beside him. ...
"The Islamic nation cannot accept anything other than the sharia after it suffered from different systems imposed upon it which contradict Islam," the Egyptian militant said."

"The Sorry Bunch" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/06/17)
"The more left-wing the Westerner, the more tolerant he is of right-wing Islamic extremism; the more liberal the Arab, the more likely he is to agree with conservative Westerners about the real source of Middle Eastern pathology.
The constant? A global distrust of Western-style liberalism and preference for deductive absolutism. So burn down a mosque in Zimbabwe, murder innocent Palestinians in Bethlehem in 2002, arrest Christians in Saudi Arabia, or slaughter Africans in Dafur, and both the Western Left and the Middle East's hard Right won't say a word. No such violence resonates with America's diverse critics as much as a false story of a flushed Koran — precisely because the gripe is not about the lives of real people, but the psychological hurts, angst, and warped ideology of those who in their various ways don't like the United States. ...
So unhinged have we become that if an American policymaker calls for democracy and reform in the Middle East, then he is likely to echo the aspirations of jailed and persecuted Arab reformers. But if he says Islamic fascism is either none of our business or that we lack the wisdom or morality to pass judgment on the pathologies of a traditional tribal society, then the jihadist and the police state — and our own Western Left — approve."

"Mind Over Mullahs" (Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair/FrontPageMagazine, 2005/06/17)
Hitchens on Hossein Khomeini: "The black turban proclaims him a sayyid, or descendant of the prophet Muhammad. But it's his more immediate ancestry that interests me. This man's grandfather once shook the whole world. He tore down the throne of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and humiliated the United States. His supporters seized the American Embassy and kept 52 members of its staff prisoner for 444 days. The seismic repercussions of this event led to the fall of Carter, the rise of Reagan, the invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein, and quite possibly the occupation of Afghanistan by the Red Army. It moved us from the age of the Red Menace to the epoch of Holy War. ...
Young Khomeini has been spending a good deal of his time in Iraq, where he has many friends among the Shia. He is a strong supporter of the United States intervention in that country, and takes a political line not dissimilar to that of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. In practice, this means the traditional Shia belief that clerics should not occupy posts of political power. In Iranian terms, what it means is that Khomeini (his father and elder brother died some years ago, so he is the most immediate descendant) favors the removal of the regime established by his grandfather. "I stand," he tells me calmly, "for the complete separation of religion and the state." In terms that would make the heart of a neocon soar like a hawk, he goes on to praise President Bush's State of the Union speech, to warn that the mullahs cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons, and to use the term "Free World" without irony: 'Only the Free World, led by America, can bring democracy to Iran.'"

"We Are Our History - Don't Forget It" (David Gelernter, Los Angeles Times, 2005/06/17)
"Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin's gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot — an astonishing, obscene piece of ignorance. ...
There is an ongoing culture war between Americans who are ashamed of this nation's history and those who acknowledge with sorrow its many sins and are fiercely proud of it anyway. Proud of the 17th century settlers who threw their entire lives overboard and set sail for religious freedom in their rickety little ships. Proud of the new nation that taught democracy to the world. Proud of its ferocious fight to free the slaves, save the Union and drag (lug, shove, sweat, bleed) America a few inches closer to its own sublime ideals. Proud of its victories in two world wars and the Cold War, proud of the fight it is waging this very day for freedom in Iraq and the whole Middle East.
If you are proud of this country and don't want its identity to vanish, you must teach U.S. history to your children. They won't learn it in school. This nation's memory will go blank unless you act." (See also: "Durbin Supports the Troops" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/06/15))

"What Europe Really Needs" (Paul Johnson, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/06/17)
"There is another still more fundamental factor in the EU malaise. Europe has turned its back not only on the U.S. and the future of capitalism, but also on its own historic past. Europe was essentially a creation of the marriage between Greco-Roman culture and Christianity. Brussels has, in effect, repudiated both. There was no mention of Europe's Christian origins in the ill-fated Constitution, and Europe's Strasbourg Parliament has insisted that a practicing Catholic cannot hold office as the EU Justice Commissioner.
Equally, what strikes the observer about the actual workings of Brussels is the stifling, insufferable materialism of their outlook. ... The EU has no intellectual content. Great writers have no role to play in it, even indirectly, nor have great thinkers or scientists. It is not the Europe of Aquinas, Luther or Calvin--or the Europe of Galileo, Newton and Einstein. Half a century ago, Robert Schumann, first of the founding fathers, often referred in his speeches to Kant and St. Thomas More, Dante and the poet Paul Valery. To him--he said explicitly--building Europe was a "great moral issue." He spoke of "the Soul of Europe." Such thoughts and expressions strike no chord in Brussels today.
In short, the EU is not a living body, with a mind and spirit and animating soul. And unless it finds such nonmaterial but essential dimensions, it will soon be a dead body, the symbolic corpse of a dying continent."

"Democrats Play House To Rally Against the War" (Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, 2005/06/17)
"In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe. ...
The session was a mock impeachment inquiry over the Iraq war. As luck would have it, all four of the witnesses agreed that President Bush lied to the nation and was guilty of high crimes -- and that a British memo on "fixed" intelligence that surfaced last month was the smoking gun equivalent to the Watergate tapes. ...
The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic."
Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer."
At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks." (Hat tip: Best of the Web Today.)

"Sunnis to Accept Offer of a Role in Constitution" (Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, 2005/06/17)
"Iraqi political leaders broke weeks of deadlock on Thursday, with Sunni Arabs accepting a compromise offer to increase their representation on the Shiite-led parliamentary committee that is to draft a constitution.
The agreement was a significant step forward in Iraq's political process, which has been mired in arguments between Shiite and Sunni Arabs over how many Sunnis to include on the committee. Still, it fell short of being final, as political leaders have not yet agreed which Sunnis would be chosen as members.
The offer - 15 additional seats and 10 adviser positions for Sunni Arabs - was first made last week, but was rejected by many Sunnis, who said they wanted more seats. Since then, Shiite committee members sweetened the offer, saying the committee would approve the new constitution by consensus and not by vote, making the precise number of seats held by each group less important."

"Wood's weeks of horror" (Ian McPhedran, The Courier-Mail, 2005/06/17)
"AUSTRALIAN hostage Douglas Wood was bound, gagged, beaten, blindfolded and fed a diet of bread and propaganda during the 47 days he was held in Iraq.
Details of his ordeal emerged as it was confirmed that his miraculous rescue by Iraqi soldiers on Wednesday resulted from a tip off by a "walk-in" – a civilian informant. ...
As well as bashing him, he said his captors tried to brainwash him into believing his family and his country had abandoned him.
Mr Wood also said that during his rescue he was kicked in the head and heard gunfire as his captors tried to hide him under a blanket on the bed where he had been tied.
Despite his ordeal, two of his most pressing concerns were getting his hands on an Australian beer and finding out how his beloved Geelong football team was going.
He called out "God Bless America" from his hospital bed at Camp Victory near Baghdad airport and delivered a simple message to his wife in California: "I'm healthy. When are you going to come and get me?" ...
The full horrors of Mr Wood's captivity have yet to be revealed, but it is known he was held at gunpoint and threatened with death, that he was beaten, that his head was shaved and that he was fed bread and water." (See also: "Australian Rescued by Iraqi, U.S. Forces" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/15))

Thursday, June 16, 2005

News and commentary:

"The 'Sweet' Sound of Palestinian Blood Libel" (Micah Halpern, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/06/16)
"How would you exterminate a nation? What about poison? Do you think that spreading carcinogens would do the job?
The Palestinians certainly seem to think so.
In an interview published this week in the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Shark al-Awsat, Yousef Abu Safieh, the Palestinian Minister of Environment, claimed that Israel is deliberately dispersing cancerous materials to kill Palestinians.
And what is the Israeli poison of choice? What cancerous material is Israel dispersing throughout, forcing upon, the Palestinian Authority? Sweet and Low! Yes, that diabolical sugar substitute, the darling of dieters since it came on the market, Sweet and Low. And how is Israel going about with this plan to poison the Palestinian population? By manufacturing soft drinks made with this sugar substitute expressly for distribution within the Palestinian Authority. ...
Most of these hate inspired stories are based on Medieval stereotypes of classic Jew hatred. Throughout history the Jew has been portrayed as the "poisoner of the wells" causing the Black Plague or, as in the "blood libel," the murderer of young children in order to bake Passover matzah.
In the Arab world these stories have taken on a life and genre of their own. Classic Jew hatred with an Arab flare." (See also: "Cancer juice!" (Backspin, 2005/06/14))

"Pakistan Lifts Travel Restrictions on Rape Victim" (Salman Masood, The New York Times, 2005/06/16)
"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 15 - Under pressure from Washington, the Pakistani government on Wednesday lifted its travel restrictions on Mukhtar Mai, whose gang-rape and its aftermath set off worldwide outrage at the treatment of women in Pakistan.
Mukhtar Mai, also known as Mukhtaran Bibi, was to visit the United States last week at the invitation of human rights groups, but she found her name on the government's list of people barred from traveling abroad. The restriction met with bitter protests from human rights advocates, here and abroad, as well as objections from the State Department. ...
On Wednesday, the Pakistani interior minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, announced in Parliament that Ms. Mukhtar's name had been removed from the list of those barred from traveling abroad by order of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
"'She is free to go anywhere, and there is no restriction on her movement," Mr. Sherpao said." (See also: "Raped, Kidnapped and Silenced" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2005/06/14))

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

News and commentary:

"Durbin Supports the Troops" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/06/15)
"Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis...:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay] -- I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

We are fighting an enemy that murdered 3,000 innocent people on American soil 3 1/2 years ago and would murder millions more if given the chance -- and according to Dick Durbin, our soldiers are the Nazis." (See also [PDF]: "Congressional Record - Senate" (frwebgate.access.gpo.gov, 2005/06/14))

"Let's Go to the Memo - What's really in the Downing Street memos?" (Fred Kaplan, Slate, 2005/06/15)
"The "killer quote" in the original Sunday Times story is this passage from the July 23 ministers' meeting:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. ...

This is about as solid as the evidence gets on these matters: By mid-summer 2002 — at a time when Bush was still assuring the American public that he regarded war as a "last resort" — the president had in fact put it on his front burners. ...
In other respects, though, the memo doesn't make as strong a case against Bush as some have claimed. Read in conjunction with the six other British documents, the case weakens further. The memos do not show, for instance, that Bush simply invented the notion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or that Saddam posed a threat to the region. In fact, the memos reveal quite clearly that the top leaders in the U.S. and British governments genuinely believed their claims. ...
What of the second half of the key quote from the Downing Street Memo of July 23 — that Bush wanted war, justified by WMD and terrorism, but "the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy"? It's worth noting that "fixed around" is not synonymous with "fixed." To say that Bush and his aides "fixed" intelligence — as some Web sites claim the memo shows — would mean that they distorted or falsified it. To say "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" means that they were viewing, sifting, and interpreting intelligence in a way that would strengthen the case for their policy, for going to war."

"Australian Rescued by Iraqi, U.S. Forces" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/15)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi and U.S. forces, acting on a tip, raided a dangerous Sunni neighborhood Wednesday and freed an Australian hostage who was hidden beneath a blanket, officials said. Elsewhere, 38 people died in insurgent attacks, including 25 killed when a bomber dressed in Iraqi army uniform blew himself up in a mess hall.
Douglas Wood, a 64-year-old engineer who is a longtime resident of Alamo, Calif., said he was "extremely happy and relieved to be free again," according to a message read by Australia's counterterrorism chief Nick Warner.
Wood emerged from the compound from which he'd been freed wearing a tan dishdasha, or traditional Arabic robe, with his head shaved, looking tired but smiling broadly. ...
Wood was freed by the Iraqi army's 2nd battalion, 1st Armored Brigade, with assistance by U.S. forces in Ghazaliya — one of the most dangerous Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baghdad, Warner said. He added that "no ransom was paid" despite a request for a "very large" amount of money.
Wood was found under a blanket and the insurgents told troops he was their sick father, said Gen. Naseer al-Abadi, Iraq's deputy chief of staff. The operation also resulted in the arrest of three insurgents and release of an Iraqi hostage."

"Buddhist man found beheaded in Thailand's troubled Muslim-dominated south" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/15)
"Suspected Islamic militants have beheaded a Buddhist man in largely Muslim southern Thailand, police said Wednesday, the fifth such killing since the area erupted in sectarian violence early last year.
Two bombs also exploded but caused no injuries Wednesday, less than a day after a pro-government Muslim official and his driver were slain when alleged insurgents raked their car with automatic weapons fire.
The head of Kamol Chuneth, a 65-year-old retired Buddhist school teacher, was found on a road in Pattani province, while his body was recovered from a nearby hut close to a rice field, said police Maj. Gen. Uthai Chaimala.
A note found with the head said: "You arrested an innocent man. I will get two lives in return."
The note apparently referred to the arrest last week of a Muslim student leader, Mahazee Boonthon. ...
Kamol's beheading was thought to have been the fifth such incident in the area's latest wave of violence. The first beheading was in May 2004 in Narathiwat province."

"Iran 'misled UN on nuclear work'" (BBC News, 2005/06/15)
"United Nations nuclear monitors say Iran has admitted to misleading them over its experiments with plutonium.
The UN's nuclear watchdog is expected to confirm later that Iran continued experimenting with plutonium - a key component of atomic bombs - until 1998.
Iran had previously told the body it had ended its experiments in 1993.
Correspondents say these latest inconsistencies in Iran's account will fuel suspicions about the real aims of its nuclear programme. ...
According to a draft speech to be delivered on Thursday to the IAEA's board of governors, the agency's deputy director Pierre Goldschmidt will confirm that Tehran has changed its version of events.
Tehran has now admitted that experiments took place in 1995 and 1998 after the IAEA confronted it with its analysis of its plutonium samples, according to the draft speech obtained by Reuters news agency."

"Woman 'ordered to marry rapist'" (BBC News, 2005/06/15)
"An Indian woman who was allegedly raped by her father-in-law is now being ordered by a Muslim council of community elders to marry him.
The council says under Islamic law the rape has nullified her marriage, according to media reports.
But a top Muslim body in India has rejected the argument saying it is not valid under Sharia (Islamic) law.
It says the council was not authorised to give such a verdict and added that the alleged rapist should be punished.
Reports say the 28-year-old woman was raped when she was alone at home in Charthawal, in the norther Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
When the incident came to the notice of the council, it ordered that she marry her father-in-law and change her relationship with her husband to that between a mother and son.
It also ordered her to leave her home and stay away for seven month and 10 days to become 'pure'."

"The European Inquisition" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2005/06/15)
"A new twist to the impending prosecution of Oriana Fallaci for incitement to religious hatred... The man who prompted the prosecution, Adel Smith, President of the Union of Italian Muslims, has himself been convicted of defaming the Catholic church:

'Adel Smith, President of the Union of Italian Muslims, was sentenced by the Padua court to 6 months in prison, converted to a fine (over 6,000 euro), for the crime of defaming religion. On January 4, 2003, Adel Smith, during a TV program broadcast live on the Paduan channel 'Serenissima Tv' made accusations against the Catholic church defining it as "criminal association" and against Pope John Paul II, defined as "a foreign man who heads the church" and "able double-crosser. [...] I declared undeniable modern historic facts: for this reason I do not regret my declarations. It seems to me that the sentence is political. I am very curious to know what those think who yesterday invoked the freedom of judgment and criticism today: is it so for me too?" Smith said he will appeal against the sentence and if necessary will resort to European courts "until he is acquitted." "I am confident and sure that at the end I will have justice."'

The answer to Smith's question is yes. His conviction is oppressive. He should have the freedom to speak -- the very freedom he seeks to remove from Oriana Fallaci. Freedom of speech for one means freedom of speech for all -- precisely the lesson he seems not to grasp, wanting freedom for himself but not for others.
This is precisely what happens when a country introduces laws banning debate about religion -- every religious believer becomes a potential criminal, faith group is set against faith group, group hatred does not diminish but grows, and freedom of expression goes down the tubes." (See also: "Adel Smith, 6 months sentence for defaming religion" (AGI, 2005/06/14))

"The End of Europe" (Robert J. Samuelson, The Washington Post, 2005/06/15)
"It's hard to be a great power if your population is shriveling. Europe's birthrates have dropped well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children for each woman of childbearing age. For Western Europe as a whole, the rate is 1.5. It's 1.4 in Germany and 1.3 in Italy. In a century -- if these rates continue -- there won't be many Germans in Germany or Italians in Italy. Even assuming some increase in birthrates and continued immigration, Western Europe's population grows dramatically grayer, projects the U.S. Census Bureau. Now about one-sixth of the population is 65 and older. By 2030 that would be one-fourth, and by 2050 almost one-third. ...
Even modest efforts in France and Germany to curb social benefits have triggered backlashes. Many Europeans -- maybe most -- live in a state of delusion. Believing things should continue as before, they see almost any change as menacing. ...
Preoccupied with divisions at home, Europe is history's has-been. It isn't a strong American ally, not simply because it disagrees with some U.S. policies but also because it doesn't want to make the commitments required of a strong ally. Unwilling to address their genuine problems, Europeans become more reflexively critical of America. This gives the impression that they're active on the world stage, even as they're quietly acquiescing in their own decline."

"Long Road to the Promised Land" (David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 2005/06/15)
A report from Beirut: "But an unsentimental discussion of Arab democracy must begin with recognition that we haven't reached the promised land quite yet. Even in Lebanon, the freest and most liberal country in the Arab world, politics are still sharply bounded by religious and sectarian loyalties. ...
They know they are caught in a world dominated by primordial loyalties of sect and tribe. They hope to break out of this world -- indeed, I think that, like most Arabs, they want passionately to leave the past and enter a modern and tolerant future. But in the meantime, they must protect themselves. ...
Last Thursday night I attended a memorial service for journalist Samir Kassir, who bravely continued to write columns in the Beirut newspaper An Nahar calling for Syrian withdrawal until the day he was murdered. His friends lit candles at the spot where a bomb had exploded under his car a week before. I saw Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Druze friends among the crowd of mourners. Indeed, this was a moment when clan loyalties truly didn't seem to matter. People gathered around the crater in the pavement and sang the Lebanese national anthem -- loudly, defiantly and in one voice.
Kassir was a martyr for an Arab world that will someday be free and democratic. You can see it coming, but even in Lebanon, it is not here yet."

"Sleeping giant of the Arab world awakes to democracy" (Richard Beeston, The Times, 2005/06/15)
A report from Cairo: "Half a dozen independent newspapers feel free to criticise Mr Mubarak, his Government and even his family, when once that could have meant prison. Where the ruling National Democratic Party had a monopoly on power for three decades, now dozens of parties and political movements are springing to life. Where it was assumed that Mr Mubarak, 77, would rule for ever, now the main debate in Egypt is who will succeed him.
Egypt’s version of the “Arab Spring”, as the democratic changes sweeping the region are known, is particularly significant because it has the strong encouragement of Washington. President Bush has stated repeatedly that he wants Cairo to set the example for democracy and is putting pressure on his key Arab ally to introduce the necessary reforms.
Mr Mubarak does not have much choice. America provides nearly $2 billion annually in aid to Egypt. Its embassy in Cairo, the largest American mission in the world, is openly supporting pro-democratic forces. ... This month Mr Bush telephoned Mr Mubarak to berate him over the attack by activists of his ruling party on an opposition demonstration where women protesters were sexually assaulted. The Americans are pressing Cairo to accept international observers to monitor the elections. They intervened to help to secure the release from jail of Ayman Nour, a liberal politician who shot to fame after announcing that he would challenge Mr Mubarak in Egypt’s first multi-candidate elections in September."

"23 killed in Kirkuk suicide bombing" (Yehia Barzanji, AP/The Boston Globe, 2005/06/15)
"KIRKUK, Iraq - A suicide bomber struck outside a bank as elderly men and women waited to cash their pension checks Tuesday, killing 23 people and wounding nearly 100 in this oil-rich northern city that has become a flashpoint for sectarian tension. ...
A man wearing a belt packed with explosives blew himself up outside the Rafidiyan Bank just after it opened Tuesday morning, said Gen. Sherko Shakir, Kirkuk's police chief.
A crowd of street vendors and elderly men and women waiting outside the bank bore the brunt of the blast, and a pregnant woman and several children were among the victims.
Body parts were strewn for 20 yards in every direction from the blast. The bodies of several victims were found in the rubble of a nearby pedestrian overpass. Two cars were set on fire.
"It was the biggest awful crime in Kirkuk since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime," Shakir said."

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

News and commentary:

"Cancer juice!" (Backspin, 2005/06/14)
"China View 'reports' the latest sinister plot by Israeli Joos, floated by a PA minister:

RAMALLAH, June 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Palestinian chief of Environment Authority Yousef Abu Safeya accused Israel Monday of glutting the Palestinian markets with carcinogenic canned juice.
"Such kind of drinks are specifically produced for the Palestinian consumers in the Gaza Strip." Abu Safeya told a weekly session of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).
He pointed out that the Palestinian security services had recently seized a number of shipments, including canned juice containing a carcinogenic substance.
He added that the Egyptian authorities impounded two Israeli trucks carrying child toys polluted with carcinogenic and radioactive substances at the Rafah commercial crossing on the
borders with Israel in March.

And the libel reaches a broad western audience thanks, once again, to GoogleNews -- the China View article recently appeared as the second entry under a search for 'Palestinians'..." (See also: "Israel accused of selling carcinogenic juice to Palestinians" (China View, 2005/06/14))

"Bergen: The Madrassa Myth" (Robert Spencer, Dhimmi Watch, 2005/06/14)
"Do you wonder why we call it the New Duranty Times? Peter Bergen and Swati Pandy write about "The Madrassa Myth" without once dealing with what is taught at those Madrassas. ...

While madrassas may breed fundamentalists who have learned to recite the Koran in Arabic by rote, such schools do not teach the technical or linguistic skills necessary to be an effective terrorist. Indeed, there is little or no evidence that madrassas produce terrorists capable of attacking the West. And as a matter of national security, the United States doesn't need to worry about Muslim fundamentalists with whom we may disagree, but about terrorists who want to attack us. ...

A World Bank-financed study that was published in April raises further doubts about the influence of madrassas in Pakistan, the country where the schools were thought to be the most influential and the most virulently anti-American. Contrary to the numbers cited in the report of the 9/11 commission, and to a blizzard of newspaper reports that 10 percent of Pakistani students study in madrassas, the study's authors found that fewer than 1 percent do so. If correct, this estimate would suggest that there are far more American children being home-schooled than Pakistani boys attending madrassas.

Sooo, home schooling is just as bad as the madrassas? Now you know why we call it the New Duranty Times. In this case, think Jimmy." (See also: "The Madrassa Myth" (Peter Bergen and Swati Pandy, The New York Times/PeterBergen.com, 2005/06/14))

"Spain arrests Islamic suspects linked to Iraq, Madrid bombings" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/14)
"MADRID (AFP) - Spanish authorities have arrested 16 suspected Islamic extremists, some linked to the bloody unrest in Iraq and others to last year's deadly Madrid train bombings.
More than 500 police were mobilised for the swoops, which were carried out in the regions around Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Andalucia as well as in the Spanish enclave of Cueta north of Morocco.
Eleven of the suspects "are part of an Islamic network implanted in Spain and linked to the Ansar al-Islam/Zarqawi network," the interior ministry said Wednesday -- alluding to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, alleged to be the mastermind behind some of Iraq's bloodiest violence against the US-led coalition. ...
Of those 11 suspects, seven are Moroccan, two Algerian and two from Cueta, the interior ministry went on in its statement."

"Memo Suggests Oil-For-Food Link to Annan" (Nick Wadham, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/14)
"UNITED NATIONS - The committee probing the U.N. oil-for-food program announced Tuesday it will again investigate Secretary-General
Kofi Annan after an e-mail suggested he may have known more than he claimed about a multimillion-dollar U.N. contract awarded to the company that employed his son.
The e-mail describes a brief encounter in which officials from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspections S.A. discussed its bid for the contract during a summit in Paris in late 1998. Through his spokesman, Annan said he had no recollection of such a meeting.
If accurate, the e-mailed memo would contradict a major finding the Independent Inquiry Committee made in March — that there wasn't enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed his son Kojo, to win the Iraq oil-for-food contract. ...
The memo is a major blow to Annan, who had claimed he was exonerated by the committee's March interim report."

"Muslim Target" (Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/06/14)
"Oriana Fallaci is 75 years old. The renowned Italian journalist lives in hiding because of death threats she received after the publication in 2001 of her book The Rage and the Pride. She is dying of cancer. And now she is going to go on trial for “defaming Islam.”
The complaint comes from Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy, who was never charged with defaming Christianity after he referred to a crucifix as a “miniature cadaver” during his 2003 efforts to have depictions of Christ on the Cross removed from Italian schools. He has amassed a reputation as something of a crank after demanding that Christians deny aspects of their faith that offended his Islamic sensibilities: he has called for the destruction of Giovanni da Modena’s fresco The Last Judgment in the 14th-century cathedral of San Petronio in Bologna, Italy, because that priceless expression of Medieval Christianity depicts the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in hell. And in the mother of all frivolous lawsuits, Smith in February 2004 he brought suit against Pope John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for offending Islam by expressing in various writings their opinion, utterly unremarkable from two Christian leaders, that Christianity is unique and superior to other religions, including Islam. ...
During a speech in Washington in 2002, Fallaci said: “The hate for the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. The clash between us and them is not a military one. It is a cultural one, a religious one, and the worst is still to come.” The suit against her is just one hint of that terrible denouement." (See also: Blasphemy - News and commentary on free speech cases and blasphemy law apologetics.)

"Pakistan's moderates are beaten in public" (Ali Dayan Hasan, International Herald Tribune, 2005/06/15)
Pakistan II: "'Teach the bitch a lesson. Strip her in public.' As one of the police officers told me, these were the orders issued by their bosses. The police beat the woman with batons in the full glare of the news media, tore her shirt off and, though they failed to take off her baggy trousers, certainly tried their best. The ritual public humiliation over, she and others - some bloodied - were dragged screaming and protesting to police vans and taken away to police stations.
This didn't happen to some unknown student or impoverished villager. This happened to Asma Jahangir, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion and head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the country's largest such nongovernmental group. The setting: a glitzy thoroughfare in Lahore's upmarket Gulberg neighborhood. The crime: attempting to organize a symbolic mixed-gender mini-marathon on May 14.
The stated aim of the marathon was to highlight violence against women and to promote "enlightened moderation" - a reference to President Pervez Musharraf's constant refrain describing the Pakistani military's ostensible shift from state-sponsored Islamist militancy and religious orthodoxy to something else (just what is not entirely clear).
Others arrested included Hina Jilani, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, and 40 others, this writer included (an observer, not a runner - too many cigarettes). The police, faced with embarrassing media coverage, released us a few hours later." (See also: "Mixed citizens rally violently dispersed by police" (Daily Times, 2005/05/15))

"Raped, Kidnapped and Silenced" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2005/06/14)
Pakistan I: "Last fall I wrote about Mukhtaran Bibi, a woman who was sentenced by a tribal council in Pakistan to be gang-raped because of an infraction supposedly committed by her brother. Four men raped Ms. Mukhtaran, then village leaders forced her to walk home nearly naked in front of a jeering crowd of 300.":
"On Thursday, the authorities put Ms. Mukhtaran under house arrest - to stop her from speaking out. In phone conversations in the last few days, she said that when she tried to step outside, police pointed their guns at her. To silence her, the police cut off her land line.
After she had been detained, a court ordered her attackers released, putting her life in jeopardy. That happened on a Friday afternoon, when the courts do not normally operate, and apparently was a warning to Ms. Mukhtaran to shut up. Instead, Ms. Mukhtaran continued her protests by cellphone. But at dawn yesterday the police bustled her off, and there's been no word from her since. Her cellphone doesn't answer.
Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer who is head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said she had learned that Ms. Mukhtaran was taken to Islamabad, furiously berated and told that President Pervez Musharraf was very angry with her. She was led sobbing to detention at a secret location. She is barred from contacting anyone, including her lawyer.
"She's in their custody, in illegal custody," Ms. Jahangir said. "They have gone completely crazy."
Even if Ms. Mukhtaran were released, airports have been alerted to bar her from leaving the country. According to Dawn, a Karachi newspaper, the government took this step, 'fearing that she might malign Pakistan's image.'" (See also: "When Rapists Walk Free" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2005/03/05), "Pakistani Court Acquits Five Gang-Rape Convicts" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/03/03) and "Sentenced to Be Raped" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2004/09/29))

"U.S. Opposed Calls at NATO for Probe of Uzbek Killings" (R. Jeffrey Smith and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, 2005/06/14)
"Defense officials from Russia and the United States last week helped block a new demand for an international probe into the Uzbekistan government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month, according to U.S. and diplomatic officials.
British and other European officials had pushed to include language calling for an independent investigation in a communique issued by defense ministers of NATO countries and Russia after a daylong meeting in Brussels on Thursday. But the joint communique merely stated that "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan," had been discussed.
The outcome obscured an internal U.S. dispute over whether NATO ministers should raise the May 13 shootings in Andijan at the risk of provoking Uzbekistan to cut off U.S. access to a military air base on its territory.
The communique's wording was worked out after what several knowledgeable sources called a vigorous debate in Brussels between U.S. defense officials, who emphasized the importance of the base, and others, including State Department representatives at NATO headquarters, who favored language calling for a transparent, independent and international probe into the killings of Uzbekistan civilians by police and soldiers." (See also: "Some 1,000 killed in Uzbekistan unrest in 'summary executions': rights group" (AFP/ReliefWeb, 2005/05/19))

"Returning Lebanese General Stuns Anti-Syria Alliance" (John Kifner, The New York Times, 2005/06/14)
"BEIRUT, Lebanon, June 13 - The bright promise of the "Cedar Revolution" in this fractious, bloodied country is dissolving in old vendettas and the unsettling re-emergence of a powerful figure, Gen. Michel Aoun.
General Aoun, once the nationalist commander of the Lebanese Army, scored a stunning victory over rivals in the Maronite Christian heartland, according to official results of voting on Sunday that were released late Monday, catapulting himself into political dominance and dealing a crushing blow to the new anti-Syrian opposition.
That shift appeared sealed Monday night as General Aoun met in the north, which on Sunday will be the last of four regions to vote, to lock in alliances with two powerful Syrian supporters who nurse deep grudges against a jailed Christian warlord championed by the opposition. Those alliances appeared to preclude any chance that the multi-religion opposition would gain a majority in Parliament. ...
Only days ago, the opposition was confidently predicting it would have 80 or 90 seats to control the 128-seat Parliament. The vote on Sunday brought the opposition numbers to only 45. With 28 seats at stake in the final round in the far north - a Sunni, Maronite and Greek Orthodox area - it seems most unlikely that it can reach the 65 needed for a majority."

Monday, June 13, 2005

News and commentary:

"In this photograph released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal..."
(Iraqi Special Tribunal/AP, 2005/06/13)
"In this photograph released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on Monday June 13, 2005, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is seen being questioned by investigating magistrates."

"Video of Saddam's Questioning Released" (Paul Garwood, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/13)
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The tribunal that will put Saddam Hussein on trial released a new video Monday of the former dictator being questioned by magistrates about the killing of 50 Iraqis in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt in 1982.
The video from the Iraqi Special Tribunal showed a bearded Saddam wearing a dark gray suit with pinstripes and white open-collared shirt being questioned by chief judge Raid Juhi. Four other members of Saddam's administration also were shown in the video. There was no audio. ...
The 68-year-old Saddam looked drawn and tired, the first time he has been seen in a video since his arraignment on July 1, 2004, in Baghdad on broad charges including killing rival politicians over 30 years, gassing Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in 1988, invading Kuwait in 1990, and suppressing the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings.
Unlike that appearance, where Saddam was combative and tried to exhibit his authority, the tape shows a man who appears to a shadow of his former self. There are heavy bags under his eyes, he often clasps his hands and squeezes his fingers — clutching them together when apparently trying to make a point. His hair appears unkempt and his beard has more gray flecks running through it than a year ago."

"By-products of Modernity" (Paul Hollander, New York Sun, 2005/06/13)
A review of "Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses", a collection of essays by Theodore Dalrymple:
"These essays are held together by a well-founded concern with the spiritual, moral, and cultural decline of the Western world. The volume begins with the proposition that “the fragility of civilization is one of the great lessons of the 20th century” and that many of the disasters of the 20th century could be characterized as a revolt against civilization itself: the Cultural Revolution in China … the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia … in Rwanda, scores of thousands of ordinary people were transformed into pitiless murderers by demagogic appeals over the radio. While such mass murders had a political-ideological inspiration associated with the promulgation of certain values and beliefs, Mr. Dalrymple sees the ascendancy of moral-ethical relativism as the source of the social and cultural ills in the West. Such relativism finds expression in public policy, education, politics, the arts, and, not least, popular or mass culture. Western intellectuals contribute to these trends: “to break a taboo, or to transgress are terms of the highest praise in the vocabulary of modern critics, irrespective of what has been transgressed or what taboo broken.” The commendable embrace of tolerance often ends up in a wishy-washy relativism: “where a reputation for intolerance is more feared than a reputation for vice itself, all manner of evil may be expected to flourish.” ...
His sensibility is inimitably conveyed in his comparison of Marx and Turgenev: 'Turgenev saw human beings as individuals always endowed with consciousness, character, feelings, moral strengths and weaknesses. Marx saw them always as snowflakes in an avalanche … as not yet fully human because utterly conditioned by their circumstances. Where Turgenev saw men, Marx saw classes of men.'" (See also: "The Doctor Is In" (David Pryce-Jones, National Review/Manhattan Institute, 2005/06/06))

"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2005/06/13)
"I should very much like to know how a Gore administration would have dealt with the hundreds of foreign sadists taken in arms in Afghanistan. I should also like to know how other Western governments, which are privately relieved that the United States assumed responsibility for the last wave, expect to handle the next wave of fundamentalist violence in their own societies. No word on this as yet.
An axiom of the law states that justice is more offended by one innocent person punished than by any number of guilty persons unapprehended. I say frankly that I am not certain of the applicability of this in the present case. Mullah Omar's convoy in Afghanistan was allowed to escape because there was insufficient certainty to justify bombing it. Several detainees released from Guantanamo have reappeared in the Taliban ranks, once again burning and killing and sabotaging. The man whose story of rough interrogation has just been published in Time had planned to board a United Airlines flight and crash it into a skyscraper. I want to know who his friends and contacts were, and so do you, hypocrite lecteur.
You may desire this while also reserving the right to demand that he has a lawyer present at all times. But please observe where we stand now. Alberto Gonzales was excoriated even for asking, or being asked, about the applicability of Geneva rules. Apparently, Guantanamo won't do as a holding pen until we decide how to handle and classify these people. But meanwhile, neither will it do to "render" any suspects to their countries of origin. How many alternatives does this leave? Is al-Qaida itself to be considered a "ticking bomb" or not? How many of those who express concern about Guantanamo have also been denouncing the administration for being too lenient about ignoring warnings and missing opportunities for a pre-atrocity roundup? I merely ask."

"Aoun's poll win gives him major voice in Lebanon" (Nadim Ladki, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/13)
"BEIRUT (Reuters) - Firebrand former general Michel Aoun scored a stunning win on Monday in Lebanon's parliamentary elections to emerge as the main Christian political force in the country, only weeks after returning from exile.
Aoun, a prominent figure during Lebanon's civil war, dealt a major blow to the existing Christian opposition and its hopes of securing strong representation in the new 128-seat parliament and charting a course away from Syrian influence.
The polls, being held over four weekends ending on June 19, are the first without the presence of Syrian troops for three decades and are set to usher in an assembly with an anti-Syrian majority for the first time since the 1975-1990 civil war."

 

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

 

Copyright © Watch 2001-2006.
Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.

"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



Support Watch

Please feel free to donate if you enjoy the daily content and links Watch provides:

Contact Watch

Email:
watch-at-windsofchange.net