Archived news and commentary: June 27 - July 3, 2005

2005/06/27 - 2005/07/03
2005/06/20 - 2005/06/26
2005/06/13 - 2005/06/19
2005/06/06 - 2005/06/12
2005/05/30 - 2005/06/05
2005/05/23 - 2005/05/29

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, July 3, 2005

News and commentary:

"Ex-Iranian Agent: Photo Not Ahmadinejad" (Ali Akbar Dareini, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/07/03)
"TEHRAN, Iran - A top Iranian former secret agent said Saturday the hostage-taker in a 1979 photograph that has come under intense scrutiny is not President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but a former militant who committed suicide in jail.
Mohammad Khatami, also denied an Austrian newspaper report and claims by Iranian dissidents that Ahmadinejad had a role in the 1989 slaying of an Iranian opposition Kurdish leader and two associates in Vienna. ...
"This man is Taqi Mohammadi, a militant who later turned into a dissident and committed suicide in jail," he said, pointing to the 1979 photo. Mohammadi was arrested on charges of involvement in the 1981 bombing in Tehran that killed the country's president and prime minister
Former Iranian president Abholhassan Bani-Sadr, who lives in exile outside Paris, told The Associated Press on Friday that Ahmadinejad "wasn't among the decision-makers but he was among those inside the Embassy."
Bani-Sadr said Ahmadinejad was responsible for briefing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on the hostage situation.
"One of his roles ... was to inform Mr. Khomeini of what was happening at the Embassy," Bani-Sadr said in a telephone interview." (See also: "Iran's New Leader Suspected in '89 Attack" (William J. Kole, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/07/02) and "Iran leader linked to '79 embassy crisis" (Joyce Howard Price and David R. Sands, The Washington Times, 2005/06/30))

"Egypt's Top Envoy to Postwar Iraq Abducted" (Frank Griffiths, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/07/03)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Egypt's top envoy to Iraq was kidnapped in Baghdad just weeks after arriving in the country, Egyptian diplomats said Sunday. Witnesses said gunmen accosted him as he stopped to buy a newspaper, beat him and accused him of being an "American spy." ...
Two diplomats, speaking in Cairo and Baghdad on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the Egyptian envoy, Ihab al-Sherif, was kidnapped late Saturday in the Iraqi capital. Al-Sherif has been in Iraq since June 1. ...
The diplomats gave no immediate details of the kidnapping.
However, three Iraqis who claimed they witnessed the attack said al-Sherif was driving alone in a vehicle with diplomatic license plates when he stopped to buy a newspaper from a store on the Rabie Street in Baghdad's western al-Jamaa neighborhood.
About eight gunmen surrounded him, the witnesses said on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals. One of them struck him on the head with a pistol butt as others shouted that he was "an American spy," the witnesses said.
They shoved him into the trunk of a car and sped away. Bystanders reported the incident to a passing American convoy. U.S. soldiers searched al-Sherif's car, which was removed Sunday."

"Al-Qaeda Saudi frontman killed in Riyadh shootout" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/07/03)
RIYADH (AFP) - Saudi Arabia's most wanted man -- suspected Al-Qaeda frontman Yunis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari -- was killed in a shootout with security forces in the capital just hours after a visit by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The Moroccan-born Hayari was killed "during a clash after security forces came under fire when they raided a suspected militants' hideout in eastern Riyadh," the interior ministry said.
Six policemen were lightly wounded, said a ministry statement read out on state television.
The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel had earlier reported that "the chief of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Yunis al-Hayari, was killed in a shootout in the Riyadh eastern neighbourhood of Rawda."
Two other wanted militants were wounded in the early morning clash, it added.
Hayari topped a list of 36 wanted militants issued by the oil-rich kingdom's interior ministry just last Tuesday."

"A Shiite Town That Bled Under Hussein Hails His Trial" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2005/07/03)
"On the summer afternoon 23 years ago when Mr. Hussein came to Dujail, he was greeted with gunfire from the palm groves on the north side of town, survivors say. ...
"It was about 2:30 p.m. when we heard people saying that Saddam had arrived, so we ran into the streets to see him, and right away his bodyguards started shooting at us, and they killed three of my friends," said Ghalib Hussein Abbas, a 42-year-old tractor driver now, then an unemployed youth of 19. ...
In small groups at first, then in larger roundups, about 1,500 townspeople were arrested, as many as 30 from single families, and started on a journey into Mr. Hussein's gulags - first at a detention center in Tikrit, later at a secret police detention center in Baghdad, and finally, to the Nugra as-Salman prison, an old British-built fort in the desert along the Saudi Arabian border. Some survivors, who were released in 1986, say that the appalling conditions at the prison caused several dozen deaths, including women, children and nursing infants. The 143 who were hanged never got beyond detention in Baghdad, where Mr. Sadoon, the chief of the revolutionary court, sent them to the execution chambers at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. ...
Within weeks, the razing of the palm groves and the orchards began, continuing until more than 250,000 acres had been bulldozed. In 1992, after the first Persian Gulf war, Mr. Hussein returned to Dujail for the first time, and told tribal leaders that the wastelands could be replanted, with grain crops, but not with palms and orchards. But it took 12 more years, and the overthrow of Mr. Hussein, before the town could begin in other ways to recover from what townspeople now refer to simply as "al karitha," the disaster."

"Bush furious at Ireland's terror haven" (Maeve Sheehan and Judy Corcoran, Sunday Independent/Free Republic, 2005/07/03)
"The US Government is furious with Ireland after a Palestinian terrorist sent here under an international accord skipped the country last year and turned up in Spain.
Jihad Jara, described as one of Israel's most wanted men, was granted safe haven in Ireland under an international agreement to end the siege at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002.
The Palestinian terrorist was supposed to be monitored by gardai while here but he managed to leave Ireland and travel to Spain for several weeks last year, the Sunday Independent can reveal.
Jara was picked up by Spanish authorities and forcibly returned to Ireland. Garda sources believe Jara was in Spain for less than a month, and say they have no evidence to suggest he was involved in terrorist activity.
However, US officials, including the CIA, are suspicious as to what he was doing in Spain.
The fact that the high-profile terrorist managed to leave Ireland in the first place will fuel international alarm. It may also prove deeply embarrassing to the Government and to security services here when an account of the story is broadcast on a major US television network - possibly next month."

Saturday, July 2, 2005

News and commentary:

"Abbas Invites Hamas to Join Cabinet" (Mohammed Daraghmeh, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/07/02)
"RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has asked Hamas militants to join his Cabinet to improve prospects of a peaceful takeover of the
Gaza Strip following Israel's withdrawal this summer, Abbas' office confirmed Saturday.
Hamas' West Bank leader, Hassan Yousef, said the group was considering the offer. A Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity requested at the time because no decision had been taken on the group's response, had first reported the offer on Friday. ...
Israel, which is afraid Abbas is too weak to prevent chaos in Gaza after the pullout, denounced the idea of Hamas' joining the Palestinian government.
"Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization responsible for countless acts of senseless violence against innocent civilians," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told The Associated Press. 'Hamas is no partner for us in any sort of political process. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.'"

"The Rove Factor?" (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, from the 2005/07/11 issue)
"Its legal appeals exhausted, Time magazine agreed last week to turn over reporter Matthew Cooper's e-mails and computer notes to a special prosecutor investigating the leak of an undercover CIA agent's identity. The case has been the subject of press controversy for two years. Saying "we are not above the law," Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine decided to comply with a grand-jury subpoena to turn over documents related to the leak. But Cooper (and a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller) is still refusing to testify and faces jail this week.
At issue is the story of a CIA-sponsored trip taken by former ambassador (and White House critic) Joseph Wilson to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. "Some government officials have noted to Time in interviews... that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," said Cooper's July 2003 Time online article.
Now the story may be about to take another turn. The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove."

"They Still Blame America First" (Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard, from the 2005/07/04 issue)
"At the moment, Democrats are convinced the country has turned against the war in Iraq. So House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is quite comfortable declaring the war a "grotesque mistake" and boasting that she has thought so from the start. Senator Edward Kennedy felt confident enough last week to inform American generals home from Iraq that the war is an "intractable quagmire." This prompted a sharp rebuke from General George Casey, the top commander in Iraq. "You have an insurgency with no vision, no base, limited popular support, an elected government, committed Iraqis to the democratic process, and you have Iraqi security forces that are fighting and dying for their country every day," Casey said. "Senator, that is not a quagmire."
Kennedy lost that exchange. And Democrats did no better on a related issue, the treatment of terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin was forced to apologize for likening the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to that of the Soviet gulag, Hitler's death camps, and the Cambodian killing fields. What was striking was the matter-of-fact manner in which Durbin drew the parallel in the first place. He seemed to be oblivious to the possibility he might be seen as worrying more about the detainees than about America's national security."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
(AP/Mardomyar, 2005/07/02)
"This is an undated picture of Iranian president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, released by Mardomyar, Ahmadinejad's campaign website."

"Iran's New Leader Suspected in '89 Attack" (William J. Kole, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/07/02)
Ahmadinejad II: "VIENNA, Austria - Austrian authorities have classified documents suggesting that Iran's president-elect may have played a key role in the 1989 execution-style slayings of an Iranian Kurdish leader and two associates in Vienna, a newspaper reported Saturday.
Austria's Interior Ministry and the public prosecutor's office are investigating alleged evidence pointing to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's possible involvement in the attack, the daily Der Standard reported.
Officials were not immediately available to comment on the report Saturday. ...
In Austria, Green Party leader Peter Pilz told the newspaper he wants a warrant issued for the arrest of Ahmadinejad, who he alleged "stands under strong suspicion of having been involved."
Pilz accused the hard-liner of planning the murders of Kurdish resistance leader Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou and two of his colleagues, all of whom were shot in the head at a Vienna apartment by Iranian commandos on July 13, 1989. A fourth victim survived the attack and was able to crawl out of the apartment and alert Austrian authorities."

"Iranian Leader Denies He Took Embassy Hostages" (Michael Slackman, The New York Times, 2005/07/02)
Ahmadinejad I: "TEHRAN, July 1 - A shiny black Peugeot rolled to a stop, and there he was, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president-elect of Iran, smiling through an open window, ready to greet a few of the people who have been coming to his street as a sort of pilgrimage since he won.
The security men tried to keep a cordon around the car, but the president-elect gave his casual smile, and told them to let the people through. He also let this reporter and an interpreter approach.
When asked the question preoccupying many Americans about him just now - Had he been among the students who sacked the United States Embassy in 1979 and held American hostages for 444 days? - his driver started to pull out, but Mr. Ahmadinejad stopped him and said he would answer.
"It is not true," he said. "It is only rumors."
The security men began to push again, and three women draped in flowing black chadors made their way up to the car.
One woman handed Mr. Ahmadinejad a blank piece of paper on which he wrote: "Stick to your Islamic values. God will help you."
And with that, he closed the window and was driven off."

"Kurds, Emboldened by Lebanon, Rise Up in Tense Syria" (Hassan M. Fattah, The New York Times, 2005/07/02)
"QAMISHLI, Syria - ... But as Syria endures heavy international and domestic pressure to change, storm clouds are gathering here once again. In this predominantly Kurdish city on Syria's border with Turkey, a growing movement of Kurds is demanding recognition and representation in Syria's government. ...
Tensions in this city of 150,000 reached new levels this month after the body of a prominent cleric, Sheik Muhammad Mashouk al-Khaznawi, was found halfway between here and Damascus. Days later, protesters calling for an international investigation of the sheik's killing clashed with security forces, who beat women and fired at demonstrators, Kurdish politicians say.
One police officer was killed, a dozen protesters were wounded, dozens more remain in custody, and Kurdish businesses were looted, they say. A day after, Kurdish hopes were dashed when Syria's governing Baath Party passed on calls to grant Kurds more rights and freedoms at its 10th Congress, ending the meeting with little more than platitudes, Mr. Salih said.
"Lebanon affected us a lot, and we learned from it that demonstrating can achieve many things without violence," he said. After riots flared in Qamishli in 2004 after a brawl at a soccer match, he said, 'the regime sought to frighten us, but the assassination of the sheik has made us rise up again.'"

Friday, July 1, 2005

News and commentary:

"The Neoconservative Convergence" (Charles Krauthammer, Commentary, from the July 2005 issue)
"The remarkable fact that the Bush Doctrine is, essentially, a synonym for neoconservative foreign policy marks neoconservatism’s own transition from a position of dissidence, which it occupied during the first Bush administration and the Clinton years, to governance. Neoconservative foreign policy, one might say, has reached maturity. That is not only a portentous development, requiring some rethinking of principles and practice, but a rather unexpected one.
It is unexpected because, only a year ago, neoconservative foreign policy was being consigned to the ash heap of history. ...
What neoconservatives have long been advocating is now being articulated and practiced at the highest levels of government by a war cabinet composed of individuals who, coming from a very different place, have joined and reshaped the neoconservative camp and are carrying the neoconservative idea throughout the world. As a result, the vast right-wing conspiracy has grown even more vast than liberals could imagine. And even as the tent has enlarged, the great schisms and splits in conservative foreign policy—so widely predicted just a year ago, so eagerly sought and amplified by outside analysts—have not occurred. Indeed, differences have, if anything, narrowed.
This is not party discipline. It is compromise with reality, and convergence toward the middle. Above all, it is the maturation of a governing ideology whose time has come."

"American Zen" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/07/01)
VDH II: "While the world debated whether an American guard at Guantanamo really flushed a Koran down a toilet, Robert Mugabe may have bulldozed the homes of 1.5 million Zimbabweans.
Few seem to have cared.
To do so would be a messy, complicated thing — lecturing a black third-world leader to stop tormenting his own poor; pleading with other African states not to allow the genesis of another Rwanda; and, probably, being embarrassed by someone who doesn’t give a hoot what a Western elite liberal says.
Mao, whose minions killed somewhere between 40 and 50 million, is still popular in China. That Communist country is deemed by many Western allies as less of a threat than the United States and its elected president, who routinely appears with a Hitler-moustache in European demonstrations.
The new general rule: Global morality is established by the degree the United States can be blamed. Millions of lives lost, vast corruption, thousands of refugees — all that can’t quite equate with a U.S. soldier showing insensitivity or an American detention center with mere doctors, ethnic food, and religious accommodations."

"When war theories collide" (Victor Davis Hanson, Chicago Tribune, 2005/07/01)
VDH I: "When the United States has stayed on after fighting dictatorial enemies -- admittedly for decades in Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea and the Balkans -- progress toward democracy and prosperity ensued. Disengagement from unresolved messy problems -- whether from Europe after World War I, Vietnam in 1973, Beirut after the Marine barracks bombings, Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat, or Iraq in 1991 -- only left murderous chaos or the "peace" of authoritarian dictators. ...
Those who now evoke Vietnam should think carefully of the entire lesson of that tragedy. We hear daily of how we once foolishly got into that chaos but rarely of the lessons on how we got out.
This present war is not just about the Sunni Triangle, but whether reformers of the Arab world will step forward to emulate a fragile democratic Iraq that survives the jihadist counterassault. For the last three decades, autocratic regimes in the Middle East either attacked their neighbors or came to understandings with Islamic terrorists to shift blame for their own failed states onto an apparently unconcerned United States.
That deeper pathology was at the root of Sept. 11, 2001. If not stopped now, it will result in many more attacks to come here at home."

"The Stain of Torture" (Burton J. Lee III, The Washington Post, 2005/07/01)
"Having served as a doctor in the Army Medical Corps early in my career and as presidential physician to George H.W. Bush for four years, I might be expected to bring a skeptical and partisan perspective to allegations of torture and abuse by U.S. forces. I might even be expected to join those who, on the one hand, deny that U.S. personnel have engaged in systematic use of torture while, on the other, claiming that such abuse is justified. But I cannot do so.
It's precisely because of my devotion to country, respect for our military and commitment to the ethics of the medical profession that I speak out against systematic, government-sanctioned torture and excessive abuse of prisoners during our war on terrorism. I am also deeply disturbed by the reported complicity in these abuses of military medical personnel. This extraordinary shift in policy and values is alien to my concept of modern-day America and of my government and profession. ...
America cannot continue down this road. Torture demonstrates weakness, not strength. It does not show understanding, power or magnanimity. It is not leadership. It is a reaction of government officials overwhelmed by fear who succumb to conduct unworthy of them and of the citizens of the United States."

"Ground Zero to Baghdad: September 11 and the collapse of national unity" (Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal, 2005/07/01)
"In time even Pearl Harbor became more a symbol than the bloody reality that ultimately hurled American forces against a Germany that didn't attack us at Pearl Harbor. But time seems to pass faster today. The first Fourth of July after September 11 was a day of national unity, in sorrow but also in belief that the U.S. had to go on offense, over there, against the force that had hit us. Now there is no unity; September 11, the war in Iraq, pretty much anything George Bush does and even Afghanistan is a fair target.
After Mr. Bush delivered the speech on Iraq that many said, rightly, was overdue, David Letterman made jokes about the war. DNC Chairman Howard Dean dismissed it as the "darkness of divisiveness" and "pandering to fear." John Murtha, the party's top spokesmen on military affairs, said, "I believe they are going to cut and run." A Times reporter announced as well that "for the first time," Afghans are "feeling uneasy about the future." ...
We've watched September 11 drift from unity of purpose to unhinged vituperation. The partisanship is easy to dismiss, but I believe the Bush team's deep disdain of a hostile opposition media has caused it to miss -- until now -- the need to organize a home front to support the remarkable sacrifice in Iraq. This failure may prove to be the one unforgivable thing." (See also: "The Dems' Response: Forget About 9/11" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/06/29))

"Five Ways to Win Back Iraq" (Kenneth M. Pollack, The New York Times, 2005/07/01)
"So it is unfortunate that we are squandering these advantages by repeating many of our own mistakes from 40 years ago, and in doing so alienating the Iraqi people and raising the risk of chaos and civil war. So how do we save the reconstruction of Iraq? Again, Vietnam - as well as Northern Ireland and other guerrilla wars - has much to teach. ...
The course we have adopted in Iraq so far is not working particularly well and it could fail altogether. To date, most of the changes offered by both sides of the political aisle amount to little more than tinkering with the current strategy. But if we're going to succeed in stabilizing Iraq and defeating its insurgency, we are going to have to make a radical shift to a traditional counterinsurgency strategy, even though it could be politically very painful. No matter what one thinks of the invasion, it is clearly in our best interest, to say nothing of the Arab world's, that we succeed in Iraq. To do so, we will have to apply some lessons we learned from bitter history."

"Iran's president was our tormentor, say US hostages" (Francis Harris, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/07/01)
"The chilling claim that Iran's new president was a ringleader of the 1979 US hostage crisis in Teheran yesterday prompted a White House investigation and a flood of detailed memories from former captives.
Five Americans held by Iranian extremists for 444 days said they recognised the newly-elected hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as one of their tormentors. His staff denied the allegation. ...
Other former hostages said they were unsure or did not recognise the Iranian leader. The allegations were also denied by the chief hostage-taker, Abbas Abdi, now a reformer. "Definitely he was not among the students who took part in the seizure," he said.
But the veterans received backing from the BBC's world affairs editor, John Simpson, who felt there was something familiar about the Iranian leader's face.
"I realised where I must have seen him: in the former American embassy in Teheran," he wrote. He said that the BBC archives contained his interview with Mr Ahmadinejad and his friends. Mr Ahmadinejad's website says he joined the Revolutionary Guard after helping to found the student group that stormed the embassy."

Thursday, June 30, 2005

News and commentary:

"AP Photo shows Iran’s new President as 1979 US hostage-taker"
(Iran Focus, 2005/06/29)
"Iran Focus has learnt that the photograph of Iran’s newly-elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, holding the arm of a blindfolded American hostage on the premises of the United States embassy in Tehran was taken by an Associated Press photographer in November 1979."

"Iran leader linked to '79 embassy crisis" (Joyce Howard Price and David R. Sands, The Washington Times, 2005/06/30)
"Americans held in the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Iran said yesterday they clearly recall Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad playing a central role in the takeover, interrogating captives and demanding harsher treatment for the hostages.
"As soon as I saw his picture in the paper, I knew that was the bastard," said retired Army Col. Charles Scott, 73, a former hostage who lives in Jonesboro, Ga.
"He was one of the top two or three leaders," Col. Scott said in a telephone interview. "The new president of Iran is a terrorist."
The new president's hard-line political views and his background as a student radical in the Iranian Revolution are well known.
But recollections of Mr. Ahmadinejad's direct and personal role in the embassy drama promises to complicate the already rocky relations between Iran's new president and the Bush administration.
Donald Sharer, a retired Navy captain who was for a time a cellmate of Col. Scott at the Evin prison in northern Tehran, remembered Mr. Ahmadinejad as "a hard-liner, a cruel individual."
"I know he was an interrogator," said Capt. Sharer, now 64 and living in Bedford, Iowa. He said he was personally questioned by Mr. Ahmadinejad on one occasion but does not recall the subject of the interrogation.
Col. Scott recalled an incident when Mr. Ahmadinejad berated a friendly Iranian guard who had allowed the two Americans to visit another U.S. hostage in a neighboring cell. Col. Scott, who understands Farsi, said Mr. Ahmadinejad told the guard, 'You shouldn't let these pigs out of their cells.'" (Hat tip: James Taranto.)

"The big lie" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2005/06/30)
"Boy, are they mad! The anti-war crowd are wetting themselves over President Bush’s speech because of the number of times he made a link between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House of Representatives, said Mr Bush was trying to 'exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq'.
What she presumably meant is that there is no evidence that Saddam was involved in 9/11. True. President Bush, however, did not say that he was. He merely said in effect that that Saddam was part of the Islamic terror war with [sic] achieved its milestone atrocity on 9/11. ...
The anti-western left has, over the course of history, fallen time after time for the propaganda of murderous tyrants who offered a handy platform for bashing the home society by providing the alibi of conscience. The investment of personal, political and moral identity that this represents is so immense that after a short while such gullible dupes are simply incapable of recognising reality even when it stares them in the face. Hence their stupefaction when confronted with the enormities of Robespierre, Stalin or Mao. To that list must now be added the Islamic jihad and Saddam Hussein. The difference is that this time these useful idiots have taken the middling people of Britain and Europe – and increasingly, it seems, of America – with them into the land of deluded wishful thinking. The result could be that this war against the jihadi terror could be lost -- at home." (See also: "The Dems' Response: Forget About 9/11" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/06/29))

"Banned, Then Bootlegged, Saddam Hussein the Literary Lion Roars Again" (Hassan M. Fattah, The New York Times, 2005/06/30)
"AMMAN, Jordan, June 29 - The unpublished novel "Get Out, You Damned One" will not win any literary awards. A forgettable piece of pulp, it features a scheming traitor, an invading army of Zionist-Christian infidels and an Arab liberator. The only thing that sets the novel apart from numerous others like it in Arab bookstores is its author: Saddam Hussein.
When Raghad Saddam Hussein, Mr. Hussein's exiled daughter, announced plans to publish the 186-page novel in Amman earlier this week, she set off a fierce debate over Mr. Hussein's legacy. Jordan's press and publications department quickly banned the book. Bootleg copies then sold out. ...
The novel, which Mr. Hussein is said to have completed on the eve of the American invasion in 2003, is seen as a prescient picture of the occupation of Iraq.
It opens with a narrator who appears to be modeled on the story of Abraham warning his grandsons of Satan's hold over Babylon.
The story tells of Ezekiel, a greedy schemer who plots to overthrow the sheik of a tribe with the help of a powerful enemy aiming to conquer and annihilate all Arabs but is ultimately defeated by the sheik's daughter with the help of an Arab warrior. This is viewed as a metaphor for a Zionist-Christian plot against Arabs and Muslims.
"Only those who refuse his nation and are faithful to God can be victorious," the narrator warns of Satan, the superpower."

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

News and commentary:

"The Dems' Response: Forget About 9/11" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/06/29)
Speech III: "The New York Times answers President Bush's speech with a plaintive appeal to the Angry Left (emphasis ours):

No one wants a disaster in Iraq, and Mr. Bush's critics can put aside, at least temporarily, their anger at the administration for its hubris, its terrible planning and its inept conduct of the war in return for a frank discussion of where to go from here.

The claim that "no one wants a disaster in Iraq" strikes us as either naive or disingenuous. Reading the postspeech commentary on TPMCafe.com, where a thousand Josh Marshalls bloom, we were struck by the utter lack of constructive criticism. Here's a sampling (emphasis in original):

Evasions of responsibility, false analogies, refusals to correct course, and cheap acts of demagoguery . . . an insult to the American people . . . We've at least become sophisticates of our own bamboozlement. . . . He hopes to pull off the trick of repeating the word "terrorist" so often that he can recreate the blur he induced in 2002-03, the same blur that he summoned back for the 2004 election -- all of them, the terrorists, are the same. . . . I didn't hear the words "weapons of mass destruction," did you? ...

Much of the criticism of the president's speech from the left has amounted to, as blogger Edward Morrissey puts it, "screaming every time 9/11 gets mentioned in connection with fighting terrorists." Even the Times, though straining to sound half reasonable, says that "we had hoped [Bush] would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks." Isn't this further evidence that Karl Rove got it exactly right?" (See also: "President Bush's Speech About Iraq" (The New York Times, 2005/06/29), "Editorial Response To Bush Speech: Predictable" (Captain's Quarters, 2005/06/29) and "Remarks of Karl Rove at the New York Conservative Party" (Karl Rove, The Washington Post, 2005/06/22))

"For 5 months 'I stayed in the box'" (James H. Warner, International Washington Times, 2005/06/29)
"As a Marine Corps officer, I spent five years and five months in a prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam. I believe this gives me a benchmark against which to measure the treatment which Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, complained of at the Camp of Detention for Islamo-fascists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The senator's argument is silly. If he believes what he has said his judgment is so poor that his countrymen, assuming, of course, that he considers us his countrymen, have no reason not to dismiss him as a witless boob. On the other hand, if he does not believe what he said, the other members of the Senate may wish to consider censure.
Consider nutrition. I have severe peripheral neuropathy in both legs as a residual of beriberi. I am fortunate. Some of my comrades suffer partial blindness or ischemic heart disease as a result of beriberi, a degenerate disease of peripheral nerves caused by a lack of thiamin, vitamin B-1. It is easily treated but is extremely painful.
Did Mr. Durbin say that some of the Islamo-fascist prisoners are suffering from beriberi? Actually, the diet enjoyed by the prisoners seems to be healthy. I saw the menu that Rep. Duncan Hunter presented a few days ago. It looks as though the food given the detainees at Guantanamo is wholesome, nutritious and appealing. I would be curious to hear Mr. Durbin explain how orange glazed chicken and rice pilaf can be compared to moldy bread laced with rat droppings." (See also: "Who's Really Abusing the Koran?" - News and commentary on "Newsweeksgate" and the "American Gulag".))

"Islamic women rise up" (John Hughes, The Christian Science Monitor, 2005/06/29)
"It may at present be only a whisper. But it could get louder and louder. It is the voice of Islamic women in the Middle East protesting their longtime political and economic second-class status. It is a voice of indignation from women who have long been suppressed in traditionally male- dominated societies. ...
In many Arab nations of Islam, women have often been relegated to obscurity, denied a role economically, politically, socially. One out of every two Arab women can neither read nor write. A 2002 report prepared by Arab intellectuals for the United Nations charged that "utilization of Arab women's capabilities through political and economic participation remains the lowest in the world." Women occupy only 3.5 percent of all seats in parliaments of Arab countries, compared to 11 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, and 12.9 percent in Latin America and Caribbean countries.
In many countries women suffer from unequal citizenship, and are denied the right to vote or hold office. In a somber conclusion, the UN report declared: "Society as a whole suffers when half of its productive potential is stifled." ...
In a vocal manner that hasn't been evident before, women in the Islamic lands are speaking out. Their case is being given traction by President Bush's emphasis on fostering democracy in lands that lack it - even though they be longtime allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
There cannot be democracy while women of the region are disadvantaged. There cannot be economic progress while half of the region's productive potential is stifled."

"Marching in Cairo, because enough is enough" (Mona Eltahawy, International Herald Tribune, 2005/06/29)
"CAIRO - I came home to shout "Kifaya!"
The Arabic word for enough has become a popular chant that represents the burgeoning opposition movement to President Hosni Mubarak's 24-year-rule in Egypt. ...
I arrived in Cairo as another American was visiting. Condoleezza Rice was in town on her first trip as U.S. secretary of state. Saying that peaceful democracy supporters should be free from violence, Rice regretted the assaults of May 25, describing it as a "sad day."
Two days later, I was marching with Alaa, Manal and about 300 fellow Egyptians through the working-class neighborhood of Shubra, shouting "Down down with Hosni Mubarak." Riot police that had confined previous demonstrations to one spot were nowhere to be seen.
Emboldened, protesters who had begun the demonstration on a street corner pushed ahead and for the first time since the anti-Mubarak protests began, took their message to the street.
"You might have a point about Rice's speech," Alaa said, grinning and taking pictures. ...
As the march wound down, Mostafa, 28, a Shubra resident, asked Alaa where the next one would be.
"I've been waiting for something like this for years. We've had enough," Mostafa said. 'There isn't a family in Egypt that hasn't suffered unemployment. People are fed up. Kifaya!'"

"Bush Criticized Over Speech About Iraq War" (Nedra Pickler, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/29)
Speech II: "Democrats are criticizing President Bush for raising the Sept. 11 attacks while he defends his plan to keep U.S. troops in Iraq as long as it takes to ensure peace in the country.
The president, urging patience on an American public showing doubts about his Iraq policy, mentioned the deadly 2001 terrorist attacks five times during a 28-minute address Tuesday night at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Some Democrats accused him of falsely reviving the link that he originally used to help justify launching strikes against Baghdad.
"The president's frequent references to the terrorist attacks of September 11 show the weakness of his arguments," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said. 'He is willing to exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq.'"

"Bush Says War Is Worth Sacrifice" (Peter Baker and Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, 2005/06/29)
Speech I: "Bush invoked Sept. 11 five times in his speech and referred to it by implication several more times. Although he has previously agreed with investigators that there is "no evidence" of a link between Saddam Hussein's government and the attacks masterminded by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, he used much of his speech to depict the militants in Iraq as the same breed of Islamic terrorist who struck the United States. The White House titled his remarks a discussion on the "War on Terror," not Iraq. ...
After the speech, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) issued a biting statement saying that Bush's "numerous references to September 11th did not provide a way forward in Iraq" but instead 'served to remind the American people that our most dangerous enemy, namely Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose.'"

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

News and commentary:

"President Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror" (The White House, 2005/06/28)
"The progress in the past year has been significant, and we have a clear path forward. To complete the mission, we will continue to hunt down the terrorists and insurgents. To complete the mission, we will prevent al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends. And the best way to complete the mission is to help Iraqis build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.
So our strategy going forward has both a military track and a political track. The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists, and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. ...
We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation's uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom.
After September the 11th, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult, and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult -- and we are prevailing. Our enemies are brutal, but they are no match for the United States of America, and they are no match for the men and women of the United States military.
May God bless you all."

"Bush Tells U.S. Iraq Sacrifice 'Worth It'" (Jennifer Loven, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/28)
"President Bush on Tuesday rejected suggestions that he set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq or send in more troops, counseling patience for Americans who question the war's painful costs.
"Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it and it is vital to the security of our country," Bush told a nation increasingly doubtful about the toll of the 27-month-old war.
Bush spoke in an evening address for a half-hour from an Army base that has 9,300 troops in Iraq, hoping to convince the public that his strategy for victory needs only time — not any changes — to be successful. He offered no shift in course.
"We have a clear path forward," he said. "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." ...
Recalling the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks a half-dozen times and suggesting a link with the Iraq war, Bush said the United States faces an enemy that has made Iraq the central front in the war on terror. Fighters have been captured from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other nations, Bush said."

"Pakistani court orders suspects re-arrested in high-profile rape case" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/06/28)
"Pakistan's Supreme Court has ordered the re-arrest of 13 men acquitted in the gang rape of a villager whose plight has cast a glaring light on the treatment of women in this conservative Muslim nation.
The ruling came a day after an emotional appeal by the victim, Mukhtar Mai, who was raped in 2002 on orders from a village council, allegedly as punishment for her 13-year-old brother's illicit affair with a woman from a higher-caste family. Mai and her family deny any affair ever took place, saying the brother was in fact sexually assaulted by members of the other family. ...
Outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday, dozens of women hugged and congratulated a relaxed and smiling Mai, who was dressed in the traditional shalwar kameez (trousers and a shirt) with a blue and green shawl covering her head.
"I am happy and I hope those who humiliated me will be punished," the 33-year-old told reporters. 'I was expecting justice from the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has done justice.'"

"The overused ‘Nazi’ insult" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2005/06/28)
"'I compare this to what happened in Germany,' New York congressman Charles Rangel told a group of state legislators when Republicans running on a ‘‘Contract With America’’ won a majority of seats in Congress a decade ago. ‘‘Hitler wasn’t even talking about doing these things.’’ His fellow Democrat, Representative Major Owen, said the GOP leadership under Newt Gingrich consisted of ‘‘people who are practicing genocide with a smile; they’re worse than Hitler.’’
Those who draw such insane parallels seek to damn their opponents with the most evil association they can imagine. But all they really accomplish is a kind of Holocaust-denial. After all, if congressional Republicans are ‘‘worse than Hitler,’’ then Hitler must have been no worse than congressional Republicans. Which means that the tyrant who drenched Europe in blood, created a hellish network of concentration camps, and sent more than a million Jewish children to their deaths is roughly equal to — maybe even better than — a political party that calls for tax cuts and welfare reform. Anyone who can say (or imply) such a thing is guilty of trivializing the Nazis’ crimes and of cheapening the agony of their victims.
This is where the degradation of American political discourse has brought us, but it isn’t where it will end. When calling an opponent ‘‘worse than Hitler’’ or ‘‘another Pol Pot’’ has lost its sting, what new invective will the slanderers move on to? When opponents of the war can no longer whip up a frenzy by depicting Bush as Hitler or by likening US troops to the SS and KGB, what fresh venom will they come up with?
Politics ain’t beanbag. But there used to be limits — including rhetorical limits — that decent men and women respected. As those limits are shredded and forgotten, our political environment is growing dirtier, uglier, and sicker." (See also: "Hitler, Hitler, everywhere" (Victor Davis Hanson, Jewish World Review, 2005/06/23))

"Murdering Women For Honor" (Chris McGreal, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/06/28)
"Faten Habash's father wept as he assured his daughter there would be no more beatings, no more threats to her life and that she was free to marry the man she loved, even if he was a Muslim. All he asked was that Faten return home.
Hassan Habash even gave his word to an emissary from a Bedouin tribe traditionally brought in to mediate in matters of family honour, a commitment regarded as sacrosanct in Palestinian society. But the next weekend, as Faten watched a Boy Scouts parade from the balcony of her Ramallah home, the 22-year-old Christian Palestinian was dragged into the living room and bludgeoned to death with an iron bar. Her father was arrested for the murder. ...
Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud murdered her daughter, Rafayda, because she became pregnant after being raped by two of her brothers.
"My daughter fell over and broke her knee. I took her to hospital and there the doctor told me she was pregnant. So I killed her. It's as simple as that," said Mrs Qaoud on her doorstep in Ramallah. Mrs Qaoud waited until the baby was born and given up for adoption. Then she presented her 22 year-old daughter with a razor blade and told her to slash her wrists.
She refused so her mother pulled a plastic bag over her head, sliced her wrists and beat her head with a stick."

"Pakistani Rape Case Goes to High Court" (John Lancaster, The Washington Post, 2005/06/28)
"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 27 -- Ten days after Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared her a threat to the country's image, Mukhtar Mai sat prominently in a front-row seat of Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday, still seeking justice after being gang-raped three years ago, allegedly on orders of a tribal council. ...
Musharraf confirmed this month that he had barred Mai from traveling to the United States at the invitation of human rights organizers. During a visit to New Zealand, he described the organizers as "Westernized fringe elements" who wanted her to "bad-mouth Pakistan," according to the Associated Press.
Mai said last week that she had been told the ban had been lifted. But before her trip from Punjab for Islamabad on Sunday, Mai complained that her movements were still restricted by the heavy security that surrounds her everywhere she goes, according to the Associated Press.
"Are free people like this?" she asked reporters at the airport in the city of Multan. "I am not being allowed to speak with people."
On Monday afternoon, a reporter who attempted to visit Mai at a government women's shelter in Islamabad where she is staying was turned away by plainclothes police armed with assault rifles. The police refused to deliver a message to her. Reached later on her cell phone, Mai said she had been ordered by her attorney not to speak publicly until the Supreme Court concluded its current round of hearings."

Monday, June 27, 2005

News and commentary:

"Islamist regime in total control" (Amir Taheri, The Australian, 2005/06/27)
"Ahmadinejad's victory means that Khamenehi, who has established himself as head of the most radical faction within the Khomeinist establishment, now controls all levers of power for the first time. He will now be able to put his own men in charge of all key government departments. Any idea of Western-style reforms to please the restive middle classes will be abandoned. ...
Ahmadinejad's election shows that the Khomeinist regime cannot be reformed from within. It also shows that there is still a strong constituency in Iran for the populist message of the ayatollah. True, far fewer people voted than the regime claims. But those who did vote preferred Ahmadinejad's "pure Islam" to Rafsanjani's attempt at perpetuating the myth that Iran today is, in the words of the former US president Bill Clinton, 2a progressist democracy". ...
Ahmadinejad's victory reveals the true face of the Islamic Republic as a regional power with its own world vision that challenges the so-called "global consensus". It reminds the world that the mini-Cold War that started between the Islamic Republic and the West, notably the US, is far from over."

"Russia probing whether Jewish law constitutes incitement" (Amiram Barkat, Haaretz, 2005/06/27)
"Russia's state prosecutor has ordered an examination of Shulhan Arukh - a code of Jewish halakhic law compiled in the 16th century - to ascertain whether it constitutes racist incitement and anti-Russian material.
The prosecutor ordered the probe against a Jewish umbrella organization in Russia for distributing a Russian translation of an abbreviation of Shulhan Arukh.
Last Thursday, attorneys from the Russian State Prosecutor's Office questioned Rabbi Zinovy Kogan, chairman of the Congress of Jewish Organizations - one of the two large Jewish umbrella organizations in Russia. Kogan was asked to explain the contents of Shulhan Arukh, especially regarding its treatment of non-Jews.
Jerusalem sources following the affair said this is the first time since Stalin's regime that Russian officials have described holy Jewish scriptures as prohibited incitement. The affair has been covered widely by the Russian news media, eliciting sharp reactions from Jewish organizations in Russia.
The state prosecutor's last move has increased Israel's concern for the Jews in Russia, following the recent increase in anti-Semitic incidents there. These incidents include attacks on Jews and damage to Jewish property.
The inquiry was launched following a letter signed by 500 public figures, including some 20 members of the nationalist Rodina party, urging the state prosecutor to outlaw the Jewish religion and all the Jewish organizations operating in Russia."

"We won't give up nuclear effort, says Iranian leader" (Robert Tait et al., The Guardian, 2005/06/27)
"Iran's new hardline president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, yesterday threw down a challenge to western leaders by vowing to resist international pressure to abandon the country's nuclear programme and branding Israel the source of instability in the Middle East.
The remarks, made at his first press conference since a landslide victory, will underline concerns in America, Israel, Britain and other European countries, where wrongfooted diplomats have been scrambling to come to terms with the consequences of his win.
The rise of Mr Ahmadinejad, the ultra-Islamist mayor of Tehran who has expressed a desire to recreate the atmosphere of the early days of Iran's 1979 revolution, has created alarm, not least because of fears it will be even harder to secure a diplomatic solution to the stand-off between Iran and the west over the country's nuclear programme."

Added in archive:
"How the Left gets loonier" (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun, 2005/06/24)
"Local Insurgents: ‘Islamic Thinkers’ Menace Gay N.Y." (Ben Smith and Jessica Bruder, The New York Observer, 2005/06/23)
"Ingloriousness Perceived" (Tim Blair, timblair.net, 2005/06/22)
"Rudeness Noted" (Tim Blair, timblair.net, 2005/06/21)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

 

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Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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

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

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