Archived news and commentary: August 1 - 7, 2005

2005/08/01 - 2005/08/07
2005/07/25 - 2005/07/31
2005/07/18 - 2005/07/24
2005/07/11 - 2005/07/17
2005/07/04 - 2005/07/10
2005/06/27 - 2005/07/03
2005/06/20 - 2005/06/26

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, August 7, 2005

News and commentary:

"The Devil You Think You Know" (Robert Baer, Newsweek, from the 2005/08/15 issue)
"Saudi royals may have put a good face on the succession. But let's not delude ourselves":
"Ten days ago, in Damascus, I sat down with a Syrian official I've known for years and asked the question on everyone's mind. What's with the jihadists crossing Syria's border into Iraq? There is no way anyone can control a long border like that, he said, sounding the official line. Then he dropped a bombshell. Of 1,200 suspected suicide bombers arrested by Syrian authorities since the beginning of the war in 2003, 85 percent have been Saudis.
Eighty-five percent? This can't be good. Saudi Arabia sits on 25 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. It is the only producer with enough spare capacity to stabilize oil markets during crises. So what if these jihadists crossing from Syria into Iraq decide, sooner or later, to take their war back home, perhaps by attacking the kingdom's oil infrastructure in the same way the Iraqi resistance is doing in Iraq? That's a scenario that keeps Washington awake at night."

"Oil-for-food head resigns before explosive report" (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/08/07)
"UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The former head of the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program resigned from the United Nations on Sunday, hours before he is expected to be accused of getting kickbacks from the $67 billion operation.
A U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S.
Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, plans to release on Monday its third interim report on allegations of corruption in the humanitarian program for Iraq, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003.
Benon Sevan, the former executive director of the program, is to be accused of getting cash for steering Iraqi oil contracts to an Egyptian trader and of refusing to cooperate with the Volcker panel, his attorney Eric Lewis said. Sevan has denied the allegations.
On Sunday, Lewis distributed a letter from Sevan, 67, to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan resigning from his current job, which he was given after he retired."

"I still fight oppression" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2005/08/07)
"What he [Peter Wilby] and a large part of the mainstream liberal-left don't and won't confront is that they have become the fellow travellers of the psychopathic far-right.":
"With no socialism to provide international solidarity, good motives of tolerance and respect for other cultures have had the unintended consequence of leading a large part of post-modern liberal opinion into the position of 19th-century imperialists. It is presumptuous and oppressive to suggest that other cultures want the liberties we take for granted, their argument runs. So it may be, but believe that and the upshot is that democracy, feminism and human rights become good for whites but not for browns and brown-skinned people who contradict you are the tools of the neo-conservatives.
On the other hand when confronted with a movement of contemporary imperialism - Islamism wants an empire from the Philippines to Gibraltar - and which is tyrannical, homophobic, misogynist, racist and homicidal to boot, they feel it is valid because it is against Western culture. It expresses its feelings in a regrettably brutal manner perhaps, but that can't hide its authenticity.
The result of this inversion of principles has been that liberals can't form alliances with the victims of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Iraq any more than the Auden generation could form alliances with the victims of Stalinism.
This isn't simply about international relations. Who is going to help the victims of religious intolerance in Britain's immigrant communities? Not the Liberal Democrats, who have never once offered support to liberal and democrats in Iraq. Nor an anti-war left which prefers to embrace a Muslim Association of Britain and Yusuf al-Qaradawi who believe that Muslims who freely decide to change their religion or renounce religion should be executed. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to suggest the same treatment for renegade Christians all hell would break loose. But as the bigotry comes from 'the other' there is silence." (See also: "Duh" (Stephen Pollard, stephenpollard.net, 2005/08/01))

"The Right Time for An Islamic Reformation" (Salman Rushdie, The Washington Post, 2005/08/07)
"When Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, admitted that "our own children" had perpetrated the July 7 London bombings, it was the first time in my memory that a British Muslim had accepted his community's responsibility for outrages committed by its members. Instead of blaming U.S. foreign policy or "Islamophobia," Sacranie described the bombings as a "profound challenge" for the Muslim community. However, this is the same Sacranie who, in 1989, said that "Death is perhaps too easy" for the author of "The Satanic Verses." Tony Blair's decision to knight him and treat him as the acceptable face of "moderate," "traditional" Islam is either a sign of his government's penchant for religious appeasement or a demonstration of how limited Blair's options really are.
Sacranie is a strong advocate of Blair's much-criticized new religious-hatred bill, which will make it harder to criticize religion, and he actually expects the new law to outlaw references to Islamic terrorism. He said as recently as Jan. 13, "There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive. Saying Muslims are terrorists would be covered [i.e., banned] by this provision." Two weeks later his organization boycotted a Holocaust remembrance ceremony in London commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz 60 years ago. If Sir Iqbal Sacranie is the best Blair can offer in the way of a good Muslim, we have a problem."

"For British 'tolerance' read 'indifference'" (Janet Daley, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/08/07)
"Multiculturalism was a non-policy. It was a vacuum, a retreat from thinking that there was any need for a solution. The pretence was that there was no problem, because to admit that there was one was tantamount to saying that immigration was a problem, and that you were going to have to do some serious thinking about its consequences.
The idea that many cultures could coexist in one country, going their own ways, living by their own values, and cultivating their own disparate and distinct identities, was always a cop-out. But, considering its presumed high-mindedness, it was oddly cynical as well. It seemed to assume that coming to live in a country was like lodging in a boarding-house: new tenants could keep to themselves and do what they liked so long as they didn't make too much noise or block the lavatories. How they lived their lives was nobody's business, not even the landlady's.
Well, as we have apparently now realised, being a country that absorbs migrants involves rather more than taking in lodgers and leaving them to get on with it. Multiculturalism may have been dressed up as cosmopolitan virtue but, at heart, it was a rationale for not really giving a damn, and a cover for the least attractive British traits - intellectual laziness, indifference to the needs of other people, complacency, and contempt for any sort of energetic commitment to a social ideal."

"The Irascible Prophet: V. S. Naipaul at Home" (Rachel Donadio, The New York Times, 2005/08/07)
A profile of V. S. Naipaul: "In November 2001 Naipaul told an audience of anxious New Yorkers still reeling from the attack on the World Trade Center that they were facing ''a war declared on you by people who passionately want one thing: a green card.'' What happened on Sept. 11 ''was too astonishing. It's one of its kind. It can't happen again,'' he said in our conversation. ''But in the end it has had no effect on the world. It has just been a spectacle, like a bank raid in a western film. They will be caught by the sheriff eventually.'' The bigger issue, he said, is that Western Europe, while built on tolerance, today lacks ''a strong cultural life,'' making it vulnerable to Islamicization. He even went so far as to say that Muslim women shouldn't wear headscarves in the West. ''If you decide to move to another country and to live within its laws you don't express your disregard for the essence of the culture,'' he said. ''It's a form of aggression.''
No matter how uncomfortable or debatable, there is a painful prescience to Naipaul's observations on Islam and the West. That prescience was in evidence once again when, just two weeks after our meeting, bombers struck the London Underground and a city bus, killing more than 50 people. Naipaul was at home in Wiltshire that day, and professed no surprise that the attacks appeared to have been carried out by British citizens. ''We must stop fooling ourselves about what we are witnessing,'' he said in a telephone conversation a week after the July 7 attacks. The debate in Britain about British detainees held at Guantanamo Bay was evidence of the foolishness. ''People here talk about those people who were picked up by the Americans as 'lads,' 'our lads,' as though they were people playing cricket or marbles,'' Naipaul said. 'It's glib, nonsensical talk from people who don't understand that holy war for Muslims is a religious war, and a religious war is something you never stop fighting.'"

"Undercover in the academy of hatred" (The Sunday Times, 2005/08/07)
"During a two-month undercover investigation The Sunday Times has amassed hours of taped evidence and pages of transcripts which show how Bakri and his acolytes promote hatred of “non-believers” and “egg” their followers on to commit acts of violence, including suicide bombings.
The evidence details how his group, the Saviour Sect, preaches a racist creed of Muslim supremacy which, in the words of Bakri, aims at one day “flying the Islamic flag over Downing Street”. ...
Integration with British society is scorned, as is any form of democratic process. Followers are encouraged to exploit the benefits system. They avoid jobs which could bring them into contact with western women or might lead them to contribute to the economy of a nation they are taught to despise.
In regular lectures and sermons it is instilled into them that Islam is a religion of violence. While publicly they did not defend the London attacks, they speak differently in private.
Bakri, who faces possible deportation with the introduction of new terror laws announced by Tony Blair on Friday, was taped saying that he had been “very happy” since the July 7 London bombings, which killed 52 people. After the second attacks, he described the bombers as the “fantastic four”. ...
When Bakri finally commented publicly on the bomb attacks, he condemned the deaths of “innocents”. But this was not quite the remorse it seemed.
At Friday prayers, on the day after the second bomb attacks, there was a buzz in the air as Bakri walked into the Selby hall in his brilliant white shalwar kameez.
In the preamble to the sermon he referred to the bombers as the “fantastic four”. He explained that his lament for the “innocent” applied only to Muslims. It was a linguistic sleight of hand which he summarised as: 'Yes I condemn killing any innocent people, but not any kuffar.'"

"Death of an idealist" (Tony Allen-Mills, The Sunday Times, 2005/08/07)
Steven Vincent VIII: "Nor do the circumstances of Vincent’s death change the questions he raised about British military policy in Basra. Are we doing the right thing by turning our backs on a fundamentalist takeover? Should we be trying harder to create a fair and free Iraq — especially for women such as Tuaiz?
British officers have long been painfully aware of the excesses committed under their noses. It rankles many of them to be handing over the country to the Islamic extremist likes of al-Sadr.
At the same time, as senior officials never tire of pointing out, it is ultimately Iraq’s responsibility — not London’s or Washington’s — to decide how its fledgling democracy will work. If people vote for al-Sadr, as they seem certain to do by the busload, it is hardly the job of a British soldier to suggest they do otherwise.
As one British officer put it: “We are in Basra at the consent of the Iraqi people, but that consent is fragile. If we start pushing our weight around, we would quickly become the enemy, and we can’t afford that.” ...
The price the British have paid for comparative calm in Basra — as opposed to the mayhem of Baghdad and the Sunni triangle — is that Sadr’s men have achieved a de facto takeover, more or less by stealth.
“It is absolutely clear that Sadr infiltrates every walk of public life,” the diplomat said. 'He dominates the police. What we, the British, have produced is a very flawed security force.'"

"Islamic radicals warn of city riots" (Mark Townsend, The Observer, 2005/08/07)
"A radical Islamic group declared yesterday it would resist all attempts by Tony Blair to ban the organisation.
Officials of Hizb ut-Tahrir warned that the government's proposals would be interpreted by the Muslim community as part of an 'anti-Islamic' agenda and could trigger civil unrest.
Speakers for the Islamic political party announced they had begun seeking legal advice to fight any attempts to ban the organisation, which has existed in Britain for more than 50 years. The announcement coincided with fresh warnings that Britain's deteriorating race relations could lead to a repeat of the inner-city riots in the Eighties.
'The move is a perilous route that is harming community relations and could lead to civil unrest comparable to that which affected the black community,' said Imran Waheed, spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir. He also rejected calls for the Muslim community to root out extremism and dismissed claims that the organisation was harbouring terrorists as 'ludicrous.'"

"Terrorists Turn to the Web as Base of Operations" (Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser, The Washington Post, 2005/08/07)
"In the snow-draped mountains near Jalalabad in November 2001, as the Taliban collapsed and al Qaeda lost its Afghan sanctuary, Osama bin Laden biographer Hamid Mir watched "every second al Qaeda member carrying a laptop computer along with a Kalashnikov" as they prepared to scatter into hiding and exile. On the screens were photographs of Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.
Nearly four years later, al Qaeda has become the first guerrilla movement in history to migrate from physical space to cyberspace. With laptops and DVDs, in secret hideouts and at neighborhood Internet cafes, young code-writing jihadists have sought to replicate the training, communication, planning and preaching facilities they lost in Afghanistan with countless new locations on the Internet.
Al Qaeda suicide bombers and ambush units in Iraq routinely depend on the Web for training and tactical support, relying on the Internet's anonymity and flexibility to operate with near impunity in cyberspace. In Qatar, Egypt and Europe, cells affiliated with al Qaeda that have recently carried out or seriously planned bombings have relied heavily on the Internet."

"UK terrorists got cash from Saudi Arabia before 7/7" (Toby Harnden and Andrew Alderson, The Sunday Telegraph, 2005/08/07)
"Two senior al-Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia made money transfers and used coded text messages to communicate with suspected terrorists in Britain before last month's attacks in London, according to officials in the kingdom.
The two men, of Moroccan descent, have since been shot dead. Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, allegedly al-Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia, was killed in Riyadh three weeks ago and Abdel Karim al-Mejati died in a shoot-out in the central al-Qassim region in April.
Saudi security officials suspect both men of involvement in the attacks in London on July 7 and 21 and say that al-Qaeda is definitely operating in Britain. "It's beyond doubt they're active in your country," said one.
Huge amounts of chemicals and other bomb-making materials were found at al-Hayari's hideout. Al-Mejati is said to have planned the train bombings in Madrid in March last year."

"Saudis warned UK of London attacks" (Martin Bright et al., The Observer, 2005/08/07)
"Saudi Arabia officially warned Britain of an imminent terrorist attack on London just weeks ahead of the 7 July bombings after calls from one of al-Qaeda's most wanted operatives were traced to an active cell in the United Kingdom.
Senior Saudi security sources have confirmed they are investigating whether calls from Kareem al-Majati, last year named as one of al-Qaeda's chiefs in the Gulf kingdom, were made directly to the British ringleader of the 7 July bomb plotters.
One senior Saudi security official told The Observer that calls to Britain intercepted from a mobile phone belonging to Majati earlier this year revealed that an active terror group was at work in the UK and planning an attack.
He also said that calls from Majati's lieutenant and al-Qaeda's logistics expert, Younes al-Hayari, who was killed in a separate shoot-out just four days before the 7 July bombings, have also been traced to Britain.
The Saudi official said: 'It was clear to us that there was a terror group planning an attack in the UK. We passed all this information on to both MI5 and MI6 at the time. We are now investigating whether these calls were directly to the London bombers. It is our conclusion that either these were linked or that a completely different terror network is still at large in Britain.'"

Saturday, August 6, 2005

News and commentary:

"Mosque chairman sparks fresh row" (BBC News, 2005/08/06)
"A Muslim leader says there are "similarities" between new powers to tackle Islamist extremism and Hitler's demonisation of the Jews.
Tony Blair wants measures to exclude foreigners who preach hate and to close places where terrorism is condoned.
Dr Mohammed Naseem, chairman of the Birmingham Central Mosque, said: "I see the similarities...I am saying these are dangerous times."
Last week Dr Naseem questioned whether Muslims were behind the London bombs. ...
Following the anti-terrorism proposals unveiled on Friday Dr Naseem told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme that he saw "similarities" between Mr Blair's approach to Britain's Muslim community and Hitler's demonisation of Jews early in his time as German Chancellor. ...
'He [Hitler] was democratically elected and gradually he created a bogey identity, that is, the Jewish people, and posed to the Germans that they were a threat to the country.
On that basis, he started a process of elimination of Jewish people.
I see the similarities. Everything moves step by step. I am saying these are dangerous times and we must take note of this.'" (See also: "Keeping an Open Mind" (David T, Harry's Place, 2005/07/28))

"Deportation not fair, says extremist (on benefits)" (Graeme Wilson, The Daily Mail, 2005/08/06)
"An extreme Muslim cleric whose family have been living on benefits in Britain for 20 years says it would not be 'fair' to deport him.
Speaking after the Prime Minister announced his clampdown, father-of-seven Sheik Omar Bakri said: "I have wives, children, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law. It would be hard on my family if I was deported."
Since Syrian-born Bakri settled in Britain, he and his extended family have raked in benefits amounting to at least £300,000.
He is registered disabled because of an injury to his leg during his childhood, and was recently supplied with a £31,000 Ford Galaxy under the Motability scheme.
Bakri, who lives in a £200,000 home in North London, tops up his £250-a-week benefit payments with an extra £50 incapacity allowance.
He has praised the September 11 terrorists as 'magnificent', called Israel 'a cancer' and said homosexuals should be 'thrown from Big Ben'.
In January, he declared that Britain had become a 'land of war', and called on Muslims to unite behind Al Qaeda. He has supported suicide bombings and urged his followers to kill non-Muslims 'wherever, whenever.'"

"Sanctuary No More" (Gerard Baker, The Weekly Standard, from the 2005/08/15 issue)
Baker on Zawahiri's latest speech: "Roughly translated, this meant: Leave us free to do exactly what we want from Jerusalem to Jakarta, submit to all our demands, stop driving cars, and we might, just might, agree to stop blowing you into oblivion as you go about your everyday business.
Now, in fairness, it should be noted that there are some in Britain who are happy to comply with al Qaeda's demands for unconditional surrender to their every last wish.
George Galloway, the antiwar "Respect" member of parliament for London's East End, certainly seems to think this prescription for British foreign policy is dead right. He was all over the land of Mohammed last week expressing moist solidarity with the Zawahiris and the Zarqawis. While visiting friendly Syria, he told Muslims, via Al Jazeera, that their two beautiful daughters, Jerusalem and Baghdad, were being "raped" by foreigners. And he had high praise for the "resistance" in Iraq, the people who have been killing innocent Iraqis as well as American and British servicemen: "These poor Iraqis . . . are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day."
I used to think Galloway and his ilk should be incarcerated for such self-evidently treasonous acts (in fact the death penalty, contrary to popular belief, is still available in Britain for the crime of high treason, though we wouldn't want to create more "martyrs"). But events in Britain have led me to revise that view. Instead I am now certain that the more those like Livingstone and Galloway are allowed to vent their poison, the more damage they do to the very cause they espouse." (See also: "Al-Qaida's No. 2 Threatens London, U.S." (Steven R. Hurst, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/08/04) and "British MP George Galloway in Syria: Foreigners Are Raping Two Beautiful Arab Daughters - Jerusalem and Baghdad" (MEMRI TV, 2005/07/31))

"Ancient fantasies that infect the internet and inspire suicide bombers" (Damian Thompson, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/08/06)
"All conspiracy theories collect supposed facts to bolster an existing thesis: the reverse of scientific method. Political conspiracy theories, alleging a global plot by the powers of Satan, have circulated in their modern form since the 18th century - "circulated" being the operative word, since they have depended on literature being passed from hand to hand. Television speeded up this process in the Middle East, thanks to the Arab world's Jew-obsessed state broadcasters. But it was the internet that really opened up the apocalyptic possibilities of what the American historian Richard Landes calls "self-brainwashing".
In the past few weeks, too much attention has been given to the effect of radical mosques on British-based suicide bombers; not enough has been given to the broadband connection between the bombers and websites that repeat medieval anti-Semitic fantasies and Islamic End Times prophecies. Tens of thousands of Muslim youths regularly view these sites in their bedrooms and internet cafés. Blocking access to them is a near-impossible task, even for this control-freak Government.
In any case, the problem goes deeper than that, as the Prime Minister indicated when he retreated into waffle yesterday on being asked about political correctness. It is not just that multiculturalism, whether in Britain, France or America, teaches students to be ashamed of the history of their host society. It also declines to challenge the conspiracy theories to which ethnic minorities - including the non-Muslim black community - are susceptible. I was once at a conference at Boston University at which a panel of mixed-race academics discussed the proposition (accepted by 30 per cent of black Americans) that the United States government manufactured Aids as a weapon of genocide. After a respectful debate, I asked each member of the panel if he or she was prepared to denounce the theory. Nobody was, on the grounds that it might constitute 'disrespect.'"

"The destruction of Mecca: Saudi hardliners are wiping out their own heritage" (Daniel Howden, The Independent, 2005/08/06)
"Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots.
Almost all of the rich and multi-layered history of the holy city is gone. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades.
Now the actual birthplace of the Prophet Mohamed is facing the bulldozers, with the connivance of Saudi religious authorities whose hardline interpretation of Islam is compelling them to wipe out their own heritage.
It is the same oil-rich orthodoxy that pumped money into the Taliban as they prepared to detonate the Bamiyan buddhas in 2000. And the same doctrine - violently opposed to all forms of idolatry - that this week decreed that the Saudis' own king be buried in an unmarked desert grave.
A Saudi architect, Sami Angawi, who is an acknowledged specialist on the region's Islamic architecture, told The Independent that the final farewell to Mecca is imminent: "What we are witnessing are the last days of Mecca and Medina."
According to Dr Angawi - who has dedicated his life to preserving Islam's two holiest cities - as few as 20 structures are left that date back to the lifetime of the Prophet 1,400 years ago and those that remain could be bulldozed at any time. "This is the end of history in Mecca and Medina and the end of their future," said Dr Angawi." (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)

"Four bomb suspects 'had £500,000 in benefits'" (Daniel McGrory and Sean O’Neill, The Times, 2005/08/06)
"Police are investigating allegations that the four suspected July 21 bombers collected more than £500,000 in benefits payments in Britain.
The claim was made as the Bank of England moved to freeze financial accounts belonging to the men. Bank officials also disclosed the financial details of the suspects, Ramzi Mohammad, Yasin Hassan Omar, Muktar Said-Ibrahim and Hussain Osman. These showed how the men, all in custody, have used multiple aliases and addresses in recent years.
Mr Ibrahim, is said to have had six aliases. Some are also shown to have claimed several nationalities, ages and national insurance numbers while in Britain. Investigators believe that bogus names were used to make some benefit claims.
Two are also alleged to have obtained asylum using bogus passports and false names and nationalities."

"Some Bombs Used in Iraq Are Made in Iran, U.S. Says" (Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 2005/08/06)
"Many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs used to attack American and government forces in Iraq have been designed in Iran and shipped in from there, United States military and intelligence officials said Friday, raising the prospect of increased foreign help for Iraqi insurgents.
American commanders say the deadlier bombs could become more common as insurgent bomb makers learn the techniques to make the weapons themselves in Iraq. ...
"These are among the most sophisticated and most lethal devices we've seen," said the senior officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate intelligence reports describing the bombs. "It's very serious."
Pentagon and intelligence officials say that some shipments of the new explosives have contained both components and fully manufactured devices, and may have been spirited into Iraq along the porous Iranian border by the Iranian-backed, anti-Israeli terrorist group Hezbollah, or by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. American commanders say these bombs closely matched those that Hezbollah has used against Israel."

Friday, August 5, 2005

News and commentary:

"Blair Proposes Strict Anti-Terror Measures" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/08/05)
"Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed strict anti-terror measures Friday that would allow Britain to expel foreigners who preach hatred, close extremist mosques and bar entry to Muslim radicals. "The rules of the game are changing" following last month's bomb attacks, he declared.
The proposals, which also target extremist Web sites and bookshops, are aimed primarily at excluding radical Islamic clerics accused of whipping up hatred and violence among vulnerable, disenfranchised Muslim men.
"We are angry. We are angry about extremism and about what they are doing to our country, angry about their abuse of our good nature," Blair said. "We welcome people here who share our values and our way of life. But don't meddle in extremism because if you meddle in it ... you are going back out again." ...
Under the proposals, anyone who preaches hatred or violence could be deported, those linked to terrorism would be automatically refused asylum and steps would be taken to make it easier to strip naturalized citizens of their British citizenship if they preached violence. ...
Authorities will draw up lists of radical preachers who will not be allowed to enter Britain, and a list of radical Web sites and bookstores. Any foreigner who "actively engages" with those places could face deportation.
Membership in extremist Islamic groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir would also become a crime, as would glorifying terrorism." (See also: "PM's Press Conference - 5 August 2005" (10 Downing Street, 2005/08/05): "First, the Home Secretary today publishes new grounds for deportation and exclusion. Deportation is a decision taken by the Home Secretary under statute. The new grounds will include fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person's beliefs, or justifying or validating such violence. These grounds will be subject to a short consultation period which will finish this month. Even under existing grounds, however, we are today signalling a new approach to deportation orders. Let no-one be in any doubt, the rules of the game are changing.")

"From Vincent to van Gogh" (Caroline B. Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/08/05)
Steven Vincent VII: "In an article in the National Review published in December 2004, Vincent railed against the media for referring to the terrorists in Iraq, whose handiwork he saw up close, as "guerrillas" and "resistance forces." In his words, "[T]oday we suffer for our lack of clarity in this war. Unwilling to call our enemies fascists, afraid to condemn the brutal aspects of Iraqi and Arab culture, we have allowed the narrative to slip out of our control. Truth is made, not found, in Iraq. Gradually, in the war of ideas, the US became the evil occupier, opposing the legitimate wishes of an indigenous 'resistance'." ...
In many respects, Vincent's murder recalls the murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam last November. Like Vincent, van Gogh was murdered by a jihadi for daring to expose the malevolent face of radical Islam in his documentary Submission. In it, he described the brutal oppression of women under radical Islam. While Vincent exposed the murderous machinations and oppressive culture of Islamic fascists in Iraq, van Gogh described their actions in his hometown. But they were both describing the same phenomenon and for their efforts at shining light on the face of the enemy, they were murdered. ...
In this war, the enemy fights us in two separate ways. He terrorizes us with violence in order to make us capitulate. And, by hiding behind the ever-sympathetic guise of a victimized minority culture and religious group, he accuses us of the terrible crimes of racism and illiberalism when we dare to point out the fact that preaching jihad is not a simple exercise of free speech, but an act of war.
And that's the rub. In our liberal democracies, we are driven by a foundational belief in the sanctity of the freedom of dissent. But our enemy tramples that sanctity. For it is not dissent he preaches, but war. It is not democratic give-and-take that he is after, but our destruction. And if we wish to survive, we have to recognize the fact that when our cities are transformed into battlegrounds, our countries are at war. Those who call for jihad have nothing in common with those who call for a change in our government's policies, for the promulgation of new laws, or for new elections. Indeed they are their antithesis." (Note: The quote is from "The Wrong Words: Moral and linguistic clarity are crucial in this conflict" (Steven Vincent, National Review, 2004/12/17))

"Symposium: Iraq: A Report Card" (FrontPageMagazine, 2005/08/05)
Steven Vincent VI: "Editor’s Note: In its final stages, this symposium took a tragic and horrifying turn as one of our panelists, and a dear friend, Steven Vincent, was kidnapped and murdered in Basra, Iraq. Our hearts are crushed and we have abruptly terminated this symposium at the place during which we heard the horrible news. Our prayers are with Steven and with his family.":
"Vincent: With respects to you and Karl, Jamie, I have to give the war effort a B-. Judging the conflict by Saddam's removal — and thank Allah the monster is gone — is setting a pretty low bar. I mean, let's face it: military-wise Iraq was not Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. ...
True, maaku Saddam, and yes, there is a democratically-elected government, but when Baghdad lacks power and water, and the road to the airport is life-threatening crap shoot, and I can't leave my hotel here in Basra without Iraqi protection — I can't see much nation building going on.
Insurgents win by not losing. If they keep Iraqis living in misery, then no matter how many "insurgents" we dispatch to Paradise, Amir Zarqawi gets the prize. In assessing the war effort, then, we must also include the quality of Iraqis's lives. Want a grade for that? F. ...
You can blame terrorists all you want for ruining Iraq, but at the end of the day, it's our responsibility to make things right -- or at least get Iraqis to do the job themselves. Oh, and Jamie? You damn well better feel sorry I can't leave my Basra hotel without Iraqi protection -- because last year I could. Six months after the January 30th elections, lawlessness in this city is on the rise, whether by Iranian agents, rouge policemen or opportunistic tribal gangs. Hmmm, considering the bang-up job the Brits are doing here, I think I'll lower my estimation of the war effort to a C+."

"A British jihadist" (Aatish Taseer, Prospect, from the August 2005 issue)
An interview with Hassan Butt, a "young British Pakistani who was a spokesman for the extremist group al-Muhajiroun, and active in recruiting people to fight against the coalition forces in Afghanistan":
"Butt: ... Now, I am not in favour of military action in Britain, but if somebody did do it who was British, I would not have any trouble with that either. Islamically, it would be my duty to support and praise their action. ...
Besides that, in the Koran the word irhab is the root word for terror in Islam, and irhabiyun is the word for terrorist. Allah mentions the word in the Koran many times — the one who strikes terror into their hearts is an irhabiyun. If I could have that title Islamically then I would be more than happy to take it and be proud of it. But unfortunately, I haven't reached that level yet.
Taseer: Why not?
Butt: Because I am stuck in this country. It would be unwise to carry out military operations here.
Taseer: Why?
Butt: It would harm a lot of people. Britain is a very liberal country in comparison to America where Muslims don't have many rights. This is the type of country where you do have a lot more rights. Now with Afghanistan gone, the Muslims don't really have a place where they can come back to and regroup, have time to think and relax, without the authorities breathing down your neck. ...
Taseer: Do many Muslims in Britain feel like you do?
Butt: I would say the majority of Muslims in this country care about neither moderate nor radical Islam; they care about living their day-to-day life. They're happy with that. But of those people who are practising, the majority of them hold my views. The difference is that some people come out publicly and others keep quiet.
Taseer: What would you say the size of this latter group is?
Butt: Official figures say there are 3m Muslims here. [There are in fact 1.6m.] Out of that, I would say there are 750,000 who have an interest in Islam and about 80 per cent of those were over the moon about 9/11."

"Al-Qaeda, Victorian style" (Graham Stewart, The Times, 2005/08/05)
"A little over a century ago, anarchist cells, operating throughout the Western world, caused havoc. In the space of nine years between 1892 and 1901, anarchists assassinated the President of the United States, the President of France, the Prime Minister of Spain, the Empress of Austria and the King of Italy. As scalp hunting goes, this was an impressive collection. ...
The militant atheists of late 19th- century Europe would have found little common intellectual ground with 21st-century Islamists. Yet, both were ascetic movements whose followers were repelled by the decadence and thoughtless exploitation they believed inherent in Western bourgeois society. Both movements turned away from the world as it was in favour of an idealised world as it might be. Like the Islamists, the anarchists rejected the political compromises of the democratic process. The more desperate among them put their point across with dynamite instead.
Anarchists justified terrorism with the euphemism “propaganda by the deed”. The argument was lucidly expressed by Emile Henry when he stood in the dock during his trial for bombing the Parisian station café: 'I wanted to show the bourgeoisie that their pleasures would no longer be complete, that their insolent triumphs would be disturbed, that their golden calf would tremble violently on its pedestal, until the final shock would cast it down in mud and blood.'"

"All roads lead to Pakistan for team hunting bombers" (Daniel McGrory, The Times, 2005/08/05)
"The links between who first “talent spotted” the four 7/7 bombers and those who persuaded them to take part in a violent attack on the country of their birth are tortuous. But investigators say the links keep leading them back to Pakistan.
Scotland Yard detectives point to the likes of the London college dropout, Zeeshan Siddiqui, who left his parents a scribbled note in 1999 saying he was leaving home to become a “holy warrior” and is now in Islamabad’s top security jail.
Siddiqui was arrested in Pakistan shortly before the first London strike for his alleged links to some of al-Qaeda’s most notorious figures.
What interests Scotland Yard’s counter-terror team are reports of Siddiqui’s rendezvous earlier this year with the one of the Leeds bombers, Shehzad Tanweer. Detectives desperately want to know what the pair discussed and who else Tanweer met during his three-month stay in Pakistan.
Tanweer is believed to have contacted a number of figures involved with the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad group, including Osama Nazir, who is facing trial for an attack on a Christian church in which two Americans died."

Thursday, August 4, 2005

News and commentary:

"Al-Qaida's No. 2 Threatens London, U.S." (Steven R. Hurst, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/08/04)
"Al-Qaida's No. 2 embraced the London suicide bombings Thursday, warned Britain that more destruction lies ahead and promised tens of thousands of U.S. casualties in Iraq in a brazen assertion of the terror group's global reach.
Ayman al-Zawahri also renewed terror threats to other countries with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming they had shunned
Osama bin Laden's offer last year of a truce if foreign forces left the battleground.
In the tape, parts of which were broadcast by Al-Jazeera, al-Zawahri made no direct claim that al-Qaida carried out the July 7 attacks in the British capital, but sought instead to blame the carnage on Prime Minister
Tony Blair's decision to deploy and keep troops in Iraq. Britain maintains 8,500 forces mainly in southern Iraq.
"Blair has brought to you destruction in central London, and he will bring more of that, God willing," al-Zawahri said. ...
"What you have seen in New York and Washington, you Americans, and the losses you see in Afghanistan and Iraq — despite all the media blackout — are merely the losses from the initial clashes," he said."

"Jewish Extremist Opens Fire Inside Bus" (Kristen Stevens, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/08/04)
"SHFARAM, Israel - A 19-year-old Israeli soldier opened fire inside a bus Thursday, killing four Israeli Arabs in the deadliest attack on Arabs in
Israel by a Jewish extremist since 1990. An angry crowd then killed the gunman.
Thirteen people, including bus passengers and two policemen, were wounded in the shooting, which appeared linked to tensions over the upcoming Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
After the attack, the bruised and bloodied body of the gunman lay on the floor of the bus surrounded by stones — raising the possibility he had been stoned to death.
The military identified the dead soldier as Pvt. Eden Natan-Zada, a resident of the Jewish settlement of Tapuah in the West Bank. Natan-Zada's father, Yitzhak, told The Associated Press his son ran away from his army unit several weeks ago after being told he would have to participate in the Gaza pullout.
Israel Radio said the gunman was bludgeoned to death by the crowd. After the attack, the gunman's body lay on the floor of the bus, and police had covered his head with a black plastic bag. His shirtless upper torso was heavily bruised.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon denounced the shooting as 'a despicable act by a bloodthirsty terrorist.'"

"Iraq Must Avoid a Rollback of Rights" (Preeta D. Bansal and Nina Shea, The Washington Post, 2005/08/04)
"Iraq's new democracy will be crippled from the outset if the drafts of the country's permanent constitution being circulated are any indication of where things are headed. In a significant rollback from language in the interim constitution, known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), current drafts would threaten regional stability and thwart stated U.S. goals of promoting freedom and democracy. They would establish a constitution under which dissent and debate would not be protected. As the deadline for a constitution approaches, the United States and the international community must redouble their efforts to ensure that an Iran-like theocratic state is not established in Iraq.
Current drafts would limit Iraq's international human rights obligations to those that do not contradict Islam or Islamic law. They assert that an undefined version of Islamic law, or sharia , is the main source of law. They make no reference to freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi, and they provide no guarantee of individual freedom of thought and conscience. One clause in the constitution would forbid any law contrary to sharia, leaving the door open for interpretations by unelected Islamic "experts" to be considered sacrosanct."

"I feel guilty that I survived while others perished" (Rajeev Syal, The Times, 2005/08/04)
"Zeynep Basci, a 21-year-old bank clerk who is a Muslim, survived the King's Cross Tube bomb on July 7. Four weeks on, she tells The Times how she cannot forget her ordeal":
"I used to sleep in the dark. Four weeks after the bombing, if I turn out the light, I can feel myself being sucked back into the blackness and thick smoke of the Tube carriage. I can hear the screams, and smell the blood of strangers.
While the physical wounds have mostly healed, the psychological ones run very, very deep. I wake up, shivering and crying, feeling guilty that I survived while others perished.
July 7 was a sticky London morning. I work as a clerk at Barclays in North London. That morning, I left our family’s terraced home in Edmonton — I live with my mum, dad, brother and sister — pleased that I was going on a banking course in Central London.
At King’s Cross, my carriage was packed, but everyone was good-humoured. I was standing inches from two strangers, chatting to each other about the cramped conditions.
Then it happened. The explosion, the wails in the dark, the fire and the severed limbs."

"US reporter murdered in Iraq had written his own epitaph" (James Hider, The Times, 2005/08/04)
Steven Vincent V: "Ten days before he was kidnapped by men in an unmarked Iraqi police car, within sight of a checkpoint manned by British-trained policemen, Steven Vincent talked about Basra’s “death car”.
In fact, the American journalist’s last article for The New York Times read like an epitaph for his own murder on Tuesday night in the southern port city, where thousands of British troops are deployed. He was abducted with Nouriya Itais, the Iraqi woman he employed as a translator.
He wrote: “An Iraqi police lieutenant, who for obvious reasons asked to remain anonymous, confirmed to me the widespread rumours that a few police officers are perpetrating many of the hundreds of assassinations, mostly of former Baath Party members, that take place in Basra each month. He told me that there is even a sort of ‘death car’: a white Toyota Mk II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment.” ...
On Tuesday night, as he walked with Ms Itais to exchange some money outside the Merbid Hotel, he found out what the new death car was: a white Chevrolet pick-up without registration plates but with the word Police on it.
Witnesses said that armed men jumped out of the vehicle and bundled him inside. Having written extensively about the Islamic militias who enforce their own harsh law on the city, Mr Vincent struggled to get away. His shoes were later found in the rubbish that litters Basra’s streets. Locals who saw the abduction and were brave enough to inquire what was going on said that the gunmen shouted out that they were policemen. No one dared to intervene." (See also: "Switched Off in Basra" (Steven Vincent, The New York Times, 2005/07/31))

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

News and commentary:

Steven Vincent
(AP, 2005/08/03)
"This is an undated photo provided by Spence Publishing Company of freelance journalist Steven Vincent, who was found dead in the southern city of Basra, Iraq, with multiple gunshot wounds after being abducted Tuesday evening, Aug. 2, 2005, by armed men driving a police car, Iraqi police and the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday, Aug. 3."

"The Naive American" (Steven Vincent, In the Red Zone, 2005/07/29)
Steven Vincent IV. From Vincent's last post on his blog In the Red Zone, here on a discussion with an American Captain "about the militant Shiites who have transformed once free-wheeling Basra into something resembling Savonarola's Florence":
"Not for the first time, I felt I was living in a Graham Greene novel, this about about a U.S. soldier -- call it The Naive American -- who finds what works so well in Power Point presentations has unpredictable results when applied to realities of Iraq. Or is that the story of our whole attempt to liberate this nation?
Collecting himself, "But should we really get involved in choosing one political group over another?" the Captain countered. "I mean, I've always believed that we shouldn't project American values onto other cultures--that we should let them be. Who is to say we are right and they are wrong?" ...
But Layla would have none of it. "No, believe me!" she exclaimed, sitting forward on her stool. "These religious parties are wrong! Look at them, their corruption, their incompetence, their stupidity! Look at the way they treat women! How can you say you cannot judge them? Why shouldn't your apply your own cultural values?"
It was a moment I wish every muddle-headed college kid and Western-civilization-hating leftist could have witnessed: an Air Force Captain quoting chapter and verse from the new American Gospel of Multiculturalism, only to have a flesh and blood representative of "the Other" declare that he was incorrect, that discriminations and judgment between cultures are possible -- necessary -- especially when it comes to the absolutely unacceptable way Middle Eastern Arabs treat women. And though Layla would not have pushed the point this far, I couldn't resist. "You know, Captain," I said, 'sometimes American values are just-- better.'"

"A Journalist Is Murdered" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/08/03)
Steven Vincent III: "Steven Vincent, "an art critic inspired to write about war after watching from the roof of his New York apartment as the World Trade Center towers fell," was found murdered in Basra, Iraq, yesterday, Reuters reports from New York. ...
Blogger Larry O'Connor picks up a pertinent Vincent quotation:

Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq. That is why the terms the press uses to cover this conflict are so vital. For example, take the word "guerillas." As you noted, mainstream media sources like the New York Times often use the terms "insurgents" or "guerillas" to describe the Sunni Triangle gunmen, as if these murderous thugs represented a traditional national liberation movement. But when the Times reports on similar groups of masked reactionary killers operating in Latin American countries, they utilize the phrase "paramilitary death squads." Same murderers, different designations. Yet of the two, "insurgents" and especially "guerillas" has a claim on our sympathies that "paramilitaries" lacks. This is not semantics: imagine if the media routinely called the Sunni Triangle gunmen "right wing paramilitary death squads." Not only would the description be more accurate, but it would offer the American public a clear idea of the enemy in Iraq. And that, in turn, would bolster public attitudes toward the war. ...

The most despicable misuse of terminology, however, occurs when Leftists call the Saddamites and foreign jihadists "the resistance." What an example of moral inversion! For the fact is, paramilitary death squads are attacking the Iraqi people. And those who oppose the killers -- the Iraqi police and National Guardsmen, members of the Allawi government, people like Nour -- they are the "resistance." They are preventing Islamofascists from seizing Iraq, they are resisting evil men from turning the entire nation into a mass slaughterhouse like we saw in re-liberated Falluja. Anyone who cares about success in our struggle against Islamofascism, or upholds principles of moral clarity and lucid thought -- should combat such Orwellian distortions of our language.

May he rest in peace." (See also: "Steven Vincent, RIP" (Larry O'Connor, O C Chronicle, 2005/08/03). The quote is from an interview with Vincent: "In The Red Zone" (Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/12/09))

"Freedom’s Reporter" (Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, 2005/08/03)
Steven Vincent II. NRO also has a list of articles by Vincent:

"An Iraqi police lieutenant, who for obvious reasons asked to remain anonymous, confirmed to me the widespread rumors that a few police officers are perpetrating many of the hundreds of assassinations — mostly of former Baath Party members — that take place in Basra each month. He told me that there is even a sort of "death car": a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment.

So wrote American freelance journalist Steven Vincent in a piece that appeared in the New York Times this past weekend.
And then a death car came for him. ...
"I never met Steven Vincent, but wish I had," says Michael Rubin, another NRO contributor, currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of The Middle East Quarterly, who as a former Pentagon official spent time in outside-the-Green-Zone Iraq. 'Hands-down, his book In the Red Zone was the most accurate portrayal of the issues facing ordinary Iraqis. While reporters from major newspapers had fixers do their work and more often than not, just telephoned Iraqi politicians and anonymous American diplomats, Vincent got out and about to holistically explore the entire Iraq endeavor, from the bottom up. His vignettes offer the best English-language understanding of Iraq available. His work was far and away the best out there. And his murder is a reminder of how much is at stake. God bless Steven Vincent.'" (See also: "Switched Off in Basra" (Steven Vincent, The New York Times, 2005/07/31))

"American Journalist Is Shot to Death in Iraq" (Edward Wong, The New York Times, 2005/08/03)
Steven Vincent, R.I.P.: "BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 3 - An American journalist writing about the rise of fundamentalist Islam was shot dead overnight after being abducted in the southern port city of Basra, American embassy and Iraqi officials said today. The journalist's translator was also shot and is in serious condition at a Basra hospital.
The body of the reporter, Steven Vincent, from New York, was found this morning. He had been dumped outdoors after being shot several times, and his hands were tied with a plastic wire, and a red piece of cloth was wrapped around his neck. He and his translator, Noor al-Khal, were kidnapped on Tuesday evening in downtown Basra by masked gunman in a pick-up truck as they left a moneychanger's shop near Mr. Vincent's hotel, police officials said.
The gunmen may have been in a police vehicle, The Associated Press reported, citing a police official in Basra.
Mr. Vincent was a middle-age freelance writer who recently had articles published in the Christian Science Monitor and the National Review. He told other journalists he was gathering material for a book on Basra. On Sunday, The New York Times printed an op-ed he had written about Basra, in which he sharply criticized the British government for allowing religious Shiite parties and clerics to take control of Basra and populate the security forces with their followers." (Hat tip: Instapundit. See also Steven Vincent's blog: In the Red Zone. Also: "Switched Off in Basra" (Steven Vincent, The New York Times, 2005/07/31), "Baffled in Basra" (Steven Vincent, National Review, 2005/06/21) and "Baghdad's New Anti-Americans" (Steven Vincent, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/02/18))

"Zionists Behind the attacks"
(MPACUK, 2005/07/28)
Via Harry's Place: "The article is the usual "blame it all on the Zionists and the Jews" stuff, but the graphic -- of a devil-like figure peering out from behind an American flag -- is, I hope everyone will agree, pure antisemitic hate worthy of Der Stürmer."

"MPACUK, neo-Nazis share antisemitic picture" (Gene, Harry's Place, 2005/08/03)
"Thanks to Luke in the thread below for pointing me to this page at the website of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the UK. The article is the usual "blame it all on the Zionists and the Jews" stuff, but the graphic -- of a devil-like figure peering out from behind an American flag -- is, I hope everyone will agree, pure antisemitic hate worthy of Der Stürmer.
And no wonder. MPACUK borrowed the graphic from a neo-Nazi website called globalfire.tv.
(Update: The graphic has mysteriously vanished from the MPACUK website, but thanks to commenter Spiritualized for getting a screen grab of it.)
Asghar Bukhari of MPACUK appeared last month on the BBC's Newsnight and was later described by editor Peter Barron as "a young moderate Muslim who was outspokenly critical of what he saw as the imams' failure to curb extremism in Muslim communities." (Again the question: moderate compared to whom?)
The evidence of MPACUK's virulent antisemitism has been available for years to anyone who cared to seek it out. Writing in 2003 for a website of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Dave Rich revealed:

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee have used their website to reproduce material taken from the sites of both David Irving and The Heretical Press (a far right publisher based in Hull)... Often when Islamist organisations use far right sources it reveals a deeper antisemitism. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee's reproduction of material from the far right sits on their website alongside open support for Holocaust denier David Irving, accusations of Zionist media and political control, lists of Jewish donors to New Labour and an investigation into whether the Talmud is "the most Powerful and Racist book in the world". ...

MPACUK is an affiliate of the Stop the War Coalition. Is this grounds for expulsion?
Didn't think so." (See also: "Zionists Behind Terror Attacks" (James J. David, MPACUK, 2005/07/28))

"The Real Target" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2005/08/03)
"In Iraq yesterday a roadside bomb killed 14 Marines. Two days earlier, six Marines from the same outfit were ambushed and killed. Yet those Marines were not the terrorists' primary target.
You were.
Our enemies know the Marines won't quit. But they hope you will.
The terrorists realize now that they can't defeat our military. Instead, they hope to achieve what the North Vietnamese did: To blur the reality on the ground and convince the American public that we're losing. ...
They certainly want to kill Marines. But that doesn't require video cameras. The rush to document and publicize their occasional successes makes it clear that the terrorists are fighting, above all, a media campaign. It's their only hope. ...
They don't expect to force out our military through violence. They hope our political leaders will withdraw our troops. The terrorists have done their homework. They know that a disheartening number of our politicians share one of their beliefs: a low opinion of the American people, a notion that we're weak, that we're quitters.
The terrorists know that our Marines aren't afraid of them. But they believe that our politicians are terrified. Of you.
So you're the target of every bomb, bullet and blade our enemies wield. Those Marines were killed to discourage you. They were targeted to ignite political discord in the USA. They died to give ammunition to those in Washington who view our dead only as political liabilities."

"The Discreet Charm of the Terrorist Cause" (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 2005/08/03)
"Since the bombing attacks in London last month, a welter of columnists, writers, talking heads and ordinary people have puzzled over the mystery of British Muslims, one in four of whom recently told pollsters that they sympathize with the July 7 suicide bombers. ...
But why should this phenomenon be so incomprehensible or inexplicable, at least to Americans? We did, after all, once tolerate a similar phenomenon ourselves.
I am talking about the sympathy for the Irish Republican Army that persisted for decades in some Irish American communities and is only now fading away. ...
My point here isn't really about Northern Irish politics, however, but about the extraordinarily powerful appeal of foreign, "revolutionary," "idealistic" violence to the inhabitants of otherwise peaceful societies. You don't have to be Muslim, or poor, or an extremist, to feel the romantic pull of terrorism. You can be a middle-class American and a lapsed Catholic whose grandmother happened to come from Donegal.
But the appeal of foreign violence can also be destroyed, or at least reduced, if community leaders agree that they want that to happen. If British Muslims deploy every one of their religious, civic and business institutions, they may, over time, be able to eliminate the climate of tolerance that made the London bombings possible, just as Irish Americans -- as well as Rep. King, who has now called on the IRA to disband -- eventually helped eliminate the climate of tolerance around the IRA. And if they don't -- there will always be recruits willing to die for a glamorous foreign cause."

"Why cultural tolerance cuts both ways" (David Davis, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/08/03)
True Faith. Davis is very sensible, except for his apparent belief that there is such a thing as "the true Muslim faith." My gut instinct is to be very suspicious of the use of "true" as a prefix for anything whatsoever.
For one thing, the belief in the "true" anything, whether its Communism, Christianity, Islam or Fascism, smacks too much of Hegelian metaphysical religiosity. It signals belief in Platonic ideals. Not that I have anything against that of course, but it has no place in a rational discussion.
It also echoes the argument made by many Western Communists during the Cold War, that there was a "true Communism" which somehow was completely untainted by the atrocious history of Communism in all its real manifestations, which were conveniently deemed as unproper deviations from the ideal (when they not were praised as ideal that is).
In this particular case Davis seems to argue that there is a "proper", "true", "moderate" Muslim faith which is "consistent with [British] society." This is the position taken by all Western leaders and liberal commentators. Call it the "Islam means peace" position, according to which an absolute majority of the world's Muslims are peace-loving and have beliefs consistent with Western ideals. Against this is set a miniscule minority of perverted fanatics, who are trying the hijack the peaceful coloss.
Nevermind that this vision of "the true Muslim faith" has as little to do with actual reality as "true Communism.":

"But the terrorist threat will not be beaten by security measures alone. Searching questions now have to be asked about what has been happening inside Britain's Muslim communities, and how the perverted values of the suicide bomber have been allowed to take root. Britain has pursued a policy of multiculturalism - allowing people of different cultures to settle without expecting them to integrate into society. Often the authorities have seemed more concerned with encouraging distinctive identities than with promoting common values of nationhood. The chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality has called multiculturalism "outdated". He is right. We should learn lessons from abroad - from the United States, where pride in the nation's values is much more prevalent among minorities than here. Above all, we must speak openly of what we expect of those who settle here - and of ourselves.
Let us be clear. Non-Muslims have obligations to their Muslim fellow citizens - to strive for equal opportunities for all, to accept the mainstream version of Islam as a part of society, and to reject the vile racism of the BNP and its like. But Muslims in turn have obligations: not simply to condemn terror, as one Labour MP put it, but to confront it. ...
Britain has a proud history of tolerance and respect towards people of different views, faiths and backgrounds. But we should not flinch from demanding the same tolerance and respect for the British way of life."

"Muslims who hate us can get out, says Tory" (Gerri Peev, The Scotsman, 2005/08/03)
"Gerald Howarth, the shadow defence minister, last night told The Scotsman that extremist Muslims who see the Iraq war as a conflict against Islam should be considered as treacherous as Soviet sympathisers during the Cold War. His remarkable claim shatters the tri-party consensus which Michael Howard, the Tory leader, sought to make with Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Howarth said yesterday that he is incensed by suggestions from Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, that Britain is "part of the problem" in Iraq - and said that the problem in the UK lies in fanatical Muslims living within our shores.
He is the first mainstream UK politician to suggest that extremist British Muslims should leave for Islamic societies. The government is looking at deporting foreign-born nationals and imprisoning British Muslims who incite or glorify terrorism.
"If they don't like our way of life, there is a simple remedy: go to another country, get out," Mr Howarth said. Asked what if these people were born in Britain, he replied: "Tough. If you don't give allegiance to this country, then leave."
He added: "There are plenty of other countries whose way of life would appear to be more conducive to what they aspire to. They would be happy and we would be happy." ...
However, his remarks were condemned as "arrogant" and "naive" by the Muslim Association of Britain.
Its spokesman, Anas Altikriti, compared the Tory defence spokesman to those who carried out the attacks on London, saying: 'They bombed in order to eliminate people, while he is proposing to eliminate people by deporting them.'"

"British race-hate crimes soaring" (Peter Walker, Herald Sun, 2005/08/03)
"Since July 7, London's Metropolitan Police said crimes motivated by religious hatred had soared by almost 600 per cent in the British capital.
Police figures showed there were 269 such incidents reported since the first blasts, compared with 40 over the same three-and-a-half week period in 2004.
"There is no doubt that incidents impacting on the Muslim community have increased," said London's Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur.
The majority of incidents were minor assaults or low-level abuse, but they had a great "emotional impact" on communities, he said.
'It can lead to these communities completely retreating and not engaging at a time when we want their engagement and support.'"

Tuesday, August 2, 2005

News and commentary:

"BEURGER KING MUSLIM"
(Thomas Coex, AFP, 2005/08/02)
"Patrons sit at the terrasse of the newly-opened 'Beurger King Muslim' (BKM) fast food restaurant in Clichy sous Bois, outside Paris. Customers can order Halal meat-made hamburgers like 'bakon halal' or 'double koull cheese.'"

"'Muslim' fast food -- gut appeal to large French minority" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2005/08/02)
"CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France (AFP) - The alphabet soup of fast food in France has a new addition -- BKM or Beurger King Muslim, which hopes to rival "McDo", Quick and KFC with a gut appeal to the country's large Muslim minority.
Young female employees face no ban on wearing the Islamic veils outlawed in French schools as they serve up burgers that would be off-limits for a religious crowd at competitors Quick or McDonalds.
Though "Muslim" fast food abounds in France with endless street-side schwarma shops selling sliced-meat sandwiches or kebabs, Beurger King Muslim is the first to clone the set-up and decor of American-style fast food joints so popular among French youth.
And not without humor. The name is a play on both the huge American chain as well as the French slang word "beur", which means second generation North Africans living in France.
The first -- and only -- shop so far opened its doors last month in Clichy-sous-Bois, a Paris suburb of just over 28,000 where 50 percent of the population is under 25 and one-quarter of the wage earners in each household have no job, according to the city's website. ...
Clients so far are delighted. "I came to see if it's as good as KFC," the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, joked Karim Benhamidi, 31.
But Leila Bekhti, whose brother was hired as a BKM manager, had a post 9/11 take on the initiative.
"The idea is also to open people's minds," she said.
'Muslims have a very negative image at the moment with what's happening in the world. This place can be a meeting place for youth, and that's good.'"

"Blair must overturn 40 years of mistakes" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/08/02)
"It's not black (the bomber) and white (the rest of us); there's a lot of murky shades of grey in between: the terrorist bent on devastation and destruction prowls the streets, while around him are a significant number of people urging him on, and around them a larger group of cocksure young men gleefully celebrating mass murder, and around them a much larger group of people who stand silent at the acts committed in their name, and around them a mesh of religious and community leaders openly inciting mayhem, and around them a savvy network of professional identity-group grievance-mongers adamant that they're the real victims, and around them a vast mass of progressive elites too squeamish about ethno-cultural matters to confront reality, and around them a political establishment desperate to pretend this is just a managerial problem that can be finessed away with a new bureaucracy and a bit of community outreach.
And at the end of this chain of shades of grey is you. And, be honest, were you surprised at any of the developments of the past four weeks? ...
It's these insulating circles of grey - the imams, lobby groups, media, bishops, politicians - that bulk up the loser death-cult and make it a potent force. We complain about "unassimilated" Muslim immigrants, but in some respects they've assimilated too well. Witness the suspected Tube bomber who on his arrest last week cried: "I have rights!" He and his colleagues demonstrate an impressive mastery of the salient features of the advanced social democratic state - the legalisms, the ethnic pandering, the bureaucratic inertia."

"Terror suspects very probably amateurs, say Italian police" (Bruce Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/08/02)
"Italian police interrogating the suspected Shepherd's Bush July 21 bomber said yesterday he was "very probably" a member of a loose group of amateurs rather than an Islamist militant ring.
Hussain Osman, 27, who was arrested in Rome on Friday, had no links to known terrorist cells, said the police official Carlo de Stefano at a press conference in the Italian capital.
Investigations "lead us to believe as very probable that he belongs to a spontaneous group rather than a structured organisation that had broader terrorist projects", he said. ...
An Italian woman told the newspaper La Repubblica that she had been the suspect's girlfriend when they were both 16 and living in the Italian capital. She described him as her former "handsome Hamdi-Bambi", who loved rap music, America and girls. ...
Osman's lawyer, Maria Antonietta Sonnessa, said he wanted to remain in Italy. She has claimed that her client 'did not wish to kill anyone.'"

Added in archive:
"British MP George Galloway in Syria: Foreigners Are Raping Two Beautiful Arab Daughters - Jerusalem and Baghdad" (MEMRI TV, 2005/07/31)

Monday, August 1, 2005

News and commentary:

"In a Ruined Country: How Yasir Arafat destroyed Palestine" (David Samuels, The Atlantic, from the September 2005 issue)
"The amounts of money stolen from the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people through the corrupt practices of Arafat's inner circle are so staggeringly large that they may exceed one half of the total of $7 billion in foreign aid contributed to the Palestinian Authority. The biggest thief was Arafat himself. The International Monetary Fund has conservatively estimated that from 1995 to 2000 Arafat diverted $900 million from Palestinian Authority coffers, an amount that did not include the money that he and his family siphoned off through such secondary means as no-bid contracts, kickbacks, and rake-offs. A secret report prepared by an official Palestinian Authority committee headed by Arafat's cousin concluded that in 1996 alone, $326 million, or 43 percent of the state budget, had been embezzled, and that another $94 million, or 12.5 percent of the budget, went to the president's office, where it was spent at Arafat's personal discretion. An additional 35 percent of the budget went to pay for the security services, leaving a total of $73 million, or 9.5 percent of the budget, to be spent on the needs of the population of the West Bank and Gaza. The financial resources of the PLO, which may have amounted to somewhere between one and two billion dollars, were never included in the PA budget. Arafat hid his personal stash, estimated at $1 billion to $3 billion, in more than 200 separate bank accounts around the world, the majority of which have been uncovered since his death." (Note: The article can also be found here.)

"Duh" (Stephen Pollard, stephenpollard.net, 2005/08/01)
When lefties turn into useful idiots III: "Right on cue, Peter Wilby has an hilariously self-righteous piece in today's Guardian, 'When lefties turn to the right'. Wilby asks a question:

So what are we to make of Nick Cohen, the most uncompromising left-wing columnist in the British press for most of the past decade? How far right is he going? He cheered the Bush/Blair invasion of Iraq and, despite all that has happened and all that has been revealed since, continues to do so. He has also questioned harshly the motives of the anti-war movement. ...

And then he trots out the case of Christopher Hitchens who - quelle horreur - 'since September 11 2001, has stood shoulder to shoulder with the American neocons'.
Wilby goes on to ask why these traitors to the left behave as they do:

Perhaps some just follow the cliché that if you are not a socialist up to 40, you have no heart and, if you are still one after 40, you have no head. Others find that property ownership or parenthood make them right-wing. Others again get mugged or burgled. I suspect a good many just want more income; after all, there are only a few left-of-centre newspapers and magazines and most of them pay badly, or not at all. But I fear there is another reason. Leftwing commentators get bored.

Of course it never crosses Wilby's mind that Cohen et al might not simply be bored or looking for some extra dosh, but might actually believe that progressive politics should be about freeing people from tyranny, resisting murderous terrorists who seek to destroy civilisation and impose a Caliphate, and defending Western liberties. It is of course inconceivable that it is the left which has lost its moorings, not Cohen and Hitchens." (See also: "When lefties turn to the right" (Peter Wilby, The Guardian, 2005/08/01))

"It's All Our Fault" (John Leo, USNews.com, from the 2005/08/08 issue)
When lefties turn into useful idiots II: "From the first moments after the attacks of 9/11, we had indicators that the left would not be able to take terrorism seriously. Instead of resolve, we got concern about emotional closure and "root causes," warnings about the allegedly great danger of a backlash against Muslim Americans, arguments that violence directed at America is our own fault, and suggestions that we must not use force, because violence never solves anything. "We can't bomb our way to justice," said Ralph Nader.
The denial of the peril facing America remains a staple of the left. We still hear that the terrorism is a scattered and minor threat that should be dealt with as a criminal justice matter. ...
The "our fault" argument seems permanently entrenched. After the London bombings, Norman Geras of the University of Manchester wrote in the Guardian that the root causes and blame-Blair outbursts were "spreading like an infestation across the pages of this newspaper ... there are, among us, apologists for what the killers do." That has been the case on both sides of the Atlantic. After 9/11, Michael Walzer, one of the most powerful voices on the left, warned about "the politics of ideological apology" for terrorism. In the June 2005 issue of the American Prospect, he returned to the theme. "Is anybody still excusing terrorism?" he asked. 'The answer is yes: Secret sympathy, even fascination with violence among men and women who think of themselves as 'militants,' is a disease, and recovery is slow.'" (See also: "Demystifying Terrorism" (Michael Walzer, The American Prospect, from the June 2005 issue))

"Fundamentally, we're useful idiots" (Anthony Browne, The Times, 2005/08/01)
When lefties turn into useful idiots I: "Elements within the British establishment were notoriously sympathetic to Hitler. Today the Islamists enjoy similar support. In the 1930s it was Edward VIII, aristocrats and the Daily Mail; this time it is left-wing activists, The Guardian and sections of the BBC. They may not want a global theocracy, but they are like the West’s apologists for the Soviet Union — useful idiots. ...
The support of Islamic fascism spans Britain’s Left. The wacko Socialist Workers Party joined forces with the Muslim Association of Britain, the democracy-despising, Shariah-law-wanting group, to form the Stop the War Coalition. The former Labour MP George Galloway created the Respect Party with the support of the MAB, and won a seat in Parliament by cultivating Muslim resentment.
When I revealed on these pages last year both the fascist views of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the fact that he was being welcomed to Britain by Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, it caused a storm that has still to abate. Mr Livingtone claims that Sheikh al-Qaradawi is a moderate — which he is, in the same way that Mussolini was.
The BBC and The Guardian regularly give space to MAB to promote sanitised versions of its Islamist views. John Ware, one of the BBC’s most-respected reporters, spent years trying to make a programme on Islamic fundamentalism in Britain, but was repeatedly blocked by senior editors who feared it was too sensitive. Last month it emerged that The Guardian employed a journalist, Dilpazier Aslam, who is a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist group that wants a global theocracy, and is described by the Home Office as 'anti-Semitic, anti-Western and homophobic.'"

"Bush installs Bolton as U.N. ambassador" (Steve Holland, Reuters, 2005/08/01)
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush bypassed the Senate and installed John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Monday over protests by Democrats that the combative critic of the world body would hurt U.S. credibility.
Five months after nominating Bolton, Bush appointed him in a subdued White House Roosevelt Room ceremony with the mustachioed Bolton beside him and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice standing nearby.
"This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about U.N. reform. So today I've used my constitutional authority to appoint John Bolton as America's ambassador to the United Nations," Bush said. ...
Taking the podium after Bush spoke, Bolton said he was prepared to work tirelessly.
"It will be a distinct privilege to be an advocate for America's values and interests at the U.N., and, in the words of the U.N. charter, to help maintain international peace and security," Bolton said."

"Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Dies in Riyadh" (Abdullah Al-Shihri, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/08/01)
"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, who moved his country closer to the United States but ruled the world's largest oil producing nation in name only since suffering a stroke in 1995, died early Monday, the Saudi royal court said. He was said to be 84.
Crown Prince Abdullah, the king's 81-year-old half brother and the country's de factor ruler, was appointed the new monarch. ...
Fahd was proclaimed the fifth king of Saudi Arabia on June 13, 1982, three years after two events that would fuel the rise of Islamic extremism in Saudi Arabia.
In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic in Shiite Iran and, in the same year, radical Muslims briefly took over the holy mosque in Mecca, proclaiming the royal family not Islamic enough to rule.
Those developments, coupled with the king's reputation as a former gambler and womanizer, made the liberal-leaning Fahd move toward appeasing the country's powerful religious establishment, including the morals police who enforce the strict social codes that oblige women to veil and ban men and women from mingling.
Saudi Arabia did not want Shiite Iran to be seen as more Islamic than the Sunni kingdom, birthplace of Islam. So Fahd took the title "custodian of the two holy mosques" — referring to Islam's holiest shrines at Mecca and Medina — and he poured millions of dollars into the religious establishment and into enlarging fundamentalist universities."

"Blair is a liar, say Muslim leaders" (Sophie Kirkham, The Times, 2005/08/01)
"A radical Islamic group urged more than 1,000 Muslims attending a conference 100 yards from the site of the July 7 bus bomb to join a global campaign to spread the word of Islam.
Speakers for the Hizb ut-Tahrir Party, which says that it is non-violent but is banned in several European countries, said that the crackdown on extremist activity would anger Muslims in Britain.
The group has condemned the suicide bombings in London and urged Muslims to be “decent citizens” under Islamic law and to co-operate with police investigations.
However, Tony Blair was accused of “lies, lies and damned lies” by Muslim leaders who claimed that he was silencing legitimate political expression while befriending Muslim dictators who oppress their people.
The conference, at the Royal National Hotel, in Bloomsbury, was told that Muslims in Britain were living in fear of harassment, arrest and execution after the shooting of an innocent Brazilian man on the Tube. It was said there were fears that Islamic blood had become legal to spill on the streets of London.
A senior member of the party, Abdul Waheed, told the delegates to speak out against British and American foreign policy. “Foreign policy anger is there. There is an attempt here to silence Muslims,” he said."

"London faces lockdown to thwart third terror strike" (Daniel McGrory and Sean O’Neill, The Times, 2005/08/01)
"Thousands of police marksmen will be on London’s streets and rooftops again today after warnings that another team of suicide bombers is plotting a third attack on the capital.
The new group is believed to be made up of British Muslims who were understood to be close to staging an attack on the Underground network last week. According to security sources the men are thought to be of Pakistani origin but born and brought up in this country. They have links with the Leeds-based terrorist cell that staged the July 7 attacks, in which 52 innocent people died. ...
US security sources said yesterday that this third group of would-be bombers met at Finsbury Park mosque in North London, where some of the July 7 terrorists are also known to have stayed. There are reports that this team originally planned to strike last Thursday, which is why more than 6,000 police, half of them armed, were present at Underground stations."

"'Actions were a peaceful protest over the Iraq war'" (Richard Owen and Martin Penner, The Times, 2005/08/01)
The Friendly Suicide Bomber III: "The lawyer representing Hussain Osman, the London bomb suspect, said that he had denied that the failed attacks on July 21 had anything to do with the bombings a fortnight earlier.
Antonietta Sonnessa said last night: “My client says his action was purely demonstrative. In fact, all four attempts did not result in any injury or damage at all. Moreover, he maintains that he was nothing to do with the events of July 7.
“He has justified his actions as a form of protest against the fact that civilians are suffering in wars at the present time. He has taken part in many peace marches and has never had any contact whatsoever with any terrorist organisation,” she continued.
'He is not at all a violent person and made sure he would not cause any damage, injuries or deaths. There wasn’t a very clearly defined plan, the whole thing was set the day before, in a meeting with this group of friends.'" (See also: "London Police Nab 7 More in Blasts Probe" (Catherine McAloon, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/07/31) and "Man Admits Role in Failed London Attack" (Frances D'Emilio, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/07/30))

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

 

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