Archived news and commentary: December 19 - 25, 2005

2005/12/19 - 2005/12/25
2005/12/12 - 2005/12/18
2005/12/05 - 2005/12/11
2005/11/28 - 2005/12/04
2005/11/21 - 2005/11/27
2005/11/14 - 2005/11/20

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, December 25, 2005

News and commentary:

"Muslim vendor Mohamed Sow..."
(Rebecca Blackwell, AP, 2005/12/22)
"Muslim vendor Mohamed Sow, 25, wears a Santa Claus cap to attract clients to the informal street-side stand where his normal stock of shoes and clothing has been temporarily replaced with Christmas decorations, in downtown Dakar, Senegal Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005. While Muslims recognize Jesus Christ as a prophet, they don't generally celebrate the date of his birth. But in this country on Africa's far western tip, Christmas is a national holiday and Allah's followers are madly preparing to celebrate Sunday's Christian holiday."

"Mostly Muslim Senegal Celebrates Christmas" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/25)
"Hundreds of young men decked with tinsel wander outside Senegal's mosques, hawking plastic Christmas trees. Women pray to Allah on a sidewalk where an inflatable Santa Claus happens to be hanging.
Senegal may be 95 percent Muslim, but it certainly knows it's Christmas. In fact, for this nation of 12 million it's a national holiday.
Blame it on globalization, which has turned the West's yuletide icons into a worldwide commodity. Or the Internet, or Hollywood, or the availability of travel that allows new generations of Senegalese to sample Christmas at close quarters. But mainly, Senegalese revel in the trappings of Christmas because they can and want to.
Muslims recognize Jesus Christ as a prophet, but don't generally celebrate the date of his birth. Many Muslim societies discourage Christmas hoopla. But Senegalese say they have a long history of tolerance and coexistence with Christians, so why not share Christmas?
"Officially, we Muslims don't celebrate Christmas. But the Catholics are our neighbors. So, we all celebrate all the religious holidays," said El Hadj Diop, 60, sitting in front of his African antique store.
"We share the same houses, even graveyards," Diop said. "It has been the same for years." ...
Christians say they welcome the solidarity and repay it by partaking in Islamic holidays.
"People here believe in God; it's what nourishes us and binds us," said Eric Midahuen, a Christian who works in a spectacles store next door to Diop's antiques shop.
"It's our tradition, this cohabitation. When we're born and baptized our Muslim neighbors are there. They help us all the way, even into the grave," said the 40-year-old father of two. 'We're all the same before God, who allows us to recognize him in all others.'"

"Falling birth rates not just a problem in Europe" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2005/12/25)
"Here's a story from Friday's Japan Times:
"Japan's population has started shrinking for the first time this year, health ministry data showed Thursday, presenting the government with pressing challenges on the social and economic front, including ensuring provision of social security services and securing the labor force."
Happy New Year, guys! And, as the reporter adds, ''Japan joins Germany and Italy in the ranks of countries where a decline in population has already set in.'' And don't forget Russia, which is even further ahead in the demographic death spiral. Of the great powers of the 20th century, America's still healthy birth rate, like its still healthy Christianity, is now an anomaly. ...
"Multiculturalism" implicitly accepts that, for a person of broadly Christian heritage, Christianity is an accessory, an option; whereas, for a person of Muslim background, Islam is a given. That's why, as practiced by Buckinghamshire County Council in England, multiculturalism means All Saints Church can't put up one sheet of paper announcing its Christmas carol service on the High Wycombe Library notice board, but, inside the library, Rehana Nazir, the ''multicultural services librarian,'' can host a party to celebrate Eid.
To those of us watching Europe from afar, it seems amazing that no Continental politician is willing to get to grips with the real crisis facing Europe in the 21st century: the lack of Europeans. If America believes in the separation of church and state, in radically secularist Europe the state is the church, as Jacques Chirac's ban on head scarves, crucifixes and skull caps made plain. Alas, it's an insufficient faith."

"Father in Pakistan Kills His 4 Daughters" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/25)
"MULTAN, Pakistan - A father, angry that his eldest daughter had married against his wishes, slit her throat as she slept and then killed three of his other daughters in a remote village in eastern Pakistan, police said Saturday.
Nazir Ahmad, a laborer in his 40s, feared the younger girls, aged 4, 8, and 12, would follow in their sister's footsteps, police officer Shahzad Gul said.
Ahmad surrendered to police after the killings late Friday in Burewala, about 70 miles east of Multan, a main city in eastern Punjab province, Gul said.
"He (Ahmad) told us today that he has killed his daughters, and we arrested him," he said.
Gul said the man's 25-year-old daughter, Muqadas Bibi, had married the man of her choice against her father's wishes some weeks ago. Ahmad contacted Bibi this week, saying he was ready to forgive her, Gul said.
During a visit by Bibi to her parents' house, Ahmad slit her throat as she slept and then killed the other three girls, Gul said. He said police were investigating whether other relatives helped in the killings and were also looking for Bibi's husband.
Gul said police are looking for Bibi's husband to inform him of her death.
Hundreds of women are killed in Pakistan every year, many by male relatives, after they are accused of staining their families' honor by having affairs or marrying for love without family consent."

"In Iraq, 425 Foreigners Estimated Kidnapped Since 2003" (Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer, The Washington Post, 2005/12/25)
"Insurgents and common criminals have kidnapped about 425 foreigners in Iraq since U.S.-led forces entered the country in 2003, a Western official in Baghdad said Saturday.
The official, who spoke to reporters on condition he not be identified further, was addressing an upsurge in the kidnappings of foreigners since October.
Eighteen percent of the foreign victims have been killed, the official said. Of 40 Americans kidnapped, 10 have been killed, officials said. ...
Police officers receive reports of as many as 30 Iraqis kidnapped each day, the official said. But he added that police estimate that only 5 percent to 10 percent of the Iraqi cases are reported.
"The problem of kidnapping of Iraqis is not something that's gotten proportional attention," the official said. "The breadth and scale is underappreciated." ...
The main insurgent bands involved in kidnapping are al Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Sunna and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, he said.
"There is also evidence of selling up," he said, referring to the practice of some criminals who kidnap foreigners and sell them to insurgents. "It's something that people know they can do and have some confidence in getting away with it," he said."

Saturday, December 24, 2005

News and commentary:

"Young Palestinian Christian girls wear festive clothing..."
(Oded Balilty, AP, 2005/12/24)
"Young Palestinian Christian girls wear festive clothing as they stand next to a Catholic nun to watch the traditional Christmas Procession outside the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2005."

"Thousands flock to Bethlehem" (Khaled Abu Toameh and Rafael D. Frankel, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/12/24)
"For the first time since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, some shopkeepers and residents in Bethlehem expressed joy over the weekend at the number of tourists and pilgrims who have arrived in the city for Christmas.
However, others remmained pessimistic at the prospects of the city returning to its previous levels of tourism.
The Palestinian Authority said an estimated 30,000 pilgrims and tourists were expected in Bethlehem for Christmas. Hotels owners said occupancy hit more than 80 percent. ...
"This is the first time in many years that we feel the real atmosphere of Christmas," said another local businessman. "There are many tourists in the city and you can see many people in Manger Square. The children are also out in the streets despite the rain and cold." ...
Before the second intifada, around one million tourists and pilgrims came to Bethlehem every year, said Majed Ishaq, who directs the marketing of Bethlehem for the Palestinian Authority. But following the takeover of the Church of the Nativity by Palestinian fighters in April 2002, that number dropped to a low of 8,000." (See also: "A Not So Merry Christmas in the Holy Land" (David Bedein, FrontPageMagazine, 2003/12/25), "The Beleaguered Christians of the Palestinian-controlled Areas" (David Raab, IMRA, 2002/10/11), "Exiled Palestinian militants ran two-year reign of terror" (Sayed Anwar, The Washington Times, 2002/05/13) and "Israelis Move Into West Bank Towns; Arafat Rejects Exile Offer" (AP/The New York Times, 2002/04/03))

"The future of America - in Iraq" (Robert D. Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, 2005/12/24)
"If you want to meet the future political leaders of the United States, go to Iraq. I am not referring to the generals, or even the colonels. I mean the junior officers and enlistees in their 20s and 30s. In the decades ahead, they will represent something uncommon in U.S. military history: war veterans with practical experience in democratic governance, learned under the most challenging of conditions. ...
To label them conservative is to miss the point. Having ground-truthed the difficulty of implanting democracy in a place with no experience of it, Iraq has stripped them of any ideology they might have had. At the same time, they have become emotionally involved with building Iraqi democracy. They have developed a distrust of an American media that have not, in their eyes, recorded advances they feel they have made in reducing the level of combat or getting a nascent electoral system started. In a vast country of 23 million people, they rarely see the car bombings that kill a few dozen every day and are reported on the news at home. But they daily see the progress in front of their eyes. ...
They are not imperialists, if by that we mean that they would support unilaterally invading a country again with a large number of troops. But they are absolutely committed to U.S. success in Iraq, no matter the cost to themselves. And as they trickle out of the service in coming years and rise to prominence in civilian life, the ability of the home front in these difficult days not to pity them, but to sustain them in their mission, could have enormous consequences for the future of American politics."

"Democracy Is Alive and Well in Iraq" (Amir Taheri, Arab News, 2005/12/24)
"No one can assume that as soon as Iraq has a new army the insurgency would taper off. Egypt has an army twice the size of the projected Iraqi Army and, yet, it needed a quarter of a century to defeat the Islamist terrorists.
Iraq may well have to live with some level of insurgency for years, if not decades. What matters is that the terrorist insurgency has already been defeated in political terms. Although it has claimed some 10,000 lives in the past three years the terrorist insurgency has not been able to delay the political process by a single hour.
What the terrorist insurgents are fighting for in Iraq is a psychological victory that can come only if he Americans cut and run. ...
What is needed is for the US and allies to declare publicly that they have already achieved their key political objectives in Iraq and that they are prepared to negotiate the withdrawal of their forces with the new Iraqi government.
Such a declaration would have several merits.
First, it would reflect the reality on the ground. Yes, Iraq is still bleeding from a terrorist insurgency. But its new democratic project remains on course. ...
The US-led coalition came to Iraq not to impose democracy by force but to use force to remove impediments to Iraq’s democratization. That task has been achieved in record time. The US must acknowledge that success by inviting the new Iraqi government to negotiate future bilateral relations on the basis of equality and joint interests."

Friday, December 23, 2005

News and commentary:

"Wafah Dufour, niece of Osama bin Laden..."
(Jeff Riede, GQ Magazine, 2005/12/22)
"Wafah Dufour, niece of Osama bin Laden, poses in an undated publicity photo released on December 22, 2005, taken during a photo session for the January 2006 issue of GQ Magazine. Dufour, who took her mother's maiden name after the events of September 11, 2001, is an aspiring musician struggling to make a name for herself. Dufour said she has never met Osama bin Laden. 'Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him. There are 400 other people related to him, but they are all in Saudi Arabia, so nobody's going to get tarred with it. I'm the only one here,' Dufour said in the GQ article."

"The Paranoid Style In American Liberalism" (William Kristol, The Weekly Standard, 2006/01/02)
Kristol on the domestic spying debate. See also Clifford May: "So if we trash the Patriot Act, stop targeting terrorists overseas and stop coercing those we capture to make them talk, if we make it more difficult for our spies to snoop, if we retreat from Iraq, leaving the battlefield to Saddam Hussein loyalists and al-Qaeda, maybe we'll be just fine.":
"The day after Gen. Hayden's press briefing, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee blathered on about "the Constitution in crisis" and "impeachable conduct." Barbara Boxer, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asserted there was "no excuse" for the president's actions. The ranking Democrat on that committee, Joseph Biden, confidently stated that the president's claims were "bizarre" and that "aggrandizement of power" was probably the primary reason for the president's actions, since "there was no need to do any of this."
So we are really to believe that President Bush just sat around after 9/11 thinking, "How can I aggrandize my powers?" Or that Gen. Hayden-and his hundreds of nonpolitical subordinates-cheerfully agreed to an obviously crazy, bizarre, and unnecessary project of "domestic spying"?
This is the fever swamp into which American liberalism is on the verge of descending.
Some have already descended. Consider Arlene Getz, senior editorial manager at Newsweek.com. She posted an article Wednesday-also after Gen. Hayden's press briefing-on Newsweek's website ruminating on "the parallels" between Bush's defense of his "spying program" and, yes, "South Africa's apartheid regime." ...
What is one to say about these media--Democratic spokesmen for contemporary American liberalism? That they have embarrassed and discredited themselves. That they cannot be taken seriously as critics. It would be good to have a responsible opposition party in the United States today. It would be good to have a serious mainstream media. Too bad we have neither." (See also: "Juvenile Journalism" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/12/20))

"Better Read Than Ted" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/12/23)
Clueless II: "Yesterday's Boston Globe featured an op-ed by Sen. Ted Kennedy in which he huffs and puffs about jackbooted government thugs:

Just this past week there were public reports that a college student in Massachusetts had two government agents show up at his house because he had gone to the library and asked for the official Chinese version of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto. Following his professor's instructions to use original source material, this young man discovered that he, too, was on the government's watch list.
Think of the chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom when a government agent shows up at your home--after you request a book from the library.

First of all, "The Communist Manifesto" was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, not by Mao, who wasn't born until 1893. More important, this story appears to be a hoax. Here's the American Library Association's statement: ...

The UMD chancellor's office released a statement December 19 that said, "At this point, it is difficult to ascertain how Homeland Security obtained the information about the student's borrowing of the book. The UMass Dartmouth Library has not been visited by agents of any type seeking information about the borrowing patterns or habits of any of its patrons." ...
Kirk Whitworth, a spokesman for the DHS--the U.S. cabinet department that oversees the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the Secret Service, and Citizenship and Immigration Services, among others--said in the December 21 Standard-Times that the story seemed unlikely. "We're aware of the claims," he said. "However, the scenario sounds unlikely because investigations are based on violation of law, not on the books and individual[s who] might check [them] out from the library."
An earlier report that the incident occurred at the University of California at Santa Cruz has proven false."

(See also: "On wiretapping, Bush isn't listening to the Constitution" (Edward M. Kennedy, The Boston Globe, 2005/12/22). UPDATE: Tim Blair has more on the hoax: "Little Reds Booked" (Tim Blair, timblair.net, 2005/12/24): "Molly Ivins and James Carville lied to the American people! Well, not really, but they did repeat information that was later shown to be false — which is the same thing, if you’re one of them Bush-hatin’ folks, yessir (must ... stop ... channelling ... Ivins).")

"Daschle: Democrats Clueless On 9/12, Too" (Captain's Quarters, 2005/12/23)
Clueless I: "Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle writes an op-ed in today's Washington Post (which the Post covers as a news item on page A04, just in case its readers miss it) claiming that the declaration of war granted to Bush after 9/11 specifically limited his war powers. It's a must-read, if only to demonstrate that either the Democrats have to be the worst historical revisionists still received by polite society or have been truly clueless about the nature of the war on Islamofascist terror since its start.
Daschle actually makes a case for both in his essay:

On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, the White House proposed that Congress authorize the use of military force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States." Believing the scope of this language was too broad and ill defined, Congress chose instead, on Sept. 14, to authorize "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided" the attacks of Sept. 11. ...
Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words "in the United States and" after "appropriate force" in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.

Perhaps Daschle didn't notice, but the entire reason that Congress passed the war resolution was that the United States got attacked -- inside the United States. It's as if that context never occurs to Daschle." (See also: "Power We Didn't Grant" (Tom Daschle, The Washington Post, 2005/12/23))

"EU commissioner lashes out at Mohammed drawings" (The Copenhagen Post, 2005/12/23)
"The European Commission criticises a daily newspaper's Mohammed cartoons for opening the door to hate and radicalisation":
" After months of silently observing, the leadership of the European Commission has weighed in on the Danish debate over daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten's decision to publish caricatures of Muslim prophet Mohammed.
The Commission's vice-chairman, Franco Frattini, called the newspaper's decision to publish the twelve cartoons as 'thoughtless and inappropriate' in a time when animosity towards Islam is on the rise.
'Honestly, these kinds of drawings can add to the growing Islamophobia in Europe,' Frattini said. 'I fully respect the freedom of speech, but, excuse me, one should avoid making any statement like this, which only arouses and incites to the growing radicalisation,' Frattini said to Jyllands-Posten on Thursday. ...
'I am a Catholic myself, and if anyone had created a drawing of a holy Christian symbol with a bomb and a message about death, I would personally take it as an insult,' he said.
Carsten Juste, Jyllands-Posten's editor-in-chief, rejected Frattini's criticism.
'This thing has become so absurd that it wouldn't surprise me if the next step would be to take action against Jyllands-Posten,' said Juste, referring to the junior government partner, the Conservatives, declaring that they partially agreed with a group of former ambassadors and ministers public criticism of the decision." (Hat tip: Andrew Stuttaford.)

"Iran hails “first Islamist Arab state” in Iraq" (Iran Focus, 2005/12/23)
Freedom and Jihad II: "Tehran, Iran, Dec. 23 – The editorial of Iran’s leading hard-line daily hailed the outcome of Iraq’s parliamentary elections as “the creation of the first Islamist state in the Arab world”, and warned against “American plots” to prevent the formation of the new Iraqi government by Iranian-backed Shiite groups.
“Of the 275 seats in Iraq’s new parliament, 140 will belong to pious Islamists, 60 will be occupied by Kurds with excellent ties with Iran, and 40 will belong to Sunni Arabs, most of whom want a sovereign, Islamist state”, the daily Kayhan’s Saturday editorial noted. ...
The paper listed the consequences of American withdrawal from Iraq, describing the current situation in Iraq as “the biggest crisis America has faced in recent decades”.
“The American defeat and withdrawal from Iraq will forever bury the Neoconservative current in the U.S.,…while the formation of an Islamist state in Iraq, which will be a natural ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will form a contiguous link between Iran and Palestine through Syria and Lebanon, will bring about a sea change in the geo-strategic balance in the region in favour of Iran and to America’s detriment. This new alliance with its huge size will directly influence all developments in the Arab and Muslim Middle East”.
Kayhan’s editorial said American officials’ recent statements on election irregularities in Iraq were aimed at forcing the pro-Iranian Shiite groups to give concessions. “They [the Iranian-backed Shiites] will not accept this”, the paper wrote.
“The Americans have no choice but to leave Iraq and this must happen in the next few months”, Kayhan wrote. 'Today’s Iraq shows the two sides of the Middle Eastern coin: the victory of Islamism, and the defeat and flight of the West.'"

"Freedom and jihad" (Diane West, The Washington Times, 2005/12/23)
Freedom and Jihad I: "Not to curdle the Christmas pudding or anything, but it's hard to see how Uncle Sam comes out a winner in any of the elections that have just taken place, however historically, in the Arab world.
This isn't to contradict President Bush, who said, referring to Iraq's parliamentary elections, we're seeing "something new: constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East." Sure, campaign posters and ballot boxes are new. But the emerging nature of this constitutional democracy — from Iraq to Egypt to the Palestinian Authority — calls into question whether, as the president also said in referring to Iraq, "America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror."
For that statement to be true, Arab voters would need to be electing brave anti-jihadists, right? They would be dunking their fingers in purple ink for reform-minded advocates of equality and freedom of conscience, not to mention peace with Israel. But with nearly two-thirds of the ballots counted in Iraq, the initial headlines tell a different story.
"Parties Linked to Tehran Gain in Iraq," reported the New York Sun.
"Secular candidates not doing well," reported the Los Angeles Times.
Apparently, that's putting it mildly. So far, election returns indicate that the Shi'ite Muslim religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), has overcome internal tensions and weak projections to win a dominating bloc of parliamentary seats. That means that the democratic enterprise in Iraq appears to have empowered proponents of sharia law with alarmingly close ties to the terror masters of Iran."

"Oil-for-Food questions UN has still not answered..." (James Bone, The Times, 2005/12/23)
"As a journalist, I expect my share of verbal abuse. But it is not everyday that I have my professionalism impugned by the world's top diplomat on global TV.
The advantage is that I have not felt as young for years as I do now that Kofi Annan has described me as an “overgrown schoolboy”. The disadvantage — rather more serious — is that the UN Secretary-General continues to refuse to respond to the still-unanswered questions about his role in the Oil-For-Food corruption scandal.
For months journalists were told that the UN could not answer any questions because the scandal was under investigation by the Volcker inquiry. Since the Volcker panel issued its last report in October, the UN has refused to answer any questions because it says the matter has already been investigated. Yet the inquiry raised more questions than it answered, the most important being: what did Kofi Annan know and when did he know it?" (See also: "The Blow-Up: Annan insults and distracts" (Claudia Rosett, National Review, 2005/12/22))

"Afghan Journalist to Be Freed" (Griff Witte, The Washington Post, 2005/12/23)
"An Afghan journalist who was recently sentenced to two years in prison for publishing controversial magazine articles about Islam, women's rights and the Afghan justice system will be released from jail later this week, officials said.
Before gaining his freedom, however, Ali Mohaqeq Nasab had to confront an agonizing choice: formally apologize for what he had published or risk being sent to the gallows.
After refusing for three months to retract his comments, Nasab told an appeals court this week that he was sorry for printing stories that asserted women should be given status equal to men in court, questioned the use of physical punishments for crimes and suggested converts from Islam should not face execution.
A panel of three judges responded Wednesday by shortening his punishment to a six-month suspended sentence, allowing him to walk free. ...
"Nasab's release is an encouraging sign," said Nader Nadery, who heads Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission. "But the case sets a bad precedent in the area of freedom of expression. It discourages journalists and promotes self-censorship."
Nadery said other Afghan journalists had already told him that they 'have to be very, very careful in the way that they talk.'" (See also: "Cultural flash points" (Diana West, The Washington Times, 2005/12/09))

"Judge loses control as Saddam trial lapses into farce" (Adrian Blomfield, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/12/23)
"Saddam Hussein's trial descended into farce yesterday, with the former dictator at his most combative, cursing President George W Bush and denouncing his administration as liars.
Accused of being too accommodating of Saddam, the Kurdish judge, Rizgar Amin, lost control of his court on several occasions.
A prosecution lawyer tried to resign while colleagues, the defence team and Saddam's half-brother and co-accused, Barzan al-Tikriti, threatened to boycott the trial.
Three witnesses gave evidence between interruptions but they were reduced almost to a sideshow. Lawyers and defendants nodded off through their chilling but often rambling testimony relating to the massacre of 147 Shia townspeople in Dujail in 1982.
Saddam seemed enraged after the White House dismissed as preposterous his torture claims of the day before. "The White House are liars, the number one liar in the whole world," he said.
"They said Iraq had chemical weapons. They said I had ties to terrorism, but later acknowledged that I did not. A pox on Bush and his father." ...
In a later interjection, Saddam accused his American guards of humiliating him by confiscating his watch.
To derisive laughter from the public gallery, Saddam drew himself up and said: 'Let the monkeys laugh in their trees. The lion ignores them.'" (See also: "Saddam says he was beaten in jail" (AP/TheStar.com, 2005/12/21))

Thursday, December 22, 2005

News and commentary:

"Yes, this is somewhat unfortunate..." [detail]
(Benson, The Arizona Republic, 2005/07/31)
"Yes, this is somewhat unfortunate, but if it weren't for U.S. foreign policy..."

"Why American Muslims Stay Silent" (Stephen Schwartz, Tech Central Station, 2005/12/22)
"Dr. Jasser’s case illustrates why American Muslims stay silent: because the price of speaking out is immediate, coordinated attack.":
"The Republic published a work by Benson questioning why so many mosques are centers of extremist agitation. The cartoon included nothing offensive to moderate Muslims; it simply dramatized an obvious fact.
CAIR, which serves as the U.S. equivalent of the Saudi mutawwiyyin or religious militia, leapt into hysterical action, calling for an apology from the Republic for publishing Benson’s cartoon. CAIR, as usual, freely indulged in overheated rhetoric and unjustified demands. It utilized a local extremist scandal sheet posturing as a “community paper,” the Muslim Voice, with which it has close ties, to stir venom against the Republic, Benson, and Dr. Jasser. ...
In a gross cartoon, the latter two were portrayed as voracious dogs eating a Muslim. Curiously, the “Muslims” in the cartoon, both victim and protestors to the Republic, are portrayed in Wahhabi dress, with skull caps of a kind few wear in large parts of the Muslim world but that everybody wears when they join the Wahhabi cult.
But the intent of the cartoon is more important than its details. The motive of the CAIRites in Phoenix is to punish the Republic for printing a cartoon to which they object, and to silence Dr. Jasser. The portrayal of this gentle and sincere man as a vicious canine, is the epitome of totalitarian conditioning. It is comparable to the Jew-baiting cartoons of the Nazi era or the anti-Catholic and anti-Muslim caricatures that appeared in Serbian media at the beginning of Slobodan Milosevic’s dictatorship." (See also: "Lebanese daily: U.S. press stereotyping Muslims" (Robert Spencer, Dhimmi Watch, 2005/12/21))

"Playing the Racism Card" (Phyllis Chesler, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/12/22)
"In these contentious times, debate about the Middle East and Islam is easily stifled. All it takes is for some disgruntled Arabs, preferably Palestinians, or a handful of western leftists to level a charge of "racism.” Then the alleged offender, whether he is a Jewish author, a Christian professor, or a Muslim dissident, is silenced and shunned.":
"Consider first the case of Howard Rotberg. In 2003, Rotberg, a Canadian lawyer and author, published his debut novel, a charming and heartbreaking pro-Israel story entitled The Second Catastrophe: A Novel About a Book and Its Author. Life often imitates art and Rotberg himself soon partially experienced the fate of his fictional protagonist, Professor Norman Rosenfeld. Rotberg delivered his first lecture in a Chapters bookstore in Waterloo, Ontario. Suddenly, two Muslims interrupted his speech. The first disrupter, who identified himself as a Palestinian, accused Rotberg of saying or perhaps thinking that “all Muslims are terrorists.” The disrupter admitted that he had not read the book. A second man, who identified himself as an Iraqi Kurd, began “ranting about how Americans and Israelis are the real terrorists and that democracy is really fascist.” They did not allow Rotberg to speak. According to Rotberg, they used “Gestapo tactics to completely disrupt (my) lecture.” One called Rotberg, the son of a Holocaust survivor, "a f*** Jew.”
No bookstore staff person stopped them—that is, until Rotberg responded that he would “not be called a f*** Jew.” At that point, a store manager came over to tell Rotberg to stop swearing. Rotberg demanded that the store call the police. According to Rotberg, they finally did so, but very reluctantly. The police in turn refused to arrest anyone for disturbing the peace, merely asking Rotberg’s hecklers to stay away from the store. The police refused to escort Rotberg to his car. Rotberg’s publisher, Mantua Books (which Rotberg owns), issued a press release to cancel his future lectures at Chapters/Indigo bookstores since the security was not appropriate. According to Rotberg, the publicity director at Chapters “went ballistic.” She claimed that she had heard Rotberg say that “all Muslims are terrorists.” She even issued a press release wherein she 'apologized for any inappropriate behavior and racist comments both from the guest author and some of the attendees at the event.'"

"Why Not Support Democracy?" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2005/12/22)
"Why still no big-font, front-page headlines screaming, “Millions Vote in Historic Middle East Election!” or “Democracy Comes At Last To Iraq” or “America’s Push for Iraqi Democracy Working”?":
"Given the past history and current politics in the region, it is no wonder that near-hysterics accompanied America’s radical alternative post-9/11 strategy of attempting to prompt democratic reform — by force in the case of the worst fascistic states like Afghanistan and Iraq, by isolation and ostracism in the case of Syria and Iran, and through often-embarrassing persuasion in the case of the Gulf states, North Africa, and Egypt. ...
In perhaps the stupidest move in American political history, the mainstream Democratic party got suckered into buying Howard Dean’s shady investments in American failure — and so turned its back on the Iraqi democratic experiment hours before millions went to the polls in that country’s third and most successful free election.
In short, the promotion of democracy has been an orphan policy, without any parentage of past support or present special interests. It proved to be easily caricatured all at once as naïve by the right and imperialistic on the left. Thus on the war The American Conservative is now almost indistinguishable from the Nation.
Only by understanding this labyrinth of competing interests can we see why the most successful election in Middle East history, birthed by the United States, gained almost no immediate thanks or praise, here or abroad."

"The Blow-Up: Annan insults and distracts" (Claudia Rosett, National Review, 2005/12/22)
"In a telling moment at a United Nations press conference Wednesday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan lost his temper — hurling insults at a widely respected senior member of the U.N. press corps. Beyond the who-what-when-where-how of this episode, the big question is: Why?":
"The occasion was Annan’s year-end press conference, at which Annan had just described his own job, and by extension himself, as “perhaps chief diplomat of the world.” It is a role, he said, that requires “a thick skin” and “a sense of humor.” But Annan displayed neither when James Bone of the London Times began asking questions referring to two of the scandals that continue to bedevil the secretary-general: the saga of Oil-for-Food, and the cameo of a Mercedes-Benz allegedly bought and shipped under false use of Kofi Annan’s name and U.N. status by his son, Kojo Annan.
Instead of answering Bone, Annan cut him off, first calling him “cheeky,” and then interrupting him again to say: “Hold on. Listen, James Bone. You have been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving, and please let’s move on to a more serious subject.”
Hold on, indeed. In the interest of serious subjects — U.N. integrity, for example — let’s pause the tape right there. It is no small matter when the secretary-general of the U.N. slings personal insults in a public forum. Bone is a skilled and serious reporter, regarded not least by some of the chronically imperiled whistle-blowers in the U.N.’s own ranks as a credit to his trade. At the press conference his colleagues rallied to his defense, with a spokesman for the U.N. Correspondents Association telling Annan that “James Bone is not an embarrassment,” and 'He had every right to ask the question.'"

"Al Qaeda fiend targeted Bush" (James Gordon Meek, New York Daily News, 2005/12/22)
"Before he was captured last spring, Osama Bin Laden's top operational commander was solely focused on killing President Bush and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharaff, the Daily News has learned.
The capture last May of Al Qaeda's No. 3 leader, Abu Faraj Al-Libi, apparently thwarted plots to assassinate the two partners in the global war on terror, said a senior Pakistani official, whose information was corroborated by two senior U.S. counterterrorism officials.
"Al-Libi had one mission: Kill Bush and Musharraf," the Pakistani official told The News. "He wanted to kill Bush in the White House, preferably."
"It was clearly something they wanted to do. There's no question about that. It's the holy grail of jihad," a senior U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed.
Al-Libi organized several failed assassination attempts on Musharraf before he was nabbed, officials have said. But the plot by Al Qaeda's international operations chief to send assassins to the U.S. to kill Bush was only disclosed this week.
The officials asked for anonymity because details of the Bush plot are still highly classified. The officials added that there is little evidence the U.S. mission advanced beyond initial planning by Al-Libi in Pakistan."

"Muslim Brotherhood leader says Holocaust is a myth" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2005/12/22)
"Mohammed Mahdi Akef, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's main Islamic opposition group, said Thursday that the Holocaust was a myth and slammed Western governments for criticizing disclaimers of the Jewish genocide.
The comments by Akef - made on the heels of his group's strong showing in Egyptian parliament elections - echoed remarks made recently by Iran's ultra-conservative president, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which sparked international outrage.
"Western democracies have slammed all those who don't see eye to eye with the Zionists regarding the myth of the Holocaust," Akef wrote in a weekly article meant as a directive to the group's followers on its official Web site. ...
In his article, Akef lashed out at the United States and other Western powers for what he described as a campaign against Islam.
"These words are meant to expose the false American rule which has become a nightmare of a new world order," Akef said.
"I am making these comments to all free people in the world, aiming to wake up the conscience in humanity," he wrote. "The sword of democracy is only unsheathed against those who raise the flag of Islam." ...
It was not clear why Akef made the remarks but his article was full of criticism of Western democracy, which he said "was drawn up by the sons of Zion," but a top Brotherhood leader said the group is disenchanted by the US's Mideast policies, including President George W. Bush's reform plans for the region."

"Chinook Diplomacy" (Bret Stephens, OpinionJournal, 2005/12/22)
"From the air, the town of Balakot, at the lip of the Kaghan Valley in Pakistan's mountainous North-West Frontier Province, resembles pictures of Hiroshima circa late summer 1945: All but a few buildings have been reduced absolutely to rubble. There were some 50,000 people in this town on the morning of Oct. 8; a six-second earthquake that day killed an estimated 16,000 outright. Now survivors live mainly in scattered tent villages, not all of them properly winterized. And winter has begun. ...
The Chinooks were among the few helicopters able to reach, supply and evacuate places that, even under normal conditions, are some of the most inaccessible on earth.
Since then, U.S. helicopters have flown 2,500 sorties, carried 16,000 passengers and delivered nearly 6,000 tons of aid. Just as importantly, the Chinook has become America's new emblem in Pakistan, a byword for salvation in an area where until recently the U.S. was widely and fanatically detested. Toy Chinooks (made in China, of course) are suddenly popular with Pakistani children. A Kashmiri imam who denounced the U.S. in a recent sermon was booed and heckled by worshippers. "Pakistan is not a nation of ingrates," a local businessman told me over dinner the other night. "We know where the help is coming from." ...
The 212 is today the only fully functioning, adequately equipped hospital in Azad Kashmir. Under its quarter-acre of green-gray canvas are 84 beds, 24 intensive-care units, an operating suite, a lab, digital X-ray machines, a pharmacy and an outpatient facility. In less than two months, MASH doctors and nurses have treated some 7,000 patients, performed 330 major surgeries, written 14,000 prescriptions and given nearly 10,000 preventive vaccinations." (See also: "Our Friends the Pakistanis" (Husain Haqqani and Kenneth Ballen, OpinionJournal, 2005/12/19))

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

News and commentary:

"Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein listens..."
(John Moore, Reuters, 2005/12/21)
"Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein listens as witness Ali Hassen Mohammed Al-Haideri gives testimony during court proceedings against Saddam and his co-defendants during the resumption of their trial December 21, 2005 in Baghdad."

"Saddam says he was beaten in jail" (AP/TheStar.com, 2005/12/21)
Saddam III. I don't understand why they let Saddam get the last word again. A brave witness testifies about how "the deposed leader's regime killed and tortured people by administering electric shocks and ripping off their skin after pouring molten plastic on it." Then Saddam says that he has "been beaten, everywhere on my body."
The perverse result is that Saddam of course gets all the headlines once again. And speaking of perverse: "'When I hear that any Iraqi has been hurt it hurts me too,' Saddam said.":
"After several hours of quietly listening to testimony, Saddam Hussein launched into an extended complaint at his trial today, alleging that he had been beaten “everywhere on my body” while in detention.
The trial’s chief prosecutor said that if American-led multinational forces were abusing the former Iraqi leader, he would be transferred into the custody of Iraqi troops.
“Yes I have been beaten, everywhere on my body. The marks are still there,” Saddam told the court without saying who allegedly beat him. 'And I’m not complaining about the Americans because I can poke their eyes with my own hands.'" (See also: "Saddam tells Baghdad court he was beaten in prison" (CBC News, 2005/12/21): "In speaking out, Saddam also appeared to be putting distance between himself and others accused of wrongdoing during his regime.
"When I hear that any Iraqi has been hurt it hurts me too," Saddam said.
"The wrongs that were done to those people were wrong and according to law, those who did it should get what they deserve," he told the judge.")

"Saddam trial hears evidence of torture" (Mussab al-Khairalla and Gideon Long, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/21)
Saddam II: "The trial of Saddam Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity on Wednesday heard some of the strongest evidence yet linking the former Iraqi president and his co-defendants to alleged torture.
A witness told the court that Saddam's guards applied electric shocks to detainees at the headquarters of his feared intelligence service in Baghdad, and heated up plastic tubing and allowed the hot plastic to drip onto the bodies of victims.
"They would be in such pain as the plastic solidified on their bodies," the witness recalled. "A man would leave on his feet and and come back thrown in a blanket." ...
He said Saddam's half-brother Barzan had been present in the building where the torture took place and had kicked him once as Haidari lay in a hallway suffering from a fever.
"He said to the guards 'Do not treat him, this family does not deserve to live," Haidari said. "I was in pain for weeks because of that kick."
Barzan lost his temper several times. During six trial hearings he has emerged as the most outspoken defendant, eclipsing even Saddam, who seemed subdued on Wednesday.
At one point Barzan leapt to the defense of another defendant, former Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, when the witness accused Ramadan of bulldozing farms in Dujail.
"His (Ramadan's) shoe is more honorable than you and all your tribe, you dog!" Barzan shouted at Haidari."

"Witness Recounts Torture by Saddam Regime" (Mariam Fam, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/21)
Saddam I: "A witness testified Wednesday at Saddam Hussein's trial that the deposed leader's regime killed and tortured people by administering electric shocks and ripping off their skin after pouring molten plastic on it.
Unlike previous sessions that were marked by his outbursts, Saddam sat quietly in his defendant's chair, two weeks after he called the court "unjust" and boycotted a session. When the judge refused to let him take a break to pray, the former leader closed his eyes and appeared to pray from his seat. ...
The prosecution's first witness Wednesday was a man who testified about killings and torture in Dujail after the attempt to assassinate Saddam. Ali Hassan Mohammed al-Haidari, who was 14 in 1982, started off by quoting from the Quran, the Islamic holy book, about how evil would be defeated.
The judge, in an apparent early bid to take control of a courtroom that has often been unruly, told the witness to address the court and not Saddam directly.
Al-Haidari, whose brother was the first witness at Saddam's trial, testified that seven of his brothers were executed by Saddam's regime and their bodies have not been found.
Al-Haidari said that he and other residents from Dujail — including family members — were taken to Baghdad and thrown into a security services prison, where people from "9 to 90" were held.
Blood poured from head wounds and skin was pale from electric shocks, he testified. Security officials would drip melted plastic hoses on detainees, only to pull it off after it cooled, tearing skin off with it, he said.
"I cannot express all that suffering and pain we faced in the 70 days inside," he said."

"RADICAL ISLAM SPONSORS: the MISS MUSLIM WORLD CONTEST!!"
(Signe Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times/The Cartoonist Group, 2002/11/27)

"Lebanese daily: U.S. press stereotyping Muslims" (Robert Spencer, Dhimmi Watch, 2005/12/21)
"Which besmirches the "Religion of Peace" more? A cartoon about the mistreatment of women in Islam, or the mistreatment of women in Islam? For the Daily Star of Lebanon, it is decidedly the former.
Of course I run up against this all the time. When I report what people like this say, I'm told by the likes of CAIR that it is I who am "spreading hate" and "defaming Islam."
Come off it, Ibrahim. Come off it, Dr. Ghazi Falah. This is one dhimmi who isn't buying. It is Osama bin Laden who is defaming Islam. It is Mukhlas who is defamining Islam. And Omar Bakri. And Abu Hamza. And Abu Bakar Bashir. And Zarqawi. And Shehzad Tanweer. And hordes of others. ...
Well, the press can't talk about Baptist extremists, or Methodist gunmen. It does have to stick around within the general neighborhood of what is really happening. Stereotyping? Vilification? Hardly. If Muslim women weren't oppressed, if Muslim preachers weren't yapping constantly about Zionist pigs, you would never hear a peep of any of this. ...
"Effect of U.S. media on perceptions: Press plays key role in stereotyping arabs, Muslims," from Spencer Osberg in The Daily Star, with thanks to Sr. Soph: ...

"I focus on the way in which an American newspaper makes or decides on a certain 'editorial arrangement' in presenting material concerning Muslim or Arab topics, to serve specific political or geo-political ends or respective governments," said Falah, noting the construction of Arabs as 'the other' - different and inferior to Westerners - is central to American foreign policy.... ...
On November 27, 2002, the Los Angeles Times printed another cartoon depicting three fully veiled women walking across a stage under the banner "Al-Islam sponsors the Miss Muslim World contest." The sashes the women wore read "Miss waiting to be stoned," "Miss can't vote" and "Miss illiteracy," while two Afghani-looking men watched, one of which had a rifle.
"Perhaps some would argue this cartoon contains a kernel of truth, and targets only radical Islam and not all Muslims, but how could such an insulting and crude cartoon be considered newsworthy enough to be published in the Los Angeles Times?"

(See also: "Effect of U.S. media on perceptions: Press plays key role in stereotyping arabs, Muslims" (Spencer Osberg, The Daily Star, 2005/12/21))

"Not just Israel's problem" (Amir Taheri, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/12/21)
"The way Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tells it, the Islamic Republic is well on the way to establishing itself as "the leader of the Muslim world" in what he describes as "the coming clash of civilizations."
In a speech at a teachers training college in Teheran last Sunday, Ahmadinejad claimed that the Islamic Republic had already won the first round against "arrogant Crusader-Zionist powers" led by the United States.
One sign of that victory, according to Ahmadinejad, is the decision by the European Union trio of Britain, Germany and France to resume negotiations on the Iranian nuclear dossier. ...
"The Europeans have returned with their tails between their legs," says Shariat Madari, editor of the daily Kayhan and a key supporter of Ahmadinejad. ...
It is now certain that the Islamic Republic is determined to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons, launching an arms race with unforeseeable consequences. It is unlikely that all those concerned would sit back and watch as Mr. Ahmadinejad pushes the region towards environmental risk and, perhaps, even war. He may well laugh at what he sees as the Europeans' "lack of a backbone." And, like the man in the famous anecdote, he may even say: So far, so good!
But the kind of game he is playing often ends in grief. Regimes like his do not know when and where to stop, until they hit something harder than themselves. And then it is too late."

"Waiting for the rapture in Iran" (Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 2005/12/21)
"For those who believe, the devotion is real. Tears stream down the cheeks of 2,000 men ripe for the return of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam they expect will soon emerge to bring justice and peace to a corrupt world. ...
Among the true believers is Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who predicted with "no doubt" his June election victory, months in advance, at a time when polls gave him barely 1 percent support. The president also spoke of an aura that wreathed him throughout his controversial UN speech in September.
"O mighty Lord," Mr. Ahmadinejad intoned to his surprised audience, "I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace."
Later, at a private meeting with a cleric that was caught on video, Ahmadinejad shared his views of the moment. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed, and for 27 to 28 minutes the leaders did not blink," he said. "They were astonished.... it had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."
A spokesman last week dismissed the video as fake (other sources confirm it is authentic), and denied that Ahmadinejad bases decisions on "heavenly affairs." But this presidential obsession with the Mahdaviat [belief in the second coming] yields a certitude that leaves little room for compromise.
From redressing the gulf between rich and poor in Iran, to challenging the United States and Israel and enhancing Iran's power with nuclear programs, every issue is designed to lay the foundation for the Mahdi's return."

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

News and commentary:

"U.S. Navy Diver Robert D. Stethem, 23"
(AP, 2005/12/20)
"U.S. Navy Diver Robert D. Stethem, 23, is shown in this undated file photo. Stethem was murdered by hijackers in Lebanon in 1985 after a TWA flight from Athens to Rome was diverted to Beirut.. Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who served 19 years of a life sentence in Germany for the murder and hijacking, returned to Lebanon after being paroled in Germany, security and guerrilla officials said Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005."

"American Killed by Islamic/Arab Terrorists, Robert Stethem" (American Victims of Arab and Islamic Terrorists)
From the Stethem memorial on American Victims of Arab and Islamic Terrorists:
"On June 15, 1985 Hezballah Shi'ites brutally beat, tortured and then killed 23 year old Robert Dean Stethem as he was being held hostage aboard TWA 847 commercial airliner. Robert was on his way home after a tour of duty with the US Navy in the Middle East. The terrorists had hijacked the plane with 153 passengers in Athens Greece forcing the pilot to fly twice to Algiers and twice to Beirut during the 17 day siege. The hostages were released after Israel released 435 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.

"When the plane was at the Beirut airport in Lebanon, Petty Officer Stethem was singled out because he was in the US military. After many hours of being cruelly beaten, tortured, and finally killed by the terrorists, they threw his body from the plane in a final disgraceful, cowardly act. The wounds were so terrible that his body had to be identified by its fingerprints.
Throughout the ordeal, Robert Stethem did not yield, and instead encouraged his fellow passengers to endure by his example. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for heroism and bravery. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery."
-- Mark Crawford, Bryantown from "Who Was Robert Stethem"

The victim's brother said he remembers the funeral at Arlington National Cemetery and can't help but think about the flag-draped coffin.

"Every time I look at the flag now and for the rest of my life,'' said Kenneth Stethem, "the red will represent the blood he spilled, the blue the beating and bruises he endured, and the white the purity and integrity he demonstrated in sacrificing his life."
-- Arlington National Cemetery''

"In the Party of God" (Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, 2002/10/28)
Goldberg's must-read report on Hezbollah has a section on the hijacking of the TWA jetliner:
"In 1985, two of Mugniyah's men hijacked a T.W.A. airplane, a Boeing 727, on a scheduled run between Athens and Rome. Almost immediately after seizing control, the hijackers, Hassan Izz-al-Din and Muhammad Ali Hamadi, began searching the plane for American servicemen. They soon discovered a group of Navy divers and a thirty-eight-year-old Army Reserve major named Kurt Carlson.
The hijackers were demanding the release of Shiite prisoners in Kuwait and more than seven hundred Shiite prisoners in Israel. Their behavior was erratic; they forced the plane to land in Beirut, then go to Algiers, and then fly back to Beirut. In Beirut, Izz-al-Din and Hamadi executed one of the divers, Robert Stethem, and dumped his body on the airport tarmac.
Carlson today lives in Rockford, Illinois; he is a builder, a friendly, small-boned man, who talks easily about his experience. On the tarmac in Algiers, Carlson said, Hamadi would preach the virtues of the Shiite revolution in Iran from the cockpit window to whoever happened to be listening below. "Every time Hamadi said the name Khomeini, Izz-al-Din would kick me in the back," Carlson said. Carlson was beaten steadily for several days, and his beatings intensified when the hijackers' demands for fuel weren't met. "They kept yelling, 'One American must die, one American must die,'" he said."

"TWA Hijacker Released From German Prison" (Zeina Karam, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/20)
"A Lebanese man serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a U.S. Navy diver has returned to Lebanon after being paroled in Germany, security and guerrilla officials said Tuesday.
Mohammed Ali Hamadi arrived in Beirut four days ago on a commercial flight from Germany, a Lebanese security official and a Hezbollah guerrilla group said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
It was not known where Hamadi, who spent 19 years in prison, went after entering Lebanon.
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut refused to comment on Hamadi's release or whether the United States will pursue his arrest. The slain diver's brother called the parole "absolutely disturbing." ...
U.S. authorities had requested his extradition so he could stand trial in the United States, where he was indicted in 1985 in absentia on charges of air piracy resulting in murder.
But the Germans, who have no death penalty, insisted on prosecuting Hamadi. A German court convicted him of both the hijacking and of U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem's death. ...
TWA flight 847 from Athens, Greece, to Rome was hijacked in June 1985 to Beirut, where the hijackers beat and shot Stethem, 23, of Waldorf, Md., and dumped his body on the tarmac."

"Jihad is 'Muslim obligation'" (icLiverpool, 2005/12/20)
Coming soon to a trial near you: "A lawyer defending al Qaida-linked suspects standing trial for the 2003 suicide bombings in Istanbul told a court that jihad, or holy war, was an obligation for Muslims and his clients should not be prosecuted.
"If you punish them for this, tomorrow, will you punish them for fasting or for praying?" Osman Karahan -- a lawyer representing 14 of the 72 suspects -- asked during a nearly four-hour speech in which he read religious texts from an encyclopedia of Islam.
The November 2003 blasts targeted two synagogues, the British Consulate and the local headquarters of the London-based HSBC bank, killing 58 people.
The Arabic word jihad can mean holy war among extremists in addition to its definition as the Islamic concept of the struggle to do good.
Karahan spoke for three hours at the court in Istanbul.
"If non-Muslims go into Muslim lands, it is every Muslim's obligation to fight them," Karahan said.
A panel of three judges for the fiercely secular Turkish Republic listened to Karahan patiently, without speaking, as the defence lawyer read from four thick file folders." (Hat tip: Tim Blair.)

"'Iran obtained 12 long-range missiles'" (Sheera Claire Frenkel, The Jerusalem Post, 2005/12/20)
"Iran recently acquired 12 cruise missiles with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers, according to OC Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi (Farkash) on Tuesday. He noted the missiles had the ability to carry a nuclear warhead.
Speaking at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for the last time before leaving his position, Ze'evi noted the missiles originated in a batch of 18 missiles shipped from Ukraine to Russia. Twelve of the missiles made their way to Iran, while the other six ended up in China."

"Juvenile Journalism" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2005/12/20)
"Color us embarrassed by the conduct of our fellow journalists in the kerfuffle over "domestic spying" -- i.e., the National Security Agency's wiretaps of people with links to al Qaeda. The only reason anyone is complaining about this is that there hasn't been a major terrorist attack since 9/11. That is to say, the administration's success (or luck) in terror-prevention has made it possible to be complacent. Someone with a mature sense of perspective would keep this in mind in evaluating reports about the tactics the government has used against the enemy.
Instead we get drivel like this, from Newsweek's Jonathan Alter:

I learned this week that on December 6, [President] Bush summoned [New York] Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president's desperation.
The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden's use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists -- in fact, all American Muslims, period -- have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. . . .
No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story -- which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year -- because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker.

How does Alter know this? He says the Times won't comment on the meeting, so he must've interviewed the president, right? Not likely. For that matter, how does Alter know what "all American Muslims" suspect? Has he interviewed every last one of them? No, as Alter acknowledges, "one can only imagine." Why Alter thinks anyone should take his lurid imaginings seriously is anyone's guess." (See also: "Bush’s Snoopgate" (Jonathan Alter, Newsweek, 2005/12/19))

"Free speech in Europe: it's all or nothing" (Brendan O'Neill, spiked, 2005/12/20)
"The trial of Orhan Pamuk for 'publicly denigrating Turkish identity' is a disgrace. So is Austria's imprisonment of David Irving for Holocaust denial.":
"Yet their cases are the same: both could be incarcerated, not for physically harming another person or for damaging property, but for the words they spoke; both could have their liberty removed because they expressed views that the authorities - in Turkey and Austria - decree to be distasteful. And both of their trials are an outrage against the principle of free speech. You may or may not agree with what Pamuk said, and you probably are disgusted by Irving's weasel words. But this isn't about what either author said; it is about whether they should have the right to say it, and we should have the right to hear it. Freedom of speech, as its name suggests, does not mean freedom for views that go down well in polite society but not for views that stink: it means freedom for all speech, the freedom to think, say and write what we please and the freedom of everyone else to challenge or ridicule our arguments.
The fact that Pamuk's and Irving's trials have occurred around the same time provided a tough test of Europeans' commitment to free speech. The fact that many rushed to defend Pamuk while ignoring - or giving the nod to - the imprisonment of Irving means Europe failed that test."

"My Gloom" (Daniel Pipes, FrontPageMagazine, 2005/12/20)
"Unlike most Americans, 9/11 made me feel more secure. Finally, the country was focused on issues that had long worried me. ...
But I agonized whether it would last. “Are Americans truly ready to sacrifice liberties and lives to prosecute seriously the war against militant Islam? I worry about US constancy and purpose.”
And right I was to worry, for the alarm, solidarity, and resolve of late 2001 have lately plummeted, returning us to a roughly pre-9/11 mentality. A number of recent developments leave me pessimistic. Within the United States:

• The USA Patriot Act, a landmark of post-9/11 cooperation between the military and law enforcement, passed the Senate 98-1 in October 2001. Last week, the same bill stalled in the Senate.
• The mainstream media does not take Islamist aspirations seriously and sees the war on terror basically as over, as shown by Maureen Dowd’s comment that the Bush administration is trying “to frighten people with talk of Al Qaeda’s dream of a new Islamic caliphate.”
• Harvard and Georgetown universities each accepted US$20 million for Islamic studies from a Saudi prince who overtly promotes his government’s Wahhabi outlook, Alwaleed bin Talal.
• A Florida jury somehow managed to overlook the massive evidence of Sami Al-Arian’s leading role in Palestinian Islamic Jihad and acquit him on this charge. ...

Then international setbacks:

• Elite opinion ascribes the French intifada only to faults in French society, such as unemployment and discrimination. When one leading intellectual, Alain Finkielkraut, dared bring Islam into the discussion, he was savagely criticized and threatened with libel, so he backed down.
• The July transport bombings in the United Kingdom seemingly highlighted the dangers of homegrown Islamism. Five months later, however, lessons learned from this atrocity have been nearly forgotten. For example, the Blair government appointed an Islamist banned from entering the United States, Tariq Ramadan, to a prestigious taskforce; and it abandoned efforts even temporarily to close down extremist mosques. ...

If there ever was a crisis, it is over. Life is good, dangers are remote, security appears adequate … sleep beckons."

"Racism is bad - so is self-delusion" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/12/20)
"These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed. A plane flies into the World Trade Centre? Mohammed Atta. A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet. A sniper starts killing petrol station customers around Washington, DC? John Allen Muhammed. A guy fatally stabs a Dutch movie director? Mohammed Bouyeri. A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed. A gang-rapist in Sydney? Mohammed Skaf.
Maybe all these Mohammeds are victims of Australian white racists and American white racists and Dutch white racists and Balinese white racists and Beslan schoolgirl white racists.
But the eagerness of the Aussie and British and Canadian and European media, week in, week out, to attribute each outbreak of an apparently universal phenomenon to strictly local factors is starting to look pathological. "Violence and racism are bad", but so is self-delusion."

"Iranian's Oratory Reflects Devotion to '79 Revolution" (Nazila Fathi and Michael Slackman, The New York Times, 2005/12/20)
"While the Iranians have insisted that their nuclear program is geared toward energy, not weapons, there have been some signals that Iran feels it would be easier to move ahead if it were an international pariah, like North Korea. And what better way to achieve pariah status in the West than to call for the obliteration of Israel?
Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, implicitly supported the North Korean model at a news conference in September when he said the international community should learn a lesson from its approach in that conflict. "What was the result of such tough policies?" he asked. "After two years they ended up accepting its program, so you should accept ours right now."
The anti-Israeli oratory also has roots in the president's domestic standing.
Again, it is useful to examine Ayatollah Khomeini's approach. When he took over after the shah fell in 1979, the nation did not unify right away behind clerical rule. It was only after Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, attacked in 1980 that real unity occurred.
Some Iranian analysts say that by increasing the world's hostility, Mr. Ahmadinejad is hoping to reproduce that sense of internal unity."

"Shiite Alliance Leads In Partial Iraq Count" (Doug Struck, The Washington Post, 2005/12/20)
"The first results from Iraq's national parliamentary election showed powerful support for the leading Shiite Muslim religious alliance, and suggested that the country's splintered politics have coalesced into a few large political groups divided along ethnic and religious lines.
Election officials announced unofficial results Monday from 11 of Iraq's 18 provinces and Baghdad, the largest city, showing the Shiite alliance leading overwhelmingly in central and southern Iraq. As expected, a coalition of Kurds dominated the north, while votes from the mainly Sunni Muslim western provinces have not been reported. ...
The preliminary returns pointed toward an Iraqi government that would be led for the next four years by a conservative Shiite religious alliance that has close ties to Iran, presiding over a country hardening into three mutually suspicious political blocs. ...
In Baghdad, with 89 percent of the vote counted, the main Shiite alliance received 61 percent of the vote, and the Sunni list 20 percent. ...
In the south -- where nearly all ballots had been counted in most of the provinces -- the United Iraqi Alliance, the main Shiite electoral grouping, swept the voting, outpolling second-place Allawi by a margin of 10 to 1."

Added in archive:
"Bin Laden's script: ghost-written in the West" (Brendan O'Neill, spiked, 2005/12/13)

Monday, December 19, 2005

News and commentary:

"Member of the parliament Malalai Joya..."
(Ahmad Masoodd, Reuters, 2005/12/19)
"Member of the parliament Malalai Joya holds a copy of the holy Koran after the inauguration of the first Afghan parliament in decades in Kabul, Afghanistan December 19, 2005."

"Newly Elected Afghan Parliament Convenes" (Eric Talmadge, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/19)
"KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan marked another milestone in its march to democracy, inaugurating its first popularly elected parliament in three decades Monday in an emotional ceremony that brought the president to tears. ...
The assembly convened after a reading from the Muslim holy book, a folk song from schoolgirls dressed in brightly colored robes and the singing of the national anthem.
President Hamid Karzai acknowledged the country's problems with poverty, corruption and terrorism, but hailed the parliament as a symbol of unity.
"This is an important step toward democracy," he said. Karzai closed his speech by tearfully declaring that Afghanistan was "again standing on its feet, after decades of war and occupation." ...
The country has had no elected national assembly since 1973, when coups and a Soviet invasion plunged it into decades of chaos that left more than 1 million people dead. The Taliban's disastrous rule ended in late 2001, when it was deposed by the U.S.-led invasion for sheltering Osama bin Laden."

"Iran's President Bans Western Music" (Nasser Karimi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2005/12/19)
"TEHRAN, Iran - Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned Western music from Iran's radio and TV stations, reviving one of the harshest cultural decrees from the early days of 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Songs such as George Michael's "Careless Whisper," Eric Clapton's "Rush" and the Eagles' "Hotel California" have regularly accompanied Iranian broadcasts, as do tunes by saxophonist Kenny G.
But the official IRAN Persian daily reported Monday that Ahmadinejad, as head of Iran's Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, ordered the enactment of an October ruling by the council to ban Western music.
"Blocking indecent and Western music from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is required," according to a statement on the council's official Web site."

"'Munich' stands for 'appeasement'" (Kate Wright, The American Thinker, 2005/12/19)
"To characterize the Israeli response as a “response to a response” as Spielberg states in Time Magazine and his new movie implies, is a clear effort to deny the objective morality of what happened, not only in 1972, but throughout history. Justified Deterrence is the moral precept that Israel relies upon to defend itself and prevent its destruction from terrorism and other forces of aggression. Reducing the events of September, 1972 and its aftermath to an existential melodrama about manmade vengeance denies the political nature of the Olympic assassinations and its implication for the safety of all Jews. ...
The Israeli athletes who were assassinated by the PLO in Munich in 1972 did not die by tragedy, nor by moral failings. They were slaughtered. This was a massacre of innocents. At that time, and today, there are no doubts about what happened at the Olympics. We saw much of it live on television. Creating a fictional story about the secret Israeli response — based on speculative feelings of a fictional protagonist — distorts the truth of what actually happened in history. ...
Jihad is not equal to justified deterrence. The Munich slaughter is not equal to Israel’s moral imperative to liquidate Jihadists. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is not equal to David Ben-Gurion. Adolf Hitler is not equal to Simon Wiesenthal. Yasser Arafat is not equal to Golda Meir. The PLO is not equal to Israel. The “culture of death” that is Jihad is not equal to the “culture of life” that is L’Chaim. ...
In history, there are no regrets about what happened to Adolf Hitler, no confusion about what happened at the 1972 Olympics and no legitimate voices that defy the necessity of Israel’s strategic response to the Munich slaughter. The Israeli response to the 1972 Olympics transcends the timeline of history as a “Never Again!” morality tale of good vs. evil. This is not a story about negating life. This is not a story about vengeance. This is a story about the painful regrets and compelling issues that comprise the profound decisions involved in defending….the sanctity of human life." (Hat tip: RealClearPolitics.)

"Have The Democrats Walked Into a Trap......Again?" (John McIntyre, RealClearPolitics, 2005/12/19)
"Not recognizing the political ground had shifted beneath their feet, Democrats continued to press forward with their offensive against the President. They’ve now foolishly climbed out on a limb that Rove and Bush have the real potential to chop off. One would think that after the political miscalculations the Democrats made during the 2002 and 2004 campaigns they would not make the same mistake a third time, but it is beginning to look a lot like Charlie Brown and the football again.
First, the Democrats still do not grasp that foreign affairs and national security issues are their vulnerabilities, not their strengths. All of the drumbeat about Iraq, spying, and torture that the left thinks is so damaging to the White House are actually positives for the President and Republicans. ...
The public resents the overkill from Abu Ghraib and the hand-wringing over whether captured terrorists down in Gitmo may have been mistreated. They want Kahlid Mohamed, one of the master minds of 9/11 and a top bin Laden lieutanent, to be water-boarded if our agents on the ground think that is what necessary to get the intel we need. They want the CIA to be aggressively rounding up potential terrorists worldwide and keeping them in “black sites” in Romania or Poland or wherever, because the public would rather have suspected terrorists locked away in secret prisons in Bulgaria than plotting to kill Americans in Florida or California or New York. ...
One of the major problems working against Democrats is many on their side appear to be rooting for failure in Iraq and publicly ridicule the idea that we actually might win. When this impression is put in context of the debate over eavesdropping or the Patriot Act, Democrats run the significant risk of being perceived to be more concerned with the enemy’s rights than protecting ordinary Americans. This is a loser for Democrats."

"Middle East progress amid global gains in freedom" (Freedom House, 2005/12/19)
"The people of the Arab Middle East experienced a modest but potentially significant increase in political rights and civil liberties in 2005, Freedom House announced in a major survey of global freedom released today.
The global survey, "Freedom in the World," shows that although the Middle East continues to lag behind other regions, a measurable improvement can be seen in freedom in several key Arab countries, as well as the Palestinian Authority. ...
On the whole, the state of freedom showed substantial improvement worldwide, with 27 countries and one territory registering gains and only 9 countries showing setbacks. The global picture thus suggests that the past year was one of the most successful for freedom since Freedom House began measuring world freedom in 1972. ...
Although the countries of the Middle East lag behind other regions in areas such as adherence to democratic standards, independent media, the rights of women, and the rule of law, the past year witnessed modest positive trends. Lebanon experienced the most significant improvement; its status improved from Not Free to Partly Free due to major improvements in both political rights and civil liberties that followed the withdrawal of Syrian occupation forces. Elections exhibiting increased competition in Iraq, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories; the introduction of women's suffrage in Kuwait; and improvements in Saudi Arabia's media environment are among other encouraging signs in the region." (Hat tip: The Corner.)

"In the Mideast, Democratic Momentum" (Jackson Diehl, The Washington Post, 2005/12/19)
"Though Iraq has now held the freest election in Arab history, conventional wisdom in Washington and the Middle East still dismisses the Bush administration's hope that its military intervention will catalyze democratic change around the region. A recent survey by Brookings Institution scholar Shibley Telhami found that 58 percent of Arabs outside Iraq said the war had produced less rather than more democracy. In the United States, a Pew poll released last month showed that only 34 percent of Americans believed Middle East democratization would happen.
That's one of the perverse effects of the war: Amid all the noise of suicide bombings, talk of a quagmire for U.S. troops and a sectarian conflict that could lead to Iraq's disintegration, most people haven't noticed that in the rest of the Arab Middle East, the political momentum of the past year has been . . . distinctly democratic. ...
All of this is not to say that freedom, as President Bush would put it, "is on the march" in the Middle East. For every two steps forward, there is at least one step back. In Egypt, for instance, the gains of the opposition have happened in spite of massive government-orchestrated violence and fraud. It's still not clear whether Islamic movements like Hamas intend to stick to democracy or merely use it as another instrument of war against Israel and secularism. With the world focused on Iraq's troubles, naysayers who insist that there has been no positive change, or even that the situation has grown worse, mostly aren't contradicted. Yet any honest examination of the Arab world shows that the transformation Bush called for on the eve of the war in 2003 got closer in 2005."

"Our Friends the Pakistanis" (Husain Haqqani and Kenneth Ballen, OpinionJournal, 2005/12/19)
"Long a stronghold for Islamic extremists and the world's second-most populous Muslim nation, Pakistanis now hold a more favorable opinion of the U.S. than at any time since 9/11, while support for al Qaeda in its home base has dropped to its lowest level since then. The direct cause for this dramatic shift in Muslim opinion is clear: American humanitarian assistance for Pakistani victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed 87,000. ...
Released today, the poll commissioned by the nonprofit organization Terror Free Tomorrow and conducted by Pakistan's foremost pollsters ACNielsen Pakistan shows that the number of Pakistanis with a favorable opinion of the U.S. doubled to more than 46% at the end of November from 23% in May 2005. Those with very unfavorable views declined to 28% from 48% over the same period. Nor is this swing in public opinion confined to Pakistan. A similar picture is evident in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. ...
While support for the U.S. has surged, there's also been a dramatic drop in support for Osama bin Laden and terrorism. Since May, the percentage of Pakistanis who feel terrorist attacks against civilians are never justified has more than doubled to 73% from less than half, while the minority who still support terrorist attacks has also shrunk significantly. There's been a similar increase in the number of Pakistanis disapproving of bin Laden, which rose to 41% in November up from only 23% in May."

"Iraqis in former rebel stronghold now cheer American soldiers" (Oliver Poole, The Daily Telegraph, 2005/12/19)
"In the low-slung concrete buildings of Tal Afar, a city built on dirty sand and mud, George W Bush sees the potential for military success in Iraq.
In recent weeks it has been one case study the American president has consistently cited in order to buttress the rhetoric that the insurgency, and the killing, can be ended.
Tal Afar was the site of the largest military operation of 2005, when 8,000 US and Iraqi troops reclaimed it from armed groups.
It has since been used to test a new strategy of "clear, hold, build", in which areas would be purged of insurgents and then rejuvenated to win support from local people, before being handed over to the Iraqi security forces. ...
Visiting the city, nestled nea