Archived news and commentary: April 3 - 9, 2006

2006/04/03 - 2006/04/09
2006/03/27 - 2006/04/02
2006/03/20 - 2006/03/26
2006/03/13 - 2006/03/19
2006/03/06 - 2006/03/12
2006/02/27 - 2006/03/05

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, April 9, 2006

News and commentary:

From the archive: "Kurds in Sulaimaniya, Iraq, celebrated the fall of Baghdad."
(Chang W. Lee, The New York Times, 2003/04/09)

"Reports of US nuclear strike on Iran 'completely nuts': British FM" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/09)
Iran III: "British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has dismissed claims that the United States was preparing for military action against Iran, including nuclear strikes on suspected atomic weapons facilities.
He told BBC television that the international community was right to view the Islamic republic's nuclear programme with "high suspicion" but "there is no smoking gun, there is no 'casus belli' (justification for war)".
"We can't be certain about Iran's intentions and that is therefore not a basis for which anybody would gain authority to go to military action," he said Sunday. ...
Straw dismissed the idea of nuclear strikes with bunker-busting bombs as "completely nuts" and questioned the reliability of the reports' source.
Instead, he said he believed Washington was still committed to using negotiation and diplomatic pressure to resolve the matter.
"The reason why we're opposed to military action is because it's an infinitely worse option and there's no justification for it," he said."

"The Iran Plans" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2006/04/10)
Iran II: "The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. ...
There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’”
A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, 'I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, 'What are they smoking?''"

"U.S. Is Studying Military Strike Options on Iran" (Peter Baker et al., The Washington Post, 2006/04/09)
Iran I: "The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts.
No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat "to convince them this is more and more serious," as a senior official put it. ...
Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.
Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making U.S. troops in Iraq targets for retaliation."

"July 7 bombs were a 'demo' not terrorism, claims professor" (Andrew Alderson and Chris Hastings, The Sunday Telegraph, 2006/04/09)
"The London bombings were not acts of terrorism but "a demonstration", according to a senior academic.
Prof Ron Geaves has sparked controversy by claiming that the attacks on Tube trains and a bus that killed 52 innocent people in July were part of a long history of protests by British Muslims.
He also said that to refer to the attacks as terrorism risked "demonising" those involved. ...
"I have included, rather controversially, the events in London as primarily an extreme form of demonstration and assess what these events actually mean in terms of their significance in the Muslim community," Prof Geaves said last week.
"Terrorism is a political word which always seems to be used to demonise people." ...
Last night Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP for Hendon, described Prof Geaves's claims as "absolutely barking". He said: "What happened on July 7, 2005, fits with every international definition of terrorism. If any of the men behind the attacks had survived the incident they would have quite rightly been tried under the anti-terror laws. I don't think it's helpful that we have a mealy-mouthed academic trying to justify deaths of innocent people. It is ludicrous."
Four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 others on July 7, while more than 700 people were injured in the attacks."

"Universalist or relativist? These are the U and non-U of modern manners" (Andrew Anthony, The Observer, 2006/04/09)
"Are you U or non-U? By which I mean, are you a universalist or a relativist? Forget left and right; the defining political divide of the global era is between those who believe that some moral rights and freedoms ought to be universal and those who argue that each culture to its own. ...
Universalists argue that certain rights and protections - freedom of speech, democracy, the rule of law - are common or, at least, should be available to all people. Relativists maintain that different cultures have different values and that it's impossible to say that one system or idea is better than another and, moreover, it's racist to try. ...
I have designed a test that is every bit as relevant to modern manners as Nancy Mitford's book on class published 50 years ago.
Let's start with cannibalism, slavery and ritual human sacrifice. Do you think that they are a) unspeakable acts of barbarity? or b) vibrant expressions of a distinctive cultural heritage?
Actually, that was a fairly easy one - even the most postmodern relativist tends to choke on cannibalism. Here's something a little more difficult. What's your feeling about clitoridectomy and the stoning to death of women adulterers? a) misogynistic; b) that's a racist question; c) empowering.
Freedom of speech? a) the basis of all other freedoms; b) you support it but only if you agree with what's being said and there's no such thing as complete freedom of speech, anyway, so what's wrong with even less? c) shut up or I'll cut your head off."

"U.S. Study Paints Somber Portrait of Iraqi Discord" (Eric Schmitt and Edward Wong, The Washington Post, 2006/04/09)
"An internal staff report by the United States Embassy and the military command in Baghdad provides a sobering province-by-province snapshot of Iraq's political, economic and security situation, rating the overall stability of 6 of the 18 provinces "serious" and one "critical." The report is a counterpoint to some recent upbeat public statements by top American politicians and military officials.
The report, 10 pages of briefing points titled "Provincial Stability Assessment," underscores the shift in the nature of the Iraq war three years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Warnings of sectarian and ethnic frictions are raised in many regions, even in those provinces generally described as nonviolent by American officials.
There are alerts about the growing power of Iranian-backed religious Shiite parties, several of which the United States helped put into power, and rival militias in the south. The authors also point to the Arab-Kurdish fault line in the north as a major concern, with the two ethnicities vying for power in Mosul, where violence is rampant, and Kirkuk, whose oil fields are critical for jump-starting economic growth in Iraq.
The patterns of discord mapped by the report confirm that ethnic and religious schisms have become entrenched across much of the country, even as monthly American fatalities have fallen. Those indications, taken with recent reports of mass migrations from mixed Sunni-Shiite areas, show that Iraq is undergoing a de facto partitioning along ethnic and sectarian lines, with clashes — sometimes political, sometimes violent — taking place in those mixed areas where different groups meet."

"Al-Qaeda goes recruiting in festering Gaza" (Marie Colvin, The Sunday Times, 2006/04/09)
"The festering refugee camp of Khan Yunis, where the stench of sewage hangs over potholed dirt roads and concrete blockhouses crowded with 270,000 Palestinians, has long been fertile soil for radical groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Now there are growing indications it is also becoming a breeding ground for Al-Qaeda.
Palestinian security officials claim to have growing evidence that Osama Bin Laden’s terror network, which has hitherto shown little interest in Gaza and the West Bank, is recruiting among the angry young men who see little beyond a future of attacking Israel. ...
Analysts believe that, as its fortunes wane in Iraq, Al-Qaeda thinks some form of coup in Gaza or the West Bank could help it increase support across the Middle East, where the fate of the Palestinians is a symbol of the wider Arab cause. ...
It is almost impossible to underestimate the extent of the lawlessness that now reigns. Last month two families went to war over a donkey that kicked and damaged a car. The death toll had reached six by the time they ended their feud."

"Leak reveals official story of London bombings" (Mark Townsend, The Observer, 2006/04/09)
"The official inquiry into the 7 July London bombings will say the attack was planned on a shoestring budget from information on the internet, that there was no 'fifth-bomber' and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan.
The first forensic account of the atrocity that claimed the lives of 52 people, which will be published in the next few weeks, will say that attacks were the product of a 'simple and inexpensive' plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom.
Far from being the work of an international terror network, as originally suspected, the attack was carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the internet. Their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds, according to the first completed draft of the government's definitive report into the blasts."

Note: I'm back from my short trip to Paris and will update Watch retrospectively as usual.

Saturday, April 8, 2006

News and commentary:

"Swedish Chancellor of Justice: Muslim calls for “Death to Jews” are just part of the debate on the Middle East" (Dhimmi Watch, 2006/04/08)
"Outrageous Swedish dhimmitude. "Open season on Swedish Jews: Swedish Chancellor of Justice: Muslim calls for 'Death to Jews' are just part of the debate on the Middle East," a press release from Ilya Mayer, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

Earlier this year Swedish Chancellor of Justice Mr Göran Lambertz decided to discontinue his department’s pre-trial investigation into the Grand Mosque of Stockholm, where audio cassettes with highly inflammatory anti-Semitic content were being sold. After Swedish radio programme Dagens Eko unveiled the contents of the cassettes in November 2005, a charge of racial incitement was filed with the police against the Stockholm mosque. The Swedish Chancellor of Justice responded by closing the pre-trial investigation on the grounds that “the lecture did admittedly feature statements that are highly degrading to Jews (among other things, they are consistently referred to as the brothers of apes and pigs)” but pointing out that such statements “should be judged differently – and therefore be regarded as permissible – because they were used by one side in an ongoing and far-reaching conflict where calls to arms and insults are part of the everyday climate in the rhetoric that surrounds this conflict”.

Political correctness, election tactics or fear of radical Islam?

There are several comments to be made regarding the Chancellor’s remarkable statement. One is that it is important to remember in this election year that there is a sizeable Muslim minority in Sweden (Muslims number 400,000 souls in Sweden out of a total population of 9 million, whereas there are about 16,000 Jews living in that country)."

"An undignified spectacle" (Alexander Chancellor, The Guardian, 2006/04/08)
"When I visited Turkey last week on an inaugural London-to-Ankara flight, I decided the country was clearly ripe for membership of the European Union. Only a short walk from my hotel I found a Marks & Spencer, a McDonald's, a Body Shop and a Mothercare. I could have been in Milton Keynes.
But on the flight home next day, a stewardess gave me a copy of the Daily Telegraph that threatened to change my view. It contained a story from Ankara, the city I had just left, bearing the headline Muslims Accused of Killing "Unclean" Dogs. The report said a Turkish vet caring for stray animals had come across hundreds of dead dogs in a municipal dump. These were said to have been left there by city workers who liked to round up, torture and kill dogs because they believed them "unclean".
This made me wonder if Turkey really is ready to join Europe. True, its people seemed charming, intelligent and civilised; and its capital city could boast an M&S. But this was no way to treat a dog. Furthermore, the report included the distressing detail that at least two of the dead dogs had been sexually abused. Why would you want sexually to abuse a dog if you considered it "unclean"? It made no sense, but it suggested that the founder of modern Turkey, the great Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, had died before Europeanising his country as fully as he would have liked."

Friday, April 7, 2006

News and commentary:

"US suspends aid to Palestinians" (BBC News, 2006/04/07)
"The United States says it will suspend direct aid to the Palestinian government now led by Hamas.
But the US will boost humanitarian aid to Palestinians through UN aid agencies, a spokesman said.
The US statement came the same day the European Union announced it was suspending direct aid payments to the Palestinian government.
The US and the EU want Hamas to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past peace agreements.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, reading a statement from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the US was 'suspending assistance to the Palestinian government, cabinet and ministries.'"

"EU suspends aid to Palestinians" (BBC News, 2006/04/07)
"The European Commission has temporarily halted direct aid payments to the Palestinian government, which is now led by militant group Hamas.
European Union foreign ministers are due to meet next week to discuss what to do about future aid.
The EU is the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority, which is reliant on foreign aid.
The EU has been threatening to cut off direct payments unless Hamas renounces violence and recognises Israel.
A spokesman for the Hamas government said the decision to suspend aid was a form of "blackmail" that would harm the Palestinian people.
A European Commission spokeswoman, Emma Udwin, told reporters in Brussels that Hamas had not yet met the international community's conditions, which include a call for Hamas to accept past peace agreements with Israel."

"Mosque Explosion Kills 46 in Iraq" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/07)
"Two suicide attackers wearing women's cloaks blew themselves up Friday in a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad, killing at least 46 people and wounding scores, police said. It was the second major attack against Shiite targets in as many days. ...
The attack occurred as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers, the main weekly religious service. Earlier Friday, the Interior Ministry cautioned people in Baghdad to avoid crowds near mosques and markets due to a car bomb threat.
A prominent Shiite politician, Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, was among the worshippers but police said he was unhurt.
Rescuers carried the bodies from the mosque compound on makeshift wooden wheelbarrows and loaded them on the backs of pickup trucks. The Baghdad city council urged Iraqis to donate blood for those wounded.
On Thursday, a car bomb exploded about 300 yards from the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, the most sacred shrine in Iraq for Shiite Muslims. Ten people were killed, police said."

"UN officials find evidence of secret uranium enrichment plant" (Con Coughlin, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/04/07)
"United Nations officials investigating Iran's nuclear programme say they have found convincing evidence that the Iranians are working on a secret uranium enrichment project that has not been officially declared.
Suspicions were raised after officials from the UN-sponsored International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) travelled to Pakistan at the end of last year to interview A Q Khan, the atomic scientist who masterminded the successful development of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal.
Khan is known to have sold Teheran the technical expertise to develop an atomic bomb, together with key components, such as sophisticated equipment for enriching uranium. During the interview with IAEA inspectors, Khan is said to have provided a full disclosure of the nuclear dossier he gave the Iranians. The inspectors compared Khan's material against the documentation the Iranians have so far provided.
"There are a number of glaring inconsistencies between what the Iranians are telling us and the information the IAEA got from Khan," said a diplomat closely involved in the IAEA's negotiations with Teheran. 'Consequently the IAEA inspectors are now convinced that the Iranians have another, small-scale uranium processing and enrichment project that is being kept secret from the outside world.'"

Thursday, April 6, 2006

News and commentary:

"The rise of the Islamist axis" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/04/06)
"On Monday, Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported that part of Ukraine's Soviet-era nuclear arsenal may well have found its way to Iran. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainians agreed to transfer the Soviet nuclear arsenal that remained in Ukraine after its independence to Russia. According to Novaya Gazeta, some 250 nuclear warheads never made it to Russia and are thought to have been sent to Iran instead. The report further noted that the warheads will remain operational until 2010. ...
It is impossible to assess the accuracy of the report. The Ukrainian government has dismissed its allegations. Russia may well have invented the story to shift media attention away from the growing awareness that Russian support for Teheran, Damascus and Hamas effectively places it in the enemy camp in the US-led war against global jihad.
But whether this particular report is true or false, there is no doubt that the danger to Israel and the rest of the Western world emanating from Iran and its allies is growing by the day. In recent testimony before the US Congress, John Negroponte, director of National Intelligence, said that the danger that Teheran "will acquire a nuclear weapon and the ability to integrate it with ballistic missiles that Iran already possesses" is a cause 'for immediate concern.'"

"Cuba? It was great, say boys freed from US prison camp" (James Astill, The Guardian, 2006/04/06)
"Asadullah strives to make his point, switching to English lest there be any mistaking him. "I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great," said the 14-year-old, knotting his brow in the effort to make sure he is understood.
Not that Asadullah saw much of the Caribbean island. During his 14-month stay, he went to the beach only a couple of times - a shame, as he loved to snorkel. And though he learned a few words of Spanish, Asadullah had zero contact with the locals.
He spent a typical day watching movies, going to class and playing football. He was fascinated to learn about the solar system, and now enjoys reciting the names of the planets, starting with Earth. Less diverting were the twice-monthly interrogations about his knowledge of al-Qaida and the Taliban. But, as Asadullah's answer was always the same - "I don't know anything about these people" - these sessions were merely a bore: an inevitably tedious consequence, Asadullah suggests with a shrug, of being held captive in Guantanamo Bay.
On January 29, Asadullah and two other juvenile prisoners were returned home to Afghanistan."

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

News and commentary:

"Yes, It's Anti-Semitic" (Eliot A. Cohen, The Washington Post, 2006/04/05)
Cohen on "The Israel Lobby": "Inept, even kooky academic work, then, but is it anti-Semitic? If by anti-Semitism one means obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews; if one accuses them of disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments; if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information -- why, yes, this paper is anti-Semitic. ...
In this world Douglas Feith manipulates Don Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney takes orders from Richard Perle. They dwell on public figures with Jewish names and take repeated shots at conservative Christians (acceptable subjects for prejudice in intellectual circles), but they never ask why a Sen. John McCain today or, in earlier years, a rough-hewn labor leader such as George Meany declared themselves friends of Israel.
The authors dismiss or ignore past Arab threats to exterminate Israel, as well as the sewer of anti-Semitic literature that pollutes public discourse in the Arab world today. The most recent calls by Iran's fanatical -- and nuclear weapons-hungry -- president for Israel to be "wiped off the map" they brush aside as insignificant. There is nothing here about the millions of dollars that Saudi Arabia has poured into lobbying and academic institutions, or the wealth of Islamic studies programs on American campuses, though they note with suspicion some 130 Jewish studies programs on those campuses. West Bank settlements get attention; terrorist butchery of civilians on buses or in shopping malls does not. To dispute their view of Israel is not to differ about policy but to act as a foreign agent."

More on "The Israel Lobby":
The article: "The Israel Lobby" (John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The London Review of Books, 2006/03/23)
The study [PDF]: "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" (Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, Harvard University, March 2006)

"The Jewish threat" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/03/24)
"The graves of academe" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2006/03/21)
"Stephen Walt's War with Israel" (Richard Baehr and Ed Lasky, The American Thinker, 2006/03/20)
"David Duke Claims to Be Vindicated By a Harvard Dean" (Eli Lake, New York Sun, 2006/03/20)

Tuesday, April 4, 2006

News and commentary:

"Some Say Iran's Weapons Come From Russia" (Lee Keath, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/04)
"Iran has unveiled with great fanfare a series of what it portrays as sophisticated, homegrown weapons — flying boats and missiles invisible to radar, torpedoes too fast to elude.
But experts said Tuesday it appears much of the technology came from Russia and questioned Iran's claims about the weapons' capabilities.
Still, the armaments, tested during war games by some 17,000 Revolutionary Guards in the Persian Gulf, send what may be Iran's real message: its increased ability to hit oil tankers if tension with America turns to outright confrontation.
To underline that message, the maneuvers — code-named "The Great Prophet" — have been held since Friday around the Strait of Hormuz, the 34-mile-wide entrance to the Gulf through which about two-fifths of the world's oil supplies pass. ...
The new weapons, many of them shown on Iranian state TV during their tests, have come with impressive claims:

• A missile, the Fajr-3, that is invisible to radar and able to strike several targets with multiple warheads.

• A high-speed torpedo, the Hoot, able to move at some 223 mph, up to four times faster than a normal torpedo, and fired by ships cloaked to radar.

• A surface-to-sea missile, the Kowsar, with remote-control and searching systems that cannot be scrambled.

• A "super-modern flying boat," undetectable by radar and able to launch missiles with precise targeting while skimming low over the surface of the water at a top speed of 100 nautical mph.

There are questions over Iran's claims. In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said "the Iranians have been known to boast and exaggerate" their weapons capabilities."

"Islam's Imperial Dreams" (Efraim Karsh, OpinionJournal, 2006/04/04)
"From Muhammad to the Ottomans, the story of Islam has been the story of the rise and fall of an often astonishing imperial aggressiveness and, no less important, of never quiescent imperial dreams. Even as these dreams have repeatedly frustrated any possibility for the peaceful social and political development of the Arab-Muslim world, they have given rise to no less repeated fantasies of revenge and restoration and to murderous efforts to transform fantasy into fact. If, today, America is reviled in the Muslim world, it is not because of its specific policies but because, as the preeminent world power, it blocks the final realization of this same age-old dream of regaining, in Zawahiri's words, the "lost glory" of the caliphate.
Nor is the vision confined to a tiny extremist fringe. This we saw in the overwhelming support for the 9/11 attacks throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, in the admiring evocations of bin Laden's murderous acts during the crisis over the Danish cartoons, and in such recent findings as the poll indicating significant reservoirs of sympathy among Muslims in Britain for the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July. In the historical imagination of many Muslims and Arabs, bin Laden represents nothing short of the new incarnation of Saladin, defeater of the Crusaders and conqueror of Jerusalem. In this sense, the House of Islam's war for world mastery is a traditional, indeed venerable, quest that is far from over. ...
To deny its force is the height of folly, and to imagine that it can be appeased or deflected is to play into its hands. Only when it is defeated, and when the faith of Islam is no longer a tool of Islamic political ambition, will the inhabitants of Muslim lands, and the rest of the world, be able to look forward to a future less burdened by Saladins and their gory dreams."

"Al-Qaida planning terrorist attacks in Gaza" (The Jerusalem Post, 2006/04/04)
"Al-Hayat, an Arabic newspaper published in London, reported that an al-Qaida affiliated group operating in Gaza is planning terrorist attacks against sensitive targets in the area.
Jordanian intelligence sources told the paper that the group has about 10 members.
Al-Hayat also reported that al-Qaida recently appointed a chief for the region of Jordan, Israel, Syria and Lebanon, according to Israel Radio.
Al-Qaida is taking advantage of the lawlessness in Gaza to establish operational networks." (See also: "Al Qaeda's Master Plan" (Olivier Guitta, Tech Central Station, 2006/04/03))

"Most wanted terrorist 'kicked out as leader' for bloody tactics" (Richard Beeston, The Times, 2006/04/04)
"ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI, the most feared commander in the Iraqi insurgency, may have been forced to surrender his leadership by rival groups, angered by his bloody tactics and the interference of foreign fighters in the Iraqi conflict.
According to Huthayfah Azzam, the son of Abdullah Azzam, al-Zarqawi’s former mentor, the notorious commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq was stripped of his political duties at a meeting two weeks ago.
“The Iraqi resistance high command asked al-Zarqawi to give up his political role and replaced him with an Iraqi because of several mistakes,” said Mr Azzam in an interview with al-Arabiya, the Arabic news channel. “Al-Zarqawi’s role has been limited to military action,” he said. ...
Mr Azzam, whose father is known as the “prince of the Mujahidin”, said that he was accused of “creating an independent group” in Iraq, “making political mistakes” and hijacking the Iraqi insurgency for his own cause.
The claims could not be confirmed, but they did add to mounting evidence that al-Zarqawi has been increasingly isolated over the past months because of his ruthless tactics."

"Death OK'd for Moussaoui" (Jerry Seper, The Washington Times, 2006/04/04)
"A federal jury yesterday said Zacarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda terrorist who pleaded guilty to conspiring with the hijackers who crashed airplanes into U.S. targets, is eligible for the death penalty, setting up a second phase of deliberations to determine whether he should be executed. ...
The jury of nine men and three women found that Moussaoui's lies to FBI agents after his August 2001 arrest in Minneapolis on immigration charges and his decision to conceal from the agents information he had about the pending attack led directly to at least one death. ...
Now that the jury has determined that Moussaoui is eligible for execution, the next phase of the penalty trial will decide whether he deserves to die.
Moussaoui sat silently and prayed during the nine-minute session as the verdict was read. He refused to stand when asked to do so by U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema. Afterward, he said: 'You'll never get my blood. God curse you all.'"

Added today:
"Al Qaeda's Master Plan" (Olivier Guitta, Tech Central Station, 2006/04/03)

Monday, April 3, 2006

News and commentary:

"Illiberal Europe" (Gerard Alexander, AEI, 2006/04/03)
"But the anti-incitement laws now regularly target people who are well within the political mainstream. This is political correctness backed up with prison time.":
"Nevertheless, three disturbing trends now underway in Europe together represent the greatest erosion of democratic practice in the world's advanced democracies since 1945. First, anti-Nazi laws are being adopted in places where neo-Nazism poses no serious threat. Second, speech laws have been dramatically expanded to sanction speech that "incites hatred" against groups based on their religion, race, ethnicity, or several other characteristics. Third, these incitement laws are being interpreted so loosely that they chill not just extremist views but mainstream ones too. The result is a serious distortion and impoverishment of political debate. ...
Especially since the 1970s, Western Europeans have been passing bans on speech that "incites hatred" based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, and other criteria. ... This is spreading to the European Union level, where a stream of rules now prohibits the broadcast, including online, of any program or ad that incites "hatred based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation" or -- crucially -- is "offensive to religious or political beliefs." ...
Between Europe's speech laws, hypersensitivity, and cynical demagoguery, constructive criticism can become virtually impossible, and self-censorship the norm. The effects are plain to see. European politicians, media outlets, and university discussions are routinely uncomfortable airing information -- say, about rates of crime -- that reflects unfavorably on the members of groups such as citizens of African or Middle Eastern descent, for fear that it will fuel negative stereotypes of these groups and open the broadcaster to charges of inciting hatred. Last fall, many French politicians and commentators carefully avoided characterizing the identities of the "youths" rioting in dozens of French cities and towns, and did not aggressively pursue that issue when peace was restored. This leaves it unclear even now who did what and why in the rioting -- knowledge that is a prerequisite for a serious policy response to what happened."

"DeMos: Interview with Naser Khader" (Agora, 2006/04/03)
The Danish Cartoon affair II. A translated transcript of an interview with Naser Khader in the programme ‘Søndag’ from DR’s TV-Avisen:
"Natasja Crone: What happened the first time you heard about this clip where Akkari made the remarks we are about to see?
Naser Khader: I would like to emphasise this: I didn’t have a nervous breakdown. I didn’t go into hiding. But I needed a time-out. And that’s not so much because of what the ridiculous Akkari says that’s the problem. It was what came before. I was contacted by the French journalist who produced the programme who told me that this group, they hate me with a vengeance, that my name is mentioned every five minutes, that they’re conducting a massive smear campaign against me, not only in Denmark, but also in the Islamic world. ...
Natasja Crone: But what were your thoughts when you heard this? When the things you describe happened in the media - the headlines, they’ll bomb you and so on. When did you make the decision, what were your thoughts?
Naser Khader: The threats, they’ve been there for several years. that was a factor. And the more threats I receive, the more limits are placed on my freedom. And I also had to consider my general position; is it a condition for the rest of my life that I’ll have to limit my Freedom of Movement? Is it also a condition for the rest of my family? ...
Natasja Crone: These threats also mean that you live under constant Police protection. How does that work?
Naser Khader: That’s also a factor. The more threats, the more protection and the less freedom. That’s unpleasant. It’s unpleasant to have to constantly have to plan what to do. Just having to go and buy a litre of Milk needs to be planned. Just going to the movies with the kids, or to BR to buy some toys it has to be planned."

"'We are Facing an Incognizable Enemy from Within'" (Jesper Larsen, Berlingske Tidende/Agora, 2006/04/03)
The Danish Cartoon affair I. A translated interview with Naser Khader, the leader of the Democratic Muslims in Denmark, who has been in hiding because of threats on his life:
"'Look at this, see the hate,' he says and in quick succession reads from several postings: “Naser Khader is a pig, I hate Naser Khader, fucking hypocrite, he should be trampled to death, Naser Khader doesn’t care about us other Moslems.”
He closes the website where much more of the same kind can be read.
“Even on a website as harmless as that I am smeared massively, even by school-children. And that’s my point, that we are dealing with extremist Imams who defer from encouraging violence and terror. But when Abu Laban e.g. says that I am a rat - why does he say that, why doesn’t he say that I am a pig? It’s because rats are exterminated. An Imam in the south of Jutland said that those who hate Naser Khader will go to paradise. The Imams do not directly encourage violence and terror - but when they focus their hate on a single person, it can have serious consequences. The same thing happened to Van Gogh - no Imams in the Netherlands said he should be killed. But the organized hatred was so massive that he was made an outlaw and in the end someone killed him independently.”
So it’s the psychopath you fear?
“Yes. If you take a look at some of the people in the entourage of some of the Imams, they’re short-cropped psychopaths, they remind me of Nazis.”
How does your family feel the pressure?
“My niece went to an Arab wedding where several people walked out because she was related to the traitor. My nephew was apprenticed to a Pakistani mechanic - when he found out I was his uncle, he was fired. My mother receives calls from the Middle East where she is told what will be done to me and the family.”
What?
“All kinds of things, I won’t go into details. But I’m not the only target, my extended family is also a target.”
Are you afraid that the threats will be acted upon?
'Yes.'" (See also: "Imams Busted by Hidden Camera" (Jyllands-Posten/Agora, 2006/03/23))

"Dispatch from the Eurabian Front: Germany, Sweden, Belgium" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/04/03)
"The teachers of a German college, the Rütli-Hauptschule in the Berlin borough of Neukölln, have asked the authorities to close down their school. Last Thursday the school called in the police to protect the few native German students remaining in the predominantly immigrant school, where over 80% of the students are not of German origin. The German students and the teachers say that they are being terrorised by armed and violent thugs, who call them “racists” and treat Western girls and women as if they are “whores” and “sluts.” Last week, after several serious incidents, the teachers wrote an open letter asking the Berlin authorities to close down the college and distribute the students among other schools.
Following the appeal of the staff at Rütli College several other schools in Berlin and other German cities complain that they are facing similar problems. Volker Kauder, the leader of the Christian-Democrat group in the German parliament, comments that the situation in the schools indicates “the unwillingness of many young foreigners to integrate in German society.” Edmund Stoiber, the leader of the Bavarian Christian-Democrats, said yesterday that immigrants who do not want to integrate will have to be expelled." (See also: "Police brought in as teachers lose control at Berlin school" (Expatica, 2006/03/31) and "Police help control Berlin school" (BBC News, 2006/03/31))

"Al Qaeda's Master Plan" (Olivier Guitta, Tech Central Station, 2006/04/03)
"Palestinian Authority's President Abu Mazen's recent interview with the pan-Arabic daily Al Hayat is getting lots of attention. In fact, his recognition of Al Qaeda's presence in Gaza and the West Bank coupled with his warning of the "destruction of the whole region" because of the terrorist entity, is only confirming what Israeli security services have been saying for months: Al Qaeda is fast expanding in the neighborhood. ...
But an even more troublesome possible sign of Al Qaeda's expansion in the Palestinian territories has been revealed by the UAE daily Al Ittihad. A thus-far unknown Palestinian group named "The Army of Jihad and fight against corruption" has been sending messages to foreign diplomatic representatives in Gaza demanding that all personnel leave within a month. The communiqués call for all non-Muslim foreigners to leave Gaza. It also denounces a Western-style democracy on Muslim land and affirms its determination to impose sharia law. Finally it mentions that a man such as Saladeen, Bin Laden or Zarqawi is "on its way to Palestine to fight the symbols of corruption and the supporters of the infidels' democracy." These threats are not taken lightly because -- for instance, in the past six weeks -- Israel had warned France three times of kidnapping risks. Coincidence or not, according to the news Website Proche-Orient.info, France has very quietly asked that all its citizens leave Gaza and the West Bank (and apparently they have)."

"Fatwa against statues triggers uproar in Egypt" (AFP/Khaleej Times, 2006/04/03)
"CAIRO -A fatwa issued by Egypt’s top religious authority, which forbids the display of statues has art-lovers fearing it, could be used by Islamic extremists as an excuse to destroy Egypt’s historical heritage.
Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the country’s top Islamic jurist, issued the religious edict which declared as un-Islamic the exhibition of statues in homes, basing the decision on texts in the hadith (sayings of the prophet).
Intellectuals and artists argue that the decree represents a setback for art -- a mainstay of the multi-billion-dollar tourist industry -- and would deal a blow to the country’s fledgling sculpture business.
The fatwa did not specifically mention statues in museums or public places, but it condemned sculptors and their work.
Still, many fear the edict could prod Islamic fundamentalists to attack Egypt’s thousands of ancient and pharaonic statues on show at tourist sites across the country.
“We don’t rule out that someone will enter the Karnak temple in Luxor or any other pharaonic temple and blow it up on the basis of the fatwa,” Gamal al-Ghitani, editor of the literary Akhbar al-Adab magazine, told AFP."

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Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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

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

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

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