Archived news and commentary: September 11 - 17, 2006

2006/09/11 - 2006/09/17
2006/09/04 - 2006/09/10
2006/08/28 - 2006/09/03
2006/08/21 - 2006/08/27
2006/08/14 - 2006/08/20
2006/08/07 - 2006/08/13

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, September 17, 2006

News and commentary:

"ISLAM WILL CONQUER ROME"
(Joee Blogs, 2006/09/17)
From "Just outside Westminster Cathedral today..." (Joee Blogs, 2006/09/17):
"As we came out about 100 Islamists were chanting slogans such as "Pope Benedict go to Hell" "Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way" "Pope Benedict watch your back" and other hateful things." (Hat tip: LGF.)

"Associated Press and the Bilal Hussein case" (Michelle Malkin, michellemalkin.com, 2006/09/17)
"Pentagon says tonight that Bilal Hussein had strong insurgent ties:

The Pentagon said on Monday that an Iraqi photographer working for The Associated Press and held by the U.S. military since April was considered a security threat with "strong ties to known insurgents."
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there was sufficient evidence to justify the continued detention of Bilal Hussein, 35, who AP said was taken into U.S. military custody on April 12 in the Iraqi city of Ramadi and held since without charge.
He declined to elaborate on what that evidence was.
"All indications that I have received are that Hussein's detainment indicates that he has strong ties to known insurgents, and that he was doing things, involved in activities that were well outside the scope of what you would expect a journalist to be doing in that country," he said. ...

AP has maintained complete silence about the case. Until this morning. In a bombshell article filed by Robert Tanner (hat tip: Jim Lynch), we learn some very interesting--and damning details--confirming my initial report: ...

The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. "He has close relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnappings, smuggling, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and other attacks on coalition forces," according to a May 7 e-mail from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jack Gardner, who oversees all coalition detainees in Iraq.
"The information available establishes that he has relationships with insurgents and is afforded access to insurgent activities outside the normal scope afforded to journalists conducting legitimate activities," Gardner wrote to AP International Editor John Daniszewski."

(See also: "Pulitzer Prize Given to Terrorists" (Rusty Shackleford, The Jawa Report, 2005/04/04))

"Muslims read riot act" (Lincoln Wright, Herald Sun, 2006/09/17)
A sign of these depressing times is that a common sense approach is so rare that it sticks out like a "man bites dog" dispatch:
"AUSTRALIA'S Muslim leaders have been "read the riot act" over the need to denounce any links between Islam and terrorism.
The Howard Government's multicultural spokesman, Andrew Robb, yesterday told an audience of 100 imams who address Australia's mosques that these were tough times requiring great personal resolve.
Mr Robb also called on them to shun a victim mentality that branded any criticism as discrimination.
"We live in a world of terrorism where evil acts are being regularly perpetrated in the name of your faith," Mr Robb said at the Sydney conference.
"And because it is your faith that is being invoked as justification for these evil acts, it is your problem.
"You can't wish it away, or ignore it, just because it has been caused by others.
'Instead, speak up and condemn terrorism, defend your role in the way of life that we all share here in Australia.'"

"Pope sorry for offending Muslims" (BBC News, 2006/09/17)
Pope II: "Pope Benedict XVI has apologised in person for causing offence to Muslims in a speech in Bavaria last week.
He said the medieval text which he quoted did not express in any way his personal opinion, adding the speech was an invitation to respectful dialogue. ...
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood described the Pope's remarks as a "sufficient apology". ...
The Pope appeared on the balcony at his residence at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome for the Angelus blessing on Sunday.
"I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims," he told pilgrims."

"Italian nun shot dead in Somalia" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2006/09/17)
Pope I. Rod Liddle in today's Sunday Times: "You can bet your life that by the time you read this, some Catholic priest toiling away in a godforsaken, dusty hellhole — Sudan, perhaps, or Turkey — will have been smacked about a bit, or had his church burnt down or been arrested without charge.":
"An Italian nun was shot dead at a mothers' and children's hospital by unidentified Somali gunmen, doctors said Sunday.
"The nun was shot in the back," said Dr. Mohamed Yusuf. "She died of her injuries." The nun's bodyguard was also killed, doctors told The Associated Press.
The nun, who has not been identified, was shot at the entrance to the hospital in northern Mogadishu by two gunmen armed with pistols, Dr. Yusuf said.
A Somali man, who worked at the S.O.S. hospital where the nun was shot, was also killed."

Saturday, September 16, 2006

News and commentary:

"Depressing Times" (Victor Davis Hanson, Work and Days, 2006/09/16)
"Rarely has the death of a public intellectual affected me as much as the passing of Oriana Fallaci. I never met her, and only received a brief note once from her accompanying a copy of The Rage and the Pride. The story of her career is well known, but her death, at this pivotal time, was full of paradoxes and yet instruction as well.":
"In matters of the present war, I have given up on most of the neoconservatives, many of whom, following the perceived pulse of the battlefield, have either renounced their decade-long, pre-September 11 rants to remove Saddam (despite the 140,000 brave souls still on the field of battle who took them at their word), or turned on the President on grounds that he is not waging the perfect fight and thus is not pursuing the good war. The Paleo-right is as frightening as is the lunatic Left. My old Democratic party is long dead, their jackals trying to tear apart the solitary and stumbling noble stag Joe Liebermann, the old center taken over by the Kerry and Soros billionaires, and the guilt-ridden academic, celebrity and media cadres.
So we really are left with very little in these pivotal times—the will of George Bush, of course, the Old Breed unchanged since Okinawa and the Bulge that still anchors the US military, the courage and skill of a very few brave writers like a Hitchens, Krauthammer, and the tireless and brilliant Mark Steyn, but very, very few others. No, this is an age in which we in the West make smug snuff movies about killing an American President, while the Taliban and the Islamists boast of assassinating the Pope."

"Infantilizing Muslim 'rage'" (TigerHawk, 2006/09/16)
Pope VI: "Never in the history of Christianity has a pope been proven correct so quickly and demonstrably.
Predictably, the greatest beneficiaries of the Western enlightenment blamed reason, the true victim of Muslim rage through the ages. The editors of The New York Times said this morning, to the eternal discredit of that once great paper, that

[t]he world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.

This is obscene. Apart from its factual inaccuracy -- there is no evidence that any of the enraged Muslims "listened carefully" to the words of the pope -- this is like blaming a beaten wife for provoking the bastard who throttles her. It is the leaders of prayers in the mosques of the Muslim world who call on their faithful to riot in the streets. It is they who sow pain and incite violence, and anybody unburdened by a loathing of Western civilization knows it. Pope Benedict has nothing to apologize for." (See also: "The Pope’s Words" (The New York Times, 2006/09/16))

"Rioters' madness shames Muslim world" (Raymond J. de Souza, National Post, 2006/09/16)
Pope V: "Painful though it may be, speaking frankly is necessary if there is to be honest and open dialogue between the Abrahamic faiths. Given the reaction to Benedict's address, though, one wonders if that dialogue is even possible. ...
It is not only the obscenity of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist terrorist band suppressed in several Muslim states, demanding an apology from anyone, let alone the Holy Father.
It is not only the grandstanding Pakistani politicians passing resolutions condemning a papal speech few read, and even fewer understood. It is not only the extraneous charges about the Holocaust and Hitler by the agitated and excited.
It is that we have seen this before.
When Pope John Paul II made his epic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Palestinian Muslim representatives jostled him on the Temple Mount, shouted at him, and, in one episode of maximum rudeness, abandoned him on stage during an interfaith meeting. Bashir Assad, the Syrian President, treated him to an anti-Semitic rant when the late pope visited Syria.
Catholic goodwill toward global Islam is severely attenuated by such continued maltreatment of our universal pastors."

"Somali cleric calls for pope's death" (AFP/The Age, 2006/09/17)
Pope IV: "A HARDLINE cleric linked to Somalia's powerful Islamist movement has called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill Pope Benedict XVI for his controversial comments about Islam.
Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin urged Muslims to find the pontiff and punish him for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Allah in a speech that he said was as offensive as author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.
"We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion," he said in Friday evening prayers.
"Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," Malin, a prominent cleric in the Somali capital, told worshippers at a mosque in southern Mogadishu.
"We call on all Islamic Communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the pope," he said." (Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.)

"Pope's words spur attacks on Gaza, W. Bank churches" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/09/16)
Pope III: "A hitherto unknown group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Right on Saturday threatened to blow up all churches and Christian institutions in the Gaza Strip in protest against remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI about Islam and Prophet Muhammed.
The group, which claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on a church in Zaituon neighborhood in Gaza City on wounded in the attack.
"What the Pope said is unforgivable," the group said in a statement. "We will continue to target churches."
Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip make up less than 10% of the population. Most of them are located in Bethlehem and its surrounding villages and towns. Fewer than 2,000 Christians are reportedly living in the Gaza Strip, which is a stronghold for radical Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
On Saturday two more churches - neither of them Catholic - were attacked with firebombs in Nablus. As in Friday's attacks, no one was hurt."

"Pope 'sorry' for offence to Islam" (BBC News, 2006/09/16)
Pope II: "Pope Benedict XVI has said he is sorry that a speech in which he referred to Islam has offended Muslims.
In a statement read out by a senior Vatican official, the Pope said he respected Islam and hoped Muslims would understand the true sense of his words. ...
Reading the statement, new Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said the Pope's position on Islam was in line with Vatican teaching that the Church "esteems Muslims, who adore the only God".
"The Holy Father is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers," the statement said.
Our correspondent says the statement goes as far as it can towards an apology."

"Muslim anger with pope builds" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/16)
Pope I: "Anger with Pope Benedict XVI has intensified across the Muslim world, uniting Sunni Islam's leading authority, Malaysia's moderate premier and Afghanistan's extremist Taliban militia.
The Vatican says the pope's comments on Tuesday linking Islam and violence have been misinterpreted, but Muslim leaders have described them as offensive and many have demanded an immediate apology. ...
Afghanistan's Taliban militia, which sheltered the Al-Qaeda network before the September 11 attacks, said the pope's comments showed the Christian West was waging war against Muslims.
"We strongly condemn it," Taliban spokesman Mohammed Hanif told AFP. "We also want the pope to apologise before the Muslim Umma." ...
In Gaza City on Friday four small makeshift bombs exploded near the oldest Christian church, while Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya said the pope's comments 'go against the truth and touch the heart of our faith.'"

Friday, September 15, 2006

News and commentary:

"Italian veteran journalist and writer Oriana Fallaci..."
(AP, 2006/09/15)
"Italian veteran journalist and writer Oriana Fallaci sits in the back of an automobile in this undated photo that appeared on the back cover of her controversial book 'The Rage and the Pride.' Oriana Fallaci, a former war correspondent best known for her uncompromising interviews and provocative stances, has died in a Florence, Italy, hospital, Friday, Sept. 15, 2006. She was 76."

"Rage & Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, Corriere Della Sera/borg.com, 2001/09/29)
Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P. III. "This is a "literal" translation of a series of articles in italian, originally posted on September 29, 2001 on the web site of: Il Corriere Della Sera":
"You ask me to speak, this time. You ask me to break, at least on this occasion, my self imposed silence. Which I have imposed on myself for years in order not to be sucked into the fray. And I am doing it. Because I have heard that even in Italy some are rejoicing, like I saw the Palestinians rejoice on TV the other night. “Victory, Victory!”. Men, women, children. Admitting that one who is capable of such an act can be defined a Man, Woman or Child. I have heard that some fat cats, politicians or so-called politicians, intellectuals or so-called intellectuals, and other individuals that do not deserve the classification of being a citizen, have been acting substantially in the same manner as those in Gaza. They say: “Good, the Americans deserve it!”. And I am very, very, very angry. With a cold furious anger, lucid and rational. An anger that eliminates every obstacle, every indulgence. That compels me to respond to them and above all to spit on them. I spit on them. As angry as I, the American poet Maya Angelou yesterday roared: “Be angry. It’s good to be angry, it’s healthy.” I don’t know if it is healthy for me to be angry, but I know it is not going to be healthy for them, the admirers of Osama Bin Laden, and for those who express understanding or sympathy or solidarity for him. You have lit a fuse which for too long has been harboring the desire to explode. You will see."

"Oriana Fallaci has died" (Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 2006/09/15)
Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P. II: "She was one of the most fearless and courageous defenders Western civilization had in these latter days, and the West rewarded her by hounding, persecuting and vilifying her.
Such is the state of the society and culture she loved and tried to save from itself.
Many times in her last months, after she did me the honor of calling me her friend, I thought to myself, What can I do for Oriana? Of course, the only answer was to do exactly what I am doing here at this site, and in my books, and in traveling around the country speaking, trying to alert people to the reality and magnitude of the global jihad.
I invite you, then, on this day of sadness and loss, to pay tribute to Oriana. There is no way we can make up for what we have lost in her. But the best way we can pay tribute to Oriana is by becoming Oriana. Let there be a hundred new Orianas today, a thousand new passionate and articulate and absolutely unbowed defenders of Western culture and civilization, with a fine contempt for all the many weapons of physical and psychological intimidation that the jihadists and their non-Muslim allies and tools in the Western media and government establishments use to try to silence and discredit us."

"Italian writer Oriana Fallaci dies" (Alessandra Rizzo, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/15)
Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P. I: "ROME - Oriana Fallaci, the Italian writer and journalist best known for her abrasive interviews and provocative stances, has died, officials said Friday. She was 76.
Fallaci, who had been diagnosed with cancer years ago, died overnight in a private clinic in Florence, said Paolo Klun, an official with the RCS publishing group, which carried Fallaci's work. Klun said Fallaci, who lived in New York, had come back to her hometown days ago as her condition worsened.
Fallaci, a former Resistance fighter and war correspondent, was rarely seen in public.
During her journalistic career she became known for challenging interviews with such world leaders as former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and
Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. ...
Fallaci's recent publications — including the best-selling book "The Rage and The Pride," which came out weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks — drew accusations of racism and inciting hatred against Muslims."

See also:
"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)
"Oriana's latest bombshell" (Oriana Fallaci, Dagger in Hand, 2002/11/09)
"After the attacks by the Parisian press on "Rage and Pride" - I'm still not angry with France" (Oriana Fallaci, Dagger in hand, 2002/06/10)
"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)
"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

"Students back imam claims" (Aftenposten, 2006/09/15)
"Many Muslims in Norway support the controversial claims of some Oslo imams who doubt that Muslims were behind the terrorist attacks on the US in 2001. Among them are some students who don't believe Osama bin Laden gave the order to attack.
Junaid Tariq, age 23, said he's heard that bin Laden's terrorist network al-Qaida was behind the attacks. "But I don't know, and really don't believe that bin-Laden gave the order," Tariq told newspaper Aftenposten on Friday. "At any rate, I don't think it was Muslims who did it." ...
The leader of the Muslim student organization in Norway, Awais Mushtaq, shares the doubts of imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni that it was al-Qaida who was behind the attack on the World Trade Center, contending there are only "indications," no hard evidence." (See also: "On the weekend before the fifth anniversary of 9/11..." (Bruce Bawer, brucebawer.com, 2006/09/12))

"The Tehran Calculus" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2006/09/15)
"Then there is the larger danger of permitting nuclear weapons to be acquired by religious fanatics seized with an eschatological belief in the imminent apocalypse and in their own divine duty to hasten the End of Days. The mullahs are infinitely more likely to use these weapons than anyone in the history of the nuclear age. Every city in the civilized world will live under the specter of instant annihilation delivered either by missile or by terrorist. This from a country that has an official Death to America Day and has declared since Ayatollah Khomeini's ascension that Israel must be wiped off the map.
Against millenarian fanaticism glorying in a cult of death, deterrence is a mere wish. Is the West prepared to wager its cities with their millions of inhabitants on that feeble gamble?
These are the questions. These are the calculations. The decision is no more than a year away."

"Members of Muslim League Jammu Kashmir..."
(Rafiq Maqbool, AP, 2006/09/15)
"Members of Muslim League Jammu Kashmir (MLJK) shout slogans during a demonstration in Srinagar, India, Friday, Sept. 15, 2006. Police detained dozen of members of MLJK after they took out a protest demonstration against Pope Benedict XVI for making what it called 'derogatory' comments about Islam, and seeking an apology from him for hurting the sentiments of Muslims."

"Turkish lawmaker compares pope to Hitler" (Suzan Fraser, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/15)
Pope II: "Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party, said Benedict's remarks were either "the result of pitiful ignorance" about Islam and its prophet, or a deliberate distortion.
"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world," Kapusuz was quoted as saying by the state-owned Anatolia news agency. "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades."
"Benedict, the author of such unfortunate and insolent remarks, is going down in history for his words," he said. "He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as (Adolf) Hitler and (Benito) Mussolini. ...
In Beirut, Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric denounced the remarks Friday and demanded the pope personally apologize for insulting Islam.
"We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him (Benedict) to offer a personal apology — not through his officials — to Muslims for this false reading (of Islam)," Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told worshippers in his Friday prayers sermon. ...
But anger still swept across the Muslim world, with Pakistan's parliament unanimously adopting a resolution condemning the pope for making what it called "derogatory" comments about Islam, and seeking an apology from him.
"Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said."

"Muslim anger grows at Pope speech" (BBC News, 2006/09/15)
Pope I: "A statement from the Vatican has failed to quell criticism of Pope Benedict XVI from Muslim leaders, after he made a speech about the concept of holy war.
Speaking in Germany, the Pope quoted a 14th Century Christian emperor who said Muhammad had brought the world only "evil and inhuman" things.
The head of the Muslim Brotherhood said the Pope's remarks "aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world". ...
Sheikh Youssef al-Qardawi, a prominent Muslim cleric in Qatar, rejected the Pope's comments, in remarks reported by Reuters.
"Muslims have the right to be angry and hurt by these comments from the highest cleric in Christianity," Mr Qardawi reportedly said.
"We ask the Pope to apologise to the Muslim nation for insulting its religion, its Prophet and its beliefs."
The 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference also said it regretted the Pope's remarks, and news agencies reported a furious reaction on Islamic websites." (See also the full speech: "Faith, Reason and the University" (vatican.va, 2006/09/12). Also: "Pope lashes evil of jihad" (AFP/The Herald Sun, 2006/09/14))

"Fears for ancient treasures with Shia radical in charge" (Ned Parker, The Times, 2006/09/15)
"IRAQ’S archaeological riches face a dangerous new threat following the appointment of a minister from a radical Islamic party to run the department responsible for antiquities.
Within months qualified staff have been purged from their posts, archaeologists have been threatened by gunmen and some of Mesopotamia’s ancient sites have been left open to looters. There are fears that Iraq may lose many of its Sumerian and Babylonian treasures for ever.
“We are really worried that Iraq’s history is going to be destroyed and vandalised because of a group of lunatics,” one former member of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage told The Times. He was referring to followers of the Shia Muslim militia leader Hojatoleslam Moqtadr al-Sadr, whose movement has secured a number of Cabinet posts in government, including the Ministry of Tourism, responsible for antiquities."

"US outraged as Pakistan frees Taliban fighters" (Isambard Wilkinson, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/09/15)
"Pakistan's credibility as a leading ally in the war on terrorism was called into question last night when it emerged that President Pervez Musharraf's government had authorised the release from jail of thousands of Taliban fighters caught fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Five years after American-led coalition forces overthrew the Taliban during Operation Enduring Freedom, United States officials have been horrified to discover that thousands of foreign fighters detained by Pakistan after fleeing the battleground in Afghanistan have been quietly released and allowed to return to their home countries.
Pakistani lawyers acting for the militants claim they have freed 2,500 foreigners who were originally held on suspicion of having links to al-Qa'eda or the Taliban over the past four years." (See also: "Report: Pakistan truce gives Taliban a free hand in N. Waziristan, even bin Laden immune there if he is 'peaceful'" (Jihad Watch, 2006/09/05) and "Pakistan, militants sign peace deal" (Bashirullah Khan, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/05))

Thursday, September 14, 2006

News and commentary:

"Judge tells Saddam: 'You are not a dictator'" (Ibon Villelabeitia, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/14)
"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The judge in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial said on Thursday he did not think the ousted Iraqi leader was a "dictator," prompting a spokesman for the U.S.-sponsored court to defend its impartiality.
Abdulla al-Amiri made his comments one day after prosecutors demanded his resignation, complaining that he was too soft on Saddam, who had threatened to "crush the heads" of his accusers. They also complained he let Saddam make long speeches in court.
Questioning a Kurdish farmer who testified he had secured a face-to-face audience with Saddam in 1988 and begged him to spare the lives of his wife and seven children, the former president said: "If I'm a dictator, why did you come to see me?"
Amiri, who has compared his approach to the trial as that of a referee seeking "fairness," then addressed Saddam politely, saying: "You are not a dictator. It is the people who surround a man who make him a dictator." He did not elaborate.
Visibly pleased, Saddam uttered a respectful "Thank you" and then regained his seat in the Baghdad courtroom."

"Dubai's ruler accused of slavery" (BBC News, 2006/09/14)
"Dubai's ruler has been accused of enslaving thousands of young children for camel races in a class-action lawsuit filed in the US.
The action claims Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, his brother Hamdam and 500 others are responsible for abducting and trafficking the children.
It was filed on behalf of six unidentified parents and thousands of unnamed children.
There has been no comment on the action from the accused.
The children were said to be from Bangladesh, Sudan and southern Asia.
Once in Dubai, it is claimed that the children - some of them as young as two - were kept in poor conditions, starved (so as to keep their weight down), abused and forced to take part in a dangerous sport."

"Pope lashes evil of jihad" (AFP/The Herald Sun, 2006/09/14)
"POPE Benedict has hit out at Islam and its concept of holy war during a visit to his Bavarian homeland.
The thinly veiled attack on extremist Islam's justification for terrorism came during a theological lecture to staff and students at the University of Regensburg, where the former Joseph Ratzinger taught theology in the 1970s.
Using the words, "jihad" and "holy war", the Pope quoted criticisms of the prophet Mohammed by a 14th century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II, during a debate with a learned Persian.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached," Benedict quoted the emperor as saying.
"The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable," the Pope said.
"Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul," he added."

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

News and commentary:

"Al-Dura: The Trial (Part One)" (Nidra Poller, Politics Central, 2006/09/13)
"Starting September 14, three Frenchmen go on trial in Paris for questioning the veracity of the 2000 videotape of the putative murder of Palestinian child Mohammed Al-Dura by Israeli soldiers. ... We begin here with a stage-setting report from our Paris Editor Nidra Poller who will be attending the trials on our behalf.-ed.":
"The al-Dura story remains trapped in a gilded French cage six years after the fact; Hizbullah falsifications are out in the open and resulting in a few, admittedly hesitant and partial, changes in Western media practices. ...
Ambulances, press cars, convoys of fleeing villagers, refugees huddled in schools, mosques, convents are repeatedly attacked:…by Tsahal or by Hizbullah film directors? No one seems to care. The news reports are churned out and broadcast. The burden of proof is not in the image, not in the witness, but in the purpose served: do they illustrate the cruel inhumanity of Israelis? Yes? Then they are valid.
The technicolor accusations — Jenin massacre, Gaza Beach massacre, Qana massacre — gradually fall apart in the light of rational analysis and fade away when no longer sustainable, only to reappear when necessary, reconstituted, recycled, cleansed of the still unanswered legitimate questions about their validity. The narrative and the image are effaced but the effects are eternal.
A new kind of journalistic “ethics” has shifted the burden of proof from the originating source of the report to the challenger, placing the latter in the impossible position of proving that something did not occur."

"Muslim Leader: Netherlands Must Defend Dutch Values" (NIS News, 2006/09/13)
The Netherlands II: "Muslim leader Hikmat Mahawat Khan lashed out fiercely yesterday at the government. Instead of defending Dutch values, it fosters Islamic behaviour that does not belong in the Netherlands. "It is simply unacceptable," he stated in newspaper Trouw.
Khan is "fed up with pointless chit chat, tea sessions, rank-and-file-politics and all kinds of meetings. Hereby I am also referring to events by some immigrant organisation or other, where the local alderman for Integration holds a little speech and draws applause, before hurrying on to another, equally pointless meeting. The Netherlands is on fire and we still think we can continue in the same vein as twenty years ago". ...
"When the Queen did not shake hands with men in the Moubarek Mosque in The Hague, Prime Minister Balkenende said that was fine. Nonsense of course, people shake hands in the Netherlands; that is the custom here. Balkenende is causing a great deal of damage by saying this. The same applies to the cuddling talk of Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen. It is counterproductive."
Khan also criticises the double nationality held by most immigrants in the Netherlands. "Double nationality has a disastrous effect. Especially when MPs and other politicians also have them. It is simply unacceptable".
Khan's conclusion is unambiguous: 'Do away with palliative measures. Positive discrimination does more harm than good. It may yield a single immigrant a job but it creates huge annoyance among the indigenous Dutch population.'" (Hat tip: Tim Blair.)

"Minister Welcomes Sharia In Netherlands If Majority Wants It" (NIS News, 2006/09/13)
The Netherlands I: "Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner considers the Netherlands should give Muslims more freedoms to behave according to their traditions. Muslims refusing to shake hands is fine with him. And Sharia law could be introduced in the Netherlands democratically, in the minister's view.
Muslims have the right to experience their religion in ways that diverge from Dutch social codes, accordign to the Christian democrat (CDA) minister. He thinks Queen Beatrix was very wise not to insist on a Muslim leader shaking hands with her when she visited his mosque in The Hague earlier this year.
Integration Minister Verdonk did previously scold an imam who would not shake her hand. Without directly referring to this incident, Donner considers "a tone that I do not like has crept into the political debate. A tone of: 'Thou shalt assimilate. Thou shalt adopt our values in public. Be reasonable, do it our way'. That is not my approach".
Donner strongly disagrees with a recent plea by CDA parliamentary leader Maxime Verhagen for a ban on parties seeking to launch Sharia (Islamic law) in the Netherlands. "For me it is clear: if two-thirds of the Dutch population should want to introduce the Sharia tomorrow, then the possibility should exist," according to Donner. 'It would be a disgrace to say: 'That is not allowed!''" (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

News and commentary:

"On the weekend before the fifth anniversary of 9/11..." (Bruce Bawer, brucebawer.com, 2006/09/12)
Gaining strength II: "On the weekend before the fifth anniversary of 9/11, I noticed on the website of Aftenposten, Norway’s closest thing to a newspaper of record, that the paper planned to mark the anniversary with two live online discussions. They were described as follows.
“On Monday it will be five years since the terror attack that changed the world. Many Muslims feel that they have become the objects of suspicion since September 11, 2001. On Monday at 10 AM, meet imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni, head of Norway’s united ulama (scholars), in an Internet chat at Aftenposten.no….":
"Yet when asked explicitly about Al Qaida and Bin Ladin – the perfect opportunity to “explicitly reject terrorist acts” performed in the name of Islam – he denies their existence:

What is your honest opinion of Al Qaida and Bin Laden?
Espen, Oslo

Imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni: I think it is something that has been made up.

Asked about 9/11, he claims to believe that the attacks were carried out by the U.S government:

Do you believe that the US was behind the September 11 attacks? I do!
johan, oslo

Imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni: I totally agree with you.

What do you think about the speculations as to whether 9/11 was only an extreme bluff by the American government? There is a little doubt as to whether the attack has strengthened Bush’s position and given even more money to the rich, white capitalists.
Kristian, Oslo

Imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni: A good deal of evidence suggests that it is Bush &co that are behind it all. Watch the film called "Loose Change.” An American film!

Such are the views of the official leader of Muslim theologians in Norway. ... Some of the readers’ questions, however, are no less disturbing than the imam’s answers. Taken together, they paint a bleak portrait of the profoundly decadent state of mind of many Europeans today."

"Theory that U.S. orchestrated Sept. 11 attacks 'not absurd': Venezuela" (Breitbart.com, 2006/09/12)
Gaining strength I: "CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that it's at least plausible that the U.S. government was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Chavez did not specifically accuse the U.S. government of having a hand in the Sept. 11 attacks, but rather suggested that theories of U.S. involvement bear examination.
The Venezuelan leader, an outspoken critic of U.S. President George W. Bush, was reacting to a television report investigating a theory that the Twin Towers were brought down with explosives after hijacked airplanes crashed into them in 2001.
"The hypothesis is not absurd . . . that those towers could have been dynamited," Chavez said in a speech to supporters. "A building never collapses like that, unless it's with an implosion."
"The hypothesis that is gaining strength . . . is that it was the same U.S. imperial power that planned and carried out this terrible terrorist attack or act against its own people and against citizens of all over the world," Chavez said."

"Gunmen repelled at U.S. Embassy in Syria" (Sam F. Ghattas, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/12)
"DAMASCUS, Syria - Armed Islamic militants attempted to storm the U.S. Embassy in a brazen attack Tuesday, the government said. Four people were killed, including three of the assailants. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but an al-Qaida offshoot group was suspected, Syria's ambassador to the United States said.
No Americans were hurt in the attack, in which the militants used automatic rifles, hand grenades and at least one van rigged with explosives.
The al-Qaida offshoot group, called Jund al-Sham, has been blamed for several attacks in Syria in recent years, the Syrian ambassador, Imad Moustapha, said in comments to CNN. ...
One of Syria's anti-terrorism forces was killed and 11 other people were wounded, the official news agency reported. The wounded including a police officer, two Iraqis and seven people employed at nearby technical workshop. ...
Witnesses also said the gunmen tried to throw hand grenades into the embassy compound, shouting "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" It was not clear if any of the grenades made it over the walls, which are about 8 feet high."

"One Arab's Apology" (Emilio Karim Dabul, New York Post, 2006/09/12)
"WELL, here it is, five years late, but here just the same: an apology from an Arab-American for 9/11. No, I didn't help organize the killers or contribute in any way to their terrible cause. However, I was one of millions of Arab-Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing.
The only time I raised my voice in protest against these men who killed thousands of innocents in the name of Allah was behind closed doors, among the safety of friends and family. I did at one point write a very vitriolic essay condemning their actions, but fear of becoming another Salman Rushdie kept me from ever trying to publish it.
Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs around the world, including Arab-Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large.
Yes, our extremists and our culture.
Every single 9/11 hijacker was Arab and a Muslim. The apologists (including President Bush) tried to reassure us that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, but was a twisting of a great and noble religion. With all due respect, read the Koran, Mr. President. There's enough there for someone of extreme tendencies to find their way to a global jihad."

"Stop blaming America for terrorism" (Anne Applebaum, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/09/12)
"But it's also true that this initial wave of goodwill hardly outlasted the news cycle. Within a couple of days a Guardian columnist wrote of the "unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population". A Daily Mail columnist denounced the "self-sought imperial role" of the United States, which he said had "made it enemies of every sort across the globe".
That week's edition of Question Time featured a sustained attack on Phil Lader, the former US ambassador to Britain – and a man who had lost colleagues in the World Trade Centre – who seemed near to tears as he was asked questions about the "millions and millions of people around the world despising the American nation". At least some Britons, like many other Europeans, were already secretly or openly pleased by the 9/11 attacks.
And all of this was before Afghanistan, before Tony Blair was tainted by his friendship with George Bush, and before anyone knew the word "neo-con", let alone felt the need to claim not to be one."

"Nato rejects appeal to boost Afghan troops" (Michael Evans et al., The Times, 2006/09/12)
"SOME OF America’s closest Nato allies have abandoned Washington on the key battleground of the War on Terror, the bloody struggle against Islamic militants for control of southern Afghanistan.
Five years after the world stood “shoulder to shoulder” with America in the aftermath of 9/11, The Times has learnt that many of the countries that pledged support then have now ignored an urgent request for more help in fighting a resurgent Taleban and its al-Qaeda allies.
Turkey, Germany, Spain and Italy have all effectively ruled out sending more troops. France has not committed itself either way, but the military sources in Kabul said that there were no expectations that the French would contribute to a new battlegroup, especially now that they were providing a substantial force in Lebanon.
They have rejected an appeal from General James Jones, the American Supreme Allied Commander Europe, for 2,500 more troops to fight alongside American, British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers. The 26-nation alliance has not volunteered a single extra combat soldier."

Monday, September 11, 2006

News and commentary:

"Patricia Smith, held the hand of her father..."
(Spencer Platt, Getty Images, 2006/09/11)
From "A Day to Remember" (The New York Times, 2006/09/11):
"Patricia Smith, held the hand of her father, James Smith, as names of the victims were read aloud during the ceremony. Patricia's mother, police officer Moira Smith, was killed on Sept. 11, 2001."

"Five years on" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2006/09/11)
"The real problem is that we are in a world war but few will acknowledge that fact. In the Times at the weekend, David Selbourne laid out the gross delusions currently undermining the defence of the west. An enormous fifth column of appeasers, quislings and defeatist whingers across the political spectrum has been willing the west to defeat ever since 9/11. And even the most apparently bullish in the US and UK adminstrations are still failing to follow the logic of their own rhetoric. If this really is a war, as President Bush has constantly told us, then why isn’t it being fought like one? How could the mayhem in Iraq ever have been prevented or controlled on the cheap with so few troops? How on earth can the conflagration in Afghanistan be contained with so few troops and equipment? How can order be brought to Iraq when no action is being taken against the principal causes of the disorder, Iran and Syria?
How can we act against the continuum of Islamic extremism which is providing the sea in which the jihad swims, when we are not even prepared to acknowledge that such a continuum exists, and demonise those who try to warn against it? How can we defend the free world when we are doing our damnedest to sacrifice Israel, the front-line nation in that defence, as a scapegoat instead of coming to its own defence? How can a war to defend a civilisation be fought apologetically, with two hands tied behind our backs and with the hostile camera lenses of CNN and the BBC trained against our own troops and primed to inflate every casualty into an atrocity, against an enemy that by contrast is prepared both to slaughter and to die in vast and bloody numbers for its beliefs? How can we defend our own beliefs if we can no longer even agree what they are?"

"9/11, Five Years Later: A View from Europe" (Bruce Bawer, De Volksrant, 2006/09/02)
"On 9/11, I would never have imagined that five years later, a man who refuses to condemn the stoning of female adulterers would be respected as the leading voice of “moderate” European Islam; that European governments would still be funding within their borders mosques and Muslim schools that teach contempt for democracy, Jews, gays, and sexual equality; that Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen would argue for accepting the oppression of Muslim women in the West; and that Britain would still be sheltering radical clerics, Queen Elizabeth knighting the likes of Iqbal Sacranie (who calls homosexuality “unacceptable”), and London mayor Ken Livingstone praising as “progressive” the above-mentioned al-Qaradawi (who has defended suicide bombers and the execution of gays). The delusion endures: in August, the AP reported that Germans were “stunned” by news of a planned train bombing in their country because they thought their “opposition to the Iraq war would insulate” them from terrorism; and Britain’s “Communities Secretary,” following the arrest of “English lads” who’d planned to blow up London-to-U.S. flights, promised to consider a proposal by Muslim leaders to pacify would-be domestic bombers by introducing sharia law in immigrant areas."

"Global media abhors US response to 9/11" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/11)
Ah, yes, the huge pool of compassion and solidarity was a wondrous thing to behold:
"Newspapers strongly criticised the US response to September 11, accusing the Bush administration of bungling its "war on terror" and squandering global goodwill by invading Iraq. ...
Left-leaning French newspaper Liberation said Bush's leadership of the "war on terror" had been disastrous.
"The Bush administration has succeeded in destroying the huge pool of compassion and solidarity which gripped the world after September 11," said the paper. ...
Many Arab newspapers said the US campaign and the invasion of Iraq had pushed the world closer to a clash of civilisations between the West and the Muslim world.
"The administration of George W. Bush used a vengeful mentality in dealing with the 9/11 crime and has turned the entire world into a battleground," wrote the editor-in-chief of the independent Al-Ghad daily in Jordan, Ayman Safadi.
Saudi Arabia's Al-Jazira said US policy had turned Iraq into an incubator for terrorism. "US policy has failed and has turned the war on terror into a clash of civilisations," said the paper.
The United Arab Emirates daily Al-Khaleej added: 'Bush's policies have not brought security to Americans and have instead brought chaos to the entire world.'" (See also: "The Legend of the Squandered Sympathy" (John Rosenthal, Transatlantic Intelligencer, 2004/10/06))

"Al-Qaida lieutenant warns of new attacks" (Lee Keath, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/11)
"CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida's No. 2 condemned U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon as enemies of Islam and warned the terror group will strike the Persian Gulf and Israel, suggesting new fronts in its war against the West in a video Monday marking the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. ...
"We have repeatedly warned you and offered a truce with you. Now we have all the legal and rational justification to continue to fight you until your power is destroyed or you give in and surrender," he said. "The days are pregnant and giving birth to new events."
Addressing the United States, al-Zawahri said "you should not waste your time" reinforcing troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, "because they are doomed to defeat."
"Instead, you have to reinforce your troops in two regions. First is the Gulf, where you will be thrown out after you are defeated in Iraq, at which point your economic ruin will be achieved," he said. 'The second is Israel, because the jihad reinforcements are getting closer to it.'"

"So this is what they mean by moderate voices" (Richard Littlejohn, The Daily Mail, 2006/09/11)
Abdul Bari II: "Far from being a bigot, I judge the MCB on exactly the same terms as any other bunch of spivs and opportunists. They are the ones hiding behind religion for political ends. I certainly don’t need any lessons in bigotry from someone like Bari, who invites as an honoured guest to his East London mosque a ‘radical’ cleric who describes Jews as ‘monkeys and pigs’.
Perhaps while the Muslim Council is accusing others of bigotry it would like to share with us its enlightened views on homosexuality and arranged marriages.
‘Islamophobia’ is just another of those catch-all, smear-the-messenger fantasies dreamed up to close down debate and stifle free speech.
When you examine closely Bari’s latest outburst, it is nothing short of monstrous. What he is saying is that every Muslim in this country is a potential terrorist.
If anything is guaranteed to increase suspicion of Muslims it is incendiary statements like that."

"Threat of up to two million Muslim terrorists, warns community leader" (Steve Doughty, The Daily Mail, 2006/09/11)
Abdul Bari I: "Britain will face have to deal with up to two million Islamic terrorists unless there is an end to 'demonising' of Muslims, the leader of the most influential Muslim organisation has said.
Treating all Muslims as if they were terrorists will encourage large numbers to become terrorists, Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari said.
The warning from the chief of the Muslim Council of Britain - the grouping that Tony Blair's Government has considered the leading voice for Muslims - came amid rising tensions over the increasingly suspicious attitude to Muslims in the rest of society.
Dr Bari declared: "Some police officers and sections of the media are demonising Muslims, treating them as if they are all terrorists, and that encourages other people to do the same.
"If that demonisation continues, then Britain will have to deal with two million Muslim terrorists, 700,000 of them in London. "If you attack a whole community, it becomes despondent and aggressive," he added."

"Militant site shows more al-Qaida videos" (Omar Sinan and Bassem Mroue, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/11)
"CAIRO, Egypt - A videotape posted on the Internet late Sunday, purportedly by al-Qaida, showed previously unseen footage of a smiling Osama bin Laden and other commanders in a mountain camp apparently planning the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The documentary-like retrospective of the five years since the attacks was unusually long — 91 minutes, split into two segments — and sophisticated in its production quality compared to previous al-Qaida videos. The footage — with English subtitles — surfaced Sunday night, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the attacks, on a Web site that frequently airs messages from bin Laden's terror network.
"Planning for Sept. 11 did not take place behind computer monitors or radar screens, nor inside military command and control centers, but was surrounded with divine protection in an atmosphere brimming with brotherliness ... and love for sacrificing life," an unidentified narrator said."

 

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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

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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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