Archived news and commentary: September 25 - October 1, 2006

2006/09/25 - 2006/10/01
2006/09/18 - 2006/09/24
2006/09/11 - 2006/09/17
2006/09/04 - 2006/09/10
2006/08/28 - 2006/09/03
2006/08/21 - 2006/08/27

› From 2001/09/11 -

Sunday, October 1, 2006

News and commentary:

"Ziad al-Jarrah, left, and Mohamed Atta"
(The Sunday Times, 2006/10/01)
"September 11, 2001 suicide pilots identified as Ziad al-Jarrah, left, and Mohamed Atta, appear together joking about making their will in a video dated January 18, 2000, more than a year before the 9/11 attacks in the United States."

"The laughing 9/11 bombers" (Yosri Fouda, The Sunday Times, 2006/10/01)
"FILM of the ringleader of the September 11 hijackers reading his “martyrdom” will inside Afghanistan at Osama Bin Laden’s headquarters has emerged five years after the Al-Qaeda outrage.
It is the first time that a videotape has appeared of Mohammed Atta — who flew an American Airlines plane into the north tower of the World Trade Center — at a training camp in Afghanistan. It fills in a significant gap in the timing of the build-up to the attacks on the United States.
Dates on the tape show Atta was filmed on January 18, 2000, together with Ziad Jarrah, the pilot of United Airlines flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after the passengers apparently stormed the flight deck. ...
American and German investigators have struggled to find evidence of Atta’s whereabouts in January 2000 after he disappeared from Hamburg. The hour-long tape places him in Afghanistan at a decisive moment in the development of the conspiracy when he was given operational command. Months later both he and Jarrah enrolled at flying schools in America."

"Is there blood on his hands?" (Adam LeBor, The Sunday Times, 2006/10/01)
"As Kofi Annan prepares to stand down as UN secretary-general, Adam LeBor investigates the accusations made against the world’s chief defender of human rights":
"Srebrenica is rarely mentioned nowadays in Annan’s offices on the 38th floor of the UN secretariat building in New York. He steps down in December after a decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence, mismanagement and worse. Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) between March 1993 and December 1996. The Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 men and boys and the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda happened on his watch. In Bosnia and Rwanda, UN officials directed peacekeepers to stand back from the killing, their concern apparently to guard the UN’s status as a neutral observer. This was a shock to those who believed the UN was there to help them.
Annan’s term has also been marked by scandal: from the sexual abuse of women and children in the Congo by UN peacekeepers to the greatest financial scam in history, the UN-administered oil-for-food programme. Arguably, a trial of the UN would be more apt than a leaving party."

"Secret Reports Dispute White House Optimism" (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post, 2006/10/01)
Excerpts from Bob Woodward's "State of Denial":
"On June 18, 2003, Jay Garner went to see Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to report on his brief tenure in Iraq as head of the postwar planning office. ...
"We've made three tragic decisions," Garner told Rumsfeld.
"Really?" Rumsfeld asked.
"Three terrible mistakes," Garner said.
He cited the first two orders Bremer signed when he arrived, the first one banning as many as 50,000 members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from government jobs and the second disbanding the Iraqi military. Now there were hundreds of thousands of disorganized, unemployed, armed Iraqis running around.
Third, Garner said, Bremer had summarily dismissed an interim Iraqi leadership group that had been eager to help the United States administer the country in the short term. "Jerry Bremer can't be the face of the government to the Iraqi people. You've got to have an Iraqi face for the Iraqi people."
Garner made his final point: "There's still time to rectify this. There's still time to turn it around."
Rumsfeld looked at Garner for a moment with his take-no-prisoners gaze. "Well," he said, 'I don't think there is anything we can do, because we are where we are.'"

Added today:
"Suicide of the West" (Theodore Dalrymple, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2006)
"Gunmen kill director of women's affairs for southern Afghanistan" (AP/IHT, 2006/09/25)
"The cemetery where all face Mecca" (Jonathan Wynne-Jones and Tom Harper, The Sunday Telegraph, 2006/09/24)
"Fiery Blast in Baghdad Kills 38" (Amit R. Paley and Salih Dehema, The Washington Post, 2006/09/24)

Saturday, September 30, 2006

News and commentary:

"Pakistan 'role in Mumbai attacks'" (BBC News, 2006/09/30)
"Pakistan's intelligence agency was behind the train blasts in Mumbai in July that killed 186 people, Indian police say.
The attacks were planned by the ISI and carried out by the Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba, based in Pakistan, Mumbai's police chief said.
AN Roy said the Students' Islamic Movement of India had also assisted.
Pakistan rejected the allegations and said India had given no evidence of Pakistani involvement in the attacks.
"We have solved the 11 July bombings case. The whole attack was planned by Pakistan's ISI and carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and their operatives in India," Mumbai (Bombay) police commissioner AN Roy told a news conference."

"I'm sorry ... for the terrible crimes committed by Muslims" (Salim Mansur, Toronto Sun, 2006/09/30)
"In a recent column, Michael Coren, my colleague here at the Sun, demanded Muslims apologize for wrongs too numerous to list.
Coren is right. I, as a Muslim, apologize without equivocation or reservation for the terrible crimes -- small and big -- committed by Muslims against non-Muslims and against Muslims, as in Darfur, who are weak and easy prey to those who hold power in the name of Islam.
I imagine, however, Coren is not seeking an apology from a person of Muslim faith such as I, who maintains no rank and cannot speak on behalf of the institutionalized world of Islam.
Like many others who share his frustration and legitimate anger, Coren is asking to hear a contrite voice from within institutionalized Islam -- to repent for Muslim misconduct, past and present, that is indefensible by any standard of civility and decency, and seek forgiveness.
But Coren and others might well wait indefinitely for such an apology from those representatives of institutionalized Islam convinced of their own righteousness, even as they are engineers of a civilization's wreckage and prosper in it by the art of bullying. ...
For such representatives of institutionalized Islam, all things are political. They are the authoritative guardians of the ideology that in Islam religion and politics are inseparable, and jihad -- holy war -- is its defining aspect.
Hence, since this institutionalized Islam is at war with the West, for Coren or anyone else to expect an apology from its generals is rather naive." (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

Friday, September 29, 2006

News and commentary:

"Teacher forced into hiding after attacking Islam" (Jenny Percival, The Times, 2006/09/29)
"Robert Redeker, 52, from Toulouse in south-west France, is receiving round-the-clock police protection and changing addresses every two days, after publishing an article describing the Koran as a "book of extraordinary violence" and Islam as "a religion which ... exalts violence and hate". ...
In an interview with i-TV he said that he had received several e-mail threats targeting himself and his wife and three children and that his photograph and address were available on several Islamist internet sites.
"There is a very clear map of how to get to my home, with the words: ’This pig must have his head cut off’," he said.
Another e-mail says: "You will never again be safe on this earth. One billion, 300 million Muslims are ready to kill you."
And interviewed over the telephone from a safe house by Europe 1 radio, he complained that the education ministry had left him alone and abandoned. He said the ministry "has not even contacted me, has not deigned to get in touch to see if I need any help."
He accepted that his detractors had "already won a victory of sorts."
"I cannot do my job. I have no freedom of movement. I am in hiding. Already they have succeeded in punishing me ... as if I was guilty of holding the wrong opinions."

See also:
"France: Philosophy Teacher Receives Muslim Death Threats For Islam Article" (Giraldus Cambrensis, Western Resistance, 2006/09/28)
"Writer of 'anti-Islam' article gets death threats" (Expatica, 2006/09/28)
"What should the free world do in the face of Islamist intimidation?" (Robert Redeker, Western Resistance, 2006/09/20)
"Tunisia: Muslims Ban French Newspaper For Questioning Islamic Intimidation" (Giraldus Cambrensis, Western Resistance, 2006/09/20)

"Death Threats in Brussels, France (Robert Redeker)" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/09/29)
"Yesterday the Belgian authorities decided to give police protection to people working in the Brussels prisons of Vorst and Sint-Gillis. The decision was taken after two jailers, on their way to work, were attacked on a Brussels tram. Immigrant youths called them “assassins” and threatened them with knives. All the prison employees are now escorted by the police on their way to the car park or to the nearby train station.
According to the youths the jailers “murdered” Fayçal Chabaan, a 25-year old Moroccan criminal, who was an inmate in Vorst Prison. Chabaan, died last Sunday after having been given a sedative. Sunday was the first day of the Islamic holy month of ramadan when Muslims are only allowed to eat after sunset. Moroccan youths claim Chabaan was holding his ramadan fast and had complained about the food of the evening meal. The situation in the Brussels prisons is tense, with many Muslim inmates blaming the prison authorities for Chabaan’s death."

"It's the Idomeneo effect: increase security then watch the consequences" (Mick Hume, The Times, 2006/09/29)
"Who needs book burners or theatre-door protesters when Europe’s cultural elite is prepared to tear up scripts or turn out the lights? ...
The Berlin opera affair has become a cause célèbre for German politicians. The Interior Minister called the decision “crazy”; Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, said that “self-censorship out of fear is intolerable”. But it wasn’t the opera director who invented the notion that Europe’s culture should prostrate itself to avoid offending Islam. She need only have noted the furore surrounding what Pope Benedict XVI said about Islam.
The Catholic Church took 350 years to revoke the historic condemnation of Galileo, with no apology; the current Pope took two days to distance himself from words he used at a German academic event, and apologise for any offence."

"Taleban militants gain ground after deal with Pakistan" (Zahid Hussain, The Times, 2006/09/29)
"Agreement was meant to tame the extremists but it has boosted them instead
THE bullet-riddled body lay on a roadside in the tribal region of North Waziristan, an accompanying note giving warning that anyone else suspected of spying for US forces across the border in Afghanistan would meet the same fate.
Khan Malang, a 45-year-old Afghan refugee who disappeared from his home on Wednesday, had, according to Islamic militants, used a satellite phone to contact American military personnel. He became the third person killed on suspicion of spying since the Pakistani Government signed a peace deal with the militants three weeks ago.
The lawless tribal region has fallen under the control of Taleban militants who are enforcing strict Islamic law and using the border area as a command-and-control centre for attacks into Afghanistan.
A US commander claimed yesterday that attacks in eastern border regions of Afghanistan had increased threefold since the Pakistani amnesty began.
The escalation has thrown the country into its worst spate of violence since the overthrow of the hardline Taleban regime in 2001." (See also: "Pakistan Surrenders" (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Bill Roggio, The Weekly Standard, 2006/10/02))

Thursday, September 28, 2006

News and commentary:

"France: Philosophy Teacher Receives Muslim Death Threats For Islam Article" (Giraldus Cambrensis, Western Resistance, 2006/09/28)
Robert Redeker II: "And a truly sad letter from Robert Redeker to his friend Andre Gluksmann shows how isolated the philosopher has now become. Such is the price to be paid for exercising one's right to freedom of expression in the modern world. Betrayal (from one's editor) and terrorist threats placing one in fear of one's life. The following is my translation of this letter:

Dear Andre, greetings. I am now in a catastrophic personal situation. Several death threats have been sent to me, and I have been sentenced to death by organizations of the al-Qaeda movement.

UCLAT [l'Unite de Coordination de la Lutte Anti-Terroriste, the Anti-Terrorism Coordination Unit] and DST [Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, the domestic anti-terrorism intelligence service] are busy, but....I no longer have the right to stay in my own home (on the websites condemning me to death there is a map showing how to get to my house to kill me, they have my photo, the places where I work, the telephone numbers, and the death fatwa).

But at the same time there is no safe place for me, I have to beg, two evenings here, two evenings there....I am am under the constant protection of the police. I must cancel all scheduled conferences. And the authorities urge me to keep moving. I am an SDF (of no fixed abode?). From here, there follows an insane financial situation, all costs are at my own expense, including those of rents a month or two ahead, the costs of moving twice, legal expenses, etc.

It's quite sad. I exercised my constitutional rights, and I am punished for it, even in the territory of the Republic. This affair is also an attack against national sovereignty - foreign rules, decided by criminally minded fanatics, punish me for having exercised a constitutional right, and I am subjected, even in France, to great injury

Regards

Robert Redeker"

(Hat tip: The Brussels Journal.)

"Writer of 'anti-Islam' article gets death threats" (Expatica, 2006/09/28)
Robert Redeker I: "SAINT-ORENS-DE-GAMEVILLE, France, Sept 28, 2006 (AFP) — A French philosophy teacher was under police protection Thursday after receiving death threats over an article he wrote in a national newspaper that accused Islam of "exalting violence", school and police officials said.
Robert Redeker has not attended classes at his secondary school near Toulouse in southern France since September 19, when his opinion column appeared in the right-wing daily Le Figaro.
"He received written death threats in the form of emails. On the face of it they were pretty serious," said the lycée's headmaster Pierre Donnadieu.
Police confirmed the threat but refused to comment on the protection Redeker is receiving.
Under the heading "In the face of Islamist intimidation, what must the free world do?", Redeker described the Koran as a "book of extraordinary violence" and Islam as 'a religion which ... exalts violence and hate.'" (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

"Suicide of the West" (Theodore Dalrymple, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2006)
A review of "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within" by Bruce Bawer, "Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too" by Claire Berlinski and "Londonistan" by Melanie Phillips:
"Modern Europeans believe in very little, except in as comfortable and safe a life as possible. Indeed, health and safety have altogether replaced faith, hope, and charity as the cardinal desiderata. It is scarcely any wonder that, when faced by people who, quite mistakenly and with a combination of staggering ignorance and arrogance, believe themselves to be in possession of a truth that justifies almost any atrocity committed, if not by them, exactly, then by those whom they have indoctrinated, modern Western Europeans do not know how to react. They have either forgotten what it is to believe in anything, to such an extent that they cannot really believe that anyone else believes in anything, either; or their memories of belief are of belief in something so horrible—Communism, for example, or Nazism—that they no longer believe that they have the right to pass judgment on anything. This is not a strong position from which to fight people who, by their own admission, hate you and are bent upon your destruction, brought about preferably at your own expense. First, you can't take them seriously; second, you suspect they might in any case be right. European multiculturalism is self-hatred writ large—and in the meantime is an employment opportunity for cultural bureaucrats."

"Iraq terror leader recruits scientists" (Patrick Quinn, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/28)
"In a new audio message Thursday, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war against the West. "We are in dire need of you," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri — the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
"The field of jihad (holy war) can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them."
He also said that more than 4,000 foreign militants have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 — the first apparent acknowledgment from the insurgents about their losses. ...
"The blood has been spilled in Iraq of more than 4,000 foreigners who came to fight," al-Masri purportedly said on the 20-minute tape. The voice could not be independently identified. ...
He urged insurgents to capture Westerners so they could be traded for the imprisoned Egyptian sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to blow up New York landmarks."

"Brussels Returns to Normal, for Now" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/09/28)
Tim Blair: "The artistic community is adopting the methods of their oppressors":
"Meanwhile, Belgian artists warn that a victory of the “islamophobic” Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest] party in the local elections on October 8th may lead to violence. In an interview in the Dutch-language weekly Knack Magazine this week painter Luc Tuymans says: “In the worst case you will get organised resistance, perhaps even rather violent reactions. I suspect many shop keepers will have their windows smashed. People do not seem to be aware, but a vote for the Vlaams Belang may have serious consequences. They should realize this before they take a final decision in the voting booth.”
Tuymans is one the artists supporting the free 0110 concerts against the Vlaams Belang. The concerts are subsidized by the Belgian national lottery and are broadcasted on public radio and television. Another artist supporting 0110 is rock singer Arno, who said this week that Brussels is an example for the future of Europe, since it is 'one of the only Arab cities which is not in a state of war.'" (See also: "Third Night of Ramadan Rioting in Capital of Europe" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/09/27))

"Saddam's trial wouldn't pass for justice in a dictatorship" (Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/09/28)
"The Saddam trial is a disgrace to justice that ought to be prorogued or transferred to another country. The latest judge has just suspended the session because he was unable to control the increasingly self-confident ravings of the bearded and staring-eyed ex-tyrant, and, when proceedings resume on October 9, they will still be a mixture of farce and tragedy. ...
How on earth can the Iraqis have faith in the impartiality of these proceedings, when witnesses, lawyers and judges are being indiscriminately threatened, tortured, killed and sacked? It is amazing to think Britain spent £2 million, and the Americans £73 million, training Iraqi lawyers and judges for this charade. ...
The coalition should stop the pretence that the Iraqis can do this themselves. Saddam should be removed from Baghdad, where his presence is just aggravating the conflict, and be tried for his manifold barbarity in the Hague." (See also: "Judge tells Saddam: 'You are not a dictator'" (Ibon Villelabeitia, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/14))

"Berlin opera at center of free-speech debate" (David R. Sands, The Washington Times, 2006/09/28)
"Europe found itself embroiled in yet another raging debate over faith and free speech yesterday as German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned against "self-censorship" following the cancellation this week of a Mozart opera in Berlin that producers feared might offend Muslims. ...
"We should watch that we don't keep retreating for fear of radicals willing to employ violence," Mrs. Merkel told the Neue Presse, a Hanover, Germany, newspaper. "Self-censorship based on fear is indefensible." ...
The Danish editor who published the Muhammad cartoons a year ago told the Reuters news agency yesterday that the opera cancellation proved his point about Western self-censorship in the face of Islamist threats.
Bowing to such threats "plays into the hands of radicals," said Flemming Rose of Copenhagen's Jyllands-Posten newspaper. "You are telling them, 'Your tactics are working.'" ...
The Berlin opera house cited the Danish cartoon crisis as one reason behind its decision.
Marcel Furstenau, political correspondent for Berlin's DW Radio, said in a column published yesterday, 'If the Deutsche Oper decision is an indication of future behavior, then it spells the end of artistic freedom and freedom of expression in Germany.'"

Added today:
"The Perfect Surrender" (Efraim Karsh, The New York Sun, 2006/09/25)

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

News and commentary:

"Afraid of the Fear of Terror" (Henryk M. Broder, Der Spiegel, 2006/09/27)
Opera IV: "The case of the Deutsche Oper is spectacular. When something like this happens in some small town, no one gets upset, because it happens there every day. Cabaret artist Hans Scheibner writes regular features for the daily Schweriner Zeitung. The paper is owned by the Flensburg-based media group sh:z, which publishes 14 dailies in Germany's Schleswig-Holstein region. When the Muhammad caricatures published by various Western newspapers caused such a stir this spring, Scheibner wrote a feature that began: "No, really, my dear Muslims, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but our God here in the Christian West is much stronger than yours..." That was more than the Schweriner Zeitung thought its readers could take. The feature was never published.
When the Pope visited his hometown in Bavaria, Scheibner wrote a feature that was just as harmless. "In Bavaria, the Bavarians have rendered homage to their very own guru, who's always walking around in those funny clothes and with a smoking lantern in his hand." This feature wasn't published either: The editors decided it constituted an "insult to religious sentiment" before even a single Catholic had a chance to complain.
What's next? Hamburg Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke, a liberal Catholic, isn't the only one who believes religious feelings shouldn't be hurt. If this attitude prevails, drama, art and literature will have a hard time in the future. Voltaire, Spinoza and Heine will be banned from the libraries. Even a drama as harmless as Lessing's "Nathan the Wise" could cause outrage. The play features a dialogue between a Christian, a Jewish and a Muslim character. But it doesn't present them as absolute equals." (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)

"Fear of offending Islam spurs hot debate in Europe" (Mark Trevelyan and Mike Collett-White, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/27)
Opera III: "'Here we go again. It's like deja vu...This is exactly the kind of self-censorship I and my newspaper have been warning against,' said Flemming Rose, culture editor of Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper, which met a storm of Muslim protest after publishing satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad last year.
He said bowing to fears of a violent Muslim reaction would only worsen the problem: "You play into the hands of the radicals. You are telling them: your tactics are working. This is a victory for the radicals. It's weakening the moderate Muslims who are our allies in this battle of ideas." ...
Some analysts fear a climate is developing in which people are afraid to speak out publicly. In a speech to the annual conference of think-tank Oxford Analytica last week, its head, David Young, said political correctness posed a threat to free expression for journalists, politicians and academics alike."

"Merkel warns against bowing to fear of Muslim violence" (Madeline Chambers, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/27)
Opera II: "BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.
"I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practice violence in the name of Islam," she told reporters. "It makes no sense to retreat."
Merkel's comments, which echoed those of other senior German politicians, fueled a row over the cancellation of Mozart's "Idomeneo" which overshadowed a government-sponsored conference to promote dialogue with the country's 3.2 million Muslims. ...
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters after the conference the participants were united in their call for the opera to restart performances of "Idomeneo."
"I am glad that we all agreed we would like the production to resume," Schaeuble, who has no authority over the opera house, told reporters after the conference. "To send a signal, we could all go to the performance together," he said."

"Third Night of Ramadan Rioting in Capital of Europe" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/09/27)
"It looks as if immigrants youths want to turn nightly rioting during the Islamic holy month of ramadan into an annual tradition. Around 8:30pm last night violence erupted again in Brussels, the capital of Europe. The riots centered on the Brussels Marollen quarter and the area near the Midi Train Station, where the international trains from London and Paris arrive. Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.Peter’s hospital, one of the main hospitals of central Brussels. The fire brigade was able to extinguish the fires at the hospital, but youths managed to steal the keys of the fire engine."

"Opera Canceled Over a Depiction of Muhammad" (Judy Dempsey, The New York Times, 2006/09/27)
Opera I: "BERLIN, Sept. 26 — A leading German opera house has canceled performances of a Mozart opera because of security fears stirred by a scene that depicts the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, prompting a storm of protest here about what many see as the surrender of artistic freedom. ...
Wolfgang Börnsen, a culture spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc in Parliament, accused the opera house of “falling on its knees before the terrorists.”
“It is a signal to other stages in Germany, or even elsewhere in Europe, to put no works on their programs that criticize Islam,” he said. ...
The cancellation of the performances fanned a debate in Europe about whether the West is compromising values like free expression to avoid stoking anger in the Muslim world. ...
Michael Naumann, a former German culture minister, said, “It’s a slap in the face of artistic freedom, by the artists themselves.” Mr. Naumann, now the publisher of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, added, 'The pope showed the way by being so extraordinarily apologetic.'" (See also: "Politicians slam Berlin opera for canceling Idomeneo" (Noah Barkin, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/26), "Opera withdrawn over Islamist threat" (Bertrand Benoit, Financial Times, 2006/09/26) and "German opera house dumps Mozart opera depicting Mohammed" (DPA/The Raw Story, 2006/09/25))

"Sobering Conclusions On Why Jihad Has Spread" (Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, 2006/09/27)
"In announcing yesterday that he would release the key judgments of a controversial National Intelligence Estimate, President Bush said he agreed with the document's conclusion "that because of our successes against the leadership of al-Qaeda, the enemy is becoming more diffuse and independent."
But the estimate itself posits no such cause and effect. Instead, while it notes that counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged and disrupted al-Qaeda's leadership, it describes the spreading "global jihadist movement" as fueled largely by forces that al-Qaeda exploits but is not actively directing. They include Iraq, corrupt and unjust governments in Muslim-majority countries, and "pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims.
The overall estimate is bleak, with minor notes of optimism. It depicts a movement that is likely to grow more quickly than the West's ability to counter it over the next five years, as the Iraq war continues to breed "deep resentment" throughout the Muslim world, shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and cultivating new supporters for their ideology."

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

News and commentary:

"King Idomeneo..."
(El Pais, 2006/09/26)
Reuters: "In the production, which is directed by Hans Neuenfels, King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon and the Prophet Mohammad, which sit on chairs. 'To avoid endangering the public and its employees, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin has decided to refrain from showing 'Idomeneo' in November,' the opera house said."

"Politicians slam Berlin opera for canceling Idomeneo" (Noah Barkin, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/26)
Opera II: "German politicians denounced the opera house's move, deputy parliamentary speaker Wolfgang Thierse saying it highlighted a new threat to free artistic expression in Germany.
"Has it come so far that we must limit artistic expression?" he told Reuters. "What will be next?"
Peter Ramsauer, head of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) in parliament, said the move pointed to a "naked fear of violence" and called it an act of "pure cowardice."
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also criticized the decision. "We tend to become crazy if we start to forbid Mozart operas being played. We will not accept it," he told a news conference during a visit to Washington."

"Opera withdrawn over Islamist threat" (Bertrand Benoit, Financial Times, 2006/09/26)
Opera I: "Indignation erupted across Germany’s political spectrum on Tuesday after a renowned opera house said it had dropped a controversial production of Mozart’s Idomeneo from its programme because it feared becoming a target of Islamist extremists.
Wolfgang Schäuble, interior minister, attacked the decision by Berlin’s Deutsche Oper not to show the 200-year-old work as “crazy”, “ridiculous” and “unacceptable”.
Bernd Neumann, culture minister, said it showed “the democratic culture of free speech is in danger”. ...
Equally vociferous counter-reactions in Germany highlighted mounting fears that the country’s postwar culture of secularism, tolerance and democracy may be under attack from the very minorities that have thrived under its protection.
Unlikely bedfellows have been united in protest at Deutsche Oper’s decision. Conservative MPs from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party found themselves agreeing with Dieter Wiefelspütz, a Social Democratic security expert, calling the cancellation “a concession to terrorists” and a “shameful” move, respectively." (See also: "German opera house dumps Mozart opera depicting Mohammed" (DPA/The Raw Story, 2006/09/25))

"Iranian TV Report Exposes ‘Zionist Companies’ - Coca Cola, Marlboro, Hugo Boss, McDonalds, Disney, Garnier, Tommy Hilfiger, L'Oreal, & Others; Pepsi = ‘Pay Each Penny Save Israel’" (MEMRI, 2006/09/26)
"The following are excerpts from a July 29, 2006 Iranian news channel (IRINN)." See videoclip: "Iranian TV Report Exposes "Zionist" Companies - Coca Cola, Pepsi, Marlboro, Hugo Boss, MacDonald's and more" (MEMRI TV, 2006/07/29):
"Reporter: ... 'While John Stith was busy in the laboratory testing various medications and substances, he discovered an essence that creates a [unique] flavor in the mouth, and this is how the cola drinks came into being. ... The Zionists are the largest shareholders in the world's drink manufacturers. They make hundreds of thousands of billions of dollars from this annually. This way, they export their colonialist schemes with this product, at no additional cost.
Take, for example, the Pepsi drink. Do you know what Pepsi stands for? 'Pay Each Penny Save Israel.'"

"Intimidating the West, from Rushdie to Benedict" (Daniel Pipes, New York Sun/danielpipes.org, 2006/09/26)
"The violence by Muslims responding to comments by the pope fit a pattern that has been building and accelerating since 1989. Six times since then, Westerners did or said something that triggered death threats and violence in the Muslim world. Looking at them in the aggregate offers useful insights.

• 1989 – Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses prompted Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a death edict against him and his publishers, on the grounds that the book "is against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran." Subsequent rioting led to over 20 deaths, mostly in India.

• 1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court refused to remove a 1930s frieze showing Muhammad as lawgiver that decorates the main court chamber; the Council on American-Islamic Relations made an issue of this, leading to riots and injuries in India.

• 2002 – The American evangelical leader Jerry Falwell calls Muhammad a "terrorist," leading to church burnings and at least 10 deaths in India.

• 2005 – An incorrect story in Newsweek, reporting that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, "in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet," is picked up by the famous Pakistani cricketer, Imran Khan, and prompts protests around the Muslim world, leading to at least 15 deaths..

• February 2006 – The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishes twelve cartoons of Muhammad, spurring a Palestinian Arab imam in Copenhagen, Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, to excite Muslim opinion against the Danish government. He succeeds so well, hundreds die, mostly in Nigeria.

• September 2006 – Pope Benedict XVI quotes a Byzantine emperor's views that what is new in Islam is "evil and inhuman," prompting the firebombing of churches and the murder of several Christians. ...

No conspiracy lies behind these six rounds of inflammation and aggression, but examined in retrospect, they coalesce and form a single, prolonged campaign of intimidation, with surely more to come. The basic message – "You Westerners no longer have the privilege to say what you will about Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an, Islamic law rules you too" – will return again and again until Westerners either do submit or Muslims realize their effort has failed."

"Brooklyn, New York, September 11, 2001"
(Thomas Hoepker, Magnum Photos, 2001/09/11)

"When the Camera Lies" (Richard Cohen, The Washington Post, 2006/09/26)
"Thomas Hoepker's photo "Brooklyn, New York, September 11, 2001" has achieved a kind of notoriety. It shows five young New Yorkers on that vividly beautiful late summer day, seemingly sunning themselves on the Brooklyn waterfront as the collapsed World Trade Center smolders in the background. The photo appears to catch the five chatting, ignoring the horror on the other side of the river. It has been interpreted as yet another example of indifference or the compulsion to return to normal even though, as anyone can see, there is nothing normal about what is happening. It is the emblematic photo of our times.
Photography, of course, is often a lie, and this photo is no exception. It captured a moment, a second or less, when one of the subjects said something and the other four turned toward him and away from the plumes of smoke, so they seemed not to care. This photo, like all photos, lacked context -- what went before and what went after -- and the interpretation of insouciance has been challenged by no less than some of the people in it. They insist they were intensely aware and horrified by what happened."

"More Leaks, Please: Questioning the Iraq Intelligence Report" (Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, 2006/09/26)
"There is, in addition to all this, a question of context. What should we do if we believe certain actions might inspire some people to become potential terrorists? Should we always refrain from taking those actions, or are there cases in which we may want to act anyway? We have pretty good reason to believe, for instance, that the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and the continuing presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia after the war, was a big factor in the evolution of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. We are pretty sure that American support of the Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviet occupation forces in the late 1970s and early '80s also contributed to the growth of Islamic terrorism.
Knowing this, would we now say that we made a mistake in each of those cases? Would an NIE argue that we would be safer today if we had not helped drive the Soviets from Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein from Kuwait? The argument in both cases would be at least as sound as the argument about the most recent Iraq war."

"This is why there is slaughter in Darfur" (Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/09/26)
"As soon as Israel attacked Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, everyone was ready with a political explanation and a finger of blame (usually pointed at Israel). The war in Lebanon went on for 34 days, and killed about 1,300 people. The fighting in Darfur has continued since February 2003 and has cost, at the lowest reputable estimate, 180,000 lives. So Darfur hits the Lebanon total of death every 10 days.
Yet even now, the thing is presented almost as a natural disaster. It is seen as a humanitarian crisis, and reports focus on how aid can get through. Of course it is a humanitarian crisis, but not a natural disaster.
It is not even one of those uncontrollable, anarchic situations in which rival factions of bandits charge round killing one another (though there certainly are plenty of such groups). The death in Darfur is the result of a policy.
The policy is that of the Sudan government, which is now, in effect, the government of northern Sudan. That government is Islamist and Arab. It used to harbour Osama bin Laden until bombed by Bill Clinton. Even before the Islamists came to power in 1989, the north imposed sharia everywhere."

Monday, September 25, 2006

News and commentary:

"Pope Benedict (L) shakes hands with ambassadors of Islamic nations..."
(Osservatore Romano, 2006/09/25)
"Pope Benedict (L) shakes hands with ambassadors of Islamic nations and Italian Islamic leaders in a room at his summer residence of Castelgandolfo, outside Rome, September 25, 2006."

"Text of Pope's speech" (BBC News, 2006/09/25)
"The following is the text of Pope Benedict XVI's speech to Muslim envoys":
"Continuing, then, the work undertaken by my predecessor, Pope John Paul II, I sincerely pray that the relations of trust which have developed between Christians and Muslims over several years, will not only continue, but will develop further in a spirit of sincere and respectful dialogue, based on ever more authentic reciprocal knowledge which, with joy, recognises the religious values that we have in common and, with loyalty, respects the differences.
Inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue is a necessity for building together this world of peace and fraternity ardently desired by all people of good will.
In this area, our contemporaries expect from us an eloquent witness to show all people the value of the religious dimension of life.
Likewise, faithful to the teachings of their own religious traditions, Christians and Muslims must learn to work together, as indeed they already do in many common undertakings, in order to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence; as for us, religious authorities and political leaders, we must guide and encourage them in this direction."

"Pope says Christians, Muslims must reject violence" (Robin Pomeroy, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/25)
"CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Monday that Christians and Muslims must reject violence, in an unprecedented meeting with Islamic envoys to defuse anger at his use of quotes saying their faith was spread by the sword.
The Pope expressed his "esteem and profound respect" for members of the Islamic faith in a speech to diplomatic envoys from some 20 Muslim countries plus the leaders of Italy's own Muslim community at his summer residence south of Rome. ...
"Christians and Muslims must learn to work together ... in order to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence," the 79-year-old Pope said at the meeting in a frescoed hall of the papal summer palace.
It was the fourth time he has tried to make amends to Muslims, without actually apologizing directly, for a speech at a university in his native Germany on September 12. ...
"I sincerely pray that the relations of trust which have developed between Christians and Muslims over several years, will not only continue, but will develop further in a spirit of sincere and respectful dialogue ...," he said."

"German opera house dumps Mozart opera depicting Mohammed" (DPA/The Raw Story, 2006/09/25)
"Berlin - One of Germany's leading opera houses, Deutsche Oper Berlin, announced Monday that it was cancelling a controversial production because of the likelihood that it might offend Muslims. The original opera, Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, makes no reference to Islam, but director Hans Neuenfels introduced a scene to his production that depicts the decapitated heads of the Prophet Mohammed, Jesus Christ, the Buddha and the Greek god Poseidon.
It caused outrage at the premiere in 2003. The opera company said it was cancelling plans to revive the show next month after advice from security authorities in Berlin that the performances posed an "incalculable" security risk. ...
The original Mozart opera, first performed in 1781, revolves around resistance to human sacrifice to the gods.
But Neuenfels, famed for his provocative interpretations, turned Idomeneo into an attack on world religions, reviewers said back in December 2003." (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)

"Gunmen kill director of women's affairs for southern Afghanistan" (AP/IHT, 2006/09/25)
"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Two gunmen on a motorbike killed the southern provincial head of Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs outside her home Monday in apparent retribution for her efforts to help educate women, officials said.
Safia Ama Jan was slain outside the front gate of her home in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar as she was walking to her office, said Tawfiq ul-Ulhakim Parant, senior adviser to the women's ministry in Kabul.
Ama Jan was known for being an active proponent of women's rights and education in this former Taliban stronghold, a region where insurgents have turned increasingly violent over the last several months. ...
One of Ama Jan's most successful projects was running vocational schools for women, her secretary Abdullah Khan said. "She was always trying her best to improve education for women," Khan said.
In Kandahar alone, Ama Jan had opened six schools where almost 1,000 women learned how to bake and sell their goods at market. She had also opened tailoring schools for women, and clothes made there found their way to Western markets, Khan said."

"The Perfect Surrender" (Efraim Karsh, The New York Sun, 2006/09/25)
A review of "Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time" by Karen Armstrong, "a thinly veiled hagiography, depicting the prophet as a quintessential man of peace":
"Less than a year after satirical depictions of the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper sparked a worldwide wave of violence, Muslims throughout the world are up in arms again. This time the rage is focused on the alleged defamation of the prophet by Pope Benedict XVI. ...
That these acts of violence make a mockery of protestations of Islam's tolerant spirit has been totally lost on the pope's critics. And why shouldn't it? Not only did the Vatican issue a prompt apology in a desperate bid to defuse the unfolding crisis, but in the years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a vast cohort of Western apologists has consistently painted a surrealistic picture of Islam's political agenda. Depicting jihad as an inner quest for personal self-improvement, rather than the "holy war" claimed by countless Muslim dynasties and leaders throughout history, they dismissed the worldwide wave of Islamic terrorism as an excessive reaction by misguided fringe groups to America's arrogant and self-serving foreign policy. "Muslims have never nurtured dreams of world conquest," wrote Karen Armstrong, a prominent representative of this view, shortly after September 11. 'They had no designs on Europe, for example, even though Europeans imagined that they did. Once Muslim rule had been established in Spain, it was recognized that the empire could not expand indefinitely.'"

"Spy agencies: stop fighting back" (Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 2006/09/25)
"Imagine a report from 1944: "This just in: the invasion of Normandy has led to increased Nazi activity in Europe." Leaving aside the question of whether or not the attempt to democratize Iraq is the best way to defeat the jihad, the idea that resisting the jihadists is inadvisable because it causes them to fight back is beyond asinine. What do these "spies" expect? That the jihadists would crumble at the first sign of resistance?

"Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight," from the Bandar Beacon, aka the Washington Post, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.

"It's a very candid assessment," one intelligence official said yesterday of the estimate, the first formal examination of global terrorist trends written by the National Intelligence Council since the March 2003 invasion. "It's stating the obvious."

Obvious. Is that what it is? If the report had argued that Iraq has weakened the U.S. position because we are effectively abetting an Iranian-backed Shi'ite takeover of the country, and thus aiding rather than weakening the global jihad, that would be a defensible, indeed a cogent, position. But instead, the report just seems to be noting that Iraq has become the latest pretext for jihad recruitment, and buys into the false assumption that if we just address the pretext, the jihad will end. It won't, however. It will just find another pretext, because ultimately the jihad is not being waged because of Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Abu Ghraib, or Israel, or any other commonly-retailed pretext. It is being waged to extend Sharia over the world, in accord with imperatives spelled out in the Qur'an and other core Islamic sources." (See also: "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight" (Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post, 2006/09/24))

"Muslims Offered Italian Values" (Federico Bordonaro, IPS, 2006/09/25)
"ROME, Sep 25 (IPS) - Interior Minister Giuliano Amato proposed in August that Muslim organisations in Italy will need to subscribe to a Charter of Values to signal their readiness to be fully integrated into Italian society and its political culture.
Rome is facing a huge challenge: it cannot fail to integrate its increasingly numerous Muslim immigrant population, but since integration policies in Europe are regarded as less than successful, it is forced to seek new solutions. ...
After the Madrid and London terror attacks in 2004 and 2005, the Danish cartoon controversy, and last summer's so-called honour killing in northern Italy where a Pakistani immigrant killed his daughter, worries about Muslim integration in Italy have increased. ...
In late August, after an anti-Israel advertisement by the Union of Italian Islamic Communities (UCOII), which was widely condemned for being anti-Semitic (it compared Israel's military actions to Nazi brutalities), Amato proposed the draft of a Charter of Values whose details are now being studied. The Charter would set out Italy's basic democratic, constitutional rights and obligations, and provide for acceptance among Muslim communities of republican, liberal-democratic values.
Members of the right-of-centre opposition have sharply criticised the government for "too soft" an approach, and vociferously called for the ban of UCOII. Former ministers like Maurizio Gasparri and Roberto Castelli said Rome should disband and outlaw UCOII, or at least suspend it from the recognised Muslim organisations. The government has said such a move would be unrealistic since UCOII is by far the most important Muslim association, although it is rapidly becoming the most controversial as well." (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)

"The shadow cast by a mega-mosque" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/09/25)
"It will be the largest place of worship in Europe, a gigantic three-storey Islamic centre, with schools and other facilities, able to hold at least 40,000 worshippers and up to 70,000 if necessary.
It will be called the London Markaz and it is intended to be a significant Islamic landmark whose prominence and stature will be enhanced by its proximity to the Olympic site. ...
Its backers are the Tablighi Jamaat, a missionary organisation that says it is non-political and peaceful. Yet a senior FBI anti-terrorism official has called it a recruiting ground for al-Qa'eda, and the French secret services described it as "an antechamber for fundamentalism". Its current European headquarters are in Dewsbury, home town of Mohammed Siddique Khan, leader of the July 7 suicide bombers, who attended the local mosque. Much of the funding for the Markaz, which will cost about £100 million, is expected to come from Saudi Arabia."

 

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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