April 2003 Archives
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Rumsfeld indicates U.S. troops to be pulled out of Germany
Curiouser and curiouser. We live in a time of great change, great change indeed.
News Bulletin (Via Internet Haganah)
(in full) U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been visting Iraq this Wednesday. Following a stop in the southern city of Basra, Rumsfeld moved onto the capital, Baghdad. He met with the U.S. appointed administrator for Iraq, Jay Garner. Later, he spoke to U.S. soldiers at Baghdad's airport. Asked about rumoured plans that Washington was planning to pull troops out of Germany, Rumsfeld said the rumours were true, but that the details had not yet been worked out. Those comments came one day after Rumsfeld announced that U.S. troops were pulling out of Saudi Arabia.
The Clinton Intel Record
Mansoor Ijaz on Clinton & Intelligence on National Review Online
Ijaz details the timeline of Sudan/US intelligence relations, and just how many opportunities were missed by Clinton officials. Ijaz refers to matters being "politicized" but doesn't exactly explain. I took it to refer to the problems with refusing to deal with regimes with human-rights problems on any level - and the human intelligence sacrifices this caused.
I'm not for helping regimes like Sudan out in any way, but if you can get something out of them without (or with a minor) a quid pro quo, why the hell not?
Desert Shame Redux
Michael Ledeen feels we're in danger of squandering another opportunity as we did at the end of Gulf War 1. He may be right, and obviously has some sources we can't see, but let's hope the more hawkish members of the administration are keeping the pressure on.
Michael Ledeen on War on Terror & Postwar Iraq on National Review Online
[...]Life is not often like that. If we want a free Iran and a free Syria — and we must, if we really want to win the war against terror — we will have to fight for it. Not militarily, in these cases, but certainly politically. Even as we prepared to invade Iraq, the Iranian and Syrian dictators increased their bloody repression, desperately trying to stave off their own day of reckoning. And, of course, the Iranians sent contradictory messages, alternately cursing us as agents of the devil, only to turn around and sing sweet songs of "better relations" even as they pursued a nuclear program that is on the verge of fulfillment (Revolutionary Guards officers were recently informed that a nuclear test is in the works later this summer). [...]
It is therefore disconcerting and discouraging to see the National Security Council's top man in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, sneaking off to secret meetings with representatives of the Iranian regime, and to see Secretary of State Powell enthusiastically contemplating a trip to Damascus. There is nothing to be gained from talking to the mullahs. They are declared enemies of everything we hold precious, and they are only trying to buy time, believing that once they have the atomic bomb we will be forever blocked from challenging them. And if the State Department is so desperate to talk to Assad, then make him swim the Atlantic and crawl to Washington to beg for survival. A Powell trip to Damascus will send a dangerous message to the region. By going there instead of summoning them, we will show weakness. And all will remember that, on the verge of a glorious victory in 1991, the same man called upon this president's father to stop short, turn around, and leave the forces of freedom at the mercy of the tyrants. [...]
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Abu Mazen Raised the Money for the Munich Massacre?
Though Abu Daud says he didn't know what he was raising money for, Abu Mazen raised the financing for the Munich Olympic Massacre. Trying to find a Palestinian untainted by terror is going to be like finding a corporation without political ties to re-build Iraq. It's not going to happen. There's going to be one hell of a lot of nose-holding to be done to have any chance of creating a Palestinian state.
CNNSI.com - SI Online - The Mastermind - Tuesday August 20, 2002 02:35 PM
[...]Though he didn't know what the money was being spent for, longtime Fatah official Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, was responsible for the financing of the Munich attack. Abu Mazen could not be reached for comment regarding Abu Daoud's allegation. After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. "Do you think that ... would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation?" Abu Daoud writes. "I doubt it." Today the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner "uncompromised by terror," yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell. [...]
Good Luck Abu
On Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Day Abu Mazen is confirmed as PM.
Security guards end up being the real martyrs in these situations.
CNN.com - Four dead in Tel Aviv terror bombing - Apr. 29, 2003
TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- A security guard at a beachfront cafe blocked a suicide bomber from entering the establishment early Wednesday, but the bomber blew himself up at the cafe's door, the city's police chief said.
At least four people were killed, one of them probably the bomber, authorities said.
The terror attack, which occurred beside the U.S. Embassy compound, left as many as 40 wounded -- two of them in very critical condition, four in serious condition, four moderately hurt and 21 with light injuries -- ambulance service officials said.
The cafe, Mike's Place, is located in an area that includes several bars, cafes, and nightclubs along the Mediterranean coastline.
"Suddenly there was an orange flash and a loud bang, and I ducked and then it was covered in smoke, and everyone was screaming, and then we ran out," said Barry Gilbert, a musician performing at the cafe whose shirt and pants were bloodstained. "It was just very, very, very messy as we were trying to get out."
Gilbert said about 100 people were inside at the time of the explosion.[...]
Update: LGF has a pointer worth reading, regarding just how much of an American target this really was. And don't forget, these bombing targets are never randomly chosen.
Welcome to the "New" Blog
Welcome to the new Movable Type blog. I've only made a couple of changes, taking advantage of some of the things that MT can offer. At the right I intend to put entries marked as "Headlines." These will be news and other items of interest that I wanted to point to but had nothing specific to say about. In the past I would have given them their own item entry and posted an excerpt, now if I don't even have a one-sentence quip to put to them, I'll simply make them headline items.
I still have a few format tweaks to make, but nothing serious, then it's back to spending far too much time reading the news!
Human Wrongs
Anne Bayefksy writes a stunning indictment of the UN Human Rights Commission, and by extension, the UN itself. Have no doubt, the only reasons for our membership in the United Nations is in the realm of RealPolitik having nothing to do with true right and wrong - exactly the opposite of what most people believe.
Worth reading in full.
[...]The commission is the primary U.N. organ responsible for human rights protection. The current chair is Libya. Yes, Libya. In addition to Libya, three of the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism are current members--Cuba, Sudan and Syria. On April 15, the commission adopted a resolution sanctioning the use of "all available means including armed struggle"--which includes suicide bombing--as a legitimate tactic against Israelis. Only five countries, including the U.S., voted against. The U.K. and France abstained, and Russia approved.
More than a quarter of the commission's resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations passed over the last 30 years have been directed at Israel. There has never been a single resolution on China, Syria or Saudi Arabia. The current session ended by defeating a resolution to criticize anything about the situation in Zimbabwe, and by eliminating the 10-year-old position of rapporteur on human rights in Sudan. This was despite a report of the U.N. rapporteur on torture informing commission members of the Sudanese practice of "cross-amputation"--amputation of right hand and left foot for armed robbery, and various cases of women being stoned to death for alleged adultery.
Commission meetings themselves are a platform for incitement to hate and violence. At this year's session, the Iranian deputy foreign minister threatened what he called a "vicious circle" of violence and future "extremism" resulting from the Iraq war. The Cuban representative demanded action against "the most critical case of . . . massive and flagrant violations of human rights [and] of the systemic institutionalization of racism--that of the United States." The Algerian delegate said: "The Israeli war machine has been trying for five decades to arrive at a final solution." The Palestinian representative called for the "elimination" of "Zionist Nazism."[...]
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Light Blogging Ahead For The Next Couple Days
I'm going to dedicate a lot of my "Solomonia" time to tinkering with templates as I try to get my Movable Type installation up and running over the next couple days. I'm going to have a little button displayed over at John Hawkins' Right Wing News website starting on May 1, so ideally I'd like to be completely switched over by then. I'll probably post a bit in the mean-time, but it will be more and more likely to be a quick headline with no commentary (not that that's that unusual).
Dossier Shows France Briefed Iraq on U.S. Plans
BAGHDAD, Iraq - France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials, documents unearthed in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign ministry have revealed.
The first Iraqi files to emerge documenting French help for the regime show that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private transatlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington.
The information, said in the files to have come partly from "friends of Iraq" at the French foreign ministry, kept Saddam abreast of every development in American planning and may have helped him to prepare for war. One report warned of an American "attempt to involve Iraq with terrorism" as "cover for an attack on Iraq".
Another, dated September 25, 2001, from Naji Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister, to Saddam's palace, was based on a briefing from the French ambassador in Baghdad and covered talks between presidents Jacques Chirac and George W Bush.
Chirac was said to have been told that America was "100% certain Usama bin Laden was behind the September 11 attacks and that the answer of the United States would be decisive."
The report also gave a detailed account of American attitudes towards Saddam amid anxiety in Iraq that the country might soon become a target of American reprisals.
"Information available to the French embassy in Washington suggests that there is no intention on the part of the Americans to attack Iraq, but that matters might change quickly," said the document from folders marked France 2001 found by The Sunday Times.
"According to French information, a discussion about Iraq is going on in Washington between [secretary of state] Colin Powell and the Zionist [Paul] Wolfowitz [the deputy defense secretary]. Powell was against a military attack on Iraq whereas Wolfowitz was in favor of a strong military operation against Iraq."[...]
The first Iraqi files to emerge documenting French help for the regime show that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private transatlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington.
The information, said in the files to have come partly from "friends of Iraq" at the French foreign ministry, kept Saddam abreast of every development in American planning and may have helped him to prepare for war. One report warned of an American "attempt to involve Iraq with terrorism" as "cover for an attack on Iraq".
Another, dated September 25, 2001, from Naji Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister, to Saddam's palace, was based on a briefing from the French ambassador in Baghdad and covered talks between presidents Jacques Chirac and George W Bush.
Chirac was said to have been told that America was "100% certain Usama bin Laden was behind the September 11 attacks and that the answer of the United States would be decisive."
The report also gave a detailed account of American attitudes towards Saddam amid anxiety in Iraq that the country might soon become a target of American reprisals.
"Information available to the French embassy in Washington suggests that there is no intention on the part of the Americans to attack Iraq, but that matters might change quickly," said the document from folders marked France 2001 found by The Sunday Times.
"According to French information, a discussion about Iraq is going on in Washington between [secretary of state] Colin Powell and the Zionist [Paul] Wolfowitz [the deputy defense secretary]. Powell was against a military attack on Iraq whereas Wolfowitz was in favor of a strong military operation against Iraq."[...]
Saturday, April 26, 2003
The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden
Telegraph | News | The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden
The Telegraph scores another coup pawing through the rubble.
Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's regime.
Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.
The documents show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qa'eda based on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia. The meeting apparently went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.
[...]
Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.
The documents show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qa'eda based on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia. The meeting apparently went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.
[...]
JMCC POLL: Palestinians continue to support attacks on Israeli civilians - violence seen as positive
IMRA - Friday, April 25, 2003 JMCC POLL: Palestinians continue to support attacks on Israeli civilians - violence seen as positive
This is not very optimism-inducing.
JMCC POLL: Palestinians continue to support attacks on Israeli civilians -
violence seen as positive
[IMRA: Contrary to the "common wisdom" expressed by various politicians and roadmap supporters, the most recent poll of Palestinians by the JMCC demonstrates that only a small minority of Palestinians (15.2%) believe that a violence free approach best serves the Palestinians. The overwhelming majority (65.3%) support continuing the Intifada, 60.5% support military operations inside the Green Line and 59.9% support suicide bombing operations against Israeli civilians.
violence seen as positive
[IMRA: Contrary to the "common wisdom" expressed by various politicians and roadmap supporters, the most recent poll of Palestinians by the JMCC demonstrates that only a small minority of Palestinians (15.2%) believe that a violence free approach best serves the Palestinians. The overwhelming majority (65.3%) support continuing the Intifada, 60.5% support military operations inside the Green Line and 59.9% support suicide bombing operations against Israeli civilians.
Why are so many politicians, journalists and analysts so out of touch with the true feelings of the Palestinian street? A mixture of wishful thinking and selective exposure. Some try to mold reality to meet their needs while others mistakenly assume that their multilingual Palestinian contacts are in fact telling them what the Palestinian street thinks instead of what these Palestinians believe serves Palestinian interests for the politicians, journalists and analysts to think the Palestinian street thinks.
It should be noted that there is every indication that the respondents are expressing their true views. A poll in Syria would no doubt find 99.9% trusting Assad most while this poll finds only 21.1% trusting Yasser Arafat the most and 36.1% not trusting anyone. ]
The specific questions and responses follow. Will responses change should conditions change? Time will tell.
The Notice-Me Nation Blusters Some More
North Korea's Threats A Dilemma for China (washingtonpost.com)
[...]U.S. officials say that during a break in the talks, a North Korean delegate pulled aside the senior U.S. official and declared that his country has nuclear weapons and might export them or conduct a "physical demonstration." Though it was not clear whether the North Koreans truly had such weapons, the statement caused an uproar in Washington; President Bush responded that the North was "back to the old blackmail game."
North Korean officials also asserted they had nearly completed the reprocessing of 8,000 spent fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium, a fact not yet confirmed by U.S. intelligence.[...]
North Korean officials also asserted they had nearly completed the reprocessing of 8,000 spent fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium, a fact not yet confirmed by U.S. intelligence.[...]
Amazing how North Korea's behavior is classically leftist on the macro scale. Their own decisions and actions have lead them down a path to absolute backwardness and ruin, and rather than changing course themselves demand to be provided for by people who have earned something they want.
Looks like the US won't be fooled again, and that's a good thing.
Friday, April 25, 2003
The Expulsion That Never Was
Heheh...Martin Kramer reminds us of that other group of people who were wrong and ought to apologize for their ridiculous pre-war predictions. Remember that group of over 1000 "academics" who wrote an open letter warning against Israel's supposed plan to transfer the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza? Never did happen did it? Personally, I thought they might take the opportunity to transfer Arafat, and Arafat alone, but they didn't even bother with that.
Among the predictions about the war that didn't pan out, there is one that hasn't been subjected to post-war ridicule, but that very much deserves it. This is the December letter, signed by over 1,000 academics, predicting and warning against Israel's possible "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians in the "fog of war." The letter ended with this recommendation: "We urge our government to communicate clearly to the government of Israel that the expulsion of people according to race, religion or nationality would constitute crimes against humanity and will not be tolerated."
The United States made no such communication to the Israeli government, yet lo and behold, no expulsion took place. In the "fog of war," the Palestinian street demonstrated wildly for Saddam, Palestinian politicians jockeyed for position, and Israel prepared with gas masks and duct tape, like a proper ally/client of the United States. All of this was completely forseeable by anyone with an iota of expertise, experience, and common sense. It was not foreseen by many of America's leading Middle East "experts," who put their names to this ridiculous letter, and who in fact seem to have initiated it.[...]
The United States made no such communication to the Israeli government, yet lo and behold, no expulsion took place. In the "fog of war," the Palestinian street demonstrated wildly for Saddam, Palestinian politicians jockeyed for position, and Israel prepared with gas masks and duct tape, like a proper ally/client of the United States. All of this was completely forseeable by anyone with an iota of expertise, experience, and common sense. It was not foreseen by many of America's leading Middle East "experts," who put their names to this ridiculous letter, and who in fact seem to have initiated it.[...]
VDH: Time Is on Our Side
Victor Davis Hanson on War on National Review Online
Victor Davis Hanson is feeling bullish on the future as his says that time is on our side in Iraq.
[...]Iran may think it smart to use its fundamentalist agents to undermine the American achievement in Iraq. But look at the newly constituted map, where it suddenly finds itself surrounded by reformist movements. The omnipresence of the United States, twenty years of failure inside Iran, and the attractions of American popular culture will insidiously undermine the medieval reign of the mullahs faster than it can do harm to the foundations of democracy in Baghdad.
What will the theocracy do when Internet cafes, uncensored television and radio, and free papers spring up across the border in Iraq? How, after all, do you fight such a strangely off-the-wall culture as our own, which turns the villainous Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf into "Baghdad Bob," with his own website and a cult following, replete with T-shirts and coffee mugs — or prints out thousands of decks of playing cards decorated with the names and pictures of Iraqi fascists?
In the surreal world of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia talks of the need to banish Americans liberators from Iraq to ensure "democratic government" there. But it can do all of us a favor by first expelling Americans from Saudi holy soil, and then bringing some public transparency to the labyrinth of billions of dollars (800 and counting?) that has been sequestered in foreign banks by the royal family.
True, most of the Arab street may curse infidels in Baghdad, but a sizable minority will acknowledge the freedom there and ask, "If there, why not here?" Or: "Don't our own kleptocrats have lavish, glittery palaces of extortion just like Saddam did?" Nothing has been more pathetic in the last few days than listening to in-house Arab "intellectuals" damning the United States, ridiculing the "liberation" of Iraq, and railing at the old bogeyman of "colonialism" — even as they watch demonstrations and a freedom in Baghdad impossible in their own police states. What a burden they must carry: supporting the old Arab nationalist status quo ensures the continual absence of their own independence. Nothing is more fatal for an intellectual than complicity in his own censorship.[...]
What will the theocracy do when Internet cafes, uncensored television and radio, and free papers spring up across the border in Iraq? How, after all, do you fight such a strangely off-the-wall culture as our own, which turns the villainous Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf into "Baghdad Bob," with his own website and a cult following, replete with T-shirts and coffee mugs — or prints out thousands of decks of playing cards decorated with the names and pictures of Iraqi fascists?
In the surreal world of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia talks of the need to banish Americans liberators from Iraq to ensure "democratic government" there. But it can do all of us a favor by first expelling Americans from Saudi holy soil, and then bringing some public transparency to the labyrinth of billions of dollars (800 and counting?) that has been sequestered in foreign banks by the royal family.
True, most of the Arab street may curse infidels in Baghdad, but a sizable minority will acknowledge the freedom there and ask, "If there, why not here?" Or: "Don't our own kleptocrats have lavish, glittery palaces of extortion just like Saddam did?" Nothing has been more pathetic in the last few days than listening to in-house Arab "intellectuals" damning the United States, ridiculing the "liberation" of Iraq, and railing at the old bogeyman of "colonialism" — even as they watch demonstrations and a freedom in Baghdad impossible in their own police states. What a burden they must carry: supporting the old Arab nationalist status quo ensures the continual absence of their own independence. Nothing is more fatal for an intellectual than complicity in his own censorship.[...]
Thursday, April 24, 2003
I'm Going to Move to Movable Type - Help needed!
OK, I've decided to make the move from Greymatter over to Movable Type for the blog. Greymatter is good and all, and I've invested a lot of time getting over the learning-curve, but MT has some features like trackback and such, as well as a more active user-base and continuing updates that I'd like to take advantage of.
I'm slowly puzzling through the process of setting up MT. I'd like to get MT totally set up with the same look as I have currently here with GM and then move over as seemlessly as possible.
Trouble is, I have fairly limited HTML skills, but I've been slogging through the MT style-sheet, bringing stuff in from my current style-sheet and forming the main index template for MT. I'll take it one template at a time, starting with the main index template, getting that set up totally before moving on to the next.
First question! If someone can tell me why the table is screwed up on this page (the new MT blog): http://www.solomonia.com/blog/, I would be ever so appreciative. Specifically, why is the G@%$@DAMN left margin so frickin' fat, and the other two cells so screwed as well? As far as I know, it's supposed to be 150px wide and that's it. The page is supposed to look exactly as this one does (leaving aside some of the colors and fonts - I can handle fixing that).
Further, why aren't the two entries showing up?
As I say, if any HTML and/or MT gurus out there can help, I'd appreciate it. Reply in comments or email me.
Thanks!
Best if the Web: Upcoming Iranian Student Protest and Iraqi Humanitarian Crisis Overstatements
A couple of interesting items in today's Best of the Web:
General Strike Set in Iran In Bid To Topple Mullahs
This is a NY Sun story about a large Iranian student protest scheduled for July 9th. The questions are, how big will this one be, and how much should the USA be overtly involved? These types of events are a big opportunity for us. It's difficult to know from this distance how meaningful an event this really is, although the article certainly makes it sound promising. If it's worth it, we should be giving all the moral support we can.
WASHINGTON — Mark the date: July 9. That’s when opponents of the Iranian regime have called a general strike that they hope will expand to topple the government there and bring freedom and democracy to the Iranian people.
The strike is being organized by profreedom student groups to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the last student uprising in Iran that saw thousands of students take to the streets against the Islamic Republic’s ruling mullahs.
The planned event — indeed, the Iranian freedom movement as a whole — could take on a new dimension now that Iran’s western neighbor, Iraq, is free from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny.
Policy experts have speculated that a liberated Iraq could embolden Iranian freedom fighters to rise up and mount a serious challenge to the ruling mullahs.
The July 9 strike is also putting Washington on the spot, as policymakers scramble to decide how the American government should respond. [...]
The strike is being organized by profreedom student groups to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the last student uprising in Iran that saw thousands of students take to the streets against the Islamic Republic’s ruling mullahs.
The planned event — indeed, the Iranian freedom movement as a whole — could take on a new dimension now that Iran’s western neighbor, Iraq, is free from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny.
Policy experts have speculated that a liberated Iraq could embolden Iranian freedom fighters to rise up and mount a serious challenge to the ruling mullahs.
The July 9 strike is also putting Washington on the spot, as policymakers scramble to decide how the American government should respond. [...]
Also, Taranto has several links to what amount to admissions by AFP and BBC that maybe the massive anti-American protests and the supply disaster in the Baghdad hospitals weren't all they were cracked up to be. Go to the Best of the Web feature here and scroll down to the heading "Repent. The End Isn't Nigh."
[...]Remember all the hysteria about looting of hospitals? Now Agence France-Presse reports (you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the dispatch to read it) that according to Médecins Sans Frontières there is "no large-scale health crisis" in Iraq. "MSF has not found any reason to justify a major humanitarian medical program in Iraq," MSF international president Morten Rostrup tells the wire service.
And what about those revolting Shiites who've been all over the news the past couple of days? "Shias Stage Anti-US Protest" reads a BBC.com headline from yesterday. You have to read to the 10th paragraph to learn that "the anti-US demonstrations were small-scale, involving only a few hundred people."[...]
And what about those revolting Shiites who've been all over the news the past couple of days? "Shias Stage Anti-US Protest" reads a BBC.com headline from yesterday. You have to read to the 10th paragraph to learn that "the anti-US demonstrations were small-scale, involving only a few hundred people."[...]
International Bill of Wrongs
FrontPage magazine.com - International Bill of Wrongs By Ben Johnson and Michael Tremoglie
Another one for the "beware of good intentions" file. This time concerning the International Bill of Rights Project. It seems to me that a small group of people could distill about a paragraph's worth of a statement defining a set of universal rights. Anything more than that and one has to wonder if someone's confusing "rights" with "goals."
[...]Article 2, Section 1 (Free Speech) is representative of the nebulous terms and limitations imposed upon human behavior in this utopian manifesto:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to see, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of borders. No one may be coerced into expressing his or her views and convictions or into renouncing them. The only exception is that the urging of violence against individuals or groups based upon race, religion or sex is impermissible."
This language, which recalls the restrictive P.C. speech codes of ultra-leftist universities such as Boyd’s alma mater of Berkeley, brings to mind another, similarly limited constitution: Brezhnev’s Soviet Constitution of 1977. That Orwellian deception (which, coincidentally, also guaranteed "free, qualified medical care" to all citizens) promised endless rights, limited by this phrase: "Enjoyment by citizens of their rights and freedoms must not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state, or infringe the rights of other citizens." With such restrictions, the Soviets could legally deprive the guaranteed "enjoyment" of these rights to such giants as Aleksandr Solzenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.[...]
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to see, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of borders. No one may be coerced into expressing his or her views and convictions or into renouncing them. The only exception is that the urging of violence against individuals or groups based upon race, religion or sex is impermissible."
This language, which recalls the restrictive P.C. speech codes of ultra-leftist universities such as Boyd’s alma mater of Berkeley, brings to mind another, similarly limited constitution: Brezhnev’s Soviet Constitution of 1977. That Orwellian deception (which, coincidentally, also guaranteed "free, qualified medical care" to all citizens) promised endless rights, limited by this phrase: "Enjoyment by citizens of their rights and freedoms must not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state, or infringe the rights of other citizens." With such restrictions, the Soviets could legally deprive the guaranteed "enjoyment" of these rights to such giants as Aleksandr Solzenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.[...]
Amnesty for Iraq
FrontPage magazine.com - Amnesty for Iraq By Christopher Archangelli
Archangelli tales on Amnesty International's political bias. Dovetails well with this USS Clueless item. Both items serve as a worthwhile reminder that one should credit organizations with what they "are," rather than what they call themselves (humanitarian, non-partisan, etc...). It's not that AI is not a worthwhile organization that does some good work, but one should be cognizant of the fact that they also have their own agenda. Worth checking out.
Add Amnesty International to the growing list of organizations that have recently been exposed as anti-American and anti-war. Founded in 1961 as an organization "dedicated to freeing prisoners of conscience, gaining fair trials for political prisoners, ending torture, political killings and ‘disappearances,’ and abolishing the death penalty throughout the world," Amnesty International has proven that since the start of the war it is firmly against the United States and its allies in the quest to liberate Iraq. Despite rhetoric that proclaims neutrality in the war and a non-partisan and non-political stance, Amnesty International has taken a firm stand against the Bush and Blair administrations while turning a blind eye to the atrocities of Saddam Hussein and his sadistic Baathist government.[...]
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Neocons = Conservative Jewish Hawks To The Kooks?
John Hawkins of Right Wing News has a nice, concise response to the Neo-Cons=Da Jews canard using that recent Arab News piece, "Protocols of the Elders of Neocons" as a jumping off point. Very worthwhile reading.
I probably wouldn't even bother to comment on this article from "Arab News" entitled, "Protocols of the Elders of Neocons" if I hadn't seen the sentiments in it slipping into mainstream leftist and Paleocon thought. But, since there are some people out there who buy into this sort of garbage (probably more so than many of them are willing to admit in front of a camera), I thought it was worth shooting down. Here's the opening paragraph that gives a good general idea of what the writer is trying to get across...
Garner's Media Woes: When Will They Learn
Garner's Media Woes: When Will They Learn - Austin Bay's Iraq War Diary
Austin Bay on the "political quagmire" nay-sayers.
According to his critics, Jay Garner is already Tommy Franks. No, I don"t mean the Gen. Franks of April 2003, but the Gen. Franks of March 2003 and -- for that matter -- of October 2001.
Garner's reconstruction effort is already in trouble with media fingerwaggers. Never mind that gunfire continues to sputter. Why, Garner lacks sufficient personnel, there's infighting at the Pentagon -- shucks, his plan is flawed.
Heard it before? Sure, track back three weeks with the likes of The New York Times' R.W. Apple excoriating Central Command. Reconstructing Iraq has barely begun, but the critical piling-on is already in progress. One horror among the usual cranks is Garner has oil industry contacts and he's retired military. Of course, anyone with a knack for the obvious knows both knocks are welcome assets, given Iraq's petroleum reserves and the iffy security situation. The cranks appear to prefer Garner be a Marxist sociology prof with a 'stop the war" tattoo on his tongue.[...]
Garner's reconstruction effort is already in trouble with media fingerwaggers. Never mind that gunfire continues to sputter. Why, Garner lacks sufficient personnel, there's infighting at the Pentagon -- shucks, his plan is flawed.
Heard it before? Sure, track back three weeks with the likes of The New York Times' R.W. Apple excoriating Central Command. Reconstructing Iraq has barely begun, but the critical piling-on is already in progress. One horror among the usual cranks is Garner has oil industry contacts and he's retired military. Of course, anyone with a knack for the obvious knows both knocks are welcome assets, given Iraq's petroleum reserves and the iffy security situation. The cranks appear to prefer Garner be a Marxist sociology prof with a 'stop the war" tattoo on his tongue.[...]
Excellent!
And be sure not to miss Kanan Makiya's War Diary entry from April 18th. He was at the Ur gathering of Iraqi leaders.
A couple of his comments:
[...]2. The much-vaunted divide between the so-called "exiles" and the so-called "authentic Iraqis" who never left Baathist Iraq, never materialized, as the near-unanimity on the de-Baathification question demonstrated. This was contrary to years of soi disant expert analysis from the State Department and the CIA. It turned out that many of the "internals" knew who Kanan Makiya was, and even, God forbid, liked a thing or two that he had to say. Why, they even mentioned his name in pleasant tones from the podium.
3. There was a general sense that the maintenance of law and order inside Iraqi cities and the rapid emergence of an all-Iraqi authority for political reconstruction was the paramount task of the moment. No disagreement on this score at all.
4. Garner was an enormous hit with the Iraqis present at the meeting. He wisely stayed very much in the background, judging that the key task at hand was having Iraqis speak to one another, rather than having them hear speeches from representatives of the U.S.-led coalition. When Garner did finally speak, it was to make a direct, honest, straight-from-the-heart appeal to the participants that won them over instantly. He said, simply, that his role was to support Iraqis in the reconstruction of their country, and that he plans on leaving as soon as Iraqis themselves find it appropriate. "He really means it," a businessman from Mosul said to me after the conference. "This man is the genuine article."[...]
3. There was a general sense that the maintenance of law and order inside Iraqi cities and the rapid emergence of an all-Iraqi authority for political reconstruction was the paramount task of the moment. No disagreement on this score at all.
4. Garner was an enormous hit with the Iraqis present at the meeting. He wisely stayed very much in the background, judging that the key task at hand was having Iraqis speak to one another, rather than having them hear speeches from representatives of the U.S.-led coalition. When Garner did finally speak, it was to make a direct, honest, straight-from-the-heart appeal to the participants that won them over instantly. He said, simply, that his role was to support Iraqis in the reconstruction of their country, and that he plans on leaving as soon as Iraqis themselves find it appropriate. "He really means it," a businessman from Mosul said to me after the conference. "This man is the genuine article."[...]
Goebbels would have liked this
canada.com network - Goebbels would have liked this Randy Shapiro For the Calgary Herald (Via Israpundit)
Interesting commentary/review on the Pal-Prop film, "Jenin Jenin."
The last time I was at the University of Calgary, almost 10 years ago, I was invited to a movie series where a professor presented various Nazi films produced in the 1930s.
In these films, Jews were depicted as "foreigners" (they weren't "real" Germans or "real" Europeans; they were an "alien" element on European land), Jews were analogized to parasites (they were pictorially juxtaposed to rats running through the sewers), and Jews were depicted as hateful, inhumane, and cruel people, while the Germans, of course, were depicted as peace-loving.
Of course, the good professor showed these films not because she endorsed the message. Rather, she showed them to demonstrate the pernicious results of insidious hate propaganda.
That was 10 years ago.
Last week, I attended the first part of another film series at the University. Talk about deja vu!
In a propagandistic film called Jenin Jenin, a film which could have easily been directed by Joseph Goebbels himself, "Jews" were depicted as cruel and inhumane; Jews were analogized to parasites (mice, in particular); and once again, Jews were depicted as "foreigners" and an "alien element," but this time in the Middle East -- which, of course, is nothing short of an insult to the last 5000 years of history. Mind-probing questions were also raised in the film such as how God could ever create a people such as the Jews.
Unlike the propaganda films I viewed 10 years ago, which were intended to admonish, this propaganda piece -- presented by the Palestinian-Canadian Student Society (PCSS) and the Calgary Coalition for Peace and Anti-Racism -- was intended to persuade.
And make no mistake, the message in Jenin Jenin was not only directed against Israelis or Zionists, or any other popular euphemism to describe today's Jewry; it was simply directed against all Jews.
In the Middle East, this kind of vitriol is not uncommon. It is, however, an entirely different story when organizations import this kind of hate into Canada -- a country built upon a core value of multicultural and racial tolerance.
Unfortunately, I have found that every time I attend an event sponsored by the PCSS, I end up convinced that tolerance and peaceful co-existence are simply not on the agenda. In fact, the only discussion I have heard about peace at a PCSS event has centered on the dismantling of the Jewish state, a suggestion which was not only seriously entertained, but greeted with widespread applause.
In this context, it is not surprising that the PCSS chose to present the film Jenin Jenin -- a highly distorted presentation of second-rate propaganda -- to open their film festival. It was a logical springboard for the continued de-legitimization of the Jewish state, as well as a vehicle for a not-so-subtle attack on Jews themselves.
Aside from the palpable undertow of anti-Semitism, the film Jenin Jenin centers around Israel's incursion into Jenin last year. The film simply parrots and re-packages all the allegations made last year by Arafat's Palestinian Authority -- allegations which have since been proven patently false by the very human rights organizations that the PCSS selectively rely upon in their own Jenin "fact" sheets.
The PCSS is desperately hoping that we buy this newly re-packaged propaganda, which the PCSS beguilingly describes as an "unbiased" account.
They are hoping we forget deep embarrassment caused to the Palestinian Authority when the international media broadcasted pictures of fake funerals where corpses miraculously walked away.
They are similarly hoping we forget that Israel only entered Jenin after seven straight days of bloody and unparalleled terrorists attacks in which scores of innocent Israeli civilians were deliberately and systematically slaughtered.
Finally, they are hoping we forget that Jenin was proudly known to be the "suicide capital" as well as the undisputed territory of Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- terrorist groups whose express goals include the immediate liquidation of the Jewish state.
For those who remember, the real story behind Jenin was that Israeli troops engaged in hand-to-hand, door-to-door combat, in narrow streets, where houses were booby-trapped by terror organization. At the end of weeks of intense fighting, there were 21 Palestinian civilian casualties, which -- although every death is a tragedy -- testifies to the scrupulousness of the Israeli army, which lost 23 soldiers, precisely because it wanted to avoid the civilian casualties that normally come with aerial assaults.
In fact, Jenin is one of the only battles in recent history where more troops lost their lives than innocent civilians.
Of course, facts and context will never get in the way of organizations which cling tenaciously to ideas that are just as unpalatable today as they were in the 1930s.
Randy S. Shapiro is a Calgary Lawyer and spokesperson for Stand With Israel, a multi-faith coalition of young Calgary professionals.
In these films, Jews were depicted as "foreigners" (they weren't "real" Germans or "real" Europeans; they were an "alien" element on European land), Jews were analogized to parasites (they were pictorially juxtaposed to rats running through the sewers), and Jews were depicted as hateful, inhumane, and cruel people, while the Germans, of course, were depicted as peace-loving.
Of course, the good professor showed these films not because she endorsed the message. Rather, she showed them to demonstrate the pernicious results of insidious hate propaganda.
That was 10 years ago.
Last week, I attended the first part of another film series at the University. Talk about deja vu!
In a propagandistic film called Jenin Jenin, a film which could have easily been directed by Joseph Goebbels himself, "Jews" were depicted as cruel and inhumane; Jews were analogized to parasites (mice, in particular); and once again, Jews were depicted as "foreigners" and an "alien element," but this time in the Middle East -- which, of course, is nothing short of an insult to the last 5000 years of history. Mind-probing questions were also raised in the film such as how God could ever create a people such as the Jews.
Unlike the propaganda films I viewed 10 years ago, which were intended to admonish, this propaganda piece -- presented by the Palestinian-Canadian Student Society (PCSS) and the Calgary Coalition for Peace and Anti-Racism -- was intended to persuade.
And make no mistake, the message in Jenin Jenin was not only directed against Israelis or Zionists, or any other popular euphemism to describe today's Jewry; it was simply directed against all Jews.
In the Middle East, this kind of vitriol is not uncommon. It is, however, an entirely different story when organizations import this kind of hate into Canada -- a country built upon a core value of multicultural and racial tolerance.
Unfortunately, I have found that every time I attend an event sponsored by the PCSS, I end up convinced that tolerance and peaceful co-existence are simply not on the agenda. In fact, the only discussion I have heard about peace at a PCSS event has centered on the dismantling of the Jewish state, a suggestion which was not only seriously entertained, but greeted with widespread applause.
In this context, it is not surprising that the PCSS chose to present the film Jenin Jenin -- a highly distorted presentation of second-rate propaganda -- to open their film festival. It was a logical springboard for the continued de-legitimization of the Jewish state, as well as a vehicle for a not-so-subtle attack on Jews themselves.
Aside from the palpable undertow of anti-Semitism, the film Jenin Jenin centers around Israel's incursion into Jenin last year. The film simply parrots and re-packages all the allegations made last year by Arafat's Palestinian Authority -- allegations which have since been proven patently false by the very human rights organizations that the PCSS selectively rely upon in their own Jenin "fact" sheets.
The PCSS is desperately hoping that we buy this newly re-packaged propaganda, which the PCSS beguilingly describes as an "unbiased" account.
They are hoping we forget deep embarrassment caused to the Palestinian Authority when the international media broadcasted pictures of fake funerals where corpses miraculously walked away.
They are similarly hoping we forget that Israel only entered Jenin after seven straight days of bloody and unparalleled terrorists attacks in which scores of innocent Israeli civilians were deliberately and systematically slaughtered.
Finally, they are hoping we forget that Jenin was proudly known to be the "suicide capital" as well as the undisputed territory of Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- terrorist groups whose express goals include the immediate liquidation of the Jewish state.
For those who remember, the real story behind Jenin was that Israeli troops engaged in hand-to-hand, door-to-door combat, in narrow streets, where houses were booby-trapped by terror organization. At the end of weeks of intense fighting, there were 21 Palestinian civilian casualties, which -- although every death is a tragedy -- testifies to the scrupulousness of the Israeli army, which lost 23 soldiers, precisely because it wanted to avoid the civilian casualties that normally come with aerial assaults.
In fact, Jenin is one of the only battles in recent history where more troops lost their lives than innocent civilians.
Of course, facts and context will never get in the way of organizations which cling tenaciously to ideas that are just as unpalatable today as they were in the 1930s.
Randy S. Shapiro is a Calgary Lawyer and spokesperson for Stand With Israel, a multi-faith coalition of young Calgary professionals.
Garner on the Shiites - Powell on France
CNN.com - Garner downplays Shiite discontent - Apr. 23, 2003
Garner isn't so worried about the apparent anti-American Shiite demonstrations in Karbala of the past few days.
[...]"I think ... a majority of the people realize that we're only going to stay here long enough to start a democratic government for them, and we're only going to stay here long enough to begin their economy ... and we're only going to stay here long enough to get their oil running ... and the revenues to people," Garner said.
Garner said that he did not believe that the chants of "Death to America, death to Israel" by crowds in the Shiite pilgrimage to Karbala reflected the feelings of most Iraqis.
"A month ago they wouldn't have been able to demonstrate, and demonstrations are one of the properties of freedom," Garner said.
"I've had many, many Iraqis in Baghdad and the south tell us they're glad we're here, so I think what you see right now is some staged demonstrations," he said.[...]
Garner said that he did not believe that the chants of "Death to America, death to Israel" by crowds in the Shiite pilgrimage to Karbala reflected the feelings of most Iraqis.
"A month ago they wouldn't have been able to demonstrate, and demonstrations are one of the properties of freedom," Garner said.
"I've had many, many Iraqis in Baghdad and the south tell us they're glad we're here, so I think what you see right now is some staged demonstrations," he said.[...]
Sounds reasonable to me, although they need to track down and get rid of any Iranian infiltrators:
WASHINGTON, April 22 — Iranian-trained agents have crossed into southern Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein and are working in the cities of Najaf, Karbala and Basra to promote friendly Shiite clerics and advance Iranian interests, according to defense and other United States government officials.
The officials cited intelligence reports that said the agents include members of the military wing of an Iraqi exile group that operates from Iran with that government's training and support. Known as the Badr Brigade, the militia is the armed force of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group with headquarters in Tehran.
Other agents who have crossed into Iraq may include irregular members of a special unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the officials said.
They said the infiltration from Iran was not unexpected, but they described it as a matter of significant concern at a time when outside powers are jockeying for influence to fill the political vacuum in Iraq. They said it suggests that Iran, which stayed on the sidelines during the American-led war in Iraq, may be trying to take a more assertive role in shaping developments in southern Iraq, whose population — like that of Iran — is composed overwhelmingly of Shiite Muslims.
"They are not looking to promote a democratic agenda," one military official said.[...]
The officials cited intelligence reports that said the agents include members of the military wing of an Iraqi exile group that operates from Iran with that government's training and support. Known as the Badr Brigade, the militia is the armed force of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group with headquarters in Tehran.
Other agents who have crossed into Iraq may include irregular members of a special unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the officials said.
They said the infiltration from Iran was not unexpected, but they described it as a matter of significant concern at a time when outside powers are jockeying for influence to fill the political vacuum in Iraq. They said it suggests that Iran, which stayed on the sidelines during the American-led war in Iraq, may be trying to take a more assertive role in shaping developments in southern Iraq, whose population — like that of Iran — is composed overwhelmingly of Shiite Muslims.
"They are not looking to promote a democratic agenda," one military official said.[...]
In the same CNN item, Powell shows consistency and a laudable ability not to forget past wrongs:
[...]U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the fallout over prewar negotiations in the Security Council on "The Charlie Rose Show," saying it was no secret the United States believed that "France was not playing a helpful role."
"We have to look at all aspects of our relationship with France in light of this," Powell said, according to a transcript of the interview the State Department provided.
Powell said France would face consequences for standing up to the United States, but he did not elaborate.
"We have to look at all aspects of our relationship with France in light of this," Powell said, according to a transcript of the interview the State Department provided.
Powell said France would face consequences for standing up to the United States, but he did not elaborate.
I love it when Powell talks firm.
Mark Steyn on Burk, the NY Times and CNN
Heheh...entertaining Steyn piece (as usual) worth reading in full (requires registration). Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition - Page One obsessions and a little something bottled up, By Mark Steyn
[...]The Times had no position on war with Iraq but by golly it knew where it stood on the burning question of Augusta's sexism, and it hammered it home by every means at its disposal.
Well, last weekend we finally got to see the results. According to some newspapers, the big protest, led by Martha Burk of the National Council for Women's Organizations, attracted two dozen supporters, outnumbered five to one by the press.
According to USA Today, she had 40 supporters, outnumbered more than two to one by the cops.
Let's be generous and call it 40. Four-zero? That's it? In the last nine months, the New York Times has run 95 stories on Martha Burk and Augusta.
So, aside from being outnumbered by police and reporters, Burk's 40 supporters were outnumbered more than two to one by New York Times stories on Burk. Every time the Times mentioned this allegedly raging furor, it attracted approximately another 0.4 of a supporter to her cause.[...]
Well, last weekend we finally got to see the results. According to some newspapers, the big protest, led by Martha Burk of the National Council for Women's Organizations, attracted two dozen supporters, outnumbered five to one by the press.
According to USA Today, she had 40 supporters, outnumbered more than two to one by the cops.
Let's be generous and call it 40. Four-zero? That's it? In the last nine months, the New York Times has run 95 stories on Martha Burk and Augusta.
So, aside from being outnumbered by police and reporters, Burk's 40 supporters were outnumbered more than two to one by New York Times stories on Burk. Every time the Times mentioned this allegedly raging furor, it attracted approximately another 0.4 of a supporter to her cause.[...]
Arafat and Abu Mazen agree on makeup of new cabinet
Well, it was coming down to the wire, and up till just hours ago we heard the whole thing was a failure, but it seems like a last second agreement may be in the offing as every world leader including a Martian delegation has put pressure on Arafat to give up on a little of his power.
Article Static
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and his prime minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) reached an agreement Wednesday on the composition of the new cabinet, a Palestinian official said. The agreement is a major step toward the presentation of the U.S-backed road map to Middle East peace.
"Arafat and brother Abu Mazen have sorted out their differences," said Tayeb Abdul-Rahim, a senior aide to Arafat, after last-minute mediation efforts by a senior Egyptian envoy.
Abdul-Rahim said that under the deal, Abu Mazen will serve as interior minister and Mohammed Dahlan, the former Gaza security chief whom Arafat did not want in any executive position, will be in charge of security affairs.
Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) said he was informed by Abu Mazen and Arafat that the new cabinet has been formed and that the list of ministers is ready for presentation to the parliament.
"We were asked to call for a special session of the Palestinian legislature to vote confidence in the new government," Abu Ala told The Associated Press. "I will call for a session... within a week."
The announcement of the agreement comes after the head of Egyptian Intelligence, Omar Suleiman, placed heavy pressure on Arafat to find a solution to the dispute with Abu Mazen over the composition of the new cabinet.
Arafat had objected to the would-be prime minister's nomination of Dahlan for the head of the new government's security services, and Wednesday presented his own three-strong short list of candidates.
But Suleiman, sent Wednesday by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, urged Arafat to give up his demands, Israel Radio reported. The Egyptian envoy assured Arafat that he would remain leader of the Palestinian nation, but pressed him to rescind his demands over the formulation of the cabinet, the radio said.
Abu Mazen, who had not met with Arafat since Saturday, arrived at Arafat's Ramallah headquarters Wednesday afternoon, along with Suleiman and Dahlan.[...]
"Arafat and brother Abu Mazen have sorted out their differences," said Tayeb Abdul-Rahim, a senior aide to Arafat, after last-minute mediation efforts by a senior Egyptian envoy.
Abdul-Rahim said that under the deal, Abu Mazen will serve as interior minister and Mohammed Dahlan, the former Gaza security chief whom Arafat did not want in any executive position, will be in charge of security affairs.
Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) said he was informed by Abu Mazen and Arafat that the new cabinet has been formed and that the list of ministers is ready for presentation to the parliament.
"We were asked to call for a special session of the Palestinian legislature to vote confidence in the new government," Abu Ala told The Associated Press. "I will call for a session... within a week."
The announcement of the agreement comes after the head of Egyptian Intelligence, Omar Suleiman, placed heavy pressure on Arafat to find a solution to the dispute with Abu Mazen over the composition of the new cabinet.
Arafat had objected to the would-be prime minister's nomination of Dahlan for the head of the new government's security services, and Wednesday presented his own three-strong short list of candidates.
But Suleiman, sent Wednesday by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, urged Arafat to give up his demands, Israel Radio reported. The Egyptian envoy assured Arafat that he would remain leader of the Palestinian nation, but pressed him to rescind his demands over the formulation of the cabinet, the radio said.
Abu Mazen, who had not met with Arafat since Saturday, arrived at Arafat's Ramallah headquarters Wednesday afternoon, along with Suleiman and Dahlan.[...]
One wonders what kind of agreement they came to concerning security arrangements and disarming Fatah. Same day's Ha'Aretz:
Arafat rejects plan by Abu Mazen to disarm Fatah militia:
The dispute between Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Palestinian prime minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) over the formation of a new government centers around the latter's plans to dismantle Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades and his intentions to deal with the other armed factions in the territories.
Most reports have focused on Abu Mazen's plan to make Mohammed Dahlan, the Gazan strongman and former head of the Preventive Security Services in the Gaza Strip, head of the new government's security services. However, Palestinian sources said the dispute actually revolves around the premier-designate's plans for establishing a new PA security policy, and whether he must win Arafat's approval for every decision he makes.
The sources said Abu Mazen's plans to disarm the underground armed wing of Fatah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and how he will confront Hamas and Islamic Jihad are at the heart of the dispute.
Abu Mazen insists that he be granted sole authority over the disarming of armed factions, while Arafat rejects the demand, fearing that the disarming of the Al Aqsa Brigades would lead to a civil war. The two also have not reached an agreement as to how to deal with the other armed factions.
Despite massive international pressure, including phone calls from European leaders to Arafat, the dispute has come down to the wire. To meet his deadline, Abu Mazen must present his government to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) by tonight. However, as of late, a majority of the PLC, which gave a sweeping mandate to Abu Mazen to form a government just two months ago, has consolidated around Arafat. As a result, it is doubtful that the prime minister-designate can win the council's vote of confidence unless he reaches a deal with Arafat.
The pressure on Arafat has been so great, according to Palestinian sources, that at one point Arafat slammed down the phone on a senior European statesman.
Although Arafat and Abu Mazen reached an agreement that 12 to 14 of the PA's former ministers will remain in a 24-to-26-member government, as favored by Abu Mazen, the dispute over overall strategy - and Arafat's role in setting that course - has superseded their apparent compromise. The dispute, therefore, appears to be threatening not only an Abu Mazen government, but also the international road map intended to renew political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Most reports have focused on Abu Mazen's plan to make Mohammed Dahlan, the Gazan strongman and former head of the Preventive Security Services in the Gaza Strip, head of the new government's security services. However, Palestinian sources said the dispute actually revolves around the premier-designate's plans for establishing a new PA security policy, and whether he must win Arafat's approval for every decision he makes.
The sources said Abu Mazen's plans to disarm the underground armed wing of Fatah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and how he will confront Hamas and Islamic Jihad are at the heart of the dispute.
Abu Mazen insists that he be granted sole authority over the disarming of armed factions, while Arafat rejects the demand, fearing that the disarming of the Al Aqsa Brigades would lead to a civil war. The two also have not reached an agreement as to how to deal with the other armed factions.
Despite massive international pressure, including phone calls from European leaders to Arafat, the dispute has come down to the wire. To meet his deadline, Abu Mazen must present his government to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) by tonight. However, as of late, a majority of the PLC, which gave a sweeping mandate to Abu Mazen to form a government just two months ago, has consolidated around Arafat. As a result, it is doubtful that the prime minister-designate can win the council's vote of confidence unless he reaches a deal with Arafat.
The pressure on Arafat has been so great, according to Palestinian sources, that at one point Arafat slammed down the phone on a senior European statesman.
Although Arafat and Abu Mazen reached an agreement that 12 to 14 of the PA's former ministers will remain in a 24-to-26-member government, as favored by Abu Mazen, the dispute over overall strategy - and Arafat's role in setting that course - has superseded their apparent compromise. The dispute, therefore, appears to be threatening not only an Abu Mazen government, but also the international road map intended to renew political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
The Latest PA Child-Abuse Ad
Check it out at Palestine Media Watch through this link at Arutz Sheva - Israel National News.
Ralph Peters: Palestinian Reality
Peters puts down the straight dope on the future of Palestinian statehood and Middle East peace. Is this the pesimistic or the realistic view?
NYPOST.COM Post Opinion: Oped Columnists: PALESTINIAN REALITY By RALPH PETERS
[...]The Arab world is as addicted to blame as any junkie was ever addicted to heroin.
There may be some meaningful efforts to place new limits on terrorist operations from the soil of states such as Jordan and Egypt. But the terrorists will find ways around any restrictions. They are so consumed with the vision of Israel annihilated that many will never be able to tear themselves away from the delicious comforts of hatred, blame and slaughter.
The best hope for peace would be a regime change in Syria and the expulsion of all terrorist organizations from Lebanon. That may happen. Operation Iraqi Freedom provided the spark that could ignite the entire region, leading to the eventual collapse of one illegitimate government after another.
Anti-Israeli terrorism will never cease entirely - it's simply too alluring to the spiritually dispossessed of the Arab world - but the transformation of surrounding governments into states even moderately observant of human rights, the rule of law and the popular will would seriously hamper terrorist operations.[...]
There may be some meaningful efforts to place new limits on terrorist operations from the soil of states such as Jordan and Egypt. But the terrorists will find ways around any restrictions. They are so consumed with the vision of Israel annihilated that many will never be able to tear themselves away from the delicious comforts of hatred, blame and slaughter.
The best hope for peace would be a regime change in Syria and the expulsion of all terrorist organizations from Lebanon. That may happen. Operation Iraqi Freedom provided the spark that could ignite the entire region, leading to the eventual collapse of one illegitimate government after another.
Anti-Israeli terrorism will never cease entirely - it's simply too alluring to the spiritually dispossessed of the Arab world - but the transformation of surrounding governments into states even moderately observant of human rights, the rule of law and the popular will would seriously hamper terrorist operations.[...]
The link is via LGF. Speaking of which, Charles has a roundup on various Mullah's contributions to world peace.
Newt On State
Newt Gingrich has been making the news today with his speech at the American Enterprise Institute. He's calling out the State Department in a big way - calling for major reform and the disollution of USAID. Here's the transcript. Worth reading. Is he being unfair in this case? Maybe, even probably. But I can certainly buy into the idea that State is in major need of reform and purge.
The last seven months have involved six months of diplomatic failure and one month of military success. The first days after military victory indicate the pattern of diplomatic failure is beginning once again and threatens to undo the effects of military victory.
The diplomatic highpoint for the United States was President Bush's speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 12, 2002. At that point, the case had been made emphatically that the burden was on the UN Security Council. The Iraqi dictatorship had violated UN resolutions for 12 years--it was the United Nations that was under scrutiny because it was obvious that the regime of Saddam Hussein had failed. As President Bush said, it was time to "choose between a world of fear and a world of progress."
The State Department took the President's strong position and negotiated a resolution that shifted from verification to inspection. This was in part done because of internal State Department politics because verification would have put the policy in the hands of people who disagreed with the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs' propensity for appeasing dictators and propping up corrupt regimes. [...]
The diplomatic highpoint for the United States was President Bush's speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 12, 2002. At that point, the case had been made emphatically that the burden was on the UN Security Council. The Iraqi dictatorship had violated UN resolutions for 12 years--it was the United Nations that was under scrutiny because it was obvious that the regime of Saddam Hussein had failed. As President Bush said, it was time to "choose between a world of fear and a world of progress."
The State Department took the President's strong position and negotiated a resolution that shifted from verification to inspection. This was in part done because of internal State Department politics because verification would have put the policy in the hands of people who disagreed with the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs' propensity for appeasing dictators and propping up corrupt regimes. [...]
The Man Who Helped PFC Lynch
Here is a picture of "Mohammad" - the Iraqi lawyer who helped the Marines to rescue PFC Lynch. There's also an interesting story of C-130 crews at work. (Via One Hand Clapping)
Ledeen Warns About Iran's Machinations
Michael Ledeen on Iran, Iraq, and Shiites on National Review Online
Ledeen is worried that Iran will cause us to lose the peace, and proposes a couple of solid courses of action. Let's hope someone is listening:
[...]Our best strategy consists of two programs, one defensive and one offensive. The first is to support pro-Western, pro-democracy mullahs in Najaf and Karbala. They have sent a message to me (roughly two dozen of them), offering to help us in exchange for physical protection and money to give as charity to followers. Most Iraqi people do not like the Iranians, but only their own religious leaders can credibly expose the Iranian operation. They will not believe our radio or television broadcasts, or speeches from American generals, but they will listen to their own religious leaders. Similarly, it is next to impossible for us to identify the Iranian-backed terrorists, but the Iraqi Shiites can do it, once they are convinced that their real salvation lies with us. That is why the battle for the minds of the Iraqi Shiites is so crucial.
The second program is to support the anti-regime forces inside Iran. That insane regime is now very frightened, both of us and of their own people. The ayatollahs know that the Iranian people long to be free, and the regime has intensified its repression during the run-up to the war. There are several pro-democracy groups in Iran (student and teacher organizations, trade unions, workers? group, especially in the oil and textile sectors) that can organize an insurrection in Tehran and other major cities. They need money (a fraction of what was squandered in the CIA’s failed program to induce an insurrection in Basra), satellite phones, laptop computers, and the like. At the same time, we should support the pro-American Persian language radio and TV stations in Los Angeles, that are the principal source of information for most educated Iranians.[...]
The second program is to support the anti-regime forces inside Iran. That insane regime is now very frightened, both of us and of their own people. The ayatollahs know that the Iranian people long to be free, and the regime has intensified its repression during the run-up to the war. There are several pro-democracy groups in Iran (student and teacher organizations, trade unions, workers? group, especially in the oil and textile sectors) that can organize an insurrection in Tehran and other major cities. They need money (a fraction of what was squandered in the CIA’s failed program to induce an insurrection in Basra), satellite phones, laptop computers, and the like. At the same time, we should support the pro-American Persian language radio and TV stations in Los Angeles, that are the principal source of information for most educated Iranians.[...]
Dr. Daniel Pipes and His Critics
FrontPage magazine.com Robert Spencer takes on the Pipes critics in this supportive piece. Have you written your Senator yet?
Horowitz on the "Neo-Comms"
FrontPage magazine.com
David Horowitz turns his spotlight on the neo-communists of the collegiate left and analyses their motives.
[...]What the prologue to the war and its aftermath reveal is that the facts of the war are not the issue for the “anti-war” left and neither is the war itself. The so-called “anti-war” left is a Neo-communist movement that was launched forty years ago under the pretense of being a “new left,” and it has been at war with the “American empire” ever since. During these years of struggle with Communists in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, China, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central America, and in the aftermath of America’s liberation of a billion inhabitants of the Communist empire, this left has been impervious to every good deed America has done and every bad deed its Marxist and now Islamo-fascist enemies have committed. Instead, this “antiwar” left relentlessly attributes the bad deeds of America’s enemies to America itself – hence the search for “root causes” every time America is attacked.
The Neo-communist left opposes America’s efforts to promote freedom and supports (sometimes “critically”) America’s declared enemies not because of what America does, but because of what they think America is. The Neo-communist left is impervious to facts because it is a political messianism, in essence a religious movement. Its delusions of social redemption are fed on a rich diet of anti-American myths. These myths were once generated in institutions funded by the Communist Party and other marginal radical sects. But that has all changed with the long march of the left during the last thirty years through America’s institutions of higher learning. The Neo-communist left is now entrenched on the faculties of America’s elite universities, where it is a “hegemonic” force. It has converted America’s elite universities into a political base for its radical and anti-American agendas. In the present war with radical Islam, this poses a problem Americans can continue to ignore only at their own peril, and which sooner or later they must address.
The Neo-communist left opposes America’s efforts to promote freedom and supports (sometimes “critically”) America’s declared enemies not because of what America does, but because of what they think America is. The Neo-communist left is impervious to facts because it is a political messianism, in essence a religious movement. Its delusions of social redemption are fed on a rich diet of anti-American myths. These myths were once generated in institutions funded by the Communist Party and other marginal radical sects. But that has all changed with the long march of the left during the last thirty years through America’s institutions of higher learning. The Neo-communist left is now entrenched on the faculties of America’s elite universities, where it is a “hegemonic” force. It has converted America’s elite universities into a political base for its radical and anti-American agendas. In the present war with radical Islam, this poses a problem Americans can continue to ignore only at their own peril, and which sooner or later they must address.
Monday, April 21, 2003
Galloway was in Saddam's pay, say secret Iraqi documents
Telegraph | News | Galloway was in Saddam's pay, say secret Iraqi documents
Any US Congresspeople in those files? Hmmm?
George Galloway, the Labour backbencher, received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, taking a slice of oil earnings worth at least £375,000 a year, according to Iraqi intelligence documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad.
A confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his spy chief said that Mr Galloway asked an agent of the Mukhabarat secret service for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil for food programme.
He also said that Mr Galloway was profiting from food contracts and sought "exceptional" business deals. Mr Galloway has always denied receiving any financial assistance from Baghdad.[...]
A confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his spy chief said that Mr Galloway asked an agent of the Mukhabarat secret service for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil for food programme.
He also said that Mr Galloway was profiting from food contracts and sought "exceptional" business deals. Mr Galloway has always denied receiving any financial assistance from Baghdad.[...]
Arafat rejects plan by Abu Mazen to disarm Fatah militia
Eye on the PA machinations:
Ha'aretz - Article - By Arnon Regular
(in full) The dispute between Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Palestinian prime minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) over the formation of a new government centers around the latter's plans to dismantle Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades and his intentions to deal with the other armed factions in the territories.
Most reports have focused on Abu Mazen's plan to make Mohammed Dahlan, the Gazan strongman and former head of the Preventive Security Services in the Gaza Strip, head of the new government's security services. However, Palestinian sources said the dispute actually revolves around the premier-designate's plans for establishing a new PA security policy, and whether he must win Arafat's approval for every decision he makes.
The sources said Abu Mazen's plans to disarm the underground armed wing of Fatah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and how he will confront Hamas and Islamic Jihad are at the heart of the dispute.
Abu Mazen insists that he be granted sole authority over the disarming of armed factions, while Arafat rejects the demand, fearing that the disarming of the Al Aqsa Brigades would lead to a civil war. The two also have not reached an agreement as to how to deal with the other armed factions.
Despite massive international pressure, including phone calls from European leaders to Arafat, the dispute has come down to the wire. To meet his deadline, Abu Mazen must present his government to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) by tonight. However, as of late, a majority of the PLC, which gave a sweeping mandate to Abu Mazen to form a government just two months ago, has consolidated around Arafat. As a result, it is doubtful that the prime minister-designate can win the council's vote of confidence unless he reaches a deal with Arafat.
The pressure on Arafat has been so great, according to Palestinian sources, that at one point Arafat slammed down the phone on a senior European statesman.
Although Arafat and Abu Mazen reached an agreement that 12 to 14 of the PA's former ministers will remain in a 24-to-26-member government, as favored by Abu Mazen, the dispute over overall strategy - and Arafat's role in setting that course - has superseded their apparent compromise. The dispute, therefore, appears to be threatening not only an Abu Mazen government, but also the international road map intended to renew political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Most reports have focused on Abu Mazen's plan to make Mohammed Dahlan, the Gazan strongman and former head of the Preventive Security Services in the Gaza Strip, head of the new government's security services. However, Palestinian sources said the dispute actually revolves around the premier-designate's plans for establishing a new PA security policy, and whether he must win Arafat's approval for every decision he makes.
The sources said Abu Mazen's plans to disarm the underground armed wing of Fatah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and how he will confront Hamas and Islamic Jihad are at the heart of the dispute.
Abu Mazen insists that he be granted sole authority over the disarming of armed factions, while Arafat rejects the demand, fearing that the disarming of the Al Aqsa Brigades would lead to a civil war. The two also have not reached an agreement as to how to deal with the other armed factions.
Despite massive international pressure, including phone calls from European leaders to Arafat, the dispute has come down to the wire. To meet his deadline, Abu Mazen must present his government to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) by tonight. However, as of late, a majority of the PLC, which gave a sweeping mandate to Abu Mazen to form a government just two months ago, has consolidated around Arafat. As a result, it is doubtful that the prime minister-designate can win the council's vote of confidence unless he reaches a deal with Arafat.
The pressure on Arafat has been so great, according to Palestinian sources, that at one point Arafat slammed down the phone on a senior European statesman.
Although Arafat and Abu Mazen reached an agreement that 12 to 14 of the PA's former ministers will remain in a 24-to-26-member government, as favored by Abu Mazen, the dispute over overall strategy - and Arafat's role in setting that course - has superseded their apparent compromise. The dispute, therefore, appears to be threatening not only an Abu Mazen government, but also the international road map intended to renew political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Smearing Daniel Pipes
NYPOST.COM Post Opinion: Oped Columnists: SMEARING DANIEL PIPES
By FRANK J. GAFFNEY JR.
Gaffney comes out in support of Daniel Pipes' nomination in the NY Post:
April 21, 2003 -- THE Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR) has picked a fight it cannot win. It has issued the propagandist's equivalent of a fatwa against Daniel Pipes, whom President Bush has wisely nominated to serve on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
CAIR accuses Pipes of being "an Islamophobe" - by which it evidently means someone who hates all Muslims - and implies that, if his nomination is not withdrawn, the institute's hope to raise $80 million for a new headquarters on the Washington Mall could be thwarted.
CAIR can't win this fight, in part because Daniel Pipes' impressive record of scholarship, extensive writings (including a weekly column for The Post) and other contributions to the public-policy debate show him to be no Islamophobe.
Pipes is, in fact, a man who very much admires, respects and supports members of the Islamic community for whom CAIR seems not to speak - namely, tolerant, nonviolent, pro-American Muslims who do not defend or otherwise encourage the murderous, radical minority known as "Islamists" who would pervert their religion. [...]
CAIR accuses Pipes of being "an Islamophobe" - by which it evidently means someone who hates all Muslims - and implies that, if his nomination is not withdrawn, the institute's hope to raise $80 million for a new headquarters on the Washington Mall could be thwarted.
CAIR can't win this fight, in part because Daniel Pipes' impressive record of scholarship, extensive writings (including a weekly column for The Post) and other contributions to the public-policy debate show him to be no Islamophobe.
Pipes is, in fact, a man who very much admires, respects and supports members of the Islamic community for whom CAIR seems not to speak - namely, tolerant, nonviolent, pro-American Muslims who do not defend or otherwise encourage the murderous, radical minority known as "Islamists" who would pervert their religion. [...]
Krauthammer: Lift the Sanctions Now
Lift the Sanctions Now (washingtonpost.com)
Charles Krauthammer makes one of the strongest calls yet for getting the UNSC to stop playing games and lift the damn sanctions already.
The Iraqi economy is devastated, the people destitute, the country desperately awaiting reconstruction. Fortunately, Iraq has oil. Perversely, it cannot sell its oil because it is still technically under the U.N. sanctions imposed in 1990 on Saddam Hussein for his invasion of Kuwait and kept in place when he refused to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction. All we need to get suffering Iraqis on the road to recovery is to lift the embargo and let them sell their oil.
Not so fast, says Russia's foreign minister. "This decision cannot be automatic. For the Security Council to take this decision, we need to be certain whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not."
In the history of diplomacy going back to, oh, Babylonian times, it is hard to find a pronouncement as cynical.[...]
Not so fast, says Russia's foreign minister. "This decision cannot be automatic. For the Security Council to take this decision, we need to be certain whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not."
In the history of diplomacy going back to, oh, Babylonian times, it is hard to find a pronouncement as cynical.[...]
A Shared Strategic Vision
A Shared Strategic Vision (washingtonpost.com) - By Recep Tayyip Erdogan
The Prime Minister of Turkey writes in today's Washington Post. Worth a read.
ANKARA, Turkey -- The role that Turkey could -- or should -- play in Operation Iraqi Freedom has been the subject of much debate in both Turkey and the United States. Unfortunately, in the course of the debate, some pessimists have even called into question the relevance of the strategic partnership between our countries.
Just as the fate of Saddam Hussein is critical to U.S. national security, the fate of northern Iraq is critical to Turkish national security. Turkey and the United States share concerns about the impact of the Iraqi conflict on the activities of terrorist organizations, about the humanitarian crisis caused by Hussein's policies and about the long-term political and economic stability of the region.
As a global leader, the United States must address these issues. As a regional leader, Turkey must address them also as it contends with the conflict just across its border. While this fact, and Turkey's legitimate need to respond accordingly, should be obvious, some have attributed a hidden agenda to Turkey's involvement in the conflict.[...]
Just as the fate of Saddam Hussein is critical to U.S. national security, the fate of northern Iraq is critical to Turkish national security. Turkey and the United States share concerns about the impact of the Iraqi conflict on the activities of terrorist organizations, about the humanitarian crisis caused by Hussein's policies and about the long-term political and economic stability of the region.
As a global leader, the United States must address these issues. As a regional leader, Turkey must address them also as it contends with the conflict just across its border. While this fact, and Turkey's legitimate need to respond accordingly, should be obvious, some have attributed a hidden agenda to Turkey's involvement in the conflict.[...]
Jacoby on CNN and Beyond
A few days ago, Jeff Jacoby chimed-in on the Eason Jordan/CNN confession:
[...]We know about that conversation, and about CNN's silence, because Jordan admitted it last week. In a New York Times column titled ''The news we kept to ourselves,'' he confessed that CNN habitually suppressed stories of torture, mutilation, and other atrocities - ''things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff. ''
Jordan's disclosure triggered a storm of criticism, and no wonder. It is scandalous that a network calling itself ''the most trusted name in news'' would sanitize the truth about a dictatorship it claimed to be covering objectively. And the scandal is compounded by Jordan's lack of contrition. He makes no apology for downplaying the horrors of Saddam's regime. If CNN hadn't done so, he says, innocent people would have died.[...]
Jordan's disclosure triggered a storm of criticism, and no wonder. It is scandalous that a network calling itself ''the most trusted name in news'' would sanitize the truth about a dictatorship it claimed to be covering objectively. And the scandal is compounded by Jordan's lack of contrition. He makes no apology for downplaying the horrors of Saddam's regime. If CNN hadn't done so, he says, innocent people would have died.[...]
Jacoby also reminded us that problem goes much farther:
[...]Don't take my word for it. Listen to Thomas Friedman, who described in his 1989 bestseller ''From Beirut to Jerusalem'' what it was like to be a reporter in Beirut during the years when southern Lebanon was dominated by Yasser Arafat's PLO and Syria's Palestinian loyalists.
''No discussion about the reality of Beirut reporting would be complete,'' he wrote, ''without mentioning a major reporting constraint journalists there faced: physical intimidation.'' Friedman recalled his own terror on learning that Arafat's spokesman wanted to see him ''immediately'' about the stories he'd been filing to New York:
''I lay awake in my bed the whole night worrying that someone was going to burst in and blow my brains all over the wall.''[...]
''No discussion about the reality of Beirut reporting would be complete,'' he wrote, ''without mentioning a major reporting constraint journalists there faced: physical intimidation.'' Friedman recalled his own terror on learning that Arafat's spokesman wanted to see him ''immediately'' about the stories he'd been filing to New York:
''I lay awake in my bed the whole night worrying that someone was going to burst in and blow my brains all over the wall.''[...]
Most people are blaming the media for sacrificing themselves for ratings (greed). That's certainly a big part of it, especially in upper-management, but let's not forget another factor: A misguided desire to do good.
No one wants to do "work," they want to do "important work." People choosing reporting as a profession are no different. To be a talking head is one thing, to be a talking head with a "mission" is quite another.
So you find yourself in a place like antebellum Iraq. You see people around you that may need help. Do you tell the straight-up truth and get kicked out, or remove yourself voluntarily? Then you have no chance of effecting any good from inside. OR, do you shill a little for the Dictator, and hope to maybe get a bit of the truth out inside all that distortion...then at least there's a bit of hope for accomplishing something.
So, you see, you can rationalize almost anything in the name of the greater good. Could doing so be justified? It's possible, but one must be very careful when sacrificing the principled for the practical - it's a formula that can go wrong very quickly. Was it wrong to use war to remove Saddam? I don't think so. Was it wrong to shill for Saddam all those years rather than reporting more truthfully from the outside. I believe it was.
Now fast-forward to the postbellum period. You were wondering why so much of even the Western media kept focussing on the negative - power, water, looting - when to many of us it seemed a little more perspective was in order? Well, imagine you're a reporter in Baghdad, and people are asking you, "Sir, when will the water start flowing again, where are the medical supplies, etc..." Well, there's nothing you can do about any of that, and you probably have no idea of the answer anyway...BUT, one thing you do have is your pen. You can do your part for the people by emphasizing their plight. So suddenly there are dozens of stories about all the problems in Baghdad as every activist reporter (and member of the NGO known as "World Media") does their part to have their own agenda catered to.
You can go around the world and check each country's media's perception of what their part is to play in the conflict - either for affirming their own nation's goals or doing their more focussed "humanitarian" part. Fox News isn't the only outlet that knows what side their on. What's served as a convenient multiplier for this effect is that, for much of the world's media, their nation's goals have coincided very nicely with the simplistic "war is bad" meme. Accurately portraying a larger picture, measuring what overall effect their reportage has on events beyond their direct line of site, or actually doing some independant thinking as they move forward just isn't their concern.
As so often occurs to the Left, appearing to do good is many times more important than actually doing so, so you end up shilling for a dictator before the war, and making it harder for the victors to do the right thing when it's over.
Ripples: Qatari Writer in Arab News
ArabNews: Arab Media's Conduct During War Indicative of a Deeper Malaise (Via Instapundit)
Worth reading in full. Snippet:
[...]The question is: Why did the Arab media consent to align itself with the Iraqi regime while at the same time pretending that it was with the people?
It is my view that the answer was stated by the director of one of the satellite channels: “It is competition. In such circumstances, either we win the viewers or others win them.” Thus he summarized the way of most of those in the Arab media. Their aim is to win the street at any price. The street is emotional and has little confidence in the Americans. It can be won by fanning the flames of its emotions and encouraging its feelings with dreams of a great Arab victory and a great American defeat.
To a large extent, the Arab media was characterized by selectivity, and it was decidedly on the side of the Iraqi regime. Our intellectuals took over the line and constantly repeated it. Our media then devoted special programs to disseminating and repeating the falsehoods of Sahaf. Their biased point of view was imposed on listeners. Our media attempted to increase the degree of hatred against the coalition by concentrating on the degree of the destruction and the number of civilian victims, without making clear that this was because the regime positioned its forces and tanks in civilian areas. The army of Saddam of which they were so proud because it was the only army which could protect civilians in fact used the civilians to protect itself.
It was the Arab media itself which claimed that the aims of the war were to destroy Iraq, put an end to its capabilities, and, in the end, to occupy it. It did not for a moment consider the role of Iraq’s ruler in the destruction and ruin of the country over a period of more than thirty years. It did not consider how he had destroyed the country’s environment, education, health and legal systems. He also set oil wells on fire and destroyed bridges, and he transformed the cities, especially in the south, into wretchedness, deprived even of clean drinking water.[...]
Again, the question: Is it possible for the Arab media to be objective?
In my view, it is not possible because the Arab media is controlled by the prevailing general atmosphere and by people who have been fed on the slogans of incitement and inflammatory propaganda for more than half a century. They are captives of those who fed them and brought them up, those who controlled their mentality in which long-standing imaginary ideas, fables and superstitions were planted. [...]
The musings of a simple Iraqi from a liberated area caught my attention. He said: “The Arabs left us and did not liberate us. Why are they attacking the coalition which wants to liberate us?” Why is this simple fact not realized by our men of culture, our intellectuals, our men of the media and our religious leaders, the men who call for participation in “jihad?”
It is my view that the answer was stated by the director of one of the satellite channels: “It is competition. In such circumstances, either we win the viewers or others win them.” Thus he summarized the way of most of those in the Arab media. Their aim is to win the street at any price. The street is emotional and has little confidence in the Americans. It can be won by fanning the flames of its emotions and encouraging its feelings with dreams of a great Arab victory and a great American defeat.
To a large extent, the Arab media was characterized by selectivity, and it was decidedly on the side of the Iraqi regime. Our intellectuals took over the line and constantly repeated it. Our media then devoted special programs to disseminating and repeating the falsehoods of Sahaf. Their biased point of view was imposed on listeners. Our media attempted to increase the degree of hatred against the coalition by concentrating on the degree of the destruction and the number of civilian victims, without making clear that this was because the regime positioned its forces and tanks in civilian areas. The army of Saddam of which they were so proud because it was the only army which could protect civilians in fact used the civilians to protect itself.
It was the Arab media itself which claimed that the aims of the war were to destroy Iraq, put an end to its capabilities, and, in the end, to occupy it. It did not for a moment consider the role of Iraq’s ruler in the destruction and ruin of the country over a period of more than thirty years. It did not consider how he had destroyed the country’s environment, education, health and legal systems. He also set oil wells on fire and destroyed bridges, and he transformed the cities, especially in the south, into wretchedness, deprived even of clean drinking water.[...]
Again, the question: Is it possible for the Arab media to be objective?
In my view, it is not possible because the Arab media is controlled by the prevailing general atmosphere and by people who have been fed on the slogans of incitement and inflammatory propaganda for more than half a century. They are captives of those who fed them and brought them up, those who controlled their mentality in which long-standing imaginary ideas, fables and superstitions were planted. [...]
The musings of a simple Iraqi from a liberated area caught my attention. He said: “The Arabs left us and did not liberate us. Why are they attacking the coalition which wants to liberate us?” Why is this simple fact not realized by our men of culture, our intellectuals, our men of the media and our religious leaders, the men who call for participation in “jihad?”
Sunday, April 20, 2003
It's time to get U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia.
OpinionJournal - Housekeeping, Post-Saddam - By Francis Fukuyama
Fukuyama believes that now is the time to get our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Although I feel his conclusion is a bit rosy - he believes our move may be viewed as one of "magnanimity and common sense" - he makes a good point. It may be time to "strategically re-deploy." Besides, maybe the new Iraqi government will let us borrow some of their real estate for awhile.
There Is A God
Friedman: The Third Bubble
The Third Bubble - NY Times
Thomas Friedman's column today is worth reading. I like the imagery of the "Terrorism Bubble" - like the stock market bubble and the corporate ethics bubble. Where I part company with Friedman however, and quite strongly, is that he seems to be stating a little too strongly the idea of a "return to normalcy" (my term). That kind of talk is still premature. There's still a lot of work to be done on the terrorism, and more to the point, the state sponsors of terrorism front, although I agree that we need to be very careful about where we let things like the Patriot Act take us.
[...]Like the stock market and corporate bubbles, the terrorism bubble was the product of a kind of temporary insanity, in which basic norms were ignored and excessive behavior was justified by new theories. In the case of the terrorism bubble, we were told that suicide bombing was the work of desperate people who had no other way to get America's or Israel's attention.
People across Europe and the Arab-Muslim world bought such theories. Some Muslim religious leaders even came up with rulings justifying the suicide bombing of civilians in pizza parlors. Arab media called the terrorists "martyrs." It was moral creative accounting: if you are weak, there is no limit on what you can do, and if you are strong — like America and Israel — you have no moral right to defend yourself. Worse, after 9/11, some in the Arab-Muslim world actually believed they had found a new balance of power with America — through the suicide bomber.
And we in America believed them, so we blew up the bubble more.[...]
People across Europe and the Arab-Muslim world bought such theories. Some Muslim religious leaders even came up with rulings justifying the suicide bombing of civilians in pizza parlors. Arab media called the terrorists "martyrs." It was moral creative accounting: if you are weak, there is no limit on what you can do, and if you are strong — like America and Israel — you have no moral right to defend yourself. Worse, after 9/11, some in the Arab-Muslim world actually believed they had found a new balance of power with America — through the suicide bomber.
And we in America believed them, so we blew up the bubble more.[...]
Saturday, April 19, 2003
German spies offered help to Saddam in run-up to war
Telegraph | News | German spies offered help to Saddam in run-up to war (Via Sgt. Stryker)
Germany's intelligence services attempted to build closer links to Saddam's secret service during the build-up to war last year, documents from the bombed Iraqi intelligence HQ in Baghdad obtained by The Telegraph reveal.
They show that an agent named as Johannes William Hoffner, described as a "new German representative in Iraq" who had entered the country under diplomatic cover, attended a meeting with Lt Gen Taher Jalil Haboosh, the director of Iraq's intelligence service.
During the meeting, on January 29, 2002, Lt Gen Haboosh says that the Iraqis are keen to have a relationship with Germany's intelligence agency "under diplomatic cover", adding that he hopes to develop that relationship through Mr Hoffner.
The German replies: "My organisation wants to develop its relationship with your organisation."
In return, the Iraqis offered to give lucrative contracts to German companies if the Berlin government helped prevent an American invasion of the country.
The revelations come a week after The Telegraph reported that Russia had spied for the Iraqis, passing them intelligence about a meeting between Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. Both the British and Italian governments have launched investigations.[...]
They show that an agent named as Johannes William Hoffner, described as a "new German representative in Iraq" who had entered the country under diplomatic cover, attended a meeting with Lt Gen Taher Jalil Haboosh, the director of Iraq's intelligence service.
During the meeting, on January 29, 2002, Lt Gen Haboosh says that the Iraqis are keen to have a relationship with Germany's intelligence agency "under diplomatic cover", adding that he hopes to develop that relationship through Mr Hoffner.
The German replies: "My organisation wants to develop its relationship with your organisation."
In return, the Iraqis offered to give lucrative contracts to German companies if the Berlin government helped prevent an American invasion of the country.
The revelations come a week after The Telegraph reported that Russia had spied for the Iraqis, passing them intelligence about a meeting between Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. Both the British and Italian governments have launched investigations.[...]
Gene Simmons Gets It!
Gene Simmons - Fan of America
GeneSimmons.com (Via Right Wing News)
Another celebrity good-guy! Gene Simmons of Kiss posted a note to his fans this past April 17th on his personal web site. As he doesn't have perma-links, I've re-posted the note in full. Go to his site and scroll to the April 17th entry if you'd like to read it there.
Recently, because of the War in Iraq, our letters pages have become a forum for all sorts of views. A few of you have expressed concern and sometimes outrage at some of my responses. And, perhaps a word of explanation is in order.
First, and most important, I stand by my words.
I don't often use words like "fuck", "ass" or "balls." However, when appropriate and certainly here, in my own web site, I will do as I please. This is my house and at my home, I freely express myself. You are free to visit other sites that might not offend you.
I have said in this political climate, that I am ashamed of the behavior of people who call themselves either members of the Democratic Party (whose politics I usually support, incidentally) or as Liberals (funny, I always thought I was one). But, I will not hesitate to tell someone off. I believe in a form of politics that supercedes philosophical discussions. I believe in Pragmatism.
Pacifism is a beautiful word. No one wants war. Not you. Not I. But, the most passionate Pacifist is only relatively so. What I mean is, it's easy to be a Pacifist here in America. That's because Hussein and other menaces are far away. The closer a gun is pointed to your head, the less of a Pacifist you are...the more you're interested in stopping the guy pointing the gun to your head.
Granted. Saddam Hussein never pointed a gun to my head. I also never want to wait long enough for him to do so. PRE-EMPTIVE WAR is one of the realities we all have to face. There will never be another 9/11...and I could give a shit if there is or isn't a direct line to Hussein. He had to go. Period. That regime wouldn't think twice about giving an extremist a suitcase filled with a dirty bomb.
I am passionate about America. It has given me (and in my estimation, the world) everything I ever wanted... including the right to disagree, without winding up in a can of dog food. And, because of my passionate love of America, warts and all, I will stand up and defend her at the drop of a hat.
Is America always right? No. But for 100 years, it seems to me, it has gotten most of it right. The most powerful force the world has ever known is not conquering other countries. Previous world powers, had a colonial agenda. This included at various times in history: Rome, Greece, Nazi Germany, France, England, Communist Russia and Persia. There are more.
But, aside from the French complaining (don't they always?) about the influx of the AMERICAN CULTURE, I don't see America expanding its borders...All the countries in the world are free to rule themselves as they see fit...as long as they don't threaten anyone else.
So, the letter column has tended to veer towards your letters. I didn't push it there. You did. DON'T START SOMETHING, UNLESS YOU WANT TO FINISH IT. If you write letters and are willing to give...you better be willing to get.
Because I give as good as I get.
"America, love it or leave it?" I never subscribed to that ideal. It's actually UnAmerican. I DO believe in different opinions. But, I am also ashamed of any American especially, who gets up on stage in a different country to badmouth America, while American troops are dying in a desert country they would never want to live in.
Is that behavior giving aid and comfort to the enemy? You bet your fuckin' ass. In jail, when you misbehave, you get bitch slapped, or you become someone's bitch
In life, you should be held accountable for anything that comes out of your mouth, not just your ass.
Yelling FIRE in a movie theater, is NOT freedom of speech.
The war, for the most part is over. The British and the Aussies, (God bless em both,) amid a murky political situation, stood alongside Americans and did what had to be done.
The Iraqi's are free.
I suggest anyone having a problem with this war go talk to the Iraqi's. Ask them if they prefer freedom (even at the price of, initially having what seems to be chaos), or if they prefer Saddam Hussein come back and reinstates the old ways.
I DARE anyone to say the Iraqi's were better off before, under Hussein.
And, after the war dies down, and people here in America go back to normalcy, there will be people who say that they are "non-violent." You don't want to get into fights. But, what that really means is, you don't want to pick on anybody.
Problem is, the bad guys don't always agree with you. You see, if you're against violence and some guy holds a gun to your head and asks you for your money, you better re-think your position. You better become VERY VIOLENT at that moment. Or, you're dead.
Being a Pacifist, is an ideal. I subscribe to it. I'm against violence. But, only CONCEPTUALLY, if you threaten my children, I wouldn't think twice about snapping your neck on the spot. I suspect most people would take my view.
You can tell by the length of this missive, that this issue has gotten under my skin. So, I'll try to recap my feelings, in brief. Get ready, 'cause here comes the truth:
America is the world's only hope for a bright future.
Yes. I mean that. Yes, I know you live in another country and your country is cool, too. But, America is the only Superpower. There are no others. And that means, the world is a better place. Because if Nazi Germany or Communist Russia were the only superpowers, we would all be either dead or forced to live under their regimes.
America is not interested in ruling your country. If you think it does, smoking crack may be your answer.
I wasn't born here. But, I have a love for this country and its people that knows no bounds. I will forever be grateful to America for going into World War II, when it had nothing to gain, in a country that was far away...and rescued my Mother from the Nazi German Concentration Camps.
She is alive and I am alive because of America.
And, if you have a problem with America, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ME.
First, and most important, I stand by my words.
I don't often use words like "fuck", "ass" or "balls." However, when appropriate and certainly here, in my own web site, I will do as I please. This is my house and at my home, I freely express myself. You are free to visit other sites that might not offend you.
I have said in this political climate, that I am ashamed of the behavior of people who call themselves either members of the Democratic Party (whose politics I usually support, incidentally) or as Liberals (funny, I always thought I was one). But, I will not hesitate to tell someone off. I believe in a form of politics that supercedes philosophical discussions. I believe in Pragmatism.
Pacifism is a beautiful word. No one wants war. Not you. Not I. But, the most passionate Pacifist is only relatively so. What I mean is, it's easy to be a Pacifist here in America. That's because Hussein and other menaces are far away. The closer a gun is pointed to your head, the less of a Pacifist you are...the more you're interested in stopping the guy pointing the gun to your head.
Granted. Saddam Hussein never pointed a gun to my head. I also never want to wait long enough for him to do so. PRE-EMPTIVE WAR is one of the realities we all have to face. There will never be another 9/11...and I could give a shit if there is or isn't a direct line to Hussein. He had to go. Period. That regime wouldn't think twice about giving an extremist a suitcase filled with a dirty bomb.
I am passionate about America. It has given me (and in my estimation, the world) everything I ever wanted... including the right to disagree, without winding up in a can of dog food. And, because of my passionate love of America, warts and all, I will stand up and defend her at the drop of a hat.
Is America always right? No. But for 100 years, it seems to me, it has gotten most of it right. The most powerful force the world has ever known is not conquering other countries. Previous world powers, had a colonial agenda. This included at various times in history: Rome, Greece, Nazi Germany, France, England, Communist Russia and Persia. There are more.
But, aside from the French complaining (don't they always?) about the influx of the AMERICAN CULTURE, I don't see America expanding its borders...All the countries in the world are free to rule themselves as they see fit...as long as they don't threaten anyone else.
So, the letter column has tended to veer towards your letters. I didn't push it there. You did. DON'T START SOMETHING, UNLESS YOU WANT TO FINISH IT. If you write letters and are willing to give...you better be willing to get.
Because I give as good as I get.
"America, love it or leave it?" I never subscribed to that ideal. It's actually UnAmerican. I DO believe in different opinions. But, I am also ashamed of any American especially, who gets up on stage in a different country to badmouth America, while American troops are dying in a desert country they would never want to live in.
Is that behavior giving aid and comfort to the enemy? You bet your fuckin' ass. In jail, when you misbehave, you get bitch slapped, or you become someone's bitch
In life, you should be held accountable for anything that comes out of your mouth, not just your ass.
Yelling FIRE in a movie theater, is NOT freedom of speech.
The war, for the most part is over. The British and the Aussies, (God bless em both,) amid a murky political situation, stood alongside Americans and did what had to be done.
The Iraqi's are free.
I suggest anyone having a problem with this war go talk to the Iraqi's. Ask them if they prefer freedom (even at the price of, initially having what seems to be chaos), or if they prefer Saddam Hussein come back and reinstates the old ways.
I DARE anyone to say the Iraqi's were better off before, under Hussein.
And, after the war dies down, and people here in America go back to normalcy, there will be people who say that they are "non-violent." You don't want to get into fights. But, what that really means is, you don't want to pick on anybody.
Problem is, the bad guys don't always agree with you. You see, if you're against violence and some guy holds a gun to your head and asks you for your money, you better re-think your position. You better become VERY VIOLENT at that moment. Or, you're dead.
Being a Pacifist, is an ideal. I subscribe to it. I'm against violence. But, only CONCEPTUALLY, if you threaten my children, I wouldn't think twice about snapping your neck on the spot. I suspect most people would take my view.
You can tell by the length of this missive, that this issue has gotten under my skin. So, I'll try to recap my feelings, in brief. Get ready, 'cause here comes the truth:
America is the world's only hope for a bright future.
Yes. I mean that. Yes, I know you live in another country and your country is cool, too. But, America is the only Superpower. There are no others. And that means, the world is a better place. Because if Nazi Germany or Communist Russia were the only superpowers, we would all be either dead or forced to live under their regimes.
America is not interested in ruling your country. If you think it does, smoking crack may be your answer.
I wasn't born here. But, I have a love for this country and its people that knows no bounds. I will forever be grateful to America for going into World War II, when it had nothing to gain, in a country that was far away...and rescued my Mother from the Nazi German Concentration Camps.
She is alive and I am alive because of America.
And, if you have a problem with America, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ME.
WaPo Against Pipes
Fueling a Culture Clash (washingtonpost.com) (Via LGF)
The Washington Post has come out against the nomination of Daniel Pipes to the U.S Institute of Peace.
MANY MUSLIMS received the news that the White House had nominated scholar Daniel Pipes to, of all places, the U.S. Institute of Peace as sort of a cruel joke. The institute is a quasi-governmental think tank dedicated to international "peace and conflict resolution"; one of its latest projects is the Special Initiative on the Muslim World, begun after Sept. 11, 2001, as a bridge between cultures. Mr. Pipes has long been regarded by Muslims as a destroyer of such bridges. And it takes only a glimpse at the latest column posted on his Web site to see why. The column, written for the New York Post, is about Hasan K. Akbar, the U.S. soldier in Kuwait charged with throwing a grenade at his fellow soldiers: "No one yet knows Akbar's motives, but ignoring that it fits into a sustained pattern of political violence by American Muslims amounts to willful self-deception. When will officialdom acknowledge what is staring it in the face?"[...]
It is essential you write or call your Senator to tell them to support this nomination. If there's one thing our government needs more of, it's scholars in influential positions who are willing to speak out for the truth.
Lileks on the Anti-War Crowd and Madonna
Always good for a read.
LILEKS (James) The Bleat
[...]As for the war itself, I hit a wall Sunday morning - I was reading the editorial page, and came across a Stern & Determined Essay on the need to continue the peace protests. The first reason given: the war violated international law.
You know, if you paw through the reams of resolutions put forth by the UN, I’m sure you’ll find one that outlaws special jails for children, too. I’m no longer interested in reading the arguments of people who regard a war that empties the children’s jails as a greater evil than the jails themselves. And I don’t share their horror for the word “illegal,” particularly in the context of international law. Is the worst thing about modern-day slavery its illegality? Or the fact that it’s slavery?[...]
You know, if you paw through the reams of resolutions put forth by the UN, I’m sure you’ll find one that outlaws special jails for children, too. I’m no longer interested in reading the arguments of people who regard a war that empties the children’s jails as a greater evil than the jails themselves. And I don’t share their horror for the word “illegal,” particularly in the context of international law. Is the worst thing about modern-day slavery its illegality? Or the fact that it’s slavery?[...]
Shark Blog: Saudi Arabia and Sanctions
Shark Blog has an amusing juxtaposition of Saudi policy towards Iraqi sanctions past and present. Check his item for more and links. Snippet:
January 11, 1999: "Saudi Arabia has proposed the lifting of the oil embargo on Iraq to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people. "
April 18, 2003: Saudi Arabia said today that UN sanctions imposed on Iraq should end only when it has a "legitimate government that represents the people."[...]
April 18, 2003: Saudi Arabia said today that UN sanctions imposed on Iraq should end only when it has a "legitimate government that represents the people."[...]
Interview With Sheikh Abdul Palazzi
Very interesting interview with the Muslim Sheik I posted about previously. Found via IsraPundit. Worth reading. I've posted it in full.
JewishPress.com > News > View Article
‘The Koran Says The Jews Would Return To Their Land`: Exclusive Interview With Sheikh Abdul Palazzi
Posted 3/27/2003 By Naomi Klass Mauer, Editor
Sheikh Abdul Palazzi, professor at the Research Institute for Anthropological Studies in Rome, was in the United States recently guest lecturing at Yale University on the possibility of bringing democracy to the Arab world. Having read numerous items about the sheikh, we were interested in meeting him. We caught up with him in New York as he was preparing to return to Italy.
Jewish Press: Tell our readers a little about yourself.
Palazzi: I was born in Rome 42 years ago to a Syrian mother and an Italian father. In addition to teaching at the Research Institute, I also teach a post-doctoral course on Middle East studies, I’m the secretary general for the Italian Muslim Association and the Muslim chair of Islam-Israel Fellowship at the Root and Branch Association.
Do you think democracy can ever come to the Arab world?
The United States has a real opportunity now to accomplish just that. The best proof is Afghanistan. Things are really turning around there and they can do the same thing in Iraq. After the first Gulf war ended the Emir was left in place in Kuwait. Slavery is rampant in Kuwait, but no one tried to replace the Emir with a real democracy, or to abolish slavery. Everything was left in place. But this time if the U.S. proves that it wants the globalization of democracy, it has a real chance to accomplish it in Arab countries. When you show the Arab world that you side with Arab leaders who kill them or enslave them, they lose all hope of change. An example is Arafat. When you build him up and the people know who he is, they have no hope of a change. I am terribly concerned that President Bush speaks of a Palestinian state. I am afraid that once this war with Iraq is won, the pressure on Israel to create a Palestinian state will be enormous. You cannot get rid of one terrorist state and then create a new one. And the Palestinian Authority will be worse, because they are the true allies of Saddam Hussein.
You know the terrorists always claim to be followers of the Koran.
The Koran is being misread. The Koran forbids mistreatment of Jews and the state is obligated to protect them. At the time of the Ottoman Empire Jews held positions in the government. The Koran says before the end of days the Jews will return to their land. At the end of World War One, Sharif Al Hussein, the leader of the Hashemite family and governor of Mecca said, when he saw the Jews returning to Palestine, “We are seeing what was foretold in the Koran. When others settled there the land stayed barren, but now the land recognizes its original sons and it is producing.”
It’s too bad the Palestinian Arabs don’t know that.
They can’t know it because these passages have been removed from their books. The PA selected only certain sources for their books. All of the proofs are deleted. But in other Islamic countries you do find all proofs in the Koran. You know, before 1967, Islamists referred to the Jews as Palestinians and the present-day Palestinians were called Jordanians. In Jerusalem, Imam Tabari, an important cleric, wrote an important book, “Lives of Prophets and Kings” He described the life of King Solomon and the Temple he built. Anyone who denies this not only denies history, but denies Islamic sources.
The Palestinian Arabs even deny that the Holy Temple ever stood on the Temple Mount.
I was part of an international delegation that visited Israel in 2000. The Wakf took us to visit Al Aksa. Right outside of the Dome of the Rock is a small chapel on the eastern side. “What is this place?” I asked. “It is the place where Solomon stood to dedicate the Temple,” was the reply. “Then why do you deny this?” I asked. With a smile I was told, “For political reasons.” Mecca and Medina are the holiest places for Islam. Jerusalem is shared with Jews and Christians. Why, according to Islam, did Mohammed go to Jerusalem? To meet all the prophets from other religions who worshiped there. Islam is faith in monotheism, faith in prophets, faith in humanity. The basic distinction is monotheism versus idolatry. And this concept it shares with Judaism.
This is just one of many instances of historical revisionism on the part of the Arabs.
Another example of history being forgotten concerns the 1919 agreement between Chaim Weizmann and King Faisel of Jordan and Iraq. The agreement said that the Jordan River was the border between the Jewish state and the Arab state. The Arabs did not oppose this. Then the British came and created Saudi Arabia, taking land from Jordan. So they told them to take some of the land back from the Jews. When the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was created, control of Mecca and Medina was thereby given to Wahabbism, the most primitive tribe of all. Islamic scholars were horrified. Then oil was discovered and they became all powerful and forced everyone to believe in Wahabbism and killed whoever didn’t. With the passing of years they became more sophisticated. Wahabbism in its original form is still practiced in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It is their official religion.
Regarding the situation in Iraq, are you surprised by the way the French have acted?
Unfortunately, no. France has reached a new low level. They want the regime of Saddam to survive because they have a financial interest in him.
What about the Vatican?
Tariq Aziz was warmly welcomed by the Vatican and the Franciscan Monks prayed with him for Bush to repent. The pope approved the war against Milosevic – was he worse than Saddam Hussein?
We recall that the pope didn’t condemn the Arab gunmen who took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem last year.
No voice of dissent is heard inside the Catholic church. In the past there were many instances where bishops and cardinals voiced an opposite point of view. But not this time. The Franciscan priest inside the Church of the Nativity acted as if the Arabs were just seeking refuge from the Israelis. He is now visiting Italy and has such deep-rooted anti-Semitism that he is speaking out against Israel wherever he goes.
The Arab bishops who depend on their dictators for appointments are increasing inside the Vatican. The best bishops and cardinals are retiring, leaving a terrible vacuum. Cardinal Martini was an honorable and brilliant scholar from Milano. He said you cannot accept opinions of dictators in religious matters.
After his retirement he was sent to Jerusalem. He was accepted by the Latin Patriarchate only because the pope sent him, but they don’t like him and refer to him as “the Zionist.”
What is your view of the now discredited Oslo peace process?
Oslo was a basic mistake, and unless Israel takes steps to end it and publicly renounce it, we cannot expect the rest of the world to do so. When we in Italy try to stop the European Union from transferring money to Arafat, they answer us that even Israel is doing so. And why shouldn’t Bin Laden hope to be forgiven like Arafat was? Oslo abolished one of the basic principles of international law. If you are a terrorist, your crimes will not be forgiven. The world needs to be reminded of that.
* * * * *
The day after our interview a suicidal Arab terrorist blew up a bus in Haifa. A protest was immediately organized outside the PLO mission in New York by Rabbi Avi Weiss. Sheikh Palazzi, about to leave the country, joined Rabbi Weiss at that protest. It was the first time a Moslem sheikh took part in such a protest.
Posted 3/27/2003 By Naomi Klass Mauer, Editor
Sheikh Abdul Palazzi, professor at the Research Institute for Anthropological Studies in Rome, was in the United States recently guest lecturing at Yale University on the possibility of bringing democracy to the Arab world. Having read numerous items about the sheikh, we were interested in meeting him. We caught up with him in New York as he was preparing to return to Italy.
Jewish Press: Tell our readers a little about yourself.
Palazzi: I was born in Rome 42 years ago to a Syrian mother and an Italian father. In addition to teaching at the Research Institute, I also teach a post-doctoral course on Middle East studies, I’m the secretary general for the Italian Muslim Association and the Muslim chair of Islam-Israel Fellowship at the Root and Branch Association.
Do you think democracy can ever come to the Arab world?
The United States has a real opportunity now to accomplish just that. The best proof is Afghanistan. Things are really turning around there and they can do the same thing in Iraq. After the first Gulf war ended the Emir was left in place in Kuwait. Slavery is rampant in Kuwait, but no one tried to replace the Emir with a real democracy, or to abolish slavery. Everything was left in place. But this time if the U.S. proves that it wants the globalization of democracy, it has a real chance to accomplish it in Arab countries. When you show the Arab world that you side with Arab leaders who kill them or enslave them, they lose all hope of change. An example is Arafat. When you build him up and the people know who he is, they have no hope of a change. I am terribly concerned that President Bush speaks of a Palestinian state. I am afraid that once this war with Iraq is won, the pressure on Israel to create a Palestinian state will be enormous. You cannot get rid of one terrorist state and then create a new one. And the Palestinian Authority will be worse, because they are the true allies of Saddam Hussein.
You know the terrorists always claim to be followers of the Koran.
The Koran is being misread. The Koran forbids mistreatment of Jews and the state is obligated to protect them. At the time of the Ottoman Empire Jews held positions in the government. The Koran says before the end of days the Jews will return to their land. At the end of World War One, Sharif Al Hussein, the leader of the Hashemite family and governor of Mecca said, when he saw the Jews returning to Palestine, “We are seeing what was foretold in the Koran. When others settled there the land stayed barren, but now the land recognizes its original sons and it is producing.”
It’s too bad the Palestinian Arabs don’t know that.
They can’t know it because these passages have been removed from their books. The PA selected only certain sources for their books. All of the proofs are deleted. But in other Islamic countries you do find all proofs in the Koran. You know, before 1967, Islamists referred to the Jews as Palestinians and the present-day Palestinians were called Jordanians. In Jerusalem, Imam Tabari, an important cleric, wrote an important book, “Lives of Prophets and Kings” He described the life of King Solomon and the Temple he built. Anyone who denies this not only denies history, but denies Islamic sources.
The Palestinian Arabs even deny that the Holy Temple ever stood on the Temple Mount.
I was part of an international delegation that visited Israel in 2000. The Wakf took us to visit Al Aksa. Right outside of the Dome of the Rock is a small chapel on the eastern side. “What is this place?” I asked. “It is the place where Solomon stood to dedicate the Temple,” was the reply. “Then why do you deny this?” I asked. With a smile I was told, “For political reasons.” Mecca and Medina are the holiest places for Islam. Jerusalem is shared with Jews and Christians. Why, according to Islam, did Mohammed go to Jerusalem? To meet all the prophets from other religions who worshiped there. Islam is faith in monotheism, faith in prophets, faith in humanity. The basic distinction is monotheism versus idolatry. And this concept it shares with Judaism.
This is just one of many instances of historical revisionism on the part of the Arabs.
Another example of history being forgotten concerns the 1919 agreement between Chaim Weizmann and King Faisel of Jordan and Iraq. The agreement said that the Jordan River was the border between the Jewish state and the Arab state. The Arabs did not oppose this. Then the British came and created Saudi Arabia, taking land from Jordan. So they told them to take some of the land back from the Jews. When the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was created, control of Mecca and Medina was thereby given to Wahabbism, the most primitive tribe of all. Islamic scholars were horrified. Then oil was discovered and they became all powerful and forced everyone to believe in Wahabbism and killed whoever didn’t. With the passing of years they became more sophisticated. Wahabbism in its original form is still practiced in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It is their official religion.
Regarding the situation in Iraq, are you surprised by the way the French have acted?
Unfortunately, no. France has reached a new low level. They want the regime of Saddam to survive because they have a financial interest in him.
What about the Vatican?
Tariq Aziz was warmly welcomed by the Vatican and the Franciscan Monks prayed with him for Bush to repent. The pope approved the war against Milosevic – was he worse than Saddam Hussein?
We recall that the pope didn’t condemn the Arab gunmen who took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem last year.
No voice of dissent is heard inside the Catholic church. In the past there were many instances where bishops and cardinals voiced an opposite point of view. But not this time. The Franciscan priest inside the Church of the Nativity acted as if the Arabs were just seeking refuge from the Israelis. He is now visiting Italy and has such deep-rooted anti-Semitism that he is speaking out against Israel wherever he goes.
The Arab bishops who depend on their dictators for appointments are increasing inside the Vatican. The best bishops and cardinals are retiring, leaving a terrible vacuum. Cardinal Martini was an honorable and brilliant scholar from Milano. He said you cannot accept opinions of dictators in religious matters.
After his retirement he was sent to Jerusalem. He was accepted by the Latin Patriarchate only because the pope sent him, but they don’t like him and refer to him as “the Zionist.”
What is your view of the now discredited Oslo peace process?
Oslo was a basic mistake, and unless Israel takes steps to end it and publicly renounce it, we cannot expect the rest of the world to do so. When we in Italy try to stop the European Union from transferring money to Arafat, they answer us that even Israel is doing so. And why shouldn’t Bin Laden hope to be forgiven like Arafat was? Oslo abolished one of the basic principles of international law. If you are a terrorist, your crimes will not be forgiven. The world needs to be reminded of that.
* * * * *
The day after our interview a suicidal Arab terrorist blew up a bus in Haifa. A protest was immediately organized outside the PLO mission in New York by Rabbi Avi Weiss. Sheikh Palazzi, about to leave the country, joined Rabbi Weiss at that protest. It was the first time a Moslem sheikh took part in such a protest.
From the Fate of Iraq to the Fate of France
Diana West writes about some of the results of the recent meeting of Iraqi leaders and worries over some of the future dangers of sharia - both in Iraq and elsewhere. What's nice is to see guys like Ibn Warraq quoted out in the mainstream press and not just places like FrontPage Magazine.
The fate of Iraq -- The Washington Times
[...]Meanwhile, there's something positive to be said about the plain-spoken certitude with which some of these democratic building-blocks are being laid out, at least on paper. But such energy is lacking in another key point on the list. Point six is downright phlegmatic which it comes to noting, merely, that "the meeting discussed the role of religion in state and society."
It did, did it? Well, what did "the meeting" say? Nothing that could be distilled into a declarative point of consensus. Which shouldn't be surprising. The most intractable problem facing democratic reform in Iraq (or anywhere else in the Muslim world) is how to reconcile that founding principle of democracy — the separation of church and state — with Islamic law, which is predicated on the inseparable union of religious and political power.[...]
It did, did it? Well, what did "the meeting" say? Nothing that could be distilled into a declarative point of consensus. Which shouldn't be surprising. The most intractable problem facing democratic reform in Iraq (or anywhere else in the Muslim world) is how to reconcile that founding principle of democracy — the separation of church and state — with Islamic law, which is predicated on the inseparable union of religious and political power.[...]
60th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
April 19, 1943: Fighting Back (washingtonpost.com)
Sixty years ago today, on April 19, 1943, a large force of the German army under the leadership of SS Gen. Juergen Stroop entered the Warsaw Ghetto. Its mission: to wipe out the last remnant of Warsaw's Jews, some 40,000 men, women and children. To their astonishment, the Germans were met by a hail of bullets and grenades, which caused them to retreat, regroup and call for reinforcements. The fire came from a group of desperate young men and women called the Jewish Fighting Organization. Of the original 400,000 inhabitants of the ghetto, set up in late 1940, most of those who had survived starvation, typhus and dysentery had been sent to the Treblinka death camp, 60 miles east of Warsaw.[...]
It's hard to imagine. Facing the end of everything and finding one last breath to fight back with in a battle with no hope.
Friday, April 18, 2003
Hitchens: People who prefer Saddam Hussein to Halliburton
Oleaginous - People who prefer Saddam Hussein to Halliburton. By Christopher Hitchens
Hitchens takes on the continuing canard of "blood for oil" (or corporate profits).
[...]At any rate, a burning well is a tough proposition and an uncapped well—permitting a wholesale discharge—an even tougher one. The situation was being handled by Boots and Coots, a fire-control company with an almost parodically American name, which is based in Houston. Boots and Coots, which also worked in Kurdistan and Kuwait after the much worse conflagrations of 1991, is subcontracted for the task by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (another name Harold Pinter might have coined for an American oil company), which is in turn a subdivision of Halliburton. And "Halliburton," which admittedly sounds more British and toney than Boots and Coots, was once headed by—cue mood music of sinister corporate skyscraper as the camera pans up in the pretitle sequence—Vice President Dick Cheney.
Well, if that doesn't give away the true motive for the war, I don't know what does. But unless the anti-war forces believe Saddam's fires should be allowed to burn out of control indefinitely, they must presumably have an idea of which outfit should have got the contract instead of Boots and Coots. I think we can be sure that the contract would not have gone to some windmill-power concern run by Naomi Klein or the anti-Starbucks Seattle coalition, in the hope of just blowing out the flames or of extinguishing them with Buddhist mantras. The number of companies able to deliver such expertise is very limited. The chief one is American and was personified for years by "Red" Adair—the movie version of his exploits (played by John Wayne himself!) was titled Hellfighters. The other main potential bidder, according to a recent letter in the London Times, is French. But would it not also be "blood for oil" to award the contract in that direction? After all, didn't the French habitually put profits in Iraq ahead of human rights and human life? More to the point, don't they still?[...]
Well, if that doesn't give away the true motive for the war, I don't know what does. But unless the anti-war forces believe Saddam's fires should be allowed to burn out of control indefinitely, they must presumably have an idea of which outfit should have got the contract instead of Boots and Coots. I think we can be sure that the contract would not have gone to some windmill-power concern run by Naomi Klein or the anti-Starbucks Seattle coalition, in the hope of just blowing out the flames or of extinguishing them with Buddhist mantras. The number of companies able to deliver such expertise is very limited. The chief one is American and was personified for years by "Red" Adair—the movie version of his exploits (played by John Wayne himself!) was titled Hellfighters. The other main potential bidder, according to a recent letter in the London Times, is French. But would it not also be "blood for oil" to award the contract in that direction? After all, didn't the French habitually put profits in Iraq ahead of human rights and human life? More to the point, don't they still?[...]
Democracy Lesson #1: The Mob Doesn't Rule
Iraqi Muslims Protest Against Foreign Troops (washingtonpost.com)
Tens of thousands of Iraqi Muslims took to the streets of Baghdad after Friday prayers today to demand the departure of U.S. and other foreign troops and the establishment of an Islamic state.
The demonstration was peaceful, news agencies reported, but it provided dramatic new evidence that the ouster of Saddam Hussein's secular government has unleashed pent-up religious sentiment, especially among the country's long-repressed Shiite Muslim majority. In the absence of strong government, Islam often provides the organizing principle, and the civic institutions, of Muslim societies.
Converging from several mosques, the demonstrators carried banners with such slogans as "No Bush, No Saddam, Yes to Islam," and "No to America, No to Secular State, Yes to Islamic State." Organizers said the demonstrators included both Shiite Muslims and Sunnis, who represent the majority branch of Islam is most Muslim countries but a minority in Iraq.[...]
The demonstration was peaceful, news agencies reported, but it provided dramatic new evidence that the ouster of Saddam Hussein's secular government has unleashed pent-up religious sentiment, especially among the country's long-repressed Shiite Muslim majority. In the absence of strong government, Islam often provides the organizing principle, and the civic institutions, of Muslim societies.
Converging from several mosques, the demonstrators carried banners with such slogans as "No Bush, No Saddam, Yes to Islam," and "No to America, No to Secular State, Yes to Islamic State." Organizers said the demonstrators included both Shiite Muslims and Sunnis, who represent the majority branch of Islam is most Muslim countries but a minority in Iraq.[...]
Fresh off the destroyed hope of a long, bloody war, the NGO known as "World Media" are now looking for new negatives. Currently, they are seeking as much traction as possible from the idea that artifacts are more important than human lives, and spinning the meme that "Iraqis are calling for the USA to leave."
I've been withholding comment on the first one as I think it's time to just wait and see what happens as the entire story comes out.
As to the second, yes, some Iraqis want the USA to leave. This should come as no surprise. It should also come as no surprise that, with pre-existing organizational structures in place, the religious fundamentalists will be the first, and loudest, to be heard.
I refuse to believe these zealots calling for an Islamic state represent a majority - at least, there is no way to know whether or not that is the case at this time. How can we know right now what proportion of the population these "protestors" represent? We can't. Obviously, all of Iraq would like to have their country to themselves, run by themselves, but do they want these jokers running things? I doubt it.
Our job is stay in there, steadfast, long enough to facilitate other factions to get their voices together.
In other "people to be ignored" news (or at least placed in proper perspective - the kind you get holding something far, far away):
[...]The foreign ministers of countries bordering Iraq, plus Egypt and Bahrain, “are agreed on the need to uphold Iraq’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Egyptian chief diplomat told reporters.
“This requires the withdrawal of foreign forces in order to enable the Iraqi people to choose their government in full freedom. Moreover, the United Nations must play an essential role” in Iraq, he said. Maher said the countries represented at the meeting — host Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey and Syria, all neighbours of Iraq, in addition to Egypt and current Arab League chair Bahrain — hoped US and British forces would pull out of Iraq “as soon as possible”. He said none of the participants at the meeting could live with a military government in Iraq and the Iraqi people should already have been engaged in picking their own government. [...]
“This requires the withdrawal of foreign forces in order to enable the Iraqi people to choose their government in full freedom. Moreover, the United Nations must play an essential role” in Iraq, he said. Maher said the countries represented at the meeting — host Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey and Syria, all neighbours of Iraq, in addition to Egypt and current Arab League chair Bahrain — hoped US and British forces would pull out of Iraq “as soon as possible”. He said none of the participants at the meeting could live with a military government in Iraq and the Iraqi people should already have been engaged in picking their own government. [...]
Yeah, those are all countries I'd take tips concerning freedom and government from.
In other news: A horse was overheard offering a camel advice on how to hump.
Update: Shark Blog emphasizes a few differences in media crowd estimates.
Cuba Feels Vindicated On Human Rights
CBS News | Cuba Feels Vindicated On Human Rights | April 18, 2003 18:31:26
(AP) The U.N. Human Rights Commission's failure to condemn Cuba for its recent crackdown affirmed the island leadership's belief in the right to defend itself from attempts to subvert its system, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said Friday.
"The unquestionable majority vote is a clear signal from the Human Rights Commission that Cuba has the right to apply its own laws," Perez Roque told a news conference. "`This was a resonant victory for Cuba, and we express our profound satisfaction."
The top United Nations watchdog on Thursday rejected a proposed amendment criticizing Cuba's recent crackdown on opponents, instead approving a milder resolution calling for a U.N. rights monitor to visit the island.
The 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission, which regularly criticizes Cuba on its rights record, voted 31-15 during its meeting in Geneva against condemning the communist state's month-long drive against dissidents and other opponents.
Cuban tribunals earlier this month sentenced 75 dissidents to prison terms ranging from 6 to 28 years on charges of being mercenaries who worked with the American government to harm the island's socialist system. The dissidents and the U.S. government deny the accusations.
The rejected amendment expressed "deep concern about the recent detention, summary prosecution and harsh sentencing of numerous members of the political opposition" and called for them to be released.[...]
Latin American countries voting in favor of the resolution that passed included Mexico a longtime Cuban ally as well as Paraguay, Chile, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Argentina and Brazil abstained on the resolution that was approved. Venezuela, a strong political ally of Cuba, voted against it. [...]
"The unquestionable majority vote is a clear signal from the Human Rights Commission that Cuba has the right to apply its own laws," Perez Roque told a news conference. "`This was a resonant victory for Cuba, and we express our profound satisfaction."
The top United Nations watchdog on Thursday rejected a proposed amendment criticizing Cuba's recent crackdown on opponents, instead approving a milder resolution calling for a U.N. rights monitor to visit the island.
The 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission, which regularly criticizes Cuba on its rights record, voted 31-15 during its meeting in Geneva against condemning the communist state's month-long drive against dissidents and other opponents.
Cuban tribunals earlier this month sentenced 75 dissidents to prison terms ranging from 6 to 28 years on charges of being mercenaries who worked with the American government to harm the island's socialist system. The dissidents and the U.S. government deny the accusations.
The rejected amendment expressed "deep concern about the recent detention, summary prosecution and harsh sentencing of numerous members of the political opposition" and called for them to be released.[...]
Latin American countries voting in favor of the resolution that passed included Mexico a longtime Cuban ally as well as Paraguay, Chile, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Argentina and Brazil abstained on the resolution that was approved. Venezuela, a strong political ally of Cuba, voted against it. [...]
I dunno. One part of me thought this was worth posting in a "see how what the UN does makes dictators feel legitimized when they refrain from strong condemnation"...on the other hand, following my feelings to their logical conclusion, I wondered if it was really even worth posting at all! "UN Human Rights Commission Fails" is a sort of "Dog Bites Man" headline. Considering what they might do had they any real power, maybe we should be grateful they don't.
N Korean scientists defect
Interesting item found via Zogby Blog:
The Australian: N Korean scientists defect [April 19, 2003]
A SWATH of North Korea's military and scientific elite, among them key nuclear specialists, has defected to the US and its allies through a highly secret smuggling operation involving the tiny Pacific island of Nauru.
The defections have taken place since last October and have been made possible through the help of 11 countries that agreed to provide consular protection to smuggle the targets from neighbouring China, according to sources close to the operation, which has now been wound up.
Some countries also agreed to act as transit points for up to 30 days once the defectors left China, the sources claim.
Among those now believed to be in a safe house in the West is the father of North Korea's nuclear program, Kyong Won-ha, who left his homeland late last year with the help of Spanish officials. Debriefings of Mr Kyong are said to have given intelligence officials an unprecedented insight into North Korea's nuclear capabilities, particularly at the feared reactor number one in the southern city of Yongbyon.
The operation – dubbed Weasel – has been largely facilitated through non-government organisations and private citizens from South Korea, the US and its allies. It has deliberately been kept at arm's length from any government.
It is understood to have led directly to the defection of up to 20 senior North Korean officials in the past six months.[...]
The defections have taken place since last October and have been made possible through the help of 11 countries that agreed to provide consular protection to smuggle the targets from neighbouring China, according to sources close to the operation, which has now been wound up.
Some countries also agreed to act as transit points for up to 30 days once the defectors left China, the sources claim.
Among those now believed to be in a safe house in the West is the father of North Korea's nuclear program, Kyong Won-ha, who left his homeland late last year with the help of Spanish officials. Debriefings of Mr Kyong are said to have given intelligence officials an unprecedented insight into North Korea's nuclear capabilities, particularly at the feared reactor number one in the southern city of Yongbyon.
The operation – dubbed Weasel – has been largely facilitated through non-government organisations and private citizens from South Korea, the US and its allies. It has deliberately been kept at arm's length from any government.
It is understood to have led directly to the defection of up to 20 senior North Korean officials in the past six months.[...]
Krauthammer on Syria and Assad
Syrian Power Play (washingtonpost.com) Charles Krauthammer has some thoughts on Assad's Syria - why they're behaving in what may be construed as an irrational manner at this point in history - and what we should do about it.
Why is he being so bold? First, because he fears that if the winds of freedom are allowed to blow from Iraq, they will topple him, yet another Baathist dictator who survives on terror and fear. Second, because having American military power next door might give encouragement to democratic opponents at home and constrain his capacity to support terrorism and suppress Lebanon (which Syria still occupies).
Nonetheless, it is still a bit crazy to take on the world superpower the morning after a most astonishing demonstration of arms and will. Which brings us to Reason Three: Assad is not very smart. By training, he is neither a military man nor a politician. Relatively new on the throne and with little legitimacy, he may feel this is his opportunity to acquire Arabist credentials among the cutthroat Baathist elite that disdains him -- by making Syria, and thus himself, "the heart of Arabism."
Nonetheless, it is still a bit crazy to take on the world superpower the morning after a most astonishing demonstration of arms and will. Which brings us to Reason Three: Assad is not very smart. By training, he is neither a military man nor a politician. Relatively new on the throne and with little legitimacy, he may feel this is his opportunity to acquire Arabist credentials among the cutthroat Baathist elite that disdains him -- by making Syria, and thus himself, "the heart of Arabism."
Syria, like Saddam's Iraq before is the proverbial scorpion riding the back of the frog across the river. The scorpion that just can't help itself. Syria is another pan-Arabist state, built on blame of outsiders, mistrust, anti-semitism and terror. They've built so much around blame of Israel, the West and the post-Colonialist canard that expecting the Syrian regime to behave in a rational way, except in so far as it by coincidence mimics their regular modes of operation is itself irrational.
They're a scorpion...it's what they do. We must deal with them in a manner consistent with such a creature.
Ripples: Arab News, It’s Not Too Late to Face Reality
ArabNews: It's Not Too Late to Face Reality (Via Instapundit)
Another interesting "ripple effect" article in Arab News:
“We are all suffering from low-level depression,” a friend of mine said the other night. I didn’t have to ask him why. “Yes,” I said, “the events of the past month have been traumatic, and we are all anxious to see what the future has in store for us.”
“God only knows,” another friend commented.
“True,” my friend answered, “but God helps those who help themselves. What have the Arabs done to help themselves over the last 40 years?”[...]
“God only knows,” another friend commented.
“True,” my friend answered, “but God helps those who help themselves. What have the Arabs done to help themselves over the last 40 years?”[...]
A good read in full.
Chaim Herzog: Zionism is Not Racism
FrontPage Magazine has re-printed another Chaim Herzog UN speech - this time his response to the infamous "Zionism is Racism" resolution. (Here is the FrontPage item pointing to Herzog's "Settlements" speech.)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Back then, Herzog was proclaiming that the UN was making itself irrelevant through its immoral stances.
[...]Mr. President,
It is symbolic that this debate, which may well prove to be a turning point in the fortunes of the United Nations and a decisive factor in the possible continued existence of this organization, should take place on November 10. Tonight, thirty-seven years ago, has gone down in history as Kristallnacht, the Night of the Crystals. This was the night in 1938 when Hitler's Nazi storm-troopers launched a coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burned the synagogues in all its cities and made bonfires in the streets of the Holy Books and the Scrolls of the Holy Law and Bible. It was the night when Jewish homes were attacked and heads of families taken away, many of them never to return. It was the night when the windows of all Jewish businesses and stores were smashed, covering the streets in the cities of Germany with a film of broken glass which dissolved into the millions of crystals which gave that night its name. It was the night which led eventually to the crematoria and the gas chambers, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and others. It was the night which led to the most terrifying holocaust in the history of man.
It is indeed befitting Mr. President, that this debate, conceived in the desire to deflect the Middle East from its moves towards peace and born of a deep pervading feeling of anti-Semitism, should take place on the anniversary of this day. It is indeed befitting, Mr. President, that the United Nations, which began its life as an anti-Nazi alliance, should thirty years later find itself on its way to becoming the world center of anti-Semitism. Hitler would have felt at home on a number of occasions during the past year, listening to the proceedings in this forum, and above all to the proceedings during the debate on Zionism.[...]
It is symbolic that this debate, which may well prove to be a turning point in the fortunes of the United Nations and a decisive factor in the possible continued existence of this organization, should take place on November 10. Tonight, thirty-seven years ago, has gone down in history as Kristallnacht, the Night of the Crystals. This was the night in 1938 when Hitler's Nazi storm-troopers launched a coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burned the synagogues in all its cities and made bonfires in the streets of the Holy Books and the Scrolls of the Holy Law and Bible. It was the night when Jewish homes were attacked and heads of families taken away, many of them never to return. It was the night when the windows of all Jewish businesses and stores were smashed, covering the streets in the cities of Germany with a film of broken glass which dissolved into the millions of crystals which gave that night its name. It was the night which led eventually to the crematoria and the gas chambers, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and others. It was the night which led to the most terrifying holocaust in the history of man.
It is indeed befitting Mr. President, that this debate, conceived in the desire to deflect the Middle East from its moves towards peace and born of a deep pervading feeling of anti-Semitism, should take place on the anniversary of this day. It is indeed befitting, Mr. President, that the United Nations, which began its life as an anti-Nazi alliance, should thirty years later find itself on its way to becoming the world center of anti-Semitism. Hitler would have felt at home on a number of occasions during the past year, listening to the proceedings in this forum, and above all to the proceedings during the debate on Zionism.[...]
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Political Shock and Awe
OpinionJournal - Political Shock and Awe
We've won a war--and taught the Middle East a lesson.
James Schlesinger in today's Opinion Journal. Nice. So nice I'm re-posting it in full. Could posting articles like this be construed as "rubbing it in?" Well, so long as it's not "pride before the fall."
With the process of establishing a new dispensation in Iraq proceeding apace and the remaining pockets of resistance gradually being crushed, it is time to reflect upon the deeper strategic significance of the second Gulf War.
To be sure, Saddam Hussein, with his megalomania and confidence in his own survival, provided crucial tactical assistance. His defiance of United Nations resolutions, his likely possession and secreting of weapons of mass destruction, his general support of terrorism, his harboring of noted terrorists, his constant attacks on U.S. and British aircraft policing the no-fly zones, and his violation of the spirit if not the letter of the 1991 cease fire agreement--all this provided ample justification for the allied ultimatum and ultimate attack.
Yet, the longer-run strategic meaning transcends the essentially three-week war itself. The outcome will alter the strategic--and psychological--map of the Middle East.
The war has most dramatically conveyed the following realities:
1.) The U.S. is a very powerful country.
2.) It is ill-advised to arouse this nation by attacking or repeatedly provoking it--or by providing support to terrorism; and
3.) Regularly to do so means a price will likely be paid. Far less credence will now be placed in the preachments of Osama bin Laden regarding America's weakness, its unwillingness to accept burdens, and the ease of damaging its vulnerable economy, etc.
Many have argued that greater self-criticism or better understanding of the roots of terrorism would magically dispel the hostility displayed in much of the Arab world. This was reflected in widespread demonstrations as we responded to 9/11 in Afghanistan; pervasive sympathy for, as well as some direct support of, bin Laden; celebration of 9/11 itself; constant anti-American whining in the Arab press; and a steady flow of critiques from Arab governments (albeit sometimes primarily for domestic consumption.)
All that has now changed. The rapid collapse of what many had expected to be a long and stout-hearted resistance has altered the tone in the Arab world. While the whining in the press continues, it is now quite different: How long will the Americans stay? Will they successfully build an (infectious) democracy? Will they apply pressure to neighboring states? Who might be next? The dismay and shame in the region that the Arabs did not put up a better fight stands in remarkable contrast to the joy of the Iraqis that Saddam is finally gone.
There is a notable diminution of the earlier braggadocio. The many-heralded "catastrophes" did not take place. There was no "explosion" in the Middle East, no widespread unrest immediately upsetting governments, no endless urban warfare, no heavy casualties, no use of chemical and biological weapons (which Saddam supposedly did not have). What we have seen instead is a stunned realization of an awesome display of military power.
It may be too much to hope, but even the U.S. media may glean a lesson or two. Much of what appeared in press accounts was misleading, if not wrong. There were coalition forces supposedly "bogged down" in a "quagmire," suffering "substantial casualties," with insufficient forces, with supply lines stretched and exposed to undue risk. Momentary setbacks--or alleged setbacks--were inflated in a manner that obscured the overall course of battle.
To be sure, the European press was even worse--with its mixture of prophecies of doom and Schadenfreude. And, of course, the same people who said that an attack without an additional U.N. resolution would be the end of the U.N. are now desperately scrambling to refurbish and reestablish the role and the credibility of the U.N.--and, they hope, its ability to act as a constraint on American power. All in all, it may teach us to be more skeptical about European wisdom and European "sophistication." By and large, European sophistication turned out to be simply European sophistry.
Mr. Schlesinger is a former secretary of defense, CIA director and secretary of energy.
To be sure, Saddam Hussein, with his megalomania and confidence in his own survival, provided crucial tactical assistance. His defiance of United Nations resolutions, his likely possession and secreting of weapons of mass destruction, his general support of terrorism, his harboring of noted terrorists, his constant attacks on U.S. and British aircraft policing the no-fly zones, and his violation of the spirit if not the letter of the 1991 cease fire agreement--all this provided ample justification for the allied ultimatum and ultimate attack.
Yet, the longer-run strategic meaning transcends the essentially three-week war itself. The outcome will alter the strategic--and psychological--map of the Middle East.
The war has most dramatically conveyed the following realities:
1.) The U.S. is a very powerful country.
2.) It is ill-advised to arouse this nation by attacking or repeatedly provoking it--or by providing support to terrorism; and
3.) Regularly to do so means a price will likely be paid. Far less credence will now be placed in the preachments of Osama bin Laden regarding America's weakness, its unwillingness to accept burdens, and the ease of damaging its vulnerable economy, etc.
Many have argued that greater self-criticism or better understanding of the roots of terrorism would magically dispel the hostility displayed in much of the Arab world. This was reflected in widespread demonstrations as we responded to 9/11 in Afghanistan; pervasive sympathy for, as well as some direct support of, bin Laden; celebration of 9/11 itself; constant anti-American whining in the Arab press; and a steady flow of critiques from Arab governments (albeit sometimes primarily for domestic consumption.)
All that has now changed. The rapid collapse of what many had expected to be a long and stout-hearted resistance has altered the tone in the Arab world. While the whining in the press continues, it is now quite different: How long will the Americans stay? Will they successfully build an (infectious) democracy? Will they apply pressure to neighboring states? Who might be next? The dismay and shame in the region that the Arabs did not put up a better fight stands in remarkable contrast to the joy of the Iraqis that Saddam is finally gone.
There is a notable diminution of the earlier braggadocio. The many-heralded "catastrophes" did not take place. There was no "explosion" in the Middle East, no widespread unrest immediately upsetting governments, no endless urban warfare, no heavy casualties, no use of chemical and biological weapons (which Saddam supposedly did not have). What we have seen instead is a stunned realization of an awesome display of military power.
It may be too much to hope, but even the U.S. media may glean a lesson or two. Much of what appeared in press accounts was misleading, if not wrong. There were coalition forces supposedly "bogged down" in a "quagmire," suffering "substantial casualties," with insufficient forces, with supply lines stretched and exposed to undue risk. Momentary setbacks--or alleged setbacks--were inflated in a manner that obscured the overall course of battle.
To be sure, the European press was even worse--with its mixture of prophecies of doom and Schadenfreude. And, of course, the same people who said that an attack without an additional U.N. resolution would be the end of the U.N. are now desperately scrambling to refurbish and reestablish the role and the credibility of the U.N.--and, they hope, its ability to act as a constraint on American power. All in all, it may teach us to be more skeptical about European wisdom and European "sophistication." By and large, European sophistication turned out to be simply European sophistry.
Mr. Schlesinger is a former secretary of defense, CIA director and secretary of energy.
Concise Explanation on Why Europeans and Arabs Have Trouble Understanding Us
Patio Pundit: Honorable intentions? (Via Instapundit)
A snippet:
No matter how often 'W' insists that the U.S just wants to clear the weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq, help the Iraqi people set up a democratic society and then leave, it falls on deaf ears. Many Europeans and much of the Arab world persist in believing that Pax Americana is just around the corner. To most Americans such concerns sound like the fevered rants of 1960's campus radical on LSD. George W. Bush doesn't want an empire, and knows that if he did the American people would fire him.[...]
Right Wing News Interview with David Horowitz
John Hawkins of Right Wing News finally landed that interview he's wanted with David Horowitz. Go check it out. Oh, and BTW, you can order David's autobiography through the link at the right...*cough*
Robert Fisk: THIS IS WHY - Unmarked Graves Testify Silently to Iraq's Decades of Grief
A plundered museum is a tragedy, no doubt. But every time we hear about stories like that, let's remember stories like this. When men like Robert Fisk ask "why," we can say, "THIS IS WHY!"
NY Times - Unmarked Graves Testify Silently to Iraq's Decades of Grief
KIRKUK, Iraq, April 17 — The mounds stretch in rows for more than a quarter-mile across the hard, cracked earth at the edge of an industrial park here. Many are covered in weeds; all but two look undisturbed.
They are unmarked graves, nearly 1,600 in neat lines. They are close enough together in places that it would seem the skull of one skeleton might be within a yard of another skeleton's feet.
The first of the potential mass graves has been found in this northern Iraqi city, between a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant and one of the mansions of a cousin of Saddam Hussein.
It is a grim, dingy place, and judging by what Kurds described as the quick exhumation of two skeletons from mounds at the graveyard's edge, it seems certain to be the hastily dug and anonymous resting place of hundreds of Iraq's lost.
For decades Iraq has been a land of grief and wasted lives, from the 500,000 soldiers and civilians thought to have died in the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, to the untold tens of thousands of civilians who were killed or disappeared in crackdowns across the land Mr. Hussein ruled.
Human rights organizations and Iraqi households have long awaited the collapse of Mr. Hussein's Arab Baath Socialist Party, saying it would allow the beginning of the tedious process of accountability and the return to families of missing remains.[...]
They are unmarked graves, nearly 1,600 in neat lines. They are close enough together in places that it would seem the skull of one skeleton might be within a yard of another skeleton's feet.
The first of the potential mass graves has been found in this northern Iraqi city, between a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant and one of the mansions of a cousin of Saddam Hussein.
It is a grim, dingy place, and judging by what Kurds described as the quick exhumation of two skeletons from mounds at the graveyard's edge, it seems certain to be the hastily dug and anonymous resting place of hundreds of Iraq's lost.
For decades Iraq has been a land of grief and wasted lives, from the 500,000 soldiers and civilians thought to have died in the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, to the untold tens of thousands of civilians who were killed or disappeared in crackdowns across the land Mr. Hussein ruled.
Human rights organizations and Iraqi households have long awaited the collapse of Mr. Hussein's Arab Baath Socialist Party, saying it would allow the beginning of the tedious process of accountability and the return to families of missing remains.[...]
From LeMonde: The Mistake
EuroPundits (permalink not working) (Via Instapundit)
Some few in France have been questioning their country's actions. Worth reading in full:
[...]We were recently pleased to confront American narrow-mindedness with French intelligence and to confront the New World, led by “King UbuBush,” with Old World wisdom. And what was the result? One of the most appalling dictators in the Middle East fell, and France did nothing to contribute to his demise.
On the contrary, she did everything that she could to slow down Hussein’s fall. When Baghdad danced, France pouted. While certain intellectuals and politicians expressed their confusion, indeed their “nausea” when faced with an Anglo-Saxon victory, the weekly magazine, Marianne, led with “The Catastrophe” on the day that Baghdad tasted its first hours of deliverance. We just have to accept that there will always exist in our democracies a significant number of citizens from whom a dictator’s demise will be a cause for despair. This land of human rights perhaps doesn’t care so much for the liberty of others as she claims to and publicizes. From Jean-Marie Le Pen to Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Saddam Hussein had, among us, many friends, discreetly born again as “friends of the Iraqi people.” Will the Republic, along with Berlin and Moscow, institute a day of national morning for the disappeared dictator?
The second Gulf War has been a wonderfully revealing incident. An outbreak of anti-Semitism and ethnic hatred, an economic and social crisis, the desecration of a British military cemetery, the beating up of Jews and Iraqi opposition during the great “peace” marches, an alliance…with the unsavory Vladimir Putin, butcher of Chechnyans, the reception of the African despot Robert Mugabe in Paris, public insults directed to Eastern European countries who committed the sin of not slavishly obeying us—our great nation is not in the process of writing its most glorious page in the Book of History. [...]
On the contrary, she did everything that she could to slow down Hussein’s fall. When Baghdad danced, France pouted. While certain intellectuals and politicians expressed their confusion, indeed their “nausea” when faced with an Anglo-Saxon victory, the weekly magazine, Marianne, led with “The Catastrophe” on the day that Baghdad tasted its first hours of deliverance. We just have to accept that there will always exist in our democracies a significant number of citizens from whom a dictator’s demise will be a cause for despair. This land of human rights perhaps doesn’t care so much for the liberty of others as she claims to and publicizes. From Jean-Marie Le Pen to Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Saddam Hussein had, among us, many friends, discreetly born again as “friends of the Iraqi people.” Will the Republic, along with Berlin and Moscow, institute a day of national morning for the disappeared dictator?
The second Gulf War has been a wonderfully revealing incident. An outbreak of anti-Semitism and ethnic hatred, an economic and social crisis, the desecration of a British military cemetery, the beating up of Jews and Iraqi opposition during the great “peace” marches, an alliance…with the unsavory Vladimir Putin, butcher of Chechnyans, the reception of the African despot Robert Mugabe in Paris, public insults directed to Eastern European countries who committed the sin of not slavishly obeying us—our great nation is not in the process of writing its most glorious page in the Book of History. [...]
From the Second World War and on into the Cold War, the USA got into bed with a lot unsavory characters. We did things as a nation that, while perhaps justifyable in the long-run, would be difficult to comprehend in isolation. We, at least, can say that we were opposing a totalitarian Empire in the Soviet Union, who themselves propped-up any two-bit despot that would serve their interests.
Now it seems that France has decided to do whatever it takes to pursue their own Cold War against the United States. They seem willing to slow-dance with any ugly character at the ball if it just seems to them to enhance their own power against the United States. Do they really believe the goals of the USA are that bad? Is it really worth it? Only time will tell.
Bringing Islamic Extremists Into Our Schools
Hamas front-group CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) will apparently be involved in teaching "Diversity & Cultural Outreach" (including anti-Semitism!) in Broward County. Oy.
FrontPage magazine.com
A little over a year ago, I found myself on a radio program discussing the ramifications of September 11, 2001 with the Florida Director for CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), Altaf Ali. Sometime during the show, I had asked him whether or not he thought the people that died in the collapse of the World Trade Center were innocent. I thought the media was delinquent in their questioning of certain Islamic groups after 9/11, giving them softball questions that any idiot could answer, like "How do you feel about the attack?" Answer: "We're against violence that targets innocent people." I wanted to know, once and for all, if any of these mainstream Muslim organizations, his included, believed that these people were in fact the "innocent" people they spoke of in their generic answer(s). I assumed these groups did not believe this to be the case.
And of course, my assumption was proven correct. Myself and the host, who was no longer willing to be impartial because of this, had to ask this question literally ten times, before Mr. Ali begrudgingly, against his own conscience, answered in the affirmative, yes, the people that died in the towers were innocent.
After this, Altaf was notably upset. He said he felt we were ganging up on him (After wavering on that question what did he expect?), so he decided to leave the show early. But before leaving, while he thought I wasn't paying attention, he swiped my notes; he put them under his black binder, so I couldn't see. "Those are mine," I said, to which he said the opposite, that they were his. "I was reading from those notes." That's my yellow highlighter that I highlighted them with," I replied, to which he begrudgingly, against his own conscience, gave me back my notes. Noticeably peeved, I asked a very inappropriate question, "Mr. Ali, does your religion tell you that it's okay to lie?"
Deception by Islamic extremists is part of the process. This particular group, CAIR, is widely reported as having been the creation of the Texas-based Islamic Association for Palestine or IAP, which is a front for the terrorist group Hamas and an organization that the United States has taken action against in its war on terror. Yet CAIR goes around masquerading as a civil rights organization, as an organization that fights against discrimination.[...]
And of course, my assumption was proven correct. Myself and the host, who was no longer willing to be impartial because of this, had to ask this question literally ten times, before Mr. Ali begrudgingly, against his own conscience, answered in the affirmative, yes, the people that died in the towers were innocent.
After this, Altaf was notably upset. He said he felt we were ganging up on him (After wavering on that question what did he expect?), so he decided to leave the show early. But before leaving, while he thought I wasn't paying attention, he swiped my notes; he put them under his black binder, so I couldn't see. "Those are mine," I said, to which he said the opposite, that they were his. "I was reading from those notes." That's my yellow highlighter that I highlighted them with," I replied, to which he begrudgingly, against his own conscience, gave me back my notes. Noticeably peeved, I asked a very inappropriate question, "Mr. Ali, does your religion tell you that it's okay to lie?"
Deception by Islamic extremists is part of the process. This particular group, CAIR, is widely reported as having been the creation of the Texas-based Islamic Association for Palestine or IAP, which is a front for the terrorist group Hamas and an organization that the United States has taken action against in its war on terror. Yet CAIR goes around masquerading as a civil rights organization, as an organization that fights against discrimination.[...]
"I'm Right, You're Wrong, Go To Hell"
The Atlantic | May 2003 | "I'm Right, You're Wrong, Go To Hell" | Bernard Lewis (Via LGF)
Excellent Bernard Lewis essay, worth reading in full, on religious tolerance and the clash of civilizations.
[...]To what extent is a religiously defined civilization compatible with pluralism—tolerance of others within the same civilization but of different religions? This crucial question points to a major distinction between two types of religion. For some religions, just as "civilization" means us, and the rest are barbarians, so "religion" means ours, and the rest are infidels. Other religions, such as Judaism and most of the religions of Asia, concede that human beings may use different religions to speak to God, as they use different languages to speak to one another. God understands them all. I know in my heart that the English language is the finest instrument the human race has ever devised to express its thoughts and feelings, but I recognize in my mind that others may feel exactly the same way about their languages, and I have no problem with that. These two approaches to religion may conveniently be denoted by the terms their critics use to condemn them—"triumphalism" and "relativism." In one of his sermons the fifteenth-century Franciscan Saint John of Capistrano, immortalized on the map of California, denounced the Jews for trying to spread a "deceitful" notion among Christians: "The Jews say that everyone can be saved in his own faith, which is impossible." For once a charge of his against the Jews was justified. The Talmud does indeed say that the righteous of all faiths have a place in paradise. Polytheists and atheists are excluded, but monotheists of any persuasion who observe the basic moral laws are eligible. The relativist view was condemned and rejected by both Christians and Muslims, who shared the conviction that there was only one true faith, theirs, which it was their duty to bring to all humankind. The triumphalist view is increasingly under attack in Christendom, and is disavowed by significant numbers of Christian clerics. There is little sign as yet of a parallel development in Islam.
Tolerance is, of course, an extremely intolerant idea, because it means "I am the boss: I will allow you some, though not all, of the rights I enjoy as long as you behave yourself according to standards that I shall determine." That, I think, is a fair definition of religious tolerance as it is normally understood and applied. In a letter to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, that George Washington wrote in 1790, he remarked, perhaps in an allusion to the famous "Patent of Tolerance" promulgated by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II a few years previously, "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." At a meeting of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Vienna some years ago the Cardinal Archbishop Franz Koenig spoke of tolerance, and I couldn't resist quoting Washington to him. He replied, "You are right. I shall no more speak of tolerance; I shall speak of mutual respect." There are still too few who share the attitude expressed in this truly magnificent response.[...]
Tolerance is, of course, an extremely intolerant idea, because it means "I am the boss: I will allow you some, though not all, of the rights I enjoy as long as you behave yourself according to standards that I shall determine." That, I think, is a fair definition of religious tolerance as it is normally understood and applied. In a letter to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, that George Washington wrote in 1790, he remarked, perhaps in an allusion to the famous "Patent of Tolerance" promulgated by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II a few years previously, "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." At a meeting of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Vienna some years ago the Cardinal Archbishop Franz Koenig spoke of tolerance, and I couldn't resist quoting Washington to him. He replied, "You are right. I shall no more speak of tolerance; I shall speak of mutual respect." There are still too few who share the attitude expressed in this truly magnificent response.[...]
ISM: Solidarity With Terrorists
FrontPage magazine.com - Solidarity With Terrorists By Brian Sayre
Sayre gives us a deeper look behind Rachel Corrie's ISM group.
On Friday, April 11th, 2003, Tom Hurndall was shot in the head. Tom was injured in Rafah, a Palestinian settlement on the border of Egypt. As of this writing, four days later, he lies in a coma in an Israeli hospital in Bersheeba, in serious but stable condition, after a four-hour life-saving operation. Tom was a twenty-one year old university student from Manchester, who majored in photography. He was also an activist for a controversial pro-Palestinian organization called the International Solidarity Movement.
At the time of his injury, Tom Hurndall was armed, wearing tiger fatigues, and shooting at a Israeli Defense Force outpost, taking cover behind a nearby building between shots.
Those of you reading about Tom Hurndall in the American or British media might start at this last sentence. After all, you read a dramatically different version of events in your weekend papers[...]
At the time of his injury, Tom Hurndall was armed, wearing tiger fatigues, and shooting at a Israeli Defense Force outpost, taking cover behind a nearby building between shots.
Those of you reading about Tom Hurndall in the American or British media might start at this last sentence. After all, you read a dramatically different version of events in your weekend papers[...]
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
“I Hate Israel” - the Movie!
Arutz Sheva - Israel National News
(in full) “Shabaan Abdul Rahim prays that Ghada Rizik will hate Israel”. That is the title of an article appearing on the Arab news website Albawaba.com. The article describes the casting efforts of popular Egyptian singer Sha'aban Abdel Raheem for his new movie, “Ana Bakrah Israil” (I Hate Israel). The title of the planned blockbuster was taken from Abdel Raheem's 2001 international hit song of the same name, in which the singer declares his hatred for Israel and the Jews, and his love for Yasser Arafat, Hosni Mubarak, and Arab League chairman Amr Mousa. At one point, in the song's chorus, Abdel Raheem sings, “I hate Israel. I hate the Jews, I hate them. I hate them because they are annoying. All people hate them.”
Sha'aban's latest Arabic hit is called “The Attack on Iraq”, and portrays America as warmongers acting on behalf of Zionism. “Chechnya! Afghanistan! Palestine! Southern Lebanon! The Golan Heights! And now Iraq, too? And now Iraq, too? It's too much for people. Shame on you! Enough, enough, enough!...” the Egyptian artist sings, “Sharon stays in a swimming pool while the blood falls like rain.”
Sha'aban's latest Arabic hit is called “The Attack on Iraq”, and portrays America as warmongers acting on behalf of Zionism. “Chechnya! Afghanistan! Palestine! Southern Lebanon! The Golan Heights! And now Iraq, too? And now Iraq, too? It's too much for people. Shame on you! Enough, enough, enough!...” the Egyptian artist sings, “Sharon stays in a swimming pool while the blood falls like rain.”
No comment.
BBC: Is This News or Commentary?
BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Wall fears grip West Bank
A BBC story about the building of the "security fence," but is this news or editorial?
Message to Arabs: Stop trying to kill Jews, and there wouldn't be a need for a wall, and no need to complain about the location the wall is laid in. Here's the background the BBC feels is most relevant:
[...]The excavations now separate much of Beit Amin's land from the people who cultivate it - and there are rumours that the security barrier may be moved even nearer to the village, with more trees and land lost.
Apparently, Jewish settlers have complained that the ugly construction has been placed "too close" to their elegant white-washed villas - properties built illegally on occupied land in the eyes of international law.[...]
Apparently, Jewish settlers have complained that the ugly construction has been placed "too close" to their elegant white-washed villas - properties built illegally on occupied land in the eyes of international law.[...]
Then there's this gem:
[...]Project manager Netsach Meshach insists his work has nothing to do with Israel's territorial ambitions, and everything to do with the 750 Israeli lives - 150 of them Jewish settlers - lost to Palestinian militant attacks in the past two years.[...]
Note the term "militant," rather than "terrorist." And why the distinction between regular Israelis and "settlers?"
The Israeli Press, and Ours
Interesting roundup of the Israeli press by Barbara Learner at NRO. Where they seem to stand - left, right and middle.
Sharon Says He'll Meet with Abbas - Would Dismantle Settlements
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will invite his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, for talks once he has been sworn in, the Israeli leader said in an interview published Wednesday.
However, Sharon said that if Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, is not granted broad authority it would hurt chances of reaching a peace deal. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat should not be the one still "pulling the strings," said Sharon, who has been leading a campaign to sideline Arafat.
"After Abu Mazen forms his government I plan to begin talks with him. I will not wait for any mediators," Sharon said in an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.
[...]
In the interview, Sharon reiterated that as part of a peace deal, he would dismantle some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In his three decades in politics, Sharon has been a leading champion of settlement expansion.
"In my opinion, real peace, peace for generations, peace that does not give birth to suicide bombers and terrorist organizations, requires concessions. It is likely that there will be settlements that we will have to dismantle," Sharon said.
The US-led victory over Saddam Hussein has opened a new opportunity for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, he added.
However, Sharon said that if Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, is not granted broad authority it would hurt chances of reaching a peace deal. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat should not be the one still "pulling the strings," said Sharon, who has been leading a campaign to sideline Arafat.
"After Abu Mazen forms his government I plan to begin talks with him. I will not wait for any mediators," Sharon said in an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.
[...]
In the interview, Sharon reiterated that as part of a peace deal, he would dismantle some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In his three decades in politics, Sharon has been a leading champion of settlement expansion.
"In my opinion, real peace, peace for generations, peace that does not give birth to suicide bombers and terrorist organizations, requires concessions. It is likely that there will be settlements that we will have to dismantle," Sharon said.
The US-led victory over Saddam Hussein has opened a new opportunity for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, he added.
Maybe Ed Asner would like to throw these people back in the hole
Marines free 123 from Iraq hellhole - APRIL 16, 2003
[...]The Marines found 123 prisoners, including five women, barely alive in an underground warren of cells and torture chambers.
Being trapped underground probably kept them safe from the bombing of Baghdad by the coalition.
Severely emaciated, some had survived by eating the scabs off their sores. All the men had beards down to their waists, said onlookers.
Most looked absolutely dazed when they emerged, said Mr Sadoun Mohamed, 37, who lives in the area.
'They had not seen sunlight for a long time,' he said. 'They kept blinking and covering their faces.' He said they were taken to the Saddam Hospital for treatment.
Their names were posted on the walls of the Al-Hajabehia Mosque in west Baghdad, as were names of some 40 others known to have been executed or murdered in prison.[...]
Being trapped underground probably kept them safe from the bombing of Baghdad by the coalition.
Severely emaciated, some had survived by eating the scabs off their sores. All the men had beards down to their waists, said onlookers.
Most looked absolutely dazed when they emerged, said Mr Sadoun Mohamed, 37, who lives in the area.
'They had not seen sunlight for a long time,' he said. 'They kept blinking and covering their faces.' He said they were taken to the Saddam Hospital for treatment.
Their names were posted on the walls of the Al-Hajabehia Mosque in west Baghdad, as were names of some 40 others known to have been executed or murdered in prison.[...]
Someone in Malaysia Gets It
It appears someone in Malaysia can look past the conspiracy theories, anti-Americanism and fluff and see the real issues behind the war. In fact, this is one of the most concise and sensible explanations I've seen to date anywhere.
Iraq was a war on terrorism (Via the same Instapundit post)
(in full)The fact that Syria is the next target of criticism after Iraq proves what most objective academics have said that the war in Iraq was a follow-up of Afghanistan, and in reality an ideological war against terrorism.
The fact is the war is against terrorist symphatisers - people who even harbour thoughts of condoning Sept 11, 2001. The fact is that the US has so far been only tolerant of actions in other countries and against its embassies abroad.
It’s not about oil, it’s not against Muslims. It’s about making states live up to their promise about not tolerating random violent acts no matter what their grievances are.
The reason why North Korea is not now the most immediate target is simply because North Korean is mostly defensive and has always stated that it will strike the US only if its threatened.
Their current willingness to back away from their nuclear programme in exchange for benefits proves that they are more worried about clinging to power than they are about threatening the US.
The truth is there is a lot of anti-American and anti-western sentiments that condone violent actions and governments like Syria, Libya and even allies like Saudi Arabia are closeted symphatisers.
Their refusal to clamp down and their allowance of safe harbour for terrorists is no longer tolerated by the US.
The truth is that no matter what wrong the US have done in the past, it never justified the attack on World Trade Centre and this series of war is meant to make the point clear to everyone.
The fact is the war is against terrorist symphatisers - people who even harbour thoughts of condoning Sept 11, 2001. The fact is that the US has so far been only tolerant of actions in other countries and against its embassies abroad.
It’s not about oil, it’s not against Muslims. It’s about making states live up to their promise about not tolerating random violent acts no matter what their grievances are.
The reason why North Korea is not now the most immediate target is simply because North Korean is mostly defensive and has always stated that it will strike the US only if its threatened.
Their current willingness to back away from their nuclear programme in exchange for benefits proves that they are more worried about clinging to power than they are about threatening the US.
The truth is there is a lot of anti-American and anti-western sentiments that condone violent actions and governments like Syria, Libya and even allies like Saudi Arabia are closeted symphatisers.
Their refusal to clamp down and their allowance of safe harbour for terrorists is no longer tolerated by the US.
The truth is that no matter what wrong the US have done in the past, it never justified the attack on World Trade Centre and this series of war is meant to make the point clear to everyone.
Ripples, ripples, ripples...
Arab News: An Account of Marines’ Incredible Gestures
Remember Barbara Ferguson, our pal who writes for Arab News and claimed that all the servicemen she flew out with were against the war and the President? Well, maybe she ended up accomplishing something positive in her embedding with our troops. This is a very positive article, overall. I believe the embedding process is going to pay dividends for a long time to come, especially as some of these former embeds move on to other parts of their organizations.
Ferguson says that Marines are just like Arabs!
ArabNews: An Account of Marines' Incredible Gestures (Via Instapundit)
AT AN AIR BASE IN KUWAIT, 16 April 2003 — People are curious about being embedded in the Marines. This is my effort to set the record straight. Some readers suspect I was subjected to propaganda while living with these men and women. There was no propaganda campaign. If there had been, there would have been no embeds. Journalists wrote their own stories, and made their own interview requests and interviews. The Marines’ “PAOs” (public affairs officers) would set up the meetings, but not oversee them.
What happened to the majority of journalists living the Marine life is that we experienced it from the inside. I can honestly say that seven weeks as an embed has changed me forever. And I have often found many similarities between Marines and Arabs.
Why? Let me give you a few examples, all of which deal with generosity of spirit.[...]
What happened to the majority of journalists living the Marine life is that we experienced it from the inside. I can honestly say that seven weeks as an embed has changed me forever. And I have often found many similarities between Marines and Arabs.
Why? Let me give you a few examples, all of which deal with generosity of spirit.[...]
She can't resist a dig at Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz...but you can't have it all in a day.
New NGO: "World Media"
There's a new Non-Governmental Organization out there. It has branches in every country on earth, with members of virtually every world ethnic-group. This new NGO has its own agenda, and, while occasionally difficult to pin-down, seems to include themes of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and pro-totalitarianism. This new NGO, known as "World Media" seems to have dedicated itself to opinion leading, reporting on itself and protecting its own profits and influence.
BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | World media ask: why Syria?
The world's press is querying US accusations that Syria harbours Iraqi fugitives and is developing weapons of mass destruction, with some seeing sinister motives behind Washington's stance.
"Now that the US is nearly through with 'regime change' in Iraq, Syria could be the next on queue for gunboat diplomacy," says Kenya's Standard.
Indonesia's Koran Tempo is convinced that Washington is not making idle threats against Syria and is intending to launch a military attack.
"Washington will isolate Syria, strangle it with embargoes and force it to disarm," it writes.
"When it is powerless, the United States can 'liberate' the Syrian people by dropping bomb after bomb on Damascus.
"Prepare for a sequel to US-style slaughter."[...]
"Now that the US is nearly through with 'regime change' in Iraq, Syria could be the next on queue for gunboat diplomacy," says Kenya's Standard.
Indonesia's Koran Tempo is convinced that Washington is not making idle threats against Syria and is intending to launch a military attack.
"Washington will isolate Syria, strangle it with embargoes and force it to disarm," it writes.
"When it is powerless, the United States can 'liberate' the Syrian people by dropping bomb after bomb on Damascus.
"Prepare for a sequel to US-style slaughter."[...]
Sensing: The dark side of Non-Governmental Agencies
One Hand Clapping has a couple of interesting links and remarks concerning the folly of putting faith in NGO's simply because they are NGO's. Worth checking out.
Chalabi 'does not want role in Iraq government'
Chalabi 'does not want role in Iraq government' - War on Iraq - smh.com.au (Via Right Wing News):
This is interesting. Does he really have something else in mind, or is he actually finding that the reality is he's not going to garner any realistic support? Is he shutting himself out, or is he being shut out?
Ahmed Chalabi, one of Iraq's best-known opposition leaders with strong support in the Pentagon, said in an interview published yesterday that he did not plan to play a political role in his homeland.
"I want to take part in the reconstruction of the civilian society," the Iraqi National Congress leader told French daily Le Monde by phone from southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.
Mr Chalabi said he had been "extremely well-received" in Iraq, where he returned after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government.
But asked if he intended to play a political role there, he said: "Absolutely not. I am not a candidate for any post."
According to a CIA report last month, Mr Chalabi, as an Iraqi exile, would find little support among the Iraqi population.[...]
"I want to take part in the reconstruction of the civilian society," the Iraqi National Congress leader told French daily Le Monde by phone from southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.
Mr Chalabi said he had been "extremely well-received" in Iraq, where he returned after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government.
But asked if he intended to play a political role there, he said: "Absolutely not. I am not a candidate for any post."
According to a CIA report last month, Mr Chalabi, as an Iraqi exile, would find little support among the Iraqi population.[...]
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
American Kaiser on Syria and Economic Sanctions
The American Kaiser has some thoughts on why economic sanctions against Syria are a bad idea. Worth checking out. [Permalink doesn't seem to be working - just scroll down if necessary and look for the "AGAINST ECONOMIC SANCTIONS" entry.]
[...]Bad move. Economic sanctions against dictators have a long and rich history of backfiring horribly and will, inevitably, lead to more problems. Economic sanctions against Syria will not be burdened by history's failures because they'll simply fail. I can't even imagine a more ineffective measure than American sanctions against Syria.
The first reason that sanctions against Syria will be a dazzling failure is that they will be unilateral. If you look at statistics on Syria's economy, you'll notice that the US accounts for only 4% of Syrian imports and a negligible amount of Syrian exports. (Has anyone ever seen a product here in the States that says "Made in Syria?") Most Syrian products are bound for the Arab world, Turkey, or Europe. Good luck getting any of those parties to join sanctions against this country. These nations didn't even abide by international sanctions to which they agreed (against Iraq). How can anyone logically expect France or Saudi Arabia to impose economic sanctions on Syria? What will stop Russia, China, or Libya from sending weapons and other goods into Syria? If the sanctions are unilateral, will the miniscule amount of Syrian-American trade really make a difference to Assad?[...]
The first reason that sanctions against Syria will be a dazzling failure is that they will be unilateral. If you look at statistics on Syria's economy, you'll notice that the US accounts for only 4% of Syrian imports and a negligible amount of Syrian exports. (Has anyone ever seen a product here in the States that says "Made in Syria?") Most Syrian products are bound for the Arab world, Turkey, or Europe. Good luck getting any of those parties to join sanctions against this country. These nations didn't even abide by international sanctions to which they agreed (against Iraq). How can anyone logically expect France or Saudi Arabia to impose economic sanctions on Syria? What will stop Russia, China, or Libya from sending weapons and other goods into Syria? If the sanctions are unilateral, will the miniscule amount of Syrian-American trade really make a difference to Assad?[...]
Falling Icons
Auditing Arafat
Forbes.com: Auditing Arafat (requires quick registration) Link via Kesher Talk
This is an interesting article touching on Arafat's financial machinations - touching on because no doubt a more comprehensive look would take up the entire magazine. Shows what PA Finance Minister Salam Fayyad has cut out for him.
The Palestinian leader has more than Israeli tanks to worry about. He may be brought to heel by, of all things, honest financial accounting.
Frozen out by the Bush Administration and hemmed in by the Israeli military, Yasir Arafat is now facing a new threat: the cutoff of funds from his very own Palestinian Authority. Financial reforms might succeed in hampering the flow of money to terrorists--might even end up toppling Arafat himself.
Money keeps Arafat in power. With a tight grip on much of the $5.5 billion in international aid that has flowed into the PA since 1994, he appears to have overseen virtually all disbursements, from $600 payments to alleged terrorists and $1,500 in "tuition" for security officers, to $10 million, reportedly paid by a company controlled by friends of Arafat, for a 50-ton shipment of weapons from Iran.
Take the money out of his hands, reform a corrupt financial system and you could reduce the violence. That's the thinking of U.S. and European officials who insisted on the appointment of a new finance minister for the PA. Salam Fayyad, 50, is the chain-smoking Palestinian technocrat armed with little more than a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas who got the finance job last June. Israel has responded by resuming the transfer of $30 million or more per month in tax revenues to the PA, disbursements that were frozen in December 2000 following an outbreak of terrorist bombings. Israel may even release the $500 million-plus that piled up during the freeze.[...]
Frozen out by the Bush Administration and hemmed in by the Israeli military, Yasir Arafat is now facing a new threat: the cutoff of funds from his very own Palestinian Authority. Financial reforms might succeed in hampering the flow of money to terrorists--might even end up toppling Arafat himself.
Money keeps Arafat in power. With a tight grip on much of the $5.5 billion in international aid that has flowed into the PA since 1994, he appears to have overseen virtually all disbursements, from $600 payments to alleged terrorists and $1,500 in "tuition" for security officers, to $10 million, reportedly paid by a company controlled by friends of Arafat, for a 50-ton shipment of weapons from Iran.
Take the money out of his hands, reform a corrupt financial system and you could reduce the violence. That's the thinking of U.S. and European officials who insisted on the appointment of a new finance minister for the PA. Salam Fayyad, 50, is the chain-smoking Palestinian technocrat armed with little more than a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas who got the finance job last June. Israel has responded by resuming the transfer of $30 million or more per month in tax revenues to the PA, disbursements that were frozen in December 2000 following an outbreak of terrorist bombings. Israel may even release the $500 million-plus that piled up during the freeze.[...]
Gotcha Fucker: Palestinian Abu Abbas in U.S. Custody in Iraq
Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Abbas, who masterminded the hijacking of an Italian cruise ship in 1985, was captured by U.S. special forces and is in U.S. custody in Baghdad, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.
Abbas, also known as Mohammed Abbas, is the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, which hijacked the Achille Lauro in the eastern Mediterranean, resulting in the death of a disabled elderly American man, Leon Klinghoffer.
Abbas had spent most of the past 17 years in Iraq, beyond the reach of U.S. and Italian officials. He had been sentenced in Italy to five life terms in prison, and is wanted in the United States in connection with the cruise ship hijacking.
There were reports in January that Abbas was in Egypt to take part in talks to end Palestinian attacks on civilians in Israel, but Egyptian authorities denied he was in the country. "He's been captured. My understanding is he was captured during a raid on a house in the outskirts of Baghdad late last night," the U.S. official told Reuters.
"It was conducted by special forces," he said.
The capture of Abbas was first reported by CNN's national security correspondent David Ensor who said Abbas had been taken into custody by U.S. forces "in or near Baghdad."
Abbas, also known as Mohammed Abbas, is the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, which hijacked the Achille Lauro in the eastern Mediterranean, resulting in the death of a disabled elderly American man, Leon Klinghoffer.
Abbas had spent most of the past 17 years in Iraq, beyond the reach of U.S. and Italian officials. He had been sentenced in Italy to five life terms in prison, and is wanted in the United States in connection with the cruise ship hijacking.
There were reports in January that Abbas was in Egypt to take part in talks to end Palestinian attacks on civilians in Israel, but Egyptian authorities denied he was in the country. "He's been captured. My understanding is he was captured during a raid on a house in the outskirts of Baghdad late last night," the U.S. official told Reuters.
"It was conducted by special forces," he said.
The capture of Abbas was first reported by CNN's national security correspondent David Ensor who said Abbas had been taken into custody by U.S. forces "in or near Baghdad."
I love that "resulting in the death of" bit. Sounds so...accidental. You'd never know they took an elderly, wheelchair-confined American Jew, put a bullet in his head and dumped he and his wheelchair into the sea.
Sharon: "I have no intention of missing this opportunity"
PM says will not miss another opportunity with Palestinians
Ripples, ripples, ripples...The Israelis know they have an American President who can act, not just talk.
Addressing the Likud party at a ceremonial toast before the Passover holiday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that he would not miss another opportunity to make peace with the Palestinians.
"We will decide which way we go, but I have no intention of missing this opportunity. If we see that the Palestinian partner learned the lesson and is takes serious action against terror, it will be possible to move forward faster than you think," he said. Sharon added that Israel would not compromise the security of its citizens.
In formulating a roadmap to peace in the Middle East, the United States has agreed to take into account Israel's security concerns and a need to end terror, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's envoy said after talks with high-level U.S. officials.
"I am confident the U.S. will give serious consideration to our views as the process moves forward," Dov Weisglass, Sharon's chief of staff, said in a statement late Monday.
"The Americans will consider taking into account the long-standing commitment of the U.S. to the security of the state of Israel and the need to end terror in order to realize peace in the Middle East," the statement said.
"Israel will have a further chance to comment on the roadmap once it is formally conveyed to the parties," Weisglass said.
The statement was issued after Weisglass and other Israeli officials met with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, head of Mideast affairs at the National Security Council Elliott Abrams, and other senior administration officials. At the meeting, Weisglass presented Israel's comments on the roadmap.
The roadmap, which aims to establish a Palestinian state by 2005, is due to be formally announced after Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Ala), the Palestinian Authority's choice for prime minister, sets up a Cabinet.
[...]
U.S. President George W. Bush is apparently of the opinion that there should be simultaneous momentum at all levels and that when the security situation improves, Israel will have to take steps. These steps will focus on the humanitarian aspect of the peace plan, and the United States is adamant that they should encompass freedom of movement in the territories.
The United States believes that if Israel eases restrictions on movement, the reformist elements in the Palestinian Authority will be able to prove they are improving the lot of the residents and thus to consolidate their position in the new Palestinian leadership.
The American assumption is that there is no need for step to follow step, but rather that after talks with both sides, each will have to examine what can be done to improve the atmosphere and make progress.
Bush considers pushing forward the process to be of the utmost importance. He believes that a new reality has been created in the Middle East in the wake of the war in Iraq and that all sides must act accordingly.
The United States expects Israel to renew its commitment to the idea of a Palestinian state, and with this in mind, the administration Monday expressed satisfaction concerning Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's remarks to Haaretz about painful concessions.
On the other hand, the U.S. administration expects the Palestinians to push forward with reforms and to isolate those who object to them.
While America does not accept Israel's step-by-step approach, it is convinced that the Palestinians must prove the seriousness of their actions against the terrorists as a condition for progress. The litmus test will be in the field and in the powers given to the new PA prime minister and interior minister over the security forces.
[...]
Speaking Monday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Israel's National Security Advisor Ephraim Halevy said that from the strategic point of view, there is significance to territories even in an age of guided missiles and other sophisticated weapons, adding that the war in Iraq had proved the importance of territorial depth from the military point of view. In the long run, however, Halevy said, borders will lose their significance if there is peace.
Throughout its history, Halevy said, Israel had been ready to make territorial concessions, but the Arabs had refused. Only if the Palestinians were to show that they were indeed willing to compromise would it now become clear if there would be peace in the Middle East, he added.
"We will decide which way we go, but I have no intention of missing this opportunity. If we see that the Palestinian partner learned the lesson and is takes serious action against terror, it will be possible to move forward faster than you think," he said. Sharon added that Israel would not compromise the security of its citizens.
In formulating a roadmap to peace in the Middle East, the United States has agreed to take into account Israel's security concerns and a need to end terror, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's envoy said after talks with high-level U.S. officials.
"I am confident the U.S. will give serious consideration to our views as the process moves forward," Dov Weisglass, Sharon's chief of staff, said in a statement late Monday.
"The Americans will consider taking into account the long-standing commitment of the U.S. to the security of the state of Israel and the need to end terror in order to realize peace in the Middle East," the statement said.
"Israel will have a further chance to comment on the roadmap once it is formally conveyed to the parties," Weisglass said.
The statement was issued after Weisglass and other Israeli officials met with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, head of Mideast affairs at the National Security Council Elliott Abrams, and other senior administration officials. At the meeting, Weisglass presented Israel's comments on the roadmap.
The roadmap, which aims to establish a Palestinian state by 2005, is due to be formally announced after Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Ala), the Palestinian Authority's choice for prime minister, sets up a Cabinet.
[...]
U.S. President George W. Bush is apparently of the opinion that there should be simultaneous momentum at all levels and that when the security situation improves, Israel will have to take steps. These steps will focus on the humanitarian aspect of the peace plan, and the United States is adamant that they should encompass freedom of movement in the territories.
The United States believes that if Israel eases restrictions on movement, the reformist elements in the Palestinian Authority will be able to prove they are improving the lot of the residents and thus to consolidate their position in the new Palestinian leadership.
The American assumption is that there is no need for step to follow step, but rather that after talks with both sides, each will have to examine what can be done to improve the atmosphere and make progress.
Bush considers pushing forward the process to be of the utmost importance. He believes that a new reality has been created in the Middle East in the wake of the war in Iraq and that all sides must act accordingly.
The United States expects Israel to renew its commitment to the idea of a Palestinian state, and with this in mind, the administration Monday expressed satisfaction concerning Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's remarks to Haaretz about painful concessions.
On the other hand, the U.S. administration expects the Palestinians to push forward with reforms and to isolate those who object to them.
While America does not accept Israel's step-by-step approach, it is convinced that the Palestinians must prove the seriousness of their actions against the terrorists as a condition for progress. The litmus test will be in the field and in the powers given to the new PA prime minister and interior minister over the security forces.
[...]
Speaking Monday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Israel's National Security Advisor Ephraim Halevy said that from the strategic point of view, there is significance to territories even in an age of guided missiles and other sophisticated weapons, adding that the war in Iraq had proved the importance of territorial depth from the military point of view. In the long run, however, Halevy said, borders will lose their significance if there is peace.
Throughout its history, Halevy said, Israel had been ready to make territorial concessions, but the Arabs had refused. Only if the Palestinians were to show that they were indeed willing to compromise would it now become clear if there would be peace in the Middle East, he added.
This builds on Sharon's previous statements in a Ha'Aretz interview very much worth reading in full:
[...]And what about Netzarim? [An isolated settlement in the Gaza Strip]
"I don't want to get into a discussion of any specific place now. This is a delicate subject and there is no need to talk a lot about it. But if it turns out that we have someone to talk to, that they understand that peace is neither terrorism nor subversion against Israel, then I would definitely say that we will have to take steps that are painful for every Jew and painful for me personally."
Isn't that phrase "painful concessions" a hollow expression?
"Definitely not. It comes from the depth of my soul. Look, we are talking about the cradle of the Jewish people. Our whole history is bound up with these places. Bethlehem, Shiloh, Beit El. And I know that we will have to part with some of these places. There will be a parting from places that are connected to the whole course of our history. As a Jew, this agonizes me. But I have decided to make every effort to reach a settlement. I feel that the rational necessity to reach a settlement is overcoming my feelings."
You established the settlements and you believed in the settlements and nurtured them. Are you now prepared to consider the evacuation of isolated settlements?
"If we reach a situation of true peace, real peace, peace for generations, we will have to make painful concessions. Not in exchange for promises, but rather in exchange for peace."[...]
"I don't want to get into a discussion of any specific place now. This is a delicate subject and there is no need to talk a lot about it. But if it turns out that we have someone to talk to, that they understand that peace is neither terrorism nor subversion against Israel, then I would definitely say that we will have to take steps that are painful for every Jew and painful for me personally."
Isn't that phrase "painful concessions" a hollow expression?
"Definitely not. It comes from the depth of my soul. Look, we are talking about the cradle of the Jewish people. Our whole history is bound up with these places. Bethlehem, Shiloh, Beit El. And I know that we will have to part with some of these places. There will be a parting from places that are connected to the whole course of our history. As a Jew, this agonizes me. But I have decided to make every effort to reach a settlement. I feel that the rational necessity to reach a settlement is overcoming my feelings."
You established the settlements and you believed in the settlements and nurtured them. Are you now prepared to consider the evacuation of isolated settlements?
"If we reach a situation of true peace, real peace, peace for generations, we will have to make painful concessions. Not in exchange for promises, but rather in exchange for peace."[...]
Butler: Syria concealed Iraqi weapons
2003-04-15 07:48 GMT: Former UN weapons chief backs US claims Syria concealed Iraqi weapons - report (Via Instapundit)
(in full)SYDNEY (AFX) - Former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler backed US claims that Syria helped conceal Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, saying he saw evidence of this, he told ABC Radio.
The former Australian diplomat said he had seen intelligence when he headed the UN team in Iraq from 1997 until 1999 which seemed to indicate Syria had helped keep Iraq's weapons of mass destruction hidden.
"I was shown some intelligence information, from overhead imagery and so on, that the Iraqis had moved some containers of stuff across the border into Syria," Butler was quoted as saying on ABC Radio.
"We had reason to believe that those were containers of chemical weapons and perhaps some other weapons.
"I don't believe the Iraqis wanted to give them to Syria, but I think they just wanted to get them out of the territory, out of the range of our inspections. Syria was prepared to be the custodian of them," he said.
The former Australian diplomat said he had seen intelligence when he headed the UN team in Iraq from 1997 until 1999 which seemed to indicate Syria had helped keep Iraq's weapons of mass destruction hidden.
"I was shown some intelligence information, from overhead imagery and so on, that the Iraqis had moved some containers of stuff across the border into Syria," Butler was quoted as saying on ABC Radio.
"We had reason to believe that those were containers of chemical weapons and perhaps some other weapons.
"I don't believe the Iraqis wanted to give them to Syria, but I think they just wanted to get them out of the territory, out of the range of our inspections. Syria was prepared to be the custodian of them," he said.
Sharansky: From Helsinki to Oslo
israelinsider: From Helsinki to Oslo (Via Settingtheworldtorights.com)
This Natan Sharansky piece was written in 2001, but remains every bit as timely. It does a good job in representing Sharansky's philosophy that only free societies with firm, accountable infrastructures make useful partners for peace.
[...]Prime Minister Rabin coined the phrase that chillingly summed up the government's entire approach: Arafat would deal with terrorists, he said, "without a Supreme Court, without B'Tselem [a human rights organization] and without all kinds of bleeding heart liberals." In short, the undemocratic nature of Arafat's regime, far from being an obstacle to furthering peace, was considered a crucial asset in the fight against terror. Knowing full well the implications of these words on Israel's future security, I warned then Prime Minister Rabin that "the society that would be created as a result - a society with no Supreme Court, no human rights organizations and no bleeding heart liberals - would be based on fear and unlimited authority." Such a regime, I wrote in numerous articles critical of this approach to peace, would inevitably need external enemies to justify internal repression and maintain its power. Though nothing would have enhanced Israel's security more than promoting a Palestinian society founded on democratic principles and institutions, Israel ushered in a "peace" process that subsidized tyranny.[...]
Tom DeLay: Israel's Fight is our Fight
I've never been a big fan of Tom DeLay, but this is pretty good.
FrontPage magazine.com
[...]THE UNITED STATES, THEREFORE, CANNOT SERVE AS A DISINTERESTED BROKER BETWEEN AN ALLY AND ITS TERRORIST ENEMY. There is NO MORAL EQUIVALENCE between an aggressor and a man who defends himself against aggression, just as there is no moral equivalence between terrorists and the Israeli government sworn to stop them, despite the ABSURD ASSERTIONS OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S newly released Human Rights Report. This Report is designed to document the human rights conditions in countries around the globe; however, it compares the human rights record of a free, tolerant, and pluralistic nation with that of a terrorist network. There is no comparison, and to assert one is ridiculous. Israel is governed by democratically-elected representatives; the Palestinian Authority is governed by a gang of murderers.
Experience and common sense lead to one conclusion about America's proper role in the Middle East: we are absolutely right to stand with Israel, and our opponents are absolutely wrong.
The moral ambiguities of our diplomatic elites notwithstanding, Israel is not the problem; Israel is the solution![...]
Experience and common sense lead to one conclusion about America's proper role in the Middle East: we are absolutely right to stand with Israel, and our opponents are absolutely wrong.
The moral ambiguities of our diplomatic elites notwithstanding, Israel is not the problem; Israel is the solution![...]
More on the Corruption at CNN
More specific allegations concerning CNN's shilling for a dictator - this time from a former reporter. You better believe it wasn't just CNN doing this.
Corruption at CNN -- The Washington Times - by Peter Collins
(In Full) Mr. Eason Jordan's admission that CNN had to suppress the news from Baghdad in order to report it brought back memories for me.
In January 1993, I was in Baghdad as a reporter for CNN on a probationary, three-month contract. Previously, I had been a war reporter for CBS News in Vietnam and East Asia and in Central America for ABC News. I had also made three trips to Baghdad for ABC News before the Gulf War.
Now, Bill Clinton was about to be inaugurated and there was speculation that Saddam Hussein might "test" the new American president. Would the new administration be willing to enforce the "no-fly" zones set up in northern and southern Iraq after the Gulf War?
CNN had made its reputation during the war with its exclusive reports from Baghdad. Shortly after my arrival, I was surprised to see CNN President Tom Johnson and Eason Jordan, then chief of international news gathering, stride into the al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad. They were there to help CNN bid for an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein, timed to coincide with the coming inauguration of President Clinton.
I took part in meetings between the CNN executives and various officials purported to be close to Saddam. We met with his personal translator; with a foreign affairs adviser; with Information Minister Latif Jassim; and with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
In each of these meetings, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan made their pitch: Saddam Hussein would have an hour's time on CNN's worldwide network; there would be no interruptions, no commercials. I was astonished. From both the tone and the content of these conversations, it seemed to me that CNN was virtually groveling for the interview.
The day after one such meeting, I was on the roof of the Ministry of Information, preparing for my first "live shot" on CNN. A producer came up and handed me a sheet of paper with handwritten notes. "Tom Johnson wants you to read this on camera," he said. I glanced at the paper. It was an item-by-item summary of points made by Information Minister Latif Jassim in an interview that morning with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan.
The list was so long that there was no time during the live shot to provide context. I read the information minister's points verbatim. Moments later, I was downstairs in the newsroom on the first floor of the Information Ministry. Mr. Johnson approached, having seen my performance on a TV monitor. "You were a bit flat there, Peter," he said. Again, I was astonished. The president of CNN was telling me I seemed less-than-enthusiastic reading Saddam Hussein's propaganda.
The next day, I was CNN's reporter on a trip organized by the Ministry of Information to the northern city of Mosul. "Minders" from the ministry accompanied two busloads of news people to an open, plowed field outside Mosul. The purpose was to show us that American warplanes were bombing "innocent Iraqi farmers." Bits of American ordinance were scattered on the field. One large piece was marked "CBU." I recognized it as the canister for a Cluster Bomb Unit, a weapon effective against troops in the open, or against "thin-skinned" armor. I was puzzled. Why would U.S. aircraft launch CBUs against what appeared to be an open field? Was it really to kill "innocent Iraqi farmers?" The minders showed us no victims, no witnesses. I looked around. About 2000 yards distant on a ridgeline, two radar dishes were just visible against the sky. The ground was freshly plowed. Now, I understood. The radars were probably linked to Soviet-made SA-6 surface-to-air missiles mounted on tracks, armored vehicles, parked in the field at some distance from the dishes to keep them safe. After the bombing, the Iraqis had removed the missile launchers and had plowed the field to cover the tracks.
On the way back to Baghdad, I explained to other reporters what I thought had happened, and wrote a report that was broadcast on CNN that night.
The next day, Brent Sadler, CNN's chief reporter at the time in Baghdad (he is now in northern Iraq), came up to me in a hallway of the al Rasheed Hotel. He had been pushing for the interview with Saddam and had urged Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan to come to Baghdad to help seal the deal. "Petah," he said to me in his English accent, "you know we're trying to get an interview with Saddam. That piece last night was not helpful."
So, we were supposed to shade the news to get an interview with Saddam?
As it happens, CNN never did get that interview. A few months later, I had passed my probationary period and was contemplating my future with CNN. I thought long and hard; could I be comfortable with a news organization that played those kinds of games? I decided, no, I could not, and resigned.
In my brief acquaintance with Mr. Jordan at CNN, I formed the impression of a decent man, someone with a conscience. On the day Mr. Jordan published his piece in the New York Times, a panel on Fox News was discussing his astonishing admissions. Brit Hume wondered, "Why would he ever write such a thing?" Another panelist suggested, "Perhaps his conscience is bothering him." Mr. Eason, it should be.
Peter Collins has more than 30 years of experience in broadcast news, including outlets such as the Voice of America, BBC, CBS, ABC and CNN.
In January 1993, I was in Baghdad as a reporter for CNN on a probationary, three-month contract. Previously, I had been a war reporter for CBS News in Vietnam and East Asia and in Central America for ABC News. I had also made three trips to Baghdad for ABC News before the Gulf War.
Now, Bill Clinton was about to be inaugurated and there was speculation that Saddam Hussein might "test" the new American president. Would the new administration be willing to enforce the "no-fly" zones set up in northern and southern Iraq after the Gulf War?
CNN had made its reputation during the war with its exclusive reports from Baghdad. Shortly after my arrival, I was surprised to see CNN President Tom Johnson and Eason Jordan, then chief of international news gathering, stride into the al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad. They were there to help CNN bid for an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein, timed to coincide with the coming inauguration of President Clinton.
I took part in meetings between the CNN executives and various officials purported to be close to Saddam. We met with his personal translator; with a foreign affairs adviser; with Information Minister Latif Jassim; and with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
In each of these meetings, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan made their pitch: Saddam Hussein would have an hour's time on CNN's worldwide network; there would be no interruptions, no commercials. I was astonished. From both the tone and the content of these conversations, it seemed to me that CNN was virtually groveling for the interview.
The day after one such meeting, I was on the roof of the Ministry of Information, preparing for my first "live shot" on CNN. A producer came up and handed me a sheet of paper with handwritten notes. "Tom Johnson wants you to read this on camera," he said. I glanced at the paper. It was an item-by-item summary of points made by Information Minister Latif Jassim in an interview that morning with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan.
The list was so long that there was no time during the live shot to provide context. I read the information minister's points verbatim. Moments later, I was downstairs in the newsroom on the first floor of the Information Ministry. Mr. Johnson approached, having seen my performance on a TV monitor. "You were a bit flat there, Peter," he said. Again, I was astonished. The president of CNN was telling me I seemed less-than-enthusiastic reading Saddam Hussein's propaganda.
The next day, I was CNN's reporter on a trip organized by the Ministry of Information to the northern city of Mosul. "Minders" from the ministry accompanied two busloads of news people to an open, plowed field outside Mosul. The purpose was to show us that American warplanes were bombing "innocent Iraqi farmers." Bits of American ordinance were scattered on the field. One large piece was marked "CBU." I recognized it as the canister for a Cluster Bomb Unit, a weapon effective against troops in the open, or against "thin-skinned" armor. I was puzzled. Why would U.S. aircraft launch CBUs against what appeared to be an open field? Was it really to kill "innocent Iraqi farmers?" The minders showed us no victims, no witnesses. I looked around. About 2000 yards distant on a ridgeline, two radar dishes were just visible against the sky. The ground was freshly plowed. Now, I understood. The radars were probably linked to Soviet-made SA-6 surface-to-air missiles mounted on tracks, armored vehicles, parked in the field at some distance from the dishes to keep them safe. After the bombing, the Iraqis had removed the missile launchers and had plowed the field to cover the tracks.
On the way back to Baghdad, I explained to other reporters what I thought had happened, and wrote a report that was broadcast on CNN that night.
The next day, Brent Sadler, CNN's chief reporter at the time in Baghdad (he is now in northern Iraq), came up to me in a hallway of the al Rasheed Hotel. He had been pushing for the interview with Saddam and had urged Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan to come to Baghdad to help seal the deal. "Petah," he said to me in his English accent, "you know we're trying to get an interview with Saddam. That piece last night was not helpful."
So, we were supposed to shade the news to get an interview with Saddam?
As it happens, CNN never did get that interview. A few months later, I had passed my probationary period and was contemplating my future with CNN. I thought long and hard; could I be comfortable with a news organization that played those kinds of games? I decided, no, I could not, and resigned.
In my brief acquaintance with Mr. Jordan at CNN, I formed the impression of a decent man, someone with a conscience. On the day Mr. Jordan published his piece in the New York Times, a panel on Fox News was discussing his astonishing admissions. Brit Hume wondered, "Why would he ever write such a thing?" Another panelist suggested, "Perhaps his conscience is bothering him." Mr. Eason, it should be.
Peter Collins has more than 30 years of experience in broadcast news, including outlets such as the Voice of America, BBC, CBS, ABC and CNN.
Monday, April 14, 2003
The Ville Interview With David Horowitz
The Ville has an interview with David Horowitz. Worth checking out!
Help the Dissident Frogman With His Project
The Dissident Frogman is running a boycott against domestic French businesses that refuse service to Americans.
[...]So basically, I intend to maintain a list of openly anti-American businesses, such as these three shameful restaurateurs. And of course, we won't limit ourselves to restaurants.[...]
Stop by and check it out. Sounds interesting. I'm looking forward to reading the stories behind the businesses that make the list.
John Howard Suggests Change for UNSC - No More France
I enjoy reading this, but is it worth trying to fix something as broken as the UN? Is it possible, or is it a total loss? The UN is a nice idea that seems almost impossible to implement properly. There must be better solutions...maybe something involving "interest alliances?" I dunno, anyway, this was interesting to read.
theage.com.au - The Age
Prime Minister John Howard wants to reform the United Nations, saying the presence of France as a permanent member of the Security Council "distorts" the council.
He wants Japan, a South American country and India to be represented on the Security Council. France was there only because it was a global power at the end of World War II, he said.
Asking France or any other permanent member of the Security Council to voluntarily surrender their seat was "a major undertaking", he conceded.
His comments risk the ire of France before the first visit to Australia by President Jacques Chirac, who is due in the country in July.
France angered the war coalition nations with its strong opposition to a second UN resolution backing military action. Once the troops went into Iraq, President Chirac was a vocal opponent of the war.
Mr Howard offered a compromise, which he said would make the UN more representative of the modern world - three levels of Security Council members, the permanent members, the rotating members and a new group of permanent members that had no veto. It would be "a far better expression of world opinion", he said.[...]
He wants Japan, a South American country and India to be represented on the Security Council. France was there only because it was a global power at the end of World War II, he said.
Asking France or any other permanent member of the Security Council to voluntarily surrender their seat was "a major undertaking", he conceded.
His comments risk the ire of France before the first visit to Australia by President Jacques Chirac, who is due in the country in July.
France angered the war coalition nations with its strong opposition to a second UN resolution backing military action. Once the troops went into Iraq, President Chirac was a vocal opponent of the war.
Mr Howard offered a compromise, which he said would make the UN more representative of the modern world - three levels of Security Council members, the permanent members, the rotating members and a new group of permanent members that had no veto. It would be "a far better expression of world opinion", he said.[...]
Shock and Awe is Making Ripples
Of course the real Shock and Awe was the fact that the US was actually seriously resolved to settle some issues in the Middle East, and that we have the strength to take apart a country like Iraq as surgically and overwhelmingly as we did.
The article via Israpundit is an remarkable read and indicative of some of the voices now being heard. Do they write the same thing in Arabic?
GN Online: The Iraqi tremor and its key lesson for all
With the stunning and shameful collapse of the Iraqi regime and its Baathist reign, another Arab era has vanished, turning the pages of contemporary Arab history and opening a new chapter.
Like other parties which stormed into power during the 1950s and 1960s - fighting imperialism and having progressive and socialist ideas as their ideology - the Baath party in Iraq has now almost withered away.
The Baath's twin party in Syria, as well as others that rule on the same principles and ideas, will, hopefully, learn a lesson and start implementing reforms.
The collapse of the Iraqi Baath party has long been anticipated simply because of the way it ruled Iraq. There was a total destruction of political and social life so that the regime could tighten its vice-like grip on the country and monopolise power. To this end, the regime suppressed freedom and democracy in economic, political and social fields - in fact, in all aspects of life.
When the winds of change started to blow, it was not only the regime that came tumbling down, but all the institutions as well. And a stark reality was revealed: that these institutions were virtual phantoms as far as the people were concerned. They were under the complete command of the regime. The people were not allowed to participate in the establishment and running of these institutions.
It is understandable why certain political forces swept into power in the region during the 1950s and 1960s because most Arab countries were under foreign occupation. Some, however, were marching towards freedom and others had just gained independence. And hence their slogans seemed credible to the people who had supported and catapulted them to power.
But these forces failed to grow and develop with the changes of time. Sooner or later, they were meted out death, shame or collapse by internal rather than external factors. The Iraqi experience is similar to the experience of Algeria, Syria, Yemen and other Arab countries that are ruled by such forces and national parties that are characterised by totalitarianism and rule by one.
This kind of rule explains the violent civil strife in Algeria and the bloody internal war in Yemen which was ironically dubbed as the "war of unity" - one that was brought about by the mighty force of tanks.
This situation should no longer be prolonged or repeated in other Arab countries. Single party monopoly suppresses all types of political participation and only leads to the suffocation of people, politically and socially. Political and social turmoil reach a boiling point - a pressure cooker waiting to burst.
What happened to the Baath party in Iraq is evidence that such governance will lead to its collapse. The party's actions and the monopoly of power by an unqualified clique - except for its insatiable desire to terrorise its own people and neighbours - is a strong lesson that Arabs should learn from.
This is crucial if Arabs are to embark on a journey towards a new life - one that is based on the promulgation of freedom, the establishment of a state of law with its institutions and the adoption of a system that ingrains people's participation in the political process.
Democracy should not merely be exercised superficially - displayed without any substance. Instead, it should become a part of public life where every Arab citizen is virtually a partner in any development process instead of just remaining marginalised. This is the change that should replace totalitarianism and monopoly of power by a single party.
Many Arab analysts, observers and intellectuals may attribute this abuse of power to the Palestinian problem. This is based on the grounds that these regimes have taken this issue as an excuse to justify their actions of confiscating liberties, strengthening their armies and tightening their grip on power. These, the regimes have claimed, are all crucial national interests as they prepare the foundation for the liberation of Palestine.
However, it has become clear that the Palestinian cause is just an excuse for these regimes to justify the repression of their people and their monopoly of power. It is as if Palestine can only be liberated through repression simply because these regimes have claimed democracy will not achieve this goal... this dream.
These false visions and list of justifications have always been propagated by the Baathist regime in Baghdad. It has crushed all political forces on charges of high treason and jailed and exterminated many others whether they were communists, Islamists or democrats.
As a matter of fact, the regime that was headed by Saddam Hussain had practically done nothing for the Palestinian cause. It had neither fought for this cause, nor had it assisted the Palestinians in their struggle.
On the contrary, it had always sought to divide the Palestinians and Arabs, playing a negative role in this crucial cause of Arabs.[...]
Like other parties which stormed into power during the 1950s and 1960s - fighting imperialism and having progressive and socialist ideas as their ideology - the Baath party in Iraq has now almost withered away.
The Baath's twin party in Syria, as well as others that rule on the same principles and ideas, will, hopefully, learn a lesson and start implementing reforms.
The collapse of the Iraqi Baath party has long been anticipated simply because of the way it ruled Iraq. There was a total destruction of political and social life so that the regime could tighten its vice-like grip on the country and monopolise power. To this end, the regime suppressed freedom and democracy in economic, political and social fields - in fact, in all aspects of life.
When the winds of change started to blow, it was not only the regime that came tumbling down, but all the institutions as well. And a stark reality was revealed: that these institutions were virtual phantoms as far as the people were concerned. They were under the complete command of the regime. The people were not allowed to participate in the establishment and running of these institutions.
It is understandable why certain political forces swept into power in the region during the 1950s and 1960s because most Arab countries were under foreign occupation. Some, however, were marching towards freedom and others had just gained independence. And hence their slogans seemed credible to the people who had supported and catapulted them to power.
But these forces failed to grow and develop with the changes of time. Sooner or later, they were meted out death, shame or collapse by internal rather than external factors. The Iraqi experience is similar to the experience of Algeria, Syria, Yemen and other Arab countries that are ruled by such forces and national parties that are characterised by totalitarianism and rule by one.
This kind of rule explains the violent civil strife in Algeria and the bloody internal war in Yemen which was ironically dubbed as the "war of unity" - one that was brought about by the mighty force of tanks.
This situation should no longer be prolonged or repeated in other Arab countries. Single party monopoly suppresses all types of political participation and only leads to the suffocation of people, politically and socially. Political and social turmoil reach a boiling point - a pressure cooker waiting to burst.
What happened to the Baath party in Iraq is evidence that such governance will lead to its collapse. The party's actions and the monopoly of power by an unqualified clique - except for its insatiable desire to terrorise its own people and neighbours - is a strong lesson that Arabs should learn from.
This is crucial if Arabs are to embark on a journey towards a new life - one that is based on the promulgation of freedom, the establishment of a state of law with its institutions and the adoption of a system that ingrains people's participation in the political process.
Democracy should not merely be exercised superficially - displayed without any substance. Instead, it should become a part of public life where every Arab citizen is virtually a partner in any development process instead of just remaining marginalised. This is the change that should replace totalitarianism and monopoly of power by a single party.
Many Arab analysts, observers and intellectuals may attribute this abuse of power to the Palestinian problem. This is based on the grounds that these regimes have taken this issue as an excuse to justify their actions of confiscating liberties, strengthening their armies and tightening their grip on power. These, the regimes have claimed, are all crucial national interests as they prepare the foundation for the liberation of Palestine.
However, it has become clear that the Palestinian cause is just an excuse for these regimes to justify the repression of their people and their monopoly of power. It is as if Palestine can only be liberated through repression simply because these regimes have claimed democracy will not achieve this goal... this dream.
These false visions and list of justifications have always been propagated by the Baathist regime in Baghdad. It has crushed all political forces on charges of high treason and jailed and exterminated many others whether they were communists, Islamists or democrats.
As a matter of fact, the regime that was headed by Saddam Hussain had practically done nothing for the Palestinian cause. It had neither fought for this cause, nor had it assisted the Palestinians in their struggle.
On the contrary, it had always sought to divide the Palestinians and Arabs, playing a negative role in this crucial cause of Arabs.[...]
Check out the Official Web Site of the City of Aleppo, Syria
Via Travelling Shoes: Take a look. Think Syria likes us?
Don't worry guys, we got our eyes on you, too.
Hanson: On Utopian, Unreasonable Expectations
Our Western Mob - From the graveyard of Kabul to the quagmire of Iraq to the looting of Baghdad.
[...]Mr. Rather — so unlike a Michael Kelly or David Bloom — forgot that he was now motoring right smack into a war zone. And he seemed oblivious that just a few weeks ago he had just conducted a scripted and choreographed interview with a mass murderer. Consider the sheer historical ignorance of it all: Was Berlin a nicer place in 1939 or 1946? And why and for whom?
The machinery of a totalitarian society, of course, can present a certain staged decorum for guests who are brought in to be manipulated by dictators. How many were shot in dungeons during his visit, he never speculated. In contrast the first 48 hours of liberation are scary — who after all could now put Mr. Rather up at a plush state-run hotel and shepherd him in to the posh digs of Saddam Hussein with the security of an armed Gestapo? That the chaos Mr. Rather witnessed was the aftermath of a 30-year tyranny under which one million innocents have been slaughtered made no discernable impression on him — nor did the bombshell story how the Western media has for years collaborated with a horrific regime to send out its censored propaganda.
Next I turned on NPR. No surprise. Its coverage was also fixated on the looting, and aired several stories about the general shortcomings of the American efforts. Again forget that a war was waging in the north, that Baghdad was still not entirely pacified, and that there was the example of a normalizing postbellum Basra. No, instead there must be furor that the United States had not in a matter of hours turned its military into an instantaneous police, fire, water, medical, and power corps.
Personally, I was more intrigued that in passing the same reporter at last fessed up that during all of her previous gloomy reports from the Palestine Hotel of American progress, she and others had been shaken down daily for bribe money, censored, and led around as near hostages. It is impossible to calibrate how such Iraqi manipulation of American news accounts affected domestic morale, if not providing comfort for those Baathists who wished to discourage popular uprisings of long-suffering Iraqis.
There is something profoundly amoral about this. A newsman who interviewed a state killer at his convenience later revisits a now liberated city and complains of the disorder there. A journalist who paid bribe money to fascists and whose dispatches aired from Baghdad in wartime only because the Baathist party felt that they served their own terrorist purposes is disturbed about the chaos of liberation. Now is the time for CNN, NPR, and other news organizations to state publicly what their relationships were in ensuring their reporters’ presence in wartime Iraq — and to explain their policies about bribing state officials, allowing censorship of their news releases, and keeping quiet about atrocities to ensure access.[...]
So while it is censorious of politicians and soldiers, the media is completely uninterested in monitoring its own behavior. Would Mr. Rather have gone to Berlin amid the SS to interview Hitler in his bunker as the fires of Auschwitz raged? Would NPR reporters have visited Hitler’s Germany, paid bribes to Mr. Goebbels, and then broadcasted allied shortcomings at the Bulge, oblivious to the Nazi machinery of death and their own complicity in it?[...]
The machinery of a totalitarian society, of course, can present a certain staged decorum for guests who are brought in to be manipulated by dictators. How many were shot in dungeons during his visit, he never speculated. In contrast the first 48 hours of liberation are scary — who after all could now put Mr. Rather up at a plush state-run hotel and shepherd him in to the posh digs of Saddam Hussein with the security of an armed Gestapo? That the chaos Mr. Rather witnessed was the aftermath of a 30-year tyranny under which one million innocents have been slaughtered made no discernable impression on him — nor did the bombshell story how the Western media has for years collaborated with a horrific regime to send out its censored propaganda.
Next I turned on NPR. No surprise. Its coverage was also fixated on the looting, and aired several stories about the general shortcomings of the American efforts. Again forget that a war was waging in the north, that Baghdad was still not entirely pacified, and that there was the example of a normalizing postbellum Basra. No, instead there must be furor that the United States had not in a matter of hours turned its military into an instantaneous police, fire, water, medical, and power corps.
Personally, I was more intrigued that in passing the same reporter at last fessed up that during all of her previous gloomy reports from the Palestine Hotel of American progress, she and others had been shaken down daily for bribe money, censored, and led around as near hostages. It is impossible to calibrate how such Iraqi manipulation of American news accounts affected domestic morale, if not providing comfort for those Baathists who wished to discourage popular uprisings of long-suffering Iraqis.
There is something profoundly amoral about this. A newsman who interviewed a state killer at his convenience later revisits a now liberated city and complains of the disorder there. A journalist who paid bribe money to fascists and whose dispatches aired from Baghdad in wartime only because the Baathist party felt that they served their own terrorist purposes is disturbed about the chaos of liberation. Now is the time for CNN, NPR, and other news organizations to state publicly what their relationships were in ensuring their reporters’ presence in wartime Iraq — and to explain their policies about bribing state officials, allowing censorship of their news releases, and keeping quiet about atrocities to ensure access.[...]
So while it is censorious of politicians and soldiers, the media is completely uninterested in monitoring its own behavior. Would Mr. Rather have gone to Berlin amid the SS to interview Hitler in his bunker as the fires of Auschwitz raged? Would NPR reporters have visited Hitler’s Germany, paid bribes to Mr. Goebbels, and then broadcasted allied shortcomings at the Bulge, oblivious to the Nazi machinery of death and their own complicity in it?[...]
Confronting the Myth by Lee Harris
TCS: Defense - Confronting the Myth
Harris on collective fantasy and rebuilding Iraq.
Late last week on one of the cable news programs I saw an obviously well educated Jordanian woman being interviewed for her response to the sudden and ignominious collapse of the regime of Saddam Hussein. She expressed the common shock and humiliation that many Arabs clearly felt at the failure of the Republican Guard to fight to the last man against the Americans and the refusal of Baghdad to offer itself as a second Stalingrad. But she expressed something else as well—a remark that the interviewer did not choose to follow up on, though I wish very much he had.
She said that the sudden collapse could mean only one thing—namely, that we did not yet know what really happened.
But of course we do know what really happened. A genuine army had vanquished a phantom army. And surely the woman being interviewed must have known this, too. Somewhere, at some level of consciousness, she must be aware that what had happened could not possibly have been otherwise, and that the Arab world had been played for suckers by both the Iraqi Minister of Information and by the various Arab media propagandists. They had lied, and these lies had been eagerly, willingly believed.
And yet what the woman's final remark suggested was not that she had enough of such lies, but rather that she was anxious to hear more of them. Anxious, at the very least, to hear a lie that would explain how all the other lies hadn't been lies at all. [...]
She said that the sudden collapse could mean only one thing—namely, that we did not yet know what really happened.
But of course we do know what really happened. A genuine army had vanquished a phantom army. And surely the woman being interviewed must have known this, too. Somewhere, at some level of consciousness, she must be aware that what had happened could not possibly have been otherwise, and that the Arab world had been played for suckers by both the Iraqi Minister of Information and by the various Arab media propagandists. They had lied, and these lies had been eagerly, willingly believed.
And yet what the woman's final remark suggested was not that she had enough of such lies, but rather that she was anxious to hear more of them. Anxious, at the very least, to hear a lie that would explain how all the other lies hadn't been lies at all. [...]
Sunday, April 13, 2003
MBITRW With Mark Steyn
Telegraph | Opinion | Movers and shakers have moved on to the next 'disaster'
Steyn takes on the conventional wisdom and tells us in advance what the doomsayers will never come back to correct for themselves.
On to the next quagmire! Don't get mired in the bog of yesterday's conventional wisdom, when the movers and shakers have already moved on to new disasters. America may have won the war but it's already losing the peace! Here's your at-a-glance guide to what the experts who got everything wrong last week will be getting wrong next week:
1) "Iraq's slide into violent anarchy" (Guardian, April 11). Say what you like about Saddam, but he ran a tight ship and you didn't have to nail down your nest of tables: since the Brits took over, Basra's property crime is heading in an alarmingly Cheltenhamesque direction. MBITRW (Meanwhile Back In The Real World): A year from now, Basra will have a lower crime rate than most London boroughs.
2) "The head of the World Food Programme has warned that Iraq could spiral into a massive humanitarian disaster" (Australian, April 11). MBITRW: No such disaster will occur, any more than it did during the mythical "brutal Afghan winter" and its attendant humanitarian scaremongering. ("The UN Children's Fund has estimated that as many as 100,000 Afghan children could die of cold, disease and hunger." They didn't.) [...]
1) "Iraq's slide into violent anarchy" (Guardian, April 11). Say what you like about Saddam, but he ran a tight ship and you didn't have to nail down your nest of tables: since the Brits took over, Basra's property crime is heading in an alarmingly Cheltenhamesque direction. MBITRW (Meanwhile Back In The Real World): A year from now, Basra will have a lower crime rate than most London boroughs.
2) "The head of the World Food Programme has warned that Iraq could spiral into a massive humanitarian disaster" (Australian, April 11). MBITRW: No such disaster will occur, any more than it did during the mythical "brutal Afghan winter" and its attendant humanitarian scaremongering. ("The UN Children's Fund has estimated that as many as 100,000 Afghan children could die of cold, disease and hunger." They didn't.) [...]
There are 10 points worth checking out.
The Sand Wall By Thomas L. Friedman
The Sand Wall - NY Times
Thomas Friedman gives us a mostly interesting piece today concerning the need to use the fall of Saddam to re-shape Arab thinking. The sand wall he talks about may as well be the sand between the ears of a lot of the "Saddamite" Arab world.
[...]Throughout this war, Saddamism was peddled by Al Jazeera television, Arab intellectuals and the Arab League. You cannot imagine how much distress there is among certain Arab elites that the people of Iraq preferred liberation by America to more defiance under Saddam. The morning after Baghdad was liberated, Abdul Hamid Ahmad, editor of The Gulf News, wrote, like so many of his colleagues: "This is a heartbreaking moment for any Arab, seeing marines roaming the streets of Baghdad."
The wall of Saddamism, which helped bad leaders stay in power and young Arabs remain backward and angry, was as dangerous as Saddam. "The social, political, cultural and economic malaise in this part of the world had become a threat to American security — it produced 9/11," said Shafeeq Ghabra, president of the American University of Kuwait. "This war was a challenge to the entire Arab system, which is why so many Arabs opposed it. The war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq [in 1991] was outpatient surgery. This war was open-heart surgery."[...]
The wall of Saddamism, which helped bad leaders stay in power and young Arabs remain backward and angry, was as dangerous as Saddam. "The social, political, cultural and economic malaise in this part of the world had become a threat to American security — it produced 9/11," said Shafeeq Ghabra, president of the American University of Kuwait. "This war was a challenge to the entire Arab system, which is why so many Arabs opposed it. The war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq [in 1991] was outpatient surgery. This war was open-heart surgery."[...]
I was going right along with it, agreeing with his points and nodding when he said that now was a chance to re-build Iraq and do some over-arching good. Then we get to this bit:
[...]The moment reminded me of something the Arab columnist Rami Khouri liked to say, that Arabs for too long have seen the strength of America, but not the "goodness" of America. Partly that's because their media willfully distorted what we did, and partly it's because America has used its power out here more to defend oil and Israel than democracy. This war in Iraq was meant to bring the idealistic side of U.S. power into the Arab world.
See, now this is why some people don't like you, Tom. You're so obsessed with appearing "even-handed" that you wind up saying silly things.
Note that he does not say that "it is perceived that we use our power more for Israel than democracy." He says we do use it so. TOM! We defend Israel because it is a democracy. Our defence of Israel is our idealistic side, otherwise we would long ago have gone to pandering to the Arabs like much of Europe and Russia. That's the problem. Too many people are more interested in appearances than telling the simple truth - we often come down on the side of Israel against the Arab mob because it's the right thing to do.
One thing that the Bush doctrine has brought with it - the idea that American policy will be dictated not by surface appearances (we did one thing for the Israelis, so that means we need to do one thing for the Palestinians) but by facts and merit.
No longer, we hope, is America going to pander to the demagogues of the Arab street. We are now in the process of laying the groundwork to enable the positive forces in the Arab world to prosper, so that we can see the "goodness" of the arab world, and move forward on a concrete foundation built on real principles.
As we move forward, it will be essential to stand firm to principle, and one of those principles will be knowing who our friends are, and letting the world know what is required in being our friend. Only then will leaders know what is required of them in order to join our train into the 21st century. With luck and perseverence, that train will include Iraq as well as Israel.
The French: I’m Shocked, Shocked!
The French: I'm Shocked, Shocked! Newsweek - MSNBC.com
April 21 issue — The french government insists that it has strictly enforced a tight embargo imposed on Saddam Hussein’s regime by the United Nations in 1990. But Saddam never lost his taste for French weapons or luxury goods. And evidence found by U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq suggests that—despite U.N. sanctions—the dictator continued to receive an abundant supply of both until very recently.
LT. GREG HOLMES, a tactical intelligence officer with the Third Infantry Division, told NEWSWEEK that U.S. forces discovered 51 Roland-2 missiles, made by a partnership of French and German arms manufacturers, in two military compounds at Baghdad International Airport. One of the missiles he examined was labeled 05-11 KND 2002, which he took to mean that the missile was manufactured last year. The charred remains of a more modern Roland-3 launcher was found just down the road from the arms cache. According to a mortar specialist with the same unit, radios used by many Iraqi military trucks brandished MADE IN FRANCE labels and looked brand new. RPG night sights stamped with the number 2002 and French labels also turned up. And a new Nissan pickup truck driven by a surrendering Iraqi officer was manufactured in France as well.
U.S. soldiers who moved into one of Saddam’s sumptuous palaces found a treasure house of less-deadly French goodies. Sets of Baath Party-logo silverware were marked MADE IN FRANCE on the back. And the palace was littered with the French cigarette brands Gauloise and Gitane. There were even packages of white French underwear.
Political conservatives on Capitol Hill are already fuming at this new evidence of possible French perfidy, though French officials deny wrongdoing. A French Embassy spokeswoman insists that the Roland-2 missile was an old model which the manufacturer stopped making years ago, though she admits the Roland-3 is a newer model. She says the Chirac government’s position is that new goods from France found in Iraq were probably illegal deliveries that Saddam purchased on a marche parallel, or black market.
—Arian Campo-Flores and Kevin Peraino in Iraq and Mark Hosenball in Washington
LT. GREG HOLMES, a tactical intelligence officer with the Third Infantry Division, told NEWSWEEK that U.S. forces discovered 51 Roland-2 missiles, made by a partnership of French and German arms manufacturers, in two military compounds at Baghdad International Airport. One of the missiles he examined was labeled 05-11 KND 2002, which he took to mean that the missile was manufactured last year. The charred remains of a more modern Roland-3 launcher was found just down the road from the arms cache. According to a mortar specialist with the same unit, radios used by many Iraqi military trucks brandished MADE IN FRANCE labels and looked brand new. RPG night sights stamped with the number 2002 and French labels also turned up. And a new Nissan pickup truck driven by a surrendering Iraqi officer was manufactured in France as well.
U.S. soldiers who moved into one of Saddam’s sumptuous palaces found a treasure house of less-deadly French goodies. Sets of Baath Party-logo silverware were marked MADE IN FRANCE on the back. And the palace was littered with the French cigarette brands Gauloise and Gitane. There were even packages of white French underwear.
Political conservatives on Capitol Hill are already fuming at this new evidence of possible French perfidy, though French officials deny wrongdoing. A French Embassy spokeswoman insists that the Roland-2 missile was an old model which the manufacturer stopped making years ago, though she admits the Roland-3 is a newer model. She says the Chirac government’s position is that new goods from France found in Iraq were probably illegal deliveries that Saddam purchased on a marche parallel, or black market.
—Arian Campo-Flores and Kevin Peraino in Iraq and Mark Hosenball in Washington
Saturday, April 12, 2003
The Iceburg Slowly Begins To Surface
No doubt this will be the first of many such revelations in the weeks and months to come. (Via LGF) Telegraph | News | Revealed: Russia spied on Blair for Saddam
Top secret documents obtained by The Telegraph in Baghdad show that Russia provided Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations between Tony Blair and other Western leaders.
Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West and details of arms deals to neighbouring countries. The two countries also signed agreements to share intelligence, help each other to "obtain" visas for agents to go to other countries and to exchange information on the activities of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader.
The documents detailing the extent of the links between Russia and Saddam were obtained from the heavily bombed headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad yesterday.
The sprawling complex, which for years struck fear into Iraqis, has been the target of looters and ordinary Iraqis searching for information about relatives who disappeared during Saddam's rule.
The documents, in Arabic, are mostly intelligence reports from anonymous agents and from the Iraqi embassy in Moscow. Tony Blair is referred to in a report dated March 5, 2002 and marked: "Subject - SECRET." In the letter, an Iraqi intelligence official explains that a Russian colleague had passed him details of a private conversation between Mr Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, at a meeting in Rome. The two had met for an annual summit on February 15, 2002, in Rome.
The document says that Mr Blair "referred to the negative things decided by the United States over Baghdad". It adds that Mr Blair refused to engage in any military action in Iraq at that time because British forces were still in Afghanistan and that nothing could be done until after the new Kabul government had been set up.
It is not known how the Russians obtained such potentially sensitive information, but the revelation that Moscow passed it on to Baghdad is likely to have a devastating effect on relations between Britain and Russia and come as a personal blow to Mr Blair. The Prime Minister declared a "new era" in relations with President Putin when they met in Moscow in October 2001 in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks.
In spite of warnings by the British intelligence and security services of increasing Russian espionage in the West, Mr Blair fostered closer relations with Mr Putin, visiting his family dacha near Moscow, supporting the Russians in their war in Chechnya, and arranging for the Russian president to have tea with the Queen.[...]
Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West and details of arms deals to neighbouring countries. The two countries also signed agreements to share intelligence, help each other to "obtain" visas for agents to go to other countries and to exchange information on the activities of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader.
The documents detailing the extent of the links between Russia and Saddam were obtained from the heavily bombed headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad yesterday.
The sprawling complex, which for years struck fear into Iraqis, has been the target of looters and ordinary Iraqis searching for information about relatives who disappeared during Saddam's rule.
The documents, in Arabic, are mostly intelligence reports from anonymous agents and from the Iraqi embassy in Moscow. Tony Blair is referred to in a report dated March 5, 2002 and marked: "Subject - SECRET." In the letter, an Iraqi intelligence official explains that a Russian colleague had passed him details of a private conversation between Mr Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, at a meeting in Rome. The two had met for an annual summit on February 15, 2002, in Rome.
The document says that Mr Blair "referred to the negative things decided by the United States over Baghdad". It adds that Mr Blair refused to engage in any military action in Iraq at that time because British forces were still in Afghanistan and that nothing could be done until after the new Kabul government had been set up.
It is not known how the Russians obtained such potentially sensitive information, but the revelation that Moscow passed it on to Baghdad is likely to have a devastating effect on relations between Britain and Russia and come as a personal blow to Mr Blair. The Prime Minister declared a "new era" in relations with President Putin when they met in Moscow in October 2001 in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks.
In spite of warnings by the British intelligence and security services of increasing Russian espionage in the West, Mr Blair fostered closer relations with Mr Putin, visiting his family dacha near Moscow, supporting the Russians in their war in Chechnya, and arranging for the Russian president to have tea with the Queen.[...]
Update: Instapundit has a couple updates in this vein, including a link to this Washington Times article concerning the French and their cozying-up to every Arab dictator who can stand their reek.
[...]The pattern of French diplomacy suggests an answer. France is seeking rapprochement with Libya. Jacques Chirac recently became the first French president in 40 years to visit Algeria. France coordinated its actions throughout the Iraq crisis with Syria. Mr. Chirac is promoting discredited Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in anticipation of postwar action on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. He sent Mr. Arafat, anathematized by the Bush administration, a friendly letter on March 20, and talked to him by phone March 25.
In October, Mr. Chirac attended a "Francophone Summit" in Beirut with many Arab leaders. Lebanese President Emile Lahhud opened it with a speech the National Post of Canada described as "a screed against Israel's existence." Sheikh Nasrallah, chairman of Hezbollah, sat in the front row. At the end of the event, reported Beirut's Tele-Liban TV, "Chirac congratulated President Lahhud again on his exceptional performance during the Francophone Summit."
The Arab press was ecstatic. Lebanon's As Safir credited France for promoting "an attitude of defiance toward U.S. hegemony." "Unquestionably," said the Omani newspaper Al Watan, "France has succeeded in using the summit for its political interests in the Middle East as it wants to build political and diplomatic strongholds in the region to confront the U.S. policy on the Middle East."
Opposing the Iraq war was but a prelude. France has mounted the world stage again using the Middle East as its footstool. It will now seek to lead willing Arab states against U.S. policy in postwar Iraq as well as in negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In October, Mr. Chirac attended a "Francophone Summit" in Beirut with many Arab leaders. Lebanese President Emile Lahhud opened it with a speech the National Post of Canada described as "a screed against Israel's existence." Sheikh Nasrallah, chairman of Hezbollah, sat in the front row. At the end of the event, reported Beirut's Tele-Liban TV, "Chirac congratulated President Lahhud again on his exceptional performance during the Francophone Summit."
The Arab press was ecstatic. Lebanon's As Safir credited France for promoting "an attitude of defiance toward U.S. hegemony." "Unquestionably," said the Omani newspaper Al Watan, "France has succeeded in using the summit for its political interests in the Middle East as it wants to build political and diplomatic strongholds in the region to confront the U.S. policy on the Middle East."
Opposing the Iraq war was but a prelude. France has mounted the world stage again using the Middle East as its footstool. It will now seek to lead willing Arab states against U.S. policy in postwar Iraq as well as in negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ed Asner = Pro Taliban
Just saw Ed Asner being interviewed by Rita Cosby on Fox. He's associating himself with a humanitarian group getting in line to go into Iraq and deliver aid - OK, so far, so good. Why, oh why, did she have to go into the "isn't it great to see the rejoicing Iraqis" bit, though? You KNOW he's going to find some way to throw cold water on that. They of course got into the whole, "now we have to win the peace" bit which just becomes frustrating beyond words. The discussion went into post-Taliban Afghanistan, which of course Asner used as an example of a failure, and claimed that things were worse there now than they were before the US invasion. This then led to a back and forth of, "Well, I think you're wrong," and, "Well I don't agree..." on and on.
Cosby should have just said, "OK, you heard it here first, folks. Ed Asner...pro-Taliban..." But of course, she didn't. Apparently folks, now get this - you won't believe it - there are warlords causing trouble in Afghanistan! I know, I know...hard to believe. Apparently, the USA failed to create paradise on earth there. Oh well.
"Our side" really have to avoid that trap. Particularly with regard to Afghanistan, any discussion about post-invasion conditions needs to be prefaced by the understanding that the purpose of the invasion was primarily to neutralize a threat to the United States. Anything else is worth bonus points and deserving of a thank you to the USA. Getting caught in the unreasonable expectations trap is a sure path to dissappointment.
Anyway, that gives me a chance to post this graphic reader King just forwarded to me.
Friday, April 11, 2003
Will on Europe's Decline
George Will is not happy about Europe's recent behavior, and not optimistic about its future.
[...]Note the verb "invited." There is no entitlement for France, Germany, Russia and the United Nations. They did all in their power to keep Saddam Hussein in power, which makes them accessories to tyranny -- and war crimes. All of Iraq's debts incurred to Russia, France, Germany -- U.S. officials at the United Nations say Germany was even more troublesome than France "in the corridors," meaning in the prewar politics outside the Security Council -- during Hussein's regime should be canceled.[...]
The News We Kept to Ourselves
The News We Kept to Ourselves (Via Instapundit)
This story certainly brings to light a lot of issues surrounding the idea of doing any reporting under conditions like those that existed in Iraq. While for Solomonia readers and other canny folk, this will be a "duh" moment, adding simply more specific testimony to what we already know, to many, many people the news out of Baghdad was just an "alternative viewpoint" from that coming out of Washington. I actually had one person tell me they had seen a piece, maybe on BBC(?), where they had gone around Baghdad and found that Saddam was actually a well-liked man who was appreciated for keeping the religious fundamentalists out of Iraq. What they took from this was that it was doubtful that Saddam was as bad as we had been hearing. It should be kind of tough to take anything meaningful at all from reportage going on under the circumstances that existed there, but many did.
ATLANTA — Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard — awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.
For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk.
Working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection. The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways. Obviously, other news organizations were in the same bind we were when it came to reporting on their own workers.[...]
For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk.
Working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection. The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways. Obviously, other news organizations were in the same bind we were when it came to reporting on their own workers.[...]
As Glenn Reynolds put it:
WHAT THE NEWS MEDIA DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT SADDAM before the war, even though they knew it:
Maybe, you know, it's not worth the moral compromises involved in reporting from a dictator's capital, if you're not able to tell the truth.
I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.
Maybe, you know, it's not worth the moral compromises involved in reporting from a dictator's capital, if you're not able to tell the truth.
Indeed!
Update: As one might expect, this issue is exploding across the Blogosphere. Rightfully! The question of the conditions under which commentary and images have been forming our views of Baghdad for the past couple decades is huge. LGF has some updates with links to reactions. Follow the links.
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Avoid the UN quagmire in Iraq, By Mark Steyn
Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition (Via Martin Kimel)
Mark Steyn on keeping the UN the hell out nation building in Iraq.
Hilight quote:
[...]The UN doesn't solve problems, it manages them in perpetuity; it turns them into Les Mis rables come back two decades later and it's still running. Even without the corruption and drugs and child-sex rings, it's not an impressive record. Any German contemplating the Palestinian "refugee camps" now celebrating their golden jubilee ought to be grateful his country enjoys the straightforward benefits of victors' justice. Or to put it in the only image the BBC and The New York Times apparently understand: the UN guarantees quagmire.
Bush understands this. To gauge the limits of his administration's patience, listen to its most famous moderate.
"We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have significant, dominating control over how it unfolds in the future" Colin Powell told Congress last week.[...]
Bush understands this. To gauge the limits of his administration's patience, listen to its most famous moderate.
"We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have significant, dominating control over how it unfolds in the future" Colin Powell told Congress last week.[...]
Iraqi National Congress: 'No place in new Iraq for Palestinians'
Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
A high-ranking INC member says his group is looking for strong ties with Israel.
(In Full)
There will be strong ties with Israel but no place for Palestinians in the new Iraq, a leading member of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) told me late Wednesday night.
The Washington-backed organization, a secular, democratic umbrella for Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurdish communities, is committed to a unitary state, with a large measure of autonomy for what they envisage will be three federal components.
Until recently, the vigorously pro-Western movement was based in London. Now most of its leaders have relocated to various parts of Iraq, planning to converge on Baghdad within the coming days and preparing, with American support, to announce the formation of a provisional government.
One of the most elegant and eloquent princes of the INC is Nabeel Musawi, right-hand man of INC leader Ahmad Chalabi and scion of a prominent Shi'ite family from Baghdad.
Musawi fled into exile aged 18 when his father was arrested and later executed. Now in his early 40s, he is destined for a key role in a future Iraqi administration.
Speaking from Dokan, in liberated northern Iraq, Musawi took pleasure in describing the unbridled celebrations the spontaneous, uninhibited joy on the streets of Iraq's towns and cities as ordinary Iraqis celebrated the toppling of Saddam's statue in Baghdad's Paradise Square.
"All our cities are euphoric," he told me, the allied bombing of nearby Kirkuk clearly audible in the background over our satellite phone link.
Musawi reminds me that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from the Gulf states after the 1991 war in retribution for their complicity with Saddam, particularly in Kuwait, where they collaborated with his enforcers in identifying key personnel after the Iraqi invasion. All were arrested, many were never seen again.
Today, the large Palestinian community is regarded by INC leaders as a loathsome fifth column, among the most faithful followers of Saddam Hussein.
Will the Palestinians be welcome to remain in a new, post-Saddam Iraq?
"Absolutely not," Musawi snapped.
Nor, for that matter, will Arabs who had opposed the US-led war to deliver freedom to the Iraqi people.
And the UN? "They did not play a very honorable role when it came to dealing with Saddam," he said. "We believe the UN needs to put its own house in order before it can play a credible role here."
Musawi is equally unequivocal when talking enthusiastically of his hopes for the closest possible ties with Israel.
We had spoken before of the INC vision of an "arc of peace" that would run from Turkey, through Iraq and Jordan to Israel, creating a new fulcrum in the Middle East. Does that concept still stand?
The Washington-backed organization, a secular, democratic umbrella for Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurdish communities, is committed to a unitary state, with a large measure of autonomy for what they envisage will be three federal components.
Until recently, the vigorously pro-Western movement was based in London. Now most of its leaders have relocated to various parts of Iraq, planning to converge on Baghdad within the coming days and preparing, with American support, to announce the formation of a provisional government.
One of the most elegant and eloquent princes of the INC is Nabeel Musawi, right-hand man of INC leader Ahmad Chalabi and scion of a prominent Shi'ite family from Baghdad.
Musawi fled into exile aged 18 when his father was arrested and later executed. Now in his early 40s, he is destined for a key role in a future Iraqi administration.
Speaking from Dokan, in liberated northern Iraq, Musawi took pleasure in describing the unbridled celebrations the spontaneous, uninhibited joy on the streets of Iraq's towns and cities as ordinary Iraqis celebrated the toppling of Saddam's statue in Baghdad's Paradise Square.
"All our cities are euphoric," he told me, the allied bombing of nearby Kirkuk clearly audible in the background over our satellite phone link.
Musawi reminds me that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from the Gulf states after the 1991 war in retribution for their complicity with Saddam, particularly in Kuwait, where they collaborated with his enforcers in identifying key personnel after the Iraqi invasion. All were arrested, many were never seen again.
Today, the large Palestinian community is regarded by INC leaders as a loathsome fifth column, among the most faithful followers of Saddam Hussein.
Will the Palestinians be welcome to remain in a new, post-Saddam Iraq?
"Absolutely not," Musawi snapped.
Nor, for that matter, will Arabs who had opposed the US-led war to deliver freedom to the Iraqi people.
And the UN? "They did not play a very honorable role when it came to dealing with Saddam," he said. "We believe the UN needs to put its own house in order before it can play a credible role here."
Musawi is equally unequivocal when talking enthusiastically of his hopes for the closest possible ties with Israel.
We had spoken before of the INC vision of an "arc of peace" that would run from Turkey, through Iraq and Jordan to Israel, creating a new fulcrum in the Middle East. Does that concept still stand?
Any chance of adding Iran to that list...please?
"You know we have always wanted that," he said.
When Musawi flew out of London for his personal date with destiny, he left behind a thriving IT business. Now transplanted to his old-new homeland, he commands some 1,200 of the 3,000 US-armed and trained INC fighters who are now deployed in Iraq.
After the toppling of that statue in Baghdad on Wednesday, Musawi decided to test the water by taking a walk through town without his ubiquitous security detail. To his surprise, he was mobbed by the local people, anxious to kiss his hand.
He does not believe that Saddam is dead or that he has left the country, although he strongly suspects that Syria has become a "safe haven" for Saddam's considerable assets, as well as his wife and daughters. His eldest son, Uday, might also be there.
The tyrant-turned-fugitive is on the run, and Musawi suspects that Saddam's traditional followers in his supposed power-base of Tikrit, aware of America's ferocious response if he seeks refuge there, will not be welcoming.
When Musawi flew out of London for his personal date with destiny, he left behind a thriving IT business. Now transplanted to his old-new homeland, he commands some 1,200 of the 3,000 US-armed and trained INC fighters who are now deployed in Iraq.
After the toppling of that statue in Baghdad on Wednesday, Musawi decided to test the water by taking a walk through town without his ubiquitous security detail. To his surprise, he was mobbed by the local people, anxious to kiss his hand.
He does not believe that Saddam is dead or that he has left the country, although he strongly suspects that Syria has become a "safe haven" for Saddam's considerable assets, as well as his wife and daughters. His eldest son, Uday, might also be there.
The tyrant-turned-fugitive is on the run, and Musawi suspects that Saddam's traditional followers in his supposed power-base of Tikrit, aware of America's ferocious response if he seeks refuge there, will not be welcoming.
Charles at LGF says: "This would be an amazing sea change in the region; Iraq would tranform from one of the most insidious supporters of Palestinian Arab terrorism, into a powerful ally for Israel and America.
I’m almost afraid to hope."
Damn straight!
Expect the redoubling of attempts to further marginalize the INC.
Transatlantic Free Trade Area
United Press International: Anglosphere: Rising from the ruins (Via Instapundit)
Very interesting. TAFTA as an alternative to the EU for the "New Europeans?" Free trade without the sacrifice of sovereignty? Worth reading.
WASHINGTON, April 4 (UPI) -- They once imagined that they had constructed a stronghold from which to defy America. Now that illusion is gone, blasted away along with Saddam's bunker by some well-placed JDAMs. Their dreams of dominion and defiance shattered by the Anglo-American war effort, they now struggle to retrieve as much as possible of their old vision, and wonder how to rebuild among the ruins.
Not the Iraqis. The Europeanists.[...]
The United States, its friends in Britain and Ireland, and those on the Continent who share their critique of the Europeanist disease must adopt a vigorous and aggressive policy of offering a viable alternative to the take-it-or-leave it policies Brussels hold out to old and new members alike. The United States must take the lead in offering free trade to every democratic European nation, whether it is in the EU or not.
Such a move would create a free trade structure that would allow every European nation inside or out of the EU the realistic choice of joining or not joining, staying or leaving. This trade structure, a Transatlantic Free Trade Area ("TAFTA"), would be destination of choice. Its availability would deprive Brussels of its ability to make members accept its whole agenda of centralized control in exchange for access to Western European markets.
The United States has now taken the first step in this direction. The Senate has approved overwhelmingly, by a two-to-one vote, a resolution offering Britain a full free trade agreement with America. Blair, still lured by the illusion of reform from within, will likely fail to act upon this opportunity. The United States must push ahead with a TAFTA initiative, making it clear to Eastern European nations that they would be welcome in it if they chose not to join the EU. [...]
Not the Iraqis. The Europeanists.[...]
The United States, its friends in Britain and Ireland, and those on the Continent who share their critique of the Europeanist disease must adopt a vigorous and aggressive policy of offering a viable alternative to the take-it-or-leave it policies Brussels hold out to old and new members alike. The United States must take the lead in offering free trade to every democratic European nation, whether it is in the EU or not.
Such a move would create a free trade structure that would allow every European nation inside or out of the EU the realistic choice of joining or not joining, staying or leaving. This trade structure, a Transatlantic Free Trade Area ("TAFTA"), would be destination of choice. Its availability would deprive Brussels of its ability to make members accept its whole agenda of centralized control in exchange for access to Western European markets.
The United States has now taken the first step in this direction. The Senate has approved overwhelmingly, by a two-to-one vote, a resolution offering Britain a full free trade agreement with America. Blair, still lured by the illusion of reform from within, will likely fail to act upon this opportunity. The United States must push ahead with a TAFTA initiative, making it clear to Eastern European nations that they would be welcome in it if they chose not to join the EU. [...]
Lots of Good Stuff in Taranto's Best of the Web
OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today
Lots of good stuff today, starting right at the beginning with the linked to article by Amir Taheri which is worth reading in full, as is the whole Best of the Web.
The NPR Playbook
Phillipe over at The Volokh Conspiracy has a very perceptive analysis on the subtle slant of NPR's newsies. Works for much of the left, as well.
THE PLAYBOOK. After listening to a lot of NPR for a couple of days (Q: why oh why do I do this? A: because otherwise I'd have to listen to AM radio for news), I have managed to reverse engineer their general guidelines for commentators who hate Bush and the war as they come to grips with the infuriating triumph of their foes:
Make clear that it was obvious all along what the military outcome would be, and that skepticism about it formed no part of your opposition to the war. Give the aural equivalent of a shrug and make references to the world's largest military machine, etc.
State that of course you are happy for the Iraqi people -- those who weren't killed in the invasion -- but be careful never to end a sentence that way. Instead, always follow that sentiment with another that begins "but," or "; I only wish..." or "I only hope..." and then segue into other concerns -- the "diplomatic mess" we've created, or the "long term" picture, or "winning the peace," and so forth.
Talk a lot about things that "aren't clear" or that "remain to be seen." These sorts of assertions are good because they are hard to falsify. E.g.: "it's not clear how much of the excitement the Iraqis are showing is because Saddam is gone and how much of it is because of all the looting they are able to do." Or: "it remains to be seen whether the factions in the country can be governed in anything like the way the administration is imagining."
Be forward-looking. Or past-looking. The point is to de-emphasize the present. Dwell on what hasn't been done, not what has been done. The sudden liberation of millions of people from tyranny is not, repeat not, the most important thing. Say that what counts is what comes next, that all this will only be meaningful if it ends up leading to true democracy and prosperity for Iraq. (Set the bar as high as you plausibly can.) Say that the real work lies ahead; say that the real test will be whether we can keep the country under control. Again, set the bar high so that if there is disorder six weeks from now -- fighting between factions, etc. -- you will be able to announce that the celebrations of early April were premature.
Remember: you haven't been proven wrong about anything, and the neocons haven't been proven right about anything.
Make clear that it was obvious all along what the military outcome would be, and that skepticism about it formed no part of your opposition to the war. Give the aural equivalent of a shrug and make references to the world's largest military machine, etc.
State that of course you are happy for the Iraqi people -- those who weren't killed in the invasion -- but be careful never to end a sentence that way. Instead, always follow that sentiment with another that begins "but," or "; I only wish..." or "I only hope..." and then segue into other concerns -- the "diplomatic mess" we've created, or the "long term" picture, or "winning the peace," and so forth.
Talk a lot about things that "aren't clear" or that "remain to be seen." These sorts of assertions are good because they are hard to falsify. E.g.: "it's not clear how much of the excitement the Iraqis are showing is because Saddam is gone and how much of it is because of all the looting they are able to do." Or: "it remains to be seen whether the factions in the country can be governed in anything like the way the administration is imagining."
Be forward-looking. Or past-looking. The point is to de-emphasize the present. Dwell on what hasn't been done, not what has been done. The sudden liberation of millions of people from tyranny is not, repeat not, the most important thing. Say that what counts is what comes next, that all this will only be meaningful if it ends up leading to true democracy and prosperity for Iraq. (Set the bar as high as you plausibly can.) Say that the real work lies ahead; say that the real test will be whether we can keep the country under control. Again, set the bar high so that if there is disorder six weeks from now -- fighting between factions, etc. -- you will be able to announce that the celebrations of early April were premature.
Remember: you haven't been proven wrong about anything, and the neocons haven't been proven right about anything.
Hitchens: The War Critics Were Right...
Giving Peace a Chance - The war critics were right - not in the way they expected. By Christopher Hitchens (Via Michael J. Totten)
That's what I like about Hitchens, he doesn't lord it over people. Heh.
So it turns out that all the slogans of the anti-war movement were right after all. And their demands were just. "No War on Iraq," they said—and there wasn't a war on Iraq. Indeed, there was barely a "war" at all. "No Blood for Oil," they cried, and the oil wealth of Iraq has been duly rescued from attempted sabotage with scarcely a drop spilled. Of the nine oil wells set ablaze by the few desperadoes who obeyed the order, only one is still burning and the rest have been capped and doused without casualties. "Stop the War" was the call. And the "war" is indeed stopping. That's not such a bad record. An earlier anti-war demand—"Give the Inspectors More Time"—was also very prescient and is also about to be fulfilled in exquisite detail.[...]
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi Minister of Information - Site of the Day!
France is Almost Finished
FrontPage magazine.com
Guy Milliere does not have an optomistic outlook concerning his country's future.
[...]I have written columns in the French press concerning what’s happening. The response has been death threats, with color pictures of slit throats, anti-Semitic insults. There were Muslims in France thirty years ago, but they were not like the Muslims of today. They were moderate, they did not feel they could wield decisive political power in France, they did not think they were at war against western civilization. Now it’s clear that they think they are at war. Very few people are in jail in France (France does not have enough jails), but more than sixty per cent of the convicts are Muslims, and Islamist imams visit them on a weekly basis. My wife was born in a Muslim family. She’s not a Muslim anymore, and because she left Islam, she risks being killed if she says it openly. My wife’s mother is still Muslim, but she is a moderate, and she’s afraid to be considered a traitor by the much more radical Muslims that are spreading throughout France.[...]
Think They'll Confess Their Fault?
NRO Staff on Recriminations & Operation Iraqi Freedom on National Review Online
Believe me, I'm very, very cognizant of the fact that the war is not over, and the peace has only just begun and hold many, many potential pitfalls. But may we take a moment for just a bit of "I told you so" based on what we've seen so far?
NRO has an amusing round-up of some pundits who should be feeling a little silly today - if they had the ability for self-examination and confession. Check it.
VDH Responds To Dowd - Brilliantly, As Usual
Victor Davis Hanson's piece today, eloquent as usual, serves as the perfect remedy to the insufferable Maureen Dowd piece in the New York Times.
Hanson lauds the audacity of our armed forces before launching his response:
[...]On a minor note, I was pleased to read that Maureen Dowd yesterday criticized things that I (a.k.a. "Mr. Davis") had written as consistent with the thinking of some in the administration. I confess that her writing has long bothered me, always in times of national duress reflecting an elite superficiality that is out of touch with most of us in the America she flies over. It is not just that for the last two years she has been wrong about Afghanistan, wrong about the efficacy of the war against terror, and wrong about Iraq — despite yesterday's surprising sudden admission that "We were always going to win the war with Iraq." The problem is more a grotesque chicness that quite amorally juxtaposes mention of tidbits like alpha males, Manhattan fashion — and her own psychodramas — with themes of real tragedies like the dying in the Middle East and war's horror.
So she just doesn't get it. It is precisely because Mr. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz hate war, wish to avoid a repeat of the vaporization of 3,000 in Manhattan and the specter of further mass killing from terrorists, armed with frightening weapons from rogue states like Iraq, that they resorted to force. She evokes Sherman (who called something like 19th century Dowdism "bottled piety") with disdain, but forgets that Sherman, who saw firsthand the grotesqueness of Shiloh, proclaimed that war was all hell — but only after his trek through Georgia where he freed 40,000 slaves and destroyed the icons of the Confederacy, while losing 100 soldiers and killing not more than 600 young non-slave-holding Southerners, an hour's carnage at Antietam or Gettysburg.
It might be neat between cappuccinos to write about leaders getting "giddy" about winning a terrible war, or thinking up cool nicknames like "Rummy," "Wolfie," and titles like "Dances with Wolfowitz," but meanwhile out in the desert stink thousands of young Americans, a world away from the cynical Letterman world of Maureen Dowd, risk their lives to ensure that there are no more craters in her environs — and as a dividend give 26 million a shot at the freedom that she so breezily enjoys.
So she just doesn't get it. It is precisely because Mr. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz hate war, wish to avoid a repeat of the vaporization of 3,000 in Manhattan and the specter of further mass killing from terrorists, armed with frightening weapons from rogue states like Iraq, that they resorted to force. She evokes Sherman (who called something like 19th century Dowdism "bottled piety") with disdain, but forgets that Sherman, who saw firsthand the grotesqueness of Shiloh, proclaimed that war was all hell — but only after his trek through Georgia where he freed 40,000 slaves and destroyed the icons of the Confederacy, while losing 100 soldiers and killing not more than 600 young non-slave-holding Southerners, an hour's carnage at Antietam or Gettysburg.
It might be neat between cappuccinos to write about leaders getting "giddy" about winning a terrible war, or thinking up cool nicknames like "Rummy," "Wolfie," and titles like "Dances with Wolfowitz," but meanwhile out in the desert stink thousands of young Americans, a world away from the cynical Letterman world of Maureen Dowd, risk their lives to ensure that there are no more craters in her environs — and as a dividend give 26 million a shot at the freedom that she so breezily enjoys.
Keep Comforting Me, Colin
Powell says U.S. -- and not U.N. -- will call the shots in Iraq
Powell continues to be the clear, firm spokesman for keeping the UN at arm's length in post-war Iraq.
[...]"The suggestion that some of my colleagues would give that now that the coalition has done all of this and liberated Iraq, thank you very much, step aside and the Security Council is now going to become responsible for everything, is incorrect. And they know it. And they were told it," Powell said.[...]
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
The Tipping Point
Looks like I got my wish for things I'd like to see on TV (Well, one of my wishes, anyway - Now I want a live shot of the Marines going through the Ministry of Information building, opening a broom-closet door and finding Baghdad Bob, beret in hand, making like a mop and trying not to be noticed.). I couldn't find a pic of the tanks rolling in, but this one'll do, heheh.
Historic times.
How the Mexican media is portraying the war
Mike Krause on Mexico & Media & Operation Iraqi Freedom on National Review Online
Very interesting look into how the rest of the world is viewing the conflict - this from the Mexican viewpoint. Wonder why the rest of the world is burning American flags? The world media and public opinion seem to feed off each other.
Think events will catch up to them? I can't say I'm feeling overly-optimistic, but we'll keep working on it.
Warning and Hope for Iraq in Israel's Experience
Telegraph | Opinion | Victory in Iraq isn't enough: Israel holds the key to peace
La Guardia finds reason to worry, but also reason to be hopeful in a future for Iraq by looking at Israel's expectations after '67 and '82. Worth reading, although it may be just a tad pre-mature to look for Israeli-Palestinian solutions just yet. Soon, though.
Jewish Settlements in "the Territories" Aren't the Problem
This Chaim Herzog speech before the UN is indeed "as relevant today as when it was first made." Herzog runs down the legality of the settlements and the absurdity of the idea that they are part of the problem.
[...]The obstacle to peace lies in the failure of world leadership and opinion to insist that both sides sit down and negotiate face to face. The obstacle to peace lies in the encouragement given to Arab intransigence because of reasons of expediency. The obstacle to peace is a basic Arab attitude and until that attitude is changed, no real advance towards peace can be made. These are the obstacles to peace and any attempt to point a finger at Israel's actions and to characterize them as obstacles to peace is untrue and baseless and is nothing but a grave misinterpretation of events in the Middle East.[...]
This Just In From Geraldo
(Thanks to King for forwarding this!)
Hurt and Disillusioned, Some Arab Fighters Go Home
Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage (Via Dancing with Dogs)
This is exactly what's going to be needed to keep the Jihadists out of Iraq, and allow Iraq to get on with life. The Iraqi people need to tell the foreigners, the Jihadists, the Arab governments, the Al Jazeeras, "Keep your war out of our country." I believe this can happen. I believe it is going to happen. These people are not going to want their country turned into another battle ground.
[...]Thousands of volunteers from across the Arab world are thought to be in Iraq to fight advancing U.S. and British forces. On Wednesday, jubilant Iraqis welcomed U.S. troops in Baghdad.
Salaam, a Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim, said he was unprepared for the hostility of some Iraqis to volunteers like himself.
"I went there to be a martyr, not to be murdered by a brother," he told Reuters. "We went there to help them liberate their country, and all they did was shoot us in the back."
"I am not afraid of the Americans. On the contrary I want to fight them. But I was scared of the Iraqis, specifically those who call themselves the Iraqi opposition," he said.[...]
Salaam, a Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim, said he was unprepared for the hostility of some Iraqis to volunteers like himself.
"I went there to be a martyr, not to be murdered by a brother," he told Reuters. "We went there to help them liberate their country, and all they did was shoot us in the back."
"I am not afraid of the Americans. On the contrary I want to fight them. But I was scared of the Iraqis, specifically those who call themselves the Iraqi opposition," he said.[...]
Chalabi is No One's Puppet
Return of an Iraqi Exile (washingtonpost.com)
Jim Hoagland is dismayed at the character assassination Ahemd Chalabi has gone through.
To the conclusion:
[...]Such character assassination by remote control was wrong when practiced by the political right. It is no less wrong now for having been taken up by the left, by ex-Clintonites who fought Chalabi when he sought their help, and by those with personal or ideological scores to settle against Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz or Richard Perle. The attempt to get at them -- and ultimately at Bush's presidency -- by libeling Chalabi sets a new low in the stinking mess known as Washington politics.
This former math professor takes more pride in the doctorate his daughter Tamara has just received from Harvard than in any of his own accomplishments. He will be nobody's puppet. I doubt he will agree to serve in the Iraqi Interim Authority that will be created by a U.S. military government he has sought to prevent.
Chalabi has a more pressing, more personal agenda in liberated Iraq. He first has to find burial plots for his family.
This former math professor takes more pride in the doctorate his daughter Tamara has just received from Harvard than in any of his own accomplishments. He will be nobody's puppet. I doubt he will agree to serve in the Iraqi Interim Authority that will be created by a U.S. military government he has sought to prevent.
Chalabi has a more pressing, more personal agenda in liberated Iraq. He first has to find burial plots for his family.
Tuesday, April 8, 2003
All That Jazeera
I love this. Stefan Sharkansky of Shark Blog has a list of today's headlines at the Arabic version of Al Jazeera's web site. Check it out and see the world from the "other side."
Update: Cox and Forkum have a bunch of links in this vein.
Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World w/Bonus Quote of the Week
(Via Shark Blog) Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World
WASHINGTON, April 5 — Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work.[...]
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work.[...]
Worth reading in full. The only thing I take issue with in the article is the continuing idea that Rummy is the only one "naming names" - he's not. Powell is too.
Baghdad Broadcasting Watch
(Via Instapundit): 'Angry' Ark Royal crew switch off BBC:
The BBC has been axed from the nation's flagship naval vessel following claims of pro-Iraqi bias.
The Navy says it has switched off News 24 aboard HMS Ark Royal after complaints by the crew.
It is one of a handful of task force ships which receives live TV direct from Britain.
Rolling news plus two entertainment channels are beamed into the warship.
A BBC correspondent has been on board but the crew say they have no gripe with his reports.
However they were annoyed by the comments of presenters and commentators reporting on the carrier's Sea King tragedy a fortnight ago.
The BBC suggested poor levels of maintenance played a hand in the deaths of seven fliers.
Sailors also believe the news organisation places more faith in Iraqi reports than information coming from British or Allied sources.
One senior rating said: "The BBC always takes the Iraqis' side. It reports what they say as gospel but when it comes to us it questions and doubts everything the British and Americans are reporting. A lot of people on board are very unhappy."
Ark has replaced the BBC with rival broadcaster Sky News.
The Navy says it has switched off News 24 aboard HMS Ark Royal after complaints by the crew.
It is one of a handful of task force ships which receives live TV direct from Britain.
Rolling news plus two entertainment channels are beamed into the warship.
A BBC correspondent has been on board but the crew say they have no gripe with his reports.
However they were annoyed by the comments of presenters and commentators reporting on the carrier's Sea King tragedy a fortnight ago.
The BBC suggested poor levels of maintenance played a hand in the deaths of seven fliers.
Sailors also believe the news organisation places more faith in Iraqi reports than information coming from British or Allied sources.
One senior rating said: "The BBC always takes the Iraqis' side. It reports what they say as gospel but when it comes to us it questions and doubts everything the British and Americans are reporting. A lot of people on board are very unhappy."
Ark has replaced the BBC with rival broadcaster Sky News.
Also, be sure to check out the blog known as Biased BBC. Guess what their focus is?
Pipes Poo-Poo's Pessimistic Predictions
100 Bin Ladens on the Way - article by Daniel Pipes
Daniel Pipes is right (as usual) when he says that the best way to avoid the creation of more Bin Ladens is for the US to finish the job.
[...]Actually, the precise opposite is more likely to happen: The war in Iraq will lead to a reduction in terrorism.
That's what happened a year and a half ago in Afghanistan.[...]
That's what happened a year and a half ago in Afghanistan.[...]
Embedding Free Iraqis
Walid Phares on Iraqi Dissidents on National Review Online
Ahhh...Phares' piece serves as a wonderfully sensible antidote to Meyerson's Washington Post nonsense below.
He has some very good ideas for the use of Iraqi ex-pats. Too bad some of these techniques weren't tried earlier (they may have been - I know Wolfowitz, et.al. were looking for Iraqis to join the forces some time ago), but it's not too late.
[...]So far, without a visible Iraqi opposition, al Jazeera and its sisters are projecting the image of an "Iraqi national resistance to the U.S. occupation." They are manufacturing it piece by piece — rushing from one cleric to another, from one Baathist cadre to another. And as most experts would tell you, U.S. official briefings are no match for this. The political war is being lost even as I write.
What to do about it, then?[...]
What to do about it, then?[...]
Update: (Via Instapundit) From StrategyPage:
April 8, 2003: Hundreds of Iraqi exiles have answered the call by the Iraqi National Congress to volunteer for duty in Iraq as translators and negotiators for coalition troops. More are arriving daily and being put to work. The exiles often find themselves revisiting areas they grew up in and reuniting with friends and kin they have not seen for years. Their advice on who's naughty and who's nice is preventing a lot of embarrassing incidents. Captured Saddam loyalists have already caused problems by accusing anti-Saddam locals as being pro-Saddam.[...]
Update: (Via Hub Blog) The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting piece about the work the Army's Civil Affairs troops are doing.
They Understand in China
Saddam Hussein as Surrogate Dictator
People (outside the Middle East) who have lived under repressive dictatorships tend to be sympathetic toward American goals in Iraq. So it is with mainland Chinese age 30-60.
[...]Feeling ambivalent about the war, I visited Beijing and discovered a startling phenomenon: many Chinese I spoke with resolutely support it. Sure, you can't hear their voices in the state news media because of the government's antiwar stance, but in private conversations and anonymously on the Chinese Internet, these voices are distinct and impassioned.
Here is one posting from a major Chinese Web site, Sohu.com: "Saddam rapes the will of his people, treating them as weeds and Iraq as his private property. Why should such a leader be allowed to stay on? War is cruel, but after the war Iraq will have a bright new future."[...]
Here is one posting from a major Chinese Web site, Sohu.com: "Saddam rapes the will of his people, treating them as weeds and Iraq as his private property. Why should such a leader be allowed to stay on? War is cruel, but after the war Iraq will have a bright new future."[...]
Some People Need To Get With The Program
Preemptive Peace (washingtonpost.com)
Read Harold Meyerson's piece today for everything not to think about post-war Iraq. Meyerson laments that Defense may be slam-dunking the old hands in the State Department (Y'know, the ex-Ambassadors who actually "speak Arabic?"), keeping out a larger UN roll, and too-quickly bringing in Iraqi's of their own to kick-start things. These are bad things?
He also excoriates the Democrats, seemingly for failing to perform a suicide attack on the Administration's policies.
Here's a real beauty quote:
[...]Indeed, the question of postwar Iraq is one on which two sometimes conflicting Democratic tendencies -- the anti-imperialism of the Vietnam '60s and the nation-building of the Clinton '90s -- can be reconciled. Democrats can and should support generous financial aid for Iraqi reconstruction, even as they can and should support a postwar Iraq administered by the legitimate authority of the United Nations.[...]
Oh great, we provide the cash, then step aside and let the UN run things. Now there's a great idea.
Hollywood's Darling, Liberals' Blind Spot
Hollywood's Darling, Liberals' Blind Spot (washingtonpost.com)
Richard Cohen takes aim at the Hollywood Left's other darling - Fidel - and laments "What would Michael Kelly have said?"
Saddam's utter collapse shows this has not been a real war
Telegraph | Opinion | Saddam's utter collapse shows this has not been a real war by John Keegan (Hat Tip: Andy)
Keegan is impressed with the Coalition advance...and not so impressed with the Iraqi strategy.
[...]Because the war has taken such a strange form, the media, particularly those at home, may be forgiven for their misinterpretation of how it has progressed. Checks have been described as defeats, minor firefights as major battles. In truth, there has been almost no check to the unimpeded onrush of the coalition, particularly the dramatic American advance to Baghdad; nor have there been any major battles. This has been a collapse, not a war.[...]
Monday, April 7, 2003
Ha'Aretz: Abu Mazen may pull out rather than present cabinet
Ha'aretz - Article Arafat must go.
Yasser Arafat continues to control both the most marginal and most important appointments in the Palestinian Authority.
For the last three weeks, ever since the Palestinian Legislative Council gave Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) the job of forming a cabinet as prime minister, and after innumerable legal tussles in the council over Arafat's authority in the era after the government is formed, it is becoming clear that Abu Mazen's mission is a lot more difficult than it originally appeared.
In the initial days after his appointment, Abu Mazen spread the word he wanted to appoint a government of technocrats that would lead to real change in the PA. But reality appears to have overruled him. In recent days, he has sent messages to Arafat and Arafat associates that he is considering giving up the effort.[...]
For the last three weeks, ever since the Palestinian Legislative Council gave Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) the job of forming a cabinet as prime minister, and after innumerable legal tussles in the council over Arafat's authority in the era after the government is formed, it is becoming clear that Abu Mazen's mission is a lot more difficult than it originally appeared.
In the initial days after his appointment, Abu Mazen spread the word he wanted to appoint a government of technocrats that would lead to real change in the PA. But reality appears to have overruled him. In recent days, he has sent messages to Arafat and Arafat associates that he is considering giving up the effort.[...]
Also of interest, the second part of the article concerns an editorial in an Israeli Arab paper that attacks the Israeli Arab leadership for not taking a more active role in condemning Israeli Arab support for "hostile activity against the state."
KABOOM!
Saddam? Were you in there? Saddam?
Lileks - The Video Game War, The Absence of Blood, More...
[...]If someone invaded America tomorrow, how many big public posters would they have to tear down? How many airports and hospitals and highways would they have to rename?[...]
Powell Squares Off With German TV
Interview on ZDF-TV of Germany
Great Rummy-esque interview between Powell and an obnoxious German reporter. Reminiscent of this interview with an Arab news source some time back. Powell sounded pretty ballsy then, and he still sounds ballsy.
I've been hearing a lot of carping about Rumsfeld lately from some quarters with comparisons putting him up against Powell and finding him wanting - particularly in the bellicosity department. Well, I'd say they are both performing their individual rolls exactly up to expectation. Rumsfeld speaks exactly as you'd expect a wartime Secretary of Defense to speak. Likewise, Powell is more circumspect in his statements - just as one would expect the head of the Diplomatic Corp to behave. Further, on another level, both men represent the tendencies of the bureaucracies they head. Rumsfeld the straightforward Defense Department, and Powell State, with its Arabist (read: appeasenik) tendencies.
Let's not forget the pacifist-leaning press' ability to inflate, expand and multiply any minor finger-hole they can get into any Rumsfeld statement. The media echo-chamber may sometimes create fact for each other, and may certainly create events by the practical matter of perception dictating reality, but the canny observer should be able to look beyond such surface matters.
At the end of the day, one should have no doubt about differing agendas - Powell is far too intelligent an old soldier to miss the fact that all the Generals need to be opperating according to a common plan.
Of course, both men seem perfectly suited by personality to their jobs. Central casting did a bang-up job.
[...]QUESTION: I hear what you are saying. What many people in Europe will hear, through your words, is this is how the new partition of labor will be: America is looking for its Allies, is going its course with or without Allies, any number that’s available, and be it zero. And then the U.N.’s role is to go in as a good Samaritan and clean up the mess. That’s all they can do. America is already looking at its next destination.
SECRETARY POWELL: That’s absurd. It’s an absurd, simplistic, shorthand response to what people think we’re doing. In fact, we went to the U.N. in the first place with respect to this problem. It was a problem that belonged to the U.N. for twelve years -- this terrible regime that tortures its people, that developed weapons of mass destruction, that used them against its own people and then invaded its neighbors on two occasions. And we finally said to the United Nations, “If you would be relevant, if the international community would be relevant, we must deal with this.”
This is not a regime that will simply roll over and play dead. It will fight back. It will try to avoid consequences. So we got a very strong resolution passed. Unanimously. Fifteen to zero. And when it became clear to a number of members of the Security Council that it was time to apply those serious consequences, we took it back to the U.N. And the U.N. said, “Well, can’t agree on this.”
But 1441 made it clear – it was more than sufficient authority. Now there were some members of the Council who said, “We’ll veto anything.” And there were others of us who felt we must move forward. We must remove this danger to the world. Especially this regime that developed weapons of mass destruction and might actually allow some of these weapons to fall in the hands of terrorists. We will not apologize for this. We believe that we did what is right and we recognize that there is a great deal of opinion, especially in Europe, that thinks this was not the right approach. But I hope we will change this opinion, when everybody sees that after this conflict we’re not leaving it to be swept up by the United Nations. We are going to work with the United Nations and work with the international community. And guess who will be the major contributor, who will pay the most money to help the Iraqi people to get back on their feet. It will be the United States, as always. Europeans --
QUESTION: So you are paying the most money? Then that’s a promise?
SECRETARY POWELL: Europeans, especially Germans, should recognize the American record, our history. Our history is not one of getting involved in conflicts just for the sake of it. We get involved in conflicts because there are major issues at stake that have to be resolved, unfortunately, by force of arms. But when you look at our history for the last sixty years, every time we found ourselves in this position, we did not just get up and walk away. We did everything we could to put in place a better system, a better society, than that which we had to go in and fight. And we will do it again this time.[...]
SECRETARY POWELL: That’s absurd. It’s an absurd, simplistic, shorthand response to what people think we’re doing. In fact, we went to the U.N. in the first place with respect to this problem. It was a problem that belonged to the U.N. for twelve years -- this terrible regime that tortures its people, that developed weapons of mass destruction, that used them against its own people and then invaded its neighbors on two occasions. And we finally said to the United Nations, “If you would be relevant, if the international community would be relevant, we must deal with this.”
This is not a regime that will simply roll over and play dead. It will fight back. It will try to avoid consequences. So we got a very strong resolution passed. Unanimously. Fifteen to zero. And when it became clear to a number of members of the Security Council that it was time to apply those serious consequences, we took it back to the U.N. And the U.N. said, “Well, can’t agree on this.”
But 1441 made it clear – it was more than sufficient authority. Now there were some members of the Council who said, “We’ll veto anything.” And there were others of us who felt we must move forward. We must remove this danger to the world. Especially this regime that developed weapons of mass destruction and might actually allow some of these weapons to fall in the hands of terrorists. We will not apologize for this. We believe that we did what is right and we recognize that there is a great deal of opinion, especially in Europe, that thinks this was not the right approach. But I hope we will change this opinion, when everybody sees that after this conflict we’re not leaving it to be swept up by the United Nations. We are going to work with the United Nations and work with the international community. And guess who will be the major contributor, who will pay the most money to help the Iraqi people to get back on their feet. It will be the United States, as always. Europeans --
QUESTION: So you are paying the most money? Then that’s a promise?
SECRETARY POWELL: Europeans, especially Germans, should recognize the American record, our history. Our history is not one of getting involved in conflicts just for the sake of it. We get involved in conflicts because there are major issues at stake that have to be resolved, unfortunately, by force of arms. But when you look at our history for the last sixty years, every time we found ourselves in this position, we did not just get up and walk away. We did everything we could to put in place a better system, a better society, than that which we had to go in and fight. And we will do it again this time.[...]
Read der whole thing.
Victor Davis Hanson - Steady as We Go
Victor Davis Hanson advises us not to take counsel of our fears. He's so right - as usual.
French duplicity rules UN out of rebuilding Iraq
Times Online by William Rees-Mogg (Via Andrew Sullivan)
Rees-Mogg lays out the case to remind us why France (et al) won't and SHOULD NOT have a hand in post-Saddam Iraq.
If you do not fight the war, you will not control the peace. When the war in Iraq is over, the US Army will remain in control of the country, just as the Allies were left in control of Germany in 1945. How long that period will last will depend on the success of the reconstruction programme, which is bound to be under American control.
Some people imagine that President Bush will turn to the United Nations, which spent 12 years failing to disarm Iraq, from 1991 to 2003, and politely ask it to take over responsibility for the reconstruction.[...]
Some people imagine that President Bush will turn to the United Nations, which spent 12 years failing to disarm Iraq, from 1991 to 2003, and politely ask it to take over responsibility for the reconstruction.[...]
Sunday, April 6, 2003
Support the Troops Rally - Stoneham, Massachusetts
Took the family (me, wife, two year old daughter and eighty year old father) to a "Support the Troops" rally in a nearby town this afternoon. There wasn't a lot of publicity for the event. I only knew about it as I happened to go to the supermarket this week and saw a poster. I also happen to own a business on Main Street in Stoneham, and I know no one came by doing any publicity - asking us to put up a flyer or something.
At the rally, it turns out the idea for the thing had only come up about a week and a half ago, so I'd have to say that attendance wasn't that bad considering. I've no idea about estimating crowds, but I'm sure there were a few hundred people, anyway. It was a cold, slightly windy day, but sunny.
There was a Navy Band up from Newport, Rhode Island. Members of various veterans groups, town Selectmen and families of servicemen serving overseas got up to speak. The most polished speaker was State Rep. Paul Casey. The crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance and sang God Bless America. Many flags and banners in support of the troops and the President were visible. The entire affair lasted about an hour and went very well, I thought.
There was a similar event going on just after in the neighboring town of Reading, but the rest of my crew wasn't holding up quite as well to the cold, so we called it a day after the Stoneham event.
Here are a few photos I snapped. Click the thumbnail to see a larger version. Some of the wide shots were taken just as we arrived. More people came as the event progressed.
U.N. Go Home - Schwartz Warns Against Allowing the UN Into a Post-War Iraq
U.N. Go Home
This Stephen Schwartz piece examines the UN record in Kosovo and serves as a warning against the idea that the UN has any place in post Ba'athist reconstruction. Worth reading.
[...]Kosovar journalist Beqe Cufaj, German correspondent for Koha Ditore, summed up the situation eloquently on March 23: "This morning when Berlin announced that the U.N. secretary general and the Security Council have tasked Germany and its government with compiling an urgent plan for humanitarian aid to postwar Iraq, a Kosovar could not help but shudder. . . .Let us hope this really involves humanitarian aid and nothing else. . . . Because if the Iraqi people have to undergo anything like what we have in Kosovo, God help them. . . . That should be the message to the Iraqis from the Kosovars, a people experienced with the U.N. and exhausted by life in UNMIKistan!" [...]
Baghdad Broadcasting Watch by PejmanPundit
After watching a BBC piece on the influence of George W. Bush's Christianity on his Iraq policy, Pejman concludes: ANDREW SULLIVAN IS RIGHT
Saturday, April 5, 2003
The Hard Line Is Working - Pt2
We've noted before that Israel's hard line seems to be working, and at this juncture is likely to continue to be the only thing that works.
This NY Times piece seems to help confirm that fact. Israel Stems Suicide Bombings, but at a Cost The "cost" in the title of the article is in image and reputation - not in lives. Which cost would you rather pay?
Two Scenes I'd Like To See
I want to be watching the static live shot of that rotary in downtown Baghdad - the one with the statue of Hussein standing in the middle of it (oh, yeah, that helps) - when a column of Abrams tanks just comes rolling onto the screen and into the traffic rotary and on through with a brief pause to put a round into that statue. Bonus points if civilian traffic continues unabated. Hint to civilian drivers: It doesn't matter if you're already on the rotary and they're not, tanks get the right of way.
The other thing I'd love to see is a live broadcast of the Iraqi Information Minister giving a press-conference, when Coalition soldiers come pouring in the doors and an American officer walks up to the podium, side-arm drawn and says, "Sir, you are my prisoner."
More Fisking of Moore
Dave Kopel in National Review Online is the latest columnist to go through the fictions of Michael Moore's Academy Award winning film. You can never have too many of these types of articles.
Rice says U.S. to have 'leading' role in Iraq
The above are two pictures of Kofi Annan. The one on the left is the real Kofi Annan, the one you would see if you were to look at him with your real eyes. That's the one that exists in the real world and represents, at least as well as a photograph can represent, reality.
On the right is the way I see him - sort of cartoon-like, devoid of detail, less real, to be taken less seriously. That's the same mental image I get these days when hearing reports of the statements made by the perfidious French, the opportunistic Germans or the opprobrious Russians and Chinese.
They all started to shift into this sort of "half-life" world while I watched the UN gyrations over the past few years. It was like a hypnotizing dance, a sort of ritual that drew me into a Carlos Castanedaesque altered state of consciousness, but instead of me being drawn in, it was the dancers who receeded from my world as I watched from the safety of grounded reality.
Now, that's all well and good. Lots of people spend their days in a sort of fantasy-world. It only bothers me in so far as it affects me. Listening to leaders like Rumsfeld, Bush and Rice has made me feel fairly confident. These folks seem grounded in reality. They seem to understand that those dancers need not involve them - the dancers can dance on without them just as well. But as I've listened to the news lately, I've grown concerned. I'm worried that wanting to help our friend Tony Blair may dispose some of our leaders to become confused and start taking these cartoon people seriously. That's dangerous. Cartoon people are not to be taken seriously - unless they find a way off the film and back into our real world.
Rice says U.S. to have 'leading' role in Iraq -- The Washington Times
The United States and its coalition partners will be the "leading" force in establishing an interim Iraqi authority, and the role of the United Nations is not currently under discussion, the White House said yesterday.
"It would only be natural to expect that after having participated in having liberated Iraq with coalition forces and having given life and blood to liberate Iraq that the coalition intends to have a leading role," said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
"The exact character of the U.N.'s role is really not an issue for discussion right now," she said.
But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who favors a U.N. mandate for the interim government, said discussion on the matter had begun, including his own conversation by telephone yesterday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
"The U.N. will be a partner in all of this — everybody understands that. There is no disagreement about that," Mr. Powell said. "We'll work our way through the intricacies of the role to be played by the U.N. in the days ahead."[...]
"It would only be natural to expect that after having participated in having liberated Iraq with coalition forces and having given life and blood to liberate Iraq that the coalition intends to have a leading role," said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
"The exact character of the U.N.'s role is really not an issue for discussion right now," she said.
But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who favors a U.N. mandate for the interim government, said discussion on the matter had begun, including his own conversation by telephone yesterday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
"The U.N. will be a partner in all of this — everybody understands that. There is no disagreement about that," Mr. Powell said. "We'll work our way through the intricacies of the role to be played by the U.N. in the days ahead."[...]
I like both these people, Powell and Rice, and I have faith they'll find the right path. /crosses fingers
Friday, April 4, 2003
Anti-Semitism at the Peace March Video
>Peace, Love & Anti-Semitism? Evan Coyne Maloney does another one of his subtle video "Fiskings" of an "anti-war" protest - this time focusing on the anti-semitism present.
What the Muslim World is Watching
(Via Martin Kimel) TBS: What the Muslim World is Watching Published back on Nov. 18, 2001, this Fouad Ajami piece is still a very interesting and certainly still valid look at the world of Al Jazeera.
Update: Shark Blog has a translation and analysis of a piece from Al Jazeera's web site that's worth taking a look at.
The Frogman Speaks
The Dissident Frogmensch speaks of "Consecration," defaced memorials and memory.
I've been following the progression of the coalition in Iraq of course, even though I wrote very little about it.
I don't pretend I'm being an expert on modern warfare; I don't have what it takes to discuss the strategy of the people in charge.
Besides, there are already enough experts on the field.
Somewhere around 250.000 of them.
And I understand more can be on the way, if needed.
So I just feel like it's best to let them do their job - and they've been doing it masterfully so far - mourn and honor those who fall, hearten and support those who carry on the fight and send a grateful acknowledgment to all of them.
Those Americans, British, Australians and Poles are fighting for us. All of us.
Just like their elders did, 60 years ago.[...]
I don't pretend I'm being an expert on modern warfare; I don't have what it takes to discuss the strategy of the people in charge.
Besides, there are already enough experts on the field.
Somewhere around 250.000 of them.
And I understand more can be on the way, if needed.
So I just feel like it's best to let them do their job - and they've been doing it masterfully so far - mourn and honor those who fall, hearten and support those who carry on the fight and send a grateful acknowledgment to all of them.
Those Americans, British, Australians and Poles are fighting for us. All of us.
Just like their elders did, 60 years ago.[...]
It goes on.
Who is Robert Fisk?
(Via Segac's World) NATIONAL POST - In Robert Fisk's world, Arabs are always the victims
The National Post will tell you about the man for whom the art of "Fisking" is named.
Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent for the Independent of London and the best-known British reporter in the region, occupies an enviable position. He has vast experience and an adoring American audience on the Internet. But it's his moral certitude that seems, in a way, most enviable. He never lacks a strong opinion, and it's always the same: Whatever goes wrong in the Middle East, he blames the Americans and the Israelis.[...]
Hitchens: Our Troops Must Stay Strong
Mirror.co.uk - HITCHENS: OUR TROOPS MUST STAY STRONG
Hitchens with a few thoughts on the war so far:
IT's almost the perfect combination of a military and a political campaign.
A popular movement of Iraqi rebels sends the forces of Saddam Hussein scuttling into retreat. It then cleans up a nest of bubonic rats, with open links to Osama bin Laden.
From the sky, precision-guided weapons assist the local insurgents with pinpoint strikes, while on the ground 1,000 elite coalition troops provide some muscle and back-up.
Chemical-biological kits are discovered in the abandoned camp of the foe. Soon, oilfields will be secured and much-needed medical and nutritional aid will start to kick in. Civilian casualties are virtually nil, while serious harm is inflicted on the functionaries of a tyrannical fascist party.
Of course, that's only in the north of Iraq. And the Kurdish forces are fighting to keep and extend what they already have. And there are no sandstorms. Nor is there enough confusion to create "friendly fire" disasters. Still, this part of the conflict is being fought under conditions that are otherwise disadvantageous.
There is no friendly or neutral country to serve as a rearguard, as there is in the case of Jordan and Kuwait, because the fools who run today's Turkey couldn't even be bribed to act in their own self-interest.
I hope I can pause to point out that the Kurds are as Muslim as any other participant in this struggle. Their leaders, however, announce that they fight for freedom and not for religion.[...]
A popular movement of Iraqi rebels sends the forces of Saddam Hussein scuttling into retreat. It then cleans up a nest of bubonic rats, with open links to Osama bin Laden.
From the sky, precision-guided weapons assist the local insurgents with pinpoint strikes, while on the ground 1,000 elite coalition troops provide some muscle and back-up.
Chemical-biological kits are discovered in the abandoned camp of the foe. Soon, oilfields will be secured and much-needed medical and nutritional aid will start to kick in. Civilian casualties are virtually nil, while serious harm is inflicted on the functionaries of a tyrannical fascist party.
Of course, that's only in the north of Iraq. And the Kurdish forces are fighting to keep and extend what they already have. And there are no sandstorms. Nor is there enough confusion to create "friendly fire" disasters. Still, this part of the conflict is being fought under conditions that are otherwise disadvantageous.
There is no friendly or neutral country to serve as a rearguard, as there is in the case of Jordan and Kuwait, because the fools who run today's Turkey couldn't even be bribed to act in their own self-interest.
I hope I can pause to point out that the Kurds are as Muslim as any other participant in this struggle. Their leaders, however, announce that they fight for freedom and not for religion.[...]
Take That, Evil Statue!
American Soldiers, at the Behest of an Iraqi Officer, Topple a Hussein Statue
NAJAF, Iraq, April 3 — At one end of the city, the Tomb of Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, occupies a place of honor that has been revered by Shiite Muslims for centuries. And dominating the four-lane boulevard approaching the holy site is a monument loathed by the Shiites for a decade: a gigantic bronze statue of Saddam Hussein on a horse, seeming to dare posterity to set its gaze on his grandeur.
In a couple of hours today, a handful of American soldiers proved it was possible to topple Mr. Hussein. Officially, the demolition was carried out at the behest of an Iraqi Army colonel leading several dozen Iraqi soldiers who styled themselves the Coalition of Iraqi National Unity.
The actual razing of the statue, however, was a production of United States Army engineers.
"Six Bangalore torpedoes," Sgt. Kris Catts, 23, said, reciting the explosive recipe he used. "Eight blocks of C-4. One M-12 — that's shock tube, it'll detonate when you push the button. One M-11, another shock tube. One M-14, a timer fuse, set for five minutes. Two M-81 fuse igniters, in case the shock tube doesn't blow. Fifty feet of detonation cord."
Sergeant Catts made a ladder out of rope and pulled himself 20 feet up the marble pedestal on which the statue stood, guided from the ground by Sgt. Shawn Love. The explosives were passed up by rope to Sergeant Catts by Sergeant Love and Cpl. Francisco Santiago.
"This statue will come down," said Sergeant Love.
That prospect drew crowds. The Hussein monument is in one of the few verdant patches in this city of 400,000, where other than the golden domes of the mosques, the poured concrete architecture stretches into grindingly dusty vistas, interrupted only by broken glass, or crumbled buildings.
There is little public art other than elaborate portraits of Mr. Hussein, which appear on government buildings, sometimes with him depicted firing his rifle into the sky, other times just gazing into the distance. Many of these seem to have taken a beating in the last few days.
As the engineers strapped explosives to the legs of the horse that Mr. Hussein sat astride, Army tanks blocked entry to the boulevard. Hundreds of men and boys crowded on nearby street corners.
The blast, when it came, was met with rousing cheers.
The horse and its rider were sent hurtling off the pedestal, crashing to the base. Then the Iraqi colonel and his men began speaking over a loudspeaker, proclaiming an uprising against Mr. Hussein's government. When they were finished, residents snapped pictures of friends on top of the pile of ruins of the statue, or posed with the soldiers. Then came questions for the nearest available Americans.[...]
In a couple of hours today, a handful of American soldiers proved it was possible to topple Mr. Hussein. Officially, the demolition was carried out at the behest of an Iraqi Army colonel leading several dozen Iraqi soldiers who styled themselves the Coalition of Iraqi National Unity.
The actual razing of the statue, however, was a production of United States Army engineers.
"Six Bangalore torpedoes," Sgt. Kris Catts, 23, said, reciting the explosive recipe he used. "Eight blocks of C-4. One M-12 — that's shock tube, it'll detonate when you push the button. One M-11, another shock tube. One M-14, a timer fuse, set for five minutes. Two M-81 fuse igniters, in case the shock tube doesn't blow. Fifty feet of detonation cord."
Sergeant Catts made a ladder out of rope and pulled himself 20 feet up the marble pedestal on which the statue stood, guided from the ground by Sgt. Shawn Love. The explosives were passed up by rope to Sergeant Catts by Sergeant Love and Cpl. Francisco Santiago.
"This statue will come down," said Sergeant Love.
That prospect drew crowds. The Hussein monument is in one of the few verdant patches in this city of 400,000, where other than the golden domes of the mosques, the poured concrete architecture stretches into grindingly dusty vistas, interrupted only by broken glass, or crumbled buildings.
There is little public art other than elaborate portraits of Mr. Hussein, which appear on government buildings, sometimes with him depicted firing his rifle into the sky, other times just gazing into the distance. Many of these seem to have taken a beating in the last few days.
As the engineers strapped explosives to the legs of the horse that Mr. Hussein sat astride, Army tanks blocked entry to the boulevard. Hundreds of men and boys crowded on nearby street corners.
The blast, when it came, was met with rousing cheers.
The horse and its rider were sent hurtling off the pedestal, crashing to the base. Then the Iraqi colonel and his men began speaking over a loudspeaker, proclaiming an uprising against Mr. Hussein's government. When they were finished, residents snapped pictures of friends on top of the pile of ruins of the statue, or posed with the soldiers. Then came questions for the nearest available Americans.[...]
UCLA Sponsors of Terrorism
FrontPage magazine.com has an interesting, detailed piece on anti-Semetic and anti-American Islamist activity on the UCLA campus. Submitted anonymously, it is a detailed account.
U.S.: After Iraq, we'll deal with other radical Mideast regimes
Ha'aretz - Article
More hints at US future plans once Iraq is dealt with.
A communique received in Jerusalem from the American administration this week says the United States is operating with strong resolution to neutralize the Iraqi threat to Israel. After the war, the message continued, the United States will deal with other radical regimes in the region - not necessarily by military means - to moderate their activities and fight terrorism.
These current and future U.S. operations will also serve Israel, the American administration says, but have caused tensions between the United States and the Arab world. Israel, the American message says, must play its part to help ease these tensions by taking action with regard to settlements in the territories.
These current and future U.S. operations will also serve Israel, the American administration says, but have caused tensions between the United States and the Arab world. Israel, the American message says, must play its part to help ease these tensions by taking action with regard to settlements in the territories.
The Battle Over Postwar Iraq
The Battle Over Postwar Iraq (washingtonpost.com)
The struggle is on between the Arabists in the State Department and the more hawkish Pentagon choices.
[...]A sign of the Pentagon's determination to control the process has been the delay in approving several current or former ambassadors to the reconstruction team. The list of diplomats who were held up by the Pentagon this week was said to include a former ambassador to Qatar who would oversee the Iraqi ministry of foreign affairs, a former ambassador to Tunisia designated to oversee the trade ministry, a former ambassador to Oman assigned to the ministry of planning, and the current ambassador to Mauritania, who would assist the ministry of religious affairs.
These State Department veterans are all Arabic-language speakers with experience in the region -- which may make them suspect in the eyes of Pentagon civilians who could view them as overly sympathetic to the region's concerns.
The Pentagon's own roster for the reconstruction team could provide the guest list for a neoconservative gabfest: The overall civilian coordinator is Michael Mobbs, a former law associate of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. The proposed adviser for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense is hawkish former Pentagon aide Walter Slocombe. Another possible nominee, initially proposed to advise the information ministry, is former CIA director James Woolsey, who is close to the Pentagon's preferred opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi. One of Chalabi's relatives, Salem "Sam" Chalabi, is said to be already part of the reconstruction team in Kuwait.[...]
These State Department veterans are all Arabic-language speakers with experience in the region -- which may make them suspect in the eyes of Pentagon civilians who could view them as overly sympathetic to the region's concerns.
The Pentagon's own roster for the reconstruction team could provide the guest list for a neoconservative gabfest: The overall civilian coordinator is Michael Mobbs, a former law associate of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. The proposed adviser for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense is hawkish former Pentagon aide Walter Slocombe. Another possible nominee, initially proposed to advise the information ministry, is former CIA director James Woolsey, who is close to the Pentagon's preferred opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi. One of Chalabi's relatives, Salem "Sam" Chalabi, is said to be already part of the reconstruction team in Kuwait.[...]
Ricin, Botulinum Found at Ansar Al-Islam Camp
Positive test for terror toxins in Iraq
SARGAT, Iraq, April 4 - MSNBC.com tests reveal evidence of the deadly toxins ricin and botulinum at a laboratory in a remote mountain region of northern Iraq allegedly used as a terrorist training camp by Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is conducting its own tests at the same area, but has not yet released the results, according to officials in northern Iraq.
MSNBC.COM’S TESTS were conducted over a two-day period at Sargat, an alleged terrorist training camp a mile from the Iraq-Iran border. The camp, set back in an isolated valley and surrounded by snowcapped peaks, was home to the radical Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which counts among its some 700 followers scores of al-Qaida fighters.
In a Feb. 5 speech to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a satellite photo of the Sargat camp and described Ansar al-Islam as “teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons.” U.S. officials have repeated the allegations in recent weeks.[...]
MSNBC.COM’S TESTS were conducted over a two-day period at Sargat, an alleged terrorist training camp a mile from the Iraq-Iran border. The camp, set back in an isolated valley and surrounded by snowcapped peaks, was home to the radical Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which counts among its some 700 followers scores of al-Qaida fighters.
In a Feb. 5 speech to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a satellite photo of the Sargat camp and described Ansar al-Islam as “teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons.” U.S. officials have repeated the allegations in recent weeks.[...]
Looks like Powell was right. Now I guess the questions will be over how close this group's ties were/are to Saddam's regime.
Thursday, April 3, 2003
The Iraqi Hero Who Helped Save Our Soldier
Iraqi Man Risked All to Help Free American Soldier (washingtonpost.com)
Amazing story worth reading. What some people won't risk...worth remembering. There are good people everywhere.
MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq, April 3 -- Mohammed, a gregarious 32-year-old Iraqi lawyer, went by the hospital in Nasiriyah one day last week to visit his wife, who worked there as a nurse, when he noticed the ominous presence of security agents.
Curious, he asked around, and a doctor friend told him an American soldier was being held there. Something made him want to go see. The doctor took him to a first-floor emergency wing where he pointed out the soldier through a glass interior window -- a young woman lying in a bed, bandaged and covered in a white blanket.
Inside the room with her was an imposing Iraqi man, clad all in black. Mohammed watched as the man slapped the American woman with his open palm, then again with the back of his hand. In that instant, Mohammed recalled today, he resolved to do something. After the man in black left, Mohammed sneaked in to see the young woman.
"Don't worry, don't worry," he told her. He was going for help.[...]
Curious, he asked around, and a doctor friend told him an American soldier was being held there. Something made him want to go see. The doctor took him to a first-floor emergency wing where he pointed out the soldier through a glass interior window -- a young woman lying in a bed, bandaged and covered in a white blanket.
Inside the room with her was an imposing Iraqi man, clad all in black. Mohammed watched as the man slapped the American woman with his open palm, then again with the back of his hand. In that instant, Mohammed recalled today, he resolved to do something. After the man in black left, Mohammed sneaked in to see the young woman.
"Don't worry, don't worry," he told her. He was going for help.[...]
Wish I Could Write Like Lileks
I can of course, I just choose not to. *cough*
in the cartoon, a family is sitting around the radio listening to the voice of the "liberators," assuring them that the allies "are coming soon." Switch to the studio - the announcer is a leering big-nose Jew. Cut to the Allied bombers: Mickey Mouse, Donald, Goofy, and . . . Popeye. They drop their bombs with disregard, and one of them lands on the house of the family listening to enemy radio. The Grim Reaper floats over the scene.
It's all in French.[...]
It's all in French.[...]
Read the whole thing.
A Fatwa We Can Get Behind
Iraqi ayatollah OKs U.S. troops - ‘Fatwa’ tells Shiite Muslims not to interfere with coalition
NAJAF, Iraq, April 3 — After battling pro-Baghdad loyalists, U.S. troops moved into the center of Iraq’s holy city of Najaf on Thursday, bolstered by an edict from a top local Shiite Muslim leader urging people not to interfere with the soldiers.
U.S. OFFICERS said they believed most of the fedayeen paramilitary fighters loyal to President Saddam Hussein had dropped their equipment and fled, but that a few were still in the city putting up a fight.
“Ideally, we would kill them all,” Col. Joseph Anderson, a brigade commander of the 101st Airborne Division, told Reuters. “But if they choose to change their mind and flee, there’s not much we can do.”
The U.S. military said Iraq’s senior Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who had been held under house arrest by the Iraqi government, had ordered local people in a “fatwa,” or edict, not to interfere with the U.S.-led troops.
In London, the Shiite Al-Khoei foundation confirmed the ayatollah’s new ruling and said that, until now, his followers had been “confused” over whether to fight the U.S. forces.[...]
U.S. OFFICERS said they believed most of the fedayeen paramilitary fighters loyal to President Saddam Hussein had dropped their equipment and fled, but that a few were still in the city putting up a fight.
“Ideally, we would kill them all,” Col. Joseph Anderson, a brigade commander of the 101st Airborne Division, told Reuters. “But if they choose to change their mind and flee, there’s not much we can do.”
The U.S. military said Iraq’s senior Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who had been held under house arrest by the Iraqi government, had ordered local people in a “fatwa,” or edict, not to interfere with the U.S.-led troops.
In London, the Shiite Al-Khoei foundation confirmed the ayatollah’s new ruling and said that, until now, his followers had been “confused” over whether to fight the U.S. forces.[...]
We want you nervous...
CNN.com - Ex-CIA director: U.S. faces 'World War IV' - Apr. 3, 2003 (Via LGF)
James Woolsey reminds everyone about what those of us who've been paying attention already know - that WW4 started some time ago, it's just that many of us have only just started to notice.
[...]In the address to a group of college students, Woolsey described the Cold War as the third world war and said "This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us. Hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War."
Woolsey has been named in news reports as possible candidate for a key position in the reconstruction of a post-war Iraq.
He said the new war is actually against three enemies: the religious rulers of Iran, the "fascists" of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda.
Woolsey told the audience of about 300, most of whom are students at the University of California at Los Angeles, that all three enemies have waged war against the United States for several years but the United States has just "finally noticed."
"As we move toward a new Middle East," Woolsey said, "over the years and, I think, over the decades to come ... we will make a lot of people very nervous."
It will be America's backing of democratic movements throughout the Middle East that will bring about this sense of unease, he said.
"Our response should be, 'good!'" Woolsey said.
Singling out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, he said, "We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, this country and its allies are on the march and that we are on the side of those whom you -- the Mubaraks, the Saudi Royal family -- most fear: We're on the side of your own people." [...]
Woolsey has been named in news reports as possible candidate for a key position in the reconstruction of a post-war Iraq.
He said the new war is actually against three enemies: the religious rulers of Iran, the "fascists" of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda.
Woolsey told the audience of about 300, most of whom are students at the University of California at Los Angeles, that all three enemies have waged war against the United States for several years but the United States has just "finally noticed."
"As we move toward a new Middle East," Woolsey said, "over the years and, I think, over the decades to come ... we will make a lot of people very nervous."
It will be America's backing of democratic movements throughout the Middle East that will bring about this sense of unease, he said.
"Our response should be, 'good!'" Woolsey said.
Singling out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, he said, "We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, this country and its allies are on the march and that we are on the side of those whom you -- the Mubaraks, the Saudi Royal family -- most fear: We're on the side of your own people." [...]
Quotes of the Week
Two potential quote of the week nominees in this NY Times article. Exuberant Crowd's Most Urgent Request: Water
First, there's this:
NAJAF, Iraq, April 2 — In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today.
What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring?
"Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"
Around him, the crowd roared its approval.[...]
What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring?
"Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"
Around him, the crowd roared its approval.[...]
Then, there's this:
The roads leading out of the city had been freshly seeded with land mines, apparently by paramilitary fighters anticipating the American arrival, and a team of engineers — known as sappers in the Army — moved methodically through the mines.
Just before the sun went down, the engineers cleared the third of such fields, detonating them with C-4 explosive. The troops had discovered a factory where such land mines were made, but the ones exploded at the end of the day on Tuesday had been made in Italy, said Lt. Col. Duke Deluca.
"Europeans are antiwar, but they are pro-commerce," Colonel Deluca said.
Just before the sun went down, the engineers cleared the third of such fields, detonating them with C-4 explosive. The troops had discovered a factory where such land mines were made, but the ones exploded at the end of the day on Tuesday had been made in Italy, said Lt. Col. Duke Deluca.
"Europeans are antiwar, but they are pro-commerce," Colonel Deluca said.
Hmmm...which to use, which to use?
The Soliloquy of Dakel Abbas
Oriana Fallaci strikes again. Read what it's like to be in Saddam's army.
His name was Dakel Abbas, and he was a 21-year-old Iraqi soldier drafted in a village where along with his wife he lived raising cucumbers, onions, eggplants. A village near As-Samawah, central Iraq. Rather than a soldier, however, you would have thought him to be a survivor from a concentration camp. His head looked like a skull with a nose and a mouth and two eyes. His chest, a bas-relief of ribs hardly covered by skin. His biceps, tiny bones that could fit inside the palm of a child. (Saddam Hussein does not feed the troops very well.) He had been captured at the end of the Gulf War by members of the Kuwaiti Resistance who, supposedly by mistake, had opened fire on his group while it surrendered. In fact he appeared badly wounded and the doctors didn't know whether he would recover.[...]
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation - the Arabic Arm
Ribbity Blog has an interesting recounting of something he heard while inadvertently listening to the BBC's Arabic service - he thought he was listening to an Arab radio station at first. Goes well with a previous post on the subject.
I was walking to work this evening and thought it might be interesting to listen to some of the Arabic radio stations and hear what is being said about the war in Iraq. I eventually found a very interesting station that I thought might be Syrian. It was certainly broadcasting anti-war propaganda, including an interview with a man named Chalabi who was the head of some institute in London, who claimed that the entire war was instigated by the Zionists in Washington for their benefit. The suggestion went unchallenged from the interviewer.[...]
Altered Images
Los Angeles Times - Editor's Note: Just another instance of the subtle manipulation of the images of conflict to convey a desired bias. In this case, a true fabrication - the image fabricated to make it appear that the soldier is menacing the man with the child.
Photographer Brian Walski has been fired from the LA Times for this incident. This from the newspaper that tells us that "'terror' exists only in the eye of the beholder." [Robert Scheer]
The Actual Photos
The Altered Photo
Foreign Correspondents and the CENTCOM Briefings
Jonathan V. Last reviews some of the questions the foreign press has been buzzing in at the CENTCOM briefings and what it says about their agendas. I'm actually pretty sure he's missed some of the more outrageous quotes, but this article is worth checking out.
IF THERE IS ANYTHING that can be said to be "enjoyable" about this war, it must surely be the delights of the CENTCOM 7:00 a.m. press briefings. Handled mostly by the able Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, they shed little light on the actual progress of the war, but give a clear look into the minds of the press.[...]
Ayn Rand and "Global Balkanization"
Another one from Instapundit
Arthur Silber presents portions of an Ayn Rand lecture worth reading in regard to the welfare state, capitalism, tribalism and the future of Iraq.
Eye on Academe - Oberlin Anti-Semitism/The DeGenova Affair
Two links via InstaPundit:
Cleve-Blog writes about the liberal school's tolerance for the anti-Semitism of anti-Zionism (no surprise), and Justin Katz writes about Columbia Professor DeGenova's comments and the potential they have to start bringing more public scrutiny on the hallowed (and darkened) halls of academe. We can only hope.
"Where do they get young men like this?”
L.T. Smash - Live from the Sandbox: "Where do they get young men like this?"
Martin Savidge of CNN, embedded with the 1st Marine battalion, was talking with 4 young Marines near his foxhole this morning live on CNN. He had been telling the story of how well the Marines had been looking out for and taking care of him since the war started. He went on to tell about the many hardships the Marines had endured since the war began and how they all look after one another.
He turned to the four and said he had cleared it with their commanders and they could use his video phone to call home.[...]
He turned to the four and said he had cleared it with their commanders and they could use his video phone to call home.[...]
Tuesday, April 1, 2003
A French view of the war -- on local cable TV
I've decided to start hilighting mentions I see where the "embeds" seem to be giving out a different view of the war than their studio or editorial board cohorts at home. Particularly where I see it in the places where the press may be biased, but the embed has the effect of tempering the story with the facts on the ground.
Hub Blog has a fascinating account of what he saw of a French news broadcast as it appeared on Boston's International Channel. Read.
Soldiers free Kenyans captured by Saddam's fighters
Ananova - Soldiers free Kenyans captured by Saddam's fighters (Via Instapundit)
What's instructive is not only that they were paraded on Al Jazeera as POW's, but in how they were treated when held by the Iraqis.
(in full)Two Kenyan truck drivers captured and paraded on television by Iraqi militiamen have spoken of their ordeal after they were freed by British soldiers.
David Shira Mukaria and Jakubu Maina Kamau were kidnapped 11 days ago outside Al Zubayr in southern Iraq and held in an abandoned school where they were beaten and blindfolded.
Following their capture the two men's faces were paraded on television footage obtained by Arabic satellite network al-Jazeera.
They were initially thought to be British but yesterday explained they were Kenyan truck drivers contracted to deliver food to US troops.
They said they got separated from their convoy and were ambushed by around 20 guerrilla fighters.
They were rescued by the Black Watch, now in control of Al Zubayr, who were tipped off that they were being held in the school.
British troops arrived in two Warriors and found the men in one of the classrooms.
Mr Mukaria, 53, said: "They kept us there for 10 days. We had no food or water, nothing. We decided because we are Christians we would ask God to save us or take our souls to heaven. We prayed to God every day.
"We could not see them but we heard them talking. Some of them were speaking in English. Some of them said, 'kill them', some of them said, 'no'. We just prayed and prayed."
Mr Kamau, 37, said: "I was sure we were going to die. I remember seeing a man with his finger on the pin of a grenade as they argued about whether they would kill us or not."
David Shira Mukaria and Jakubu Maina Kamau were kidnapped 11 days ago outside Al Zubayr in southern Iraq and held in an abandoned school where they were beaten and blindfolded.
Following their capture the two men's faces were paraded on television footage obtained by Arabic satellite network al-Jazeera.
They were initially thought to be British but yesterday explained they were Kenyan truck drivers contracted to deliver food to US troops.
They said they got separated from their convoy and were ambushed by around 20 guerrilla fighters.
They were rescued by the Black Watch, now in control of Al Zubayr, who were tipped off that they were being held in the school.
British troops arrived in two Warriors and found the men in one of the classrooms.
Mr Mukaria, 53, said: "They kept us there for 10 days. We had no food or water, nothing. We decided because we are Christians we would ask God to save us or take our souls to heaven. We prayed to God every day.
"We could not see them but we heard them talking. Some of them were speaking in English. Some of them said, 'kill them', some of them said, 'no'. We just prayed and prayed."
Mr Kamau, 37, said: "I was sure we were going to die. I remember seeing a man with his finger on the pin of a grenade as they argued about whether they would kill us or not."
Evidence Mounts for Mysterious New Class of Black Holes
Time for a non-war related story. It also gives me a chance to post a cool picture. 
Scientific American: Evidence Mounts for Mysterious New Class of Black Holes
Astronomers have found further evidence for the existence of what you might call the Goldilocks category of black holes--not too large, not too small, but intermediate in mass. They have also discovered that these elusive objects may be stranger than anyone had imagined.
Not long ago, all of the black holes known to science fell into one of two classes: the diminutive stellar variety (with a mass of up to 10 suns) and the supermassive kind (with a mass of millions to billions of suns). But in recent years, hints of midsize black holes--ones containing the mass of hundreds to tens of thousands of suns--have emerged.[...]
Not long ago, all of the black holes known to science fell into one of two classes: the diminutive stellar variety (with a mass of up to 10 suns) and the supermassive kind (with a mass of millions to billions of suns). But in recent years, hints of midsize black holes--ones containing the mass of hundreds to tens of thousands of suns--have emerged.[...]
Urban Warriors
Anyone who took a serious look at what happened during the first Gulf War knows that, contrary to what many folks believe, it was only the regular line Iraqi troops who surrendered en masse. The Republican Guard troops, for the most part, stood and fought - they just outright lost.
A few months ago, in the fall, I had occasion to be out with a couple friends. One had just come back from a stint in the Marine Corps. He had been various places including some time in Afghanistan. Another friend that evening had just signed up to join the military. He wanted badly to be in the Special Forces. Their conversation took a turn to the future. They discussed how "everyone knew, everyone was talking about" how this time, Saddam would draw his forces back into Baghdad and force us to fight an urban battle at greater cost.
Put these two things together, and it's no surprise that there would be a fight to be had in Iraq. Certainly, the military knew, and planned for it. To think otherwise is just silly, and contrary to evidence.
In his piece in the the New York Post, Ralph Peters confirms that we were ready.
NYPOST.COM Post Opinion: Oped Columnists: URBAN WARRIORS By RALPH PETERS (Via LGF)
April 1, 2003 -- SADDAM had a plan. He intended to lure allied forces into the streets of his cities, where ambushes would turn the war into a bloodbath.
Unfortunately for Saddam, our troops failed to cooperate: The blood being shed is that of Iraqi terrorists.
Our troops didn't charge wildly into Basra or Nasiriyah as Saddam hoped. Instead, they methodically began to dismantle the resistance put up by the regime's die-hard thugs and party hacks - fighting on our terms, not theirs.
Saddam's response showed exactly how much regard he has for the Iraqi people: He began slaughtering them in an attempt to force us to come into the cities and save them.
Saddam, you see, has studied the lessons of history. He knows that urban warfare traditionally has been a blood-soaked affair, and he believes - wrongly - that the American people are cowards who can't bear casualties.
But he forgot that Americans aren't slaves to history. Americans make history.[...]
Unfortunately for Saddam, our troops failed to cooperate: The blood being shed is that of Iraqi terrorists.
Our troops didn't charge wildly into Basra or Nasiriyah as Saddam hoped. Instead, they methodically began to dismantle the resistance put up by the regime's die-hard thugs and party hacks - fighting on our terms, not theirs.
Saddam's response showed exactly how much regard he has for the Iraqi people: He began slaughtering them in an attempt to force us to come into the cities and save them.
Saddam, you see, has studied the lessons of history. He knows that urban warfare traditionally has been a blood-soaked affair, and he believes - wrongly - that the American people are cowards who can't bear casualties.
But he forgot that Americans aren't slaves to history. Americans make history.[...]
America's quiet patriotism
Telegraph | Opinion | America's quiet patriotism
I like the conclusion:
[...]American public opinion is actually displaying more of the phlegm traditionally associated with the British than are our media. The British press has sought domestic American jingoism, but almost in vain.
True, clever, cosmopolitan Americans are forswearing the wines of Bordeaux; Air Force One has rebranded its French toast "Freedom toast"; but there is something of a tease about some of these gestures. The sense of anger towards Paris is real, but widely misinterpreted. Americans are flaunting their dismay at the French not because they wish to be unilateralist, but because they would much rather not act alone.
That is what makes the British contribution to this war so crucial; since it is so crucial, we at home have a duty to hold as steady as our troops on the ground.
True, clever, cosmopolitan Americans are forswearing the wines of Bordeaux; Air Force One has rebranded its French toast "Freedom toast"; but there is something of a tease about some of these gestures. The sense of anger towards Paris is real, but widely misinterpreted. Americans are flaunting their dismay at the French not because they wish to be unilateralist, but because they would much rather not act alone.
That is what makes the British contribution to this war so crucial; since it is so crucial, we at home have a duty to hold as steady as our troops on the ground.
Hanson: The American Way of War
Victor Davis Hanson on Operation Iraqi Freedom on National Review Online
(1) In this new age the American military does not like fascists, and it thus will unleash horrific power to eliminate autocrats like Noriega, Milosevic, the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein.
(2) It is as difficult to provoke the United States as it is to survive its eventual and tardy response. We will take months, years, even decades of slurs, random murdering of our own, terrorism, and general hostility before acting — and then in some primordial rage at last unleash firepower undreamed of to remove the odious regime.
(2) It is as difficult to provoke the United States as it is to survive its eventual and tardy response. We will take months, years, even decades of slurs, random murdering of our own, terrorism, and general hostility before acting — and then in some primordial rage at last unleash firepower undreamed of to remove the odious regime.
That's 2. Read all 10.
Don't Be Surprised At Civilian Casualties
US soldiers wounded as Iraqi troops open fire from Red Crescent ambulance, our troops are attacked from a hospital, Saddam locates military targets next to civilian sites, the Fedayeen Saddam roam the country out of any uniform, soldiers are blown-up at a check-point, the white flag is used for cover of an ambush, Palestinian groups vow to send waves of suicide bombers to Iraq, Syria lets them board the bus and travel over the border, Arab media was, at the beginning of the war when even the Iraqis only had three or four civilian dead, already decrying the deaths of hundreds of civilians divorced from any reality on the ground, and the Arab world and media routinely applaud these unconventional attacks as heroic.
Peter Arnett said that reports of civilian deaths will help the anti-war movement back home, and he was right, although he shouldn't be.
The hand-wringing over civilian deaths, particularly in the Arab world, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Saddam knows civilian deaths sap the West's strength and enrage the Arabs (presumably because the deaths are caused by non-Arabs - the deaths caused by Arabs to other Arab civilians through the decades, though often orders of magnitude higher than anything seen to date in either Iraq or Israel has never caused this level of outrage). Certainly, he, his zealots and his allies in region, particularly the Palestinian terrorist groups, would not and have not hesitated to send civilians into harm's way (or pull the trigger themselves) for the sake of an effective camera shot.
The fact that Arab media reports are often used only to reinforce a pre-determined editorial line doesn't exactly reinforce Coalition resolve to keep putting soldiers in harm's way to avoid innocent casualties. Why sacrifice yourself for propaganda purposes when the media will report what they want to anyway? Fortunately, Western armies have their own moral compass that will inform what they do regardless, but message to the tragedy-mongers, both Arab and other: Be careful what you wish for.
In 1967, when the Israelis had smashed the Egyptian Air Force on the ground and were proceeding to smash their ground-forces, the Egyptian press and low-level commanders were continuing to spout the line about glorious Egyptian successes, long after such reports ceased to have any relation to reality. This caused a lot of people to make bad choices. For instance, in spite of warnings from the Israelis not to get involved, the Jordanians, buying what they heard from Egypt, shelled Israeli territory. In response, a lot of Jordanian troops were killed unnecessarily and the rest is history.
Certain terrorist groups and terrorist nations (Syria take note) are in danger of convincing themselves to make some bad choices again.
So, while the Arab press preys on Arab xeonophobia to get the people wound-up, lauds the "achievements" of fedayeen and looks for any chance to create or amplify any civilian tragedy...don't be surprised if we have a bit of trouble taking them seriously...and they get what they wish for.
