October 2004 Archives

Doctors will need "several days" to diagnose Arafat's illness but the Palestinian leader was conscious and in good shape when he arrived in France on Friday, a Palestinian diplomat said.

"We are very relieved that he was able to travel, that he arrived in good shape and was conscious. I talked to him," Leila Shahid, the PA's envoy to Paris, said.

"President Arafat has been suffering from an intestinal flu for at least three weeks, but obviously there is more to it than that," she added. Shahid said the main doctor treating Arafat would need "several days before he can finish all the examinations and arrive at a real diagnosis."...

That single act earned for Kerry the lasting enmity of Vietnam veterans, especially those who had borne the brunt of his accusations, that small percentage of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who actually served on the frontlines. Many of these combat veterans would carry the scars of their service for life. Kerry’s repudiation of their sacrifice represented yet another war wound, one that would never heal. As compelling as Kerry’s Senate testimony was, these men knew it was lacking in one key element … truth. They knew from their own combat experiences virtually all his allegations were lies; the U.S. military would never countenance such brutality. And, they also knew his actions were a deliberate betrayal of all of them, especially the more than 58,000 who lost their lives in the Vietnam War.

But, perhaps, more than any living group of combat veterans, it was the America ’s POWs who suffered most, forced to endure the immediate consequences of Kerry’s treacherous falsehoods. In 1971, some 700 of these men were reported as captured or missing in action, most presumed held prisoner by the North Vietnamese Communists in such places as the notorious Hanoi Hilton. Already subjected to years of torture, solitary confinement and unspeakable psychological and physical abuse, their lives were literally hanging by a thread when Kerry issued his damning testimony. In mere moments, Kerry had willingly given the Vietnamese Communists what they had spent years of torture and blood-letting to drag out of their American hostages, an unqualified “confession” they were all war criminals.

As a church, and as individuals, we know at the core of our souls that terrorism, especially terrorism against civilians, is one clear source of the lack of peace in the Middle East. Even when we identify and condemn the occupation as another key source of violence and lack of peace, we in no way condone the terrorism of groups such as Hezbollah, or of individuals or other actors in the region. Terrorism in all of its forms is morally abhorrent and completely inexcusable in our eyes.

Our prayer is for the following. First, that you will continue to work with us to create avenues of communication for that dialogue. Second, that we will find a way to communicate directly about this matter rather than confining ourselves only to what is being communicated through the media. Third, that we as a denomination will find ways to continue our insistence that we side both with Palestinian victims of the occupation and its violence, and with Israeli and Jewish victims of violence and terrorism...

"France, as I told you (Arafat) in Ramallah on June 30, will be always on your side to back your effort in favor of a just and negotiated peace," Barnier said.

"It is with concern and sympathy that I keep informed of the development of your health," said Barnier.

"I wish to express my most sincere wishes for your recovery, hoping that you can return rapidly to your place to lead the
Palestinian Authority," he said.

According to one of Arafat's doctors, the 75-year-old Palestinian leader is suffering from a potentially fatal blood disorder which will require more tests to determine the cause outside the West Bank, where he has been kept under virtual house arrest for the last three years.

French presidency announced on Thursday evening the leader's imminent move to Paris for treatment at the request of Palestinian Authority. He was expected to arrive in Paris on Friday.

• 67 MKs voted in favor
• 45 MKs voted against
• 7 MKs abstained

The plan could still be halted by a public referendum, and the cabinet must also convene to decide whether, where and when to give the order to evacuate settlements. The Likud Party was split in the vote, with 23 voting in favor and 17 against. Twenty-nine of the votes in favor came from left-wing opposition MKs, and one from MK Michael Nudelman of the far-right National Union party. Fourteen Shinui MKs also voted for the plan.

"The Knesset has decided by a maority vote and the decision binds us all," Speaker Reuven Rivlin said after the vote...

I am not maintaining that the higher fatality figures are a direct consequence of Bush's policies. The second intifada was not caused by Bush, and Clinton's critics are right in saying that for too long Washington was much too nice to Yasser Arafat. In fact, Clinton's own Middle East negotiator, Dennis Ross, writes in his book, "The Missing Peace," that "President Bush and those around him were right to believe that we had indulged Arafat too much." ...

Sent to me by a source in the government: “The Iraqi explosives story is a fraud. These weapons were not there when US troops went to this site in 2003. The IAEA and its head, the anti-American Mohammed El Baradei, leaked a false letter on this issue to the media to embarrass the Bush administration. The US is trying to deny El Baradei a second term and we have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”

(For the record, I don’t reveal my sources so if that means I end up sharing a cell at Sing-sing with Judy Miller, so be it.)

"If someone touches my tree I'll take my AK and pop a cap in that bitch's ass! Right kids?"

Talking animals are commonplace on broadcasting for young children around the world. They are used to entertain and educate in a way that makes it easy for children to internalize educational messages.

A children’s program this week on official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV was dedicated to the importance of trees. "Tarabisho" - the Talking Chick -- was, as usual, at the center of the discussion. The child moderator asked the talking chick what he would do if someone, specifically a “little boy,” were to chop down his tree. In his squeaky little voice, Tarabisho answered that he would shoot the little boy with an AK-47 automatic rifle, create a massacre, make a riot, etc.

It should be noted that the child moderator twice checks her notes while asking the questions, indicating that this was not a spontaneous discussion but was a deliberate educational message, planned by the writers and producers.

Click here to see the footage from PA TV.

PMW has reported in the past on the use of popular culture, including music videos, to teach young children to see themselves as active combatants in their leaders’ terror war. This is the first time a talking animal on a program targeting preschoolers has been used to promote killing.

The program’s political context should also be understood. After four Israelis, including two preschoolers, were killed by terrorist rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army entered the wooded launching areas and leveled many of the trees used by terrorists to hide their rocket launchers. This program comes on the heels of this military activity.

Although the enemy in the discussion is called a “little boy,” the Palestinian media and even PA schoolbooks repeatedly single out Israel as the destroyer of trees. It would be clear to Palestinian viewers, therefore, that Israel would be the target of the massacre promoted by the TV character.

This picture, from a PA schoolbook for Grade Two, shows Israeli soldiers destroying trees:

The following is the full text of the dialogue between the child moderator and Tarabisho, the Talking Chick:

Girl: “If a boy comes in front of your house where a tree is planted, and cuts it down, what would you do?”

Talking Chick: “I have two trees in front of my house.”

Girl: “If a little boy cuts them down, what will you do to him?”

Talking Chick: “What I'll do to him?
I'll fight him and make a big riot,
I'll call the whole world and make a riot.
I'll bring AK-47s [assault rifles] and the whole world,
I'll commit a massacre in front of the house".

But if there's one thing the controversial British columnist loves, it's Israel. "I always thought I wanted to be Jewish," says Burchill, fluttering her eyelashes in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv yesterday. "But that would be too difficult - you have to be too nice and sensitive. What I really want to be is Israeli. I think I've got the temperament for it: scrappy, defiant and I don't care if people hate me."

Burchill, one of Britain's highest profile - and highest paid columnists - is coming to the end of her first trip to Israel. Currently employed by The Times, and here for a week as a guest of the Tourism Ministry, Burchill's passion for the place cannot be exaggerated. "I don't want to sound like I've had an epiphany or a spiritual awakening because if someone said that bullshit to me, I'd tell them where to stuff it, but it's just a feeling since I've been here of complete happiness. I know that [Israelis] are not saints, but I've just been feeling happy in a way that I've not done anywhere else." She pauses for the first time: "Is there any way you can write that without making it sound completely creepy?"

Burchill's fervent flag-waving for Jews and Israel is not new. Having long complained of anti-Israel bias in the media, the British Jewish community nearly jumped for joy a year ago when Burchill turned her famously acidic pen to the matter in one of her final weekly columns for The Guardian. "If there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the State of Israel. Which, for all its faults, is the only country in that barren region that you or I, or any feminist, atheist, homosexual or trade unionist, could bear to live under," she wrote...

An investigation by The Washington Times reveals that while the candidate did talk for an unspecified period to at least a few members of the panel, no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred.

At the second presidential debate earlier this month, Mr. Kerry said he was more attuned to international concerns on Iraq than President Bush, citing his meeting with the entire Security Council.

"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator.

Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in December 2003, Mr. Kerry explained that he understood the "real readiness" of the United Nations to "take this seriously" because he met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."

But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.

The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified.

Ambassador Andres Franco, the permanent deputy representative from Colombia during its Security Council membership from 2001 to 2002, said, "I never heard of anything."[...]

Not saying it's not an important or real story - it is. Another day in the life of Senator Mitty, the man who will say anything for a quick score.

I think there's another angle of interest here, though. That is the fact that members of the blogosphere were tipped to it to start generating buzz even without seeing the content. The media is using the blogs to flog their stuff, thus truly cementing the bloggers' place in the landscape. That's good for blogs, but caution is in order - beware of being gamed by the spinners. Otherwise, wave all that hard-earned credibility good-bye.

It also starts to chip away at something I've always enjoyed the blogosphere for. To me the blogosphere operates as somewhat the way the stock market is supposed to operate, with everyone trading and functioning on equal information and some people simply doing better at that game. For instance, Charles Johnson thought to do something that it was possible for anyone to do - type the phony memo into Word. No one gave him anything under the table, he just thought to do it himself and thus he reaped the rewards of all that attention.

Now, more than ever, some bloggers are going to become more equal than others (no, I'm not jealous) by getting the inside scoop. Is that a bad thing? No, I guess not, BUT, like I said, proceed with caution, lest we lose what makes the blogs different and special - and among those is the ability to take publicly available resources to kill or counter spin.

I have no idea how widespread this perception is, but it does not surprise me that some Iraqis would talk that way. Our communications in Iraq have been so inept since we arrived, many Iraqis still don't know who America is or why it came. But such talk is also indicative of a trend in the Arab media, after a century of Arab-Jewish strife, where if you want to brand someone as illegitimate, just call him a "Jew." Indeed, this trend has widened since 9/11. Now you find a steadily rising perception across the Arab-Muslim world that the great enemy of Islam is JIA - "Jews, Israel and America," all lumped together in a single threat...

In the face of this plan, the Bush team is silent. This is partly because the Palestinians continue to stick with Arafat as their leader, even though this bum has led them to ruin - so the U.S. has nothing to offer Israel. And it's partly because the Bush team, which is so inept at diplomacy, has never had the energy or creativity to shape a better Palestinian alternative to Arafat. As a result, the Sharon vision of getting out of Gaza in order to take over the West Bank will probably win by default. If that happens, "Jews, Israel and America" will be bound together more tightly than ever as the enemies of Arabs and Muslims.

As a political and journalistic experiment, I decided to see how people who live in primarily one-party areas would react when faced with a living, breathing member of the opposition. I appointed myself an ambassador to bridge the Red-Blue divide and ventured into each side's territory dressed in the T-shirt, campaign button, and tote bag of the other. (A baseball cap, I decided, pushed the ensemble one step over the line, making me look a raving nut about to start yelling obscenities.)

For four days, I wandered Republican areas in a Kerry-Edwards shirt and button and loitered in the heart of Democratic country in styles by Bush-Cheney '04...

I have not been in London for 20 years, but I can only hope the most extreme behaviour is atypical. The taxi driver quoted just leaves me dumfounded; I can only suggest sheer idiocy coupled with a vile nature. The behaviour of 'Lady E' on the bus and the shopkeeper suggest to me that they are, frankly, mentally disturbed. In my recollection, most Londoners would go to almost any lengths NOT to interact with anyone else on public transport. Which may explain the failure of other passengers to intervene. Congratulations to the lady who finally pushed that obnoxious woman away. As for the shopkeeper, apart from being unbalanced, I would take him for a rather nasty specimen of anti-Semitism, who frankly needs a rather physical lesson in manners.

In regard of Ms. Gould's more general experiences, I think at least part of the explanation may be her social milieu. She mentions, for instance, "a Human Rights Conference at my local synagogue", and "my trade union, the National Union of Journalists". It is in precisely those circles that far-left idiocy is likely to be particularly prevalent...

Help is on the way. Absent the Marines, the additional training for the station operators will be provided in the near future, outside Iraq and with SoA support, by someone familiar to readers of this column: Don North. The man who made the now-famous documentary about the Iraqi amputees who received prostheses in Houston this year is going back to train the remaining Al Anbar stations in TV production. (No U.S. network ever picked up Don North's documentary, by the way. But it's available now at rememberingsaddam.com.

The Spirit of America's Iraq democracy project came together with a meeting several weeks ago in Amman, Jordan. The pro-freedom Iraqi bloggers at Iraqthemodel.com came, and their delightful account of a first-ever trip beyond Iraq's borders is up as an Oct. 20 post. Other Iraqis who attended have asked that their names not be published for obvious reasons. A woman who was reporting for Kurdish-run Al-Hurriya TV was gunned down last week in Baghdad. Still, all are willing to take personal risks to educate the Iraqi people about the meaning and purpose of democracy before that January election date.

In an e-mail days later to Kerry Dupont of Spirit of America, one wrote: "We are very serious in this dear Kerry and we truly hope we can serve our country the best at these crucial times. We also know that this work will make our friendship with the USA stronger as I believe that a democratic Iraq will be more inclined to make alliance with the free world." ...

One theory - which you might call the "George W Kerry" theory after an article by that title in the journal Foreign Policy - is that Kerry will be more like Bush than most of his supporters suppose.

In that article, author Moises Naim argues that the president whom Kerry will most resemble - at least in terms of foreign policy - is the one we've got now, and that, paradoxically, if re-elected President Bush will be more like Kerry than he is today: "If re-elected, Bush will have difficulty sustaining the foreign policies of his first term, whereas a first-term Kerry presidency is bound to emulate some of Bush's more aggressive positions."

There's some truth to this. Presidents are powerful, but they are also influenced by the world, and neither the world, nor America's interests in it, change as much as people think from one election cycle to another. Nixon, remember, ran as a "peace candidate" in 1968, but was still fighting LBJ's war in 1972. And although George W Bush invaded Iraq, Bill Clinton threatened to, and even, in 1998, signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which made regime change official US policy...

There is nothing more important than supporting troops at war. We understand that because we have commanded Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen. We know that President Bush understands this obligation to the men and women of our armed forces. He increased pay and military funding prior to September 11th and has given our troops the support they need in the War on Terror.

In contrast, Senator Kerry has a record of votes against military spending. In his first Senate race at the height of the Cold War, Senator Kerry advocated a comprehensive reduction in our armed forces, and his record since has reflected that priority.

Senator Kerry has repeatedly voted against military spending and support for troops, but no vote was as egregious as his vote against the troops currently fighting in the War on Terror. In October of 2003, after voting to send troops to war, Senator Kerry was given a chance to vote to support our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq with supplies like body armor and ammunition. He voted no.

Just weeks earlier, Senator Kerry said that a no vote on the funding would be "irresponsible" and would amount to a vote to "abandon our troops." And yet, that is exactly what Senator Kerry did.

We now know from Senator Biden and from Senator Kerry's own staff that this vote against the troops was cast out of political expediency as a way to stall the momentum of Governor Dean. Senator Kerry voted against troops in combat for his own political benefit.

A candidate who sends troops into harm's way and then denies them the supplies they need to do the job cannot lead our nation in the War on Terror.

Sincerely,

[snip list of 121 Generals and Admirals]

We see in President Bush these same qualities.

In 2001, our nation was attacked without cause or provocation. The President's values saw us through those dark days after the terrorist attack. The economy was rocked by the dual blows of the terrorists' cowardly action and the reckless disregard of the rules by a few rogue executives. But President Bush's decisive, principled leadership has moved America forward, and today our nation is safer and our economy is strong and getting stronger.

The fight against terrorism takes decisiveness. It takes continued support for our troops and first responders. But most importantly, it takes courage and inspirational leadership in the White House. In these critical times, our President has had the courage to stand up and do what's right.

For that and for his unwavering character, we choose George W. Bush as our President for the next four years. He is a leader we can depend on to make the tough decisions and the right decisions. Please join us in supporting a candidate of courage, President Bush--a leader who backs our troops defending our nation and shares our values.

Sincerely,

[snip list of names and signatures, including Ernie Banks, Carlos Beltran, Lynn Swann, John Elway, Bob Feller, Todd Walker, Jack Nicklaus, Karl Malone...]

Anyone who thinks a President Kerry could ignore these folks is dreaming. Anyone who thinks it won't adversely affect his prosecution (yes, I know that's a term with mixed and unfortunate meanings) of the fight against the terrorists is delusional. Anyone who thinks he'll be able to fight the terrorists effectively anyway is ... well, more optimistic than I am.

During a lecture, a professor of Arab politics refuses to answer a question from an Israeli student and military veteran but instead asks the student, "How many Palestinians have you killed?"

At a student meeting on the topic of divestment from Israel, a Jewish student is singled out as responsible for death of Palestinian Arabs.

Those scenes are described by current and former students interviewed for an underground documentary that is causing a frisson of concern to ripple through the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University, where the incidents took place.

The film, about anti-Israel sentiment at the school, has not yet been released to the public, but it has been screened for a number of top officials of Columbia, and talk of its impact is spreading rapidly on a campus where some students have complained of anti-Israel bias among faculty members.

"The movie is shocking," one Columbia senior, Ariel Beery, said.

"It is shocking to see blatant use of racial stereotypes by professors and intimidation tactics by professors in order to push a distinct ideological line on the curriculum," Mr. Beery, who was interviewed for the film, said.

The film is the creation of the David Project, a 2-year-old group based in Boston that advocates for Israel and is led by the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group, Charles Jacobs. The David Project, which is refusing to make the film public, has screened it for Barnard College's president, Judith Shapiro, and Columbia's provost, Alan Brinkley, according to sources...

The meeting between Sheikh Nabil Qauq, the leader of Hezbollah in south Lebanon, and a delegation of 24 leaders of the U.S. Presbyterian Church currently on a fact-finding tour in the Middle East, was broadcast October 17 on Al Manar, Hezbollah's satellite television network. During the broadcast, at least one member of the delegation was shown praising Hezbollah. Elder Ronald Stone, who identified himself as representing the East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, said, "As an elder of our church, I'd like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders." Elder Stone went on to praise Hezbollah: "We treasure the precious words of Hezbollah and your expression of goodwill towards the American people."

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, and Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, ADL Director of Interfaith Affairs, issued the following statement:

It is deeply disturbing that leaders of the Presbyterian Church would meet with the leader of a terrorist organization that is directly responsible for attacks against Americans and Israelis, and that has repeatedly denounced America and Israel as enemies of Islam. It is especially troubling and offensive that at least one member of the delegation praised Hezbollah, telling them it was easier to dialogue with terrorists than with Jews when it comes to Middle East issues.

Coming in an atmosphere where interfaith relations between Presbyterians and Jews have been sorely tested by the church's proposal to disinvest from Israel, it is disturbing that the Presbyterian leaders made the irresponsible decision to meet with Hezbollah, an organization whose self-stated goal is the total destruction of the Jewish State and the establishment of Islamic rule over Jerusalem. It is outrageous that, rather than seeking out moderate voices working for positive change in the Middle East, the Presbyterian leaders decided to seek out the leader of a terrorist organization.

Since its founding in 1982, Hezbollah has been responsible for hundreds of attacks against Israelis and Americans, including the 1983 suicide bomb attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 200. Hezbollah also attacked the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and the Israeli cultural center in Buenos Aires in 1994.

While continuing to carry out cross-border attacks against Israel, Hezbollah has more recently contributed to anti-Semitic incitement throughout the Middle East, using its satellite station to broadcast anti-Semitic propaganda. According to the U.S. State Department, Hezbollah receives financing and other support from Syria and Iran.

“Iran test fired a more accurate version of the Shahab-3 in the presence of observers,” Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani told Reuters after a weekly cabinet meeting.

The Shahab-3 is a ballistic missile modified with Russian technology from the orignal North Korean Nodong-1.

The announcements — called “saber-rattling” by an Israeli defense expert — startled the international community, already concerned about Iran’s insistence on building a nuclear power plant...

The Hebrew daily Maariv reported that Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom criticized the EU decision to wrap up the deal. The report said Shalom noted the United States was stepping up pressure on Syria, one of seven countries branded by the U.S. State Department as a sponsor of terrorism.

The "Association Agreement" is similar to those the EU has already concluded with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon and Morocco as part of a plan to build trade and political ties across the Mediterranean Sea.

Syria's was delayed by its reluctance to sign up to a clause committing to the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction that the EU has insisted upon in all such agreements since late 2003.

Negotiators wrapped up a deal last month by rewording the clause to satisfy both sides. EU officials declined to release the exact wording ahead of the signing of the document but said it was in keeping with the Union's demands...

On more than one occasion, Senator Kerry has referred to the fight at Tora Bora in Afghanistan during late 2001 as a missed opportunity for America. He claims that our forces had Osama bin Laden cornered and allowed him to escape. How did it happen? According to Mr. Kerry, we "outsourced" the job to Afghan warlords. As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality.

First, take Mr. Kerry's contention that we "had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden" and that "we had him surrounded." We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.

Second, we did not "outsource" military action. We did rely heavily on Afghans because they knew Tora Bora, a mountainous, geographically difficult region on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is where Afghan mujahedeen holed up for years, keeping alive their resistance to the Soviet Union. Killing and capturing Taliban and Qaeda fighters was best done by the Afghan fighters who already knew the caves and tunnels.

Third, the Afghans weren't left to do the job alone. Special forces from the United States and several other countries were there, providing tactical leadership and calling in air strikes. Pakistani troops also provided significant help - as many as 100,000 sealed the border and rounded up hundreds of Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Contrary to Senator Kerry, President Bush never "took his eye off the ball" when it came to Osama bin Laden. The war on terrorism has a global focus...

Fast forward to October 9, 2004, when about 4 million women voted for the first time ever in Afghanistan. A statement on the election from the United Nations' Division for the Advancement of Women begins by noting that "insufficient information is available on the actual participation of women on election day," but does wanly concede that "this first election has been an important process to increase women's participation in the political life of their country." Exhibiting the usual U.N. preference for progress on paper, the statement closes by noting with approval that Afghanistan ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women last year.

The folks over at NOW seem even less enthusiastic about the progress in Afghanistan. The NOW "Issues" page headed "Women in Afghanistan" hasn't been updated for two-and-a-half years. And there is no mention of the Afghan election on the main pages of the NOW website. Calls requesting a statement went unreturned...

And that's precisely the most unsettling moment, at least the one that impressed me most: seeing all those doctors and policemen leaving the wounded and running away to shield themselves from what they thought was going to be another explosion, leaving the wounded unattended...

They've "discovered" a huge Soviet ammunition dump a few kilometres from Camp Julien with the potential of obliterating the camp, as well as most of Kabul.

That may sound like hyperbole, but I was with the Canadians who discovered the cache -- soldiers (mostly Princess Pats and combat engineers) who are training and working with the ANA and consider themselves to have the best job in the army.

In the dusty foothills, 10 minutes drive from Camp Julien (population 2,000), 82 buried bunkers, each 20-metres long, housed thousands of Soviet FROG missiles (one step down from Scud missiles), and every variety of rocket and mortar shells.

Some of the FROG missiles were still in their original cases. Some heaped in the open. Some stacked to the roof in the unlocked, open bunkers. Much of the ordnance had warheads removed to collect the explosive for homemade bombs -- or for blasting at a nearby quarry.

"Unbelievable!" was Maj. Brian Hynes' reaction when he saw them. "We (troops of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)) have been here some two years, and no one knew this was at our back door. Unbelievable."

In truth, the Soviet bunkers were well-known in an area supposedly under control of the Afghan Militia Force (AMF) -- not to be confused with the ANA. The AMF is paid by various warlords and so their loyalty is to them...

In the past four years, during the Presidency of George W. Bush, the Muslims and their countries have suffered oppression and humiliation as never before in the history of Islam. There is an obvious connection between the sufferings of the Muslims and the policies and thinking of Bush.

We cannot expect much change to the policies of the United States of America towards Islam and the Muslims under Democrats as under Republicans. But we have a duty to ensure that Bush will not be able to determine our fate for four more years....

Dear Brothers and Sisters. Vote Bush out of office. It is truly an ibadah that you perform.

DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Former Prime Minister of Malaysia,
Malaysia

By and John J. Lumpkin, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Despite gaining their freedom by signing pledges to renounce violence, at least seven former prisoners of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to terrorism, at times with deadly consequences.

At least two are thought to have died in fighting in Afghanistan, and a third was recaptured during a raid of a suspected training camp in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico, a Pentagon spokesman, said last week. Others are at large.

Additional former detainees have expressed a desire to rejoin the fight, be it against UN peacekeepers in Afghanistan, Americans in Iraq, or Russian soldiers in Chechnya.

About 146 detainees have been released from Guantanamo, but only after US officials had determined that the prisoners no longer posed threats and had no remaining intelligence value.

Pentagon officials acknowledged that the release process is imperfect, but they said most of the Guantanamo detainees released have steered clear of Islamic insurgent groups.

The small number returning to the fight demonstrates the delicate balance the United States must strike between minimizing the appearance of holding people unjustly and keeping those who are legitimate long-term threats, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said...

Yusef Hassan Sinwar, 31, of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, was convicted by a Palestinian Authority civil court of assisting the IDF in tracking down and killing wanted activists. In passing the death sentence, the first by the PA in two and a half years, the judges noted that he had "undermined the power of resistance of the Palestinian people by serving as a collaborator with the enemy." ...

"We haven't seen them demonstrate either the will, much less the capacity, to investigate the case seriously," department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

"We have seen statements from time to time by Palestinian officials that they know who did it. And if that's true, then they should take immediate action to arrest and prosecute whoever did it," Boucher said.

The three murdered Americans were John Branchizio, 37, of Texas, John Linde Jr., 30, of Missouri, and Mark Parsons, 31, of New Jersey. They were security personnel guarding a convoy of U.S. diplomatic vehicles that was attacked by Palestinian Arab terrorists at the Beit Hanoun junction in the Gaza Strip on October 15, 2003.

The three guards, contractors from the security firm DynCorp, were protecting the convoy on its way to interview Palestinian candidates for Fulbright scholarships...

It was the kind of glittering occasion at which John Kerry and his wife would feel at home. There were millionaires in tuxedos with their Botoxed and bejewelled wives, graceful daughters with flawless skin in evening gowns, members of the Kennedy and Hearst dynasties and, because this is New York high society, there were artists surrounded by their patrons and benefactors.

They had come to celebrate the National Arts Awards, but it was also the night of the final debate between Kerry and George W Bush. A special room was set aside for the dinner guests to watch the ding-dong on a big screen while eating petits fours and quaffing champagne.

Andres Serrano, the artist responsible for Piss Christ, one of the iconic images of the late 1980s culture wars, was rooting for Kerry. Wedged between two beautiful women, he enthused: “The debate’s going well. Kerry’s winning over the audience here.”

Indeed. There were laughs and applause for Kerry, groans for Bush. Jeff Koons, the celebrated pop artist, was standing by the bar. “There’s got to be a change for the future of the country,” he told me soberly.

Then Koons became unexpectedly open-minded. “This administration” — he couldn’t bring himself to say Bush — “has supported the arts. In this particular area, they have been generous.” But never mind such parochialism. “For the good of the country, it’s time for a change,” he repeated his mantra.

So here I am in deep Kerry territory, surrounded by designer Democrats who are far wealthier than me, harbouring a secret and deeply untrendy thought.

Darn them all, despite being a registered Democrat — and in my London days a staunch Labour supporter — I am going to vote for George Dubya...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A prominent Muslim activist who admitted participating in a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was sentenced Friday to the maximum 23 years in prison for illegal business dealings with Libya.

Abdurahman Alamoudi, 52, pleaded guilty in July to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from high-ranking Libyan officials while serving as a go-between for them and Saudi dissidents...

I would only ask the American people: "Who do you trust more, three members of a communist regime that tortured and killed our American troops or a group of more than 280 highly decorated American veterans, who proudly served their country and are now responsible members of their respective communities?"

The number of veterans who support John Kerry’s accounts of his military service would not fill one Swift Boat. But instead of sitting down to interview some of the 280 plus members of our Swift Boat organization, ABC News chose to travel to Vietnam taking extraordinary and highly suspect steps to find someone to corroborate John Kerry's story.

ABC News Nightline has now dedicated three separate programs to this one incident while ignoring John Kerry's now discredited Senate testimony that he spent Christmas in Cambodia, his receiving a purple heart after all three of the officers required to approve such an issuance rejected his application, or his constantly changing account of the circumstances surrounding his remaining medal, a bronze star.

Further, one has to wonder why ABC News will not address the serious questions as to why John Kerry only received an honorable discharge through the act of then President Carter, seven years after his discharge, and had to have all of his military citations reissued, on the same day, when he became a United States Senator in 1985. And, finally, why has Nightline found it of no interest to permit any POWs to come on their program to explain why they believe John Kerry betrayed their nation, caused them to be incarcerated for an additional two years and caused them tremendous additional hardship and suffering.

In an exclusive interview with CNN's Candy Crowley, he said, "No, you can't pay for all of it." It was his first interview since the presidential debate.

To bridge the gap, Kerry said some of the money would come from closing $40 billion in corporate tax loopholes, consolidating federal statistical and export agencies and cutting the number of federal contractors by 100,000.

"We gave the president the authority to load the gun, to hold the trigger, so to speak," Kerry said. "We didn't tell him to shoot himself in the foot."

"I would have wanted that authority if I was president, because it was the only way Saddam Hussein ever responded to anything, is with that threat of force. But I would have used it very differently."

"They're very different. This is a war on terror. That was a civil war, an ideological war," he said.

Crowley responded, "But you said there wasn't a terror threat, right?"

"There is now. That's the problem," Kerry said, adding that Iraq has now become an "extraordinary magnet for jihadists" and a "haven for terrorism" because of Bush's mishandling of the situation.

"I know how to win this peace, and we have to win it," he said.

Both Cheney and his wife, Lynne, have been highly critical of those remarks.

The Palestinian issue and the pre-emptive war in Iraq have undoubtedly accentuated anti-Western sentiment among Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia. But the conduct and rhetoric of Muslim leaders and their failure to address the stagnation of their societies has also fueled the tensions between Islam and the West.

Relations between Muslims and the West will continue to deteriorate unless the internal crisis of the Muslim world is also addressed.

After 9/11, General Musharraf switched support from Afghanistan's Taliban to the U.S.-led war against terrorism. He has since received a hefty package of U.S. military and economic assistance and spoken of the need for "enlightened moderation."

According to an opinion poll conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center as part of its Global Attitudes Survey, 86 percent of Pakistanis have a favorable view of General Musharraf while 65 percent also support Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is viewed favorably by large percentages in other Muslim countries with "moderate" rulers.

Quite clearly, some Muslims find it possible to like Musharraf, who is regarded by the U.S. as the key figure in the hunt for bin Laden, while admiring his quarry at the same time. The contradiction speaks volumes about the general state of confusion in parts of the Muslim world, including Pakistan.

Instead of hard analysis, which thrives only in a free society, Muslims are generally brought up on propaganda, which is often state-sponsored. This propaganda usually focuses on Muslim humiliation at the hands of others instead of acknowledging the flaws of Muslim leaders and societies...

As the September 11 attacks have shown, the perpetrators of the apocalyptic form of terrorism, like their European counterparts, are not the desperately poor of the Arab world, but, more often than not, well-off, upwardly mobile, university-educated youths. They also share with their European counterparts a sense of entrapment in an alien and alienating monolithic sociopolitical reality and a tragic world view centered around a violent and salvific moment of truth that exposes the enveloping world of untruth, false consciousness, and false appearance. Out of the rubble, an essential Truth will emerge. In Europe it was conceived as an authentically humane and egalitarian socialist society. In the Arab world it is the authentic Islamist order reflected in such slogans as “Islam Is the Solution” and “Islam Is the Answer.”...

Jerusalem Av 5764 / August 2004

Dear Friends,

The mitzvah of Mikveh [the ritual bath] has been guarded with mesirut nefesh [self-sacrifice] by Jewish women throughout the centuries.

On the eve of her wedding, Navah Applebaum, of blessed memory, went in joy to perform this special mitzvah. A short time after her tvilah [purifying immersion], Navah and her father Dr. David Applebaum, z’l, were brutally murdered by an Arab terrorist.

In Navah’s memory, we would like to dedicate the Kabbalat Kallah [bridal reception] room in the mikveh of Har Homa. This is a special room in the mikveh where family members and friends gather with the bride on the eve of her immersion. The new neighborhood of Har Homa is in southern Jerusalem, overlooking Kever Rachel [Rachel's Tomb]. The parochet [ark curtain] in Kever Rachel was interwoven with Navah’s wedding gown. We remember Navah, an eternal kallah [bride], and through the Kabbalat Kallah room, link her memory to this source of Jewish life.

In order to make this a reality, we are asking for your generous donation.

Thank you and Ketivah Vechatimah Tovah.

Committee for the Kabbalat Kallah Room:

Debra Applebaum, Chantal Belzberg, Shoshi Bier, Evelyne Birenbaum-Kandel, Felicia Goldszal, Felice Kahn Zisken

To contribute to this unique project in memory of Navah Applebaum, click here.

Donations are US tax deductible. Checks can be made out to OneFamily and sent to any of our offices worldwide. Please mark the check for the "Mikveh Fund".

Lynn B: "Contributions are being accepted through The One Family Fund, at their donation page and may be made by check, credit card or through PayPal. If you wish to make a donation, please include a note or comment specifying that it's to go to the Mikveh Project."

With Pakistani security forces deployed in the mountainous tribal area where the kidnappers were holed up, local leaders sought Tuesday to negotiate the release of the two Chinese, who were building a dam when they were kidnapped Saturday.

The five kidnappers threatened to kill the hostages unless the militants are allowed safe passage to a nearby area where their one-legged leader, Abdullah Mehsud, is believed hiding, officials said.

Mehsud, 28, came back to Pakistan in March after about two years' detention at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was not clear why U.S. authorities released Mehsud.

The operative, identified by U.S. officials in Washington as Dhiren Barot, 32, entered the United States on a student visa, The Record of Bergen County reported in Thursday's editions.

Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's top agent in New Jersey, told the newspaper that the operative attended several institutions of higher learning in New Jersey while carrying out the reconnaissance operation. Billy did not identify the schools. Barot is known to have used several aliases.

Authorities believe Barot was dispatched by Osama bin Laden himself to conduct the scouting mission in New Jersey, the newspaper reported. Barot was arrested by British authorities in August and remains in custody there...

Kerry was asked by the moderator if homosexuality is a choice. He noted that Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Mary is a lesbian. Kerry said Mary Cheney would probably say that she was born that way. Lynn Cheney says Kerry invaded her family's privacy.

She says it gave her another chance to "assess" John Kerry, and she says it only reinforced her opinion that "This is not a good man." Cheney says she's "speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom."

She made the comments while introducing the Vice President to a crowd of 800 Pittsburgh-area supporters. Dick Cheney didn't mention the topic in his remarks.

In the weeks leading up to the 9/11 attacks, Le Monde had embarked on a veritable campaign of incitement against the United States, complete with editorial cartoons on an almost daily basis that would not have been out of place in the most rabidly anti-American specimens of the Arab press. The July 2001 Group of Eight meetings in Genoa, Italy, provided the occasion for a front-page offering of dubious taste by the paper's lead cartoonist, Plantu. It shows George W. Bush, protesters in the background, giving orders to seven figures, representing the other participating nations, who are variously depicted as bound, gagged, and blindfolded by American flags or impaled through a variety of orifices upon the flagpoles bearing them. "Tell these kids to stop the violence!" Mr. Bush demands.

An article on the "antiglobalization" movement Attac in the edition of Aug. 28, 2001, was accompanied by a cartoon by Plantu's colleague Serguei. In it, the world is depicted as the body of a living piggy-bank sporting an Uncle Sam hat and a stubbly beard and with a fat cigar embossed by a dollar sign stuck between its teeth. A small dark figure, evidently the dispossessed of the earth, holds out its hand pathetically. Another offering by Serguei from August, this one accompanying an article on Henry Kissinger and Chile, depicts Uncle Sam with a death's head, glowering at a globe dripping in blood. In his right hand, the Uncle Sam figure clutches the cigar with the dollar sign on it: the icon of American cupidity.

The 9/11 attacks did nothing to curb this onslaught. On the contrary, they only seemed to inflect the rising curve of animosity more sharply upward. In the weeks and months that followed, Le Monde would return with mind-numbing regularity to the theme of American guilt in connection with 9/11, typically leaving it to third parties to say openly in its pages what its publisher in his "All Americans" piece had merely insinuated or stated as conjecture...

"If the Arabs will not leave willingly, we will make them leave by force," said Jamal Adnan, a taxi driver who left his house in Fallujah's Shurta neighborhood a month ago after the house next door was bombed by U.S. aircraft targeting foreign insurgents...

...U.S. and Iraqi authorities together have insisted that if Fallujah is to avoid an all-out assault aimed at regaining control of the city, foreign fighters must be ejected. Several local leaders of the insurgency say they, too, want to expel the foreigners, whom they scorn as terrorists. They heap particular contempt on Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose Monotheism and Jihad group has asserted responsibility for many of the deadliest attacks across Iraq, including videotaped beheadings.

"He is mentally deranged, has distorted the image of the resistance and defamed it. I believe his end is near," Abu Abdalla Dulaimy, military commander of the First Army of Mohammad, said recently.

One of the foreign guerrillas killed by local fighters was Abu Abdallah Suri, a Syrian and a prominent member of Zarqawi's group, whose body was discovered Sunday. Suri was shot in the head and chest while being chased by a carload of tribesmen, according to a security guard who said he witnessed the killing...

The bodies, believed to be Kurds killed during Saddam's crackdown in 1987-88, are buried in nine trenches in Hatra, according to Greg Kehoe, an American who works with the Iraqi Special Tribunal, which is preparing the trial of Saddam and his henchmen.

Kehoe said his team has removed 120 bodies from a trench believed to contain as many as 300 bodies.

He said that because of limited funds and resources, his team can excavate only one mass grave at a time. European teams who worked on Bosnian mass graves are not helping because of their concerns that Saddam could face the death penalty, he said...

"Unlike bodies that you've seen in many mass graves -- they look like cordwood -- all lined up," he said. "That didn't happen here. These bodies were just pushed in."

He said excavators found the body of a mother still clutching her baby. The infant was shot in the back of the head and the mother in the face.

Kehoe said that most mass graves in Bosnia largely contain men of fighting age. Graves near Hatra included many women and children, he said...

...Human rights organizations estimate that more than 300,000 people were killed during Saddam's 24-year rule, which ended when U.S.-led forces toppled his regime in 2003...

In June 2003, the Committee for Justice commissioned a poll of Hispanics nationwide, a plurality of whom were Democrats: 33% knew of Mr. Estrada and the battle over his nomination, extremely high awareness for an appellate nominee. When told of his story and qualifications, 87% believed he deserved an up-or-down vote in the Senate. Sen. Allard has said that when he reached out to Hispanics in his state in 2002, he talked about just two issues: tax cuts and Miguel Estrada. On Election Day, Sen. Allard's support among Hispanics had improved by 25%, contributing to his tight margin of victory. This year, Republicans should remind Hispanics of Mr. Estrada--opposed by Democrats "because he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment."

While the history of Democratic tactics on Judge Pickering and Mr. Estrada may be enough to drive Southern and Hispanic votes, the other part of the argument is substantive. A survey of Catholics summarizes trends that likely reflect attitudes in many other groups: that the courts are too liberal and Republicans are more likely to appoint more mainstream judges. According to the August poll by QEV Analytics, Catholics agreed by a margin of 54% to 39% that " 'liberal federal judges' threaten traditional American values." Bush-voting Catholics agreed by a margin of 75% to 21%. Of greater import, a margin of 55% to 37% of swing voters identifies liberal judges as a danger; and by 45% to 39%, respondents said President Bush was "more likely to appoint federal judges who share your values." This margin could be wider, with a little work...

The answer lies in a conversation I had with my sister in a charming ice cream parlor in Philadelphia’s historic Suburban Station this afternoon. I looked up from my dessert and said, ‘My God, I’ve gone for nineteen days without anybody -- not taxi drivers, shop clerks or waiters -- launching an abusive tirade at me.

Here is the background scenario: Exactly one month ago today, I was traveling on a London bus when a well-dressed woman boarded with her equally-respectable son in his school uniform. Ahead of her was an elderly American woman, who said, ‘I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to bang into you.’ This prompted a tirade from the Englishwoman -- let’s call her Lady E -- that resembled a verbal assault by a brownshirt against a hapless Jewish pedestrian in 1933. The American -- call her Mrs. A -- sat down and cowered as the tirade continued: ‘I rejoice every time I hear of another American soldier dying! You people all deserve to die in another 9/11. You are destroying the world.’ Mrs A fought back: ‘I personally am NOT destroying the world.’ This only provoked Lady E more, and as the bus driver and passengers laughed, she screamed into the American’s face ‘I wish every one of you would leave this country and not set foot in it ever again,’ and Mrs A began to wince, crying. ‘Thank you for ruining my day and my trip.’ At this point Lady E lunged at the American and began to shake her. I jumped up and shouted at the top of my voice for the driver to stop and for her to leave the woman alone, prompting Lady E to come over to me and grab me. ‘Another bloody American accent! You come here and think you can strut about, well, you are scum.’ Thankfully, the woman next to me pushed her away. I left the bus as the American woman sat sobbing.

Did I imagine this? No. Was the Englishwoman a crazy? No...

The ministers also said a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, as suggested by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, could not be substitute for a two-state solution. The road map peace plan, which suggests such a solution, has gained the support of the EU, US, UN and Russia.

"[The EU] condemns the disproportionate nature of Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip," they said in a statement.

The ministers recognized Israel's right to defend its citizens against Kassam rocket attacks but said, "These actions have claimed the lives of many innocent civilians, including children, and left many injured," Reuters quoted the ministers as saying...

The report last week of the Iraq Survey Group, based partly on interviews with captured leaders of the secretive Iraqi regime, said Hussein planned to have his troops and loyalists pull back after an initial US thrust and engage the Americans under terms more favorable to the Iraqis...

What did happen, I wondered, to the little boy who cried when Adlai Stevenson lost? What happened to the young man whose heroes were Abraham, Martin, and John? Time changes the river, I suppose, and it changes all of us as well. I was tired of Sudan being on the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. I was tired of dictators with Swiss bank accounts, like Castro and Arafat and Mugabe, masquerading as men of the people. I was tired of Europeans picking on cowboys, everybody picking on the Jews, and the whole supposedly civilized world of gutless wonders, including the dinosaur graveyard called Berkeley, picking on America and Israel. As I write this, 1.2 million black Christian and Muslim Sudanese are starving to death thanks to the Arab government in Khartoum and the worldwide mafia of France, Germany, China, Russia, and practically every Islamic country on the face of the earth. What happened to the little boy who cried when Adlai Stevenson lost? He died in Darfur.

"I don't know what happened," I said. "But as Joseph Heller once wrote, 'Something happened.'"...

The outspoken Kenyan environmentalist on Friday became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She was honored for aiding the poor with a campaign to plant trees and slow deforestation.

Maathai, rarely reluctant to challenge the status quo or confront the powerful, said her comments in August were intended to promote an inquiring attitude to AIDS among Africans and combat the fatalistic notion that it was a curse from God.

''Would you solve the problem if you believed it was a curse from God?" she said at a news conference, adding that one theory was that AIDS was created by a scientist in a laboratory as an agent of war. ''I was encouraging people to ask questions, which is what I always do."

Maathai caused a furor in Kenya when she was quoted in Kenya's East African Standard newspaper as calling AIDS a biological weapon devised to destroy black people. ''Do not be naive. AIDS is not a curse from God to Africans or the black people. It is a tool to control them designed by some evil-minded scientists, but we may not know who particularly did [it]," the Aug. 31 article quoted her as saying at a seminar in her home town of Nyeri...

The main combat and defence weapon Canada has are over flown 30-year old CF-18’s, in case you didn’t know a great deal of the existing fleet have been grounded due to airframe stress and cracks. Also in case anyone was wondering the jets have 2 runway locations: One in Quebec and one in Alberta, this is one of the largest geographical nations on earth with 3 ocean boarders; so if an emergency happened in Newfoundland, it seems highly doubtful any aircraft would arrive on time to act.

Canada’s infantry and army coverage in times of crisis is an absolute joke, numerous administrations including the previous one led by Jean Chretien have gone out of their way to decimate the various army divisions. Canada will be one of the first Western World nations that I’m aware which plans to completely eliminate and phase out its military tank division in 2005/2006. Add to the fact that we have soldiers being sent out in basket case desert real estate throughout the Middle East dressed in bright green uniforms so they can be picked off one by one. It’s so bad in fact I had someone tell me a story about dumping paint on a uniform and then rolling around in the sand so that it would stick and dry onto the uniform acting as a poor man version of camouflage. Oh and by the way stories have been appearing in various papers that the training facilities in which new soldiers are trained are doing so without bullets for the machine guns.

Submarines are meant to submerge and then float back up like a boat, right? Can someone please tell me why we have ancient submarines which are dead at sea? We have had a number of submarines that have attempted to make crossings of the Atlantic Ocean, and have been stranded around Scotland and Ireland now during the last number of years dead in the water...

Labor Party leader Mark Latham conceded defeat in a speech to his supporters in western Sydney, saying he called Howard to congratulate him on his fourth straight election victory.

"Tonight was not our night," Latham said.

The election was widely seen abroad as the first referendum for the three leaders who launched the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, with President Bush facing a ballot next month and British Prime Minister Tony Blair probably facing voters next year.

The Labor Party had vowed to bring the approximate 900 Australian troops deployed in and around Iraq home by Christmas, while Howard insisted they will stay until Iraqis ask them to leave.

Heavily guarded polling stations in Afghanistan opened at 7:00 a.m. (3:30 a.m. British time) and will close at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, although Afghan refugees in neighbouring Pakistan started voting half an hour earlier.

Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed leader of the interim government formed after the Taliban was driven from power in late 2001, is widely expected to retain the presidency. But whether he will get the 51 percent needed to avoid a November runoff is unlikely to be known until late-October.

I get e-mails from you people every day and I see your candidate on TV every night. Shame on you all.

In my speeches, I have said that the United States paid a price for not stopping the looting in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations and that we did not have enough troops on the ground to accomplish that task. The press and critics of the war have seized on these remarks in an effort to undermine President Bush's Iraq policy.

This effort won't succeed. Let me explain why...

"She is an amazing woman. Intelligent, smart, very fair. Both educated and extraordinarily pleasant. But beneath that deep courtesy and culture, she can also be very firm. She can be decisive."

Does she ever raise her voice at you, yell at you?

"What do you mean, raise her voice? I'm older than she is, you know. The Americans don't talk like we do here."

Tell me about the dynamics of the relationship between you, and whether it's an unusual relationship.

"I am in ongoing and continuous contact with Rice. In complex times it could be every day, by phone. In less complex times it's a phone call a week. On average, I meet with her once a month. Since May 2002 I have met with her more than 20 times. And every meeting is a meeting. The shortest one was an hour and a half."

What does she call you?

"Dubi."

What do you call her?

"Condy."

And how does it work between you?

"The channel between Rice and me has two main purposes. One is to advance processes that are initiated, to examine our ideas and their ideas. The road map, for example, or the disengagement plan. But there is an equally important function, which is troubleshooting. If something happens - an unusual military operation, a hitch, a targeted assassination that succeeded or one that didn't succeed - before it becomes an imbroglio, she calls me and says, `We saw so-and-so on CNN. What's going on?' And I say, `Condy, the usual 10 minutes?' She laughs and we hang up. Ten minutes later, after I find out what happened, I get back to her and tell her the whole truth. The whole truth. I tell her and she takes it down: this is what we intended, this is how it came out. She doesn't get worked up. She believes us. The continuation is damage control."...

Sources in Ramallah said three gunmen stormed a local hospital and kidnapped Sami Burnat, 51, a resident of Balin village west of the city.

The kidnappers took Burnat to a nearby field, where they sprayed him with bullets, killing him instantly, the sources added.

The Aksa Martyrs Brigades issued a leaflet in which it claimed that Burnat had sold land to Jews, but did not elaborate.

Burnat had been held in a Palestinian prison in Ramallah and was being guarded by ten unarmed policemen when he was brought to hospital...

Councilor Jerry P. McDermott (D-Brighton), vice chairman of the Post Audit and Oversight Committee, ordered city officials to explain why a 1.9-acre parcel along Malcolm X Boulevard, conservatively valued at $401,187, was sold to the Islamic Society of Boston for $175,000 and ``in-kind benefits'' to Roxbury Community College.

The Herald reported last week that the land deal is the subject of a lawsuit asserting that it represents an unconstitutional government subsidy of a religion: Islam.

``We want a full accounting by the end of the month,'' McDermott said. ``If they can afford a $22 million mosque, why can't they pay fair-market value for the land?''

Boston Redevelopment Authority officials said they could not comment due to the litigation.

Also yesterday, a Muslim-American scholar joined the growing chorus of voices urging the Islamic Society's leadership to disavow any connections to radical Islam.

At a press conference sponsored by Citizens for Peace and Tolerance (www.hatefreeamerica.com), Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour, an Egyptian-born political refugee once jailed there for defending moderate Islamic causes, said ``I am here to testify that this radical culture is here inside this society.''

Mansour, a former visiting fellow at Harvard Law School, said he went to the society's current headquarters in Cambridge a year ago and discovered ``Arabic-language newsletters filled with hateful statements against the United States.'' He also said the center's library housed books and videos ``representing fanatical beliefs that insult other people's religions.''

Representatives of the society have repeatedly declined to comment to the Herald since the newspaper, beginning in 2003, started highlighting ties between four of the mosque's key figures and Islamic radicals. They refused to comment yesterday on any matters.

On their Web site (www.isboston.org), the society has posted rebuttals to the Herald articles. On Sept. 10, the society posted a ``values statement'' that says: ``We, the Islamic Society of Boston, practice and promote a comprehensive, balanced view of Islam. We strive to embody the middle path to which our scriptures call us, a path of moderation, free of extremism, and representative of the Islamic vision of a healthy community.''

But Mansour said he fears radical Islamists could gain an upper hand at the new cultural center. ``I'm not against the mosque,'' he said. ``I'm against the extremists.'

Third, Sandler's article assembles compelling evidence that the looting of Iraq's antiquities under Saddam only came to an end because of the invasion. Indeed, if Sandler is to be believed, the removal of Saddam by the coalition was the only reason that the systematic looting came to a halt. The obvious conclusion -- though too pro-Bush for The Atlantic to write directly -- is that the collections of Iraq's museums are much larger today than they would have been had Saddam remained in power...

The bill, introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., had little support and no chance of passing. The Republican-controlled House held the vote to make sure it was defeated during a close presidential race in which talk of a draft has run rampant. The vote was 402-2...

A Japanese and Mongolian research team found the complex on a grassy steppe 150 miles east of the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, said Shinpei Kato, professor emeritus at Tokyo's Kokugakuin University.

Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) united warring tribes to become leader of the Mongols in 1206. After his death, his descendants expanded his empire until it stretched from China to Hungary...

Iraqi officials deny that any changes are afoot. They say Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was merely being polite when he took the hand of Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who was sitting next to him because countries' delegates were arranged in alphabetical order at the United Nations.

But many Iraqis are viewing developments with suspicion...

...In Iraq's National Assembly, some called Allawi's handshake disgraceful and demanded an apology.

One of the most outspoken advocates of a new Iraqi view toward Israel is Mithal al Alusi, a former spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi, who's head of the former exile group the Iraqi National Congress. Al Alusi visited Israel in September for a terrorism conference and argues forcefully that other Arab countries have reached accommodations with Israel and Iraq needs to do the same.

"One of the most important countries to Iraq is the U.S. They helped us get rid of Saddam and they also are helping us build so we can support our country. One of the most important American allies in the Middle East is Israel," al Alusi said.

"How can we work and build stability and ignore Israel?" al Alusi asked. "We cannot ignore our strategic borders."

An Iraqi newspaper reported Monday that Iraq's highest court has charged al Alusi with treason for the visit and his family has denounced him, asking that he no longer use his last name because they don't want to be associated with him. The report couldn't be confirmed...

"They may think they can ram a new relationship with Israel through, regardless of public opinion," Cole said. "There is a lot of money to be made, after all, and lots of good will to be picked up from the U.S. and from lobbies in the U.S."...

KBR's other major contract in Iraq was Restore Iraqi Oil, a program to get the country's petroleum flowing quickly to finance reconstruction. That contract was awarded without bidding, and with good reason. The company was simply the only one capable of handling all of the possible challenges, including oil-well fires and pipeline breakdowns. And the Pentagon's confidence has been rewarded: KBR restored production to pre-war levels three months ahead of schedule.

Given the risky work and the firestorm of criticism from Democrats, one would think that Halliburton was making profit hand over fist in Iraq. Sadly for the company's shareholders, that is not the case. Profit from Logcap would come mostly from an "award fee," granted by the military on the basis of how well the company contains costs, and which may not exceed 2% of costs. Likewise, the profit potential on the oil contract is strictly limited and will probably end up between 1% and 3%, compared to the usual margin of 15% for private oil industry services. Halliburton is so underwhelmed by the returns on this government contracting that it is trying to spin off its KBR subsidiary...

Hitchens - who has just returned from Afghanistan - says, "The world these [al-Quadea and Taliban] fascists want to create is one of constant submission and servility. The individual only has value to them if they enter into a life of constant reaffirmation and prayer. It is pure totalitarianism, and one of the ugliest totalitarianisms we've seen. It's the irrational combined with the idea of a completely closed society. To stand equidistant between that and a war to remove it is?" He shakes his head. I have never seen Hitch grasping for words before...

..."It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism," he elaborates. "So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying ?Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting[ital] Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region."

"That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act." He continues, "Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested."...

In other words, the western democracies of the world pay the salaries of the Hamas terrorists on the payroll of UNRWA.

During a special UNRWA conference on the subject of Palestinian Arab refugees in Geneva last June, I asked UNRWA Director Peter Hanson about the fact that Hamas dominated his personnel. Hansen did not deny that fact. Instead, Hansen remarked that, "UNRWA does not check the religious affiliation of its workers" – as if the Hamas was some kind of religious denomination...

"Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another."

Hansen told the CBC, however, that the UN expects all employees to act with neutrality.

"We demand of our staff, whatever their political persuasion is, that they behave in accordance with UN standards and norms for neutrality," he said.

Israel's foreign ministry said Monday that the government viewed Hansen's comments with the utmost gravity.

"Hansen confirms that Hamas is part of UNRWA," ministry spokesman David Saranga said.

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman called Hansen's comments especially worrisome given the aerial photographs released last week showing a long object - a Qassam rocket according to the Israel Defense Forces and a stretcher according to UNRWA - being loaded into a van marked "UN."...

In military matters, the US spends $370.7 billion. This exceeds the next 15 largest defense budgets combined ($370.7 billion-$365.4 billion). Out of those 15, the US has assistance from 6 nations (formerly 7, before Spain Muniched out) totalling defense expenditures of $154 billion. So out of the top 16 defense spenders in the world, 7 are in Iraq. Those that are not: China, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, Spain, Canada, and Israel. Out of that list, half (China, Russia, Saudia Arabia, India, and Israel) can safely be put in the category of "We either don't won't their help, or their help would be counterproductive."

So tell me, out of France, Germany, Brazil, Spain, or Canda (total defesne budget: $110.3 billion, less than 1/3 of US defense spending), which ones would have to join before it would be a real alliance?...