Archived news and commentary: December 2 - 8, 2002

2002/12/30 - 2003/01/05
2002/12/23 - 2002/12/29
2002/12/16 - 2002/12/22
2002/12/09 - 2002/12/15
2002/12/02 - 2002/12/08
2002/11/25 - 2002/12/01
2002/11/18 - 2002/11/24
2002/11/11 - 2002/11/17
2002/11/04 - 2002/11/10
2002/10/28 - 2002/11/03
2002/10/21 - 2002/10/27
2002/10/14 - 2002/10/20
2002/10/07 - 2002/10/13
2002/09/30 - 2002/10/06

Sunday, December 8, 2002

News and commentary:

"Al Qaeda Training Manual" (The Department of Justice/Cryptome, 2002/12/08)
A HTML-version of translated excerpts from a manual which was located by the Manchester (England) Metropolitan Police during a search of an Al Qaeda member's home:
"DECLARATION OF JIHAD [HOLY WAR]
AGAINST THE COUNTRY’S TYRANTS
MILITARY SERIES
[Emblem]: A drawing of the globe emphasizing the Middle East and Africa with a sword through the globe
[On the emblem:] Military Studies in the Jihad [Holy War] Against the Tyrants
... The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates..., Platonic ideals..., nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun. ...
Pledge, O Sister Covenant, O Sister ... to make their women widows and their children orphans.
Covenant, O Sister ... to make them desire death and hate appointments and prestige.
Covenant, O Sister ... to slaughter them like lambs and let the Nile, al-Asi, and Euphrates rivers flow with their blood.
Covenant, O Sister ... to be a pick of destruction for every godless and apostate regime.
Covenant, O Sister ... to retaliate for you against every dog who touch you even with a bad word." (See also the PDF-version: "Al Qaeda Training Manual" (The Department of Justice, 2002/12/07))

"Al-Qaeda 'vows fresh attacks'" (BBC News, 2002/12/08)
"The al-Qaeda network has threatened more attacks on Israeli and US targets in a fresh claim of responsibility for last month's attacks in Kenya, which killed 13 people. "The Jewish Crusader coalition will not be safe anywhere from the fighters' attacks," said al-Qaeda's spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith in an audio statement broadcast by the Qatari-based al-Jazeera television channel. ... Abu Ghaith - one the main suspects in the 11 September attacks on the US - warned of more and wider attacks on American and Israeli targets "on land, air and sea". "We will hit the most vital centres and we will strike against its strategic operations with all possible means," the statement said."

"Not Just Anti-Semitic Lies!" (Ehud Ya'ari, The Jerusalem Report, from the 2002/12/16 issue)
"'Horseman without a horse,' the Egyptian TV hit series being broadcast by 14 Arab TV networks, is not the only anti-Semitic production to be galloping across the screens each evening this Ramadan. ... Al-Manar, the Hizballah TV station broadcast from Lebanon, features Dr. Ghazi Hussein, a veteran salaried PLO lackey and a former adviser to the late Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad. Hussein sits in the studio and knowledgeably defines the typical characteristics of the Jew, including "lying, treachery and greed" and goes on at length to describe Jewish baseness. ... Syrian TV is running the dramatic locally produced series, "The Collapse of Legends." Its central premise is that there is no archeological evidence to support the stories of the Old Testament; that the Torah we hold holy is nothing but one big forgery made up by rabbis; that it has no connection with the Ten Commandments, but is rather a fabrication of history designed to give the Jews a claim to the Land of Israel. ...
The essence of the message is that there is no possibility of making peace with the Jews - not because of any political argument or clash over territory, but because that nation is a priori unfit to be counted among the human race. The Jewish religion is one big, ongoing lie, and Jewish history is the fruit of a consistent distortion of the past. Furthermore, the Jewish people present a future threat to the rest of the world." (See also: "Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' Gets New Life on Egypt TV" (Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, 2002/10/26))

"The Quiet Power of Condi Rice" (Evan Thomas, Newsweek, from the 2002/12/16 issue)
A profile of the "Warrior Princess": "Superficially, Bush and Rice are opposites: the rich white boy from Texas who goofed off in school; the middle-class black girl who was a grind. But in fact they are well matched, and not just by a well-publicized mutual fondness for working out and watching sports on TV. The two are possessed of a certain defiant independence, almost an orneriness. They know what it's like to be underestimated, and they take obvious pleasure in going their own way. Deeply religious, the Presbyterian Rice and the Methodist Bush share a messianic streak. Rice's real job is to help steer Bush's black-and-white moral impulses in the murky, morally ambiguous real world. ... Rice was one of Bush's advisers who instantly saw that the war on terror was global. "The initial knee-jerk reaction after 9-11 was to go after Al Qaeda," Powell told Newsweek. He credits her with focusing as well on states that sponsor terrorism. Bush's description of an "Axis of Evil" caused a sensation in the press when Bush uttered the phrase in the State of the Union address this January, but in fact Rice had been privately talking to Bush about going after all rogue nations harboring WMD within a week of 9-11."

"From a June 19 speech by Hashem Aghajari delivered in Hamedan, Iran, on the 25th anniversary of the death of controversial Islamic scholar Ali Shariati. Translated from the Farsi." (Hashem Aghajari, The Washington Post Outlook, 2002/12/08)
"The Words That Branded Them" (The Washington Post Outlook, 2002/12/08) is an introduction to excerpts from writings by three Islamic dissenters - Taslima Nasrin, Toujan Faisal and Hashem Aghajari - who in recent months "have been jailed - or worse, condemned to death - for airing dissenting views". Aghajari's death sentence for apostasy "also includes 74 lashes of the whip, eight years in prison and a 10-year prohibition from teaching.": "The understandings and interpretations of spiritual thinkers are irrelevant to Islam. These are their understandings. As they had the right to read and understand the Koran, so do we. We have the right to read the Koran and develop our own understanding. This understanding cannot be decreed to us. ... To understand Islam today, and in every generation, one must consider himself the direct recipient of the Holy book, a recipient of God's [message] and the prophets. . . . We have the right to receive and interpret this message on our own and based on our own circumstances. Accepting ancient and accumulated traditions just because they are historical is regressive. It is mimicry. ... The religion we need today is one that respects human beings and values human [rights]. Compared with traditional religions, the fundamentalists are prone to harsh violations of human rights. Relying on their fundamentals, it is easy for them to declare, 'Anyone who is not with us is our enemy.'" (See also: "From 'Meybela - My Bengali Girlhood: A Memoir of Growing Up Female in a Muslim World'" (Taslima Nasrin, The Washington Post Outlook, 2002/12/08) and "From an open letter to the Jordanian king, published March 6 on the Web site of the Arab Times (www.arabtimes.com), based in Houston. Translated from the Arabic" (Toujan Faisal, The Washington Post Outlook, 2002/12/08))

"It's not our fault we're morally superior to U.S." (Richard Gwyn, The Star, 2002/12/08)
At first I thought this column on the "morally superior" Canadians was a parody. For instance, anti-American Canadians are hardly unique when they "dare to feel morally superior" to Americans That's rather a pretty good definition of anti-Americanism generally. Also, Gwyn's allegation that Americans "are absolutely certain they are superior to everyone else" is a telling example of the "racialism" prevalent in recent anti-Americanism, lambasting Americans rather than American policies:
"First, for Canadians to feel this way, even if wholly unjustified, is a sign of national self-confidence. It makes us unique in the world Lots of others resent Americans, envy them, wish they'd get out of their faces. Some people hate Americans. Many others love them. Lots of people both love them and hate them. Only Canadians, though, dare to feel morally superior to them. ... It's quite challenging to understand why we should be so bold. My own guess is it's because we feel we are better North Americans than they are; that is, we jointly possess most of the essential attributes of being a North American - optimism, love of freedom, a sense of limitless possibilities - but, in addition, have done a better job of being a collective, of having a sense of solidarity. ... If all of this is good for us - certainly a lot better than our traditional, self-deprecatory foot-shuffling - it's also good for Americans. They are absolutely certain they are superior to everyone else. Americans absorb with their mothers' milk a conviction that they are an exceptional nation, a city on the hill, a light unto others. ... Back to the main point. Quite a few Canadians do feel morally superior to Americans. If that nettles some Americans, good - it might help them to understand how the rest of the world feels about Americans' overwhelming presumption of superiority to everyone and everything."

"The Liberal Quandary Over Iraq" (George Packer, The New York Times Magazine, 2002/12/08)
Packer traces the quandary back to Bosnia. Including interviews with Michael Ignatieff, Michael Walzer, Paul Berman, David Rieff, Leon Wieseltier and Christopher Hitchens about their positions on Iraq:
"One chilly evening in late November, a panel discussion on Iraq was convened at New York University. The participants were liberal intellectuals, and one by one they framed reasonable arguments against a war in Iraq: inspections need time to work; the Bush doctrine has a dangerous agenda; the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East is not encouraging. The audience of 150 New Yorkers seemed persuaded. Then the last panelist spoke. He was an Iraqi dissident named Kanan Makiya, and he said, ''I'm afraid I'm going to strike a discordant note.'' He pointed out that Iraqis, who will pay the highest price in the event of an invasion, ''overwhelmingly want this war.'' He outlined a vision of postwar Iraq as a secular democracy with equal rights for all of its citizens. This vision would be new to the Arab world. ... The effect was electrifying. The room, which just minutes earlier had settled into a sober and comfortable rejection of war, exploded in applause. The other panelists looked startled, and their reasonable arguments suddenly lay deflated on the table before them. Michael Walzer, who was on the panel, smiled wanly. ''It's very hard to respond,'' he said. It was hard, I thought, because Makiya had spoken the language beloved by liberal hawks. He had met their hope of avoiding a war with an even greater hope. He had given the people in the room an image of their own ideals.''

"The Trouble With Amnesty" (The Wall Street Journal, 2002/12/08)
"The London-based organization does not dispute the contents of the dossier, "Saddam Hussein: Crimes and Human Rights Abuses." In fact, the British Foreign Office relied on human rights groups to put together this report. But according to an Amnesty spokesman, "human rights should not be used as an excuse to go to war." This has been Amnesty's line pretty consistently. Its secretary general, Irene Khan, wrote recently that "this selective attention to human rights is nothing but a cold and calculated manipulation of the work of human rights activists. Let us not forget that these same governments turned a blind eye to Amnesty International's reports of widespread human rights violations in Iraq before the Gulf War." This raises several questions. An immediate one is, shouldn't human rights be the best cause for starting a war? Shouldn't conscientious governments care when human beings are being mistreated, and do something about it? ...
The group has raised a fuss about al Qaeda and Taliban operatives being held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. But why? Despite their crimes, they are not being tortured, they get three square meals a day, a shower and time to pray. It has also practically put the entire blame for the Middle Eastern conflict on the Israelis, absolving the Palestinians of almost all responsibility. Now it goes soft on Saddam, because the U.S. is finally getting tough with him. This is human rights work?" (See also: "UK unveils Iraq 'torture' dossier" (BBC News, 2002/12/02))

"Miss World urges: 'Lift fatwa'" (CNN.com, 2002/12/08)
A surprisingly moral stance from Morley, considering her former statement blaming the journalist for the riots: "The British-based Miss World organisation is to campaign for the overturning of a fatwa, or religious edict, ordering the death of a Nigerian journalist whose article on the pageant sparked deadly riots. "My next aim is to ask the Muslims to forgive her in that area where they rioted," Julia Morley, who heads the Miss World Organisation, told Reuters after Saturday's controversy-dogged 2002 competition ended in London. "This is the time now to say 'well, look, don't persecute her. She said sorry, forgive her'," Morley said." (See also: "Livingstone says Miss World is not welcome" (Simon Jeffery, The Guardian, 2002/11/26): "Announcing the change of venue, Miss World's organiser, Julia Morley, this morning said the contest bore no blame for the troubles. 'Miss World cannot be held responsible for the riots. They were down to one journalist who wrote something which inflamed the local people.'")

"Buildup Leaves U.S. Military Nearly Set to Start Attack" (Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 2002/12/08)
"The United States will soon have enough heavy tanks, warships, aircraft, bombs and troops in the Persian Gulf region to enable it to begin an attack against Iraq sometime in January, senior military officials say. About 60,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen, as well as about 200 warplanes, are in or near the region. The Army alone has 9,000 soldiers, 24 Apache helicopter gunships and heavy equipment for two armored brigades in Kuwait. ... Taken together, those are unmistakable signs that before long, President Bush will be in a position to order an attack to disarm Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein, and have it carried out within days, senior military officials said."

Added in archive:
"After Saddam 1" (Kanan Makiya, Prospect, from the November 2002 issue)

Saturday, December 7, 2002

News and commentary:

"Iraq hands over weapons dossier" (BBC News, 2002/12/07)
"Iraq has handed over to the United Nations a huge dossier setting out details of the country's weapons programme - one day ahead of the deadline to do so. Iraqi officials carried the 12,000-page document and two separate annexes into the UN inspectors' Baghdad headquarters in cardboard boxes and plastic bags. ... National Monitoring Directorate head Hussam Mohammed Amin said that Iraq was "empty of any weapons of mass destruction", although the document contained some activities which were potentially for dual military and civilian use. The BBC's Ben Brown in Baghdad says that in view of this, the dossier is almost certain to fall short of US and British demands." (See also: "Kuwaitis urged to expel 'infidels'" (BBC News, 2002/12/07): "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has appealed to the Kuwaiti people to support Baghdad against what he called infidel forces. In a televised address read by Information Minister Mohamed Said Sahaf, the Iraqi leader said both Iraq and Kuwait had been victims of the Gulf War in 1991. But he accused the leadership of Kuwait of conspiring "hand in hand" with those who were preparing to attack Iraq, and urged Kuwaitis to join the fight against this. Saddam Hussein also apologised to the Kuwaitis for what he termed acts that had caused anger in the past, saying he wanted to set the record straight about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. 'We apologise to God for any deed that angered him in the past, which we might not have known of and is blamed on us, and on this basis we also apologise to you.'")

"Bangladesh Cinema Bombs Kill 15, Wound Nearly 300" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2002/12/07)
"A series of near-simultaneous bomb blasts at four Bangladesh cinemas packed with families celebrating the end of the Ramadan Muslim fasting month killed 15 people on Saturday and wounded nearly 300, police said. The bombs went off at movie theaters in and around the normally quiet tourist town of Mymenshingh, 95 miles north of the capital, at 6 p.m. About 50 of the wounded were in critical condition, doctors said. Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury said the attacks could be the work of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network or another terrorist group and ordered a national security alert. ... The theaters were full of nearly 2,000 men, women and children celebrating the Eid al-Fitr festival that concludes Ramadan, police said. Doctors said many of the wounded had lost limbs. ... The Hindustan Times of India quoted an intelligence report last month as saying that Bangladesh, India's eastern neighbor, had become a haven for al Qaeda and that Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, a top deputy of bin Laden, had been in Bangladesh since September. Dhaka dismissed that report."

"Jill Nelson's Salon Letter" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2002/12/07)
"The MSNBC commentator, Jill Nelson, has just responded to my criticism of her statement that "As far as I'm concerned it's equally disrespectful and abusive to have women prancing around a stage in bathing suits for cash or walking the streets shrouded in burkas in order to survive." Here's her letter, and my response: ... 'Finally, I'm offended and bored by Sullivan and all the other willfully oblivious white guys who thought they were immune from the world's terrors - and worse, believe they had a divine right to be - until Sept. 11. Now, having experienced the terror that much of the world lives with every day, they respond by swinging their dicks around and threatening - with bombs or bombast - those who do not view the world as they do. Talk about cultural relativism, p.c. journalism, and decadent machismo! But then, what's new? In spite of all the rhetoric about how the terrorist attacks "changed us," the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Threatening? Whom have I threatened? All I've done is make an argument in a liberal publication. But this is too much for her victimized sensibility. Notice the racism again - "willfully oblivious white guys." Notice also the sexism: "swinging their dicks around." Can you imagine the fuss if some right-wing nut started complaining about women waving their privates around? Notice the thinly veiled homophobia: "he has no women friends." If you want proof of the idea that the bile of the far left has become in some respects indistinguishable from that of the far right, just read this letter again. And notice also how little she has to say and how diligently she has learned to hate.'" (See also: "Letters" (Jill Nelson, Salon.com, 2002/12/06) and "Beauties and the Beasts" (Andrew Sullivan, Salon.com/andrewsullivan.com, 2002/11/27))

"Love you, love you not. A world trying to hate the US" (Ben Macintyre, The Times, 2002/12/07)
"There is a residual Neo-Marxist train of thought which holds that anti-Americanism in general, and the attack on the World Trade Centre in particular, herald the beginning of the end of global capitalism, part of an ineluctable process in which the oppressed countries will rise and overthrow the capitalist behemoth. ...
So are September 11 and the new anti-Americanism evidence of a global revolt against American capitalism? Hardly. The World Trade Centre attacks did not undermine American capitalism but rather increased political unity within it, provoking a more bullish internationalism. The notion that al-Qaeda's insane perversion of Islam represents revolution of a kind Marx would have recognised is mere fantasy. Increased America-bashing is not evidence of some economically driven uprising by the poorest countries against the richest one, but a sign that the US is not handling its hegemonic status well. ...
America's growing unpopularity will be stopped and reversed when a greater effort is made to persuade the world's myriad Coca-Cola drinkers that the Pax Americana, for all its flaws, is still the best pax around." (See also: "World Image of U.S. Declines" (Richard Morin, The Washington Post, 2002/12/05) and "The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing" (Lee Harris, Policy Review, from the December 2002 - January 2003 issue))

"Abrams Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle" (Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, 2002/12/07)
"Elliott Abrams, a pugnacious conservative and passionate advocate of Israel, is no stranger to Washington's policy wars. But Mr. Abrams's selection this week as President Bush's director of Middle Eastern affairs at the White House plunged him into one of the sharpest disputes in the nation's capital - the one in the administration over how to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Abrams's appointment thrilled those who had criticized the administration for being too tough on Israel and too deferential to the Palestinians. But it dismayed those, especially at the State Department, who want Israel to ease its crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza. ... He was a fierce opponent of the Oslo peace negotiations between Israel and Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, even while they seemed to bear fruit. He wrote in the 1990's that it was a mistake for Mr. Clinton to trust Mr. Arafat. He advocated that position from the start of this Bush administration, until it became Mr. Bush's position last June. With the Middle East consumed by the spiral of suicide bombings and Israeli retaliations, Mr. Abrams is certain to be among those advocating that Israel be given wide latitude to battle terrorism." (See also: "Mr. Rice Guy" (Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/12/07 issue): "Abrams's job is to make certain that the conditions and guidelines laid down by President Bush in his speech last June 24 are not watered down or ignored by the Powell forces. This is easier said than done, particularly since Bush's attention has turned to the war on terror and regime change in Iraq. The appointment of Abrams, 54, is an important statement by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice - and by Bush - that the White House will not cede control of Middle East policy to Powell.")

"Israel hit for 2 U.N. deaths" (Joshua Mitnick, The Washington Times, 2002/12/07)
"The United Nations reproached Israel for a pre-dawn incursion yesterday into a Gaza Strip refugee town that killed two of its humanitarian workers during a search for Palestinian militants. ... The sides gave conflicting accounts on how many civilians died in the attack, which took place during the Muslim holiday of Eid el-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Six Hamas activists were among those killed, according to a statement received by the Hezbollah TV station al-Manar in Lebanon. The European Union also took Israel to task yesterday over the Palestinian killings. In Copenhagen, the Danish presidency of the EU strongly condemned 'military or other violent actions directed indiscriminately against a civilian neighborhood, whether Palestinian or Israeli.'" (See also: "Ten Die During Israeli Gaza Incursion" (Jamie Tarabay, AP/Newsday.com, 2002/12/06))

Friday, December 6, 2002

News and commentary:

"Hotlink to Terror?" (Brian Ross, ABC News, 2002/12/06)
"Federal agents have raided a Boston-area computer software firm looking for evidence that the company, which does business with key government agencies including the FBI, might have links to Osama bin Laden's terror network. The Quincy, Mass.-based firm, Ptech Inc., makes software and is allegedly secretly owned by Qassin al-Kadi, one of 12 Saudi businessmen accused of funneling millions of dollars to al Qaeda. U.S. government investigators told ABCNEWS there are fears al Qaeda may have had access to some of the government's most closely held secrets through the company, which provided computer software for the FBI, the Navy, the Air Force and the agency that handles nuclear weapons security."

"U.S. Is Pressuring Inspectors in Iraq to Aid Defections" (Patrick E. Tyler, The New York Times, 2002/12/06)
"The Bush administration has stepped up pressure on Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspection team to identify key Iraqi weapons scientists and spirit them out of Iraq so they can be offered asylum in exchange for disclosing where Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction, according to administration and United Nations officials. High-level negotiations on the issue became visible when Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, met with Mr. Blix in New York on Monday and pressed the issue of interviewing Iraqi scientists. The administration is offering to set up a witness protection program for defecting Iraqi scientists, thus enabling a more aggressive approach."

"Poll shows British Muslims' misgivings" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/12/06)
"One in five British Muslims feels little loyalty towards Britain, according to a poll for The Daily Telegraph. The YouGov survey also found that a minority of Muslims were not prepared to condemn the terrorist attacks carried out by Osama bin Laden nor acknowledge al-Qa'eda as the perpetrators. Just under half of those surveyed did not accept that the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were carried out by Muslims. However, the poll suggests that the majority of British Muslims wish no ill towards the West and are concerned that the attitudes of some are damaging Islam's reputation in the eyes of the world. An overwhelming majority said the atrocities in the United States on September 11 last year were not justified." (See also: "Majority abhors terrorism - but not 'sinister' few" (Anthony King, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/12/06): "But the survey also shows that within the Muslim community there are deep and potentially sinister undercurrents. Roughly one British Muslim in 12 refuses to repudiate the September 11 atrocities and an even larger proportion is ready to justify attacks by Osama bin Laden on Western targets. One British Muslim in five also admits to feeling less than wholly loyal to this country, while a significant minority chooses to regard the British Muslims who fought alongside the Taliban as heroes rather than traitors.")

"Suicide Bomber: Heroic Role Model for Young French Readers in New Book" (Simon Wiesenthal Center, 2002/12/06)
Strangely enough, I haven't found any article about this in a major news outlet: "A newly released best-selling novel for teens, Rever la Palestine (Dream of Palestine), sympathetically portrays a young Palestinian who becomes a suicide bomber. The fifteen-year-old Egyptian author, Randa Ghazi, who lives with her family in Italy, writes about Palestinian teenagers who fight 'bloodthirsty Jews, who assassinate children and old people, profane mosques, and rape Arab women.' Dream of Palestine is being touted as 'surprisingly mature' and 'a great text of suffering and hope.' One of the novel's heroes calls for Jihad against the Jews who are 'a doomed people' and to 'kill all Israelis.' The main character is encouraged 'to kill hundreds in his suicide bombing' and later does blow himself up along with five Israelis. Released to coincide with the Christmas season, and inexpensively priced, Dream of Palestine has quickly sold out in major bookstores in Paris. It has been released by Flammarion, the third largest publishing house in France, a subsidiary of the Italian media giant, Rizzoli Corriere della Sera, which includes among its holdings one of the largest Italian daily newspapers and Rizzoli bookstores in the United States."

"A Wahhabism Problem" (Andrew G. Bostom, National Review, 2002/12/06)
Bostom criticizes Stephen Schwartz for identifying "Wahhabism as the source of all Islamic terror and injustice": "But the reality is that, for nearly 1,400 years, across three continents, from Portugal to India, non-Muslims have experienced the horrors of the institutionalized jihad war ideology and its ugly corollary institution, dhimmitude. ... Today, the Muslim intelligentsia focus almost exclusively on debatable "human-rights violations" in the disputed territories of Gaza, Judea, and Samaria, while ignoring the blatant and indisputable atrocities committed by Muslims against non-Muslims throughout the world. ... There is a dire need for some courageous, meaningful movement within Islam that would completely renounce both dhimmitude and jihad against non-Muslims, openly acknowledging the horrific devastation they have wrought for nearly 1,400 years. Nothing short of an Islamic Reformation and Enlightenment may be required, to acknowledge non-Muslims as fully equal human beings, and not "infidels" or "dhimmis." It is absurd and disingenuous for Schwartz to pretend that Islam's problems are centered solely within Wahhabism."

"America Upside Down" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2002/12/06)
"Meanwhile America's troubles only seemed to have gotten worse in the Middle East. Recently it was announced that some of the 15 American suicide bombers who attacked the holy shrines at Mecca had, in fact, received indirect financial support from the Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush families. Riyadh was pressing the FBI to be more "forthcoming" in its investigations of these supposed money links and rated American cooperation so far as only a "C." ... In further news on the domestic front, CBS was roundly condemned in the Arab world for showing a video of the gleeful beheading of an Islamic journalist. The Arab League alleged that a voice in the video could be heard asking, "Confess that you are a Muslim" shortly before the journalist was executed. Al-Jazeera executives formally protested the airing of the CBS tape - and suggested that such sensationalism could only "inflame" the situation."

"Violence and Islam" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2002/12/06)
"Is Islam an inherently violent religion? A debate on this subject has received much attention in the United States. The question is absurd. ... The Ottomans gave refuge to the Jews expelled from Catholic Spain in 1492. Today the Arab world is the purveyor of the most vicious anti-Semitic propaganda since Nazi Germany. (Egyptian state television is currently showing a 41-part television series based on the notorious czarist forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.") Which stands for the real Islam? The question is not just unanswerable, it is irrelevant. The real issue is not the essence of an abstraction - who can say what is the real Christianity or the real Judaism? - but the actions of actual Muslims in the world today. And there is no denying the fact, stated most boldly by Samuel Huntington, author of "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," that "Islam has bloody borders." From Nigeria to Sudan to Pakistan to Indonesia to the Philippines, some of the worst, most hate-driven violence in the world today is perpetrated by Muslims and in the name of Islam. ... This says nothing about inherent violence; most Muslims are obviously peaceful people living within the rules of civilized behavior. But the actual violence, bloodletting against nearly every non-Muslim civilization from Hindu to African animist, demands attention."

"Leading Sunni Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi and Other Sheikhs Herald the Coming Conquest of Rome" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 447, 2002/12/06)
"Another time, Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi said, 'The Hadith says that the city of Constantinople, the city of Heracles, will be conquered first. We conquered Constantinople and the second part of the prophecy remains - the conquest of Romiyya. The conquest of Romiyya means that Islam will return to Europe. In one of my previous programs, I said that I think that this conquest would not be by the sword or armies, but by preaching and ideology. Europe will see that it suffers from materialistic culture, and will seek an alternative, it will seek a way out, it will seek a lifeboat. It will find no lifesaver but the message of Islam the message of the muezzin who gives it religion but does not deny it this world, brings it to Heaven, but does not uproot it from Earth. Allah willing, Islam will return to Europe and the Europeans will convert to Islam. Then they themselves will be able to be the ones to disseminate Islam in the world, more than we ancient Muslims. This is within Allah's capabilities.'"

"Al Qaeda in Lebanon and Gaza, Sharon Says" (Michael Vines, The New York Times, 2002/12/06)
"With much of Israel on maximum alert for terror attacks, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today that several members of Al Qaeda had entered the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, and joined forces with Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed group that the United States has labeled a terrorist organization. ... A group calling itself a Palestinian branch of Al Qaeda posted a message on a Web site earlier this week announcing its formation. Mr. Sharon said today that Israel had known "for some time" of Qaeda operatives infiltrating the area. "The information says that a small number entered the Gaza Strip," Mr. Sharon said. 'We know they are in Lebanon in close cooperation with Hezbollah. There's no doubt that Israel is a target for an attack.'" (See also: "Al-Qa'ida-Affiliated Web Site Warns of Attack During Id Al-Fitr, December 5-6, and Announces Palestinian Branch of Al-Qa'ida" (MEMRI, Special Alert - No. 5, 2002/12/04))

"U.S. has 'solid' arms proof" (Bill Sammon, The Washington Times, 2002/12/06)
"The White House yesterday said it has "solid" evidence that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction and accused Saddam Hussein's regime of "lying" for denying it. With Baghdad poised to repeat its denial in a report to the United Nations tomorrow, President Bush was asked by a reporter to assess the likelihood of war. "That's a question that you should ask Saddam Hussein," he said, sparking laughter in the Cabinet Room of the White House. "It's his choice to make." He added: "To answer your question, the question is whether or not he chooses to disarm. And we hope he does. For the sake of peace, he must disarm."
Asked when he would decide whether to wage war, Mr. Bush said, 'You'll see.'" (See also: "Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer" (The White House, 2002/12/05): "President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; Richard Butler has said they do; the United Nations has said they do; the experts have said they do. Iraq says they don't. You can choose who you want to believe.")

"Ten Die During Israeli Gaza Incursion" (Jamie Tarabay, AP/Newsday.com, 2002/12/06)
"Israeli tanks rumbled into a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, sparking an intense firefight that killed 10 Palestinians early Friday, witnesses and hospital officials said. Some of the casualties in the Bureij camp were caused when a helicopter fired a missile at the street. It was unclear how many of the dead were fighters. ... Israel's military said the dead included five armed militants from the violent Islamic Hamas movement who were targeted by the helicopter fire. Palestinian fighters were spurred on by calls through mosque loudspeakers urging people to come out and fight the troops. Gunbattles, which began as Israeli troops entered the camp just after midnight, raged for three hours."

Thursday, December 5, 2002

News and commentary:

"Chechen rebels phoned Gulf during siege" (Nick Paton Walsh, The Guardian, 2002/12/05)
"Russian security officials suspect that the Chechens who seized a Moscow theatre in October had wealthy Arab sponsors in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and have sought Washington's support in finding the financiers. Senior officials say they have traced a series of telephone calls from the gunmen to their "sponsors" in the Gulf. During one call made to an unspecified Gulf state a financier asked for a video of scenes inside the theatre, and was told it could be made for a $1m fee. "Several long telephone conversations were intercepted to Saudi Arabia, to the Emirates, and to Qatar. We can say for sure that the hostage-taking was financed from abroad, and the terrorists maintained permanent contact with their sponsors." He added that the leader of the hostage-takers, Mosvar Barayev, and several of his fellow Chechens had planned to flee to the Gulf once the crisis was over."

"A fatwa of one's own" (Mark Steyn, National Post, 2002/12/05)
"Mr. Khalfan, of Nepean, Ontario, was responding to David Frum's defence of Isioma Daniel, the Nigerian journalist now in hiding after remarking that the Prophet Muhammad would have been happy to take the winner of Miss World for his wife. ... "Mr. Frum has to understand that it is Muslims who determine what is objectionable to their religion, not he dictating it to them," added Mr. Khalfan. "And since he cites Salman Rushdie, he should know by now the fatal consequences resulting from ignoring this fact." ... Well, Mr. Khalfan has now "clarified" his original letter on the page opposite. He doesn't want to kill David Frum. He just wants David to be aware of how easy it is to provoke other people into killing him. ... When Mr. Khalfan says that irresponsible journalists "risk provoking individuals who cannot control their spiritual emotions and cause the death of innocent people," he's being far more objectionable about Muslims than me, Frum and that Nigerian woman rolled into one; he's being more imperialist than any old-school Colonial Officer: He's saying Muslims are wogs, savages, they know no better, what do you expect? You've gotta be careful around them, the slightest thing could set 'em off. Might be a novel, might be a beauty contest. Sorry, it's not a good enough answer. If that Nigerian mob are really no more than "pious Muslims," then pious Muslims should be ashamed. Pious Muslims can follow the murder-inciters of Bradford, the suicide-bombers of the West Bank and the depraved killers of northern Nigeria on their descent into barbarism. Or they can wake up and save their religion. Mr. Khalfan's sophistry won't cut it." (See also: "Censored and bullied, scholars sanitize Islam" (David Frum, National Post, 2002/11/30) and "Letters" (Zulf M. Khalfan, National Post, 2002/12/03)): "Mr. Frum has to understand that it is Muslims who determine what is objectionable to their religion, not he dictating it to them. Responsible journalism should require us to recognize this for all faiths too - Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And since he cites Salman Rushdie, he should know by now the fatal consequences resulting from ignoring this fact.")

"Canadians go to Baghdad as 'human shields'" (CBC News, 2002/12/05)
Useful idiocy: "Some Canadians already have left for Iraq to serve as human shields against bomb attacks on Baghdad. More will follow before Christmas. ... Jo Wood, a psychology professor at Carleton University, says groups across Canada are raising money to fund a "national peace coalition" against a war on Iraq. As for the Canadians going to Baghdad, Wood says, "…they are prepared to risk their own lives by standing with the Iraqi people and positioning themselves at important public facilities, such as water plants and hospitals, in an effort to protect these against the bombs." As for those who condemn Saddam but profess support for the Iraqi people, Wood told CBC News Online that the Iraqi people get hurt either way. "All efforts to hurt Saddam hurt the Iraqi people much more and weaken them so that they cannot find their own resources to make a better world for themselves," she said."

"No More Idealism on the Left" (David Skinner, The Weekly Standard, 2002/12/05)
"Recent events - September 11, the war in Afghanistan, and the coming war in Iraq - have rigorously tested one of the perennial cliches of politics: that the Left is for idealists. Dreamers. People longing to change the world - and make it better. It's no longer true. Idealism has become a property of the Right, while the Left has been taken over by low partisan enmity. ...
Clearly, the Left has given up principled opposition for the sake of mere opposition - or something that amounts to the same. "Let us find a way to resist fundamentalism that leads to violence," Hollywood actor Tim Robbins told an antiwar crowd in Central Park at a recent rally, "fundamentalism of all kinds, in al Qaeda and within our government." Yes, you heard him right. Robbins equated the Islamist terrorists responsible for the deaths of thousands to (need it even be said?) democratically elected officials of the freest country in history. ...
Indeed, why can't a Left that built its domestic agenda on equal rights for women and minorities oppose a dictator who licenses the procedural rape of dissident females and kills minorities? Why can't a Left that supports an absolute separation of church and state find the strength to oppose religious dictatorships abroad? Ditto for economic opportunity, the freedom of speech, and the right to vote. Why can't the Left be passionate about these ideals when it comes to the most pressing political events of the day?"

"Israel's True Friends" (Edward I. Koch, NewsMax.com, 2002/12/05)
"Now to my personal New Year's resolutions. I will avoid France as a place to vacation. France leads those countries in the Security Council who are the enemies of the State of Israel. So, too, is Mexico, joining as a consistent supporter of resolutions unfairly denouncing Israel at the U.N. Security Council. ... I will not watch ABC's World News Tonight anchored by Peter Jennings. For many years, Jennings has specialized in vicious and unfair portrayals of Israel intended to injure the Jewish state and lionize Palestinians. BBC News is horrifically anti-Israel and I will shun it completely. Susan Sontag will occupy the Ninth Circle of Hell for her outrageous assaults on Israel. I will no longer read her works. Regrettably, there are many others whom I could include on this list, but I will leave that for another day. I must confess I got enormous pleasure from the defeat of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her father in the recent primary elections in Georgia. In my view, both are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. No longer able to feed at the public trough, I doubt that either will make a comparable living in the private sector."

"The Out-of-Sync Antiwar Movement" (Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post, 2002/12/05)
"Amnesty International has a long, honorable record of speaking truth to power. I view it as an ally in the castigation of governments that jail, torture and kill citizens out of ideology or a lust for power and profit. But when British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw this week catalogued the sordid record of human rights abuses by Iraq's regime, Amnesty responded not with applause but with a temper tantrum. ... Focusing now on Jack Straw instead of Saddam Hussein is, to be polite, misguided. But this jerking of the anti-imperial knee is also representative of larger problems that liberals and even many moderates are having in finding their way amid the changes in politics, practicalities and philosophy being brought by an era of heightened societal vulnerability and security needs. They are against war - who isn't? - but unable to describe convincingly practical solutions or the values that they uniquely represent. ... This will require new thinking on the left, which seems mired in nostalgia for the eras when colonialism, apartheid and Cold War excess were obvious sources of global evil and easy targets. We must all continue to focus on human rights abuses by governments. But not at the price of ignoring or minimizing the threat of nihilism carried out by bands of fanatics who believe in and are capable of practicing what Albert Camus called 'violence without limits.'" (See also: "UK unveils Iraq 'torture' dossier" (BBC News, 2002/12/02))

"The Silence of Moderate Muslims" (Bernard Kaykel, Dawn/FrontPageMagazine, 2002/12/05)
"I also met Muslim moderates who invariably condemned the radicals for defaming Islam and stated that the latter did not represent the Islamic mainstream. Most moderates, however, demurred when I asked them whether they had openly aired or published their views. How does one account for their silence? ... Muslims perceive themselves to be under direct military attack and on a number of fronts. An Indian Muslim scholar from Nadwat-ul-Ulema, the famous seminary in Lucknow, expressed this sentiment by stating that "a worldwide anti-Muslim alliance has been formed and is headed by the US. It runs in an arc from Hindu fundamentalist India, through China and Russia and ends with Europe and the US in the west. The effect is to encircle and choke the Islamic world." ...
Perhaps the most significant factor in the silencing of the moderates has been the accrual of vast sums of petro-dollars by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms, all of whom have spent billions of dollars on the propagation of Salafi Islam, the tradition that has been dominant in central Arabia (a.k.a. Najd) since the mid-seventeenth century. By contrast, the traditional centres of Islamic education have been starved of funds and have consequently not been able to recruit or to educate a generation of dynamic scholars who might rise to the intellectual challenge posed by the Salafis and the authoritarian regimes that dominate the Muslim world."

"Palestine during the 'Golden Age of Islam'" (Andrew G. Bostom, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/12/05)
Idealizing religious apartheid: "Palestinian Authority (PA) Undersecretary for Awqaf [Religious Endowment], Sheik Yussef Salamah, representing the PA at a May 1999 "Inter-Cultural Conference," in Tehran, praised the 7th century system of Ahl Al-Dhimma (i.e, the system of dhimmitude, applied [primarily] to Christians and Jews conquered by jihad wars), as the proper paradigm for relations between Muslims and Christians today. He maintained, "Islam respected people of (other) religions and did not hurt them." Palestinian Authority employee, Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Madhi reiterated these sentiments with regard to Jews during a Friday sermon broadcasted live on June 6, 2001 on PA TV, from the Sheik 'Ijlin Mosque in Gaza: 'We welcome, as we did in the past, any Jew who wants to live in this land as a Dhimmi, just as the Jews have lived in our countries, as Dhimmis, and have earned appreciation, and some of them have even reached the positions of counselor or minister here and there. We welcome the Jews to live as Dhimmis, but the rule in this land and in all the Muslim countries must be the rule of Allah.'" (Note: For more on dhimmitude, see also the writings of Bat Ye'or - for example: "Islam, Taboo, and Dialogue" (Bat Ye'or, National Review, 2002/08/09))

"Inside North Korea" (The Washington Times, 2002/12/05)
"'There are so many miserable stories. People pick undigested beans out of the dung of oxen to eat. They compete to take the clothes off dead bodies to wear. It is not a human world.' That grim picture is one of the few glimpses inside the disaster that is North Korea. In the past few months, the world has learned more about the hermit kingdom's disturbing advancements in developing and proliferating components for weapons of mass destruction. This week, Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Jiang Zemin strongly cautioned the North's Kim Jong Il against pursuing his nuclear dreams and upsetting regional stability. Now, a compelling report from Human Rights Watch - detailed accounts of life inside North Korea by a handful of an estimated hundreds of thousands of refugees - makes the moral case for putting Pyongyang out of business." (See also: "The Invisible Exodus: North Koreans in the People's Republic of China" (Human Rights Watch, November 2002))

"World Image of U.S. Declines" (Richard Morin, The Washington Post, 2002/12/05)
"Suspicion about U.S. motives in Iraq coupled with the widely held beliefs that the United States routinely ignores the interests of other nations and doesn't do enough to help solve global problems have battered the nation's image around the world, according to a survey of attitudes in 44 countries by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. ... Overwhelming majorities in France, Germany and Russia oppose the use of force to end Saddam's rule. Even in Britain, America's staunchest ally on Iraq, opinion is sharply divided: Fewer than half - 47 percent - favor using force to oust Hussein while an equal proportion disagree. ... When asked whether the United States was more interested in achieving stability in the region or more interested in controlling Iraqi oil reserves, majorities in Russia (76 percent), France (75 percent), and Germany (54 percent) said 'the U.S. wants to control Iraqi oil.'" (See also the survey report: "Global Gloom and Growing Anti-Americanism" (The Pew Research Center, 2002/12/04))

"U.S. set to cite Iraq for breach" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2002/12/05)
"The Bush administration is set to declare Iraq in violation of the U.N. resolution requiring Baghdad to give up weapons of mass destruction, The Washington Times has learned. "It is going to be 'material breach,' not as a casus belli [cause for war] but as a basis to begin hammering Unmovic to do more," said an administration official familiar with the internal debate. Unmovic, or the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, is the arms-inspection group for Iraq. Administration officials said a material-breach declaration will depend on whether Iraq fails to mention in its U.N. report some banned weapons programs identified in U.S. intelligence reports."

"Sharon outlines his peace vision" (BBC News, 2002/12/05)
"The Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has set out, for the first time, his proposals for the creation of a Palestinian state. The plans, he said, correspond to a framework outlined earlier this year by US President George W Bush which said that a Palestinian state would follow Palestinian reforms. They call for a Palestinian state within parts of the West Bank and Gaza, with provisional borders by next year and definitive ones by 2005. However, the plans, Mr Sharon stressed, were conditional on "an absolute end to terror" and, "above all else, all the Palestinian security organisations must be disbanded." He also demanded the replacement of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat."

Wednesday, December 4, 2002

News and commentary:

"Iraqi VP Says U.N. Inspectors U.S., Israeli Spies" (Haitham Haddadin, Reuters, 2002/12/05)
"Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan, in a blistering attack on Wednesday, accused U.N. inspectors hunting for banned weapons in Iraq of being U.S. and Israeli spies. Ramadan, addressing an Egyptian delegation in a Baghdad hotel, reiterated Iraq's official line that it has no weapons of mass destruction for the arms experts to find. "The inspectors have come to provide better circumstances and more precise information for a coming aggression," Ramadan said. "This is not an accusation, because the inspectors, from day one, their foremost work was spying. Their work was spying for the CIA and Mossad together," added Ramadan, referring to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Israeli Mossad intelligence service."

"Al-Qa'ida-Affiliated Web Site Warns of Attack During Id Al-Fitr, December 5-6, and Announces Palestinian Branch of Al-Qa'ida" (MEMRI, Special Alert - No. 5, 2002/12/04)
From a communiqué posted on the Islamist website www.mojahedoon.net by Abu Shihab Al-Qandahari: "A Warning to All the Enemies of Allah, the Americans, and Their Jewish, Arab, and Foreign Supporters ... We warn you: Leave the land of Yemen and the land of the Prophet [Saudi Arabia]. Otherwise, you will reap death because of [your] stupidity in ignoring our warnings to you. ... Oh American people, you are the victim of your leaders, but you are also a partner in the war on us, because you applaud them when they killed the children of Iraq; applaud the Jews when they killed the children of Palestine… Allah has cursed you in this world and in the Hereafter and promised you terrible tortures. Defiantly, you have not learned your lesson from which you suffered, the raids on Washington and New York; on the contrary, the tyranny and oppression that you employ towards the slaves [of Allah] has increased, primarily in Palestine whose children did not enjoy the month of good and blessing [Ramadan]. Therefore the brothers gave them a gift for Ramadan in Mombasa, and the gift for the holiday ['Id al-Fitr, at the end of Ramadan] is on its way."

"The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing" (Lee Harris, Policy Review, from the December 2002 and January 2003 issue)
An interesting essay about the origin and consequences of "the global immiserization thesis: America has gotten rich by making other countries poor": "America-bashing has sadly come to be "the opium of the intellectual," to use the phrase Raymond Aron borrowed from Marx in order to characterize those who followed the latter into the twentieth century. And like opium it produces vivid and fantastic dreams. This is an intellectual tragedy. The Marxist left, whatever else one might say about it, has traditionally offered a valuable perspective from which even the greatest conservative thinkers have learned - including Schumpeter and Thomas Sowell. But if it cannot rid itself of its current penchant for fantasy ideology of the worst type, not only will it be incapable of serving this purpose; it will become worse than useless. It will become a justification for a return to that state of barbarism mankind has spent millennia struggling to transcend - a struggle that no one felt more keenly than Marx himself. For the essence of utopianism, according to Marx, is the refusal to acknowledge just how much suffering and pain every upward step of man’s ascent inflicts upon those who are taking it, and instead to dream that there are easier ways of getting there. There are not, and it is helpful to no party to pretend that there are. To argue that the great inequalities of wealth now existing between the advanced capitalist countries and the Third World can be cured by outbreaks of frenzied and irrational America-bashing is not only utopian; it is immoral."

"A Philosopher in the Trenches: Interview with Ted Honderich" (Paul de Rooij, The Palestine Chronicle, 2002/12/04)
Ted Honderich is a philosopher who teaches at University College London and perhaps is most noteworthy as an apologist for Palestinian terrorism. Imagine that Islamist terrorists only referred to the Palestinian cause in their fatwas and statements - wouldn't that force Honderich to applaud 9/11, and in fact all Islamist terrorism?: "Claiming that the Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism, which I do, can hardly be old hat given the reaction to the claim. If some people readily accept it, some of them out of anti-Semitism, many are shocked or disturbed by it. The moral feelings of people at Oxfam GB were shocked by it, as their public statements clearly show. ...
Amnesty equates the nature of the violence perpetrated against Israelis and Palestinians. That is, it will condemn to the same degree when an Israeli is killed, and when a Palestinian is killed. It also calls on "both parties to respect human rights, and to make human rights central to their agenda." Is AI's stance valid?
Everyone should object to the terrible "even-handedness" of such statements as the Amnesty one. Everyone should choke on such attempts at "balance". In an ordinary sense of the words, there is no place at all for even-handedness and balance in actually dealing with the rapist engaged in the rape of the woman with a knife at her throat. The rapist has no rights that bear significantly on the question of whether he should stop or be stopped. The analogy with Israel is not a wild one, but exact." (Note: Found via Little Green Footballs. See also: "Hating Israel is part of campus culture" (Jonathan Kay, National Post/Campus Watch, 2002/09/25))

"Dropping Insults Over Iraq" (Charles Paul Freund, Reason, 2002/12/04)
As Martin Kramer did yesterday, Freund criticizes Edward Said's "hysterical Al-Ahram attack" on Kanan Makiya: "Writing in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly, Said called Makiya "a man of vanity who has no compassion, no demonstrable awareness of human suffering." Further, he has "no stable principles or values," and "represents the intellectual who serves power unquestioningly." ...
Among [Makiya's] various criticisms of Said and others, he wrote something well worth remembering. It came in response to what Said had said of Republic of Fear, Makiya's first book, and one published under a pseudonym. According to Said, that 1989 book revealing the horror that Saddam Hussein was visiting on Iraqis was the work of a "guinea pig witness," a "native informant" who was serving the interests of American policymakers. "There is more despair and hopelessness buried in such words than there is in a whole library of books devoted to the brutality of Middle Eastern dictatorships," responded Makiya. "To be political, and to want to reclaim the meaning of political action in the Arab world, is to refuse to become a prisoner of this kind of language." It was a powerful rejoinder, and is likely to become more powerful as the citizens of the Arab world, striving to reclaim their politics, escape Said's language, and Said's thinking." (See also: "Misinformation about Iraq" (Edwad Said, Al-Ahram Weekly, from the 28 Nov. - 4 Dec. 2002 issue) and "After Saddam 1" (Kanan Makiya, Prospect, from the November 2002 issue))

"Indonesians Arrest Alleged Head of Al Qaeda-Linked Group" (Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, 2002/12/04)
"Indonesian police have arrested the man they said masterminded the massive bombing in Bali two months ago, recording the latest breakthrough in a fast-moving investigation that authorities believe may now unravel much of the Southeast Asian militant network linked to al Qaeda. Police announced today they had captured an Indonesian cleric named Mukhlas, described by Asian intelligence officials as the operational chief for the regional Jemaah Islamiyah network, during a raid late Tuesday night in central Java."

"Iraq Declaration Will Not Admit to Banned Weapons" (Nadim Ladki, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2002/12/04)
"Iraq said Wednesday the declaration it will hand to the U.N. will describe its biological, chemical, missile and nuclear technologies, but will not admit to having weapons of mass destruction. "The declaration will repeat that in Iraq there are no weapons of mass destruction," Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, told a news conference. Iraq's denial that it possesses any such weapons puts it on a direct collision course with the United States, which insists it knows Iraq has them, demands a full and frank confession from Baghdad and warns it will disarm Iraq by force if necessary."

"The Enemy's Enemy" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2002/12/04)
"This transcript is worth reading. It's an interview with a Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasrin, who lives under the threat of death because of her criticisms of Islam. She fears for her life each day. And she specifically disputes the idea that there are several Islams, most of which are peaceful:
... 'ES: What about the idea of tolerance?
TN: There is no tolerance. There is no tolerance in Islam because, you know if it is, if a law say, because a law says that disbelievers would go to hell if you are a Muslim but you reject Islam and if you deny Allah or Prophet Mohammad, then you should be killed. You know fundamentalists issued fatwa against me. Many people, the so-called liberal Muslims, say that: no, it's not real Islam, Islam is for peace, Islam doesn't allow any fatwa. Actually, it is not true. The fundamentalists are following, are practicing Islam correctly.'
And the key point is that Nasrin, like Salman Rushdie, isn't safe even in the West. The brutality isn't only "over there." It's here." (See also: "Full transcript of Evan Solomon's HOT TYPE interview with Taslima Nasrin" (CBC News, 2002/11/29))

"Countdown to Trigger Day" (Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, 2002/12/04)
"To escape this time, Saddam Hussein must - must - fully declare and destroy all of his weapons of mass death. This White House will regard anything short of this result as material, and immediate, cause for war. On Sunday Saddam Hussein will produce a document, probably hundreds of pages long, that he will claim meets his obligations. It will be full of lies and obfuscations. In due - short - time, George Bush will say it is full of lies and obfuscations and that this is not acceptable. And so, almost certainly, to war." (See also: "Bush warns Saddam over inspections" (BBC News, 2002/12/02))

"Hezbollah calls for global attacks" (Paul Martin, The Washington Times, 2002/12/04)
"The leader of the Lebanese Muslim group Hezbollah is urging a global suicide bombing campaign, increasing the prospect that the regional conflict between Arabs and Israelis will expand to mimic or even merge with al Qaeda's war against the West. ... "By Allah, if they touch Al Aqsa we will act everywhere around the world," Sheik Nasrallah told an estimated 10,000 gun-toting, bearded fighters in southern Lebanon on Friday. Several hundred "suicide commandos" also took part. ... Taken alone, Sheik Nasrallah's remarks might be interpreted as no more than a warning to Israel not to alter the status quo. But earlier in the week, at a rally in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, Sheik Nasrallah issued a far more ominous threat. "Martyrdom operations - suicide bombings - should be exported outside Palestine," he said. "I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don't be shy about it," he added. Both speeches were broadcast by a Hezbollah-owned TV station in Lebanon. ... Of concern for anti-terror agencies is the stronghold Hezbollah has established in Canada, which is seen as a springboard for future actions and influence inside the United States." (See also: "Nasrallah: the culture of suicide bombings should be spread worldwide" (IMRA, 2002/11/25))

"Saudis rally neighbors against post-Saddam democracy" (World Tribune.com, 2002/12/04)
"Saudi Arabia is working to form an Arab coalition to oppose any U.S. drive to impose democracy on the Middle East. Arab diplomatic sources said the kingdom has been consulting with Egypt, Syria and the Gulf states regarding the ramifications of post-Saddam reforms in Iraq. The sources said Saudi Arabia is concerned that it will be the next target of the Bush administration. ... The London-based Al Quds Al Arabi daily reported that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal has been touring Arab capitals and urging them to sign an agreement that would pledge to resist any U.S. effort for regime change in the Arab world. The newspaper said Riyad wants Arab League members to sign such a pledge during their next summit. "No one can change the Saudi regime but Allah," Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz said."

Added in archive:
"The Chosen One" (Michael Kamber, The Village Voice, 2002/02/25)
"Anti-Americanism has taken the world by storm" (Salman Rushdie, The Guardian, 2002/02/06)

Tuesday, December 3, 2002

News and commentary:

"Goodbye Europe" (Mark Steyn, The American Enterprise Magazine, from the December 2002 issue)
"The good news is we won't have to worry about another Hitler or Mussolini because, on present reproductive trends, the Italians and Germans are going to be out of business in a couple of generations. Few people have ever been in less need of lebensraum. Instead, the European Union figures it will require another 50 million immigrants in the next few years just to maintain a big enough working population to fund the lavish social programs its vast retired army of baby boomers expects to enjoy. The main source of European immigration is Muslim youth from North Africa and the Middle East. Whether these are the chaps to keep Hans and Pierre in the style to which they've become accustomed is a moot point: According to some Scandinavian statistics, 40 percent of those on welfare are immigrants. ...
A multiculturalist society has a hard time even discussing these things. In the advanced technocratic Euro-state, almost any issue worth talking about has been ruled taboo. Continental voters, faced with a choice between Eurodee and Eurodum, have been turning elsewhere. The beneficiaries of this tune-out, in Italy, Belgium, Denmark, and elsewhere, don't have much in common - some are maverick magnates, some fascist nostalgists, others gay hedonists. What unites them is what they're against: the traditional European cultural consensus that's now sleepwalking its way to suicide. ...
Europe's post-war political structures were specifically designed to stifle the populace's baser urges. Indeed, Europe has been so focused on what went wrong in the past it's been blind to what might go wrong in the future. The future is now here. A collapsed birthrate, accelerating immigration, lavish welfare, an evasive political culture, phony transnational structures: For Europe, this is the Perfect Storm." (Note: The article is part of "Friends? Foes? Disconnected Strangers?", a symposium on Europe and America over the next generation also featuring Jeffrey Gedmin, Andrew Sullivan, Jonathan Rauch, John O'Sullivan, Michael Kelly and Jonah Goldberg.)

"Survival and Beyond" (Eliad Moreh, Harvard Israel Review, from the Fall 2002 issue)
Found via Shark Blog: "The facts are simple in their cruelty. I survived the terrorist bomb attack at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, while the friend sitting in front of me, David Diego Ladowski, was killed on the spot. ... Some people in Israel and abroad place terrorism in the context of the political conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. To place terrorism in any context is to avoid confronting its horror and inexcusable nature. What cause can justify the deliberate murder of as many human beings as possible? What kind of a people could officially appeal to terrorism as a legitimate weapon in their desire for statehood? And this is all the more repugnant given that the Palestinians were offered an independent state in the frame of the Oslo agreement. There is no explanation for terrorism. I tell you out of my crying body, out of my screaming heart and my wounded mind, I tell you that nothing, absolutely nothing justifies such pain. And no reason in the world can excuse the criminals who perpetrate such inhuman deeds. There are times in history when one has to condemn evil. The facts are so horrible that they do not leave a place for understanding, because to understand means to justify. And I have to warn you, trying to justify such barbarous acts makes you become morally complicit in them."

"Edward Said CRASSHes" (Martin Kramer, Sandstorm, 2002/12/03)
A very revealing dissection of an article by Said, which is a "character-bombing" of Kanan Makiya: "What really offends Said is Makiya's vision of Iraq's future. Makiya believes that "federalism is a necessary condition of democracy and that it means devolving power away from Baghdad to the provinces." And he believe that "a democratic Iraq has to be an Iraq that exists for all its citizens equally, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. That means a non-Arab Iraq." Said's scornful rejoinder: it would require "magic" to "de-Arabize the country," the evidence that the Iraqis want federalism is "pretty negligible," and federalism never works anyway. ("One would have thought," writes Said, "that post-Tito Yugoslavia never existed and that that tragic country's federalism was a total success.")
Wait a minute. The last time I looked, Said was proposing precisely this for Palestinians and Israelis: a one-state solution for Arabs and Jews, who are supposed to downgrade their Arab and Jewish identities, and live as citizens in one de-nationalized state, based on "the idea and practice of citizenship, not of ethnic or racial community." In this one state, which is now Said's "solution," Jews and Arabs would live in "federated cantons."
So let me get this right, Professor Said: Iraqis can't possibly be "de-Arabized," but Palestinians apparently can; Iraqis don't want federalism, but Palestinians do; and federalism hasn't worked anywhere, but in Israel-Palestine it's not only doable, it's the only 'solution.'" (See also: "Misinformation about Iraq" (Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly, from the 28 Nov. - 4 Dec. 2002 issue) and "After Saddam 1" (Kanan Makiya, Prospect, from the November 2002 issue))

"Saudi Minister of Interior, Prince Nayef Ibn Abd Al-Aziz: 'Who Committed the Events of September 11… I Think They [the Zionists] are Behind these Events…'" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 446, 2002/12/03)
From an interview with Saudi Minister of Interior Prince Nayef Ibn Abd Al-Aziz: "Prince Naif stressed that relations between the Saudi and U.S. governments are strong despite the Zionist-controlled media that manipulated the events of September 11 and turned the U.S. public opinion against Arabs and Islam. Prince Naif said, 'we put big question marks and ask who committed the events of September 11 and who benefited from them. Who benefited from events of 11/9? I think they [the Zionists] are behind these events.' ...
The Interior Minister hinted that foreign powers might have provided support to terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. 'I cannot still believe that 19 youths, including 15 Saudis, carried out the September 11 attacks with the support of bin Laden and his Al-Qa'ida organization. It's impossible. I will not believe that these people have the power to do so horrendous an attack.' However, Prince Naif Ibn Abdul Aziz reiterated the Kingdom's condemnation of the attack that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and damaged the Pentagon outside Washington. He said the September 11 attacks had turned the world against Islam, Muslims and Arabs."

"Let's hear it for bad taste" (Ian Buruma, The Guardian, 2002/12/03)
Buruma on reactions to the Miss World massacre: "Staging the contest in Nigeria might not have been wise, and the journalist may have been courting danger. But some of the reactions in London suggest that the killers may have had a point. There is an odd convergence between fashionable political correctitude and religious bigotry, as though people who have the bad taste to enjoy beauty parades are criminally culpable. Rod Liddle, for example, found it difficult to disagree with the Muslim lynch mob, "from a theoretical point of view", that Miss World represents everything that is horrible about "western culture". ...
It might be called moral obtuseness, or even moral racism. The assumption appears to be that Africans or Asians can't be held to our own elevated standards. They are more like wild animals, whose savagery should not be provoked by our foolishness. When we do provoke them, the consequences are entirely our fault. It would be as misplaced to apply our moral standards to their behaviour, as it would be to expect tigers to talk. The murder of Nigerians or Indian Muslims, or Iraqi Kurds, is par for the course, unless we did it, or Americans, or Israelis. ...
What is certainly not all right is to diminish the responsibility of clerics, who incited the violence, by frivolously concurring with their views on western culture. That is no way to defend the freedom of others or, for that matter, our own." (See also: "Down with beauty? Only when it's ugly" (Russell Smith, The Globe and Mail, 2002/11/27))

"Morally neutral reporting is dishonest reporting" (Dennis Prager, Town Hall, 2002/12/03)
"Under the guise of "objectivity," virtually every major news agency, newspaper and television news network in the West is feeding its readers and viewers a morally neutral view of world events that is so distorted as to verge on mendacity. Take this article from The New York Times, which describes the recent Muslim rioting in Nigeria over one sentence written by a Nigerian reporter in an article defending the Miss World pageant ("Muhammad would probably have taken one of the contestants for a wife."): First, the headline: "Fiery Zealotry Leaves Nigeria in Ashes Again." Notice that no group is identified as responsible. ... The article then begins: "KADUNA, Nigeria, Nov. 28 - The beauty queens are gone now, chased from Nigeria by the chaos in Kaduna." If this is not a direct lie, it surely is an indirect one. The beauty queens were not chased out of Nigeria by "chaos," but by Muslim rioters. One might as well say that between 1939 and 1945, tens of millions of Europeans were killed by chaos, rather than by Nazis. Lest the reader miss the point that no group is morally responsible, the article's next sentence develops this idea: "But there are no celebrations in this deeply troubled town, which has become a symbol of the difficulty in Nigeria - and throughout Africa - of reconciling people who worship separately." Aha! The problem, dear Times reader, is not Islamic intolerance and violence in Nigeria, nor is it Nigerian Muslims attempting to violently spread Islamic religious law (as in sentencing a non-Muslim Nigerian woman to be stoned to death for giving birth to a child out of wedlock). No, the Times assures us, what happened in Kaduna is merely another example of Africa's 'difficulty in reconciling people who worship separately.'" (See also: "Fiery Zealotry Leaves Nigeria in Ashes Again" (Marc Lacey, The New York Times, 2002/11/29))

"Saddam's useful idiots pollute the British Left" (Michael Gove, The Times, 2002/12/03)
"You can vaccinate key military personnel against smallpox. But you can't inoculate the British Left against its own strain of wilful stupidity. The Government yesterday chose to highlight the grotesque campaign of torture and brutalisation which President Saddam Hussein has been inflicting on his own people. ... Ms Khan is the Secretary-General of Amnesty International and, as of yesterday, number one pin-up girl in Baghdad's presidential palaces. For her reaction to the publication of the British Government's dossier on Saddam's human rights abuses was not satisfaction that one of the world’s most evil men was facing the scrutiny he deserved, but anger that something might be done about him. "This selective attention to human rights," Ms Khan pronounced, "is nothing but a cold and calculated manipulation of the work of human rights activists." Why is Ms Khan's reaction to this dossier condemnation for the British Government rather than the Iraqi? You would have thought that if Amnesty International were objecting to anyone's cold and calculated manipulation, it would be the Iraqi regime's wrenching of innocent civilians' arms out of their sockets. ...
Why is it that so many of those whose political creed should be driven by a desire to emancipate those who are suffering choose to object to a course of action which would deliver millions from misery? ... The only thing left puzzling me is why those who claim to believe in human rights are not willing to see something worthwhile done to uphold them." (See also: "UK unveils Iraq 'torture' dossier" (BBC News, 2002/12/02))

"Citadels of reason and responsibility?" (Bruce Fein, The Washington Times, 2002/12/03)
"Are Harvard University and Stanford Law School citadels of reason that strengthen our democratic dispensation? Or are the elite academies saboteurs by granting respectability to the likes of poet Tom Paulin and indicted radical lawyer Lynn Stewart, both notorious for celebrating violence, terrorism, and repression against their opponents? ... Mr. Paulin's chilling views include likening the Israeli Defense Force to Hitler's SS; recommending death for Brooklyn-born Jewish settlers on the West Bank, whom he demonizes as Nazis; and, denying the nation of Israel a right of self-preservation. Attorney Lynn Stewart matches Mr. Paulin syllable for ugly syllable. She avidly defended Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, found guilty of complicity in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. She was indicted last spring for providing material assistance to a foreign terrorist organization and for relaying a directive from the terrorist sheik to renew Muslim extremist warfare against the government of Egypt. ...
The irresponsibility of Harvard, Stanford, or any other elite institution in playing host to celebrants of violence and terrorism is the irresponsibility of neutrality between the firefighter and the fire. The fire should be aggressively opposed and extinguished as a social imperative. ... Wickedness should be denounced in all its moods and tenses, not given an honored seat next to virtue." (See also: "Welcome Voice?" (Tom Gross, National Review, 2002/11/12))

"Jihad and Dhimmitude: Victimless Islamic Institutions?" (Bat Ye’or and Andrew G. Bostom, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/12/04)
"At present, unfortunately, the simple reference to the written rules of jihad and dhimmitude- which impose killings, slavery, deportation and "protection"/subjugation - according to specific contingencies - can provoke a violent reaction from those in the Muslim intelligentsia. Recently, for example, direct quotations from these Medieval laws - considered as obligatory for infidels - from highly respected Muslim writers, such as al-Mawardi, caused an uproar at Georgetown University, as well as slanderous accusations. There is a dire need for some courageous, meaningful movement in Islam to emerge that completely renounces the active Islamic institutions of jihad against the infidels, and dhimmitude, openly acknowledging the horrific devastation they have wrought on non-Muslims for well over a millennium, through the present. Nothing short of an Islamic Reformation and Enlightenment may be required, which completely secularizes Islam, and acknowledges non-Muslims as fully equal human beings, not "infidels", or 'dhimmis.'" (Note: For more on the "uproar at Georgetown University", where historical facts were denounced as hate speech, see also: "Damned If You Do" (Rod Dreher, National Review, 2002/10/29))

"The mother of all package tours" (Johann Hari, The Guardian, 2002/12/03)
From moral equivalence to moral inversion. Hari reports from a package tour to Iraq: "The group had a handful of people like Phil, risk-takers craving a change from Marbella and some amusing dinner-party anecdotes. Sean, a 36-year-old New York restaurateur and multimillionaire, was clearly in this category. He lives a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero and witnessed the attack on the Twin Towers, but he appeared to be America's biggest peacenik. "If I was going to Iraq to shoot a bunch of people, everyone back home would say I was a hero. But because I'm coming to hang out with the people and see what they're like, they think I'm a suspect character." He believes that the US and Iraq are morally equivalent: "You can't say the US is any better than Iraq. We have no right to lecture anyone, ever," he insisted, chewing his gum. ...
Then there was Hannah. How to explain her? A frightfully well-spoken Englishwoman in her early 50s. When we first met, she dispensed with the small talk to say: "I think Saddam is a great man and the USA is a great big global bully. My theory is that he should be given Kuwait. It's perfectly logical if you look at the map." "I think he's rather handsome too," she went on. "Every woman does really. I'd rather like to inspect his weapon of mass destruction myself." Sorry, what was that you said about ... 'Oh, people say how can you say that, but I say, how can you support Bush when he is about to murder so many Iraqis? Hmmm? We must show our solidarity with Saddam.'"

"Homophobia and Islamic fundamentalism" (Leon Harrison, Green Left Weekly, from the 2002/12/04 issue)
Harrison on a lecture held June 28 at the University of Western Sydney Bankstown campus, entitled "Islam and homosexuality: an Islamic, scientific and logical approach": "The content of the lecture was grossly homophobic. The organisations attending were extremely alarmed that such a meeting was permitted in a place of public learning and social enquiry. Some of the main concerns arising from the lecture included:
• Sheik Shadi, an Islamic cleric, called for an Islamic court to be set up in Australia, which would give Muslims the power to stone gay men and lesbians to death;
• Keysar Trad, vice-president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, rejected the concept of anti-discrimination and anti-vilification legislation and urged Muslims to defy these laws; and
• Hannan Dover, a lecturer in psychology at UWS (Bankstown), told the meeting that she would not allow a gay lecturer at the university to attend the lecture. She also informed the audience that she would not allow progressive, pro-gay Muslims to attend the lecture, nor would she allow them to join a group she was establishing for Muslim health workers.
Brad Gray from ACON's anti-violence project and other participants left the meeting feeling extremely fearful for the safety of all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, especially those from an Islamic background. ... However, gay and lesbian community newspapers have been silent on this issue." (Note: Found via Tim Blair. See also: "Islam vs Gays" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2002/12/03): "Imagine if a bevy of Christian Right fundamentalists argued at a public event at a university that a Biblical court should be set up in America that would allow Christians to put gays to death, as mandated by Leviticus. Imagine if such fundamentalists also called on their fellow believers to violate laws against anti-gay discrimination and hate crimes, and barred a gay lecturer at the university from the event. It would be a huge story - and rightly so. But it happened in Australia recently. Everyone looked the other way. Even the gay press ignored it.")

Monday, December 2, 2002

News and commentary:

"'Al-Qaida' Statement Claims Kenya Attack" (Maggie Michael, AP/Yahoo! News, 2002/12/02)
"A statement attributed to al-Qaida claimed responsibility Monday for last week's car-bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya and the attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner the same day. The statement, posted on an Islamic Web site, called the Thursday's attacks a Ramadan greeting to the Palestinian people and referred to the al-Qaida attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed 231 people - including 12 Americans - and wounded more than 5,000. "At the same place where the 'Jewish Crusader coalition' was hit four years ago ... here the fighters ... came back once again to strike heavily against that evil coalition," the statement said. "But this time, it was against Jews." ...
The five-page claim was made in the name of "The Political Office of al-Qaida Jihad Organization." Unlike four years ago, when the United States was the target in Kenya, the statement said this time the message was for Jews. "We send them a message: Your practices in corrupting earth, occupying sacred places, criminal acts against our families in Palestine ... all your practices will not pass peacefully without firing back," it said. "Your children for ours, your women for ours, your elders for ours, and we will follow you wherever you are because you made us live in terror and fear." It pledged that further attacks would be carried out, saying 'it is a war between faith and the infidel, between truth and fallacy, between justice and injustice.'"

"Bush warns Saddam over inspections" (BBC News, 2002/12/02)
"Speaking ahead of the signing of a defence bill, he said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had until next Sunday to prove that he was serious about averting war. ... In his first extended comments on the inspections, Mr Bush said it was not up to monitors working in Iraq to uncover any hidden weapons. It was, he said, Baghdad's duty to give a "credible and complete" declaration of its stocks. Baghdad denies possessing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. President Bush said his government would be making one judgement in the inspection process: "Has Saddam Hussein changed his behaviour of the last 11 years? Has he decided to co-operate willingly and comply completely, or has he not? "So far the signs are not encouraging," he said." (See also: "President Signs National Defense Authorization Act" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2002/12/02))

"Al Qaeda, the McGovernite Vanguard?" (James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal/Best of the Web Today, 2002/12/02)
"In an otherwise forgettable Harper's essay called "The Case for Liberalism" (which this "progressive" magazine is too technologically backward to make available online), George McGovern makes this astonishing statement: "President Bush has said repeatedly that the terrorists hate us because of our freedom. I don't believe that. The world's people have always admired our freedom. What they don't like is the arrogance and indifference to world opinion inherent in so much of our international policy." ...
Yet even if you believe McGovern's assertion about the views of "the world's people," it's no refutation of the president's claim that the terrorists hate us because of our freedom. McGovern, however, pointedly does not distinguish between the terrorists and the world's people. Osama bin Laden, he seems to be saying, is (or was) a McGovernite too. Does McGovern really believe that al Qaeda is the party of acid, amnesty and abortion? Don't laugh; some people do. "Radical Muslim leaders like Osama bin Laden, Yasser Arafat and yes, even Saddam Hussein strive for an ideal that Americans can endorse: social justice," opines one Ana McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News." (See also: "Shared beliefs are at the heart of peaceful and lasting solutions" (Ana McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 2002/12/01))

"Latest attack on Jews brings a deafening silence" (Rosie Dimanno, The Star, 2002/12/02)
"The carnage in Kenya last Thursday is only the most recent atrocity but no doubt history will recall it as a defining moment in the modern-day Holocaust of Jews - a point where all buffers of presumed security were breached, when the war of attrition against Israelis went extra-territorial, crossing geographical borders and moral boundaries. ...
I have been waiting, in the days since Thursday's abominable attack, for just one word of sympathy, of pity, from the Muslim world. One note of commiseration to emanate from inside the thousands of mosques, one hint of regret and empathy from commentators ever ready to assail any Israeli misstep and aggression. But the silence has been deafening. ...
They kill Jews. They kill Americans. They kill Australians who had the temerity to push rampaging Indonesian paramilitaries out of East Timor, a predominantly Catholic fledgling state. They kill Kenyan dancers and civil employees. They kill French engineers. They blow up skyscrapers and bring down airplanes. They do all this with Allah's name on their lips. And some day, I fear they'll come for you." (Note: Found via Little Green Footballs.)

"Blaming the victim of terrorism" (Cathy Young, The Boston Globe, 2002/12/02)
Young on the "disturbing tendency on the left to blame America first and to promote the notion of moral equivalency between Western democracies and their enemies.": "The other day, for instance, I came across an article about a just-published book called ''Snowball's Chance'' by American novelist John Reed, a satirical sequel/rejoinder to George Orwell's famous ''Animal Farm.'' In ''Animal Farm,'' an allegory of the Russian revolution, a group of farm animals rebel and drive away their human masters but end up under the brutal dictatorship of a Stalinesque pig. In ''Snowball's Chance,'' the farm embraces capitalism; the animals' living standards improve, but environmental degradation follows. Not content to leave it at that, Reed ends his anticapitalist fable with a transparent reference to Sept. 11: Forest animals angered by the destruction of their habitat, led by a group of beavers, attack the twin windmills (get it?) that supply power to the farm. The book ends with the irate farm animals planning their revenge and chanting, ''Kill the beavers!'' There are certain flaws in this charming allegory. The twin towers, for instance, were not just machines but buildings full of people, and protection of the environment does not rank high on Al Qaeda's agenda. But these are apparently minor details to Reed, a New Yorker who described his reaction to the attack on America as follows: ''I thought, 'Why would they do this to us?' ... The twin towers attack showed us that something is wrong with our system, too.'' In other words: What did the victim do to deserve it?"

"The State of the West" (Richard Perle and Christopher Patten, The Trilateral Commission/FrontPageMagazine, 2002/12/02)
A transcript of a debate between Richard Perle and Christopher Patten over "The State of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership". Patten is embarrassing as always: "CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: ... America isn't just a super power, it is, as the former American Ambassador in London Ray Sykes pointed out: a super-dooper power. It's powerful militarily, it's powerful technologically, it's powerful economically. It has a global cultural impact and reach, its universities are magnets for the world's young, and we have to ask ourselves, again to use a Chinese expression, does this potent 'Hegemon' want partners and allies, or does it just want followers? Secondly, I think we're at a juncture in international affairs where there is a real danger of the Huntington Thesis becoming self-fulfilling. I think the gap, the gulf, between the Islamic world and Europe and North America is deeply troubling; I think the degree of antipathy in the Islamic world to the West is very worrying. Of course hatred of America is wholly, wholly unjustified, but if I was an American I'm not sure that I would necessarily feel that it could be best dealt with by bombing the haters. ...
RICHARD PERLE: ... Chris referred to the 'clash of civilisations' almost as though we were somehow responsible for it. I very much hope that a clash of civilisations can be avoided - there's nothing inevitable about it. It was in part out of an apprehension that we might slide into a clash of civilisations that I believed, and others in the United States believed, it was essential that we intervene in Bosnia at a time when Muslims were the victims of mass murder approaching genocide. And many of you will recall that the American approach, which was admittedly rather more half-hearted than one would have wished, was rebuffed by Europeans who preferred first not to get involved and then when they did get involved, not to act in a sufficiently robust way."

"The Bush Manifesto" (Joshua Muravchik, Commentary, from the December 2002 issue)
Muravchik points out that warnings and plaints about the Bush Doctrine "sound uncannily like those faced in an earlier age by Harry S. Truman when he launched the policy of containment": "Truman's request for aid to Greece and Turkey was denounced by one prominent Senator as "a new American imperialism," aimed at securing "oil for the American monopolies." The columnist Walter Lippmann warned that by failing to work through the newly established UN, Truman had "cut a hole in the charter which it would be very difficult to repair." It was only because such voices were spurned that the world was eventually delivered from the shadow of Soviet tyranny. Now as then, the critics offer no real alternative strategy, only a counsel of evasion. In 1947, when the UN was but two years old, the notion that the world body could serve as a substitute for the exercise of America's own will and power may perhaps have been a pardonable hope. Today, when we know better, such advice is worse than pusillanimous; it is utterly cynical. By contrast, Bush's response to the challenge that was brought home to us last September 11 is both thoughtful and brave. Our national security is indeed at issue. Everything now is riding on the follow-through."

"Modernizing Islam" (Martin Kramer et al., Commentary, from the December 2002 issue)
Responses to Francis Fukuyama's and Nadav Samin's "Can Any Good Come of Radical Islam?" by six critics, including Kramer: "What happens when a really big reality (like 9/11) collides head-on with a really big idea (like Francis Fukuyama's "end of history")? Inevitably, the idea crumples to absorb the shock. Let us survey the wreckage. In "Can Any Good Come of Radical Islam?" [September], Mr. Fukuyama and his co-author Nadav Samin concur that Islamism is a destructive force that warrants comparison with Communism and fascism. But, they write, it might also be a modernizing one - it might, despite itself, strip away the traditional constraints that have prevented Muslims from modernizing. And if Islamism, in turn, can be stripped of its ideology, then perhaps it might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. If. And if only. In Francis Fukuyama, Hegel springs eternal, and it was Hegel who passed this judgment early in the 19th century: "Islam has long vanished from the stage of history, and has retreated into oriental ease and repose." The persistent refusal of Islam to do just that remains one of the principal flaws of "endism," from Hegel to this day - that is, for as long as the modern West has rubbed shoulders with Islam." (See also: "Can Any Good Come Of Radical Islam?" (Francis Fukuyama and Nadav Samin, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/09/12))

"Miss World, Appeasers" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2002/12/02)
"From the semi-literate press release put out by the Miss World organization: 'The Miss World Organisation and all of the Miss World contestants were shocked and deeply saddened by the appalling comments made in the Nigerian Newspaper "This Day" that led to such a tragic loss of life.' Jaw-dropping." (See also: "Press release from the Miss World Organisation" (Miss World, November 2002): "The Miss World Organisation and all of the Miss World contestants were shocked and deeply saddened by the appalling comments made in the Nigerian Newspaper "This Day" that led to such a tragic loss of life. ... The views expressed in this article were offensive to all of us and caused considerable anguish, for all the Miss World contestants, crew and staff.")

"UK unveils Iraq 'torture' dossier" (BBC News, 2002/12/02)
"A dossier of human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated by the Iraqi regime, including torture and rape, has been released by the UK government. It is the government's most detailed account yet of rights violations in Iraq, according to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, speaking as the document was published on Monday. ... The report contains graphic first-hand accounts by Iraqi victims of the type of brutality they claim to have encountered, as well as intelligence material and evidence from aid charities in the region. However, human rights organisation Amnesty International has criticised its timing, saying ministers are exploiting the issues to justify their own ends. The dossier was launched six days before Baghdad must submit a full declaration of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, or face "serious consequences" under United Nations resolution 1441. ... Amnesty International secretary general Irene Khan disagreed. She said: 'This selective attention to human rights is nothing but a cold and calculated manipulation of the work of human rights activists.'" (See also the dossier: "Saddam Hussein: crimes and human rights abuses" (Foreign & Commonwealth Office/BBC News, November 2002))

"Saudi diplomat named in suit" (David Wastell, Sunday Telegraph/The Washington Times, 2002/12/02)
An American court has issued a summons against the next Saudi ambassador to Britain, saying that in his previous job he helped fund Afghanistan's Taliban regime while it sheltered Osama bin Laden. The summons has been issued to Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence, ordering him to respond to a compensation claim for more than $600 million brought by the families of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The development will cast a shadow over the prince's appointment, which will be announced in Riyadh within the next few days, after a six-week delay. ... The prince, who courted bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and maintained close contacts with the Taliban regime, was replaced as the Saudis' head of intelligence two weeks before the September 11 attacks, after he had served almost 25 years in the post. Earlier this year, he said bin Laden had become 'one of the most violent and, I think, one of the cruelest killers in modern history.'"

Added in archive:
"Miss World war" (Jennie Bristow, spiked, 2002/11/28)
"Aliyu Shinkafi's Fatwamania" (Wole Soyinka, Nigeriaworld, 2002/11/27)
"Beauties and the Beasts" (Andrew Sullivan, Salon.com/andrewsullivan.com, 2002/11/27)
"The End of the West?" (Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/11/26)
"The End of the West" (Charles A. Kupchan, The Atlantic, from the November 2002 issue)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

Copyright © Watch 2001-2006. Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.

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

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

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

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

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

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

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

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

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

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

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

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

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

› From 2001/09/11 -



Monthly index

December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006

› From September 2001 -



Author index

› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat



Support Watch

Please feel free to donate if you enjoy the daily content and links Watch provides:

Contact Watch

Email:
watch-at-windsofchange.net