Thank you, my foolish friends in the West
The Sunday Times
May 14, 2006
Ian Buruma
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is only the latest dictator-in-waiting to bask in adulation from western 'progressives', says Ian Buruma
When the Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas managed to escape to the US in 1980, after years of persecution by the Cuban government for being openly homosexual and a dissident, he said: “The difference between the communist and capitalist systems is that, although both give you a kick in the ass, in the communist system you have to applaud, while in the capitalist system you can scream. And I came here to scream.”
One of the most vexing things for artists and intellectuals who live under the compulsion to applaud dictators is the spectacle of colleagues from more open societies applauding of their own free will. It adds a peculiarly nasty insult to injury. Stalin was applauded by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Mao was visited by a constant stream of worshippers from the West, some of whose names can still produce winces of disgust in China. Castro has basked for years in the adulation of such literary stars as Jose Saramago and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Even Pol Pot found favour among several well-known journalists and academics.
Last year a number of journalists, writers and showbiz figures, including Harold Pinter, Nadine Gordimer, Harry Belafonte and Tariq Ali, signed a letter claiming that in Cuba “there has not been a single case of disappearance, torture or extra-judicial execution since 1959 . . .”
Arenas was arrested in 1973 for “ideological deviation”. He was tortured and locked up in prison cells filled with floodwater and excrement, and threatened with death if he didn’t renounce his own writing. Imagine what it must be like to be treated like this and then read about your fellow writers in the West standing up for your oppressors.
...
Worse causes have been served by western enthusiasts than the Bolivarist revolution, and worse leaders have been applauded than Chavez. One only needs recall the abject audiences at the court of Saddam Hussein by George Galloway, among others, who flattered the murderous dictator while claiming to represent “the voice of the voiceless”. Even now, such publications as the New Left Review advocate support for a global anti-imperialist movement that would include North Korea, surely the most oppressive regime on earth.
The common element of radical Third Worldism is an obsession with American power, as though the US were so intrinsically evil that any enemy of the US must be our friend, from Mao to Kim Jong-il, from Fidel Castro to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And if our “friends” shower us with flattery, asking us to attend conferences and sit on advisory boards, so much the better.
Criticism of American policies and economic practices are necessary and often just, but why do leftists continue to discredit their critical stance by applauding strongmen who oppress and murder their own critics? Is it simply a reverse application of that famous American cold war dictum: “He may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard”? Or is it the fatal attraction to power often felt by writers and artists who feel marginal and impotent in capitalist democracies? The danger of Chavism is not a revival of communism, even though Castro is among its main boosters. Nor should anti-Americanism be our main concern. The US can take care of itself. What needs to be resisted, not just in Latin America, is the new form of populist authoritarianism.
That Chavez is applauded by many people, especially the poor, is not necessarily a sign of democracy; many revolutionary leaders are popular, at least in the beginning of their rule, before their promises have ended in misery and bloodshed.
The left has a proud tradition of defending political freedoms, at home and abroad. But this tradition is in danger of being lost when western intellectuals indulge in power worship. Applause for autocrats undermines the morale of people who insist on fighting for their freedoms Leftists were largely sympathetic, and rightly so, to critics of Berlusconi and Thaksin, even though neither was a dictator. Both did, of course, support American foreign policy. But when democracy is endangered, the left should be equally hard on rulers who oppose the US. Failure to do so encourages authoritarianism everywhere, including in the West itself, where the frivolous behaviour of a dogmatic left has already allowed neoconservatives to steal all the best lines.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Ayaan Hirsi Ali leaves Europe to live in the USA
Europe loses a powerful & important voice in the debate on Islam:
Hirsi Ali to leave Netherlands for job with US think tank
Holland's shameful treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Hirsi Ali to leave Netherlands for job with US think tank
Holland's shameful treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Civil Liberties critics are 'out of touch' says Blair
Fascinating email exchange between Henry Porter and the Prime Minister. Tony Blair attacks his critics and pledges to go much further. He states that he 'would widen the police powers to seize the cash of suspected drug dealers, the cars they drive round in, and require them to prove they came by them, lawfully.' and promises to 'generally harry, hassle and hound them until they give up or leave the country.'
Here's debate in full: Britain's Liberties - The Great Debate
Here's debate in full: Britain's Liberties - The Great Debate
Thursday, April 20, 2006
'The White Flight to the Right'
Interesting article on the alleged increase of suppport for the BNP amongst traditional working class Labour voters. The piece also suggests how confused and redundant the old notions of Left and Right have become when both Respect and the BNP are claiming to be the traditional voices of socialism.
'The White Flight to the Right'
Michael Collins
'The White Flight to the Right'
Michael Collins
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Rebuilding a Democratic Left
Interesting piece on Nick Cohen's blog. He has worked with Norman Geras to produce a manifesto for Progressive Politics. A renewal of political debate and values is much needed and welcome. Although personally, I think they are wrong to so narrowly define it as of the left. The best values are universal and beyond party politics.
Friday, April 07, 2006
The race betweeen culture and structure
V. interesting speech by John McWhorter that I happened to find on the American Enterprise Institue for Public Policy Research website. (You know, just a little light reading.)
Although it's specifically about black America it's well worth a look as it raises questions (and possible methodologies) that may apply beyond the scope of McWhorter's discussion.
Winning the Race
Beyond the Crisis in Black America
By John McWhorter
One of the main sources of the stalemate on the race question in America today is that among so many, it is considered a mark of enlightenment to understand that poor black Americans are incapable of playing a significant part in changing their own lives.
Instead, it is thought that external factors--mainly the economy and racism--have determined the fate of poor black Americans and always will. The fancy way of putting this is that black people’s problems are structural, i.e. due to flaws in societal structures. Adherents of the Structural notion are concentrated especially in academia: mastering its tenets is generally thought, in fact, to be a badge of mature insight and moral sophistication.
What especially alarms the Structural crowd is those who lack this purported sophistication, and venture to propose that the black community’s problems are due, at least in significant part, to entrenched behaviors that are not connected to the state of the GNP, how whites feel about blacks, or how level the playing field is. That is, the Structural crowd blanches at the thought that anyone supposes that poor black America’s problems are cultural rather than structural.
They are aware that the Cultural analysis is the more immediately intuitive one, most likely of the man on the street. Therefore, they see all expressions of the Cultural analysis as red meat to the untutored masses, threatening to undo their decades-long attempt to usher the public into what they suppose is precious wisdom only comprehensible via careful tutelage.
This is why Bill Cosby’s grouchy call for poor blacks to take responsibility for themselves was received with such fury by so many in the black punditocracy, even inspiring a book-length disquisition by the University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Eric Dyson. Cosby was exemplifying precisely what the Structural crowd consider backwards and unkind--and heaven forbid, in a very public forum where Joe Barstool could hear it.
This is why so often black people appear to be closed to simple differences of opinion on race. To Structural adherents, the Cultural idea is not just a different viewpoint, but a punitive, abusive one, accusing people of responsibility for problems imposed upon them by The Man. To point to culture in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, then, is to assail a struggling black person who already has enough on his plate because of the eternal, grinding depredations of the Structure.
Indeed, the Structural analysis is commonly expressed amidst indignation, name-calling, and rhetorical language. These are signs that the analysis is based not on sober engagement with the full range of relevant facts and a constant commitment to learning new things and assessing them logically, but on emotion. A purported analysis of race and society that is based on emotion has little chance of corresponding more than approximately to reality, and in my research, I have found it impossible to avoid the conclusion so many others have reached: that the Structural analysis has a grain of truth in it and then some, but that in 2006, poor black America’s main problems are cultural.
Read on.
Although it's specifically about black America it's well worth a look as it raises questions (and possible methodologies) that may apply beyond the scope of McWhorter's discussion.
Winning the Race
Beyond the Crisis in Black America
By John McWhorter
One of the main sources of the stalemate on the race question in America today is that among so many, it is considered a mark of enlightenment to understand that poor black Americans are incapable of playing a significant part in changing their own lives.
Instead, it is thought that external factors--mainly the economy and racism--have determined the fate of poor black Americans and always will. The fancy way of putting this is that black people’s problems are structural, i.e. due to flaws in societal structures. Adherents of the Structural notion are concentrated especially in academia: mastering its tenets is generally thought, in fact, to be a badge of mature insight and moral sophistication.
What especially alarms the Structural crowd is those who lack this purported sophistication, and venture to propose that the black community’s problems are due, at least in significant part, to entrenched behaviors that are not connected to the state of the GNP, how whites feel about blacks, or how level the playing field is. That is, the Structural crowd blanches at the thought that anyone supposes that poor black America’s problems are cultural rather than structural.
They are aware that the Cultural analysis is the more immediately intuitive one, most likely of the man on the street. Therefore, they see all expressions of the Cultural analysis as red meat to the untutored masses, threatening to undo their decades-long attempt to usher the public into what they suppose is precious wisdom only comprehensible via careful tutelage.
This is why Bill Cosby’s grouchy call for poor blacks to take responsibility for themselves was received with such fury by so many in the black punditocracy, even inspiring a book-length disquisition by the University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Eric Dyson. Cosby was exemplifying precisely what the Structural crowd consider backwards and unkind--and heaven forbid, in a very public forum where Joe Barstool could hear it.
This is why so often black people appear to be closed to simple differences of opinion on race. To Structural adherents, the Cultural idea is not just a different viewpoint, but a punitive, abusive one, accusing people of responsibility for problems imposed upon them by The Man. To point to culture in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, then, is to assail a struggling black person who already has enough on his plate because of the eternal, grinding depredations of the Structure.
Indeed, the Structural analysis is commonly expressed amidst indignation, name-calling, and rhetorical language. These are signs that the analysis is based not on sober engagement with the full range of relevant facts and a constant commitment to learning new things and assessing them logically, but on emotion. A purported analysis of race and society that is based on emotion has little chance of corresponding more than approximately to reality, and in my research, I have found it impossible to avoid the conclusion so many others have reached: that the Structural analysis has a grain of truth in it and then some, but that in 2006, poor black America’s main problems are cultural.
Read on.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Iran's Killing Fields
Ever seen a picture of a woman being buried up to her neck prior to being stoned? Well there's one here. You also see the Amnesty ad (slogan: "In Iran, stoning a person to death is not against the law. Using the wrong stone is.") where they show guidelines as to the right size of stone to use (it's the Goldilocks principle).
Tehran’s Killing Fields
FrontPageMagazine.com
January 27, 2005
Women sentenced to death by stoning are buried in the ground up to their necks. Iranian law regulates the size of the stones used by the executioner crowd; stones cannot be big enough to kill the sentenced woman too quickly, as the purpose of this barbaric ritual is to inflict as much pain as possible before death. On the other hand, stones cannot be too small, as each blow must be dramatically painful.
In a particularly gruesome execution carried out in 1993 in the city of Arak, a woman was to be stoned to death in front of her husband and two young children. After the stoning began, the woman was able to free herself from the hole in the ground, escaping death. According to Shariah laws, in such cases the woman must be let go, as her death sentence was revoked by divine intervention. Ten minutes after the failed stoning, however, the poor woman was chased down, apprehended and summarily executed anyway, by a firing squad.
While stoning captures the imagination of Westerners as the most barbaric act committed under Shariah laws, other forms of sentencing perpetrated by the Islamic Republic are just as horrific. For example, Iran employs several types of body mutilation, from the amputation of hands, arms and legs to the macabre procedure of plucking out the eyeballs of the sentenced without the use of anesthetics. Several photos exist to document such occurrences, in dossiers kept by human rights organizations.
Tehran’s Killing Fields
FrontPageMagazine.com
January 27, 2005
Women sentenced to death by stoning are buried in the ground up to their necks. Iranian law regulates the size of the stones used by the executioner crowd; stones cannot be big enough to kill the sentenced woman too quickly, as the purpose of this barbaric ritual is to inflict as much pain as possible before death. On the other hand, stones cannot be too small, as each blow must be dramatically painful.
In a particularly gruesome execution carried out in 1993 in the city of Arak, a woman was to be stoned to death in front of her husband and two young children. After the stoning began, the woman was able to free herself from the hole in the ground, escaping death. According to Shariah laws, in such cases the woman must be let go, as her death sentence was revoked by divine intervention. Ten minutes after the failed stoning, however, the poor woman was chased down, apprehended and summarily executed anyway, by a firing squad.
While stoning captures the imagination of Westerners as the most barbaric act committed under Shariah laws, other forms of sentencing perpetrated by the Islamic Republic are just as horrific. For example, Iran employs several types of body mutilation, from the amputation of hands, arms and legs to the macabre procedure of plucking out the eyeballs of the sentenced without the use of anesthetics. Several photos exist to document such occurrences, in dossiers kept by human rights organizations.
Report from the Rally for Freedom of Expression
A fun day out of speeches and rain. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a demo. So long in fact, that the last time I was on a march people were still chanting ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie – Out! Out! Out!’ This was somewhat different. V. civilised. No exhortations to buy the Socialist Worker.
It was a small crowd. The first couple of speeches were by Dr. Evan Harris (Lib Dem) and Peter Tatchell. Both spoke eloquently about their support for freedom of speech, though both drew the line at incitement to hatred and/or violence. (Remember Tatchell was all for prosecuting Beenie Man over his lyrics) I’ve actually got a lot of time for Tatchell. A friend said he’d written to him complaining about a particular article he’d written and he said he got a very sweet and well-reasoned reply. Both speeches were good (Tatchell more or less posted his in advance – you can read it here) and both made a point of criticising Sir Iqbal Sacranie – the general thrust being that they defend his right to criticise homosexuals and wish that he in turn would defend their right to criticise Islam. Harris also castigated Charles Clarke for his letter to Imams in which he made party political capital out of the defeat of the Religious Hatred Bill. Throughout the afternoon there was frequent reference to the MoToons, Religious Hatred Bill, ‘glorification of terrorism’, Jerry Springer and Bezhti.
There was a moment of excitement when one of the organisers told the crowd that a man had been questioned by the police for holding a banner with one of the MoToons on it. A friend of said man made a short speech and held the offending banner aloft passing it round the crowd with a cry of ‘They can’t arrest all of us.’ The banner was duly passed round. I should point out that there had been a controversial 11th hour request for rallyers to not display the cartoons which caused an inevitable bunching up of panties (read the comments). In the end I think the support for the MoToon when it was passed around showed that the rally had not become the ‘anti-cartoon’ protest that some had feared. There was also an uncomfortable moment when an effigy of Blair with a swastika round his neck attracted the attention of stewards but I was too far away to see exactly what was going on (or indeed the text accompanying the effigy). But in any event, the effigy was held up for a while.
While we’re on the subject of banners, most were rather po-faced quotations but there were some more imaginative homemade ones:
“Infidel Bloggers Alliance”
A picture of Zoidberg from Futurama under the heading “Toons for Freedom of Expression”
Danish flags with “Londoners stand with you”
Tatchell carried a rather fetching “Love Muslims – Hate Religious Tyrants”
“Toonophobia”
“He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.”
And my favourite: “Free to offend – please don’t behead me!”
There was also a nice moment of traditional British silliness when a man dressed as a bullfighter ran around with a Danish flag shouting “Fight the fundamentalist bull” to the sound of hearty applause.
More speeches followed and despite the rain the crowd remained solid. (Police estimate 250, organisers 600 – personally I think the police may be nearer the mark.) Other speakers included Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society - unsurprisingly he was focussed on blasphemy laws, Religious Hatred, and the (by now de riguer) Motoons, Springer opera and Bezhti play.
The next speaker was an Iraqi, identified only as Ali. He described life under Saddam and told of a man who got 7 years, just for dreaming of a coup. He said that not only did they not have freedom of speech, they did not have freedom to dream. He supported the invasion and expressed his support for the democratic voices in Iraq who want freedom of expression and warned of an ongoing battle against theocracy and totalitarianism. He told us he was a practising Muslim, but denounced the idea of a prophet who would ask you to kill in his name. He also had a neat joke about freedom of thought giving female suicide bombers the right to ask for 72 men when they get to paradise. (Maybe you had to be there. But it got a big laugh.)
The most surprising speech was by Labi Siffre. He’s actually quite the activist, so it shouldn’t have been that surprising, but till today I only knew him for recording ‘It Must be Love (later a big hit for Madness) and also the main sample in Eminem’s ‘My Name Is’. Anyway, he made a great speech, the theme of which was ‘not all beliefs are worthy of respect’ and included the line ‘I reject the argument that “because I am sincere, I must be right”’.
The most hardcore speech came from Dr. Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance. He was the first (and only) speaker to mention Nick Griffin, Abu Hamza and David Irving, names that did not exactly provoke any rousing cheers. (I did spot one guy wearing a sandwich board about Irving, but I couldn’t read all of it from where I was. May have been a bit nutty.) Nonetheless, his general point was very well received, namely that many people displayed ‘a selective attitude to free speech’ and were rather ‘defending a range of permissible expressions’.
There were a couple more speeches but those were the highlights. Very peaceful. Low key policing (though L. was pretty sure they were photographing the crowd, which is a little worrying.) I have to say that the two hours flew by and that it felt really good to be there.
And when it was all over my youngest son got to say ‘hello’ to a policeman and try on his helmet.
It was a small crowd. The first couple of speeches were by Dr. Evan Harris (Lib Dem) and Peter Tatchell. Both spoke eloquently about their support for freedom of speech, though both drew the line at incitement to hatred and/or violence. (Remember Tatchell was all for prosecuting Beenie Man over his lyrics) I’ve actually got a lot of time for Tatchell. A friend said he’d written to him complaining about a particular article he’d written and he said he got a very sweet and well-reasoned reply. Both speeches were good (Tatchell more or less posted his in advance – you can read it here) and both made a point of criticising Sir Iqbal Sacranie – the general thrust being that they defend his right to criticise homosexuals and wish that he in turn would defend their right to criticise Islam. Harris also castigated Charles Clarke for his letter to Imams in which he made party political capital out of the defeat of the Religious Hatred Bill. Throughout the afternoon there was frequent reference to the MoToons, Religious Hatred Bill, ‘glorification of terrorism’, Jerry Springer and Bezhti.
There was a moment of excitement when one of the organisers told the crowd that a man had been questioned by the police for holding a banner with one of the MoToons on it. A friend of said man made a short speech and held the offending banner aloft passing it round the crowd with a cry of ‘They can’t arrest all of us.’ The banner was duly passed round. I should point out that there had been a controversial 11th hour request for rallyers to not display the cartoons which caused an inevitable bunching up of panties (read the comments). In the end I think the support for the MoToon when it was passed around showed that the rally had not become the ‘anti-cartoon’ protest that some had feared. There was also an uncomfortable moment when an effigy of Blair with a swastika round his neck attracted the attention of stewards but I was too far away to see exactly what was going on (or indeed the text accompanying the effigy). But in any event, the effigy was held up for a while.
While we’re on the subject of banners, most were rather po-faced quotations but there were some more imaginative homemade ones:
“Infidel Bloggers Alliance”
A picture of Zoidberg from Futurama under the heading “Toons for Freedom of Expression”
Danish flags with “Londoners stand with you”
Tatchell carried a rather fetching “Love Muslims – Hate Religious Tyrants”
“Toonophobia”
“He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.”
And my favourite: “Free to offend – please don’t behead me!”
There was also a nice moment of traditional British silliness when a man dressed as a bullfighter ran around with a Danish flag shouting “Fight the fundamentalist bull” to the sound of hearty applause.
More speeches followed and despite the rain the crowd remained solid. (Police estimate 250, organisers 600 – personally I think the police may be nearer the mark.) Other speakers included Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society - unsurprisingly he was focussed on blasphemy laws, Religious Hatred, and the (by now de riguer) Motoons, Springer opera and Bezhti play.
The next speaker was an Iraqi, identified only as Ali. He described life under Saddam and told of a man who got 7 years, just for dreaming of a coup. He said that not only did they not have freedom of speech, they did not have freedom to dream. He supported the invasion and expressed his support for the democratic voices in Iraq who want freedom of expression and warned of an ongoing battle against theocracy and totalitarianism. He told us he was a practising Muslim, but denounced the idea of a prophet who would ask you to kill in his name. He also had a neat joke about freedom of thought giving female suicide bombers the right to ask for 72 men when they get to paradise. (Maybe you had to be there. But it got a big laugh.)
The most surprising speech was by Labi Siffre. He’s actually quite the activist, so it shouldn’t have been that surprising, but till today I only knew him for recording ‘It Must be Love (later a big hit for Madness) and also the main sample in Eminem’s ‘My Name Is’. Anyway, he made a great speech, the theme of which was ‘not all beliefs are worthy of respect’ and included the line ‘I reject the argument that “because I am sincere, I must be right”’.
The most hardcore speech came from Dr. Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance. He was the first (and only) speaker to mention Nick Griffin, Abu Hamza and David Irving, names that did not exactly provoke any rousing cheers. (I did spot one guy wearing a sandwich board about Irving, but I couldn’t read all of it from where I was. May have been a bit nutty.) Nonetheless, his general point was very well received, namely that many people displayed ‘a selective attitude to free speech’ and were rather ‘defending a range of permissible expressions’.
There were a couple more speeches but those were the highlights. Very peaceful. Low key policing (though L. was pretty sure they were photographing the crowd, which is a little worrying.) I have to say that the two hours flew by and that it felt really good to be there.
And when it was all over my youngest son got to say ‘hello’ to a policeman and try on his helmet.
Moussaoui al-Qaeda trial - FBI in dock for criminal ineptitude
Be afraid... be very afraid....
Al-Qaeda trial lands FBI in dock for criminal ineptitude
The Times
March 25, 2006
THEY filed into court three weeks ago — the grieving families, the press, the curious public, the jury — expecting to see the Bush Administration lay out in devastating detail why Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the US for his connection to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, should be put to death.
What they have witnessed is a dark tragicomedy, a courtroom farce with the FBI and the Government revealed in excruciating detail as the Keystone Kops, and Moussaoui himself, hood-eyed, thickly bearded and constantly ranting, an onlooker as blunder has followed blunder.
Displaying an exceptional level of incompetence, prosecutors have managed to put the Government in the dock on charges of criminal ineptitude and cronyism, while the self-confessed al-Qaeda terrorist and disciple of Osama bin Laden they are desperate to execute sits on the sidelines, with every chance of reaching old age.
...
This week a wealth of new evidence of how the FBI bungled the Moussaoui investigation became so Pythonesque in its absurdity that even the victims’ families were roaring with laughter.
Into the witness box stepped Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui. He was called by the prosecution but became the star witness of the defence.
He said that he warned his supervisors more than 70 times that Moussaoui was an al-Qaeda operative who might be plotting to hijack an airplane and fly it into a building. He said that he was regularly thwarted by two superiors, David Frasca and Michael Maltbie, from obtaining a warrant to search Moussaoui’s flat. He accused the men of being criminally negligent.
Mr Maltbie told him that getting a warrant, which could be troublesome, might harm his — Maltbie’s — career prospects. Mr Maltbie has since been promoted.
Al-Qaeda trial lands FBI in dock for criminal ineptitude
The Times
March 25, 2006
THEY filed into court three weeks ago — the grieving families, the press, the curious public, the jury — expecting to see the Bush Administration lay out in devastating detail why Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the US for his connection to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, should be put to death.
What they have witnessed is a dark tragicomedy, a courtroom farce with the FBI and the Government revealed in excruciating detail as the Keystone Kops, and Moussaoui himself, hood-eyed, thickly bearded and constantly ranting, an onlooker as blunder has followed blunder.
Displaying an exceptional level of incompetence, prosecutors have managed to put the Government in the dock on charges of criminal ineptitude and cronyism, while the self-confessed al-Qaeda terrorist and disciple of Osama bin Laden they are desperate to execute sits on the sidelines, with every chance of reaching old age.
...
This week a wealth of new evidence of how the FBI bungled the Moussaoui investigation became so Pythonesque in its absurdity that even the victims’ families were roaring with laughter.
Into the witness box stepped Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui. He was called by the prosecution but became the star witness of the defence.
He said that he warned his supervisors more than 70 times that Moussaoui was an al-Qaeda operative who might be plotting to hijack an airplane and fly it into a building. He said that he was regularly thwarted by two superiors, David Frasca and Michael Maltbie, from obtaining a warrant to search Moussaoui’s flat. He accused the men of being criminally negligent.
Mr Maltbie told him that getting a warrant, which could be troublesome, might harm his — Maltbie’s — career prospects. Mr Maltbie has since been promoted.
Released Iraq hostages 'refuse to help their rescuers'
I reckon they should hand Kember and the other two hostages back.
Released hostages 'refuse to help their rescuers'
Telegraph
25/03/2006
The three peace activists freed by an SAS-led coalition force after being held hostage in Iraq for four months refused to co-operate fully with an intelligence unit sent to debrief them, a security source claimed yesterday. The claim has infuriated those searching for other hostages. Neither the men nor the Canadian group that sent them to Iraq have thanked the people who saved them in any of their public statements.
...
Previous hostages have been questioned on everything from what shoes their kidnappers wore to the number of mobile phones they had. The pacifist Christian Peacemaker Teams with which the men were visiting Iraq is opposed to the coalition's presence and has accused it of illegally detaining thousands of Iraqis.
Jan Benvie, 51, an Edinburgh teacher who is due to go to Iraq with the organisation this summer, said: "We make clear that if we are kidnapped we do not want there to be force or any form of violence used to release us."
Although the CPTs has welcomed the men's release, it has not thanked the rescuers in any of its statements. It blamed the kidnapping on the presence of foreign troops in the country, which was "responsible for so much pain and suffering in Iraq today".
Released hostages 'refuse to help their rescuers'
Telegraph
25/03/2006
The three peace activists freed by an SAS-led coalition force after being held hostage in Iraq for four months refused to co-operate fully with an intelligence unit sent to debrief them, a security source claimed yesterday. The claim has infuriated those searching for other hostages. Neither the men nor the Canadian group that sent them to Iraq have thanked the people who saved them in any of their public statements.
...
Previous hostages have been questioned on everything from what shoes their kidnappers wore to the number of mobile phones they had. The pacifist Christian Peacemaker Teams with which the men were visiting Iraq is opposed to the coalition's presence and has accused it of illegally detaining thousands of Iraqis.
Jan Benvie, 51, an Edinburgh teacher who is due to go to Iraq with the organisation this summer, said: "We make clear that if we are kidnapped we do not want there to be force or any form of violence used to release us."
Although the CPTs has welcomed the men's release, it has not thanked the rescuers in any of its statements. It blamed the kidnapping on the presence of foreign troops in the country, which was "responsible for so much pain and suffering in Iraq today".
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Palestinian-Israeli War: Where It Came From, and How to End It - Pipes
Superb article from Pipes, some excerpts below:
The Palestinian-Israeli War: Where It Came From, and How to End It
Daniel Pipes
The Commonwealth
March 2006
What went wrong with Oslo?
There was an assumption that the Palestinians would follow the leadership: If Yasser Arafat signed a document, others in the Palestinian leadership – the Palestinian body-politic more broadly – would likewise accept Israel's existence. Trouble was, first, that the leadership didn't really accept Israel. Look at areas where the leadership had control – television stations, political rhetoric, schoolbooks; while they were on the one hand shaking hands and making deals with Israelis, they on the other hand continued the message that Israel must be destroyed. Symbolic of this would be the maps. Every map produced showed a Palestine instead of an Israel, not alongside it.
Second mistake was to believe that governments or authorities can deliver their populations. If one looks at not just the Palestinian-Israeli accord but the Egyptian and Jordanian accords as well, we see a population – Egyptian, Jordanian or Palestinian – fairly passive and inclined to allow its leadership to take steps on its behalf. Once an agreement has been signed with Israel, the population becomes far more engaged, far more fervently anti-Zionist. It's as though the populations were saying to the leadership, You have our proxy – but when the leadership signed an agreement with Israel, that proxy was taken back.
I lived in Egypt in the 1970s. Before the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Egyptians were not that engaged in this problem. After it, they became far more engaged. Songs like "I Hate Israel" became blockbuster hits. Giving money to organizations that would engage in activities – violent and otherwise – against Israel became far more common.
The net result of the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 was to produce a population of Palestinians that was more vehemently anti-Israel than before. The hope of destroying Israel acquired more traction, seen in words and in actions, in text and in maps. The muted Palestinian mood of 1993 turned into the enraged ambition of 2000. A population not so confident about its prospects – the Iraqis had just lost their war, the Soviet Union had collapsed, the Palestinians were in a precarious situation; they wanted to destroy Israel, but they could see no means of achieving it. By the year 2000, due to the diplomacy, to Israeli concessions, one found a Palestinian population that was truly inspired, that saw within its grasp the destruction of Israel.
What we might do better in the future
To look to the future requires us to acknowledge the faulty presumptions that underlay Oslo. First, that the Palestinians did in fact accept Israel; and second, that the elites could take a softer line and have this accepted more broadly. We must resolve not to make the same mistakes. Instead – and this is my key point – we must make popular Palestinian acceptance of Israel's existence the primary goal. We must work, in other words, for what is now assumed.
The consensus view is that Palestinians have accepted Israel. That lies in the future. Survey research consistently shows that somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of Palestinians, both within the Palestinian Authority and elsewhere, have come to the conclusion that Israel's there and permanent. Interestingly, 15 to 20 percent of Israeli Jews believe that Palestinians have accepted Israel. Americans, when asked if the Palestinians have accepted Israel, about 20 percent say that Arafat sought a small state living alongside Israel. How might this be resolved?
I'm a historian, so I look at the historical record – how conflicts have been resolved in the 20th century. Over and over again, international conflicts are resolved not through mediation and compromise and good will, but through one side coming to the conclusion that it can no longer achieve its goals. The Germans lost in World War I, but they lost without being convinced that they had. They turned to Hitler and tried a second time. In the Second World War, the Allies made clear to the Germans that they had lost. The Korean War ended 50 years ago, but neither the North nor the South came to the conclusion that they could not prevail, and as a result, it could start up again at any time. The Arabs and Israelis fought time after time, yet neither side came to the conclusion it had lost. Iraq and Iran fought for eight years; neither side came to the conclusion it had lost.
....
Q: The notion of political correctness aside, is it not incumbent to be doubly careful in terms of the rhetoric used? Is it not possible that even Muslims who might agree with a great deal of what you're saying feel targeted and identified by some of the things you're saying – and that, perhaps, you tend to drive away some of the people who perhaps you need to support this moderation?
A: It's not for me to say whether my words are driving people away or not. But it is far more difficult to deal with the situation we have now, where there are pious statements made that No, there's no discrimination, there's no special attention paid to Muslims, there's no profiling – whereas in fact, everyone knows there is. That is more insidious than having a situation where one is forthright and says, Well, reluctantly, painfully, we must take these steps. It is in the interest of us all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Let us take these steps sensibly, intelligently, politely and knowledgeably, but let's take these steps because these steps are being taken in any case.
Many of the Muslim organizations protest that Muslims are being singled out and the authorities invariably say, No, no, no. I say, Yes, yes, yes. Let's not lie.
Q: Is it possible some Palestinians will say, "We have a vested interest in building a society and economy for ourselves"?
A: Yes, some will say that here's an opportunity. But this is not a predominant reaction. Look at the response to the Israeli withdrawal – leaving behind houses, fields and agriculture infrastructure with the intent that this could be used by the Palestinians. This was destroyed within hours. There was no interest in building the economy; there was interest in stamping the Palestinian victory over the Israelis, burning synagogues, desecrating synagogues. Was that about fixing the economy and the society and the polity and the culture? No, it's about winning.
The Israelis are fooling themselves if they think that they can finesse the Palestinians into forgetting that the Palestinians want to destroy Israel. They are intent on destroying Israel, and if that means giving up their children as suicide bombers, having a lower standard of living, living under autocracy, they will take it. What they need to be convinced is: You're going to achieve nothing by it. This is where the United States and its allies can be so helpful, to send a signal that is steady and unremitting to the Palestinians: Forget it, you can't win this. Then the Palestinians might have second thoughts more quickly than they will if the outside world doesn't send that signal.
The Palestinian-Israeli War: Where It Came From, and How to End It
Daniel Pipes
The Commonwealth
March 2006
What went wrong with Oslo?
There was an assumption that the Palestinians would follow the leadership: If Yasser Arafat signed a document, others in the Palestinian leadership – the Palestinian body-politic more broadly – would likewise accept Israel's existence. Trouble was, first, that the leadership didn't really accept Israel. Look at areas where the leadership had control – television stations, political rhetoric, schoolbooks; while they were on the one hand shaking hands and making deals with Israelis, they on the other hand continued the message that Israel must be destroyed. Symbolic of this would be the maps. Every map produced showed a Palestine instead of an Israel, not alongside it.
Second mistake was to believe that governments or authorities can deliver their populations. If one looks at not just the Palestinian-Israeli accord but the Egyptian and Jordanian accords as well, we see a population – Egyptian, Jordanian or Palestinian – fairly passive and inclined to allow its leadership to take steps on its behalf. Once an agreement has been signed with Israel, the population becomes far more engaged, far more fervently anti-Zionist. It's as though the populations were saying to the leadership, You have our proxy – but when the leadership signed an agreement with Israel, that proxy was taken back.
I lived in Egypt in the 1970s. Before the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Egyptians were not that engaged in this problem. After it, they became far more engaged. Songs like "I Hate Israel" became blockbuster hits. Giving money to organizations that would engage in activities – violent and otherwise – against Israel became far more common.
The net result of the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 was to produce a population of Palestinians that was more vehemently anti-Israel than before. The hope of destroying Israel acquired more traction, seen in words and in actions, in text and in maps. The muted Palestinian mood of 1993 turned into the enraged ambition of 2000. A population not so confident about its prospects – the Iraqis had just lost their war, the Soviet Union had collapsed, the Palestinians were in a precarious situation; they wanted to destroy Israel, but they could see no means of achieving it. By the year 2000, due to the diplomacy, to Israeli concessions, one found a Palestinian population that was truly inspired, that saw within its grasp the destruction of Israel.
What we might do better in the future
To look to the future requires us to acknowledge the faulty presumptions that underlay Oslo. First, that the Palestinians did in fact accept Israel; and second, that the elites could take a softer line and have this accepted more broadly. We must resolve not to make the same mistakes. Instead – and this is my key point – we must make popular Palestinian acceptance of Israel's existence the primary goal. We must work, in other words, for what is now assumed.
The consensus view is that Palestinians have accepted Israel. That lies in the future. Survey research consistently shows that somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of Palestinians, both within the Palestinian Authority and elsewhere, have come to the conclusion that Israel's there and permanent. Interestingly, 15 to 20 percent of Israeli Jews believe that Palestinians have accepted Israel. Americans, when asked if the Palestinians have accepted Israel, about 20 percent say that Arafat sought a small state living alongside Israel. How might this be resolved?
I'm a historian, so I look at the historical record – how conflicts have been resolved in the 20th century. Over and over again, international conflicts are resolved not through mediation and compromise and good will, but through one side coming to the conclusion that it can no longer achieve its goals. The Germans lost in World War I, but they lost without being convinced that they had. They turned to Hitler and tried a second time. In the Second World War, the Allies made clear to the Germans that they had lost. The Korean War ended 50 years ago, but neither the North nor the South came to the conclusion that they could not prevail, and as a result, it could start up again at any time. The Arabs and Israelis fought time after time, yet neither side came to the conclusion it had lost. Iraq and Iran fought for eight years; neither side came to the conclusion it had lost.
....
Q: The notion of political correctness aside, is it not incumbent to be doubly careful in terms of the rhetoric used? Is it not possible that even Muslims who might agree with a great deal of what you're saying feel targeted and identified by some of the things you're saying – and that, perhaps, you tend to drive away some of the people who perhaps you need to support this moderation?
A: It's not for me to say whether my words are driving people away or not. But it is far more difficult to deal with the situation we have now, where there are pious statements made that No, there's no discrimination, there's no special attention paid to Muslims, there's no profiling – whereas in fact, everyone knows there is. That is more insidious than having a situation where one is forthright and says, Well, reluctantly, painfully, we must take these steps. It is in the interest of us all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Let us take these steps sensibly, intelligently, politely and knowledgeably, but let's take these steps because these steps are being taken in any case.
Many of the Muslim organizations protest that Muslims are being singled out and the authorities invariably say, No, no, no. I say, Yes, yes, yes. Let's not lie.
Q: Is it possible some Palestinians will say, "We have a vested interest in building a society and economy for ourselves"?
A: Yes, some will say that here's an opportunity. But this is not a predominant reaction. Look at the response to the Israeli withdrawal – leaving behind houses, fields and agriculture infrastructure with the intent that this could be used by the Palestinians. This was destroyed within hours. There was no interest in building the economy; there was interest in stamping the Palestinian victory over the Israelis, burning synagogues, desecrating synagogues. Was that about fixing the economy and the society and the polity and the culture? No, it's about winning.
The Israelis are fooling themselves if they think that they can finesse the Palestinians into forgetting that the Palestinians want to destroy Israel. They are intent on destroying Israel, and if that means giving up their children as suicide bombers, having a lower standard of living, living under autocracy, they will take it. What they need to be convinced is: You're going to achieve nothing by it. This is where the United States and its allies can be so helpful, to send a signal that is steady and unremitting to the Palestinians: Forget it, you can't win this. Then the Palestinians might have second thoughts more quickly than they will if the outside world doesn't send that signal.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Afghan faces death penalty for Christian faith
No comments about dragging people kicking and screaming into the 15th century, please. After all, they're not gonna torture the guy, so fair dos.
Afghan faces death penalty for Christian faith
Times Online
March 20, 2006
An Afghan who has renounced his Islamic faith for Christianity faces the death penalty under Afghan law in a throwback to the brutal Taleban regime. Abdul Rahman, 41, is being prosecuted for an "attack on Islam", for which the punishment under Afghanistan's draft constitution, is death by hanging. The charge comes as Britain prepares to send 3,300 nominally Christian paratroopers to stabilise the troubled south of the country.
Mr Rahman converted to Christianity over 14 years ago, but his situation was bought to the attention of the authorities after he tried to gain custody of his daughters who had been living with their grandparents. His parents then denounced him as a convert and on arrest he was found to be carrying a Bible."The Attorney General is emphasising he should be hung. It is a crime to convert to Christianity from Islam. He is teasing and insulating his family by converting," Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawlawy Zada, who will be trying his case, told The Times.
"He was a Muslim for 25 years more than he has been a Christian. We will request him to become a Muslim again. In your country two women can marry I think that is very strange. In this country we have the perfect constitution, it is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished," said the judge.
------------------------
Afghan's openness about his Christianity went too far
March 20, 2006
Chicago Tribune
Abdul Rahman told his family he was a Christian. He told the neighbors, bringing shame upon his home. But then he told the police, and he could no longer be ignored.Now, in a major test of Afghanistan's fledgling court system, Rahman, 42, faces the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity. Prosecutors say he should die. So do his family, his jailers, even the judge. Rahman has no lawyer. Jail officials refused to let anyone see Rahman on Monday, despite permission granted by the country's justice minister."We will cut him into little pieces," said Hosnia Wafayosofi, who works at the jail. "There's no need to see him."
Afghan faces death penalty for Christian faith
Times Online
March 20, 2006
An Afghan who has renounced his Islamic faith for Christianity faces the death penalty under Afghan law in a throwback to the brutal Taleban regime. Abdul Rahman, 41, is being prosecuted for an "attack on Islam", for which the punishment under Afghanistan's draft constitution, is death by hanging. The charge comes as Britain prepares to send 3,300 nominally Christian paratroopers to stabilise the troubled south of the country.
Mr Rahman converted to Christianity over 14 years ago, but his situation was bought to the attention of the authorities after he tried to gain custody of his daughters who had been living with their grandparents. His parents then denounced him as a convert and on arrest he was found to be carrying a Bible."The Attorney General is emphasising he should be hung. It is a crime to convert to Christianity from Islam. He is teasing and insulating his family by converting," Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawlawy Zada, who will be trying his case, told The Times.
"He was a Muslim for 25 years more than he has been a Christian. We will request him to become a Muslim again. In your country two women can marry I think that is very strange. In this country we have the perfect constitution, it is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished," said the judge.
------------------------
Afghan's openness about his Christianity went too far
March 20, 2006
Chicago Tribune
Abdul Rahman told his family he was a Christian. He told the neighbors, bringing shame upon his home. But then he told the police, and he could no longer be ignored.Now, in a major test of Afghanistan's fledgling court system, Rahman, 42, faces the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity. Prosecutors say he should die. So do his family, his jailers, even the judge. Rahman has no lawyer. Jail officials refused to let anyone see Rahman on Monday, despite permission granted by the country's justice minister."We will cut him into little pieces," said Hosnia Wafayosofi, who works at the jail. "There's no need to see him."
Sweden here we come...
Polly Toynbee looks at Sweden with envious eyes. Worth a look (though I'm not sure how much Sweden's natural resources may distort the picture.) Criticism welcome.
Blair's party is crying out for Gordon the Viking
Following the inspiration of the Swedish model will turn Brown from a great chancellor into a genuine Labour leader
Blair's party is crying out for Gordon the Viking
Following the inspiration of the Swedish model will turn Brown from a great chancellor into a genuine Labour leader
Douglas Alexander, the Europe minister close to Brown, is just back from Sweden, where a close-fought election is seeing conservatives playing the same game - pretending to shadow the Social Democrats on every policy, while in reality planning ideological tax-andspending cuts with privatisations, as they did when last, briefly, in office. "Sweden," Alexander says, "has an economic and social model that proves the Conservatives entirely wrong. With a growth rate of 3.5%, and unemployment falling to near 5%, they are doing superbly in the global economy. No, I'm not saying we are heading for their higher tax rates, but they show how to prosper with strong public spending."
No, Brown will not turn Swedish in one spasm. It took the Social Democrats nearly 70 unbroken years of steady progressive government to reach this civilised state of relative equality, high living standards, excellent public services - and high happiness ratings. It needs citizens who want to travel that way. It needs trust in government, which semi-anarchic Britain and its poisonous rightwing, anti-state press forever undermines. (Yes, scandals all governments have, in Sweden too.)
In praise of Belarus...
This caught my eye, because it seemed to be, shall we say, counter-intuitive. Comments from people who actually know something about the issues would be most welcome.
Less bizarre than it seems
The landslide in Belarus reflects its demonised leader's refusal to back market fundamentalism
Mark Almond in Minsk
Tuesday March 21, 2006
The Guardian
Less bizarre than it seems
The landslide in Belarus reflects its demonised leader's refusal to back market fundamentalism
Mark Almond in Minsk
Tuesday March 21, 2006
The Guardian
[...] Although the west has never batted an eyelid about accepting a 97% vote obtained by a favourite such as Georgia's rose-revolutionary President Saakashvili, at first sight four-fifths voting for one candidate seems hard to credit. But if you look at the socioeconomic reality of Belarus and compare it with its ex-communist neighbours, as Belarussians do, then the result is not so bizarre.
No communist-era throwback, Belarus has an evolving market economy. But the market is orientated towards serving the needs of the bulk of the population, not a tiny class of nouveaux riches and their western advisers and money launderers. Unlike in Georgia or Ukraine, officials are not getting richer as ordinary folk get poorer. The absence of endemic corruption among civil servants and police is one reason why the wave of so-called "coloured revolutions" stopped before Minsk. [...]
Monday, March 20, 2006
Sorbonne needs a lesson in economics
I'm sure everybody is aware of the riots in france over the proposed changes to employment laws. In Friday's Telegraph Jeff Randall made a well reasoned arguement for why the French students reaction is misguided. Although I know it's not fashionable to celebrate Thatcher's achievements I believe by her deregulation of business and through her battles with the Unions we are in some ways all her beneficiaries.
Sorbonne needs a lesson in basic A-level economics
Jeff Randall
The Telegraph
Sorbonne needs a lesson in basic A-level economics
Jeff Randall
The Telegraph
Sunday, March 19, 2006
'Political Numskulls'
Niall Ferguson in the Sunday Telegraph critises the US congress's decision to block a company from the United Arab Emirates from aquiring the facilities in some American Ports.
The White House strongly supported the United Arab Emirates company in question and opposed Congress's decision (President Bush argued Congress was being deeply prejudiced). Ferguson makes the point that the US's economy (and by extension it's very expensive foreign policy) is extremely dependent on foreign capital. Congress's decision has sent out a very counter productive message.
Here's a sample of the article:
"The outbreak of world war in 1914 led to an immediate breakdown in international trade. Even before that, a backlash against free trade and migration had begun, as one state after another moved to raise tariffs or restrict immigration, trends that reached their disastrous nadir in the 1930s. Call it a globotomy. For it was deliberate action by the Numskulls themselves that severed the world's neural pathways.
Today the Numskulls doing the most to lobotomise the global mind are to be found (not for the first time in history) in the US Congress. Earlier this month, Senators effectively blocked a company based in the United Arab Emirates from acquiring facilities in American ports on the ground that their employees might help Islamist
terrorists.
Not content with this insult to Middle Eastern investors, the same body last week came within a hair's breadth of defaulting on the federal debt, voting by just four votes to increase the legal debt ceiling. Given that around half that debt is held abroad, this was playing with financial fire.
Never in the history of the world economy has one advanced economy been as reliant on inflows of foreign capital as the United States today. It's that international overdraft which allows Our Man to keep sucking in and consuming foreign goodies. Unfortunately, the Numskulls in Congress seem more worried about impending mid-term elections than the stability of the global economy."
And here's the Ferguson piece in full:
If avian flu doesn't get us, the political Numskulls will
Niall Ferguson
The Sunday Telegraph
The White House strongly supported the United Arab Emirates company in question and opposed Congress's decision (President Bush argued Congress was being deeply prejudiced). Ferguson makes the point that the US's economy (and by extension it's very expensive foreign policy) is extremely dependent on foreign capital. Congress's decision has sent out a very counter productive message.
Here's a sample of the article:
"The outbreak of world war in 1914 led to an immediate breakdown in international trade. Even before that, a backlash against free trade and migration had begun, as one state after another moved to raise tariffs or restrict immigration, trends that reached their disastrous nadir in the 1930s. Call it a globotomy. For it was deliberate action by the Numskulls themselves that severed the world's neural pathways.
Today the Numskulls doing the most to lobotomise the global mind are to be found (not for the first time in history) in the US Congress. Earlier this month, Senators effectively blocked a company based in the United Arab Emirates from acquiring facilities in American ports on the ground that their employees might help Islamist
terrorists.
Not content with this insult to Middle Eastern investors, the same body last week came within a hair's breadth of defaulting on the federal debt, voting by just four votes to increase the legal debt ceiling. Given that around half that debt is held abroad, this was playing with financial fire.
Never in the history of the world economy has one advanced economy been as reliant on inflows of foreign capital as the United States today. It's that international overdraft which allows Our Man to keep sucking in and consuming foreign goodies. Unfortunately, the Numskulls in Congress seem more worried about impending mid-term elections than the stability of the global economy."
And here's the Ferguson piece in full:
If avian flu doesn't get us, the political Numskulls will
Niall Ferguson
The Sunday Telegraph
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Saddam's delusions
Fascinating insight into the Saddam regime, essential Iraq War reading. Also contains an accidentally funny comment about sodomy.
Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside
Foreign Affairs
May/June 2006
When it came to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Saddam attempted to convince one audience that they were gone while simultaneously convincing another that Iraq still had them. Coming clean about WMD and using full compliance with inspections to escape from sanctions would have been his best course of action for the long run. Saddam, however, found it impossible to abandon the illusion of having WMD, especially since it played so well in the Arab world.
Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians in 1987, was convinced Iraq no longer possessed WMD but claims that many within Iraq's ruling circle never stopped believing that the weapons still existed. Even at the highest echelons of the regime, when it came to WMD there was always some element of doubt about the truth. According to Chemical Ali, Saddam was asked about the weapons during a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Command Council. He replied that Iraq did not have WMD but flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration might encourage the Israelis to attack.
...
This constant stream of false reporting undoubtedly accounts for why many of Saddam's calculations on operational, strategic, and political issues made perfect sense to him. According to Aziz, "The people in the Military Industrial Commission were liars. They lied to you, and they lied to Saddam. They were always saying that they were producing or procuring special weapons so that they could get favors out of Saddam -- money, cars, everything -- but they were liars. If they did all of this business and brought in all of these secret weapons, why didn't [the weapons] work?"
Members of the Military Industrial Commission were not the only liars. Bending the truth was particularly common among the most trusted members of Saddam's inner circle -- especially when negative news might reflect poorly on the teller's abilities or reputation. According to one former high-ranking Baath Party official, "Saddam had an idea about Iraq's conventional and potential unconventional capabilities, but never an accurate one because of the extensive lying occurring in that area. Many reports were falsified. The ministers attempted to convey a positive perspective with reports, which were forwarded to Saddam's secretary, who in turn passed them up to Saddam." In the years before Operation Iraqi Freedom, everyone around Saddam understood that his need to hear only good news was constantly growing and that it was in their best interest to feed that hunger.
A 1982 incident vividly illustrated the danger of telling Saddam what he did not want to hear. At one low point during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. With some temerity, the minister of health, Riyadh Ibrahim, suggested that Saddam temporarily step down and resume the presidency after peace was established. Saddam had him carted away immediately. The next day, pieces of the minister's chopped-up body were delivered to his wife. According to Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huwaysh, the head of the Military Industrial Commission and a relative of the murdered minister, "This powerfully concentrated the attention of the other ministers, who were unanimous in their insistence that Saddam remain in power."
...
After 1991, Saddam's confidence in his military commanders steadily eroded, while his confidence in his own abilities as a military genius strengthened. Like a number of other despots in history who dabbled in military affairs, Saddam began to issue a seemingly endless stream of banal instructions. He could not resist giving detailed training guidance.
Dozens of surviving memoranda echo the style and content of a 2002 top-secret document titled "Training Guidance to the Republican Guard." These documents all hint at the kind of guidance military officers received from Saddam on a regular basis. One chapter of the "training guidance" document, called "Notes and Directions Given by Saddam Hussein to His Elite Soldiers to Cover the Tactics of War," charged officers to do the following: "Train in a way that allows you to defeat your enemy; train all units' members in swimming; train your soldiers to climb palm trees so that they may use these places for navigation and sniper shooting; and train on smart weapons."
...
These failures of discipline elicited a harsh response from the regime. Punishments of errant militiamen included having one's hands amputated for theft, being tossed off a tower for sodomy, being whipped a hundred times for sexual harassment, having one's tongue cut out for lying, and being stoned for various other infractions. It was only a matter of time before military failure also became punishable as a criminal offense.
...
For many months after the fall of Baghdad, a number of senior Iraqi officials in coalition custody continued to believe it possible that Iraq still possessed a WMD capability hidden away somewhere (although they adamantly insisted that they had no direct knowledge of WMD programs). Coalition interviewers discovered that this belief was based on the fact that Iraq had possessed and used WMD in the past and might need them again; on the plausibility of secret, compartmentalized WMD programs existing given how the Iraqi regime worked; and on the fact that so many Western governments believed such programs existed.
Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside
Foreign Affairs
May/June 2006
When it came to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Saddam attempted to convince one audience that they were gone while simultaneously convincing another that Iraq still had them. Coming clean about WMD and using full compliance with inspections to escape from sanctions would have been his best course of action for the long run. Saddam, however, found it impossible to abandon the illusion of having WMD, especially since it played so well in the Arab world.
Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians in 1987, was convinced Iraq no longer possessed WMD but claims that many within Iraq's ruling circle never stopped believing that the weapons still existed. Even at the highest echelons of the regime, when it came to WMD there was always some element of doubt about the truth. According to Chemical Ali, Saddam was asked about the weapons during a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Command Council. He replied that Iraq did not have WMD but flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration might encourage the Israelis to attack.
...
This constant stream of false reporting undoubtedly accounts for why many of Saddam's calculations on operational, strategic, and political issues made perfect sense to him. According to Aziz, "The people in the Military Industrial Commission were liars. They lied to you, and they lied to Saddam. They were always saying that they were producing or procuring special weapons so that they could get favors out of Saddam -- money, cars, everything -- but they were liars. If they did all of this business and brought in all of these secret weapons, why didn't [the weapons] work?"
Members of the Military Industrial Commission were not the only liars. Bending the truth was particularly common among the most trusted members of Saddam's inner circle -- especially when negative news might reflect poorly on the teller's abilities or reputation. According to one former high-ranking Baath Party official, "Saddam had an idea about Iraq's conventional and potential unconventional capabilities, but never an accurate one because of the extensive lying occurring in that area. Many reports were falsified. The ministers attempted to convey a positive perspective with reports, which were forwarded to Saddam's secretary, who in turn passed them up to Saddam." In the years before Operation Iraqi Freedom, everyone around Saddam understood that his need to hear only good news was constantly growing and that it was in their best interest to feed that hunger.
A 1982 incident vividly illustrated the danger of telling Saddam what he did not want to hear. At one low point during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. With some temerity, the minister of health, Riyadh Ibrahim, suggested that Saddam temporarily step down and resume the presidency after peace was established. Saddam had him carted away immediately. The next day, pieces of the minister's chopped-up body were delivered to his wife. According to Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huwaysh, the head of the Military Industrial Commission and a relative of the murdered minister, "This powerfully concentrated the attention of the other ministers, who were unanimous in their insistence that Saddam remain in power."
...
After 1991, Saddam's confidence in his military commanders steadily eroded, while his confidence in his own abilities as a military genius strengthened. Like a number of other despots in history who dabbled in military affairs, Saddam began to issue a seemingly endless stream of banal instructions. He could not resist giving detailed training guidance.
Dozens of surviving memoranda echo the style and content of a 2002 top-secret document titled "Training Guidance to the Republican Guard." These documents all hint at the kind of guidance military officers received from Saddam on a regular basis. One chapter of the "training guidance" document, called "Notes and Directions Given by Saddam Hussein to His Elite Soldiers to Cover the Tactics of War," charged officers to do the following: "Train in a way that allows you to defeat your enemy; train all units' members in swimming; train your soldiers to climb palm trees so that they may use these places for navigation and sniper shooting; and train on smart weapons."
...
These failures of discipline elicited a harsh response from the regime. Punishments of errant militiamen included having one's hands amputated for theft, being tossed off a tower for sodomy, being whipped a hundred times for sexual harassment, having one's tongue cut out for lying, and being stoned for various other infractions. It was only a matter of time before military failure also became punishable as a criminal offense.
...
For many months after the fall of Baghdad, a number of senior Iraqi officials in coalition custody continued to believe it possible that Iraq still possessed a WMD capability hidden away somewhere (although they adamantly insisted that they had no direct knowledge of WMD programs). Coalition interviewers discovered that this belief was based on the fact that Iraq had possessed and used WMD in the past and might need them again; on the plausibility of secret, compartmentalized WMD programs existing given how the Iraqi regime worked; and on the fact that so many Western governments believed such programs existed.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Jericho jail assault
Well done The Guardian, for managing to begin an editorial with a story of Palestinian deceit and ending it with a ringing "it's all Israel's fault".
The walls of Jericho
The Guardian
Leader
March 15, 2006
The walls of Jericho
The Guardian
Leader
March 15, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Bloggers of the World Unite!
Rupert Murdoch heralds a 'second great age of discovery' and says that power is 'moving from the old elite to bloggers'.
Internet means end for media barons, says Murdoch
The Guardian
"Far from mourning its passing, he evangelised about a digital future that would put that power in the hands of those already launching a blog every second, sharing photos and music online and downloading television programmes on demand. "A new generation of media consumers has risen demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it," he said. Indicating he had little desire to slow down despite his advancing years, he told the 603-year-old guild that he was looking forward, not back.
"It is difficult, indeed dangerous, to underestimate the huge changes this revolution will bring or the power of developing technologies to build and destroy - not just companies but whole countries."
The owner of Fox News added: "Never has the flow of information and ideas, of hard news and reasoned comment, been more important. The force of our democratic beliefs is a key weapon in the war against religious fanaticism and the terrorism it breeds." "
Internet means end for media barons, says Murdoch
The Guardian
"Far from mourning its passing, he evangelised about a digital future that would put that power in the hands of those already launching a blog every second, sharing photos and music online and downloading television programmes on demand. "A new generation of media consumers has risen demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it," he said. Indicating he had little desire to slow down despite his advancing years, he told the 603-year-old guild that he was looking forward, not back.
"It is difficult, indeed dangerous, to underestimate the huge changes this revolution will bring or the power of developing technologies to build and destroy - not just companies but whole countries."
The owner of Fox News added: "Never has the flow of information and ideas, of hard news and reasoned comment, been more important. The force of our democratic beliefs is a key weapon in the war against religious fanaticism and the terrorism it breeds." "
Monday, March 13, 2006
Rally for Freedom of Expression
A new campaign for Freedom of Expression is holding a rally in Trafalgar Square between 2:00pm and 4:00pm on Saturday March 25th 2006.
Here's the statement of principle:
“The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are capable of giving offence, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offence in their time.
The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticise and mock.
We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same.
We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them.”
See you there? Please forward details to like-minded friends.
http://marchforfreeexpression.blogspot.com
http://www.secularism.org.uk/marchforfreeexpressionwillyoubet.html
Here's the statement of principle:
“The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are capable of giving offence, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offence in their time.
The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticise and mock.
We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same.
We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them.”
See you there? Please forward details to like-minded friends.
http://marchforfreeexpression.blogspot.com
http://www.secularism.org.uk/marchforfreeexpressionwillyoubet.html
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
The Last Bus to Tehran
Here's a Nick Cohen piece about oppression in Tehran. It's an old article that came out around the time of the Danish Cartoon riots. However it's an interesting look at another news story that got lost in the media storm. I've cut and pasted some highlights but it's worth following the link and reading it in full.
The Last Bus To Tehran
'For three weeks, there have been demonstrations across the planet about a great injustice done to Muslims. After baton-wielding cops inflicted dozens of injuries, the fear of death is in the air. George W Bush’s State Department has warned of ’systematic oppression’, while secularists and fundamentalists have revealed their mutually incompatible values. Since you ask, I am not talking about the global menace of Scandinavian cartoonists that has so terrified our fearless free press, but mass arrests in Iran.'
'Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the US State Department and British Foreign Office have all protested. Trade unions, Iranian exiles and gay groups have demonstrated. Yet the media have barely noticed. The failure is due in part to my trade’s perennial inability to walk and chew gum at the same time: we consider stories one by one and today’s story is Muslim anger with cartoonists.'
'I’m not saying it isn’t newsworthy, but you shouldn’t forget that it was manufactured by hard-line Danish imams who hawked the cartoons round the Muslim world for four months (and, somewhat blasphemously, added obscene drawings of their own). The religious right and Syrian Baathists welcomed them and proved yet again that they need to incite frenzies to legitimise arbitrary power.'
The Last Bus To Tehran
'For three weeks, there have been demonstrations across the planet about a great injustice done to Muslims. After baton-wielding cops inflicted dozens of injuries, the fear of death is in the air. George W Bush’s State Department has warned of ’systematic oppression’, while secularists and fundamentalists have revealed their mutually incompatible values. Since you ask, I am not talking about the global menace of Scandinavian cartoonists that has so terrified our fearless free press, but mass arrests in Iran.'
'Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the US State Department and British Foreign Office have all protested. Trade unions, Iranian exiles and gay groups have demonstrated. Yet the media have barely noticed. The failure is due in part to my trade’s perennial inability to walk and chew gum at the same time: we consider stories one by one and today’s story is Muslim anger with cartoonists.'
'I’m not saying it isn’t newsworthy, but you shouldn’t forget that it was manufactured by hard-line Danish imams who hawked the cartoons round the Muslim world for four months (and, somewhat blasphemously, added obscene drawings of their own). The religious right and Syrian Baathists welcomed them and proved yet again that they need to incite frenzies to legitimise arbitrary power.'
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
The NHS's £900 million overdraft
So the crowning achievement of new Labour, the NHS, isn't in such great shape after all. Despite the absolutely unprecedented levels of investment latest figures suggest the National Health service may have overspent by a record breaking £900 million!
Incidently, the fact that the NHS boss is standing down has nothing to do with any of this according to the Government. hmm, just a coincidence then.
And if you want to get really depressed visit the NHS Blog Doctor's website for an inside view of the national health service from a working doctor. Here's an extract:
"I, Dr John Crippen, now publicly to admit to an action of gullibility, of the most credulous stupidity, an action which had the most dire consequence and an action for which I expect to spend many years in purgatory. I was not alone in this action. There were others. Several million others. This gives me comfort. It goes, perhaps, to mitigation, but it is no excuse.
In 1997 I voted for Tony Blair.
I believed him. I believed in him. He was a decent man, a man who was going to make a difference to the two things I care most about in this country. Healthcare and education. Well, he has certainly made a difference. But not in the way I hoped.
The standard of health care, despite all the millions poured in by Gordon Brown, is worse than it has ever been in my lifetime. When I started as a doctor, I could genuinely say to patients that they really did not need private health insurance. Better bed and breakfast perhaps, but the NHS still delivered. Now I tell people to keep up their BUPA payments whatever the cost. Sell your daughters into the slave trade if necessary, but do not forgo private medical insurance."
Why is there no grown up debate about the NHS among our Politicians. And why this terror at contemplating NOT making the NHS free at the point of entry. As the good doctor says in his blog:
"Healthcare “free at the point of entry” into the system. Why? Healthcare is important. But it is not as important as nutrition, as food. Why is food not “free at the point of entry” into the supermarket?"
Rebuttals welcome.
Incidently, the fact that the NHS boss is standing down has nothing to do with any of this according to the Government. hmm, just a coincidence then.
And if you want to get really depressed visit the NHS Blog Doctor's website for an inside view of the national health service from a working doctor. Here's an extract:
"I, Dr John Crippen, now publicly to admit to an action of gullibility, of the most credulous stupidity, an action which had the most dire consequence and an action for which I expect to spend many years in purgatory. I was not alone in this action. There were others. Several million others. This gives me comfort. It goes, perhaps, to mitigation, but it is no excuse.
In 1997 I voted for Tony Blair.
I believed him. I believed in him. He was a decent man, a man who was going to make a difference to the two things I care most about in this country. Healthcare and education. Well, he has certainly made a difference. But not in the way I hoped.
The standard of health care, despite all the millions poured in by Gordon Brown, is worse than it has ever been in my lifetime. When I started as a doctor, I could genuinely say to patients that they really did not need private health insurance. Better bed and breakfast perhaps, but the NHS still delivered. Now I tell people to keep up their BUPA payments whatever the cost. Sell your daughters into the slave trade if necessary, but do not forgo private medical insurance."
Why is there no grown up debate about the NHS among our Politicians. And why this terror at contemplating NOT making the NHS free at the point of entry. As the good doctor says in his blog:
"Healthcare “free at the point of entry” into the system. Why? Healthcare is important. But it is not as important as nutrition, as food. Why is food not “free at the point of entry” into the supermarket?"
Rebuttals welcome.
The dangers of political Islam
An interesting article on political Islam from the excellent New Republic. By the way, if you have time it's well worth reading the readers' comments in 'Discuss this article' section.
'The dangers of political Islam'
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
The New Republic
'The dangers of political Islam'
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
The New Republic
The muddled thinking over freedom of speech
An article by Melanie Phillips on the recent 'muddled' free speech debate over the Danish Cartoons, the Irving trial and Livingston's suspension. As someone who has found himself quite muddled and confused by this whole debate I admire her clarity and conviction on this issue.
Muddled thinking over freedom of speech
"In every case, the controversy has been defined as over where the line should be drawn between protecting freedom of speech and preventing the giving of offence. But other issues are at play here too. And it is the assumption that treating these cases differently means double standards which has caused the confusion.
If we think it was wrong to have tried to censor the Danish cartoons, then we must think it was wrong to jail Irving. Right? Wrong. If we think it was right to jail Irving, then we should have supported the law against incitement to religious hatred before it was all but neutered by a Commons revolt. Right? Wrong.
If we were against the law against incitement to religious hatred because it threatened to shut down democratic debate, then we must be against the ‘undemocratic’ suspension of Ken Livingstone. Right? Wrong."
Muddled thinking over freedom of speech
"In every case, the controversy has been defined as over where the line should be drawn between protecting freedom of speech and preventing the giving of offence. But other issues are at play here too. And it is the assumption that treating these cases differently means double standards which has caused the confusion.
If we think it was wrong to have tried to censor the Danish cartoons, then we must think it was wrong to jail Irving. Right? Wrong. If we think it was right to jail Irving, then we should have supported the law against incitement to religious hatred before it was all but neutered by a Commons revolt. Right? Wrong.
If we were against the law against incitement to religious hatred because it threatened to shut down democratic debate, then we must be against the ‘undemocratic’ suspension of Ken Livingstone. Right? Wrong."
Monday, March 06, 2006
'What America needs now...'
Here's a typically good piece on Bush by Niall Ferguson:
'What America needs now is a mighty blast of fire and Gladstone'
'What America needs now is a mighty blast of fire and Gladstone'
The strange silence of the archbishop
Another excellent must-read article from Nick Cohen in the Observer:
"Arson, rape, massacres ... and the strange silence of the archbishop"
Nick Cohen
The Observer
"Arson, rape, massacres ... and the strange silence of the archbishop"
Nick Cohen
The Observer
A fun day out in Westminster with Hizb ut-Tahrir...
An account of the Hizb ut-Tahrir Westminster 'open day', hosted by Clare Short can be found at Harry's Place. It's well worth a read.
...from pig to man, and from man to pig...
A perhaps unnecessarily oblique (and not entirely fair) heading for what is in fact a rather simple political quiz. There are twenty quotes - the goal is the identify the political party each one belongs to.
Whose line is it anyway?
David Cameron this week unveiled his statement of Tory beliefs. But can you tell which are his values, and which come from the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos?
Whose line is it anyway?
David Cameron this week unveiled his statement of Tory beliefs. But can you tell which are his values, and which come from the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos?
Friday, March 03, 2006
Cultural Relativism (& Mental hygiene)
Excellent post on Cultural Relativism from the Daily Ablution (which now has a permanent link direct from our front page.)
Cultural Equivalence is Self-Hatred - Now We Must All Hate Ourselves
Cultural Equivalence is Self-Hatred - Now We Must All Hate Ourselves
Several days ago, a (disapproving) commenter made a point that I've been mulling over ever since. I can't remember the exact wording, and I'm not going to take the trouble to scroll through all the comments to find it, but it was something to the effect that the bigotry that has in the past expressed itself as racism now takes the form of "culturism" - the evil, misguided view that some cultures are morally superior to others in an absolute sense - and that this new bigotry must be resisted, as racism was.
Of course, the leftist notion that "all cultures are equal" has been around for quite a while, but the commenter in question did provide a useful service in reminding us of the next step on the agenda of the arbiters of what's deemed proper thinking - having won the day with their altogether laudable stance against the social acceptability of racism (even the left is correct at times), they now seek to impose a stigma equivalent to that of "racist" upon those who argue that some cultures are inherently superior to others.
To my mind, the argument of cultural equivalence is rather easily rebutted, along the following lines:
- Every culture must surely consist of both good and bad characteristics; and,
- It is so unlikely as to be impossible that the proportion of good to bad in every culture on earth is precisely equal, given that they're so "diverse"; ergo, some cultures are superior to others.
Of course, this argument assumes a moral hierarchy, something that the relativists eschew. So the following approach might prove more productive:
- "Is your position really that the culture of present-day AmeriKKKa, based as it is on a noxious combination of rampant consumerism, environmental destruction and fascist cultural imperialism, comprises the moral equivalent of that of the blamelessly pure at-one-with-Gaia Native Americans? "
Any rebuttal along these lines is likely to bring to light the fact that the argument of cultural equivalence is actually acting as a sort of intellectual facade, as at this point its exponent is likely to change tack - and in so doing reveal their real stance; namely, that our (Western) culture is the evil one, to which almost (?) all others are superior.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
"Coalition: Vast Majority of Iraqis Still Alive"
Another spoof article from Satirical American website The Onion:
Coalition: Vast Majority of Iraqis Still Alive
Coalition: Vast Majority of Iraqis Still Alive
Saturday, February 25, 2006
2006 Index of Economic Freedom
If this topic is your bag, please check it out. It's fascinating and surprising. (The clue is probably in the question, but who would you expect to rank higher, the UK or the US?) It's well worth reading the analysis - the list just gives you a snap shot of where we are now - the accompanying text gives some indication of where we are headed. Results go back to 1995 so there is a basis for comparison with previous administrations. It also provides raw data if you want to challenge their conclusions.
The index is published by a conservative think tank (the heritage foundation - you can read all about their history on the website) so it is not politically 'neutral'. However, that does not mean that their conclusions are invalid. Broadly they belive in a link between ecomic freedom and prosperity - however, it's not as simple as most free = most prosperous. There are other factors such as natural resources. e.g. Norway's oil reserves. Anyway, it's all there for you, if you want to explore it in more detail.
2006 Index of Economic Freedom
The index is published by a conservative think tank (the heritage foundation - you can read all about their history on the website) so it is not politically 'neutral'. However, that does not mean that their conclusions are invalid. Broadly they belive in a link between ecomic freedom and prosperity - however, it's not as simple as most free = most prosperous. There are other factors such as natural resources. e.g. Norway's oil reserves. Anyway, it's all there for you, if you want to explore it in more detail.
2006 Index of Economic Freedom
Beyond our ken...
So, the mayor has been suspended. Following the Danish cartoons and the Irving trial, this feels like another complicated free speech issue. Of course the situation is not exactly the same, but in the popular imagination it is very much about the personal consequences of saying something that is deemed unacceptable by a particular section of the community.
Personally, I do not think the mayor should have been suspended. We already have a mechanism for removing elected officials from office - it's called an election! I understand that there should be safeguards against corruption, but I am not convinced that making offensive remarks after (allegedly) a few glasses too many requires this particular measure. (A quick side note though - Ken's has said that his 'nazi' comment was to do with the Associated Press' record of anti-semitism and Moseley supporting in the 30s. He clearly didn't feel quite so strongly when he was the Standard's restaurant critic.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4749688.stm)
Lastly though, a quick question - what limits on speech should there be for people in or seeking public office. I'm wondering what sanctions we would feel would be appropriate if the Mayor (or any other elected official) started making inflammatory / racist remarks about any given group. Do we want a law that would prevent (say) a racist mayor from mobilising (for example) anti-immigrant sentiment? Genuine question. Interested in the answers.
Personally, I do not think the mayor should have been suspended. We already have a mechanism for removing elected officials from office - it's called an election! I understand that there should be safeguards against corruption, but I am not convinced that making offensive remarks after (allegedly) a few glasses too many requires this particular measure. (A quick side note though - Ken's has said that his 'nazi' comment was to do with the Associated Press' record of anti-semitism and Moseley supporting in the 30s. He clearly didn't feel quite so strongly when he was the Standard's restaurant critic.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4749688.stm)
Lastly though, a quick question - what limits on speech should there be for people in or seeking public office. I'm wondering what sanctions we would feel would be appropriate if the Mayor (or any other elected official) started making inflammatory / racist remarks about any given group. Do we want a law that would prevent (say) a racist mayor from mobilising (for example) anti-immigrant sentiment? Genuine question. Interested in the answers.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
English school plans lessons in English shock!
I think we're in 'you couldn't make it up' territory.
Critics hail English-only lessons
Education campaigners have welcomed a school's decision to scrap a disputed bilingual teaching scheme.
Turkish pupils at the north London secondary school were being taught GCSE science in their native tongue.
But the new head of White Hart Lane school in Tottenham said pupils must focus on learning English.
Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: "I fully support this move back to all English lessons and would think it is very overdue."
Critics hail English-only lessons
Education campaigners have welcomed a school's decision to scrap a disputed bilingual teaching scheme.
Turkish pupils at the north London secondary school were being taught GCSE science in their native tongue.
But the new head of White Hart Lane school in Tottenham said pupils must focus on learning English.
Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: "I fully support this move back to all English lessons and would think it is very overdue."
Monday, February 20, 2006
political compass
Ever wondered just how left or right wing you are? Complete this test and find out political compass
My score - economic left/right:4.00 Social libertarian/authoritarian: -3.33
My score - economic left/right:4.00 Social libertarian/authoritarian: -3.33
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Plagued by teenagers? You'll like the sound of this
Oh joy! Do you think they'll be available for home use?
Plagued by teenagers? You'll like the sound of this
Telegraph
16/02/2006
As a form of revenge against disruptive youth, it is almost too sweet - a device that annoys teenagers so intensely they have to disperse and loiter somewhere else. Police have given their backing to a gadget that sends out an ultra high-pitched noise that can be heard only by those under 20 and is so distressing it forces them to clutch their ears in discomfort. Eventually they can stand it no longer and have to move on.
But because the body's natural ability to detect some frequency wave bands diminishes almost entirely after 20, adults are completely immune to the sounds.
And if a siren doesn't work, try this
Plagued by teenagers? You'll like the sound of this
Telegraph
16/02/2006
As a form of revenge against disruptive youth, it is almost too sweet - a device that annoys teenagers so intensely they have to disperse and loiter somewhere else. Police have given their backing to a gadget that sends out an ultra high-pitched noise that can be heard only by those under 20 and is so distressing it forces them to clutch their ears in discomfort. Eventually they can stand it no longer and have to move on.
But because the body's natural ability to detect some frequency wave bands diminishes almost entirely after 20, adults are completely immune to the sounds.
And if a siren doesn't work, try this
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Church of England apologises for slavery
Starting this thread:
Church of England votes to apologize for its role in the global slave trade
Canadian Press
February 08, 2006
....only so I can include this interesting thought:
Church of England Synod confused about blame for slavery
Telegraph Letters
10 February 2006
Sir - There is a serious moral and logical problem with the apology the Church of England Synod has offered to those descended from the slaves owned by bishops and the Church in the 18th century. If the religion of Christianity and Anglican institutions owe a moral apology for actions done centuries before by other individuals, then we have a theory of doctrinal and institutional guilt.
But when suicide bombings occur, we are assured by all authorities that these things are done by a "tiny minority" of Muslim extremists and have nothing to do with Islam. If the Synod is right, then all Muslims ought to share the blame for suicide bombings. Conversely, if the Muslim community has nothing to do with suicide bombing (since nearly all of them reject such actions) then the Anglican Church is merely confused in its understanding of moral issues.
Church of England votes to apologize for its role in the global slave trade
Canadian Press
February 08, 2006
....only so I can include this interesting thought:
Church of England Synod confused about blame for slavery
Telegraph Letters
10 February 2006
Sir - There is a serious moral and logical problem with the apology the Church of England Synod has offered to those descended from the slaves owned by bishops and the Church in the 18th century. If the religion of Christianity and Anglican institutions owe a moral apology for actions done centuries before by other individuals, then we have a theory of doctrinal and institutional guilt.
But when suicide bombings occur, we are assured by all authorities that these things are done by a "tiny minority" of Muslim extremists and have nothing to do with Islam. If the Synod is right, then all Muslims ought to share the blame for suicide bombings. Conversely, if the Muslim community has nothing to do with suicide bombing (since nearly all of them reject such actions) then the Anglican Church is merely confused in its understanding of moral issues.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Labour's Authoritarianism
In the last election Wembley posted that he felt Labour was most vunerable on their record of social authoritarianism. I read on another website that the Government wants to bring in a Bill to give them the right to enact legislation without the need for parliamentary debate and wondered if Wembley felt this qualified as authoritarianism or that some of the reaction to the bill (see Rozenberg "Henry VIII powers" below) is an over-reaction and that this is something more innocent?
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
Here's a report on the bill by the telegraph's legal correspondent Joshua Rozenberg.
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
Here's a report on the bill by the telegraph's legal correspondent Joshua Rozenberg.
Japan likes killing whales but not eating them
Japan likes killing whales but not eating them
Telegraph
10/02/2006
The enthusiasm of Japanese for whaling has surpassed their appetite for actually eating the mammals, leaving retailers with a glut of unsold whale meat.
...
Japan's Lies to Justify Whaling
Telegraph
10/02/2006
The enthusiasm of Japanese for whaling has surpassed their appetite for actually eating the mammals, leaving retailers with a glut of unsold whale meat.
...
Whale hunting was largely confined to a few coastal areas of Japan for most of its history. Only after the Second World War, when a hungry populace desperately needed protein, did it spread nationwide. Then it was seen as a tough and rather unpleasant source of nutrition, rather than a delicacy.
Japan's Lies to Justify Whaling
Political Nasdaq - Election 2008?
I'm starting a thread that hopefully will run up to the next election. The idea is to track the rise and fall in the fortunes of the three main parties all the way up to election night.
Here's a report on the surprise byelection victory from the LibDems. Perhaps everybody has been a bit rash in writing them off!
LidDem Byelection win stuns Labour
Also, coincidently, here's a link to a news report that Labour is considering scrapping next years local election. Hmmm.
Council polls could be scrapped
Here's a report on the surprise byelection victory from the LibDems. Perhaps everybody has been a bit rash in writing them off!
LidDem Byelection win stuns Labour
Also, coincidently, here's a link to a news report that Labour is considering scrapping next years local election. Hmmm.
Council polls could be scrapped
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
'Back-door nationalisation'
Interesting article about how the state pension fund envisaged in the Turner Report could lead to nationalisation through the 'back-door'. Maybe Labour could bring back Clause Four after all!
State pension fund 'could allow back-door nationalisation'
By the way Brown's criticisms and concerns over the workability of the proposals outlined in Turner's Report position him to the 'right' of the Tories (who enthusiastically expressed their support for the report). Personally, I believe
Brown's judgement is as right on this one as it was in refusing to adopt the Euro.
State pension fund 'could allow back-door nationalisation'
By the way Brown's criticisms and concerns over the workability of the proposals outlined in Turner's Report position him to the 'right' of the Tories (who enthusiastically expressed their support for the report). Personally, I believe
Brown's judgement is as right on this one as it was in refusing to adopt the Euro.
'Cut a deal with the mullahs' - Polly Toynbee
Here's an article from Polly Toynbee on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
No more fantasy diplomacy: Cut a deal with the mullahs
No more fantasy diplomacy: Cut a deal with the mullahs
Monday, February 06, 2006
Israel & South Africa
Two countries of interest to a number of impdecers.
I haven't read this whole article yet, so can't vouch for its content, but have put it up for your collective perusal.
Worlds apart
Israelis have always been horrified at the idea of parallels between their country, a democracy risen from the ashes of genocide, and the racist system that ruled the old South Africa. Yet even within Israel itself, accusations persist that the web of controls affecting every aspect of Palestinian life bears a disturbing resemblance to apartheid. After four years reporting from Jerusalem and more than a decade from Johannesburg before that, the Guardian's award-winning Middle East correspondent Chris McGreal is exceptionally well placed to assess this explosive comparison. Here we publish the first part of his two-day special report
Monday February 6, 2006
The Guardian
I haven't read this whole article yet, so can't vouch for its content, but have put it up for your collective perusal.
Worlds apart
Israelis have always been horrified at the idea of parallels between their country, a democracy risen from the ashes of genocide, and the racist system that ruled the old South Africa. Yet even within Israel itself, accusations persist that the web of controls affecting every aspect of Palestinian life bears a disturbing resemblance to apartheid. After four years reporting from Jerusalem and more than a decade from Johannesburg before that, the Guardian's award-winning Middle East correspondent Chris McGreal is exceptionally well placed to assess this explosive comparison. Here we publish the first part of his two-day special report
Monday February 6, 2006
The Guardian
Friday, February 03, 2006
Danes face fury over cartoons of Prophet
I'm sure you've all been following this story:
Danes face fury over cartoons of Prophet
Telegraph
31/01/2006
I've blogged my opinion of Jack Straw before, it hasn't changed with this:
Straw condemns cartoon row press
BBC News
3 February 2006
For me, I rank this with the Theo van Gogh murder as a key indicator of how (indeed, whether) the West will stand up for its own sacred principles in the face of the Islamist (note: IslamIST) threat. I wanted to post a lot more links, but work has intervened, so I thought it better just to get a thread going with a short posting.
Here are the cartoons themselves (thanks Dan):
Danish Imams Propose to End Cartoon Dispute
And just some food for thought:
Anti-Semitic Cartoons in the Arab Media
Major Anti-Semitic Motifs in Arab Cartoons
Danes face fury over cartoons of Prophet
Telegraph
31/01/2006
I've blogged my opinion of Jack Straw before, it hasn't changed with this:
Straw condemns cartoon row press
BBC News
3 February 2006
For me, I rank this with the Theo van Gogh murder as a key indicator of how (indeed, whether) the West will stand up for its own sacred principles in the face of the Islamist (note: IslamIST) threat. I wanted to post a lot more links, but work has intervened, so I thought it better just to get a thread going with a short posting.
Here are the cartoons themselves (thanks Dan):
Danish Imams Propose to End Cartoon Dispute
And just some food for thought:
Anti-Semitic Cartoons in the Arab Media
Major Anti-Semitic Motifs in Arab Cartoons
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Inside the terrorist mind...
The following appeared in The New Republic online. I thought it was worth sharing as a reminder that not every voice from the Middle East is calling for jihad amd the destruction of the US. This piece by Egyptian playwright Ali Salem is a critical imagining of the terrorist mindset. (May require you to register in order to read it.)
IMAGINING THE INNER WORKINGS OF A TERRORIST'S MIND.
The War of the Hotels
by Ali Salem
In a culture of intellectual quiescence, the Egyptian playwright Ali Salem stands out for his courage, his willingness to break with the crowd. Born in 1936, in the time of the monarchy, he made his own way through life, and educated himself in the classics. Some years ago he provoked a storm by openly journeying to Israel and writing about his experience in that country. This led to virtual ostracism by his peers. But he stood his ground, and in the crucial years since September 11 he has written scathingly and satirically of the pathologies of the Arab world--the anti-Americanism, the animus toward modernism, the refusal of the Arab intellectual elites to face the burden of Arab history. Salem is fierce in his denunciation of radical Islamism, and of the evasions and denials that sustain it in mainstream Arab life. What follows is a piece occasioned by the terrorist attacks on the hotels in Amman that took place last November 9. It appeared in Al Hayat, the London-based pan-Arab daily, from which I have translated it.
--Fouad Ajami
TNR also offered a link to the trailer for 'Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World' - well worth a look, as is the accompanying interview with Albert Brooks. The film seems to be a variation on Victor Borge's old adage 'laughter is the shortest distance between two people.'
IMAGINING THE INNER WORKINGS OF A TERRORIST'S MIND.
The War of the Hotels
by Ali Salem
In a culture of intellectual quiescence, the Egyptian playwright Ali Salem stands out for his courage, his willingness to break with the crowd. Born in 1936, in the time of the monarchy, he made his own way through life, and educated himself in the classics. Some years ago he provoked a storm by openly journeying to Israel and writing about his experience in that country. This led to virtual ostracism by his peers. But he stood his ground, and in the crucial years since September 11 he has written scathingly and satirically of the pathologies of the Arab world--the anti-Americanism, the animus toward modernism, the refusal of the Arab intellectual elites to face the burden of Arab history. Salem is fierce in his denunciation of radical Islamism, and of the evasions and denials that sustain it in mainstream Arab life. What follows is a piece occasioned by the terrorist attacks on the hotels in Amman that took place last November 9. It appeared in Al Hayat, the London-based pan-Arab daily, from which I have translated it.
--Fouad Ajami
TNR also offered a link to the trailer for 'Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World' - well worth a look, as is the accompanying interview with Albert Brooks. The film seems to be a variation on Victor Borge's old adage 'laughter is the shortest distance between two people.'
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
The shadow of the Shoah...
Excellent:
We want to step out of the Shoah shadow, but we run into obstacles
As the Holocaust goes from memory to history, Jews have tried to move forward. But the deniers haul us back again
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday January 25, 2006
The Guardian
[I was reminded also of Isaac Deutscher 'The Non-Jewish Jew' - hat tip, Alexis
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0850362741/026-7447200-1373263
From Wikipedia:
[Deutscher's] definition of his Jewishness was: "Religion? I am an atheist. Jewish nationalism? I am an internationalist. In neither sense am I therefore a Jew. I am, however, a Jew by force of my unconditional solidarity with the persecuted and exterminated. I am a Jew because I feel the pulse of Jewish history; because I should like to do all I can to assure the real, not spurious, security and self-respect of the Jews."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Deutscher]
We want to step out of the Shoah shadow, but we run into obstacles
As the Holocaust goes from memory to history, Jews have tried to move forward. But the deniers haul us back again
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday January 25, 2006
The Guardian
[I was reminded also of Isaac Deutscher 'The Non-Jewish Jew' - hat tip, Alexis
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0850362741/026-7447200-1373263
From Wikipedia:
[Deutscher's] definition of his Jewishness was: "Religion? I am an atheist. Jewish nationalism? I am an internationalist. In neither sense am I therefore a Jew. I am, however, a Jew by force of my unconditional solidarity with the persecuted and exterminated. I am a Jew because I feel the pulse of Jewish history; because I should like to do all I can to assure the real, not spurious, security and self-respect of the Jews."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Deutscher]
Friday, January 20, 2006
The future is not Orange...
Remeber the SDP? Polly Toynbee does, and she argues that New Labour is now to the right of the old Gang of Four. She suggests that the answer for the Lib Dems is to stop facing both ways and mount an attack from the left. (She's no fan of the Orange Book stuff.)
Not sure I agree with her, but here it is:
New Labour is now to the right of the SDP we formed in 1981
The Liberal Democrats could be a force for good if they gave up fantasies of power and occupied the space to Labour's left
Polly Toynbee
Friday January 20, 2006
Not sure I agree with her, but here it is:
New Labour is now to the right of the SDP we formed in 1981
The Liberal Democrats could be a force for good if they gave up fantasies of power and occupied the space to Labour's left
Polly Toynbee
Friday January 20, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
Genocidal Sudan awarded Chair of African Union
Outrage over the dictator poised to lead Africa
Telegraph
16/01/2006
Sudan's military dictator is likely to become chairman of the African Union and the continent's face to the world despite waging war in Darfur, it emerged yesterday. President Omar al-Bashir, who seized power in a coup and harboured Osama bin Laden for five years in the 1990s, will host a meeting of African leaders in Sudan next Monday. They are due in Khartoum for a summit of the African Union, an alliance of all 53 countries in the continent. They are likely to outrage human rights groups by electing Mr Bashir as their chairman and Africa's most prominent statesman for the next 12 months.
...
Mr Bashir is expected to be elected even though his Arab-dominated regime is conducting a brutal campaign against rebels in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where almost two million people have been forced into squalid refugee camps. ... Some 300,000 people, about five per cent of the population, are believed to have died in Darfur since the onset of war three years ago.
Telegraph
16/01/2006
Sudan's military dictator is likely to become chairman of the African Union and the continent's face to the world despite waging war in Darfur, it emerged yesterday. President Omar al-Bashir, who seized power in a coup and harboured Osama bin Laden for five years in the 1990s, will host a meeting of African leaders in Sudan next Monday. They are due in Khartoum for a summit of the African Union, an alliance of all 53 countries in the continent. They are likely to outrage human rights groups by electing Mr Bashir as their chairman and Africa's most prominent statesman for the next 12 months.
...
Mr Bashir is expected to be elected even though his Arab-dominated regime is conducting a brutal campaign against rebels in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where almost two million people have been forced into squalid refugee camps. ... Some 300,000 people, about five per cent of the population, are believed to have died in Darfur since the onset of war three years ago.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Will Jesus take the stand?
An interesting test of faith... [I've quoted a large chunk but it's really worth reading the whole thing.]
Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest
From Richard Owen in Rome
AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.
The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.
Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ’s historical existence.
Yesterday Gaetano Mautone, a judge in Viterbo, set a preliminary hearing for the end of this month and ordered Father Righi to appear. The judge had earlier refused to take up the case, but was overruled last month by the Court of Appeal, which agreed that Signor Cascioli had a reasonable case for his accusation that Father Righi was “abusing popular credulity”.
Signor Cascioli’s contention — echoed in numerous atheist books and internet sites — is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims.
Btw this article sits nicely alongside other faith related posts which you can find here.
Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest
From Richard Owen in Rome
AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.
The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.
Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ’s historical existence.
Yesterday Gaetano Mautone, a judge in Viterbo, set a preliminary hearing for the end of this month and ordered Father Righi to appear. The judge had earlier refused to take up the case, but was overruled last month by the Court of Appeal, which agreed that Signor Cascioli had a reasonable case for his accusation that Father Righi was “abusing popular credulity”.
Signor Cascioli’s contention — echoed in numerous atheist books and internet sites — is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims.
Btw this article sits nicely alongside other faith related posts which you can find here.
Phone fun
I'm not sure if this is strictly within the remit of this blog, but it was too much fun not to share:
Predictive, yet unpredictable
James Meek
Friday January 13, 2006
The Guardian
[...] My 2005 Nokia won't recognise the words "Mozart" or "Beethoven", for instance. But it does recognise "Wagner" and "Strauss". It is familiar with "Nazi" and "communist"; but it hasn't heard of "haddock" or "avocado". It knows Picasso and Gaugin, but seems to be unacquainted with Raphael and Leonardo. Likes Elvis and Dylan; hasn't heard of the Beatles. Seattle, Quebec and Tampere (Finnish city, pop 200,000), yes; Newcastle, Cardiff and Sheffield (English city, pop half a million), no.
If you expect your Nokia to know what you're on about when you message your partner, "That shop in Bolton has the grout we need," it will begin grumpily demanding, "Spell?" If, however, you want to say: "Who's your favourite dictator, Stalin, Hitler, Franco or Napoleon?" the mobile understands exactly what you mean. My phone goes all talk-to-the-hand if I try to message somebody to remember to get the emulsion, and that Sainsbury's has guavas. But write: "Marxist dogma relies too heavily on the dialectical approach," and the Nokia begins, figuratively speaking, to nod in agreement.
On the basis of its vocabulary, in short, my 21st-century Nokia phone, if it were a person, would be a heavily bearded lecturer from the London School of Economics in 1975, smelling strongly of pipe smoke. And I'd be the last person to want that academic out of my mobile. I just wonder whether he might not be joined in there by someone a bit more UK 2006-specific.
Predictive, yet unpredictable
James Meek
Friday January 13, 2006
The Guardian
[...] My 2005 Nokia won't recognise the words "Mozart" or "Beethoven", for instance. But it does recognise "Wagner" and "Strauss". It is familiar with "Nazi" and "communist"; but it hasn't heard of "haddock" or "avocado". It knows Picasso and Gaugin, but seems to be unacquainted with Raphael and Leonardo. Likes Elvis and Dylan; hasn't heard of the Beatles. Seattle, Quebec and Tampere (Finnish city, pop 200,000), yes; Newcastle, Cardiff and Sheffield (English city, pop half a million), no.
If you expect your Nokia to know what you're on about when you message your partner, "That shop in Bolton has the grout we need," it will begin grumpily demanding, "Spell?" If, however, you want to say: "Who's your favourite dictator, Stalin, Hitler, Franco or Napoleon?" the mobile understands exactly what you mean. My phone goes all talk-to-the-hand if I try to message somebody to remember to get the emulsion, and that Sainsbury's has guavas. But write: "Marxist dogma relies too heavily on the dialectical approach," and the Nokia begins, figuratively speaking, to nod in agreement.
On the basis of its vocabulary, in short, my 21st-century Nokia phone, if it were a person, would be a heavily bearded lecturer from the London School of Economics in 1975, smelling strongly of pipe smoke. And I'd be the last person to want that academic out of my mobile. I just wonder whether he might not be joined in there by someone a bit more UK 2006-specific.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Vote Hamas!
Well, not really, but I thought it would be eye-catching. Anyway, here's an interesting piece about Hamas' latest manifesto.
Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Thursday January 12, 2006
The Guardian
Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto for the Palestinian parliamentary election in a fortnight, a move that brings the group closer to the mainstream Palestinian position of building a state within the boundaries of the occupied territories.
The Islamist faction, responsible for a long campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis, still calls for the maintenance of the armed struggle against occupation. But it steps back from Hamas's 1988 charter demanding Israel's eradication and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place.
Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Thursday January 12, 2006
The Guardian
Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto for the Palestinian parliamentary election in a fortnight, a move that brings the group closer to the mainstream Palestinian position of building a state within the boundaries of the occupied territories.
The Islamist faction, responsible for a long campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis, still calls for the maintenance of the armed struggle against occupation. But it steps back from Hamas's 1988 charter demanding Israel's eradication and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Saddam's Terror Training Camps
Saddam's Terror Training Camps
Weekly Standard
Jan 2006
THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. ...
The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. ...
The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S.intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq war.
The discovery of the information on jihadist training camps in Iraq would seem to have two major consequences: It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and U.S. intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator.
It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years. Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent.
Weekly Standard
Jan 2006
THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. ...
The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. ...
The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S.intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq war.
The discovery of the information on jihadist training camps in Iraq would seem to have two major consequences: It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and U.S. intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator.
It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years. Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent.
Monday, January 09, 2006
You couldn't make this up
I hope this will be an ongoing thread to which all will contribute. The spirit of Littlejohn lives on!
Schools alarmed over orange pips
Telegraph
09/01/2006
Orange pips and plum stones have become the latest concern for health and safety enthusiasts, a report reveals. Some schools, which are giving out free fruit to their pupils under a health initiative funded by the Scottish Executive, believe that fruits with pips are dangerous and so are avoiding them. "We tend not to use stone fruits because of the safety issues. Orange pips fall into that category," a respondent to the study said.
CENSORS have banned young children from buying the new series of Doctor Who on video or DVD on the grounds of “excessive cruelty” towards a Dalek.
Children have been banned from collecting chickens' eggs at the National Trust's showpiece farm because it is now deemed by health and safety advisers as too hazardous
I particularly appreciated the contribution from the gentleman who discovered, after his daughter grazed her knee in the playground, that even cotton wool is considered too dangerous to be held in the school office, lest it be left behind in the wound.
Schools alarmed over orange pips
Telegraph
09/01/2006
Orange pips and plum stones have become the latest concern for health and safety enthusiasts, a report reveals. Some schools, which are giving out free fruit to their pupils under a health initiative funded by the Scottish Executive, believe that fruits with pips are dangerous and so are avoiding them. "We tend not to use stone fruits because of the safety issues. Orange pips fall into that category," a respondent to the study said.
CENSORS have banned young children from buying the new series of Doctor Who on video or DVD on the grounds of “excessive cruelty” towards a Dalek.
Children have been banned from collecting chickens' eggs at the National Trust's showpiece farm because it is now deemed by health and safety advisers as too hazardous
I particularly appreciated the contribution from the gentleman who discovered, after his daughter grazed her knee in the playground, that even cotton wool is considered too dangerous to be held in the school office, lest it be left behind in the wound.
Long live the British Sergeant Major
Priceless.
Stand by your ironing boards
By John Keegan
Telegraph
09/01/2006
Accompanied by his father the Prince of Wales, Prince William, 23, was spared the traditional chore of carrying in his ironing board as he arrived at Sandhurst yesterday to begin his training as an Army officer. When I first knew Sandhurst, at the end of the Fifties, an ironing board was not one of a new cadet's necessities. Now it is.
The Army thinks that ironing improves an officer's character as well as appearance, just as polishing boots does. It is laborious and time-consuming work and incompetence provides a drill sergeant with many opportunities for criticism.
No doubt Prince William's colour sergeant has been rehearsing the line: "Mr Wales, Sir, idle trousers." Perhaps something wittier will emerge to pass into Sandhurst folklore, along with the unforgettable reproof: "Mr King of Jordan, Sir, you are an idle little monarch".
Stand by your ironing boards
By John Keegan
Telegraph
09/01/2006
Accompanied by his father the Prince of Wales, Prince William, 23, was spared the traditional chore of carrying in his ironing board as he arrived at Sandhurst yesterday to begin his training as an Army officer. When I first knew Sandhurst, at the end of the Fifties, an ironing board was not one of a new cadet's necessities. Now it is.
The Army thinks that ironing improves an officer's character as well as appearance, just as polishing boots does. It is laborious and time-consuming work and incompetence provides a drill sergeant with many opportunities for criticism.
No doubt Prince William's colour sergeant has been rehearsing the line: "Mr Wales, Sir, idle trousers." Perhaps something wittier will emerge to pass into Sandhurst folklore, along with the unforgettable reproof: "Mr King of Jordan, Sir, you are an idle little monarch".
Thursday, January 05, 2006
And the winner is...
Another good reason to register with TNR online - this article does just what it says on the tin:
TNR ONLINE'S DESPOT OF THE YEAR AWARD
TNR ONLINE'S DESPOT OF THE YEAR AWARD
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Munich
Pasted below is a pretty critical review of Spielberg's film about the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre - Munich. Haven't seen the film yet so can't say whether it's an unfair review or not but there's some interesting stuff here.
The New Republic Online
TWO PROBLEMS WITH MUNICH.
Twin Pique
by Richard Just
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 12.24.05
Last week I attended a screening of Munich in Washington. The evening included testimonials to the film's cinematic power from former Clinton officials Mike McCurry and Dennis Ross, both serving as consultants to the movie's rollout, plus more praise from Princeton Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter and Foreign Policy Editor-In-Chief Moisés Naím. Slaughter commended the film--a fictionalized account of Israel's attempts to track down and assassinate the terrorists who planned the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre--for showing how, in responding to violence with violence, liberal societies "can lose the very values that we're fighting for." She also lauded the movie's main character, an Israeli assassin who is conflicted about the morality of his mission, for realizing that "we have to do this not as a war, but within the legal system." (Following these thoughts, the audience broke into spontaneous applause.) Naím called the movie "wonderful" and said it left him "speechless."
Part of me wondered if we had all watched the same film. For one thing, as Leon Wieseltier pointed out two weeks ago in TNR, Munich is a "tedious" movie, "soaked in the sweat of its idea of evenhandedness." But two additional aspects of the film struck me as problematic. First, events of recent history have rendered Spielberg's central argument questionable at best, empirically false at worse. And second, the film's last scene contains a particularly ugly suggestion about the relationship between Israel and September 11. Who knows whether Spielberg intended this suggestion. But it is there; and audiences will see it whether he intended it or not.
The evening's most awkward balancing act belonged to Dennis Ross whose attempt to fulfill his duties as a Munich promoter while also maintaining his political sanity more or less led him to claim that the film's message was something other than the film's message. Ross began by saying that the movie's perspective on counterterrorism was "that you have to respond--it's understandable that you respond--but when you respond, you're actually confronted with real dilemmas." Then he said, "And the choices are hard, and sometimes you pick the best of the bad alternatives." This sounded like a grudging endorsement of targeted assassinations. Perhaps misunderstanding Ross or perhaps seeking to steer his fellow panelist back to safer ideological turf, Naím, the group's moderator, said, "Yes, and in fact Steven Spielberg says that a response to a response is not, does not solve anything. It just creates a perpetual motion machine of hatred and revenge." At this point the game was up; Ross had been unmasked. (There would be no spontaneous applause for these comments.) He responded, "I think that is certainly a perspective that he brings to bear." Well, yes: It's the entire point of the movie; and Spielberg has said as much (in the director's own words, "a response to a response doesn't really solve anything"). Ross then went on to explain that he supported targeted assassinations but that the movie's message was that "you really have to craft your response with care." "I think it provokes a discussion about targeted killing, and not whether it's wrong or right, but maybe you ought to talk about it; maybe you ought to think about it," Ross said. So the message of this ambitious two-and-half-hour movie is that we should "think" about targeted assassination. But why "think" about a policy option that "doesn't really solve anything"?
Ross's contortions get to the heart of a major problem with Munich's argument. He is right that the movie entertains the debate about targeted killings largely on practical, rather than moral, grounds. The movie may hint that such assassinations are immoral, but it seeks to prove that they are ineffective. Unlike Ross, Spielberg believes that violent reprisals simply don't work. The problem is that the last three years of Israeli history have shown Spielberg to be wrong. According to The Jerusalem Post, the number of Israelis killed by terrorists has fallen steadily in recent years, from 453 in 2002 to 52 in 2005. It is true that targeted assassinations have been only one component of Israel's anti-terror activities; the construction of a security fence around the West Bank was probably the most important step. And it is also true that plenty of other developments--the death of Arafat, the pullout from Gaza, the reinvigoration of the Israeli center--have brought us to the current hopeful moment in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Still, it seems likely that targeted assassinations played a constructive role in weakening and demoralizing terrorist organizations. At the very least, Sharon has disproven the conventional wisdom that fighting terror with military measures only perpetuates the cycle of violence.
Because its thesis willfully fails to take account of recent Israeli history, Munich feels like a movie that was conceived four or five years ago and frozen in time. And in fact, it was. Speaking at last week's panel, the film's co-producer, Kathleen Kennedy, explained that "we began this process around the year 2000" but "tabled the project for about 8 or 9 months" after September 11. (She also said something revealing about the movie's origins. When they first considered the idea, "Steven and I ... were acutely aware of what had happened at the Olympics in 1972, but we had no idea about this story that unfolded after that." They had never heard of Israel's reprisals? These were not exactly a secret. Fortunately, they turned to an expert, Tony Kushner: "And Tony, some of you may know, has been steeped in the area of politics in the Middle East and really deeply understood the complexity of what it was we were embarking on, in terms of the politics of the story we were trying to tell.") If Munich had been made in 2000, it would still have been troubling to those of us who believe, like Dennis Ross, that killing terrorists is morally defensible. But one would have had to at least entertain the film's practical argument about the cycle of violence. Now, circumstances have changed--because while Spielberg was making a movie he calls a "prayer for peace," Ariel Sharon was doing some very unpeaceable things that have, finally and thankfully, made peace possible.
A dim argument about counterterrorism aside, the thing that bothered me most about Munich--and that has received little attention in the early round of reviews and commentary--was the film's final scene. The movie concludes in New York, and after the dialogue ends the camera pans away from the actors and towards the Manhattan skyline, where it comes to rest on a shot of the Twin Towers. There are many reasons why Spielberg might have chosen to end the film this way. The most obvious is to draw a connection between his movie and our politics: to say, in other words, that the questions raised by his film are not just historical but also contemporary. Fair enough. The other obvious reason to use the Twin Towers was as a cheap emotional prop: to ensure that viewers leave the theater with a lump in their throats that the movie hasn't really earned. This isn't an admirable moviemaking device. But given how common it has become to exploit September 11 in our culture and politics--not to mention how common it is for bad films to beg viewers for unearned emotion--it is hard to work up indignation on this count. Besides, Martin Scorcese ended Gangs of New York exactly the same way. So Spielberg's cheap emotional trick isn't even an original one.
No, the reason this final shot disturbed me was not because of the way Spielberg likely intended it but because of the way many viewers will likely see it: as a statement that Israel is somehow responsible for September 11 and therefore responsible for America's current geopolitical predicament. I do not mean "responsible for September 11" in the sense meant by the conspiracy theorists who maintain that the Mossad orchestrated the attacks or that Jews were warned to stay home from work the day of the strikes. Of course, there are plenty of people who believe such things, particularly in the Middle East, and perhaps they will see Munich and find their views implicitly reaffirmed in the movie's last frame; but Spielberg cannot be held responsible for the wild interpretations of conspiracy theorists. What he can be held responsible for is an interpretation of the last scene that he may not have intended but that he should have foreseen: One can view the last shot as drawing a loose but linear link between decades of Israeli counterterrorism and September 11. This false yet potent link already exists in the minds of some Americans and many Europeans. It is reasonable to fear that after millions see Munich, the link will exist in the minds of many more.
Consider the movie's ending in light of its larger argument that, from the 1970s on, Palestinian terrorism and Israeli counterterrorism have been locked in a violent cycle doomed to endlessly spiral forward into the future. What does a final shot of the Twin Towers mean in this context? Audiences could be forgiven for assuming Spielberg's point is that the cycle of violence Munich identifies spiraled forward and eventually hit American shores on September 11. In other words, if Israelis hadn't run around Europe assassinating Palestinian terrorists in the 1970s, the World Trade Center would still be standing today.
Needless to say, this is an inaccurate reading of history. It is also unfair to Israel: In a year that has seen liberal American churches denounce the Jewish State, a mass-market movie that seems in its final moments to hold Israel responsible for September 11, and that will be adored by liberal audiences (it has already been praised by liberal reviewers), will not do Israel any favors with American public opinion. The whole implication is also destructive to American politics. The idea that America's current situation on the world stage is primarily the result of our accidental involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian cycle of violence corrodes any chance of honest debate about our foreign policy.
Spielberg may be breaking new ground by drawing an implicit link between Israel's post-Munich operations and September 11; but he is hardly the first to intimate that on September 11 and since, America somehow became enmeshed in a fundamentally Israeli matter. "[T]his is not really the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days," wrote Robert Fisk in The Nation weeks after September 11. "It is also about U.S. missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and U.S. helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia--paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally--hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps." In the Los Angeles Times, Alexander Cockburn wrote, "I doubt the suicide bombers went to their deaths in the cause of forcing women to stay home and only go shopping when clad in blue tents or of having men never trim their beards. More likely they were moved to action by Bin Laden's main political themes as expressed on at least one tape in which he denounces Israel's occupation of Palestine and U.S. complicity with that occupation." What began in the days after September 11 would continue as America's response to September 11 widened to include the Iraq war: Elements of the left would seem to take special joy in trying to entangle Israel in these discussions. In 2002, I covered anti-Israel rallies that turned into antiwar rallies. Or were they antiwar rallies that turned into anti-Israel rallies? It was sometimes hard to tell. Even the respectable left played its part. Hence the oft-made point that one way to neutralize Al Qaeda would be to impose Israeli-Palestinian peace, as if September 11 was an act of protest against Barak's failure to cede enough territory at Camp David. This is exactly what the last scene in Munich more or less implies: that if only Israel had negotiated more and retaliated less, Muslim terrorism as we know it would have been stillborn years before the towers fell. Spielberg may not have intended this message. But it is the message many viewers will understand. Perhaps Dennis Ross can explain to these viewers why they are wrong.
Richard Just is editor of TNR Online.
The New Republic Online
TWO PROBLEMS WITH MUNICH.
Twin Pique
by Richard Just
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 12.24.05
Last week I attended a screening of Munich in Washington. The evening included testimonials to the film's cinematic power from former Clinton officials Mike McCurry and Dennis Ross, both serving as consultants to the movie's rollout, plus more praise from Princeton Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter and Foreign Policy Editor-In-Chief Moisés Naím. Slaughter commended the film--a fictionalized account of Israel's attempts to track down and assassinate the terrorists who planned the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre--for showing how, in responding to violence with violence, liberal societies "can lose the very values that we're fighting for." She also lauded the movie's main character, an Israeli assassin who is conflicted about the morality of his mission, for realizing that "we have to do this not as a war, but within the legal system." (Following these thoughts, the audience broke into spontaneous applause.) Naím called the movie "wonderful" and said it left him "speechless."
Part of me wondered if we had all watched the same film. For one thing, as Leon Wieseltier pointed out two weeks ago in TNR, Munich is a "tedious" movie, "soaked in the sweat of its idea of evenhandedness." But two additional aspects of the film struck me as problematic. First, events of recent history have rendered Spielberg's central argument questionable at best, empirically false at worse. And second, the film's last scene contains a particularly ugly suggestion about the relationship between Israel and September 11. Who knows whether Spielberg intended this suggestion. But it is there; and audiences will see it whether he intended it or not.
The evening's most awkward balancing act belonged to Dennis Ross whose attempt to fulfill his duties as a Munich promoter while also maintaining his political sanity more or less led him to claim that the film's message was something other than the film's message. Ross began by saying that the movie's perspective on counterterrorism was "that you have to respond--it's understandable that you respond--but when you respond, you're actually confronted with real dilemmas." Then he said, "And the choices are hard, and sometimes you pick the best of the bad alternatives." This sounded like a grudging endorsement of targeted assassinations. Perhaps misunderstanding Ross or perhaps seeking to steer his fellow panelist back to safer ideological turf, Naím, the group's moderator, said, "Yes, and in fact Steven Spielberg says that a response to a response is not, does not solve anything. It just creates a perpetual motion machine of hatred and revenge." At this point the game was up; Ross had been unmasked. (There would be no spontaneous applause for these comments.) He responded, "I think that is certainly a perspective that he brings to bear." Well, yes: It's the entire point of the movie; and Spielberg has said as much (in the director's own words, "a response to a response doesn't really solve anything"). Ross then went on to explain that he supported targeted assassinations but that the movie's message was that "you really have to craft your response with care." "I think it provokes a discussion about targeted killing, and not whether it's wrong or right, but maybe you ought to talk about it; maybe you ought to think about it," Ross said. So the message of this ambitious two-and-half-hour movie is that we should "think" about targeted assassination. But why "think" about a policy option that "doesn't really solve anything"?
Ross's contortions get to the heart of a major problem with Munich's argument. He is right that the movie entertains the debate about targeted killings largely on practical, rather than moral, grounds. The movie may hint that such assassinations are immoral, but it seeks to prove that they are ineffective. Unlike Ross, Spielberg believes that violent reprisals simply don't work. The problem is that the last three years of Israeli history have shown Spielberg to be wrong. According to The Jerusalem Post, the number of Israelis killed by terrorists has fallen steadily in recent years, from 453 in 2002 to 52 in 2005. It is true that targeted assassinations have been only one component of Israel's anti-terror activities; the construction of a security fence around the West Bank was probably the most important step. And it is also true that plenty of other developments--the death of Arafat, the pullout from Gaza, the reinvigoration of the Israeli center--have brought us to the current hopeful moment in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Still, it seems likely that targeted assassinations played a constructive role in weakening and demoralizing terrorist organizations. At the very least, Sharon has disproven the conventional wisdom that fighting terror with military measures only perpetuates the cycle of violence.
Because its thesis willfully fails to take account of recent Israeli history, Munich feels like a movie that was conceived four or five years ago and frozen in time. And in fact, it was. Speaking at last week's panel, the film's co-producer, Kathleen Kennedy, explained that "we began this process around the year 2000" but "tabled the project for about 8 or 9 months" after September 11. (She also said something revealing about the movie's origins. When they first considered the idea, "Steven and I ... were acutely aware of what had happened at the Olympics in 1972, but we had no idea about this story that unfolded after that." They had never heard of Israel's reprisals? These were not exactly a secret. Fortunately, they turned to an expert, Tony Kushner: "And Tony, some of you may know, has been steeped in the area of politics in the Middle East and really deeply understood the complexity of what it was we were embarking on, in terms of the politics of the story we were trying to tell.") If Munich had been made in 2000, it would still have been troubling to those of us who believe, like Dennis Ross, that killing terrorists is morally defensible. But one would have had to at least entertain the film's practical argument about the cycle of violence. Now, circumstances have changed--because while Spielberg was making a movie he calls a "prayer for peace," Ariel Sharon was doing some very unpeaceable things that have, finally and thankfully, made peace possible.
A dim argument about counterterrorism aside, the thing that bothered me most about Munich--and that has received little attention in the early round of reviews and commentary--was the film's final scene. The movie concludes in New York, and after the dialogue ends the camera pans away from the actors and towards the Manhattan skyline, where it comes to rest on a shot of the Twin Towers. There are many reasons why Spielberg might have chosen to end the film this way. The most obvious is to draw a connection between his movie and our politics: to say, in other words, that the questions raised by his film are not just historical but also contemporary. Fair enough. The other obvious reason to use the Twin Towers was as a cheap emotional prop: to ensure that viewers leave the theater with a lump in their throats that the movie hasn't really earned. This isn't an admirable moviemaking device. But given how common it has become to exploit September 11 in our culture and politics--not to mention how common it is for bad films to beg viewers for unearned emotion--it is hard to work up indignation on this count. Besides, Martin Scorcese ended Gangs of New York exactly the same way. So Spielberg's cheap emotional trick isn't even an original one.
No, the reason this final shot disturbed me was not because of the way Spielberg likely intended it but because of the way many viewers will likely see it: as a statement that Israel is somehow responsible for September 11 and therefore responsible for America's current geopolitical predicament. I do not mean "responsible for September 11" in the sense meant by the conspiracy theorists who maintain that the Mossad orchestrated the attacks or that Jews were warned to stay home from work the day of the strikes. Of course, there are plenty of people who believe such things, particularly in the Middle East, and perhaps they will see Munich and find their views implicitly reaffirmed in the movie's last frame; but Spielberg cannot be held responsible for the wild interpretations of conspiracy theorists. What he can be held responsible for is an interpretation of the last scene that he may not have intended but that he should have foreseen: One can view the last shot as drawing a loose but linear link between decades of Israeli counterterrorism and September 11. This false yet potent link already exists in the minds of some Americans and many Europeans. It is reasonable to fear that after millions see Munich, the link will exist in the minds of many more.
Consider the movie's ending in light of its larger argument that, from the 1970s on, Palestinian terrorism and Israeli counterterrorism have been locked in a violent cycle doomed to endlessly spiral forward into the future. What does a final shot of the Twin Towers mean in this context? Audiences could be forgiven for assuming Spielberg's point is that the cycle of violence Munich identifies spiraled forward and eventually hit American shores on September 11. In other words, if Israelis hadn't run around Europe assassinating Palestinian terrorists in the 1970s, the World Trade Center would still be standing today.
Needless to say, this is an inaccurate reading of history. It is also unfair to Israel: In a year that has seen liberal American churches denounce the Jewish State, a mass-market movie that seems in its final moments to hold Israel responsible for September 11, and that will be adored by liberal audiences (it has already been praised by liberal reviewers), will not do Israel any favors with American public opinion. The whole implication is also destructive to American politics. The idea that America's current situation on the world stage is primarily the result of our accidental involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian cycle of violence corrodes any chance of honest debate about our foreign policy.
Spielberg may be breaking new ground by drawing an implicit link between Israel's post-Munich operations and September 11; but he is hardly the first to intimate that on September 11 and since, America somehow became enmeshed in a fundamentally Israeli matter. "[T]his is not really the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days," wrote Robert Fisk in The Nation weeks after September 11. "It is also about U.S. missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and U.S. helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia--paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally--hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps." In the Los Angeles Times, Alexander Cockburn wrote, "I doubt the suicide bombers went to their deaths in the cause of forcing women to stay home and only go shopping when clad in blue tents or of having men never trim their beards. More likely they were moved to action by Bin Laden's main political themes as expressed on at least one tape in which he denounces Israel's occupation of Palestine and U.S. complicity with that occupation." What began in the days after September 11 would continue as America's response to September 11 widened to include the Iraq war: Elements of the left would seem to take special joy in trying to entangle Israel in these discussions. In 2002, I covered anti-Israel rallies that turned into antiwar rallies. Or were they antiwar rallies that turned into anti-Israel rallies? It was sometimes hard to tell. Even the respectable left played its part. Hence the oft-made point that one way to neutralize Al Qaeda would be to impose Israeli-Palestinian peace, as if September 11 was an act of protest against Barak's failure to cede enough territory at Camp David. This is exactly what the last scene in Munich more or less implies: that if only Israel had negotiated more and retaliated less, Muslim terrorism as we know it would have been stillborn years before the towers fell. Spielberg may not have intended this message. But it is the message many viewers will understand. Perhaps Dennis Ross can explain to these viewers why they are wrong.
Richard Just is editor of TNR Online.
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