<sarcasm>And of course, the Palestinians have scrupulously followed the agreement since then...</sarcasm>

But of course, Italy isn't party to the agreement. Though if Israel says he's turned over a new leaf...

Bill Clinton's legacy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/16/international/worldspecial/16CAPT.html

An article about Abbas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2003/reporters_log/default.stm

Centcom, Qatar :: Dominic Hughes :: 0540GMT

Abu Abbas was captured in a raid by coalition forces in southern Baghdad on Monday evening.

Abbas is described as the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, the group that carried out the hijack of the Italian cruise ship the Achille Lauro in 1985 during which a disabled American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and his body pushed overboard. US central command says his capture represents another victory in the war against terrorism.

The plans for Abbas are not yet clear. A spokesman merely said that justice will be done. Abbas has been living in Iraq for the last seventeen years, but he's also travelled in the Middle East and the Israeli authorities did allow him to visit Gaza several times in the late 1990s after their security committee concluded he'd renounced violence.

The United States also dropped a warrant for his arrest several years ago but his capture in Iraq is now likely to be used as evidence that Saddam Hussein was supporting terror groups.

*******************

Seems that the US dropped a warrant for his arrest, and that the Israelis essentially ignored him after 1996.

Pretty pathetic if that is the best we can do as a "terrorist".

Does anyone have any credible information linking him to any counts of recent terrorist activity, or to any active terror operations or groups?

dan : take a look at what the Kurds found up north. Including Biowar gear. Or down south, the training camps, complete with airliner for hijacking training.
I think a jury would convict.

If Oslo had succeeded, it may have been a small, realpolitik price to pay. Myself, I would want him dropped off an aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean, but if we did sign a treaty....

I hear though he is saving up to get a NYC Taxi Medallion.

Getting back on-topic, if the guy had said "I'm sorry" rather than "It was a mistake", I might have more sympathy. If releasing him would have a reasonable chance of giving peace to the Middle East, then I'd let him go. But as it is, perhaps a revival of the old "Trial by Ordeal" might be in order. Tie him to a wheelchair, and chuck him in a swimming pool. If he floats, he's guilty, and off he goes to Gitmo. If he sinks, he's innocent - but you have to wait a few minutes to be sure. Afterwards, take him out and try to revive him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2949441.stm

Take a gander at this article, me boyos.

Oh, and Ansar may well have been connected with Al Qaeda, but the connections with Iraqi government are...extremely tenuous.

And the reports coming out of Salman Pak are pretty damn vague.

So far, the whole terrorism-WMD justification is a pile of crap, weakly justified to begin with and looking weaker every day, no matter how hard the media tries to spin it up.

I maintain my original argument - the US would have been much better off basing this entire thing on regime change for humanitarian and regional stability purposes.

Now they just appear to have instigated the destruction of a nation, widespread chaos and civil collapse based on tissue-paper thin packs of garbage.

And even the "liberation" thing is wearing a bit thin, considering that the military saw fit to protect the Ministry of Oil and the Ministry of the Interior, but not protect hospitals, food stores, gas mains, water pumping stations, or the repository of the history of the oldest damned locus of Western Civ, Ancient knowledge, and preserved writings in existence.

What a balls up disaster.

Talk about defeat snatched from the jaws of victory - you wait folks, this is gonna get worse and worse and worse, and we are gonna pay at home, and big.

So send him to Italy then, where he can start serving out his term.

Hey Dan,

You sound like one of those quagmire folk. I suggest taking a few anti-anxiety meds, and practicing a chant of "don't leap to conclusions...don't leap to conclusions...give the inspections more time..." That's a good boyo.

Yeah, I was gonna mention Italy -- Chances are the US will release him. They will set him free in Genoa, Naples, or Sicily.

Dan, another mistake was not to try to prosecute him ahead of time for War Crimes (ala Milosevic.) It would have been much harder for the UN Security Council to have ignored that angle.

There have been a bazillion mistakes made. Not the least is that they never seem to have planned for the post-game.

It seems premature to be holding meetings now on future government structures before we have stabilized the country and brought power etc. back online. At yesterday's meeting a lot of anti US sentiment was expressed.

If they had quickly brought in int'l police, stopped the looting, and brought the infrastructure back on line, THEN when they held the future gov't meeting, it would have been much easier to get a more pro-american stance from various parties.

Oh well. As long as you and your family are not a victims of terrorism itself, it does make for a more interesting world.

NPR is suggesting he will be turned over to Italy, but they are also connecting him and the PLF training camps. If that latter activity took place after the 93 agreement, he could be on his way to gitmo.

Hey Jerry,

A year from now it wouldn't have made a whit of difference. Stop nitpicking and step away from the computer and go for a walk. These are transitory problems that shouldn't be exaggerated.

I hope you're right JB.

(Talking to you is kind of like talking to a fun-house mirror (cause we share the same initials but skew on the ideas.))

jerry,

thanks for that post.

Look guys, this IS a quagmire, and it will be for at least the next two years, minimum.

I opposed this whole thing from the start, and I abhor the fact that it happened at all (obviously you know that), but, but, BUT...

Jeebus H Chrikey on a white f@*$%#knig bicycle, you'd think that the whole damned thing would have been just a weensy eensy teensy bit better planned and prepared than this dog's vomit of a FUBAR.

Unprepared, undermanned for the full task at hand, unaware of the complexities and reality of the situation on the ground, relying on crapola intelligence from biased and self-serving sources, desperately seeking post-facto justifications for weakly reasoned and poorly presented rationales.

Chaos and looting in several major cities, growing resentment, soldiers firing on crowds in Mosul, fatwas and jihads floating around like black flies...not enough people or supplies on the ground to impose civil order of any kind.

come ON folks, support or oppose that actions already taken, you GOTTA admit that Rummy and his "fast and lite" bullshit just didn't have a clue.

"These are transitory problems that shouldn't be exaggerated."

JB, all I can say is that maybe they seem so to you, personally, and perhaps to you, they really are.

But to the people who matter, who are there on the ground living through this, this moment - these past two and next few weeks will determine to an extremely large degree exactly how they view this whole business.

Is the situation irretrievable? No, not yet. But the watershed moment is approaching fast, and not many of the signs are positive that the Administration has any clue of how to "midwife" this business through its most critical phase - the transition from repression to chaos and back to order.

The opinions that are formed now will be based on actions taken now, and will determine to a large degree the ultimate success of this adventure.

Not many signs? Come on Dan, BushCo has not made a single decision that was not taken to support and favor his favorite friends and corporations. Little People don't count with this administration.

And that's exactly the thought process that stuck the Shah, Hussein, Pinoche', D'Aubusson into power in the first place. Except that BushCo isn't even as clever in disguising his motives.

Ahh hell, who could that be knocking on my door at 4am? Hey, hello Mr. Ashcroft!

Gotta go guys.

jerry,

ding ding ding...we haaaave a winnnnnnahhhh!

And I am sure that Mr. Poindexter over at TIA knows exactly who you are...

sleep well.

>"We demand the United States release
>Abu Abbas. It has no right to imprison
>him," Palestinian cabinet minister
>Saeb Erekat said.

Hmmm...uhhhh...let's see...what's the term I'm looking for...?

Oh, yeah.

Go [urinate] up a rope.

Besides, I wasn't aware that there was a statute of limitations on prosecuting terrorism.

And, Dan? Quit discussing foreign policy with the girls in Roppongi, mkay? They're agreeing with everything you say for a reason, and it ain't "enlightenment."

Darth,

Most of my discussions of foreign policy are with my co-workers.

Haven't been to Roppongi for about a year.

Kabuki-cho is better anyway.

Gitmo baby, send'm to Gitmo.

The PLO can ony enforce Oslo if the PLO has complied with Oslo.

I think we're pretty safe in hanging onto him for a little while - just to question him and see what he knows and whether he did anything post-Oslo.

The worst-case scenario is that the Italians get him. I think they handed him multiple life sentences (I forget how many, but it was a bunch).

Sorry, Abu, your immunity is only for pre-1993 events. It's not a permanent get-out-of-jail free card. You are the CURRENT head of a terrorist group, the PLF. You are the CURRENT head of a terrorist camp in Iraq, where manuals show people were trained for suicide missions in Israel. You were caught red-handed.

KILL the SOB........
have no time for scum like him

KILL the SOB........
have no time for scum like him

Dan and Jerry:

Like you, I deplore our habit of setting up tinhorn dictators that are little better than the regimes they displace. But about the Pinochet coup (I should call it a recoup) in Chile, I know more of the details: not only from Chilean newspapers, but from one of the Little People who lived through it. Please consider the following points:

1. The Allende government, elected by a slim majority, was well on its way to consolidating power by the usual Marxist methods when Pinochet stepped in.

2. Pinochet bumped off several thousands that he considered ringleaders. Considered as police work, this is pretty grim. Considered as war, it's pretty clean.

3. And the man who lived through it-- a professor of inorganic chemistry at University of Santiago-- had this to say: "Don't knock Pinochet. Either it was Pinochet or revolution."

4. For a dictator, Pinochet is pretty mild stuff: his power was far from absolute, and he finally stepped down of his own volition.

I am wondering whether the other dictators we've supported might also have merits that do not appear when their names are merely listed in a Rogues' Gallery.

To conclude: when you say, "This is the part the US usually fouls up," I quite agree. When you say, "we've fouled up now, irretrievably; doom is at hand!" -- I must reply, "Wait." When your opponents say, "Hell, not to worry; it'll all come out in the wash," I worry. I wait, and I worry; but I try to avoid jumping to conclusions.

The Palestinian Authority dissavowed the PLF in 1985 or 1986, loudly proclaiming that they were in no shape or form associated in any longer. The PA can NOT have it both ways, either the PLF IS asscociated with the PA or not. Which is is?

"destruction of a nation"

Sheeesh. Must ... spin .... everything .... negatively .... Bush ... bad .... war .... bad .... quagmire .... squawk .....quagmire ....

Destruction of a nation. Pretty hard thing to do, actually. The Khymer Rouge did a bang up job of destroying Cambodia when they killed 1/3 of the population and emptied their cities completely in the 1970s. The US wreaked unprecendented destruction of Japan in WWII and didn't destroy the nation - their will to fight, yes, but not the nation. Don't worry chicken little, things will improve in Iraq, and they are already MUCH better off than they were under Saddam's boot.

z

Tortoise : This is a bit off-topic, but what the heck. Re Allende, no argument. Re Pinochet, I must beg to differ. I've heard from two former students from Chile (same University, though they'd never met). Both told essentially the same story: The day of the Coup, soldiers went into their classes, and started shooting. The lecturers were both taken outside and shot, as were some 10% of the class taken totally at random. Their crime? "Universities are a hotbed of subversion and Communism, and if there's any more we'll come and do it again." For good measure, they then sprayed the classroom with fire from the outside, killing or wounding a few of the remaining students.
Amongst those executed "as a warning to others" were two sons of Chilean Military Officers, the decimation was literally random, and designed purely to terrorise.
I have no idea if the unfortunate lecturers in Veterinary Science and Civil Engineering were amongst the "2000 people considered Ringleaders". I do know that the 18- and 19-yr old kids, some in the Chilean equivalent of the ROTC, weren't.
I too, used to think that Pinochet was an "unfortunately savage cure for a worse disease". I was wrong.

Abbas is a pig to be sure. But we amnestied much much worse people after WW2. They didn't apologize either.

What is with fingering Clinton on this? There wasn't a peep, not one from the Republican leadership in the House or Senate at the time. Candidate Bush made a big deal of saying he fully supported this deal. There was also no complaint at all from Israel.

Ida know guys. I'm hearing an awful lot of "I told you so" and "Look, it IS a disaster" without any acknowledgement of the other side's "These are transitory problems" and "They haven't even gotten started yet."

Jerry, I'm still trying to figure out who these "little people" are that you referred to that Bush doesn't care about.

As far as the oil ministry being protected but not the hospitals, it seems that theres some debate on that, as well. While Arnett was complaining that nothing was being done to protect hospitals another report (can't find the link, good thing I don't do this for a living) says that the same officer dispatched troops to handle it.

I wouldn't remotely call this a balls up disaster. But then again, I realize that the first pass at democracy in this country was an utter failure, and it took years to figure it out. (That's the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution.)

Still, if we're to have an effect on the outcome of this fairy tale, I'd like to hear some concrete suggestions, instead of simple criticism.

As far as Abbas is concerned (hmmm, I've noticed that the discussions are ranging far and wide these days, usually not related to the subject) we may be stuck with it. One more criminal pardoned.

One last thing. There are NO doubts that Hussein was making payments to the families of homicide bombers. Also, in a police state such as this, does anyone think that a terrorist organization could have operated without the governments knowledge and approval? Come on guys, it took us a week to run Ansar out of town.

I wouldn't remotely call this a balls up disaster. But then again, I realize that the first pass at democracy in this country was an utter failure, and it took years to figure it out. (That's the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution.)

Er hello. Its been a freakin week since they gave up. The Iraqi military fell so fast that Uncle Sam is -still- trying to catch up.

"I too, used to think that Pinochet was an "unfortunately savage cure for a worse disease". I was wrong."

Really? Pinocet was worse than totalitarian communism? That lovely form of government responsible for untold millions of deaths in the 20th century?

z

Dan,

Had you known that Israel would not be attacked, that the predictions of 500k Iraqi civilians killed would be a tad high, and that the Iraqi people would overwhelmingly support the presence of coalition forces despite years of propaganda against the West, would you have supported this liberation? Your definition of quagmire must be slightly different than mine. Is your standard for success absolute perfection or do you measure it against any other major military action that has actually occured? Do you think that your position would be supported by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people? Is there anything positive that one can take away from the removal of Saddam and his regime?

As for WMD, were you one of those people who wanted to give Hans Blix and the inspections team six months to a year to complete their work? Weren't they simply supposed to simply verify Iraqi regime assertions that all WMD had been ddestroyed? Do you now still believe that they would have succeeded? Do think that enough time has passed since the liberation of Iraq to assert that Iraq does not have nor did it posses WMD? Why the ultra-short time frame? Do you believe that the Iraqi regime destroyed all of its anthrax and VX agents? If so, on what do you base this idea? It can't be based on any findings of the weapons inspectors - even Hans Blix agreed that Iraq failed to provide evidence of the destruction of these WMD. If it eventually becomes clear that the Iraq moved its WMD to entities outside of Iraq, will that, in your mind, be proof that you are right OR...that the premise for the removal of the Saddam regime and the liberation of Iraq was justified?

ziphius : Worse than Stalin? Hell no. Worse than Mao? Not in the same league. Worse than Pol Pot? No way. Worse than "closed trial and death sentence" Castro? Ummmm... about the same I'd say. Worse than Hitler? Not even remotely. Worse than Mussolini? Probably. Worse than Franco? Possibly.

Consider : Hong Kong is under a Totalitarian Communist regime at the moment. Zmbabwe is notionally a Democracy. Both Adolf Hitler and Franklin Deleano Roosevelt were National Socialists.
Labels such as "Totalitarian Communism" are too broad : don't look at what they say, look at their actions. Decimating (in the literal sense) a student body in order to terrorise the survivors is obscene, and I don't care if it's "To save the country from Communism" or "To enforce the Dictatorship of the Proletariat".

The palistinians broke the oslo deal, so it isn't in effect.
Tough luck palistians, see what happens when you don't honer agreements?

abba should hang.

Would anyone argue that Mr Abbas doesn't deserve proportional justice? I think he is entitled to every bit as much consideration as he showed Leon Klinghoffer. In this we would also be honoring in kind the proportional respect the PLO has shown for that (can't we just be adults and admit it's dead?) interim agreement. It would be the very model of an evenhanded, moderate response; not as much fun as catapulting him from the flight deck but gratifying nonetheless.

Nice job ABC! I eagerly await Dan's detailed reply to all your questions. Dan, will you give us the courtesy of a thoughtful reply?

Thanks, Craig C. Not sure why Dan wouldn't want to educate me when I am willing to learn from him and follow his factual, logical, assertion-free, response.

I don't quite understand how an article on the capture of Abbas brings out these long posts from the gloom/doom/quagmire/mistake crowd.

First, on Abbas: Possession is 9/10ths of the law. The US has him. We can try him under a military tribunal and execute hi m. We should. We cannot try him for murder in a court of law because he did this so long ago that we didn't have a law allowing that. We do not have to pay any attention any treaties, because we signed none that were relevant. Alternatively, we could give him to the Italians (again,again) and hope that this time they enforce the life sentence they have already enforced.

As to the doom/quagmire folks. Leave it to another thread. And besides, your arguments are junk. The only one I would even bother to debate is the "where are the WMD's" one (hint... time for a Reconnaisance in Force into Italy).