I had a new column in the Birmingham News yesterday on the Clark candidacy. The full text is available here.

(My apologies to Time Magazine for making slight modifications to their cover story this week.)

Ever since the "end of major combat operations" was declared, Europe has been nothing but trouble. We owe it to ourselves to research and document the errors and bad guesses, before and after the war, that got the Administration into this spot.

On May 8 (1945), Churchill appeared and spoke to a vast crowd. After the words "This is your victory" the crowd roared back, "No-it is yours." It was an unforgettable moment of love and gratitude.

But "victory" wasn't accomplished then, and it still is not. An end to hostilities, Europe's reconstruction, and the long-hoped-for final return of US soldiers from active duty in those far-off lands has proved far more difficult than any official ever assumed it would be.

Consider:

-- Hundreds of US soldiers have died or suffered wounds in a bloody guerilla war that has extended for more than three years after "VE Day." Even now, stubborn resistance in the form of "skinheads" (formerly known as Nazi Werewolves) and other opposition groups threaten peace and stability in Europe.

-- Over a half-century since the "end of major combat operations," America is still maintaining over 116,000 troops in Europe, and no date for their final return home has been announced.

-- The United States incurred a staggering long-term debt, from which succeeding generations may never recover, when it gave $13.3 billion ($100 billion in today's dollars) from 1948-1952 to 16 different nations in Europe. Senior Senators and other critics have openly charged the Administration with "bribing foreign leaders" to support its unilateral military and reconstruction efforts.

-- Questions continue to be raised about the original justification for American military intervention in Europe. Over a half-century has passed, and the Administration has yet to turn up any evidence at all that Hitler or Germany was responsible for, or involved in any way with, the attack at Pearl Harbor.

Originally published 8/11/2002.

I was digging through the archives and found this post from more than a year ago and like it. I'm moving it back up.

OpinionJournal: Islam's Silent Majority: White Americans unlearned hatred. So must Muslims.
When I say tolerance, I don't mean it in a morally-equivocating, skin-color only, I have to agree with you kind of way. What I mean by tolerance is that people are entitled to think what they wish. If you dislike homosexuals, for example, it's your right to do so. You just can't violate their rights in the process by brutalizing them, stealing from them or anything like that. You can ostracize them. That's your right. Likewise, you can be ostracized for your views as well. And that's where it ends.

Tolerance is key to having a free mind and living in a just society. There's no room for acts of violence or the spreading of terror in such a society. This piece from Robert Ashgar is a great tutorial on tolerance:

Innocents are killed in Murree, Pakistan, at a school that I visited from time to time as a teenager. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl loses his life in Karachi, a town that was once my home. And an Islamabad church is attacked, just a few miles away from another previous home. In each incident, the name of Allah is invoked. The question is then asked once again: Is Islam a religion of peace?

Many Muslims are peaceful, and I was raised in one such family. However, it's quite clear that they are by and large not the hosts of the party, but rather bashful guests. For the sake of their faith--and for the sake of a world that Islam professes to care about--the time has come for them to step forward, take control of their assembly, and kick out those who preach a more violent version of the faith.

.....................

Here, one can learn from white Americans. Fifty years ago, racist views were tolerated, even encouraged by mainstream society. The Marge Schotts of our nation used to get away with their rantings, thanks to the tepid response of most white citizens; but now, such bigots are ostracized with devastating swiftness. Sure, you can be a racist--but you'd better keep it under wraps if you plan on working in this town again.

Let that be a lesson for Muslims. Too many people have been thrown out of Muslim families for being insufficiently fundamentalist. Start throwing out sons and daughters for being insufficiently peaceful. Too many Muslims are more bothered by competing forms of monotheism than by demonic forces rumbling in their own camp. Too many hundreds of millions of Muslims can tolerate, rationalize and even promote violence. All this must change, and change now.

ajc.com | Opinion | Falsely bleak reports reduce our chances of success in Iraq
Via Best of the Web.

If someone hasn't already invented it, I'd like to propose a new term: reductio ad Vietnam. It's like reductio ad Hitlerum -- every tyrant is compared or reduced to Hitler as a justification for going after him. And I didn't even study Latin.

The current bout of reductio ad Vietnam is the propensity for otherwise sane individuals to insist on comparing the conflict in Iraq, or any other significant battle, to Vietnam. It just isn't so. The press is reporting uniformly bad news because that's what sells and because some have an ideological axe to grind. The progress that's being made is going unreported.

Many things are needed here, but primarily perspective: we would have to stay in Iraq another 150 years to reach the casualty level of Vietnam. We've been there six months. In hindsight, another thing that was needed was a more honest assessment of our situation from the President. He finally acknowledged, silently, that we are still engaged in a low-level conflict by appointing General Abizaid to head CENTCOM and later admitted as much out loud when he addressed the nation on September 7th. This kind of honesty was needed much earlier.

The excerpt below is from a Congressman who actually went to Iraq and spoke with the troops. No doubt many of them are unhappy being there and would rather be home. Nevertheless, many are imbued with a sense of purpose and believe in their mission. Let's not dishonor their commitment by failing to recognize their achievements as well.

On Sept. 14, I flew from Baghdad to Kuwait with Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg from Dearborn, Mich. He was in a body bag. He'd been ambushed and killed that afternoon. Sitting in the cargo bay of a C 130E, I found myself wondering whether the news media were somehow complicit in his death.

News media reports about our progress in Iraq have been bleak since shortly after the president's premature declaration of victory. These reports contrast sharply with reports of hope and progress presented to Congress by Department of Defense representatives -- a real disconnect, Vietnam déja vu. So I went to Iraq with six other members of Congress to see for myself.

The Iraq war has predictably evolved into a guerrilla conflict similar to Vietnam. Our currently stated objectives are to establish reasonable security and foster the creation of a secular, representative government with a stable market economy that provides broad opportunity throughout Iraqi society. Attaining these objectives in Iraq would inevitably transform the Arab world and immeasurably increase our future national security.

These are goals worthy of a fight, of sacrifice, of more lives lost now to save thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands in the future. In Mosul last Monday, a colonel in the 101st Airborne put it to me quite simply: "Sir, this is worth doing." No one I spoke with said anything different. And I spoke with all ranks.

[....]

We may need a few credible Baghdad Bobs to undo the harm done by our media. I'm afraid it is killing our troops.

Please, read the rest of his column.

OpinionJournal: The Quiet American: Meet the man who sold Europe on missile defense.
Mr. Galbraith seems to have done a fine job under the radar of selling missile defense in Europe. That's probably why we aren't hearing about our pulling out of the ABM Treaty anymore from the left -- they rely on Europe to provide sophisticated criticisms of the President. It didn't work this time because the European defense contractors want in on the development of missile defense and it won't happen if Europe is too bellicose in its rhetoric about the ABM Treaty and missile defense.

Pursuing missile defense and abandoning the ABM Treaty -- which was hopelessly out of date and designed for a world in which we no longer live -- is one of the forgotten pluses of the Bush Presidency. It's the right thing to do for a number of reasons, such as protection of our people and our allies and it also gives us the choice of not responding with nuclear weapons should someone like North Korea or Iran actually fire one at us.

Ambassador Galbraith starts out with the conviction that missile defense (using missiles to shoot down incoming missiles) is an "antiproliferation device." A system that is predictable "will be enough to dissuade people from going into the business" of making offensive weapons. "What's the use of going into the business if we can shoot them down?" he asks. "The maritime component will be designed to go wherever the threat is, and North Korea will be the first obvious object."

He knew Mr. Rumsfeld professionally and socially, and the two decided soon after the 2000 elections that the Brussels job was perfect for Mr. Galbraith. He had been on the board of the French defense contractor Lagardere and knew Europe from the inside.

Once appointed (his official title is representative for the secretary of defense in Europe), Mr. Galbraith "developed a strategy." It was to bring European defense contractors into the inner U.S. circle, "so that they could participate in the development of the missile-defense business." They would be attracted to do so "because there's a lot of big bucks." About $8 billion, give or take a nickel.

The plan got underway at a dinner at the Moulin Lindekemale in Brussels on Nov. 13, 2001, which was attended by representatives of such companies as EADS, Europe's largest defense conglomerate, Italy's Finmeccanica, Britain's BAE Systems and France's Thales. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon from the U.S. were also represented. Leading discussion, as courses arrived, were Mr. Galbraith and U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, the Director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. According to one of the private-industry reps there, the dinner was a success.

"We described what we would like to do with them," says Mr. Galbraith. He says he explained that getting around U.S. technical transfer rules would not be easy, but "we were going to help them try to do that so they could play a meaningful role in our development of our own system."

The key was to get these defense contractors to "go to their own governments and lobby for the right to do it. I always thought they would do a much better job about lobbying for missile defense than we, the U.S. government, could."

"It's just like in the U.S. The defense industry is very good at lobbying Congress and the U.S. administration. Anyway, they went off and did it. They lobbied their governments and they all received permission. It wasn't announced from the tallest flag pole. . . . I started hearing back from people in December."

"The European governments quietly began to soften and had to almost totally abandon their criticism of our missile defense efforts and our willingness to abandon the ABM treaty. . . . The ABM, we heard ad nauseam, was the pillar stone of our defense, and if we got rid of it we were opening ourselves up to an arms race, and all sorts of proliferation and so forth."

Getting the Europeans on board paid dividends for the White House at home. "The detractors of missiles defense within the Congress cited ritualistically the European attitude to missile defense as a reason why it was a poor idea. Europeans were looked upon as an authority. . . . Well, we denied them this authority by getting the Europeans involved."

WSJ.com - Trading Places
Generally Presidents have very little impact on the economy in the short term -- unless it's negative, such as regulations and laws that prevent markets from clearing, or positive when repealing same -- and occasionally have a long-term impact: a legacy. Bill Clinton picked up NAFTA from Bush the elder and guided it through a hostile Congress. Al Gore mopped up the floor with Ross Perot on Larry King arguing in favor of NAFTA. A fantastic achievement.

Oddly, in the Mississippi race for governor this year the Democrat, Ronnie Musgrove, is attacking Republican Haley Barbour for supporting NAFTA and lobbying on Mexico's behalf. I suppose it's too much to ask that Barbour actually make a principled case in favor of NAFTA now, but no. He's using images of Clinton and Gore, and Musgrove's endorsement of them, to tie Musgrove to Clinton and all the ugly things that implies in the minds of Mississippians. NAFTA is really Clinton's crowning achievement.

The Democrats will have taken a turn for the worse if Joe Lieberman is not their nominee. He's the only free trader of the bunch and the only one with the sense to not do the stupid things a President can do to screw up the economy.

Howard Dean recently told the Washington Post that former Democratic Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin had advised him he couldn't "sell" Dr. Dean to Wall Street if he didn't become more of a free-trader. Dr. Dean declared this almost as a badge of honor, which illustrates a dangerous economic turn in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

We had our differences with Bill Clinton, but there's no doubt one of his achievements was leading his party away from protectionism. Open trade was a pillar of his New Democrat philosophy. He and Al Gore routed the AFL-CIO and Ross Perot to pass Nafta in 1993, followed by bills to create the World Trade Organization and allow most-favored nation trading status for China. A decade later all three have contributed to American prosperity.

But without a Democrat looking out for the national interest from the Oval Office, the party is now slipping back toward trade parochialism. On Capitol Hill, the party's regional and union interests have become dominant; most Democrats opposed giving President Bush new trade negotiating authority last year. More ominous still is the rhetoric coming from the Presidential candidates.

In demanding that Nafta be renegotiated, Dr. Dean is hardly alone. With the exception of Senator Joe Lieberman, we can't find any of the other candidates who still supports it. John Kerry attacked Dr. Dean as a protectionist the other day, but the Massachusetts Senator has also said he regrets having voted for Nafta. Dr. Dean is also getting whacked from the left for not being protectionist enough: Congressman Dick Gephardt has mocked the fact that Dr. Dean sent Bill Clinton a letter supporting it and showed up for the signing ceremony in 1993, only to walk away from it now.

Meanwhile, Senator John Edwards is sending out weekly news releases trying to pick a trade fight with China. Even Mr. Lieberman, a recognized free-trader, is trying to show he can also be "tough" on trade by joining the Bush Administration in knocking China around.

On the bright side, we could end up with a combination of McGovern and Mondale running against Bush in 2004. Short of Lieberman winning for the Democrats they're set to regress economically.

I've seen Wesley Clark over the past week and haven't been all that impressed, but, who knows, if President Bush continues to lose his footing I may vote for a yellow dog -- or a blue dog these days. A couple of different viewpoints. First there's this via Best of the Web from Los Altos Online:

Retired General H. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11, shared his recollection of that day and his views of the war against terrorism with the Foothill College Celebrity Forum audience at Flint Center, Sept. 11 and 12.

His review of that historic event and his 38 years in the military kept the audience's rapt attention throughout. But it was his answer to a question from the audience at the end that shocked his listeners.

"What do you think of General Wesley Clark and would you support him as a presidential candidate," was the question put to him by moderator Dick Henning, assuming that all military men stood in support of each other. General Shelton took a drink of water and Henning said, "I noticed you took a drink on that one!"

"That question makes me wish it were vodka," said Shelton. "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."

Questioning a military man's integrity and character cuts to the bone. I'll wait and see.

For an opposing viewpoint there's this from DefenseWatch:

For the record, I never served with Clark . But after spending three hours interviewing the man for Maxim’s November issue, I’m impressed. He is insightful, he has his act together, he understands what makes national security tick – and he thinks on his feet somewhere around Mach 3. No big surprise, since he graduated first in his class from West Point , which puts him in the super-smart set with Robert E. Lee, Douglas MacArthur and Maxwell Taylor.

Clark was so brilliant, he was whisked off to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and didn’t get his boots into the Vietnam mud until well after his 1966 West Point class came close to achieving the academy record for the most Purple Hearts in any one war. When he finally got there, he took over a 1st Infantry Division rifle company and was badly wounded.

Lt. Gen. James Hollingsworth, one of our Army’s most distinguished war heroes, says: "Clark took a burst of AK fire, but didn’t stop fighting. He stayed on the field till his mission was accomplished and his boys were safe. He was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart. And he earned ‘em."

Clark's official campaign weblog is located here.

Tell that to the 100,000 dead Kurds. Many were killed during the "ethnic cleansing" - using WMD - undertaken by Saddam Hussein's henchman, "Chemical Ali."

It must be said: WMD deniers (primarily American Democrats and European leftistis - with the notable exception of Tony Blair) are the modern-day equivalent of Holocaust deniers.

* * *

Kurdish officials say they have found a series of mostly unmarked graves that contain about 2,000 bodies outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
They say the area was used by the Iraqi army to bury Kurds they killed in the late 1980s.

During that period at least 100,000 Kurds were killed in Saddam Hussein's policy of ethnic cleansing in Iraq.

* * *

In 1988 Saddam ordered a massive operation known as the Anfal Campaign against the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.

In one incident, Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's cousin who was also known as "Chemical Ali", directed a poison gas attack on the town of Halabja.

* * *

Where is the outrage? WMD deniers (primarily American Democrats and European leftistis - with the notable exception of Tony Blair) are the modern-day equivalent of Holocaust deniers. They should be called to account - they continue to serve as de facto defenders of Saddam Hussein's Hitleresque regime.

ITV has recently screened John Pilger's latest work, Breaking the Silence.

Others squirmed under the lash of Pilger's research, but were unshakeable in their faith in America's divine right to be right.

Pilger is good at confrontation; he doesn't lose his cool, and he has the gimlet glare of a man who knows he's right.

Quite a difference - the NeoCons have faith (which can be destroyed by facts), but Our Man Pilger, he knows and is immune to the power of mere reason.

As from his latest article in Bangladesh's The New Nation :

In 1995, General Kamel was debriefed by senior officials of the United Nations inspections team, then known as UNSCOM. and by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The complete transcript, now disclosed for the first time, contradicts almost everything Bush and Blair have said about the threat of Iraqi weapons.

For example, General Kamel says categorically: "l ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons-biological chemical. missile, nuclear-were destroyed." All that remains, he says, are the blueprints, computer disks and microfiches.

In other words, "We destroyed nearly all the prints, but kept the negatives." Eight years ago. Well, as everyone knows, the USA didn't drop an Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima till after 1950, after 8 years of development, right?

General Kamel's sensational admission has been corroborated by the former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter who says that when he left Iraq in 1998, disarmament was "90 to 95 per cent"

And the evidence for this is? Because the Iraqis told us. And 90% is close enough to 100% anyway, isn't it. I mean, what's a few small nuclear weapons, or a few hundred tonnes of Nerve Gas out of tens of thousands? Barely enough to destroy ten cities, let alone a hundred. Hundreds of thousands rather than Millions dead, a mere bagatelle.

Watch how the propaganda unfolds once the bombing is over and the Americans are running Baghdad and their spin machine. There will be the "discovery of Saddam's secret arsenal." probably in the basement of one his palaces. This will be accompanied by the "discovery" of gruesome evidence of Saddam's oppression.

But it's all a game, isn't it John? I mean, those people who got killed, they don't actually matter do they? They're just pawns, cyphers, grist to your political mill. Even the most horrific massacres can be brushed aside with just a few "scare quotes".

...shells tipped with pure uranium. a form of nuclear weapon...

No John, they're not Nuclear. They're Atomic - they contain Atoms.

Remember the vaccines, cancer-treatment equipment, pain-killers, plasma bags, food treatment equipment and much else denied over fourteen years: $5.4 billion worth as of last July, to be precise, blocked by the US government, backed by the Blair government.

The ones we found warehouses full of, reserved for Ba'ath Party Members only? The embargo had never covered such goods - but John's a master of the Big Lie. Repeat it often enough, loud enough, and people will believe it. Best is if it contains a germ of truth. So if someone says "so far we've contained him, but we can't guarantee that in future", then by a few omissions and simplifications, that becomes "We've totally and permanently disarmed him." When someone says "We know he has the warheads, but until recently his missiles haven't been long range enough to hit targets closer than immediate neighbours" it becomes "He's never had any weapons at all.", For example, as the Sydney Morning Herald says:

Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

By the time it reaches The Guardian it's

We saw footage of Colin Powell in February 2001 saying that Saddam Hussein had not developed weapons of mass destruction, nor had he rebuilt his military power.

Let's not forget other Pilgered articles, like the one implying that the WTC was destroyed by... the American Weapons makers:

Nor do they ask: who were the real winners of September 11?
The day the Wall Street stockmarket opened after the destruction of the Twin Towers, the few companies showing increased value were the giant military contractors Alliant Tech Systems, Northrop Gruman, Raytheon (a contributor to New Labour) and Lockheed Martin.

Or this unforgettable gem :

Believing their own propaganda, the British and American military brass have been stunned by the Iraqi resistance.
[...]
The truth is that the Iraqis, with no air power, are fighting like lions to defend not a tyrant, but their homeland.

The story's been pilgered again.

[The following was originally posted here by Chief Wiggles and reprinted with permission]

Good Morning. I woke this morning with thoughts racing through my head, my mind already well into the matters scheduled for the day, my mind being far ahead of my body still trying to recover from the day before. It is not fun being busy before getting out of bed. Taking control of my thoughts I focused on the journal worthy events of the last few days and the continual desire to put down in writing the feelings that fill my heart and soul.

During the course of my daily activities I often take time to glance through the headlines of the so-called news being reported by our own media back in the states. The constant barrage of negative news the media chooses to report on bothers me, depicting quite a different view of what is transpiring over here.

I am forced to ponder the value of a news-media that only reports a distorted view of events based on what they determine will sell papers and magazines or news that supports their own biased political attitudes. What is the value of news that doesn't tell the true story, but only a one-sided biased interpretation predetermined before the news events even occur. Why should the political bias or personal agenda of the news agency be so intertwined with the facts of the event, so as to purposely influence the attitudes of the reader?

I personally do not want my news to be contrived or purposely limited so as to sway my own political views, in order to achieve someone else's own personal agenda. I am disturbed by this attempt by the media to deliberately direct the attitudes of the people of America and the world by preconceiving the interpretation and selection of what they determine to be news worthy.

Where is it stated that news needs to be limited to only those transpiring events that are negative in nature, using sensationalism as the criteria by which events are judged to be news worthy?

Where is the complete story of events, both sides, all aspects of what is really transpiring so as to paint the total panoramic view, allowing the reader at that point to interpret and create their own meaning of the reported events?

With that in mind, are not the positive aspects of what is transpiring just as critical and vital as the negative? Are we going to allow others to determine what we think about, as if we are sheep to be herded by the media?

I recall as a boy on a scout camping trip coming upon a herd of sheep. Thinking it would be fun, we started pushing them in one direction and then another, just by running around screaming from side to side. At one point, without knowing it, we spooked them directly into a wooded fence. One sheep after another attempted to run through the fence, hitting their head on the wooden slats, until the entire herd had banged their head into the fence.

At times reading the news I feel like one of those sheep, being forced or influenced to see the path ahead the way the media might desire me to. I for one refuse to take part in this media frenzy, based on nothing but negative perceptions, at times contrived facts, purposely selected to sway or influence my mind or view of our path. I do not need a steady diet of sensationalism, now gorged by the media's constant flow of such. Enough already.

We as the ultimate consumers of media can determine the nature of what is dished out to us, by choosing not to partake. Our choices do make a difference and can influence what is supplied to us. We do have a voice and I for one demand more accurate and unbiased coverage of what is really going on over here and else where in the world.

I will take the time and effort to find a more accurate unbiased coverage of my news, regardless of the cost.

Today, as usual, my day started with a flood of calls informing me of the arrival of one source after another at the front gate, right up until dinnertime, now 6pm. I didn't have time to eat breakfast or lunch, getting one of my interpreters to bring me a plate of food so I could eat during my debriefings.

But during the course of the day I was forced to pause for a moment, even making my sources wait, while I attended to an issue more important than anything else. While out at the front gate I noticed a young girl crying behind the barbed wire that separates us from the throngs of people waiting for their chance to speak with someone. Her mother, only having one leg, had hobbled in on her crutches a few moments earlier. The young girl separated from the only person she was familiar with, began crying, now hiding behind the rest of the crowd, I searched through the mass to see where the crying noise was coming from.

She was obviously very poor, in her tattered old dress, totally worn out plastic flip-flops, her hair matted against her head indicating she hadn't had a bath in a long time and her skin blistered from the dirt and weather.

Once I saw her I quickly told the MP's to move the barbed wire back to let her in to join her mother. Her crying stopped as she darted in to grab a hold of her mother's long black dishdasha, torn and frayed from years of use. As she stood by her mother's side, grasping her dress, I moved over slowly to brush her stringy hair away from her eyes and to pat her gently on the head, as I told the guard to make sure they don't leave before I could return.

I quickly loaded up the sources in my car and returned them to my office in the palace. I told them to wait for a moment, while I rummaged through my FedEx box full of toys sent my by my teammates back home. I grabbed a comb, a brush, a pair of new flip-flops, a whistle, a stuffed monkey whose arms hang around your neck, and a new toothbrush and tooth paste and dashed out the door, telling my interpreter to come along.

As I made my way back over to the front gate, I saw the little girl and her mother waiting patiently anticipating my return, not knowing why I had asked them to wait. Bending down I handed her the items one by one, as I explained what each item was, to insure she knew what I was giving her, especially as I gave her the toothbrush, asking her to be sure to brush everyday.

Her eyes lit up with such joy as I put the monkey arms over her head. She was so excited to receive everything, being somewhat shy though, not having dealt with an American before. She was so precious as her big brown eyes looked up at me, causing me to almost breakdown into tears as I walked away quickly so as to not bring too much attention to the little girl from the on looking crowd.

What a moment! In my own little way, I am influencing and affecting the attitudes of Iraqis one person at a time, taking baby steps, one experience at a time. My sphere of influence is small in comparison to the task at hand, but who knows what the ripple affect will be of my small effort to calm the tears of one sweet little girl. Thanks to my team mates back home who made this moment possible by sending me the toys to hand out to Iraqi children. I have only one request of them and others please send me more toys.

You might recall the source who's family prepared a huge feast for us a week or so ago. I met with him again last Sunday saddened to find out that a few guys had attempted to kill him on his way to our office. He has a contract out on him due to his efforts to take down bad guys in his area. It really bothered me to know of the risk he was incurring and the danger of his travels. I offered to give him more firepower if we could just get a weapons permit for him, to put the odds more in his favor.

As we finished up our meeting, dusk now being upon us, I was very concerned about his welfare, having met his wonderful family, with their beautiful children. I warned him to be careful even coaxing him to stay the night in Baghdad so as to not make the treacherous journey that night. I truly have grown to love some of these people, feeling so close and wishing nothing but the best for all of them.

I was so relieved a few days later to find out that he had made it home safely that night and has subsequently had those same would be killers arrested.

A few days ago we got a call from the MP's at the front gate informing us that a young man of around 30 years old was saying he was a former Fedayeen officer surrendering to the coalition forces. As expected, we jumped into action as we heard the words Fedayeen and surrender in the same sentence, by sending out a team with handcuffs and a hood to detain the individual.

They brought him back to our palace to question him further. He was scared to death, breaking down into tears on several occasions during the process. We discovered that his mother had sent him in to speak with us, hoping to get a job and his back pay as a Fedayeen soldier. He had brought with him a resume typed into English no less.

I felt so bad for the guy who came with high hopes coaxed along by his mother thinking we were giving out jobs to ex-Fedayeen soldiers. You just don't want to come to the front gate of a compound saying Fedayeen and surrender.

I made sure he wasn't detained and gave him $20.00 for his troubles.

We debriefed 14 sources today; fortunately we have added some additional guys to our team, adding two more guys, making a team of four debriefers. We are also expecting to receive another 5 guys sometime next week, as a result of our constant requests to our general for additional resources. We hope to add another 4 linguists to that, so we should have around 17 people working on this mission, which is just so exciting. We are really going to kick some butt in getting after this assignment.

With the additional resources we are going to be able to manage this and function in more of the capacity we would like, being the master of our schedule, proactively going after the low hanging fruit here.

One of our sources who works as a linguists here at the palace came in the other day all upset about a rumor spreading through our work area. Someone had started a rumor that he was the pimp for a couple of sisters working in one of the ministries here.

The rumor was totally unfounded and untrue but it was sad and funny at the same time as I witnessed his emotional reaction. He was so angry and so determined to find out who was spreading such a vicious rumor, causing him such shame and embarrassment. If you knew him you would agree and it was one of those things where you had to be there to enjoy it.

As the days pass by, I am further compelled to find inner purpose and meaning in all aspects of my life here. I have become even more sensitive to the value of my time spent doing a variety duties and responsibilities, as I engage Iraq and it's people in a variety of capacities. I realize that purpose can be found in doing even the most menial tasks, if my purpose and motivation is to make it such. I realize that I touch people's lives every where I go, with everyone I meet, every little child I pass, every soldier I see, every man, women and child can be affected, influenced and reached.

I also realize that I am the source and the cause for making life purposeful and meaningful. I determine, through my own inner abilities, whether something is meaningful or not.

I am not waiting for someone to hand me a valuable existence, with meaningful missions and duties, according to my desires. I am not dependent upon others to provide me a fruitful experience as I travel down life's dusty road, for I am confident in my own abilities to make the journey one of value and worth.

I continue to hear of soldiers whining and complaining about not being used to perform duties commensurate with their rank and training, not having a purposeful mission or job to perform giving them meaning to why they must stay here. Is it someone else's responsibility to give me a positive experience, a fruitful journey, a life full of purpose and meaning? Am I doomed to languish away until someone hands me such a job or mission, only hoping that I will be utilized to perform a task filling the measure of my being?

Or is there another way to look at life, to look at our purpose for being over here? I am here to say, "Yes there is!" We alone determine the value of our experience through each and every step of life's journey. We, through our inner purpose and motivation, determine the extent to which our life will be full of meaning, influencing the lives of those we pass along the way.

We all must re-evaluate how and where we find purpose and meaning in our life. There is always value to be found in whatever we are doing. There are always plans to be made, goals to set, projects to complete, ways to improve ourselves, things to learn, value to add, people to touch, ideas to make things better, and ways to change the value of our journey. It is up to the individual to create it.

I hope the soldiers here and those serving anywhere in the world realize that service of any kind is of value and can be full of meaning and purpose if they will be look to find the opportunities that are before them.

Take Care

[Please read the follow-up entries by Chief Wiggles about donating toys]

From Saudi Arabia's Arab News:

The appalling reality is that Americans were ready to believe anything about Saddam Hussein because he has been so demonized by American officialdom and the media. And so too has Yasser Arafat; if asked, Americans would probably answer that he too was involved in Sept. 11. It does not stop there. The anti-Saudi, anti-Muslim current flowing through American politics and media shows no sign of abating. Nor is it being countered, other than with complaints. There is no point expecting the American media or public to start seeing the Middle East as it is. They have already proved they cannot. What is needed is a pro-active, intelligent campaign, working alongside the mainstream US media, to change American perceptions. We have seen what happens when Americans get their facts wrong. They supported a war that was wrong; they support an Israel that is wrong. US public ignorance about the region is at the root of the Middle East’s problems. It has to be countered.

That's the last paragraph; read the rest.

In today's Winds of Change.NET guest blog feature, Gabriel Gonzalez of Paris, France, writes about some French intellectuals making strong, beautifully-argued cases against the growing tide of hatred and idiotarianism there. These guys are good, too - I'm talking Mark Steyn or Victor Davis Hanson class. You owe it to yourself to get to know them better.

Gabriel's post is especially timely in the wake of P.'s exchange with Norwegian Blogger about the EU and the future of Europe, and chilling pieces from Israeli writers like Hillel Halkin who openly wonders "Will Jews have a place in the new Europe?" Thankfully, Sabine Herold isn't the only brave voice in France these days. But will it be enough?

Finkielkraut et. al. - The Coming Anti-Semitism
by Gabriel Gonzalez

The right-leaning French newspaper Le Figaro published an interview last week with leading French intellectual Alain Finkielkraut entitled "The Coming Anti-Semitism." The article (English translation here), as its title suggests, focuses on anti-Semitism, but deals more generally with the radicalization of the French Left around an extremist and simplistic Anti-Americanism which has been fused with Anti-Semitism. A few passages:

"After a brief interlude, the grand simplifiers are back. We have seen, since the end of Communism, a stupefying re-Stalinization of part of the intelligentsia and the progressive movement… [The] image of an all-powerful America breathes new life into the pernicious notion that politics is responsible for everything: all disasters are perceived as crimes; the objective universe appears to be made up of subjective wills, those that fight against evil and those that foment it. Thus conspiracy thinking is again taking over simple minds, and conspiracy leads sooner or later to the Elders of Zion."

read the rest! »

Saul Singer, author of "Confronting Jihad," has some timely thoughts on this subject:

"I used to think that the war against terrorism was misnamed, since a war cannot be against a tactic. I still do, in that it obscures who the enemy is: radical Islamism. But on second thought, terrorism is more than a tactic. It has become an "ism" of its own....

...There is another way that terrorism has taken on ideology-like characteristics. The normal pattern of war and peace is that in war, certain tactics are acceptable and, when the war is over, they are not. Even bitter wars between countries have not prevented rival peoples from reconciling, once the war was over.

The essence of terrorism is to eliminate the distinction that allows peoples to reconcile afterwards the distinction between military and civilians....

...But what happens when one side's main tactic is terrorism, which means its entire attack consists of what in a normal war would be termed a war crime? How can the distinction between military and civilian, once systematically obliterated by years of brainwashing that killing Jewish children is heroic, be restored even if a peace agreement is reached?

The choice of terrorism as a tactic, and particularly the preference for terrorism even over the prospect of statehood, is integral to the idea that Israel is unacceptable in any size or form. Terrorism is only possible for people who have no intention of making peace with their victims under any circumstances. It is a tactic that is so critical to the ideology it supports that the line between tactics and ideology are blurred.

The same is true for the terrorism of September 11. Terrorism is a form of war to the death for both sides. Al-Qaida has no terms by which it would make peace with the West, and the feeling is mutual. This is why those who think the way to end terrorism is to make peace have it backwards. The only way to make peace is first to defeat terrorism."

[From the Chicago Report]

I've said before that one of the biggest areas in which media bias can manifest itself unintentionally is in poll report. Polling is a science involving various sampling techniques, question strategies, and methods of contacting respondents. As such, most all polls can tell us something about how the electorate will vote in upcoming elections. However, when reporting poll findings, journalists (especially TV journalists) often fail to keep results in their proper scientific context; thereby gleaning the wrong message from the data, usually a more favorable one. My argument is best made by looking at several recent polls and what you aren't hearing from journalists.

The first is a poll showing that only 38% of Americans think Bush is beatable. Polls like this tell us absolutely nothing about how Americans will vote. They only serve to gauge a general public opinion and become important only in the context of who it is that thinks he is beatable and the affect their opinion will have on voter turnout. Without this supplemental data it’s a pretty irrelevant stat. In other words, it should mean something to campaign strategists but very little to election watchers. Yet, Foxnews and CNN have both cited the poll without giving it any sort of context.

As I was going to bed last night, I heard a similar poll being reported as news on one of the local stations. The poll found that two years after 9/11, +70% of the public believes there will be another terror attack. Again, this poll doesn’t tell us all that much about an actual threat, but only about the level of fear. To the untrained ear, this one might even cause fear; “If 70% percent of the country is afraid, maybe I should be as well”.

Another poll getting a lot of underserved press is the Time/CNN survey asking: “If George W. Bush runs for reelection in 2004, would you say you will definitely vote for him, might vote for or against him, or will you definitely vote against him?” To which 41% answered "definitely against", while only 29% responded "definitely for". On the surface this poll appears to show some serious slippage in Bush's support. But since only hardcore partisans generally answer "definitely" before the exact candidates are known, we can that this poll is really only reflecting a fairly normal party alignment. Since FDR, Dems have had a major advantage in the number of people identifying themselves with their party. At one point there were five Democrats to every three Republicans. While this Democratic hegemony has begun to crack over the last several decades they still have a decisive advantage.

There is also something a little vague about the way the question is asked. Notice the options are definitely for, maybe, and definitely against. "Maybe" is a very broad category hiding tons of nuance. For instance someone could be tentatively for Bush, but unwilling to say definitely, which is to say never.These people might be classified as leaning toward Bush. There is also sure to be a number of those maybes leaning to a Democrat. But suppose for argument’s sake that of the 25% maybes, 20% are Bush leaners will only 5% are Democrat leaners. Well the election results look much different. If the leaners vote the way they lean Bush could easily best his opponent by 4% or 5%. So the definitely for or against data only tells us the level of base loyalty that either side has.

Incidentally, other unreported polls contradict this poll’s finding. In a Ipsos-Reid/Cook Political Report Poll (via Polling Report.com) that asks a near identical question, 38% responded that they would definitely vote for Bush, while only 36% responded they'd "definitely vote for someone else". The discrepancy between the two polls highlights an equally important question about these sorts of Bush vs. Someone else polls. What they can do is expose an incumbent's weakness. What they can't do is predict election outcomes. When someone responds to such polls they very possibly imagine their ideal candidate, one who satisfies all their ideological criteria. Yet, elections are not between one real and one ideal candidate. They are between two very real and thereby flawed candidates. what's telling is that in the very same Time/CNN poll discussed above where only 29% of respondents declared they would "definitely" vote for Bush, head-to-head matchups were decidedly for Bush: Bush gets 50% to Kerry's 45%, 50% to Lieberman's 44%, 52% to Dean's 42% (how's that for a "frontrunner"), and 53% against Gephardt's 42%.

A final example. Last week a CBS News Poll reportedly found that only 35% of registered voters could actually name a candidate running for the Democratic nomination. The poll’s finding was greeted by shock and awe from journalists and pundits. The student of politics, however, is not the least bit surprised. Why? Because it is generally well known that only about 25% of registered voters participate in primaries. Considering this fact, 35% is not actually that bad, especially not this early in the game.

Polls are very important tools for politicians and strategists who look at them in a whole nexus of polls and historical trends. However, they are unfortunately very popular tools for journalists (specifically TV). They make an easy story, much easier than actually covering the substance of a campaign. Often called “horse race journalism”, modern media coverage is generally about who is winning and not necessarily about what anyone is saying. Polls have to be reported within the context of general political analysis by experts, not flashed on CNN Headline News with little to no support information. Polls have affects on the way voters turn out and vote and must be treated with responsibility and intelligence.

Michele,

I know you must be unimaginably busy. And I think about that in context of what I am compelled to send to you now, thinking, "Well, this is just trivial." I apologize instantly and sincerely if that's as true as I suspect.

What a day. I've been trying to just live, you know? I got in my ratty-ass falling-apart van and drove to a shopping-center up here in depressed blue-collar/farmland Cortland, New York, in order to buy a tube of epoxy with which to cement a bloody screw in an electric guitar so that it won't fall off the strap and crash to the floor, wiping out my $275 investment in the silly thing. It's not like I need another guitar, but this little project has been on my mind for a week now, and today, I did it.

Before I left the house, though, I put on my leather A-2 bomber jacket -- which I was wearing long before the idiotic Top Gun craze that brought ninety-nine dollar fakes to every department store for poseurs to discard two years after the craze had jumped the shark. Mine's real, you see. Oh, I've got a Harley pin on it, and there is a pin on the collar that a sweet little old Russian woman who was the wardrobe mistress with the Bolshoi Ballet reached up and put there while I was touring The Light of the World ("America") with them in 1989.

But it's also adorned with real 99th Bomb Wing patches commemorating what real heroes did in Vietnam: they went down in flames -- and into history -- a long time ago. And whether their ultimate commanders were right about things or not, those men were convinced that they did that for me. It's the least that I can do to fly their colors around people who never think about them.

So, today, I wore it into town, even though it was too hot out for that. I needed a break from the saturation of a computer display on which every mouse-click was another shot in the heart. And guess what: I get into town and see all the flags at half-staff.

It's okay: it wasn't the shreds of grief shot through the low-simmering fury as deep and wide as my whole soul that was getting to me. It was the sensations of the net. Looking at those determined flags halfway up against the blue, blue sky -- just exactly like it looked two years ago -- was a different sensation, and that was all the break I needed.

I can't tell you exactly what made me go look for what I'm about to show you... and it's very hard for me to get a grip on exactly why it's so compelling to me. This might be one of those "you had to be there" kinds of deals. I don't know.

But look at this.

I scanned that image from my family's collection of 35mm slides. It was taken in 1960, in Tripoli, Libya. I'm the kid in the yellow shirt, front & center. My brother Michael is the other white kid in the picture. All the rest of them are Arabs, and they were our friends. We were just kids. Their Moms and my Mom yelled at all of us -- all at once -- when we got on their nerves the way kids do, and we just did all the kid stuff that kids used to do in those days.

You know what I wonder? ...and it's the thing that I'm struggling to get a grip on -- this awful day -- as a theme for an e-mail like this, I guess.

I wonder where those guys are now. I wonder if they raised their children to dedicate their lives to killing me, or you.

I look at that picture, and I would love to be able to greet them across more than forty years as friends and pat their children -- or grandchildren, now, I guess -- on their heads and tell them to be careful climbing the trees, and go play someplace else in the yard if they're going to make that kind of noise because us grown-ups are trying to talk peacefully.

I can get tears in my eyes, now, thinking about how sweet that could be.

But you know what? I get cold, dry, and hard at considering the opposite possibility: that those guys -- my old friends -- grew up to be my enemies just because I'm an American. That's because I never would have been their enemy just because they were Arabs. It's just not right. And it's so not-right that I know there is no reasoning against something like that.

If that's really what it is, then it's nothing but deadly combat, to the end.

Getting the Voices site together is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I didn't just post the contributions, I've read every single one. They were put there, unedited, unrevised, just as the authosr sent them, with all the emotion and tears that went into writing them.

I still don't know what I'm going to do to today. I know I'll be going to the cemetery at some point; in addition to visiting the resting place of Pete Ganci, I will also visit the place in the cemetery where the other local victims of 9/11 are buried, gathered together. After that, the day will stretch out before me and I'll be thankful for it.

I'll think about that day and remember everything; the silent sky, the smells, the streets at night glowing with candles lit by grieving neighbors.

At night we'll be going to Brooklyn Heights to get a clear view of the blue lights that will rise upward once more from the place where the World Trade Center buildings once stood.

I'll keep looking at the sky during the day, as if waiting for it all to happen again. I'll shudder at the sound of low-flying planes. I'll hug my children. A lot.

I'll read the paper and watch a little television and remember, and vow to never forget, to never let it go, but at the same time, to move on. To live and cherish and hope, always hope, for a better tomorrow.

There are so many voices to be heard, people yearning to get their stories out, to share their thoughts, to find some company in their grief, which is still as fresh as the day it cut through our hearts. Take in their voices, listen to them, mourn with them and then vow with me that there will be a better tomorrow, one where we no longer look at an airplane slicing through the clouds as a potential weapon, where we no longer fear the next big thing.

What would the voices of the 3,000 people who died on September 11, 2001 say to us if they could speak? I imagine they would tell us not to forget them, to carry them with us wherever we go. And they do speak to us, in a way. They speak to us through our hearts, just as my grandmother and my grandfather and friends and loved ones who have left this world do. Unlike my relatives, though, those 3,000 people belong to all of us. They are our legacy because they died representing us; representing freedom and life.

Life goes on. We carry with us memories, and not all of them are good ones. It is our duty to take the painful memories with us as we move along so we do not forget that we still have so much to learn from life.

I've never really understood this behavior from Al Gore. He told a number of whoppers over his political career and it was never necessary. Especially in 2000. He could have run as the candidate of peace and prosperity and claimed a share of that as Bill Clinton's Vice-President. He didn't even need to use Clinton's name.

Steven over at PoliBlog has the evidence here and here.

Note that they were compiled by the National Review but contain citations from their original sources, including the Washington Post.

Islam Compatible With Democracy, Not Monolithic, Muslim Panelists Say
These panels are good for press releases and blog entries, but that's about all. The fight still remains against the radicals within Islam that would use terror to achieve political ends.

They're obviously right that American perceptions of Islam have degraded since 9/11, and why not? Most of the speakers I see, whether it's CNN or FNC, will appear to disagree with individual acts of violence and then attach a 'but' to their objection as a means of justifying the action nonetheless. This kind of equivocation isn't sufficient. Moderate Muslims, wherever they may be found, must speak out loudly against violence and coercion as political tools, both in the treatment of their own people and their relations with the outside world.

Saying Islam is compatible with democracy is setting the bar rather low. They should be saying that Islam is compatible with religious liberty. Nothing less will suffice.

Muslims are united in their faith, but their individual views are by no means monolithic as they struggle to define their identity in the 21st century, concluded a panel of U.S. and foreign Muslims in a discussion at the National Press Club September 5.

Also they agreed that the fallout of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has compounded the problems faced by their coreligionists.

Jointly sponsored by the press club's forums committee and KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, the panel discussed "The Debate Within Islam After 9/11," and broadly took the view that democracy, rather than being an alien Western concept, is fully compatible with Islamic law.

That point was underlined by Azizah al-Hibri, a law professor at the University of Richmond and an author, who moderated the discussion. Al-Hibri said that, indeed, the Qur'an sets forth many democratic principles.

"Let's not be so quick to say democracy is American and we want no part of it. That would be selling Islam itself short," she said.

Husain Haqqani, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, cited polls suggesting that the September 11 attacks and subsequent events have had a devastating impact on relations between publics in the United States and in the Muslim world. A recent poll taken by the respected Pew Research Center showed that no country with a Muslim majority had more than 10 percent espousing a favorable view of the United States, while polls taken in the United States show a strongly negative view of Muslims, he said.

Haqqani, a journalist who served as Pakistan's ambassador to Sri Lanka, rejected what he saw as a widely held view in the United States of Muslims as a monolithic group.

To be sure, he said, there is a "common thread" among Muslims, for whom their religious identity is very strong. But, noting that there are more than a billion Muslims worldwide, with 59 Muslim-majority countries spread over a vast region, he declared, "You simply cannot find a set of one billion people who are absolutely identical, conforming to one set of views. There are various denominations and sects and interpretations among the Muslims" just as there are in other religious groups.

At one extreme, he said, there are Muslims who would drop their heritage and embrace modernity, and at the other is a group that believes its problems "have begun since the West came into our midst. ... We are not going to embrace modernity, instead we are going to Islamize the modern world."

But among the latter group "are people who want to do it without violence, without using any extreme means. ... They may be a minority within those movements, but those elements are there," Haqqani said.

Haqqani urged the United States and other Western powers to revise their definition of what constitutes extremists and moderates in the Muslim world. Rather than considering moderates as only those who "toe the line," he said, "the definition of a moderate Muslim should be Muslims who want to engage as equals with the modern world, with the western world and who understand that the means of violence are not right, that the means of force and coercion are not right. They are the ones who need to be embraced and strengthened."

I agree with that last paragraph and would love to see more moderate Muslims speaking out unequivocally against coercion in all its forms, either by despotic states or terrorist organizations.

Yahoo! News - Academic: al-Qaida Stronger Than Pre-9/11
This British academic is an idiot. Al Qaeda has managed to kill 350 and injure 1000 in the past two years when they killed 3000 on 9/11. Yet they are stronger now. Right. As President Bush pointed out last night:

In a series of raids and actions around the world, nearly two-thirds of al Qaeda's known leaders have been captured or killed, and we continue on al Qaeda's trail.

The war against al Qaeda is not over and probably won't be for several years. Nevertheless, his conclusions are ridiculous. With two-thirds of their known leaders dead or captured, I'd say they've been weakened significantly. And we haven't given up. Nor will we until the organization is destroyed.

The al-Qaida terrorist network is stronger than before the Sept. 11 attacks, and the U.S.-led war on terror has so far been a failure, a British academic concludes in a study published Tuesday.

Paul Rogers, a professor of peace studies at the University of Bradford in England, said the U.S.-led coalition's military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq have failed to crush al-Qaida's structure or stem its recruitment.

"(Al-Qaida) and its associates have managed to plan and often undertake a remarkable range of activities, with these collectively showing a capability that exceeds that existing before the Sept. 11 attacks," Rogers wrote.

"On this basis alone, it is difficult to accept any claim that the war on terror is being won."

But other terrorism experts said the United States and its allies had scored significant victories against al-Qaida. They cautioned, however, that the chaos of postwar Iraq represented a setback.

In a speech to the nation on Sunday, President Bush said the United States would "do what is necessary" to defeat the "enemies of freedom" in Iraq.

Rogers' report was compiled for the Oxford Research Group, a think-tank specializing in arms control and nonproliferation issues.

In his report, Rogers said that while U.S.-led anti-terrorism efforts had succeeded in preventing some terrorist plots, al-Qaida linked attacks have killed more than 350 people and injured almost 1,000 in the two years since Sept. 11.

The Bali nightclub bombing is the most significant event since 9/11. Any idiot can plant a bomb, as Timothy McVeigh demonstrated. That isn't a sign of strength on their part, but a sign of weakness.

I should also add, another success on the part of al Qaeda will only strengthen our resolve. We won't stop until they are destroyed.

Armed Liberal is unhappy with Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect, who stepped to the plate with some comments about Iraq in today's Washington Post. Problem is, A.L. just doesn't think Meyerson is living in the same world. TAP's editor is convinced that it's 1968, and GWB is LBJ. Perhaps he has his Texans confused.

In the course his thorough analysis of Meyerson's article, Armed Liberal sums up as follows:

"Well, it's all over. We may as well slouch home, defeated.

Bullshit, Mr. Meyerson.

Bush was a fool for pandering to his political investors (I won't dignify them with the name 'supporters') and supporting his hugely lopsided tax cut at a time when the demands on our treasure and might are so high.

But you, Mr. Meyerson, are a fool for believing that this is 1968, or that the American public of today is the public of 1968. I helped start the marches in '69 and in '71; I know what the public was like, and what they felt was at stake.

And I know what's at stake today, you pompous, tin-eared fool. Look at the date on your damn column:"Wednesday, September 10, 2003". Tomorrow morning, take the 9 train to the South Ferry station, and get out and go look around.

You may not agree with Bush's theory that the only way to defend the rest of New York City is to reshape the Arab world.

But you'd damn well better have a better one than 'we lose' if you want to get my support."

On the eve of Sept. 11, 2003, Winds of Change.NET Cairo correspondent Tarek Heggy (A Culture of Compromise | The Institutions of Democracy are More Important Than Democracy | Islam: Between Copying and Thinking | Tolerant and Intolerant Islam | Conspiracy & Response | Egypt & Democracy) explains why he writes these articles.

Why Do I Write?
by Tarek Heggy

I have been writing for a quarter of a century in order to instill in the Egyptian mind that we are, first and foremost, Egyptians. Our identity is shaped by our geographical location on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. We have Muslim, Christian, Arab and African ties, but none of them can replace our only identity as Egyptians.

I write in order to instill in the Egyptian mind the fact that although the outside world will harbour animosities towards us at times, and will work to further its own interests most of the time, our problems, in their entirety, originate inside our country and can only be solved internally. We alone are responsible for those problems and for the fact that they remain unsolved. The excessive belief in the conspiracy theory is a confession of our impotence and an admission of the supremacy of others in the face of our ineffectiveness.

I write in order to instill in the Egyptian mind the values of liberalism, democracy, general freedoms and human rights as the most noble, sublime and civilized achievements of mankind...

read the rest! »

[From the Chicago Report]

Dean is quietly making his first big mistake of Election 2004, even though much of his supporters are unlikely to notice. McCain, like Dean, was known for his "Straight Talk"; his say-what-I-mean-and-mean-what-I-say attitude was the secret to his overnight rise from dark horse to front runner. After McCain won big in New Hampshire, which Dean is likely to do, his campaign caught fire. But Maverick Johnny made one fatal mistake, playing to his strengths instead of his weaknesses. As he became more popular he stepped up the anti-status quo rhetoric. He didn't go out of his way to answer his critics but instead waxed on about Skywalker and the Death Star. Inevitably McCain went to the well one too many times with his anti-special interest mantra, condemning Pat Robertson (and thus a Republican constituency) of being an "agent of intolerance." By this point, any hopes McCain had of broad appeal were dashed. Not necessarily as a result of this specific statement, but as a result of over-playing the maverick role, to the point of making the less idealist mainstream voter concerned about his ability to govern effectively.

What does this have to do with Dean? Everything, obviously. Dean's rhetoric has made him an election super star. It has supercharged many in his base. But a look at polls tells that, while he might be leading in the maverick's utopia non as New Hampshire, he still has work to do nationally. Yet, like McCain, Dean is not playing to his weaknesses. He is not showing that he can appeal to the more mainstream American. He is not cozying up to soccer moms and suburban moderates. He is not demonstrating a complex and subtle understanding for the stakes in the Iraq Campaign. Instead he's in California this weekend holding Bush personally responsible for the recall fiasco, at least according to this Tribune story. Dean was quoted:

The right wing of the Republican Party is deliberately undermining the Democratic underpinnings of this country ... I believe they do not care what Americans think and they do not accept the legitimacy of our elections.

Never mind the fact that the Recall provision is provided for in the democratically amended California State Constitution. This kind of speech is more befitting of a Jesse Jackson or Ralph Nader, a presidential contender. This kind of pure conspiracy theorist tripe doesn't have much currency with the centrist wing of the party and will likely drive the wedge between Dean’s supporters and Independent/Moderates even further.

Instead of building bridges to the DLC, Dean seems set on a personal crusade, against Bush, against centrist Dems, and against “politics as usual”, a crusade that will be enough to attract enormous amounts of press and a considerable cabal of devotees, but not the nod from the party. If he continues down this path, he’ll be having lunch with John McCain at the diner of history’s failed campaigns

From an article reviewing in the New York Post of a book published by Al Qaeda :

This form of "unbelief" persuades the people that they are in charge of their destiny and that, using their collective reasoning, they can shape policies and pass laws as they see fit. That leads them into ignoring the "unalterable laws" promulgated by God for the whole of mankind, and codified in the Islamic shariah (jurisprudence) until the end of time.

The goal of democracy, according to Al-Ayyeri, is to "make Muslims love this world, forget the next world and abandon jihad." If established in any Muslim country for a reasonably long time, democracy could lead to economic prosperity, which, in turn, would make Muslims "reluctant to die in martyrdom" in defense of their faith.

He says that it is vital to prevent any normalization and stabilization in Iraq. Muslim militants should make sure that the United States does not succeed in holding elections in Iraq and creating a democratic government. "If democracy comes to Iraq, the next target [for democratization] would be the whole of the Muslim world," Al-Ayyeri writes.

He's absolutely right. Our aim is to stop a minority from wanting to impose their barbaric worldview on others of their religion, and in fact, on the whole of Humanity. We'd like to see the whole world free of Tyranny, free to make up their own minds, not have our or anyone else's views thrust upon them. We want to see an end to Slavery, reduced Infant Mortality, Female Sufferage, better Sanitation, better Education, and more prosperity for all.

That makes us Al Qaeda's deadliest foe, and they recognise this.

The Author, Yussuf al-Ayyeri, was one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates since the early '90s. And he got it, alright. In more ways than one.

A Saudi citizen also known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad, he was killed in a gun battle with security forces in Riyadh last June.

Kris Lofgren is blogging from Turkey and has some interesting observations regarding its government. Very interesting reading.

Cross-posted from A.E.Brain

From The Grauniad :

The European commission yesterday launched a ferocious attack on poor countries...

For once, the Grauniad has it exactly right. It's an attack all right, and on the poor.

.

.... and development campaigners when it dismissed calls for big cuts in Europe's farm protection regime as extreme demands couched in "cheap propaganda".

Their propaganda has to be cheap, it's all they can afford. And has to rely on truth to convince. For expensive mendacity, and bare-faced lies, you have to look to the past masters of it in Brussels.

In a move that threatens to shatter the fragile peace ahead of next week's trade talks in Cancun, Mexico, Franz Fischler, the EU agriculture commissioner, said Brussels would strongly defend its farmers.

Except for the Poles, Czechs and so on, who as 2nd-class citizens don't qualify for the Public Trough like their Westerner counterparts do. The best form of defence is attack, and if the French and German farmers are going to be able to afford their new cars every year, well, some Africans will just have to keep on starving. <sarcasm>They breed like rabbits anyway, and it's not as if they're people like us anyway, is it?</sarcasm>

He said many recent attacks on the EU's much maligned common agricultural policy (CAP) were"intellectually dishonest" PR stunts.

Mr Fischler's comments came as Britain's trade secretary, Patricia Hewitt, warned that failure at Cancun would be "disastrous for the global economy" and a severe setback in the fight against terrorism and poverty.

Britain believes a deal to cut farm subsidies in the west is the key to developing support for a new global trade deal, and Ms Hewitt made it clear that the government saw recent reforms of the CAP as a good basis for negotiation.

"Rich countries can't preach free trade abroad and have protectionism at home. There is a danger of locking developing countries into poverty because we lock them out of our markets," she said.

Perfidious Albion! They obviously need re-education in the Napoleonic Ideal of a United Europe. Ah, if only Adolph had succeeded...

Mr Fischler, speaking in Brussels, said that although the EU was keen to give developing countries a better deal he warned that they would get nothing if they persisted with their "extreme" proposals.

"Extreme", like complying with all obligations under the WTO, not just the ones you feel like.

"If I look at the recent extreme proposal co-sponsored by Brazil, China, India and others, I cannot help [getting] the impression that they are circling in a different orbit," Mr Fischler reporters.

"If they want to do business, they should come back to mother earth. If they choose to continue their space odyssey they will not get the stars, they will not get the moon, they will end up with empty hands."

The Lower Orders should know their place, and not be so insolent to their betters. The arrogance of some of these Darkies and Chinks! Untermenschen, all of them!

Mr Fischler accused developing countries of demanding that developed countries make drastic changes while they themselves did nothing.

Maybe it's because, unlike the EU and USA, they don't go around handing out subsidies to the tunes of billions of dollars per year... so can hardly cease the practice.

Widening the scope of his attack, he accused non-governmental organisations, which frequently claim the CAP damages the developing world, of "cheap propaganda".

He took issue in particular with campaigners who point out that each EU cow receives $2 a day in subsidies.

"This may be a nice PR stunt but unfortunately this argument is not only intellectually dishonest, it is factually irrelevant.

Not incorrect. Not wrong. "Factually Irrelevant". "Intellectually Dishonest". We, the Intellectual Elite know best, and it is our opinion that your indisputable truths are not worthy of consideration, you are uncouth and churlish to mention them. Your facts are "irrelevant" because we, the Aristocracy, say they are. Begone, Varlets!

Yes, in the developed world we are spending money on many things. Not because we are all stupid, but because our standard of living is higher.

Ah, the Chewbacca Defence. With a contemptuous sneer tossed in gratis.

"What next? Criticising governments for spending public money on hospital beds, costly noise protection walls or fancy trees in parks instead of sending it to Africa? Societies around the world must have the right to choose which public goods and services are important to them."

- "these are the facts of the case"
- "but this is Chewbacca"
- "this Chewbacca argument does not make sense"
- "it does not make sense"
- "if it does not make sense, you must acquit"

Mr Fischler also made it clear that the EU did not believe all developing world countries deserved major concessions. Some African countries were really poor, but others, he noted, were net food exporters and far more prosperous.

...But we'll soon put a stop to that! I mean, if they become as rich as us, soon they'll be thinking that they're our intellectual equals. Just look what happened in America. Uncouth Barbarians. Fortunately, we have such worthy allies as Monsieur Chirac's good friend Robert Mugabe to help keep the hoi palloi in their place. The Cheek of some people...

Pascal Lamy, the EU's trade commissioner, joined the attack pointing out that 70% of customs duties paid on goods exported from the developing world were levied by other developing countries.

Thereby showing that not every EU Bureaucrat has his head wedged firmly up his posterior. Many developing countries have to rely on customs duties, as they're so dysfunctional, there is no effective taxation system. They're trapped in a cycle of poverty. But this has an important corollary: If the EU cut its extortionate tariff rates and increased its miniscule quotas, just possibly the customs duties paid to the EU would actually increase, and everyone would benefit. But they'd prefer to be Big Frogs in a small Pond, rather than increase the Common Wealth.

I'm not exactly a Leftie. Storming the barricades with shouts of "Liberte, Equalite, Fraternite" and leading the Aristos to the Guillotine is not my style. But reading Herr Fischler's words, I can understand that position. The behaviour of these Aristo-Bureau-Eurocrats...offends me.

And from a strict viewpoint of self-interest, it's worth examining Patricia Hewitt's words again. I've never been a fan of hers, I consider her an Idiotarian par excellence. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day :

failure at Cancun would be "disastrous for the global economy" and a severe setback in the fight against terrorism and poverty.

"Disasterous for the Global Economy" - that will hit me in my hip-pocket, always a sensitive place.
"severe setback in the fight against... poverty" - I have an aversion to seeing people starve. That doesn't mean I close my eyes to it, it means that I want to do something about it - not mouth pious plattitudes and ignore it. Hey, it's my money - I worked damn hard for it, and if I want to use some of it to help give someone rather less materially fortunate than myself an opportunity to make themselves better off, then that's my right. Just as it's yours not to.
"severe setback in the fight against... terrorism". - Ah, now here we have the crux of the matter. Too long, we've adopted a policy of "live and let die". We've closed our eyes to the plight of those living in totalitarian or theocratic oppression. We've let the UN pass resolution after resolution condemning Israel - sometimes with some justification, oftentimes not - while ignoring the far worse enormities committed by others. From the World Socialist Website (!!! -never thought I'd be quoting them)

In February 1982 a Muslim Brotherhood revolt broke out in Hama (Syria). Ba'ath Party officials were killed and appeals were broadcast from the mosques for a national insurrection. Assad's retribution was ruthless. The military levelled half of the city, slaughtering an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 people.

Syria is now of course a member in good standing of the UN Human Rights Commission, and until recently chaired the UN Security Council.

...of over 700 General Assembly resolutions passed since the UN's 1945 establishment, nearly 450 condemn Israel. None have been passed against any Arab country nor any Arab terrorist organizations! In other words, out of 190 nations in the United Nations, over sixty percent of all General Assembly resolutions condemned just ONE member, Israel!
...
In its entire existence, the Security Council has passed only 131 resolutions. Of those, 88 criticized or opposed Israel. Not one deplored or even contained a breath of criticism against Arab countries in general or those in particular which initiated wars or terrorism against Israel.

Massada2000.org

Fortunately, not one of those resolutions was a "binding" Chapter 7 resolution, the US or UK vetoes saw to that. But nonetheless, the mythical "Man from Mars", just looking at the sheer number of Resolutions, would have to conclude that Israel must be a mighty superpower that's massacred Billions of people. In Syria, a dictator can erase a city and all it's inhabitants, and be welcomed in the halls of power with na'ry a word said.. and few care to recall the Millions killed during China's Cultural Revolution, or the UN inaction in Cambodia, in Rwanda, and its inneffectual bungling in the Congo, in Nigeria, and in Bosnia.

And while arms of the UN are doing theiroften incompetent and wasteful best to help the Iraqis and others, sometimes being killed in the process, the UN's Arab-dominated General Assembly is still playing its silly games :

The United Nations can take vigorous action to deny the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq any legitimacy and deprive the perpetrators of the fruits of their aggression.
Al-Ahram

We've ignored this crap, the posturings, the hypocritical words of oppressors with not just beams, but whole deciduous forests in their eyes criticising the motes (sometimes wholly imaginary) in our own.

Worse, we've ignored the Tyrannies in Africa. The average lifespan has actually decreased there over the last 50 years. Literacy is down, Infant mortality is up. In Africa and the Middle east, Superstition and Religious Fundamentalism are spreading, while the Rich in those benighted and ethically backward societies are often getting Richer, and remaining wholly unaccountable for their actions.

September 11 was the result. It wasn't the poor who did this, it was financed and planned by Multi-millionaires, the unnacountable and powerful elite whose megalomania we'd treated with condescending disdain.

We're all in this together, and the 21st Century War will take a long time. Several campaigns have already been fought - easy ones, short-term ones, military ones. Though there's more to come. In the longer term, we must eradicate the few glaring inequities that stifle the development of dysfunctional nations. We must be intolerant of dictatorships, of kleptocracies, and of Vested Interests in our own societies that seek to retain their not-so-ancient-priviledges by keeping the poorest nations "in their place". We must be intolerant of governments that deny Female Sufferage. We must be intolerant of those who name schools after terrorists. We must get rid of them - by peaceful means if possible, but get rid of them root and branch. They've shown that the planet is no longer big enough for both of us.

Getting our own house in order, and ejecting the new Aristocracy in our midst would be a good start.