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A new offshoot of the Fatah party has claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in the West Bank this evening that killed three Israelis. The claim of responsibility was first broadcast on Hezbollah-controlled al-Manar television in Lebanon. This is the first suicide attack against Israelis that has been claimed by a group other than Islamic Jihad since February 2005.
The final results of the Israeli election have now been announced, and thanks to the votes of soldiers, some of the numbers have shifted slightly.
The Kadima, Likud and Meretz parties have each added one seat to their numbers, while Ra'am-Ta'al, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas each lost one seat.
With the final results, Kadima now has 29 seats, Labor has 20, Shas and Likud have 12 each, Yisrael Beiteinu has 11, National Union-National Religious Party has 9, Gil (Pensioners) Party has 7, United Torah Judaism has 6, Meretz has 5, and the Arab parties collectively have 9.
Coalition talks have begun, and now the real wheeling and dealing of Israeli politics will come front and center. Ehud Olmert and the Kadima party, having won fewer seats than expected, will have to reconsider which portfolios it is willing to give away to coalition partners. Many of the portfolios had already been promised to Kadima activists, so the party’s internal politics are going to make coalition talks difficult.
Given the overwhelming success of the various social-issues parties, it is clear that social issues, especially those involving the elderly and workers, will be amongst the first priorities of the new government.
Jill Carroll's release is a reason for joy and relief among her family, and the public. Any hostage freed from the Jihadists or any other terrorists is excellent news. The next stage, now, is to understand why she was kidnapped, and what were the reasons for her release, unharmed.
The study of her kidnapping and release may help in analyzing the other hostage taking situations, including the fate of those still abducted. It is important to explore the clues about Carroll's case: Why was she kidnapped at first, and how did the Jihadists exploit her captivity, are the first set of questions. What is the importance of the Islamic Party in this equation; Why would the kidnappers release her to a location close by the headquarters of this particular party? Who was she interviewing when she was kidnapped, and why was her translator killed? Then one would look at her writings before and after she was kidnapped and see if the Jihadists had another wider issue on their mind.
Ms Carroll said she didn't know why she was kidnapped nor who were her abductors, even though she speaks Arabic. However she used specific words to describe them politically when she was released. Each word used by the ex hostage before and after the abduction, are now of great importance to better understand the matter. Her future writings are going to tell the world about the reasons behind the kidnapping.
Cliff May's Scripps Howard column discusses a recent success in the war on terrorism - the Treasury Department's decision to name Hezbollah's al-Manar television a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity.
Today's Forward explains why the Treasury Department's designation of Hezbollah's al-Manar television as a terrorist organization was a victory on two fronts: Hezbollah's use of its television broadcast as an operational weapon and the Iranian regime's use of terrorist surrogates like Hezbollah to promote its radical, violent ideology.
The entire story -- worth reading for its concise history of the effort led by our Coalition Against Terrorist Media to win this designation -- is here.
M. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, has a provocative piece in today's Washington Times:
We in the Muslim community need to develop a new paradigm for our organizations and think tanks which holds Muslims publicly accountable for the separation of the political from the spiritual. Gone should be the day where individuals and their organizations can hide behind the cloak of victimization as a smoke screen for what they really believe. ...
For many in my faith, it was all right to blow up innocent Israelis as they sat in their cafes and pizza parlors. Through some tortured act of logic, these suicide bombings were seen as some sort of legitimate religion-sanctioned acts. (All the while, notice how few Muslim organizations like CAIR will denounce Hamas by name). But, as evil always does, it migrates, and soon radical Muslims were blowing up little children in Russia, commuters in Spain and worshippers in one of Iraq's holiest mosques.
Maybe our first true wake-up call was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's homicide attack on the wedding party in Jordan. Because now, the evil unleashed on the occupying Jews had landed on the doorstep of Muslims as they partook in a joyous wedding day.
That is the lesson that we in the Muslim community are now learning. Do evil to anyone and eventually it will boomerang on you. Perhaps, that's a good place to start. Let the barometer of our faith be how we treat our Jewish friends, because in the end, that is how we will eventually treat ourselves.
His Washington Times oped, "Cancer in its midst," is here.
For more on his work, visit the American Islamic Forum for Democracy here.
Yesterday's Israeli election, like all Israeli elections, provided an amazing amount of fodder for political scientists.
First off, the results: Kadima, the party founded a few short months ago by Ariel Sharon, and now led in his stead by former Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert, won ~28 seats in the 120 member parliament. While succeeding in winning the largest number of seats, Kadima won fewer seats than expected, which will make it more difficult to form a stable coalition government.
In second place came Labor, the old-standard of Israeli politics, with ~20 seats.
In a surprise, third place went not to Likud, the other traditional main political party, but to Shas (13 seats), a Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party concerned mainly with social issues effecting the religious Sephardi community.
The latest Global Jihad Monitor is now available, featuring many important stories, including: The U.S. Treasury Department designating Hezbollah's al-Manar television and al-Nour radio, as well as parent company Lebanese Media Group, as terrorist entities; Zacarias Moussaoui taking the witness stand, bolstering the prosecution's case by stating that he was supposed to attack the White House with Richard Reid on 9/11; and the Palestinian Legislature approving Hamas' cabinet and program, clearing the way for the group to take control of the Palestinian government.
The JTA has a long piece on Treasury Department's designation of Hezbollah's al-Manar television as a terrorist organization and the Coalition Against Terrorist Media's lead role in it here.
Why would al-Manar interest a local alderman? Read his letter to the Newton (Mass.) TAB here.
Charles Krauthammer in TIME:
With infinitely accelerated exchanges of information helping develop whole new generations of scientists, extremist countries led by similarly extreme men will be in a position to acquire nuclear weaponry. If nothing is done, we face not proliferation but hyperproliferation. Not just one but many radical states will get weapons of mass extinction, and then so will the fanatical and suicidal terrorists who are their brothers and clients.
That will present the world with two futures. The first is Feynman's vision of human destruction on a scale never seen. The second, perhaps after one or two cities are lost with millions killed in a single day, is a radical abolition of liberal democracy as the species tries to maintain itself by reverting to strict authoritarianism--a self-imposed expulsion from the Eden of post-Enlightenment freedom.
Can there be a third future? That will depend on whether we succeed in holding proliferation at bay. Iran is the test case. It is the most dangerous political entity on the planet, and yet the world response has been catastrophically slow and reluctant. Years of knowingly useless negotiations, followed by hesitant international resolutions, have brought us to only the most tentative of steps--referral to a Security Council that lacks unity and resolve. Iran knows this and therefore defiantly and openly resumes its headlong march to nuclear status. If we fail to prevent an Iranian regime run by apocalyptic fanatics from going nuclear, we will have reached a point of no return. It is not just that Iran might be the source of a great conflagration but that we will have demonstrated to the world that for those similarly inclined there is no serious impediment.
The entire column is here.
James Taranto on the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal:
In 1981, when Israel destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, the Jewish state was met with almost universal condemnation, even from the U.S. government (which according to a Harvard "study" is in thrall to the "Israel Lobby"). About the only exception was The Wall Street Journal, which praised Israel's action in an editorial.
Now much of the world has come around--including someone very surprising, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor was "probably" fortunate, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington said.
Asked March 23 whether Saudis now welcomed the attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor, given Iraq's subsequent aggression against Kuwait, Turki al-Faisal answered, "Probably, yes." Faisal appeared caught off guard by the question, which came when he called on Israel to disarm to create a nuclear-free Middle East.
This does not seem to be an official pronouncement, and we're sure both Riyadh and Turki will hasten to repudiate it if it gets wider publicity. But it is a nice example of how history sometimes proves the conventional wisdom of "the world" to be deeply and totally wrong
Laurie Mylroie on new intelligence from Iraq.
Eli Lake on Columbia University's conference on Libya.
And for Cliff's comments, see this week's e-newsletter.
The following Washington Times editorial is an excellent analysis of the why the Treasury Department designation of Hezbollah's al-Manar television as a terrorist organization is both necessary and right:
The Treasury Department struck a blow against one branch of Iran's propaganda network on Thursday, designating Hezbollah's al Manar satellite television operation as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization. The designation prohibits transactions between Americans and U.S. entities and al Manar, and freezes any assets al Manar may have under American jurisdiction. It constitutes a huge victory for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Coalition Against Terrorist Media, an organization founded by FDD in an effort to press foreign governments to impose sanctions against al Manar and to discourage satellite providers from carrying it.
Al Manar had hoped to stave off the designation as a terrorist entity by framing criticism of its connection to Hezbollah as an effort to deprive it of its First Amendment rights. But as the Treasury Department made clear, the issue is not al Manar's role as a television station but its role in facilitating the activities of Hezbollah, an organization that has killed more Americans than every other terrorist group save al Qaeda.
"Any entity maintained by a terrorist group -- whether masquerading as a charity, a business or a media outlet -- is as culpable as the terrorist group itself," said Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey. The Treasury Department cited an incident in which an al Manar employee carried out operational surveillance for Hezbollah while acting under cover of employment by al Manar.Moreover, the organization has supported Hezbollah's fundraising and recruitment efforts, and Hezbollah-affiliated charities have aired commercials on al Manar, providing bank account numbers for donations. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah publicized an invitation for all Lebanese citizens to volunteer for Hezbollah military training on al Manar. And in addition to supporting Hezbollah, Treasury said, "al Manar has also provided support to other designated terrorist organizations, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, notably transferring tens of thousands of dollars for a PIJ-controlled charity."
It should also be pointed out that, since the war in Iraq began three years ago, al Manar has specialized in depicting American soldiers as war criminals. The Treasury Department gets it right: Al Manar is a propaganda arm of the Islamofascists who are fighting against the United States.
The New York Sun's Eli Lake reports:
Last week's Columbia University conference on democracy in Libya was co-sponsored by a university known the late 1970s and 1980s for publicly hanging student dissidents.
The conference, held on the Columbia campus on March 22 and 23, featured participation from professors and students at al-Fatah University, whose Tripoli campus was fitted with a gallows on which to perform public hangings of dissidents to mark the April 7, 1976, anniversary of student demonstrations there. The practice of public hangings at the university persisted between 1978 and 1988, according to opposition groups.
The dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, Lisa Anderson, told The New York Sun last week that the Libyan government had no role in financing the conference, as was alleged by Mohamed Eljahmi, the brother of an imprisoned human rights leader, Fathi Eljahmi.
Yet the official literature for the conference lists "the international green book center" as one of the event's co-sponsors. According to a spokesman for Libya's embassy in Cairo, Egypt, that institution is funded entirely by the Libyan government through its secretariat of culture and information.
"This belongs to the secretariat of culture and information," the embassy's press attache said when asked about the center named for the Libyan leader's book on society, politics and culture that distils the state's organizing ideology.
More here.
Mohamed Eljahmi responds to Columbia's University's claim that the Libyan government had nothing to do with the conference here.
This week's episode is now available for podcast.
A simply breathtaking article from the BBC on the ongoing Afghan apostasy trial of Abdul Rahman. I have collapsed some of the paragraphs for space reasons, and the entire story can be read here.
Here is the Judge's take on Islamic law under the new Constitution for which the United States was midwife:
Under the interpretation of Islamic Sharia law on which
's constitution is based, Mr Rahman faces the death penalty unless he reconverts to Islam. "The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back," says Ansarullah Mawlafizada, the trial judge. "Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told him if he regrets what he did, then we will forgive him," he told the BBC News website. Afghanistan
The account further explains that problems here for President Karzai do not end with the dictates of Islamic law and the fact that, under the new constitution, the judiciary is supposed to be independent and not subject to outside interference. There are also the mores of the population he represents, through which the Rahman case is seen in a way polar opposite of its view by the Western prism: [A]n overwhelming number of ordinary Afghans appear to believe Mr Rahman has erred and deserves to be executed. "We will not let anyone interfere with our religious practices," declared cleric Inayatullah at Kabul "What is wrong with Islam that he should want to convert?" asks an agitated Abdul Zahid Payman. "The courts should punish him and he should be put to death." Few were willing to listen to the growing condemnation in the West. "According to Islamic law he should be sentenced to death because God has clearly stated that Christianity is forbidden in our land," says Mohammed Qadir, another worshipper. US America
So says Charles Krauthammer. He addds:
Now all of a sudden everyone is shocked to find Iraqis going after Iraqis. But is it not our entire counterinsurgency strategy to get Iraqis who believe in the new Iraq to fight Iraqis who want to restore Baathism or impose Taliban-like rule? Does not everyone who wishes us well support the strategy of standing up the Iraqis so we can stand down? And does that not mean getting the Iraqis to fight the civil war themselves? ...
How does this happen? The stick is military -- the increased cost in Sunni blood of continuing the fight. But the carrot is political -- a place at the table for those Sunnis, some of whom are represented in parliament, who are prepared to abandon the insurgency for a share of power, a share of oil income, and a sense of security and dignity in the new Iraq.
This is doable. That is not to say it will be done. It is to say that those who have decided that because of "civil war" it cannot be done have been unreasonably panicked by something that has been with us all along.
The column is here.
Do you teach at the college level? Do you need to know more about how democracies defend themselves from terrorists? Would you like your students to understand the threat of terrorism ?
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is accepting applications for its Academic Fellows anti-terrorism training program. This program provides university professors with a detailed understanding of the terror threat that faces our nation and sister democracies. Centered on a 10-day course taught in conjunction with Tel Aviv University, the program takes place entirely in Israel and runs May 27-June 7 (travel inclusive). Participants interact with academics, diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India, Turkey and the United States. They also visit military bases, border zones and other security installations to learn the practical side of deterring terrorist attacks. All expenses are paid by FDD.
FDD runs a similar program for undergraduate students that gives them access to cutting edge information on terrorism and prepares them for national security careers.
More information on both programs is here. Testimonials from past participants are here and here.
Rafael Bardaji says there is no such thing as a trustworthy terrorist. His article is here.
Ever since FDD founded the Coalition Against Terrorist Media (CATM) in 2004, our number one goal in the U.S. has been to have the Treasury Department name Hezbollah's al-Manar television as a terrorist organization.
Today, Treasury did just that. By identifying al-Manar as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity, it gave the U.S. government the power to go after al-Manar's sources of funding and organizations that do business with it. It also sent a clear message to the Iranian regime: we won't tolerate your terrorist surrogates waging war against free societies.
Al-Manar reportedly receives a substantial portion of its operating budget from the Iranian regime. It has employed these funds -- estimated to be well into the millions per year -- to build state of the art studios and the infrastructure needed to broadcast around the world.
Al-Manar is no mere propaganda tool. It is an operational weapon in the hands of one of the world's most dangerous terrorist organizations. Hezbollah -- and by extension its benefactors in the Iranian regime -- uses al-Manar to recruit suicide bombers, incite violent attacks, raise money for terrorist operations, and promote a message of hatred around the world.
While it was once carried by 10 satellites, CATM has led the fight to roll al-Manar back to just two: ARABSAT (majority-owned by Saudi Arabia) and Nilesat (majority-owned by Egypt). But these still reach millions in the Middle East, North Africa, and throughout Europe.
Today's designation gives the U.S. a powerful new weapon in the fight against al Manar.
Our press release on the decision is here.
The U.S. Treasury site seems to be down, but when it is up we'll add a link to their strongly worded press release. UPDATE: the link is here.
Learn more about our Coalition Against Terrorist Media and al-Manar here.
The latest Global Jihad Monitor is now available. Stories in this week's issue include: Coalition military forces launching “Operation Swarmer” in an attempt to retake areas of Iraq that have been used as bases by terrorists and insurgents; The U.S. releasing documents captured in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad that indicate a pre-war al-Qaeda presence in the country; Israeli officials thwarting an attempted suicide bombing by Islamic Jihad; and much more.
There were disturbing reports of a large al Qaeda influx into Gaza when Israel pulled out. Now comes this from the AP, via Breitbart News:
Signs are mounting that al-Qaida terrorists are setting their sights on Israel and the Palestinian territories as their next jihad battleground.
Israel has indicted two West Bank militants for al-Qaida membership, Egypt arrested operatives trying to cross into Israel and a Palestinian security official has acknowledged al-Qaida is "organizing cells and gathering supporters."
Al-Qaida's inroads are still preliminary, but officials fear a doomsday scenario if it takes root. Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon have established contacts with al-Qaida followers linked to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, according to two Israeli officials.
Al-Zarqawi has established footholds in the countries neighboring Israel -- Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan -- and is interested in bringing his fight to Israel, too, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because Israel does not want to identify those involved in the issue.
Tuesday's indictment of two militants on charges of belonging to al- Qaida and receiving funds from the group for a planned double-bombing in Jerusalem was Israel's most concrete allegation to date linking al-Qaida to West Bank Palestinians.
The indictment described in detail how the two, Azzam Abu Aladas and Balal Hafnai, met with al-Qaida operatives in Jordan, arranged for secret e-mail exchanges and received thousands of dollars from al- Qaida to carry out the attack. The indictment came just three weeks after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the London-based Al Hayat newspaper that al-Qaida had infiltrated the West Bank and Gaza....
This week's episode is now available for podcast.
..."civil war" is and always was the chief tactic of the "insurgency."
Christopher Hitchens explain here.
"'We' is not the West. 'We' are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. 'We' are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty and human rights administered by secular courts,"
More on his remarks here.
In a previous analysis of the War in Iraq, I argued that in the middle of a conflict, one cannot pronounce the final verdict yet, but detect the trends of successes and failures. Between 2003 and 2006, the US led coalition was winning by points while al Qaida wasn’t able to reverse the process yet. The ending of Saddam’s regime, the rise of a political consensus and new Iraqi forces, and the three popular votes is a string of coalition victories. The Salafists and Khumeinists weren’t yet able to crumble the Sistani-backed Iraqi consensus. But there is a bigger picture for US efforts in the region.
Continue reading "The Unseen Waves of Iraq's Liberation (WP)" »
President Bush has laid out a new National Security strategy –the first made public since 2003. It was in a 49 page report. He once again took a walk up Tough Street.
Mr. Bush made clear that he was reserving the right to strike first against terrorists and against hostile countries which threaten the use of biological or chemical warfare, or the use of nuclear weapons.
He said the doctrine of preemption “remains the same” –even though critics say it has been undermined by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
“We do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemies’ attack ,” Mr. Bush said.
Continue reading "Dispatches from the Danger Zone: A New Strategy (RWC)" »
John Fund reports:
Afghan exiles are appalled that Mr. Rahmatuallah was given a coveted place that could have gone to an Afghan man or woman who had been oppressed by the Taliban. Author Sebastian Junger reports from Afghanistan in the current Vanity Fair on the atrocities the Taliban are committing today. They include skinning a man alive and leaving him to die in the sun. Another man was forced to watch as his wife was gang-raped. Then his eyes were put out, so that the horrific crime would be the last image he would ever see. The relatives of U.S. soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan are likewise appalled. "It's not like the Taliban ever signed a peace treaty," Natalie Healy, the mother of a Navy SEAL killed by a Taliban rocket last year, told me. "They're still killing Americans."
The entire piece is here.
Fouad Ajami writes that “time is the critical commodity that this war aches for. Our enemies there have plenty of it, while the American expedition is under pressure to force history's pace.”
He adds:
The burden of this war is that its costs are so easy to see while its gains in Iraq--and in neighboring Arab lands--are infinitely harder to pin down. The truth is that a better Iraqi polity is within reach and that the American presence in Iraq has launched a wider campaign of reform in Araby. To be sure, the American presence has not rid the Arab world of its political malignancies. But there have been gains in Afghanistan and Lebanon and in the Arabian Peninsula. A notice has been served, after the abdication of the 1990s, that a price will be paid by rogues and paymasters of terrorism who run afoul of American interests. It seems like ages ago--American memory is so incredibly short--that our special forces flushed Saddam Hussein out of his "spider hole." An unmistakable message was sent to despots in Syria and Libya, and to more sly rulers nearby who winked at terrorism: America was done with appeasement. …
We can't quit Iraq quite yet. We must, instead, recall the mix of fears and interests that brought us there and the threats that had us look for an Arab setting where we could make our stand.
The rest of his essay is here.
More notes & comments are in this week's e-newsletter.
"Beginning on March 22, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs will host a conference entitled 'The Prospect for Democracy: A-Libyan-American Dialogue.' On the second and final day of the conference, Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qadhafi is to address the participants by video conference. He is slated to speak about his views on the prospect of democracy in Libya. Among the participants will be Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch. The conference is being cosponsored by Columbia, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and the Libyan regime."
Mohamed Eljahmi has more here in today's NRO.
Also, see his column last week on Qadhafi's image makeover, which we highlighted here.
Last summer, several of us at FDD, including Eleana Gordon and yours truly, expressed concern over the prominent role for Islamic law that was being woven into the new Iraqi constitution. There had been similar developments -- in a process similarly shepherded by the U.S. State Department --when the new Afghan constitution was written.
Today comes a reminder of why this remains an issue to watch.
This is from Fox News, via the Associated Press:
Afghan Man Faces Death for Allegedly Converting to Christianity
KABUL, Afghanistan
— An Afghan man who allegedly converted from Islam to Christianity is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death, a judge said Sunday.
The defendant, Abdul Rahman, was arrested last month after his family went to the police and accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada told the Associated Press in an interview. Such a conversion would violate the country's Islamic laws.
Rahman, who is believed to be 41, was charged with rejecting Islam when his trial started last week, the judge said.
During the hearing, the defendant allegedly confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago when he was 25 and working as a medical aid worker for Afghan refugees in neighboring Pakistan, Mawlavezada said.
Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which states that any Muslim who rejects their religion should be sentenced to death.
"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law," the judge said. "It is an attack on Islam. ... The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty."
The prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, said the case was the first of its kind in Afghanistan.
He said that he had offered to drop the charges if Rahman changed his religion back to Islam, but the defendant refused.
Mawlavezada said he would rule on the case within two months.
Afghanistan is a deeply conservative society and 99 percent of its 28 million people are Muslim. The rest are mainly Hindus.
The Iraq Files Are Already Bearing Fruit (ACM)
In a crucial development this week, the U.S. intelligence community reversed course and agreed that millions of the documents, videos, computer files, etc., recovered from the Iraqi regime after the U.S. invasion are being released publicly. As I noted on NRO this week, this intelligence trove will be crucial to the legacy of the war.
That the project is already bearing fruit on the central matter of connections between Saddam and al Qaeda is clear from an important new article by Steve Hayes at the Weekly Standard.
Steve's article has tons of very interesting stuff, including on Iraq’s facilitation of the Qaeda affiliate Abu Sayyaf, which was started in the Philippines in the late 1990s by bin Laden’s brother-in-law.
Another intel file he outlines concerns relations between Iraqi Intelligence and Saudi opposition groups, including the "Reform and Advice Committee," controlled by bin Laden.
This is a document the New York Times reported on back in June 2004 (shortly after reporting that there had been no meaningful relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda), and the Times grudgingly acknowledged its understanding that the document "appeared authentic," and "corroborates and expands on previous reporting" about contacts between Iraq and bin Laden in Sudan. (Back then, I wrote about it for NRO).
As Steve’s new piece notes, "The most provocative aspect of the document is the discussion of efforts to seek cooperation between Iraqi Intelligence and the Saudi opposition group run by bin Laden:
We moved towards the committee by doing the following:
A. During the visit of the Sudanese Dr. Ibrahim al-Sanusi to Iraq and his meeting with Mr. Uday Saddam Hussein, on December 13, 1994, in the presence of the respectable, Mr. Director of the Intelligence Service, he [Dr. al-Sanusi] pointed out that the opposing Osama bin Laden, residing in Sudan, is reserved and afraid to be depicted by his enemies as an agent of Iraq. We prepared to meet him in Sudan (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the results of the meeting in our letter 782 on December 17, 1994).
B. An approval to meet with opposer Osama bin Laden by the Intelligence Services was given by the Honorable Presidency in its letter 138, dated January 11, 1995 (attachment 6). He [bin Laden] was met by the previous general director of M4 in Sudan and in the presence of the Sudanese, Ibrahim al-Sanusi, on February 19, 1995. We discussed with him his organization. He requested the broadcast of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman al-Uda (who has influence within Saudi Arabia and outside due to being a well known religious and influential personality) and to designate a program for them through the broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4, 1995, attachment 7.)
C. The approval was received from the Leader, Mr. President, may God keep him, to designate a program for them through the directed broadcast. We were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up. The Sudanese side was informed of the Honorable Presidency's agreement above, through the representative of the Respectable Director of Intelligence Services, our Ambassador in Khartoum.
D. Due to the recent situation of Sudan and being accused of supporting and embracing of terrorism, an agreement with the opposing Saudi Osama bin Laden was reached. The agreement required him to leave Sudan to another area. He left Khartoum in July 1996. The information we have indicates that he is currently in Afghanistan. The relationship with him is ongoing through the Sudanese side. Currently we are working to invigorate this relationship through a new channel in light of his present location.
How "invigorated" the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda got – rather than whether there was a relationship – is the intriguing question. Steve’s piece ends with this thought:
A new and highly illuminating article in Foreign Affairs draws on hundreds of Iraqi documents to provide a look at the Iraq war from the Iraqi perspective. The picture that emerges is that of an Iraqi regime built on a foundation of paranoia and lies and eager to attack its perceived enemies, internal and external. This paragraph is notable:
The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout Europe and the Middle East. In a document dated May 1999, Saddam's older son, Uday, ordered preparations for "special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas [Kurdistan]." Preparations for "Blessed July," a regime-directed wave of "martyrdom" operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion.
Think about that last sentence.
In this NRO piece, Mohamed Eljahmi draws the curtains on Qadhafi's Libya ... it's not what some would have us believe:
More than two years after the U.S. government began its rapprochement, how goes life in Libya? At first appearance, some may think Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi has reformed. Last week, the State Department released its annual "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices." As pejorative as was the description of Libya, the report still puts too much of a fine patina on the Libyan regime. It inaccurately said that the Libyan security forces are under civilian control. They are not. They are under the control of Libyan military ruler, Col. Muammar Qadhafi as is every facet of Libyan political and economic life.
Qadhafi has sought to improve his image. On March 2, 2006, for example, he released 130 prisoners. This was an empty gesture. In the riots that followed the February 17 cartoon protests, Qadhafi rounded up scores of new prisoners. Political dissidents — my brother, Fathi, among them — have spent years in prison for the crime of demanding freedom of speech and multiparty elections.
Qadhafi is weak. There is no freedom of association in Libya. He staged the cartoon protests in front of the Italian consulate in Benghazi to rally populist support and extort concessions from a Europe too willing to self-flagellate and assume guilt. But something went wrong: The rally went awry. State-security officials and plain-clothed members of the Revolutionary Committees shot and killed 11 people. In the following three days, rioters burned government buildings, police cars, and branches of the Revolutionary Committees. Chaos grew as violence spread to the coastal cities of Tobruq and Derna. The Libyan government called in Special Forces and units of commandoes to take control and Benghazi was put under an unannounced state of martial law. ...
In a March 2, 2006, speech, Qadhafi said the riots occurred because the Libyans are angry with the Italians. He demanded Italy pay compensation for its past occupation of Libya. In the same speech, Qadhafi hailed his al-Jamahiriya "state of the masses" and condemned representative democracy, constitutions and free press. He argued that elections would only bring chaos. Many Arab dictators use the same strategy of fear. But the truth is inescapable. There is yearning for an end to the totalitarian state. Georgia has its Rose Revolution and Ukraine its Orange Revolution. In Benghazi, they now speak of the Vagabond's Revolution.
Read the full article here.
Mohamed has worked tirelessly for the release of his brother Fathi, a human rights and democracy activist, from Qadhafi's jails. Fathi was imprisoned for speaking out in favor of freedom of speech in 2002, and despite a brief release in 2004, has languished out of reach of family and friends ever since. FDD has been proud to help his cause:
Read Claudia Rosett's profiles of Fathi Eljahmi are here and here.
The Committee on the Present Danger, which FDD helped revive in 2004, sent a letter to Qadhafi requesting a meeting with Fathi and medical treatment for his life-threatening diabetes. A press release on the result his here. A a supportive editorial from the Wall Street Journal is here.
This week's episode is available for podcast.
Cliff May's latest Scripps Howard column argues that the U.S. needs to remain in Iraq.
Writing from Baghdad, the Washington Post's David Ignatius sees reason for optimism:
There has been so much bad news out of Iraq lately that you have to pinch yourself when good things seem to be happening. But there are unmistakable signs here this week that Iraq's political leaders are taking the first tentative steps toward forming a broad government of national unity that could reverse the country's downward slide.
The rest is here.
The latest Global Jihad Monitor is now available. Stories this week include: Terrorists in Iraq detonating six car bombs in the Shia neighborhood of Sadr City, killing at least 46 people and wounding more than two hundred; Jordan executing two al-Qaeda members for the 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley; and Israeli troops surrounding a West Bank jail, demanding the surrender of various prisoners, including Ahmed Saadat, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Read the whole thing here.
"Annaqed," Arabic for "the critic," is a web site you should know about.
It is intended for Arabs in the United States. Its goal is "to work as a catalyst to their minds, educating them about the importance of loving this great country, by criticizing the wrong and the wrong doers whatever and whomever they might be."
Its editor says that "most Arabic publications in the United States are nothing but propaganda tools for Arabic regimes. The remaining few ones are mainly business-minded and would not publish anything that could affect the relationships with their advertisers and consequently, the income that is understandably an important element for their survival."
It's here.
More notes & comments available in this week's e-newsletter.
Last month, we highlighted a Pew Research poll showing UN approval ratings in a freefall. Gallup released new numbers yesterday, and they look even bleaker for the world body:
The Feb. 6-9 Gallup Poll finds that 30% of Americans say the United Nations is doing a good job, while 64% say it is doing a poor job. The percentage giving a favorable job approval rating is among the lowest that Gallup has ever measured. ...
Currently, 64% of Americans say the United Nations is doing a poor job -- the highest negative rating of the United Nations Gallup has ever measured.
To put these numbers in context, read Claudia Rosett's ongoing coverage of the UN's Oil-for-Food scandal here.
Here are some pictures of President Bush addressing FDD courtesy of our own Julie Kim:
FDD's Cliff May introduces the President
President Bush Addresses FDD
Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Senator Luger and others
More pictures from the event are available here.
Militant Islamists are targeting Bangladesh's democracy, writes FDD's Maneeza Hossain in today's National Review Online, and the stakes are high: "If Bangladesh becomes a failed state, it would be the first instance ever of a democracy being defeated by radical Islamism."
For more on the danger and what can be done about it, read her article here.
FDD was pleased to host President Bush today for a speech on the Global War on Terror. He spoke for about 30 minutes and had much of interest to say...
about FDD:
The Foundation is making a difference across the world, and I appreciate the difference you're making. You have trained Iraqi women and Iranian students in the principles and practice of democracy, you've translated "democracy readers" into Arabic for distribution across the broader Middle East, you've helped activists across the region organize effective political movements -- so they can help bring about democratic change and ensure the survival of liberty in new democracies. By promoting democratic ideals, and training a new generation of democratic leaders in the Middle East, you are helping us to bring victory in the war on terror -- and I thank you for your hard work in freedom's cause.
on Iraq:
At the end of last year, I described in detail many of the changes we have made to improve the training of Iraqi security forces -- and we saw the fruits of those changes in recent days in Iraq. After the Samarra bombings, it was the Iraqi security forces -- not coalition forces -- that restored order.
and, pointedly, on Iran:
Some of the most powerful IEDs we're seeing in Iraq today includes components that came from Iran. Our Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, told the Congress, "Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks by providing Shia militia with the capability to build improvised explosive devises" in Iraq. Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran. Such actions -- along with Iran's support for terrorism and its pursuit of nuclear weapons -- are increasingly isolating Iran, and America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats. (Applause.)
Read his remarks here.
Dr. Wafa Sultan’s life “changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.
"They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'God is great!' " she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god." …
An angry essay on that site by Dr. Sultan about the Muslim Brotherhood caught the attention of Al Jazeera, which invited her to debate an Algerian cleric on the air last July.
In the debate, she questioned the religious teachings that prompt young people to commit suicide in the name of God. "Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?" she asked. "In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched." …
"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations," Dr. Sultan said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality." ...
[S]he has received numerous death threats on her answering machine and by e-mail.
One message said: "Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see." She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, "If someone were to kill you, it would be me."
Dr. Sultan said her mother, who still lives in Syria, is afraid to contact her directly, speaking only through a sister who lives in Qatar. She said she worried more about the safety of family members here and in Syria than she did for her own.
"I have no fear," she said. "I believe in my message. It is like a million-mile journey, and I believe I have walked the first and hardest 10 miles."
The NYT story on her is here. The MEMRI video of her is here.
This week's episode is available for podcast.
Fresh off the wires, Reuters reports:
The U.S. military will close Abu Ghraib prison, probably within three months, and transfer some 4,500 prisoners to other jails in Iraq, a military spokesman said on Thursday.
More as it becomes available...
UPDATE: More info now available here.
Our president was greeted recently in New Delhi, India by 100,000 or more Muslim protestors shouting “Death to Bush.” The president’s two days in India was to discuss nuclear anti-proliferation and came after a quick, unexpected stop in Afghanistan.
In West Bengal, a new traveling opera is gaining attention from audiences in the rural country side because of its attacks on America and its glorification of Islamic terrorism. This attitude may explain some of the hatred against Bush and the US.
The opera is called ”Osama”.
It started as sidewalk theatre in Calcutta, a city that has the world’s most crowded sidewalks. (Millions of people actually live on them.)Unintentional theatre is everywhere. There is so much to see that frankly I can’t imagine people wasting their time with a stupid opera.
This Opera is not is not meant to be La Boehme or Die Fledermouse. It is pure agit-prop. The Hindu impresarios and actors who organized the play portray Osama as Saint Bin Laden, a robin-hood like character, a benign friend of women and children and very hateful towards America.
Hindus and Muslims in this part of the world have serious conflicts and the fact of Hindus playing the Muslim parts has caused trouble.
But, if this opera succeeds their successful principal actor will star in a new opera, called, no kidding “Saddam”. This Sunday's Danger Zone radio lineup is available here.
The latest Global Jihad Monitor is now available featuring stories including:
In today's The Hill, Richard Carlson explains why shutting down the English-language broadcasts on the Voice of America is detrimental to the war on terrorism.
Hamas, the terrorist group that won the recent Paletinian elections, has launched "a web site for children, preaching the moral desirability of being a suicide terrorist through cartoons and children's stories.
"The Hamas-run Al-Fateh.net glorifies shahada, martyrdom, and presents the deaths of terrorists attacking Israelis as a time of celebration, according to a report by Palestinian Media Watch."
More here.
ABC News suggests that Iran is at war with us: "U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.
"They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor."
More here.
More notes & comments can be found in this week's e-newsletter.
A rising chorus of prominent voices is questioning the notion that democracy in the Middle East is part of the answer for defeating radical Islamist terrorism, from Francis Fukuyama in the New York Times on February 19, 2006: "We need in the first instance to understand that promoting democracy and modernization in the Middle East is not a solution to the problem of jihadist terrorism; in all likelihood it will make the short-term problem worse, as we have seen in the case of the Palestinian election bringing Hamas to power ." Robert Kaplan followed in the Washington Post, arguing that: "political change... will happen anyway. What we have to work toward -- for which peoples with historical experiences different from ours will be grateful -- is not democracy but normality." FDD's own Andrew McCarthy has criticized the Administration's Forward Strategy on Freedom, writing on February 15 in National Review: "As we prepare to spend yet another $120 billion on a novel brand of democracy building — one which establishes Islam as Iraq's state religion and enshrines the inequities of sharia as a source and measure of its fundamental law — our wildly premature birthing of the nascent Palestinian "democracy" has just resulted in the rise to power of Hamas, an entity the U.S. officially designates as a terrorist organization."
But can the issue simply be reduced to whether US policy should should or should not promote democracy in the Middle East? Shouldn't we first clarify what we mean by democracy promotion (it's about more than elections, for starters), and focus our critique not on whether, but how to promote democracy? For example, maybe we should reconsider the spending of US tax money to train Islamists to run for elections?
What if one rephrased the question as follows: Should US policy focus on strengthening liberal forces in the Middle East (by liberal, I mean a dedication to basic values of liberty such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, economic freedom and checks on government power)? Can US policy play a role in helping liberals to offer their people an alternative between siftling autocracies and radical theocracies? Are there things we - the US and our allies - can do to significantly improve the ability of liberals and moderate Muslims to wage the battle of ideas against totalitarian ideologies (whether they be secular or religious), and thus influence change in their societies from within?
It is with this question in mind that FDD turns to liberals in the Middle East, at this crucial juncture and asks them to weigh in on the debate about democracy promotion. In our new monthly White Paper series, "Voices from the Middle East on Democratization and Reform" we ask activists, dissident intellectuals and political analysts from the Middle East and North Africa to comment on the state of the political opposition in their countries, the challenges and opportunities for liberals, and to conclude with recommendations for what the international community, and the United States in particular, should and should not do, to push liberal change in the region.
On the anniversary of the Cedar Revolution, we begin our series with, "Restoring Democracy in Lebanon," an analysis of Lebanon written by one its most respected human rights activist (who unfortunately decided to write under a pen name out of fear of being targeted in the series of assassinations of prominent intellectuals that has plagued the country). We look forward to your comments and questions.
This Washington Times editorial sums up Iran's insidious influence in Iraq -- including how Iranian funding for Hezbollah's al-Manar television is used to inspire attacks against coalition forces:
A major beneficiary of the violence following the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraq -- one of the holiest sites in Shi'ite Islam -- is the Shi'ite clerical dictatorship in Iran. Within hours of the crime, Tehran began trying to exploit it in an effort to foment violence against the United States and Israel.
"They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. He declared that such actions "are the acts of a group of defeated Zionists and occupiers."
Of course, this is absurd. The primary suspect in the mosque bombing is Abu Musab Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. Much of the suspicion focuses on Zarqawi, a Sunni Muslim, due to the fact that he declared war against Iraqi Shi'ites and has written of his desire to spark a civil war in that country. But Mr. Ahmadinejad's assertion still must be taken seriously due to Tehran's sometime alliance with Zarqawi and its consistent efforts to portray Washington as a force for evil.
One of the most virulent opponents of coalition military operations in Iraq is al-Manar, a television station run by the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, a group which receives upwards of $100 million annually from the Iranian regime. Less than a week before the start of the war in March 2003, al-Manar, which can be seen in much of the Arab world, broadcast a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah telling American troops that "our slogan was and will remain 'death to America.' " After the war began, al-Manar broadcast video that ended with footage showing suicide bombers as they blew themselves up and likening President Bush to Adolf Hitler.
Time and again since the war began, U.S. and British officials have pointed to the role of Iran and its allies in engaging in violence and sabotaging postwar reconstruction in Iraq.
The rest is here.
I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it.
Maybe actually being on the ground in Iraq prevents me from seeing it. Perhaps the view's clearer from Manhattan. It could be that my background as an intelligence officer didn't give me the right skills. ...
Let me tell you what I saw anyway. Rolling with the "instant Infantry" gunners of the 1st Platoon of Bravo Battery, 4-320 Field Artillery, I saw children and teenagers in a Shia slum jumping up and down and cheering our troops as they drove by. Cheering our troops.
All day - and it was a long day - we drove through Shia and Sunni neighborhoods. Everywhere, the reception was warm. No violence. None.
And no hostility toward our troops. Iraqis went out of their way to tell us we were welcome. ...
The country may still see a civil war one day. But not just yet, thanks. Violence continues. A roadside bomb was found in the next sector to the west. There will be more deaths, including some of our own troops. But Baghdad's vibrant life has not been killed. And the people of Iraq just might surprise us all.
So why were we told that Iraq was irreversibly in the throes of civil war when it wasn't remotely true? I think the answers are straightforward. First, of course, some parties in the West are anxious to believe the worst about Iraq. They've staked their reputations on Iraq's failure.
But there's no way we can let irresponsible journalists off the hook - or their parent organizations. Many journalists are, indeed, brave and conscientious; yet some in Baghdad - working for "prestigious" publications - aren't out on the city streets the way they pretend to be.
They're safe in their enclaves, protected by hired guns, complaining that it's too dangerous out on the streets. They're only in Baghdad for the byline, and they might as well let their Iraqi employees phone it in to the States.
Whenever you see a column filed from Baghdad by a semi-celeb journalist with a "contribution" by a local Iraqi, it means this: The Iraqi went out and got the story, while the journalist stayed in his or her room.
And the Iraqi stringers have cracked the code: The Americans don't pay for good news. So they exaggerate the bad.
And some of them have agendas of their own.
The rest of his column is here.
But that doesn’t suggest “most Iraqis” are destined to defeat a ruthless enemy that plays by no rules and believes in the Leninist rule: “the worse the better.”
George Will makes this point:
"[I]n 1917 there were only a few thousand Bolsheviks among 150 million Russians -- and the Bolsheviks succeeded in hijacking the country for seven decades."
His column is here.
Reaction to Francis Fukuyama's controversial essay, "After Neoconservatism," in the New York Times Magazine (on Sunday, Feb. 19), continues. Christopher Hitchens is not impressed, to say the least, in a review published March 1 by Slate. He observes:
For all [his] show of knowledge about the arcana of Marxism and Straussianism, Fukuyama's actual applications of them are surprisingly thin. It is not even a parody of the Trotskyist position to say that the lesson they drew from Stalinism was "the danger of good intentions carried to extremes." Nor is it even half-true to say, of those who advocated an intervention in Iraq, that they concluded "that the 'root cause' of terrorism lay in the Middle East's lack of democracy, that the United States had both the wisdom and the ability to fix this problem and that democracy would come quickly and painlessly to Iraq."
The first requirement of anyone engaging in an intellectual or academic debate is that he or she be able to give a proper account of the opposing position(s), and Fukuyama simply fails this test. The term "root causes" was always employed ironically (as the term "political correctness" used to be) as a weapon against those whose naive opinions about the sources of discontent were summarized in that phrase. It wasn't that the Middle East "lacked democracy" so much that one of its keystone states was dominated by an unstable and destabilizing dictatorship led by a psychopath. And it wasn't any illusion about the speed and ease of a transition so much as the conviction that any change would be an improvement. The charge that used to be leveled against the neoconservatives was that they had wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein (pause for significant lowering of voice) even before Sept. 11, 2001. And that "accusation," as Fukuyama well knows, was essentially true—and to their credit.
The whole thing is here, and, agree or not, Hitchens is always worth reading.
Readers who follow the debates that Cliff and I (among others) occasionally wade into at NRO's spirited blog, the Corner, may have seen that a discussion has been underway for a couple of days about why we are in Iraq and how much it is worth pressing on.
For those interested, I weighed in last night, finding a lot of common ground with John Derbyshire (aka, "Derb"). My post follows. It is an old position, but it is one I feel reconfirmed in after my online debate earlier this week with Mansoor Ijaz on the question whether Islam can be reformed. I'll have more to say about why in the coming days.
FWIW, I am in the Derb camp to the extent that I would never have gone to Iraq for the purpose of trying to democratize it.
First, I don’t think Iraq – or any Islamic country that is determined to remain an Islamic country – has any inclination to democratize in the sense that we would recognize as democracy.
Second, even if it did, the administration has never made the case – and I don’t think it can – that democracy in a foreign country makes America safer from terrorists. (To the contrary, there is a lot of evidence of terrorists using democracies to threate
