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:: Saturday, September 21, 2002 ::

The Iron Fisk Strikes Again!
This Is London has just published a bucket of filth by Brian Sewell titled: "It's time to forget 9/11" (link via Spleenville). This one's bad, folks. So bad, that once again, Cato must summon forth the powers of his Iron Fisk Technique.

<bad martial arts movie dubbing>
Brian Sewell! You have o-fend-ed United States. You have o-fend-ed families of 9/11 victims. You have o-fend-ed Cato. (not to be confused with Kato). Now you feel Cato's Iron Fisk Technique.
</bad martial arts movie dubbing>

Grief and Dust, The Day of Tears, A Nation in Mourning, The Dead and the Guilty, Time has not dulled the Shock, The Pain lingers on, How the World has changed, 11 September..., these were the headlines of last Wednesday's broadsheets, a day on which we were predictably treated to an orgy of cheap retrospection by our newspapers, our radio and television. By cheap I mean cheap to make - an easy rehash of old photographs, a minute-by-minute chronology of events, a set of celebrity interviews of the "Where were you when ..." variety - but much of it was cheap in the pejorative sense too, a cynical tapping into the pent-up reservoirs of maudlin sentiment that we discovered within our national selves with the death of Princess Diana, now spent, one year on, on the international business of 11 September.
Memory doesn't look at the price tag of the things that trigger it. It's kind of funny that way. Flags are cheap, and only God knows how many men have died for the devotion their "cheap" flags inspired. But I seriously doubt that you have ever been devoted to anything in your life, Brian. I don't know about other peoples' "maudlin sentiments", but my own emotions this 9/11 were awe of the courage of the rescue workers, and the determination of the passengers on United Flight 93. Plus one other emotion that had nothing to do with "maudlin sentiments" - cold, bleak, bitter, hatred of the bastards who did it, the bastards who planned it, the bastards who paid for it, and the bastards who rejoiced in it (a group I suspect you belong to, Brian).
Shall we spend it again in September 2003 and four and five? Shall we make 11 September an annual orgasm of remembered grief ? Or should we, having held, in the absence of so many solitary funerals, one obsequy for all, lay the memory to rest?
You can do what you damnned well please, Brian. The decent folk in this world will probably feel a little sympathy for the families who lost loved ones, and a little respect and admiration for the courage of the rescue workers and the Flight 93 passengers who died saving others. But you're obviously such a hateful, sociopathic, six-fathered son of a two-bit Soho whore, that you can't possibly understand that.
I hear the murmurs of outrage, the resentful: "You didn't lose anyone, you don't know what it's like." Don't I? Hundreds of thousands, even millions, not connected with the events of 11 September, know exactly what it is like, and worse.
You do not have to have lost someone to feel sympathy for the victims who survived, and the families of the slain. You just have to have the rudiments of a soul. Something you obviously lack, Brian.
This was an unprovoked assault on a nation not at war, an assault on freedom, free speech and the free world, on the abstract liberties and ideals of the American constitution, and America is, as we all know, a synecdochism for all the virtues of Western civilisation. But - and dare one express a but in such a hysterical context? - some might see the events of that day in New York as an assault on the twin monuments of Mammon by an ascetic religious force emanating, yet again, from the deserts of the East to scourge the daily manipulators of greed, rapaciousness and avarice, the disciples of profit and cupidity, the instruments of personal and private wealth for its own sake.
I frankly don't give a shit why they did it. The opinions and motivations of mass murderers mean less to me than a fart in a hurricane. The only thing about them that I care about, is where to find them. As far as trying to understand them, the only thing I want to understand about them is what they love most in the world. Whatever it is, I want to grind it into paste, burn the paste, and piss on the ashes.
Have we forgotten the moral exemplar set by Christ when he scourged the traders in the temple of Jerusalem? When he overturned the tables of the moneychangers, did he pause to ask why any of them should be excluded from his wrath?
First, Jesus didn't kill anyone in that particular incident. As a general rule, you don't teach people by killing them. Governments occasionally kill people to teach others, but that is usually done within some sort of legal framework, and it's strictly a government monoply. Second, the World Trade Center Towers were not houses of God. Neither was the Pentagon. Jesus was trying to make the point that some places are dedicated to God, and that worldly activities should be conducted somewhere else.
But 2,801 men and women died in the twin towers, not one of them an enemy of Islam. Two thousand eight hundred and one? What sort of number is that over which to make a fuss? How many more, in recent years, have died in Nicaragua and Rwanda, the Congo and Biafra, Bosnia, Kosovo and Croatia, all now virtually forgotten?
The Nicaraguans, Rwandans, etc. are capable of remembering their dead without our help. We Americans are capable of remembering our dead without your help, Brian. But the 9/11 attacks killed citizens and subjects of dozens of countries, not just Americans. Most of the developed nations of the world have their own 9/11 victims to remember. If they choose to remember ours as well, we appreciate the sentiments.
And looking farther back, to the Second World War, what kind of fuss did Londoners make on the night of 10 May 1941, when, in a single air raid, 1,436 Londoners were killed and more than as many seriously injured? That night the Tower, the Temple, the Law Courts, Westminster Abbey and every main line station were hit, the House of Commons was gutted, Westminster Hall was ablaze, between Lambeth and the Tower no bridge was passable, 700 gas mains were gushing flames, 250,000 books in the British Museum were charred and smouldering and mains water was cut off. But who now remembers this and where is the memorial? Indeed, what memory has any of us of the London Blitz and its 20,000 civilians killed, its 300,000 homes destroyed?
I think the Londoners were too busy dodging bombs to spend as much time in mourning as they would have liked. I've read a fair amount of the history of WWII, and I don't rember anything about Germany ever offering the British a cease-fire for a day of mourning.
On 3 September this year we forgot the outbreak of the Second World War, forgot the six million Jews of the Holocaust, forgot the 19 million Russian civilians who starved or froze to death, forgot the Polish nation torn asunder, forgot, forgot, forgot what that war meant for civilians from Trondheim to the mid-Pacific, forgot what we, the British, did to the civilians of Dresden and Dusseldorf in the spirit of revenge.
Perhaps in fifty or sixty years, we will forget 9/11. But we have not yet had our Dresden, and the Arabs have not yet learned the hardships of fighting against the West, in general, or the United States, in particular.
To old hands the fuss over 11 September may have seemed unconscionable in the light of 20th century European history, but it was, of course, an assault beyond the imagining of a nation that thought its land inviolable.
We did think the world understood what happens to nations that attack the United States. We sank nearly every ship in the Japanese Navy, burned Tokyo to the ground, and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One would think that anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the history of WWII would know better than to attack American soil. Silly us. Sillier Arabs. It looks like we're going to have to teach that lesson again.
The United States of America has a short history of extreme violence against the indigenous peoples of the central belt of North America, of ethnic cleansing and now of ethnic ghettos, of territorial expansion by forced annexation and war against an infinitely weaker Mexico in 1846-8 and against Spain in 1898. These wars had no moral foundation and cannot be described, even by the most partial historian, as just; they were wars of expansion that brought Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona within the borders of the USA, and Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines within its spheres of influence and even ownership. This is not a pretty history, not a history that accords with the aspirations of those who wrote the Declaration of Independence, but a history of greed for land and raw materials, greed for downright power.
If you think Americans were violent with the indigenous peoples, you should take a look at Spain. Cortez pretty much destroyed Tenochtitlan, whose population has been estimated at well over 200,000. The Spanish also gave the Aztecs smallpox, which killed millions more.

Texas and California were largely the work of private American citizens who rebelled against Mexican rule. Cuba was granted independence immediatily after the Spanish-American War. Every few years, we offer Puerto Rico the choice of independence, statehood, or status quo. Every few years, they vote to keep the status quo. We never intended to keep the Phillipines permanently, and WWII probably delayed Phillipine independence by several years.

What would now be the economy of Mexico had she not been stripped of California and Texas?
Given the rampant corruption of every Mexican government in history, it probably wouldn't have made much difference. Mexico is not without natural resources. Modern Mexico is an exporter of petroleum. One of the things that attracted the Spanish Conquistadors to Mexico was the gold the Aztecs had in such abundance. As a matter of fact, if you are making a list of nations that have abused Mexico, Spain belongs in the top five slots. What has hurt Mexico more than the loss of Texas and California is the loss of the people who brave the hazards of border crossing to work in the US. Every day, every year, we skim the cream of Mexico's people off the top. The ones who are gutsy enough to try to come here, and smart enough to make it, are usually determined enough to make a new and better life for themselves and their families.
With the propaganda of the cinema, Mexicans and Red Indians have been demonised, made ludicrous and contemptible.
Anyone who considers Hollywood an accurate source of history is a fool.
With political propaganda, the Americans have made themselves heroes without whom the two World Wars could not have been won;
Would the two World Wars have been won without the aid of the United states? Certainly - by Germany and Japan.
without their fortitude and generosity Russia would have been the victor in the Cold War, without their moral strength, the Atlantic would never have been crossed by Coca-Cola and fried chicken.
Let's see, Continental Europe was a bombed-out ruin. The German Army was shattered. The French and Italian Armies never were worth shit. The British Army had been put through the wringer. Precisely what European power would have stopped Stalin? The Vatican? If Europeans dislike fried chicken and Coke, let them eat cake.
Is this the point at which to murmur of Vietnam, to conjure Agent Orange - that dread defoliant - to remind Dubya Bush of 11 years of inconclusive warfare with an army of as many as 400,000 men, to remind him of the body bags and the many young men of whom, like the New York victims of 11 September, there is no trace - many more than 2,801? Will war with Iraq be any remedy for 11 September?
The last time we tangled with Saddam, the total American death toll was less than 300. Barely half of them were combat casualties. Gulf War II won't take 11 years. It won't take 11 months. Most experts doubt it will take 11 weeks. A remedy for 11 September? No. A remedy for 8 October, 12 June, 3 August, or whenever Saddam decides to stick a nuke in a shipping container, send it to New York, and flatten Manhattan? Yeah.
America had its opportunity to rid the world of Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War of 1991. In four days from 24 to 28 February, Operation Desert Storm slaughtered between 85,000 and 100,000 Iraqi soldiers, but, with victory in their grasp, American forces that could within a day have entered Baghdad and driven Saddam Hussein into exile, turned tail and left him to continue being the monster that he is. This was the consequence of America's fear and hatred of Iran - at that stage, of the two evil regimes, the preference of American strategists was for the Iraqi and they were naive enough to suppose that Saddam would in some way express his gratitude.
We did leave a mess when we listened to our coalition partners, who were unanimous in their desire to spare Saddam.Do we not have a responsibility, no matter how late we accept it, to clean up that mess?
Now Bush threatens Saddam with invasion - Saddam who has no known connection with 11 September - because the President has, in the passing of a whole year and in spite of all his rhetoric, made no convincing progress in his war against terrorism, a war that he can never win.
Our quarrel with Saddam is not over 9/11, it is over his obsession with nuclear weapons. Britain and France failed to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and the result was WWII. President Bush is trying not to repeat that mistake with Iraq. As to the war against terrorism, since 9/11, we have suffered no major terror attacks in the US. Al-Qaeda's bases in Afghanistan are gone, and their sponsors in the Afghan government are dead or in hiding. We have arrested numerous Al-Qaeda operatives, including high-level leaders. We've hade a few scares, a few close calls, but on the whole, we've done better than Al-Qaeda has.
We remember too little, but are tempted to erect memorials to far too much. What should be done with Ground Zero? As New York long since sold its soul to Mammon, it should rebuild the twin towers, resume its confident and worldly life with no pretence of piety and principle and let fade the memory of 11 September, just like the rest of its distasteful history.
I personally would reserve the footprints of the twin towers as a memorial park. I would also advocate building two new towers, facing Mecca, that rise from the New York skyline like two gigantic, extended, middle fingers. I would also like to see a space at the top of the towers, where visitors are encouraged to face Mecca, and extend their own middle fingers.

Update: The Anti-Idiotarian Rotweiler has picked up where Cato left off. Let's just say he lives up to his name.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:07:00 PM Link
...

I Can Change
Watching Saddam deny possession of WMDs and offer "unconditional" acceptance of UN weapons inspectors reminded me of Saddam Hussein's role in the movie, "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut". For those who didn't see the movie, early on, Saddam dies and goes to Hell, where he becomes Satan's abusive lover (hey, when you're Satan, you don't have a very good self-image). Whenever Satan would get mad at him, Saddam would sing this song:
Some people say that I'm a bad guy They may be right They may be right But it's not as if I don't try I just fuck up Try as I might But I can change, I can change I can learn to keep my promises I swear it. I'll open up my heart And I will share it Any minute now I will be born again Yes, I can change, I can change I know I've been a dirty little bastard I like to kill, I like to maim Yes, I'm insane, but it's OK Cause I can change It's not my fault that I'm so evil It's society, society You see my parents were sometimes abusive And it made a prick of me But I can change, I can change I can learn to keep my promises I know it. I'll open up my heart And I will show it Any minute now I will be born again Satan The Dark Prince: But what if you never change? What if you remain a sandy little butt-hole? Saddam Hussein: Hey Satan Don't be such a twit Mother Theresa won't have shit on me. Just watch Just watch me change Here I go I'm changing Hey Satan!
Yep, I'm gonna have to dig out my DVD and watch that one again.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 10:14:00 AM Link
...
:: Friday, September 20, 2002 ::
Iraqi Interrogatories - The usual questions about Iraq.
Victor Davis Hanson has another excellent article on National Review Online. Here's just a small sample.
Isn't going into Iraq just a bad idea?

Every war is a bad idea. When are there ever attractive options in risking soldiers in times of national crisis? The last good choice we had was in January 1991, when a huge and victorious American army had a clear road to Baghdad, with a good chance at eliminating a mass murderer who was on the verge of collapse and poised to exterminate innocents.

In contrast, our present dilemma involves something bad or much worse. Yet we must not forget that there still is a great moral difference between the depressing choice of invading and risking American lives, and the much worse policy of doing nothing and waiting to be blackmailed or attacked in the future. Preemption may be saner than reaction.

    Other questions Hanson answers include:
  • Does Saddam Hussein really pose a deadly or immediate threat to the United States — and how, as a democracy, in good conscience can we act preemptively?
  • But won't we set a bad precedent? Maybe India or Russia will do the same?
  • If we are so worried about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, why aren't its immediate neighbors equally concerned?
  • And Europe? How can we ignore their worries?
  • And the U.N.?
  • Aren't we diverting our attention from al Qaeda?
  • Won't Saddam's removal destabilize the region?
  • Won't the Islamic world turn on us?
  • But didn't we back Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran?
  • Won't Saddam gas our troops, hit Israel, or send agents to blow up cities in America?
  • But how can you be so sure that it will be easy or right to remove Saddam Hussein?
  • But why do we have to fight the Iraqi people, who are innocent?
  • Why pick on Iraq when there are also other members of the axis of evil?
Don't just sit there, go read the rest of the article.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:52:00 PM Link
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Iraq shifts troops to civvy area
The Courier Mail (Australia) has this story.
IRAQ has moved small numbers of military forces into civilian areas in what some Pentagon officials interpret as a precaution against a possible surprise US aerial attack.

Officials said yesterday it appeared Iraq believed these forces would be spared in a short-notice US attack because of the high risk of civilian casualties.

However, they said the dispersal of forces was not on the large scale Pentagon officials would expect if Iraq anticipated an imminent US-led coalition attack.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it indicated Iraq hoped to draw US attacks to civilian buildings such as hospitals and schools in order to fan the flames of anti-Americanism.

This is exactly what we have come to expect from Muslim armies. When they aren't slaughtering our women and children, they're hiding behind their own. If this is the best they can do for a strategy, they are certain to lose, and quickly. The September 11 Massacres have made a lot of Americans a lot less sympathetic to enemy civilian casualties. We no longer expect our soldiers to put their lives at additional risk because cowardly enemies have tried to turn their virtues against them.

It is a violation of the Geneva Conventions to use civilians as shields for soldiers and equipment. What we should do, after we defeat Iraq, is try, and punish as a war criminal, any Iraqi soldier who hides among civilians. We should also try and punish any Iraqi officer or civilian leader who orders such conduct.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 10:34:00 PM Link
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Mo-Town Muslims back Bush on Iraq
The Greatest Jeneration has this story.
Click On Detroit - Hundreds Show Up For Anti-Hussein Rally Here's a happening in Detroit you won't hear reported: about 500 Arab men, most of Iraqi descent, marched around the McNamara Federal Building on Wednesday to show their support for U.S. plans to use military action to end the rule of Saddam Hussein and to denounce Saddam as a "facist" tyrant who gases his own people.
Nice catch, Jen. It probably won't get much major media play, because, according to the media, all Arabs oppose action against Saddam. If all Arabs oppose action against Saddam, this couldn't happen, so therefore, it didn't happen.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 5:55:00 PM Link
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STATEMENT BY THE FOREIGN SECRETARY ON IRAQ (20/09/02)
The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office published this statement.
Responding to the Iraqi Foreign Minister's speech at the United Nations on 19 September, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said today: 'After a decade of defying and obstructing the United Nations, Iraq has confirmed its record of evasion and deceit by telling the United Nations it has no weapons of mass destruction. This blatant untruth confirms that the world can put no trust in Iraq’s word. It makes clear that Saddam Hussein’s regime remains determined to flout the United Nations’ authority. It underlines the need for extreme scepticism about Iraq’s offer to admit UN inspectors without conditions.
It's good to have allies like the Brits!
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 5:13:00 PM Link
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Arafat men surrender as Israelis wreck HQ
Reuters has this article.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - At least 19 Palestinians have surrendered to Israeli troops besieging Yasser Arafat's offices in the West Bank after army bulldozers razed the building they were in.

CNN footage showed at least 19 men coming out on Friday with their hands up, and being bound and blindfolded by waiting soldiers.

***

Israeli forces stormed the Moqata'a on Thursday night in a reprisal for suicide bombings, and demanded that militants believed to be hiding inside give themselves up.

Hit the Israelis, and they hit you back. I wonder if the Paleo-stinians will ever figure this out.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 4:51:00 PM Link
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Den Beste Follow-up
Steven Den Beste has produced a follow-up piece that answers some of the criticisms of his original post on "failed Arab culture", and clarifies a few points.
I've finally decided that the term I'm going to use for it is "Arab Traditionalism", partly because it isn't a loaded term, partly because it doesn't include any reference to Islam, and because it's perhaps a bit easier to use than some of the suggestions.

Of all the ways where I seem to have communicated badly, perhaps the greatest is in what I said about what we'd need to do. For instance, I said:

The existing Arab culture which is the source of this war is a total loss. It must be shattered, annihilated, leaving behind no more traces in the Arab lands than the Samurai left in Japan or the mounted knights left in Europe.
I also emphasized that we would have to impose change by force, and that it wasn't going to be possible to avoid the use of force. Some came away with the impression that I therefore believed that only force would be used and that it was my intention to totally annihilate Arab culture in all its manifestations, as well as annihilating Islam in all its manifestations, even to the point of seeking out and burning every copy of the Qur'an.

That's not what I was thinking. Part of the problem here is that my failure to actually choose a decent term (Arab traditionalism) forced me to use an inadequate one "Arab culture" which included too much.

I particularly liked this passage about the non-violent "weapons" we have against the Arab Traditionalists.
It's never possible to completely chart the course of a war from the beginning. All major wars involve a major element of improvisation. So I can't tell you precisely what will happen after that. What I can outline is the general shape of it, and I can tell you what our best weapon will be.

It's the Barbie Doll.

Barbie epitomizes much of what the Arab Traditionalists hate about us, because Barbie, and Nike, and Levis, and Rap Music, and a lot of other aspects of pop American culture, are irresistible to the majority of the people of the Arab world. The evidence of that is overwhelming. Part of why the Traditionalists hate us is because the infiltration of our culture into greater Arabia is seducing the people away from traditional attitudes and values, eating away at the roots of Arab Tradition like a million termites working on the foundation.

Take that, Arab Traditionalists! You can't beat our armies on the battlefield, and when it comes to the war of ideas, you can't even beat an airheaded plastic doll. You're pathetic. You're going to lose. You might as well give up now, and save yourselves a lot of pain, destruction, and death.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:17:00 AM Link
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10 Reasons the US should depose Saddam Hussein
  1. Saddam is one of the most vile, despicable, and brutal tyrants of this generation. Removing him from power and replacing him with a democratic government would be a blow for freedom.
  2. Removing Saddam would permit the current economic sanctions against Iraq to be lifted. This would lead to greater prosperity for the Iraqi people, and lower oil prices, which would be good for the economies of most of the industrial world. Lower oil prices would also reduce the revenues of our other enemies in the region.
  3. Saddam is trying to develop nuclear weapons. If he succeeds in building a nuclear arsenal, it is possible that one or more bombs might fall into the hands of terrorists.
  4. Saddam has twice invaded his neighbors. If he were allowed to develop a nuclear arsenal, he might try another war of aggression, relying on his nuclear arsenal to deter us from intervening.
  5. Saddam has, and has used, chemical weapons against his own people.
  6. Saddam is a financial supporter of terrorists.
  7. Saddam has repeatedly defied numerous UN resolutions he agreed to abide by.
  8. Saddam has not given a proper accounting of the fates of Kuwaiti and other POWs.
  9. Crushing the Iraqi Army would force other Arab states to face the fact that the West now outclasses them in every conceviable way.
  10. Occupying Iraq positions a sizable force of US ground troops where they can immediately strike at any of our other enemies in the Gulf Region.

:: Riyadh Delenda Est 12:12:00 AM Link
...
:: Thursday, September 19, 2002 ::
More on Den Beste's Magnum Opus
Yesterday, Steven posted a rather detailed explanation of why we need to shake up the Arab world and force them into the 21st century. I blogged it earlier, and now John Bono at Big S Blog has found an interesting picture taken shortly after the Japanese surrender in WWII, and has some good commentary to go with it.
Now back to the picture. This picture was taken in the days immediately after Japan's surrender to the Allies. This picture became public, and spread alarm throughout the Japanese. Why? Because it showed that Japan had been defeated. There was an obvious difference in the stature and demeanor of MacArthur v. Hirohito. MacArthur is relaxed, wearing a relatively casual khakis. Hirohito is stiff, in very formal attire, and looking a bit worse for wear. The picture created an impetus among the Japanese to engage in self examination for the first time, and with the active help of the MacArthur, truly changed Japanese society forever.
John and Steven are right. Iraq is the "champion" of the Arab nationalists. An Arab power willing to stand up to the West, Iraq has the largest, most effective army of any Arab power (which isn't saying much). Breaking Iraq and putting Saddam in the dock for crimes against humanity would force the other Arab nations to face the fact that the West has surpassed them, and outclasses them in every conceviable manner. And if they still don't get the message, breaking Iraq will put a sizeable ground force on the borders of our remaing enemies in the region.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:23:00 PM Link
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Bush asks Congress for war support
BBC News has this story.
Lobbying Congress

In announcing he was sending a draft resolution to Congress sanctioning the use of force, Mr Bush said negotiations with the Iraqis were over.

As part of his lobbying effort, Mr Bush met nine Democratic and Republican members of Congress on Thursday.

They emerged predicting bipartisan support for Mr Bush.

***

Senior members of Congress have made clear they will back the congressional resolution sought by the administration.

Damn, It's good to have a president in the White House, for a change. The only remaining questions are how large a majority he wants in both houses, and how much he's willing to trade away to get extra votes.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 6:20:00 PM Link
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Comments are working again
Feel free to sound off!
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 1:56:00 PM Link
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A Solution for Florida
Cut on the Bias may have the answer to Florida's ballot problems.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 9:29:00 AM Link
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Who is our enemy?
Steven Den Beste has an excellent new article.
But the danger isn't al Qaeda as such, though that's the short term manifestation of the danger. This war will continue until the traditional crippled Arab culture is shattered. It won't end until they embrace reform or have it forced on them. Until a year ago, we were willing to be patient and let them embrace it slowly. Now we have no choice: we have to force them to reform because we cannot be safe until they do.

And by reform I mean culturally and not politically. The reform isn't just abjuration of weapons of mass destruction. It isn't just promising not to attack any longer. What they're going to have to do is to fix all seven of Ralph Peters' problems, and once they've done so, their nations won't be recognizable.

Yes! This is the sort of thing I've been talking about. The Islamic world is going to have to abandon and repudiate the failed Arab culture and join the modern world. We cannot coexist with them otherwise. And if it comes down to who's better at killing their enemies, we win.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 2:51:00 AM Link
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Congress Must Be Clear
Senator John Edwards (D-North Carolina) has this op-ed piece in the Washington Post.
Here's what I believe the resolution should say. First and foremost, it should clearly endorse the use of all necessary means to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Second, the resolution should call for an effort to rally the international community under a U.N. Security Council mandate. The president's speech last week was an important first step, and his belated diplomatic efforts have already borne fruit. At the same time, we must not tie our own hands by requiring Security Council action. Congress should authorize the United States to act with whatever allies will join us if the Security Council is prevented from supporting action to enforce the more than 16 resolutions against Iraq.

Third, Congress should demand that the administration take real steps to win the peace. The only chance for Iraq to become a democratic, tolerant state -- and a model for the Arab world -- will be through sustained American involvement. We will need to help provide security inside Iraq after Hussein is gone, work with the various Iraqi opposition groups, reassure Iraq's neighbors about its future stability and support the Iraqi people as they rebuild their lives. Congress also should consider authorizing funds now to support such efforts, rather than waiting for events to force us to act with emergency spending.

If this is representative of Democrats' attitudes toward military action against Saddam, it's good news, indeed. Edwards is known to have presidential ambitions, but I've seen politicians support policies for worse reasons than personal political gain.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 2:18:00 AM Link
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Reports: Parts Meant for Iraq Nukes
Yahoo! News has this story.
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Aluminum tubing sent from China to Jordan may have been destined for Iraq to be used in enriching uranium for atomic weapons, international nuclear officials and a former U.N. weapons inspector say.

The reports could suggest that contrary to its denials, Iraq harbors nuclear ambitions but hasn't been able to buy the uranium it needs on the open market. On the other hand, some experts say the data isn't complete enough to make a definite judgment of Iraq's intentions.

***

One of the two nuclear officials who spoke to The Associated Press said the tubing intercepted in Jordan fits a profile that would raise alarm bells in Washington, but added it was not clear if U.S. officials were referring to that shipment.

Anybody who thinks Saddam isn't trying to enrich uranium to weapons-grade is dumber than Numb Chimpsky. However, the fact that Saddam is trying to enrich his own nuclear weapons materials does not prove that he cannot obtain weapons-grade material from outside sources.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 2:01:00 AM Link
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U.K. Man Arrested in Terror Case
Yahoo! News has this story.
LONDON (AP) - Police have arrested a computer programmer and charged him with collecting information that could be used to plan a terrorist attack, Scotland Yard said Wednesday.

Mohammed Abdullah Azam, 32, from Luton, 30 miles north of London, was arrested Sunday and has been charged under the anti-terrorism laws, a Scotland Yard official said on condition of anonymity.

He said Azam had been charged with collecting information "of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or had in his possession documents or records containing information of that kind."

Another one bites the dust! Increased vigilance is paying off. We're seeing arrests of terrorist operatives all over the world - the US, Britain, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Israel. Often, the arrest of one suspect produces evidence that leads to the next link in the chain. They may be able to run, but it's getting harder for them to hide.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 1:51:00 AM Link
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Rumsfeld Says Other Nations Promise to Aid Attack on Iraq
The NY Times has this article.
Speaking on a day that Congress disclosed strong evidence that the intelligence agencies missed signals of an impending terrorist attack last year, Mr. Rumsfeld used his appearance in Congress today to turn the argument around. He maintained that this time the administration was "connecting the dots" on Iraq before that country had a chance to use weapons of mass destruction or put them in the hands of terrorists.

"The dots are there for all to connect," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "If they aren't good enough, rest assured they will only be good enough after another disaster." By then, he said, "it will be too late."

With midterm elections less than two months away, that argument seemed to be swaying Democrats.

***

Mr. Bush, speaking in detail for the first time about the Iraqi offer, said of Mr. Hussein: "He deceives, he delays, he denies. And the United States and, I'm convinced, the world community, aren't going to fall for that kind of rhetoric by him again."

***

The most dramatic statement from Mr. Rumsfeld, during more than three hours of testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, was his disclosure that if Mr. Bush decided to attack Iraq, others would join.

"There will be other countries assisting the United States of America in the event that the United States of America decides that that is the only course available," he said.

We will certainly have help from other nations. The whole world is not as stupid as Kofi Annan.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 1:34:00 AM Link
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:: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 ::
HaloScan is Hosed
HaloScan, my comments server is down, and it's killing my page load times. I've temporarily removed the comments link from my template. I'll put it back when HaloScan gets it together. Sorry for the inconvenience.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 5:53:00 PM Link
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An interview with Scott Ritter, Restaurant Inspector.
Lileks has this.
Q. Well, you did note in 1998 that “the Taste of Tikrit still possesses several bicycles which can deliver a hot entree within a 40-block radius.”

A. Is the cafe threatening to deliver the chicken? Is it threatening to put fliers under people’s windshield wipers? Look, we’re talking about some rickety bikes here; they can barely get ten blocks.

Q. Granted, perhaps. But many former employees note that the management has been buying spare bike parts on the black market for years, upgraded its fleet, and hid these bikes around Manhattan, ready to deliver on a moment’s notice.

A. There’s no evidence of that. We have the cafe in the box; the police regularly patrol the front and the back, and if the cafe does attempt to deliver, we’ll know.

Enjoy.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 4:11:00 PM Link
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How to Conduct Weapons Inspections in Iraq
A great deal has been made of Iraq's recent "unconditional" agreement to allow weapons inspectors to return to Iraq. I think we should take the Iraqis at their word. They said "no conditions", so we should send as large an inspection force as we like, whenever and wherever we like. This raises the question of the size, number, and composition of the inspection teams we should send. My nomination for this job would be US Army VII Corps, augmented by elements of the 101st Air Assault Division and SOCOM (for their mobility and ability to carry out "surprise" inspections).

Such a force would be able to quickly locate, inspect, and if necessary, destroy any Iraqi weapons they find. And if somehow their orders got garbled, and the objective, "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" got changed to, "mass destruction of Iraqi weapons", well, c'est la guerre.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 3:50:00 PM Link
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:: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 ::
Hussein Asks: "Will These Things Really Work?"
ScrappleFace has a different explanation for Saddam's sudden willingness to have UN inspectors.
(2002-09-16) -- Saddam Hussein has invited United Nations' weapons experts to come to Iraq to examine his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

"Frankly, I just want to know if these bombs are going to work," said Hussein. "Our scientists don't have enough experience and Iraqis don't exactly have a reputation for craftsmanship. Who better to judge whether these armaments are functional than the best weapons inspectors in the world?"

It gets better. Go read the rest of the story.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:32:00 PM Link
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Daschle: Congress will vote on Iraq 'well before the election'
USA TODAY has this story.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The debate in Congress over whether to support military action in Iraq won't be derailed by Saddam Hussein's decision to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to return, with a vote on an Iraq resolution coming "well before the election," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Tuesday.

***

"I think that there will be a vote well before the election, and I think it's important that we work together to achieve it," Daschle said. "The real question is, what will the resolution say? And, in part, that will be a function of the administration's own strategy and goals."

***

A Republican skeptic of military action said Saddam's turnabout "invites us to wait and see."

"I think Ronald Reagan said 'trust but verify' — this is a great opportunity to practice that option," said House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas.

Daschle may be feeling the heat. But I hope the Texas 26th Congressional District is ashamed of Dick Armey. I'd be ashamed to call him my representative. Trust Saddam Hussein? I wouldn't trust Saddam Hussein with a worn-out paper bag full of rancid dog shit.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 9:06:00 PM Link
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Nigeria seeks to calm Miss World row
BBC News has this story.
The Nigerian Government says it is totally opposed to the stoning of a woman found guilty of adultery.

***

This comes as the organisers of the Miss World beauty pageant are coming under increasing pressure to change the venue for this year's contest, according to the BBC's Dan Isaacs in Lagos.

***

Miss Switzerland has become the latest of a series of contestants to pull out of the contest, due to take place in the capital, Abuja, November, in protest at the death sentence imposed by an Islamic court in northern Nigeria.

The contestants from France, Belgium, Ivory Coast, Norway and Kenya had already withdrawn with seven other countries, including Germany, Finland, Togo and Poland considering a boycott.

Why is Miss USA still attending this abomination? The notion that a celebration of beauty and femininity would be held in a country like Nigeria, a country where women who bear children out of wedlock are sentenced to be stoned to death, is infamous. No civilized nation should want anything to do with Nigeria. No civilized person person should want anything to do with Nigeria. No woman should go there for any reason. What were the pageant organizers thinking when they chose Nigeria?
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 7:11:00 PM Link
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Air Patrols Shift Targets in Iraq, Clearing the Way for Any Attack
The NY Times has this article.
In response to almost daily Iraqi antiaircraft fire at allied planes patrolling the no-flight zones in northern and southern Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that he had recently ordered warplanes to strike command-and-control sites, linked by Chinese-made fiber-optic networks, that guide the Iraqi surface-to-air missiles to their targets.

"I directed it," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters. "I don't like the idea of our planes being shot at. The idea that our planes go out and get shot at with impunity bothers me."

It bothers me, too.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 6:50:00 PM Link
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Welcome LGF and TANSTAAFL Readers
Make yourselves at home, check out the various links, site search, etc. Feel free to drop by anytime.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 5:14:00 PM Link
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A question for the anti-war crowd
Which of the following will do more to make the world a safer place?
  1. Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
  2. Mass destruction of Iraqi weapons
This is the choice the world faces. Choose wisely.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 1:02:00 PM Link
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Peace puzzle - Why the left can't get Iraq right
The Boston Globe has this column (link via InstaPundit)
HALFWAY THROUGH George W. Bush's term of office, one year since 9/11, and the ideal of moral clarity in US foreign policy couldn't be murkier. According to Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and Richard Perle, every moment we postpone war with Iraq damages our credibility; according to Brent Scowcroft, General Anthony Zinni, Lawrence Eagleburger, and James Baker III, nothing would damage our credibility so much as a unilateral, preemptive war on Iraq.

The Bush administration is trying to persuade ''allies'' like Saudi Arabia to sign up for Gulf War II, but somebody keeps dropping hints to the Washington Post that when Iraq goes down, the Rand Corp. will advise the president that the kingdom should go next. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, they tell the world that they desire nothing more than the liberation of oppressed Iraqis, but on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, their cheerleaders in the press bellow that what the Islamic world needs now is a crushing, humiliating military defeat that will bring a useful chaos to the part of the world running roughly from the West Bank to Islamabad.

***

The left has been divided before, but rarely has it been at once so vehement and so incoherent as this. On one side are the internationalists who find themselves emboldened by laudable military interventions in Kosovo and Afghanistan, which used US air power - but not ground troops - to overthrow two of the worst regimes on the planet. Some, like Michael Walzer of Dissent magazine, have already signed on for another Mission for Good in Iraq, becoming even more hawkish than most of the first Bush administration; others, like The Nation columnist Christopher Hitchens, have tentatively suggested that the United States might do well to consider that ''you can't subject the Iraqi people to the cruelty of sanctions for so long while leaving the despot in place.'' (Hitchens notes that since the United States has intervened on Saddam Hussein's behalf in the past, ''there is at least a potential argument that an intervention to cancel such debts would be justifiable.'' Who could have imagined that Hitchens and his lifelong nemesis Henry Kissinger would wind up sitting on the same fence, each refusing to look at the other?)

On the other side are the anti-imperialists who opposed the war in Afghanistan in stark and unyielding terms. They did not cheer the collapse of the World Trade Center; that is simple slander. But they did argue, to their shame, that the US military response was even more morally odious than the hijackers' deliberate slaughter of civilians. Some antiwar protesters were 19-year-old anarchists, some were devout Quakers, and some were Trotskyite diehards; but some were America's most distinguished dissidents at home and abroad, like Howard Zinn and Gore Vidal. And the antiwar left's arguments against war were simply astonishing. As Z Magazine contributor Cynthia Peters wrote last October, the operation that wrested control of Afghanistan from Al Qaeda and the Taliban was a ''calculated crime against humanity that differs from September 11th only in scale; that is: it is many times larger.'' Obtuse arguments like these, combined with the paranoid insistence that the United States had long planned strikes against the Taliban in order to secure an Afghan oil pipeline (a claim thoroughly debunked by Ken Silverstein in The American Prospect), have damaged the anti-imperialists' cause immeasurably.

The reason the War Party has seemed so incoherent, at times, is that there are so many arguments for war that it's hard to pick just one or two and stick with them. How often does history provide a nation with the opportunity to simultaneously remove an odious tyrant, free his people, strike a blow for nuclear non-proliferation, lower oil prices, weaken the the economies of other odious, misogynistic, and hostile regimes, while placing a large body of troops on their borders? If ever there was a war with "something for everyone", this is it. It's no wonder that some people who usually oppose war have suddenly become hawkish.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:10:00 AM Link
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Scowcroft on Meet the Press
MSNBC has this transcript from Meet the Press.
MR. RUSSERT: If the United Nations sends—votes a resolution to send inspectors back in, and Saddam refuses, and then the United Nations authorizes all necessary means, would you then support a military invasion of Iraq?

GEN. SCOWCROFT: Look, I think the president is pursuing a brilliant bit of diplomacy now. I think his speech was terrific. I think he’s put the ball exactly where it belongs. He said, “We want the U.N. to be successful and respected. We want to work with the U.N. This is a U.N. problem. If the U.N. doesn’t solve it, it will not fulfill the promise of its founders,” which was what we were hoping in 1990 to use the U.N. and make it an instrument for security. So I would say, “Yes.” As a matter of fact, the end of my article said one of the ways around this is to go back and get sanctions. If he agrees to the sanctions, then we’re prowling around in his country; even if we don’t find anything, it’s difficult. It will keep him off balance. And if we don’t, we have the casus belli that many of the countries in the world don’t think we have right now.

MR. RUSSERT: If the U.N, does not authorize military action, should the United States go it alone?

GEN. SCOWCROFT: I think then I would not object to us going alone. We have gone the last mile now to work within the world community. We have reached out to the Congress. We’re doing exactly what I think we ought to do and I applaud the president for it.

First, France, then Saudi Arabia, now Brent Scowcroft is joining President Bush. About the only one still on Saddam's side is Scott Ritter.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 1:00:00 AM Link
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Finish the War - and recognize how well it's already going.
Victor Davis Hanson has this column on OpinionJournal.
There are lulls in all wars. Even successful militaries must take their breath, as they redirect their efforts to additional theaters, reassess past performance, stockpile supplies, seek out new allies and wait for opportune weather.

***

It is time to reflect on the course of the fighting: In less than two months, the U.S. destroyed a most repressive regime. We fought without convenient bases or ports, 7,000 miles away--and against a landlocked, mountainous, and unfamiliar land whose cold peaks and warring tribes had held at bay formidable invading armies from the 19th-century British to the present-day Russians.

At the cost of a few dozen casualties, we deposed the medieval Taliban, routed the al Qaeda terrorists from their caves and then mobilized governments--whether allied, neutral or often hostile--to arrest enemy killers. The dismantling of terrorist cells is now almost a daily occurrence in Europe, Asia and the U.S. And despite the efforts of enraged bombers, hijackers and assassins in the world's major cities, so far only a few Westerners have been lost to terrorist reprisals.

The liberation of Iraq is more a question of when, not if. Even the delay in reckoning with Saddam has produced some positive effects. The administration has refined its casus belli both here and abroad. The onus is now shifting to our allies and international bodies: Why have they allowed Iraq to violate accords and stockpile weapons of mass destruction in a post-9/11 world where there is no longer any margin of safety?

America is on a roll. Our allies are falling in behind us. Saddam is trying to squirm out of his fate by offering to accept weapons inspections, but it shouldn't take long to show the world he's not really serious about them. Once Iraq falls, the American occupation forces will be stationed at the borders of our remaining enemies in the region. Getting Iraq's oil fields back into unrestricted production will be good for the Iraqi people, will help dry up the terrorist gangs' sources of money, and will lower oil prices for the rest of the world. We have the opportunity to make Iraq's people freer and more prosperous, financially strangle terrorist groups, and help our own economies at the same time. Granted, our economic payoff is strictly long-term and probably won't cover the cost of the military operations, but we will free an impoverished people, improve their economic situation, starve our enemies, and remove a potential source for terrorist nuclear weapons - and do it at a discount. Such a deal!

Hanson has knocked another one out of the park.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 12:41:00 AM Link
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Chrétien caught in a web of confusion
Mark Steyn has this column in the National Post.
Just to clarify: Most of us "war hawks" don't have a problem with the Canadian government attempting to identify the "root causes," only with the particular root cause they settled on: Poverty. The late Osama bin Laden was a wealthy man. Wealthier even than Jean Chrétien, who's spent his entire adult life in government service except for six months in the late Eighties but has happily wound up a multi-millionaire. If M. Chrétien feels he's too rich (as we must assume he does), how much more excessively rich is the late Mr. Weirdbeard? Or Saddam Hussein, whose personal fortune is estimated at US$7-billion, a career in public service in Baghdad apparently being even more lucrative than one in Ottawa. And let's not forget the representative two or three hundred Saudi princes currently accompanying King Fahd on his convalescence in Spain. A lucky London escort agency has landed the contract for servicing the Saudi swingers: The gals all have to be blonde and they're replaced every week, having been thoroughly rogered out by then.

So we could increase foreign aid. It would enable Saddam to expand his anthrax factory and the House of Saud to rotate its hookers every 48 hours. But would it do anything else? Under the terms of the Camp David accords, Egypt has been the beneficiary of the largest amount of U.S. aid apart from Israel. What's happened to it? In the 1950s, Egypt and South Korea had more or less identical per capita incomes. Today, Egypt's is less than a fifth of South Korea's.

***

Why hasn't the Middle East shared in this economic growth? Because they're failed states run by kleptocrats who govern by clan and corruption and whose starting point is to exclude half the population -- the women -- from the economic life of the country. If M. Chrétien wants to give Paul Wells's salary to President Mubarak, that's up to him but it will have zero effect on either poverty or terrorism.

***

Hmm. Sheikh al-Gamei'a and M. Chrétien are in agreement: America brought the attacks on itself. They differ only on the details: M. Chrétien thinks it's because of "arrogance," lack of niceness; the Sheikh puts it down to decadence, Jews, lesbianism, Molson, etc. Already one can see the parameters of a potential settlement emerging:

The Islamists want to kill all the Jews. What about if we split the difference and just killed half of 'em? Barbara Amiel and the other troublemakers, no shortage of candidates.

They want to behead all the sodomites. What about if we offered, say, 40%? Start with Svend Robinson, a couple of assistant choreographers and work down from there? And let's set up a Royal Commission to see if it's absolutely necessary to behead them. Maybe we could just bebottom them.

Oh, and they want to stone all the adulteresses. Let's give 'em all the broads Trudeau nailed post-'68 and that should keep 'em busy for a couple of months.

***

Bill Clinton, in the Georgetown speech approvingly quoted by Paul Wells, thought September 11th was blowback for 1095 AD:

You know something? Call me an "arrogant cowboy" but I honestly think I am blameless for the First Crusade. It was 1095. That's 907 years. Even Paula Jones would have settled. By comparison, the Japanese fought a filthy war, beheading the 22 British watchkeepers on Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands and burning their bodies in a pit, but less than 60 years later, Britain and Japan sit side by side at G8 meetings. If ever there was an occasion for the great Clintonian invocation that "we need to move on," a grudge over 1095 is surely it.

Damn, this guy's good! I'm just glad he's not French - they'd try to put him on trial. Go read the article, there's lots more good stuff I didn't quote.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 12:12:00 AM Link
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:: Monday, September 16, 2002 ::
150 Saudi pilots idle after being denied US visas
ArabNews has this story.
JEDDAH, 17 September — About 150 Saudi pilots are remaining idle at home without jobs as the American Embassy in Riyadh refused to issue them visas to complete their training courses in the United States, Al-Hayat reported.

***

US authorities have blacklisted a number of Saudi pilots after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. “These pilots are not allowed to visit the US and would be questioned if they visited,” the sources said.

The sources told the Arabic daily that the US authorities had canceled the license of some pilots, despite their long hours of flying. There are also unconfirmed reports on American advice to fire 25 pilots from service.

Saudis have abused America's hospitality. They have abused America's custom of offering training to people from other nations. If you abuse someone's hospitality, do not complain, when they ask you to leave.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:52:00 PM Link
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Author on trial over Islam 'insult'
BBC News has this story.
Prize-winning French novelist Michel Houellebecq is to stand trial on Tuesday on charges of making a racial insult and inciting religious hatred.

The controversial writer is being sued by four Islamic organisations in Paris after making "insulting" remarks about the religion in an interview about his latest book.

The novel, Platform, is also cited in the case being made by the largest mosques in Paris and Lyon, the National Federation of French Muslims (FNMN) and the World Islamic League.

In an interview given last year to the French literary magazine Lire, the author was quoted as saying "the dumbest religion, after all, is Islam".

***

He faces a year in jail or a 52,000 euro (£33,000) fine if he loses the case.

This guy understands Islam, and Muslims, better than half the Republicans and 90% of the Democrats. Only in France could someone be fined so heavily for telling the truth. I hope Platform is going to be published in an English edition.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:29:00 PM Link
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Iraq agrees to weapons inspections
BBC News has this article.
Iraq has told the UN it is ready to readmit weapons inspectors.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the offer - in a letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri - was unconditional.

Inspectors would be allowed to continue their work and Iraq was ready to discuss the practical arrangements for the return of inspectors, he said.

UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998.

But the US - which wants a regime change in Iraq - quickly dismissed the offer as a "false hope" by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"Unfortunately, more than a decade of experience shows you can put very little into his words or deeds," said a White House spokesman.

The Bush Administration is wise to be skeptical about Saddam's promises. The Iraqis need to understand that the only inspection regime that is satisfactory to the US is a completely unlimited one. As many inspectors as we choose to send. They go anywhere, anytime, as often as they feel necessary. They are to be admitted immediately to any facility they choose to inspect, and they will not be required to give prior notice of where they plan to inspect. They are not to be hampered or impeded in any fashion in their travel to and from sites they choose to inspect. Any interference with the inspectors means war.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:01:00 PM Link
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Key Sept. 11 Suspect Said to Be in U.S. Control
The NY Times has this story.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 16 — Pakistan has reportedly handed over to the United States control of a man believed to be a senior member of Al Qaeda who Washington believes was intimately involved in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

Reuters reported today that a senior American official in Washington said that the suspect, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, was turned over several days ago, but that final jurisdiction in the case remained to be determined.

I wonder when our good and dear friends, the Saudis will be this cooperative. When pigs fly? When Hell freezes over? When we pop a W-80 warhead over Riyadh? I'd really like to know what it takes to make our "ally", Saudi Arabia, act like an ally. They have obstructed our efforts to investigate, locate, and elimitate terrorists by every means at their disposal. Americans are getting sick and tired of it. The Saudis need to decide where their loyalties lie, and they need to do it soon.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 2:07:00 PM Link
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Hospital bans Florida terror scare students
BBC News has this story.
Three Muslim medical students detained on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in the US which turned out to be a false alarm are seeking an alternative place to study after a Florida hospital cancelled their internship.

Ayman Gheith, 27, Kambiz Butt, 25, and Omar Choudhary, 23, said they would not sue Larkin Community Hospital in South Miami, which received around 200 emails urging their exclusion after they were detained.

Dr. Butt? I hope he's not planning to become a proctologist. But seriously, folks, the hospital is a small one, and doesn't have the resources to deal with the bad publicity these guys created. I don't blame the hospital for sending them somewhere else. Once this flap dies down, I expect they'll find another hospital, and they'll probably be a bit more selective about their attempts at humor.

Muslims in America need to understand that we're a little touchy, right now. Thousands of our people were murdered in the name of Allah, and we've heard precious little criticism of the jihadists from so-called moderate Muslims. If American Muslims want to be treated like loyal Americans, they need to start acting like loyal Americans. Specifically, they need to speak out in the mosques, and in the media, against all terrorist groups, including those in Palestine. They also need to alert the authorities when they suspect someone of planning terrorist attacks. They need to understand that we have been patient with them. We've been a lot more patient with them than were with Japanese-Americans in WWII. But our patience is not infinite, and it is beginning to wear thin. It's time for America's Muslims to either start pulling their weight in this struggle, or find another place to live.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 1:39:00 AM Link
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:: Sunday, September 15, 2002 ::
Iraq exile says nuclear bomb months away
Reuters UK has this story.
LONDON (Reuters) - An exiled Iraqi nuclear scientist believes Baghdad is closer to building an atomic bomb than previously thought, according to The Times.

The newspaper said Dr Khidir Hamza, described as a top Iraqi nuclear researcher who fled to the West in 1994, believed that Iraq was able to make copies of a German-built centrifuge and use them to enrich uranium to produce a nuclear bomb.

The German-built centrifuge was dismantled by international arms inspectors before they were withdrawn from Iraq in 1998. But Hamza told the Times that Iraqi scientists had studied how the centrifuge was built and learned how to copy it.

"We videoed as it was put up, so we could build identical ones," the paper quoted the Iraqi as saying.

It looks like time may be running out. The UN needs to get in gear, now, before it's too late.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 10:01:00 PM Link
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War Talk Hits Its First Target: The Pivotal Ally
The NY Times has this article.
Even before he laid down that gauntlet, the French were moving, and now it appears that France is set to take the lead at the United Nations in putting new pressure on Iraq to capitulate and thus avoid war.

"In a sense we're trapped," said a senior French official. "On the one side there are the Americans and the British. On the other side are the Russians and the Chinese. We have to choose our camp. Ultimately, we will want to re-engage in Iraq. We built a strategic relationship there. We have a market. We want the oil and we want to be in the game of rebuilding the country. If there were a new regime and we have not been with the Americans, where will we be?"

It appears that France is coming around on the subject of Iraq. I think Russia will join up, too. America, Britain, France, Russia, and Australia - the old WWII coalition, back together again, by popular demand. I almost feel sorry for Saddam - almost.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 9:06:00 PM Link
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Saudi Seems to Soften Stance on Iraq Action
The NY Times has this article.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- The Saudi foreign minister said Sunday the kingdom would be "obliged to follow through" if the United States needed bases in the kingdom to attack Iraq under U.N. authority.

***

Saud's apparent policy shift came as world opinion shifted toward taking some collective action to contain Iraq, accused by the United States of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, harboring terrorists and defying the United Nations.

Last week, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher of Egypt, among the most influential Arab states, said his government would support a U.S. strike on Iraq if it were under U.N. auspices.

This is encouraging. We will still need twist some arms at the UN, but I think we have a chance of getting Security Council approval of a tough resolution with a definite deadline. It would appear that President Bush's remarks about UN "irrelevance" may have had the desired effect. And so they should.

The UN has gained the reputation among Americans as a pack of two-bit, third world countries who do nothing but demand US aid and US peacekeepers, then accuse those peacekeepers of deliberate and wanton atrocities. It is about time the US got something in return for the billions of dollars we have paid in dues and the thousands of American troops that have helped the US keep the peace.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 5:34:00 PM Link
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OKC National Memorial Picture Gallery
This 9/11, I visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I took a camera with me, and I have put up a small gallery of the better shots I took that day. Each photo has a brief caption/description of the subject.

For those not familiar with the OKC National Memorial, it was built on the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which was destroyed on April 19, 1995, by a terrorist truck bomb. 168 people were killed in the blast and rescue effort. At the time, it was the deadliest terror attack ever committed on American soil.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 3:45:00 PM Link
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Saddam Hussein Trained Al Qaeda Fighters
Reuters has this article - via PejmanPundit.
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair's promised dossier on Iraq is to reveal that Saddam Hussein trained some of Osama bin Laden's key lieutenants, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

The dossier is also expected to disclose that the Iraqi leader has reconstructed three plants to manufacture biological and chemical weapons, it said.

Blair, facing opposition from within his own Labour Party over going to war with Iraq without U.N. backing, has recalled parliament to discuss the issue later this month and promised to publish a dossier detailing evidence against Saddam Hussein.

The idiotarians just don't get it. Even if Bush were dumb enough to crawl out on a limb regarding Iraq, Blair wouldn't follow him, unless there was substantial evidence against Saddam.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 3:38:00 AM Link
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