How martyrs are made
Baghdad Residents Don't Want U.S. Troops to Go Soon, Poll Says
Iraqis: Ousting Saddam worth hardships
Why is the State Department so cozy with the Saudis? - shocking exposure

How martyrs are made- Toronto's Globe & Mail


By MARGARET WENTE
Saturday, October 11, 2003

Early last Saturday morning, 27-year-old Hanadi Jaradat waved goodbye to her parents and hurried off down the street. She had business to do -- something about a land transaction. An apprentice lawyer, she was only a few days away from finishing her internship and opening her own office. "She was happy," her father later said.

But Ms. Jaradat's true business lay elsewhere. She changed from her traditional Arab robe and scarf into blue jeans, and put her hair up into a ponytail. She slipped across a lightly guarded part of the security fence that now separates large parts of the West Bank from Israel, and made her way to a busy Arab-Israeli restaurant in Haifa called Maxim. It was full of families on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Somehow, she dodged the security check that all restaurants in Israel have these days. Inside, she detonated her body-belt full of explosives. She blew up 19 people, including herself and three generations of two different Israeli families, and injured dozens more. Five of the dead were Israeli-Arab Christians, and three were Jewish children.

The Maxim was co-owned by an Arab family and a Jewish family, and was almost 40 years old. It served both Arab and Jewish customers, and was a symbol of peaceful co-existence. No one knows if that irony occurred to Hanadi Jaradat, who is now the newest role model for Palestinian girls -- the most-successful female suicide bomber ever.

"Everyone was happy and proud of her," said a neighbour in Jenin, the explosive refugee camp where she lived. "We are receiving congratulations from people," said her 15-year-old brother, Thaher. "Why should we cry? It is like her wedding today, the happiest day for her."

The usual explanation for what motivates people like Ms. Jaradat is despair and revenge. There was plenty of that. A few months ago, Israeli soldiers killed her older brother and a male cousin. The family says they have no idea why, but the Israelis say they were Islamic Jihad terrorists. It was Islamic Jihad that claimed credit for Ms. Jaradat's murder mission.

I've heard this story before. I heard it from another family last January, who told me how their bright and beautiful 17-year-old daughter left home one day to detonate herself in a Jewish supermarket. I also learned then that young Palestinians are urged by a relentless stream of propaganda to choose violent death. This poison is manufactured not by Islamic Jihad or Hamas, but by the Palestinian Authority itself. It includes TV news shows and newspaper articles that glorify murderers (interviews with proud mothers of the dead are a standard feature), and sermons from extremist imams. It also includes a unique invention of Palestinian culture -- music videos celebrating suicide, starring attractive boys and girls in Western fashions and set to catchy music. These music videos have two themes. One is the wickedness and depravity of the Israelis. The other is the beauty of Shahada -- dying for Allah -- which is depicted as the supreme act of patriotism.

In these videos, Israelis are depicted as monsters -- cruel, sadistic people who murder mothers, children, and helpless old men in cold blood. One that ran on TV all summer (after the PA had agreed to engage in the "peace process") shows a mother who is targeted and murdered by soldiers. Her daughter mourns her death and sings sadly over her grave. In another, shot in a similarly gauzy, impressionistic style, soldiers shoot down Palestinian schoolchildren at a checkpoint in successive waves, until they're all dead. The last scene shows a graveyard, where the ghostly children rise again, presumably to ascend to the sweet afterlife. In another, a handsome young man sees his sweetheart shot dead. She ascends to Heaven, where she appears robed in white among the other maidens of Paradise. Then he becomes a martyr, too, and is reunited with her in Paradise, where they once again embrace.

Other music videos show children riding off on their bicycles to throw stones at enemy soldiers and falling happily to their death. "Don't cry for me," they write in notes left for their parents. In one, a mother mourns her fallen son and then hands a gun to the younger one (who looks to be about 12). You can see this infinitely depressing material for yourself at the Web site of Palestinian Media Watch http://www.pmw.org.il, an independent Israeli organization which has done the world a service by documenting it.

These messages, which have been broadcast for years, are part of mainstream culture. And although most Palestinians are desperately poor, almost every family has a TV. The messages run on official Palestinian Authority TV. (Since the summer, the amount of airtime has been substantially reduced, but they're still shown every day.) They are produced with money supplied by the European Union and other nations that subsidize the PA.

What political goal are they designed to achieve? There isn't one. In fact, the only goal seems to be to get rid of the Jews. The message is that all of Israel, not just the territories, belongs to the Palestinians. Palestinian textbooks don't even show the state of Israel. The entire region is depicted as greater Palestine.

One music video that aired a couple of weeks ago did show a map of Israel. There was a heart over it, dripping blood. Then, arms with stones sprouted from the ground, and in the final shot, the Palestinian flag covered the whole map.

Many outsiders believe that these extreme beliefs are confined to a small minority of people. This is not true. Yasser Arafat periodically repeats his enthusiasm for child martyrs (but only in Arabic). Soccer teams and UN-sponsored summer camps are named after suicide bombers. Last May, the director of the Palestinian children's aid association gave a television interview in which she explained that part of education policy is to teach children to aspire to death for Allah. "The concept of Shahada for him [the child] means belonging to the homeland, from a religious point of view. Sacrifice for his homeland. Achieving Shahada in order to reach Paradise and to meet his God. This is the best."

It has worked. One of the most-chilling television moments I have ever seen features two 11-year-old girls being interviewed on a news set around a year ago. They are talking about wanting to die, in the same way that girls here talk about wanting to be teachers, or doctors, or brides. "Do you think it is beautiful?" asks the adult male host. "Shahada is very, very beautiful," answers one of the girls. "Everyone yearns for Shahada. What could be better than going to Paradise?"

"Every Palestinian child aged, say 12, says 'O Lord, I would like to become a Shahid,' " says the other girl.

The story of the Yom Kippur massacre was quickly overtaken by fresh news this week. Israel bombed an empty terrorist training camp in Syria in retaliation. Governments and newspapers around the world condemned Israel for it. People criticized George W. Bush for not being tough enough on Sharon. The latest Arafat government fell apart. Wise people opined once again that Israeli will never be able to achieve a political solution through military action.

This is true. It's also true that peace will never come until Palestinians renounce their death cult. So far, there's no sign of it.

mwente@globeandmail.ca

WASHINGTON -- More than two-thirds of Baghdad (search) residents would like to see U.S. troops stay longer than a few more months, but many of those Iraqis still have sharply mixed feelings about the troops, a poll says.



Baghdad Residents Don't Want U.S. Troops to Go Soon, Poll Says

AP Oct 13, 2003

The Gallup poll found that 71 percent of the capital city's residents felt U.S. troops should not leave in the next few months. Just 26 percent felt the troops should leave that soon.

However, a sizable minority felt there were circumstances in which attacks against those troops could be justified. Almost one in five, 19 percent, said attacks could be justified, and an additional 17 percent said they could be in some situations.

These mixed feelings from Baghdad residents come at a time when many in the United States are calling for the troops to be brought home soon.

When Gallup set out recently to poll residents of Baghdad on their feelings about the war, U.S. troops and the future of their country, the biggest surprise may have been public reaction to the questioners. The response rate was close to 97 percent, with some people following questioners around the streets begging for a chance to give their opinions, said Richard Burkholder, director of international polling for the organization.

Almost six in 10 in the poll, 58 percent, said that U.S. troops in Baghdad have behaved fairly well or very well, with one in 10 saying "very well." Twenty 20 percent said the troops have behaved fairly badly and 9 percent said very badly.


REBUILDING IN THE GULF
Iraqis: Ousting Saddam worth hardships
Posted: September 24, 2003

A new Gallup poll of Baghdad residents released today shows 62 percent think ousting Saddam Hussein was worth any hardships they have personally endured since the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces.

The poll was the first scientific survey "assessing the postwar social and political climate of Baghdad's 6.4 million citizens," the Gallup Organization said in a statement. The group says it has committed to a multi-year task of reporting Iraqis' opinions.

The poll was conducted in homes across Baghdad. Galllup says 1,178 hour-long interviews were conducted.

Among the poll's findings:


*Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of Baghdad's citizens think ousting Saddam Hussein was worth any hardships they have personally endured since the invasion.

*Nearly half (47 percent) thinks the country as a whole is currently worse off than it was before the invasion - 33 percent thinks it is already in better shape.

*Two-thirds (67 percent) believe Iraq will be in better condition five years from now than it was before the U.S. and British-led invasion; just 8 percent think it will be worse off.

*61 percent take a favorable view of the new Iraqi Governing Council, but see its policies and decisions "still mostly determined by the coalition's own authorities" (75 percent).

*Fully half (50 percent) think that the Coalition Provisional Authority is doing a better job now than was the case two months ago, while just 14 percent think it is doing a worse job.



DANGEROUS DIPLOMACY

Foggy Bottom's Friends
Why is the State Department so cozy with the Saudis?

BY JOEL MOWBRAY
Monday, October 13, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

(Wall street journal's editor's note ): This is adapted from , "Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens American Security," which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore.)

The date was April 24, 2002. Standing on the runway at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, the cadre of FBI, Secret Service and Customs agents had just been informed by law-enforcement officials that there was a "snag" with Crown Prince Abdullah's oversized entourage, which was arriving with the prince for a visit to George W. Bush's Western White House in Crawford, Texas. The flight manifest of the eight-plane delegation accompanying the Saudi would-be king had a problem. Three problems, to be exact: One person on the list was wanted by U.S. law enforcement authorities, and two others were on a terrorist watch list.

This had the potential to be what folks in Washington like to refer to as an "international incident." But the State Department was not about to let an "international incident" happen. Which is why this story has never been written--until now.

Upon hearing that there was someone who was wanted and two suspected terrorists in Abdullah's entourage, the FBI was ready to "storm the plane and pull those guys off," explains an informed source. But given the "international" component, State was informed of the FBI's intentions before any action could be taken. When word reached the Near Eastern Affairs bureau, its reaction was classic State Department: "What are we going to do about those poor people trapped on the plane?" To which at least one law-enforcement official on the ground responded, "Shoot them"--not exactly the answer State was looking for.

State, Secret Service and the FBI then began what bureaucrats refer to as an "interagency process." In other words, they started fighting. The FBI believed that felons, even Saudi felons, were to be arrested. State had other ideas. The Secret Service didn't really have any, other than to make sure that the three Saudis in question didn't get anywhere near the president or the vice president. State went to the mat in part because it was responsible for giving visas to the three in the first place. Since this was a government delegation--for which all applications are generally handled at one time--the names were probably not run through the normal watch lists before the visas were issued.

Details about what happened to the three men in the end are not entirely clear, and no one at State was willing to provide any facts about the incident. What is clear, though, is that the three didn't get anywhere near Crawford, but were also spared the "embarrassment" of arrest. And the House of Saud was spared an "international incident." That normally staid bureaucrats engaged in incredible acrobatics to bail out three guys who never should have been in the United States in the first place says a great deal about State's "special relationship" with the Saudis.

The State-Saudi alliance really does boil down to one thing: oil. At least that's what former secretary of state George Shultz seems to think: "They're an important country," he told me. "They have lots of oil. You do pay a lot of attention to that." Foggy Bottom agrees, and has been conditioned to do so by the 1970s oil shocks. When the infamous oil crisis of 1973 was ballooning, America was confident that its tight relationship with the Saudis would ensure an uninterrupted flow of cheap oil. This confidence was shattered--and world oil prices more than tripled--when the Saudis pursued their own economic interests. Saudi power inside Washington skyrocketed, with bureaucrats realizing that the House of Saud could not be taken for granted.

When the next oil crisis struck in 1979, prices shot up by more than 150%--but that was mostly driven by other countries: a substantial drop in Iraqi production and the sudden halt in Iranian production. Consumer panic, hoarding by nervous companies and individuals, and price gouging also contributed. Saudi Arabia did little to deepen the crisis--Saudi-controlled OPEC implemented two comparably modest price increases in 1979--and actually was seen by many as an invaluable ally. The balance of power managed to shift even further in the Saudi direction in following years--and State became ever more willing to accede to Saudi demands.




The bond between Washington and Riyadh may have deepened because of the oil crises, but it began decades earlier. FDR initiated the oil-for-protection relationship in 1945. President Eisenhower enshrined this arrangement as a strategic goal with his Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957, where he declared the protection of the Arab world--with particular focus on Saudi Arabia--to be a national-security priority.
While official policy was coziness with the House of Saud and Foggy Bottom was dominated by Arabists, there was some degree of tension, with many officials uncomfortable with the radical Wahhabi clerics who dominate everyday life in Saudi Arabia. In 1962, President Kennedy became increasingly concerned that the civil war in Yemen--in which Egypt backed the pan-Arab revolutionaries, and Saudi Arabia backed the royalists--posed a tremendous threat to the stability of the region. According to Hermann Eilts, a former ambassador to both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Kennedy pushed the House of Saud to engage "in internal economic and political reform and end all aid to the Yemeni royalists." Such pressure, though, turned out to be short-lived. Mr. Eilts, in a review of a book by a fellow Arabist, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia Parker Hart, noted that promotion of reform--something Mr. Eilts himself found unpleasant and unhelpful--was abandoned entirely just a few years after it started.

Not until Lyndon Johnson's administration did then-secretary of state Dean Rusk wisely discontinue all such exhortations for reform, which by then had become almost rote and counterproductive. The Saudi leadership, Rusk believed, was best qualified to judge its own best interests.

But in the intervening years, the State Department's refusal to press for reform in Saudi Arabia turned into humiliating obsequiousness. Wahhabi Islam--the militant strain endorsed by the ruling family--is the only permitted religion in the kingdom. Christians are not allowed to worship on Saudi soil--and Jews are not even allowed in the country. Even Shiites, the majority population in the oil-rich Eastern Province, are not free to practice their denomination of Islam. Not only does State not push to change this flagrant violation of religious liberty, it behaves like the House of Saud when asked to do so. In 1997, the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah banned the offering of Catholic Mass on the premises--Protestant services had already been relegated to the British Consulate--because of the Saudi government's "displeasure."



Perhaps former assistant secretary (the lead position of a bureau) for Near Eastern Affairs Ned Walker said it best when he told the Washington Post, "Let's face it, we got a lot of money out of Saudi Arabia." Mr. Walker meant "we" as in the U.S. government, but he easily could have used it to refer to former Foggy Bottom officials who benefit financially after retirement. Some do it directly--and in public view, because of stringent reporting requirements--while most, including Mr. Walker, choose a less noticeable trough.
The gravy train dates back more than 25 years. In that time, it has created a circle of sympathizers and both direct and indirect lobbyists. But the most important--and most indirect--byproduct of lining the pockets of former State officials is that the Saudi royal family finds itself with passionate supporters inside Foggy Bottom. Which is precisely the intended effect. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, was quoted in the Washington Post: "If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office." This is not to say that State officials make decisions with visions of dollars dancing in their heads, but at the very least, they probably take a more benign view of the royal family that "takes care of" their friends and former colleagues.

Among the first former Foggy Bottom officials to work directly for the House of Saud was former assistant secretary for congressional affairs Frederick Dutton, starting in 1975. According to a 1995 public filing (mandated for all paid foreign agents), Mr. Dutton earns some $200,000 a year. Providing mostly legal services, Mr. Dutton also flacks for the House of Saud and even lobbies on the royal family's behalf from time to time. One of his successors as head of congressional affairs, Linwood Holton, also went to work for the Saudis, starting in 1977. Rounding out the current team of retired State officials now directly employed by the Saudis is Peter Thomas Madigan, deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs in the first Bush administration.

Most of the Saudi money, though, goes indirectly to former State officials, most commonly by means of think tanks. This approach pays dividends in many ways: Foggy Bottom retirees get to have their cake--without the public realizing they're eating it--and the Saudis get to have "indirect" lobbyists, who promote the Saudi agenda under the cover of the think-tank label. Three organizations in particular are the primary beneficiaries of Saudi petrodollars, and all are populated with former State officials: the Meridian International Center, the Middle East Policy Council and the Middle East Institute.

After a long and "distinguished" career in the Foreign Service, Walter Cutler took the reins at the Meridian International Center. He had served as ambassador to Zaire and Tunisia, and twice in Saudi Arabia, and he stayed close to the Saudis after leaving State. Mr. Cutler told the Washington Post that the Saudis had been "very supportive of the center." Meridian is not alone. The Middle East Policy Council, which also receives significant Saudi funding, counts among its ranks former ambassadors--career Foreign Service members all--Charles Freeman, Frank Carlucci, and Hermann Eilts.

The Middle East Institute, officially on the Saudi payroll, receives some $200,000 of its annual $1.5 million budget from the Saudi government, and an unknown amount from Saudi individuals--often a meaningless distinction since most of the "individuals" with money to donate are members of the royal family, which constitutes the government. MEI's chairman is Wyche Fowler, who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1996-2001, and its president is Ned Walker, who has served as the deputy chief of Mission in Riyadh and ambassador to Egypt.

Also at MEI: David Mack, former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs; Richard Parker, former ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon, and Morocco; William Eagleton, former ambassador to Syria; Joseph C. Wilson, career foreign-service office and former deputy chief of mission in Baghdad; David Ransom, former ambassador to Bahrain and former deputy chief of Mission in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Syria; and Michael Sterner, former ambassador to the UAE and deputy assistant secretary of Near Eastern affairs.

For Meridian and MEI, at least, the House of Saud is not the only government entity lining up to fund them; Foggy Bottom is as well. Meridian does significant amounts of work with State, particularly in coordinating the International Visitors Program, which determines the individuals and groups invited--and not invited--to Washington for a chance to curry favor with State officials in person. MEI last year was slated to handle a conference of Iraqi dissidents--which was going to exclude the umbrella organization of pro-democracy groups, the Iraqi National Congress--in London. (The conference was cancelled after public outcry over MEI's role.) The grant for holding the conference was a staggering $5 million--more than three times MEI's annual budget.

The money, the favors, and State's affinity for Saudi elites over the decades have all helped contribute to the "special relationship" between State and the House of Saud. Notes Hudson Institute senior fellow Laurent Murawiec, "This is a relationship that has been cemented by 40 years of money, power, and political favors that goes much deeper than most people realize."





State has by no means been acting as a rogue department in dealing with Saudi Arabia, somehow coddling a nation that various White Houses considered hostile. But the lengths to which State goes to pamper the Saudis is something largely carried out of its own volition. There is no better example of this than Visa Express, the program that required all Saudis (including noncitizens) to turn in their visa applications at private Saudi travel agencies, which then sent them in bundles to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh or the Consulate in Jeddah. Visa Express was entirely of State's own making; it was conceived of and planned for while Bill Clinton was president, and was officially launched when President Bush was in the White House. And in the three months it was operational before the September 11 attacks, Visa Express let in three of the hijackers. But State did not shut it down. It took 10 months--and tremendous public pressure--before that happened.
From the moment in early 1993 that Mary Ryan became head of Consular Affairs, the division that oversees visa issuance, consulates and embassies, traditional requirements for visa applicants started getting pared down. Partial versions of Visa Express--though not by that name--were implemented in various countries in the mid- to late 1990s. But nowhere in the world had State launched a program whereby all residents, citizens and noncitizens alike, would be expected to submit visa applications to local, private travel agencies. It was a bold--and untested--plan. Yet State chose to try out this ambitious project in a nation that was a known hotbed of al Qaeda extremists.

To be fair, most Americans were not thinking about national security in late 2000 and early 2001, but State should have been. That's its job. Khobar Towers, the U.S. military dormitory, had been attacked by Hezbollah terrorists in 1996, killing 19 U.S. soldiers and wounding 372. And State had ample information that al Qaeda was fully operational inside Saudi Arabia. Yet State went ahead with plans to launch its first nationwide Visa Express program.

Although State vociferously defended Visa Express when it came under intense scrutiny--claiming that it was almost irrelevant that travel agencies had been deputized to collect visa applications (and more, as it turned out)--the truth is that Visa Express was an incredible threat to U.S. border security. State's official line was that travel agencies did no more than, say, FedEx would in collecting and passing on applications. This was simply not true.

According to internal State documents, travel agencies were expected to conduct preinterviews and ensure compliance. In other words, people with financial incentive to obtain visas for others were helping them fill out the forms. At first blush, this might not sound significant. But the average visa application is approved or refused in two to three minutes, meaning that there are key indicators a consular officer looks for in making his decisions. With a two-page form--one page of which has questions like "Are you a member of a terrorist organization? (Answering 'yes' will not necessarily trigger a refusal)"--a travel agent who handles dozens or hundreds of applications daily could easily figure out the red flags that are to be avoided. Armed with that information, it would be relatively easy to help an applicant beat the system. Visa Express also arranged it so that the overwhelming majority of Saudi applicants never came into contact with a U.S. citizen until stepping off the airplane onto American soil.

Apparently oblivious to the glaring security loopholes created by Visa Express, State proudly implemented the program in June 2001. In an e-mail that, in hindsight, is shocking for its gleeful tone, the deputy chief of mission in Riyadh, Thomas P. Furey, wrote to Mary Ryan about Visa Express being a "win-win-win-win"--with nary a mention of security concerns. In the e-mail, Mr. Furey notes that the program started with Saudi nationals--whom he amazingly refers to as "clearly approvable"--and then says that Visa Express had been expanded to include non-Saudi citizens one day earlier, on June 25, 2001. Visa Express also resulted in the overwhelming majority of Saudi applicants never coming into contact with visa applicants. "The number of people on the street and coming through the gates should only be fifteen percent of what it was last summer," Mr. Furey wrote.

The four wins Mr. Furey boasts about? From his e-mail:


The RSO [regional security officer, an American responsible for coordinating embassy security with local police] is happy, the guard force [Saudi residents who provide embassy and consulate security] is happy, the public loves the service (no more long lines and they can go to the travel agencies in the evening and not take time off from work), we love it (no more crowd control stress and reduced work for the FSNs [Foreign Service Nationals, Saudi residents]) and now this afternoon Chuck Brayshaw and I were at the Foreign Ministry and discovered the most amazing thing--the Saudi Government loves it!
It would be easier to defend State's creation of Visa Express if it had abandoned it on Sept. 12, 2001--or at least had done so after it realized that 15 of the hijackers were Saudis, including three who got in through the program. But in the month after September 11, out of 102 applicants whose forms were processed at the Jeddah consulate, only two were interviewed, and none were refused. When word leaked to the Washington Post that 15 of the 19 terrorists were Saudis, the embassy in Riyadh assured the Saudis that the U.S. had "not changed its procedures or policies in determining visa eligibility as a result of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."
After my investigative story on Visa Express came out in mid-June 2002, State's initial change was cosmetic--literally. It dropped the name "Visa Express," but changed nothing about the program itself. Only after a month of a full-court press defending the suddenly nameless program did State shutter it. And even then, it was not because it had realized the error of its ways, but because it needed to offer some proof to Congress--set to vote near the end of July to strip State of the visa authority altogether--that it was indeed fit to handle such a vital function of U.S. border security. (The gambit worked--Congress sided with State.)

After the program was sacked, officials at State "openly worried that Saudi relations would worsen with the stricter requirements," according to an official there. If only they had expressed such "worry" about the wisdom of fast-tracking visas in a nation teeming with Islamic extremists.

Saudi Arabia, after all, is the home of Wahhabi Islam, and Wahhabi true believers' favorite catch phrase is "Death to America"--well, maybe the second favorite, after "Death to Israel." But look again at Mr. Furey's e-mail. He was clearly--frighteningly--blind to this reality. He referred to Saudi nationals as "clearly approvable." What he saw was a nation filled with people he believed belonged in the United States. Mr. Furey, in his e-mail, summed up his idealized vision of Saudi Arabia quite succinctly: "This place really is a wonderland."




State's obliviousness to reality--and security--had an even more incredible result: One of the 10 travel-agency companies contracted as a Visa Express vendor is a subsidiary of a suspected financier of terrorism. Fursan Travel & Tourism is owned by the Al-Rajhi Banking & Investment Corporation, or RBIC, which is one of the alleged financiers of al Qaeda listed in the "Golden Chain" documents seized in Bosnia in March 2002 (detailing the early supporters of al Qaeda back in the late 1980s, after the Soviets left Afghanistan). RBIC was also the primary bank for a number of charities raided in the United States after Sept. 11 for suspected ties to terrorist organizations. RBIC maintained accounts for the International Islamic Relief Organization, the Saudi Red Crescent Society, the Muslim World League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. RBIC also was used to wire money to the Global Relief Foundation in Belgium, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization.
Records recovered by Spanish authorities show that several members of an al Qaeda affiliate there held accounts at RBIC, and the terror cell's chief financier told a business partner to use RBIC for their transactions in a fax recovered by Spanish police. And they were not the only al Qaeda terrorists who did business there. Abdulaziz Alomari, who helped Mohamed Atta crash American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center and was one of the three terrorists who received a visa through Visa Express, held an account at RBIC as well. Because his visa application form--which I obtained--does not indicate which travel agency he used, it is not known whether Alomari submitted his application to the agency owned by RBIC.

The founder and namesake of RBIC, Suleiman Abdul Aziz al-Rajhi, also started the SAAR Foundation, whose successor, Safa Trust (SAAR liquidated, but most of the same people and operations carried over to Safa) was at the center of the FBI's investigation into the extensive financial network of mostly Saudi-financed terrorist activities in the U.S. Operation Greenquest, as it was called, resulted in the raiding of 23 different Muslim organizations' offices, including Safa Trust and several charities that had bank accounts with RBIC. Although the raids occurred after September 11, the FBI had been investigating the elaborate financial arrangements--which regularly included SAAR--for years before the September 11 attacks.

Yet the State Department was so careless in choosing its Visa Express vendors that one owned by a suspected financier of terrorism became deputized to handle the collection and initial processing of U.S. visas.




When driving from Jeddah to Mecca, one encounters two road signs. The first tells Muslims that Mecca is straight ahead. The other tells non-Muslims to proceed no further and take the last available exit. Welcome to Saudi Arabia, where some Muslims can practice their religion freely, and no one else can. Shiite Muslims, the majority population of the oil-rich Eastern Province, are not only not free to practice their version of Islam, but they can be imprisoned and tortured for doing so. History helps explain some of this disdain and contempt for non-Wahhabists. Mohammed ibn Saud, ancestor to the current king, struck a pact with Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab some 250 years ago, whereby Wahhab's fundamentalist clerics and followers would support the Saud family, in exchange for the royal family's generous financial support of Wahhabism, Wahhab's militant version of Sunni Islam. Modern-day Wahhabists hate nothing more--aside from Christians, Jews, and other infidels--than Muslims practicing non-Wahhabist Islam.
In a June 28, 2000, letter to then-secretary of state Madeleine Albright, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which was established by Congress in 1998 to advise Foggy Bottom, wrote:


In Saudi Arabia, the government brazenly denies religious freedom and vigorously enforces its prohibition against all forms of public religious expression other than that of Wahabi Muslims. Numerous Christians and Shi'a Muslims continue to be detained, imprisoned and deported. As the Department's 1999 Annual Report bluntly summarized: "Freedom of religion does not exist."
Even worshipping or praying in the dark of night can be a dangerous activity in Saudi Arabia, for Saudi police regularly storm into homes if they have reason to believe Christians are attempting to worship. Punishment can be severe. In 1998, a Christian Ethiopian got 1,000 lashes--carried out over several months--after merely being accused of distributing religious materials.
The worst punishments are reserved, though, for those who leave Islam. The punishment for people who commit apostasy--the "crime" of converting from Islam to another religion--is beheading. The House of Saud, however, promotes conversions of a different kind--bringing people into Islam, particularly those who work in embassies. Paid on a sliding scale, those who cajole others into converting to Islam are rewarded with bounties of up to $20,000. The highest payment is for converting an American diplomat; lower payments of a few hundred dollars are given for converting a foreign national from one of the non-Western embassies.

Based on overwhelming evidence of religious persecution and overall denial of any form of religious liberty, the Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended--for the fourth year in a row--that State designate Saudi Arabia as one of the handful of nations considered a "country of particular concern (CPC)." According to the commission, Saudi Arabia qualified under every criterion--and was actually seen as the worst offender in the world.

But for the fourth year in a row, State didn't comply. The CPC designation is despised by listed countries, because it automatically triggers sanctions, though those sanctions can be easily waived for reasons of U.S. national interest. Under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which both created the commission and mandated that State provide annual reports on international religious freedom, State has no leeway on whether or not to report a country that meets certain standards of religious persecution or denial of religious liberty.

There is a simple explanation for the Saudi exclusion: higher-ups at State put their collective foot down. According to an administration official familiar with the internal squabbling surrounding the Saudi-CPC question, "It was Armitage's decision. He made the call." That would be Richard Armitage, Foggy Bottom's No. 2 official, Secretary Colin Powell's right-hand man, and a trusted friend of the Saudis. In the Powell State Department, Mr. Armitage is the filter through which all major policy changes must go. And Mr. Armitage made it quite clear, according to another official, that Saudi Arabia was not to be given the CPC designation. A different administration official, however, says that although politics played a part, Mr. Armitage's role in the process was a bit more nuanced, meaning those writing the report were made to "know" early on how things operate and what wouldn't be tolerated. "Let's put it this way: the decision [on Saudi Arabia] was made a long time before it was actually 'made,' " explains the official. Either way, the House of Saud received another free pass.





Prince Bandar is often considered the most politically savvy of all the foreign ambassadors living in Washington. That may or may not be true--but he certainly is the best-protected. According to a Diplomatic Security official, Prince Bandar has a security detail that includes full-time participation of six highly trained and skilled DS officers. (DS officers are federal government employees charged with securing American diplomatic missions.) The DS officers and a contingent of private security officers guard him at his northern Virginia residence and travel with him to places like Florida or his ski resort in Aspen, Colo.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that State was reimbursed by the Saudi government for the use of the DS officers, though he refused to provide any specifics or evidence to that effect. Even if the salaries are reimbursed, though, six skilled DS agents are diverted from meaningful work, such as investigating visa fraud, in order to protect one person.

To show his appreciation for their presence, Prince Bandar provides the DS agents with catered meals every day, and with fresh-brewed coffee and gourmet pastries to start out the mornings. The agents enjoy these delicacies from the comfort of an extra house on the premises reserved for the security staff. When the DS agents join Prince Bandar in Aspen--where they have their own ski chalet--he typically buys them full ski outfits and other gifts.

But each agent who works for Bandar is cycled off-rotation very quickly: on average about 30 days after arriving. There doesn't seem to be any real reason for this, other than that Bandar might hope that the more agents he serves catered meals and buys fancy gifts for, the more friends he is likely to have. But with the number of "friends" he--and the rest of the Saudi royal family--already have at Foggy Bottom, one wonders why he would need more.

Mr. Mowbray is author of "Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens American Security" (Regnery, 2003), from which this article is adapted. You can buy it from the OpinionJournal bookstore.

Some of last week's worthwile articles
Oct. 5, 2003

America's unheralded victory
Our media jihadis
Sharon and Yom Kippur
Learn about California's recall...
A warning to journalists
We Won! - excerpts
Media double standard couldn't stop Schwarzenegger
Cowardice costs - excerpt
Great myths about the Great Depression
Will advocacy disguised as journalism succeed?
Weapons of mass distraction
Rush Limbaugh: Part I
Don't bother me with the facts

America's unheralded victory
By CAROLINE GLICK


FORT STEWART, Georgia I arrived at Fort Stewart, the home of the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division, early this week to meet with the soldiers and officers of the 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion, 1st Brigade, who had recently returned home after completing their deployment in Iraq. It was with these men that I hitched a ride through Iraq as an embedded reporter during the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The 3rd Infantry was the main combat force in Iraq from the March 19 invasion through the fall of Baghdad on April 9. After the city's fall, the 1st Brigade took control of neighborhoods on the eastern side of the city, where the bulk of the population lives.

"We relieved the 87th Marine Regiment of their sectors east of the Tigris River. When we arrived, we felt like we had entered the Wild West.
Buildings were burning, car-jackings and looting were rampant. We had Iraqi police officers wearing military uniforms armed with AK-47s who we assumed were Iraqi military forces," 1st Brigade Commander Col. William Grimsley explains. "We held the zones until June 5. During those two months we oversaw the transformation of the area from a chaotic environment to an ordered city."

From the soldiers' perspective, the main US failure in Iraq to date has little to do with the situation on the ground. The main failure is the inability to transmit the reality they experienced daily to the American people.

"Our biggest mistake was letting go of the embedded media," says 2-7 executive officer Maj. Kevin Cooney.

"After the embedded reporters left, the reports coming out had no context. The reporters didn't understand the situation. They had no sense of what was actually going on and they didn't seem to care. They acted like ambulance chasers moving from one attack against US soldiers to the next without giving any sense of the work that was being accomplished," says Maj. Rod Coffey.

That work was vast. They opened schools; they paid civil service employees; they purchased school supplies; they hired contractors to fix and build sewage, electrical and water lines; they secured vital installations; and they cultivated ties with Iraqi citizens who were capable of providing services to the citizenry and information and intelligence to the US forces.

Much of this work was conducted in the blazing summer heat when the soldiers themselves were living in substandard conditions with sporadic electricity and water supplies. In the meantime, they conducted surprise sweeps and raids in search of arms, fugitives and terrorists.

How were they able to make the transition from fighters to administrators? According to the men, the main reason was the warm welcome they received from the Iraqi people.

"Everywhere we went we were surrounded by dozens of children smiling and waving at us."

"Old people came out of these hovels they lived in and gave us bread and invited us into their homes.
"We knew that they were giving us what they had and we understood how much they appreciated that we had liberated them from Saddam," says Specialist Jennings Roberts.

Grimsley notes ruefully that after the embedded reporters left, the brigade had great difficulty persuading journalists to accompany his men on their missions to report on what they were doing.
"They were all living in the Palestine Hotel and did not want to leave," he says of the reporters. "We had to beg them to come out with us. And on a number of occasions when they did come, and we knew that they had written up what they had seen, we found that for whatever reason, their newspapers did not publish their stories."

The sense the men share of being welcome in Iraq by the majority of Iraqis is backed up by recent opinion polling data which show that the majority of Iraqis do not want the US forces to leave.Yet largely because of the slant of the news reports about Iraq, it is hard to grasp just how far the US has come in a country where tens of thousands took to the streets on September 12, 2001 to celebrate the bombings of New York and Washington.

The men are quick to admit that liberating Iraq physically was easier than shepherding its people towards democracy and fair governance.

"The Iraqis who worked under the regime are incapable of exerting authority. They survived under Saddam by carrying out instructions without question and they still refuse to make a decision without receiving permission from us," says Grimsley. "We realized this when they asked us for permission to open schools. We couldn't understand why they needed our permission to do something that seemed obvious to us, but then it sunk in that what we were seeing was the result of the perversion of a society that lived under total repression for more than 30 years."

The mindset will doubtlessly take years to change.

Even the capture or killing of Saddam will only solve part of the problem. The other problem is that the Bush administration is not sending a message of absolute resolve, while those forces who wish the US to fail are. By targeting GIs and supporters of the Iraqi Governing Council, these forces are working to create a perception of mayhem and chaos that flies in the face of the actual progress on the ground.

The Western media isn't helping matters. In underreporting the successes the US has achieved while over-reporting the difficulties, it creates irrational expectations among the American public that Iraq should be completely rehabilitated in a matter of months.

Equally unhelpful are the so-called multilateralists within the international community, who understand that American success in turning Iraq around bodes ill for the United Nations' bid to establish itself as the ultimate arbiter of global affairs.

Then too, the administration perhaps did not fully comprehend the magnitude of the task it was undertaking when the decision was made to go to war. Not only would Iraq have to be de-Baathified in the way Germany was de-Nazified. It would have to do so while some of Iraq's neighboring states remained under the control of totalitarian, American-baiting regimes intent on reversing the results of the war.

Yet in spite of the negative publicity, the international hostility, the meddling of neighbors and the work of saboteurs, US forces are quietly succeeding in their task. The men all noted that the day that Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed by US forces, the celebration on the streets of Baghdad put Independence Day fireworks to shame.

"And yet, when the 11PM curfew came around, the carnivals abruptly ended and everyone went home," Grimsley explains. "The Iraqis have a healthy respect for power judiciously applied." In other words, Iraqis both applaud and respect the US for deposing their oppressors.

The soldiers paid no attention to the politics in Washington while they were in Iraq. They try to avoid watching the news now that they are home. But when they do see the reports, they are troubled by the distortion.

"The reporters that came to see us when we returned home ignored the tremendous pride we all feel in what we accomplished while we were over there," says Coffey.

Coffey himself was the subject of an odd front page photograph in the New York Times three weeks ago. The photo-editor lopped off his head to show a picture of his son embracing a headless torso in uniform, weighed down with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Coffey's son was crying. ("Probably because he had just gotten into a fight with his older brother. He wasn't crying over me, I had already been home for a week.") The decorated chest evoked no emotion from a reader.

In a way, this bizarre photograph tells the entire story of the campaign to prevent the US from winning. If the American public is deprived of a view of its heroes, who won a war and are winning the peace, they will, sooner or later, abandon the fight.


Oct. 4, 2003
Our media jihadis
By BRET STEPHENS


So here's the question of the week, month, year: After Iraq, will the media ever again allow a democracy to topple a fascist dictatorship?

The question isn't mine but John Reid's. On March 31 at nine o'clock in the morning, the Labour Party Chairman was in 10 Downing Street watching the TV news. On screen were pictures of "distressed Iraqi civilians and dead allied soldiers." Reid became incensed. "The broadcasters are in Iraq not because they want to tell the truth, but because of commercial competition," the Glaswegian told Times Magazine writer Peter Stothard. "It's a disgrace."

As we know, within a few days the media that so irritated Reid got its comeuppance: The Marines entered Baghdad, Saddam's statues came down and, just as Dick Cheney had predicted, Iraqis cheered. But as we also know, that wasn't the end of the war, just the moment when Baathist unrepentants resorted to a death-by-one-thousand-cuts strategy. Ditto for the media unrepentants. They failed to stop the war and they failed to lose the war. But they haven't stopped trying to reverse the result, and it bids fair that they will yet do so.

WHO ARE these media jihadis? The charge sounds a bit McCarthyite, so I'll be specific.

"I have a confession," wrote Salon Executive Editor Gary Kamiya on April 10. "I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have identical feelings."

Or take Jonathan Schell, writing in the Sept. 22 issue of the Nation: "[Democratic Senator Joe] Biden says we must win the war. This is precisely wrong. The United States must learn to lose this war a harder task, in many ways, than winning, for it requires admitting mistakes and relinquishing attractive fantasies. This is the true moral mission of our time."

To their credit, Kamiya and Schell are candidly anti-American; there's no dissembling with them. Not so with other media jihadis. What, for instance, is one to make of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who recently described US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "the man who trashed two countries"? Or of her colleague Paul Krugman who, as Iraqis were still celebrating their freedom on April 11, could only sniff: "I won't pretend to have any insights into what is going on in the minds of the Iraqi people.

But there is a pattern in the Bush administration's way of doing business that does not bode well for the future...."?

Elsewhere in the world, it's pretty much the same. In its report on the toppling of Saddam's statue in Baghdad, a Guardian reporter could say only: "There are no statues of Ahmed Chalabi in Iraq just yet, but it is probably only a matter of time." Out with the old anti-American megalomaniac; in with the new pro-American megalomaniac. On the second anniversary of September 11, a presenter on the BBC's World Service remarked: "At the one extreme you have George W. Bush, at the other Osama bin Laden...."

And in France, Mathieu Lindon, a journalist writing in Liberation, described the mood of his colleagues: "We are very interested in American deaths in Iraq .... We will never admit it, [but] every American soldier killed in Iraq causes, if not happiness, at least a certain satisfaction."

Well, well.

At least the French aren't wishing their own boys ill. Not so with the jihadis of the American and British press. For Dowd, Schell, Kamiya, Krugman and their colleagues in Britain, hatred of Bush is the premise, the first principle, the animating impulse shaping all arguments. It's not exactly that they want America to lose. On that score they are pretty much indifferent. But what is certain is that they want Bush to lose, and insofar as his political fortunes rise or fall on coalition success in Iraq, they are on the side of failure.

Hence the jihadi tactics. Let's see: We've had Blair's sexed-up dossier; uranium from Niger; British scientist David Kelly's (apparent) suicide; and the "outing" of Joe Wilson's third wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Each of these scandals has more or less amounted to nothing. So Bush, in his State of the Union address, noted that British intelligence believed Saddam was importing "yellow cake" uranium ore from Niger? Well, the British did make that claim. So Blair underscored that Iraq could deliver a WMD warhead within 45 minutes? Well, that's what his intelligence chiefs told him. So David Kelly killed himself as the glare of the public spotlight became unbearable? It turns out the BBC used him far worse than the government.

So Joe Wilson accuses the White House of blowing his wife's cover? Pretty rich, coming from a man who went on a secret CIA mission of his own and then wrote about it in a New York Times op-ed.

Of course, the hard fact upon which all these accusations are based is that so far weapons of mass destruction have not been found in Iraq. From that the conclusion is drawn that "Bush lied." It might bear pointing out that it took the US Army five months to discover an ordnance cache in the open desert weighing about 650,000 tons, so maybe it'll take a bit longer to find the elusive WMD. It might also bear pointing out (I'm hardly the first to do so) that Bush's "lies" were pretty much identical to Clinton's statements on the matter.

But never mind. The issue is not WMD, or what the president or prime minister knew, and when, or whether the peace process is advancing or retreating, or whether Iraq is better or worse off than before. The issue is, how is the president to be defeated at the next election? By miring the White House in scandal.

By creating the perception that things aren't going well in Iraq. By creating momentum to bring the boys home. This is guerrilla warfare, and it is the task to which the media jihadis have dedicated themselves.

THE BEST that can be said about these people is that they believe, honestly, that George Bush is the world's greatest menace, against which the Saddam's of the world pale. Hence the Guardian can editorialize (as it did September 16) that "Iran's Fears Are Real," that the ayatollahs' intentions are peaceful and that the only nations engaged in a "dastardly plot" are "located in the West." Hence development guru Jeff Sachs can allege that the $20 billion Bush wants to earmark for Iraqi reconstruction is a racist plot because Africans are worthier recipients of US largesse. Hence Paul Krugman can opine, in our post-September 11 world, that "The real threat isn't some terrorists who can kill a few people now... but the internal challenge from very powerful domestic political forces who want to do away with America as I know it."

But assume for a moment that these people really are, as Kamiya puts it above, "serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people." If that's the case, one must discount their honesty. Do the editorial writers at the Guardian truly believe Iran threatens nobody, and that its leaders only want "to develop the nation's economy"?

Does that country's apparatus of repression even rate their notice? What about Iran's threat to annihilate Israel? Does Maureen Dowd have nothing to say about Afghanistan and Iraq except that Rumsfeld "trashed" them? Can she muster no joy that millions of Iraqis and Afghans no longer live under the Baathist or Taliban boot? Does Jonathan Schell think democracy in Iraq is an idea worth attempting? Great liberal that he is, does he believe Arabs are capable of democracy?

I don't really know if our media jihadis are honest fools or dissembling geniuses. In my experience, people who speak of themselves as "serious, intelligent and morally sensitive" tend to be frivolous, glib and morally callous. Above all, they are self-deceiving. They love to talk about how much they care for the indigent and oppressed, and they believe what they say. But when George W. Bush goes ahead and does something for the indigent and oppressed, that's a lie and an outrage and a sweetheart deal for the Halliburton and Bechtel Corporations.

And they really believe that, too.

One day, perhaps, we'll get a satisfactory explanation as to why a president whose chief sins seem to be that he was born to an influential family, isn't articulate, and piously believes in Christ should be treated as the Great Satan. In the meantime, we must bend every effort to prevent our media jihadis from doing to Western public perception what the Middle East's jihadis are trying to do to Iraqi infrastructure: Destroying the foundations upon which a more hopeful future may arise.

bret@jpost.co.il


Oct. 1, 2003
Sharon and Yom Kippur
By URI DAN

When Ariel Sharon took office as prime minister in March 2001, he phoned to thank me for standing by his side. I had done so as a friend and journalist for many years, both when he was a senior IDF officer and later a political leader.

I replied that he didn't have to thank me, and that I was going to reveal a secret I had kept for many years.

"What's the secret?" asked Sharon with his usual curiosity. Some kind of mysterious skeleton, he perhaps thought.

I told him: "When I arrived in your APC at the western bank of the Suez Canal, at the rear of the Egyptian enemy on October 17, 1973, after you had been wounded on that same day, I made a vow to help you all my life; because only you were capable, in those impossible conditions, of crossing the canal and turning the initial Israeli defeat into victory."

For a moment there was silence. Then the prime minister, clearly moved, replied: "That's right."
"Now, as prime minister," I continued, "you will have to cross an ocean of Palestinian hatred in order to defeat their terror offensive."
"Also true," Sharon replied.

Just like 30 years ago, as a major-general commanding the 143 Reserve Armored Division on the Suez Canal, Prime Minister Sharon is a lone decision maker. He listens to everyone but makes the decisive sometime surprising decisions himself.

"This is the loneliness of the commander, which I have known for many years," the premier told me over a late evening meal at his official residence after another grueling day.

We talked about the Yom Kippur War. "The war could have been shortened if they had listened to me."
Now that audio tapes recorded at IDF supreme headquarters of the front have been released, what I already knew has become public knowledge: The high command caused a prolongation of the war in Suez because they didn't listen to Sharon.

On October 8, the third day of the war, he proposed a counter-attack against the Egyptians on the Canal with a force of two divisions.
I photographed him that day in all his command loneliness. On the one hand he was fighting the Egyptians, while on the other he had to struggle against IDF generals Shmuel Gorodish and Haim Bar-Lev and the CGS David (Dado) Elazar.

On that October 8, an attack by Maj.-Gen. Avraham (Bren) Adan's division was repulsed. Sharon had already established a bridgehead on the western bank of the Suez Canal and surprised the Egyptians.

"We lost at least two valuable days in the war when supreme headquarters halted the transfer of armor to the western bank of the Canal after we crossed," Sharon told me last month. "We could have shortened the war and achieved an even greater victory. Supreme headquarters had an excuse: "The bridgehead isn't secure."

Senior officers knew Sharon was the most talented general at the front. They couldn't bear looking up to him despite their seniority. "They didn't want me to be the first to cross the canal," said Sharon.

SHARON delivered more victories over the Arabs than all other senior officers combined.
It was when I watched him fighting both the Egyptians at the front, and the Jews back at headquarters and delivering victory against all odds over the Egyptians that I made the vow which I revealed to Sharon during that telephone conversation.

Sharon's task is not easy, particularly now that he is responsible not only for a single decisive battle, but for the fate of, as he puts it, "The entire Jewish nation." His daily decisions are not only on defense issues and international relations, but also the economy.

Yet even now many hateful opponents from within are trying to isolate him, employing slander in the hope of bringing him down accusing him of criminal activities in the hope of harming him.
Motivated by personal reasons, former national security advisor Ephraim Halevy has attacked him. A group of pilots recruited by the extreme Left to undermine Sharon's policy has, in effect, carried out a kamikaze mission.

The uproar it has caused will have no influence on the IDF's fighting ability. But it's a struggle. There are also some Jews and Israelis who, in their impudence and hatred of Sharon, vainly attempted to bring him to trial in Brussels for "war crimes."

In contrast to the views of Haaretz commentators, Sharon will serve out his entire term of office as Israel's premier. He is not one to lose his composure, and he is not prepared to give up the the lonely job of leadership.

I see him there, just as I saw him at the Suez Canal 30 years ago, making the toughest decisions fortunately for Israel. Yesterday's thunder of guns at Suez, and the repudiation of Sharon by the Supreme Command, were far more dangerous than today's poisonous attacks by his political opponents.

Note: Sharon almost never raises his voice. He didn't raise it when he spoke over the IDF communications net from the armored corps that crossed the Suez Canal in 1973. Nor does he today, 30 years on.

The writer is Israel corespondent for The New York Post.


Learn about California's recall...from an apolitical source (Berkeley Univ).

http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/library/htRecall2003.html


A warning to journalists

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | "At Syms, an educated consumer is our best customer." That's the slogan of the Manhattan clothier but followers of current national events should not have to rely on their own efforts to get at the truth. That is supposed to be the duty of journalists but sadly, that is no longer the case. To accurately decipher current events and their importance, readers have to educate themselves rather than rely on certain news sources. Opinions that used to be restricted to the editorial pages now cloud news articles and not only are readers recognizing that fact, they are starting to rebel.


Over 1000 subscribers to the LA Times canceled their subscriptions because of that paper's obvious partisan attack on Arnold Schwarzenegger just days before the recall election. The West Coast newspaper used to have a policy rejecting all charges made by anonymous sources. According to syndicated columnist Jill Stewart, that was the case in 1997 when the paper rejected her article asserting leveling negative charges against Governor Gray Davis. The LA Times, however, had no compunction in reporting anonymous charges against Schwarzenegger in the final hours of the campaign.


It used to be difficult to assess the political predilection of journalists but that was a very long time ago. Walter Cronkite was once named the most trusted man in America because he could be relied on to report the facts fairly and sans bias. He waited for his retirement to reveal which side his political loyalties lie but no such mystery exists about current broadcast anchors. In my opinion, Tim Russert of NBC's Meet the Press is the only network journalist who understands the importance of a fair and balanced interview.


What may be fueling the increasing lack of impartiality among journalists is the high level of animosity towards President Bush emanating from traditional liberals in the Fourth Estate. Many regard this as payback for the shrill voices of the Clinton-haters during and after that administration. But is turnabout fair play when so many lives are at stake? I think not.


While vicious discourse has always been part and parcel of the political forum, we are now engaged in WWIII, a global struggle in which many lives and our own existence are at stake. Kudos to a brave Democratic congressman, Jim Marshall of Georgia, who recognized the hazards of extreme partisanship.


In an interview with Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media, the congressman warned, "we have a problem with overly pessimistic media coverage that emboldens our enemies, discourages our potential allies and lessens our resolve." He also said, "media bias is killing our troops." Congressman Marshall who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee was on a fact finding trip to Iraq and reported that there is good news to balance the bad but that there is " a disconnect between the reporting and the reality."


I'll say! Consider the recent release of U.S. Weapons Inspector David Kay's progress report to Congress on the search for WMD's. The New York Times headlined the story "No Illicit Arms Found in Iraq." On the other hand, John Podhoretz of the New York Post reported that key evidence was found. In both cases, the information was accurate but a careful reading of the report itself, however, not only vindicates the president's position it also supports his contention that danger was imminent.


Mr. Kay's statement includes details of a $10 million contract between North Korea and Iraq for the purchase of prohibited military equipment and 1,300-km range ballistic missiles. Military experts have concluded that the only reason North Korea did not deliver that equipment was because it knew that the U.S was going to attack Iraq. What if we had not gone to war? Mr. Kay 's reported testimony from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials confirm that Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. But don't just take my word for it. Read it yourself at www.CIA.gov.


This significance of Kay's report should have been given widespread and accurate coverage in the mainstream press. Instead it has been spun to satisfy each editor's ideological agenda and the public is further polarized. I watched a pundit on the Chris Matthews show argue that the report proves that the United States was not in danger because the missiles could not reach our shores. Apparently, the danger to Israel and the rest of the Middle East is unimportant.


It's foolish and inaccurate to bandy the word 'treason" about lightly but the level of partisan sniping is so out of control that it needs to be reined in. I am reminded of the brilliant Alec Guiness' portrayal of a British POW in Bridge on the River Kwai.


His character is so consumed with ego and ambition that he collaborates with the enemy to build a strategic bridge. Only after betraying his fellow POWs' efforts to sabotage the project and causing several of their deaths, does he come to his senses and realizes the horror of his complicity.


Memo to all journalists and rabid politicians-this is not a movie.


JWR contributor Alicia Colon is a columnist for the New York Sun.


We Won! - excerpts

Greg Crosby


The last minute smear tactics of the Left Angeles Times failed pathetically. The gutter politics engaged in by that paper showed them for what they have always been - a political house organ for the left. A hack newspaper. As one commentator said shortly after the Times began their puke journalism, "if you go out this morning and find your LA Times in the gutter, leave it there - that's just where it belongs."


The problem I have with the Times is that it pretends to be fair to all sides and it clearly isn't. Its news reporting is consistently left-leaning. I'm talking about the front page, the place where news is supposed to be reported factually without commentary and viewpoint. Look, if the Times wants to run editorials and op-ed pieces day after day that are only liberal that's fine - it is their prerogative, and I'm okay with that. But, the Times doesn't stop with the editorial pages, their bias permeates the front section, the Metro, the Calendar section, the food section, and even the comics section (check out which comic strip is printed twice the size of all the others - hint: it's not BLONDIE). Hell, if they could figure out a way of getting a liberal slant into the classifieds, they'd do it.


And what the Times tried to do to Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Thursday before the Tuesday election stoops to a new low, even for them. No wonder they're being called "The Los Angeles Slimes." In the past they'd at least try to be subtle with their little biases, like always referring to Schwarzenegger as "the actor." But then, in the last few days of the campaign they must have gotten really scared - because they dropped all pretence and went totally blatant with their contempt for Arnold by attempting to make a sex scandal where none existed. Well, it didn't work. I guess "the paper of record" for California isn't as influential as they think they are. The Times not only lost the election, they lost thousands of subscribers. At the risk of repeating myself, HA,HA,HA,HA,HA,HA,HA,HA,HA,HA,HA,HA!


Media double standard couldn't stop Schwarzenegger

Larry Elder


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | The Los Angeles Times, only days before the Oct. 7 California recall election, published a front-page article alleging that Republican gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger groped six women. Only two women gave their names, with four refusing to disclose them. Of the anonymous women, three still work in the Hollywood industry, and refuse to give their names, fearing reprisals. The fourth, while not in the industry, nevertheless feared a mega-reaction if she revealed her name.


The Los Angeles Times admitted that they assigned several reporters who spent seven weeks investigating alleged instances of sexual misconduct by Schwarzenegger. They also admitted that none of the women came forward or that any of the incidents came to light as a result of information provided by any of Schwarzenegger's "rivals."


(Technically, this excludes Governor Gray Davis as the governor's name, by law, does not appear on the replacement ballot.)


No one excuses sexual misconduct -- groping, unsolicited touching or crude remarks and cad-like behavior. Indeed, Schwarzenegger, while not addressing the specific allegations, apologized for past improper behavior and apologized to women whom he offended. The next day, and the day after, the Times published allegations of yet more women who also accused Schwarzenegger of improper sexual behavior.


First, let's discuss timing. One day before the allegations were printed, the Los Angeles Times published a poll showing that the majority of Californians supported the recall and 40 percent intended to vote for Schwarzenegger for governor, putting him over 10 points ahead of his nearest rival. Then -- bam! -- come the allegations.


Also, the Los Angeles Times, on the first page on the same day, ran a headline accusing of Schwarzenegger of taking his election for granted, with a headline called, "Acting as if It's in the Bag." Note the "acting" reference, a dig at Schwarzenegger's presumed lack of qualifications for the office. The article suggested Schwarzenegger engaged in smugness by outlining a 10-step plan for his first hundred days in office. Yet, the same day, in an editorial, the L.A. Times chastised anyone for voting for empty-suit-Schwarzenegger because, according to the paper, he lacked a specific agenda or plan to bail California out of its fiscal jam. So which is it? The "actor" as unprepared to lead, or the "actor" as arrogantly preparing to do so?


The Los Angeles Times, understand, supported Gray Davis when he first ran, supported him again for re-election, and editorialized strongly against the recall.


Former Los Angeles Times reporter Jill Stewart worked with the paper for seven years, quitting because she felt that the paper frequently squashed important stories. Stewart recently wrote about her 1997 story, published in an alternative paper, the now-defunct New Times, "My article . . . detailed how (then Lieutenant Governor/gubernatorial candidate) Davis flew into a rage one day because female staffers had rearranged framed artwork on the walls of his office. He so violently shoved his loyal, 62-year-old secretary out of a doorway that she suffered a breakdown. . . . Another woman . . . had the unhappy chore in the mid-1990s of informing Davis that a fundraising source had dried up. . . . Davis began screaming the f-word at the top of his lungs. The woman stood to demand that he stop speaking to her that way, and, she says, Davis grabbed her by the shoulders and 'shook me until my teeth rattled. I was so stunned I said, 'Good G-d, Gray! Stop and look at what you are doing. Think what you are doing to me!'"


The Los Angeles Times, despite having this story -- Stewart says she "crossed paths" with their reporters while working on hers -- never published any allegations of Davis' physical and verbal abuse of his employees. Why? Stewart claims the paper cited its policy of refusing to run negative stories on major "public figures" while using anonymous sources.


Yet, in Schwarzenegger's case, the newspaper apparently abandoned its own policy by using allegations of four women who refused to disclose their names! Did the Los Angeles Times, for this recall election, send several reporters who spent seven weeks investigating allegations of verbal and physical misconduct against Governor Gray Davis? And why did the Los Angeles Times reveal the allegations only days before the October election? Stewart claims -- and the Times denies -- that the paper knew of the allegations at least two weeks ago, but sat on the story. Could it be that the Los Angeles Times waited to pull the trigger until a poll showed Schwarzenegger ahead in the race?


Who knows. But the whole thing reeks of a double standard. Bill Clinton remains popular despite women who came forth such as Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick, alleging everything from groping to rape. But, as we all know, Republicans face a higher standard than do Democrats. In any case, this failed to stop The Terminator.


Cowardice costs - excerpt

By David Warren

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Israel's weekend attack on the Islamic Jihad camp near Damascus was an act of cowardice, properly considered. The target was legitimate enough, and the best proof of this was the immediate Syrian effort to seal it from journalistic inspection; together with Hizbollah reprisals along the Lebanon frontier. Had the target been the mere hiking trails Syrian propaganda described -- and which liberal media immediately swallowed whole -- it would not have had the kind of fencing and gates around it that at least one enterprising journalist observed. Moreover, the Syrian authorities would have led a media parade through the bombsite.

The regime of Bashir Assad in Syria knows what I know about the Western media: you don't have to show them a thing, for they'll quote you uncritically. The only credential you need is animosity towards the U.S. and Israel. Whereas they will not even condescend to read David Kay's remarkably damning and elaborately proven report on Saddam Hussein's illegal weapons programs fully vindicating the Bush and Blair positions that led them into Iraq. Once again I must say -- without qualification -- that our mainstream media are, despite their protestations of innocence and "objectivity", objectively working for the enemy.

Great myths about the Great Depression
Thomas Sowell

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | They say "truth will out" but sometimes it takes a long time. For more than half a century, it has been a "well-known fact" that President Franklin D. Roosevelt got us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. That view was never pervasive among economists, and even J.M. Keynes -- a liberal icon -- criticized some of FDR's policies as hindering recovery from the depression.


Only now has a book been written in language that non-economists can understand which argues persuasively that the policies of the Roosevelt administration actually prolonged the depression and made it worse. That book is "FDR's Folly" by Jim Powell. It is very readable, factual and insightful -- and is endorsed by two Nobel Prizewinning economists. (CLICK HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR)


If the word "folly" seems a little dismissive, read the book first. Someone described FDR's trust-busting Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold as being like one of the Marx brothers who went into government by mistake. That description would apply to many of the others around FDR, including his much-vaunted "brain-trust" of presumptuous and self-righteous people.


It is painfully obvious that President Roosevelt himself had no serious understanding of economics, any more than his Republican predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had. The difference was that Roosevelt had boundless self-confidence and essentially pushed some of the misconceptions of President Hoover to their logical extreme.


The grand myth for decades was that Hoover was unwilling to use the powers of government to come to the aid of the people during the Great Depression but that Roosevelt was more caring and did. In reality, both presidents represented a major break with the past by casting the federal government in the role of rescuer of the economy in its distress.


Scholarly studies of the history of these two administrations have in recent years come to see FDR's New Deal as Herbert Hoover's policies writ large and in bolder strokes.


Those who judge by intentions may say that this was a good thing. But those who judge by results point out that none of the previous depressions -- during which the federal government essentially did nothing -- lasted anywhere near as long as the depression in which the federal government decided that it had to "do something."


In "FDR's Folly," author Jim Powell spells out just what the Roosevelt administration did and what consequences followed. It tried to raise farm prices by destroying vast amounts of produce -- at a time when hunger was a serious problem in the United States. It imposed minimum wage rates that priced unskilled labor out of jobs, at a time of massive unemployment.


Behind both policies was the belief that what was needed was more purchasing power and that this could be achieved by government policies to raise the prices received by farmers and workers. But prices do not automatically translate into greater purchasing power, unless people buy as much at higher prices as they would at lower prices -- which they seldom do.


Then there were the monetary authorities contracting the money supply in the midst of the biggest depression in history -- when the economy was showing some signs of revival, until their monetary contraction touched off another big downturn.


With policy after policy and program after program, "FDR's Folly" traces the high hopes and disastrous consequences. It would be funny, like the Keystone cops running into one another and falling down, except that millions of people were in economic desperation while this farce was being played out in Washington.


Perhaps worse than any specific policy under FDR was the atmosphere of uncertainty generated by incessant new experiments. Billions of dollars of investment were needed to create millions of jobs for the unemployed. But investors were reluctant to risk their money while the rules of the game were constantly being changed in Washington, amid strident anti-business rhetoric.


Some of the people who most admired and almost worshipped FDR -- poor people and blacks, for example -- were hurt the most by amateurish tinkering with the economy by Roosevelt's New Deal administration. This book is an education in itself, both in history and in economics. It is also a warning of what can happen when leaders are chosen for their charm, charisma and rhetoric.

Weapons of mass distraction
Cal Thomas

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are.


In the matter of the interim report prepared by David Kay and the Iraq Survey Group on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, opponents of the war and President Bush have been trying to make it say things it does not. In a Washington Post op-ed column (10/7/03), Secretary of State Colin Powell summarized Kay's case: "Two things are abundantly clear: Saddam Hussein's Iraq was in material breach of its United Nations obligations before the Security Council passed Resolution 1441 last November, and Iraq went further into breach after the resolution was passed."


Most of the critics who want to use Kay's report to defeat the president's reelection also ignore some of the report's key findings. Among them are these little gems:


-- "We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002."


-- "The testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials" makes clear that "Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons."


A Wall Street Journal editorial (10/6/03) said that critics have been talking about the failure to discover "stockpiles" of WMD. "But the Stockpile Standard," notes the Journal, "wasn't anyone's measure in agreeing to 1441 . and what Mr. Kay has already found is . enough proof that Saddam was attempting to deceive the world one more time about his dangerous intentions."


If Powell, Kay and the Wall Street Journal aren't enough to persuade the skeptics, what about Democrats? These aren't today's Democrats, who question everything the administration does. These are the Democrats of just a few months ago who saw evil intent everywhere in Iraq. The Web page frontpagemag.com has conveniently chronicled the clear vision of some Democrats as recently as last December, before politics blinded them.


-- "The threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction is real ." - Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), (12/8/02)


-- "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), (10/10/02)


-- "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members .. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), (10/10/02)


My personal favorite comes from Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who now says the war was a "fraud." That's not what he said on Sept. 27, 2002: "We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons .."


So, which is it? Was Saddam Hussein obtaining weapons of mass destruction that could have brought violence and death to large numbers of people? Or did the Bush administration overstate the case for political reasons?


Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), one of the president's harshest post-war critics, said: "I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in (Saddam Hussein's) hands is a real and grave threat to our security." (10/03/02)


The Democrats' patron saint, Bill Clinton, asserted: "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." (2/4/98)


It appears some Democrats have developed amnesia as the next election gets closer. But how can they be right then and wrong now? They would have to be incompetent, liars or political opportunists. Or career politicians.


Will advocacy disguised as journalism succeed?

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Many in the "mainstream" news media have decided that their principal job is to elect Democrats. If some facts must be ignored, and others distorted in order to bring this about, so be it.


The Los Angeles Times discarded what shreds remained of its reputation for journalistic integrity in its efforts to keep Gov. Gray Davis from being recalled. The electioneering efforts of the LA Times consisted principally, but by no means exclusively, of its front page story, the Thursday before the election, in which six women - four of them anonymously - accused Republican frontrunner Arnold Schwarzenegger of having groped them.


The story was criticized less for its content than for its timing, and for the clear double standard the LA Times employed. California's largest newspaper had downplayed much more serious - and better factually grounded - allegations of sexual misconduct by President Clinton, and had ignored altogether credible charges of (nonsexual) abuse of female staff members by Davis.


The groping story wasn't the lowest blow delivered by the news media in the waning days of the campaign. The dubious distinction belongs to ABC News and the New York Times, which reported an unsupported allegation by a single source that, some 30 years, ago, Schwarzenegger had had some kind things to say about Adolph Hitler. The story was quickly rebutted and its source retracted it, but only after the bogus claim was given widespread publicity.


The "late hits" on Schwarzenegger failed. Davis was recalled handily, and Schwarzenegger crushed LtGov. Cruz Bustamante in the second part of the ballot. But what we saw in the recall election is merely a preview of what President Bush can expect next year. To be re-elected, Bush has to contend not only with whomever the Democrats nominate, but with most of the media as well.


Bush has a harder row to hoe than Schwarzenegger did. Efforts by the news media to influence the election in California failed chiefly because Californians live in California. They know what they are thinking, and pretty much what their neighbors are thinking. When the LA Times printed a bizarre alternative version of reality, Californians recognized the distortions, and discounted them. But few Americans know firsthand what is going on in Iraq. And it is media-influenced perceptions of what is going on in Iraq that largely will determine the president's fate.


The news media are reporting blatant falsehoods about Iraq as if they were true.


"Chief weapons searach David Kay reported he had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a finding that brough fresh congressional complaints about the Bush administration's prewar assertions of an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein," wrote the AP's John Lumpkin Oct. 4.


But Bush never said Saddam posed an "imminent" threat. In his address to the United Nations in September, 2002, and in this year's state of the union address, he said precisely the opposite. Because weapons of mass destruction are so dangerous, the U.S. cannot afford to wait to act until a threat becomes imminent.


In a story about the "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times refers to the "insupportable claim (in Bush's state of the union address) that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger." But what Bush said was that the British had learned that Saddam was trying to uranium in Africa, of which Niger is only a small part. And since Kay has found evidence Saddam did try to buy uranium elsewhere in Africa, the claim is hardly "insupportable."


Other journalists write that Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks, when Bush and his senior aides have always said precisely the opposite, that there is no evidence of such a linkage (though the Czechs think there is). What Bush has said is that there were ties between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda and other international terror groups, an assertion which Kay and others have proved to be indisputably true.


A falsehood is only a lie if the teller of the falsehood knows it to be false at the time he or she tells it. Lumpkin, Bumiller, et. al may merely be incompetent, incapable of so simple a task as looking up the state of the union address to see what it was that Bush actually said. But as the falsehoods mount, so does the likelihood that the falsehoods are deliberate.


Don't bother me with the facts

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | To hear a number of leading Democrats tell it, the report issued last week by David Kay, the chairman of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), was proof positive that President Bush had effectively committed a war crime: He launched a war of aggression on the pretext that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and now, thanks to Dr. Kay, we know that wasn't true.


There is only one problem with this highly partisan attack, and the parallel media reporting that has taken a similarly pollyannish line about the Kay report: No responsible reader could take any comfort from its findings, let alone construe them as an indictment of the Bush Administration and its decision to liberate Iraq.


While the President's critics may not wish to be bothered by the facts, they are, as the saying goes, "stubborn things." And those laid out by Dr. Kay and his colleagues paint a picture of Saddam Hussein as despot relentlessly engaged in the pursuit of the most devastating weapons known to man. The Iraq Survey Group's inability to date to locate the weapons the UN previously determined were in Saddam's hands should be a matter of grave concern - and redoubled effort. Its report certainly is not cause for, as some have suggested, shutting down the ISG and reallocating its resources elsewhere.


Consider, for example, the following facts that belie the conclusion Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction:


The Kay team has thus far been able to examine only 10 of the 130 known ammo depots in Iraq, some of which are as large as fifty square miles. It would be folly to say on the basis of a less-than-ten-percent sample whether WMD are to be found in the remainder.

These depots are filled with immense quantities of ordinance. Since the regime made no appreciable effort to distinguish which contained high explosives and which were loaded with chemical or biological agents, establishing exactly what is in such facilities is a time-consuming and dangerous task.

In addition to the known depots, there are untold numbers of covert weapons caches around the country. These caches have been the source of much of the ordinance used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to attack American and coalition forces. Whether any of these contain WMD remains unknown at this juncture. But if they do, IEDs could, in the future, be vastly more devastating - especially to unprotected Iraqis in proximity to the attack.

The task is further complicated by the relatively small size of the objects of the search. Dr. Kay has noted that all of Saddam Hussein's as yet unaccounted for WMD could be stored in a space the size of a two-car garage. According to former Clinton CIA Director R. James Woolsey, his entire suspected inventory of the biological agent anthrax would fill roughly half a standard semi's tractor trailer.

Taken together with the assiduous efforts Saddam made to conceal and otherwise to obscure his weapons of mass destruction program (also documented by Dr. Kay and his team), these factors give rise to an ineluctable reality: If the ISG is having a hard time ferreting out the truth about Iraq's WMD, UN inspectors would likely never have found dispositive evidence of Iraqi WMD given the additional constraints they labored under that no longer apply (notably, those imposed on freedom of travel and inquiry by Saddam's totalitarian system and the attendant lack of cooperation from Iraqi scientists).


The really bad news in the Kay report are its revelations about the role being played in WMD-related activities by Saddam's dreaded Iraqi Intelligence Service (known as the IIS, or Mukhabarat). According to Dr. Kay, the Mukhabarat had over two-dozen secret laboratories - and more are still being found - that "at a minimum kept alive Iraq's capability to produce both biological and chemical weapons."


In addition to discovering work aimed at weaponizing various deadly diseases, the Iraq Survey Group received from an Iraqi scientist "reference strains" for one of the most lethal substances known to man: Botulinum toxin. In short order, with the right equipment and growth material - items Saddam was able to acquire and retain since they were inherently "dual use" and could also be used for commercial purposes -- such strains could translate into large quantities of biological agents.


Lest we forget, it was this sort of capability that President Bush cited as grounds for war. He warned of the possibility that weapons of mass destruction could be made available to terrorists. It would not take large quantities to inflict immense damage. And it would likely be the Iraqi Intelligence Services, rather than the regular army or even the Republican Guard, who would be responsible for providing such support to the regime's terrorist proxies. In a little-noted aspect of his recent "Meet the Press" interview, Vice President Richard Cheney for the first time offered official confirmation that Iraqi agents appeared to have played such a catalytic role in the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.


It is one thing to ignore the facts available, and their ominous implications. It is, however, another thing altogether to pretend that David Kay has shown that there is no danger from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, when the facts are otherwise, and bothersome indeed.


Rush Limbaugh: Part I


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | I hate sports. I even wait outside when my children go to Sports Authority. But PC gibberish keeps creeping into sports, thus demanding my attention. As they say in sportscasting, let me recap on social commentary rearing its ugly head in sports.


I've written about Jimmy the Greek, Fuzzy the Zoeller, and Howard the Cosell, who had comments about monkeys, chickens, and breeding. Oh, my! I addressed John Rocker's comments on subway occupants. He induced snits by commentators for his description of the "D" train in NYC. He was accurate; they preferred the rose-colored glasses description.


Now Rush Limbaugh has theorized on ESPN that the media held back on their critiques of black quarterback, Donovan McNabb, who, Mr. Limbaugh feels, is not all that good.


Them's fightin' words. Is Mr. Limbaugh is on drugs? Oops! That's next week's topic, after the mainstream media confirm the National Enquirer reports.


Reaction was swift, histrionic and gleeful. Crooked fingers jabbed at the most popular radio show host in America. The media, Kweisi Mfume of the NAACP, two presidential candidates, and sports writers in a collective moralistic tizzy all clucked, "Off with his head!" For a bunch of moral relativists, liberals are Puritanical.


Race obsession paralyzes society. Make race a factor in college and graduate school admissions, government hiring, government contractor retention (including mandatory affirmative action programs), and election contests, and you get a one-track racial society.


In a racial society, lines are drawn, literally and figuratively, along black and white. When the law mandates race-based decisions, people think and speak in racial terms.


Mr. Limbaugh is right in his assessment of the racially restrained media.


The NFL has been consumed with fear since September 30, 2002 when Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran released their report, "Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities," and threatened class action discrimination lawsuits. Mr. Cochran can, of course, get a murderer acquitted using race. Mr. Mehri has shaken down corporate America's finest for racial discrimination, including Coke ($192.5 mil) and Texaco ($176 mil).


If you want to view obsequious sports writers, check out the editorials in reaction to the Mehri/Cochran report in the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times,and San Francisco Chronicle. Nothing but outrage over the NFL's failure to hire black executives when 2/3 of NFL players are black. One writer demands that the NCAA be the next target.


So, the NFL formed a special committee that imposed the Rooney Rule, one that requires NFL teams to interview a least one minority candidate for head coach positions. Detroit Lions' president Matt Millen was fined $200,000 in July for his failure to bring in a minority candidate before hiring white guy, Steve Mariucci.


Pointing out the folly of this quota program, black Cornell MBA John Hackney, a Holy Cross math major and football player, has offered to come and interview with any NFL team for $100,000. He doesn't want to be a head coach, but he pockets $100,000, and the NFL team has net savings of $100,000 by complying with the Rooney Rule thereby avoiding the Tagliabue fine.


With this backdrop, Mr. Limbaugh's comment on the attack of media race consciousness rings true. In fact, Alex Barra, sports writer for Slate, hardly a bastion of conservative thought, offered the following, "Rush Limbaugh Was Right: Donovan McNabb isn't a great quarterback, and the media do overrate him because he is black." Mr. Limbaugh is many things, but he not a racist. His right hand on his radio program, Mr. Snerdley, is black, as is the editor of his newsletter. His ESPN commentary is what a racial society breeds.


In a racial society, everyone is accountable along racial lines, but cannot discuss racial impact.


Race has been made part of every equation, not a variable, but a given. Race is the basis for critical decisions in human capital advancement. In a racial society, race controls advancement in jobs and education. And in the NFL. But, we dare not say so.


Race even controls reaction to racial comments. Dusty Baker, the Chicago Cubs manager, commented this summer on the superior genetic ability of minority players to take the heat. Mr. Baker had a few bad days in the media, but he's also black and still employed.


Cruz Bustamante, lieutenant governor of California, touts his membership in MEChA (Movimienti Estudiantil de Aztlan). Motto: "For the race, everything. For those outside the race, nothing." Mr. Bustamante also used the "n" word in a speech in February 2001. He got a free pass from the same groups who tossed Mark Fuhrman from LA. Mr. Fuhrman was the detective who testified in the O.J. Simpson trial. He failed to disclose using the "n" word 11 years prior.


Mr. Limbaugh suggested the media were reluctant in their candor on McNabb because of his race. When push comes to shove, on the NFL field or in any other line of work, race matters. It defines us, it determines our fate, and, on occasion, deprives us. Mr. Limbaugh's observations are not the problem. His thoughts are what a racial society hath wrought.

Operation Iraqi freedom articles

Getting Serious

Questions for the peaceniks.

By Pete du Pont
The Wall Street Journal
March 14, 2003

Protests against war in Iraq have been raging all across America and England as well as Continental Europe. Passionate peace protests are nothing new; we saw them in 1933 when the British Oxford Union declared it would "in no circumstances fight for its King and country," against the Vietnam War in the 1970s, and in 1983 against NATO's proposal to install Pershing missiles to defend Western Europe against Soviet Russia.

So the signs, slogans and emotions are familiar. And so are the questions we ought to be asking the peace protesters.

Peace is important, but is peace without freedom acceptable?

The Soviet Union was at peace between the two world wars and from 1945 until its collapse in 1989, and in those times managed to shoot, starve or kill in the gulag more than 20 million of its own people. In Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, China killed and starved many millions more. Pol Pot in a Cambodia at peace killed two million Cambodians. Zimbabwe is at peace, but dictator Robert Mugabe is starving his subjects. North Korea is at peace, and enslaving and starving its people. Iraq is, likewise, oppressing its people.

To quote columnist Andrew Sullivan, "War is an awful thing. But it isn't the most awful thing." Enslaved peoples and peace without freedom are worse.

If you believe peace is paramount, which of the following wars would you not have fought:

? The Gulf War of 1991, which liberated Kuwait from Iraqi invasion and terrorism?
? World War II against Nazi Germany?
? The American Revolutionary War?
? The Civil War?
? The Korean War?
? The war that freed Afghanistan from the Taliban?

And if at the height of the Berlin blockade in 1948 the Soviet army had attacked West Germany, Belgium and France, would you have opposed an American military response?

Why will appeasement succeed with Saddam Hussein when it has failed with so many other dictators?

In the 1930s, European powers pursued collective security through the League of Nations, which they thought preferable to war. But when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, the league did nothing. In 1938 Britain and France appeased Hitler by giving him most of Czechoslovakia, and Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich proclaiming to cheering crowds that Britain had achieved "peace for our time." Hitler had built a massive army and air force, but British policy was pacifist; the government assured its citizens that Hitler was a reasonable fellow and had given his word in Munich, so he wouldn't use his newly constructed, powerful military. The League of Nations failed, appeasement failed, and World War II followed.

Collective security through the United Nations failed in Bosnia in the 1990s. For three years the U.N. sent food and passed resolution after resolution while the Serbs killed thousands of Bosnian Muslims. No air strikes were allowed against the Serbs since that would mean the U.N. "might be taking sides." Gen. Ratko Mladic then took 350 U.N. peacekeepers hostage and chained some to military targets to prevent attacks. NATO and the Clinton administration finally authorized air strikes in 1995, and the Bosnian terror ended in a few months. Appeasement failed while American-led military action succeeded. It ended ethic cleansing and freed people from systematic oppression and murder.

Appeasement is failing in Iraq too, where Saddam Hussein has defied 17 U.N. resolutions over 12 years. Iraq is remains in material breach of Resolution 1441, and its dictatorial leader has not been disarmed.

May the United States take action to prevent attacks--before they occur--on its territory or people?

Two months before Pearl Harbor FDR ordered the Navy to aggressively patrol the North Atlantic to defend against German submarines. He said: "Do not let us split hairs. Let us not say, 'We will only defend ourselves if the torpedo succeeds in getting home, or if the crew and passengers are drowned.' This is the time for prevention of attack." He was right; prevention of attacks is a sound idea.

If not America, who? If not now, when?

The UN has not disarmed Saddam. Will France? Belgium? Saudi Arabia? Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Saddam possesses VX nerve agent and probably large quantities of smallpox and anthrax as well as the capability of making much more. He also has the missiles to use them against other nations. There is no question that Saddam would use these weapons. (Why else would he be holding onto them at risk of being removed from power by the United States?). He has used some of them before, in Iran and against other Iraqis. Saddam's leading enemy--the big target--is the United States of America. He won't attack France; he'll attack us. So the risk is ours, and the responsibility is ours.

The objectives of America's security policy are first, to protect America and Americans; second, to prevent terrorist attacks against other democratic nations. Ending state sponsorship of terrorism--by Iraq, Iran, Syria or North Korea--goes a long way to meeting the first and second objectives. America's security objectives also call for changing the failed political culture of the Arab region.

People in these nations hate America because they envy us. Their societies have failed while democratic capitalism has succeeded. Such societies have failed in the Middle East because of a restrictive religion, the lack of education, the subjugation of their population (especially women), socialist economies and government control over of information. In their rage, subjugated people strike back at Americans and Jews, who have done much better than they have. Have we not the right to protect ourselves against such attacks--and also to address the tyranny that is their root cause?

Finally, Abraham Lincoln said there was no middle ground between freedom and slavery. Can there be a middle ground between freedom and terrorism?

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis . His column appears once a month.

Hehe, funniest ever.... NY POST March 16, 2003

CASUALTY OF WAR By ZEV BOROW and STEPHEN SHERRILL

---

KEANU REEVES: Who wouldn't get pumped for peace if Keanu showed up at a rally in fantastic new sunglasses?

March 16, 2003 -- The people have spoken. We don't want war. No one wants war. President Bush says he doesn't want war. Saddam Hussein says he doesn't want war. That guy who runs France, by definition, doesn't want war. After all, war, like pestilence, is one of those things most people can usually agree on - they don't want it.

What do people want? Usually, one of those sweet, flat-screen plasma TVs that you can hang on the wall like, well, art. Even people who consider themselves a part of the peace movement want one of those new TVs. Everyone wants peace, which is why some people, instead of saying "goodbye" or "God is great!" say "peace."

So why is the peace movement so . . . what's the word . . . underperforming? Like AOL Time Warner. Why is it so lame - like the Knicks? The peace movement should be like Microsoft, or the Yankees. After all, it's got the better product - one everybody on earth agrees on. Right now, peace should be ahead in the standings and coasting into the playoffs.

Instead - well, have you tuned in to the peace movement? It's all Janeane Garofalo on "Crossfire" and people dressing up in costumes and wordy signs and too many layers of Goretex, and pretty much no extreme sports at all. That's not peace. That's a bad time. A bad time that might well end in war, which is a really, really bad time.

Let's begin, as all things do, with celebrities, who are genetically superior to most of us. But not Janeane Garofalo, who seems to have taken the celebrity lead in making the rounds of various political talk shows of late.

While clearly in the upper tiers among spunky comediennes with the ability to pronounce Peshawar (push?'w?r), she is not, relative to other celebrities at least, attractive, or rich - two things we Americans pretty much demand from our stars. Instead, she's vaguely irritating and terminally pale. She can't open a movie, let alone a peace movement.

What about Susan Sarandon, you say? A wonderful actress, a native New Yorker, not Barbra Streisand. Yes, but also a woman about whom the adjective "brassy" is often used. Here's the thing: When people call you "brassy," it means you annoy them. Example: Rebecca Romijn Stamos is "hot," Bea Arthur is "brassy." There's a reason they don't send "brassy" women to motivate the troops. To be fair, it might not be possible to have a movement of any kind without Susan Sarandon showing up - just like the guy who comes to every party, and after a while people just stop asking who invited him.

But why can't the movement cast some celebrities to give peace a second weekend, show that it has legs? We suggest Keanu Reeves. The new "Matrix" movies are coming out soon and you just know they're gonna kick ass. Who wouldn't get pumped for peace if Keanu showed up at a rally sporting some fantastic new sunglasses and told us he was going to overthrow our machine-generated overlords once and for all? Or he could just stand there, "act" vacant, and say, "I know kung fu."

Or what about Jennifer Connelly? She seems peaceful. And Sheryl Crow and Fred Durst - sort of.

The anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s were successful partly because they had great soundtracks. Who's playing for peace now? That'd be no one. Crow hasn't actually gone out and penned any protest songs, but she did take the truly inspirational step of donning a "peace strap" on her guitar. Sadly, the "N" was obscured by her long hair, which, it must be said, did look extremely healthy. So what we got was a wistful "o war."

Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst at least had the guts to make an anti-war statement on camera. He expressed the hope that we are all in "agreeance" that "this war should go away." "Agreeance," of course, is not actually a word, and it can be hard to influence policy, at least when speaking to an English-speaking audience, if you're not actually speaking English. More difficult still is getting people to take you seriously when your proposed policy is agreeing to agree it would be good if something just went bye-bye.

At the peace march in New York last month, most people were, it's true, at least using real words, but that also presented a problem. Much was written about the fact that the march brought out a new crowd - an upper-middle class, educated, thoughtful soccer mom crowd. That was nice, but it turns out it's possible to be too thoughtful. A lot of these people hadn't been to a march in a long time, if ever, and boy, did they have a lot to say. Too much, in fact. For instance, here are some words and phrases that should never appear on a protest sign:

"Nevertheless"

"Albeit"

"That being said"

"But, seriously"

"In conclusion"

"Webster defines [any word here] as"

"Anyhoo"

There were also drum circles and people playing, yes, didjeridoos, those Aboriginal wind instruments that sound like someone dying and often cause that very same effect - a deadly, musical onomatopoeia. Simply put, there are more people out there who hate drum circles than hate war. It's just sheer numbers. Arguing the point is like taking issue with pi. Most people just can't reconcile being anti-war but pro-drum. If you put up a tent that's anti-war and anti-drum, they're in there. Anti-war, drum-neutral? Sure. Anti-war and pro-didjeridoo? No.

So we ask: Are you people serious about wanting peace or aren't you? You have to choose: didjeridoos, or affecting lasting change. Really. You can't have both. That's what happened at Gallipoli.

Then there were the people in costume - one paper ran a photo of a father and son dressed up as war victims. C'mon now - at this point doesn't everyone know that it's impossible to take adults dressed in costume seriously? They all come off looking like parents who haven't yet worked out non-awkward ways of bonding with their children. And peace rallies are not anyone's second shot at making the school play.

On the other extreme are those who don't dress up quite enough. Here we're mostly talking about the veteran anti-war types - the ones who started with Vietnam, moved on to nuclear disarmament rallies and probably would've protested the Revolutionary War had they had a chance. ("Ho ho, hey hey, how many redcoats did you kill today?")

Yes, rallies are long. Yes, they involve walking. But would it kill you to wear something other than the most comfortable clothes possible? If you want people to take you seriously on a serious issue, leave the sandals and smocks at home. And keep Velcro to a minimum. Think of it as a job interview. Business casual at the very least.

The peace movement could also adopt some practices that we know attract the masses. For instance: It could serve snacks, which people love. Better yet, why not take a tip from professional large-gatherings-of-people producers and team up with, say, Skyy Vodka, and throw a rally with some b-models and a free martini bar from 7-10 p.m.? Or tap the power of the reality-TV frenzy and get Lorenzo Lamas to come out onstage and do an "Are you hot, and also against the war?" bit. Lorenzo: "I'm going to need to see your ass and hear your feelings about Hans Blix."

Even better, the peace movement could adopt some Bush administration tactics and call a press conference to announce it had "secret intelligence" about peace, then offer a PowerPoint presentation that effortlessly integrated bullet points and live video. Because who doesn't love bullet points? They're just innately satisfying.

* Peace.

* Lack of death.

* More good things.

* Happiness.

* Concluding reiteration: Peace.

Then serve more snacks (which could be the last bullet point, but that's a judgment call).

Our last suggestion is one of the formidable weapons known to man. It was at the heart of the '60s movement - the thing that got the attention of the nation and galvanized us into finally ending the Vietnam war. That's right: sex. Specifically, the spread of the belief among women that sex is a political act, that the best way to get back at dad (that big square) is to fool around anonymously with as many guys as possible - now, that's a movement. We're not sure how those people in the '60s did it, but if that can somehow be revived, it will unleash a force no brassy celeb, wordy slogan - or even any profound moral or political truth - can ever hope to match.

The point is, we all want peace. But the sad truth is, we're not going to get it by just asking people to "give it a chance."

The marketplace for the public's attention is very crowded, and Mr. Lamas' entry doesn't make it any easier.

The peace movement needs to get it together.

That is all we are saying.

Au Revoir, Petite France
In one blow, Chirac shattered the U.N., NATO and the EU.

By Paul Johnson
The Wall Street Journal
March 22, 2003

LONDON--Last weekend's Azores summit foreshadowed a new era in geopolitics. It reminds us of the old wartime meetings between Roosevelt and Churchill in which the two leaders planned the next phase of the war against Hitler. As President Bush left the meeting assured of a French veto of the resolution, the world finally moved on from the stalemate of the previous two weeks at the U.N.

We shall see much more of this kind of diplomacy in the future, in which deals are struck on a bilateral or trilateral basis to suit the needs of the moment. Roosevelt and Churchill's meetings were often attended by one or more government heads, whose presence was deemed relevant to the subjects discussed.

At the heart of the new diplomacy will be, of course, what Charles De Gaulle then (and Jacques Chirac now) bitterly called "Les Anglo-Saxons"--America and Britain, whose common culture and attachments to freedom and democracy make them not just allies, but "family." Building on this sure foundation, the U.S., as the sole superpower, will make its arrangements with other states on an ad hoc basis rather than through international organizations.

We have to face the ugly fact: Internationalism--the principle of collective security and the attempt to regulate the world through representative bodies--has been dealt a vicious blow by Mr. Chirac's bid to present himself as a world statesman, whatever the cost to the world. France is a second-rate power militarily. But because of its geographic position at the center of Western Europe and its nominal possession of nuclear weapons, which ensures its permanent place on the U.N. Security Council, it wields considerable negative and destructive power. On this occasion, it has exercised such power to the full, and the consequences are likely to be permanent.

The first body Mr. Chirac has damaged, perhaps fatally, is the U.N. The old Security Council system will have to go: It is half a century old and no longer represents reality because three of the world's most important entities--Japan, Germany and India--have no permanent place on it. More important, however, the United States, whose support for the U.N. is essential to its continuance, has lost confidence in its usefulness in moments of real crisis, as the Azores summit showed. The Security Council will now be marginalized and important business will be transacted elsewhere. Indeed, it may prove difficult to keep the U.S. within the organization at all.

Mr. Chirac's heavy hand has also fallen on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. By trying to manipulate NATO against the U.S., its co-founder, principal member and chief supplier of firepower, France made a fundamental mistake. Both the U.N. and NATO were originally created precisely to keep the U.S. committed to collective security and the defense of Europe, and to avoid a U.S. return to isolationism. America's victory in the Cold War meant that there was no longer a case for keeping a large proportion of its armed forces in Western Europe.

It now makes much more sense, militarily and geographically, to base America's rapid-reaction force for the European theater in reliable Britain, and on this basis construct practical bilateral deals with all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, whose freedom and democracy depend on U.S. goodwill. In this new system, France will become irrelevant. We will see then what Germany will do. My guess is that it will come to its senses and scuttle quickly under the U.S. umbrella.

The third organization Mr. Chirac has damaged is the European Union. Although under French pressure the EU has been scrambling toward monetary and constitutional union, the Iraq crisis--which has split the EU into a dozen fragments--shows that it has made no progress at all toward a common foreign policy. The only country that joined the Franco-German axis is Belgium. Two of the five major members, Italy and Spain, sided with the U.K., as have most of the newcomers and aspirant members--thereby earning the East Europeans personal abuse from Mr. Chirac. This is the man who likes to be called "the first gentleman of Europe."

The crisis demonstrated plainly enough that the EU's armed forces do not exist and, on present showing, never will. Mr. Chirac could not hold off the Anglo-American option of force because he could not make a significant contribution. Anglo-American commanders have learned, from their experience in the Balkans, not to trust the French forces. So, having no "war card" to play, Mr. Chirac played the "peace card," the only one he possessed. As a result, a dozen or more EU members, or would-be members, are now rethinking their commitment to the EU. The U.K. is wondering, for instance, whether its future is with Continental Europe. Once again, for the British, the Channel has proved wider than the Atlantic.

Mr. Bush has a busy time ahead. Not only must he and Mr. Blair devise a workable post-war settlement for Iraq (and plan the next move against terrorist states like North Korea and Iran), but America has to construct a vision of a safe world which can get by without NATO and with a marginalized U.N. It is high time that America began the "agonizing reappraisal" that the former U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles once threatened.

In it, America must think hard whether it can offer a viable alternative to European states that no longer wish to commit themselves to a European Union dominated by a selfish and irresponsible France. Today, in 2003, I see no reason why this reappraisal should be agonizing. On the contrary, it is welcome and overdue, and can be constructive and exhilarating.

Mr. Johnson's latest book, "Napoleon," was published last year in the Penguin Lives series.

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