The American Thinker on Iran v. Israel

I'm really beginning to like The American Thinker. I don't know who's behind it, but they sure have some interesting and intelligent articles, like this one on why Israel will have to blow up the Iranian nuclear program, just like they did in Iraq. This time, I hope, the US will veto any UN condemnation...

Plov Comes to DC

I had the good fortune to attend the Global Uzbek Council's Uzbek Festival at American University last night. Yes, there was plov and somsa. There was Uzbek dancing by Dilafruz Jabbarova and singing by Munojat Yulchieva. The American Silk Road Dance company strutted their stuff, and had the audience clapping and smiling--including some very serious Uzbek diplomats. In addition, there was a solemn lecture on Uzbekistan's history, impassioned speeches from Uzbek-Americans about their ancestral homeland, and because it is Washington, the presence of US State Department, Radio Free Europe, and some NGO and government types. But mostly, there were a lot of young and dynamic Uzbeks creating a new landsmanschaft society, in the best tradition of American immigrants--celebrating their cultural heritage on their way to entering the mainstream of American life. The event was nicely non-political, advertised on the website of the opposition Sunshine Coalition, while the famous plov was donated by the embassy of Uzbekistan. Finally, there were nice crafts and rugs on sale from East Site:Silk Road Plus and a Turkish-Uzbek restaurant owner, from Georgetown's Bistro Med, who said they will cook plov to order, and are thinking about adding an Uzbek night once in a while.

Yaxshi!

Dilafruz Jabbarova Dancing in DC

  

Roger L. Simon Remembers Richard Pryor

Here.

DeLay Winning Court Fight

Ann Coulter, herself a pretty good lawyer, says a recent ruling by a Texas judge is a legal victory for Tom Delay (R-TX).

Prostitution Scandal at USAID

Maybe I missed this when it first came out in September, but it seems worth mentioning that George Soros's Open Society Institute is still suing USAID for requiring grant recipients to sign an anti-prostitution pledge (the case was mentioned at a recent American Enterprise Institute panel on NGOs):

The Open Society Institute, along with its affiliate the Alliance for Open Society International, filed a lawsuit today against USAID to challenge its unconstitutional and dangerous policy of requiring grantees to sign a pledge opposing prostitution. Failure to endorse this loyalty oath means health workers across the world striving to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS could lose funding and be forced to abandon life-saving programs...

...AOSI is administering a government grant awarded in 2002 to implement USAID’s Drug Demand Reduction Program in Central Asia, where HIV/AIDS is spread overwhelmingly through injection drug use and left unchecked will have a devastating social and economic impact. Since sex workers are at increased risk of using drugs, they are a prime target for this program’s interventions.

This is in the context of an October 6, 2005 complaint from Congressman Mark Souder to USAID official James Kunder about a US-funded NGO "called Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha (SANGRAM) that had retraffcked women back into a brothel after they had been rescued by a State Department financed group."

In his letter, Souder charged that USAID administrator Andrew Natsios was aware of SANGRAM's record.

The Montreal Intifada

A Canadian acquaintance reminded me that there were riots at Concordia University in Montreal a few years ago that bore more than a passing resemblance to the recent outbreaks in Paris and Denmark. So I googled again, and came up with this article from CAMERA on the Montreal Intifada.

The More We Know...

...the worse it looks for President Bush. Here's a story about the US warning Saudi Arabia three years before 9/11 that Bin Laden may have been planning to use planes to attack the US.

If that's true, then how come Saudi Arabia didn't know that their citizens were taking flight training in the US to do exactly that? And how come the US was letting Saudis take those classes? And so on.

The problem is that since Hurricane Katrina, Bush's credibility is zero. Only the stupidity and incomptence of the Democrats to date has saved him from impeachment for all his screw-ups before, during, and after 9/11.

"Suicide by Cop"

The tragic story at the Miami airport recalls the fact that mentally ill individuals are far more likely to be killed by police. I googled the topic, and found this website on the phenomenon of Suicide by Cop. How many more of our most vulnerable people may fall victim to trigger-happy air marshals?

One reason for putting people in a mental asylum was to protect them from themselves--and others. It may be that the Global War on Terror will mean that America has to take a closer look at the way we treat the mentally ill, and make some changes in the way their cases are managed (or ignored), in order to protect them from those who might mistake them for terrorists.

More on this story from Laura Rozen.

Sudoku Fever!

There's a classic Soviet film by Pudovkin titled Chess Fever!. The hero goes mad for playing chess.

Well, someone I know is addicted to Sudoku, plays it day and night--in newspapers, online, wherever. And while I was at Borders today, I noticed a wall chock full of Sudoku books.

Apparently, Sudoku is like a crossword puzzle, but with numbers in a sequence instead of witty word clues. And the puzzles are made by machines, instead of people.

It seems to be as addictive as computer solitaire, too...

The Google Story

David Vise and Mark Malseed were at the downtown Washington Borders this afternoon to talk about their new book. Unfortunately, I missed their actual lunchtime talk because I was at an off-the-record Washington event. But I'm glad I dropped by Borders, because I got a chance to chat with co-author Mark Malseed--who turns out to have been Bob Woodward's researcher on his books about the Bush administration and the War in Iraq. He seemed pretty level-headed, and characterized Google as "pushing the envelope" not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of what's legal and ethical, common in successful businesses (anyone remember Bill Gates and a company called Microsoft?), when it came to a discussion of the Google Print copyrright controversy. He signed a book, and I bought a copy, which I'll read rather than scan or index, and may report back on later...

L'Affaire Finkielkraut

Thanks to a link from Roger L. Simon, I read this interesting posting on Bad Hair Blog about the latest intellectual fallout from the French Riots--L'Affaire Finkielkraut.

Which led me to this quote on Solomonia, from Sarkozy:

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Sarkozy said: "Monsieur Finkielkraut is an intellectual who brings honor and pride to French wisdom ... If there is so much criticism of him, it might be because he says things that are correct."

Here's an excerpt from the Haaretz article that touched off L' Affaire:

What is its origin? Is this the response of the Arabs and blacks to the racism of which they are victims? I don't believe so, because this violence had very troubling precursors, which cannot be reduced to an unalloyed reaction to French racism.

"Let's take, for example, the incidents at the soccer match between France and Algeria that was held a few years ago. The match took place in Paris, at the Stade de France. People say the French national team is admired by all because it is black-blanc-beur ["black-white-Arab" - a reference to the colors on France's tricolor flag and a symbol of the multiculturalism of French society - D.M.]. Actually, the national team today is black-black-black, which arouses ridicule throughout Europe. If you point this out in France, they'll put you in jail, but it's interesting nevertheless that the French national soccer team is composed almost exclusively of black players.

"Anyway, this team is perceived as a symbol of an open, multiethnic society and so on. The crowd in the stadium, young people of Algerian descent, booed this team throughout the whole game! They also booed during the playing of the national anthem, the `Marseillaise,' and the match was halted when the youths broke onto the field with Algerian flags.

"And then there are the lyrics of the rap songs. Very troubling lyrics. A real call to revolt. There's one called Dr. R., I think, who sings: `I piss on France, I piss on De Gaulle' and so on. These are very violent declarations of hatred for France. All of this hatred and violence is now coming out in the riots. To see them as a response to French racism is to be blind to a broader hatred: the hatred for the West, which is deemed guilty of all crimes. France is being exposed to this now."

In other words, as you see it, the riots aren't directed at France, but at the entire West?

"No, they are directed against France as a former colonial power, against France as a European country. Against France, with its Christian or Judeo-Christian tradition."

Rumsfeld Declares War on Media

In today's Wall Street Journal, Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld blames the American press for his failure to accomplish the mission in Iraq. The oped is titled: 'Do Some Soul Searching' Why aren't the media telling the whole story about Iraq? It's based on a talk he gave at Johns Hopkins' SAIS. But like Dick Cheney at AEI a little while ago, Rumsfeld has swung and missed the ball.

Sure the press is biased. What else is new? Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot, and without the support of the mainstream media, in part because he was a great communicator. And it's hard to remember right now, but a few years ago Rumsfeld was a media darling. Today he's a bum.

IMHO this change reflects Rumsfeld's own decisions.

First and foremost was his decision to replace Tori Clarke as head PR honcho in the Pentagon. After Clarke left "to spend more time with her family," Rumsfeld's positive image began to sag. And there's nothing that Larry DiRita, a talented numbers-cruncher policy wonk who used to work on another floor of the Heritage Foundation when I was there, can possibly do to fix that. Good PR requires a good PR person in charge. He's just not a good PR person. And if your PR person isn't the best, what does that say about the rest of the operation? It's PR 101...

So, instead of lashing out at the messenger, maybe Rumsfeld might show us that he's willing to do some soul searching himself...

Why Did USAID Chief Quit?

According to whispers at the AEI this morning, it was because Condoleeza Rice forced him out. But why? A Democratic source has this today,according to Karen Finney of the Democratic National Committee, the reason may be that [sic] screwed up the reconstruction of Iraq:

USAID Director Who Predicted Cheap Rebuilding In Iraq Quit. "The head of the government's overseas relief agency (Andrew Natsios) , the U.S. Agency for International Development, is leaving his job... 'Secretary Rice asked him to stay but he felt it was time for new challenges,' Rice senior adviser Jim Wilkinson said. In 2003 Natsios confidently predicted that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq, a job that is now expected to cost tens of billions of dollars. The Washington Post later reported that a transcript of Natsios' remark on ABC's Nightline was removed from the agency's Web site. 'The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges,' Natsios said on the television program. 'The American part of this will be $1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.'" (Associated Press State & Local Wire, 12/2/05)

Napoleon: An Intimate Portrait

After a somewhat depressing NGO conference at the American Enterprise Institute, where the former general counsel of USAID reiterated that information about possible US money going to terrorists or terrorist supporters despite certification and regulation to the contrary is probably not available because it is classified, confidential, private, or still in the field rather than at headquarters (what ever happened to "transparency"?)--I had the good fortune to cross the street to see the National Geographic Society's exhibition Napoleon: An Intimate Portrait.

The French Cultural attache had recommended seeing the largest private collection of Napoleonic relics in the world, and it was just fascinating. All the good and bad sides of the French general were on display. Maps, pictures, and charts from his ill-fated Egyptian campaign--"it's just like Iraq" said a woman at the glass case. His camp bed, the sleeve of his coat, his hat, a lock of hair. Busts, portraits, Empire-style decorative arts, plates, cups, and furniture. Pictures of Austerlitz, Moscow, and Ulm. His generals, his wives, his annulment and divorce. His descendants and his wife's--the ruling families of Norway, Denmark and Sweden still in place today are descendants of Josephine. And of course the story of Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase for $15 million.

Napoleon modelled himself on Alexander the Great. And he was not shy of using force. He single-handedly saved the Directory in 1795, when Royalist mobs attacked the National Convention. Barras sent for Napoleon, who ordered his troops to fire point-blank on the crowd. Hundreds were killed or wounded, the streets were cleared--and the Revolution was saved, at least until it became an all Napoleon, all the time, French Empire...

Barras' briefcase was in a glass case, with a note explaining that he introduced Josephine (his former mistress) to Napoleon. How he was betrayed, imprisoned at Elba, returned for the "100 days" and then faced his Waterloo and exile on St. Helena--where he died miserably either from poison or stomach cancer.

Fascinating, and well worth a visit.

Remember Pearl Harbor!

Comparing FDR to George W. Bush may not be fair, but four years after Pearl Harbor the USA had crushed Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo were all dead. American troops occupied a peaceful and quiet Japan, Germany and Italy.

Four years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still at large, Saddam Hussein is looking feisty, and Afghanistan and Iraq remain terrorist centers. Meanwhile, Paris burned after bombers struck Madrid and London.

What's wrong with this picture?

The Perils and Possibilities of Strengthening the Rule of Law

"Evidence From Uzbekistan" was Dr. Lawrence Markowitz's subtitle for tonight's talk (the title is above) on the role of the Prosecutor in Uzbekistan's legal system at Georgetown University's Intercultural Center, as the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies 2005 Nava'i Lecturer in Central Asian Studies.

Dr. Markowitz was just plain "Larry" when I met him in Tashkent a few years ago. Boy, was I impressed in those days. He was on a Fulbright-Hays, and seemed to know more about every little "kishlak" in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan than any other American. Here, in the USA, as Dr. Markowitz, he seemed more careful about what he said.

The audience seemed pretty high-powered, from the questions. At a reception afterwards, I spoke with someone from USAID, someone from a legal reform project who said she was a Supreme Court fellow, someone from the State Department, and someone who seems to have been on the Georgetown faculty and may have been a State Department official of some sort in Tashkent.

What struck me was that no matter how much I pressed them and tried to provoke an answer, not one could say for certain that the US did not provide funds, indirectly, to terrorist groups or support groups in Uzbekistan. I was told that any relevant emails may have been erased, and although I could file a FOIA request, and although support for terrorist groups or supporters is against regulations, that the recipients of US dollars actually don't have to certify or track the money to guarantee that none of it reaches the wrong hands. Ostensibly, due to the difficulties of doing business in the country. So, for example, a terrorist or member of a banned organization could possibly be a supplier or contractor or employee of an American NGO or Uzbek organization receiveing American money...and no one in Washington would be able to tell. They don't do thorough background checks, apparently. And while I can file a FOIA request, I apparently cannot find out exactly who my American tax dollars ended up going to pay in Uzbekistan, or what banned parties they may have belonged to.

The problem with such an answer, is that while it may be true, and perhaps understandable (I was told on another occasion that USAID had funded Shining Path guerilla leaders in South America), is that it cannot reassure the Uzbek government, which accused the US government of supporting Islamist terrorists responsible for the recent Andijan violence. Nor can such a non-answer reassure anyone that President Bush is very serious about his so-called "Global War on Terror."

Ironically, such answers show American aid isn't "Strengthening the Rule of Law" in Uzbekistan at all. For if the US is supporting illegal Islamist organizations, either directly or via hiring individual members of those organizations, then the US is contributing to undermining the law in Uzbekistan. Supporters of Osama bin Laden, or those affiliated with them, make questionable champions for the American legal system.

Ironically, based on these admittedly anecdotal, informal (and possibly unreliable) conversations over drinks with anonymous sources, I wonder whether lax administration and oversight of American aid programs by USAID and the State Department may have seriously harmed American interests in Central Asia--and cost our country a military base of some geopolitical significance...

UPDATE: More on Markowitz's talk at Neweurasia.net and on the Sunshine Coalition website.

Is the CIA Out to Get the President?

Writing for the Weekly Standard, Thomas Joscelyn seems to say so:

IN THE CIA's continuing campaign against the Bush administration, the agency has found the leaking of classified information to be a potent weapon. This is especially true with regard to the spinning of intelligence connecting Saddam's Iraq and bin Laden's al Qaeda. Consider, for example, the case of Abu Zubaydah, a top al Qaeda operative captured in March 2002.

Bull Moose: Rumsfeld Must Go

That's his reaction to President Bush's Plan for Victory speech.

The Danish Intifada

The American Thinker has a post on recent riots in Aarhus, Denmark--sparked by publication of a cartoon of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

I first read about the Aarhus riots in this issue of The Spectator:
It is certainly disturbing news. I was in Aarhus a few years ago for a business communication conference, and it was an interesting town, much more authenticallly Danish-seeming than Copenhagen. Such communal riots have long been common in countries like India, now it appears that Europe is set to suffer the same. There's more on this story in the Brussels Journal:

Islam is no laughing matter. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is being protected by security guards and several cartoonists have gone into hiding after the newspaper published a series of twelve cartoons (view them here) about the prophet Muhammad. According to the Islam it is blasphemous to make images of the prophet. Muslim fundamentalists have threatened to bomb the paper’s offices and kill the cartoonists.

The newspaper published the cartoons when a Danish author complained that he could find no-one to illustrate his book about Muhammad. Jyllands-Posten wondered whether there were more cases of self-censorship regarding Islam in Denmark and asked twelve illustrators to draw the prophet for them. Carsten Juste, the paper’s editor, said the cartoons were a test of whether the threat of Islamic terrorism had limited the freedom of expression in Denmark.

The publication led to outrage among the Muslim immigrants living in Denmark. 5,000 of them took to the streets to protest. Muslim organisations have demanded an apology, but Juste rejects this idea: “We live in a democracy. That’s why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures,” he said. The Danish imam Raed Hlayhel reacted with the statement: “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims. Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world.” . . .
Jyllands-Posten was also included on an al-Qaeda website listing possible terrorist targets. An organisation which calls itself “The Glorious Brigades in Northern Europe” is circulating pictures on the internet which show bombs exploding over pictures of the newspaper and blood flowing over the national flag of Denmark. “The Mujahedeen have numerous targets in Denmark – very soon you all will regret this,” the website says.

More from FreeRepublic.com about a bounty being put on the Danish cartoonists heads--in Pakistan.