Daniel Pipes Endorses Hamas

Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. Daniel Pipes has taken sides against the US-subsidized Palestinian Authority and the Fatah party, (weakly) endorsing Hamas:

Fatah is dubbed moderate and Hamas extremist; or, in the even more dramatic terms of an Associated Press headline today, "Palestinians choose between pursuing peace or confrontation with Israel." In fact, the differences between them are merely tactical; a more accurate headline would be "Palestinians choose between pursuing more overt or more covert destruction of Israel." Basically, Hamas speaks its mind and Fatah dares not. And Hamas provides the social services that Fatah cannot because its honchos have stolen the funds.

Ironically, this means that there is some reason to prefer Hamas to Fatah, for it prompts a more negative response from Israelis, Europeans, Americans, and others. But the New York Sun has already made this point for me a couple of days ago, in a house editorial titled "Recipe for Trouble":

a victory by Hamas, evil though the organization is, might not be all bad. At least then it would be clear to everyone what Israel is facing, an enemy committed to its complete destruction. … With Hamas in power, the Palestinian Authority could be seen, even by the American state department, for what it is, a terrorist state with the aim of destroying a free and democratic American ally. It would join the ranks of Iran and Syria as a rogue state that America would seek to isolate and roll back rather than subsidize with taxpayer dollars.

So, while I do not wish Hamas well in any manner at all (an article of mine appearing today in USA Today calls for it to be destroyed), there will likely be some benefit in having it complicit in the Palestinian Authority.

The American Thinker on Iran v. Israel

Writing in The American Thinker, J.R. Dunn says Israel can't afford to wait until Iran attacks with nuclear weapons:

An acute observer might well think that everyone involved was trying to ease the way for a strike to be carried out – by the U.S. or Israel or both. It really wouldn’t matter so long as the EU and the UN were not involved. (The French nuclear threat only highlights this point – it’s best read as a statement intended to direct Iranian intentions elsewhere.) Israel, after all, does have a history of the coup de main, the all-or-nothing strike such as occurred in 1956, 1967, and 1981.  Look at the situation from Israel’s point of view to grasp how far it may be forced to go. This is the state founded in the shadow of the Holocaust, as a lifeboat for oldest surviving nation on Earth. The only people the world ever consciously tried to destroy.

To the Israelis, a hostile Middle Eastern state gaining nuclear weapons renders the level of risk effectively infinite. They will be facing not defeat, not humiliation, but effective annihilation. Under these circumstances, any level of response is justified. In the past week, two prominent Israelis, Benjamin Netanyahu and chief of staff Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, have both publicly stated that “the threat to Israel is existential.” On January 21st Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz went even further: the Iranian people face “havoc and destruction” if their government fails to stand down. They should be taken as meaning what they say.

Those words may be the only warning anyone ever gets.  There was a point during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 when it appeared that the Egyptians had broken though Israeli lines in the Sinai at the same time the Syrians were about to drive across the Golan. Although never verified, it’s been reported on some authority that Moshe Dayan placed the Israeli nuclear strike force on full alert, the planes at the ends of the runways with their engines hot, their weapons armed, ready to head for their targets.

The “go” phrase was, “The Temple has fallen for the third time.” It didn’t happen then. And I think it can taken as a given that the Temple will not fall this time either. Apart from that, everything else is up in the air. Except for the jets – and they’re always ready to go.

Kofi Annan's Role in Sudan's Suffering

Roger L. Simon objects to the Washington Postproviding editorial space for the UN Secretary-General to posture on Sudan, without mentioning Kofi Annan's responsibility for the unfolding tragedy.

More on Moscow's British NGO Spy Scandal

In the Moscow Times

British Spy Scandal 'Rocks' Moscow NGOs

Tony Blair didn't deny Russian charges that British spies have used high-tech rocks as electronic mail drops in a spy scandal that threatens to envelope Western-supported NGOs--through British funding and contacts, some of whom have been named as accused spies. Here's RIA Novosti's version:

The program also alleged that Marc Doe, a first secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow, had been authorizing regular payments to Russian non-governmental organizations. Several documents signed by him were shown as evidence of cash payments to NGOs operating in Moscow, including 23,000 pounds (about $40,000) to the Moscow Helsinki Group, and 5,719 pounds ($9,700) to the Eurasia Foundation.

Another document signed by Doe, a 27-year-old graduate of Durham University, contained information on cash payments for an obscure project for establishing schools of public inspectors in remote areas of Siberia and Russia's Far East.

FSB spokesperson Diana Shemyakina said earlier that thousands of NGOs were working in Russia, although only 92 were officially registered by the Justice Ministry. Most of them were founded and provided with funds by the U.S. government and public organizations, and by its NATO allies, she said.

Non-governmental organizations with financing from other countries are thought to have played a major role in the "revolutions" that have swept former Soviet states in recent years, prompting some Russian politicians to raise concerns that similar activities were being carried out in Russia. Parliament passed a bill restricting the operation of NGOs at the end of last year.

Apart from Doe, the Rossiya program said embassy employees Christopher Pirt, 30, and Paul Cronton, were also involved in espionage, as was 32-year-old researcher Andre Fleming.

On the other hand, this Guardian story from Britain is more amusing, sort of "Get Smart" meets "Austin Powers."

An x-ray of the box, shown on Russian state television, showed four big batteries and a radio transmitter-receiver tightly packed together - a device of such crude simplicity it would have made Q, James Bond's technical wizard, shudder.

"First the Russian asset would walk past the stone," Nikolai Zakharov, deputy spokesman for the Federal Security Service (FSB), as the KGB is now known, told the Guardian. "He would send information to the stone from his palmtop, and later the embassy employee would pass by and collect it from another palmtop."

He said the device, a 21st century version of the "dead letter drop", had a range of up to 20m and could send and receive coded signals to or from small palmtop computers, almost identical to those available on Britain's high streets. It enabled British diplomats to communicate indirectly with their alleged Russian agents: it meant they never had to be in the same room as them. Four members of the British embassy staff were identified by the Russians and accused of being part of a spy ring. The four were all still at their posts last night.

Interfax, the Russian news agency, reported that the FSB had fanned out across Moscow to check other potentially suspicious rocks. Sergei Ignatchenko, chief spokesman for the FSB, told the agency that a second device had been spotted but was retrieved by British agents.

The echoes of Ian Fleming and John le Carré will raise a smile in Britain and elsewhere. But there is serious side to this, and not only for the alleged Russian agent being held in Moscow accused of handling state secrets. Though old cold war enemies - such as Britain and Russia - have set up procedures to cooperate quite closely on counter-terrorism, they still indulge in a mutual spying game. The second oldest profession is as alive and as well as the oldest.

But on another level it is troubling. For if the British are guilty, they have threatened the work of NGOs, by crossing the line between democracy-building and espionage. And that may mean big trouble for democracy-builders everywhere...

Thieves of Baghdad

Last night a friend was talking about this book at dinner, and mentioned a really nasty review in today's Washington Post. When I saw the review myself, of this new book about the search for the art looted from the Baghdad Museum in today's Washington Post, I understood her excitement. The reviewer, Post critic Philip Kennicott, complained that the author sounded hostile to journalists, bureaucrats, and ivy-leaguers. He called him a "Marine snob." The Post's message, it's a good read--but don't read it!

So I thought: This book by William Bogdanos--a US Marine who tracked down the treasures and discovered the looting of the Iraq museum was an "inside job"--must be REALLY interesting.

After I get a copy, I may have some more to say....

Moscow's Ismailovsky Flea Market in 360 Degrees

I really love these 360-degree panoramas...

Kanan Makiya on European Racism on Iraq

From an interview in on Democratiya.com(ht War and Piece):

People like myself, those of us who went into Iraq after April and March 2003 as part of the effort to transform this country, have felt betrayed by Europe as a whole. We were attacked by the media of all the surrounding countries, countries utterly hostile to the sort of values on which Europe rests. Satellite stations distorted what was going on. The silence in Europe at that moment gave enormous sustenance to all those forces struggling against the transformation of Iraq. It enabled the Jihadis, the Ba'athists, the extreme Arab nationalists, and the Arab regimes, to say 'Look at the hostility of Europe to what the United States has done!' Europe made it possible to isolate not just the United States but everything that is represented by the west. Europe gave strength to the argument that it was a traditional colonist land grab or oil grab, which was nonsense, of course.

I would say that much of the strength of the hostility of the Jihadi movement, and of the forces that have made life so horrible in Iraq, came from the silence of Europe. Europe has a lot to answer for. It's not even that it was half-hearted. They fell in completely with the language of the non-democratic Arab regimes. They bought their line and they seemed to stand for the same things. They undermined entirely the values of the operation. Europeans knew that the United States was not going to permanently occupy Iraq. Deep down the smarter Europeans must have known it wasn't just about oil. It was - rightly or wrongly - a way of changing the traditional western attitude towards the Arab Muslim world. It was an end to the support for autocratic and repressive governments. It was a new view that if we are going to succeed in this war against terror then we are going to have to be viewed by the populations of this part of the world in a totally different way. Now Europe might not have thought it was the right time. Europe might have thought it should be done differently. But Europe should never have been seen to be undermining the argument itself.

Europe was justifying and supporting the foundations on which these repressive regimes stood. It had acquiesced so fully in that relativist language it had no views of its own that it thought could be shared. More: it looked racist because it looked like the democratic values it enjoyed were not possible for Arabs and Muslims to enjoy. All of a sudden the shoe was on the other foot entirely. It was not the Americans who were the imperialists or racists. It was the Europeans who, by sitting back, were saying 'you Arabs and you Muslims really can't do any better than this, so why mess around with this thing in the first place?'

Abu Hamza's Website

Also from Internet Haganah, this link to Abu Hamza's website: Shareah.org.. A sample Q & A:

Are Suicide attacks Haram?

Question:

Are Suicide attacks haram? In our country some Alims says that suicide attack leads you to jahhannam (Hell fire).

Answer:

Asalaam 'alaikum

If (the operation) is done for (the sake of) suicide just so that the person can die and run from his difficulties then it is haram (unlawful) of course.

But if it is done as a tactic of war because there is no other strong mean to resist the enemies then it is of course one of the highest and noblest form of shahadah (martyrdom).

Wasalaam 'alaikum

Shaykh Abu Hamza Al-Misri

Ann Coulter on the Alito Hearings

Ann says it was important:

Sam Alito marks the final purging of the Bork experience.

All the Democrats could do was scream about his inactive membership — back in the '70s — in CAP, Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which had a magazine called Prospect, which once ran an article, apparently satirical, complaining about Princeton admitting co-eds. In my mind, the only potentially disqualifying aspect of Alito's record was that he wasn't a more active member of CAP, a group opposed to quotas, set-asides and the lowering of academic standards at Princeton.

Then this week, we found out Sen. Teddy Kennedy still belongs to an organization that doesn't admit women. Oh — also, he killed a girl.

I'm fairly certain I've mentioned that before — I don't recall, Mr. Chairman — but I don't understand why everyone doesn't mention it every time Senator Drunkennedy has the audacity to talk about how "troubled" and "concerned" he is about this or that nominee. I bet Mary Jo was "troubled" and "concerned" about the senator leaving her in trapped in a car under water while he went back to the hotel to create an alibi.

It's not as if Democrats can say: OK, OK! The man paid a price! Let it go! He didn't pay a price. The Kopechne family paid a price. Kennedy weaved away scot-free.

Is Spielberg's 'Munich' Based on a Fabrication?

I found this interesting posting on The Internet Haganah website, following links from the Jawa Report story below. It seems they have found an item published in the Guardian that throws the credibility of Spielberg's 'Munich' into question:

Israeli Yuval Aviv, who teamed up with Canadian George Jonas to write Vengeance, the bestseller on which Spielberg's "Munich" is based, never served in the Mossad or any Israeli intelligence organization. His nearest approximation to spy work was as a lowly gate guard for the airline El Al in New York in the early '70s. The tale he had woven was apparently nothing more than a Walter Mitty fabrication.

Jawa Report Tip Leads to Conviction

Little Green Footballs tipped us off to this interesting story of bloggers catching a would-be terrorist in the midwest, thanks to a lead from The Jawa Report.

It turns out that "Ahmed" was really Jordanian born Mohammed Radwan Obeid. Obeid had fraudulently immigrated to the United States by marrying an American woman, and then having the marriage annuled. Obeid was working as a cashier in Dayton, Ohio last year and living with his girlfriend in a nearby town. It was from the Troy branch of the Miami (Ohio) County public library that he began to seek out fellow jihadis.

Obeid's posts at jihadi forums was noticed by more than those anti-terrorist crusaders who monitor them. Obeid's posts about nuclear weapons and gun silencers was somehow noticed by reference librarian Laura Girolamo. Ms. Girolamo contacted the FBI who, using their newly found powers under the Patriot Act, were able to confirm the librarians suspicions.

At about the same time, a Jawa Report reader from Virginia, David Vazquez, began e-mailing Obeid. Obeid was under the false impression that Vazquez was a fellow jihad supporter. Obeid, he says, was now trying to recruit him for a terrorist cause.

Obeid told David Vazquez in e-mails that "we are starting a big operation that will make 9/11 nothing but a little bit of headache."

According to Vazquez, "I was very alarmed at the words (Obeid) was saying." He contacted the FBI.

Armed with the knowlege provided them by their ability under the Patriot Act to monitor public library computers, and by David Vazquez's saved e-mail conversations, the FBI picked up Obeid on March 28th for 'immigration violations'.

When asked about whether or not the e-mails were his, Obeid denied that they were. Since he was asked under oath, Obeid's denials amounted to knowingly and willfully making a false material representation.

A Federal immigration judge ordered Obeid's deportation in September. Obeid was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in October. He pleaded guilty to the felony charge of lying to Federal investigators.

James Taranto on Uncle Salvador's Escape to Turkey

This is a great story, by James Taranto in Friday's Wall Street Journal:

Working for a newspaper, I often feel as though I'm observing history from a ringside seat. When I visited Istanbul a few years ago, my favorite uncle, Salvador Taranto, told me the story of a direct encounter with history--an encounter in which history might easily have swallowed him up.

It was late December 1942. Salvador, my father's elder half-brother, was a 25-year-old Turkish citizen living in Marseilles, in the south of France, which the German army had occupied the month before. He was also a Jew. (When I tell people my last name, they often ask if I'm Canadian, since the English pronunciation is similar to "Toronto." In fact, Taranto is of Italian origin and is a common Jewish name in Istanbul, where my father was born and raised.)

The Nazis were not yet deporting Jews from Marseilles, but Salvador wisely decided to leave. "I wrote a letter to the Ministry of Interior [in Vichy, the occupation capital], telling that I am a Turkish citizen of Jewish religion, and, as you don't want foreigners and Jews in France, I would like to receive my exit visa."

Salvador was called to the local prefecture and asked to present his passport. He complied, though he feared it would be confiscated. But the news was good. "OK, you have an exit visa from France," a local bureaucrat told him. "But you have to leave within three or four days." There were no passenger ships to Istanbul, Salvador recalled, so the only way to get there was by rail. "The next day, I took the train--I left."

He traveled overnight to Milan and went to the Consulate of Croatia, a nominally independent fascist puppet state. There he made the mistake of saying he was Jewish. "After half an hour, they told me, 'Sorry, you cannot have a Croatian visa.' " He waited outside, and when the consul left for lunch, Salvador confronted him to demand an explanation. "I know that you are [a] Jew," the diplomat told him, "so I cannot give the visa."

Salvador proceeded to the Turkish Consulate, where he was advised to travel on. Aboard the train, a passport-control officer told him that before he even got to Croatia he would need a German visa to travel through another portion of occupied Yugoslavia. He got off in Trieste, Italy, and went to the German Consulate, where he applied the lesson he had learned in Milan. The Germans asked his religion, and he said "Musulman"--French for Muslim. They asked his parents' names. He said his mother was "Aisha," a common Turkish name, "instead of Rebecca," because, as he told me, "Rebecca is a name [that is] 100% Jew." His father's first name, Vitali, was Italian, so it didn't arouse suspicion. He got a visa, valid for 24 hours.

Then came the most unnerving part of the journey. A border guard at the Italian city of Postumia (now Postojna, Slovenia) turned him back, saying his visa was valid only at Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia), some 50 miles away. To get there before the visa expired, he had to hitch a ride on a freight train. When he crossed into German-occupied territory, a Nazi officer wearing a swastika armband was waiting to greet him.

"He told me, 'Welcome.' He brought me to a wooden house: 'You will sleep here.' " It was dinnertime, and the train onward would not come until morning. In the officers' mess, a large portrait of Hitler hung on the wall, looking down on Salvador. After a meal of soup and bread, it was on to the guesthouse. "I didn't undress, because . . . I thought they were looking at what I was doing. . . . I didn't sleep, because I was afraid." In the morning one of the Nazis summoned him when the train arrived. In an act of kindness that today is hard to fathom, the Nazi gave him "a big piece of bread" to tide him over for the trip.

There's more, and it is worth reading the whole article.

Jill Carroll's Father Offers Deal

On Arab television, Jim Carroll told his daughters' kidnappers:

As a father, I appeal to you to release my daughter for the betterment of your cause," Carroll said. "Allow her to be your voice to the world. Her life as a reporter will better serve your purpose than her death."

I seem to remember similar self-abasing statements during pleas offered in the Daniel Pearl case. While they are understandable under such pressure, it was distressing to hear them then, and I am distressed to see them now--because they sound like surrender and submission to terrorist demands.

BBC: Abu Hamza Launches Defense

The BBC has an eyewitness account of Abu Hamza's defense as his trial in London continues:

For the defence, Edward Fitzgerald QC's opening had been simple.

"Mr Hamza is probably the most frequently abused and ridiculed figure in this country," he said.

"Certain sections of the press delight in having a go at him. They call him 'Hook' and 'Hookie';

The Ox Bow Incident

Tim Dirks lists this 1943 William Wellman western melodrama, starring Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn, Henry Morgan, Dana Andrews, and Jane Darwell, among his picks for the greatest films on his his FilmSite devoted to Hollywood classics.

I couldn't agree more. We saw it on a Netflix DVD, watching it on a laptop, and it holds up on the small-screen very well. A post at the IMDB page discussed the relevance of the film's message to today's debates over torture, Guantanamo, "rendition," "enemy combatants", and NSA eavesdropping. The original intent of the film's producers was to make a statement about Nazism and how it took root. What makes the film a classic is that it actually has withstood the test of time beautifully. It could equally have been about McCarthyism or accusations of sexual harrassment.

What is the difference between a legitimate posse and a lynch mob? That is the question posed by screenwriter Lamar Trotti and director William Wellman. The answer is: due process.

In the Ox Bow incident, three innocent men are hanged because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rather than go through a cumbersome trial and the law's delay, the mob kills first and asks questions later. Seven men oppose the mob, but are unable to stop the travesty of justice. In that sense, the film is a tragedy. Among the protesters are Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan. They are in the minority, they are out-voted, and they are right. The hot-headed majority, baying for blood instead of justice, is wrong. They compound their crime when it turns out that the man they thought had been killed was merely wounded, and has recovered--and the perpetrators found elsewhere.

Tragic irony. Deeply moving. Brilliantly filmed and acted.

A reminder why it is important to determine who is guilty by trial by jury in open court--not to protect terrorists but to protect the rest of us from becoming what we are fighting against.

Only respect for rule of law is differentiates a posse from a lynch mob--or band of terrorists. In this film, Henry Fonda embodies that deeply American value.

Yes, you can add it to your Netlfix queue.

Konstantin on Russian Winter

Konstantin's Russian Blog waxes eloquent about Russia's "General Winter":

A couple of years ago I talked with one British intellectual about WWW2. As almost all British intellectuals younger than 50 he soon started talking about General Frost that saved Soviets from imminent catastrophe. I asked him, “What about Admiral Channel? If England were not separated from the Continent by English Channel it would’ve taken German tanks only a couple of weeks to roll over streets of Glasgow.” He went mad. Totally mad. He started raving about British patriotism, bravery, tenacity, professionalism, superb command, etc. etc. Admiral Channel saved Hitler, he said, as it also prevented Brits from rolling over Berlin in a week or so.

People who talk about General Frost somehow forgot that Russians are not superhuman and suffer from frost exactly the same way as Germans. Only Russians know Russians winters are cold but Germans (and French and Swedish before them) somehow forgot about it. It speaks a lot about German military professionalism.

Text of Bin Laden Message

Text from BBC Monitoring:

My message to you is about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way to end it.

I had not intended to speak to you about this issue, because, for us, this issue is already decided: diamonds cut diamonds.

Praise be to God, our conditions are always improving, becoming better, while yours are the opposite.

However, what prompted me to speak are the repeated fallacies of your President Bush in his comment on the outcome of US opinion polls, which indicated that the overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of the forces from Iraq, but he objected to this desire and said that the withdrawal of troops would send the wrong message to the enemy.

Bush said: It is better to fight them on their ground than they fighting us on our ground.

In my response to these fallacies, I say: The war in Iraq is raging and operations in Afghanistan are on the rise in our favour, praise be to God.

The Pentagon figures indicate the rise in the number of your dead and wounded, let alone the huge material losses.

To go back to where I started, I say that the results of the poll satisfy sane people and that Bush's objection to them is false.

Reality testifies that the war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq, as he claims.

In fact, Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified resources.

On the other hand, the mujahideen, praise be to God, have managed to breach all the security measures adopted by the unjust nations of the coalition time and again.

The evidence for this are the bombings you have seen in the capitals of the most important European countries of this aggressive coalition.

As for the delay in carrying out similar operations in America, this was not due to the failure to breach your security measures.

Operations are in preparation and you will see them on your own ground once the preparations are finished, God willing.

Based on the above, we see that Bush's argument is false.

However, the argument that he avoided, which is the substance of the results of opinion polls on withdrawing the troops, is that it is better not to fight the Muslims on their land and for them not to fight us on our land.

We do not object to a long-term truce with you on the basis of fair conditions that we respect.

We are a nation to which God has disallowed treachery and lying.

In this truce, both parties will enjoy security and stability and we will build Iraq and Afghanistan which were destroyed by the war.

There is no defect in this solution other than preventing the flow of hundreds of billions to the influential people and war merchants in America, who supported Bush's election campaign with billions of dollars.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the full text via the AP and NY Times, which has this tidbit:

Don't let your strength and modern arms fool you. They win a few battles but lose the war. Patience and steadfastness are much better. We were patient in fighting the Soviet Union with simple weapons for 10 years and we bled their economy and now they are nothing.

In that there is a lesson for you.

IMHO, this is indeed the Bin Laden strategy, though I don't know that if he has calcuated his endgame as carefully as the Russians, who are now in comeback mode...

Muscovites Enjoy -30 Degree Weather

At least, according to the Moscow Times...

Iraq Blog Count

In my googling for the Jill Carroll story, I found this interesting blog about Iraq blogs--Iraq Blog Count.