Amil Imani on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

From The American Thinker:

Ahmadinejad, a man driven by his religion, has a spiritual advisor in Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi (the defacto leader of the Hojatieh). The President's advisor is known for his extremist views on Islam and promotes suicide bombings and attacks on civilians in the West. There is only view of Islam for him. He once said, "...if anyone tells you their own interpretation of Islam, punch them in the mouth!"

President Ahmedinejad has in a short time acquired great many descriptors at home and overseas: zealot, fascist, fanatic, anti-Semitic, lunatic and more. One prominent Western columnist called him "unhinged." But we cannot just dismiss the man as an aberration, someone who is in urgent need of psychological help, a person out of touch with reality, who represents nothing of substance.

Once again the West is misreading and misjudging people and events in the Middle East, due to the fact that it views things through its own prism.

Looking at the man through Western spectacles, he indeed appears to be all of the above and more. Yet Ahmadinejad is far from unhinged. As a matter of fact he is firmly hinged to a set of beliefs that dictate his views of the world, and inform him how he should deal with it from his position of power.

An unhinged man has the potential of becoming once again hinged. But, there is very little that can be done to a person who is inseparably hinged, and Ahmadinejad views are firmly rooted in the most orthodox philosophy of Shiism.

Babi Yar, Remembered...

The European Jewish Press reports on a memorial service in Kiev, Ukraine:

Relatives of the victims laid flowers, candles and small stones
according to Jewish tradition at a monument formed in the shape of a menorah, or seven-branched candelabrum.

Prayers were said by Ukrainian chief rabbi Yaacov Blaykh.

On September 29-30, 1941 nearly 34,000 Jews were shot at Babi Yar (Woman’s Ravine) by German forces and their local collaborators.

Up to 60,000 more people were killed there up to 1943, among them Jews, Roma, resistance fighters and Soviet prisoners of war.

Eighty-six-year-old Debora Averbukh said she escaped the massacre as she and fellow university students had been evacuated to Uzbekistan, but that both her parents had been killed at Babi Yar.

Agustin Blazquez: An Open Letter to The History Channel en Español

About ommissions and errors in a recent documentary on the life of Che Guevara:

History Channel en Español
Sirs,

Below is the list of documented deaths by Che (216 to date) so you can correct his biography in your website in relation to the show Che Guevara: El Revolucionario Infatigable on History Channel en Español. Your count shows only 50.

Also you should correct your records. Che's position at the National Bank of Cuba was not his first assignment after 1959, it was the second. From January 3 to November 26, 1959, Che was in charge of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, where he did most of his executions without trial and he was known by his victims as "the butcher of La Cabaña."

The execution squads flourished under Che's command, assassinating, en masse, those perceived as enemies of the revolution, not, as your biography says, [Che] "Fusiló a asesinos de niños, mujeres y torturadores." [Executed assassins of children and women and torturers.] Che ordered that women and children visiting his prisoners be paraded in front of the execution wall, gruesomely stained with blood and brain parts. All this was well publicized in Cuba in order to spread fear throughout the population. Is this the "hero" that you are selling to the Spanish population in the U.S.?

Also, you should correct the ending quotes of Che's biography to reflect what he really said to his captors in Bolivia in 1967, pleading for his life: "Don't shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!" Your biography says, to the contrary, " Fue un valiente hasta el último instante." [He was valiant until the last instant.] Once again, your biography is far from reality.

Are you a History Channel or not? What kind of history are you telling the Spanish population in the United States? From whom or where is that information about Che coming?

For more information about Che see Humberto Fontova's article at the following link: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={50C84DE3-56E9-44C4-B7E7-43305CB15405 Humberto Fontova wrote a book about Che you can find at Amazon.com

Also there is a book by Enrique Ros titled Ernesto Che Guevara: Mito y Realidad that can be found at Amazon.com plus the documentary GUEVARA: anatomia de un MITO, which you can find at www.CubaCollectibles.com

Sincerely,

Agustin Blazquez
producer/director of the documentary series COVERING CUBA

216 DOCUMENTED VICTIMS OF CHÉ GUEVARA IN CUBA:

CUBA ARCHIVE
From Armando M. Lago, Ph. D.´s
Cuba: The Human Cost of
Social Revolution
Manuscript Pending Publication

The exact number of Che’s victims in Cuba is unknown. Guevara is said to have acknowledged ordering many executions — all carried out without affording the victims due process of law. Combat deaths caused by Che in Cuba or other countries where he led guerrilla operations have yet to be tallied.

The following list is not exhaustive and includes only cases for which historic reference is known — those he personally executed as well as those killed under his orders. Names are cited as reported. Additional details, including bibliographic information, are available for most cases.

Executed by Che in the Sierra Maestra during the anti-Batista guerrilla struggle (1957-1958)
1. ARISTIDIO - 10-57
2. MANUEL CAPITÁN - 1957
3. JUAN CHANG - 9-57
4. “BISCO” ECHEVARRÍA MARTÍNEZ - 8-57
5. EUTIMIO GUERRA - 2-18-57
6. DIONISIO LEBRIGIO - 9-57
7. JUAN LEBRIGIO - 9-57
8. “EL NEGRO” NÁPOLES - 2-18-57
9. “CHICHO” OSORIO - 1-17-57
10. UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER (“EL MAESTRO") - 9-57
11-12. 2 BROTHERS, SPIES FROM THE MASFERRER GROUP - 9-57
13-14. 2 UNIDENTIFIED PEASANTS - 4-57

Executed or sent for execution by Che during his brief command in Santa Clara (Jan. 1-3, 1959)
1. RAMÓN ALBA - 1-3-59**
2. JOSÉ BARROSO- 1-59
3. JOAQUÍN CASILLAS LUMPUY - 1-2-59**
4. FÉLIX CRUZ - 1-1-59
5. ALEJANDRO GARCÍA ALAYÓN - 1-31-59**
6. HÉCTOR MIRABAL - 1-59
7. J. MIRABAL- 1-59
8. FÉLIX MONTANO - 1-59
9. CORNELIO ROJAS - 1-7-59**
10. VILALLA - 1-59
11. DOMINGO ÁLVAREZ MARTÍNEZ - 1-4-59**
12. CANO DEL PRIETO - 1-7-59**
13. JOSE FERNÁNDEZ MARTÍNEZ-1-2-59
14. JOSÉ GRIZEL SEGURA - 1-7-59** ( Manacas)
15. ARTURO PÉREZ PÉREZ - 1-24-59**
16. RICARDO RODRÍGUEZ PÉREZ - 1-11-59**
17. FRANCISCO ROSELL - 1-11-59
18. IGNACIO ROSELL LEYVA - 1-11-59
19. ANTONIO RUÍZ BELTRÁN -1-11-59

1. RAMÓN SANTOS GARCÍA - 1-12-59
2. PEDRO SOCARRÁS - 1-12-59**
3. MANUEL VALDÉS - 1-59
4. TACE JOSÉ VELÁZQUEZ - 12-59**
**Che signed the death penalty before leaving Santa Clara.


Executions documented for La Cabaña Fortress prison during Che’s command (January 3 to November 26, 1959)
1. VILAU ABREU - 7-3-59
2. HUMBERTO AGUIAR - 1959
3. GERMÁN AGUIRRE - 1959
4. PELAYO ALAYÓN - 2-59
5. JOSÉ LUIS ALFARO SIERRA - 7-1-59
6. PEDRO ALFARO - 7-25-59
7. MARIANO ALONSO - 7-1-59
8. JOSÉ ALVARO - 3-1-59
9. ALVARO ANGUIERA SUÁREZ – 1-4-59
10. ANIELLA - 1959
11. MARIO ARES POLO - 1-2-59
12. JOSÉ RAMÓN BACALLAO - 12-23-59**
13. SEVERINO BARRIOS - 12-9-59**
14. EUGENIO BÉCQUER - 9-29-59
15. FRANCISCO BÉCQUER - 7-2-59
16. RAMÓN BISCET - 7-5-59
17. ROBERTO CALZADILLA - 1959
18. EUFEMIO CANO - 4-59
19. JUAN CAPOTE FIALLO - 5-1-59
20. ANTONIO CARRALERO - 2-4-59
21. GERTRUDIS CASTELLANOS - 5-7-59
22. JOSÉ CASTAÑO QUEVEDO - 3-6-59
23. RAÚL CASTAÑO - 5-30-59
24. EUFEMIO CHALA - 12-16-59**
25. JOSÉ CHAMACE - 10-15-59
26. JOSÉ CHAMIZO - 3-59
27. RAÚL CLAUSELL - 1-28-59
28. ÁNGEL CLAUSELL - 1-18-59
29. DEMETRIO CLAUSELL - 1-2-59
30. JOSÉ CLAUSELL – 1-29-59
31. ELOY CONTRERAS 1-18-59
32. ALBERTO CORBO - 12-7-59**
33. EMILIO CRUZ PEREZ - 12-7-59**
34. ORESTES CRUZ – 1959
35. ADALBERTO CUEVAS – 7-2-59**
36. CUNI - 1959
37. ANTONIO DE BECHE - 1-5-59
38. MATEO DELGADO - 12-4-59
39. ARMANDO DELGADO - 1-29-59
40. RAMÓN DESPAIGNE - 1959
41. JOSÉ DÍAZ CABEZAS - 7-30-59
42. FIDEL DÍAZ MARQUINA – 4-9-59
43. ANTONIO DUARTE - 7-2-59
44. RAMÓN FERNÁNDEZ OJEDA - 5-29-59
45. RUDY FERNÁNDEZ - 7-30-59
46. FERRÁN ALFONSO - 1-12-59
47. SALVADOR FERRERO - 6-29-59
48. VICTOR FIGUEREDO - 1-59
49. EDUARDO FORTE - 3-20-59
50. UGARDE GALÁN - 1959
51. RAFAEL GARCÍA MUÑIZ - 1-20-59
52. ADALBERTO GARCÍA - 6-6-59
53. ALBERTO GARCÍA - 6-6-59
54. JACINTO GARCÍA - 9-8-59
55. EVELIO GASPAR - 12-4-59**
56. ARMADA GIL Y DIEZ CABEZAS - 12-4-59**
1. JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ MALAGÓN - 7-2-59
2. EVARISTO BENERIO GONZÁLEZ - 11-14-59
3. EZEQUIEL GONZÁLEZ - 1-59
4. SECUNDINO GONZÁLEZ - 1959
5. RICARDO LUIS GRAO - 2-3-59
6. RICARDO JOSÉ GRAU - -7-59
7. OSCAR GUERRA - 3-9-59
8. JULIÁN HERNÁNDEZ - 2-9-59
9. FRANCISCO HERNÁNDEZ LEYVA - 4-15-59
10. ANTONIO HERNÁNDEZ - 2-14-59
11. GERARDO HERNÁNDEZ - 7-26-59
12. OLEGARIO HERNÁNDEZ - 4-23-59
13. SECUNDINO HERNÁNDEZ - 1-59
14. RODOLFO HERNÁNDEZ FALCÓN - 1.9.59
15. RAÚL HERRERA – 2-18-59
16. JESÚS INSUA - 7-30-59
17. ENRIQUE IZQUIERDO- 7-3-59
18. SILVINO JUNCO - 11-15-59
19. ENRIQUE LA ROSA - 1959
20. BONIFACIO LASAPARLA - 1959
21. JESÚS LAZO OTAÑO - 1959
22. ARIEL LIMA LAGO - 8-1-59 ( Minor)
23. RENE LÓPEZ VIDAL - 7-3-59
24. ARMANDO MAS - 2-17-59
25. ONERLIO MATA – 1-30-59
26. EVELIO MATA RODRIGUEZ - 2-8-59
27. ELPIDIO MEDEROS - 1-9-59
28. JOSÉ MEDINA - 5-17-59
29. JOSÉ MESA - 7-23-59
30. FIDEL MESQUÍA DIAZ - 7-11-59
31. JUAN MANUEL MILIÁN - 1959
32. JOSÉ MILIAN PÉREZ - 4-3-59
33. FRANCISCO MIRABAL - 5-29-59
34. LUIS MIRABAL - 1959
35. ERNESTO MORALES - 1959
36. PEDRO MOREJÓN - 3-59
37. DR. CARLOS MUIÑO, M.D. - 1959
38. CÉSAR NECOLARDES ROJAS - 1-7-59
39. VICTOR NECOLARDES ROJAS - 1-7-59
40. JOSÉ NUÑEZ - 3-59
41. VITERBO O'REILLY - 2-27-59
42. FÉLIX OVIEDO - 7-21-59
43. MANUEL PANEQUE - 8-16-59
44. PEDRO PEDROSO - 12-1-59**
45. DIEGO PÉREZ CUESTA - 1959
46. JUAN PÉREZ HERNANDEZ-5-29-59
47. DIEGO PÉREZ CRELA - 04-03-59
48. JOSÉ POZO - 1959
49. EMILIO PUEBLA - 4-30-59
50. ALFREDO PUPO - 5-29-59
51. SECUNDINO RAMÍREZ - 4-2-59
52. RAMÓN RAMOS - 4-23-59
53. PABLO RAVELO JR. 9-15-59
54. RUBÉN REY ALBEROLA- 2-27-59
55. MARIO RISQUELME - 1-29-59
56. FERNANDO RIVERA - 10-8-59
57. PABLO RIVERO - 5-59
58. MANUEL RODRÍGUEZ - 3-1-59
59. MARCOS RODRÍGUEZ - 7-31-59
60. NEMESIO RODRÍGUEZ - 7-30-59
61. PABLO RODRÍGUEZ - 10-1-59
62. RICARDO RODRÍGUEZ - 5-29-59
63. OLEGARIO RODRÍGUEZ FERNÁNDEZ - 4.23.59
64. JOSÉ SALDARA - 11-9-59
65. PEDRO SANTANA - 2-59
66. SERGIO SIERRA - 1-9-59
67. JUAN SILVA - 8-59
1. FAUSTO SILVA – 1-29-59
2. ELPIDIO SOLER - 11-8-59
3. JESÚS SOSA BLANCO - 2-8-59
4. RENATO SOSA - 6-28-59
5. SERGIO SOSA - 8-20-59
6. PEDRO SOTO - 3-20-59
7. OSCAR SUÁREZ - 4-30-59
8. RAFAEL TARRAGO - 2-18-59
9. TEODORO TELLEZ CISNEROS - 1-3-59
10. FRANCISCO TELLEZ - 1-3-59
11. JOSÉ TIN - 1-12-59
12. FRANCISCO TRAVIESO - 1959
13. LEONARDO TRUJILLO - 2-27-59
14. TRUJILLO - 1959
15. LUPE VALDÉS BARBOSA - 3-22-59
16. MARCELINO VALDÉS - 7-21-59
17. ANTONIO VALENTÍN - 3-22-59
18. MANUEL VÁZQUEZ - 3-22-59
19. SERGIO VÁZQUEZ - 5-29-59
20. VERDECIA - 1959
21. DÁMASO ZAYAS - 7-23-59
22. JOSÉ ALVARADO - 4-22-59
23. LEONARDO BARÓ - 1-12-59
24. RAÚL CONCEPCIÓN LIMA - 1959
25. ElADIO CARO - 1-4-59
26. CARPINTOR - 1959
27. CARLOS CORVO MARTÍNEZ - 1959
28. JUAN GUILLERMO COSSÍO - 1959
29. CORPORAL ORTEGA - 7-11-59
30. JUAN MANUEL PRIETO - 1959
31. ANTONIO VALDÉS MENA - 5-11-59
32. ESTEBAN LASTRA - 1-59
33. JUAN FELIPE CRUZ SERAFIN - 6-59**
34. BONIFACIO GRASSO - 7-59
35. FELICIANO ALMENARES - 12-8-59
36. ANTONIO BLANCO NAVARRO - 12-10-59**
37. ALBERTO CAROLA - 6-5-59
38. EVARISTO GUERRA - 2-8-59
39. CRISTÓBAL MARTÍNEZ – 1-16-59
40. PEDRO RODRÍGUEZ – 1-10-59
41. FRANCISCO TRUJILLO – 2-18-59

**The death sentence was signed by Che, but the execution was carried out after he left his command.

15 additional executions were reported by The New York Times, but names are unknown.


Information provided by
CUBA ARCHIVE, an initiative of the
FREE SOCIETY PROJECT, INC.
www.CubaArchive.org
P.O. Box 757
Summit, NJ 07902
Tel. 973.701-0520
Info@CubaArchive.org

Reproduction and distribution
of this material is authorized as
long as its source is cited.

Ann Althouse: NY Times Lied, Covered-Up, Petraeus Ad Facts

Violated their own advertising standards, to boot...

Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez Video Podcast on The War by Ken Burns

You can watch in Quicktime here, before, during, or after the PBS broadcast...

Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? on Wikipedia

Here.

I don't know who did the writeup, but it is very good. Also, just learned the DVD is stocked by Target as well as Barnes & Noble.

Kiss of Death (1947)

Five stars for this Ben Hecht-Charles Lederer-Henry Hathaway collaboration based on a story by Eleazar Lipsky. All-Stars Victor Mature, Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Brian Donlevy in a documentary-style noir thriller about a stoolpigeon who gets it in the end--for a higher cause. Leading lady Colleen Gray was good, too. Reminded me of "On the Waterfront"--only scarier. You can rent it from Netflix.

Speaking of Special Relationships...

Here are some photos recent of Mayor Rudy Giuliani's trip to London, from the campaign website with Prime Minister Gordon Brown
with former PM Tony Blair
and with Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven.

Richard Pipes on Academic Politics

I saw this quotation from Richard Pipes on Daniel Pipes' weblog, and it seems worth posting:

Academic life is not all sweetness and light. Scholars are psychologically less secure than most people: by and large, once they pass the threshold of middle age they strike me as becoming restless. A businessman knows he is successful when he makes money; a politician, when he wins elections; an athlete, when he is first in sporting contests; a popular writer, when he produces best-sellers. But a scholar has no such fixed criteria by which to judge success, and as a consequence he lives in a state of permanent uncertainty which grows more oppressive with age as ambitious younger scholars elbow themselves to the fore and dismiss his work as outdated.

His principal criterion of success is approval of peers. This means that he must cultivate them, which makes for conformity and "group think." Scholars are expected to cite one another approvingly, attend conferences, edit and contribute to collective symposia. Professional associations are designed to promote these objectives. Those who do not play by the rules or significantly depart from the consensus risk ostracism. A classic example of such ostracism is the treatment meted out to one of the outstanding economists and social theorists of the past century, Frederick von Hayek, whose uncompromising condemnation of economic planning and socialism caused him to be banished from the profession. He lived long enough to see his views prevail and his reputation vindicated by a Nobel Prize, but not everyone in this situation is as fortunate. Such behavior, observed also in animal communities, strengthens group cohesion and enhances the sense of security of its individual members, but it inhibits creativity.

What particularly disenchanted me about many academics was [the way they treated] a professorship not as a sacred trust but as a sinecure, much like the run-of-the-mill Protestant ministers in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century England who did not even pretend to believe. The typical academic, having completed and published his doctoral dissertation, will establish himself as an authority on the subject of his dissertation and for the remainder of his life write and teach on the same or closely related topics. The profession welcomes this kind of "expertise" and resents anyone who attempts to take a broader view of the field because by so doing, he encroaches on its members' turf. Nonmonographic, general histories are dismissed as "popular" and allegedly riddled with errors – doubly so if they do not give adequate credit to the hordes who labor in the fields.

Is France the New Britain?

With Tony Blair bogged down making peace between Arabs and Israelis, will France take the same role vis-a-vis Iran as Britain has done vis-a-vis Iraq?

It looks that way, after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's arrival in our fair city. I heard Kouchner on C-Span radio in the car, live from the Washington Hilton, speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies--notably in English, with a delightful French accent--debating hecklers and threatening Iran, while simultaneously maintaining the necessity for dialogue backed by sanctions.

Here's the official notice of Kouchner's trip, from the French Embassy website:

Foreign and European Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner will be in Washington for an official visit on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, September 19, 20 and 21. This is his first visit to Washington since taking office.

The trip will underline the exceptional relationship between France and the United States based on the shared common values of freedom and democracy, in the context of a renewed transatlantic partnership.

The minister of Foreign and European affairs will have in-depth talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, before the opening of the 62nd session of the UN General Assembly in New York where the minister will accompany President Sarkozy.

Mr. Kouchner and Ms Rice will discuss the main international issues. In the wake of his trip to the Middle East, Israel, the Occupied Territories, Egypt and Lebanon, the minister will give his analyses of the regional situation and peace process, particularly with a view to the international conference which is to be held in November at the initiative of the United States. The Iranian nuclear question will also be a core issue in their talks. They will also be discussing Iraq, Lebanon ahead of the important election, which you know about, and the situation in Darfur and Kosovo.

The minister will also have meetings with the leaders of Congress.

The minister will give a lecture at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the United States, France and Europe in the face of the major international challenges.

As is customary, the minister will meet with the French community.

Meanwhile, the French Embassy is sponsoring a number of upcoming tributes to the Marquis de Lafayette, in honor of the 250th anniversary of his birth, and as a reminder of the historic French role supporting American independence from Great Britain....

Jena Protests Sweep US

I saw a demonstration in front of the University of the District of Columbia, just last night. The Jena protest movement has hit a nerve around the country. Here's a report from Baltimore:

"This is much bigger than Jena," said M.K. Asante Jr., an English professor at Morgan State University, who required his students to attend the rally.

"There are Jena 6 cases happening in Maryland, in Pennsylvania and around this country," he said. "What we need to do is focus all our energy on the institutional problems that allowed Jena to happen. Instead of being a society that responds to symptoms, we need to fight the deeper problems such as the huge disparities in the criminal justice system."

From Baltimore to Baton Rouge, protesters held rallies in support of the six black students charged with the attempted murder of a white classmate after a schoolyard brawl. They intended to add their voices to the collective cry of thousands of civil rights demonstrators who converged yesterday on Jena, a tiny sawmill town of 3,000.

Baltimore's events included huge rallies at local colleges and informal gatherings at high schools. Last night, a teach-in was held at New Shiloh Baptist Church, hosted by radio personalities, fraternities and sororities and the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Everywhere, protesters wore black in a show of solidarity.

"We are here to support our brothers and sisters in Jena. If we don't stand up for justice, who will?" said Jasmine Hazel, a Morgan senior and student government association president. "This is not about black, this is not about white. This is about justice."

Melanie Phillips on a New Twist in France's Karsenty Case

From MelaniePhillips.com:

Well, waddya know. The hitherto unthinkable has happened in the al Durah libel appeal in Paris (see here and here for previous entries). The court has actually demanded that France 2 hand over the unplayed 27 minutes of tape....Will we now find that the 27 minutes have mysteriously been lost, I wonder?

"Bronx Bomber" Mukasey

The NY Daily News reports a local angle on Michael Bernard Mukasey. Joe Gould and Corky Siemaszko talked to Mukasey's rabbi, Haskel Lookstein, who declared him a "mensch." Good enough for me. Lookstein has known him for years, he was Mukasey's camp counselor. Since Lookstein's father was my grandmother's rabbi, I'll take his word on it. And since Mukasey is a Bronxite, and I grew up in the Bronx, he has my support there as well. Cherry on the top--Mukasey is apparently a long-time confidant of Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

A trifecta.

Michael Bernard Mukasey: Good for New York. Good for America.

MoveOn.org v. Rudy Giuliani

I thought Giuliani's decision to quit the Iraq Study Group--a bureaucratic and political cover operation, just more Washington-style CYA, IMHO--was the right thing to do at the time. He didn't make a fuss, he just took the nearest exit when he saw where the process was heading. In the end, the Iraq Study Group's recommendations were absurd on their face, which is why President Bush paid no political cost for ignoring them. If I had to choose between the pablum of the commission report or Rudy Giuliani's judgement, I'd choose Rudy every time.

Now, MoveOn.org is trying to use his decision against Giuliani, in a commercial on YouTube. Actions speak louder than words. So, if Rudy Giuliani can't turn this political gift to his advantage, he doesn't deserve to be President...

Fouad Ajami on Iraq

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Historically we are winning." The words were those of Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. This is a scion of Baghdad Shiite aristocracy, at ease with French and English, a man whose odyssey had taken him from Marxism to the Baath, then finally to the Islamism of the Supreme Islamic Council. "We came from under the ashes, and now the new order, this new Iraq, is taking hold. If we were losing, why would the insurgents be joining us?" He had nothing but praise for the effort that had secured the peace of Baghdad: "Petraeus can defend the surge," he said. "He can show the 'red zones' of conflict receding, and the spread of the 'blue zones' of peace. Six months ago, you could not venture into the Anbar, now you can walk its streets in peace. There is a Sunni problem in the country which requires a Shiite initiative. The Sunni problem is power, plain and simple. Sunni society grew addicted to power, and now it has to make this painful adjustment."

Mr. Mahdi was not apologetic about what Iraq offers the United States by way of justification for the blood and treasure and the sacrifice: "Little more than two decades ago, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and the Lebanon War of 1982, the American position in this region was exposed and endangered. Look around you today: Everyone seeks American protection and patronage. The line was held in Iraq; perhaps America was overly sanguine about the course of things in Iraq. But that initial optimism now behind us, the war has been an American victory. All in the region are romancing the Americans, even Syria and Iran in their own way."

For the Sunni-ruled states in the region, he counseled an acceptance of the new Iraq. He looked with pride on his country, and on his city. He saw beyond Baghdad's daily grief. "Baghdad is the heart of the Arab world, this was the hothouse of Arab philosophy and science and literature."

Peace has not come to Iraq, the feuds have not fully burned out, but the center holds. The best of Iraq's technocrats, deputy prime minister Barham Saleh, spoke of the new economic vitality of the provinces, of the recovery of regions once lost to darkness and terror. I brought back with me from Iraq a reminder that life renews in that land.
I attended the judicial tribunal that is investigating the crimes of Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, better know as Chemical Ali, and 14 other defendants being tried for deeds they committed back in 1991, in the aftermath of the first American war against Saddam Hussein. Chemical Ali had been one of the most dreaded "roosters" of the regime, a haughty killer. His attire was either Western suits or military uniforms. On the afternoon I went to watch his trial, he had shuffled in, leaning on a cane, all dressed in the traditional Arab way. The courtroom setting was one of immense decorum: a five-member panel of judges in their robes, the defense team on one side, the prosecutors on the other.

A lone witness, his face hidden from view behind a simple curtain, told of the cruelty he had seen a generation ago. He told of Chemical Ali executing people point-blank, after three Baathist women singled them out; he told of the burial of the victims on the grounds of a vocational school. He stood firm, the simple witness, when Chemical Ali tried to bully and ridicule him. He had no doubt about the memory of that day. He recalled Chemical Ali, he said, in his olive military uniform, and he correctly identified the rank of Chemical Ali. A policeman distributed bottled water to the defendants who once literally owned and disposed of the fate of this country. They were now being given the justice denied their victims.

In our fashion, we have our very American "metrics" and "benchmarks" with which we judge this war and the order in Iraq we had midwifed. For the war's critics, there can be no redemption of this war, and no faith that Iraq's soil could bring forth anything decent or humane. Today two men of extraordinary talent and devotion, our military commander and our ambassador, will tell of the country they know so well. Doubtless, they will tell of accomplishments and heartbreak. We should grant them--and that distant country--the hearing they deserve.

Rumsfeld Foundation Focuses on Central Asia

Bradley Graham reports in today's Washington Post that the recently retired Defense Secretary is turning international to charity work--especially in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (perhaps also Afghanistan?):

Rumsfeld became wealthy during a 24-year business career between stints in government. A family foundation, set up in 1985 by him and his wife, Joyce, is now valued at about $20 million and makes charitable contributions to dozens of groups a year.

Rumsfeld plans to fund the new foundation with a grant from the old one and with other personal assets, plus any contributions that friends might make. He does not intend to solicit money from others, nor keep either foundation going after he and his wife have died.

Royalties from Rumsfeld's planned memoirs also will go into the new foundation, which is to be called the Rumsfeld Foundation. But Rumsfeld said he is "in no rush" to get the book out. "I'm not going to try to get something out fast -- a kiss-and-tell -- and affect the elections," he said. "That's not me."

Details about the number and size of the Rumsfeld fellowships have yet to be worked out. But they will not be attached to a particular school, going instead to individuals for study in foreign and national security affairs, economics, and other public policy fields. Similarly, the foundation's lecture series will not be confined to a single campus, Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld has long spoken of the need to encourage government service. The other main aims of his foundation -- loans to micro-enterprises and help for Central Asian republics -- reflect more recent interests.

Micro-enterprise is a burgeoning global phenomenon in which people who lack access to normal credit receive financing to operate small businesses. It has proved to be an economic boon to some poor regions. Rumsfeld noted that the repayment rates have been high, and he said such loans have the advantage of bypassing sometimes corrupt governments and landing directly in the hands of beneficiaries.

His focus on Central Asian republics such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan stems from a concern that they lack the U.S.-based support groups that benefited the Eastern European states in their transition from communist rule. "We don't have, in Chicago or Detroit or Pittsburgh, Uzbeks or Tajiks or Kazakhs," Rumsfeld said. "I think that we need to have people who understand what's going on in Central Asia . . . and the difficulty of that transition."

According to the New Zealand blog Scoop, Rumsfeld will join The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, at Stanford University.

Putin's Next Step: "Prepare Three Envelopes"

Anyone practicing amateur (or professional) Kremlinology must have been struck by an exchange published in the transcript of the Valdai discussion club. IMHO Putin's joke about leadership style explains why Yeltsin's chaos was blamed for Russia's problems; why there was an economic boom in the middle period; and finally why there is such uncertainlty about the future:

PIOTR DUTKIEWICZ: Which do you think are the three most important things you have achieved during your time in the Kremlin? Which three things did you not have enough time to do or were not able to do? And what are three pieces of advice that you would give your successor when you have your first meeting with him?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: On this account we have an old joke. When the head of a company or - let’s take a bigger picture - of a region, leaves his position, he gives his successor three envelopes and tells him the following: ‘Open the first envelope now, the second in two years, and the third just before you leave your position’. Upon opening the first envelope he reads: ‘Blame it all on me’. In two years he opens the second envelope which reads: ‘Promise everything’. And when he has six months left he opens the third envelope and reads: ‘Prepare three envelopes’. (Laughter). This story is relevant because our colleague has asked me to formulate three things three times right now.

I am not ready to state all of the most important things in all three spheres. But it is very obvious that we were able to strengthen Russian statehood. It seems to me that there is a great deal that can still be done in this field: to administratively and morally strengthen Russian statehood and establish more or less capable power and economic agencies.

The second achievement concerns the restoration of the Russian economy. We mentioned basic economic indicators. When I started working Russia’s gold and currency reserves amounted to 12 billion USD. Just this year they grew by 80 billion and total around 275 or 280 billion USD, I think. We had hyperinflation. And though it remains high I think that this year we will achieve nine percent. And before it was 30 or more and even went off the scale, up to unknown levels.

We constantly held out our hand to all international financial organisations for credits. As you know, today we are not financing our main activities with money obtained from credit and we are also repaying our debts ahead of schedule. And just recently we paid back 22 billion USD that we owed. Now the ratio of our foreign debt to GDP is one of the best in Europe. On average over the last three years the economy has grown by seven percent. In the first six or seven months of 2006 it grew by 7.4 percent.

40 million Russian citizens lived below the poverty line. Today there is still quite a lot of poverty. But it is no longer 40 percent of citizens – I think it is somewhere around 20 percent. The number has been halved. And I think that before the end of 2008 this indicator will approach the general European level.

We have minimal unemployment, quite simply minimal unemployment. And I think that we have learned to be quite pragmatic, but not confrontational, when defending our interests in the international arena. In other words we strengthened the Russian Federation’s international position.

If asked to state briefly and from the top of my head, these are three basic things that I would classify as positive.

What would I have liked to do and what is still incomplete? I have already referred to lowering the number of citizens below the poverty line as an advantage but, at the same time, there are still large numbers of poor people. The average income is still too low. However, we understand that in order to maintain macroeconomic stability and the rate of economic growth we cannot lessen the numbers of poor people in a way that is harmful to macroeconomic stability. This is the first and most important thing.

The second is the fight against corruption. I think that this is one of the very significant negative things that we have to continue to fight against.

And the third – something we have already talked about with Mrs D’Encausse – is demography.

What must we do in the near future? Incidentally, it is impossible to talk about such things with certainty and I am very much at risk when I do so. But nevertheless I will talk about things on a general level. We need to continue developing our country’s political system. We need to establish a truly multiparty system, develop self-management and improve relations between the federal centre, the regions and the municipalities so that each level takes responsibility upon itself and is able to accomplish the tasks incumbent to it. And of course we must continue to diversify the economy and thereby create the conditions that will help us resolve social problems.

Leon Aron on Liberty in Russia

From AEI's Russian Outlook:

Away from the "Chaos" Myth?

After Yeltsin died this past spring, 25,000 people stood for hours in a very long line on a cold April night to pay their last respects to Russia's first freely elected chief executive--until the body was suddenly whisked away by the authorities for a quick burial after fewer than twenty hours of lying in state. Even more remarkable, given the negative opinions of Yeltsin and his era to which the Russian people had become accustomed, was the tone of the obituaries (mostly on the uncensored Internet sites) that strongly challenged the "chaos" stereotype. Instead of a period of senseless destruction and chaos, emerging from the obituaries, appreciations, and comments was a precious and unique moment in Russian history--a hectic time, marred by ignorance and corruption, but, in the main, an earnest trial-and-error search for modern liberal economic and political arrangements best suited to the national conditions.

Putin's former personal economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, captured the tenor of the reevaluation when he wrote that Yeltsin had "pulled the country out of communism, out of empire and out of its past" and "pushed it forward toward civilization, openness and freedom." In another view, the 1990s have shown that the traditional Russian "feudal mentality" and the worst features of Russian political culture, which many consider immutable--disrespect of laws, the delegation of complete power and responsibility to the supreme leader, the "thousand-year-old corruption" and the notion that authorities of all ranks were there to "feed" off whatever they were appointed to supervise, the servility toward those above, and the violence toward those below--could, at least in principle, be changed. It is possible in Russia to "respect liberty," to tackle "laziness," and to treat other people not "as enemies and scoundrels."

In the 1990s a Russia began to be forged that was not an empire or a monarchy, but a "democratic and civilized country, of which others are not afraid," wrote a former Yeltsin aide. "A country that did not harbor treachery or hostility. A country that is liked in the world. A country in which there could be market economy, competition, freedom of speech."

Yeltsin's death seems to have occasioned a broader public reevaluation as well. Compared to 2000, the percentage of those who thought that the Yeltsin era was overall more negative than positive dropped by almost one-third, from 67 percent to 47 percent, while the share of those remembering the 1990s positively increased by two-fifths from 15 percent to 26 percent. ] Attitudes toward Yeltsin have changed even more decisively: the share of those who say they liked him grew by more than half from 2000-07 (9 percent to 19 percent), while the proportion of those disliking him diminished by more than half from 55 percent to 26 percent.

Most likely these numbers testify to the well-known feature of human memory: only distance can provide a proper notion of scale and meaning for events of such magnitude.

Writing about the American republic almost half a century after its birth, Alexis de Tocqueville noted "a mature and thoughtful taste for freedom." ] The first decade of Russian political and economic liberty brought nothing less than a different order of being to Russia, but hardly made the taste for it mature. The development of such a taste, along with a balanced view of the 1990s untinged by the political needs of a ruling regime, may be a project for decades.

Rod Dreher on the Muslim Brotherhood

From the Dallas Morning News (ht lgf):

This "explanatory memorandum," as it's titled, outlines the "strategic goal" for the North American operation of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan). Here's the key paragraph:

The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.

The entire 18-page platform outlines a plan for the long haul. It prescribes the Muslim Brotherhood's comprehensive plan to set down roots in civil society. It begins by both founding and taking control of American Muslim organizations, for the sake of unifying and educating the U.S. Muslim community – this to prepare it for the establishment of a global Islamic state governed by sharia.

It sounds like a conspiracy theory out of a bad Hollywood movie – but it's real. Husain Haqqani, head of Boston University's Center for International Relations and a former Islamic radical, confirms that the Brotherhood "has run most significant Muslim organizations in the U.S." as part of the plan outlined in the strategy paper.

The HLF trial is exposing for the first time how the international Muslim Brotherhood – whose Palestinian division is Hamas – operates as a self-conscious revolutionary vanguard in the United States. The court documents indicate that many leading Muslim-American organizations – including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim American Society – are an integral part of the Brotherhood's efforts to wage jihad against America by nonviolent means.

More here.

Andrew Kuchins on Journalist Deaths in Russia

From the Center for Strategic and International Studies website:

Did you know that nearly twice as many Russian journalists were killed in the 1990s when Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia as in the seven years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency? According to the records of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York–based organization that tracks violations against free journalism around the world, in Yeltsin’s Russia, 42 journalists were killed and 3 disappeared. Since Mr. Putin became president, 22 journalists have been killed and 2 disappeared. As in the Yeltsin years, the motivations for the great majority of these tragic killings are tied to the wars in Chechnya and/or criminal activities. And, as in the Yeltsin years, almost none of these murders has been solved. The truth is that in Putin’s Russia, like Yeltsin’s Russia, being an investigative journalist is a very dangerous profession. And today, as in the 1990s, Russia’s ramshackle legal system provides virtually no incentive for investigators to solve the crimes. They would only discover the same dangerous information that the journalists did, and you can bet they are not counting on the Russian legal system to protect them in that event...