Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Irfan Orga
A Turkish author whom I have read, to add to the Turkish reading list. A bookseller in Istanbul said I must read Orga's "Portrait of a Turkish Family," in order to understand Turkey. So I did, and was not at all sorry. I read it in one go, on a long bus trip from Istanbul to Urgup, some 15 hours across the Anatolian plain. The time went by quickly,through the night and into the dawn. Curiously, Orga went out with Ataturk's daughter, and wrote a biography of the Turkish leader, among other books, including cookbooks, which he wrote with his British wife. He lived in England. The afterword by his British son is fascinating. You can get it at Amazon by clicking this link: Portrait of a Turkish Family
Orhan Pamuk
Yesterday, President Bush quoted Ohrhan Pamuk in Istanbul, when he called for Turkey's inclusion in the European Union (an attempt to replay Reagan's "tear down this wall" moment?):
"The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has said that the finest view of Istanbul is not from the shores of Europe, or from the shores of Asia, but from a bridge that unites them, and lets you see both. His work has been a bridge between cultures, and so is the Republic of Turkey. The people of this land understand, as Pamuk has observed, that 'What is important is not [a] clash of parties, civilizations, cultures, East and West.' What is important, he says, is to realize 'that other peoples in other continents and civilizations' are 'exactly like you.' "
Here's a website devoted to the author, and here's where you can buy his new book, Snow at Amazon.com.
"The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has said that the finest view of Istanbul is not from the shores of Europe, or from the shores of Asia, but from a bridge that unites them, and lets you see both. His work has been a bridge between cultures, and so is the Republic of Turkey. The people of this land understand, as Pamuk has observed, that 'What is important is not [a] clash of parties, civilizations, cultures, East and West.' What is important, he says, is to realize 'that other peoples in other continents and civilizations' are 'exactly like you.' "
Here's a website devoted to the author, and here's where you can buy his new book, Snow at Amazon.com.
Mark Steyn on the 9/11 Commission
Steyn's essay is called How the Sept. 11 commission blew it. Quote:
"These poseurs have blown it so badly they've become the definitive example of what they're meant to be investigating: a culture so stuck in its way it's unable to change even in the most extreme circumstances. Take this example from their report on Sept. 11:
"FAA Command Center: "Do we want to think about scrambling aircraft?"
"FAA Headquarters: "God, I don't know."
"FAA Command Center: "That's a decision somebody's going to have to make, probably in the next 10 minutes."
"FAA Headquarters: "You know, everybody just left the room."
"What's going on there? Well, the guys at HQ didn't understand this was their rendezvous with history, and they were unable to rise to the occasion. Isn't that just what the 9/11 Commission's done? They were appointed to take a cool, dispassionate look at the government's response to an act of war, but they were unable to rise above the most pointless partisan point-scoring.
"But I'd go further. I'd say the underlying assumption behind all the whiny point-scoring is false, and deeply dangerous. Most of what went wrong on Sept. 11 we knew about in the first days after. Generally, it falls into two categories: a) Government agencies didn't enforce their own rules (as in the terrorists' laughably inadequate visa applications); or b) The agencies' rules were out of date --three out of those four planes reached their targets because their crews, passengers and ground staff all blindly followed the FAA's 1970s hijack procedures until it was too late, as the terrorists knew they would.
"The next time a terrorist gets through and pulls off an attack, it will be for the same reasons: There'll be a bunch of new post-9/11 regulations, and some bureaucrat somewhere will have neglected to follow them, or some wily Islamist will have rendered them as obsolete as his predecessors made all those 30-year old hijack rules..."
"These poseurs have blown it so badly they've become the definitive example of what they're meant to be investigating: a culture so stuck in its way it's unable to change even in the most extreme circumstances. Take this example from their report on Sept. 11:
"FAA Command Center: "Do we want to think about scrambling aircraft?"
"FAA Headquarters: "God, I don't know."
"FAA Command Center: "That's a decision somebody's going to have to make, probably in the next 10 minutes."
"FAA Headquarters: "You know, everybody just left the room."
"What's going on there? Well, the guys at HQ didn't understand this was their rendezvous with history, and they were unable to rise to the occasion. Isn't that just what the 9/11 Commission's done? They were appointed to take a cool, dispassionate look at the government's response to an act of war, but they were unable to rise above the most pointless partisan point-scoring.
"But I'd go further. I'd say the underlying assumption behind all the whiny point-scoring is false, and deeply dangerous. Most of what went wrong on Sept. 11 we knew about in the first days after. Generally, it falls into two categories: a) Government agencies didn't enforce their own rules (as in the terrorists' laughably inadequate visa applications); or b) The agencies' rules were out of date --three out of those four planes reached their targets because their crews, passengers and ground staff all blindly followed the FAA's 1970s hijack procedures until it was too late, as the terrorists knew they would.
"The next time a terrorist gets through and pulls off an attack, it will be for the same reasons: There'll be a bunch of new post-9/11 regulations, and some bureaucrat somewhere will have neglected to follow them, or some wily Islamist will have rendered them as obsolete as his predecessors made all those 30-year old hijack rules..."
Matt Labash on Michael Moore
Labash reviews Farenheit 9/11 here. The Weekly Standard also reprints an earlier Labash article, Michael Moore, One-Trick Phony, with this interesting tidbit:
"Once Moore hit the big time, most journalists swallowed his bootstrap revisionism, ignoring the less sexy reality that Moore had sipped liberally at the usual funding spigots. Laurence Jarvik, in a much-over-looked piece in Montage magazine, reported that Moore (who claimed he had never made more than $15,000 a year before Roger & Me) had been an NPR commentator, received two $20,000 grants from the MacArthur Foundation, secured a hefty advance from Doubleday for a book about Flint, and benefited from the largesse of Stewart Mott, the black-sheep GM scion who ran a family fund out of his New York penthouse where Moore sometimes stayed. (Moore, as is his way, accused Jarvik of being an envious liar.)"
BTW, the 1990 Montage article was titled: "Will the Real Michael Moore Please Stand Up?" Unfortunately, I can't seem to find it online.
"Once Moore hit the big time, most journalists swallowed his bootstrap revisionism, ignoring the less sexy reality that Moore had sipped liberally at the usual funding spigots. Laurence Jarvik, in a much-over-looked piece in Montage magazine, reported that Moore (who claimed he had never made more than $15,000 a year before Roger & Me) had been an NPR commentator, received two $20,000 grants from the MacArthur Foundation, secured a hefty advance from Doubleday for a book about Flint, and benefited from the largesse of Stewart Mott, the black-sheep GM scion who ran a family fund out of his New York penthouse where Moore sometimes stayed. (Moore, as is his way, accused Jarvik of being an envious liar.)"
BTW, the 1990 Montage article was titled: "Will the Real Michael Moore Please Stand Up?" Unfortunately, I can't seem to find it online.
Gang Stages Sixth Bank Holdup -- in Our Washington, DC Neighborhood...
We saw the police cars, TV crews, and yellow tape yesterday, then watched Fox News on WTTG broadcast footage of men wearing ski masks and carrying submachine guns storm our neighborhood bank. ThisWashington Post story gives a sense of it. It looked a lot like a terror attack, including a bombed out mini-van, burning near Rock Creek Park.
Why is such a terrifying crime wave occuring unabated in our nation's capital? One factor may a change in FBI policies after 9/11.
Although terrorists are well-known to use bank robberies to support their activities--the IRA and Weather Underground are two notorious examples--according to a June, 2002 article in the Christian Science Monitor, the FBI isn't so interested anymore.
Quote: "The classic American crime of bank robbery is on the rise across the nation, especially the more-violent versions of it. Yet the vaunted Federal Bureau of Investigation – which foiled that famous bank-robbing duo in 1934 [editor's note: Bonnie and Clyde]– is distracted by a bigger battle: the war on terrorism.
"Since Sept. 11, many FBI agents have worked full time on terror-related issues, letting other areas lag. And a major reorganization of the agency, to be announced within a month, is expected to include a significant downsizing of bank-robber tracking efforts."
Here's the full storyBank bandits move in as busy FBI retreats | csmonitor.com
Note to the FBI: If bank robbers can get away with carrying submachine guns in broad daylight in Washington, so can terrorists...
Why is such a terrifying crime wave occuring unabated in our nation's capital? One factor may a change in FBI policies after 9/11.
Although terrorists are well-known to use bank robberies to support their activities--the IRA and Weather Underground are two notorious examples--according to a June, 2002 article in the Christian Science Monitor, the FBI isn't so interested anymore.
Quote: "The classic American crime of bank robbery is on the rise across the nation, especially the more-violent versions of it. Yet the vaunted Federal Bureau of Investigation – which foiled that famous bank-robbing duo in 1934 [editor's note: Bonnie and Clyde]– is distracted by a bigger battle: the war on terrorism.
"Since Sept. 11, many FBI agents have worked full time on terror-related issues, letting other areas lag. And a major reorganization of the agency, to be announced within a month, is expected to include a significant downsizing of bank-robber tracking efforts."
Here's the full storyBank bandits move in as busy FBI retreats | csmonitor.com
Note to the FBI: If bank robbers can get away with carrying submachine guns in broad daylight in Washington, so can terrorists...
Putin v. Yukos, Round 3
A Russian court has ruled that the government can seize Yukos assets to pay back taxes. What does this mean for Putin and the future of capitalism in Russia? The Moscow Times says it might be a good thing.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Fouad Ajami on Iraq
"America is not to stay long in Iraq. No scheme is being hatched for the subjugation of Iraq's people. No giant American air bases on their soil are in the offing. In their modern history, Iraqis witnessed direct British control over their country (from 1921 to 1932), followed by a quarter-century of a subtle British role in their politics, hidden behind a façade of national independence. Ours is a different world, and this new "imperium" is the imperium of a truly reluctant Western power.
"What shall stick of America's truth on the soil of Iraq is an open, unknowable question. But the leaders who waged this war--those "architects" of it who have been thrown on the defensive by its difficulties and surprises--should be forgiven the sense that things broke their way during that five-minute surprise ceremony yesterday morning. They haven't created a "new" Iraq, and sure enough, they have not tackled the malignancies of the Arab world which lay at the roots, and the very origins, of this war. America isn't acquitted yet of its burdens in Mesopotamia. Our heartbreaking losses are a daily affair, and our soldiers there remain in harm's way.
"But we now stay under new terms--a power that vacated sovereignty 48 hours ahead of schedule, and an Iraqi population that can glimpse, just a horizon away, the possibility of a society free from both native tyranny and foreign control. There is nervousness in Iraq: the nervousness of a people soon to be put to the test by the promise--and the hazards--of freedom."
From OpinionJournal.
"What shall stick of America's truth on the soil of Iraq is an open, unknowable question. But the leaders who waged this war--those "architects" of it who have been thrown on the defensive by its difficulties and surprises--should be forgiven the sense that things broke their way during that five-minute surprise ceremony yesterday morning. They haven't created a "new" Iraq, and sure enough, they have not tackled the malignancies of the Arab world which lay at the roots, and the very origins, of this war. America isn't acquitted yet of its burdens in Mesopotamia. Our heartbreaking losses are a daily affair, and our soldiers there remain in harm's way.
"But we now stay under new terms--a power that vacated sovereignty 48 hours ahead of schedule, and an Iraqi population that can glimpse, just a horizon away, the possibility of a society free from both native tyranny and foreign control. There is nervousness in Iraq: the nervousness of a people soon to be put to the test by the promise--and the hazards--of freedom."
From OpinionJournal.
Leaving Islam
An interesting title by a secularist named Ibn Warraq, found on a link from the website below at Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out.
Important thing to remember is that the traditional Islamic punishment for apostasy is death...
Important thing to remember is that the traditional Islamic punishment for apostasy is death...
Privatise the BBC?
On the other hand, not everyone in Britain seems to want to give the BBC a chance.
"Kelvin MacKenzie, the former Sun editor and boss of TalkSport, today launched a stinging attack on the BBC, arguing the government should grab the bull by the horns and abolish the licence fee."
Quotes from Privatise the BBC, says MacKenzie in MediaGuardian:
"As the corporation prepares to launch its case for charter renewal, the Wireless Group chief executive insisted the BBC produced nothing the commercial sector could not provide itself and should be privatised.
"The BBC has got much too grand for itself and is much too large. It's time to sell it off," he told the Today programme on Radio 4.
"I would privatise BBC1 and BBC2 - they are straightforward light entertainment channels. I would also privatise BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio 5 Live. For Radio 4 I would just make a government grant to the Arts Council and let them get on with it."
If the BBC were to go private, Michael Grade would probably do a good job as CEO.
"Kelvin MacKenzie, the former Sun editor and boss of TalkSport, today launched a stinging attack on the BBC, arguing the government should grab the bull by the horns and abolish the licence fee."
Quotes from Privatise the BBC, says MacKenzie in MediaGuardian:
"As the corporation prepares to launch its case for charter renewal, the Wireless Group chief executive insisted the BBC produced nothing the commercial sector could not provide itself and should be privatised.
"The BBC has got much too grand for itself and is much too large. It's time to sell it off," he told the Today programme on Radio 4.
"I would privatise BBC1 and BBC2 - they are straightforward light entertainment channels. I would also privatise BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio 5 Live. For Radio 4 I would just make a government grant to the Arts Council and let them get on with it."
If the BBC were to go private, Michael Grade would probably do a good job as CEO.
BBC Issues Manifesto
Michael Grade, the new head of the BBC has issued a Manifesto. According to the Guardian: "he also made the creative standards of the BBC a central plank of the corporation's manifesto, promising to make quality and innovation the watchwords of everything on the BBC."
Almost fifteen years ago, I interviewed Grade for my book "Masterpiece Theatre and the Politics of Quality," when he was head of Channel Four. Grade had produced a number of British classic serials broadcast on PBS. During our meeting, he held a big cigar, just like his famous uncle, Lord Grade, founder of ATV. Grade was watched a soccer match on a small television throughout the interview, muted it from time to time, turned on the sound for a "g-o-o-a-l" -- and impressively managed to pay full attention to both the game and our interview. Multi-tasking before multi-tasking was cool, in a way.
Shortly after speaking with him, Grade left Channel Four to buy a football club. So, I think he has a pretty good chance of accomplishing what he sets out to do.
Almost fifteen years ago, I interviewed Grade for my book "Masterpiece Theatre and the Politics of Quality," when he was head of Channel Four. Grade had produced a number of British classic serials broadcast on PBS. During our meeting, he held a big cigar, just like his famous uncle, Lord Grade, founder of ATV. Grade was watched a soccer match on a small television throughout the interview, muted it from time to time, turned on the sound for a "g-o-o-a-l" -- and impressively managed to pay full attention to both the game and our interview. Multi-tasking before multi-tasking was cool, in a way.
Shortly after speaking with him, Grade left Channel Four to buy a football club. So, I think he has a pretty good chance of accomplishing what he sets out to do.
The Kurds Worry about Iraq Handover
"Kurdish politicians speculate that the power transfer to the interim Iraqi government could launch a series of political account settling, which might lead to violent vendettas" according to this article in Haaretz.
Wanderlustress
Just added "Wanderlustress" to the blog links on the left, thanks to a link from The Argus. A sample post:
About Me: "I boarded my first airplane, alone, when I was six years old. I went from Bangkok to Washington, D.C., via an overnight in Tokyo and a layover in Anchorage, Alaska...And my wanderlust feet haven't stopped since!
Now, I'm an ex-Private Banker turned Peace Corps volunteer, where my concerns are for people living on less than $1 a day and not those living on $10 million a year."
About Me: "I boarded my first airplane, alone, when I was six years old. I went from Bangkok to Washington, D.C., via an overnight in Tokyo and a layover in Anchorage, Alaska...And my wanderlust feet haven't stopped since!
Now, I'm an ex-Private Banker turned Peace Corps volunteer, where my concerns are for people living on less than $1 a day and not those living on $10 million a year."
Victor Davis Hanson on the Iraq Handover
Here: "The key, of course, will be for the United States to stay engaged as it did in Korea and the Balkans--and not flee as it did in Vietnam circa 1974-5. Only its vigilant presence can ward off potential enemies of nascent American-sponsored democracies. Ambiguity, in fact, is nothing new to American forces abroad that still are not always quite sure of the parameters of independent action in Kosovo after seven years--or even in Korea after 50."
Tariq Ali and Daniel Pipes on the Iraq Handover
From Australian broadcasting's Lateline . Some highlights:
Tariq Ali: In any of these countries, if democracy comes, and I think people in the Arab world want democracy, you could have governments hostile to US interests in the region...
Daniel Pipes: Yes, it does worry me and the democratic paradox is something I'm very well aware of and my answer to it is don't go immediately to full-scale elections. We saw that in Algeria in 1982. Snap elections after decades of authoritarian rule and the Islamics were on their way to rule...
Tariq Ali: I don't believe there has been a transfer of sovereignty. It's an illusion. That's what you want to us to believe, but no one in Iraq is going to believe it - that a former CIA agent has been appointed prime minister of Iraq and we're all meant to sit back and applaud.
It's just a joke and certainly most Iraqis won't believe it, which is why the resistance will continue and NATO training Iraqi soldiers is fine, but what if the soldiers desert and join the resistance which has been happening and which could happen tomorrow...
Tariq Ali: In any of these countries, if democracy comes, and I think people in the Arab world want democracy, you could have governments hostile to US interests in the region...
Daniel Pipes: Yes, it does worry me and the democratic paradox is something I'm very well aware of and my answer to it is don't go immediately to full-scale elections. We saw that in Algeria in 1982. Snap elections after decades of authoritarian rule and the Islamics were on their way to rule...
Tariq Ali: I don't believe there has been a transfer of sovereignty. It's an illusion. That's what you want to us to believe, but no one in Iraq is going to believe it - that a former CIA agent has been appointed prime minister of Iraq and we're all meant to sit back and applaud.
It's just a joke and certainly most Iraqis won't believe it, which is why the resistance will continue and NATO training Iraqi soldiers is fine, but what if the soldiers desert and join the resistance which has been happening and which could happen tomorrow...
Monday, June 28, 2004
National Review on Iraq Handover
Not looking good, as best one can say, according to Michael Rubin is : "Even though the rushed, secret handover telegraphed fear, Iraqis will nevertheless cheer."
Juan Cole on the Iraq Handover
What does it mean that Paul Bremer left Iraq ahead of schdule? Juan Cole argues that Bremer is fleeing his own disaster.
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