German reporter: Taliban are a new Khmer Rouge
Hans Christoph Buch: "Ich habe die Roten Khmer von heute erlebt" - Kultur - SPIEGEL ONLINE (I experienced today's Khmer Rouge)

Hans Christoph Buch is a German reporter and author ("Weltunordnung" - World Disorder, "Kain und Abel in Afrika" - Cain and Abel in Africa). In an interview with Spiegel, he reports his somber impression of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Taliban, and its adherents. Without hyperbole, he describes the extremely dangerous force the Taliban and violent Islamicism represent. By way of context, Spiegel Magazine is more or less the standard bearer for the German social democratic tradition, with a readership that is likely to be skeptical about if not opposed to American political initiatives, especially ones under a Republican president. Mr. Buch's words may be an unwelcome wake-up call for many readers. I've translated extensive excerpts below:

"It was an experience I would not have believed possible, because I got the impression that so-called "evil" really exists there, as grotesque as that may sound. I experienced today's Khmer Rouge...

I studied the Khmer Rouge thoroughly, in Cambodia too. The structures of the Taliban and their way of thinking are very similar. For starters, the Taliban soldiers are mainly children, forced recruits who have graduated from Koran schools* and are then directly taken into military training for deployment to the front line...

Then the fact that their internal organization and command structures, all the way up to the identity of their leader were secret until recently... it was the same with Pol Pot. ... The contempt for humanity and intolerance in both cases is especially telling. These are regimes that can not be categorized into right or left, Islam or not Islam; even in comparison to the mujahedin who fought the Russians, these people seem like they're from Mars to me....

They have adopted a terribly simplified version of Islam, pure black and white... They seem brainwashed, like in a science fiction novel, the way you would expect of a cult. The Khmer Rouge were just as different from traditional Marxist movements. These kids know nothing besides Koran school and war, and have not met women since their early childhood. The extreme animosity towards sex and women is really popular there. Because they don't know anything else...

[The leadership] convey an aura of spirituality and piety, but are no ascetes. They're married, even polygamous. They live in wealth... It's not as if these people, who send others into battle, are making great sacrifices themselves...

As provocative as this may sound, I think it would be a good thing if the Americans toppled the Taliban. That's paradoxical of course because they supported this fundamentalism for far too long**...

We have denied to ourselves how shaky the governments are, for example in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. The pro-western elements are a thin patina. One should be under no illusions: the masses are anti-American and also anti-European. If this war does not end with a clear defeat, they would probably fight with the Taliban, even if they don't really like them. The whole thing is playing with oil next to a burning fire...

Among us everyone rejects the idea of a "clash of cultures". After seeing for myself, I'm not so sure that's not exactly what it is...

We are experiencing a conflict between cultures of the western world and a radically simplified version of Islam, that is practically a caricature of this religion, but that precisely for that reason is able to mobilize the masses. Just like Hitler's ideology was a caricature of being German. Yet this simplification was devastatingly effective propaganda...

The word "crusade" was used fecklessly in the US, before they distanced themselves from it quickly. But I saw this crusader thinking across the board among the Taliban and other radical Islamic groups. There is no self-criticism there, the way we expect here. Instead there is a sense of calling, the motto "We are called to save the world." The Taliban literally identify themselves with Mohammed himself...

[This is no exaggeration]. Mullah Mohammed Omar put on the coat of Mohammed, which is stored in a shrine in Kandahar. He therefore is claiming to be the new Mohammed. The model for the Taliban is early Islam, when it was unstoppably conquering Arabia, North Africa, and Southwest Asia. They say, if we have the right belief, and the right fanaticism, we can do that too. It would be completely counterproductive to simply regard Islam as the enemy, but I have no doubt that this is a cultural confrontation...

It would surely be better to do things without bombs. But that's an illusion. I think Guenter Grass's demand to first end world poverty is unrealistic. The Americans are just about at the limits of their power with the Afghanistan problem, they couldn't do more of these campaigns around the world. And they really won't be able to end inequality and the poverty differential in the world, which is not just a product of US policies....

[Yes, I think this war is unavoidable], it is the consequence of bad choices in the past. Both Americans and Europeans are always just reacting to the latest crisis. Then they pull back and abandon the crisis region to their fate or delegate responsibility. If they are able to be as unified in building a future for Afghanistan as they were in preparing this military action, then they would really have learned something from history...

...One could help Afghanistan relatively cheaply to remove mines, switch from opium to wheat agriculture, and get educational and health systems going... But I fear that they'll leave that to charities or the UN, like in Rwanda and elsewhere, that won't solve the problems, it will just make them burn lower. Until the next Bin Laden.

======
* Also known as "madrassahs"
** This is one of the only things I disagree with in this piece; to my knowledge, the US has never been a significant supporter of the Taliban, who can mainly thank the Pakistani ISI and Saudi Wahhabite funding for their rise to notoriety. The US did support mujahedin in general during the Soviet occupation; while many among these were certainly supporters of fundamentalist Islam, not all were. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:53:00 PM -- |    

 

"All I need are new identity papers and the 10 liter container"
The Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reports (Nervengift in Tomatenkisten - Nerve gas in tomato crates) that the Libyan Lased Ben Heni, arrested in that city a couple of days ago, was apparently part of a scheme to release some kind of fluid or gas, perhaps (as the paper's headline speculates) a nerve gas or perhaps (my guess, not the paper's) a mustard gas, in France. He reportedly said "All I need are new identity papers and the 10 liter container." Ben Heni was arrested in a crackdown that netted three further arrests of 3 Tunisian co-conspirators in Italy. All have been connected to groups belonging to the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

In telephone conversations, a new liquid was touted as being more efficient, because it worked as soon as the container was opened; it also had to be kept pressurized, and that it could be concealed in tomato crates. The arrestees referred to the substance as "sinsinam". The paper says that investigators do not know what substance the conspirators were referring to. Their conversations implied that the weapon had not yet been tested "in the field."

The Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera also cites phone tap information that the Bin Laden group has good contacts to China, and that Chinese professors were helping Bin Laden analyze American weapons.

This all makes me think that German and Italian police seem to have trouble keeping their mouths shut, just like the French ones who revealed that they had obtained a code book of some kind during their sweep for possible Al Qaeda types.

The China thing seems so unlikely to me that I wonder if it is a code for another country, say Iraq. I would think that China has no interest in fanning these flames, they have a sizeable Muslim population of their own.

It could be that code words are what the Bush administration is worried about, too; it has seemed odd to me that no one was dissecting the "Andalucia" angle ("Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalucia (ph) would be repeated in Palestine" of OBL's 10/7 diatribe, and that only ABC even included it in the translation (CNN, AP did not last time I checked).

Andalucia, for those of you scoring at home, was the Arab word for Spain, and the tragedy of Andalucia for Muslims (or at least for those of Bin Laden's ilk) was that they got booted out by Spanish Christians in a long and bloody "Reconquista". It seems an odd and politically ill-chosen point to lead with, since it seems to imply that the tragedy of Palestine is just as much the fact that Israel occupies Tel Aviv as that it occupies the West Bank.

But returning to the main point here: 10 liter jugs of something nasty. Please let the good guys find them before the bad guys use them? Please? (I'm not talking to you right now.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:09:00 AM -- |    

 

On second thought, call the beast by its true name
"Bert" is worth a laugh, but seeing images of the Trade Center ruins again put an end to that for me. Too many people died to try to make a permanent joke out of the murderer. I needed a laugh, and I will call that human piece of s**t "Bert" from time to time, but I can't stick to "Osama Bert Laden" day in, day out, any more than I could have stuck to "Schicklgruber" in Hitler's day. I apologize to my vast readership for bailing on this idea so soon, and now return to my regular programming mix of low-level anxiety punctuated by frequent fist-clenched fury -- a fury somewhat alleviated as I think of "bunkerbuster" bombs raining on deserving heads (I hope), and helicopters "spinning up" (I hope) as I type. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:43:00 AM -- |    

 
Yes: Osama Bert Laden
To airstrikes, commando raids, criminal dragnets, frozen bank accounts and cyberwarfare let us add ridicule: I pledge to refer to Bin Laden as Osama Bert Laden from now on. Join the movement!


(photo by Dutch press agency ANP, reprinted and highlighted by Fox News) posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:44:00 AM -- |    

 
Osama Bert Laden?
Sesame Street character Bert has apparently joined Al Qaeda: FOXNews.com: Bin Laden's Felt-Skinned Henchman?. Almost as funny as the photo is this comment by a Sesame Street spokeswoman:
"Sesame Street has always stood for mutual respect and understanding," a spokeswoman said. "We're outraged that our characters would be used in this unfortunate and distasteful manner. This is not at all humorous.The people responsible for this should be ashamed of themselves. We are exploring all legal options to stop this abuse and any similar abuses in the future."

Forget Delta Force and the SAS, we're sending in Kermit and Miss Piggy! posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:32:00 AM -- |    

 

Thinking about the Iraq sanctions
I've been thinking about the charge that sanctions on Iraq have led to the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children (see prior entries The only starving Iraqis... and Iraqi famine...). To do so, I've visited a number of anti-sanctions web sites, and followed their best evidence and logic. The best web site I've found, in what was admittedly a brief search, is CASI, Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. In this group's "Guide to Sanctions", two reports are cited to document Iraq's problems:

UN Security Council Humanitarian Panel Report- oil for food

UNICEF Results of the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Surveys

The Humanitarian Panel report, March 30, 1999
This report noted that "virtually all submissions to the panel underlined the insufficiency of present levels of revenue to deal with pressing humanitarian needs"*, as noted by sanctions opponents. However, it also noted that "...Although Iraq is exporting more oil than ever since 1991, revenue remained insufficient due to a negative correlation linking low oil prices, delays in obtaining spare parts for the oil industry and general obsolescence of oil infrastructure. As has been pointed out by the 011), the present ceiling of 5.2 billion US dollars is not being met, with exports generating a maximum of 3.1 billion dollars."**

The UNICEF report
This report furnishes the data summarized by a UNICEF "Information Newsline" as follows: [UNICEF Executive Director] Ms. Bellamy noted that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998. As a partial explanation, she pointed to a March statement of the Security Council Panel on Humanitarian Issues which states: "Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war."

Taking up this statement point by point:

If the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s...: Iraq incurred a number of self-inflicted wounds during the 1980s and 1990s that in and of themselves could not have benefited the health or survival of its children in the middle and late 1990s. The Iran-Iraq war, during the 1980s, drained resources and lives (estimated 400,000 Iraqis) into a war that ultimately gained Iraq nothing. Although this preceded the increase in mortality by up to 10 years, lagged effects of such horrific losses on public health are not far-fetched: resource misallocation, weakened infrastructure, and setbacks in medical manpower and training were all likely consequences of the war. Likewise, Iraq's occupation of Kuwait earned it a crushing military defeat, causing renewed losses of resources and manpower that would have endangered public health regardless of subsequent events. A nation as totally dedicated by its leadership to fighting wars as Iraq was could not have excelled in the productivity gains and capital investments that are the foundation of healthy economies and thus of public health.

...there would have been half a million fewer deaths...: The statement as a whole seems to be not just assuming that the zenith of Iraqi children's health, in 1990, would be maintained, but that further gains would have inexorably occurred as well. But note that either way we are discussing the difference between the current bad state of affairs and some alternate hypothetical baseline state of affairs. It's true, if there had been no Kuwait War, if Saddam had taken up Buddhism, and if angels had descended from heaven to guide us all, the mortality rate of Iraqi children might have declined to zero -- and sanctions could be blamed for a million deaths instead of just half a million. But none of these things were likely; instead, perhaps increases in child mortality were eventually bound to happen in a Hussein dictatorship lasting for decades.

..."Even if not all suffering can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions...": An accounting of the suffering directly imputable to internal factors, to wit, corruption, was of course beyond the scope of the UNICEF report.

...the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war": Here the moral jiu-jitsu of the statement is completed. For there were perfectly sound reasons for the war and the "prolonged measures", and the Iraqi government had the power to satisfy the Security Council both with regard to Kuwait and later with regard to WMD (weapons of mass destruction) inspections.

Hussein's regime has proven it is willing to use chemical weapons, it is known to have "weaponized" biological warfare agents including anthrax, and it is known to have tirelessly and ingeniously pursued the development of nuclear weapons. The mass deaths any of these weapons could cause, coupled with the known track record of the government involved, must weigh heavily and decisively in the moral calculus of sanctions. For should Iraq acquire and threaten to use such weapons or use them, the consequences would dwarf what may be happening in Iraq. And in the end, the United States and the nations of the United Nations are more responsible for their own citizens than for the unhappy citizens of a rogue state such as Iraq.

There is surely more for me to learn about this issue. But it seems far from an open and shut case that sanctions per se are solely or even principally responsible for Iraqi suffering. It seems more appropriate to place the responsibility with Iraqi leadership, given its track record of military adventurism, corruption, and domestic repression.

=======
* point 54.
** point 40. the "011)" is verbatim, either a typo or some term of art in the UN that I don't understand.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:25:00 AM -- |    

 

A physicist thinks about preventing terrorist attacks
Richard Garwin's article The Many Threats of Terror in The New York Review of Books suggests a number of near-term and long-term measures to reduce the threat of terrorist attack:

It is doubtful that the terrorists had confidence that the World Trade Center towers would collapse—which they did, not from the impact but from the softening of the steel from the intense fire provided by the aircraft fuel. In fact, the amount of fuel in the form of paper in filing cabinets on a given floor is comparable with that delivered by the plane, but it is more difficult to ignite and easier to put out. It is entirely feasible to build into tall buildings features that would be adequate for fighting such fires and furthermore to equip buildings with means for rapidly bringing firefighters to any floor. This latter might be done on a World Trade Center–like structure by having a number of pulleys of twenty-ton capacity projecting from the roof, with a lead line down near ground level. Firefighters could snag the line and with a ground-based winch pull up a heavy cable which, in turn, could be used to carry platforms, hoses, and pumps to the floors involved. But it would be preferable to have dispersed foam nozzles in a hardened sprinkler system....

[Re terror attacks at stadiums]: The attractiveness of such tactics to terrorists might be reduced by a several-second delay in TV transmission, so that there would be no broadcast, even if thousands of people were killed and several times that number injured. ...

Much excess plutonium that was developed for making weapons is available as well, although it is somewhat more difficult to use. We must give the security of such materials the attention it deserves...

To prevent hijacked passenger aircraft being used as a manned cruise missile, strengthen and lock the cockpit door. Assign air marshals to many flights. Ensure that the radar transponder, once switched to emergency mode by a pilot who is being attacked, cannot be switched back...

To counter the use of rented or stolen large aircraft, ensure that each aircraft landing gear is blocked by heavy concrete barriers or other means that would sound an alarm and disable the gear if moved without authorization.

Foreign aircraft entering US air space must be subject to the same standards as US aircraft.

To counter biological warfare, individuals, firms, government, and other organizations should consider installing a unit to provide positive-pressure HEPA*-filtered makeup air to their buildings. For most establishments, these units should not be used to guard against biological warfare agents liberated within the building but against those from outside. Because of the far smaller hazard from chemical warfare or industrial chemical attack, HEPA filters should filter only particles from the air. These are typically not individual virus particles, but bacteria or viruses that are attached to some inert material in the range of diameters from about one to five microns.

To facilitate travel and access to sensitive areas, a first-generation biometric identification pass should be made available. Those who have had an adequate interview and have information on file could rapidly be provided with a picture ID augmented by a thumbprint. This would be analogous to the EZ-Pass now widely used at tolls.

To facilitate the movement of cargo, more use should be made of sealing at the departure point containers, ships, aircraft, or trucks, so that inspection would occur there with adequate time and space, rather than on the fly at bridges or other choke points. Electronic manifests could be sent ahead and would also accompany the vehicle. Lower customs charges for inspection and accelerated processing would be given to those vehicles and containers packed so as to facilitate high-energy X-ray or neutron scanning. Such vehicles would be processed more rapidly and at a lower cost than those without such helpful features.

* High Efficiency Particulate Airfilter posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:36:00 PM -- |    

 

Of course not
The New Yorker: Dept. of Preparation Great story: Aramsco Safety Supply Company, a wholesaler in Long Island City, is doing land-office business in gas masks. The story goes into the minutiae of survival gear, recounts some customer conversations, and then closes:

One shopper wondered whether the Aramsco employees kept any protective gear in their own homes. "Of course not," Schwartz said. "You can't live your life worrying about that sort of thing." posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:51:00 PM -- |    

 

The end of the beginning?
I've been watching the news since getting back from a fair here in town: I'm glad to see my worries yesterday were misplaced. The first thing I had to endure was watching Bin Laden and his cronies spout off. Some points: he all but admitted the Trade Center was his doing, I wonder how that will sit with Muslims who have been suggesting Israel did it somehow: were they ever serious? If so, does his murderousness now dishonor him with some significant new portion of the Muslim world? ... the military guy, Abu Sitta, used the word "collapse" of America: an allusion to the collapse of the Trade Center? ... given it was night time in Afghanistan when the video was released, the video was obviously a belated credit-taking and a pre-recorded call to arms, rather than a direct response to the bombing campaign now underway ... while some news commentators seemed to understand a demand for Israel to leave Palestinian territories as currently defined, I understood the translation to mean Israel out of the Middle East altogether ... Bin Laden: "America was hit by God in one of its softest spots. America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that..." (text here, slightly different translation).

To me, it will provide some clarity about our allies, friends, and enemies. I pray that our friends and families around the world all have long lives and prosper; and that the fiends and their co-conspirators who did 9/11 are driven from this world, and that their supporters are shamed into irrelevance and silence.

On a personal level, two reactions: satisfaction and pride that the military step has been taken, and stomach-twisting apprehension for my little girl, my wife, myself, and my countrymen and -women about the terror attacks that seem so likely to follow. After the British victory at El Alamein, Churchill said "This is not the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." We'll have few victories as such to 'celebrate' in this war, but grasping the nettle and striking back hard is important: well done! fight hard, fight well!

posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:37:00 PM -- |    

 

Anti-Anti-Terrorism Bill
TNR Online | Tapped Out by Jeffrey Rosen
Analysis of Provisions of the Proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 Affecting the Privacy of Communications and Personal Information , EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center)

I have a bad feeling that instead of a punishing retaliation against Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, the main U.S. response will be a series of domestic measures that will encroach on citizen freedoms, without appreciably affecting terrorists' chances of success. From airport security to this Act to the screwed up anthrax vaccine program, everywhere you look you see measures that are generally half-baked at best and wrong-headed or botched at worst. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:53:00 AM -- |