Looking ahead to when (or if) the US runs refugee camps in Afghanistan
Again, via Jeff Jarvis: Dawn (Pakistani newspaper) editor Hamid Mir interview with Osama Bin Laden, night of November 7:

HM: In your statement of Oct 7, you expressed satisfaction over the Sept 11 attacks, although a large number of innocent people perished in them, hundreds among them were Muslims. Can you justify the killing of innocent men in the light of Islamic teachings ?

OBL: This is a major point in jurisprudence. In my view, if an enemy occupies a Muslim territory and uses common people as human shield, then it is permitted to attack that enemy. For instance, if bandits barge into a home and hold a child hostage, then the child's father can attack the bandits and in that attack even the child may get hurt.

This seems to telegraph future tactics better than it applies to the Trade Center atrocities (the Trade Center was not exactly full of human shields on Muslim territory); Bin Laden may be threatening that refugee camps under U.S./Allied control in Afghanistan are legitimate targets for anything, regardless of the number of refugee dead the attack might cause.

The piece either seems to have been edited since Jarvis noted it, or it was in a different "Dawn" item: I see no "I am ready to die" quote by Bin Laden there. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:38:00 PM -- |    

 

Way to go, Chelsea Clinton
The Times: Chelsea joins the hecklers at rally in Oxford, England.

When John Haylett, editor of the Morning Star, began to argue that the media had failed to consider the effects of the bombing on Afghan civilians, Miss Clinton and her friends called out that he should remember the victims of the terrorist attacks on New York.

(Via Jeff Jarvis) posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:10:00 PM -- |    

 

Shades of green
Der Spiegel: Greens voters would support approval of the proposed Bundeswehr deployment, the chief of the Forsa Opinion Institute told the Cologne newspaper "Express," if it was a choice between that and remaining in the coalition.

The Greens have the problem that their voters are split. On one side are the "value greens" -- pacifists who haven't changed their minds for the last 20 years. On the other side are those who, in the context of their social mobility, are more ready to compromise -- for example, lawyers, doctors, teachers. This clientele is ready to support the deployment, according to [Forsa Opinion Institute chief] Güllner.

Nevertheless, it appears likely Schroeder and Fischer will not have a majority of their own party supporting them in the looming Bundestag vote (Die Welt, 11/9/01: Chancellor concedes own majority is lost). Green Party leader Roth, apparently channeling Mullah Omar, is demanding a Ramadan ceasefire, which both Socialist Chancellor Schroeder and Green Foreign Minister Fischer oppose.

Shades of red, too
The leader of the influential "Juso" (Young Socialist) wing of the Socialists, Niels Annen, warns that many could leave the party if the SPD strays too far from its identity as a peace party. In one interesting piece of analysis, Annen opines:

The chancellor smartly went to the Americans after 9/11, to prevent America from going it alone with retaliation.* I have to admire him for that. Now he must prevent this war from escalating further.

Notes to Niels:
* to all intents and purposes, the U.S. has gone it alone with retaliation.
* there's not a thing in the world Schroeder could have done about it: both Bush and the American people, I think, feel like "all aboard who's coming aboard, but this train is leaving the station one way or the other."
* Schroeder's own "uneingeschraenkt" (unconditional/without reservation) support suggest you doesn't really know Schroeder.
* you'll grow up one day, Niels; Schroeder was a Juso once, too (see photo accompanying the interview).

Another telling photo, to my mind, on the web page with the Annen interview, shows a peace demonstration sign that reads "our GRIEF is NOT a cry for WAR", with "GRIEF NOT WAR" dominating the sign. Yeah, that'll help. Cry me a river.

Why do I keep focusing on Germany, and on the Greens? I have family in Germany, and as a former Freeze activist, I really respect many of the German Greens (and Socialist SPD members) for attempting to reconcile progressive and sometimes utopian ideals with the real world of winning votes and working with other parties. Unlike a lot of progressives, they're trying to actually get something done instead of always just engaging in empty theatrical gestures. I think they could help make a legitimate case for a moderating German influence on Western politics and US politics -- someday. First, though, you have to ante up when the cause is just, and I think Schroeder and Fischer realize this. I think Joschka Fischer is, checkered past notwithstanding, one of the most interesting figures in modern politics, a kind of realist-idealist in the Orwell mode; maybe wishful thinking, but that's what politics is half the time. So I'm crossing my fingers that he and Schroeder can muster a majority in their own party, not just the Bundestag as a whole (the CDU, CSU, and FDP are likely to approve deployment by wide margins).

What's kind of amazing is that very, very few** of the 3900 troops are going to come anywhere near Afghanistan itself, let alone near shots fired in anger. With the exception of the couple of hundred BKA special operations troops and possibly the "Fuchs" reconnaissance tank platoons, German soldiers will mainly be engaged in logistics, field hospitals, sailing ships at sea and other indirect support work. Still, it could be a slippery slope towards actually shooting at mass murderers, so let the debate rage on.

=====
* im Alleingang: "alone-going", also "solo". Doubtless meant to conjure "unilateral."
** (AP, Tony Czuczka) Schroeder: Show NATO solidarity: "Schroeder is seeking authority for an initial one-year deployment, though he says there are no plans to send ground troops to Afghanistan or take part in airstrikes." posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:31:00 PM -- |    

 

Your comments welcome
I've switched to a new comment-engine, if that's the word: "blogback". I hope there will be fewer difficulties with it. Given that it was free, I was impressed with "reblogger" as well, but I want the comments area to work more reliably for me. posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:13:00 PM -- |    

 

Newsrack advice heeded
From The Washington Times: Pentagon to send 4th carrier to Afghanistan. Clear proof that General Tommy Franks is reading this blog, and saying "Dang! That guy is right!" Of course, that's in addition to the airbases apparently coming our way in Tajikistan (same story and reported elsewhere), which I had thought unlikely. Now for the "troops on the ground" part, and soon, I hope.

I'm also happy to be deemed wrong on the "no German means" statement in my otherwise brilliant remarks in that entry: the US request envisions the authorization of 3900 troops, although given likely SPD and Green defections, the opposition parties may have to provide the margin of victory in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag (Süddeutsche Zeitung: Teile der Grünen nehmen Bruch der Koalition in Kauf: Some Greens accept that the coalition may break up). Embattled Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer threatened to resign, and is working hard to convince Greens to approve the Bundeswehr deployment. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Fischer's Bundestag remarks:

"War is repulsive," said Fischer. But America did not attack, rather the American people were attacked on the 11th of September. It is useless to do everything to avoid the use of force, force must also be opposed with force. Both Fischer and Schröder emphasized the necessity of humanitarian measures in Asia and Africa as a whole.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:22:00 PM -- |    

 

Blah, blah, blah, your Highness, blah, blah, blah
Perhaps I've completed a metamorphosis into something dread, right-wing, and alien. But I have to admit: Jonah Goldberg is funny as hell. He is the son of Lucianne Goldberg, who catalyzed the Clinton impeachment with her encouragement of Linda Tripp. So his politics then and now are doubtless suspect (better: not precisely my own), I haven't scoped that out in full yet.

These days, at any rate, more unites us than divides us, for instance his recent column Cynthia McKinney's Last Stand, about the U.S. Representative (D - Georgia), who wrote a contemptible, fawning letter to the Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal expressing disappointment for Giuliani turning down his $10,000,000 excuse to rant about US foreign policy. When she was pilloried for this throughout the land, she then complained in a Washington Post op-ed that "when it comes to major foreign policy issues, many prefer to have black people seen and not heard." As Goldberg noted, this is doubtless news to Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell. A great excerpt from Goldberg's piece:

... As a funny side note, she also takes time out to bemoan that the "the Black Caucus is shrinking. Yet, sections of the Voting Rights Act will soon expire, and quite frankly, after crippling Court decisions, there is not much left of affirmative action to mend." While I'm sure Ms. McKinney thinks this news will dismay Prince Alwaleed bin Talal no end, from his perspective this has got to be impenetrable gobbledygook. She seems to have missed the fact that Saudi Arabia has as much use for a Voting Rights Act as my dog has for a bowl of grapes. You can almost see the "Far Side" cartoon — with McKinney jabbering on, and the prince sitting on a pile of money hearing nothing but "blah, blah, blah, blah, Your Highness, blah, blah, blah." ...

Actually, it was "Your Royal Highness" over and over and over again. More seriously:

Ms. McKinney wants to assume the mantle of a brave dissident, but she forgets that dissent is morally neutral. You can correctly call yourself a dissident because you like to kick puppies, but at the end of the day, you're just a jerk who likes to kick puppies. Ms. McKinney decided to suck up to a deep-pocketed scion of an authoritarian theocracy in order to exploit a national tragedy for her own political agenda. Her decision makes her unpopular. It doesn't make her the conscience of the nation.

I probably picked up on Mr. Goldberg via Matt Welch's or Andrew Sullivan's blogs, check those out for more and (usually) better stuff. Sullivan is another Clinton-hater, and continues to thump that theme from time to time. Given there are bigger things to worry about, I wish he would stick to more important stuff, but most of his current work is pretty much on target, I think. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:45:00 AM -- |    

 
Read 'em and weep
Over the last few weeks I've been reading, generally with horror, translations of Arab news media articles, provided by MEMRI: Middle East Media Research Institute, an organziation based in Jerusalem and Washington, DC. I've provided a link to the site above and in the companion page to this blog, newsrack, under "World perspectives".

The format is to translate and/or summarize one or more Arabic or Farsi articles, speeches, or other communications, and describe the gist of the message in the translation title. The current list is:

• Hamas Weekly (now there's dentist office material): Anthrax should be put into America's drinking water
  
• Muslim Soldiers in the U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan: To Fight or Not to Fight?: leading clerics take back their well-publicized blessing for US Muslim soldiers to participate in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
• Egypt's Al-Azhar Clerics: We declare war on America. Al-Azhar, I've read*, is the premier Islamic theological school in Egypt and one of the main ones of the Islamic world.
  
• Saudis Debate the Annihilation of Christians and Jews: a London-based newspaper columnist, citing more tolerant passages from the Qu'ran, condemns sermons using the Qu'ran to support annihilation of "people of the Book": Christians and Jews.
• Saudi Columnists Condemn Conspiracy Theories: some Saudis take issue with the notion that Jews orchestrated the Trade Center attacks, a widely held belief in the Muslim world
• Palestinian Authority - An Address by Chairman Yasser Arafat
  
• '72 Black Eyed Virgins': A Muslim Debate on the Rewards of Martyrs: the sick basis of suicide bombing, brought to you by the Qu'ran -- say some Muslim clerics. Others disagree.
• Editor of Leading Egyptian Government Daily Al-Ahram: The U.S. is Dropping Afghanis Genetically Altered Food ... in Areas full of Landmines: not just any genetic alterations, but ones "with the aim of affecting the health of the Afghani people".
  
• Saudi, Syrian, and Palestinian Authority Press Attack Giuliani and U.S.: Rudy rightly rejects royal $10,000,000 check; Arab undies in a bunch.
• Ha'aretz on the Root Causes of the September 11 attacks: relax, it's a leading Israeli paper.
  

As one can see, the reading is not always discouraging -- just most of the time. Other dissenting voices:

• We, not the U.S., are the lawful parents of bin Laden: a letter to the editor of Al Quds, another London-based Arabic newspaper
  
• The destruction of America is the destruction of the human dream: again in a London-based Arabic newspaper, Al Hayat.
  

=====
* in the book by Milton Viorst, In the Shadow of the Prophet, that I mentioned a while back (10/22/2001, "Islam links"). posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:41:00 PM -- |    

 

Angry, angry rich boy
The Sunday Times: "Wealthy, privileged, workshy, a rebellious public school boy - Giles Coren says he knows the type" - Osama Bin Laden, the original Trustafarian:

When we do find him, though, it is no good threatening him with death or prosecution.
That would be playing into his hands. We must respond in the only language he understands, with the only punishment he truly fears: we must offer him a job.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:20:00 AM -- |    

 

Rebuilding New York City
Three articles from City Journal discuss how to rebuild the shattered Trade Center site. I don't pretend to know enough about this issue to say I agree with them, but these people care and seem to know what they're talking about.

What Should Rise from the Ashes?, Franck Lohsen McCrery & Alexander Stoddart:

Part of the U.S. triumph over its attackers should be the swift rebuilding of the site where the massacre occurred, constructing something even prouder and more splendid than the vanished Twin Towers.

How To Rebuild, Steven Malanga:

...To clear the way for the city's natural energies to reassert themselves, the first, most urgent task is to replace the 18 million square feet of modern office space lost in the attack, so that companies wanting to be in New York have somewhere to go. Building the necessary space doesn't mean providing more lavish subsidies to developers; it means clearing away the choking jungle of impediments to private builders that New York has allowed to grow up over decades...

The Twin Towers Project: A Cautionary Tale, Brian Richardson:

...The governor should do everything possible to clear the way for the creation of new commercial and retail space at the World Trade Center site without the continuing involvement of the Port Authority or other government agencies. It is past time to get the Port Authority out of the Manhattan real-estate business. Pataki needs to be the anti-Rockefeller—a leader with enough confidence in capitalism to allow market forces to shape the future of lower Manhattan.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:48:00 PM -- |    

 

Good news from around the civilized world
I had been feeling pretty gloomy after continued reading in In the Shadow of the Prophet. A nice weekend, including trips to my little girl's dance class and the National Zoo, have restored my good spirits. Also, it helps to look for some good news, and it seems a little easier to find today:

Czech Republic: Munich's Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that the deployment of a highly respected chemical weapons unit of 300 was approved immediately by President Zeman after Ambassador Stapleton requested it last week.

In an emotional TV address in early October, President Zeman stressed that the Czech Republic would participate without any ifs or buts in the fight against terrorism: "One doesn't negotiate with terrorists, one fights them," said Zeman, and added that his government was not composed of "cowards", and in difficulties "their knees would not tremble". Zeman offered, in addition to the chemical weapons specialists, a MASH unit and a special forces unit. A transport plane is already participating, although not in Afghanistan.[...]
Details will be negotiated in the USA this week by Czech military officials. [...]
If the deployment lasts longer than 60 days -- as generally expected -- the government will have to get the approval of both houses of parliament ... A majority approval is considered certain. Even Communists support the deployment in principle. 69% of Czechs support participation of Czech soldiers in the fight against terrorism, according to a recent snap poll.

Germany: The national newspaper Die Welt reports that the US is making concrete requests for Bundeswehr units, and that all political parties have been requested to send representatives to the chancellor's office tomorrow for a briefing. The public will be informed in detail after this briefing.

Italy: The Hamburger Abendblatt reports:

...Washington officially accepted the offer of the Italian government to participate. Rome has offered the US government a tank regiment, fighter planes, helicopters, and ABC units. The deployment of warships was also under discussion. Defense minister Martino spoke of 1000 Italian soldiers.

Great Britain: The Sunday Times predicts that thousands of British and American troops may be establishing a "humanitarian bridgehead" within weeks. The goal would be both political -- offset bad bombing press -- and military -- get used to fighting in Afghanistan:

Officials in London and Washington anticipate casualties from ground combat across miles of plains and mountains.

They hope the Northern Alliance will do most of the fighting, but accept that elite coalition forces will guide in airstrikes and may have to take on Taliban units at close quarters.

The offensive may lead to the creation of tented refugee camps inside Afghanistan that would be protected by coalition troops. A senior cabinet minister said: "We have got three weeks to do this before the winter really sets in."

Russia: The Moscow Times quotes Foreign Minister Ivanov after Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's departure for Central Asia:

"Today we discussed concrete forms of cooperation," Ivanov told reporters after Rumsfeld's meeting with Putin, in which he also took part.

"To a large extent, it concerns Russia's use of special services and here I cannot comment any further," said Ivanov, who had had separate talks with Rumsfeld earlier that day.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:37:00 PM -- |