Michael Moore wins prize
The New Republic "Idiocy Watch" Reader's Poll Results are in. Michael Moore's September 12 comment wins:

"Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California--these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!" --Michael Moore, Michaelmoore.com

He got my vote, too, despite stiff competition from Gore Vidal, Oliver Stone, Alice Walker, and others. Moore's web site now features "Prayers" ("our thoughts and prayers go out to anyone who had family, friends or loved ones affected by the tragedies at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania."), which seems chastened and perhaps even sincere enough. Navajo, Muslim, and Christian prayers flimmer on and off the screen. But he also publishes a pretty self-serving apology ("Mike on Grieving and Reponsibility"), and educates us with a link to Victor Navasky's "Profiles in Cowardice", a reasonably funny/angry piece about Bill Maher and Ann Coulter getting canned for their own insensitive/impolitic remarks. Is Mike casting himself as another "free speech martyr"? ("There but for not being hired by anyone in the first place go I?")

Moore hasn't really done anything since "Roger and Me"; his "TV Nation" series had funny moments, but was often marred by a patronizing, sneering tone (hmm... doublecheck my own comments here...OK, I think). Actually, so was "Roger and Me" when I think about it. Last fall, he campaigned with Nader, deriding Gore and his supporters at every stop; then, when the election snafu developed, he compared the Palm Beach ballot incident to the Holocaust. As others have commented, he just seems to want to get noticed at any cost. So here's a little more attention. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:52:00 PM -- |    

 

German parliament upholds Schroeder, deployment
Die Welt: Ein „Ja, aber“ für Schröder (A "Yes, but" for Schroeder)
The German parliament (Bundestag) provided Schroeder with a 336 to 326 party-line vote of confidence in his plan to deploy 3900 German troops to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan. 4 Green party members voted "no," and many other Green party delegates made clear that they were voting against their consciences for the sake of preserving the ruling coalition.

Chancellor Schroeder explained calling for a vote of confidence by saying that the chancellor could only occupy his office when that office was based on the agreement of the ruling coalition members.
[He went on to comment that] the deployment marked a watershed. "This is about the reliability of our policies as seen by our citizens, our friends and Europe, and our international partners." Germany had not just won its full sovereignty [by its reunification] in 1989 , but had also assumed responsibilities.

Opposition leaders were unhappy that the vote had become a matter of the ruling SPD/Green coalition confidence in Schroeder, rather than a straight vote on the merits of deployment. CDU/CSU minority leader Friedrich Merz said, "A chancellor who must do things this way is no longer leading a strong government." posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:20:00 AM -- |    

 

German Greens racing the Taliban to oblivion?
On Tuesday, German Chancellor Schroeder made the vote to deploy troops to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan a matter of parliamentary confidence. This means he must achieve near-unanimity within his own ruling Socialist (SPD)/Green coalition in order to prevail without opposition help. A mere 8 "no" votes among the 341 SPD or Green representatives in the Bundestag would trigger early elections (MSNBC/Reuters).

One nose count published by Die Welt identifies 11 delegates -- four SPD delegates and seven Greens -- as questionable for Schroeder's support in the decisive vote on Friday. (The headline says 12, but the count itself shows that one SPD representative, Konrad Kunick, has returned to the fold.) Since seven Green defections by themselves would not be enough, it would take a defector -- or an abstention, and an SPD delegate is close to giving birth -- from Schroeder's own party to cost him the vote (assuming Die Welt hasn't missed other potential "no" votes).

Of the four SPD members in question, two are "wobbling" by their own account, the other two won't say yet. Of the seven Greens, four will definitely vote against the Afghanistan-related deployment, two seem to be in play, and one won't say yet.

If Schroeder loses the vote of confidence, the true losers will probably be the Greens, who have been faring poorly in state elections lately. Leading Greens warned that if there are elections in January, it could spell the end for their party. Many of the Greens' less ideologically pure supporters (see "Shades of Green" below, November 9) may calculate that the Greens will fall below the required 5% level, and would then probably vote for the SPD rather than throw away their vote. (At least that's how I would see it). The same article goes on to point out that the problems for the SPD/Green coalition don't necessarily end on Friday; a Green party convention is scheduled for the end of next week; strong grass roots opposition to deployment might result in a successful motion to end the coalition with the SPD.

Update: Greens party leader Claudia Roth cracks the whip of party discipline. Excerpts from her interview with "taz" (Die Tageszeitung)

[taz] When under the pressure of a vote of confidence, do eight or more delegates have the right to end the coalition?

[Roth] I would say that this question, which also concerns the future of the whole party, can only be decided by the party convention, and not individual delegates who actually wanted to vote on a different question. I believe that the sceptics can be credible in claiming an alternative position even if they give the chancellor their vote of confidence on Friday. I plead for continuing the Red-Green reform project.

Her own beliefs appear unchanged, despite recent events:

[taz] Now Kabul has fallen. Do you still demand an end to bombing?

[Roth] Yes. In this respect the main thing has become the opinion of the Islamic world. That's why one should interrupt the bombardments during Ramadan, in order to not exacerbate the appearance that one is conducting a war against the Afghan people.

[taz] But the situation has changed with the retreat of the Taliban. Surely that was only due to the bombardment.

[Roth] That must yet be shown. I surely don't say: I was always right. But when we discussed the bombing pause, there seemed to be no possibility to supply the country. The proposal attempted to improve people's humanitarian condition.

Back and forth she goes, in the space of one minute. Also, look for clinging to straws over the next few weeks that somehow it wasn't U.S. bombing that did the trick: strategic Taliban retreat, doughty Northern Alliance soldiers, who knows. At any rate, now that the hungry can be fed (the famine is worst in the North), surely that rationale for opposing military action goes away? But there's still the matter of Ramadan, that other "main thing." Overall, Roth is essentially calling for postponing the decision to the party convention in a week; by then, continuing developments may make the troop deployment a lot more easy for all the Greens to accept. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:12:00 AM -- |    

 

What next? Speculations and a suggestion
In his report from Kabul (see prior entry), Junger also speculates that Bin Laden may try to head to Pakistan, which might make a lot of sense from Osama "Bert" Laden's point of view: no scary bombs falling on you, fair to middling support in the population, direct US pursuit ... well, at least not as certain as it is right now. But

• he has to get there.
  
• his support may not be quite as enthusiastic as in their youth so many days ago: many of the "best and brightest" are dead along some Afghan roadside now, and many of the rest may not think the whole thing is quite as glamorous as it once seemed.
  
• if Musharraf doesn't go after him hammer and tongs, the U.S. just might, whether he's in Pakistan or not.

One possibility I dread, and which may "therefore" happen, is that Bin Laden turns himself in to Musharraf, and Musharraf turns him over to Kofi Annan or some other UN moron. The idea of some kind of "trial of the millennium" with chanting crowds from Peshawar to Kuala Lumpur makes me ill. Personally, I don't want Bin Laden brought to justice, I want him and his lieutenants dead -- but first whisked out of Afghanistan and put on sodium pentothal until they give up the rest of their organization. Once that's accomplished, I suggest giving them the choice of death by flamethrower or by jumping out of a plane at 1000 feet, which would be roughly equivalent to the last choice many of their victims had.

But that would be cruel, so on second thought, just go ahead and blow up them up in their LandRovers on the road out of Kandahar. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:29:00 PM -- |    

 

America, America
ABC News correspondent Sebastian Junger reports from Kabul:

ABCNEWS.com: What is the condition of the city?

Junger: It's fine. There's life in the city. The American bombing didn't do any damage to the city as a whole. The Taliban military headquarters is crushed flat. In one or two other places I saw bomb impacts. But keep in mind this is a city that was absolutely destroyed during the civil war, so there's plenty of wreckage around, but it's old. The U.S. bombing had minimal impact on the city as a whole. The people were shouting "America, America" when we came in, so clearly they weren't holding a grudge for bombs that went astray.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:35:00 PM -- |    

 

"Where the world's most indiscriminate bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones."
Christopher Hitchens delivers accurate commentary smack in to the middle of the Guardian; noting the popular "poorest nation bombed by richest one" contrast (see below, for example), he offers in return:

What about, "Afghanistan, where the world's most open society confronts the world's most closed one"? "Where American women pilots kill the men who enslave women." "Where the world's most indiscriminate bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones."

Eeeeeeeeeow...kaboom! Direct hit! The smoke curls up from untenable Guardian positions... Via Little Green Footballs; read on there for several other "come on in, the 'quagmire's' fine" finds on the web over the last couple of days. (Knock on wood.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 3:06:00 PM -- |    

 

In fairness
Saudi Grand Mufti Condemns Terrorist Acts in U.S. (9/15/2001):

"Firstly: the recent developments in the United States including hijacking planes, terrorizing innocent people and shedding blood, constitute a form of injustice that cannot be tolerated by Islam, which views them as gross crimes and sinful acts.
"Secondly: any Muslim who is aware of the teachings of his religion and who adheres to the directives of the Holy Qur'an and the sunnah (the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) will never involve himself in such acts, because they will invoke the anger of God Almighty and lead to harm and corruption on earth.
"Thirdly: it is the duty of the Muslim ulema (religious scholars) to make facts clear in this respect, and to clarify that Islam never accepts such acts.
"Fourthly: the media which try to defame Islam and Muslims in order to rally against them the feelings of various nations, should immediately stop this unacceptable and unjustifiable practice, since all reasonable and just people know that such biased accusations have nothing to do with Islam."

Three out of four ain't bad, and the fourth depends on what you mean by "defaming Islam and Muslims." I'm definitely not for wholesale bigotry against an entire part of the world, but it's fair game to point out tenets of the Mufti's own Wahhabite beliefs, or what some Muslims like Bin Laden and the Taliban believe. posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:41:00 PM -- |    

 

How to lie really effectively
Just take out a four page spread in the Washington Post (yesterday, 11/13/2001), called "Twenty Years of Change - and Continuity", celebrating the 20th anniversary of the reign of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. More pictures follow inside (one with George Bush, Sr., and one with Margaret Thatcher).

The thing is, King Fahd is technically king, and may have been a great guy (although I doubt it), but it doesn't matter now: he had a serious stroke in 1995 and turned over day-to-day affairs to Crown Prince Abdullah, who is now 75 himself. His Royal Highness Abdullah is a tougher sell for even the best PR agency, as quotes like this indicate:

"The ferocious campaign by the western media against the kingdom is only an expression of its hatred toward the Islamic system" (Washington Post, 11/5/2001)

"... relations between the [United States and Saudi Arabia are] at a crossroads... Saudi Arabia [will] be forced to review its ties with the United States if the US [is] not ready to move ahead with finding a successful solution to the Middle East conflict" (letter to President Bush,as related by Prince Turki Al-Faisal to the Middle East Broadcasting Company on November 8; reported in Al-Ahram Weekly, 15-21 November, "Nosedive in Saudi-US ties")

You can see that making a four page spread with that kind of material was unappealing, so they went with old King Fahd instead. Most readers probably just skimmed the article titles ("thrust for learning,""quiet diplomat"), looked at the photos, and came away thinking that that Saudi Arabia king is an OK pal of ours, and will surely keep things to rights over there, what with everything going on and all. Hats off to PR agency Qorvis, Burson-Marsteller, or whoever it was, and the Saudis! You might even call it chutzpah.

===
Note: thanks very much to Ray E. for the Al Ahram URL! posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:37:00 PM -- |    

 

Known war-mongers speak out
From remarks by Nelson Mandela, made yesterday at the White House:

...I also want to say that one of the reasons for coming here is to be able to express my support for the President for his action in Afghanistan. The United States of America lost 5,000 people, innocent people, and it is quite correct for the President to ensure that the terrorists, those masterminds, as well as those who have executed the action and survived, are to be punished heavily.
And it would be disastrous if the President gave in to the call that the army must now withdraw, before he has actually flushed out the terrorists. That would be disaster. They will claim that they have defeated the United States of America, and they will continue doing the same thing. So I support him to continue until those terrorists have been tracked down.

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds' "Instapundit" site for noticing this (as if he needs the traffic -- but he's got a great site). In the same post, Reynolds quotes similarly strong remarks by Vaclav Havel; see also Matt Welch's recent entry. Shame on the smug Osterkorns, Chomskys, and Moores of this world. Here are some people who've really been in the front lines. They know when to talk and when to fight. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:06:00 PM -- |    

 

"Take Kabul. The politics will follow"
In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer says:

The war turned around when we changed our strategy on Oct. 31 and unleashed a savage, unrelenting air attack on Taliban front lines. The rewards have been remarkable. The Taliban have lost almost half the country. Pro-Taliban leaders, militias and soldiers are defecting. Kabul is waiting. [...]

Ten years ago, another President Bush, having broken through enemy lines and having the enemy on the run, decided to stop short of the enemy capital. He did this at the urging of the neighboring coalition partners, such as Saudi Arabia, who warned against occupying Baghdad with foreign troops.

We rue the day we made that decision. Its consequences -- a decade of U.S. troops on Arabian soil, and of sanctions and bombing raids on Iraq -- haunt us to this day. [...]

This is no time to get lost in the morass of Afghan politics. Mr. President, take Kabul. The politics will follow.

Absolutely. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:59:00 AM -- |    

 

Say, that's a good idea, hadn't heard about it
Via Matt Welch, this article: ArabNews: Seeds of hate

The last thing that is needed, however, is the suggestion from one US congressman to freeze Saudi assets in the US.

Thanks for the tip, ArabNews! I like the idea, at least until we see some evidence of the Saudis actually doing squat about Al Qaeda money rattling around the Arabian peninsula.

Also, notice how two murders in Canada, then a grand total of four in the U.S., are seamlessly transformed into an editorial about supposed widespread unjustified anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. Yes, four is four too many. No, even these crimes and "hate-filled looks" are not evidence of "unabated attacks on Muslims across the West." posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:26:00 AM -- |    

 

Newsrack takes on German newsweekly "stern"
The magazine "stern" ("star") is one of the staples of German newsstands, somewhat analogous to "Newsweek" or "Time", but generally with a naked woman on the cover. (This week it's Harry Potter, though.) This week (11/8/2001), under the headline "Stoppt diesen Wahnsinn!", ("Stop this madness"), editor-in-chief Thomas Osterkorn pens an editorial accusing the U.S. of a "dirty, murderous adventure that probably violates international law"*:

Dear "stern" readers!
For a month now, the Americans have been firing rockets at Afghanistan, and dropping bombs on one of the poorest countries of the world. The preliminary results of this so-called "war against terror" are scary. Let's sum up:
1. Osama bin Laden is already - dead or alive - a hero and martyr for millions of Muslims. Every new attack drives new fighters into his arms.
2. The worldwide coalition against terror is crumbling, because the Americans don't even want to use the month of Ramadan to stop their attacks, and instead use diplomacy (and their brains).
3. Thus the last chance is lost to take the Taliban at their word and see whether they would at least give up Osama bin Laden to a neutral country for trial.
4. It is principally the civilian population that suffers, winter is beginning, hundreds of thousands are threatened with death by starvation. Outside help was always difficult, now it is almost impossible.
The war is thus exactly what "stern" feared and wrote from the beginning: madness. And it was also crazy that Gerhard Schroeder promised the Americans "unconditional solidarity", only to set the condition later on that one would go along with anything but an adventure [...]

It should be hoped that the Bundestag [parliament] and the imminent SPD and Green party conventions would restore his reason and withdraw their support for him, if he wants to send German soldiers in the direction of Afghanistan. But it's unthinkable that the chancellor-election-club SPD would go that far. And one can no longer hope for the Greens either. They have long since betrayed their pacifist origins. They only need their spines to sit next to Schroeder on the government bench.
The only party, that completely rejects German participation in this war is the PDS [...]

...the current incarnation of the former East German Communist party.

The recent spate of "Guardian covers World War II"-type spoofs occured to me here, as in:

1. Hitler is already a hero and martyr for millions of Germans. Every new attack drives new fighters into his arms.
2. The worldwide coalition against fascism is crumbling, because the Americans don't even want to use the month of (your choice: Lent/Oktoberfest) [to end the bombing and use diplomacy (or their brains) instead]**.
3. The last chance to see whether Goebbels or Goering would give up Hitler to a neutral country for trial has thus been lost.
4. German civilians are suffering, that must be the Allies fault, not the Nazis. Stop the madness! End the war!

...so I answered the editorial here: July 1944: Mr. Osterkorn's position.

=====
* Mr. Osterkorn offered no details about which international laws are being violated by the war, he just claimed that "more and more international law experts say so."
** Words in [] added this morning, it's in the German version. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:12:00 PM -- |    

 

What might have been, and to whom that should matter
The purpose of a United States presidential election is to discern which candidate the people of the United States, as defined by the electoral process, want to occupy the Oval Office for the following four years. Usually, the margins of victory in each of the States, and in the resulting overall electoral count, are clear enough that no controversy is attached to the outcome. Last year, of course, that was not the case.

We are now told by a consortium investigating the Florida ballots in detail that Gore, following his own strategy of counting "undervotes" (ballots incorrectly or unreasonably believed to indicate no presidential preference), would still have lost the election. However, had overvote ballots (ballots incorrectly or unreasonably invalidated for showing more than one presidential preference) also been subject to review throughout Florida, Gore would have won. To rephrase, if the most exacting effort possible to determine the outcome of the Florida presidential contest been made, we would have President Gore today, not President Bush.

The results of the Post, Times, et al are widely discounted or considered boring: "moot", "blah, blah", "unofficial tally confirms official result." Oddly enough, of the people I usually read, it's Gore/Clinton-hater Andrew Sullivan who actually states my own conclusion:

...it's clearer now that, by the slimmest of margins, in an ideal world in which voting intentions were immaculately reflected in actual votes, Gore would have eked out a win.

...before mocking Gore for his mistaken "hardball" strategy.

It is moot, of course; the world is not ideal or immaculate. George W. Bush is president, my president too, even if I worked until 11PM on election night at the Democratic National Committee placing get-out-the-vote calls to defeat him. But it ought to matter to President Bush very much that, but for chance and human errors, he should not be where he is; the will of his electorate was (apparently) different that evening than the State of Florida, the Supreme Court, and, yes, Al Gore's after-campaign strategy conspired to make it seem. In truth, it should have mattered to him anyway that his margin was so razor-thin. But it hasn't so far; instead party-line tax cuts and other votes, incendiary appointments like Ashcroft's, renewed hardball on airline security, and much else has signaled his administration's determination to act as if they had a mandate like any other president's, if not stronger. We now know it was a mandate unlike any other.

I have supported Bush in the days and weeks since 9/11, and I have said so; I agree with most Americans that he has done and is doing, by and large, a fine job in recognizing what must be done and doing it. I also think that, although we'll never know, Al Gore would have risen to this occasion just as well, and to some just as unexpectedly, as Bush has. I think it is high time that President Bush bring a renewed sense of humility and true bipartisanship to his role as President, given both the events that brought him to office, and the tragedy that has helped him cement his claim to our support. I also challenge his longtime supporters to give it a try themselves. More unites us than divides us. posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:02:00 PM -- |    

 

At least someone at the State Department is reading Saudi and Egyptian papers
Along with MEMRI, another useful news roundup is provided by the State Department's own "Issue Focus Reports" web site; the site can be found on the "newsrack" companion page to this blog, under "World Perspectives". Last week's November 7 roundup was titled CAMPAIGN AGAINST TERRORISM: EGYPT, SAUDI ARABIA 'AWKWARD' ALLIES?; the lede was:

Saudi Arabian agreement to an international accord that calls for choking off the money used by international terrorist organizations followed weeks of media ballet during which the Saudi--and Egyptian--press attempted to portray their regimes in a positive light. Sept. 11 had placed the Saudi and Egyptian governments under new scrutiny abroad. Their papers contended that a "vicious" media campaign by Israel and its American journalistic and congressional supporters--rather than their governments' questionable anti-terror records--had made them the objects of criticism. Anti-Israel editorials charged that America's "Zionist-run" media has sought "to vilify" the Saudi and Egyptian regimes and portray their support for the anti-terrorism campaign as pro-forma and lackluster. The Washington Post, which "follows the lead of AIPAC agents on its own editorial staff" and Thomas Friedman, "a Jew," were frequently mentioned as leading a campaign to delegitimize moderate Arab states and to drive a wedge between them and the U.S. Dailies in both countries, nevertheless, took pains to stress that it is not in the U.S.', but rather in Israel's, interest to weaken moderate regimes and that "the American press does not represent American policy." A Saudi daily took particular comfort in "President Bush's concern for safeguarding strong Saudi-American relations." These were salient points:

TWO AUDIENCES: In a defensive posture, Egypt's and Saudi Arabia's government-supported media appeared to serve two audiences: the Arab street and U.S. policymakers. News stories attributed to Taliban sources featured images of injured Afghan children, while editorial pages supported the war on terrorism and touted the alliance with the U.S. In Egypt, aggressive pro-government weekly Akhbar Al Yom joined opposition Al Wafd in publishing a page one photo of an Afghan child in bandages, depicted as the victim of "the brutal American raids on civilians." The paper's daily edition, Akhbar, however, affirmed that Egypt is allied with America in its war against terrorism. In Saudi Arabia, photos of injured children were limited mostly to the Jeddah-based English-language press--the Saudi Gazette and Arab News. At the same time, the Gazette praised the Kingdom's "close ties with the U.S. for more than 70 years." [...]

(emphases added) I'd say that for a clipping service, the State Department Office of Research is shouting as loud as it can -- although I didn't appreciate the "took pains to stress that it is not in the U.S.', but rather in Israel's" comment. Note how many government run papers spout anti-Semitic garbage, and excoriate the U.S. for its -- make that *our* -- war in Afghanistan. Many papers also fall back on the fairly lame observation that their country's governments have "condemned terrorism", as if press releases prove anything.

As noted with the MEMRI clippings, the picture isn't completely depressing, just nearly so. A bright spot was a quote from the United Arab Emirates "Al Ittihad":

The only way out of this dilemma, and the rejection of the logic of the clash of civilizations, requires a clear rational statement, a total repudiation of the extreme fundamentalist model which the Taliban represent, and which tries to hijack and monopolize the civilized humane experience of our wise Muslim world.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:13:00 PM -- |    

 

Another very good speech by George W. Bush
President Bush Speaks to United Nations
I agree with Matt Welch: this was a fine speech. Bush keeps it simple, as he or anyone should. In addition to the parts Welch excerpted, good for Bush for slapping the UN for putting Syria on the Human Rights Commission, while voting the U.S. off it.

I'm not getting too admiring:

• Ashcroft
  
• Thompson: the Cipro price jawboning, if truly on the basis of a patent threat, invites a health policy disaster at the current WTO meeting in Qatar, and one that is especially weird for a Republican administration to help conjure up.
  
• the election
  
• no post 9/11 shakeup: Tenet should have been fired, and the riot act read to the FBI, CIA, and NSA.
  
• the Supreme Court generations a'comin'
  
• missile defense: a boondoggle and reckless endangerment of nuclear deterrence. It wasn't broke, so let's not fix it.
  
• pre 9/11"bipartisanship", and a post 9/11 situation that's beginning to look similar: see especially airline safety legislation
  
• tax cuts then, tax cuts now, tax cuts forever.

But Bush does have the virtue of sticking to a good vs. evil view of things when things really are good vs.evil. It's like that Isaiah Berlin line: the fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows one big thing. Both can have their day, but in these times, on topic A, hedgehog-style "one big thing" thinking is good. If only Bush knew that crushing the terrorists and their supporters is really the only big thing, and tax cuts etc. aren't and are nowhere close. posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:42:00 AM -- |    

 

"You are now free of the noose of colonialism and ignorance"
Tom Walker, Sunday Times: Battle for Mazar-i-Sharif: Music plays for first time in years in liberated city
Again via Jeff Jarvis, a report well worth reading in full:

Early yesterday morning, the Northern Alliance proclaimed victory on Balkh radio, a station controlled until several hours earlier by the Taliban.
"Dear pious and Muslim compatriots, peace be with you," the announcer declared. "Mazar-i-Sharif and its surrounding areas have been completely cleared.
"You are now free of the noose of colonialism and ignorance. The gates of schools, enlightenment and education have now opened up for your future generations. You will no longer be in tents, seeking a piece of bread."
Shopkeepers in the city contacted by radio said that life on the streets was returning to normal. One woman, who gave her name only as Zamina, said she already felt safe to go out onto the streets for the first time in four years.
"I just wanted to cry when I saw the troops come in," she said. "I can't tell you about the hell we've been living under."

In no particular order, thoughts on the full article:

• as apparently often the case in war (see The Face of Battle), the losing Taliban seemed to suffer a kind of "structural collapse" reminiscent in its way of the Trade Center collapse; the worst Taliban casualties were likely during the retreat and rout
• sadly, many of the "Taliban" were likely pressed in to service
• on the other hand, Arab and Pakistani Taliban fighters were routed as well
• maybe we'll be getting more "I wore a burkha" stories for a while, and fewer "Taliban escorted us to the bomb site" ones
• the description of Taliban "colonialism" is a nice touch, with the added benefit of being true: why a crazy quilt of Arabs, Pakistanis, and southern Afghanistan Pashtuns should necessarily rule North Afghanistan is a great question. The "added benefit" line is Kissinger via ... some blog or other to be credited when found.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:27:00 AM -- |    

 

The West replies to Bin Laden: We are ready to help
I wrote earlier I saw no "I'm ready to die" quote in the Dawn interview. According to the Observer, Bin Laden taunts the West: 'I'm ready to die'; this happened off-interview, or whatever the term is:

Mir said: 'He told me, "I am ready to die. I know that they can bomb this place also. They are not aware that I am present here. But they are dropping bombs blindly everywhere. So I may get killed even with you".'

I'm not sure if this qualifies as "taunting," except in the minds of Observer headline editors. But what I'm wondering is, will John Ashcroft look the other way for this "assisted suicide"? Also, am I alone in remembering a certain scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark": the crowd parts to reveal a black-robed assassin, grinning ominously and twirling his swords impressively... posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:40:00 AM -- |    

 

My jaw dropped
Off-topic, except as more bad taste/moral feebleness/sheer stupidity/something!!! where I'd (naively?) least expect it: from Another painful lesson, by John Gross in The New Criterion:

One of the posters in a new Church of England advertising campaign carries the message: “Body piercing? Jesus had his done 2000 years ago.”

I mean, this shocked me, and I'm just a heathen. "Excruciating" comes to mind, forgive me. Via Andrew Sullivan (11/10/2001,3:33PM), who focuses on other distressing cultural news Mr. Gross reports here from Britain.

Because I couldn't believe it, I kept digging and found this Times article confirming Gross's report. Interestingly, reporter Jane Shilling also uses the word "excruciating." A virtual beer to anyone who can find the actual poster online somewhere, convertible to an actual one if you are in the DC vicinity. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:26:00 AM -- |