There has been fighting south of Mazar-i Sharif in Samangan province between commanders loyal to Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostam and others loyal to Tajik warlord Ustad Atta Muhammad. 17 were killed late last week in the clashes.

On Friday a powerful bomb destroyed 4 video shops in Gardez, in Eastern Afghanistan, but no one was hurt because they were closed. (The video shops were targeted because Muslim fundamentalists believe that videos are a form of graven image, forbidden in Islam as it is in Orthodox Judaism. Islamic iconoclasm is rooted in Jewish iconoclasm, historically. That is, the bombings were signs of active Taliban or al-Qaeda cells still operating in Afghanistan).

A large bomb went off in Kabul on Saturday near the Department of Defense and the US embassy, but again, there were no casualties.

Old time Mujahid and Islamic radical Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (more or less created by Ronald Reagan) has joined with Taliban remnants to threaten U.S. troops with suicide bombings.

On Sunday, a bloody struggle broke out between warlords in Paktia province near the provincial capital of Gardez, leaving nine dead. One of those killed is a former commander of Padshah Khan Zadran, who has gone into opposition against the Karzai government.

On Sunday Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith [associated with the conservative pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy], visited Kabul to say that once the international aid came, everything would be all right. Perhaps he is right, but I doubt it. More resources would be more things for the warlords to fight over. The US continued dependence on warlords to run Afghanistan is increasingly worrisome, as is the obvious instability.






For "cont'd" postings, click here.

It is reported in Asharq al-Awsat that Copenhagen's more prominent Jewish notables called for and organized a demonstration on Saturday September 28 against against the policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. They were careful to say that this demonstration was not against the state of Israel, but against government policies of brutality against Palestinians, which also harmed Jews and Israelis in their view. It was planned for the 2-year anniversary of the beginning of the second Intifada or uprising against Israeli occupation. At the time Asharq al-Awsat went to press, the demonstration had not yet taken place, but hundreds if not thousands of protesters were expected (Denmark's Jewish community is 6,000 strong).

In London, the same anniversary brought thousands of demonstrators out in the street for "freedom for Palestine" and against an Iraq war (estimates ranged from 100,000 to 300,000, but in these matters it is always wisest to favor the lower figures). Some 100,000 demonstrated in Rome against an Iraq war. UK PM Tony Blair and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi have been the most hawkish European leaders on the issue of Iraq, galvanizing anti-war opponents.

Tens of thousands also marched in Beirut, in a demonstration called for by Hizbullah, the Shiite militia-party that the US has designated a terrorist organization.

These demonstrations are not significant in themselves, but I think they are a harbinger of a great deal of trouble in January or February when the Bush Administration goes to war against Iraq. Especially if there is no clear UN Security Council resolution authorizing the war and no broad coalition, the popular protests could be large and significant. Whether they could cause any governments to fall (in the parliamentary sense) is another question.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

EAST GERMANY'S SPY FILES: COMPETING ISSUES OF PRIVACY AND OPENNESS

Thought for the day:

"Neighbours spied on the people living next door and there were instances of one spouse spying on the other, Dr Alexander Dix, Brandenburg's Commissioner for Data Protection and the first in Germany with responsibility for access to information, told the International Symposium on Freedom of Information and Privacy held recently in Auckland."

Click here for more on the techniques of surveillance, monitoring and intimidation of the East German secret police, which are now being promoted by the so-called Middle East Forum and by implication the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has the MEF director as a research associate:

http://www.privacy.org.nz/privword/44stasi.html




For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Of the three persons arrested in Peshawar by Pakistani authorites off an FBI tip a couple days ago, one turns out to be a Tunisian who goes by various names--including Lutfi and Salim. He was a member of the Hamburg cell that plotted 9/11 and left Germany for Afghanistan shortly before that catastrophe. Once the US compaign began in Afghanistan, he escaped back over the border and has been in Peshawar for the past year. He only speaks Arabic, which should have made him stand out. The Pakistani authorities think he may be a gold mine of information about the planning of 9/11. They recently also captured Ramzi Bin al-Shibh (al-Shaybah), who I suspect was on the next level up in the cell structure. After a long drought there is an increasing prospect that we may find out details of how September 11 came about.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

History News Network

http://hnn.us/articles/987.html

9-23-02: News Abroad

How Israel's Occupation Affects Palestinian Children

By Juan Cole
Mr. Cole is professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan and author of Sacred Space and Holy War (I.B. Tauris, 2002). His website is: www.juancole.com.

Over one in five Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza (22.5 percent) now suffers from chronic or acute malnutrition. About one in five is anemic. This mass of hungry humanity amounts to a population the size of Minneapolis, about 380,000 kids.

Malnutrition in children makes them more likely to contract life-threatening diseases. It permanently reduces intelligence and vastly increases the rate of attention deficit disorder. Women who were malnourished in their youths have increased rates of premature birth and high blood pressure in pregnancy.

The occupying power in the territories, Israel, enjoys a per capita income of some $17,000 per year, higher than Spain. In contrast, half of Palestinian families must now borrow money just to buy food.

Palestinian terrorists certainly bear a great deal of the blame for this tragedy, insofar as their horrific actions against innocent Israeli civilians have understandably led Israel to close its borders to Palestinian laborers. Unemployment is a prime source of the problem.

Yet, while the scourge of terrorism in Israel has been unspeakable, none of it has been committed by toddlers or infants. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's current lockdown of the entire population of the West Bank is a massive form of collective punishment that has worsened the problem. As the occupying power, Israel cannot escape responsibility for seeing that its colonial subjects are at least fed.

The specter of a rich occupying country presiding over a famished subject population is not unusual in history. Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen has pointed out that colonial and other undemocratic governments often allow hunger and famines, since they are insulated from popular protest.

Famously, even in the midst of the Great Hunger in Ireland of 1845 through 1850, eight ships a day left Ireland carrying exports of wheat, barley, oats, beef, pork, butter and eggs, sent abroad by British landlords while their peasants starved.

The French, who ruled Algeria 1830 to 1962, claimed to be on a "civilizing mission" to their subjects. Yet their policies of selling grain reserves on the world market led to a massive famine in the late 1860s when droughts produced starvation and pestilence.

Only the intervention of the French colonial authorities could have forestalled the deaths of thousands, but such officials have often maintained in history that they bear no responsibility for averting famine deaths. Some 300,000 Algerians died of hunger or of the consequent disease outbreaks.

In Sen's classic case, the British civil service in India failed to stop the starvation of three million Bengalis in 1943. He argues that famine is not caused by lack of food, but by an increased inability of the poor to afford it. Only government intervention, he argues, can stop such a tragedy.

That Palestinian children are not going so far as actually to die from their hunger in great numbers has helped conceal the depth of the crisis. Israel has ruled the West Bank and Gaza since it conquered them in 1967, and cannot disclaim responsibility for a population still under its military rule. A Palestinian Authority constantly under attack and immobilized cannot be expected to do hunger relief.

A wealthy and militarily powerful Israel is responsible under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to see that persons living under its occupation are not harmed. Letting 380,000 children go chronically or acutely hungry is a serious violation of international law.

Since the United States still gives Israel billions of dollars every year and has acquiesced in the current West Bank reoccupation and curfew, it also bears a responsibility for this tragedy. The Palestine issue has dropped out of news coverage, and even when it is noticed the focus is on strutting adult male politicians and military men. Will anyone speak for the children?



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

I have a technical question for the militarily informed on this list. There has been some discussion here already about the Israeli government's warning that if, during an American campaign against the Baath in Iraq, Israel were struck by Iraqi scuds or missiles, it would retaliate.

This is being represented as a change in policy from the Gulf War, where Israel sat it out at the request of the US. I believe the press reporting on this matter to show a lack of historical memory, since I clearly recall then PM Shamir demanding from Bush senior the codes that would allow Israeli jets to fly safely in the war zone, and being refused.

That is, the lack of the proper codes was the real reason for Israeli inaction the last time. What I recollect is that Shamir was extremely angry over the rebuff.

If that is the case, then how could it be brought off this time? As I understand it, US planes signal to each other that they are on the same side by broadcasting a particular code. Aircraft not sending out the code might well be shot down as the enemy. If Sharon sent Israeli jets over Baghdad without the codes, the likelihood is that the US pilots would shoot first and ask questions later.

If what is being referred to is not dispatching jets or bombers, but rather sending missiles on Baghdad, then surely that would put at risk US soldiers fighting on the ground there?

Has the military technology changed, or do I not understand it properly, or is Sharon simply willing to risk US-Israeli dogfights over Iraq?

[I'll post the substance of any response I get].

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bush's Iraq Campaign

With regard to . . . comments on Bush's recent success in pushing his Iraq
campaign, I don't actually think it is that surprising. It has long been
apparent that Bush would not be opposed by most Democrats in the Congress
if he pursued this war, and important leaders such as Lieberman and
Gephardt have been as hawkish as he on the issue. The polls have shown
that at the very least there is not strong US public opposition to such a
war. So, domestically he was always in a good position to go forward with
it. It is true that the administration and the Republican Party seemed
disunited on the issue this past summer, but the dissent was not actually
very deep, nor did it have its own strong power bases. Dick Armey is
after all a lame duck. Scowcroft is out of office. And Powell could
always be given a choice of coming on board or resigning.


Internationally, I think one key to his success was to go to the United
Nations, thus invoking international law. There is a difference between
going to war with Iraq because Donald Rumsfeld doesn't like the looks of
Saddam Hussein, and going to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein has
thumbed his nose at Security Council resolutions. Bush's earlier
skittishness about approaching the U.N. (as late as August the LA Times
was reporting that Bush would not go to the Security Council for a
resolution) was hurting him internationally.


I agree with the point made earlier that it is impossible to distinguish
between an idealist multilateralism and a cynical one. The normative
force of the UN is significant, and Bush spent half an hour Friday trying
to get Putin on board. This is what he should have been doing last
spring. Asharq al-Awsat had a piece again today in which Saudia
emphasized that it would abide by Security Council resolutions. Its
earlier opposition to the war was an opposition to having no fig leaf of
international legitimacy, and opposition to being seen as a mere isolated
lackey of American cowboys.


The other international factor that made it easy for Bush to go forward is
that Saddam Hussein has no regional friends or allies. His 1980 invasion
of Iran was extremely costly geopolitically. Despite the Iranians' noises
about not liking an American invasion of Iraq, I can't imagine they won't
be delighted to see Saddam removed. If an Iraq emerges with a Shiite
majority, this has to be a positive for them. If it is a real democracy,
it could even strengthen the Iranian reformers. Most Iraqi Shi`ites are
less oriented to clericalism than their Iranian counterparts, and they
might create a new model. The conservative ayatollahs may be nervous
about this, but that SCIRI and the Hakims are on board with the Americans
would mute their criticism in private.


Saddam's invasion of Kuwait set the whole of the Gulf against him. The
little Gulf states may be nervous about a war, but Qatar and Kuwait are
clearly on board. Without Kuwait, the US would have had no plausible
staging ground against Saddam. Although the Arab League is against the
invasion of an Arab country by a Western one in principle, the likelihood
that any of the Arab states would give Saddam any practical support is
very, very low.


Saddam's long feud with the Syrian Baath party likewise hurts him. The
Syrians are among the non-permanent members on the Security Council.
Again, despite Bashar's statements to the contrary, it is clear that Syria
could live with Saddam being gotten rid of.


Saddam's mass murder of Kurds and virtual genocide against Shi`ites (why
does no one ever talk about the latter?) make him impossible to defend for
liberals. The most anyone can say is that perhaps Baathist Iraq can be
contained militarily, and that the abuse of the population by this
bloodthirsty regime has to be allowed to continue because . . . well, no
one can think of a good ending to the sentence.


A world in which Saddam had kept at least correct relations with Iran,
Syria and the Gulf, and in which he could be depicted as at least a
progressive tyrant, would have been a far more difficult environment for
Bush to operate in with regard to an Iraq campaign. As it is, Saddam dug
his own grave.


I continue to have grave worries about the possible instability that could
ensue from such a campaign. But these are worries about the aftermath of
the war, not its plausibility per se. If Bush can get a Security Council
resolution authorizing the war, I think he can get the world to support
it. China often abstains about these things, and wants a free hand in
Xinjiang, which the U.S. has given it. Russia probably can be gotten on
board if it is guaranteed to get back the $7 bn. Iraq owes it and to be
able to compete for oil deals. France increasingly sounds as though it
can be recruited. Tony Blair seems to have his back benchers in hand,
though this was not always a sure thing. With the UK and France on board,
Germany becomes a little irrelevant (it didn't send troops for the Gulf
War, either, anyway).


I believe that this is actually the greatest test of his leadership Bush
has faced. Can he put together a consensus on the Security Council? If
so, his path will be far smoother. If success at the UN SC in turn allows
Saudia to lend air space and other support to the war, that will be very
important to the ease of its prosecution. No doubt the war can be
prosecuted even if Bush fails in this, but it would be a different sort of
war and risk isolating the US. Military power is not the only kind, after
all, and even though the rest of the world cannot stand up to US might, it
can stop cooperating in key ways that would cost us.


This is what I wrote to G2K in late April, 2002:


"The first Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan were done right.
International consensus was built, and collective security was invoked.
The planned war against Iraq is not being done right so far. If the
Security Council and the European Union get aboard with it, then I will be
all for it."


As for the possible impact on the Palestine issue, the neocons may get a
surprise. The US is beginning to have fair numbers of close Muslim
allies--Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar,
Kuwait, Saudia, and now possibly a post-Saddam Iraq. At some point their
diplomatic weight and credibility, combined with the increasing voting
strength of US Muslims (which will not stop growing as long as the 1965
immigration act is in place), may induce the US to be more even-handed and
to try actually to resolve the problem.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The Grand Rapids Press

First battle in war on Iraq will be at home



Sunday, September 22, 2002

By Ted Roelofs
The Grand Rapids Press

On the surface, oil executive Sid Jansma Jr. might seem like the kind of guy President Bush can count on as he pushes for possible invasion of Iraq.

Jansma is conservative, a big contributor to GOP causes -- and steeped in the understanding of petroleum's role in Mideast politics. He also knows something about Saddam Hussein.

Twelve years ago, Jansma sat at a conference table in Baghdad with other American executives to talk about developing that nation's vast oil reserves. "It was gorgeous geology," recalled Jansma, president of Grand Rapids-based Wolverine Gas &Oil. "They do have huge potential."

Five months later, Iraqi tanks rolled into Kuwait as Saddam gambled the world would look the other way.

But as much as Jansma wants to see Iraq opened up, he warns against hasty action on our part.

"The populations of the Middle East, I believe, are going to look at an invasion as being very heavy-handed.

[click below for the rest of this story, based in part on an interview with Juan Cole, with quotes):

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news-4/10326897617020.xml

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

According to AFP, the chief al-Qaeda financier was Mohammed Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi, who used to be an accountant for the Saudi royal family. Arrested in Spain last April, Zouaydi had set up a number of money laundering operations in Europe in 1996-2001. The World Trade Center was extensively videotaped in 1997 by Ghassoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, one of Zouaydi's employees. The dummy corporations Zouaydi set up in Europe added $2.5 million to the funds available to the operation, according to the report, but this makes no sense. The money tended to be sent from the UAE, and the September 11 operation only cost $500,000. Something else is going on here, possibly 5 operations as big as September 11?

Zouaydi used to work for Saudi spymaster Prince Turki al-Faisal, who resigned after 20 years as head of Saudi foreign intelligence in early September, 2001.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

According to Asharq al-Awsat, 19 Yemeni al-Qaida members originally found in Afghanistan have been turned over to Yemen by a "sister" country (apparently Jordan), and they are now being interrogated. There are also 10-30 US military trainers in Yemen, teaching Yemeni forces how to combat terrorism. A manhunt is still going on in Ma'rib and Shibwa provinces for two important al-Qaida fugitives, Abu `Ali al-Harithi and Abu `Asim al-Ahdal.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

If Hussein is ousted, what next?
Bush team wants to set up democracy; critics say forced change will only create instability

By Cameron McWhirter / The Detroit News


http://www.detnews.com/2002/nation/0209/16/a01-588600.htm

(based in part on an interview with Juan Cole, w/ quote).



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Elections in Pakistan


The election process rolls on in Pakistan. General Musharraf has effectively blocked attempts by the two major political dynasties, the Bhuttos and the Sharifs, to be involved, charging them with corruption. He has amended the constitution 29 times and circumscribed civilian government with a military-dominated "National Security Council". Musharraf will make all judicial appointments, e.g.

Three candidates have now emerged for prime minister in Pakistan, though this office will not have nearly as much power as in the past. The Pakistan People's Party is led by Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a Sindhi Sufi pir or leader and great landholder. Fahim is the "eldest son of the spiritual leader, poet and intellectual of Sindh, Makhdum Muhammad Zaman Talibul Maula." He is running from Hala in Sindh, and since he is the pir or saint of Hala, he will certainly win his seat. In the partyless elections of Jan-Aug. of 2001, the PPP candidates picked up about a third of the votes, better than any one rival party. If the PPP does as well this time around, it may well be in a position to form a government. Fahim is not known as a dynamic leader, and he belongs to the section of the party known as the "feudals," rather than to that of the progressive, younger urban segment that offers more hope for Pakistan's political future. As a Sufi, Fahim is deeply opposed to the fundamentalist version of Islam, which typically decries shrines and mystical Islam. He is a man with substantial credentials as a Muslim traditionalist. The PPP at one point, at least, had more promising young leaders.

The PPP's main rival, the Muslim League, has split in two. The Muslim League (N) remains in principle loyal to ousted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. It is now likely to be led by Raja Zafrul Haq. He used to be Gen. Zia ul-Haq's stalking horse in the 1980s and may be considered on the far right of Pakistani mainstream politics. When the Deobandi movement had its international conference near Peshawar in April of 2001, being addressed by Mulla Omar and Bin Laden by videotape, Raja Zafrul Haq sent a message that "that the conference would go a long way to achieve Ummah's solidarity. He said that all the systems perceived by the mankind during different ages had failed and only Islam stood high guaranteeing wellbeing for the people." Someone who thinks that the movement that produced the Taliban was helping achieve the solidarity of the Muslims seems to me a little scarey as the prime minister of Pakistan post-9/11.

The PPP and the Muslim League (N) have been trying to form an electoral alliance, such that they will even avoid running against each other in many electoral districts, ensuring their common strength by deciding beforehand where each will put up candidates.

The other half is the Muslim League (Quaid-i-A`zam or QA), which has declared itself independent of the Sharif family and named itself for Pakistan's founder. ML (QA) has been an unwavering supporter of General Musharraf, to the extent that it is now known as the "king's party." The other parties suggest that the Pakistani government is giving it perquisites and help to enhance its chances at the ballot box. It is possible that the Muslim League (QA) will be so strengthened by these measures as to do unexpectedly well in the polls, but I personally doubt it. One prime candidate for leadership of the party is Mian Azhar, a former governor of the Punjab. He was recently picketed by the labor wing of his party for having excluded them. He has rivals for leadership in the party and is not a sure shot.

The secular and rather organicist Muttahida Qaumi Movement (United Popular Movement or MQM) may do well among the Urdu speaking "mohajirs" of Karachi and Hyderabad Sindh. Previous bans on the party, which was involved in paramilitary violence, have been lifted. I think this must be because the MQM's ideology, which is secular, makes it a counter-weight to the Jama`at-i-Islami, which has also at some points been popular among the Urdu speakers.

As usual, the small religious parties are unlikely to get more than 3-5% of the seats.

The possible governments that might be formed all seem likely to be be right of center and promise to be weak and circumscribed by the military. In a country where most people are peasants or urban workers, only holders of a university degree can even run for office. Such democracy.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Would the United States Really Like a Democratic Iraq?

History News Network

http://hnn.us/articles/975.html

9-16-02: News Abroad



By Juan Cole


One of the justifications U.S. hawks give for going to war with Iraq is that an American victory would allow it to set up a democratic post-Saddam regime. Those on the Right who have made this argument seldom know that constitutional monarchies were common in the Middle East in the first half of the twentieth century and that they failed.

Why were the liberal regimes so fragile in the end? What can their failure tell us about how best to pursue democratization today?

Three problems bedeviled these parliamentary governments.

The first was over-concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a very small elite. A few thousand families owned most of Egypt's land in the 1920s through the 1940s, and they were the ones who controlled the major parties. The same was true of Iraq and Iran. Parliamentary politics was not a game for the people, but for the wealthy elite, who used it to further their interests. Labor unions were often either controlled by the party of the elite or banned. Liberalism came to be discredited in the eyes of the masses as a result. The military governments of the 1950s and 1960s in Egypt and Iraq made themselves popular with land reform and other policies that spread the wealth around.

The second was the power-hungry actions of unpopular monarchs. Egypt's King Fuad tinkered with the constitution in the early 1930s to give himself ever more power. His successor, King Faruq, was hated as an effete playboy. The shah in Iran dueled with his nationalist parliament in the early 1950s, provoking a constitutional crisis. The monarchy in Iraq was an artificial creation of the British, who rewarded the Hashemite King Faisal for allying with them during WW I by giving him a kingdom far from his native western Arabia, where his family had no ties.

The third was Western imperial meddling. The British intervened forcefully in both Egypt and Iraq during World War II. This action was necessary to face the Axis threat, especially in Iraq where high-ranking officers had pro-German sentiments. Still, the cooperation of the Egyptian Wafd Party and Iraqi politicians such as Nuri Said with renewed British control weakened their popular legitimacy and paved the way for military coups. The Americans overthrew the elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddeq, because he had nationalized Iran's oil industry.

Any new wave of democracy in the Middle East would have to avoid the destabilizing effects of these past errors.

Only policies that made sure that all sections of the population benefited from opportunities for meaningful political participation and economic advance could convince the person in the street that the new regime was not just another oligarchy. In Iraq, this would mean that the desperately poor Shiite south would have to get new resources, as would the rural Kurds.

A parliament would not be enough. Active grassroots democracy with wide levels of political participation would be necessary to make the case that the new government belonged to everyone. In Iraq, only federalism and a formal separation of religion and state could ensure justice for both Sunnis and Shi`ites, not to mention the Chaldean Christians.

A renewed Hashemite monarchy in Iraq would be a disaster. A monarch would attempt to arrogate power to himself, as do all the current Middle Eastern kings. He would thus weaken the prime minister and parliament and open them to eventual overthrow. The Hashemites never had any legitimate claim on Iraq, and such a king would be viewed as a creature of Western imperialism.

The U.S. would have to avoid attempting to micro-manage the new government, and would have to acquiesce if a party and prime minister came to power it did not like. A post-Saddam Iraq would have a Shi`ite majority that might favor Iran or Hizbullah. A populist Arab nationalist able to put together a coalition of Sunnis and Shi`ites might be an outspoken critic of U.S. policy on the Palestine issue. Such a voice would have to be allowed, and heard. Covert U.S. manipulation of elections or undue pressure on Iraqi politicians would backfire badly.

The U.S. has yet to demonstrate that it can foster democracy in the Muslim world. It is still cozy with dictators. In Afghanistan, popular sovereignty is only a vague dream and a medieval version of Islamic law is being imposed. Pakistan's General Musharraf has unilaterally amended the constitution 29 times and given himself a five-year term as "president," with the right to dismiss parliament at any time. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak recently had human rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim sentenced to seven years in prison. All these governments are close American allies.

The American Right's romance with small, powerful elites, with dictators or renewed monarchies, and with heavy-handed U.S. influence in the region may lead Washington to repeat the catastrophic mistakes of the age of colonialism.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cole interview on the Todd Mundt Show [NPR]

The Cole interview can be listened to at: http://www.toddshow.org/ram/tmshow0911.ram.

It requires a Real Audio Player, available free from http://www.real.com/realoneplayer.html?pp=home&src=020912realhome_1 (the free version is on the lower righthand side). Once you have the Real Player program going from the Mundt link above, fast forward with the middle ball control along the central line to 34:00. The interview was broadcast on September 11, 2002.

The interview focuses on the diversity of the Muslim world and the differing responses of Muslim countries to al-Qaeda and the looming war in Iraq.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

News of the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh [b. al-Shaybah] in Karachi is exciting. Also captured, though this point has been litle commented on, was Abu Bakr al-Misri, the media point man for al-Jihad al-Islami (led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden's right hand man). Fundamentalists in London were already saying that the arrest of Bin al-Shibh following his interview with an al-Jazeerah reporter signals the end of al-Qaida's press honeymoon with some outlets in the Arab world. The loss of a canny media operative like al-Misri is very bad news for al-Qaida. The question of the fate of these recent arrestees is unkown. Germany has asked for extradition to Germany. It does not have capital punishment. The likelihood is that the terrorists will be extradited to the U.S., where they will be executed if convicted. Keeping someone like Bin al-Shibh available for interviews about al-Qaida is one argument against simply taking him out and shooting him.

Der Spiegel is reporting that a second cousin of Lebanese 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah was a spy for Stasi, the East German intelligence, and took money also from Libya. It is hard to know what all this means, if true, for our understanding of Ziad Jarrah. There is no proof that his statements are true, and he has apparently been known to sell false informtion for a modest payment.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

In Defense of our Allies


I take strong exception to the following statement [by a participant in H-Diplo].

>"Regional states and our feckless "allies" in Europe (an Ally is someone
>who stands with you in a war - except for Britain, NATO is merely a
>collection of concerned observers and free-riders who have dismantled
>their military capablities in order to fund -say - extravagant welfare
>programs for Islamist extremist immigrants . . ."

US NATO allies at this very moment have special forces on peace keeping missions in Afghanistan at the behest of the US, including Turkey, Germany, France, Canada and others. Those young men have been sent to risk their lives, in a very, very dangerous place, as a means of giving help to the US in the war on terror. Some forces, including that of the French, have conducted tactical operations rather than just doing peace keeping. Germany had to change its policy of not sending troops outside Europe, and a government in coalition with the *Greens* managed to do so. In addition, German naval forces are sweeping the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea in search of al-Qaida skiffs, and last I heard the Dutch were helping out with similar activities in the Carribean. The security of the U.S. is greatly enhanced via this aid from close allies. NATO allies also played a key role in the Gulf War. Those of us not in uniform and not at risk of losing a foot to a land mine at any moment are not in a position to call these young men feckless.

What really seems to be being said here is that allies are Gurkhas who can be ordered into battle whenever the Imperial power decides unilaterally to go to war, and if they demur then they are "feckless."

The last bit about "extravagant welfare programs for Islamist extremist immigrants" quite frankly has a racist overtone in my ears. Five percent of the French population is Muslim, there are 7 million Muslims in Germany, and over 2 million in the United Kingdom. The vast majority of these immigrants were brought to Europe or allowed to come because of sectorial labor shortages in Europe (read: they were willing to do tedious or fatiguing jobs Europeans weren't). I well remember in the UK in the 1980s not being able to get over the counter medicine in the evening because the pharmacies were all closed at 5 pm, except at the local Muslim grocer's. The vast majority of these immigrants are hard-working people not living on "extravagant" welfare programs. The vast majority of them are not extremists at all. There are only an estimated 3000 al-Qaida members in the entire world, and hardcore sympathizers in a place like Germany are estimated by German police at 2000. In a German Muslim population of 7 million? That is a needle in a haystack. That the French, e.g., have "coddled" Islamic extremists is an absurd proposition.

There are terrorists and extremists in any immigrant community anywhere. Sikh immigrants to Canada once engaged in terrorism, targetting Indian airliners. The Tamil Tigers at one point received a great deal of support from middle class emigrants to the West (they are Hindu). The US Irish community is notorious for having had many members who directly or indirectly supported the IRA. Even the JDL plotted to blow up a congressman's office last fall, and Gush Emunim fanatics who emigrated to Israel from Brooklyn have engaged in terrorism on the West Bank.

There are even terrorists among the "indigenous" populations of European and North American countries, including Timothy McVeigh, neo-Nazis, etc., etc.

That the Germans are acting as a voice of conscience against what looks to them like very possibly a war of aggression should give us all pause. That sort of thing haunts their history, and they are sensitive to its implications.

For evidence that neocon hawks closely tied to the Likud Party have been among the most vocal proponents of a US attack on Iraq for some time, see Brian Whitaker's excellent "Playing Skittles with Saddam" in the Guardian for Tues. Sept. 3, '02 :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,785394,00.html




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Both the European Union and Human Rights Watch have criticized General Pervez Musharraf's attempts to stifle democracy in Pakistan. His "National Security Council," very much unlike the US version, will virtually give the Pakistani military a permanent veto over domestic policy initiatives. He is conducting elections in a very limited manner, disallowing street processions or campaigning from trains (arrests have been made in the latter regard). The husband of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has just been sentenced to seven years of hard labor for corruption. The timing of this sentence surely is intended to discredit the Bhuttos, leaders of the Pakistan People's Party, one of the country's two largest. Benazir herself has been forbidden to run for office and faces a sentence similar to her husband's should she return. Members of the family of former PM Nawaz Sharif have also been disqualified from running, even they they are guilty of no crime as individuals. Musharraf says they pledged non-participation in Pakistani politics when he allowed the Sharifs to go into exile in Saudi Arabia rather than executing Nawaz, whom he overthrew in a coup in 1999. Human Rights watch called on the US to pressure Musharraf over his high-handed dismantling of what was left of Pakistani democracy. Fat chance. As long as Musharraf actively cooperates with the FBI in hunting down al-Qaida, he can do as he pleases in domestic politics from the USG point of view.

When George W. Bush talks of installing democracy in Iraq and Palestine, we have to be increasingly skeptical. Neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan, among our closest allies, really has anything like democracy, and we seem unwilling or incapable of prodding them to develop it. How likely is it the US really wants the Iraqi people to be free to vote in just any policy they like? Whatever the reason is that the US is going after Iraq, it is highly unlikely to be mainly an objection to Saddam's dictatorial rule.


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Yemeni police have discovered a further 300 kg. of plastic explosives in the capital, Sanaa, which belonged to an al-Qaida cell. Two members of the cell had earlier accidentally blown themselves up, but apparently they had planned a large operation. Guantanamo captives from Yemen have in the past said that the U.S. embassy in Sanaa is a prime al-Qaida target.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Successes and Failures of the War on Terror

Juan R. I. Cole

Symposium on "Globalization and Terrorism"
International Institute, University of Michigan
September 11, 2002

On September 11, the al-Qaida terrorist network struck an epochal blow against the United States. It aimed at pushing the U.S. out of the Middle East as a status quo power. With the U.S. intimidated, it hoped, it would become easier to overthrow the governments of Egypt, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia and to push the Israelis out of the Middle East. That this power fantasy was absurd and impossible to accomplish by theatrical terrorism, even on a vast scale, did not deter the fanatics who carried it out.

I want to enumerate the remarkable successes the United States has had in responding to this terrorist sneak attack, and to draw attention to the dangers that remain. I would also like to dedicate these words I say here today to the memory of the over 3,000 innocents who died on that day of infamy.

Five challenges were posed to the US by the attacks of September 11. The first was to put together an international coalition that would allow a legitimate battle against al-Qaida. The second was to prosecute that war successfully, despite the difficulties of warfare in rugged, landlocked Afghanistan. The third was to engage in successful counter-subversion against al-Qaida cells in Europe and the Middle East. The fourth was to uphold American values and traditions of civil liberties in the face of terrorism. The fifth was to win over Muslim public opinion and address the problems that radicalized Muslims against the U.S., so as to deprive al-Qaida of a key recruiting tool.

The obstacles were formidable. Al-Qaida had 40 large and well equipped training camps in Afghanistan, with which it had turned out thousands of committed operatives expert in explosives, secret cell organization, and other tools of the terrorist trade for actions against the U.S. It had millions of dollars in contributions to play with, sent by radical or gullible Muslim sympathizers made rich by oil wealth or by business ventures in Europe or the U.S. It controlled, and received the support of, the fundamentalist Taliban government of Afghanistan.

The U.S. quickly put together an international coalition. Secretary of State Colin Powell was able to induce the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to invoke article 5 of its charter, specifying that an attack on one is an attack on all. Further, Powell got a resolution at the UN Security Council authorizing action against Afghanistan. But the U.S. also needed Muslim allies such as Pakistan. President George W. Bush proclaimed soon after the attacks that they were committed by a terrorist fringe that had attempted to hijack the peaceful religion of Islam. He gained enormous political capital by refusing to make Islam or Muslims the enemy. The US was free to concentrate on the terrorists

In the Muslim world, the U.S. needed Pakistani facilities and airspace, but it posed a potential problem. Its military had created the Taliban. What if the Pakistani army stood by Mulla Omar? Powell called General Pervez Musharraf and laid out his options, of either helping the US or becoming a target himself. "General," he said, "you have a decision to make." As it turned out, Musharraf was terrified of a US attack, especially since India might take advantage of it. He therefore was persuaded to betray the Taliban, to seal the border and cut off their money and fuel supplies, and to cooperate with US troops being stationed on Pakistani soil. He fired the head of military intelligence, who was too closely associated with the old Taliban strategy. The army stood behind Musharraf, whatever its private sympathies for the Taliban. Most Pakistanis understood that their leader had no choice, and supported him, despite disliking a US strike on Afghanistan. The US was also able to secure bases and cooperation from the Central Asian republics, in the face of Russian skittishness about losing this sphere of influence.

Putting tanks into Afghanistan as the Soviets had seemed a recipe for disaster, and the U.S. had few good military options. The solution came from the intelligence community. CIA Director George Tenet told the National Security Council that field officers and Special Forces personnel could be put in to call down precision airstrikes on Taliban and al-Qaida targets. In the north, the US air power pummeled Taliban armor and troop lines. The ragtag Northern Alliance had as many good fighters as the Taliban, but had lacked good weaponry or air cover. Once they had both, courtesy of the U.S., they rapidly advanced, taking the country's major cities in a week. It was also essential that some Pushtun heroes emerge from the war, and the US was just barely able to supply them. The Taliban crumbled. The victory of the Northern Alliance and of US Pushtun allies like Hamid Karzai, allowed international aid to flow into Afghanistan, preventing the deaths of millions in a famine that would otherwise have been brought on by Taliban policies.

The US was now in a position to scour the country for al-Qaida bases, capturing secret documents full of terrorist plans. The camps were destroyed, depriving al-Qaida of its secure base of operations and training facilities. Fleeing al-Qaida commandoes were also apprehended. Jemal Beghal, a Frenchman of Algerian descent, was captured in the fall in the United Arab Emirates. He ran a major European cell based in the Netherlands and Belgium. They plotted to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Beghal broke, and named his accomplices. The Dutch authorities were able to arrest them. An Egyptian restaurant in Belgium was searched, and a stockpile of plastic explosives for the embassy bombing was found. The plan had been close to being put into operation. It was recently revealed that the Beghal cell also intended to attack US military personnel in Belgium.

Al-Qaida cells began being identified in Germany, Italy, Holland, France, Belgium, Bosnia and Spain. Dozens of arrests were made and operations disrupted. Videotapes found in Afghanistan tipped Singaporean authorities to the existence of an al-Qaida cell there, which planned to blow up US naval vessels that docked at the island. Another plot was foiled, in which a Christmas market in the picturesque French city of Strasbourg was to be rocked by a massive explosion. Another captured al-Qaida member revealed that U.S. embassies were to be bombed in Southeast Asia on the anniversary of September 11, and this was averted. Preventing such plots has helped forestall the destabilization of Western economies.

The impressive successes of the U.S. War on Terrorism have by no means been complete. Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other high al-Qaida officers remain at large, free to plot further atrocities. Among the millions of European Muslims, only a few hundred are al-Qaida operatives, but many of these are still not under surveillance by European police and intelligence agencies. Likewise, al-Qaida continues to have cells in the Middle East. It was able to pull of a bombing at Djerba in Tunisia, which killed among others a number of German tourists. The US froze the accounts of fraudulent charities and other front organizations of al-Qaida, but funding for al-Qaida has not been stopped, as the United Nations recently admitted.

Although Afghanistan has been liberated from the Taliban, much of it was delivered back into the hands of regional warlords, who remain a constant threat to its stability. The current Afghan government is not broadly based and has a tiny military. Were the country to slide into chaos, al-Qaida might be able to take advantage of this opening to attack the US again. Al-Qaida is regrouping, as evidenced by the recent assassination attempt against President Karzai and the car bombing of a market in Kabul. Immense US efforts at state-building in Afghanistan remain necessary to forestall this disaster.

Of the five tasks imposed on the U.S. by September 11, none has been fulfilled completely, and the fifth has been ignored. The Taliban were brilliantly overthrown and Afghanistan has been denied to al-Qaida as a base of operations, at least for the moment. The international coalition put together in fall of 2001 is still in place, but it is somewhat frayed over the issue of a possible unilateral Iraq campaign. Despite some successes, the ability of the US and other intelligence services to penetrate al-Qaida cells in Europe and the Middle East continues to be limited, and it will probably take these services five years to begin to have significant success in this regard. Finally, the root causes of terrorism in the Muslim world have not been addressed in any way. The issues of Kashmir, Chechnya, Xinjiang, Algeria, and the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis remain as hot as ever. The Bush administration has in some instances trampled on civil liberties and acted unconstitutionally in the attempt to forestall terrorism, seemingly oblivious to the irony that this outcome is the one Bin Laden desired. Voices on the American right have demonized all Muslims for the sins of a handful. The United States is engaged in a battle with al-Qaida for the hearts and minds of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, and that battle will be the truly decisive one. It cannot be won by hatred.



Talk given at the International Institute, University of Michigan:

Religion, Security, and Violence in Global Contexts

Wednesday, September 11, 4:00-6:00 p.m., Michigan Union Ballroom
Terrorism and Globalization: Looking Back, Looking Forward


Symposium to encourage public discussion of the effects of September 11, 2001. Speakers will discuss how international humanitarian law, civil liberties, and the American Muslim community have changed in the past year with a focus on how U-M continues to respond. Speakers include Juan Cole, professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian history, Department of History, University of Michigan; Sherman A. Jackson, associate professor of Medieval Arabic law and theology, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan; Javed Nazir, visiting professor, Department of Communications, University of Michigan and former editor of the Frontier Post, a nonconformist newspaper in Lahore, Pakistan; Mark Tessler, professor of political science and Samuel J. Eldersveld Collegiate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan; Ashutosh Varshney, associate professor, Department of Political Science, and director, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan; and Susan Waltz, professor of international relations and public policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan. Michael D. Kennedy, Vice Provost for International Affairs and director, International Institute, University of Michigan, will moderate the discussion.

Sponsor: International Institute and Office of the Vice President for Communications



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One of the founders of Algeria's "Armed Islamic Group" revealed in an interview with Asharq al-Awsat that Usama Bin Laden gave monetary aid to the Algerian fundamentalists beginning in 1992. That was when the military government threw out the election results, in which the Islamic Salvation Front had won a majority in parliament and repressed the Muslim fundamentalists. Bin Laden wished to help the fundamentalists in Algeria and hoped for overthrow of its secular-leaning government. He was in contact with developments there via the "Afghans," returning Algerian mujahidin who had fought the Soviets. These were called "Afghans" in Algerian and were famous for actually wearing Afghan clothing. Bin Laden's support, which took the form of money and weapons, continued when the Armed Islamic Group hived off from FIS because of internal differences.

Members of the Armed Islamic Group have been notable members of the al-Qaida coalition, and some were involved in the Millennium Plot (as French speakers they tended to congregate in Montreal).
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The rebellion of Padshah Khan Zadran in Eastern Afghanistan appears to have failed for the moment. The disaffected warlord, who has vowed to overthrow Karzai, had rockets fired into the middle of Khost. He was trying to take the city from Governor Muhammad Hakim Tanival, Karzai's appointee.

Tanival's forces have fought off the challenge. But when you have to fight for your governorship in this way, it is not exactly a sign of stability. Why doesn't the US intervene against Zadran? He has been talking treason for months and now he is causing bloodshed.


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Bin Laden Preaches against U.S.

Asim Daraz, an Egyptian journalist who lived in Afghanistan and associated for a while with Usama Bin Laden, showed videotape excerpts in London yesterday that help explain Bin Laden's hatred for the U.S., according to ash-Sharq al-Awsat.

One was a sermon Bin Laden delivered in Jidda at his family's mosque in 1990, in which he spoke of the first Palestinian intifada or uprising. Daraz points out that the Palestinian struggle, and U.S. support for Israel, were central to Bin Laden's hatred for America. Already in 1990 Bin Laden appeared in the sermon to have forgotten all about the Soviet foe, which had withdrawn from Afghanistan the year before. He concentrated all of his hatred on the U.S., because, he said, of the humiliation every Arab and every Muslim feels over the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis and the U.S. backing for the latter.

Over the years in interviews and statements, Bin Laden did in fact make Palestine central to his struggle, usually referring to Jerusalem and speaking in terms of the issue of the occupation of Islam's holiest cities by infidels. While he was also referring to the US bases in Saudi Arabia, one of his referents was definitely Palestine. Many observers in the U.S. press have suggested that the Arab-Israeli conflict was irrelevant to al-Qaida, but this is simply not the case.
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The Architecture of the Middle East

It has been suggested that "American strategic planners intend to attempt to replace
the existing Sykes-Picot/Balfour architecture of the region, which
reflected British (and French) imperial primacy during and after WWI, with
a revised system that would better reflect new global realities."

I don't see any evidence that US planners have any notion of replacing the Sykes-Picot/Balfour architecture at all. Rather, the challenge they are launching is to the Arab nationalist revision of that architecture, largely begun in the 1950s. That was when military regimes came into power in Egypt and Iraq, and consolidated themselves in Syria. In the 1960s they tended to become ideologized, leaning toward socialism, as in Nasserism and Baathism, and were joined by Algeria and Libya. They had partial command economies and tilted to the Soviet Union.

It was Arab nationalism that sought to erase Sykes-Picot/Balfour, either through diplomatic negotiation and the establishment of new federations (e.g. Egypt and Syria's short-lived United Arab Republic), or through warfare (e.g. Saddam's brutal invasions of Khuzistan and Kuwait). The legacy of Western imperialism to the Arab world had been a patchwork quilt of insignificant polities, including large poor countries like Egypt and tiny rich ones like Kuwait. Only a federation of Arab states, the Arab nationalists felt, could transform the region into a powerhouse in its own right.

The U.S. succeeded in defending the post-WW I architecture of the Middle East in part by enticing Sadat's Egypt into an American orbit. It was happy to leave the army in power, but shifted it to a purely Bonapartist regime and away from any socialist or pan-Arab tendencies. Economic liberalization and behind the scenes military autocracy combined with a localistic nationalism became an influential new model, spreading from Egypt to Tunisia and ultimately to Algeria. Qaddafi's Libya, Baathist Syria and Iraq resisted some of these tendencies, but the rivalries among them and between them and the economic liberalizers ensured that the Sykes-Picot/Balfour architecture remained unchanged. Saddam's butcher version of Arab nationalist amalgamation was pushed back (quite rightly) in the Gulf War.

Pan-Islamic challenges to the Sykes-Picot/Balfour architecture foundered in part because Islamist movements could never overcome their particularist origins (e.g. Khomeini's Shi`ism or the Taliban's Deobandism), or because they were repressed by secular regimes (Egypt, Algeria), or because they over-reached in their challenges to the West and so were either effectively contained (Iran) or overthrown (the Taliban).

I believe that the Sykes-Picot/Balfour architecture of the Middle East was a colossal failure, and both it and its American-influenced Cold War revival helps in some significant part account for the tragic development problems of the region, recently detailed by the United Nations.

The likelihood is that the US will continue to seek to divide and rule, and to back authoritarianism over democracy to achieve its geo-political aims. Since authoritarianism, the denial to the people of a voice in public affairs, and the humiliation of powerlessness in the major struggles central to Arab nationalism all contribute to the development failure and the rise of terrorism, the outlook does not appear promising.




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Instability in Afghanistan

The ability of terrorist forces (whether al-Qaida or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) to set off a huge car bomb explosion in Kabul, killing at least 30 and injuring 50, on the same day that President Hamid Karzai narrowly escaped being assassinated in Kandahar, demonstrates how much remains to be done there.

U.S. preoccupation with Iraq is creating space for the terrorists to destabilize Afghanistan. You don't begin a new job until you finish the old one.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar continues to be an embarrassing example of blowback. It was the US that funded him with hundreds of millions of dollars, in the fight against the Soviets. The US victory in Afghanistan in 1988-89 looks increasingly pyrrhic.
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Iraqi Shi`ites and Hizbullah

There seems to me to be a contradiction between the stated plans of the hawks in the Bush administration to establish a post-Saddam democracy in Iraq on the one hand, and other goals of the administration on the other. For instance, President Bush put Iran in the "axis of evil" and attacked the clerical hardliners there; and the Bush administration has also denounced Lebanon's Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.

If you had one person, one vote, the likelihood is that once the Shi`ite community of Iraq became politically mobilized, it could always dominate an elected parliament if it liked. And, if you had a Shi`ite prime minister and a Shi`ite majority party, you would almost certainly have Shi`ite policies.

Among the organizations the U.S. hawks are courting in preparation for a strike on Iraq is the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Resistance in Iraq. The son of its leader told Asharq al-Awsat a couple of weeks ago that SCIRI had been assured by Donald Rumsfeld that a post-Saddam Iraq would be a democracy (i.e. would be Shi`ite-dominated). SCIRI is a hardline Shi`ite chauvinist organization that wants to impose a good deal of Shi`ite law and practice on Iraq as a whole. I can't imagine how there would not be extreme resistance to this move among the Sunni Kurds and the wealthy and powerful Sunni Arabs.

It seems a little unlikely to me that a Shi`ite-dominated democratic Iraq, especially if SCIRI were powerful in the government, would neglect to support the Lebanese Hizbullah. It would also likely have good relations with the Iranian leg of the 'axis of evil,' including the hardline clerics (the Hakims, who head up SCIRI, are not obviously different from Ali Khamenei in Iran).

The hope of some of Washington's hawks that a Hashemite monarch might be imposed on Iraq and keep it conservative is illogical on many grounds. First, Shi`ites have mostly bought Khomeini's argument that their religion is incompatible with monarchy. (Shi`ites were not particularly welcoming of the Hashemites in 1920, we should remember, and would be far more hostile today). Second, if Iraq is really going to be a democracy, the Iraqi parliament could not be stopped from voting money for Hizbullah by a constitutional monarch. Third, a monarchy powerful enough to over-ride the popular will would undermine democracy (as happens in all Middle Eastern monarchies), and make a mockery of one of the grounds for the US invasion.

Things are heating up on the Lebanese front, with continued Hizbullah shelling of the occupied Shibaa Farms region, and threats of reprisals against Syria from Lebanon's southern neighbor.

I just don't see how you get a genuinely democratic Iraq that does not increase Shi`ite power in the Levant and serve to bolster Hizbullah and Iran. On the other hand, if the Washington hawks secretly hope to prevent such an outcome, it could only be through non-democratic mechanisms, such as giving Iraq a powerful and interventionist monarch (i.e. another dictator) who was pliant toward Western interests.







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More on Sawa and Gutting the Voice of America

I've been listening to Radio Sawa, and the situation is even worse than I thought. It is available at:

http://www.ibb.gov/radiosawa/index.html

First of all, they play the Backstreet Boys.

Even worse, the news breaks, at least on the Web service, appear to be much shorter and less frequent than reported in the press. Most voice commentary I've heard is in a thick Lebanese accent, which carries with it ideological connotations in the region.

There is every reason to think, from interviews the head of the Sawa news division has given, that the news is *only* what the White House and the Pentagon want the audience to hear. The news slant has been dismissed as "propaganda" by Arab observers in the Middle East:

http://star.arabia.com/article/0,5596,187_5436,00.html

Consider that Wolf Blitzer interviewed Tariq Aziz of Iraq at some length on Sunday for CNN, but Sawa has openly proclaimed that it would conduct no such interviews with Iraqi officials.

We don't have both services any more. Let me repeat. *The VOA Arabic Service is gone!* Kaput. Non-existent. Out of business. It could have been given the same broadcast facilities as Sawa has been, and been put on FM wavelengths, too. It could have functioned as a sort of National Public Radio for the Middle East. The Voice of America cannot do that any more because it has no Arabic division. The offices are closed.

The offices of the VOA Persian Service will be closed soon, too. The head of VOA resigned last week, apparently because he objected to having his major services abolished in favor of Sawa. This is the Reuter blurb on the matter from Aug. 30 '02:

"Voice of America Director Resigns, Is Replaced

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The director of the Voice of America, Robert Reilly, resigned on Thursday after less than a year in the job, the Broadcasting Board of Governors said. VOA sources said the agency had been in turmoil under Reilly's leadership, particularly over plans to set up new language services targeted to Middle East audiences but without the 'impartiality' provisions in the VOA charter."

The Sawa model isn't actually distinctive. Egypt has pop music stations that give abbreviated news reports from an Egyptian government perspective. Likewise other Middle Eastern countries. The U.S. isn't giving a lesson in free speech, pluralism, open society, or professional journalism with Sawa. It is just doing what the local dictatorships do, but with more US music in the mix.

As I said, I don't object to Sawa in itself. I object to VOA being gutted and the loss of opportunity to speak intelligently to the 40- and 50-somethings who might actually make decisions that matter. I object to the loss of of a US government news agency that has impartiality provisions in its charter, and its replacement by a blatantly ideological enterprise. And, I really, really object to the apparent plans to gut both the VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Persian services in favor of a Persian clone of Sawa.



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al-Qaeda in Holland

Dutch prosecutors in Rotterdam said on Monday that they had arrested 8 persons who belong to a radical Islamic group that provided "logistical, material and financial support" to al-Qaeda, and recruited fighters for it. This cell is apparently unrelated to a previously apprehended group of 4 men.

The previously arrested cell included Jerome Courtailler, a Frenchman, Abdelkader Rabia of Algeria, and a Dutch citizen, Saad Ibrahim, all arrested last Sept. 13. Another Algerian member, Abel Tobbichia, was arrested in Canada and extradited to Holland in July. This cell, which was run by Djemal Beghal, a French Algerian, had planned to attack the US embassy in Paris. It has recently been revealed by Dutch authorities that there is evidence they also planned to attack the US military in Belgium.

Beghal was arrested in the UAE last fall and then extradited to France, where he revealed the embassy plot and fingered his collaborators before later falling silent. Courtailler and Rabia are implicated in supplying false passports to Islamic militants, and both such forgeries and machinery to make more were found in their apartment when they were arrested (along with videos of Usama Bin Laden). Their trial will begin in November.

Courtailler drove one militant to the airport when he left for training in Afghanistan, and once helped find a job for shoe bomber Richard Reid.



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Gutting VOA and Radio Sawa

Some news reports from the Los Angeles Times and other
newspapers this week have talked about the amazing success of Radio Sawa,
the US government radio network that broadcasts on FM and AM in the Middle
East. It plays music all day, mixing Britney Spears with local Arab pop
stars, sort of like a typical US pop music station. It has two brief news
breaks each hour, of about 7 minutes each, when short headlines are given
rather breathlessly, with all the depth typical of AM pop music stations
in America, only in Arabic.

This service has by all accounts become enormously popular among Arab
young people, reaching as many as 18% of them in some countries of the
Arab East. Its listenership is overwhelmingly in the 15-29 age bracket.

This interesting enterprise is headed by Norman Pattiz, media moghul in
Los Angeles and head of its Westwood One, which runs a similar
broadcasting format. Pattiz, a major Democratic party contributor who has
been involved in Israeli-Jordanian dialogue efforts, was appointed by
President Clinton to the VOA governing board. Pattiz has certainly scored
a success of sorts with his new format and with the millions voted for the
enterprise by the US Congress.

What is not widely recognized is that Pattiz and his supporters have
killed off the Arabic Service of the Voice of America and are now seeking
to kill the VOA Persian Service.

The VOA was a genuine news organization that did independent journalism.
It was always getting into trouble with Congress for doing so. Its
shortwave format was admittedly highly limiting to its audience (only 1%
of Arabs listened to it), but then it could also have been given FM
transmitters if Congress had wanted to pay for it. The VOA did hours and
hours of news, analysis and cultural programming similar to that of the
BBC. Its target audience was not teenagers and young 20s but the movers
and shakers in the Arab world.

Sawa in contrast is listened to almost nobody who actually matters in
decision making in the region. And, its news division is highly
ideologized. Its head, a Lebanese, has boasted that the only time you
will hear Saddam Husayn on Sawa is when he says the words "I surrender."
This attitude is in stark contrast to that of the VOA professional
journalists.

Although Sawa promises that it will eventually add more news and analysis
to its programming mix, it is clear that this will be highly biased and
propagandistic and easily perceived as such, and that it will also remain
superficial and a limited part of the service.

I think Sawa is a great idea in and of itself, and I wish it well. But
killing off the VOA and replacing it with Sawa is an absolutely terrible
idea, and inevitably represents an opportunity cost for the US. VOA's
news division should have been kept independent and given the same
broadcasting facilities as Sawa has. The new face of the US media in the
region is glib, superficial, and as unbalanced in its news coverage as US
government policy is in its diplomacy. With no professional journalistic
enterprise like VOA to offset it, I can only think that it will backfire
badly.

The last thing we wanted was for 20% of Arab youth to listen in on the US
being blatantly unfair on an hourly basis.



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Explosions near Kabul Airport

There were three explosions near Kabul airport on Saturday, according to the Turkish commander of the peace keeping forces in Afghanistan. It is a bit startling that even at a key such installation in the capital, security has not been achieved by the 7000 American and the thousands of peace-keeping forces in the country. If bombs are going off near Kabul airport one shudders at what is going on in the rest of the country, which has been turned back over to the warlords.

At least the US has now reversed its longstanding oppostion to expanding the international peace keeping forces and having them cover something besides the capital. One question is whether the US can keep its allies committed to this peace keeping work if there is a big split with them over the looming Iraq campaign. The Germans have already said that in case of an Iraq war they will withdraw their special forces from Kuwait.
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