tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31481942024-02-08T08:10:45.820-08:00BlowbackYour Humanitarian Daily Ration of bad vibes...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger475125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-850347612002-11-24T19:17:00.000-08:002002-11-24T21:53:08.000-08:00<font size="5">This site has been suspended indefinitely by the miracle
<br />of <font color="grey">cryogenic freezing</font></font>.
<br />
<br />You are invited to visit me at <a href="http://www.scribbler.ca">Scribbler</a>.
<br />
<br />You can get the goods on this amazingly successful military campaign at...
<br />
<br /><blockquote>
<br /><a href="http://www.cursor.org">Cursor</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.dack.com">Dack</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.drmenlo.com/samizdat">American Samizdat</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.straybulletins.com/LMB/weblog/">Lying Media Bastards</a>
<br /></blockquote>
<br /> ...not to mention the other fine links on the sidebar.
<br />
<br />[<i>and now, a self-indulgent sign-off</i>]
<br />
<br />I didn't intend to start a warlog. I launched this page in hopes of creating a safe outlet for my frustration with an insipid and dangerous post-9/11 media landscape. The subsequent year-plus frenzy of posting has been an enriching experience, but my dwindling output forces me to acknowledge that I have neither the time nor the energy to keep up a decent topical weblog.
<br />
<br />I will continue to post on our collective descent into madness, but within the broader context of my other page <a href="http://www.scribbler.ca">Scribbler</a>, which I'm gently coaxing out of hibernation...
<br />
<br />I want to sincerely thank people who regularly clicked by my little love nest of subversion for a visit, especially those who took the time to send encouragement, forward links or offer opinion. The hate mail was particularly gratifying.
<br />
<br />A salute to the many smart and humane webloggers I've gotten to know via this page: I would have put Blowback into cold storage much earlier were it not for the inspiring work of people I came to think of as colleagues and friends.
<br />
<br />Peace out.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-842120132002-11-07T22:12:00.000-08:002002-11-07T22:31:17.000-08:00That assassination in Yemen is yet another one of those amazingly successful military triumphs -- with a catch:
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Even those who applauded the strike said it was sure to inflame militant Muslims, including those belonging to the al-Qaeda network, and expose US diplomats and other overseas officials to possible retaliation. On Tuesday the US said it was closing its embassy in Yemen to the public indefinitely amid fears it might become a target for an attack to retaliate for the killings.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />Then there are those icky moral issues raised by the attack...
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Sweden's Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh, said: "If the USA is behind this with Yemen's consent, it is nevertheless a summary execution that violates human rights. If the USA has conducted the attack without Yemen's permission it is even worse. Then it is a question of unauthorised use of force."
<br />
<br />While military experts said the incident could herald a new era of robotic warfare, lawyers debated the implications of the surprising turn in US strategy - killing specific individuals in countries where there is no war.
<br />
<br />"To have a drone that engages and kills people - that is quite a threshold to cross," said Clifford Beal, editor of <i>Jane's Defence Weekly</i>. "This is the beginning of robotic warfare. There is underlying tension in the military about using it ... this is really the first success story of this system."
<br />
<br />A US State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, refused to discuss the attack and trod carefully around questions on whether US involvement in the strike contradicted Washington's long-standing disapproval of targeted killings.
<br />
<br />Asked whether the US had altered its opinion, Mr Boucher replied, "Our policy on targeted killings in the Israeli-Palestinian context has not changed."
<br /></blockquote>
<br />::Greg Miller, Sydney Morning Herald: <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2002/11/06/1036308366027.html" target="window_name" >US braces for retaliation after Yemen assassination</a> via <a href="http://www.straybulletins.com/LMB/weblog/" target="window_name" >Lying Media Bastards</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-840453262002-11-04T21:48:00.000-08:002002-11-05T09:56:46.000-08:00<center>
<br /><a href="http://www.wfmu.org" target="window_name" ><img src="http://www.scribbler.ca/afghan_radio1.jpg"></a>
<br /><br>
<br /><font size="4"><b>Audio Funhouse</b></font>
<br /></center>
<br />
<br />Scott Williams put together a characteristically excellent <a href="http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/5248" target="window_name" >pinko anti-war set on WFMU</a> not too long ago, selections included:
<br />
<br />West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - "Suppose They Give a War & No One Comes"
<br />Aphrodite's Child - "Loud Loud Loud"
<br />John Cale - "Fear is a Man's Best Friend"
<br />Lee Ranaldo - "Isolation"
<br />Cromagnon - "Caledonia"
<br />Bonzo Dog Band - "We Are Normal"
<br />Frank Sinatra & Tommy Dorsey - "War Bond Advertisement"
<br />Beyond the Fringe: "The Aftermyth of War"
<br />The Clash - "I'm So Bored With the USA"
<br />
<br />::<a href="http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/5248" target="window_name" >See the playlist</a> for SW on September 30, 2002: The Air Turned to Poison
<br />::<a href="http://www.wfmu.org/listen.php?show=5248" target="window_name" >Listen</a> (RealAudio)
<br />
<br /><hr>
<br />
<br />Also from WFMU, Stefan started off his <i>Spiral Sun Plan</i> set for October 17th with nearly an hour of Alexander Cockburn's spoken-word album <i>Beating the Devil</i> laid over a soundbed of recordings by Xiu Xiu and Merzbow.
<br />
<br />::<a href="http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/5411" target="window_name" >Playlist</a> for Spiral Sun Plan - October 17, 2002
<br />::<a href="http://www.wfmu.org/listen.php?show=5411" target="window_name" >Listen</a> (RealAudio)
<br />
<br /><hr>
<br />
<br />Hunter Thompson has been descending deeper into incoherence since 1972 or so, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed listening to this <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/stories/s659555.htm" target="window_name" >interview</a> he did with ABC radio in Australia just before the one year anniversary of 9/11. He's a little foggy at times, but mostly in fine form...
<br />
<br /><b>Interviewer</b>: So in that sense, there’s not enough room for dissenting voices?
<br />
<br /><b>Hunter S. Thompson:</b> There’s plenty of room there’s not just enough people who are willing to take the risk. It’s sort of a herd mentality, a lemming-like mentality. If you don’t go with the flow you’re anti-American and therefore a suspect. And we’ve seen this before, these patriotic frenzies. It’s very convenient having an undeclared war that you can call a war and impose military tribunals and wartime security and we have these generals telling us that this war’s going to go on for a long, long time. Maybe not so much the generals now, the generals are a little afraid of Iraq, a little worried about it, but it’s the civilians in the White House, the gang of thieving, just lobbyists for the military industrial complex, who are running the White House, and to be against them is to be patriotic, then hell, call me a traitor.
<br />
<br />::<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/stories/s659555.htm" target="window_name" >Program page and partial transcript</a>
<br />::<a href="http://abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/audio/hunters290802.ram" target="window_name" >Listen</a> (RealAudio - 37 minutes)
<br />
<br /><hr>
<br />
<br />Naomi Klein (<a href="http://www.nologo.org/" target="window_name" >No Logo</a>) and Sameena Ahmad, author of an <i>Economist</i> article entitled "Pro Logo: Why Brands Are Good for You", <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/09262002" target="window_name" >square off in a debate</a> that gets genuinely nasty at times.
<br />
<br />::<a href="http://www.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=realimpact/wnyc/raotl/bl092602b.ra&file2=realimpact/wnyc/raotl/bl092602c.ra" target="window_name" >Listen</a> (RealAudio - 1hr, 23 min)
<br />
<br /><hr>
<br />
<br /><i>NPR</i> interviews Rami Khouri, former editor of the Jordan Times and Youssef Ibrahim, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation, who deliver a scathing assessment of reckless war-mongering and its effects.
<br />
<br />A sample of their analysis from <a href="http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=75500" target="window_name" >this article</a> by Ibrahim:
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Al Qaeda, according to the CIA and the Pentagon, is reconstituting itself. In fact every Middle East and Muslim affairs expert is saying that Al Qaeda's ranks will be fattened by new recruits right now and will have more of them when the United States attacks Iraq.
<br />
<br />Those joining are no longer Muslim religious fanatics. They now include secularist young men and women angry at the impact of U.S. policies on the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.
<br />
<br />In other words, a new Al Qaeda, far more dangerous than the existing one, is in the making. Witness the attack on the tourist resort of Bali, on U.S. Marines in Kuwait and on a French oil tanker off Yemen. In Afghanistan the United States' main enemies, Osama bin Laden's cadre of leadership, has disappeared, while his shock troops, the Taliban, are there in their homes and villages sitting on their weapons, patiently waiting for the right moment to go back into action when America gets busy attacking Iraq.
<br />
<br />Thus far, all the arguments presented for sending American boys and girls into one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods are half-truths, spurious assumptions and utter nonsense. Washington simply cannot prove the case that Iraq is tied to Al Qaeda.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />::<a href="http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/wesat/20021102.wesat.06.ram" target="window_name" >Listen</a> (Real Audio - 7 min)
<br />::<a href="http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=75500" target="window_name" >Bush's Iraq adventure is bound to backfire</a>
<br />
<br />Those last links both via <a href="http://www.dack.com/" target="window_name" >Dack</a>.
<br />
<br />::Header image stolen from <a href="http://www.wfmu.org" target="window_name" >WFMU</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-839952282002-11-04T00:34:00.000-08:002002-11-04T09:36:15.000-08:00It's revealing that Thomas Friedman's first question after arriving in Berlin is "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/03/opinion/03FRIE.html?8hpib" target="window_name" >where's the wall?</a>", perhaps not quite comprehending the events of 1989... He's terribly dissappointed that the Germans haven't left it up, inexplicably suggests that its absence is at "the core of the crisis between America and Germany today", and finally asks "Would somebody please bring back the Berlin Wall?"
<br />
<br />I haven't the strength of spirit to address each of the fatuous myths that Friedman goes on to render in hyperventilating prose, but pause to note his assertion that "Germany [is] to the left of Saudi Arabia, which at least says it will support an Iraq war if it is approved by the U.N."
<br />
<br />We'll set aside that the United States is itself, like most countries, to the left of Saudi Arabia -- after all, Americans have sham elections from time to time, eschew beheading for the more humane electric chair, and even let their women <i>drive cars</i>. More to the point, what exactly is the extent of Saudi "support" for an attack on Iraq? Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal kindly elaborates:
<br /><blockquote>
<br />"We will abide by the decision of the United Nations Security Council and we will co-operate with the Security Council," he told CNN.
<br />
<br />"But as to entering the conflict or using facilities... that is something else."
<br />
<br />He added: "Our policy is that if the United Nations takes a decision... it is obligatory on all signatories to co-operate, but that is not to the extent of using facilities in the country or the military forces of the country."
<br /></blockquote>
<br />
<br />::Thomas Friedman, New York Times: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/03/opinion/03FRIE.html?8hpib" target="window_name" >Let Them Come to Berlin</a>
<br />::BBC News: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2394891.stm" target="window_name" >Saudis snub US over Iraq attack</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-838668112002-11-01T01:29:00.000-08:002002-11-01T01:29:33.970-08:00I know media coverage of the <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/775276/posts" target="window_name" >attempted coup in Qatar</a> has reached the saturation point, but allow me to join the mob:
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Diplomatic circles in the Middle East are buzzing with rumors of a failed coup against the Qatari regime on the night of Oct. 13. At least two members of the royal family are said to have joined with officers of Yemeni and Pakistani background, along with individuals from Islamic organizations, all opposed to the growing U.S. military presence. American troops stationed at the Al Udeid Air Base supposedly helped thwart the coup attempt, which had been penetrated in advance by Qatar security officials, after which 140 people were arrested. The rumors go on to suggest that Qatar suspects that the Saudis were behind the plot. The United States has been feverishly upgrading the Al Udeid base, in anticipation of a Saudi refusal to allow use of its Prince Sultan Air Base for the upcoming assault on Iraq.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />::United Press International: <a href="http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021030-113412-1223r" taret="window_name" >UPI hears ...</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-837567942002-10-29T21:56:00.000-08:002002-10-29T21:56:11.383-08:00Can you believe it? The CIA must be staffed by Islamofascist sympathizers. A recent report takes up the peacenik line on "root causes" and the motivation for terrorist acts.
<br /><blockquote>
<br />"While we are striking major blows against al-Qaeda -- the pre-eminent global terrorist threat, the <b>underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist</b>," [the report] said.
<br />
<br />"Several troublesome global trends -- especially the growing demographic youth bulge in developing nations whose economic systems and political ideologies are under enormous stress -- will fuel the rise of more disaffected groups willing to use violence to address their perceived grievances," added the agency.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />I thought that terrorists hated us for our freedom.
<br />
<br />Note that this "grim assessment was made available to members US Congress in the form of written answers to their questions last April and released to the general public on Monday." Yet insufficiently newsworthy to attract the attention of major American media.
<br />
<br />::Times of India: <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?artid=26644676" target="window_name" >War on terror missing root causes: CIA</a> via <a href="http://www.dack.com" target="window_name" >Dack</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-837024842002-10-28T21:26:00.000-08:002002-10-28T21:26:41.573-08:00The Bush administration justifies a war by citing the illegal development of biological weapons. It's unsurprising to learn that the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,821306,00.html" target="window_name" >U.S. is itself not in compliance with international law</a>. Some of the questionable initiatives:
<br /><blockquote>
<br />* CIA efforts to copy a Soviet cluster bomb designed to disperse biological weapons
<br />
<br />* A project by the Pentagon to build a bio-weapon plant from commercially available materials to prove that terrorists could do the same thing
<br />
<br />* Research by the Defence Intelligence Agency into the possibility of genetically engineering a new strain of antibiotic-resistant anthrax .
<br />
<br />* A programme to produce dried and weaponised anthrax spores, officially for testing US bio-defences, but far more spores were allegedly produced than necessary for such purposes and it is unclear whether they have been destroyed or simply stored.
<br />
<br />. . . a clause in the biological weapons treaty forbids signatories from producing or developing "weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict".
<br />
<br />Furthermore, signatories agreed to make annual declarations about their biodefence programmes, but the US never mentioned any of those programmes in its reports. Instead, they emerged from leaks and press reporting.
<br />
<br />The focus on Washington's biological and chemical weapons programme comes at an awkward time for the Bush administration, which is locked in negotiations at the UN for a tough resolution on arms inspections of Iraq. ...British and US research into hallucinogenic weapons such as the gas BZ encouraged Iraq to look into similar agents. "We showed them the way," he said.
<br />
<br />Mr Dando added that the US was currently working on "non-lethal" weapons similar to the gas Russian forces used to break the Moscow theatre siege.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />Yes, the Russians are undoubtedly on to something there...
<br />
<br />::Julian Borger, Guardian: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,821306,00.html" target="window_name" >US weapons secrets exposed</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-837016082002-10-28T21:02:00.000-08:002002-10-28T21:06:47.000-08:00<center>
<br /><img src="http://www.scribbler.ca/rumsfeld1.jpg">
<br /></center>
<br />How a 'bulletproof' case is built...
<br /><blockquote>
<br />You've got to hand it to Donald Rumsfeld and his E-Ring crew at the Pentagon. They know all the stratagems of bureaucratic politics, and they play the game well. In their latest maneuver, reported on the front page of last Thursday's New York Times, the secretary of defense has formed his own "four- to five-man intelligence team" to sift through raw data coming out of Iraq in search of evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida terrorists.
<br />
<br />Rumsfeld has publicly continued to push this link as a prime - or at least the most easily sellable - rationale for going to war with Iraq, even after the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency have dismissed the connection as tenuous at best. But Rumsfeld contends that the spy bureaucracies may have missed something. As his top team member, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, put it to the Times, there is "a phenomenon in intelligence work that people who are pursuing a certain hypothesis will see certain facts that others won't, and not see other facts that others will." Since Wolfowitz is one of Washington's most forceful advocates of a second Gulf War, we can safely predict that he will find the facts he needs to make his case.
<br />
<br />It is an old story that bears the same lesson each time a new chapter unfolds: Intelligence analysis should be kept out of the hands of those who have a vested interest in the results.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />
<br />::Fred Kaplan, Slate: <a href="http://slate.msn.com/?id=2073238" target="window_name" >The Rumsfeld Intelligence Agency - How the hawks plan to find a Saddam/al-Qaida connection</a>
<br />::Image stolen from <a href="http://www.wfmu.org" target="window_name" >WFMU</a>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-837000672002-10-28T20:28:00.000-08:002002-10-28T20:28:42.613-08:00Congratulations to those plucky Afghans. They're back on top again:
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Opium production in Afghanistan soared to near-record levels in 2002, making the war-ravaged country again the world's leading producer of the drug, according to a United Nations estimate released on Saturday.
<br />
<br />United Nations officials blamed "the total collapse of law and order" in the country during the American military campaign to oust the Taliban in the fall of 2001 for the increase, not the country's new government.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />
<br />::David Rhode, New York Times: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/28/international/asia/28OPIU.html" target="window_name" >Afghans Lead World Again in Poppy Crop</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-835631262002-10-26T12:07:00.000-07:002002-10-26T15:39:17.000-07:00Arab nations are so backward and paranoid that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/25/international/middleeast/25REGI.html" target="window_name" >they can't take on faith</a> that American occupation can only make them happier and more free...
<br /><blockquote>
<br />United States officials at one point said the Bush Administration was considering a plan for Iraq modeled after the occupation of Japan after World War II. An American military commander would assume control of the country for a year or more while the United States and allied forces would search for weapons of mass destruction and keep up oil production. But administration officials have also taken pains to say Iraqis would be treated as a liberated, not a conquered, people. President Bush has said the United States would not try to impose its culture or form of government on another nation.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />You see? They needn't be concerned, because Bush has said they don't have to worry. But for some reason that's not good enough for them...
<br /><blockquote>
<br />An American occupation of Iraq would feed into a sense of humiliation felt by many Arabs, said Rami Khouri, a political analyst and syndicated newspaper columnist who is Palestinian Jordanian.
<br />
<br />"People are worried about the continued sense of degradation and humiliation that they are subjected to," he said in an interview from Amman, "just sitting around watching Americans and Israelis do whatever they want in the region."
<br />
<br />Such sentiments give rise to talk that the United States and Israel are seeking to redraw the map of the Middle East, perhaps dividing up Saudi Arabia, or sending the Palestinians from the occupied territories to Jordan. "It's a hallucinatory perspective," Mr. Khouri said.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />Where does the inward-looking Arab world get these notions? Clearly the deep thinkers in the administration are prepared to look beyond the <a href="http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/21/dreyfuss-r.html" target="window_name" >narrow interests of the oil lobby</a> in their quest to deliver the Iraqi people unto freedom. Only a pro-Islamofascist idiotarian could think otherwise.
<br /><blockquote>
<br />[Ahmed Chalabi's, the London-based leader of the Iraqi National Congress] would hand over Iraq's oil to U.S. multinationals, and his allies in conservative think tanks are already drawing up the blueprints. "What they have in mind is denationalization, and then parceling Iraqi oil out to American oil companies," says James E. Akins, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Even more broadly, once an occupying U.S. army seizes Baghdad, Chalabi's INC and its American backers are spinning scenarios about dismantling Saudi Arabia, seizing its oil and collapsing the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It's a breathtaking agenda, one that goes far beyond "regime change" and on to the start of a New New World Order.
<br />
<br />What's also startling about these plans is that Chalabi is scorned by most of America's national-security establishment, including much of the Department of State, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is shunned by all Western powers save the United Kingdom, ostracized in the Arab world and disdained even by many of his erstwhile comrades in the Iraqi opposition. Among his few friends, however, are the men running the Bush administration's willy-nilly war on Iraq. And with their backing, it's not inconceivable that this hapless, exiled Iraqi aristocrat and London-Washington playboy might end up atop the smoking heap of what's left of Iraq next year.
<br />
<br />...Team Chalabi is led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, the neoconservative strategist who heads the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. Chalabi's partisans run the gamut from far right to extremely far right, with key supporters in most of the Pentagon's Middle-East policy offices -- such as Peter Rodman, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Michael Rubin. Also included are key staffers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, not to mention Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />Well, at least those guys don't have much pull with the President.
<br />
<br />::Daniel J. Wakin, New York Times: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/25/international/middleeast/25REGI.html" target="window_name" >Anger Builds and Seethes as Arabs Await American Invader</a>
<br />::Robert Dreyfus, American Prospect: <a href="http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/21/dreyfuss-r.html" target="window_name" >Tinker, Banker, NeoCon, Spy</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-834499462002-10-24T00:41:00.000-07:002002-10-24T00:41:20.620-07:00Doesn't the New York Times style guide say anything about double negatives?
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Some officials say the creation of [an intelligence unit that will say what the warmongers want] reflects frustration on the part of Mr. Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and other senior officials that <b>they are not receiving undiluted</b> information on the capacities of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and his suspected ties to terrorist organizations.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />Hmm, dissension among the crew on the Good Ship Lollipop?
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Tension between the defense secretary and the C.I.A., which has resented moves by Mr. Rumsfeld to beef up the Pentagon's role in intelligence gathering, has been intensifying, according to one defense official.
<br />
<br />"There is a complete breakdown in the relationship between the Defense Department and the intelligence community, to include its own Defense Intelligence Agency," the official said. "Wolfowitz and company disbelieve any analysis that doesn't support their own preconceived conclusions. The C.I.A. is enemy territory, as far are they're concerned."
<br /></blockquote>
<br />
<br />::Eric Schmitt and Thom Shankar, New York Times: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/24/international/24INTE.html" target="window_name" >Pentagon Sets Up Intelligence Unit</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-833939082002-10-23T00:07:00.000-07:002002-10-23T00:09:11.000-07:00Think about <a href="http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0210afghanistanaid.html" target="window_name" >the parade of failure this report catalogues</a> next time you hear some gasbag say western democracies will rebuild post-war Iraq as Denmark in the desert...
<br /><blockquote>
<br />It is time for the international community to recognize that the deterioration of the security situation can, in part, be attributed to the failure of major donor states to fulfill the commitments they made to Afghanistan.
<br />
<br />Four aspects of international involvement in Afghanistan illustrate the ineffectiveness, and at times irresponsibility, of aid donors: the slow pace of internationally directed security-sector reform, the flawed nature of the U.S. military strategy to eradicate Al Qaeda and Taliban forces, the slow and irrational disbursement of aid, and the seemingly innate reluctance to consider the expansion of peacekeeping operations outside Kabul.
<br />
<br />The fear of many Afghans, that the international community will gradually lose interest in the country to the detriment of ongoing reconstruction efforts, appears to be justified. With a possible U.S. strike against Iraq looming, such a shift of global attention would have disastrous consequences for Afghan security and stability.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />::Foreign Policy In Focus: <a href="http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0210afghanistanaid.html" target="window_name" >Afghanistan: Donor Inaction and Ineffectiveness</a>
<br />
<br />Link via <a href="http://www.dack.com" target="window_name" >Dack</a>, who is sporting a new/old look...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-833568702002-10-22T09:23:00.000-07:002002-10-22T09:23:17.133-07:00<center>
<br /><a href="http://www.salon.com/comics/comics1960729.html" target="window_name" ><img src="http://www.scribbler.ca/smartbomb.gif"></a>
<br /></center>
<br /><blockquote>
<br />In the Gulf War, just 3 percent of bombs were precision-guided. That figure jumped to 30 percent in the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, and to nearly 70 percent during the Afghan air campaign last year.
<br />
<br />Yet in each case, the ratio of civilian casualties to bombs dropped has grown. Technology, say analysts, isn't the key issue. In Afghanistan, tough terrain, inability to discern combatants from civilians, and paucity of fixed military targets led to estimates of 850 to 1,300 civilian deaths. Red Cross food depots depots were hit twice, as well as some mosques, and so was a wedding party of mostly pro-US civilians last July.
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<br />By one estimate, the number of civilians killed per bomb dropped may have been four times as high in Afghanistan as in Yugoslavia.
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<br />::Scott Peterson, CS Monitor: <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1022/p01s01-wosc.html" target="window_name" >'Smarter' bombs still hit civilians</a> via <a href="http://www.dack.com" target="window_name" >Dack</a>
<br />::Image from <a href="http://www.salon.com/comics/comics1960729.html" target="window_name" >This Modern World</a>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-833400142002-10-21T23:36:00.000-07:002002-10-22T00:00:50.000-07:00Lest I inadvertently invoke the dread spectre of anti-Americanism, let me say right off the top that I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for the facts I relate below:
<br />
<br />* It was last September 26th that Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen since 1991, was apprehended by U.S. agents while changing planes at JFK Airport in New York, a stopover on his return trip from Switzerland back home to Montreal.
<br />
<br />* Two weeks later he was deported to his native Syria, even though he was travelling on a Canadian passport and has lived in Canada since 1987. (Mr Arar had retained dual Syrian/Canadian citizenship, as is legal under Canadian law.)
<br />
<br />* U.S. officials accused him of being a member of Al-Qaeda, but never charged him with any offense, and have not provided Canadian diplomats (who you may be sure asked <i>very</i> nicely) with evidence of such involvement or any other justification for the deportation.
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<br />* Syria's record on human rights and torture doesn't inspire hope for Mr. Arar's humane treatment, since he avoided that country's compulsory military service when he left for Canada as a teenager.
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<br />There's <i>much</i> more, and it only gets more confusing... I don't know what to think. Maybe <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad1021.html" target="window_name" >Thomas Friedman</a> can write a column explaining how this episode has America shining its singular beacon of democracy and human rights to the Arab world.
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<br />::Canadian Press via Globe and Mail: <a href="http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/realtime/fullstory_print.html&cf=tgam/realtime/config-neutral&articleDate=20021021&slug=wsyri1021a&date=20021021&archive=RTGAM&site=Front" target="window_name" >U.S. ships Canadian to Syria</a>
<br />::Globe and Mail editorial: <a href="http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/SearchFullStoryPrint.html&cf=tgam/common/GenericSearch.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&encoded_keywords=maher+arar&option=¤t_row=3&start_row=3&num_rows=1&search_results_start=1" target="window_name" >The alarming case of Maher Arar</a>
<br />::Anne McIlroy, Guardian: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,816181,00.html" target="window_name" >Missing inaction </a>
<br />::Vijay Prashad, Counterpunch: <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad1021.html" target="window_name" >The NYT's Thomas Friedman: A Columnist of Awesome Vulgarity</a>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-833386772002-10-21T22:54:00.000-07:002002-10-21T22:54:11.446-07:00<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,816582,00.html" target="window_name" >George Monbiot on media complicity</a> in a dangerous form of ignorance...
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Since the jihadis arrived, Neles Tebay, a Papuan journalist, has been sending urgent messages to newspapers and broadcasters around the world, desperate to attract attention to this protected terrorist network. But even when eight Pakistani mojahedin arrived, his warnings failed to generate any response in the newsrooms of either Europe or North America. The Papuans, ignored and abandoned by the rest of the world, have been reduced to begging the Indonesian authorities to uphold the law and disarm the jihadis before they attack.
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<br />The victims of the Bali bombing could be said to have legitimate grounds for complaint not only against the intelligence services (whose efforts have been diverted from unpicking the terrorist networks into supporting two futile wars) but also against the media. Both of them could and should have warned westerners that Indonesia has become a dangerous place for them to visit.
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<br />Scarcely a month goes by without a travel feature on the country. One recent programme, about the nightlife in Bali, even featured the Sari club. But, before the bombing, there had been no recent documentary which could have given viewers any understanding of what was happening in the country. On Sunday night, the BBC broadcast a fine Panorama programme, seeking to discover who might have planted the bomb, and why the ample warnings the intelligence services received did not prevent the attack. But one of the features of investigative journalism is surely that it seeks to be wise before the event. There was, as Neles Tebay pointed out, plenty of opportunity for prior wisdom.
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<br />Nigerian activist <a href="http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/SearchFullStoryPrint.html&cf=tgam/common/GenericSearch.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&encoded_keywords=The+Bali+bombing%3A+many+paradises&option=¤t_row=1&start_row=1&num_rows=1&search_results_start=1" target="window_name" >Ken Wiwa goes further</a>, and argues that this inability to see is decidedly not innocent, and carries a callous cruelty that fuels resentment.
<br /><blockquote>
<br />One of the things that intrigued me about the descriptions of the Bali bombing was the inevitable Paradise Lost headlines and imagery -- for those reading and writing those headlines, a reference to Milton's 17th-century epic poem.
<br />
<br />... But "paradise" is not exactly the word that springs to mind to describe the resort town where the car bomb exploded last week. Although Bali caters to everything from celebrities to hippies and artists who idolize the island's culture, the bombing targeted the hedonists who flock to the sun, sex and night-clubbing.
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<br />I suspect that, in this light, paradise was not lost on Oct. 12 but some time in the mid-1970s, when Bali became a popular retreat from the developed world's worries. Jawaharlal Nehru once described Bali as the "dawn of the world." This dawn is now a rush hour from civilization, with 1.5 million visitors annually passing through its international airport; the island is being prostituted to the tastes of this migration. Locals have not always been welcomed at the big tourist nightclubs; they may have been excluded from the ill-fated nightclubs in Kuta.
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<br />Any scenario of exclusion and degradation is fertile ground for everyone from cultural nationalists and environmental activists to religious fundamentalists. If the allegations that al-Qaeda or its alleged Indonesian offshoot, Jemaah Islamiyah, was responsible for the bombing, then Bali fits that pattern: rage against the Western machine fuelling the valid claims of disenfranchised and unrepresented people around the world.
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<br />It is fascinating how these Miltonian tendencies -- many paradises, multiple losses -- exercise such a powerful hold on our collective imagination. But they serve as a useful fable of the failings of the secular world. The notion of a "paradise lost" speaks to our deep need for nostalgia; it preys on guilt and our fears about the loss of a spiritual dimension. These are powerful, universal emotions that straddle boundaries of faith, nations and politics.
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<br />::George Monbiot, Guardian: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,816582,00.html" target="window_name" >Threat of unreality TV</a>
<br />::Ken Wiwa, Globe and Mail: <a href="http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/SearchFullStoryPrint.html&cf=tgam/common/GenericSearch.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&encoded_keywords=The+Bali+bombing%3A+many+paradises&option=¤t_row=1&start_row=1&num_rows=1&search_results_start=1" target="window_name" >The Bali bombing: many paradises, many losses</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-833370722002-10-21T22:07:00.000-07:002002-10-22T00:04:14.000-07:00<center>
<br /><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/PhotoGalleryHTMLTemplate?cf=PhotoGallery/config&configFileLoc=PhotoGallery/PhotoGallery.prop&slug=oct21" target="window_name" ><img src="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/PhotoGallery/Archive/images/oct21/1021phil_done.jpg"></a>
<br /><blockquote></center>
<br /><i>Demonstrators burn an effigy of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during a rally outside the Malacanang palace in Manila on Monday. Thousands of people marched through Manila, warning that proposed government anti-terror measures could threaten human rights and democracy and create restiveness that terrorists could exploit. <b>Photo: AP</b>
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<br />::From the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/PhotoGalleryHTMLTemplate?cf=PhotoGallery/config&configFileLoc=PhotoGallery/PhotoGallery.prop&slug=oct21" target="window_name" >Globe and Mail's photo gallery...</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-833198562002-10-21T15:42:00.000-07:002002-10-21T15:42:26.746-07:00The long term benefits of that amazingly effective Afghan campaign...
<br /><blockquote>
<br />George Tenet, the CIA director, cited the Bali bombing and the recent killing of a US marine in Kuwait as evidence that the terrorist network had recovered from its routing in Afghanistan. He also conceded that the CIA and the FBI could not prevent every attack.
<br />
<br />At a hearing before the congressional intelligence committees to examine the events leading up to September 11 he said: "<b>The threat environment we find ourselves in today is as bad as it was last summer, the summer before 9/11.</b> It is serious, they've reconstituted, they are coming after us, they want to execute attacks."
<br /></blockquote>
<br />But we had fun, didn't we?
<br />
<br />:: David Teather, The Guardian: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,814513,00.html" target="window_name" >Al-Qaida 'has regrouped'</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-831590402002-10-18T00:45:00.000-07:002002-10-18T00:45:22.866-07:00<blockquote>
<br />President Bush has shown, across the board, an unwillingness for his country or himself to be bound by the rules.
<br />
<br />A dramatic example of this resistance to rules is the administration's obsessive effort to destroy the new International Criminal Court, created under the leadership of our closest European allies to prosecute those suspected of genocide and crimes against humanity. Another is the avoidance of the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war; rather than comply with the rules that have bound us and the world for decades, the administration unilaterally described the Afghanistan captives it is holding at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, as "unlawful combatants." The conventions say that questions about the status of prisoners should be referred to a "competent tribunal." The administration has declined to do that. It might have argued that al-Qaeda fighters were so obviously unlawful that international law would not requite the useless gesture of reference to a tribunal. But the Bush administration did not even bother to make the argument; it was not interested in the law. (In any event, it is hard to see how the Geneva process could be avoided in the case of Taliban prisoners; they were soldiers in the army of a government that controlled nearly all of Afghanistan.)
<br />
<br />That same rejection of the rules?of the law?can be found at home. One example is the President's order of November 2001 that noncitizens charged with terrorism or with "harboring" terrorists be tried by military tribunals. That order appeared to violate the holding of the Supreme Court in the great post?Civil War case of Ex parte Milligan that there can be no criminal trials by military tribunal in this country while the civil courts remain open. An even more astonishing assertion of presidential power is President Bush's claim of a right to hold any American citizen whom he designates as an "enemy combatant" in military prison indefinitely, without trial and without the right to speak with a lawyer. Two men are now being held in military prisons, in Virginia and South Carolina, under that theory, forbidden to speak to a lawyer. Government lawyers argue that no court can examine the lawfulness of their detention.
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<br />Respect for the rule of law has been an essential element from the beginning in the survival and success of this vast, disputatious country?and a reason for other people's admiration of American society. But George W. Bush, whatever else his qualities, seems to have no feeling for the law. That was evident when he was governor of Texas, in the cruel casualness of his handling of death penalty cases.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />::Anthony Lewis, The New York Review of Books: <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15790">Bush and Iraq</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-830997382002-10-16T20:56:00.000-07:002002-10-16T20:56:55.523-07:00Adventures in psychological projection...
<br /><blockquote>
<br /><b>President Bush warned</b> European and Arab nations that are resisting a confrontation with President Saddam Hussein <b>that "those who choose to live in denial may eventually be forced to live in fear."</b>
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<br />Could there be two better phrases to describe the collective mindscape right now than "living in denial" and "living in fear"?
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<br />::Julia Preston, New York Times: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/international/middleeast/17NATI.html" target="window_name" >Bush Garners Little Support at U.N. for an Attack on Iraq</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-830990372002-10-16T20:41:00.000-07:002002-10-16T20:41:18.350-07:00<blockquote>
<br />If the sniper turns out to be al-Qaeda, there will be tremendous hysteria and a flurry of activity. But if the gunman turns out to be a standard racist loner, everyone will relax. Why?
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<br />::Zizka's <a href="http://www.vanitysite.net/">vanitysite.net</a> via <a href="http://www.slacktivist.blogspot.com/" target="window_name" >Slacktivist</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-830518632002-10-15T23:49:00.000-07:002002-10-15T23:49:48.036-07:00A look at the War Party's plan for occupying post-War Iraq, reeking of empire.
<br /><blockquote>
<br />According to this plan, as reported, the United States would set up a military viceroy in the capital of an Arab state, having occupied its territory, and then proceed to build a new nation. We presumably would do this with some help from perhaps the British, if they have the stomach for that -- despite their experience of trying to hold on to empire beyond its time. We apparently would not conduct this operation under U.N. auspices, and therefore it would be a direct and unilateral extension of American military power. We would betray the Iraqi National Congress, which the Republicans championed in Congress, by making it clear that it would not be the next government of Iraq. We would take responsibility for suppressing Kurdish national ambitions, so as to keep Turkey calm. We would take control over decision-making for Iraq's oil resources, which would raise problems for Vladimir Putin, who would be seen to have lost Russia's stake in Iraq to the United States. We would have U.S. troops in all sorts of interesting places, including on the border with Iran. We would have assumed responsibility for the costs of reconstruction in Iraq. We would presumably be trying, convicting and punishing persons we deemed guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity in courts of U.S. jurisdiction, most likely military, not before international tribunals.
<br />
<br />. . . Granted, many have appealed to the administration to present its thoughts about follow-on after a war. And so in a way, this plan may be considered a step in the right direction. But it could well be a step toward a debacle, and a giant step at that.
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<br />::<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32242-2002Oct15.html" target="window_name" >Intoxicated With Power</a>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-830272972002-10-15T12:31:00.000-07:002002-10-15T12:39:46.000-07:00<blockquote>
<br />Bush does not support the push for firearms "fingerprinting" that has grown from the unsolved Washington-area sniper shootings.
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<br />Such a system would require gun makers to file into a law-enforcement database the distinct markings that each gun leaves on a test-fired bullet casing. Police could then possibly use the recorded etchings to trace crime-scene slugs to the gun that fired them.
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<br />White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush is unsure of the accuracy of the system.
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<br />Besides, he added , when it comes to new gun controls generally, "<b>how many laws can we really have to stop crime, if people are determined in their heart to violate them</b> no matter how many there are or what they say?"
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<br />Interesting bit of work on the philosophy of justice there, Ari. If people are going to break laws anyway, <i>why have them</i>?
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<br />Given the recurring attacks in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Yemen and Indonesia -- not to mention the homegrown variety currently on display in the suburbs of D.C. -- the disciplined deep-thinkers in the Bush foreign policy brigade will undoubtedly come to a similar conclusion. As Ari might put it, how many wars can we really have to stop terrorism, if people are determined in their heart to commit such acts, no matter how many wars there are or how we fight them?
<br />
<br />Or, how many laws can we really have to stop drug use, if people are determined in their heart to take them...
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<br />I've never been so optimistic. Peace is at hand.
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<br />::AP via Toronto Star: <a href="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1026146415622&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News&col=968793972154" target="window_name" >FBI analyst latest sniper victim</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-830003042002-10-14T22:04:00.000-07:002002-10-14T23:02:43.000-07:00<blockquote>
<br />Afghanistan is the skunk at the Bush administration's Iraq party.<br>
<br /><b>In a speech last week, President George W. Bush stressed that the lives of Iraqi citizens would improve dramatically if Saddam Hussein were no longer in power, <br><font size="5">"just as the lives of Afghanistan's citizens improved after the Taliban."</font></b>
<br />
<br />The near-unanimity of international and domestic support for U.S. operations to overthrow the Taliban was matched only by the comprehensiveness of U.S. victory. When it came to rebuilding Afghanistan, however, Washington turned once again to the UN for legitimacy and to its European allies for capacity.
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<br />While U.S. troops were mopping up rear-guard actions by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Washington resisted any attempt to expand the (essentially European) international peacekeeping force in Kabul to major provincial centres, as the Afghan government and UN officials had recommended. Now that U.S. attention is moving elsewhere, Washington argues that those contributing to the force should indeed extend the range of their activities throughout Afghanistan -- though the United States itself has no intention of joining them.
<br />
<br />Much attention has been focused on American unwillingness to engage in "nation-building," but there is also some evidence that the United States is not well-suited to such activities. Perhaps due to the importance of domestic politics in the exercise of U.S. power, Washington has a short attention span with respect to most international crises -- far shorter than is needed to complete the long, complicated task of rebuilding a country that has endured more than two decades of war, sanctions, and oppression under brutal leaders. This describes both Afghanistan and Iraq.
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<br />More importantly, when the United States has engaged in aspects of nation-building in Afghanistan, this has been justified at home by linking it to the war on terror. U.S. forces at times provided military and economic support for local governors, not on the basis of their relations with the embryonic regime of the admirable national leader Hamid Karzai, but in exchange for their assistance in rooting out the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It is for this reason that the United States is described -- correctly -- as having a military strategy in Afghanistan but not a political one.
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<br />::David Malone and Simon Chesterman, Globe and Mail: <a href="http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20021014/COBUSHY/Comment/comment/comment_temp/1/1/2/" target="window_name" >How quickly we forget</a>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-829999102002-10-14T21:53:00.000-07:002002-10-14T21:53:36.363-07:00Remember a year or so back, when we were all aghast at the indignity of women in burqas, and our papers were full of columnists opining that we had a duty to liberate them from the Taliban?
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Schools for girls have reopened, re-education classes for adult women have sprung up, many women have returned to work, and some have been seen in public without the burqa -- the traditional cloak that covers a woman from head to toe.
<br />
<br />But most women remain pale-blue silhouettes locked away in the dusty mud- brick compounds of their husbands and fathers, housewives who live in fear under strict rules in a country that still calls itself an Islamic state.
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<br />Outside the capital, Kabul, and large, once-cosmopolitan cities like Mazar- e-Sharif, parents continue to sell their daughters to future husbands, women are not allowed to run shops, and when they go to a restaurant, they must eat separately from men. Even in Kabul, where women travel by car more than by donkey, they are more likely to squat in the trunk than to sit comfortably inside the car like men.
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<br />"This is the life we are used to," said Nargiz, 30, an Imam Sahib native who has been living in the town of Dasht-e-Qaleh, in northern Takhar province, since 1999.
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<br />. . . In many cases, the new government is no better. Soldiers loyal to the powerful northern warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum are alleged to have repeatedly raped women and girls in northern Afghanistan. "Afghan women . . . have been compelled to restrict their participation in public life to avoid being targets of violence by armed factions and by those seeking to enforce repressive Taliban-era edicts," Human Rights Watch wrote in its recent report. "Afghan women, especially outside Kabul, continue to face serious threats to their physical safety."
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<br />::Anna Badkhen, SFGate via Afgha.com: <a href="http://www.afgha.com/article.php?sid=17069" target="window_name" >Afghan women still shrouded in oppression</a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148194.post-827802082002-10-09T23:36:00.000-07:002002-10-09T23:36:46.013-07:00<blockquote>
<br />"Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or C.B.W. against the United States," [CIA director] Tenet's letter read, referring to chemical and biological weapons. "Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions."
<br />
<br />... the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, insisted that Mr. Tenet's letter did not undercut the White House's position.
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<br />Yeah, that's pretty much what the administration's been saying all along.
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<br />::Michael R. Gordon, New York Times: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/10/politics/10INTE.html" target="window_name" >American Aides Split on Assessment of Iraq's Plans</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com