War on Terror Archives

Ramadan goes Jesus

February 13, 2007 08:25 AM

Yet another auto-martyrdom from professional Euro-Muslim Tariq Ramadan.

I believe the administration refuses me entry into the United States because of my criticism of its Middle East policy and America's unconditional support for Israel, which has led it to acquiesce in flouting Palestinian rights. And undeniably, some American groups that strongly support Israel and will allow no criticism of American foreign policy toward it have been highly critical of me. But academics, intellectuals, and organizations that have supported me — like the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Academy of Religion (I presented a keynote address to its annual meeting late last year by videoconference, since the administration would not let me enter the country to speak in person), the American Association of University Professors, and the PEN American Center — have understood that the real issue is my freedom of speech, and they have continued to lend their weight to my legal appeal of the decision.

I am not the only person concerned. The "fear of ideas" that has taken root in the United States since September 11, 2001, with the refusal to grant visas to a number of academics and intellectuals, most of whom are Muslims, strikes at the very heart of American democracy. The muffling of critical opinion should be of immediate concern to all freethinking individuals. To accept such a state of affairs is to accept that the United States, in the name of the "global war on terror" and national security, requires all citizens to think the same way.

"Fear of ideas" - indeed. Criticism of Israel? Never heard of it. O when will America ever live up to the democratic example of Saudi Arabia - or maybe Syria - where Jews piously lecture the benighted yokels about the menace of their foreign policy?

We're all dreaming along with you, Tariq.

Link · Diplomacy | Islam | Israel | Middle East | War on Terror

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What London Reads

December 19, 2006 03:04 AM

I'm often told that in order to get the "real news" about America - and particularly the Bush administration - you have to go to sources like the Guardian of London, which can bravely report the truths that American news bureaus dare not utter, presumably from fear that some third-tier policy dork at the Labor Department will no longer speak to them. So here goes.

Bush accused of gagging critic of Iran policy

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Monday December 18, 2006
The Guardian

The White House yesterday faced fresh accusations of tailoring intelligence to suit its political viewpoint from a former CIA analyst barred from publishing a critical newspaper commentary on American policy towards Iran.

Flynt Leverett, a former Middle East analyst at the CIA and the National Security Council who has criticised the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq and for its handling of Iran, accuses the White House of pressing the CIA to demand sweeping cuts to an opinion piece he wrote for the New York Times on Washington's policy towards Tehran....

Mr Leverett said he was ordered to drop references to Iran's cooperation with the US on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks. He claims the White House has had no objections to similar assertions by less critical analysts.

Uh huh. The administration - no, I'm sorry, "Bush" - has not objected to other people saying the same thing Flynt Leverett wants to say, maybe because these other people are "less critical" of its/his policies.

So basically, Flynt Leverett believes that there's a gag order on Flynt Leverett (if that is his real name). News to me!

More news to me: The administration - or "Bush" - spends time trying to prevent negative portrayals of its/his policies from appearing on the New York Times op-ed page. I'll say it: Mr. President, this war is lost and forces must be redeployed immediately - to PBS!

GWEN IFILL: Is that at the root of the lot of this, just basic, old-fashioned lack of trust?

FLYNT LEVERETT: I think that's an inaccurate reading of the record. I think that Iranian cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks was critical to the success of our efforts to get rid of the Taliban and stand up the Karzai government in its stead.

From an Iranian perspective, their reward for that was to be labeled part of the "axis of evil" in President Bush's January 2002 State of the Union address.

There is considerable distrust and historical baggage on both sides; that's part of what makes this a difficult issue to move forward. But to say that that baggage and that mistrust is a reason for not trying, when it is manifestly in U.S. interest to try, I think is a real strategic misjudgment.

Clear and hold, Mr. President. Clear and hold.

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Secrets and the Single Rogue

November 29, 2006 02:01 PM

There was no way Alcee Hastings would be permitted to chair the intelligence committee. Nevertheless, I always found him to be a superb gentleman - a tad grandiose - despite his unsavory past. If some have the impression that Hastings is a cynical and pernicious personality, it is a mistaken impression.

The Hastings affair calls up a larger issue, which is that Congress is entitled to whichever Members and staff it wishes to have on the intel committee. Because of the separation of powers principle, Congress - not the FBI - does the vetting. And as the Hastings matter demonstrates, this is not a fail-safe process. Although Hastings would surely be denied clearance to review intelligence in the executive branch, his election to Congress suffices to qualify him in the legislature. Even if he were not seated on intel, Hastings - as well as any other Member of the House or Senate* - is entitled to receive classified briefings and to review material that is withheld from the public. Now, having known Hastings, I have no doubt he can be trusted, in spite of his history. But that conclusion is separate and apart from the question of whether he - or perhaps others in Congress - should be permitted access to this information. To choose an extreme example, let's imagine that former KKK wizard and implacable Jew-hater David Duke is somehow elected to Congress (he didn't miss the governor's mansion by much). Is that really enough to justify his access to the nation's secrets? Maybe. But one can also see how this arrangement might conceivably place the country's security in the hands of a deluded voting majority in one Congressional district.

*Some Members in the House, including Dennis Kucinich, Jim McDermott and Pete Stark have refused over the years to sign the official secrecy pledge, and are thus excluded from reviewing classified material or receiving classified briefings.

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Kim and the Bogeyman

October 27, 2006 09:28 AM

From a BBC documentary on North Korea last night, I learned that North Korea is a thoroughly totalitarian state ruled over by an arbitrary and erratic regime that has starved millions of its people and enslaved the minds of the rest - but really wouldn't be much of a threat without George W. Bush. The "Axis of Evil" speech is depicted as a sudden interruption in the positive direction of relations between the two countries. The report notes that Bush also once referred to Kim Jong-Il as a "pygmy" - an occurrance which, even if true (and unhelpful), is hardly a legitimate excuse to detonate a nuclear device. Alas, this is all par for the course at the Beeb.

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Amen

October 3, 2006 06:03 AM

Victor Davis Hanson despairs of modern Europe. Who doesn't? But his piece today is still worth quoting at some length for the clarity it brings to the present circumstances.

But now all that hard-won effort of some 2,500 years is at risk. The new enemies of Reason are not the enraged democrats who executed Socrates, the Christian zealots who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity, or the Nazis who burned books. No, they are a pampered and scared Western public that caves to barbarism — dwarves who sit on the shoulders of dead giants, and believe that their present exalted position is somehow related to their own cowardly sense of accommodation....

Note also the constant subtext in this new self-censorship: fear of radical Islam and its gruesome appendages of beheadings, suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, barbaric fatwas, riotous youth, petrodollar-acquired nuclear weapons, oil boycotts and price hikes, and fist-chanting mobs.

In contrast, almost daily in Europe, “brave” artists caricature Christians and Americans with impunity. Why?

For a long list of reasons, among them most surely the assurance that they can do this without being killed. Such cowards puff out their chests when trashing an ill Oriana Fallaci or Ariel Sharon or beleaguered George W. Bush in the most demonic of tones, but prove sunken and sullen when threatened by a Dr Zawahri or a grand mufti of some obscure mosque....

So the present generation of Europeans really is heretical, made up of traitors of a sort, since they themselves, not just their consensual governments or some invader across the Mediterranean, have nearly destroyed their won freedoms of expression — out of worries over oil, or appearing as illiberal apostates of the new secular religion of multiculturalism, or another London or Madrid bombing.

Europe boldly produces films about assassinating an American president, and routinely disparages the Church that gave the world the Sermon of the Mount, but it simply won’t stand up for an artist, a well-meaning Pope, or a ranting filmmaker when the mob closes in. The Europe that believes in everything turns out to believe in nothing....

Those in an auto parts store in Fresno, or at a NASCAR race in southern Ohio, might appear to Europeans as primordials with their guns, “fundamentalist” religion, and flag-waving chauvinism. But it is they, and increasingly their kind alone, who prove the bulwarks of the West. Ultimately what keeps even the pope safe and the continent confident in its vain dialogues with Iranian lunatics is the United States military and the very un-Europeans who fight in it.

We may be only 30 years behind Europe, but we are not quite there yet. And so Europe has done us a great favor in showing us not the way of the future, but the old cowardice of our pre-Enlightenment past. [author's italics]

Can't add much to that.

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The Lady Doth Protest

June 29, 2006 11:49 AM

Split decision (5-3) on Guantanamo from the Supremes. But you wouldn't know that from the rhetorical effusions coming from one Europe-based human rights group. (My highlights)

The ruling, a strong rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions....

The court's ruling was a resounding loss for the Bush administration. Justices also rejected the administration's claim that the case should be thrown out on grounds that a new law stripped their authority to consider it.

I know, I know - it's the job of these groups to seek to influence public perception by hyping the impact of favorable developments. Fair enough. Only, the two grafs above weren't written by a European human rights group; they come from a report on the ruling from the AP's Gina Holland.

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Covert Auction

May 14, 2006 08:56 AM

Better question: Did she ever shut up? From the Sunday Washington Post story on former CIA official Mary McCarthy:

McCarthy became convinced that "CIA people had lied" in that briefing, as one of her friends said later....

McCarthy became disenchanted, three of her friends say....

In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, McCarthy told the friends....

McCarthy also told others she was offended that the CIA's general counsel....

She dissented from Bush administration policy, and she let others know....

McCarthy, in e-mails to friends, has denied leaking anything classified....

She has not denied [in e-mails to friends] speaking to Priest but....

It left her frustrated, and in articles published [by McCarthy] in a small-circulation intelligence journal....

The exchanges...helped harden McCarthy's view that "the CIA is just very insular," a former colleague said....

McCarthy...felt "underutilized," according to one friend....

McCarthy "was seeing things in some of the investigations that troubled her," said one of her friends....

"She had the impression that this stuff has been pretty well buried," another friend said....

In McCarthy's view and that of many colleagues, two friends say, torture was not only wrong....

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Oh, the Humanity

May 5, 2006 12:25 PM

What does Hell look like?

There'll be no contact [for Moussaoui] with some of his notorious prison-mates, including the Unabomber, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The tiny black-and-white TV in his cell will show only classes on subjects like anger management. [Emphasis mine]

Throw in a Tony Robbins infomercial and we'll be forced to consult the Geneva Conventions.

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The Good Fight

April 22, 2006 04:04 AM

One-time Army enlistee Markos "Daily Kos" Moulitsas explains why the military is a terrific opportunity for young folks, just as long as it isn't asked to do, you know, military things.

The military is perhaps the ideal society -- we worked hard but the Army took care of us in return. All our basic needs were met -- housing, food, and medical care. It was as close to a color-blind society as I have ever seen. We looked out for one another. The Army invested in us. I took heavily subsidized college courses and learned to speak German on the Army’s dime. I served with people from every corner of the country. I got to party at the Berlin Wall after it fell and explored Prague in those heady post-communism days. I wasn’t just a tourist; I was a witness to history.

The Army taught me the very values that make us progressives -- community, opportunity, and investment in people and the future....

Lest this sound like an ad for the Army, those were different times, when our men and women weren’t treated as expendable pawns in a neoconservative’s game of Risk. One of the many tragedies of the Iraq War is that the military is no longer a viable option for those needing a boost up the socio-economic ladder, making college a possibility, granting people the confidence and experience that has paid such huge dividends for countless veterans.

Daily Kos and Crashing the Gate, my co-authored book, would not exist without the confidence and experience I gained in the military. Yet I wouldn’t enlist in today’s world. I look forward to the day that military service is once again a viable alternative for people like the person I used to be.

Oh, but that military does exist. It's currently defending Canada from an American invasion.

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A special day

February 22, 2006 09:07 AM

Today I clicked the link to a column by "Joe Conason" -- the name given the IBM supercomputer that spits out predictably artless calumnies with assembly-line regularity -- without having any idea in advance of what it would argue. A fool I was! I should have gone with my first hunch, which was that "Joe Conason" sees the port deal as a sign that President Bush is sucking up to autocratic Arab regimes on behalf of his oil buddies. My misstep was in assuming that "Joe Conason" would have condemned President Bush for "Islamophobia" if he had blocked the deal -- ergo, by not standing in the way, Bush was playing admirably "against type," as they say. In such an instance, I reckoned, the computer might opt to follow a strategy of considered misdirection in order to make its next move less predictable. But in choosing this assumption, I neglected to take into account the basic flaw in "Joe Conason's" design: It will always take the shortest route to condemnation. Of course, it's possible that I am being misdirected by this lack of misdirection....

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An American Rebel in London

February 11, 2006 09:52 AM

George Clooney reveals his newest screenplay to the Guardian of London:

INT: SUMPTUOUS MALIBU MANSION -- NIGHT

Cocktail party at the home of a very wealthy and powerful industrialist. The finest of everything: LOUIS XVI would not feel out-of-place here. WE CAN HEAR the buzz of noisy conversation, punctuated by sudden bursts of galing laughter. Men clad in tuxedos stand in small clusters about the room, smoking long cigars and chatting amiably. Gorgeous, kittenish women in extravagant floor-length evening gowns weave among the guests, stopping here and there for air-kisses with old acquaintances. White-gloved waiters deliver trays of hors d'oevres and flutes of champagne. OUR ATTENTION IS DRAWN to a photograph, perched prominently on a lamp table, that shows GEORGE W. BUSH shaking hands with a MAN IN A TUXEDO who is presumably this party's host. CAMERA PANS UP from the photo to reveal CLOONEY, surrounded by a knot of inquisitors.

CLOONEY (V.O.)

I was at a party the other night and it was all these hardcore Republicans and these guys are like...

FAT CAT #1

C'mon big Hollywood star, Why do you hate your country?

CLOONEY (WITH SMIRK)

I love my country.

The inquisitors erupt with laughter. WE CAN HEAR scattered mutterings such as "Oh, come on, Clooney" and "Let's be serious here."

FAT CAT #2 (BREAKING IN)

Why, at a time of war, would you criticise it then?

The smirk disappears. Suddenly, CLOONEY looks deadly serious. He wheels to address FAT CAT #2 directly, his eyes flashing rage.

CLOONEY (POINTING AT MAN)

My country right or wrong means women don't vote, black people sit in the back of buses and we're still in Vietnam. My country right or wrong means we don't have the New Deal.

FAT CAT #2, feeling uncomfortable now, looks down at the floor.

CLOONEY (CONT.)

I mean, what, are you crazy? My country, right or wrong? It's not your right, it's your duty. Where was I wrong, schmuck?

A GASP rises from the group. The lecture begins drawing the attention of other guests, who step closer or crane their necks to hear.

CLOONEY (WITH PASSION)

In 2003 I was saying, where are the ties between Iraq and al-Qaida? Where are the ties to 9/11? I knew it. Where the fuck were these Democrats who said, 'We were misled'? That's the kind of thing that drives me crazy: 'We were misled.' Fuck you, you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic.

Silence falls over the group, but only for a moment. As the din of conversation begins to build again in the room, WE CAN HEAR affirmative murmurs, along with phrases such as "He's right, you know," and "It makes sense when he says it," and "If only we had listened."

CUT TO:

EXT: STREETS OF MALIBU -- NIGHT

Still wearing his tux, Clooney roars off into the darkness aboard his Harley, a beautiful gal (CLEARLY REPUBLICAN - luxuriant red hair; fur stoll; diamond earrings) draped over his shoulders. Neither is wearing a helmet....

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Dog Dane Afternoon

February 10, 2006 07:25 AM

Who knew there were Iranians in Kiev? I didn't, until I ran into my Danish friend Lars on the street this morning. Half tongue-in-cheek, I asked Lars, who handles security issues between Ukraine and the Scandinavian countries, whether the Danish embassy was still intact. Yes, he told me, but as a matter of fact the embassy saw its first cartoon protests just this morning. (They've had police protection out front since Monday.) He said the 30-odd protestors included representatives from a local Islamic Association and some Iranians who are students at some of the local universities. No major disruptions, but the Danes decided to close for the day, just in case.

I was curious to see what practicing Muslims looked like in Ukraine -- I had never seen one here, and let's just say that Ukraine is not the safest place on earth for non-whites, if there were to be any (non-whites) in this crowd. Since the embassy is only a couple of blocks from my flat, I quickly headed home, grabbed my notebook and camera, and headed for the site. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the embassy the crowd had already left, though I did spot one woman in hijab buying a coke at a nearby kiosk. But what struck me anyhow was one minor detail that remainded: the Danes had taken down their flag, as well as the EU flag that customarily flies beside it. I could not imagine that the United States -- or even France -- would respond similarly. What an awful capitulation in the face of such cretinous incitement. Even if you close for the day in the interests of staff safety (fair enough), you don't let them take down your flag. I headed back to my apartment, wondering what I might see at the Swedish embassy, which is across the street. Sure enough....

It's easy for me to judge, though. The Danes and the Swedes don't imagine themselves as provocatuers; they can't make sense of the strange hatred and violence directed at them; they aren't accustomed to the rent-a-mobs that are routinely sent to pester U.S. consulates for the pleasure of satellite viewers. Part of the privilege of being American is in feeling a perverse exhilaration, not fear, when I see the mob burning my flag in the streets of Tehran or Damascus. It is the exhilaration of knowing that my flag represents everything the busily benighted are fighting against: liberty, tolerance, robust dignity. Until they can get their grimy little hands on me, they're just going to have to settle for the flag. And they couldn't possibly face a tougher adversary. The flag will hate them back; it will never stand for cynical neutrality between opposites, like the Swiss flag. But what happens when you replace pride with modesty, and still they burn your flag? When do you stop surrendering if you can't possibly comprehend the source of the grievance? At some point, Denmark, you just have to let the flag fly.

UPDATE: Do not miss Michael Kinsley's ruminations on the cartoon riots in today's Washington Post.

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Great Moments in Humanitarianism

December 26, 2005 04:23 PM

Meet German "humanitarian" and former Iraq captive Susanne Osthoff, a Muslim convert with the forgiving soul of Jesus:

Osthoff described her captors as "poor people" and that [sic] she "cannot blame them for kidnapping her, as they cannot enter(Baghdad's heavily fortified) Green Zone to kidnap Americans." [AFP]

As the Prophet Muhammed might say, Well, they had to kidnap someone....

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The Truth About "Iran"

December 19, 2005 04:20 PM

Okay, which one of you took my jackboots?

Iran does not exist. Yes, I realize that statement will sound extreme and out-of-touch to many supposedly educated people. But the truth must be revealed: "Iran" is a myth that has been created by sinister Zionists in order to win sympathy from the feckless Europeans. Ask yourself: Whose agenda does this "Iran" serve? "Iranians"? Um, okay. So just as Europe is settling back into its accustomed posture of blithe anti-Semitism, along come 80 million people or so who are anxious for a human rights lecture from France, of all places. Jacques Chirac held a state funeral for Arafat! Oh, and this cruel caricature of a "president," who, one must note, looks like the son of a pig or monkey -- a Capuccine monkey, to be exact. I suppose this also was by "Iranian" design! This guy just happens to have apocalyptic fantasies about the return of the 12th Imam and the destruction of Israel.

These Zionists are too clever by half!

Look, I'll make you a deal. I'll pretend that this "Iran" exists. In return, you will agree to relocate its occupiers to Europe or maybe Alaska, and make the land available instead to those mischievous Jews, who thought they had us all fooled.

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Pottinger on Point

December 15, 2005 05:27 AM

Read this piece in today's Wall Street Journal, and you'll understand why I'm proud to count Matt Pottinger among my closest friends. I've known him since he arrived in Washington back in late 1995, shortly after his college gradution and shortly after I, too, arrived in the city. We started together as cub reporters at States News Service, a dynamic but unstable -- and unremunerative -- news organization that was (and perhaps still is) a rite of passage for journalists in the nation's capital. Matt already spoke Chinese so fluently that actual Chinese would look upon him with astonishment on those occasions when we'd slip into Chinatown for a late dinner. Few knew that Matt was also a highly accomplished jazz keyboardist -- he and a former band were once offered a recording contract -- who had an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz and jazz history. (He could, it seemed, name virtually any jazz tune and who was playing it from only a couple of notes.) Although he, like I, had very little experience in journalism at the time, it came as no surprise, given his in-born, almost manic curiosity and energy, that he seemed to master the craft almost immediately.

We stayed in touch as he moved on from States to graduate school at Stanford, then on to reporting assignments in China -- first for Reuters, and then for the Wall Street Journal. China, with its ancient customs, its dynamic cultural landscape and its tormented modern history, naturally appealed to Matt's passion for exploration. He would mesmerize others -- me in particular, I guess -- with his well-informed, erudite commentary on the country's oppressed Huigurs or the disastrous folly of the Iron Rice Bowl or the Three Gorges Dam. Yet I could detect an increasing sense of worry creeping into his reflections on China. The first signs appeared in 1998, after a U.S. missile inadvertently hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Matt was sent to cover the demonstrations at the American embassy in Beijing, where Chinese students were somewhat mindlessly chanting nationalist and revolutionary slogans. It was not long before Matt's pale complexion, coupled with his light blonde hair, led some students to infer that he was American. Despite his (false) avowals that he was in fact "Irish," Matt soon found himself surrounded by a clot of angry Chinese students, shouting slogans and epithets at him and beginning to punch and kick. Matt credited a lone student with yanking him from the scrum, allowing him to flee. Later, in describing the incident to me back in Washington, Matt appeared to be awed by the stridency and blind fanaticism he witnessed there. He was to see far more of the same in the years ahead.

The last time I saw Matt was at the beginning of the summer. He came to Washington to conduct some interviews and stayed with me at what was then my apartment. (I now live in Kiev.) He made no mention of the Marines, or his interest in joining. But it was clear from talking with him that he now registered the full measure of concern about China. I don't think I am sharing any confidences in saying that he was deeply alarmed about the situation with Taiwan, because cultural dynamics appeared to be drawing a confrontation ever-closer, and the matter seemed to resist traditional diplomatic pressures and persuasion. For a large segment of the Chinese population, Matt averred, Taiwan was a matter of racial destiny -- the rightful property of a superior race -- in much the same sense that the Sudetenland had been for Hitler's Germany. What's more, Matt perceived that sentiments such as these were actually stronger among the younger generation of Chinese than among the country's current ruling elite. This, of course, reflected the Chinese regime's "success" in its domestic propaganda efforts. It also left Matt with a worrying impression about the future there. In his WSJ piece today, Matt writes:

When you live abroad long enough, you come to understand that governments that behave [as China does] are not the exception, but the rule. They feel alien to us, but from the viewpoint of the world's population, we are the aliens, not them. That makes you think about protecting your country no matter who you are or what you're doing. What impresses you most, when you don't have them day to day, are the institutions that distinguish the U.S.: the separation of powers, a free press, the right to vote, and a culture that values civic duty and service, to name but a few.

I'm not an uncritical, rah-rah American. Living abroad has sharpened my view of what's wrong with my country, too. It's obvious that we need to reinvent ourselves in various ways, but we should also be allowed to do it from within, not according to someone else's dictates.

I have never in my life met anyone funnier than Matt, nor anyone who could be as serious-minded and circumspect when he has to be. It's a weird combination -- one which earned him the nickname "Dark Angel" back in our States News Service days. In my mind's eye (so to speak) I have a great deal of trouble imagining Matt commanding a Marine batallion, unless he's doing it in a pair of pink garters, and solely for the shock value. I also can't imagine Matt -- slim, but bookish -- being physically fit. But I also doubt there is anyone out there who would approach service to his country with a firmer sense of duty and moral commitment. God bless him.

Please read the whole thing.

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More of those 'Lying Liars'

December 3, 2005 03:48 AM

I've been stateside since Thanksgiving, so I'm a bit out of the swim of current events in Ukraine. But this rather brief report from London's Independent caught my eye.

KIEV, Ukraine -- A Ukrainian presidential bodyguard who exposed the country's biggest political scandal, involving murder, corruption, and illegal arms sales to Saddam Hussein has returned home, vowing to put his former boss, Leonid Kuchma, behind bars.

Major Mykola Melnychenko fled Kiev in 2000 after revealing excerpts from secret recordings he made of Mr Kuchma which implicated the president in the murder of a journalist who had exposed the corruption of Mr Kuchma's 10-year rule.

Major Melnychenko has been provided with a bodyguard by the Ukrainian intelligence services since his arrival on Wednesday from the US where he was given political asylum in 2003. He was with a former Ukrainian MP, Oleksandr Yalyaskevych, also granted US asylum after claiming Mr Kuchma's henchmen had tried to kill him....[snip]

Major Melnychenko says he saw Mr Kuchma taking bribes, and recorded him allegedly authorising sales of sophisticated defence systems to Iraq in contravention of UN sanctions.

Emphasis added. Ah, yes, another timely reminder that Saddam was not the properly chastened "dictator-in-a-box" of anti-war fantasy. In this particular case, his purchase included three so-called Kolchuga radar systems, an anti-stealth technology that can detect radar signals and electromagnetic pulses from warplanes at distances of hundreds of miles, while emitting no signal of its own (meaning pilots do not know they are being tracked). Presumably the goal here was to shoot down American and British warplanes that were, at the time, enforcing 'no-fly' zones north and south of Baghdad. The zones, you might recall, were intended to prevent any further massacre of Iraq's Kurdish and Shi'ite populations. But the specific purpose for which the radars were sought was moot, of course: International sanctions had forbidden Saddam from purchasing and acquiring any weaponry since 1990.

I guess in this instance, as in so many others, "containment" meant restraining one's impulse to collapse in gales of laughter at the impotence of the international sanctions imposed on Saddam.

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Ethan's Bag of Predictions - Part I

December 1, 2005 02:03 AM

I predict... that not long from now, Iraqi journalists will start being killed by jihadists on the grounds that they must be in the pay of the United States, because their articles are favorable -- or simply not unfavorable -- toward the American military presence in that country. I further predict that when that time comes, the New York Times will editorialize that Iraq is falling further into chaos and plunging toward civil war. I predict, still further, that the paper's smug editorialists will note that our public diplomacy in the Middle East -- perhaps most notably our military's (formerly) secret attempts to counter the bold propagandists of the Arab and Muslim worlds -- has been a tragic boondoggle, because not only are the taxpayer-financed efforts not fooling anyone, but now Iraqi journalists are being killed because of this failure. I predict, even further, that no connection will be cited between these occurrances and the fact that American news media expose the country's clandestine operations to world scrutiny, and thus feed the dark suspicions of those most susceptible to the propaganda that the military has been trying to undercut.

Finally, I predict that after all the propaganda ops are exposed; after all the disguised charter operations, CIA fronts and secret jails are revealed; after every last photo snapped by some drooling half-wit at Abu Ghraib has been aired -- after all of it, the Times editorialists will demand, with exquisite sincerity, that Bush administration figures be punished for revealing Valerie Plame's employment at the CIA to journalists. After all, the disclosure may have harmed national security....

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