Controversy is swirling around President Barack Obama's choice of a young American Muslim lawyer, Rashad Hussain, to serve as his special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Behind this fracas looms the even larger question of whether the U.S. should be sending the OIC any special envoy at all.
The tussle over Hussain has so far come down mainly to a he-said/she-said dispute over an article published in 2004 by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. The reporter, Shereen Kandil, quoted Hussain as saying that Sami al-Arian--a man who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a terrorist group--was the victim of politically motivated persecutions." Somehow that quote later disappeared from the online article. Fox News reports that Kandil stands by her original account. A White House official, defending Hussain, told Fox this week that the quote came not from Hussain but from al-Arian's daughter.
There may be no way to prove who said what in 2004. But while we wait to learn more about Rashad Hussain, it's also worth taking a look at the outfit with which he will be engaging. The OIC is headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is dedicated in its documents to spreading Islamic law, or sharia. Its Web site says it has the singular honor to galvanize the Ummah into a unified body"--and it defines the Ummah as all Muslims of the world.
This campaign has been reflected at the United Nations, where the OIC's 56 members plus the Palestinian observer form one of the biggest and most influential lobbying blocs in the UN's 192-member General Assembly. The OIC itself holds an observer seat as well, which gives it a prime spot for getting involved in UN debates and resolutions. This amounts to a bonanza for the OIC, which on the financial front hitches a ride effectively subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. While the U.S. alone pays 22% of the UN's $2.3 billion annual core budget and gets one vote on how the money is used, all the 57 OIC members put together pay less than 5% and get 56 votes. On top of that the U.S. contributes many billions more for such UN ventures as peacekeeping, food aid, refugee relief and so forth. The OIC doesn't come close.
But the OIC does have its passions. The OIC has been a big backer of a campaign at the UN for anti-blasphemy" rules that would effectively gag free speech and muffle any real debate about the nature and direction of Islam. The OIC is also one of the big reasons the UN has not been able to come up with a viable definition of terrorism. The point of disagreement is that the OIC, while condemning terrorism, has a record of then qualifying that by redefining terrorism to exclude the exercise of legitimate right of peoples to resist foreign occupation." The OIC has also backed some disturbing candidates for important UN posts. Recent examples include Libya's Ali Treki, now serving as the 2009-10 president of the UN General Assembly, as well as backing Sudan, Syria and Iran for important posts overseeing the UN's cultural organization, UNESCO.
Iran has at times played an interesting role in the OIC, such as its co-chairing of a July 2008 meeting of the UN and OIC in Geneva. At that meeting, which included plans for the UN to explore ways of spreading Islamic law, the OIC was represented by one of Iran's former ambassadors to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Akbar Salehi. This is the same Salehi who was appointed last year by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as chief of Iran's nuclear program.
It's the kind of thing that lies behind the polished façade of the OIC. There's a strong case to be made that this organization should not be dignified by the attentions of any American special envoy. The post was created by President George Bush, who first appointed a special envoy to the OIC in 2008 and that may well have been a mistake from the start. If contact with the OIC is wanted, the U.S. Mission to the UN in New York already has easy access. And Obama already has a special envoy to Muslim communities.
But given that Obama is following Bush's lead and sending a special envoy to the OIC, it's a strange priority that one of Hussain's prime credentials listed by Obama is his total recall of the Koran. That would make more sense as a core credential for a special envoy from the OIC. The real question is whether Rashad Hussain will vigorously represent and defend the interests, values and constitution of the U.S. If not, far better to have no special envoy to the OIC at all.
You probably already know that Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the New York Times's Week in Review and Book Review sections, published a book last year that must have seemed like a good idea at the time he pitched it and wrote it. Called The Death of Conservatism, it won Tanenhaus rapturous reviews from the usual suspects on the left side of the aisle. Newsweek's Jon Meacham even published a sympathetic interview in Aug. 2009 with the author, headlined Requiem for the Right: the biographer of Whittaker Chambers and William Buckley on a dying movement...
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Did he make a lot of money?
Selling like hotcakes, is it?
Like Sarah Palin's book?
yeah, those pathetic "Conservatives", dead as Tut.
Sad, really.
The Left sure is knockin' 'em back. How's Barry's best book ( which one?) doin'?
#2
Ranked # 29,994 at Amazon. What's # 1 in non-fiction? "A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror". Here's the first quote in the list of reviews: This book has taught me more about our history than any Ive read in years. A Patriot's History of the United States should be required reading for all Americans. --Glenn Beck Hope and change indeed!
Just checking in to see how the renovation's going...and the whining inspires awe.
For the next four years, the United Nations' nerve center, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office, will be situated in a squat, three-story, corrugated steel building on the U.N.'s north lawn that looks like a cross between a suburban big-box store and a high-security lockup facility. Sacre Bleu! Eeeet look like a preeson!!
Bantanamo, a nickname embraced by U.N. staffers, has taken much of the grandeur out of diplomacy at the United Nations. It's a serious comedown for U.N. civil servants and delegates who have been grinding away in the cause of peace in one of New York City's architectural landmarks, the glass and marble U.N. headquarters tower and the U.N. General Assembly hall -- now undergoing a $1.87 billion renovation. How are we supposed to...function in this hellhole! "The morale among the people in the secretary general's office has never been lower," a U.N. official who works in the new building told Turtle Bay. "Everybody is profoundly depressed and demoralized because they are put into windowless, airless cubicles that are completely inhumane." Damn. Sounds like they're in...Haiti or sumthin. Actually it sounds like the kind of cubicle farm 90% of today's office workers have to endure. Better than the average clinical assistant professor gets ...
Some diplomats say the scaled-down, no-frills quarters send just the right message for an organization that has been struggling to shake off a reputation as wasteful. "It's stern and pragmatic but it's by no means ostentatious," said Heraldo Muñoz, Chile's U.N. ambassador, adding that governments, principally the United States, have unfairly criticized the organization in the past and starved it of cash. "Being in this temporary shelter reflects the state of the U.N. I feel we should be able to put it up with it for a few years." See! We're martyr's now! Are you all fuckin happy now! Waiter! More wine!!
The original U.N. headquarters compound was built in the early 1950s by a committee of internationally renowned architects, including the Swiss-French modernist Le Corbusier and Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, who intended it to serve as a temple to international peacemaking, elevating the role of U.N. civil servants and delegates to a kind of diplomatic priesthood. Yes, the good old days. "Hello, UN headquarters. Oh, hello, Mr. Ambassador! You need a call girl? I'll see who's available..."
"Every time I come into that building I feel a sense of awe," said Stephen Schlesinger, author of The Act of Creation, which chronicles the founding of the United Nations. "It's now been reduced to a pile of shipping crates. This will diminish the United Nations." You...BASTARDS!!!
There is little debate about the need for a full-fledged renovation of the U.N. headquarters compound, which has been showing its age. The elegant corridors linking the Security Council to the General Assembly chamber are riddled with leaks that let in rainwater. The heating and air conditioning systems are wildly inefficient, requiring a sweater to ward off the cold at the height of summer. The walls are filled with asbestos. Last year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's sister, Marjorie Tiven, who heads the city's liaison officer with the U.N., threatened to shut down public tours of the U.N. because of rampant violations of local fire safety codes.
The new headquarters' airy industrial interior, with exposed air conditioning ducts on the ceiling and poured concrete floors, bears more of a resemblance to Wal-Mart or Ikea -- two other popular nicknames for the temporary space -- than to the U.N.'s original buildings. Oooooooh, the humanity...
The new building sits atop what was a large U.N. garden filled with statues from around the world. The crew was unable to move the largest statue, a 40-ton depiction of St. George slaying the dragon of nuclear war, and built around it. The statue -- built by the Soviet sculptor Zurab Tsereteli and entitled Good Defeats Evil -- is held in place by a massive concrete base and was constructed out of scrapped sections of U.S. Pershing and Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles. If we're lucky, maybe it's radioactive...
Niemeyer, now 102 years old and the only surviving U.N. architect, was appalled by the construction of the new building on the U.N.'s north lawn, and has advised the United Nations to take it down as soon as the renovation is complete. The U.N. says the new building has been constructed with Niemeyer's request in mind. Calm down, gramps. Who cares what you think. You'll be a long time dead by the time this thing's over with...
"It wasn't designed to be permanent or to be elegant or to be exotic," said Michael Adlerstein, a New York architect who built Bantanamo for $140 million and was appointed by Ban in 2007 to oversee the U.N. headquarters renovation. "It was designed to be functional." Who do you think we are! Somalians! Functional's for ...peasants!!
Waiter! More wine!!
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony last month, Ban celebrated the building's lack of pretension, noting that "there are no escalators. The windows are limited. We have simple concrete floors. No carpets." But...
Ban later acknowledged that there were, actually, some carpets, and some wood paneling, in his personal office -- "minimum decorations for the courtesy of visiting dignitaries and V.I.P.'s," he said. Yes! For..."visiting dignitaries and V.I.P.'s"! That's the ticket!!
Not everyone has it so good. The General Assembly president, Libya's Ali Abdussalam Treki, who also needs to meet with world leaders, was annoyed to discover he and his staff were to be crammed into a small set of offices that could only be reached by way of a dark concrete corridor. QuaddaffiKhadaffiKhaddafy My boss will hear of this!!!
Werner Schmidt, the spokesman for Adlerstein, declined to discuss Treki's concerns. But he acknowledged: "We are making some adjustments to the offices of the president of the General Assembly in accordance with his wishes." It is not unusual, he added, for "a high-level occupant" in any new building to find that "certain things can be improved." Hey, boss. It's the Libyan guy again. The glare from his gold telephone is giving him a headache. Wants to know if we had a platinum in stock.
Mid-level U.N. officials have groused at having to give up window offices with views of the East River and midtown Manhattan for the sunless cubicles. In my country, I would have someone killed for doing this! And I often have!!
They are particularly bitter that the Group of 77, a loose but powerful alliance of more than 130 developing countries, has been given a fairly large space in the new building. In contrast, the U.N. General Assembly affairs office, which is responsible for organizing meetings in the building, has been moved to a space two blocks away from the U.N. compound, a 42nd street office above a luggage store. "It was blackmail," said one U.N. official, noting that the G-77 has used its influence on the U.N.'s main budgetary committee to exact a spacious set of offices. Yeah, but if anybody in the big place needs luggage...ya got them by the balls!
The group's chairman, Sudanese ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, said he "fought hard" to make a case for office space in the building. But he insisted there was no undue pressure. "We are an important actor in the U.N." Care to kiss my ring?
Muñoz cited a more practical problem with the new digs. "There is a lot of confusion," Muñoz said. "I found myself in the corridors of the new building meeting with other ambassadors and members of the U.N. secretariat. They know they have to go meet someone and don't know where the heck they are located." So just do what you did at the old place. Call up a buncha limos and make a ton of reservations at some five star joint...
Posted by: tu3031 ||
02/18/2010 15:44 ||
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#1
"The elegant corridors ... "
There should be absolutely NOTHING ELEGANT about the UN. It should look like a Spartan prison. It should be 100% functional without a speck of "elegance" or opulence. They are spending the people's money and unlike real governments, the don't do squat in return. They are a tick on the rump of the earth.
As far as I am concerned the entire building should be made of rough concrete with linoleum floors and be furnished with cold steel desks and chairs.
#2
I was amazed to learn that Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, one of the designers of the UN building, is still alive to add his complaints to the chorus of disapproval heaped on the new building. He turned 102 in December.
Vice President Joe Biden recently told Larry King that Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration." Mr. Biden's transparent attempt to take credit for Bush administration policies aside, it's worth asking how exactly does the Obama administration define success in Iraq? Mr. Biden said, "You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government," echoing President Obama's remarks at Camp Lejeune in February 2009. But he also said, "You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer," echoing the only comment the president made about Iraq in last month's State of the Union address: "I promised that I would end this war, and that is what I am doing as president."
The problem is that progress in Iraq is not as inevitable as Mr. Biden suggests. Iraq faces a political and constitutional crisis weeks away from the most important election it will ever hold. People working on behalf of Iran are actively seeking to spoil this election. They want to exclude Sunni leaders from the next government, align Iraq's Shiites into a single political bloc, expel American forces, and create a government in Baghdad that is dependent on Tehran. Success remains possible, but only if the Obama administration abandons the campaign rhetoric of "end this war" and commits itself to helping Iraqis build a just, accountable, representative government. It needs to establish long-term security ties that will bind our two states together, including the continuing deployment of American military forces in Iraq if the Iraqis so desire.
Many fundamental questions will be answered this year about how Iraq is to be governed that will shape its development for decades. Is the election free, fair and inclusive? Do all communities emerge from it with leaders who they feel represent them? Is there a peaceful transition of power? What is the relationship between the central government and provincial governments? What role will the military play in the evolving political system? Does Iran get to vet Iraqi political candidates? What relationship will the U.S. have with Iraq over the long term?
Tehran seems to know what answers it wants regarding Iraq's future. Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, worked doggedly in 2009 to rebuild the coalition of the three major Iraqi Shiite parties that had run in 2005 as a bloc. That effort failed when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to join. The Iranians then actively but unsuccessfully lobbied for Iraq's parliament to pass a closed-list election law in October 2009 in which the people could not choose particular candidates, seeking to increase their control of political parties and thus electoral outcomes.
On Jan. 7, 2010, when Foreign Minister Mottaki visited Iraq, the Accountability and Justice Commission (which was established in August 2003 to vet individuals who might serve in the government for links to the Baath Party) announced that it was banning more than 500 candidates from the upcoming parliamentary elections. They included some of the most prominent Sunni leaders who had been running on cross-sectarian lists. Ahmed Chalabi, a leading member of the Iranian-backed Shiite list, helped drive the ban through the commission. So did Ali Faisal al-Lami. Mr. Lami was arrested in 2008 for orchestrating an attack by the Iranian proxy group Aseeb Ahl al Haq (AAH) that killed six Iraqis and four Americans in Sadr City. AAH splinters re-activated its military activities, after a year long cease-fire, by kidnapping an American contractor on Jan. 23. AAH is nevertheless running candidates such as Mr. Lami for parliamentary seats.
But politics is by no means Tehran's only sphere of influence in Iraq. The Iranian armed forces violated Iraqi sovereignty on at least two occasions in 2009U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone in Iraqi territory in March 2009, and Iranian troops ostentatiously seized an Iraqi oil well in December 2009 as the Iraqis completed a round of international oil bids.
Against this continuous Iranian campaign of engagement, intimidation and political machinations, the Obama administration has offered little more than moral support. In practical terms, this administration has done little to implement the nonmilitary aspects of the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) that would signal an American commitment to Iraq.
On the security side, the administration has wisely abided by the Iraqi insistence that we withdraw our forces from Iraq's cities, conduct all military operations only in partnership with Iraqi forces, subordinate all of our military operations to Iraqi legal processes, and generally respect Iraqi sovereignty. But it has remained publicly inflexible about the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces and the ending of all U.S. combat missions by August of this year. Those specific requirements were imposed solely and unilaterally by the Obama administration and were never part of the international agreements between the U.S. and Iraq. The time line for drawing down U.S. forces and changing their mission in 2010 must be based upon the conditions on the ground, not arbitrary deadlines.
The U.S. has steadfastly refused to discuss a long-term military partnership with Iraq beyond 2011, despite the fact that the Iraqi military will not be able to defend Iraq on its own by then. It has refused fully to increase civilian efforts in order to accomplish tasks that had been performed by military forces now withdrawing. It has reduced funding for the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which allows the military to provide "urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction" projects, as well as for other forms of humanitarian and security assistance.
Despite the vice president's many trips, the administration has consistently defined success as complete disengagement. Many Iraqi leaders interpreted the SFA as an indication that their country would develop a special relationship with the U.S. Instead, the Obama administration has given them every reason to believe that they will beat bestjust another country in the Middle East.
Success in Iraq has been very real, and there is every prospect that it can continue. Nevertheless, American military forces continue to play a vital role in Iraq's development. They are engaged in peacekeeping operations along the Kurd-Arab seam. They continue to support Provincial Reconstruction Teams and, thereby, a large portion of the U.S. civilian efforts. They are the ultimate guarantors of the upcoming Iraqi elections. And they ensure Iraq's survival in the face of continuing Iranian military aggression. They also provide the U.S. with continuing leverage at a critical period in Iraq's political development, if we choose to use it.
Mr. Biden's comments and the administration's actions suggest that Iraq is on a glide-path to success even as U.S. forces are on a glide-path to withdrawal. The reality is different. The situation in Iraq is dynamic and evolving, and the U.S. cannot take any outcome for granted. Active American engagement will continue to be vital to achieving a just, accountable, representative government in Iraq, especially as Iranian senior leaders actively attempt to undermine the democratic, secular and cross-sectarian political process that has emerged in Iraq since 2008.
#1
ION NOT-NECESSARILy-UNRELATED, DAILY TIMES.PK > IRAN VOWS TO STAND BY HEZBOLLAH AGZ ISRAEL.
"Once and for all" > taken collectively, it will be very bad for IRAN + MOUD iff Israel does attack and Iran fails to [strongly] retaliate. ALA "DECISIVE BATTLE".
If we hypothesize that Mossad had indeed carried out the assassination certain questions come to mind.
1) Why were 17 team members sent to assassinate one man in a city like Dubai, 11 of whom were roaming the city shadowing him? Are 11 people really needed to shadow one person?
I would have had 50 so that Mahmoud would never have seen the same face twice ...
2) Why were the 11 constantly changing disguises within view of the cameras of CCTV? Surely it would draw more suspicion not less, to the team than if they simply behaved naturally. 11 different faces would surely not raise suspicion with Mabhouh with in a short span of less than 19 hours, there was no need for the elaborate pageantry of changing costumes, especially when the team knew that cameras were tracking their every move. It seems that the assassins were trying to leave a trail of evidence and draw the attention of the authorities once they had left the country.
That's why you need 50 ...
3) At one point the female suspect looked up at the camera and smiled. The suspect, if a professional would most likely be aware that she was on camera, why would she give the camera a full frontal view of her face?
Just reminding you that she's Mossad, baby, and you can't touch her ...
4) The passports used by the team in some cases were of real people. The passports were not stolen, rather their identity was used with a different picture and in some cases different passport numbers. At least 3 of the people are Olim, or new immigrants to Israel from Great Britain and 4 more are also Israeli citizens. Why would the Mossad use the identity of Israeli citizens in an operations of this magnitude, not only providing a direct link to Israel but also endangering its own citizens, possibly putting them on Hamas hit lists?
Perhaps it was the evil ISI who wanted to make it look like the CIA was blaming Mossad who was working in cahoots with Fatah who planned this in conjunction with the Dogmushes ...
5) Why were two Palestinians arrested in connection with the assassination by Jordanian Authorities? What was their involvement? Were they helping Mossad or Perhaps another entity?
6) Finally, since the split between the Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas, the two entities have been at war with each other. Weapons that Mabhouh was smuggling into Gaza would most likely be used against Fatah as well. Fatah also had an interest in the death of Mabhouh.
Gee, no kidding, almost as much as the Dogmushes ...
The Mossad has not been free of errors of late, 2 Israeli citizens were arrested a few years ago on suspicion of stealing passports in New Zealand. However, this operation seems to be even sloppier. Simply too many people were involved in the hit to escape undetected. An agency of the caliber of Mossad must know of the closed circuit cameras through out Dubai and yet the alleged Mossad agents allowed the cameras to obtain full views of their faces. Mabhouh was trailed so closely that he even bumped one of the assassins on the way from the airport. The passports were real names of real Israeli citizens, forging a direct link to Israel. spy agencies usually like to conduct assassinations without traces, especially to their own country. Unless the Mossad has become completely incompetent of late; it seems almost too easy to accuse it.
#1
He's DEAD, they're gone, this is just posturing and Kabuki for the sheeple.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/18/2010 14:48 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Just enjoy the event. Maboobs was a man who needed to go.And it was a death that fit the man. Richly deserved. Full of those nice little touches that send you off to Hell with a smile and a flourish.
Cant you just see one of the Assassins turning on the bath water while Maboob is being "restrained" by professionals. And they carry him in and shove his head under the tap and hold his legs for him so he doesnt kick out the fixtures while they make sure he takes a deep breath that is full of gushing gurgling water.
Yassss.
then toss him on the bed and laugh and see if anyone is in the hall and leave. Next stop the airport. And Myboobs? wellll....yeah. Off to Hell. Mahmoud is bye bye. Do you miss him?
There, you see how easy that was.?
GRIN at the camera.
#4
If you wanted to watch someone and remain unseen in the middle east it would seem you could put your crew in Burqas and go virtually invisibly about. If the folks on camera were in fact the assassins they certainly wanted to be noticed after the fact.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
You probably already know that Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the New York Times's Week in Review and Book Review sections, published a book last year that must have seemed like a good idea at the time he pitched it and wrote it. Called The Death of Conservatism, it won Tanenhaus rapturous reviews from the usual suspects on the left side of the aisle. Newsweek's Jon Meacham even published a sympathetic interview in Aug. 2009 with the author, headlined Requiem for the Right: the biographer of Whittaker Chambers and William Buckley on a dying movement...
By Kimberly and Frederick W. Kagan
