Saudi Arabia has âseen the face of the devil, and they donât want it.â So says Prince Saud, the Saudi Foreign Minister. The Saudis have seen the light since 9/11, he says, and they want no part of religious extremism; the Kingdom is no longer a haven for terrorists.
While the Princeâs words were soothing, it is much more likely that he and other members of the House of Saud have seen the face not of the devil, but of the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Act and the general incitement to terrorism in America through jihadist literature and speech are scheduled to begin October 25, and the Saudis are scrambling to appear as if they have decisively rejected the jihad terrorism that they so energetically backed for so many years.
But have they? Not exactly. âOh Allah, liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque from the defilement of the occupying and brutal ZionistsâŠ.Oh Allah, punish the occupying Zionists and their supporters from among the corrupt infidels.â According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis preached that in a sermon in Mecca on July 15 â of 2005, not 2001. He also railed against American pop culture, which he termed âthe terrible deluge of all manner of vice, which is considered a form of moral terrorism against the values, ideals, and virtues of the Islamic nation.â His sermon was carried on Saudi Arabiaâs Channel 1.
Nor did Saudi TV, which is strictly controlled by the government, limit itself to prayers for punishment of the Israelis and Americans. On August 29 Saudi Iqra TV aired a program calling on Saudis to donate money to support the Palestinian jihad. âAs the Prophet Muhammad said, Jihad is the pinnacle of Islam,â the programâs organizer reminded viewers. âA person who cannot wage Jihad with his soul is required to wage Jihad with his money, with his tongue, with his thought, and with any means at his disposal. There is no doubt that our brothers in Palestine desperately need financial support, which goes directly to this cause, and helps them to carry out this mission.â
On the same show, Sheikh Abdallah Basfar, secretary-general of the Muslim World League Koran Memorization Commission (a Saudi government agency) added: âAll the funds sent via known charities and organizations reach your Muslim brothers, Allah be praised. Undoubtedly, this aid is obligatory and not just recommended. This is the duty of every Muslim, based on the scholarsâ religious ruling that supporting our brothers in Palestine is obligatory. Therefore, material support is a duty.â Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), who introduced the latest Saudi Arabia Accountability Act into the Senate, noted in support of the Act of 2003 that the Saudis âare reported to have contributed as much as $4 billion to Hamas over the course of the latest intifada.â Could some of that money have gone to finance Hamasâ suicide attacks against innocent civilians in buses and restaurants? Is it still going to finance Hamasâ terrorist activities?
Nor is the Palestinian jihad the only ones the Saudis support. NBCâs Lisa Myers reported last summer: âAn NBC News analysis of hundreds of foreign fighters who died in Iraq over the last two years reveals that a majority came from the same country as most of the 9/11 hijackers â Saudi Arabia. Among the suicide bombers was Ahmed al-Ghamdi, a one-time medical student and son of a Saudi diplomat. In December 2004, he climbed into a truck in Mosul and blew himself up. On an Internet video, another Saudi says goodbye to his mother, then drives an ambulance full of explosives into a building.â What motivated these people to go to Iraq? Unmistakably, it was the jihad ideology that, now over four years after 9/11, continues to be taught all over Saudi Arabia â while political correctness and fear prevent the State Department from identifying it as any problem, actual or potential.
There are, however, Saudi leaders who have come out against jihad in Iraq. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh, has denounced it. Did he condemn attacks against American troops there and remind Saudis of their countryâs alliance with the United States? Not exactly. He came out against âattempts by suspicious parties to trigger sectarian tension between the people of Iraq,â saying that such attempts only served âthe aims of the enemies conspiring against Muslims.â In other words, he was only condemning Abu Musab al-Zarqawiâs recent declaration of war against Shiâite Muslims. In an oblique condemnation of U.S. forces in Iraq, he also criticized those who committed âbloodshed and murder of innocents by planes and bombs.â
What has the U.S. done in response to all this? Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Richard Casey found that two Saudi officials who have been named as defendants in 9/11 lawsuits, Interior Minister Prince Naif and Prince Salman, Governor of Riyadh, were not liable. And last Wednesday, Associated Press reported that President Bush decided âto waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Washingtonâs closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism, for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers.â
Americaâs closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism? Really? What kind of ally â particularly a tightly-controlled society like Saudi Arabia â allows a steady stream of its citizens to travel to a neighboring country to wage war against forces with which it is supposed to be allied? What kind of ally broadcasts exhortations to wage this war over its government-controlled television stations?
Itâs time for Congress to pass and President Bush to sign the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act. After all, he himself said it best after 9/11: youâre either with the terrorists or with us. He should signal to the Saudis that they can no longer have it both ways.
Posted by: ed ||
09/28/2005 08:39 ||
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On Oct. 3, representatives of the European Union and the Turkish government of Islamist Recep Erdogan will meet to determine if Muslim Turkey will be allowed to seek full membership in the EU. It will be best for Turkey, to say nothing of Europe and the West more generally, if the EU answer under present circumstances is: "Thanks, but no thanks."
The reason Europe should politely, but firmly, reject Turkey's bid should be clear: Prime Minister Erdogan is systematically turning his country from a Muslim secular democracy into an Islamofascist state governed by an ideology anathema to European values and freedoms.
Evidence of such an ominous transformation is not hard to find. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
09/28/2005 08:51 ||
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With Thanksgiving looming, no sense admitting a loony turkey.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/28/2005 9:27 Comments ||
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A comment by center-left blogger "The Bull Moose." Minor EFL.
The Moose suggests that Ms. Sheehan should offer some contrition.
Cindy Sheehan should climb off her high horse and offer an apology to someone she slandered. . . . she has discredited her cause by her associations with radicals, her extremist statements about Israel and her arguments even against the Afghanistan war. And now this...
For months she has been asking public officials including the President to meet with her to discuss the war. One supporter of the war did just that yesterday - Senator John McCain. And the result? She called him a "warmonger." . . .
Perhaps, Ms. Sheehan has earned the right to be sanctimonious. But, she has no right to call an American hero a "warmonger." Maybe, Ms Sheehan is ill-informed. No one knows the horror of war more than John McCain. And no American has sought to repair the wounds of war more than John McCain.
When others were faint-hearted about restoring relations with Viet Nam, John McCain took the lead to heal the breach with his former torturers. And today, no American is more outraged by the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. He has even defied his own President and Party to advance the cause of the humane treatment of captured enemies.
John McCain is no "warmonger", but he does love freedom. That is why he consistently fights for the democratic and human rights for people across the world from Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma to those children who once languished in Saddam's prisons.
Cindy Sheehan is entitled to her outrage. However, she has no right to smear a hero. Apologize, Cindy.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/28/2005 12:48 ||
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Not too likely. She's off the deep end, and an apology would just make people realize that she's a real person. The best thing she can do is continue her descent into madness and self-parody by making increasingly outrageous statements.
"9/11 was an inside job," declared one placard being carried by a protester during Saturday's anti-war rally in downtown Washington. "Impeach the Fourth Reich," read another. "George Bush is the devil!" shrieked a woman from the stage on the Ellipse.
Many on the left are defensive when their movement is classified as anti-American, but precious few conclusions can be reached when one of their representatives takes to the microphone and proclaims "With your help, American society will collapse!" And it was all downhill from there.
Intellectual, principled opposition to the Iraq war gave way to seething, vulgar and juvenile acts of defiance. Most placards were not fit to print. One protester held a sign that read, "Pin the blood on the jacka*s," to which passersby could attach red construction paper blood drops to an unflattering picture of the commander in chief. One woman held a sign that read "Abort Bush."
Several of the protesters brought their children along. Boys no older than 16 shaved their hair into mohawks, masked their faces with bandanas and desecrated an American flag. Even younger children assisted their parents in handing out fliers that were little more than diatribes against the president. Toddlers in strollers carried signs condemning a war they likely were unaware was happening.
These and other exhibits would be more appropriately suited for Theater of the Absurd rather than American political discourse. To wit, a quite corpulent woman traipsed around in fishnet stockings and frilly underpants. To her ample posterior was attached a sign that read "Ruffled Panties for Peace." Indeed.
Perhaps most regrettable is that anti-war marches don't have to look like this. Many reasonable people oppose the war in Iraq for reasonable reasons. But these people were drowned out by the commotion of the movement's fringe elements.
The reasonable opponents of the Iraq war are being eclipsed by their rabid, frothy-mouthed brethren. It's impossible to take such people seriously, let alone engage them in a meaningful discussion: The jingling bells on their jester hats are simply too distracting. They not only undermine their own credibility, but they also embarrass the more reasonable factions of their movement, or at least, they should.
If protesters such as these truly want change in government, they would serve themselves better to grow up, put on some pants and at least keep the slander PG-13. In this country, few elections have been won on the "Ruffled Panties" platform: It simply doesn't play well in the red states.
There was one sign that captured the sentiment of the entire rally. It read "Feel the Love." It was not the sign's message, however, that captured this sentiment. Rather, it was the fact that it was â quite symbolically â crumpled and thrown into a trash can.
Charles Repine is an editorial assistant at The Examiner and a fellow for the Collegiate Network.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/28/2005 12:59 ||
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It's never been about accomplishing anything really beyond satisfaction of the protestors own personal needs, agendas, and desires that have precious little to do with the well being of America, our troops, or anybody else for that matter.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi House Speaker Billy McCoy said the House would tackle the Gulf Coast insurance dilemma: thousands of people who lost their homes and have no separate flood insurance. "We can't make insurance companies do something that's not in their policies," McCoy said, "but ... we are going to take a lead role in doing anything we can."
Not so fast, Billy. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood thinks otherwise. He is suing five insurance companies, asking a state court to void the plain language of policies and make the companies do what is not in those policies. Gee, will they have to condemn the property first? Isn't this kinda unfair?
Homeowner policies for hurricane damage specifically exclude damage caused by flooding, and for good reason: Flood damage is far more costly to insure. Hood seeks to invalidate those exclusions and force insurers to pay as much as $15 billion for flood damage. In his complaint, Hood makes the incredible claim that residents bought homeowner policies to insure against "any and all" hurricane damage "with the reasonable expectation that these policies would provide such coverage."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/28/2005 11:28 ||
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Actually it is quite disgusting when led by public servants who heretofore had expressed no particular interest in the matter. Had phukwit a genuine concern and foresight he might have raised the issue previously and obtained greater clarity for all concerned with the end result being people would know with more certainty whether or not they were covered for the type of perils that has come to pass with Rita and Katrina.
If I've got 6" of rain in my house cause the hurricane blew the roof off is that a flood, or hurricane damage? If a river or lake or ocean overflows it's banks and does in my house, that's a flood. But, if a rain storm breaks the windows and dumps water inside, is that a flood?
Insurance companies will use any possible way to weasle out of paying dime one if possible. Don't cry for them too much just yet.
#3
Both Hood and McCoy need to immediately be arrested and relieved from their posts, what they have announced is clearly unlawful abuse of their Office.
Won't happem however, they seem to truly be above the law.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/28/2005 14:53 Comments ||
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Insurance is contractual, with some state regulation on the side. To alter the policies by legislative action would constitute an ex-post-facto law, which is expressly forbidden in the Constitution. At least that is what I would argue....
Posted by: Mark E ||
09/28/2005 15:04 Comments ||
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If the water comes from below, it's a flood. If the water comes from above, it's hurricane damage.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/28/2005 19:16 Comments ||
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When dealing with insurance co.watch your ass.They will do everything they can to avoid pay outs.Pay outs mean less profit and thats what insurance co. are all about.
#7
Read your insurance policy! It clearly states that wind driven rain is covered. However, in the exclusions flood & surface water are excluded whether or not driven by wind. So basically, the flood from Lake Pontchartrain is not covered nor is the water from the storm surge. Both are surface water.
While everyone blames this on greedy insurance companies, keep in mind that if it is included as part of the policy, we all get to pay higher homeowners insurance premiums. I don't know about you, but mine are high enough. If poeple want to live in coastal areas, they should pay for coverage, not me.
#8
Read your insurance policy! It clearly states that wind driven rain is covered. However, in the exclusions flood & surface water are excluded whether or not driven by wind. So basically, the flood from Lake Pontchartrain is not covered nor is the water from the storm surge. Both are surface water.
While everyone blames this on greedy insurance companies, keep in mind that if it is included as part of the policy, we all get to pay higher homeowners insurance premiums. I don't know about you, but mine are high enough. If poeple want to live in coastal areas, they should pay for coverage, not me.
DC Examiner mini-editorial, This IS the whole thing!
Struggling to remain relevant in the midst of hurricane devastation and Supreme Court confirmations, newfound liberal icon and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has continued her outlandish statements regarding the Bush administration. Her latest entry into the list is this gem: "What Bush's Katrina shows once again is that my son died for nothing." Don't worry: We have no idea what she's talking about either. Perhaps this provides an answer to a philosophical question that has plagued thinkers for centuries: If a grandstanding political activist makes a dumbfounding statement in the forest and no media cameras are around to hear it, does anyone care?
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/28/2005 11:34 ||
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Now that is insensitive.
Don't you guys know Cindy's just lost her other son in the flood waters of Hurricane Rita?
Saturday's demonstration in Washington, in favor of immediate withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq, was the product of an opportunistic alliance between two other very disparate "coalitions." Here is how the New York Times (after a front-page and an inside headline, one of them reading "Speaking Up Against War" and one of them reading "Antiwar Rallies Staged in Washington and Other Cities") described the two constituenciess of the event:
The protests were largely sponsored by two groups, the Answer Coalition, which embodies a wide range of progressive political objectives, and United for Peace and Justice, which has a more narrow, antiwar focus.
The group self-lovingly calling itself "United for Peace and Justice" is by no means "narrow" in its "antiwar focus" but rather represents a very extended alliance between the Old and the New Left, some of it honorable and some of it redolent of the World Youth Congresses that used to bring credulous priests and fellow-traveling hacks together to discuss "peace" in East Berlin or Bucharest. Just to give you an example, from one who knows the sectarian makeup of the Left very well, I can tell you that the Worker's World PartyâRamsey Clark's core outfitâis the product of a split within the Trotskyist movement. These were the ones who felt that the Trotskyist majority, in 1956, was wrong to denounce the Russian invasion of Hungary. The WWP is the direct, lineal product of that depraved rump. If the "United for Peace and Justice" lot want to sink their differences with such riffraff and mount a joint demonstration, then they invite some principled political criticism on their own account. And those who just tag along ⊠well, they just tag along.
To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side. Was there a single placard saying, "No to Jihad"? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, "Yes to Kurdish self-determination" or "We support Afghan women's struggle"? Don't make me laugh. And this in a week when Afghans went back to the polls, and when Iraqis were preparing to do so, under a hail of fire from those who blow up mosques and U.N. buildings, behead aid workers and journalists, proclaim fatwahs against the wrong kind of Muslim, and utter hysterical diatribes against Jews and Hindus.
Some of the leading figures in this "movement," such as George Galloway and Michael Moore, are obnoxious enough to come right out and say that they support the Baathist-jihadist alliance. Others prefer to declare their sympathy in more surreptitious fashion. The easy way to tell what's going on is this: Just listen until they start to criticize such gangsters even a little, and then wait a few seconds before the speaker says that, bad as these people are, they were invented or created by the United States. That bad, huh? (You might think that such an accusationâthese thugs were cloned by the American empire for God's sakeâwould lead to instant condemnation. But if you thought that, gentle reader, you would be wrong.)
The two preferred metaphors are, depending on the speaker, that the Bin-Ladenists are the fish that swim in the water of Muslim discontent or the mosquitoes that rise from the swamp of Muslim discontent. (Quite often, the same images are used in the same harangue.) The "fish in the water" is an old trope, borrowed from Mao's hoary theory of guerrilla warfare and possessing a certain appeal to comrades who used to pore over the Little Red Book. The mosquitoes are somehow new and hover above the water rather than slip through it. No matter. The toxic nature of the "water" or "swamp" is always the same: American support for Israel. Thus, the existence of the Taliban regime cannot be swamplike, presumably because mosquitoes are born and not made. The huge swamp that was Saddam's Iraq has only become a swamp since 2003. The organized murder of Muslims by Muslims in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan is only a logical reaction to the summit of globalizers at Davos. The stoning and veiling of women must be a reaction to Zionism. While the attack on the World Trade Centerâwell, who needs reminding that chickens, or is it mosquitoes, come home to roost?
There are only two serious attempts at swamp-draining currently under way. In Afghanistan and Iraq, agonizingly difficult efforts are in train to build roads, repair hospitals, hand out ballot papers, frame constitutions, encourage newspapers and satellite dishes, and generally evolve some healthy water in which civil-society fish may swim. But in each case, from within the swamp and across the borders, the most poisonous snakes and roaches are being recruited and paid to wreck the process and plunge people back into the ooze. How nice to have a "peace" movement that is either openly on the side of the vermin, or neutral as between them and the cleanup crew, and how delightful to have a press that refers to this partisanship, or this neutrality, as "progressive."
The Minuteman Project was originally planned to begin operations to help secure the Arizona border in October, but when hurricane Katrina hit, 100 Border Patrol agents were taken off duty to be sent to assist (in some way) the effort. So in true form, whatever Minutemen were available have gone to the border earlier than expected, to take their place.
The MSM, and even the local Arizona newspapers and broadcast media have apparently refused to provide any coverage of this, or the much larger October event at all, except for small blurbs, mostly condemning the Minutemen, which are put back with "the truss ads". Several negative articles have appeared online, only to be removed within hours.
I gather the Minutemen themselves, rather disgusted with MSM coverage last time, no longer issue press releases. So the about 400 Minutemen who will be guarding the border will be doing so this time with no expectation of publicity or glory seeking, but only to help protect our border.
The link provided is to the Minuteman Project website, in their "news" section, and mostly lists small events taking place around the country. However, in October, it may be the only source for news and information about efforts to slow the numbers of illegal aliens into the United States.
The best piece on the weekend shenanigans in D.C. was by Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate ("Anti-War, My Footâthe Phony Peaceniks Who Protested in Washington"). His point is that antiwar is the wrong word. The organizers are actually pro-war. They just want the other side to win. International ANSWER, one of the two groups supporting the demonstration, is run by the Workers World Party, which backs Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the "resistance" in Afghanistan and Iraq. The WWP applauded the Soviet invasion of Hungary and China's massacre in Tiananmen Square. The main reason these people keep comparing Bush to Hitler is that Der Fuhrer is the only well-known fascist not approved of by ANSWER.
You probably never learned this from the Associated Press or your local paper, but ANSWER is frankly anti-American and pro-fascist. Many dupes at the demonstration apparently didn't know this or didn't care. As Hitchens notes, two radical left journalists, men of integrity and honestyâDavid Corn and Marc Cooperâexposed International ANSWER as a front for fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism. A dip into any database could have informed journalists about the groups they were covering, as Hitchens notes, but here's how the innocent Michael Janofsky of the New York Times described the sponsors: "The protests were largely sponsored by the two groups, the ANSWER Coalition, which embodies a wide range of progressive political objectives, and United for Peace and Justice, which has a more narrow, antiwar focus." Either Janofsky is under age 21, with no knowledge at all of radical politics, or he works for a newspaper that is determined to sugarcoat leaders of the antiwar movement.
Probably the latter. I have referred twice to the Times treatment of Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice (Universal Press Syndicate column for March 5, 2003, U.S. News column May 9, 2005). She is a prominent old-time Communist who left the American Communist Party only in 1991 and only because of an ideological split. After the 2003 antiwar rally in Manhattan, the conservative New York Sun described her as "a longtime unapologetic Communist who has remained one of Fidel Castro's most tireless supporters." In the liberal New York Times, however, she was merely "one of the grandes dames of the country's progressive movement." The Times gave her favorable biographic treatment in its "Public Lives" column, where there was no room to mention her Communist roots or radical ideas.
When the mainstream press approves of marches and demonstrations, it can't resist gussying them up to make them seem more wholesome than they really are. The Times used to do that with gay pride marches, excising the nasty and crude contingents and the sex-with-children advocates but focusing on the stable and well-dressed gay neighbors next door. The media has a habit of doing the same thing with antiwar rallies. In February 2003, they offered a mainstream motherhood-and-apple-pie image of the marchers. But if you poked around the Internet, you could pick up images that didn't fit the press themeâhate-Israel cards, hammer-and-sickle flags, pictures of Che Guevara, the usual "Bush is Hitler" signs, and the huge banners of the sponsoring Stalinists at ANSWER. The usual excuse about coverage of the demonstrations is that it doesn't really matter who the sponsors areâthe issue is the war, not the organizers. Blogger Andrew Sullivan said he has many questions himself about the war, but "anyone who attends rallies organized by International ANSWER deserves no quarter and no hearing."
The mainstream press doesn't seem to noticeâor mindâthat America-hating fascists are doing the organizing. But you can bet that if the demonstrations were being run by a tobacco company or the Augusta National Golf Club, the press would be awash in moral dudgeon.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/28/2005 21:15 ||
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In Lahore Pakistan you can also still get Osama bin Laden cologne, though sales have never matched the hype the product generated in its 2002 rollout. The Karachi Dawn reports that bin Laden t-shirts are no longer a hot item in Islamabad; at 300 rupees (about $5.00) they may be overpriced for the locals, and apparently only Western tourists buy them, as conversation pieces. (Though the five-cent bag of Arafat chips is very affordable for the prospective martyr with the munchies.) Meanwhile the Saudi-owned London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat published a scathing critique of the latest al Qaeda video, calling it boring and lackluster, and saying that the terror groupâs image in the media has âretreated to the point where it is almost pitiful.â Their solution? More screen time for Zarqawi, the supporting player who is gradually stealing the show.
What does an evil genius have to do to get a little respect? I have written about this before, the unwillingness of the world to take the terror mastermind seriously any more. In part, it is Osamaâs fault. Would you have wagered money in September 2001 that by 2005 al Qaeda would not have executed another major terror attack inside the U.S.? The group made many threats of course, but was never able to back them up, creating an unbridgeable credibility gap.
Sometimes we underrate Osama to our detriment. It has become a knee-jerk response from Western analysts to attribute new terror attacks to any group but al Qaeda, and to recite the mantra that bin Laden is marginalized, his network operates without him, weâre facing al Qaeda 2.0, or 3.0, that there is no possible way Osama constitutes a threat. We heard a lot of this immediately following the July 7 London bombings for example; but many learned experts had to beat a retreat when it turned out the ringleaders had recently returned from a trip to Pakistan, and especially after al Qaeda obligingly released their suicide videos. Looks like Osamaâs network is a little more sophisticated than some experts want to believe.
Whether or not bin Laden is still running the show, he surely wants to be, and must spend a lot of his time figuring out ways to stay in charge. He does not have much else to do with his time, and, anyway, control is important to people bent on world domination. He has shown that he is not someone you would want to cross. Former al Qaeda chief spokesman Sulieman abu Gaith vanished in 2002 after a terror attack on Marines in Kuwait â the perpetrators had lavished praise on Gaith as their inspiration, but never mentioned the corporate chairman. Bad move. Some say abu Gaith is in hiding in Iran â perhaps, if he is lucky.
Zarqawi, Osamaâs emir in Iraq, spends a lot of time praising Osama, every chance he gets. He would not do that if he did not either feel some sort of loyalty, a degree of threat, or have other reasons for wanting to be perceived publicly to be on the team. Likewise, lately there have been more branches of the al Qaeda franchise incorporating the brand in their name. Al Qaeda of the Land of the Two Rivers (Iraq), al Qaeda of Syria, Saudi al Qaeda, Somali al Qaeda, and, of course, al Qaeda Classic. In the past, Osama advised his followers to come up with a variety of names, and to make pronouncements under many assumed identities, to introduce noise in our analytical systems and make the threat seem greater than it was. Now the guidance is, support the brand, raise the corporate profile, and talk up the name. That is not a sign of strength.
If we assume that Osama aches to be taken seriously, we can also assume that he is very frustrated in his current situation, holed up in the tribal zone along the Afghan/Pakistan border, moving from hideout to hideout, and relying on low-tech communications to keep tabs on his network. The Pakistanis claim he is isolated and ineffective. The events of the summer may have proven otherwise, but it is still good to say it, because it will get back to him (we know al Qaeda has a media department that follows their clippings) and perhaps goad Osama into making a mistake. After all, he has to come out sometime. He cannot stay holed up forever and remain relevant. This guy wants the world to think he is the Mahdi, the Muslim messiah, and you cannot rouse the faithful locked in a windowless room or crouching in the back of a Toyota pickup. Some day he will have to make a personal appearance, hopefully looking more inspiring than he did in his recent videos, which had the production values of a public-access channel.
There are some signs of stirring. The Egyptian Shbabmisr website is running a six-part serial of what it claims to be an interview with Osama from July, 2005. And Monday saw the premier of the Voice of the Caliphate (Sout Al-Khilafa) web newscast â 16 minutes of unedited terrorist propaganda with a lead-in that resembles a very bad science-fiction film. But while Zarqawi was on the screen half the time, Osama was not mentioned at all. That could be bad news for Zarqawi if it triggers the bossâ envy. Maybe they will have bin Laden do a guest shot, to plug his next project. I am sure they could book him; he is not exactly fighting off the offers.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/28/2005 11:42 ||
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Next up: Celebrity Squares.
Posted by: Matt ||
09/28/2005 12:22 Comments ||
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Osama bin Laden cologne? Oh, I gotta get me some of THAT...
Long, needs p.49.
University presidents have lost their dignity.
BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
Whether or not you agreed with them, university presidents used to be dignified figures on the American scene. They often were distinguished scholars, capable of bringing their own brand of independent thinking to bear on the operation and reform of their institutions. Above all, they took seriously the university's mission to seek and transmit the Truth, and thereby to strengthen the free society that made such inquiry possible.
But it has been a long time since Woodrow Wilson (at Princeton), Robert Hutchins (at Chicago) or James Bryant Conant (at Harvard) set the tone for American campuses. Over the past year, four university presidents have been in the news--from Harvard; the University of California, Santa Cruz; the University of Colorado; and the University of California, Berkeley. In each case, the curtains have briefly parted, allowing the public to glimpse the campus wizards working the levers behind the scenes, and confirming that something has gone terribly wrong at our best public and private universities.
Hypocrisy, faddishness, arrogance and intellectual cowardice are among the ailments of the American university today, and it is hard to say whether even a great president could save higher education from its now institutionalized vices. Amid the variety of scandals afflicting the campuses, the one constant is how the rhetoric of "diversity" trumps almost all other considerations--and how race and gender can be manipulated by either the college president or the faculty in ways that have nothing to do with educating America's youth, but everything to do with personal aggrandizement in an increasingly archaic and unexamined enclave.
Continued on Page 49
#1
He misses the big picture, that is, the very purpose for university presidents has changed over the years. Their title is now reduced to mean solely, for all practical purposes, "fund raiser".
At one "Enormous State University", the interview for a new president was reduced to a single question, quite literally:
"CAN YOU BRING IN AN AVERAGE OF TEN MILLION DOLLARS A DAY, EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR?"
This figure sounds ridiculous and impossible, until you calculate how many sources of income are under the purview of the president. Many school fees, such as parking garages; fixed endowments that require speaking engagements; legislative, State Board of Education, and Regents lobbying; other alumni donations; new corporate and NGO sponsorships; athletic box office, television rights, and NCAA mutuals; etc.
But it boils down to the fact that this is all the president does, or is expected to do, other than to avoid controversy and issue boilerplate memos.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/28/2005 9:25 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I read the chapter and she seems madder that she got caught with a mistake than the actual story. She (and Dan) both believed the story to be true and attempted to build a case toward that story. She admits that it wasnât until years of badgering a broken former and fallen Lt Governor shared his story about âyoung Georgeâ and the Texas ANG. And her chain of events leaves many facts out with respect to âfact checking.â Mainly that the memos did not originate from the family of Col Killian but a full fledged LOON with a questionable grasp on reality. Also she did not find it a bit suspicious that up to this point they had found nothing that fit their concept of Lt Bushâs ANG duty until these memos surfaced. All of a sudden VIOLA, the profile was right there in black and white, but it was also typed on a word processor that wasnât available in the 1970s. I donât feel sorry for this hack or Dan Rather.
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.
Saudi Arabia has âseen the face of the devil, and they donât want it.â So says Prince Saud, the Saudi Foreign Minister. The Saudis have seen the light since 9/11, he says, and they want no part of religious extremism; the Kingdom is no longer a haven for terrorists.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi House Speaker Billy McCoy said the House would tackle the Gulf Coast insurance dilemma: thousands of people who lost their homes and have no separate flood insurance. "We can't make insurance companies do something that's not in their policies," McCoy said, "but ... we are going to take a lead role in doing anything we can."
Whether or not you agreed with them, university presidents used to be dignified figures on the American scene. They often were distinguished scholars, capable of bringing their own brand of independent thinking to bear on the operation and reform of their institutions. Above all, they took seriously the university's mission to seek and transmit the Truth, and thereby to strengthen the free society that made such inquiry possible. 
