Archive for the 'middle east' Category

Snippets

March 22nd, 2003

For two days in a row now, the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 seems to be dominated by stories of helicopter crashes which have killed quite a few people. The lengthy discussions of these incidents (about which there is, in fact, very little to say) annoy me, insofar as they tend to strengthen the impression that the major problems facing the US / UK troops are equipment failures of various kinds. I’m not sure that this is the case.

More interesting stories found online this morning include:

  • A document purporting to be the BBC’s War Reporting Editorial Guidelines (via IndyMedia UK).
  • Reports of the US use of napalm on Safwan Hill (in the Sydney Morning Herald).
  • The resignation of a UK government senior legal adviser (in the Guardian).
  • Robert Fisk’s report of last night’s attacks on Baghdad (in the Independent).
  • Ominous BBC reports of Turkish troops entering Northern Iraq.
  • IBC

    March 21st, 2003

    As you can see, I’ve installed an Iraq Body Count counter at the top of this page: the site has full details about the methods being used in order to compile a database of reported incidents involving civilian fatalities at the hands of US/UK aggression in Iraq and a computation and running count of the number of well-documented deaths.

    Resignations

    March 18th, 2003

    The BBC has a handy list of who’s resigning from the Government and when.

    Monday
    16:17GMT - Leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook resigns after a meeting with Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street. He said: “Neither the international community nor the British public are persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this action in Iraq.”

    Tuesday
    07:00GMT - Lord Hunt of Kings Heath announces his resignation as junior health minister on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, saying: “At the end of the day I don’t support this action and it would be hypocritical for me to stay in government.”

    11:11GMT - Home Office Minister John Denham resigns saying: “I cannot support the government in tonight’s vote.”

    11:39GMT - Bob Blizzard, Labour MP for Waveney, resigns as Private Parliamentary Secretary to work and pensions minister Nick Brown.

    11:56GMT - Anne Campbell, Labour MP for Cambridge, resigns from her role as Private Parliamentary Secretary to Patricia Hewitt, secretary of state for trade and industry.

    Any minister or PPS who resigns will be comemmorated on the Roll of Honour over on the right hand side of the Virtual Stoa, at least for a bit.

    Sex strike now!

    March 1st, 2003


    On Monday 3 March there will be (at least) eight hundred and ninety-two public readings of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata all around the world.

    Friends and colleagues will be taking part in the Oxford instantiation of this phenomenon, which will take place at Balliol College at 7.30pm, using the Tony Harrison text. Do come.

    While I’m on the subject, Virtual Stoa readers in Oxford might like to remember to sign the antiwar petition, which will close on Wednesday. Students go here; staff here.

    UPDATE [8.3.2003]: The Oxford Lysistrata was excellent, and Katha Pollitt’s coverage of events in New York in The Nation is here.

    Mr Blair Wants To Read Your Essays

    February 14th, 2003

    As the demonstrations at the weekend promise to be vast…

    SEND YOUR ESSAYS TO BLAIR!Here is an inspired action being co-ordinated by our friends at Cambridge Students Against the War:

    5 minute student action:

    Oppose the war? Then email your essays to Tony Blair! (and forward this email)

    It came to light on Thursday that the government is relying on plagiarised post-graduate essays to bolster its case for war on Iraq. Its “dossier” entitled “Iraq - its infrastructure of concealment, deception and intimidation”, was posted on the Number 10 website and hailed by Colin Powell in his presentation to the United Nations on Wednesday. It claimed to be based on up-to-date intelligence - but turned out to have been nicked, typos and all, from 3 out-of-date sources, including an essay by a graduate student in California.

    We’re obviously very excited that students’ academic endeavours are being taken so seriously, and think it’s time for students to act to ensure that war plans continue to be “intelligence led”.

    So, why not send Tony Blair some of your essays?

    Tony Blair posted an essay by Ibrahim al-Marashi, a student in Monterey, California, up on his web site. Maybe he’ll do the same for yours! Why not email the web master, and attach some of your best scholarly efforts. Don’t worry too much about the relevance of the subject - Tony and his skilled advisers are on hand to subtly distort your words to suit their war agenda. So, whether it’s Proust or particle analysis, Geography or History, attach a copy of your essay and send it to Number 10!

    Here’s what we suggest you do:

    * email your essays as attachments, to webmaster@pmo.gov.uk, as soon as possible and definitely by next Tuesday, explaining why you are sending it.

    * or even better post your essays to ‘10 Downing Street, London SW1′ with a covering letter (we’ve copied one below, and it’s online here) in an envelope titled ‘Warning: Top Secret’.

    * email us here telling us you’ve done it, so we can let the press know what’s happening (please don’t send us your essays though - we don’t want them!)

    Excellent idea. Via the Oxford Students Stop The War list.

    Reasons for War

    February 6th, 2003

    Maggie O’Kane, in today’s Guardian, looks back to 1990 and doubts that the American government can be trusted when it’s looking for reasons to go to war.

    Links

    February 5th, 2003

    Thinking of Bush lies draws one inexorably on to the subject of Blair’s lies — and it seems that even the security services no longer believe his most-frequently-repeated ones about a link between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al-Qaida…

    Who Dies?

    February 5th, 2003

    You’ve probably seen this before, but it’s nicely done: Who Dies for Bush Lies?

    Parris

    February 1st, 2003

    Matthew Parris has sensible words in today’s Times for opponents of the forthcoming war against Iraq. Read them.

    Where are they now?

    December 13th, 2002

    From this week’s New Statesman (but not, sadly, available online to non-subscribers) — and complete with photo! — are two entire pages on a Balliol contemporary, Gerard Russell, “Our man in the land of Zam Zam Cola”, by Christina Lamb:

    In a large, high-ceilinged room at the Foreign Office, where the television is tuned to al-Jazeera and three clocks show the time in Washington, London and Abu Dhabi, sits the young (he’s 29) diplomat whose task it is to spread the Blair message in Islamic countries….

    Russell may be an anonymous, slightly balding man in a pinstripe suit in London, but in the Middle East he is “Brother Gerard”, recognised everywhere from petrol stations in the Sinai Desert to customs offices at Riyadh airport. When Tony Blair visited the unit, Russell was introduced to the Prime Minister as “the man more famous on al-Jazeera than you are”…

    My goodness. Who would have thought it?

    242@35

    November 22nd, 2002

    And, while we’re on the subject of anniversaries, today is the 35th anniversary of United Nations Resolution 242.

    If we cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq

    November 22nd, 2002

    To be sung to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands”:

    If we cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
    If the markets hurt your Mama, bomb Iraq.
    If the terrorists are Saudi
    And the bank takes back your Audi
    And the TV shows are bawdy,
    Bomb Iraq.

    If the corporate scandals growin’, bomb Iraq.
    And your ties to them are showin’, bomb Iraq.
    If the smoking gun ain’t smokin’
    We don’t care, and we’re not jokin’.
    That Saddam will soon be croakin’,
    Bomb Iraq.

    Even if we have no allies, bomb Iraq.
    From the sand dunes to the valleys, bomb Iraq.
    So to hell with the inspections;
    Let’s look tough for the elections,
    Close your mind and take directions,
    Bomb Iraq.

    While the globe is slowly warming, bomb Iraq.
    Yay! the clouds of war are storming, bomb Iraq.
    If the ozone hole is growing,
    Some things we prefer not knowing.
    (Though our ignorance is showing),
    Bomb Iraq.

    So here’s one for dear old daddy, bomb Iraq,
    From his favorite little laddy, bomb Iraq.
    Saying no would look like treason.
    It’s the Hussein hunting season.
    Even if we have no reason,
    Bomb Iraq.

    I’ve no idea who first wrote this: Raj passed it on to me through the electronic ether.

    Press Release of the Day

    August 21st, 2002

    Queer ‘Settlers’ Land on Berkeley Starbucks
    by QUIT, August 20, 2002

    ACTIVISM
    About 25 queer settlers descended on a downtown Berkeley Starbucks on Saturday, August 17, claiming Berkeley as “a city without people for people without a city.” The group, organized by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!), posted a banner proclaiming the reclaimed caf� “Queerkeley - A Prophecy Fulfilled.”

    They also erected homes (transformed Palestinian civilian homes reclaimed from another street theatre action), lawn furniture, and signs reading, “It Works In Palestine, Why Not Here?” and “It’s Ours Because We Say So.” They erected plastic palm trees to “make the concrete bloom,” and gave patrons a tract explaining their religious claim to the land as follows:

    Land of fruits and nuts

    “And the Lord saw that the queer people were harried in this land. And the Lord spake onto the prophet Harvey, “You will lead your people across the wide waters unto a new land.” Harvey was fearful, and he cried to the Lord, “How will we cross the wide waters? For they are cold, and they are filled with all manner of hazardous substances and raw sewage and other pollutants.” And the Lord responded, “fear not, Harvey, for a great bridge will be built, and the people will cross into this land. And this land will be called Berkeley. I say, Lo, I have promised the land of Berkeley to the lesbians and to the gays, and to the bisexuals, and to the transgenders and to the intersexed, and to all of the gender variant peoples. And this land shall be blessed with fruits and nuts, unto 50 genderations.”

    - Book of Reclamations and Realty, 4.0

    The group selected Starbucks for the location of their first settlement in Berkeley because Starbucks founder and CEO, Howard Shultz, is a major supporter of the Israeli state and the corporation has become the prime target of an international boycott of corporations with ties to Israel (www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.html). “Since Mr. Shultz clearly believes it is okay for one group of people to grab land belonging to another and say they have a right to it, we figure he won’t mind if we take some of his,” a QUIT leaflet explains.Workers in the cafe were surprisingly unruffled as the Queer Defense Forces entered the cafe and announced over a loudspeaker that the land had been confiscated by the Queer National Fund and curfew for straights would begin in five minutes. Several “patrons” were forcibly ejected from the cafe by means of SuperSoakers (which were especially popular with a three-year-old settler).

    Many coffee drinkers quickly cleared out, but one group of chess players steadfastly ignored the group, who vow to set up more settlements in the coming months.

    Raj - you’re in the area: is this still going on?

    Raj replies [23.8.2002]: I went yesterday on a pilgrimage to the new holy land. At none of the three Starbucks I visited in the area did any of the staff know anything about this. Either it’s a brilliant hoax, or the barista turnover rate is higher than we suspected. Onward!

    Observations on l’Affaire Mona Baker

    July 12th, 2002

    As Junius and other thoughtful commentators have observed, it’s important to distinguish what Mona Baker has done from what the petitions she signed called for. There are at least two relevant petitions floating around. One was first published as a letter to the Guardian, and said this:

    Despite widespread international condemnation for its policy of violent repression against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government appears impervious to moral appeals from world leaders. The major potential source of effective criticism, the United States, seems reluctant to act. However there are ways of exerting pressure from within Europe. Odd though it may appear, many national and European cultural and research institutions, including especially those funded from the EU and the European Science Foundation, regard Israel as a European state for the purposes of awarding grants and contracts. (No other Middle Eastern state is so regarded). Would it not therefore be timely if at both national and European level a moratorium was called upon any further such support unless and until Israel abide by UN resolutions and open serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians, along the lines proposed in many peace plans including most recently that sponsored by the Saudis and the Arab League.

    The other, advocated by a group called the Coordination des Scientifiques pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient, says this:

    “The campaign against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority launched at the end of March 2002 by the government headed by Ariel Sharon, in defiance of United Nations Resolutions and the Geneva Conventions, has led to a military reoccupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and to a dramatic increase in human rights violations.� Under these circumstances, I can no longer in good conscience continue to cooperate with official Israeli institutions, including universities. I will attend no scientific conferences in Israel, and I will not participate as referee in hiring or promotion decisions by Israeli universities, or in the decisions of Israeli funding agencies. I will continue to collaborate with, and host, Israeli scientific colleagues on an individual basis.”

    Mona Baker is a signatory to both of these documents, but neither calls for anything like the action she has taken.She has defended her action by saying (as reported in the Guardian) that, “This is my interpretation of the boycott statement that I’ve signed and I’ve tried to make that clear but it doesn’t seem to be getting through. I am not actually boycotting Israelis, I am boycotting Israeli institutions”. But this claim is flatly contradicted by a sentence in the letter she is reported in the same piece as having written to Professor Gideon Toury, one of the two Israeli academics concerned: “I do not wish to continue an official association with any Israeli under the present circumstances”. [Emphasis added - and no mention of Israeli institutions here].

    It is a great shame, then, that instead of considering the uses and disadvantages of the arguments of these two petitions, endorsed by hundreds of academics, the clumsy media spotlight has been resolutely focused on an outlying action which contradicts the spirit of the documents in whose name it was taken and which provides plenty of grist to the mill of rightist critics.

    On the broader question of academic ties to Israel, it’s worth reading two contrasting left views, from the United States and from Israel itself. First, Noam Chomsky’s short response, explaining his refusal to sign one of these petitions. (He had earlier signed the Harvard-MIT Divestment Petition).

    I understand and sympathize with the feelings behind this proposal, but am skeptical about it, for a number of reasons. One is that our prime concern should be ourselves: it’s always easy to blame others; harder, and far more important, to look into the mirror. That includes Europe too, though the issue is particularly stark here, in the present instance. The petition states that “the US seems reluctant to act and continues to fund Israel.” That’s quite an understatement. Israel acts within bounds set by Washington, and the US has been providing the decisive military, diplomatic, economic and doctrinal support for the crimes that are condemned. The US does not accept the basic UN resolutions, these and others, and has vetoed the most important ones, which, if implemented, could have largely settled many of the prime issues long ago. That continues; there has been no break. Furthermore, what is said about Israeli intellectuals holds in spades for their US counterparts, who are far more complicit in crimes, even in this case, not to speak of innumerable others. It seems a bit odd for us to be on a high horse about that. Breaking contact with Israeli academics, artists, writers, journalists,… means breaking contact with many people who have played an honorable and courageous role well beyond what can be found here, and are a much more substantial element within their own society.

    I also think the emphasis is misplaced. The immediate goal should, I think, be to compel the US government to stop providing the means for enhancing violence and repression, and to stop preventing diplomatic moves towards the international consensus on a political settlement that the US has been blocking, unilaterally, for a quarter-century. That requires a preliminary struggle: to break the doctrinal stranglehold that prevents serious discussion of these issues within the mainstream of opinion, a very broad spectrum, reaching to left-liberal sectors. A call for suspension of arms transfers to Israel would be a natural first step, following the course of Germany, which has already undertaken it. As long as we are not able to achieve simple goals like that within our own society — even to bring them to the arena of general discussion — I’m very reluctant to call for breaking relations with people who, as a category, are considerably more advanced than we are.

    Second, Tanya Reinhart’s essay, too long to be reproduced in this space, but which can be found here.

    Dave wrote [13.7.2002]: I remember that one of the Guardian letters noted that the press had concentrated on activity which hurt people in Israel, but that the majority of boycott activity was likely to hurt people here.�

    “Most worryingly, by focusing on the actions of one signatory (and without my going into the pros and cons of the particular case) you appear to argue the rejection or acceptance of a boycott on the basis of a sample of one. This means that you erase the ethical actions of all the others. Some of these mostly “hurt” the signatory, such as declining to address an EC conference because of the participation of a formal Israeli delegation, or declining to join a research collaboration with long-valued Israeli colleagues.”

    I haven’t seen much evidence anywhere of the latter — except for a story told by a novelist I know. He was offered a deal for his books to be published in Israel, but turned it down, for reasons of the boycott. I guess he must have lost out financially as a result. Through friends, I suggested that he should accept the Israeli offer, but insist that his books were simultaneously published in a cheap, Arabic edition.� The pure boycott was probably simpler.

    Image of the Week, #10

    April 5th, 2002

    The new Star of Bethlehem — as the Israeli attack last night lights up the sky. From the Electronic Intifada.

    Friendly Fire

    March 26th, 2002

    Nick writes to the weblog [25.3.2002]: Two things. First, www.gagpipe.com is a Good Thing which I commend to you. Second, it helped me find this piece, from urbanreflex.com:

    British Troops Sent To Afghanistan “Will Inevitably Be Shot By The Americans” Warns Minister

    UK Defence Minister Geoff Hoon has told the British public to brace itself and expect casualties in Afghanistan as a result of British soldiers being shot by American troops.

    “No government sends its troops to fight alongside the Americans without a great deal of consideration,” Mr. Hoon told reporters today. “It is not a decision that is ever taken lightly. We know there will be casualties.”

    Around 1,700 Royal Marine commandos are on their way to Afghanistan to join the 1,500 troops already stationed in the country.

    “We know for a fact that the Americans have highly sophisticated weapons easily capable of wiping out an entire squadron in a matter of seconds,” Hoon told MPs in the Commons. “We cannot underestimate the capacity of the Americans to kill people on their own side by mistake. They are ruthlessly efficient in that respect.”

    But he warned that the potential risks should not divert attention away from the operation’s goals.

    “Let us not lose sight of the aims and objectives of this very dangerous mission,” he said. “I do not know what those objectives are at this moment in time, but I will let you know what they are just as soon as I have received them from my counterpart in America.”

    Al-Qaeda were unavailable for comment.

    A friend also forwarded me the entertaining Hunt the Boeing link, which I hadn’t seen before; the rebuttal is here.

    French Intellectuals

    March 18th, 2002

    Apologies for the gap in posting: I was off in North Africa. Most of the readers of the weblog will have seen this already, since it’s been doing the rounds for over a week now, but some of you may not, which makes it worth reposting:

    French Intellectuals to be Deployed to Afghanistan to Convince Taliban of Non-Existence of God

    The ground war in Afghanistan heated up yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of Taliban zealots by proving the non-existence of God.

    Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or ‘Black Berets’, will be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during their long occupation of Paris’ Left Bank, their first action will be to establish a number of pavement caf�s at strategic points near the front lines. There they will drink coffee and talk animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man’s lonely isolation in the universe. They will be accompanied by a number of heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends who will further spread dismay by sticking their tongues in the philosophers’ ears every five minutes and looking remote and unattainable to everyone else.

    Their leader, Colonel Marc-Ange Belmondo, spoke yesterday of his confidence in the success of their mission. Sorbonne graduate Belmondo, a very intense and unshaven young man in a black pullover, gesticulated wildly and said, “The Taliban are caught in a logical fallacy of the most ridiculous. There is no God and I can prove it–take your tongue out of my ear, Juliet, I am talking!”

    Marc-Ange plans to deliver an impassioned thesis on man’s nauseating freedom of action with special reference to the work of Foucault and the films of Alfred Hitchcock. However, humanitarian agencies have been quick to condemn the operation as inhumane, pointing out that the effects of passive smoking from the Frenchmens’ endless gitanes could wreak a terrible toll on civilians in the area…

    I’m not sure where this is from originally, so if anyone can give credit where it’s due, please get in touch.

    Raj writes [22.3.2002]: First saw the ‘French Intellectuals’ piece on NetTime. The home for it appears to be here.

    Total but welcome stranger Shaun agrees [26.3.2002]: I’d like to pass on the following as the source of the French Intellectuals In Afghanistan piece… You’ll get a great laugh fromMichael Kelly’s site as this stuff is so typical of his humor and he deserves the credit where it’s due!

    Chris replies [26.3.2002]: Credit where it’s due, indeed, though most of the rest of Michael Kelly’s site seems to me to be not terribly funny at all, and the splendid Afghanistan piece a rare triumph. That’s a swift verdict after spending less than five minutes at the site, though, so not to be taken especially seriously.

    Walking across Afghanistan

    February 2nd, 2002

    The media’s romance with Rory’s trek across Central Asia knows no bounds. Here’s Palash, quoted in The Scotsman:

    An Eton friend, Palash Davé, said if anyone is equipped to deal with the dangers, is it Mr Stewart. He said: ” When it comes to the diplomacy of dealing with tough locals, I can’t imagine a better person. “He’s always had romantic ideas but he’s been very level-headed about dealing with them.”

    They have another fine photo, too.

    Palash reports another media sighting, this time in Sunday’s Observer.

    Walking across Afghanistan

    January 29th, 2002

    The world’s media is queuing up to write about Rory’s trek across Afghanistan. Here’s the opening few lines of the latest, from the Los Angeles Times (and they even have a photo!):

    600-Mile Journey in Nowhere Land

    Afghanistan: Scotsman sets off on foot through some of the Earth’s most forbidding terrain.

    By DAVID ZUCCHINO, Times Staff Writer

    HERAT, Afghanistan — For breakfast Sunday morning, Rory Stewart ate four fried eggs and a fistful of naan, the flat Afghan bread. Then he walked to the local bazaar and bought 20 tablets of the antibiotic Cipro, two dog-eared English-language books and a walking stick.

    Now he was ready to walk across Afghanistan.

    Stewart, an Oxford-educated Scotsman, set out Sunday afternoon on a 600-mile walk through some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth. He intends to hike from Herat, in western Afghanistan, to Kabul in the east, through snow and ice, past bandits and gunmen, wolves and guard dogs, famine and drought.

    Stewart is fairly certain–and there are no known challengers–that he was the first tourist to enter Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime late last year. He is unquestionably the most unconventional foreigner in these parts, with his skeletal 126-pound frame and his dream of walking the path once taken by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane…

    The LA Times does seem to have its finger on the pulse: they had the most detailed coverage of the American fad for Stoicism in 1999…

    Thanks to Tim for drawing today’s article to the attention of the weblog.

    Rant

    December 8th, 2001

    Michaele wrote to the weblog the other day [3.12.2001]:

    I just want to rant for a little while about how the Bush administration’s attitude about terrorism is currently being deployed to justify some horrendously incoherent foreign policy and the failure to take a morally brave and politically urgent stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Warning: this may be mildly incoherent, as I am a bit tired and angry.

    We’ve all known since the W. administration first started talking about a “War on Terrorism” that the definition of terrorism and the list of terrorist organizations and their state sponsors was not based in any principled understanding of what counts as terror (versus, say, freedom fighting or legitimate acts of self-defense), but rather was based in political expediency: a combination of what our “allies” would tolerate, what was necessary to make “allies” of those governments in the first place, and what would justify only the sorts of military action that W. and his more hawkish advisors wanted to pursue anyway (that is, attacks on the Taliban and al Qaeda, and the Gulf War Redux, which is by all reports just around the corner). But until the past twenty-four hours, this peculiar understanding of who the enemy was did not seem to be wholly morally bankrupt (and has therefore had shocking credence among many of my friends and family, despite their varying degrees of distaste with the talk of war and revenge). Whatever objections one might have to war, however much W.’s frequent use of the term “evildoers” in public speeches made one think of a bad Saturday morning cartoon, it made some sense that people who have the capability and the desire to attack civilians across state borders need to be dealt with _in some manner_ because of the unpredictable threat that they pose to the security and stability of those who would be their intended targets.

    Yet after W.’s speech in which he extended the moral authority of the U.S. to respond to the Taliban/al-Qaeda to Israel responding to yesterday’s horrific attacks, whatever slight moral promise that his administration’s understanding of terrorism held was completely betrayed. The administration has been flip-flopping since�January on its policy towards Israel, which has to make you wonder whether it is a matter of the much publicized conflicts between Powell and Rumsfeld/Cheney, or simply that no one with any authority in the W. administration has a clear idea of what to do in the Middle East (in part because they thought back in January that they could get away with a policy of selective American isolationism). Sometimes, the administration has condemned Israel’s ‘retaliatory’ attacks on Palestinians as going too far; sometimes it has justified Israel’s attacks. If you look carefully, there seems to be _some_ rhyme and reason to when the administration condemns Israel: when the attacks seem to be on Palestinians in general, involve a disproportionate use of military force, and result in Israeli occupation of�a particular area for some time. When the administration supports Israel, it is typically because the Israeli military has sought out specific targets and isolated them for attack (such as the Hamas leaders traveling by car a few weeks back).

    However, last night’s speech by W. in essence authorizing Israel to respond forcefully to the “terrorist” attacks (in quotes because I recognize that who counts as a terrorist really does seem to be a matter of who those with the really big guns think is a terrorist, not because I do not personally condemn the attacks), combined with today’s utter _failure_ to condemn Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian Authority (which smack of war, and not war on terrorists) is a clear sign that the administration has finally abdicated any semblance of taking the moral high ground in its war on “terrorism”. One would think that W. would have learned from his father’s mistakes: taking a permissive ‘we support you-and we won’t interfere’ attitude towards how another state treats its minorities or the sovereignty of state boundaries only serves to firm up other states’ resolve in transgressing international norms. Iraq would not have invaded Kuwait without having the impression that the U.S. would not intervene. Sharon’s Israel could not have notched up the violence and the provocativeness of its attacks on Palestinians, Hamas, and now directly the Palestinian Authority without believing firmly that this would in no way jeopardize relations with its one true ally, the U.S. The absurdly self-congratulatory and self-interested definition of terror and terrorists that is sustaining U.S. actions in Afghanistan is now justifying Sharon’s brutal policy of trying to provoke Palestinians to become more and more violent, more and more politically extreme, so that he can sustain the popular support that keeps him in office, and pursue the policy of complete expulsion of the Palestinian people that he has clearly wanted from the beginning.

    I don’t mean to downplay here how much we ought to be critical of how the U.S. attack on terrorism has been deployed to justify the specific way that the U.S. has responded to Sept. 11th. (As a U.S. citizen, I am deeply concerned about how the Justice Department and the executive branch are trying to increase their authority and the secrecy in which they might carry out their war). However, I think that the events of the past 24 hours call on us to be even more vigilant about how the justification of a war on terror is and can be deployed to justify the pursuit of violence over the pursuit of peace, the pursuit of relative homogeneity over the pursuit of pluralist political arrangements that aim at justice for all people living in and sharing a particular space. I originally was concerned about how the war on terror would justify the W. administration’s policies. It is clear that we also need to be concerned about how it divests the U.S. of any moral authority to condemn the clearly objectionable treatment of peoples like the Palestinians in the name of a war on terror.

    I think that’s enough for now. Let the criticisms begin!

    Thanks for this, and apologies for the delay in posting it on this page.

    The Liberator of Kabul

    November 18th, 2001

    From the BBC:

    ‘Excited’ Simpson regrets Kabul claims

    The BBC’s John Simpson said he is “very, very, very embarrassed” after his widely-reported remarks that he liberated Kabul.

    As he entered the Afghan capital he told viewers it was “extraordinarily exhilarating to be liberating a city”.

    The Taleban had left the city and the veteran correspondent and other BBC staff arrived before the Northern Alliance column.

    His remarks were pilloried by some commentators with even Home Secretary David Blunkett adding a note of sarcasm.

    It was later emphasised that BBC correspondents Rageh Omar, William Reeve and Kate Clarke were already in Kabul.

    Thanks to Jo for sending this to the weblog. She writes: “Not the story itself, you understand, but the fact that it appears in the “Entertainment” section of the BBC news site.”

    Facial Hair

    November 6th, 2001

    It’s time to address the issues that matter. From Online Pravda:

    ISLAMIC BEARD SPECIALIST ANALYSES BIN LADEN
    by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

    “You can say a lot about a person from an analysis of his beard”, according to barber Nazirullah, in Peshawar, Pakistan.

    Barber Nazirullah declares that “Osama Bin Laden is a leader and a fighter. He does not need luxury or comfort. He is a man who can lead a hard life for a long time. He is not worried about anything else”.

    Barber Nazirullah says that a man’s beard, in his culture, can speak volumes about his character. “You can say a lot about someone from the way they grow their beard. Cuts depend on tribal custom and personal preference”. He states that his family have been barbers for three generations and that he understands intrinsically the psyche behind the beard.

    “All Afghans have a beard. It is very important. You can only shave it off to go to a funeral or maybe for the first night with your wife”. Regarding Osama Bin Laden, barber Nazirullah is certain that “he is not worried about his beard like a young man. He lets it grow strongly and naturally. He is also greying, which shows a certain degree of wisdom”.

    Concerning Taleban leader Mullah Omar, barber Nazirullah declares that “I have heard that he has a good beard. Some say that it grows a lot over his nose. Normally, religious people let it grow below the nose”.

    Do you think that you understand — intrinsically or otherwise — the “psyche behind the beard”? There might, of course, be another reason as to why all Afghan men have a beard. Ahmed Rashid, in the fine book that Tony Blair’s supposed to be reading at the moment, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia reminds us (pp.114-5) that:

    “The plight of Afghanistan’s women often hid the fact that urban males did not fare much better under the Taliban, especially non-Pashtuns. All Kabul males were give just six weeks to grow a full beard, even though some of the ethnic groups such as the Hazaras have very limited beard growth. Beards could not be trimmed shorter than a man’s fist, leading to jokes that Afghanistan’s biggest import-export business was male facial hair and that men did not need visas to travel to Afghanistan, they just needed a beard. The religious police stood at street corners cutting off long hair and often beating culprits…”

    If the reindeer is the counter-giraffe (see below), is the eponymous hero of the magnificent Njal’s Saga, a wise Icelander, famous for his inability to grow a beard - and mocked on that account by his enemies, best understood as the counter-Osama-bin-Laden? It’s a fascinating thought.

    Cluster Bombs

    October 30th, 2001

    From the BBC:

    The United States is seeking to avert further criticism over the use of cluster bombs in Afghanistan by warning the Afghan people not to confuse unexploded bombs with food drops.

    Embarrassingly, the bombs’ yellow casing means that from a distance they are hard to distinguish from the emergency food parcels wrapped in yellow plastic that US planes have been dropping over the last few weeks. …

    I’m not sure that “embarrassingly” quite strikes the right note, all things considered.

    Willy-Waving

    October 30th, 2001

    Snippet #3, from last Thursday’s Media Guardian:

    The BBC correspondent, Kate Adie, has dismissed the US war on terrorism as “a load of willy waving”.

    Adie, who was embroiled in a recent row after being accused by Downing Street of revealing classified information about the prime minister’s travel plans, has returned from a trip to the Gulf of Oman.

    And she told the Sun she thought the conflict was “ridiculous”.

    Adie said: “The world’s most powerful nations are fighting one of the weakest. It’s a load of willy waving.”

    She continued: “We’re fighting the wrong people - the hijackers were mainly Saudis. We should concentrate on there and the Middle East.”

    At a party following the National TV awards on Tuesday, Adie, who had just returned from Oman said: “I am in London because this isn’t a proper conflict… I’m waiting for the real story to happen.”

    A war correspondent renowned for her bravery, Adie has been sidelined in the BBC’s coverage of the Allied campaign against Afghanistan.

    Younger female correspondents, such as Jackie Rowland and Orla Guerin, have been used more than Adie, who was briefly with naval ships in the Gulf of Oman.

    In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack, she was sent to New York but returned within days unhappy that she was not required to file for the main TV news bulletins on BBC1.

    The BBC has moved to distance itself from Adie’s remarks.

    Her latest comments follow another outspoken outburst earlier this week, when she accused the BBC of preferring female journalists with “cute faces and cute bottoms” to “old trouts” like herself.

    Thanks to Jo for sending this to the weblog.