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22MAR2004
Arabs, Iran, UK condemn assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
Join the Potomac Tea Party! Send a Tea Bag to George II! 
Throw Out Leaders Who Bring Violence
By Uri Avnery - Gush Shalom
Bravo, Amigos!
A Prime Minister is waging war. The great majority of the people oppose the war. The majority vote for the Prime Minister.
Absurd? Well, that was the situation in Spain. It also applies, more or less, in Israel. But here the similarity ends.
The Spanish people have thrown their Prime Minister out. The Israeli people go on supporting their Prime Minister.
The Spaniards, in their innocence, believe that if a Prime Minister does the opposite of what the great majority of the people want, he has to go. They think that this is what democracy is all about. In Israel, such a thing is unthinkable.
And that is not the only difference.
Of course, the Spanish people arrived at this conclusion under the influence of the big terrorist attack in Madrid. The Spanish reaction was very different from the usual Israeli one.
After the terrorist onslaught, the Spanish asked themselves: why did they do it? What caused this murderous attack on us? The logical answer was: the Prime Minister's policy has brought this on us. The conclusion: Let's find another one.
In Israel, such a question cannot arise. What brought the terrorist attacks on us? What sort of a question is that? The reason for terrorism is the inborn murderous character of the Arabs. It has, of course, nothing at all to do with the policy of our Prime Minister.
When a terrorist outrage happens here, logic flies out of the window. Instead of thinking and asking questions, people shout "death to the Arabs," demand bloody revenge and gather around the Prime Minister.
Another difference: the Spaniards got angry. The Prime Minister lied to them. He exploited the outrage for his election campaign. When he already knew that all the signs pointed to Islamic fanatics, he pretended in public that the attack was perpetrated by the Basque ETA organization. He hoped to garner the votes of those Spaniards who oppose an independent Basque homeland. But the voters understood that this was a lie and did not like it. The Prime Minister is lying to us? To hell with him.
In Israel, when the Prime Minister lies, the public remains apathetic. The Prime Minister has lied to us again? So what? Isn't he always lying? Nothing to get upset about.
One can only envy the Spanish. After a horrible civil war, after decades of an oppressive dictatorship, in spite of domestic splits and many terrorist attacks, what a healthy reaction! What strong democratic instincts!
(By the way: some 500 years ago, half a million Jews were expelled from Spain. In the last decades, almost all the 'sephardim'‹Sepharad is the Hebrew name for Spain‹came to Israel. The great majority of them support Ariel Sharon. Why do the "Spanish" Jews in Israel react differently from the Spanish people back home?)
There is another difference between Spain and Israel, and it may be the decisive one.
Last year I visited Spain. Some days before I arrived, the Prime Minister's party had won an impressive victory in the local elections. The opposition Socialist Party was lying flat out. Everybody spoke of it with contempt, some with pain. The party was in ruins, perhaps beyond redemption.
And then it happened: the party replaced its old leaders with an energetic, fresh one, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. With a lot of luck, this man has now led his party to power.
When the Spanish people were fed up with their Prime Minister, they knew that there was a reasonable alternative. They could throw the ruling party out because there was another party ready to move in.
In Israel, these conditions do not apply. Our leading opposition party, Labor, is also a shambles, but there is no sign of recovery. Quite the contrary.
It is headed by a pathetic person who would make a deal with the devil for a place in Sharon's government. Its other old leaders, all of them certified failures, are already quarrelling about the chairs that Sharon may allot them, should he be so kind as to invite them into his cabinet.
The Israeli situation is surreal: according to all opinion polls, a large part of the public is fed up with the war, the bloody cycle of suicide bombings and targeted assassinations, the settlements and the settlers. They want a solution and are ready to pay the necessary price‹the end of the occupation, a Palestinian state, the dismantling of the settlements, a reasonable compromise about Jerusalem, withdrawal to the vicinity of the Green Line. They want to shift our national resources from occupation and war to economic growth, education and social welfare.
So how does this translate into political realities? It doesn't. There is no serious political force able to offer an alternative leadership.
In Spain that was a temporary situation, which corrected itself in a natural way. In Israel, this situation seems to be permanent.
Therefore, one can not only envy the Spanish, but also learn from them. The political ball is round. It can turn suddenly. What seems to be impossible can become possible if there are good people around, who can convert good intentions into political reality.
I hope that this will happen here, too. True, some people are already standing in line - Tony Blair and George W. Bush. What has happened to Jose Maria Aznar in Spain must happen to them, and I hope that it will. Then, with a lot of courage and a lot of luck, the turn of the fourth in the queue will come, and Ariel Sharon, another man of blood and lies, will be turned out.
We salute our friends at the other end of the Mediterranean Sea - Bravo, amigos!
We can do OUR part‹come to the Teach In To Congress for Middle East Peace in Washington, D.C. April 25-27 - there
is NO substitute for showing up!!! See www.tikkun.org for more
information and registration info. But if you absolutely can't come, how about paying for someone else's expenses
who would want to come but can't afford it? Contact community@tikkun.org, Stephanie at (510) 644-1200
Entertainment News
Did Bush Press For Iraq-9/11 Link?
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism advisor to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.
The charge comes from the advisor, Richard Clarke, in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes.
The administration maintains that it cannot find any evidence that the conversation about an Iraq-9/11 tie-in ever took place.
Clarke also tells CBS News Correspondent Lesley Stahl that White House officials were tepid in their response when he urged them months before Sept. 11 to meet to discuss what he saw as a severe threat from al Qaeda.
"Frankly," he said, "I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."
Clarke went on to say, "I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."
The No. 2 man on the president's National Security Council, Stephen Hadley, vehemently disagrees. He says Mr. Bush has taken the fight to the terrorists, and is making the U.S. homeland safer. Clarke says that as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan.
Clarke suggests the idea took him so aback, he initally thought Rumsfeld was joking.
Clarke is due to testify this week before the special panel probing whether the attacks were preventable.
His allegations are also made in a book, "Against All Enemies," which is being published Monday by Free Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster. Both CBSNews.com and Simon & Schuster are units of Viacom.
Clarke helped shape U.S. policy on terrorism under President Reagan and the first President Bush. He was held over by President Clinton to be his terrorism czar, then held over again by the current President Bush.
In the 60 Minutes interview and the book, Clarke tells what happened behind the scenes at the White House before, during and after Sept. 11.
When the terrorists struck, it was thought the White House would be the next target, so it was evacuated. Clarke was one of only a handful of people who stayed behind. He ran the government's response to the attacks from the Situation Room in the West Wing.
"I kept thinking of the words from 'Apocalypse Now,' the whispered words of Marlon Brando, when he thought about Vietnam. 'The horror. The horror.' Because we knew what was going on in New York. We knew about the bodies flying out of the windows. People falling through the air. We knew that Osama bin Laden had succeeded in bringing horror to the streets of America," he tells Stahl. After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.
"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."
Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.
"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.
"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."
Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'
"I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don't think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don't think he sees memos that he doesn't-- wouldn't like the answer." Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn't take the threat seriously.
"We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.
"There's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too. But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently -- underlined urgently -- a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo-- wasn't acted on.
"I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years."
Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department.
For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz.
Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'
"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."
Clarke went on to add, "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever."
When Stahl pointed out that some administration officials say it's still an open issue, Clarke responded, "Well, they'll say that until hell freezes over." By June 2001, there still hadn't been a Cabinet-level meeting on terrorism, even though U.S. intelligence was picking up an unprecedented level of ominous chatter.
The CIA director warned the White House, Clarke points out. "George Tenet was saying to the White House, saying to the president - because he briefed him every morning - a major al Qaeda attack is going to happen against the United States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. He said that in June, July, August."
Clarke says the last time the CIA had picked up a similar level of chatter was in December, 1999, when Clarke was the terrorism czar in the Clinton White House.
Clarke says Mr. Clinton ordered his Cabinet to go to battle stations-- meaning, they went on high alert, holding meetings nearly every day.
That, Clarke says, helped thwart a major attack on Los Angeles International Airport, when an al Qaeda operative was stopped at the border with Canada, driving a car full of explosives.
Clarke harshly criticizes President Bush for not going to battle stations when the CIA warned him of a comparable threat in the months before Sept. 11: "He never thought it was important enough for him to hold a meeting on the subject, or for him to order his National Security Adviser to hold a Cabinet-level meeting on the subject."
Finally, says Clarke, "The cabinet meeting I asked for right after the inauguration took place-- one week prior to 9/11."
In that meeting, Clarke proposed a plan to bomb al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan, and to kill bin Laden. The president's new campaign ads highlight his handling of Sept. 11 -- which has become the centerpiece of his bid for re-election.
Does a person who works for the White House owe the president his loyalty? "Up to a point. When the president starts doing things that risk American lives, then loyalty to him has to be put aside," says Clarke. "I think the way he has responded to al Qaeda, both before 9/11 by doing nothing, and by what he's done after 9/11 has made us less safe. Absolutely."
Hadley staunchly defended the president to Stahl: "The president heard those warnings. The president met daily with ... George Tenet and his staff. They kept him fully informed and at one point the president became somewhat impatient with us and said, 'I'm tired of swatting flies. Where's my new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda?'"
Hadley says that, contrary to Clarke's assertion, Mr. Bush didn't ignore the ominous intelligence chatter in the summer of 2001.
"All the chatter was of an attack, a potential al Qaeda attack overseas. But interestingly enough, the president got concerned about whether there was the possibility of an attack on the homeland. He asked the intelligence community: 'Look hard. See if we're missing something about a threat to the homeland.'
"And at that point various alerts went out from the Federal Aviation Administration to the FBI saying the intelligence suggests a threat overseas. We don't want to be caught unprepared. We don't want to rule out the possibility of a threat to the homeland. And therefore preparatory steps need to be made. So the president put us on battle stations."
Hadley asserts Clarke is "just wrong" in saying the administration didn't go to battle stations.
As for the alleged pressure from Mr. Bush to find an Iraq-9/11 link, Hadley says, "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."
When told by Stahl that 60 Minutes has two sources who tell us independently of Clarke that the encounter happened, including "an actual witness," Hadley responded, "Look, I stand on what I said."
Hadley maintained, "Iraq, as the president has said, is at the center of the war on terror. We have narrowed the ground available to al Qaeda and to the terrorists. Their sanctuary in Afghanistan is gone; their sanctuary in Iraq is gone. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now allies on the war on terror. So Iraq has contributed in that way in narrowing the sanctuaries available to terrorists."Does Clarke think that Iraq, the Middle East and the world is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power?
"I think the world would be better off if a number of leaders around the world were out of power. The question is what price should the United States pay," says Clarke. "The price we paid was very, very high, and we're still paying that price for doing it."
"Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country. He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda ... we stepped right into bin Laden's propaganda," adds Clarke. "And the result of that is that al Qaeda and organizations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened."
When Clarke worked for Mr. Clinton, he was known as the terrorism czar. When Mr. Bush came into office, though remaining at the White House, Clarke was stripped of his Cabinet-level rank.
Stahl said to Clarke, "They demoted you. Aren't you open to charges that this is all sour grapes, because they demoted you and reduced your leverage, your power in the White House?"
Clarke's answer: "Frankly, if I had been so upset that the National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism had been downgraded from a Cabinet level position to a staff level position, if that had bothered me enough, I would have quit. I didn't quit."
Until two years later, after 30 years in government service.
A senior White House official told 60 Minutes he thinks the Clarke book is an audition for a job in the Kerry campaign.
"I'm an independent. I'm not working for the Kerry campaign," says Clarke. "I have worked for Ronald Reagan. I have worked for George Bush the first, I have worked for George Bush the second. I'm not participating in this campaign, but I am putting facts out that I think people ought to know."
60 Minutes received a note from the Pentagon saying: "Any suggestion that the president did anything other than act aggressively, quickly and effectively to address the al Qaeda and Taliban threat in Afghanistan is absurd."
Richard Clarke is the author of Against All Enemies : Inside the White House's War on Terror - What Really
Happened.
Courtney,
Britney,
Ben Aflak, and
Tammy Faye Ho-hum...
Ed. note: Why reputable journalists are afraid of the CIA-911 story is beyond me and my new puppet
Shake Ayatolljahso. Everyone is clammering for the Bush White House to come clean - knowing how the story ends
already - and won't just go ahead and say so, for fear of a Conspracy Theorist accusation? If it walks like a duck, muthuh-@#$%!
Dan Pipes of Hating Muslims for a Living fame has come out with an interesting October Surprise de-bunking
that goes to the heart of Reagan manipulating the 52/444 situation but leaves wide open the Iran-Contra
affair (as though they were not one and the very same); that as a cast of some dead and alive principals,
accomplices, mentors and spuksfolk that includes the same then as the
same now in the Iraq war; namely, Elliot Abrams, John Ashcroft, Robert Bartley, William Bennett, John Bolton,
Philip Carroll, Ahmed Chalabi, Big Dick Cheney, Lynn Cheney (Mrs. Big Dick), Midge Decter (Mrs. Norman Podhoretz),
Tom DeLay, Jerry Falwell, Douglas Feith, Fellah al-Khawaja, Tommy Franks, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney,
Jesse Helms, James Inhofe, Bruce Jackson, Robert Kagan, Robert Kaplan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer,
Irving Kristol, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen,
Lewis Libby, John McConnell, Michael Mobb, Ruppert Murdoch, Bibi Netanyahu, Richard Perle, Dan Pipes, Norman Podhoretz, Oliver North, John Poindexter, Colin Powell, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson,
Dennis Ross, William Safire, Antonin Scalia, Randy Scheunemann,
Matthew Scully, Ariel Sharon, Joseph Shattan, Leo Strauss,
Donald Rumsfeld, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser (Mrs. David Wurmser), Albert Wohlstetter,
Paul Wolfowitz, and James Woolsey.
Also see
Jay Garner, who up until last week or so would likely have been dug in deep with all of the above.
Greg Palast seems to be following this one as close as anyone.
Somewhere in this mass of human derangement we got put on us the makins of a war in Iraq that had nothing at all
to do with 911 or WMD or any such thing. 911 was about the Bush White House neocon-CIA. It was about Mossad and
al-Qaida. It is about Palestinian real estate. It is about insecure and greedy Christian Zionists and (presumably
Jewish) Israeli Zionists who not satisfied with pre-67 war boundries, want for the American (by another name)
Empire to also include Iraq and Syria. The war in Iraq is about mad men who wrestled sanity away from ordinary
people, for a while... And oil? See Neocons at work: Israel gets its 1st slice of Iraqi pie.
Since I last mentioned tomdispatch in these pages, Tom Engelhardt has cranked out a half dozen
crashers (which you may access at
tomdispatch, (natch!). Today's
One year later than what? takes a look at what happened Saturday, around the world, and in Tom's home (New
York City) town.
Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin killed in Israeli air strike
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and leader of the Hamas militant group that targeted Israelis in suicide bombings, was killed by missiles fired from Israeli helicopters as he left a mosque at daybreak Monday, witnesses said.
Tens of thousands of Gaza residents, many of them in tears, poured into the streets after Hamas announced the death of the quadriplegic Yassin over mosque loudspeakers. Masked fighters at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where Yassin's body was taken, shot into the air in rage. Angry mourners burned tires, sending black smoke over Gaza City.
Hamas, listed as a terrorist group by both the United States and Israel, vowed revenge against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and hinted at targeting the United States for supporting Israel. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group allied with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, also promised swift retaliation.
The Palestinian Authority declared three days of mourning and said the Israelis had crossed "all red lines with this cheap and dirty crime."
The Israeli army imposed a full closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip after Yassin's killing and divided Gaza into three areas, preventing movement between them.
Witnesses said Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at Yassin and two bodyguards as they left the mosque, killing them instantly. He was carried around in a special car that could accommodate his wheelchair.
Four people were killed and 17 were wounded in the attack, hospital officials said.
Yussef Haddad, 35, a taxi driver, said he saw the missiles hit Yassin and the bodyguards.
"Their bodies were shattered," he said.
Yassin was by far the most senior Palestinian militant killed in more than three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Since September 2000, 474 people - the majority of them Israelis - have been killed in 112 Palestinian suicide bombings, most of them carried out by Hamas.
On March 14, a double suicide attack in the Israeli port of Ashdod killed 10 Israelis.
"He was responsible in a direct way for dozens of attacks and the deaths of hundreds of citizens of Israel, foreign citizens and security forces," said army spokeswoman Maj. Sharon Feingold.
One Israeli official recently said Yassin was "marked for death." Sharon's government has gone after militant leaders using Israeli helicopter gunships in a controversial policy that has resulted in a number of civilian casualties in addition to the deaths of senior figures in Hamas and other groups.
Sharon's office declined to comment, but Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio, "I said for a long time that Yassin is a target for killing. He was not immune."
More than 150 Palestinian militants have been killed in targeted raids, according to Palestinian medical officials, although that total also includes militants killed resisting arrest.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia accused the Israelis of trying to escalate violence with the Palestinians.
"This is one of the biggest crimes that the Israeli government has committed," Qureia told The Associated Press. "Sheik Ahmed Yassin is one of the most important leaders in the Palestinian factions and Israel does know well what they had committed this morning."
The U.S. State Department urged calm.
"We're looking into the circumstances and are in touch with Israeli and Palestinian authorities," spokesman Lou Fintor said. "The United States urges all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint."
In August 2003, the Bush administration froze the financial assets of six top officials of Hamas as well as five European charities said to be sending cash to the militants. President George W. Bush took the action after Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a packed bus in Jerusalem that killed 20 people.
U.S. officials have said their conservative estimate is that Hamas raised several million dollars in the United States during the previous decade.
Yassin was viewed as an inspirational figure by his followers in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. His death could spur violent protests not only in the Palestinian areas but in the wider Arab and Islamic world, where he was well regarded as a symbol of the Palestinian battle for independence.
In announcing Yassin's death, Hamas said, "(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon has opened the gates of hell and nothing will stop us from cutting off his head."
In a statement faxed to The Associated Press, Hamas said, "The Zionists didn't carry out their operation without getting the consent of the terrorist American Administration, and it must take responsibility for this crime."
The threat against the United States would represent a change of tactics for the militant group.
Al Aqsa, a secular group responsible for dozens of attacks on Israelis, said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press, "An eye for an eye, and the retaliation will be in the coming hours, God willing."
Outside the morgue at Shifa Hospital, Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh, a close associate of Yassin, said, "This is the moment Sheik Yassin dreamed about. Sheik Yassin lived and died and offered his life to Palestine.
"Sheik Yassin was a hero and a fighter and the leader of a nation, and (he) is in heaven now."
Cars drove through the streets blaring calls for revenge over loudspeakers. Some aired recordings of Yassin, saying, "We chose this road, and will end with martyrdom or victory."
Mosques read passages from the Qur'an and two Gaza churches rang their church bells.
Yassin, who was paralysed at age 12 in a sporting accident, founded Hamas at the start of the first Palestinian intefadeh, or uprising, in 1987. It is an offshoot of the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, which is based in Egypt.
Yassin was held in Israeli prisons for several years before being released in 1994.
Yassin lived in a modest house in the rundown Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City. Israel, which blamed him for inspiring Hamas bombers and attackers who killed hundreds of Israelis, tried unsuccessfully to kill him in September by dropping a 250-kilogram bomb on a building where he was meeting with top Hamas leaders.
Yassin suffered a slight wound to his hand and 15 others were wounded.
Past Israeli governments were reluctant to target Yassin, fearing a firestorm of revenge attacks.
20MAR2004
Asteroid Misses Earth by 26,000 Miles
Muslims against terror
By Sheema Kahn - Globe and Mail
The Todd Bertuzzi "hit" evoked much soul-searching across the land -- confirming the integral role of hockey in our national identity.
Outside Canada, editorials pilloried our game. While the brutal attack was universally condemned, there was disagreement about the lesson from this incident. Some saw it as an unfortunate manifestation of unwritten lines being crossed. Threats by Vancouver players, overlooked as trash talk, were carried through.
Most, however, saw this as an escalation in a series of violent incidents, combined with an ever-increasing level of acceptable violence. For them, the game has become unhinged -- transformed from a thing of beauty, speed and skill to an ugly parade of clutching, stick work and fisticuffs. Often, the most outspoken critics of the "Cherryfication" of hockey are the game's most ardent supporters. They will not stand by silently and watch the sport they cherish degenerate into thuggery.
Then our intense navel-gazing was jolted to another, far more dangerous reality: the mass murder of commuters in Madrid. The authorities point once again to al-Qaeda or its offshoots. Whether in Manhattan, Bali, Istanbul, Mombassa, Riyadh or, now, Madrid, the perpetrators are the same: cowardly animals deluded to believe they are fulfilling some grotesque religious duty by mowing down defenceless civilians.
Payback time, they argue, for the innocent civilians killed in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq. The trash talk of the past has now turned into deadly reality. And with the accessibility of biological and nuclear weapons, future threats become unthinkable.
A certain amount of responsibility lies with those religious leaders who have blurred the line between armed combatants and unarmed civilians. From day one, Prophet Mohammed made a clear distinction between the two. Today, however, proponents of violence use dishonest logic to claim the absence of an "innocent" civilian.
Ordinary citizens -- by virtue of belonging to the state -- assume responsibility for its crimes. Collective guilt therefore implies collective punishment. Lest we forget, this policy has been used by successive Israeli administrations against the Palestinians, along with Middle East dictators, to silence opponents.
The perverse logic further categorizes Muslim casualties as "collateral damage," a necessary evil, for the greater cause of inflicting damage on the "enemy." This slippery slope has now led to a freefall of mayhem directed at anyone and everyone -- Shia pilgrims in Iraq; worshippers in Pakistan; commuters in Spain.
For Muslims, news of each such attack cuts like a knife. The emotional burden is threefold. First, there is the sheer horror of witnessing the carnage of terror. Second is the knowledge that the perpetrators are Muslim. Third is the fact that in spite of arduous condemnations, they remain a community under suspicion.
Muslims know deep down inside that Islam nurtures mercy while encouraging its adherents to the highest standards of morality. If only they could disown the lunatic fringe who use it as an instrument of fear.
Then there is the issue of social participation, which for a community as young as ours, can be quite challenging.
While institutions have unanimously condemned terrorism, their statements have largely been unreported by the media. Activists often suffer burnout, due to the maintenance of a defensive posture in the face of constant negative media coverage about Islam. Some have become exasperated by the lack of credulity accorded to their sincere denunciations of religious extremism. Yet others are tired of having to always apologize for the actions of a few.
Giving up, however, is not an option. And so, a young, fragmented community continues to reiterate its abhorrence of mass murder.
Mosque sermons, religion study circles and community lectures are used as platforms to reaffirm the sanctity of life as central to Islamic teachings. Even Arab satellite channels broadcast 30-second spots reminding Muslims of this central tenet.
There are also individuals who stand out for integrity at times of difficulty. One such example is Laura Zajchowski, a PhD candidate in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the University of Calgary.
A Muslim community activist who has written and spoken out against terrorism, she concedes that "at times, it feels like an exercise in futility. No matter how many times you speak out, there is an assumption of guilt by association." Nonetheless Laura is certain of the long-term benefit for each action -- no matter how small -- taken to condemn terror.
She believes that it is the substantive hard work at the grassroots level that will actually constructively guard against terrorism. This work, which largely occurs beneath the radar of the media, is something far more precious than media public relations. These are the individuals who spend their time and money supporting mosque open houses and tours, speaking to interfaith groups, companies and community associations, liaising with the police and civic institutions, or simply speaking with their colleagues, neighbours and friends. Much of this dialogue is directed at getting out the message that Muslims and Islam do not support terrorism.
Laura has given considerable thought to development from within, pointing to many who are working to establish morally and intellectually viable institutions, aiming to work with youth, or working to establish social services to help families and communities. She adds: "All of this work is as important as any other when it comes to fighting terrorism in all of its forms by vaccinating against ignorance, lack of spirituality, lack of morality and ethics, and the abusive environments that make our youth vulnerable to extreme ideologies of all stripes. Such initiatives also aim to encourage them to become responsible individuals, active servants of God striving to improve Canadian society." Such diversity of action reflects the spontaneity and dynamism of ordinary people to do what they can to reverse a deteriorating situation.
Nonetheless, Laura -- along with others -- recognizes the need to raise the volume. "And even if it's not fair, we do have to condemn these things over and over again, and be very vocal due to the situation we are placed in," she says. But how best to get the message across to the wider Canadian public that Muslims stand in solidarity with humanity everywhere against such evil? In addition to the grassroots initiatives, there have been suggestions to hold a large-scale peaceful demonstration by all Canadians -- including Muslims -- against terrorism. A coalition of the peaceful.
Laura's reaction? "I would love to see and be a part of such a powerful expression." Knowing the grassroots
dynamism across this land, good things are indeed possible. sheema.khan@globeandmail.ca
Ed. note: Ooops! We missed getting out a Friday edition of the e-Geeze. I won't bother you with the details. So, in the tradition of the
Saturday Evening Post, here goes...
New Computer Virus: Not a Hoax!
Posted herewith is a heads-up the new variants of the Bagle virus, known as Bagle-P, Q, R,- and T, exploit known flaws in
Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Outlook and Media Player programs to run a small hypertext language
message that downloads the virus directly into the target computer. See
New, more dangerous Net viruses unleashed by Jeff Lee.
We encourage you to mark this First (and hopefully last) Anniversary of the Bush White House war on Iraq in
the way you feel most comfortable. True Majority set up a way for you to easily send a letter to the editor of
your local newspaper calling for Bush to be held accountable. Just click
here. It's easy.
For public rallies and teach-ins around the nation, check out the "upcoming events" section on the left-hand side
of the United for Peace and Justice Website.
For help in putting together a moment of prayer in your local house of worship this weekend, check out
the
National Council of Churches Website.
If you haven't done so already,
send Congress a fax calling for censure of the president. [Thanks to True Majority]
The Earth narrowly missed being thrown into a new Ice Age (to counter Global Warming) the other day, when an
asteroid flew by. No one saw it coming, hardly anyone saw it leave. Here today, gone tomorrow. That quick. Poof...
The Scotsman did a nice
story on it, and so did Universe Today Nice illustrations too.
In the midst of the
Bush Medicare Reform Bill Become a Nightmare for GOP, and although the Smoking Guns are In
plain sight, Bush is still not being impeached as ex-advisor says
Bush Eyed Bombing of
Iraq on 9/11, the Daily Mislead brought us
Bush Markets Burmese Products - Evades Own Trade Ban. Any way you look at it,
with or without the religious card The GOP is a Hypocritical Mass. [Thanks to BuzzFlash]
 
As you can see from the Sheema Kahn article (above), like most Canadians, ordinary
Muslims recoil against those who appropriate the name of Islam to attack the innocent, while at the same time
ordinary Muslims can't seem to
apologize enough for
the terrorist activities of others who practice terrorism in the Name of Islam. Mainly this is done so Massa don't
over-react, round us all up and take us to jail. (The Muslim chaplain,
Capt. James Yee was rounded up and taken to jail. Yee has since
been exonerated and turned loose. Never mind that since the uncautionaable and un-Constitutional act against him
for being a Muslim, his life has been turned up-side-down). Secondly, the Muslims apologize and are very sorry because
invariably, when terrorist acts happen, Muslims too are victims of those crimes against humanity. While the
concept of Martyrdom does wonders for the psyche, the fact is, in the aftermath of terrorism and individual acts
of terror, there is grief, and there are grieving close ones who mourn the loss of their loved ones whose lives
ended at the hands of madmen.
The other day some
Christian missionaries were "martyred" in Iraq; likely they died, not because they were
Christians or Americans, but because it was a terrorist act against humanity, and they were in the wrong
place at the wrong time. So goes the Will of God, as the Muslim apologists and the martyred Christian's
pastor (somewhere in California) would (and did) say. If one were to be cynical or Paul Harvey-esque, one
could ask what is the rest of the story. Maybe the presence of Christian missionaries in the majority-Muslim
country is
highly resented by locals as another element of foreign interference. About 100 are reported to have
entered Iraq since Baghdad fell last April. Furthermore, the
International Bible Society has distributed 10,000 books in Arabic, titled Christ Has Brought Peace.
[Thanks to al-Jazeera]
I only mention all of this to point out two things. One, you talk about terror, try this: CIA handiwork that
includes Iran, Guatamala, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Cuba, Salvador Allende, Che Guavara, Archbishop
Oscar Romero, Afghanistan,
and two; everyday there are stories about Muslim, Jewish and Christian peacenik-types acting in an ecuminical manner.
Just as the suicide bombers or those who use $20,000 "smart bombs" don't quit with their terror, the intentionally
peaceful
don't give up either. Who will ultimately win in the Battle of Good (peace) against Evil (war)? We'll hafta wait
and see. Likely we won't see film at 11, or even in our lifetimes.
Also, I don't want to spend my whole life on the subject of Mel Gibson and how he missed the whole point of
Jesus' life - from a Christian perspective - by getting hung up on his death and Gibson's unintended consequences
and more death to those perceived to be responsible for the Death of Christ; a quite unimaginable concept after
500 micrograms of LSD-25 and a reading of Leary and Alpert's The Psychedelic Experience - A
Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Nonetheless, the
Jewish peacenik Tikkun Magazine has taken another shot, so we'll
stick with them for one more round, and archive their thoughts for safe keeping.
Sacred Heart dedicates new tapestry
By Mandy Rorrer - West Virginia Gazette
Members of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths came together Sunday at Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral to celebrate
a story of hospitality common to all three religions.
Sacred Heart held a special Mass on Sunday, and invited members of the Jewish and Islamic faiths to dedicate
a new tapestry in the church's addition.
The four-paneled tapestry depicts Abraham showing hospitality to three mysterious visitors. Abraham's son Isaac
was the founder of the Jewish faith, and his son Ishmael was an ancestor of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad,
according to traditional stories.
The Rev. Edward Sadie, Sacred Heart's rector, said he had the idea several years ago to create a tapestry
depicting Abraham's story. He had the tapestry designed by a Canadian company, and placed it in Sacred Heart's
new addition.
Sadie also wanted the tapestry to include the word "hospitality" in Greek, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew. The tapestry
makers sent back a sketch with several words for "hospitality" in Arabic and Hebrew, and Sadie said he had to ask
Rabbi Victor Urecki of B'Nai Jacob Synagogue and Imam Mohammad Jamal Daoudi of the Islamic Association of West
Virginia to choose the appropriate form.
Urecki and Daoudi were invited to Sunday's Mass, and offered Jewish and Muslim prayers before the Most Rev.
Michael Fitzgerald blessed the tapestry. Both noted the importance of Abraham¹s story to their religions.
"If the goal of our religions is to bring glory to the name of God, then how blessed is his name today," Urecki
said before reciting a prayer Jewish people reserve for joyous occasions.
Sadie invited Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, to Sunday's service.
Fitzgerald regularly sends letters to followers of different faiths that note the common links between Christian
and non-Christian religions. He usually distributes the letters around important dates in the other faiths'
religious calendars.
Sadie considers Sacred Heart's new addition a hospitality room for visitors.
"Most Catholic churches have a gathering space, and prior to the new addition, we only had the small
vestibule. This gives people the opportunity to mill around," he said. "It's working the way we envisioned."
To contact staff writer Mandy Rorrer, use e-mail or call 348-5163. Photo: Kenny Kemp. The Most Rev. Michael
Fitzgerald and Bishop Bernard Schmitt lead the congregation at Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral in blessing a tapestry
in the cathedral's addition.
Army drops all charges against Muslim chaplain James Yee
By Sam Skolnik - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The U.S. Army dropped all charges against Capt. James Yee yesterday, ending a six-month ordeal in which the former Fort Lewis chaplain had been branded a possible traitor and was charged with a range of accusations including mishandling documents and viewing pornography on his computer.
Yee's backers said the formal dismissal vindicates their contention that the former chaplain at a Guantanamo Bay detention center for suspected terrorists was targeted because of his Chinese heritage -- and his Muslim faith.
In dismissing the charges, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which operates the detention center, cited "national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence" if the case proceeded.
"In the grand scheme of things, and in the interest of national security, General Miller felt like the charges needed to be dropped," said Lt. Col. Bill Costello, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command. "It seemed to be the prudent way to proceed."
But Yee's attorney, Washington, D.C., lawyer Eugene Fidell, said he couldn't understand the military's shadowy explanation.
"I wouldn't begin to speculate about that," said Fidell. "I do think their explanation doesn't wash."
Fidell said instead that the allegations may have been prompted in part by heightened post-Sept. 11 concerns about Muslim terrorists and their alleged American supporters.
"People were working on a hair-trigger, and allowed some stereotyping to come into the picture," he said.
Yee's Seattle-area supporters were more blunt.
"This very much proves to us that (the federal government is) hyper-sensitive in profiling Muslims," said Samia El-Moslimany, an official with the Seattle chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We will not forget this."
Yee, 36, was arrested Sept. 10 at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida after getting off a flight from Guantanamo Bay, where he had been serving as a prison chaplain.
Military officials initially had linked Yee to a possible espionage ring at Guantanamo, where he had been counseling prisoners.
Yee spent 76 days in custody while military lawyers tried to build their espionage case.
They failed. Instead, they charged him with mishandling classified material, failing to obey an order, making a false official statement, adultery and conduct unbecoming an officer for downloading pornography on his government laptop computer.
Military hearings on whether Yee would face a court-martial on those charges were delayed six times. He would have faced dismissal from the military and up to 14 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
Fidell said last week that a proposed settlement was being discussed.
Though all the charges were dropped, the military will hold a hearing Monday regarding the adultery and pornography charges, Fidell said.
According to a news release from the U.S. Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Miller will offer Yee some sort of "non-judicial punishment" under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice on those allegations.
Yee likely will return to Fort Lewis after the Article 15 matter is decided, the news release stated.
Yee recently had been stationed in Fort Mead in Maryland.
Yee's wife, Huda Suboh, said she planned to fly today to the East Coast to join her husband.
"This has been a really bad experience," she said in an interview last night from her home in Olympia, where she lives with their daughter. "It broke my heart. It's hard when someone talks about your husband like that. I don't want any more people to go through the same thing."
This report includes information from The Associated Press. P-I reporter Sam Skolnik can be reached at
206-448-8176 or samskolnik@seattlepi.com.
Ed. note Also see
MILITARY DROPS ALL CHARGES AGAINST CHAPLAIN, by Ray Rivera and Ralph Thomas - Seattle Times. "The fading
espionage case against Army Capt. James Yee, the Muslim chaplain who ministered to Guantánamo Bay prisoners, came
to an abrupt end yesterday after the U.S. military dropped all charges against him..."
Islamic rights group files FCC complaint over LA radio skit
By Jeff Wilson - Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - An Islamic rights group has filed a federal complaint against talk radio station KFI-AM and parent Clear Channel Communications because of a skit mocking the new Iraqi constitution, saying it advocated killing Jews and banned such western teachings as "bathing on a regular basis."
The station issued an on-air apology after the Anaheim-based Southern California office of
the Council on American-Islamic Relations
filed complaints about the March 10 skit with the Federal Communications Commission.
The skit on morning host Bill Handel's show featured a pretend Muslim allegedly reading from the new Iraqi
constitution using a heavy accent.
Its preamble said the constitution would promote injustice and the subjugation of women. Those entering heaven
would be granted 72 virgins (an apparent reference to statements by the Sept. 11 hijackers) who would "not be
hairy Iraqi women, but lovely Japanese schoolgirls." Iraqi adults, the skit said, would be allowed consenting
relationships with "loving camels and goats."
The mock-Muslim repeatedly praised Allah while reading the script, which included sections that said "death to
the Jews," "kill all the Jews" and "the Hebrew must die."
KFI program director Robin Bertolucci said the station didn't
intend to bash Muslims.
In an on-air apology read Wednesday, she said the station acknowledged the skit was "offensive to some members of
the Muslim community. For that we are sorry. KFI is committed to all of its Southern California listeners,
including those in the Muslim community."
Despite the apology, the Islamic organization said it would pursue the complaint it faxed this week to the
FCC's Washington headquarters.
"These Islamophobic comments are outrageous and hurtful, and only serve to increase animosity and hatred against
the American Muslim community," the complaint stated.
Telephone messages left Friday with the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau were not immediately
returned.
"The FCC still needs to look into it. Talk shows think they can get away with bashing Muslims," the Islamic
council's Sabiha Khan told The Associated Press.
The station received hundreds of telephone calls, faxes and e-mail complaints, KFI said.
Texas-based Clear Channel Communications, which last month announced a zero-tolerance policy toward indecency and pulled radio personality Howard Stern off Clear Channel stations, also apologized in a statement Thursday.
"The thoughts and opinions expressed by on-air personalities and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of KFI, its employees or Clear Channel Communications," the statement read. "We deeply apologize to our listeners who may have been offended."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), with headquarters in Washington, is the nation's largest Islamic civil liberties group with 26 regional offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada.
Ed. note When this story first surfaced, CAIR representatives were clear about the difference between
Free Speech and common respect and civility.
"While we understand and appreciate the concept of comic satire, this skit obviously crossed the line from
comedy
to outright bigotry and racism that could negatively impact the lives of ordinary American Muslims,"
said CAIR-LA Communications Director Sabiha Khan. Khan said the KFI program contained some of the most hate-filled
and Islamophobic statements reported to CAIR in recent years.
In her letter to the FCC, Khan wrote: "Increased ratings should not be obtained at the expense of any culture or
religion. We fully respect and value freedom of speech, including for Mr. Handel, however, these Islamophobic
comments are outrageous and hurtful, and only serve to increase animosity and hatred against the American Muslim
community. No doubt, such bigotry would not, and should not, be tolerated if it were directed toward any other
ethnic or religious group."
We are reminded again about the
Salmon Rushdie episode. Rushdie had the right to say and write what he said and wrote in
The Satanic Verses. What he said and wrote was lame. Remarkably, after Rushdie's Satanic Verses experience,
including the Fatwa that came down on him issued by Imam Khomeini, Rushdie was never again able to write with the
kind of genius that brought
Shame to the world of literature.
The offensive skit (recording) is posted on the
CAIR website.
More Spy Powers for the FBI? Bad Move
By Jane Black - BusinessWeek Onlin
Now the feds are demanding that the FCC grant full access to tap all sorts of Net communications. It simply isn't necessary
On Mar. 12, the Justice Dept., FBI, and Drug Enforcement Administration delivered an 83-page petition to the Federal Communications Commission demanding dramatic new surveillance powers. If they're approved, the FBI would have the right to require Internet service providers (ISPs), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) companies, and others that rely on broadband access to the Net to redesign their networks to support standards designed by law enforcement for wiretapping and tracing.
The FBI already can require phone companies to do this under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, better known as CALEA (see BW Online, 2/27/03, "These Are Not Your Father's Wiretaps"). And to some, the expansion of these powers to the Net seems reasonable. After all, CALEA's goal is to help law enforcement keep pace with changes in telecommunications technology, and never before in that industry's history has there been such rapid, tumultuous change. Today, calls are made over the Internet and via peer-to-peer networks such as Skype, and people often communicate more through e-mail and instant messaging than they do face-to-face (see BW Online, 1/6/04, "Skype: Telephony as File Trading").
The FBI warns that unless it has some influence over these new technologies, it'll be unable to keep up with terrorists and thieves. "The ability of federal, state, and local law enforcement to carry out critical electronic surveillance is being compromised today," the petition warns, adding that the task of protecting the public is growing more difficult every day. The FBI has asked the FCC to solicit comments on its proposal by Apr. 12 -- a lightening pace for the federal agency where matters of this kind normally take months, if not years, to be decided.
FOURTH AMENDMENT DEBATE. Political pressure to cave in to FBI demands is sure to be intense. But the FCC should think carefully before O.K.'ing this proposal. That's because what might appear a straightforward extension of a 10-year-old law is actually a land grab for new surveillance powers. Under CALEA, surveillance is no longer a "method of last resort" -- the phrase Congress used when authorizing wiretapping in 1968. Instead, it's a primary goal.
The FBI's latest request would extend the use of surveillance well beyond Internet phone companies. Legal experts warn that the ruling would apply to all ISPs, instant messaging services, even the likes of Sony (SNE ) and Microsoft (MSFT ), which make Internet-ready video-game consoles for multiplayer gaming.
"The heart of this debate is about the Fourth Amendment in the 21st century," says Marc Rotenburg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. "Do we tell law enforcement that they can architect and oversee the development of communications technology, or do we maintain that they only should have access to information with reasonable cause and permission from a judge?"
READY TO COOPERATE. Privacy advocates know how they would answer. But let's consider the FBI's case. In its petition, the agency claims that "communications among surveillance targets are being lost and associated call-identifying information is not being provided in a timely manner" thanks to "providers who have failed to implement CALEA-compliant intercept capabilities."
O.K., where's the proof? Anecdotal information and plenty of press reports in the wake of September 11 reveal that corporations are willing -- often very willing -- to hand over any data requested by federal law enforcers. Cable companies such as Time Warner (TWC ) and Cox (COX ) have voluntarily developed their own wiretapping capabilities, often in concert with the FBI.
And leading consumer VoIP provider Vonage says it has been cooperating with law enforcement for the past 18 months, handing over call records, logs, and billing information when material is subpoenaed. It's true that Vonage doesn't yet have the ability to tap its lines. But to date, it has never been required by law to intercept calls, according to company spokesperson Brooke Schultz. Vonage engineers are now developing a standard to meet the FBI's needs.
BOTTLENECK CHECKPOINTS. Moreover, since when has tracking information on the Internet become so difficult? Internet technologies use standard protocols. And though each call or e-mail is chopped up into hundreds or thousands of pieces and sent over various routes, each packet hits one of several Internet bottlenecks.
"There are very few aspects of Net technology that can't yield up their secrets," says Stewart Baker, a Washington (D.C.) attorney who represents several large broadband providers and Internet portals. "Law enforcement may never have the convenience that it had when it was dealing with one telephone company in the U.S. But voluntary cooperation [as opposed to federal mandates] will make it difficult for criminals to operate using common Internet services."
I don't usually buy arguments for self-regulation, but Baker has a point. Even peer-to-peer phone service Skype, which automatically encrypts every call, is likely to cooperate with the feds when presented with a subpoena. Hosting terrorists, drug dealers, or other criminals on the network is bad business.
SHAM SCENARIO? Finally, it's not clear why the FBI needs new regulations to expand its power in the first place. It has long used a snooping technology called Carnivore to monitor the flow of communications across ISP networks. Since September 11, the Justice Dept. has won dramatic increases in legal authority thanks to the Patriot Act, including the right to use special subpoenas that don't require a judge to sign off under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
In 2002, the FISA Court approved all 1,228 applications it received for wiretaps, up from 934 applications in 2001. The Justice Dept.'s budget also has skyrocketed. In 2003, it was $30.1 billion, up 22% from $24.5 billion in 2001 -- an indication that the FBI should be experiencing no shortage of resources.
In short, the FBI's claim that it lacks the authority or means to track criminal communication over new technologies seems at best disingenuous, at worst a sham. The FCC should reject the FBI's proposal -- or at least demand more proof that it needs such sweeping new powers. Law enforcement does require the ability to monitor Internet communications if and when there's suspicious activity. But it can do that without the power to approve or redesign Internet technology so that its primary feature is surveillance.
Black covers privacy issues for BusinessWeek Online in her twice-monthly Privacy Matters column
Injustice in Afghanistan
Washington Post Editorial
Under pressure from the Supreme Court and many foreign governments, the Bush administration at last has begun to take steps toward providing a review process for the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. But it has yet to address the less publicized but possibly more serious problems surrounding its detention of foreign nationals elsewhere in the world. Under the guise of the war on terrorism, the U.S. military and CIA are holding hundreds, if not thousands, of suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly other locations under conditions of extraordinary secrecy and without any formal legal process. Many of the detentions are a necessary and normal part of ongoing military operations, and many of those detained are terrorists or others who might accurately be described as "illegal combatants." Nevertheless, as a new report by Human Rights Watch on Afghanistan has documented, the Bush administration's practice of refusing to follow the Geneva Conventions or any other rule of law has led to abuses that are an affront to fundamental American values.
The 60-page report on U.S. practices in Afghanistan during the past two years details questionable or possibly criminal behavior by American personnel, including the use of excessive force during arrests and systematic mistreatment of some detainees. It shows that U.S. interrogators have used practices, such as prolonged shackling and sleep deprivation, that the State Department's annual human rights report describes as torture when they are used by other countries. Perhaps most disturbing, it documents how numerous Afghan civilians have been held for periods of up to a year or more without charge, "virtually incommunicado without any legal basis for challenging their detention or seeking their release."
U.S. authorities have never disclosed how many prisoners are being held or where, nor have they permitted visits by family members or lawyers to those detained. No charges have been brought against any of the prisoners. "Simply put," the report concludes, "the United States is acting outside the rule of law."
The Pentagon also appears to be avoiding accountability for those abuses that have come to light. Of particular concern are the unexplained deaths of three detainees in U.S. custody, including two men whose deaths at Bagram Air Base in December 2002 were ruled homicides by medical investigators. When the cases were disclosed through a leak to the New York Times more than a year ago, U.S. spokesmen said an investigation was underway. But no results of the probe have been announced. The silence is shameful: It could be taken to suggest that suspects can be killed in U.S. custody with impunity.
The Bush administration should be acting aggressively to demonstrate, both to Americans and Afghans, that this is not the case. It should also take steps to regularize its handling of detainees abroad, disclose where they are, and ensure that they are being treated humanely and in accord with the Geneva Conventions. Though it must move forcefully against terrorists or remnants of the Taliban, the United States must also demonstrate that it is possible to wage this war while respecting basic standards of justice and human rights. For now, its actions in Afghanistan are sending the world a different message.
Booted 'Apprentice' contestant stands by racial slur claim
Fired "Apprentice" Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth - hated by some of her fellow cast members - got plenty of love Thursday at Ebony magazine's awards luncheon.
Manigault-Stallworth, a guest, received hugs, kisses and requests for photos at the fifth annual event, which honors outstanding women in marketing and communications.
Among the honorees were CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien, Fox Sports reporter Pam Oliver, BET Nightly News anchor Jacque Reid and television producer Suzanne de Passe.
Manigault-Stallworth, who was "fired" on March 4, was the most polarizing of the 16-member cast, frequently arguing with some of the other women on the NBC reality show, in which contestants vie for real estate mogul Donald Trump's favor and "the dream job of a lifetime" as his yearlong protege.
After her "firing," the 30-year-old claimed former contestant Ereka Vetrini had called her the "n-word." Vetrini has vigorously denied the allegation, as have executive producers Mark Burnett and Trump.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Manigault-Stallworth, a former political consultant, said her experience showed the problems of racism in corporate America.
"Both of those gentlemen weren't there, so I find it ironic that they would be so emphatic that something did not happen."
Vetrini has noted that contestants are taped constantly, and had such an incident occurred, it would have been caught on tape.
"Believe me, I know what I experienced," Manigault-Stallworth said. "Those women called me every name in the book on-camera. Imagine what they did off-camera. Imagine what they would say in the corridors."
Still, Manigault-Stallworth said she watches the show, which will end with a live two-hour finale on April 15. "I may be the black sheep of that family, but I'm certainly a part of that family."
Manigault-Stallworth is negotiating a book deal and a talk show, and is interested in doing political commentary for the upcoming presidential election.
The Passions of the Right: The Politics of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ
By Harry Brod
The new sign of the cross is that of Hollywood. Drive South from the famous "Hollywood" sign along Highway 5 in Southern California, and you'll eventually get to the Crystal Cathedral, another modern monument that looms over its surroundings. (The route, symbolically enough, takes you past Disneyland.) It is the singular achievement of Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ to have closed the gap between those two monuments and what they represent.
Gibson's film and Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral both purvey religion through mass media. "Mass" here means not the Catholic Mass, but "mass" as in "massive," and as in "large crowd." The Crystal Cathedral broadcasts the "Hour of Power" on TV, and the building itself is a truly massive structure, part of an even more massive compound. The denominational differences between Schuller and Gibson are overshadowed by the massiveness of the similarities. (These differences are very real, and I should say that I hold no particular brief against Schuller, it just that the symbolism of his ministry captures so much of what is at stake here. And the Crystal Cathedral web site is already selling the video of The Passion.) It is the conjunction of Hollywood and the religious right (of various denominations) that has fueled the massive marketing campaign for Gibson's film which has occasioned all the commotion about it. In the midst of all the talk about Gibson's revival of traditional anti-Semitism, we should not ignore what is fundamentally new, rather than old, about this film. Its newness, and its danger, lie in this mass appeal through the mass media.
The image of the crowd as a large mass of people is central for the cameras that broadcast Schuller and his ilk as well as Gibson's film. The Crystal Cathedral approach has been criticized by other Christians for its massiveness. Where in the teeming crowd that fills this massive cathedral, they ask, is there room for the beloved community, for the joining together of individuals who directly encounter and cherish each other in face to face communion? Watch Gibson's camera, and you'll see the same substitution of the crowd for the community. Whereas other films about Jesus emphasize the coming together of the community around Jesus, paradigmatically among the disciples but also among others, such community is conspicuously absent in Gibson's film. Instead, we have here on the one hand a tale of a small nuclear family, and on the other a tale of a lone individual in relation to the masses.
What are the politics of telling the tale this way? From a conservative like Burke to a liberal like Tocqueville to the progressive politics of TIKKUN, political thinkers have recognized that the core of democratic culture is its mediating institutions, the groupings of civil society through which people can enter political life not as isolated atomistic individuals ready-made for manipulation by the mass media, but as members of empowering groups who recognize their individual identities in specific communities. Film is a visual medium, and it is in his use of the camera, not the film's subtitled text, that Gibson's politics most clearly reveals itself. The film's right wing aesthetic comes most fully into its own when the crowd most completely closes in on Jesus, as he carries the cross on his way to his crucifixion. Never has so much emphasis been placed on the physical weight of the cross, as we repeatedly see Jesus stagger under its weight and struggle back to his feet. Accompanying Jesus' repeated and almost rhythmic rise and fall, we experience an emotionally charged and increasingly rapid intercutting between the crowd and Jesus, with the camera and editing throwing us further off balance, echoing Jesus' loss of balance, by occasionally making disorienting swoops around the lone figure of Jesus. The technique was perfected in that masterpiece of fascist film, Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 Triumph of the Will, the Nazi propaganda film that is a cinematic ancestor of Gibson's film. (To be fair, Gibson steals from the left too. The location shooting in the Italian town of Matera is the same setting used by gay Communist Pier Paolo Pasolini in his far superior 1964 film, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, which follows the Gospel much more faithfully than does Gibson, since that film contains not a single line that is not directly taken from the Gospel.)
Quick cuts of this sort are a staple of the editing techniques of the action genre with which Gibson is so intimately connected. Above and beyond its stated religious goals, its aesthetic reveals it as a Mel Gibson action film. The theater in which I saw the film clearly understood this. Theater owners try to match trailers for upcoming films with the subject matter of the film being shown, and the trailers shown before The Passion were for action-adventure films. The coming attraction trailer for the film itself highlights a dramatic close-up of a line being drawn in the sand, an action that is in this context enigmatic unless one sees it as a paradigmatic gesture of one man calling another out to battle in the visual language of male bravado.
The basic technique of quick cut between close-up and medium range shot, between the protagonist and the crowd, with the occasional long lingering panning shot to integrate it all, promotes not empathy or compassion, which require greater focus and concentration to be brought forth, but an ersatz immediate identification, one that is elicited as a pre-programmed reaction rather than as an authentic expression of the self. The relentlessness of the film's violence, its senses and mind numbing infliction of blow upon blow, with the audience made to shudder along with each one, short circuits any authentically deep emotional reaction.
With so many concerned about the portrayal of violence in this generation's video games and music, what is often missed is that it is not the surface imagery but rather the deeper structure of the culture that is fundamentally desensitizing. The medium is the real message. The ever escalating need for speed in video games, the dizzying quick cuts of music videos, even what passes for conversation on the TV talk shows (titles like "Crossfire" and "Firing Line" say it all), all promote hair trigger visceral reaction rather than reflective response. The current younger generation is perfectly primed for this film aesthetic. Such a generation may well report that they find the film emotionally moving. But they will most likely be mistaking the addictive adrenaline rush to which they have been conditioned by our culture of rapid response for real depth of emotion. The film actually stands in much the same relation to authentic emotion as it does to anti-Semitism. It does not so much create either as much as it rather recycles and restimulates what is already there.
We do not find in Gibson's version of the Passion the cathartic function attributed to tragedy by Aristotle, but its opposite. This film promotes not the expression and release of painful emotion, but rather its continual recirculation. It promotes emotional manipulation by the film maker, not healing emotional release by the audience. Preying on just such an emotional climate of anxiety created by its own propaganda is a staple of the political strategy of the right. If healing or repair of the self and the world ("tikkun") is an essential part of spirituality, as it surely must be, then this film is deeply anti-spiritual. It inflicts emotional wounds and scars on the audience as surely as the tormentors of Jesus inflicted physical wounds and scars on him.
John Dominic Crossan, one of the leading scholars of the historical Jesus, whose article on The Passion "Loosely Based on a True Story" appeared in the March/April 2004 issue of TIKKUN, argues that what differentiated Christianity from other religions in its initial formative stages was not its theology, which echoed that of other religions of that time and place, but its sense of community. Concern for historical accuracy about the development of Christianity would produce a film that directed viewers to contemplate this aspect of its development. But Gibson's politics and aesthetics are uninterested in this dimension. Even when we are shown glimpses of the Last Supper, in flashbacks, it is framed more as a series of one on one interactions filmed in close-up than as a communal gathering. Gibson never does show us the Twelve, despite ample opportunity to do so. This is a conscious refusal to embrace ideals of community. Gibson gives us Jesus as a lone male action hero.
The transformation of Christians from active makers of their community into passive members of an audience is the trademark of the new mass media style of right wing Christianity, symbolized by Gibson's film and the Crystal Cathedral model of Christianity. This is Christianity as spectacle, indeed as spectator sport. And a bloody sport it is in Gibson's hands. Gibson's film seems poised to be spectacularly successful, in the spectacle of its violence and in its turning of Christians into spectators, both on the screen and in the audience. This is a new spectacular Christianity.
Perhaps we should recall that the classic venue for Christianity as a bloody spectacle is not the movie theater but the Roman arena, when Christians were fed to the lions. That story didn't turn out too well for the Christians. Unless you see it as a stage in the history of Rome, whereby Christianity eventually became a state religion. That too is part of the politics of the Christian right. One sees it in the iconography of the Crystal Cathedral's fundraising. With a high end financial contribution you become an "Eagle" (in the US context the imagery resonates with that bestowed upon President Bush's fundraisers, who are "Patriots" and "Pioneers"). The eagle is the symbol of state power, of empire. The substitution of the eagle for the dove as a Christian symbol substitutes war for peace, authoritarianism for democracy, the power of the state imposed from above for the power of the people that arises from base communities.
It's not just that Gibson personally rejects Vatican II and all that it meant and still means. It's that that stance permeates the film itself. Vatican II was, after all, of a time when "power to the people" was an ideology in ascendance. The rejection of the traditionalist Latin Mass was part of that trend, making the meaning of the service more accessible to the congregation, less ruled by the authority of the priests. The film's use of ancient languages and accompanying subtitles has more to do with restoring linguistic authority to the authorities who produce the show than with the ideals of historical accuracy put forward by Gibson to justify the practice. The impenetrability of the language keeps the wielders of power secure, the source of their authority unknown. Mysterium, Magisterium, Imperium: mystery, authority and empire. These are the values of the Christian right and of Gibson's film.
One needs the insights of a modern Jewish writer to understand this world of pre- and anti-modern values, complete with demons that suddenly appear out of nowhere and disappear just as inexplicably. The world of The Passion is Kafkaesque, combining the plots of Kafka's novel The Trial and short story "In the Penal Colony." In the former a man is tried for an unnamed crime by unknown authorities, and in the latter the penalty is literally inscribed on his body. A description of rivers of blood running down the victim's body, such as are seen in The Passion, can be found not in the Gospels but in Kafka's story.
Critics have seen the fact that Gibson leaves unclear exactly of what crime Jesus is really guilty, and who really has jurisdiction over his fate, primarily as sins of omission. The film has Jesus shuffled back and forth between Pilate and King Herod, always accompanied by bloodthirsty Jews. By leaving lines of authority unclear, and by so prominently showing the activities of the Jews, Gibson creates the impression that the Jews are responsible for the torture and ultimate death of Jesus. But the ambiguity of authority in the film is a sin of commission as well. The shrouding of authority in mystery, leaving people unable to ident |
