Dateline: Gafsa, Tunisia I have been equivocating about my origins, when locals along the route have asked. Half Hungarian and half British, I say. If anyone gives me a hard time abut the bombing of Afghanistan; I can always put the stress on the Hungarian. But the worst insult I have heard so far: Hooligan, hooligan! And that was referring to English soccer supporters rather than the Royal Air Force. My biggest problem here is the damned keyboards, which put A up top left, and require the shift button to enter a period mark. Did someone say there was a war going on?#
Tuesday, October 9
North Africa Blog forecast: intermittent postings over the next couple of weeks. I'm traveling to North Africa. Where, supposedly, they hate us. I would like to say I was going for research purposes. To get Arab opinion first-hand, not mediated through the opinion pages of The Guardian and New York Times. But my motives are simpler: it's chilly in London, and 30 degrees down there. If I come across anything political - and if I come across an internet cafe - I'll post, maybe. I don't suppose there are any Tunisian or Libyan weblogs out there. Anyone? Email me.#
The tragedy of Andalucia [via Ken Layne] Israel's occupation of Palestine? US troops in Saudi Arabia? No, what Osama resents is the loss of Andalucia, of Spain, 500 years ago. In fact, the loss of any Arab or moslem territory, no matter how long ago. Check this out, in his own words. "Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalucia would be repeated in Palestine. We cannot accept that Palestine will become Jewish." Now I get him. Osama is a classic irredentist: obsessed by the decline of his nation, defining its power by territorial expanse. I bet you he is a maphead. Poring over old maps showing Islam stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Pyrenees, his heart aching at the loss of Granada and Cordova. And, since we're all asking the question, what will assuage his anger? What do we have to do to stop him hating the West with such a vengeance? Well, obviously, make the Israelis hand over the West Bank, that goes without saying. Israel proper too while they're at it. Zanzibar, and the East African coast. Spain's Costa del Sol. Hold on, didn't the Arabs get as far as southwestern France once. And the Moslem Turks were at the gates of Vienna. So Osama's basic line seems to be: imperialism is fine, so long as its our imperialism. Which is pretty much the US line. Slate's Explainer column on Osama's TV pronouncement Guardian: Rhetoric to arouse the Islamic world Ken Layne: Today's question for the Apologist Left is this... James S. Robbins on bin Laden on National Review Online Newsweek: Why they hate us#
Monday, October 8
Andrew Sullivan: This Is a Religious War In all the fuss of the war yesterday, I nearly missed this article in the New York Times magazine, but Andrew Sullivan. Just about the strongest explanation of the current conflict I've read. Humiliation, irredentism, an unevolved religion. Yes, it is about religion, even if Tony Blair says we should talk, not about Islamic terrorists, but just about terrorists. And Sullivan's prescription: well, he doesn't really have a prescription.#
Sunday, October 7
CNN EXCLUSIVE +++THE DEVELOPING STORY+++ +++NEW GREEN BACKGROUNDS+++ +++LARGER BLOBS+++
BREAKING NEWS 12.50 ET BBC: Kabul hit by blasts MSNBC: US attack begins Minute-by-minute headlines from AP MSNBC: Live video Explosions reported in Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad. Targets: command and control centers, ower stations, training camps, air defences. Debka reports bombers came from north over Russia. Power out in Kabul. Stealth bombers and cruise missilies used. Blair says US requested use of Diego Garcia base. UK submarines in action tonight. Aim: destroy camps and disrupt communications. Mainly US and UK forces. Prelude to "relentless" campaign, says Bush. Clear night. Moon 75% full, but waning. And here is the green screen, a traditional sight in turn-of-the-century wars, on the front page of CNN.com. Just like Baghdad in 1991. Irritatingly obsequious commentary on MSNBC, after the president's address, praising Bush's resolve. Bush's speech fine, but I do wish he would stop using the word Evil.#
It's the fault of the jews, as usual I'm glad to have a chance, finally, to deal with this canard: the story that Israel was behind the twin towers attacks, as evidenced by the fact that 4,000 Israelis failed to turn up to work that day. This is taken as fact now across much of the Moslem world. Even the former head of Pakistan's main intelligence organization, the omnipresent General Hamid Gul, says: "The people who committed this crime are inside America, and let me tell you that they are Israelis, not Muslims. Only Israelis can pull off a job like that. They are the ones who can jam American radar systems. They are the ones who can shut off the Pentagon's warning system and prevent the American air force from scrambling for one hour and 15 minutes." The Moslem world's tendency to believe in conspiracies is about as ludicrous as those Americans who go on about black helicopters. Here are the facts, according to Slate and other sources. The 4,000 number refers to the number of Israelis living in New York as a whole, not those working in the twin towers. In fact, about 100 Israelis were killed in the attack which, if you're counting, is equivalent in percentage terms to the number of US citizens killed. Now, could everyone please demonstrate a bit more rational scepticism, please. This is getting embarrassing. 4,000 Jews, 1 Lie - Tracking an Internet hoax [Slate] Gul interview in Al-Ahram#
Thomas Friedman: Yes, but What? All this squabbling with the western left is getting a bit tiring. But I had to pass on an excellent column by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, in which he takes issue with the Yesbut crowd. [Read the piece: you'll understand.] Friedman makes the key point: that US support for Israel and global economic inequality are red herrings. The Palestinians could have had an independent state on 95% of the West Bank and Gaza last year. And Arab poverty? The terrorists are disgruntled middle-class men from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, led by the son of a billionaire.#
Sunday Times: Hitler may have had gay lovers A new book, by a reputable German historian, uncovers quite convincing evidence that Hitler was gay. Well, that would help explain a few things: the rather camp trappings of Nazism, the cult of the body, the uniforms. But did he have to take the lifestyle quite so seriously? And, now, more linkage between repressed sexuality and totalitarian belief. Discussion on Free Republic [warning: right-wing discussion board] Frontpage: The Sexual Rage Behind Islamic Terror#
Debka This Israeli news site is off on nutty side of Zionist, but I've had to start paying it attention. It got the story of Saudi wobbling, well before the mainstream newspapers picked up that Riyadh had doubts about support for US retaliation. Now, a startling claim: that the US has deployed neutron bombs and other tactical nuclear weapons in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, two former Soviet states which adjoin Afghanistan. And a bold prediction: that Russian troops will go into Afghanistan alongside US forces. Both good tests of Debka's credibility. New York Observer: A Web Site With the Inside Dope on the Middle East Wired News: Debka: Conflict's Drudge Report? Debkafile#
Orwell's quadrilateral Everyone is talking about global realignment. China, Russia and the US, the three great powers, are united in their hostility to the Islamic revival. Samuel Huntingdon's Clash of Civilisations theory is being dusted off. Putin, speaking in German to the German parliament, calls for Europe to join with the Russian Federation, with its "human and natural resources" and its "defense potential". There is a passage in George Orwell's 1984, describing how the world is divided up into three blocs, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, with a contested zone stretching from North Africa to South Asia. I'm not making any claims for Orwell's predictive powers, or drawing any further parallels. But, still, read this. Spooky. [Hey, if people can read Nostradamus this way and that, I don't see why I shouldn't do the same for Orwell.] "Between the frontiers of the super-states, and not permanently in the possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong, containing within it about a fifth of the population of the earth. In practice no one power ever controls the whole of the disputed area. Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery that dictates the endless changes of alignment." WorldNetDaily: Russia – the next NATO member? 1984 by George Orwell: Chapter 17#
From Matt Welch, a new batch of warblogs "In the meantime, I’d like to direct you to a few valuable Weblogs that are trying valiantly to make sense out of our post-Sept. 11 world. There are the ones I’ve previously mentioned – Jeff Jarvis’ WarLog, Nick Denton’s Blogorama, Fred Lapides’ Bushwacker, Kenlayne.com (which has slowed down as he finishes his Sequel), and even (gasp) Andrewsullivan.com. Here are some new ones: My dear friend Amy “Collins” Langfield, a terrific reporter who lives in NYC, just got her a brand new blog. Charles Johnson runs a good one called, uh, Little Green Footballs (that’s the name of his Web design firm … I am continually impressed by the reasoning/writing skills of many tech-heads, as opposed to, say, op-ed columnists). Thomas Nephew runs a good one called Newsrack, and the kind Ms. Gabrielle Taylor has warblog on her Moonfarmer. Andy Conroy, who works for Wisden Online, has one that looks just like Jeff Jarvis’. Cursor.org runs a fairly promiscuous blog & links show, with a good round-up of the Left. These are mostly cribbed from my referral logs; I’ll make a better roundup of other useful sites later. For now, check out this fabulous site (read it from top to bottom), and reflect that it is written by a 22-year-old software programmer from Norway."#
Liberals v. Left We have all moved on from our condemnation of Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen. (I can't bring myself to say terrorists, simply because the word has become overused.) The left spends most of its time attacking the preparations for conflict, US foreign policy, the corruption of the global capitalist system. And I can't really give them a hard time for that, because the robust liberals - among whom I would count myself - have expended at least as much energy in lambasting the Left. Partly, I guess, because they may actually read weblogs. I doubt that Osama does, despite his group's internet proficiency. This is more than silly Western squabbling. Foreign events have traditionally divided liberals and leftists, and wrought lasting changes in the political landscape. Andrew Sullivan, below, makes the case that 09-11-01 may have that effect. "The left's howls of anguish are therefore essentially phony--and they stem from a growing realization that this crisis has largely destroyed the credibility of the far left. Forced to choose between the West and the Taliban, the hard left simply cannot decide. Far from concealing this ideological bankruptcy, we need to expose it and condemn it as widely and as irrevocably as we can. Many liberals are already listening and watching--and the tectonic plates of politics are shifting as they do." A brief digression into historical precedent: the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 destroyed the idea of a popular front of communists and liberals. Liberals had to choose whether they were more loyal to the system, or to its opponents, and the decision was clear. Hardline communist parties haemorrhaged members. Modern leftists should go back to their history books. If they wish to be relevant, which I guess has always been questionable. andrewsullivan.com#
Thursday, October 4
Letting go of America's Arab "friends" On the whole, I have no patience for those who would blame the West, and US foreign policy in particular, for its own travails. But there is one respect in which I think the West does have some responsibility: not so much for fueling the Afghan civil war, but for its support of the illegitimate regimes that have produced most of the terrorists identified in the twin towers attack. Remember how Bush promised to treat countries that harbor terrorists as if they were themselves responsible? Well, forget about harboring, what about countries that actually *produce* terrorists? The majority of the attackers on September 11th were Saudi; and Al-Jihad al-Islami, the Egyptian fundamentalist group, is thought to have merged with Osama Bin Laden. And, guess what, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Uzbekistan - two producers of Islamic radicals - are key US allies in the region. A western visitor encounters much more hostility in these countries than in supposed rogue states such as Syria, Libya or Iran. [I'm thinking of visiting the region, and have been doing some research.] Now, one explanation is that regimes like Syria's have been brutal in their suppression of dissent, including Islamic fundamentalism. But I have another thought: Islamic fundamentalist revival is like a fever, which may need to take its course. In Iran, for instance, Islamic fundamentalism has clearly peaked; now, two decades after Khomeini returned to Iran, the young find all the anti-American rhetoric of their elders rather tiring. By containing Islamic passions, as the US-backed Saudi regime has done, they only become more intense. One relevant lesson in the law of unintended consequences: US intervention in Vietnam, which delayed the victory of Ho Chi Min, but also held back Vietnam's inevitable entry into the global capitalist system. Maybe the West needs to stop propping up Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and let go of the Arab world, in order to win. Let Arab countries choose their own destiny, and hope that, in a generation or two, the children of the fundamentalists get bored with their parents' rants against America. The Spectator: Ground Zero and the Saudi connection CNS - Al-Jihad al-Islami Profile Inside Al-Qaeda - Jane's International Security News Ayman Al-Zawahiri: attention turns to the other prime suspect - Jane's International Security News Washington Post on the Egyptian connection MEMRI summary of the Egyptian press Tariq Ali: The real Muslim extremists#
Decadent western medicine Some raw material for all you conspiracy theorists out there. Did you know that the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE - the three most important Gulf states - have all been in western Europe for medical treatment in the last couple of weeks? As has Osama Bin Laden's mother, who received a touching call from her adopted son just a couple of days before the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Debka, an online outlet for the Israeli intelligence services, sees a suspect pattern. My only thought: funny how the Arab ruling class believe in our decadent western medicine. LA Times: Health, Age Worries Over Gulf Leaders Debka: Saudi royal family in flight Debka: Saudis change minds on U.S. support Celebrities in Switzerland: Fahd Ibn Abdu Aziz#
Salon: The Taliban's bravest opponents "Beneath the Veil neatly captures the horror of life under the Taliban -- the public executions for infractions as minor as prostitution or adultery." Forget about Osama Bin Laden. If one values liberal principles such as sexual equality, the overthrow of the Taliban is an objective worthy in itself. Even if, by that logic, the US should abandon the Saudi regime. Channel 4: Beneath the veil#
Salman Rushdie: Fighting the Forces of Invisibility [via Jeff Jarvis] "The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. These are tyrants, not Muslims." They are also against Salman Rushdie. Watch out for that fatwa, Salman. But, seriously, Rushdie's list is a catalogue of liberal causes. Liberals, and you Parisian and Bay Area leftists out there, repeat after me: Islamic fundamentalism is against everything we believe in. Yes, it is that simple.#
Olivier Roy All the Afghan experts are coming out of the woodwork. Lt. Col. Lester Grau - author of "The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan" has been instructed to avoid contact with the press, and is on temporary duty at an undisclosed location. And some people are rediscovering Olivier Roy, a French academic who has been studying Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion. Some nuggets of insight... In an interview last year he talks of the Taliban being the revenge of the Pashtuns after Kabul fell to their rivals in 1992. It all goes back, apparently, to Habibullah of Kalakan, and his conflict in the 1920s with Pashtun Kings Amanullah and Nadir. Wonderful names. Highlighted in the recent article in American Prospect, a quote from Roy's assessment of opposition to Soviet occupation: "Even if the Russians get better at moving around quickly in search-and-destroy operations," he wrote, "they will not succeed in surrounding and wiping out the Mujahedin in significant numbers. The very flimsiness of the military infrastructure…means there are no military objectives." Now could we please have fewer empty opinion pieces by columnists who know nothing, and more from the experts please. Why doesn't someone commission an analysis from Roy, for instance? WSJ.com: Many Afghans Wouldn't Miss Taliban, Which Could Ease Group's Removal American Prospect, quoting Olivier Roy's 1986 study Transcript of interview in 2000#
Guardian: No man's land Maggie O'Kane, one of the boldest reporters in Bosnia during the civil war there, smuggles herself over the Hindu Kush from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Powerful stuff, and more revealing than the output of the hackpack stuck in Peshawar.#
Tuesday, October 2
Languages: Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Siraiki (a Punjabi variant) 10%, Pashtu 8%... Am I the only person who thinks mainstream journalists shy away from ethnic explanations? It's only now, several weeks into the crisis, that reporters start to identify Afghanistan's Taliban regime as a primarily Pashtun (Pathan) group; and the opposition Northern Alliance as primarily Tajik or Uzbek. Pretty vital information, I would have thought. It explains why Tajikistan or Uzbekistan may be willing to aid the US, for instance. But it's time for the same kind of analysis applied to some of the other countries in the region. For instance, I only found out recently that the Pashtun dominate areas of Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan. This is where the most passionate anti-American demonstrations have taken place. But I have no idea what the dominant Punjabi population think of the Pashtuns, either in Pakistan or Afghanistan. No one seems to be reporting from Lahore, the largest Punjabi city. If the majority population is ethnically distinct from the Taliban radicals, then Pakistan may be a more stable US ally than the television pictures would suggest. Another fact: the Pashtuns are more closely related to Iranians than to Pakistan's Punjabis, although Pashtuns and Punjabis do share the Sunni variant of Islamic belief. Some reporters may gloss over the ethnic divisions in order to keep the story a simple one of clashing civilizations. Others, I suspect, may be acting out of political correctness. Memo to reporters: please state ethnicity of demonstrators, quantify weight in total population, position of other ethnic groups. And some ethnographic maps. From a related article, on the ethnic divisions in Pakistan and the Pashtun borderlands, in American Prospect: "Everything west of Peshawar to the border, going north and south, is called the 'Federally-Administered Tribal Area'. When we were there, we referred to it as the 'Tribally-Administered Federal Area." TAP: Some Things To Consider About Afghanistan -- From Those Who've Been There. by Jason Vest The Times: the ethnic balance of power in Afghanistan [published Oct 3]#
Biarritz, la Californie de l'Europe A break from war coverage for all Blogorama's UK readers. I've been trying to work out the best location for a weekend home now that it's so cheap to fly around Europe on Ryanair and Easyjet and the like. I'm assuming a desire for varied activities, like surfing and hiking. A California lifestyle, in short. The answer: Biarritz. [Though I haven't been there yet.]
A reader responds... > From: John.Gapper@FT.com [mailto:John.Gapper@FT.com] > Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 10:23 AM > To: nick@moreover.com > Subject: biarritz > > > > its great - very quiet once you get away from the coast. > biarritz is OK. St Jean de Luz just down the coast is very > nice - at least if you have kids - old fashioned seaside > resort with beach tents and umbrellas where the sea is a bit > calmer. trouble with it all is that it ain't california > because the mountains mean weather very changeable and can > be windy. but you're right in principle - cheap ryannair > flights to biarritz and lovely countryside#
Unlikely Doves: Counter-terrorism Experts [AlterNet] "Jeff "Skunk" Baxter proposed a Manhattan Project of "perception engineering," which would explore and develop a variety of means: psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns designed by advertising executives ("these guys were selling Chevrolets when they were crap with the 'heartbeat of America'"); cultural products that can engender warm feelings toward the United States." Isn't this what the Hollywood culture industry, with mixed effect, already does?#
CNN EXCLUSIVE
BREAKING NEWS 12.50 ET
''This is what we do to the dogs who oppose Islam!''
From 
"The left's howls of anguish are therefore essentially phony--and they stem from a growing realization that this crisis has largely destroyed the credibility of the far left. Forced to choose between the West and the Taliban, the hard left simply cannot decide. Far from concealing this ideological bankruptcy, we need to expose it and condemn it as widely and as irrevocably as we can. Many liberals are already listening and watching--and the tectonic plates of politics are shifting as they do."
"The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. These are tyrants, not Muslims." They are also against Salman Rushdie. Watch out for that fatwa, Salman. But, seriously, Rushdie's list is a catalogue of liberal causes. Liberals, and you Parisian and Bay Area leftists out there, repeat after me: Islamic fundamentalism is against everything we believe in. Yes, it is that simple.
