Posted 3/31/2003 10:59:00 AM by Ocean Guy
It is precisely this Gap between the West and the Middle East that is going to make bringing democracy to Iraq so difficult. To do it right will take at least a generation. Do we have the resolve to do it right? If not let them say so now, and make ridding the region of Saddam the only goal.

I would like to see much more effort by the administration to address the post-victory plan. Their weak assurance that the Israeli-Arab situation will be resolved next is little comfort. When boiled down to its essentials, the real problem is that Western and Middle Eastern cultures are vastly different. We will find it extremely difficult to instill [impose] our democratic values on any part of the region. I wish the administration would do more to prepare us for the difficulty ahead.

Posted 3/30/2003 06:05:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Another view on Winning the Peace

Caroline Glick has another cut on the difficulties in the post-victory challenges for Americans in Iraq.

There is no doubt that the US will win the battle against Saddam's regime. The soldiers are committed and well trained. Their arsenal is deadly and accurate. But to win the war for the hearts of the Iraqi people, the US can not use the logic of the British Foreign Office.

This thinking is what guided British policy toward the Jews and Arabs in another pivotal war. Then, in 1939, while fighting valiantly against a dictator, the British signed away Jewish national aspirations in total contravention of their legal responsibilities to the League of Nations mandate in Palestine.

Blaming the Jews for Arab intransigence and violence, the British favored a Palestinian terrorist leader who collaborated with Hitler. Far from bringing stability to the Middle East or curbing Arab terrorism, the British approach encouraged instability and terrorism.

Julie Albrecht, like the tens of thousands of US soldiers in Iraq today, understands the connection between terror and tyranny and is willing to fight thousands of miles from home to prevent these diseases from once again threatening America.

One can only hope that the government they serve is not swayed by diplomatic tradition and maintains its commitment to bringing about a transition to freedom for Iraq, rather than the formation of yet another regime that justifies tyranny and backwardness by hating Israel.

Posted 3/30/2003 05:57:00 PM by Ocean Guy
The Israeli media may by unsympathetic right now, and they may have some reason to be. But the Americans are stepping into a situation not much different from Israel's. We Americans are going to get a more personal look at living and operating amidst a largely hostile population where the combatants are extremely difficult to identify. Suicide bombers and snipers are likely to become the largest threat. A degree of indignation on some Israelis' part is understandable, since Americans have never appreciated Israel's difficulty of defending themselves while American politicians try to force more concessions to the Arabs. Certainly that indignation leads to a lack of sympathy when America is faced with a similar situation. It is going to be a very long and difficult task to bring "freedom" and democracy to a culture that is so suspicious of our motives.

Posted 3/29/2003 09:06:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Then What???
I’m not feeling great about the war today. The taxi suicide bombing coupled with the alleged American mistreatment of an Israeli journalist are signs that are making me worry. The combination of the two events is focusing my mind on our relationship with Israel making me afraid of the post-war situation. Overthrowing Saddam will not automatically make the Arab world see America as the good guys.

If things go perfectly, and the Saddam regime is completely and utterly defeated, it will be possible to bring democracy to Iraq. But for democracy to flourish, the people have to experience, and know freedom FIRST. Our history in Japan and Germany, where we STILL have a large presence after 50 years, shows us that it is NOT a quick and easy process. Simply setting up elections leaving will change nothing.

Even if things go very well, in the absolute best case, we will need a significant presence in Iraq for at least a generation. Many Iraqis will accept it and thrive with it, many others will reject it. and will fight to get the Americans to leave the region. But that’s only inside Iraq. Some in the Arab world will also accept it and many more will not.

The surrounding Arab states, and Iran, are not going to welcome a free, democratic, pluralistic, tolerant nation which will threaten their centuries old way of life. Just as they keep the palestinians stirred up and fueled for the Arab terrorist war with Israel, so will they keep some Iraqis stirred up and fueled for an Arab terrorist war against America and its presence in, or “occupation” of Iraq. You can even throw the same UN organizations into the post-war mix so they can support the Arabs the same way they do in Israel. There will be plenty of enemies, and they will be hard to distinguish from friends and by-standers. The surrounding states, who have no interest in a free and democratic Iraq, will support those enemies and make it at least as painful as they make things for the IDF in Israel.

We are not being prepared for that possibility.

The Arab world’s biggest complaint about American foreign policy is our support of Israel. Their second biggest complaint is that we act like a bully, forcing our will on others. We’re ignoring them. Our support for Israel is strong and, more importantly RIGHT, and we are about to “force” democratic reform, American Style, into their back yards. Our only hope to accomplish it relatively painlessly, is that the overthrow of Saddam miraculously makes the Arabs see us as heroes and liberators and not as imperialist conquerors. Any bets on what our friends in Saudi Arabia and Egypt will say or what Iran will say?

Today, our forces are facing the same kinds of attacks from Arabs that the IDF encounters every day. We are waging war by our moral standards which the enemy ignores and sees as a weakness. Our troops are being exposed to heightened danger because of the ruthless nature of the regime we are going to destroy. But that ruthless regime can disappear but the ruthless aspects of the culture that accepted it will still exist.

Saddam’s pattern of lies and terror against his own people is only different from Arafat’s in its scale. The culture that lets those despots thrive is the same in Baghdad as it is in Gaza. The culture that lies to itself about battlefield victories in Syria and Egypt in 1948 and 1967 is the same culture that lies to itself in Iraq today and makes Al Jezeera such a huge success. The culture that cheers the execution of Americans and the desecration of their bodies in Baghdad is the same culture that cheers and celebrates the execution of Israeli policemen nad the sesecration of their bodies in Ramallah. It’s the same culture that produced women ululating and children celebrating in the streets about the Arab attacks in America on September 11. It’s the culture that encourages its youth to blow themselves up in the name of their god, and to shoot toddlers in the head in their own beds. It’s a culture vastly different from ours and from Germany’s or Japan’s when we helped them to democratize.

Germany, had lived under an authoritarian regime but they were still “western” and largely Christian and had centuries of living as Germanic people. Japan had made enemies of all of their neighbors and maintained themselves as a separate culture for centuries. Iraq, on the other hand, like its neighbors, is a modern creation borne of western conquest with arbitrary borders drawn to reward a few tribal leaders. The culture is largely indistinguishable from its neighbors, and only tiny Kuwait bears any animosity… and even that is only for Saddam’s regime. It will be extremely difficult to encourage and support western style pluralistic, tolerant democracy in the middle of an Arab world that doesn’t want it, and doesn’t want America there.

The Arabs have been fighting Israel since its creation. Even before 1948 they fought against a Jewish presence. What makes anyone think that they will treat an American presence in their midst any differently. The sad and dangerous part is that it doesn’t take many people to make life extremely difficult. The Arabs won’t have to create a babylonian people to focus attention. There are enough ruthless Arab organizations existing in Syria, Lebanon, Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia that will happily recruit in Iraq and keep terrorists stirred up and fueled in a war to kick the Americans out.

I’m not feeling great about the war today because I don’t see anyone even trying to prepare us for what is ahead. Are we going to do it right or are we going to cut and run? We are about to experience first hand the terrorism that Israelis live with every day. The difference is, we can, leave Iraq if it gets too difficult. Unless we are better prepared for what is likely ahead, I’m afraid we won’t have the will to do it right.

Posted 3/28/2003 05:08:00 PM by Ocean Guy
John Pendegraft an embedded reporter, on the fear of an Iraqi woman to ask for help for her daughter and the fear of a soldier to offer it.

Posted 3/28/2003 11:45:00 AM by Ocean Guy
I've posted often about my belief that Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations explains much of what has happened in the world, at least since September 11, 2001. I've also argued that the conflict between the Israelis and the palestinians is a misnomer. It is now, and has been from the beginning, an Arab-Israeli conflict. Animosity and hate towards Israel exists throughout the Arab world as they continue to deny Israel’s right to exist. And the connection between the United States and Israel makes the US a target of the same hate and animosity.

Unfortunately, most Americans are in denial about that linkage. No matter how much our Arab “friends” tell us our support of Israel is what angers them, we naively insist that issues are separate, and even more naively ignore Arab hatred of Jews. Meanwhile that hatred is the REAL obstacle to peace in the region. Because we support Israel, most Arabs suspect our motives in all of our dealings with the Arab world.

In the past week, Thomas Friedman’s little documentary (broadcast on the Discovery channel Wednesday) highlighted the connection between the US and Israel and its effect on the Arabs. Micah Halpern in today’s’ Israel Insider talks of Saddam’s prism of Reality. Barbara Lerner in the National Review Online talks of the connection and the Arab hatred towards Jews. (hat tip Ted Belman) You can find countless other sources, dating back decades, which show that our relationship with Israel is seen as an attack on Arabs. Millions of Arabs don't believe that a Jewish state should exist.

Simply supporting Israel is viewed as an attack on Arabs. We cannot continue to ignore it. Halpern gives us one view:

Along with the Iraqi ruler, the Muslim and Arab worlds view this war, the one the U.S. has dubbed "Iraqi Freedom," not as a series of military maneuvers. For them, that's practically inconsequential. For them, this war is a great clash of cultures. They pray for the destruction of Israel and the United States, their West.

If you doubt this just pick up any Arabic newspaper from Egypt to Indonesia.

For Muslims, this war epitomizes the conflict that they have with Israel and the West. The Muslim world yearns for a revolution and an ousting of Western tradition and values. They want to destroy the equality they do not approve of. They want to destroy the licentiousness they see in Western civilizations.

I share Halpern's optimism in the ultimate victory of freedom for everyone in the region. I'm not so optimistic about that happening any time in the near future unless we recognize and deal with the Arabs both as individual states AND as a distinct culture that is completely at odds with our ideas of freedom, plurality, and tolerance.

We've been clashing with that culture at least since 1979, and there is no end in sight. I hope we don't make Israel sacrifice even more than they already have as the island of hope in the region.

For more on the Arab perspective of US policy: Eric Leslky

Posted 3/27/2003 09:14:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Camel Races

News of an Iraqi convoy heading south out of Baghdad reminded me of a trip to Dubai in 1985.

I was in a small group of visiting Naval Officers being hosted by members of the British ex-patriot community for a few days. We spent one afternoon 4-wheeling through the dry riverbeds, or wadis, out in the desert, “Wadi Bashing,” is what the Brits called it. The terrain is generally very rough and mountainous, but there are big, flat sandy areas in some of the wadis. It was perfect for some rough driving in the Land Rovers… and perfect for a desert picnic. I couldn’t have enjoyed myself more.

The evening after wadi bashing, I was invited to tag along with my hosts to the camel races. Accepting the invitation was one of the best decisions I made that week. I was just looking forward to another drive in the desert, little did I know how much fun this one would be. Early in the evening I was picked up and we headed out of town, back into the desert. We drove for a while and turned off the road into one of the many wadis. It was almost mountainous, although not very high, but very rough and rocky. As we rounded the first bend there was one of those big, flat areas we had noticed the day before.

The riverbed was probably a little more than 2 miles long before it disappeared around a bend. There were sharp cliffs on one side and a gentler, more rocky and hilly terrain on the other side, making a pseudo-canyon a bit less than a mile wide. There were 25 or 30 cars there with a few more following behind us. Land Rovers, Suzuki SUVs, Jeeps, Toyota pick-ups, and Mercedes diesel sedans were stopped haphazardly with small groups of friends milling around and socializing in an Arab-style desert tailgate party. There was plenty of food, but the main question was “Brown or White?”... meaning Whiskey or Gin. It was strange that everyone was so very discreet with the drinking, but absolutley no one was bothered by it. It wasn't the only oddity.

We talked about the strange mixture of the group, British men and women, many Arabs, an American, and even a small group of Japanese men. We laughed a lot and were just enjoying the company and the beautiful desert evening. I did notice a few boys on camels watching our curious group from the perimeter, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a racetrack or even a race. I could see that some of the Arab men were betting, but that was the only indication of racing that I noticed.

I was engrossed in a story one of the group was telling and trying to get my drink freshened up, when suddenly all hell broke loose. It seemed that everyone had to get to the closest vehicle and get out of Dodge as fast as they could. For a moment I was confused by all the activity and finally made a dash to the Land Rover I arrived in, not appreciating the urgency of the situation. The next sight is one that will stick with me forever.

The boys on camels I had noticed earlier, about 10 of them or so, had bolted from one end of the wadi heading for the other, guiding their loping camels to some unseen finish line somewhere up the wadi. In their trail was this fleet of cars speeding through the desert, dust flying everywhere, none following any road. Some vehicles had people hanging out of windows, shaking their fists and waving their arms. I saw jeeps with people standing up on the seats holding onto the roll bars with one hand and drinks in the other. I saw heads sticking out of sun roofs of sedans, all wildly cheering these boys while avoiding running into the other spectators and although I'm not sure I'm sure some of them waved fists full of cash. I imagined myself dressed in thobe and kaffiyah ala Yosemite Sam, charging with a horde of other cartoons characters toward some comic catastrophe. I was a little slow on the uptake and couldn’t really follow the camel race. In my mind we weren’t watching the race we WERE the race. It was sort of a combination of Gumball Rally, Penelope Pitstop, Bugs Bunny and Raiders of the Lost Ark. If Mel Brooks had done Blazing Camel Saddles, this scene would have closed it. It was, a real cluster-@*$# and I'm amazed no one was hurt and no cars were damaged.

It’s that haphazard collection of vehicles that came to my mind when I read reports of “light vehicles” moving south out of Baghdad. I'm sure I had more fun racing with the camels than they had racing into battle. But I'm not sure the Iraqi column any much more organized.

Posted 3/26/2003 01:18:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Israeli Eyes... a Memorial to lives lost. It reminds me of Lair's yearbook post. Take a moment to remeber them in your prayers. And don't forget their families, and those maimed and wounded, and all of their friends who have had lives shattered. Seen first at Israpundit.

Posted 3/26/2003 08:54:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Not to be missed is MEMRI's translation of Iran and the War In Iraq by Ayelet Savyon, Director of the Iranian Media Project. She discusses three reasons why Iran is against the war and two reasons why they can support it. Its application for most of the region, including the Arab World, makes it important. However, the Arab preoccupation with Israel is not mentioned. Most of the Arabs have tunnel vision on the "Zionist problem," while the Administration tries to keep it as a separate issue. But on the whole of Savyon's analysis still fits:

Reasons Against the War
A. The American Presence on Iran's Borders Constitutes a Threat to the Iranian Regime and Its Interests
B. Fear of Losing Shi`ite Primacy Should the Iraqi Regime Change
C. The U.S. Wants to Control the Oil Resources - Against Iran and Saudi Arabia

Reasons in Support:
A. The Need to Strip Iraq of Its Weapons of Mass Destruction
B. The Need to Prepare for the Future

Iran is right to be concerned about the American presence being a threat to its power, but NOT from direct American intervention, internal disruption is the real threat. They also have a real worry in wondering what Iraq's Shi'ite population will do, I don't think anyone can predict that. Go read it yourself.

Posted 3/25/2003 10:45:00 AM by Ocean Guy
In discussing murder in the 101st Airborne Division, Daniel Pipes poses a couple of questions which are being largley ignored but deserve widespread examination. First, Why is a pattern of violence by American Muslims, being ignored?
On the surface it must first be determined whether Sgt. Akbar's violence was politically motivated, but as with previous acts the question is being ignored or swept under the rug. Given the strong possibility that his act was political, he becomes the metaphor for radical Islam in our country. (Update: He's a Nation of Islam convert. Perhaps NOI ought to be placed on the list of terrorist organizations. At the very least they should be considered suspect when issues of loyalty to the USA are involved)

We continue to ignore the possibility that great numbers of American Muslims want to see our system of government overthrown and replaced by Sharia. It's a fact that some members of the Religion of Peace feel that way, the only debate is how widespread the belief is. Judging by the ability of a small maosque in Brooklyn to raise milions of dollars for al Queda, one could argue that the number of American Muslims wishing to do us harm is quite large. Yet we welcome them in our pluralistic, tolerant society.

Although I believe in the freedom which allows them to thrive and grow, I believe we must find a way to deal with the growing number of muslims in America who seek to take those freedoms away. As Pipes closes:

... the enemy has already managed to "get into our camp." Do we have the will to stop him before he strikes again?

Posted 3/24/2003 12:37:00 PM by Ocean Guy
I'm fascinated with her story and her trek along with the US Marines. Caroline Glick's daily journal is a must see.

Posted 3/24/2003 12:09:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Reading over at War News Central aka The Command Post about more unrest being planned for San Francisco, it occurred to me how much the protester's actions are similar to Saddam Hussein's. They scream about their righteousness, while challenging the law (particularly the authority which backs up the law). Their strategy seems to be to cause enough disorder and chaos so as to provoke the police into action which the peaceniks can then label as "police brutality." It's sickening, but I'm glad they have the right to speak their mind... as long as it's lawful. When they act outside the law, I would hope the press portrays them as the anarchists they are and not some heroic martyrs.

Posted 3/21/2003 08:54:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Press coverage in this war has been outstanding thus far. The embedded reporters are getting a taste of military life and are gaining a better understanding of the men and women who sacrifice so much in our service. The reporters, too, are sacrificing in our service in many different ways. Caroline Glick's story is worthwhile reading. Reporting for the Chicago Sun-Times and Jerusalem Post, she writes:

For me, the main lesson from this odyssey is that to refer to the Middle East conflict as the Palestinian Israeli conflict is to ignore the truth.

The truth is that at its root the conflict is about the Arab world's obsession with rejecting Israel. Kuwait hates the Palestinians. The Kuwaitis kicked the Palestinians out of their country.

The way I was treated had nothing to do with Beit El or Netzarim. It has to do with Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and the Bible...

...Peace will be upon us when I can feel as safe and welcome at a five-star Kuwaiti hotel as I felt in the Kuwaiti desert with the US army.

Posted 3/19/2003 11:34:00 AM by Ocean Guy
This from MEMRI... it seems the Libyans hold Jacques Chirac in high esteem..

The official paper of the Libyan regime, Al-Jumhuriya, chose to bestow on President Jacques Chirac of France the great honor of "Chirac Al-Ayoubi," after Salah al-Din Al-Ayoubi—known in the West as 'Saladin'- who is considered the greatest Arab military leader for defeating the Crusaders in the Battle of Hittin in the twelfth century.

Chirac a great Arab military leader? Meanwhile our friends, the Saudis, compare this past weekend's meeting in the Azores to Yalta:

The Saudi daily Al-Watan drew historical lessons from the Yalta conference which convened in 1945 "to divide the world according to a new map." Two of the three participants in Yalta, the United States and the United Kingdom, took part in the Azores summit. Spain replaced the Soviet Union as the third party. Al-Watan wrote in its editorial:

"The enormous failure of three 'axis of war countries' to extract a war resolution against Iraq has led them to convene a war council and [make] decisions under the banner of ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction. It means that the issue does not concern the three countries alone but the entire world. ...This style of managing world crises threatens world security and threatens world equilibrium when three countries make decisions and proceed without paying attention to the entire world and without giving peaceful efforts a greater chance to avoid the dangers of war."

On the other hand, a group of Saudi Islamic scholars issued a Fatwa (religious edict) warning Muslims and their rulers that it was a "deadly sin" to help a U.S.-led war on Iraq.

Posted 3/18/2003 12:47:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Don't miss Amir Taheri's analysis on Saddam's strategic options.

Saddam's war plan has three aims...
The first is to slow down the advance of coalition forces as much as possible. He hopes to do this by creating a tidal wave of refugees, including large numbers of army deserters, in the densely populated southern provinces bordering Kuwait.
The second goal of Saddam's war plan is to hide his best and most loyal forces behind units of the regular army. In a sense, he is using the Iraqi Army as cannon fodder. His hope is that the regular army will bear the brunt of the inevitable sacrifices, but will succeed in inflicting significant casualties on the coalition forces.
The third goal of the plan is to maximize civilian casualties in the hope of shocking world public opinion, especially in the US, into even stiffer opposition to the war...Saddam's address to his commanders Sunday included this ominous phrase: "We shall see how many Iraqis the aggressors are prepared to kill." [remember how the Highway of Death hastened the end of the last round of the Iraq war.]

Posted 3/18/2003 11:06:00 AM by Ocean Guy
In this week's Letter from America, Alistair Cooke not only gives us a short history lesson the the genesis of the Ditsrict of Columbia, but also of the United Nations. He explains how the idea that the UN cannot enforce its own charter is nothing new.

Like the previous League, the United Nations had, has had, no international force which could overwhelm any combination of aggressors.

It could simply go on chanting the opening sentence of the Charter: "To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." That, for 57 years, has been the theory, the grand wish, but in fact, in life since then, there have been 250 wars not put down. This early history, and the huge and continuing ineffectiveness of the UN as an enforcing power it was conceived to be, is at the root of America's attitude to Saddam Hussein.

It's the bitter knowledge that the UN, considered as an effective world force in putting down tyrants, aggressors, threats to peace - well, Cadogan came to believe that the United Nations was not stifled in its cradle at San Francisco, it was aborted in Dumbarton House. Yo will also want to read last week's letter on The Flaws of the UN.

Posted 3/17/2003 02:29:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Happy Purim

Imshin first posted Solly Ganer's story of a little joy and a small miracle at Dachau in 1945. It's also posted at Aish.

Posted 3/16/2003 04:15:00 PM by Ocean Guy
The more time goes by the more I am convinced by arguments like those in this piece by Michael Anbar, that the Arabs don't want peace, and won't accept peace with Israel. It's becoming obvious that they simply cannot accept a Jewish state in their midst.

...the Jewish people symbolize for Muslims the quintessential "evils" of Western culture that "invaded" the "Arab domain." The underlying cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is not a territorial dispute or fulfillment of political aspirations of local Arabs. The true cause is the tremendous difference between the ethical value systems of Arabs and Jews that impedes a long-term political settlement of the conflict. read the rest...

Posted 3/14/2003 09:07:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Here's a bit of hraka from North Carolina, but not by our friends at Silflay Hraka. This piece from the BeeB, about Freedom Fries and a counter-protest by a local alderman,

"So in fact we have a lot to thank France for, if it weren't for them we might be British," Ms Hall Broun said.

Posted 3/13/2003 12:30:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Moderate Islam Watch.... ala Al Jezeera

Do not miss the latest from MEMRI. It seems our friends at Al-Jezeera aired a discussion entitled "Why the Arabs Have Become the Joke of the World." Participants in the discussion included Algerian journalist Yahya Abu Zakaria, identified as an Islamist and resident of Sweden, and Egyptian historian Ahmad Othman, identified as a liberal. Some excerpts:

Yahya Abu Zakaria: "Oh Arab ruler, before the Americans enter your palace to search it, let the Arab street enter this palace to trim your mustache. Get out, because you are the reason for our cultural, social, and political catastrophes, and all our catastrophes, the last of which was that the American master is coming to gnaw away at the region directly, after some of its rulers were CIA officials..."

Ahmad Othman: "The Arab has no honor, no thought, no culture. We have turned these images into regimes, and were we to replace them, others just like them would come in their stead. We must, first of all, change ourselves. We must establish cultural values..."
"Why do we want to defend Saddam Hussein? Why do all the Arab regimes use the Arab people as a human shield for the greatest dictator of them all? If you object to dictatorships – who in the [Arab] regimes is a greater dictator than Saddam Hussein? How can the Arab people, who are persecuted by their regimes, be asked to defend the murderer who killed hundreds of thousands of the Iraqi people...? How can we defend Saddam Hussein and remain a free people ourselves? [A people] that defends a dictator is not a free people..."

Yahya Abu Zakaria: "I have in my possession a document that talks of an Arab security apparatus with 250,000 personnel. Who said there's unemployment in the Arab world? In a single apparatus, there's someone who chases the people, someone who chases the high school students, someone who chases the newspapers and journalists... "

"Since the Arab ruler is illegitimate... he has decided that he must surround himself with military personnel and policemen. The state budget that is meant to create economic stability..., he spends on the security apparatuses and on the army so that they will enable him to terrorize [the people in his land]... In our Arab reality, the father fears his son, the son fears his brother, and the mother fears her daughter..."

Ahmad Othman: "[Today, the intellectuals] have become government officials, and they defend a dictatorial regime. All the Marxist intellectual groups defend the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The Arab people no longer understand... our intellectuals have sold themselves to the dictator... But what happened is that after September 11, the Americans realized that the dictatorial regimes in the Arab region produce terrorists who attack America and Europe. The entire world lives in fear of the terrorists that these regimes produce. The Americans realized this. They do not want to establish democracy for our sake, but in order to defend themselves. If the Arab people have an opportunity to learn, to participate in the rule of its land, and to participate in building society, it will not destroy America and Europe."

It looks like Ahmad Othman has more sense than our French friends

Posted 3/12/2003 12:51:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Diane's Letter from Gotham today weighs in on the dialogue ongoing among Susanna and Meryl, and others, about who killed Jesus. Diane has gathered the links to a number of sources on the matter that are well worth reading. As for me, I agree with Lynn B. "... I'm really not happy with the direction the comments by many of your readers has taken. As a matter of fact, if they're any indication, the impact of this movie is likely to be far worse than I would have thought possible..."

Posted 3/12/2003 08:24:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Amen.
An explanation I like about the origins of the use of that Hebrew word came to mind this morning. In ancient times when common folks spoke Aramaic, yet the Holy Language of prayer was Hebrew, they relied on the priests or rabbis to read the prayers. (has anything really changed?) The non-Hebrew speaking public participated in prayer by saying, “Amen" when the reading was finished. It can be loosely translated as "so be it" or by, “What he said!" This morning Thomas Friedman got a "what he said" out of me with the description of his gut feelings about war with Iraq. Especially:

My main criticism of President Bush is that he has failed to acknowledge how unusual this war of choice is — for both Americans and the world — and therefore hasn't offered the bold policies that have to go with it. Instead, the president has hyped the threat and asserted that this is a war of no choice, then combined it all with his worst pre-9/11 business as usual: budget-busting tax cuts, indifference to global environmental concerns, a gas-guzzling energy policy, neglect of the Arab-Israeli peace process and bullying diplomacy.

And this brings me to my last gut feeling: despite all the noise, a majority of decent people in the world still hunger for a compromise that forces Saddam to comply, or be exposed, and does not weaken America.

So, Mr. President, before you shake the dice on a legitimate but audacious war, please, shake the dice just once on some courageous diplomacy. Pick up where Woodrow Wilson left off: fly to Paris, bring the leaders of France, Russia, China and Britain together, along with the chairman of the Arab League summit, and offer them any reasonable amount of time for more inspections — if they will agree on specific disarmament benchmarks Saddam has to meet and support an automatic U.N. authorization of force if he doesn't. If France still snubs you, the world will see that you are the one trying to preserve collective security, while France only wants to make mischief. That will be very important to the legitimacy of any war.

If, however, the President knows of an imminent threat from Iraq and the terrorists it supports, then he should make it known to the world and act without delay.

Posted 3/11/2003 08:47:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Elizabeth Katzman was murdered by a palestinian who blew himself up last week. One of her high school classmates describes his life around the bombing and tells us... "I hardly knew Liz Katzman. And alas, I never will." But you'll know something about her by reading his story.

Posted 3/10/2003 10:13:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Stop by the Shark Blog for his reprint of An Israeli perspective on Iraq.

Posted 3/10/2003 09:22:00 AM by Ocean Guy
The Temple Mount
The manner in which Israel has handled the Temple Mount and the Mosque built upon it, since 1967 should be lauded, especially when examined in the larger context of Israeli-Arab relations.

While many consider Israel's liberation of Jerusalem and Judaism's holiest sites from Arab occupation the crowning achievement of the 1967 Six-Day War; few know that even before the war's end, Moshe Dayan ceded control of the Mount to the Waqf. Secularist Israeli leaders, like Dayan, saw the Mount as merely an "historical curiosity" for Jews, but respected its religious significance for Moslems. Certainly, it is to our everlasting credit as a tolerant people that Israel did this. Could you even imagine any Arab country paying the same homage to Jewish religious sensitivities? While Jewish prayer at the Mount or Western Wall was prohibited during the years of Arab occupation, it is unthinkable that Israel would ban Moslem prayer at al-Aqsa. Since then, successive Israeli governments have maintained a policy of non-interference with Waqf actions, while banning Jewish and Christian prayer there.

The time has come for some kind of change in policy. At the very least, the issue should be addressed and some light shed upon the differences between the two cultures in handling the other's holy sites.

The intentional destruction of the Temple Mount as an archaeological site by the Waqf should not be ignored. We should learn about the intentions and methods of Islam by examining their management of such an historical ancient site... Are their actions ignorant, or are they a deliberate attempt to destroy historic evidence? Either way their custodianship of the Mount has been a crime. UNESCO is a partner in the crime, implicating the UN as a whole.

Maybe its' time for a re-thinking of the UN's organization. Certainly the ideals behind its creation are far from being realized. It may be time for the UN to join the League of Nations, and time for a new organization to emerge which more closely reflects the reality of the times. But whatever happens with the UN, someone needs to shed some light on the Arab mishandling of the Temple Mount, not just since 1967, but from the very beginning of their interest in the site. Richard L. Benkin, puts a little light on the subject here.
For further reading try: The templemount.org and this article with pictures on the destruction under Waqf stewardship

Posted 3/07/2003 09:40:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Most of us were analyzing the President's statement and answers last night. I was disappointed. I found myself thinking much of what insomnomaniac says she wishes she could have whispered in W's ear. Generally I thought the President did a very good job at explaining the conclusions he has come to, but a very poor job at explaining how he arrived at his conclusions. I'd have liked for he to lead us through his logic a little more clearly. Instead he appears to assume that we should all be thinking and feeling the same way. If only he'd listen to Deb.

Posted 3/06/2003 04:50:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Ribbity Frog's Near Miss
I'm glad to read that the Frog avoided catastrophe. After every bombing many of us check our Israeli bloggers sites for news that they're OK. Ribbity Frog's story is sobering.

Posted 3/06/2003 11:32:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Comparing today's Peace Movement to the Peace Movement of the 1930's
Sam Schulman draws some striking parallels:

"And among those categories of people - the very nicest, the most thoughtful, the most progressive, those with the highest degree of social and moral conscience - it is not self-regard to count not only the cream of American Jewry, but probably the majority. It is not self-flattery, because the behavior of these people in the 1930s - signers of peace petitions, supporters of disarmament, idealistic Communists and socialists, New Dealers, members of the America First committee, supporters of the League of Nations - were "objectively" supporting Hitler, as George. How? They condemned "unilateral" efforts to compel him to obey the Versailles treaty (or unilateral efforts to stop Mussolini from invading Ethiopia) as warmongering; by believing in the efficacy of diplomacy - and even prayer - over preparing, they enabled Hitler to build up his arsenal and ready himself for total war - externally against free (but oh so flawed and immoral) countries, and internally against the Jews.

The Popes of the 1930s did - like the Pope of today would, alas, do - far more harm to the Jews because they wanted and wished for "Peace" than because of any anti-Semitic feelings they may have harbored."

Posted 3/06/2003 09:08:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Comparing Saddam and Stalin
The Jerusalem Post's Editors raise an interesting question. Can Iraq be disarmed with Saddam still in power?

It is now known that Stalin murdered on the order of 20 million of his own people. He did this with weapons as simple as bullets. Similarly, Cambodia's Pol Pot killed some 2 million of his people, again with the simplest of weapons. Most recently, the genocide in Rwanda was carried out largely with machetes. The weapon employed by the September 11 terrorists was the box cutter...

Saddam is a danger with whatever weapons he has at his disposal. The world is kidding itself and ignoring the tragedy in Iraq. The tragedy the Iraqi public endures is emblematic of the tragedy in most of the Arab world, where the wealth of the states has been siphoned for the benefit of a very few, while millions languish in hopelessness and poverty. Saddam, and the other Arab Kings and Princes are pleased to sit back and let the blame fall on the US, successfully deflecting their own responsibility in wasting billions of dollars in oil revenue over the last 40 years. They are pleased the debate has been reduced to whether Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.
The Bush Administration has been extremely ineffective at getting the message out that Saddam The Man is the real danger, not the tools he uses for killing.

The more the debate is focused on disarming Saddam, the more obvious it is that focusing on Saddam's weapons is a way of avoiding discussion of the threat from the man himself. We understand why, for tactical reasons, the United States chose the course of seeking legitimacy for its actions through the UN, which in turn produced the current focus on weapons rather than character. But even if Saddam is ousted in any case, a huge misunderstanding of the nature of the threat has been created. Perhaps after Saddam is gone, the US will do a better job of explaining, and it will become more obvious, why it was the character of the man himself that necessitated concerted international action.

Posted 3/05/2003 08:11:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Lynn B came across a Jewish newspaper from 1935, and as she says, "The more things change, . . . "

Posted 3/05/2003 11:08:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Reprinted in the Jerusalem Post is this fictional letter, a poem of a suicide bomber:

My Dear Mother, ...I wrapped my body with determination, with hopes and with bombs.
I asked [reaching] towards Allah and the fighting homeland.

The [explosive] belt makes me fly, strengthens me to make haste.

I calm it [the explosive], we should stay steadfast, we have not yet reached [our target].
I freed/launched myself; I freed/launched myself, [detonated myself] like lava burning old legends and vanity, I freed/launched my body, all my pains and oppression, towards the packs of beasts...
I freed/launched, oh mother, freed the chains and the shackles.

And you found me rising and rising like a candle that was lit with precious olive oil.
And you saw me sending a loving kiss above the mosques and the churches, the houses and the roads.

Flocks of pigeons flew above the porches, and Al-Aksa smiled and gave me a sign that we will not sleep.

Dawn is close, oh mother, and it shall rise from the guns, from the shining spears. It will be lit from a bloody wound...
The wedding is the wedding of the land.
Sound a cry of joy, oh mother, I am the groom...

Any society that can produce people who see honor in mass murder is sick. A society that glorifies children who murder other children, deserves no legitimacy. Palestinian society, every day, shows it is incapable of administering itself, so please someone enlighten me..... why do "we" want to create a second palestinian state? It would simply make it easier for Arabs to kill Jews. How many dead today in Haifa? Does anyone really believe the Arabs want peace?