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QuoteLog, 8/03 – "Islamist militancy is a self-confessed threat to the values not merely of the US but also of the European Enlightenment: to the preference for life over death, to peace, rationality, science and the humane treatment of our fellow men, not to mention fellow women. It is a reassertion of blind, cruel faith over reason. One does not have to be a scholar of Islam to say this. Evil men can find what they seek in most of the religious or philosophical texts of the world. In the Middle Ages it was the Christian Crusaders who represented intolerance, the murder of those of different faiths – or even different variants of one’s own faith – and international pillage in the name of religion. Today the roles are reversed; and I leave it to theologians to decide which side has been truer at which time to the supposedly sacred texts."

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QuoteLog, 7/21 – "The State Department simply can’t be trusted with the decisions of screening out terrorists before they get into the United States. Not only has State been grossly irresponsible in issuing visas, but it has lied to the public in order to protect its pet visa programs [...] In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the tragedy was still fresh in our minds, the State Department knowingly and intentionally lied to the public by dramatically understating the visa-refusal rates in the country that sent us 15 of the 19 hijackers: Saudi Arabia [...] Even 10 months after 9/11, State actually wants to expand Visa Express to more countries. (A senior State official says: ’State still wants to get through as many people as possible with a minimum of hassle.’) This, even though the U.S. Ambassador in Saudi Arabia has asked to shut down Visa Express there. Given that all 19 of the 9/11 terrorists came here on legal visas, it’s obvious that State has the worst possible track record to keep control over the visa-screening procedures. Clearly, this power should be transferred to the new Homeland Security Department: Keeping terrorists from reaching our shores in the first place must be at the core of its mission. But more fundamentally than that, a government agency that willfully lies to the public to protect a foreign entity should not – cannot – be trusted to keep our borders – and us – safe."

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QuoteLog, 7/13 – "In the wake of bin Laden’s declaration of war, people all over the world suddenly faced difficult, harrowing choices: People trapped in upper floors of the World Trade Center had to choose between jumping and burning to death; George W. Bush had to choose between an immediate, massive military response and a delayed, measured response; the Taliban had to choose between handing over bin Laden and enduring the wrath of the United States war machine; the president of Pakistan had to choose between cooperating with Bush’s war on terrorism (and risking a coup) and cooperating with Pakistan’s Islamo-fascists (and risking the wrath of the U.S. war machine). And while people all over the world were facing up to these difficult choices, the smug, dishonest lefties at Seattle Weekly-and the smug, dishonest lefties they were pandering tosought to avoid making their own difficult choice, which was essentially this: Pacifism or patriotism? Because after September 11, you could have one or the other-but you couldn’t have both [...] This is what we’re up against these days, and it depresses this Gore voter past the point of despair to write this… but… uh… the recently unveiled Bush Doctrine (rough translation: If we think you’re coming after us next Tuesday, we’ll be bombing your ass flat this Tuesday) is a necessary evil. Ask yourself this question and answer it honestly: If it was within your power in August of last year to order a pre-emptive strike that would’ve prevented the attacks of September 11, would you have done it? Of course you would. That’s the Bush Doctrine. And the Bush Doctrine’s first smackdown is going to be Saddam Hussein, who has to be removed from power before he kills thousands (or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands) of American citizens in a major American city."

... » Full Article, 1070 words »

QuoteLog, 6/29 – "Because there are three trends converging in the Middle East today. The first is this vicious Israeli-Palestinian war. The second is a population explosion in the Arab world, where virtually every Arab country has a population bubble of under-15-year-olds, who are marching toward a future where they will find a shortage of good jobs and a surplus of frustration. The third is an explosion of Arab satellite TV stations, the Internet and other private media. Basically what’s happening is that this Arab media explosion is taking images of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and beaming them to this population explosion, nurturing a rage against Israel, America and Jews in a whole new Arab generation. Of that new generation there are going to be 10 who will go to dad one day and say, ’Dad, there is a Pakistani gentleman at the door selling a suitcase nuclear bomb. He wants a check for $100,000, and I would like to personally deliver the suitcase to Tel Aviv.’ And dad is going to write the check."

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QuoteLog, 6/21 – "A recent report that airline reservations from the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] to the United States were 40 percent of what they were last year shocked me. I had hoped that the number of Saudis traveling to the United States this year would be only five percent of what they were last year [...] I have also been shocked by the normal level of sales of US products at shops in Jeddah. It is disappointing to note that people have returned to US fast-food restaurants, proving that either they are taken in by advertisements which emphasize that the restaurants are 100 percent Arab or tempted by the discounts offered there. People ignore the fact that the boycott is a form of jihad, involving a bitter struggle with oneself which will bring rewards from God. These people also seem to be unaware of the rulings banning both American and Israeli goods. We should shun these goods until substitutes are found to replace them [...] I would also pray for the success of businessmen such as Prince Amr Al-Faisal who canceled his business contract with an American company. He is a role model for all Arab and Muslim businessmen who are committed to the jihad aiming at the liberation of Palestine and Al-Aqsa Mosque [...] Some extremist groups in the US and Britain have declared their plans to avenge the deaths at the World Trade Center by attacking Arab tourists this summer. They warned that travelers to America or Britain would be targeted."

... » Full Article, 998 words »

QuoteLog, 6/11 – "Yet there are those in the government who seem to be trying to obstruct Bush’s war against terrorism. You can see this in the victory-lap exultation of one of the Post’s military sources that the Pentagon has scotched any plans for Iraq. You can see it in the FBI Washington supervisor who blocked a search warrant for Zacarias Moussaoui’s computer, despite French intelligence reports on himbecause, hey, there might be another Zacarias Moussaoui in France [...] You can see it in the denial by ’a senior administration [CIA?] official’ of reports of a meeting in Prague between September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi spy Ahmed Khalil al-Anialthough Czech Republic officials continue to insist that the meeting took place. Clearly some middle- and high-level officials have taken it on themselves to set up roadblocks on the road to Baghdad. The question is whether Bush and his top appointees will tear them down [...] In other words, the George W. Bush who has made it plain in his State of the Union speech and at West Point that we must go to war with Iraq needs to take control of his own administration. Trusting officials as ’good men’ is not enough if they are allowing subordinates to act in line with the incentives that have inhibited intelligence gathering and responses to terrorism over the past 25 years. The American people are with him on Iraq, but he still must get the government in line."

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QuoteLog, 6/1 – "Israel’s Shin Bet security service last week instructed a delegation from the New York Police Department on how to deal with suicide bombings. On Monday, eight senior law enforcement officials from Georgia arrived for a week of lectures, seminars, and scrutiny of an Israeli paramilitary border police unit. The bomb unit of the Los Angeles Police Department was here earlier this month. And Israeli police superintendent Shlomo Aharonishky met two weeks ago in Washington with Chief of Police Charles Ramsey and FBI agents to discuss how to handle suicide bombers. ’There is no question the ties have gotten closer,’ says Gil Kleiman, an Israeli police spokes-man. ’No other law enforcement agency has the experience we have in dealing with terrorism within the constraints of a Western system of law and court systems.’ [...] Israeli specialists have a low regard for American security searches. They say they tend to cause unnecessary discomfort for travelers, while being prone to missing potential assailants. ’The United States does not have a security system, it has a system for bothering people,’ Dror says. ’The difference between the Israeli and American systems is that we are looking for the terrorist, while the Americans look for the weapons,’ he adds."

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QuoteLog, 5/23 – "I am struck both by the number of web readers I have in New York, and by what they write to me. On Sept. 11th, at least 20 million people could actually see the smoke and debris uttering from the former WTC with their own eyes. It is now written into each of their souls. I have yet to hear from even one of them who is not willing, in reply to further such attacks from the same family of terrorist fanatics, to take out every single Islamic regime, whether ’radical’ or ’moderate’. I don’t think we in Canada, let alone those in Europe, fully appreciate the ’commitment’ there. That e.g. the moment the U.S. enters Iraq, Hillary Clinton will cry: ’Get ’im!’ [...] In the meantime, Europe, from its experience, conceives the ’war against terrorism’ as a battle of attrition, for relatively low stakes, comparing terrorist hits to bad traffic accidents. It is something to which they are inured, something for the police to deal with, something that can only get worse if you pay too much attention to it. Whereas the U.S. has not merely hypothesized but experienced a true catastrophe [...] ...on Monday, the U.S. Memorial Day, President Bush will visit the beaches in Normandy, where so many U.S. soldiers fell, in a noble battle to free Europe from the original Fascist menace, two generations ago. It is the U.S. that is now under attack, and the Europeans being asked to return the favour."

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QuoteLog, 5/19 – "Eight months after Sept. 11, most children in New York seem to have bounced back and returned to rooting for the Yankees or Mets, flocking to ‘Spider-Man’ or playing in their soccer league with the same childhood zeal they showed in living their lives before Sept. 11. But many others continue to struggle to find their old bearings. Sometimes they are seemingly carefree children. Sometimes they are living children’s lives with adult worries. The scope of the problem was underscored by a recently released study conducted for the Board of Education. It concluded that roughly 200,000 of the 712,000 public school children in grades 4 through 12 were candidates for some sort of mental health intervention — at least a visit with a mental health professional — because of the lingering trauma of Sept. 11 […] Her friend and classmate, Rima Ibrahim, who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, said, ‘I feel like that day took away some of my innocence.’ Things that once seemed significant, like her school uniform’s being perfectly pressed, no longer do. ‘I know that my friends feel more anxious, like we always need to be worried, that we are not invincible and anything can happen to us when we least expect it,’ she wrote in an e-mail message

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QuoteLog, 5/10 – "Fresh food is flown in for him twice a weeklobster, shrimp, and fish, lots of lean meat, plenty of dairy products. The shipments are sent first to his nuclear scientists, who x-ray them and test them for radiation and poison. The food is then prepared for him by European-trained chefs, who work under the supervision of al Himaya, Saddam’s personal bodyguards. Each of his more than twenty palaces is fully staffed, and three meals a day are cooked for him at every one; security demands that palaces from which he is absent perform an elaborate pantomime each day, as if he were in residence. Saddam tries to regulate his diet, allotting servings and portions the way he counts out the laps in his pools. For a big man he usually eats little, picking at his meals, often leaving half the food on his plate."

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QuoteLog, 5/6 – "Nowadays I am admonished to look at things from the Arab perspective. Well, I do. I read their papers as much as I can, as well nuggets gleaned from the MEMRI site. I see a legitimate cause long lost to a collective spasm of romantic insanity. I see a pathological hatred of the Jews that seems both delusional and self-destructive. The problems of the Arab states are the fault of the Arab states, but this cannot be discussed, so all anger must be directed at the Jews. It’s interesting to note after the 50s, the American culture never objectified and demonized Russians – on the contrary, we indulged ourselves with notions of the curmudgeonly Bear who, in the end, could be brought around with some good clear likker. If there is one remarkable and unnoticed aspect of the Cold War, it is the way in which the Americans eventually wanted to love the Russian people. Screw the Kremlin, fine, but we had no beef with Rooskie workin stiffs. You got your system, we got ours, but hell, it ain’t worth blowing up the planet over. If Saudi Arabia had a Star Trek, do you think they’d put a Jewish Chekov at the helm?"

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QuoteLog, 4/30 – "We all want justice. We all deserve justice. ’No justice, no peace,’ as the slogan goes. But in the Middle East, justice and peace have become mutually exclusive goals. The harder the two sides insist on getting justice, the more difficult it becomes to get peace. So hope for justice—even talk of justice—must be abandoned. There can never be justice for the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, a horror so profound that the world created Israel to give the surviving Jews a homeland. Likewise, there can never be justice for the millions of Palestinians turned into refugees after Israel’s creation in 1948. More recently, there can be no justice for the innocent Palestinians killed in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank. And there can be no justice for the innocent Israelis killed by a suicide bombing on Passover. There can be no justice. Period. That may be hard to accept, but once you do, then maybe, just maybe, we can make our way to peace."

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QuoteLog, 4/27 – "The people of the United States should take solace, even pride, in the fact that their views on the violence in the Middle East are completely at odds with the opinions of the United Nations, the continent of Europe and most of their own media. Since early April, various opinion polls have been asking Americans essentially the same questions about the blood-stained standoff between Israel and the Palestinians. Their responses, excerpted here, have held remarkably steady throughout, with answers that make clear they understand the meaning of terror and do so in numbers that make the ’margin of error’ irrelevant [...] In the otherwordly moral calculus of post World War II Europe and much media-which these polls suggest is beyond the ken of most Americans-self-evident atrocities such as the Passover suicide bombing are mere stories in the wreckage of the news. But a military counter-strike is a human rights abuse. We have arrived at a point in international affairs at which the degraded concept of moral equivalence would be a step toward the sunshine. It may well be true that Americans born after World War II lost their innocence about the world on September 11, but how fortunate that when this nation is attacked and finds itself in a long, grim war with an enemy dedicated to killing civilians, its people are not so easily diverted by the kind of casuistry, salami-slicing, needle-dancing, opportunism and moral myopia that has gripped the world’s opinion-shaping institutions."

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QuoteLog, 4/24 – "I heard some clips today from a rally held by the Washington Monument in support of the PLO and Hamas. Part of the merry anti-Globo puppet parade. Its just so charming to hear rudely amplified voices calling for the death of the Jews again. Its just so … bracing to hear a speaker take the mike beneath the two-toned obelisk named for Americas Cincinnatus, and demand the destruction of a small democratic state in a sea of technocrat tyrannies. And it gives you such a warm feeling to hear the crowd bay their approval. A speaker demanded that the borders of the Middle East be returned to 1947; the crowd cheered. Death to the Jews, death to Israel. Stated and applauded. In America. In Washington. On the Mall [...] Whatever point they originally had about globalization – some of which I used to share – has been consumed by their adoration of fascism and political violence. When a speaker promised to bring the intifada to America, and use whatever means necessary – enunciating each word so the reference to St. Malcolm the X was welded to the current definition of ’means’ – then the point is naked and obvious: you have a movement that wants young people to blow themselves up at the Disney store in Times Square [...] They preach an end to war, but include in their number people who wish to destroy, violently, a democratic nation. They agitate against racism, but include in their number people who wish to exterminate the Jews of Israel. They rage against globalism, but support the work of terrorists who operate in every hemisphere. They are the useful fools who end up on the wrong side of concertina wire a year after the revolution; besotted by their communal self-regard, enchanted by the allure of the flame, they have thrown in their lot with the enemies of civilization. And this will be the death of their cause."

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QuoteLog, 4/20 – "With due respect to all that has been recently said about Arab economic power and demands that they assume an international political role, it is important for us to realize that emotional words are one thing and cold reality something else [...] I was astonished to read that the productivity of the 13 countries which belong to ESCWA [the UN’s Economic and Social Committee for Western Asia] 12 of which are in Asia and one, Egypt, in Africa amounted to $392 billion annually. This represents only 1 percent of total world productivity! [...] To put it another way, that same amount represents the productivity of one small European country Holland with a population of 16 million. In other words, Holland’s productivity alone is equal to the total output of the 13 ESCWA countries! We should also bear in mind that oil represents 90 percent of ESCWAs exports and that Holland possesses neither oil nor gas. The report went on to point out that the number of tourists in the Arab world does not exceed 2.5 percent of the total number of world tourists. In Europe, Spain hosts 70 million tourists annually; France 50 million and England 40 million. The report also mentioned that the rate of illiteracy in the ESCWA is 42 percent of the population and is higher among women. The rate of unemployment is 16 percent of the work force [...] It seems they are saying that the Arabs must confront the results of Black Tuesday and also boycott America and other Western countries which ride on its heels. Who, I ask, are we deceiving? I ask the writers and TV personalities who call for a boycott: Are you serious or is it all a sick joke?"

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QuoteLog, 4/17 – "Consider your mental image of President Bush. The smirk … the receding hairline … the confidence and the swagger [...] He’s not a cowboy, as the Economist caricatured him last year [...] He’s a living, breathing Captain Kirk. Consider: He has the same poise facing down terrorists that the farm boy from Iowa had facing down Klingons. He jokes with his ’crew’ (the media, the Cabinet, Tony Blair) even as he weighs life-and-death matters. He even has the same array of advisers: The cautious, logical Spock (Colin Powell), a folksy, straight-talkin’ McCoy (Don Rumsfeld), and a trouble-shooting miracle worker (Dick Cheney) [...] Gerhard and Jacuques would rather have a civilized cup of tea, followed by aperitifs in Ten-Forward. In short, they would rather have to deal with Captain Picard, who, despite Patrick Stewart’s BBC Received accent, was French. Maybe they’ll get their wish sometime. But not soon. And not while President Kirk has the conn."

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QuoteLog, 4/14 – "To Jews who adhere to ancient tradition, whose number include religious Israeli nationalists, the long-awaited Messiah will return to become the king of Israel and high priest of a rebuilt Temple, which can only be on Temple Mount. For Christian fundamentalists, Jesus Christ’s return at the height of the battle of Armageddon, in which forces of the Antichrist clash in Israel with a 200 million-man army from the East, will require a Third Temple from which the Lord will begin a millennial reign. And for Muslims, an Antichrist figure called the Dajal will be a Jew who will lead an all-encompassing war against Islam, which will culminate in the return of Jesus (as a Muslim prophet), the Kaaba, or Sacred Rock in Mecca, transporting itself to Jerusalem, and final judgment in the valley just below the Noble Sanctuary [...] The unshakable belief in particular prophetic visions Jewish, Christian, or Islamic makes the art of political compromise impossible when it comes to Jerusalem. Says Weber: ’There’s no way to negotiate these ideas. If you believe that this is in the prophetic cards, that this is history before it happens, that this is how God is going to manipulate events to bring about the final phase of human history, then you cannot negotiate land for peace, or anything else.’ Put another way: You don’t have to believe that a rust-colored calf could bring about the end of the world or that 72 black-eyed virgins await the pious Islamic suicide bomber in paradise but there are many people who do, and are prepared to act on that belief. This is a stubborn reality that eludes many of us in the modern, secular West, particularly those who work in the media, and who are therefore responsible for reporting and explaining the world to the masses."

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QuoteLog, 4/10 – "Isn’t it interesting that you didn’t see any ’European peace activists’ volunteering to ’put their bodies on the line’ by announcing that they would place themselves in real dangerin the Tel Aviv cafs and pizza parlors, favorite targets of the suicide bombers. Why no ’European peace activists’ at the Seders of Netanya or the streets of Jerusalem? Instead, ’European peace activists’ do their best to protect the brave sponsors of the suicide bombers in Ramallah [...] Someone remarked recently at the astonishing hypocrisy of European diplomats and politicians in supporting the Palestinian ’right of return’ when so many Europeans are still living in homes stolen from Jews they helped murder [...] This is the way it is likely to happen: Sooner or later, a nuclear weapon is detonated in Tel Aviv, and sooner, not later, there is nuclear retaliationBaghdad, Damascus, Tehran, perhaps all three. Someone once said that while Jesus called on Christians to ’turn the other cheek,’ it’s the Jews who have been the only ones who have actually practiced that. Not this time. The unspoken corollary of the slogan ’Never again’ is: ’And if again, not us alone.’ So the time has come to think about the Second Holocaust. It’s coming sooner or later; it’s not ’whether,’ but when. I hope I don’t live to see it. It will be unbearable for those who do. That is, for all but the Europeans whose consciences, as always, will be clear and untroubled."

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QuoteLog, 4/8 – "In my strange hopeful moments I place great stock in Iran – which brings me to Mehdi. He was a friend of mine at the old Valli in Dinkytown; we were both waiters for many years. Iranian students did not have the best rep in those days – that unpleasantness at the embassy, and all that. But we all loved Mehdi. He was brooding over a Marlboro one day, all cheer and grins the next, a faithful friend, a poolshark non pariel, a student of engineering in the day and the finer arts of pinball at night. He dated a Big American Blonde, who was mad about him. Then one day he announced he was going home, because the Shah was gone and he wanted to be part of this new society. We never heard from him again. I’d like to think – God, I hope – that he’s alive, living in Tehran with teenaged children, and that the kids sometimes ask him about America. And he would tell them of the long cars and the big shiny buildings and rock & roll radio and all the people of all faiths & colors who had been his friends, and how the fact that he had been Persian and a Muslim had been the absolute least important factor in our friendships – never came up, for that matter. It got in the way of a good game of pool. I don’t wonder if he spoke well of us; I know it. Just as we speak well of him to this day. How many Mehdis went home? How many children grew up rolling their eyes at Dad’s adventures in Great Satan land, but now regard him as the luckiest man they know? We’ll find out. I don’t say that in some shoulder-shrugging European que-sera-sara fashion. I mean it. We’ll find out, and soon."

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QuoteLog, 4/3 – "According to Frenchman Thierry Meyssan, president of Reseau Voltaire, a ’respected left wing think tank,’ the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon didn’t happen [...] So what was happening, sir, when I heard a coworker scream, ’JESUS H. CHRIST!’ and turned my head to the window next to me to see the Pentagon, the center of our country’s defense, explode, EXPLODE, I say, into a vicious, vile and evil fury of the likes I have never seen nor ever want to again, but do, in my nightmares. I have never seen orange that vivid, that intense, smoke that black [...] Tell me, sir, why I abandoned professional dress completely after that day and wore jeans and running shoes to work for weeks, keeping 40 bucks, two credit cards, my keys and a cell phone with me at all times, exiting our silver skyscrapers every 45 minutes for 15 minutes in hope of increasing the odds that I might live to see next summer. Our beautiful skyscrapers that overlook the Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln monuments also overlook the Pentagon [...] I need to know why I couldn’t eat without throwing up during the two weeks that followed Sept. 11. I need to know why I spent 60-plus nights alternating between two hours of sleep and 14 hours of sleep. And when sleep did come, I only bolted awake from the night terrors that left me struggling for breath. I need to know why I cried without warning every goddamn day for two months."

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