From the WSJ Opinion Archives
'The American
Auschwitz'
The Middle East Media and Research Institute picks up a column in the Lebanese
newspaper Al-Liwa by one Rif'at Sayyid Ahmad. Froths Ahmad:
We always see how human beings prey upon each other, how values are trampled, and how tragedies recur. This is exactly what happened, and is still happening, at the "American Auschwitz" detention camp . . . excuse me, I meant the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay!! This is one of the worst deeds of the American era in which we live, and one of the most infamous of its crimes, and will go down in history if [history] is written by men of honor, not by traitors.
This detention camp reminds me of "J'accuse" by Emile Zola, who, in 1898, defended Alfred Dreyfus, the French officer of the Jewish faith. . . . While Zola accused eight high-ranking generals in the French army . . . I direct my political and moral accusation at the president of the U.S.; his deputy Dick Cheney, that super-racist Jew; his secretary of state, Colin Powell; his intelligence minister [sic]; his national security advisor; his war ministry staff [sic]; his administration in the White House; British Prime Minister Tony Blair . . . who played the role of procurer, as did all the ministers and presidents of the European Union countries who have participated in and supported the crime being committed at Guantanamo and who, by their declared collaboration or their open silence, have brought to ruin the values that they claim exist in their civilization.
Equally invidious but more insidious is an op-ed by Kenneth Roth, head of Human Rights Watch, in the International Herald Tribune. Roth disagrees with the Bush administration's interpretation of the Geneva Convention--a defensible enough position, though the issues involved are rather arcane. But read Roth's conclusion:
Apart from protecting POWs, the Geneva conventions also contain the most broadly accepted international prohibitions against waging war by attacking civilians--that is, terrorism. To suggest that certain causes justify setting the conventions aside is to accept the ends-justify-the-means logic of terrorism.
That is surely the Bush administration's most serious mistake of all.
This is appalling on many levels. Most obviously, it is simply scurrilous to liken the Bush administration to terrorists. It's also inaccurate to suggest the administration is "setting the conventions aside" when all it has done is adopt a less al Qadea-friendly interpretation of them than Roth's.
But here's the most preposterous thing about Roth's statement. Does anyone really think that the problem with terrorists is that they believe "the ends justify the means"? Osama, my good man, of course killing infidels is a noble goal; you're just going about it the wrong way. Is that Human Rights Watch's position?
Besides, if the ends don't justify the means, what does? The rhetorical trope of accusing one's opponent of acting as if "the ends justify the means" is usually a dishonest argument--a way of falsely claiming the moral high ground by disguising one's own view of the "ends" as scruples about the "means." Roth's "end," to judge by his IHT piece, seems to be ensuring that his interpretation of the Geneva Convention prevails. If that entails making it harder to prevent terrorism, well, the ends justify the means. In Roth's own formulation, this means he has accepted the logic of terrorism.
'We
Body-Slammed Them'
U.S. forces are "gaining ground" against al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan,
the Washington Post reports. "On Tuesday we caught several hundred of them with
RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and mortars heading toward the fight,"
Maj. Gen. Franklin Hagenbeck tells the Associated Press. "We body slammed
them today and killed hundreds of those guys."
According to some reports, including this one in the New York Daily News, Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts, a Navy SEAL who perished in the attack, "was captured by Al Qaeda forces" after falling from his helicopter "and later executed." Gen. Hagenbeck says the killing was recorded by an unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft. Strangely enough, today's International Herald Tribune does not have an article by anyone from Human Rights Watch demanding that al Qaeda treat captured American men in accord with the Geneva Conventions.
The New York Times (link requires registration) reports that the U.S. has been monitoring al Qaeda e-mail communications, which indicate that "elements of the terror network may be trying to regroup in remote sanctuaries in Pakistan near the Afghan border." United Press International has another cyber-angle, reporting that an al Qaeda Web site is claming the U.S. suffered much heavier casualties than it has said:
"About the casualties that the Pentagon has admitted, it's really much more than they ever confessed to," al Qaida said in a statement on the al Neda Web site, translated late Tuesday by United Press International.
The statement, posted Tuesday, claimed that al Qaida fighters attacked about 70 U.S. and Canadian troops on Monday in Khost in eastern Afghanistan and that "many were killed."
"We don't know how many were hit because we cannot return to that area," al Qaida said.
Reuters reports that "hundreds of U.S. troop reinforcements, loaded with equipment to attack caves, were airlifted into mountain battlefields in east Afghanistan Wednesday" to search for enemy men. London's Independent, meanwhile, reports that British special forces are leading the hunt for top Talib Mullah Mohammad Omar.
But
Who Leaked the Story?
A scientific whiz at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has
devised a urine test that can detect exposure to plutonium going back as far
as 20 years, ABC News reports. By administering the test to inmates at Gitmo,
the U.S. may be able to help determine if Osama bin Laden has gotten anywhere
in his quest for nuclear weapons.
Those
Peace-Loving Syrians
"Syria Chief Backs Saudi Peace Plan as Mideast Boils," reads the headline
in today's New York Times (link requires registration). It almost goes without
saying that the story, by Serge Schmamann, is far more pollyannaish about Arab
intentions than the facts warrant. The actual Syrian
statement is rather belligerent in tone. It begins:
President Bashar Assad and Saudi Crown Prince, Emir Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, reiterated here [in Jedda, Saudi Arabia] Tuesday Syria and Saudi Arabia's determined stance by the Palestinians in their legitimate struggle for the restoration of their usurped rights and occupied territories.
President Assad, who arrived earlier in a visit to Saudi Arabia, held talks with the Saudi Crown Prince on developments at the Arab and international arenas especially what the Palestinians suffer of oppression and terrorism and destruction due to the Israeli occupation forces practices.
Nowhere does the Syrian statement promise diplomatic recognition of Israel, which is the only concession the Jewish state would receive under the Saudi "plan," and Schmemann's article, consistent with his earlier cheerleading on behalf of the Saudis, omits any mention of this crucial omission.
Charles Krauthammer gets it right:
In 35 years of studying the Middle East, I have rarely seen anything to rival the Saudi "peace plan" for cynicism (of those pushing the plan) and gullibility (of those buying it). If it were not so tragic it would be comic. Israeli civilians are being blown up almost daily in restaurants, at bus stops, at prayer. Retaliatory attacks are launched by the hour. A new "peace plan" is then floated whose essence is this: When peace is achieved between the two parties killing each other on the ground, the Saudis will give it their blessing and make peace too.
Arafat's
Men Declare War
In a Newsweek interview, Marwan Barghouthi, a Fatah deputy to Yasser Arafat,
effectively acknowledges he has declared war on Israel: "I called on all
Palestinians to go out and attack Israeli soldiers at checkpoints. I think that
because of Israeli aggression and Israeli escalation the Palestinians should
fight, they should defend themselves."
UPI reports that Farouk Qaddoumi, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's political bureau, went to Baghdad and issued a call to arms against the Jewish state: "I call on all Arab states to support the steadfastness of 3 million Palestinians in the tight battle they are currently waging for the sake of independence and liberation of Arab land, and ensuring the Arab national security and future."
Arafat, the head of the PLO, won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
Who Are the al-Aqsa
Brigades?
Slate's "Today's Papers" column notes that a Los Angeles Times piece
described the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the terror group behind Saturday's Jerusalem
suicide bombing among others, as "a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement."
"Once again (and for the last time), Today's Papers suggests that somebody
do an article describing what's known about those connections."
Here are two such articles, one from NBC and the other from the BBC. The BBC reports that "the brigade is neither officially recognised nor openly backed by Mr Arafat and Fatah, though brigade members tend also to be members of Fatah," but adds that "the brigade is said to have grown out of Fatah's need to be seen to be putting up some kind of resistance to Israeli raids into land that was meant to be under Palestinian control."
The BBC says that "Mr Arafat's tacit backing for the brigade has also allowed Israeli officials to paint him as backing terrorism," and NBC adds that "members of this shadowy group said that if Arafat asked them to stop the violence, they would."
Not
Naming Names
"The State Department appears to be backpedaling on a promise to publicize
information on Palestinian killers of US citizens on its 'Rewards
for Justice' Web site," the Jerusalem Post reports. According to a
Feb. 22 State Department report, "there has been significant concern . . .
that such publicity would be detrimental to ongoing efforts to capture these
fugitives and could increase the danger to American citizens and facilities
overseas, particularly for the thousands of Americans who live and travel in
the Holy Land."
It's hard to fathom the State Department's logic here, since the site does list al Qaeda terrorists. "Imagine if the FBI's Most Wanted List included only the names of the victims, yet failed to include the names or photographs of the suspects," Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America tells the Post. "It would make their capture nearly impossible."
As
Opposed to What?
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak says in Washington that when Yasser Arafat passes
from the scene "he will leave behind 'a state of disorder,' "
the Jerusalem Post reports.
The
Art of Spying
Here's an odd story: "Authorities have arrested and deported dozens of
young Israelis since early last year who represented themselves as art students
in efforts to gain access to sensitive federal office buildings and the homes
of government employees," the Associated Press reports from Washington.
We heard from two readers who say they've been visited by "students"
matching this description. Writes Michael Segal:
Such Israelis selling art door-to-door came to my house a year or two ago, not exactly a high priority site for intelligence gathering. They carried a bunch of pieces of artwork and were trying to sell them. It is a strange business model, at least for the U.S., and I was concerned that they were casing out houses for art thefts. But we let them come in and talked with them for 20 minutes and I did not get any impression that they were after any type of national-security intelligence information.
And George Wasserstein writes:
We've had about a dozen of these "spies" show up at our doorstep here in the suburbs of Toronto over the past couple of years as they have tried to sell their canvases in our neighborhood to pay for their tuition, supplies, etc. I'm glad we never bought anything from them. If I am to believe our friends in the press, the canvasses probably contained bugging devices. All my state secrets might have been exposed!
A
Religion of Peace
"Dozens of suspected Christians were detained and tortured in Saudi Arabia
during the last 18 months," London's Guardian reports. "The men, mainly
Filipinos working in low paid jobs in the capital, Riyadh, fell foul of the
country's strict sharia code which bars the observance of any religion other
than Islam."
Stupidity
Watch: Lifetime Achievement Award
The despicable Ted Rall has outdone himself, publishing a cartoon
mocking "terror widows" that was so offensive the New York Times pulled
it from its Web site. In fact, there's a blank space where Rall used to appear
on the Times' cartoon
page (link requires registration); let's hope it stays blank or is replaced
by a cartoonist who's not a total cretin.
The third panel of the cartoon seems to be a jape at the expense of Mariane Pearl, widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. It depicts a woman standing in front of a bank of microphones, declaring: "Of course it's a bummer that they slashed my husband's throat--but the worst was having to watch the Olympics alone!"
Stop
the Presses: Clinton Lied
Independent Counsel Robert Ray has issued his report on the Monica Lewinsky
scandal. The key finding: "Sufficient evidence existed to prosecute and
that such evidence would 'probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction
. . . by an unbiased trier of fact.' " The report adds:
"The Independent Counsel declined prosecution because President Clinton's
conduct had been adequately addressed through substantial administrative sanctions,
including appropriate admissions of misconduct, and because the interests of
justice did not otherwise warrant a criminal prosecution."
Condit's
16th Minute
Rep. Gary Condit won't serve in the 108th Congress. The lascivious lame duck
lost yesterday's Democratic primary, 55% to 37%, to erstwhile aide Dennis Cardoza.
CNN
reports Condit's son, "Hanging" Chad Condit, blasted the victor: "Gary
helped Dennis, Dennis backstabbed Gary. He took advantage of a tragedy. . . .
He saw an opportunity to win an election, and he did it."
The Drudge Report, meanwhile, unearths an NBC memo according to which lawyers representing Condit and his wife, Carolyn, wrote the network demanding that it retract an episode of "Law and Order" entitled "Missing" that, according to the Condit lawyers, "depicted events and characters . . . which implied Ms. Condit was somehow involved in Chandra Levy's disappearance and that Ms. Condit spoke to Ms. Levy on the telephone." It isn't exactly clear how one would "retract" a fictitious story.
Also victorious in yesterday's primary: Republican businessman Bill Simon, who beat former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan 49% to 31% for the nomination to face Gov. Gray Davis in November.
Great
Moments in Headline Writing
"Democrat Wins Congressional Primary"--Associated Press. That's about
as informative as "Team Wins Basketball Game."
Eight-Year-Old
Beats Toy Gun Rap
Washtenaw County, Mich., prosecutors won't prosecute Tommy Davis on felonious
assault charges, the Ann Arbor News reports. As we noted
Monday, Tommy is the eight-year-old boy who allegedly pointed a toy gun
at three neighborhood children in a Whitmore Lake trailer park.
Robin Arthur, mother of one of the boy's "victims," says: "I find it very appalling that they are not going to seek charges. Now, he thinks he's going to get by with it. What's to say he won't get a real gun now?" Perhaps tellingly, the News story makes no mention of any of the boys' fathers.
Monkeyfishing
Redux
Slate has fallen for another hoax. As deputy editor Jack Shafer notes, Microsoft's
online magazine published two entries of a daily "Diary" by Robert
Klingler, who claimed to be "the North American head of a European auto
manufacturer." Turns out there's no such guy; whoever wrote the pieces was an
impostor.
In a column published late yesterday afternoon, Shafer explained exactly what had happened. Slate pulled the Diary from its table of contents but did make a copy available as a sidebar to Shafer's piece. "We do this in the interests of transparency, and as a reminder to ourselves that we've failed your trust," writes Shafer. "Slate apologizes to its readers and promises greater vigilance in the future."
Cheers to Shafer for handling the episode in a forthright manner, in sharp contrast to last year's "monkeyfishing" fiasco. Indeed, if anything, he's a bit too hard on Slate for its failure to detect this hoax, which was not an obvious one, before publication. Even so, it takes a big editor to admit when he's wrong.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Paul Music, C.E. Dobkin, Damian Bennett, Jerome Marcus, Zachary Emig, David Simon, Marie Bourgeois, S.E. Brenner, Raghu Desikan, David Gerstman, Steve Brizel, Phil Boas, Dave Simon, Chuck Smith, Stanley Lazerus, Alan Perlman, Yehuda Hilewitz, Alan Hegi, Fred Komarow, Gregory Taylor, Rohan Ragnaraj, Robert Owen, Diane Ravitch, John Hartness, Robert Salmon, John Wright, Joshua Mosher, Paul Ruschman, L. Lane, Mark Rhodes, Joel Fuhrmann, Robert Sinnema, Michael Dowding, Rob Harvie and Jay Brinker. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Playing politics with the war, Daschle gets ambushed (link requires registration).
- Pete du Pont: American women need a new deal.
- John Fund: School choice is the civil-rights issue of the new century.
