billgraziano.com - October 2001 Entries

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October 2001 Entries

I recently came across the web site for The Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI). Their About Page says in part

The Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization. MEMRI was established in February 1998 to study and analyze intellectual developments and politics in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict, with a particular emphasis on its Israeli-Palestinian dimension . . . MEMRI relies on primary source material that it translates from the original Arabic and Hebrew.

I really can't find much else out about them. Much of what the publish are just translations of Arabic and Israeli news articles. One of their most recent dispatches quoted the "Editor of Leading Egyptian Government Daily Al-Ahram" as writing:

America's Humanitarian Aid May be a Crime Against Humanity
"The U.S. tries to prove in every way possible that its military campaign is not directed at the Afghani people, but at the Taliban movement and the Al-Qaida organization. It has tried to express this in ways considered exceptional in the history of warfare. American planes drop humanitarian aid from the air on Afghani soil, as aid for the starving Afghani people, while American fighter planes, bombs, and missiles crush other regions in Afghanistan. This method poses serious risk . . . for the Afghan people, because [it] is dropped in areas full of landmines, which cause damage to the Afghani citizens trying to gather it up."

"Similarly, there were several reports that the humanitarian materials have been genetically treated, with the aim of affecting the health of the Afghani people. If this is true, the U.S. is committing a crime against humanity by giving the Afghani people hazardous humanitarian products, as it was said in those reports..."

I know that we've had some differences with Egypt over the approach we should take in Afghanistan. Criticizing us for dropping food seems a little weak to me though. I think you'll be seeing more links to MEMRI in the future.

posted @ Monday, October 29, 2001 3:17 PM | Feedback (0)

It appears Bush is considering a more direct approach to dealing with bin Laden: assassination. The article says

DRAWING ON two classified legal memoranda, one written for President Bill Clinton in 1998 and one since the attacks of Sept. 11, the Bush administration has concluded that executive orders banning assassination do not prevent the president from lawfully singling out a terrorist for death by covert action. The CIA is reluctant to accept a broad grant of authority to hunt and kill U.S. enemies at its discretion, knowledgeable sources said. But the agency is willing and believes itself able to take the lives of terrorists designated by the president.

This is certain to be a lively debate in Washington.

posted @ Monday, October 29, 2001 3:06 PM | Feedback (0)

: Bet you didn't notice that October 15th was the 50th anniversary of The Pill did you?; posted @ Monday, October 22, 2001 12:10 PM | Feedback (0)

: Curious about Anthrax and other bio/chemical weapons? New Scientist is probably one of the best scientific magazines out there that publishes articles that "normal" people can understand. They just published a Bioterrorism and Bioweapons Special Report. It's pretty long but broken up into nice little readable articles.; posted @ Thursday, October 18, 2001 8:32 AM | Feedback (0)

In December of 1997 The Atlantic posted (or published back then) Was Democracy Just a Moment. It is a loooong piece but very enlightening on the failure of democracy around the globe.

In April of 1985 I found myself in the middle of a Sudanese crowd that had just helped to overthrow a military regime and replace it with a new government, which the following year held free and fair elections. Sudan's newly elected democracy led immediately to anarchy, which in turn led to the most brutal tyranny in Sudan's postcolonial history: a military regime that broadened the scope of executions, persecuted women, starved non-Muslims to death, sold kidnapped non-Muslim children back to their parents for $200, and made Khartoum the terrorism capital of the Arab world, replacing Beirut. In Sudan only 27 percent of the population (and only 12 percent of the women) could read. If a society is not in reasonable health, democracy can be not only risky but disastrous: during the last phases of the post-First World War German and Italian democracies, for example, the unemployment and inflation figures for Germany and the amount of civil unrest in Italy were just as abysmal as Sudan's literacy rates.

The article doesn't paint a great picture of democracy around the world. It also shows the failure of America's attempts to push democracies onto societies that aren't ready. And remember this was written four years ago and not much seems to have changed since then.

posted @ Monday, October 15, 2001 3:42 PM | Feedback (0)

: Jane's International Security is has an article titled Prospects for a post-Taliban Afghanistan that paints a bleak picture for establishing any type of normal government in Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban.; posted @ Sunday, October 14, 2001 9:45 PM | Feedback (0)

: I finally got some pictures from the family trip to Colorado posted. For anyone looking to do a little stalking I'm the one with no hair trying to grow a beard.; posted @ Saturday, October 13, 2001 7:50 PM | Feedback (0)

: Please look at this picture of a bin Laden poster very carefully. You'll notice he has a new friend. You can read the article in Wired. And there's more here.; posted @ Thursday, October 11, 2001 8:41 AM | Feedback (0)

: If you liked Bush's speech to Congress you can now read about The 2,988 Words That Changed a Presidency. (NYT does require registration but it's worth it).; posted @ Wednesday, October 10, 2001 12:49 PM | Feedback (0)

: I also got a chance to watch Frontline on PBS. It turned out to be a special on the terrorists also. They discussed their history and beliefs. This reinforced what I'd read in the Newsweek article. If you get a chance to watch this it's well worth it. Both pieces cover why Egypt and Saudia Arabia, two of our stronger allies in the Middle East, seem to be generating the most terrorists. The web site that I linked to above seems to have all the same content as the hour long special. Great reading.; posted @ Wednesday, October 10, 2001 10:32 AM | Feedback (0)

: I just finished reading the latest issue of Newsweek and I am impressed. They have the best series of articles I've read yet on Islamic Fundamentalists. It's titled the The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us? It is the most thorough, informative article I've read yet. Please take a moment to read this article. Or you might just want to buy the issue since it's an 11 part article. The tag line on the article reads Bin Laden and his fellow fanatics are products of failed societies that breed their anger. America needs a plan that will not only defeat terror but reform the Arab world. This article explains who they are, where they came from and why they feel the way they do. Please, please read it.; posted @ Wednesday, October 10, 2001 10:27 AM | Feedback (0)

: My sister sent this one in. An anonymous entrepreneur is selling bin Laden toilet paper. You've got to love Americans! ABC News has the article. A poster in the guest book had the great idea to rename Afghanistan to "Almost-gone-istan". And always remember . . . If your butt gets to cloddin....use some bin Laden! (Warning: This web site has sound associated with it).; posted @ Monday, October 08, 2001 8:39 PM | Feedback (0)

I am amazed at Muslims around the world. I just finished reading the Reuter's article Tensions in Muslim World Mount Over U.S.-Led Strikes. Here are some interesting quotes from the article:

Police in Pakistan battled thousands of frenzied anti-U.S. demonstrators as calls for a holy war against the United States echoed throughout the Muslim world following the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan.
In Egypt, more than 20,000 students demonstrated against the strikes launched Sunday in reprisal for the suicide hijackings that killed thousands of people in New York and Washington.
In India, which has one of the world's biggest Muslim populations, the head of India's biggest mosque said he would call on the country's 120 million Muslims to provide moral support for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.

In Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, a small but strident radical Islamic group threatened to hunt down foreigners and destroy foreign targets as embassies there warned their nationals to stay indoors.

I'm really at a loss for how to respond to this. I know that every group will have their share of nutcases. It just seems like Islam did really well in the nutcase draft this year.

posted @ Monday, October 08, 2001 8:19 PM | Feedback (0)

: Personally I think Bush should have denied attacking Afghanistan. He should have said he didn't know who did and blame it on some "terrorist military organziation". Then demand that the Taliban provide proof that it was America that attacked. Give them a taste of their own medicine. Note: Literally moments after I wrote this and posted it I found out that the Taliban described this as a "terrorist attack". Nice.; posted @ Sunday, October 07, 2001 8:23 PM | Feedback (0)

Apparently bin Laden made a videotape prior to the launch of the attack against Afghanistan. In it he says

And to America, I say to it and to its people this: I swear by God the Great, America will never dream nor those who live in America will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land and in Palestine.

He mentions Israel twice more in the speech. You can read the complete text yourself. It seems America's support of Israel plays a larger part in this than I thought. I'm not sure exactly what he means by "our land" but I don't think Afghanistan is going to have any peace or security while bin Laden is there. It would also seem that being a haven for terrorists is a strange way to bring peace to an area. But then I can't understand anyone that would kill 6,000 innocent people.

posted @ Sunday, October 07, 2001 8:21 PM | Feedback (0)

I just finished reading Being Watched: A Cautionary Tale for a New Age of Surveillance in the NY Times. It talks in great depth about the British system of surveillance cameras.

According to one estimate, there are 2.5 million surveillance cameras in Britain, and in fact there may be far more . . . the average Briton is now photographed by 300 separate cameras in a single day.

Before you advocate using cameras and automatic face recognition in airports or other public places take second and read the article.

Instead of keeping terrorists off planes, biometric surveillance is being used to keep punks out of shopping malls. The people behind the live video screens are zooming in on unconventional behavior in public that in fact has nothing to do with terrorism. And rather than thwarting serious crime, the cameras are being used to enforce social conformity in ways that Americans may prefer to avoid.

After the British installed this technology they've not caught a single terrorist. Not one. They don't even have a good database of terrorists.

But when I asked whether any of the existing biometric databases in England or America are limited to suspected terrorists, Atick confessed that they aren't. There is a simple reason for this: few terrorists are suspected in advance of their crimes. For this reason, cities in England and elsewhere have tried to justify their investment in face-recognition systems by filling their databases with those troublemakers whom the authorities can easily identify: local criminals. When FaceIt technology was used to scan the faces of the thousands of fans entering the Super Bowl in Tampa last January, the matches produced by the database weren't terrorists. They were low-level ticket scalpers and pickpockets.

This article is full of many amazing quotes and statistics. I only posted half of the quotes I pulled out of the article. But I wanted to leave you with one final quote. And I want you ask yourself about the kind of society we want America to be in ten years.

There is, in the end, a powerfully American reason to resist the establishment of a national surveillance network: the cameras are not consistent with the values of an open society. They are technologies of classification and exclusion. They are ways of putting people in their place, of deciding who gets in and who stays out, of limiting people's movement and restricting their opportunities.

posted @ Sunday, October 07, 2001 10:35 AM | Feedback (0)

: MSNBC has a moving account of the last moments of Flight 93. It talks about what happened in the last moments as the passengers attacked the terrorists and stormed the cockpit.
"We're going to do something," Beamer tells operator Lisa Jefferson. "I know I'm not going to get out of this." He asks Jefferson to recite the Lord's Prayer with him. The last words Jefferson hears are "Are you ready guys? Let's roll."

Those were come courageous people.; posted @ Thursday, October 04, 2001 9:45 PM | Feedback (0)

: Last night West Wing did their special episode related to the WTC attack. They really focused more on the attackers. In the show they compared Islamic Fundamentalists to our own KKK. It's interesting to read David Duke's own words in Will Anyone Dare to Ask Why and An open letter to the President of the United States. I guess I shouldn't be suprised that other areas of the world don't have a monopoly on wackos.; posted @ Thursday, October 04, 2001 10:51 AM | Feedback (0)

: If you saw the fake picture of the plane about to hit the WTC, just remember . . . Photoshop is an amazing product! I wonder who this guy is? This has kind of an All Your Base feel to it. Weirdness.; posted @ Wednesday, October 03, 2001 11:26 PM | Feedback (0)

You can say what you want about the Taliban. I think I've decided they are pure evil. I don't care if they proclaim Islam, Christianity, Hindu or any other religion to justify their action. No religion that I know condones the type of evil they do. As long as the rest of Islam allows the Taliban to hide behind the shroud of religion they are all guilty. Their latest horrific act involves setting dogs on fire. They dressed one of the dogs up like George W. Bush and set it on fire.

Those who did not cheer the immolation of the animals were beaten with sticks, the witnesses said.

I've lost any respect for any group or country that supports these acts. Have we traded the anxiety of the Cold War for the horror of a war against Islamic "fundamentalists"? A war against people with no identifiable morals? Is this the Islam that Saudi Arabia wants to support?

posted @ Wednesday, October 03, 2001 7:06 PM | Feedback (0)

: I was too young for Watergate, Vietnam and Pearl Harbor. That means Septebmer 11th marks the first time I lost my innocence.; posted @ Wednesday, October 03, 2001 6:58 PM | Feedback (0)

This picture is for anyone that forgets exactly what the Taliban stands for. Salon.com says this is a mother of seven children the Taliban are executing. I'm normally not one to say another countries practices are wrong but I will say they are certainly unbelievable. The treatment of women in Afghanistan is deplorable by Western standards. This picture came from The Taliban's bravest opponents. It's an article describing the brutal life of women under the Taliban. The article describes

the public executions for infractions as minor as prostitution or adultery, the brutality of fundamentalist police, the slaughter of civilians unlucky enough to live on the front line of the civil war with the Northern Alliance.

In some cases, they really aren't just like us. The executions were conducted in a soccer stadium.

The soccer stadium was funded by international aid groups who wanted to raise the spirits of the Afghan people; instead, the Taliban is using it only for executions. One Taliban official told Shah that if the aid groups felt that the stadium should be used for soccer, they should build the Taliban an extra stadium for executions.

Is it any wonder they shelter bin Laden? They just don't have the same respect for human life that we do. The article is a pretty amazing read.

posted @ Tuesday, October 02, 2001 9:25 AM | Feedback (1)

: Let's start the week with some urban legend debunking -- one of my favorite activities. In the week following the attack on New York I received a couple of emails the contained predictions by Nostradamus. They all seemed to pretty clearly predict what had happened in NYC -- or at least vaguely reference it. And they were all different. So at least one of them had to be wrong. Turns out they all were. UrbanLegends.About.com is a great site for keeping up on the latest email scares. They have a section on the Nostradamus-NYC links and a general section on the NYC tragedy. And they have my new favorite fake picture taken from the WTC!; posted @ Monday, October 01, 2001 12:28 AM | Feedback (0)

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