April 30, 2004
Why have civilians enlisted in this cause? Read this.
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Do you believe that Iraqis deserve an responsible and sober alternative to Al Jazeera? Spirit of America does, and has launched a fund-raising effort which the blogosphere has eagerly taken up.
Donate here on behalf of Fighting Fusileers for Freedom!
Let freedom ring!
Apr. 30 - 10:03: Dang, this post sat in draft mode. Stupid me - I didn't realize it wasn't on the page until I tried to find it. Better late than never, I suppose.
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09:27 AM
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Although not related, the arrest of Abu Bakar Bashir for masterminding the 2002 attack in Bali will probably heighten tensions in the area. Bashir is said to be a leading figure in Jemaah Islamiyah which is associated with al Qaeda:
Bashir's fate is a sensitive political issue in Indonesia, where authorities have sought to balance the need to remain aggressive in the US-led war on terror while not appearing to cave in to pressure from the United States and Australia.Officials have taken their case to the media, arguing in interviews Thursday that they have testimony from scores of witnesses from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore who can prove Bashir is the Jemaah Islamiyah leader.
[A top anti-terror official at the security ministry Ansyaad] Mbai also said authorities have recently uncovered reams of new documents implicating Bashir, including a letter signed by Islamic extremists in the Philippines that allegedly identifies him as the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah.
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April 29, 2004
The total number of international terrorist attacks in 2003 -- 190 incidents that killed 307 people -- was the lowest since 1969, according to the latest Department of State report on worldwide terrorism.Yes, I realize that it doesn't seem that way. But honestly, how much attention did we pay to terrorist attacks before Sept. 11?The annual report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003," shows the number of attacks last year was down slightly from the 199 attacks reported in 2002. At the same time, the 2003 figure is a 45 percent decline from the 346 attacks in 2001.
"A total of 307 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, far fewer than the 725 killed during 2002," the report said. "A total of 1,593 persons were wounded in the attacks that occurred in 2003, down from 2,013 persons wounded the year before."Attacks on soldiers in Iraq do not count because acts against combatants are not defined as terrorist attacks by the U.S.By geographic region, there were four terrorist attacks in Africa, 70 in Asia, two in Eurasia, 53 in Latin America, 37 in the Middle East, and 24 in Western Europe, according to the report. And the report indicated that the dominant type of terrorist event was bombing, with 137 occurrences in 2003.
"In 2003, the highest number of attacks (70) and the highest casualty count (159 persons dead and 951 wounded) occurred in Asia," the report said.
Read the whole thing.
CNN has an article on the report here.
June 15 - 08:20: The report is erroneous. This is the State Dept. statement on the errors, and this is my post on the subject.
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10:55 PM
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It strikes me that if anyone still wonders why the country wasn't prepared for Sept. 11, they could get no better answer than the media response to events in Jordan.
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09:57 PM
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Case in point: I thought Scappleface was joking.
Morale is important in time of war, and I'm glad we're keeping the military canine unit so well equipped that insurgents are dying from envy.
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April 29, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The vast majority of the United Nations' oil-for-food contracts in Iraq have mysteriously vanished, crippling investigators trying to uncover fraud in the program, a government report charged yesterday.Jefferson Morely in The Washington Post has a link-filled news article about the U.N. Oil for Food Program (although most of his links are to news items that bloggers have already covered in Australia, Britain, the U.S. and even Millholland's interview with the Globe and Mail) but also items from Vietnam and the Netherlands.
The General Accounting Office report, presented at a congressional hearing into the scandal-plagued program, determined that 80 percent of U.N. records had not been turned over.The world body claims it transferred all information it had - including 3,059 contracts worth about $6.2 billion for delivery of food and other civilian goods to the post-Saddam governing body, the Coalition Provisional Authority.
But the GAO report also found that a database the U.N. transferred to the authority was "unreliable because it contained mathematical and currency errors in calculation of contract costs," the report found.
Morely takes the "Bush needs the U.N. so doesn't welcome a scandal" line but my observations of the President have been that he adheres to a time honoured American custom: Give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves.
(Links from Roger L. Simon post UNSCAM should not be idelogical.)
20:34: And from Instapundit, an article from the Washington Times GAO denied access to oil-for-food audits. The internal audits of the oil for food program were only shown to Benon Sevan and that the GAO request to examine those audits was refused on the basis that they were "internal documents."
I don't know how far this will go, but the U.S. has one advantage:
Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, said he was considering legislation that would tie the U.S. contribution to the U.N.'s budget — 22 percent of the international body's total funding — to cooperation in the oil-for-food probe.To say the least.
Several Republican lawmakers said the world body's management of the program called into question its competence to help in the political reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq.
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07:20 PM
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SDB brings up the Saeb Erakat's Washington Post op-ed "Why did Bush take my job" and I want to link to Mark Steyn's answer: because you weren't up to it.
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06:33 PM
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It's very hard. There are situations for which I'd like to think I would stand strong, but if my kid's life was on the line, can I honestly say I know what I'd do? And since I'm not now nor have ever been in that situation, how can I honestly pass judgement on those who are?
I'm just going to link the articles from CNN, Yahoo and the BBC.
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04:50 PM
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What ever is Glenn looking at?
Judging by his look of chagrin, I'd say he's looking at us - that's right, us, the Alliance of Free Blogs which, in a brilliantly coordinated stealth attack swept past him to Rule The Blogs!
Or he could be looking at one of his students who just said something incredibly dumb and he's trying to figure out how to say "That was incredibly dumb" without coming right out and, you know, saying it.
I figure I'll give Harvey a real shock and get this in ultra-early because somebody's got to even for When the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and shout, "RUN FOREST, RUN!"
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04:32 PM
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Go nominate Don Cherry! The nomination form is here, (note it is only open to Canadians living in Canada or abroad.)
16:16: From commenter Nik, it's possible Don Cherry's contract won't be picked up by CBC next season (and the article further notes that there may not be NHL play in 2005 unless they can settle the contract dispute.)
22:00: Paul's aboard!
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Three days before their countries join the union, the finance ministers of Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia criticised Germany's decision to continue flouting the EU's stability pact, which is designed to protect the integrity of the euro.As Orwell noted, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
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12:55 PM
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Kofi's got some explaining to do.
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What can one say about Australia? Staunch friend and good ally hardly covers it. Their military is top-notch, and PM John Howard has shown firm resolve against Zimbabwe's Mugabe and has been solid in his leadership of anti-terrorism in the South Pacific and Asia.
It irritates me that our media pays scant attention to any part of the world that isn't France, but then I don't pay much attention to the media.
Whether the victim is Australian or South African is less important, though, than the sober fact that civilians who are trying to rebuild Iraq are targeted by a cowardly enemy that hides behind anonymity while agitating against coalition forces because the infrastructure isn't being built as rapidly as everyone wants it to be.
I could warn the murderers that it isn't a good idea to piss off Australians, but I doubt they'd listen. They never do.
Apr. 30 - 00:13: The victim was from South Africa.
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As I noted yesterday, separatists have organized raids to steal firearms and explosives in Thailand before.
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If I'm stuck on a desert island with bloggers, I'd be more concerned about their abilities to hunt, trap, build a fire, find shelter, and get us off the damned island than just about anything except the Whine Factor, because the biggest irritant would be someone who whined incessantly (they'd probably have an unfortunate accident.)
But if posting my a picture will boost my traffic, I'll do it.
Okay, I've done it. Those hits better roll in or I'm going to have some words with John.
He's promised that this is the final chapter.
The sad part is, John may have a point. I've been astonished at how many search engine hits I've received for "Darcy Tucker's two black eyes" and "Bobby Clarke's a maggot" - two throwaway lines I mentioned during hockey playoffs.
More gratifying have been the search hits for the "U.N. Oil for food program" and "Khadr," though. more...
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A 1991 Ontario arbitration law permits such arbitration according to religious principles, just as rabbis in Jewish communities and priests in Christian communities help to resolve civil disputes, said Brendan Crawley, a spokesman for the Ontario attorney general."People can agree to resolve disputes any way acceptable," Crawley said in an interview. "If they decide to resolve disputes using principles of sharia and using an imam as an arbitrator, that is perfectly acceptable under the arbitration act."
As the article notes, this is only for civil disputes and sharia tribunals cannot rule for third parties, including children. The key quote is from Concordia anthroplogy professor, Homa Hoodfar, who notes:
"I just feel this is completely 'black box' and nobody knows what is in it, and yet the government is giving the go-ahead for it. They didn't consult the Muslim community. They didn't put out a discussion. Nobody knows what it is."We can say that about a lot of decisions up here: they just land with no warning or public discussion.
What hasn't been assessed by those who approved the tribunals are the consequences if a Muslim woman elects to let a Canadian civil court arbitrate civil issue such as divorce. Alia Hogben of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women said:
"If I am a woman of faith, and the community of people who see themselves as leaders say that if I do not follow the sharia court here, the Islamic Institute, then I will be tantamount to blasphemy and apostasy," Hogben said in a debate shown on Canadian television. "And you know that in some countries, apostasy means death sentence."
It's a pretty balanced piece, free of hysteria and addresses concerns over the tribunals.
(Link via Right Wing News.)
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April 28, 2004
An unoccupied car was bombed which brought police, a gun fight ensued, and an empty UN building was burned.
2 attackers were killed and the 2 captured were critically injured. Weapons and explosives were seized in a house said to be used by the group.
This is unbelievable. (I really mean that.) There doesn't seem to have been any real target, and there are a large number of conflicting reports as to how many explosions there were.
Why would al Qaeda, or any terrorist group, be in the vicinity of a number of embassies as well as the British ambassador's residence and go after an abandoned building?
According to CNN,
The Interior Ministry source blamed the incident on the atmosphere created by instability and confusion in security and politics in the region.According to the Telegraph,"The Syrian Republic ... is condemning this terrorist attack," the source said, contending it was meant to affect the stability and security of the country.
Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Mustafa, appeared to blame al-Qa'eda for the attack last night."We have been doing our best against al-Qa'eda," he said. "We share the same enemy [as America]. We aid the US in its fight against al-Qa'eda and terrorism."
Apr. 29 - 12:11: A bit of follow-up here, including speculation that the abandoned building was targeted by a car bomb by mistake and the intended target was the nearby home of the British ambassador.
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