"The blogosphere is a specific manifestation -- and by no means the only one -- of the networks made possible by the Internet which can be imperfectly compared to the emerging nervous system of a growing organism. Once the software and infrastructure to self-publish was in place, it was natural that analytical cells, or groups of cells would take inputs from other parts of the system and process them. The result was 'instant punditry'.... It enabled lawyers to offer opinions on law; military men on things military; scientists on things scientific. And suddenly the journalistic opinion editors found themselves at an increasing disadvantage."

So, what's next?

"But the mainstream media could console itself in one thing. It still controlled the primary newsgathering apparatus. Yet even here the rulebook was changing. The advent of cheap consumer digital cameras capable of recording sound coupled to the proliferation of internet connections meant that in addition to the analysis cells which manifested itself in 'instant punditry', the Internet was developing a sensory apparatus to match. To the 'instant pundit' was added the 'instant reporter' -- the man already on the spot, often possessed of local knowledge and language skills."

It's an excellent analysis from an unusual perspective, as we've come to expect from Belmont Club. As a bonus, if you're curious about the "Fortress Unvanquishable Save By Sacnoth" post-title, this short story and these lyrics may help.

Men spin their tales of ages past
Leaves turning to ash, old legends die
Fear is the catalyst to warp frail minds
In lands beyond sleep, fleeing lost truths
Comets blaze the way to nightmare's return
Fortress of dreams invincible you are

Fortress Unvanquishable - free my mind
Fortress Unvanquishable - let me dream
   -- Destiny's End, "The Fortress Unvanquishable"

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...

The Interior Ministry spokesman said that just as police approached the home, "the terrorists exploded the house, which was loaded with a giant amount of explosives." The initial police investigation has found evidence that car bombs were being manufactured in the house, the Iraqi major said. He said the police regretted not detaining the two bearded men, who officials now believe were part of the trap. The police recovered remains of the Sudanese who lived at the house, he added.

We are fighting a regional enemy.

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IRAN

• At counterpunch, a look from the (far, far) left at whether or not Iranian resistance organizations such as the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran ought to be considered terrorist groups. Interesting reading.

• Amid frequent sightings of unknown flying objects, Iran's air force has been ordered to shoot down anything that flies near its nuclear installations. If it wasn't mass delusion it will be now, as it's now being reported in a major Iranian daily. News reporting of these kinds of things tends to bring out additional spurious reports. Are we spying on them with UAVs? Probably. Are even a tenth of the reported incidents related to our spying? I doubt it.

• The EU is in a big hurry to give the carrot to Iran and resume talks over $20 bn in trade ties. That's probably what they were after anyway, as the nuclear deal they negotiated doesn't tie Iran down in any real way-but does tie down the US from trying to get anything done in international forums.

• Russia is building Iran a nice satellite system. Comically, the two nations also agreed to study UFOs together. Someone should tell them about Bat Boy, that should keep them busy for a while. The Zohreh system is intended to consist of two satellites and mainly provide satellite telephony services to remote areas. Translation: it's a command and control system for Iran's military, because the citizenry is prohibited from owning satellite equipment.

THE MIDDLE EAST

• Jordan has acquitted 13 men of conspiring to commit terrorist attacks against US targets in Jordan. 11 of them received sentences on explosives-possession charges. This isn't the first time Jordan has inexplicably acquitted terrorists who were plotting against the United States.

• Two terror suspects and a civilian were killed in clashes with Saudi security forces, while another was apprehended and imprisoned.

• Gun-toting bodyguards of members of Parliament pointed guns in the Yemeni Prime Minister's face. It's not the first time.

• Two of the 22 people involved in the bombing of an empty Damascus UN building have been sentenced to die by a national security court whose judgments cannot be appealed in Syria. The others received sentences varying from one year to life at hard labor. The Assad regime has been accused of staging the attack, though I'm not sure what they think they might gain by it.

THE AMERICAS

• The FBI has named its 6th counterterrorism chief since 9/11. They just can't hold on to these guys. Meanwhile The CIA's epic purge of George Tenet's team continues as the Deputy Director of the Analysis branch has been given the pink slip. At least a half dozen of Tenet's top officials have abruptly resigned or been fired, and the top tier of the agency's clandestine service is also mostly gone.

• A new US government intelligence bulletin describes Al Qaeda's building casing techniques in detail based on computers and cds found in Pakistan this July.

• Closing statements were made in the trial of blind terror cleric Omar Abdel Rahman's lawyer Lynne Stewart for helping him to communicate with other terrorists from his movement.

• Al Qaeda's network has been frayed and their ability to carry out attacks has been severely degraded. The greatest threat we now face is terrorists who we don't know owe their ideological allegiance to Al Qaeda, says the CIA's ex counterterrorism chief.

• A UPI editor tries to think like Osama and divine the new strategy that he's evolved.

• The half-brother of hunted Hamas terrorist leader Khalid Mish'al was a Dallas city engineer and a musician who frequently played at Hamas fundraisers. He kept his family connections secret and everyone who worked with him was surprised to find it out. He had access to blueprints of Dallas' most vulnerable infrastructure: gas lines, water plants, electrical grids, and maintenance tunnels under the commuter train system.

EUROPE

• A Spanish judge remanded two of the four men who were arrested Wednesday to jail. He released the third citing a lack of evidence connecting him to their plot to acquire explosives. The fourth man was also remanded to jail, by a different judge, for belonging to a terrorist group.

• Most Russians miss the Soviet Union and think they have good and friendly relations with the former Soviet republics, according to reputable polling.

ASIA & AUSTRALASIA

• Asia's top terrorist, "Hambali" (Riduan Isamuddin) went on trial Tuesday in Cambodia. He received a life sentence on Wednesday. Let no one accuse Cambodian justice of working slowly. He's currently in US custody. Rotten.com has a good bio. Did I just link to Rotten.com? I did.
  
• The "Tamil Tigers", a Sri Lankan separatist group which uses terrorist tactics and has pioneered and often resorted to suicide bombings, is now complaining that the central Sri Lankan government is ignoring their plight in the wake of the tsunami, in areas they killed thousands of people to control. Statues wept.

AFRICA

• A US commander says that terrorist groups including Al Qaeda are exploiting lawless regions of the Horn of Africa to hide and train their members.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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The December 16 message to the Saudi People

Having gone through the transcripts of all 3 of bin Laden's most recent messages, I see each as being directed to a different audience: the American people, the Saudi people, and the Iraqi people respectively. I went through the pre-election message on Winds of Change and while there was no comparable analysis of his December 16, here are some of the highlights:

To the Muslims in the land of Al-Haramayn [the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina] in particular and to Muslims in other lands in general, this is a message about the dispute between the rulers of Riyadh and the citizens of the homeland, and the means to resolve it. There has been much talk in the land of Al-Haramayn on the need for security and safety and the inadmissibility to shed the blood of Muslims and those [foreigners] whose security has been guaranteed [by the state]. There has also been talk about the need for harmony and union and the danger of disunion and feuds. They [not further identified] claimed that the mujahidin are to blame for what the situation has become in the land of Al-Haramayn.

They concealed the clear fact that the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the regime, which ceded the conditions necessary to protect security and blood, harmony and union through its disobedience and its committing of great sins, which expose the land to God's punishment. God told us the stories of the disobedient ones and the punishment they received for us to learn a lesson.

This is the first time, at least to my knowledge, that bin Laden has set out to explain to the Saudi public (which supports him by fairly sizeable margins over the monarchy, according to most public opinion polls) why attacks inside the Kingdom are taking place after years of peaceful co-existence between the Saudi government and al-Qaeda - the very people bin Laden refers to as "the mujahideen." At least some of this is done by attempting to counter the charge leveled by the Saudi government that it's al-Qaeda who is responsible for the recent violence in the Kingdom by saying that it's the Saudi government, not his followers, who are to blame.

The intended audience for this message is rather obscure, as it was linked to from a post made by a member of the al-Qalah message board, which belongs to a website that supports al-Qaeda and its objectives. Given that al-Qalah and its sister forums are one of the few places where Gulf radicals are able to express their political views overtly without fear of the government, I suspect that this was as much a message to bin Laden's "base" (as well as his network of Saudi financial backers such as Khalid bin Mahfouz) as it was to the Saudi general public. Another possibility is that this message was intended to be downloaded by Saudi al-Qaeda members and sympathizers for public distribution at various Saudi mosques and bazaars throughout the Kingdom - if so we'll likely see an attempt by the Interior Ministry to stop its distribution in the very near future.

The sins committed by the regime are very huge. The regime went beyond committing mortal sins to deeds that lead to one becoming non-Muslim. It went beyond oppressing people, undermining their rights, showing disregard for their dignity, making light of their minds and feelings, and tampering with the nation's public funds. Nowadays, millions of people suffer from poverty and deprivation, while millions of riyals go into the accounts of the influential senior members of the [Al Sa'ud] family. This is despite the fact that services are inadequate, lands are being seized, and people are forced to give [royal family members] a share in their trade without being compensated, and so forth.

The regime went beyond all that to the deeds that lead to one becoming non-Muslim. The regime supported the infidel America against Muslims and made itself a rival of Almighty God, telling people what is religiously right or wrong. It is known that this is one of the 10 things that lead to one becoming non-Muslim.

The aforesaid is the most important reason for the dispute between Muslims and the rulers of Riyadh. Resolving this dispute is easy and is known in Almighty God's religion, provided the ruler is honest about his desire for reform -- if he has this desire in the first place.

Bin Laden's litany against the Saudi royal family may seem familiar precisely because, minus the accusation of apostacy, it has occurred in just about every break-down of the gross social and economic inequalities that occur in the Kingdom. Yet despite adopting much of the language and rhetoric of a Western human rights activist, bin Laden makes it quite clear just a few sentences later that it the Saudi apostacy through its alliance with America, not its draconian police state, that place the current government so far beyond the pale for him. This is not simply a Manichaean denunciation of the Saudi leadership as jahili, however - bin Laden seems quite clear that if the Kingdom wants out of its current status quo with attacks such as that on the US consulate in Jeddah, all they have to do is comply with his demands.

To put it quite simply, this is a businessman looking to strike a deal.

But what does he want the Saudis to do? Well, further down in the tape he kind tells us ...

Can the rulers follow the orders of God for the governed to be loyal to them and for people to enjoy life in matters of living and religion? Some people say yes they can. They have started with the National Dialogue Center and the municipal elections. But this would not change anything when it comes to the main causes of the disease and misfortune.

Their best chance is to enter into the election game, which is the case in Yemen, Jordan, or Egypt, entering a vicious circle for scores of years. This is not to mention the sanctity of entering into polytheistic legislative councils. Therefore, if we want to solve the dispute in a real, scientific, and practical manner, we must know its reality, roots, and dimensions.

Here bin Laden appears to be addressing both the accomodationist and confrontationist schools of al-Qaeda thought, perhaps best personified by Khalid al-Harbi on one hand and Saad al-Faqih on the other. Al-Harbi, who was brought in at the behest of the Saudi rulership of Iran with the understanding that he could control the Saudi al-Qaeda in the wake of the death of al-Muqrin, has argued that al-Qaeda should focus principally on fighting the US in Iraq rather than on bringing the Islamic revolution home to Saudi Arabia. The late Abu Walid al-Ghamdi appears to have held to a similar position as well. Those in the accomodationist camp have argued that their attacks have forced the Kingdom to institute the most rudimentary of democratic reforms and that one day the organization will be able to ride themselves to power through the same "one man, one vote, one time" process that they attempted to manipulate FIS into in Algeria.

Not so fast, says bin Laden, pointing to the fact that where elections are actually held in the Arab world they are nothing short of transparent scams - Saddam's 2002 "reelection" being only the most blatant. Al-Qaeda coming to power in Saudi Arabia via the ballot box is a pipe dream, he argues, claiming that any election held under Saudi auspices are going to be nothing more than ritualized affirmations of what the princes have already decided.

He's probably right, too.

Having dealt with that, we get to learn what bin Laden's real problem is with the Saudi regime. And, no surprise here, neither human rights or economic inequalities seem to top his concerns, starting with the perspective from which he sees the war on terrorism and ending in a nice denunciation of King Fahd:

This conflict is in part an internal territorial conflict. However, in its other dimensions it is a conflict between international infidelity, which includes those benefiting from US support, on the one hand, and the Islamic Nation and its vanguards, the mujahidin brigades, on the other hand.

Whoever wants a near and real example of the US role in the decision to depose, they can look at Prince Hasan Bin-Talal in Jordan. After remaining as the regent for several decades, his brother Husayn returned from America, days before passing away, bringing with him the decision to depose his brother, which he did. He surrendered to the situation and became politically worthless. This is what scares Prince Abdallah should he disobey his master America. Therefore, it is obvious that makers of decisions in great matters are in the United States.

Bin Laden arguing that the Saudi monarchy is a US puppet government, of course, is nothing new - he's been saying pretty much the same thing ever since he set up the Advice and Reform Commission in London (the same organization, it might be worth noting, that Iraqi intelligence documents from the mid-1990s list him as being in charge of - this is what he was widely known for prior to his debut in 1998 as the modern face of international terrorism). The reference to the divisions in the Saudi royal family is also something of a cheap shot, as the monarchy prefers to adopt a "united front" when addressing the locals no matter how much the princes plot and scheme against one another behind closed doors.

But here again, being a US puppet does not appear to be the only problem bin Laden has with the Kingdom:

What indicates the level of Crusader control over our countries is these deputies' implementation of the changes imposed by the authorized. Even in our educational curriculums, the objective is to erase the nation's character and westernize its sons, which is an old project that began decades ago in Al-Azhar's curriculums in Egypt. America then demanded that the remaining collaborator countries change their curriculums to dry up the fountains of knowledge. It demanded that Yemen close its scientific institutes over two decades ago. America also demanded that the rulers of Riyadh change the religious curriculums, and so it took place in compliance with its request. All this took place over a decade and a half before the New York and Washington attacks. This is in addition to further new changes that the regime has also adopted, in addition to removing imams and preachers.

It is clear that the consequence of changing religious curriculums is a loss for religion and the world. As for religion, you know it is an unbridled apostasy. And as for the world, then the curriculums will produce for the countries educated slaves who are champions of America, sell the interests of the country, and are good at smiling in the face of the American, while he occupies the land and violates their honor, on the pretext of freedom, equality, and UN resolutions. This is an example of the US interference in the internal policy.

Under heavy international pressure and long-standing criticism, the Saudi government has since May 2003 made some tentative steps towards removing some of the viler pieces of incitement from its educational curriculum. This is the same curriculum, it is worth noting, that is packaged and distributed to Wahhabi institutions worldwide. While most Western observers, myself included, would argue that Riyadh still has a long, long way to go in this regard, even the slightest hint towards moderating the curriculum appears to be too much for bin Laden.

This is actually not quite as irrational a complaint as it might sound on the surface. Bin Laden derives most of his recruits in the Middle East and South Asia from a number of Saudi-funded educational institutions (Binori Town in Pakistan being only the most notorious example) where the level of fanatical indoctrination is absolutely key to producing the next generation of al-Qaeda operatives. Any toning down of the curriculum might result in a loss of recruits for al-Qaeda, something that bin Laden at this point can ill-afford.

The December 16 message: International Dimensions

Predictably enough, bin Laden's next charge against the Saudi regime concerns the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and its tentative (and arguably duplicitous given Saudi funding of Hamas) steps towards peace with Israel:

As for its interference in the foreign policy, the ruling families have obeyed America and are carrying out their role with their treacheries. King Husayn continued the march of treachery, which his grandfather Abdallah Bin-al-Sharif Husayn and his father began against Palestine. Here is his son Abdallah II who comes after him on the same path. Here is Muhammad VI in Morocco, walking on the same path of treachery, which his father and grandfather previously treaded.

Thus, the thief takes the money of the people of Iraq and violates their land and honor without exerting any effort, backed by the support and advice of the Arabian ruler. True, Saddam is a thief and a renegade, yet the solution can never be taking Iraq from the hands of the local thief to hand it over to the international thief, because helping the infidel and backing him in controlling Muslims and taking their lands is one of the ten deviations from Islam.

I'm assuming the charges leveled at King Mohammed of Morocco has to do with his own efforts against the al-Qaeda affiliate Salafi Jihad and promoting a moderate version of Moroccan "state Islam" in the wake of the Casablanca bombings. Bin Laden's charge that the US used Saudi bases in attacking Iraq strikes me as being somewhat unusual to me given that it was Kuwait, Qatar, and other smaller Gulf states that provided far more aid and assistance to the US invasion (even to the points of sending troops under the banner of the Gulf Cooperation Council to aid in the fighting) than the Saudis ever did.

Interestingly enough, bin Laden's argument as to why it was bad to overthrow Saddam Hussein seems to more or less boil down to, "He's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch!"

Far more disturbingly, it would also appear that bin Laden has either read or is else familiar with Bob Woodward's Plan of Attac, which again should be no surprise given how he has sought to make himself familiar with his enemy, hence the references to such things as the Florida voting controversy in 2000 or the charges against President Bush made in Fahrenheight 9/11.

Furthermore, before the invasion, Prince Abdallah Bin-Abd-al-Aziz gave publicly a malicious and deceitful statement, in which he said that the US massing [of forces] is not meant for war ... Similarly, his nephew Bandar Bin-Sultan, their ambassador in the United States, had said publicly that he met with the US vice-president, defense secretary, and chief of staff who showed him the secret plans for the invasion of Iraq, and so forth. These statements were given following the publication of a book which revealed that Prince Abdallah pledged to provide support for the United States and urged it to invade Iraq. Thus, his previous statements before the invasion, including the ones in which he said that he feels that the US forces did not come to the Gulf with the intention of waging war, mean that he was knowingly and intentionally lying and deceiving the nation; thus, acting on behalf of the United States in implementing the first phase of the psychological war against Iraq and its people, to lull them so they will not prepare for war, and to spread among them the spirit of submission and surrender to the enemy, so that the US forces will not be subjected to any significant resistance. What shame!! What infidelity and treason! What treachery and collaboration!

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if Plan of Attack has been reprinted overseas or translated? If so, where and into what languages? While it's just as possible that bin Laden is working off of summaries of the book that occurred in media reports following its publication, it's quite possible that he obtained a copy of it for the purposes of better understanding his enemies.

The rest of the tape is pretty much a long diatribe against the Saudi regime for its alleged collaboration with the US that is then extended to the Jordanians and the Egyptians. Interestingly, note bin Laden's dismissal of what the Saudi press says about him in contrast to his actual popularity within the Kingdom:

For example, the Jordanian regime is an infidel blasphemous regime, but the rulers of Riyadh used to support King Husayn. If a writer or a speaker described King Husayn as an agent for the Jews, the regime of Riyadh would punish such person according to laws issued for this purpose. However, when King Husayn entered into alliance with Saddam when the latter invaded Kuwait, King Fahd disavowed his former ally, and the newspapers of Riyadh were filled with documents and photos proving Al-Husayn Bin-Talal's collaboration with the Jews. When they deemed this to be true, it became true. Similarly, the Jordanian newspapers were filled with documents and photos proving that the rulers of Riyadh were agents of the English and then for the Americans, which is also their right.

References in Iraq are few and far between in this statement, in large part because it is addressed to a Saudi audience, likely bin Laden's supporters, for the purpose of countering the charges that have been leveled against them in the Saudi press. The new Iraqi government, predictably enough, isn't something bin Laden is too happy with:

We are not talking about a ruler practicing some licentious acts. Rather, we are talking about apostasy and subservience to the infidels. As there is no difference between Bremer, the former US ruler in Baghdad, and Allawi, the current ruler, in the implementation of America's policies in Iraq, there is no difference between Bremer and the rest of the rulers of the region in implementing the US policy. The scholars of Islam have agreed unanimously that imamate cannot be approved for an infidel. If a ruler becomes an infidel, his imamate becomes null and void, and it would become required to take up arms against him.

Also, in a direct attack on the domestic legitimacy of the Saudi regime, bin Laden argues that it is al-Qaeda, not the monarchy, that upholds and defends Islam in contrast to the corrupt and decadent lifestyles of the princes:

Who are the people espousing misguided thinking and the corrupt clique? Are they those who are defending Muslims, their honor, and their property in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Chechnya, or are they those who entered into the global infidelity alliance against Muslims, not to mention the looting of the ummah's public funds? To show this, it suffices to note the big arms deal, or let us say, the big theft -- which are synonymous -- the so-called Al-Yamamah deal, which amounted to more than $30 billion. This deal was concluded five years before the start of the Gulf war. When the Gulf war broke out, this deal and other hundreds of deals were not shown to have had any positive effect. You opened the doors of the country wide [for foreign troops] to defend you. Then, the number of the unemployed was small. Let us estimate that 100,000 persons were unemployed then. If the amount of the deal, which was $30 billion, were to be distributed among the 100,000 persons, each would obtain 1.125 million [Saudi] riyals. Had this money been invested in joint-stock companies to be used in religiously permitted activities, such as finding employment for the jobless, and spending on those who deserve alms, such as the poor, those in want, and those in debt, the people's conditions would have improved.

He also seeks to counter the bizarre charge leveled by Crown Prince Abdullah and others that al-Qaeda is backed in some fashion by the Israeli government:

One of most strange wonders and falsehoods was the charge leveled at the young men by the regime of the cardinal sins, such as saying that Zionism is the party that supports the mujahidin. What falsehood is this and how do they belittle the people's minds? All Muslims and infidels everywhere know that the arch enemies of Zionism are the young men who carry out jihad. However, the regime accused us of the flaw it is having. Almighty God says: "But if any one earns a fault or a sin and throws it on to one that is innocent, He carries (on himself) (Both) a falsehood and a flagrant sin. " [Koranic verse] This is as the saying goes: "She accused me of the fault she is having and then she sneaked away."

You asked the preachers not to pray to God to support the mujahidin in Chechnya. Instead, you asked them to pray to God against the young men of jihad in the land of two holy mosques, the agents of Zionists as you allege, while you are lying and you know that you are lying. The preachers and poets who support your falsehood are also lying and they know that you are treacherous and a liar.

Also, bin Laden's benediction should give us at least some idea of where al-Qaeda is most active these days:

We beseech God to have mercy on our brothers the martyrs everywhere in Palestine, Iraq, the land of the two holy mosques, Maghreb, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. May God have mercy on Shaykh Yusuf al-Uyayri, Abu-Ali al-Harithi, Khalid al-Hajj, Abd-al-Aziz al-Muqrin, Isa al-Ushan, and all their brothers.

The Maghreb region of North Africa is home to the GSPC and like-minded groups, while the addition of Nigeria and Thailand to the places of activity by the "mujahideen," while troubling, only serves to confirm what has long been suspected by international observers.

As for the dead al-Qaeda operatives named, Yousef al-Ayyeri was bin Laden's ghost writer and the leader of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, with Khalid al-Hajj and Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin being his respective successors. Isa al-Ushan is a new one for me, though it may just be a matter of how it was Romanized.

The Saudis clearly recognize the nature of their state of affairs, but as a result they seem to be focusing more on getting ahold of Pakistani nukes or renting elements of the Pakistani army to fight for them than they are at actually confronting the problem head-on. Another image comes to mind here - a man hanging from the edge of a cliff, trying desperately to keep from falling to their death. Not exactly an envied position to be in, I think, especially given today's events in Saudi Arabia.

<Bin Laden's message to the Iraqi People

I titled this post "Proxy War" for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that as I read the transcript of bin Laden's most recent audiotape posted in the internet forum of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), a London-based al-Qaeda front organization that has recently been designated as such by the US and British governments and contrasted his message to statements issued by President Bush, I was struck by just how much Iraq in general and the Iraqi elections in particular has become a proxy war for ideologies and ideas. How does the average Iraqi, one can't help but wonder, feel knowing that the future of US democratization efforts in the Middle East or the first step in establishing an Islamist empire in the region lies in their hands?

In any case, bin Laden's opening statement leaves the listener with little if any goal as far as who is ultimately running the Iraqi insurgency:

I salute our patient kinfolk in Baghdad, the house of the Caliphate and its environs, and I salute our Mujahidin brothers in Ba'qubah, Samarra, Mosul, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Al-Latifiyah and its sisters, Bayji, Balad, and the other Jihadist cities and villages. I also salute the free people on the land of Al-Anbar, particularly the residents of the heroic city of Al-Fallujah which is standing firm in the face of falsehood and refusing to submit to the leader of all unbelievers. The city has taught him lessons on how to stick to principles and that the power of faith is stronger than artillery shells and air bombardment. This city has also revealed the nature of his democracy and exposed him as treacherous, liar, and butcher.

The "leader of all unbelievers," of course, is none other than President Bush. Al-Anbar, the Iraqi province in which Fallujah is located, has been one of the strongholds of insurgency since it first began in the summer of 2003. Baqubah, Samarra, Mosul, Kirkuk, Tikrit, and Latifiyah have all served as bases for the insurgency at one point or another and Bayji and Balad have both emerged as hot spots since the fighting in Fallujah started to die down.

What is the difference between tyrant Saddam's massacres in the city of Halabjah and Bush's massacre in Al-Fallujah? If Saddam killed several thousands of our Kurdish brothers, may God have mercy on them, in the name of rotten pan-Arabism, the Pharaoh of the age killed several thousands in Al-Fallujah alone, wounded and crippled doubles of that figure, and displaced and terrorized hundreds of thousands. All this took place in the name of the Zionist crusaders, who are thirsty for blood. Muslims should realize the reality of this war. Besieging and bombarding an entire city, which has hundreds of thousands of inhabitants under the pretext that it shelters hundreds of resistance men, is an all-out war against Islam and Muslims. I ask God to accept our killed brothers as martyrs and grant recovery to the wounded.

Conflating what the US did in Fallujah with what Chemical Ali and the Iraqi military did in Halabja is, of course, an exercise in cognitive dissonance and moral equivalency of the first degree. However, it is interesting to note that bin Laden takes note of the suffering of the Iraqi Kurds here - Zarqawi's letter to him was dissmissive of the Kurds, regarding them much the same way that Hezbollah regarded the Lebanese Maronites who sided with the Israelis. I suspect that this because bin Laden is quite familiar with the history of Ansar al-Islam and its evolutionary predecessors Jund al-Islam, the Second Souran Unit, and the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan, all of which were at one point or another funded or allied with bin Laden. While the leadership in some cases were Sunni Arabs, the backbone of these movements were made up almost entirely of Kurds.

It would also seem that bin Laden isn't much of a fan of the UN either, in case anybody is curious about why his jackboots bombed it earlier this year:

... Those proud great men [the Iraqi insurgents] came with their matted, dust-colored hairs and their piety, rising above worldly pleasures, sticking to God's promises, and rejecting the fact that people worship other people in the name of the so-called international legitimacy or the New World Order and its satellite regimes.
bq. They came to destroy the cornerstone of that tyrannical regime, whose existence is based upon the implementation of the arbitrary decisions of the Security Council and the UN resolutions against oppressed countries. That infidel organization, which creates a relationship of slavery between the masters of the veto, at the forefront of which is America, and the slaves of the General Assembly, then speaks falsely and untruthfully of justice, equality, and freedom.

This is the first time, to be quite honest, that I've ever seen bin Laden reference the "New World Order," which, in his conception at least, appears to conflate both the unilateral policies of the Bush administration with the multilateralism overwhelmingly favored by (not to put too fine a point on it) most of Western Europe. Just how many wheels is this conspiracy supposed to have, anyway?

Also, as I think is unquestionably clear at this point, bin Laden is quite familiar with US political rhetoric and even the debate over whether or not US policy-makers were too polyannish in their assessment of how the war in Iraq would turn out. One of the things that our political polemicists are going to have to deal with over the next several years is that if you make a particularly good or even particularly loud argument against the policies of whichever party is in power or the president, bin Laden is likely to use it as his own.

The signs of dawn are looming on the horizon, the prowess of the faithful has begun to show results, and the wagers of the infidels are loosing. No doubt, you recall the words of the conceited one who said "I will settle the battle in six days or seven weeks." You recall Bush's words, when he said "the major operations are over," just a few weeks after the beginning of the war. They think that the people in front of them are sheep and that the whole thing is a picnic in Panama. They did not know that the lions of Al-Shara and Khiffan [locations in Arabic literature] are in the field, carrying their souls on the palms of their hands. They are trained on patience and endurance. Their victory is joy and their death is martyrdom.

Interestingly enough, if one reads this statement as praise to the Iraqi al-Qaeda contingent, the implication is that the US occupation of Iraq would have gone much smoother were it not for their actions. Whether or not that is in fact true (though the first major bombings inside Iraq during the summer of 2003 were unquestionably the work of Abu Musab Zarqawi), thus far the Baathist component of the resistance has been fairly lacking in publicizing itself outside of Iraq, thereby creating an information gap in which al-Qaeda can thrive.

I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic nation: Listen and understand. The issue is big and the misfortune is momentous. The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate.

In this context also, came Blair's statement on this war, saying it is historic. It is indeed historic, and this is what Bush and his administration have confirmed by their state of affairs and words that the frontline in the war against Islam is in Iraq.

Statements like this by Osama bin Laden are the primary reason why I labeled this post "proxy war." For him, the war in Iraq is simply the latest step in a Western campaign against Islam that has been going on since at least the end of the Ottoman Empire, the 80 years of humiliation that he referred to in his first videotape released in October 2001. He sees al-Qaeda as being the vanguard of Muslim resistance to this campaign, a Spartacus-style slave rebellion against an international conspiracy against Islam. That is why he conflates Chirac, Kissinger, and Blair, three men of extremely diverse political views, to make it seem as they are all in lockstep behind one another as far as their actions and policies are concerned.

It is important to understand when reading diatribes of this nature that bin Laden is both intelligent and sophisticated as well as well-informed as to the nature of his adversaries. One might forgive the average Sunni Arab living in the Middle East from being of the opinion that France and Britain hold to the same position on Iraq, but bin Laden is far from being the average Arab. There are different political viewpoints and then there is the case of what one might plausibly refer to as "the Big Lie." This, in my mind, is clearly a case of the latter.

Did not Bush say that Iraq is one of the states of the axis of evil? To the Christians, this description means that we are infidels and useless. This explains their occupation of our land and their killing of us. This also explains the atrocities that their soldiers committed in Abu-Ghurayb prison, Guantanamo, and elsewhere against our brother prisoners; atrocities which moved the whole of mankind.

Those who are of the opinion that the broadcast of graphic images of prisoner abuse from Abu Ghraib gave al-Qaeda the myth of an American gulag that it needed to further its recruiting efforts can be relieved - such a concept already existed within the organization's worldview the moment we established Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay as can be seen from the demands that were leveled at the US government by the kidnappers of Daniel Pearl. Unfortunately, what the amount of media exposure, both US and Arab, of the abuses at Abu Ghraib did was to make such things seem sensible to the average Middle Easterner as well as providing a basis from which al-Qaeda could articulate even loonier conspiracy theories. I don't want to get into arguments over Abu Ghraib or how suspected al-Qaeda members should be held or interrogated (though I think the case of Abdullah Mehsud is compelling enough for me to desire that there be a thorough vetting process before any suspected al-Qaeda, even the cannon fodder variety, gets released into the wild), but at the same time it should be understood that our enemy will attempt to use whatever methodologies we utilize against us as a bid to garner popular support.

The Saudi Fatwa Calling for Jihad in Iraq

And after finishing his rant against those who have dared to question his interpretation of Islam, it is quite interesting to note that he answers their charges as far as where he is getting the authority to say what he does:

And beware of those who want to tell wrong and shroud the truth with their wrong to deceive people. Jihad in Palestine and Iraq today is a duty for the people of the two countries. If these people failed or showed reluctance to perform Jihad, then it would be the duty of the people close to them [in other countries], and so on until the circle [of Jihad] covers the entire countries of Muslims. The countries of Muslims are like one country.

Jihad in Iraq and Palestine is right and discouraging it is wrong. And beware of those who sneak into your midst, defying God and the Prophet with their ideas and whims, and claiming this is in the interest of the [Islamic] predication. This is impossible. In their ideas lie destruction and waste.

The ulema (Islamic scholars) that bin Laden is referring to here as having issued fatwas in support of his views are the 26 Saudi scholars who just last month issued an open letter urging Iraqis to battle the US. The leading light in issuing this statement was Safar al-Hawali, bin Laden's spiritual advisor and the head of the Supreme Council of Global Jihad, a body of 225 Islamist clerics who apparently function as al-Qaeda's "brain trust." Al-Hawali, it is worth noting, was also among the "theologians of terror" cited in a letter by 2,500 Muslim intellectuals calling the prosecution for such individuals. It is indeed an interesting phenomenon that moderate Muslims know who the bad guys are even if the Western media remains ignorant of such things.

Bin Laden quotes from the Saudi statement at length to support his position:

Here I recall some rulings, the most important and serious of which are:
bq. First: The ruling on those who support the infidels against the Muslims.

Religious scholars have unanimously agreed that supporting the infidels against the Muslims is one of the major causes for departure from the Muslim faith, and is considered one of the 10 major violations of Islam. This is the case whether the infidel is foreign or Arab, ruled or ruler. Supporting America or Allawi's renegade government, or Karzai's government, or Mahmud Abbas' government, or any other renegade governments in their fight against the Muslims is tantamount to infidelity and a cause for departure from the [Islamic] nation. Included among those are also the owners of companies and the workers who transport fuel, ammunition, food supplies, and any other needs. Everyone who aides and supports them in any kind of way has defected from religion and must be fought. Study, if you will, what God has said in the holy Koran: O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust. [Koranic verse]

In addition to Allawi, Karzai, and Abbas, one could probably add Mubarak and other pro-American rulers in the Middle East. Erdogan, no doubt, is also apostate in the opinion of Hawali and his clerics.

And what consolation does bin Laden give to the hundreds if not thousands of Iraqis murdered by Zarqawi's acolytes by bomb or by gun, far more than the number of Palestinians killed during the course of the Intifada?

Those Iraqis who get killed, and who belong to Allawi's renegade government -- such as members of the Army, the security agencies, and the National Guard -- are like Abu-Jahl, the Qurashi Arab. Their killing is sanctioned and they are infidels. Muslims should not pray for them. They do not give inheritance, and they are not entitled to any inheritance. Their wives should be divorced from them. They should not be buried in the Muslims' cemeteries.

To back up his point, he quotes from al-Tibyan fi Kufr mann Aan al-Amerikan, a book written in 2001 by the Saudi cleric Nasser bin Hamad al-Fahd, the same cleric who recently gave bin Laden a lengthy fatwa authorizing him to use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against civilian targets in Western countries.

He then continues quoting from the fatwa issued by al-Hawali and his associates:

Religious ruling concerning participation in the upcoming elections, whether in Iraq, Palestine, or in Afghanistan and the likes.

Whatever we mentioned about Iraq fully applies to the situation in Palestine. Palestine is under occupation and its constitution is man-made and pagan, and Islam has nothing to do with it. Candidate Mahmud Abbas is Baha'i, agent, and apostate. He was brought after he and his companions had wasted ten years of the lives of Muslims in Palestine through the Oslo conspiracy, not to mention other conspiracies. Abbas was brought so as to send people into further loss, to offer more concessions in this round, to tame the Intifadah, and to repress jihad and resistance.

When the Iraqi constitution was first written, there was widespread concern in various quarters over the role assigned to Islam in it for fear of an Algeria-style situation developing. If we are to take bin Laden at his word (a dubious prospect at the best of times), he considers the very concept of a constitution and the very idea of elections to be entirely beyond the pale as far as his definition of Islam is concerned. Interestingly enough, while bin Laden's denunciations over the Iraqi elections were rightly interpreted as an attack on Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who has called upon Iraqis to vote, what slipped under many observers' radar was his similar denunciation of voting in the Palestinian elections that are to be held in January and his direct attack on Mahmud Abbas as a Baha'i (?!?!) sent in to put an end to the Intifadah.

So if I am to understand this correctly, if there is a huge turnout in the Palestinian elections can we then infer that the majority of Palestinians are now apostate in the eyes of bin Laden and his ilk? If that is in fact what he is saying here, it would seem that the US has a major propaganda opportunity by highlighting such statements throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Orders to the Iraqi al-Qaeda

Before concluding, I advise myself and the Mujahidin to fear God in private and in public, and to refer to and read the Koran, and to pray humbly to God. I also urge you and myself to exercise patience and avoid betrayal, for every traitor will be marked with a banner on the Judgment Day. And be very aware of killing innocent people, except for what is permissible by religion, such as the innocent who are used as shields, without going to excess, and this issue should be left to the judgment of the Mujahidin scholars. We should seek the help of God through compliance and steering away from disobedience.

I urge you to strike supply routes and oil lines, and to plant twice as many mines that leave behind no wounded, and to assassinate company owners who provide the enemy with supplies, whether in Riyadh, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, or other places.

That first paragraph appears to address the issue of Zarqawi's mass killings of Iraqi civilians. Some commentators, such as Juan Cole (whose comments I'll deal with in more depth further down the line) have claimed that by aligning himself with Zarqawi bin Laden is opening himself up to charges that he supports the mass murder of Iraqi civilians (he does, but he's politically savvy enough to know not to say it out-right). I disagree (though in all fairness to Cole, that part of the speech wasn't among the excerpts broadcast on al-Jazeera) and would say that the first paragraph was likely placed in there specifically to counter such charges.

Most interestingly, bin Laden appears to side against Zarqawi in the ongoing dispute between Zarqawi and the Iraqi Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islami (Islamic Scholars' Front, Association of Islamic Clerics, etc.) over whether or not it is licit to kill civilians. Whereas Zarqawi is quite vocal in his belief that killing civilians is permissible on the grounds that they are collaborating with the US by not taking part in his jihad, Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islami tends not to be nearly as overt in supporting the murder of innocents. Given that their organization is overwhelmingly Iraqi while Zarqawi's upper ranks are populated by Syrians and Jordanians, this is not in of itself all that surprising.

And with the exception of Kuwait, all of the targets named by bin Laden have been subject to attempted or actual terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda and its satellite groups. Riyadh was attacked just today, for example. And disrupting Western access to Iraqi oil is featured prominently in Iraq al-Jihad, the al-Qaeda strategy document that also called for the Madrid bombings in Spain.

You should become diligent in carrying out martyrdom operations; these operations, praise be to God, have become a great source of terror for the enemy. They have perturbed its movement, frustrated its plans, and challenged its weapons and soldiers. These are the most important operations.

We have been through wars, and are aware of what they involve; the most difficult of which is for the United States to deliberately kill our women and children, and then deny it. If it became exposed, then it would claim that the killings happened by mistake. This is what came to pass in Afghanistan, including the killing of many of our brothers, sisters, and children, as well as killing the wife of Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, his daughter, and only son, may their souls rest in peace.

Al-Zawahiri's wife and children, in case anyone is curious, were killed during the bombing of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in 2001. And here again bin Laden appears to be arguing that while the frequency of suicide attacks occurring inside Iraq is wonderful, he is also quite aware that a high body count could easily kill his desire to lengthen the conflict there beyond our ability to sustain it. As Rohan Gunaratna so presciently wrote in Inside Al Qaeda in 2002, bin Laden has long sought to draw the US into a protracted guerrilla warfare conflict where he can defeat them the same way he believes he defeated the USSR in Afghanistan or that Hezbollah claims to have defeated Israel in Lebanon. But to accomplish that objective will require the on-scene al-Qaeda leadership in Iraq to be more discreet about where and when they strike - something nearly impossible from bin Laden or his top lieutenants to dictate from afar. This, as Joe and others have noted, is one of the reasons why having a decentralized terrorist network ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Far more troubling are statements such as this:

Know that the weakness and powerlessness of the enemy have been exposed. You have heard that they were forced to seek an emergency budget. Their adversities have increased. They have countless problems. Their economy is declining and their dollar is constantly becoming weaker. Their deficit has hit record numbers, and despite that, Bush has signed a bill for an $800 billion debt limit.

As for their inability to provide trained soldiers qualified to fight this fierce war, reports show that 50 percent of soldiers come from units unqualified to fight in this war, such as the US National Guard. This is in addition to their failure in providing alternative military units, which resulted in forfeiting soldiers' leave, thus leading to a rise in suicide rates and psychological illnesses. Iraq has become a cemetery for US mercenaries and the thugs who came with them. So, we express our gratitude and thanks to God.

My extremely limited knowledge of economics aside here, I am fairly that drawing a correlation between the war in Iraq and the current US deficit is erroneous. However, the fact that bin Laden knows enough about American politics to comment (abeitly somewhat inaccurately) on such issues as the growing deficit, the decline of the dollar, troop overstretch problems, etc. This goes back to something I myself have said all along: these are not the words of a man who lives in a cave. Indeed, these are words of an enemy who knows and understands a lot more about the US and the Middle East than half of the analysts who get trotted out for the talk shows.

... The expenses of Al-Qa'ida Organization in Al-Rafidayn country [Mesopotamia, Iraq] are estimated at 200,000 Euros weekly not to mention the expenses of other groups. So, support all the groups and don't let the Mujahidin be attacked from your front. You should know that this is a great war that will have results.

And that's just the Tanzeem al-Qaeda fi Bildad al-Rafidayn, not the attendant satellite groups like Ansar al-Islam or its larger splinter groups like Ansar al-Sunnah. 200,000 euros is, if I recall the exchange rate right, roughly $250,000 US, correct? If so, that adds up to about a million every month, which tracks with what bin Laden told the Taliban leadership at a terrorist summit in April 2003: that $1.5 million of their monthly stipend was being tapped to pay for the jihad in Iraq. $1,000,000 for the core al-Qaeda force and another $500,000 or so to cover expenses or perhaps to shill out to the various satellite groups.

<a name="zarqawi"Zarqawi and the elections ...

Scrolling down a little bit, we get to hear bin Laden's opinion of Zarqawi:

A prophet tradition states: A group of my nation will continue to fight seeking justice until doomsday.

So, make sure to be among this group. I believe that the Mujahid Amir, dignified brother Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and the groups affiliated with him are good, and are from the group that fights according to the orders of God. God sufficeth them. We were pleased with their daring operations against the Americans and Allawi's renegade government. We were also pleased by their response to the orders of God and the prophet, may God's peace and blessings be upon him, with regard to unity and adhering to the covenant of God. We, in the Al-Qa'ida Organization, warmly welcome their union with us. This is a great step toward rendering successful the efforts of the Mujahidin to establish the state of right and annihilate the state of injustice. We hope that God would accept and bless this step. It should be known that Mujahid brother Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi is the Amir of the Tanzim al-Qa'idah fi Bilad al-Rafidayn [Al-Qa'ida Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers]. The brothers in the group there should heed his orders and obey him in all that which is good.

Unfortunately, this isn't too likely to end any of the debate over Zarqawi's ties to bin Laden, though I think it's pretty much consistent with my own view of man. I would note the reference to the "union" between the two men is not only is bin Laden welcoming Zarqawi's al-Tawhid wal Jihad organization into the fold but also the numerous smaller groups that fight under his aegis or his direction against the US occupation and until recently met in the Fallujah Mujahideen Shura. Designating Zarqawi as the top al-Qaeda leader inside Iraq would also seem to clear up any lingering disagreements such as those referenced in Zarqawi's January 2004 letter to bin Laden found on Hassan Ghul of in-fighting for power between the various extremist groups active in the country that was hindering the establishment of a unified command and control for the Iraqi insurgents. During the fighting in Fallujah, members of al-Tawhid got involved in a gunfight with members of the Iraqi Jaish Mohammed and Ansar al-Sunnah (perhaps similar to the fighting between the Orcs and the Uruk-hai in The Two Towers?) over who would man the bunkers and who would defend the neighborhoods in the southern part of the city.

I would like to remind the Mujahidin that uniting under banner of "there is no God but Allah" is not a supererogatory task but is a leading duty that should be given due attention. Mujahid groups should coordinate amongst them in order to unite their ranks under one banner. Ibn Taymiyah (1263-1328, Muslim theologian and Jihad theorist,] the Shaykh of Islam, said: Once people abandon some of God's orders, enmity and hatred would befall them. If a nation divides, it would become corrupt and then perish. If a nation unites it would be competent and would rule because unity is mercy and division is torture.

Thank God, the resistance is growing. God willing, we will make the leaders of Romans -- Bush and his followers, forget the insinuation of Satan through the leaders of Muslims; namely, Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi and his brothers.

I would point out that the various military operations which bin Laden so jeeringly mocks have cost him a great deal of men, equipment, and resources. Cannon fodder may come and go, but operatives like Abu Marwan, Saleh Arugayan Khalil, Bassem Mohammed Hazim, Hassan Ibrahim Farhan Zayda, Abu Said, Moayad Ahmed Yassin, etc. are not easily replaced - and that's just since October! Now granted, many of these individuals are only mid-level operatives and will be replaced over time (though if Abdullah Janabi and Omar Hadid were killed during the Battle of Fallujah as some reports have suggested I'd definitely consider that a major victory), but thus far I would say that for bin Laden isn't about to claim victory in Iraq, not by a long shot.

The remainder of the message is mostly a combination poetry (including an old Arab poem about a battle against the Byzantines with another verse added by bin Laden to reference the destruction of the WTC), praise of the Iraqi al-Qaeda for their actions against the US, and an argument, presumably directed at the Sunni Arab population of Iraq, that elections are not the way to go and should be boycotted in order to deprive them of legitimacy.

Impact of the tapes?

Juan Cole is the only person so far who offered an analysis of the audiotape - all of the other pundits appear to be more or less saying that bin Laden is now as much a politician as a terrorist, that his alliance with Zarqawi comes with the price of embracing his anti-Shi'ite rhetoric, and that there's a difference of opinion over what these tapes mean.

I'll take these one-by-one.

Juan Cole: Likely only saw the excerpts of bin Laden's tape as they were aired on al-Jazeera, hence some of the conclusions he draws in his analysis don't bear up under examination of the statements in their entirety. Bin Laden directly addresses the issue of the Iraqi civilians who have been killed by Zarqawi's attacks. He does condemn support for the elections and by extension Grand Ayatollah Sistani, but then the Iraqi Shi'ites were never bin Laden's intended audience to begin with. The Sunni Arabs are and they aren't likely to think to fondly of their southern bretheren over recent events in al-Anbar, a point that Cole himself has raised on occasion in his regular summary's of the day's news. Claiming that nationalist Iraqis will object to a foreigner interfering in their affairs is a red herring for two reasons: they already have one (Zarqawi is Jordanian) and bin Laden's message is distinctly anti-nationalist Pan-Islamic in a way that somewhat mirrors Trotsky's idea of "smash the state" in favor of the ummah organized in the form of a global or at least regional caliphate. The claim that Zarqawi is widely hated inside Iraq for attacks perpetrated by his organization is somewhat interesting given that Cole, whom I normally go to for an opposing view on the situation in Iraq, was musing back in September that al-Tawhid wal Jihad (or Monotheism and Holy War as he calls it there) could easily be a "plot device" so that the Bush administration could continue to link Iraq and al-Qaeda - if that train of thought has occurred to Cole, it's likely also occurred to Iraqi Sunni Arabs as well. I have no doubt that Zarqawi is reviled by good Kurds and Shi'ites alike (to which we might add both Turkmen and Christians), but bin Laden isn't planning to recruit from their number. There is a certain retroactive quality to Cole's analysis in that he muses that the only way that al-Qaeda could hope to profit from such statements would be if Sunni Arabs went over to the organization in large numbers - this is already occurring and has been ever since the capture of Saddam Hussein last December, most prominently in the form of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri and his sons who ditched Sufism in favor of Zarqawi's Wahhabism. Bin Laden's ultimate goal is to drive the US out of Iraq in order to accomplish what he views the war in Afghanistan as having done to the USSR - Gunaratna and any number of other scholars of al-Qaeda are all agreed on this. The fate of the Iraqi people, even the Sunni Arabs, are only peripheral in bin Laden's agenda. The same can be said of Palestine, why is exactly why neoconservative commentators frequently point out that al-Qaeda doesn't truly give a damn about the plight of the average Palestinian. Bin Laden's recent tape is full of references to them, but for him they, like the Iraqi Sunnis, are nothing more than a rhetorical device and a rallying cry that serves as a means to his ultimate end of evicting Western influence from the Middle East.

Bin Laden as a politician: Bin Laden has always been as much a politician as he has been a revolutionary, a terrorist, an administrator, or any of the other terms you want to give to him. All of his messages are innately political, as is anything he says. It is primarily for this reason that one should regard his statements with a grain of salt when he makes comments that are clearly designed to influence US domestic politics, such as the pre-election videotape. Some have argued that him issuing such a tape meant that he is no longer in any active command and control capacity and can only cheer things on from the sidelines. I take issue with this characterization, just as I do Juan Cole's comparison of al-Qaeda as nothing more than the Baader-Meinhof Gang with a further geographic reach. Rohan Gunaratna describes him as follows in Inside Al Qaeda:

In the spectrum of contemporary terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden has no equal. As a leader who has employed violence in pursuit of his political aims and objectives, he stands out in many ways. First, he is the only leader to have built a truly multinational terrorist group that can strike anywhere in the world. For over a decade Osama has inspired, instigated and supported Islamist guerrillas and terrorists ... Second, he has built a popular following throughout the Islamic world, being almost revered in Muslim circles in Asia, Africa and the Middle East and among the first- and second-generation migrants in North America, Europe, and Australia. Nor has his popularity waned despite evidence that he masterminded the worst terrorist attack in history. He continues to be regarded as the supreme symbol of resistance to US imperialism. Third, Osama's disposition towards his enemies has not mellowed in the face of the imminent threat to his own life and to his organization ... the tone of his statements has remained constant, if not more strident. To his admirers he sets an example of fearlessness; he is unrelenting; neither he nor Al Qaeda will comprise.

This man is not an opponent, at least in my mind, to be under-estimated. And every time we do, whether it be in the case of Juan Cole or the intelligence or government officials quoted in either the recent Newsweek piece or in a polyannish assessment of al-Qaeda printed up in the Washington Post right after the success of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), something bad seems to happen. I'll consider bin Laden no longer a threat when he's behind bars or in the ground, not beforehand.

Bin Laden having to accept Zarqawi's anti-Shi'ite credentials: I think that this is something of a false dilemma because I never had any real questions about Zarqawi or his relationship to al-Qaeda: once you accept that, I think it's pretty easy to see how the anti-Shi'ite stuff balances itself out. The main architect of Zarqawi's ideology is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (Abu Musab al-Suri) who is vehemently anti-Shi'ite if you listen to his audiotapes but with whom there doesn't appear to be any kind of disagreement as to his al-Qaeda affiliations. Even if one accepts the line of thought that at one point Zarqawi was a rival to bin Laden, it is quite clear from the tone of both men's statements that he is the junior partner in the relationship. As such, it is bin Laden's ecumenism that is going to be influencing Zarqawi, not vice versa, and indeed there are already tentative signs of this having taken place.

What the tapes mean: Hell if I know, but then I don't get a copy of the threat matrix every morning. Based on the Newsweek piece, I tend to agree with Scheuer (for the first time in awhile) that both bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are likely feeling pretty cocky these days - you don't try to influence a US presidential election, meddle in Saudi dynastic squabbling, and cheer on Zarqawi when being on the run is the first thing on your mind.

And while I'm at it ...

• Washington Post has a pretty good reader on the obstacles facing al-Qaeda as far as actually obtaining a nuclear weapon. They do mention, however, that there are a number of quite plausible scenarios in which al-Qaeda could end up with one very, very quickly and we wouldn't know about it until the mushroom cloud started rising. They also have a another piece on the area of bio-warfare, though this one I'm extremely disappointed in since they don't get into what was found to that effect on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's decrypted computer (a story the Post first broke!).

• As I learned at the terrorism conference a few weeks ago, that one of hurdles al-Qaeda faces in the bio-terrorism arena is that the head of their WMD program, Midhat Mursi, only has a background in chemical rather than biological warfare. The arrest of Yazid Sufaat has also played a role in dealing a blow to al-Qaeda's bioterrorism designs.

• In a similar vein, I see another warmongering puppet of the Bush administration (for those who don't want to register, it's Susan Rice) is of the opinion that Iran is harboring al-Qaeda operatives and up to no good in Iraq. But what does she know ...

• One of the criticisms of my counter-terrorism conference post was that it didn't touch much on the issue of Pakistan. For this I apologize, primarily because of the limited amount of time I had to ask questions at the conference. I will be sure and ask more about Pakistan the next counter-terrorism conference that I happen to attend. I figured the Lashkar-e-Taiba stuff would be helpful in this category.

• On a similar note, I should probably clarify what I meant in that post about Judge Garzon. What I meant to say was that his position isn't a political appointment, so he continues in his previous position as Spain's resident anti-terrorism guy despite the shift in governance from Popular Party to Socialist. Al-Qaeda regards him as a major threat to their operations in-country, which is probably why they wanted to mount an operation to kill him and destroy his evidence.

• I've gotten a lot of e-mail while I've been away (300+, all of which will be answered in due course) about Ansar al-Sunnah, the group that carried out the suicide bombing in Mosul that killed 22. Michael Rubin has an outstanding primer on them that he did for MEIB awhile back that bears reading.

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While the dangers certainly are real, there is considerable disagreement among security experts about the probabilities for "catastrophic terrorism." In the case of nuclear and biological weapons, the subjects of articles today and tomorrow, there are technical and scientific hurdles that have proved daunting, even for nations with sizable budgets and state-of-the-art facilities. Chemical weapons, which will be explored in an article Friday, would be somewhat easier to devise or obtain, but also far less likely to yield huge numbers of casualties. A radiological device would have similar limitations for terrorists.

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I have nothing but sympathy for these poor blighted people. The anguish in their faces require no additional words of sorrow. Seeing the bin Laden bystander has me wondering if these people would have the same sympathy for my countrymen, under reversed fate. I wonder if a handful of American aid dollars might get him to discard his tattered bin Laden shirt -- or merely buy a new one. I wonder if he thinks the Arab League should be sending him aid instead of infidel Americans. It’s disheartening that this man should tinge my sympathy with cynicism. But there it is.

Living consists of enduring tsunamis -- unexpected waves rising out of the sea, changing everything. If asked only a minute before the first wave hit, “what threatens you the most,” the bin Laden bystander might have postulated that George Bush was his greatest threat, or American capitalism. Or perhaps he would have lamented diminishing fish supplies, or pointed at a deforested tropical coastland. Maybe he would have expressed fear for Tamil rebels, or government army men. Then, only one minute later, the sea’s horizon would tilt upwards, sweeping away the expected.

Change tends to come in waves -- deep, silent swells that knock every atom of presumption aside, overturning accepted prejudices, ideas, fears and dreams. 9/11 was one such wave. It was a great surge that overcame our meticulously constructed reality, seemingly impervious to the dark motives of bearded men living in 12th century Afghanistan. That wave rose out of the sea, on a beautiful, sunny day. And a new world was born in its wake.

In this last nod to 2004, we should remember waves. We can look back on human history and see that fundamental change rises from nowhere, and is revolutionary. Waves like the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, or the 1929 Crash; waves such as Pearl Harbor and Trinity, or a crumbling Berlin Wall, or the World Wide Web. In retrospect there were impending signs, and surely their coming could have been foretold if anyone was attuned and heard. We should recognize that our greatest asset as living beings is our capacity to absorb waves. In so doing, we transform ourselves, and move ahead. The waves of this world make us a better people. We will endure only if we create opportunity from the abrupt realities that rise from the sea.

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2- The classical questions about sexual relationships [to create moral scandals]: "Write down the names of your boy/girl friends"; "tell us about your illegal [= out of marriage] sexual relationships"; "what kind of relationship have that girl/guy had with you?"; "how many times have you been raped, or have you raped?"; and worst of all, they gave the names of 6 reformist activist to one of the girls asking her to confess in writing that she had had illegal sexual relationship with them. And when the girl refused, they brought in a former prisoner (who had turned to their side under torture) who told the girl face to face that he had had sexual relationship with her!

3- The interrogations were managed by a formerly arrested blogger. A few other bloggers who had [given up and] repented before were under less pressure, and were in a way helping the interrogators who had lack of technical knowledge on the subject [of internet and blogs]. This proves that weak people cannot be trusted in politics. However, we understand the situation they're in and can't really blame them for what they've done.

4- Objection to the bloggers right to hire lawyers, ignoring their legal rights.

5- The interrogators lacked technical knowledge [on the subject].

6- The interrogators tried to force bloggers to confess in writing based on the templates given to them in prison, which were along the same line as the Spider's Web conspiracy article published in Kayhan newspaper. The bloggers were told that they would be freed once their confessions were printed in daily newspapers. Some of the bloggers had accepted the terms, but those whom we met today had not given up.

7- The bloggers were individually asked to write lies about the sexual and sometimes political corruptness of a number of different politicians. All of them were asked to write about Mostafa Tajzadeh and myself [Abtahi] amongst others.

And other points that are impossible to mention here.

After listening to them for 3 hours, depressed, anxious and tearful committee members made some decisions which will be announced shortly, although they are not sure if they will be able to implement those decisions.

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...

The best monument to the dead from this disaster would be to ensure that this effort is now made. Man is not helpless in the face of nature, if he applies his intelligence and energy to the task.

4th of July - X Baba O Reilly - The Who
Catch Me Now - Kinks
It's Expected I'm Gone - Minutemen
Guns of Brixton - The Clash
I'm Happy Just to Dance With You - Beatles
Struck A Nerve - Bad Religion
California Girls - Beach Boys
My My Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) - Neal Young
Hotel California - Eagles

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Demographically, we're going to have a problem - not as bad as Europe and Asia - as the retiree/ worker ratios change due to declining birthrates and increased longevity. In our case, immigration - and more important, participation of immigrants in the labor force - will mask a lot of that.

We have a couple of financial issues as well. The trend of wages is slightly down, in real dollars - but my benefits will be pegged to my higher wages, while the numerically fewer new workers who will pay for me will probably have lower wages as well.

There's also a basic 'values' type issue around Social Security. It was sold as 'social insurance' - in essence, a welfare plan. Many of us somehow had the impression that we were getting our own money back - that it was a pension plan - but we aren't, and as far as my cursory reading can find, no one in Social Security ever did. It has always been a welfare program. It looks like a pension plan, and we act like it's a pension plan, but it's not.

We middle-class folks have a horrible savings deficit in this country, as we live increasingly on credit (ask me how I know...) and our net worth is increasingly concentrated in our homes.

It's likely that some adjustments will need to be made in Social Security to pay for my late retirement and for the retirement of the cohorts after me.

Bush has a plan to do two things: convert it into a pension plan, away from a welfare plan, and to try and raise the rate of return (one of the magic growth rates) by allowing some investment in the stock markets.

I'm agin' it.

But probably not for the reasons you'd assume...

First, I think there is a real issue with Social Security as a welfare program and not a pension program. The benefits are not means-tested - which would make sense if it was my own money that I will get back, but since it's not, is a tribute to the lobbying power of AARP. The fact that it's welfare does expose each cohort to demographic risk, which they could be insulated from if it were a true pension plan.

As a welfare program, it's also somewhat regressive in that only incomes up to approximately $80,000 are taxed.

So there is some logic on transitioning Social Security toward becoming a national pension plan and away from becoming a pure welfare program - as it is constituted today.

But Bush's plan has some obvious problems.

I'll skip the macro market effects of pumping a few billion or so a year into the markets, and the obvious windfall this would represent to Wall Street. (we'll come back to that, though)

The real problem is that he won't politically be able to get away from the welfare aspects of the program.

Concern about market volatility has prompted some analysts and policy makers to explore the possibility of "guarantees" of pension accumulations. In many cases, the desire for a "guarantee" is premised on the mistaken notion that the current Social Security system provides a guaranteed benefit. This is untrue. While the defined benefit formula does not subject individuals to financial market uncertainty, the formula itself can be changed and has been changed in the US numerous times in the past. This political risk to benefits is all the more real because the Social Security system faces perpetual financing deficits starting in the middle of the next decade, such that currently scheduled benefits cannot be paid.

...

A different form of guarantee might promise participants they will receive their contributions plus some minimum rate of return. For example, the design might promise participants that they will receive their contributions plus a return on government bonds (e.g., the returns on a 10-year Treasury bond index fund).

Final Report, pp 143-144

So I'll bet - since politically it's damn unlikely that we'll vote to starve the seniors who lose their pension nest eggs - we're going to wind up with something that looks a lot like what we have now, shifts the nominal accounting over to a pension plan and away from a welfare program, and then layers on some form of a welfare program. The worst of both worlds - continued budget impacts of the welfare model, financial market losses, and overhead from fund management.

But there is some logic in shifting toward a pension plan.

There's even more logic in rationalizing the welfare aspects of the current plan first.

Should Social Security benefits be means-tested? Absolutely. That's not your money you're getting back, it your kid's money. Actually, as this paper (a PDF by actual actuaries) suggests, taxing Social Security benefits of higher-income retirees more aggressively makes a lot of sense.

Should Social Security wages stop at $80,000? Why? Income taxes don't stop there. Why cap them at all? Why not lift the cap, and lower the rate for everyone.

I'm guessing that with those two changes (obviously, the numbers depend on the exact percentages) the program could retain solvency and maintain it's existence as a welfare program.

But that doesn't do two things, which are valuable in the Bush proposal.

First, we need to up the rate of savings in the society.

My conservative friends will choke, but why not layer on a Federal pension plan to the existing social security plan (particularly since I'd bet that when Congress is done, that's what we'll wind with anyway?)

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's your money. But it'll still be your money to invest and pull out when you retire - it's not like they're giving it to crack babies or buying arms with it or whatever your personal nightmare of government misspending may be. And sadly, looking at the statistics, none of us are doing our part in saving and capital formation.

Am I like Solomon or what?

Welfare and pensions; we can have them both - but why not make them explicit so that we can all understand them? Why come up with a blended program that makes it too complex for the average person to understand what's being done?

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By the time I reached altitude, I could hardly see the Messeschmitts. They were nothing more than specks that appeared and disappeared. Had they gone back to their field, I would have missed them, but they continued their patrol, turning west. That would give me a broadside, out of the sun.

I took it. I hit one so hard he broke up in the air, and the other simply fled. At this point I was very low on fuel and ammunition and I back-rolled for home hoping that the remining Schmitt would not come back. He didn't.

Just enough fuel was left to skim the beach before landing. We were not supposed to do that, but it was often too enticing not to. It was like shouting out that you were still alive, and your voice was not your voice but the voice of your swift and powerful plane, with an engine that shook the ground, with six cannons, and light wings that rocketed through the clouds. The planes returned as if from nowhere, propellers churning in golden light, avenging angels descending from unimaginable wars in the ether. After my first kill I understood that we were singing a terribly sad song. But I'm not ashamed of having sung that song, for, no matter what you may suspect, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

Thanks to Mark, I pulled it off the shelf and read it yesterday...what a great book. And no, I don't drink coffee.

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I believe that Dr. Cole dehumanized Jones-Hoffman, but in truth, didn't offer conclusive - or even significant - evidence for it. I still believe it, but I 'get' the point that it's neither proven nor, probably, provable and so not a fit subject for discussion.

And, if I could take it back, I wouldn't have linked at all. This is a matter in some ways of not knowing my own strength. Blogging is deceptively informal, sort of like a conversation rather than like formal writing. So it is natural to cross-link among friends and say, 'Hey, check this out.' But my weblog has come to be so widely read that this degree of informality is now a luxury I obviously cannot afford, and I will try to be more careful.

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EXTRA INFORMATION

RE: Jeddah Attack

Stratfor has learned from reliable counterterrorism sources that the Dec. 6 attack against the U. S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was intended to be far more complex. As the attack played out, five gunmen entered the compound's outer wall through a gate that opened to allow a vehicle to pass, and then engaged Saudi and U. S. security forces in sporadic gunbattles. Ultimately the attack failed because the gunmen were unable to penetrate consular security.

Inner circles of the intelligence and security community now theorize that a second cell was to have attacked the compound from the rear, but that the cell somehow was disrupted a week or so prior to the attack. The five-member cell that staged the unsuccessful attack apparently never knew it was supposed to have backup. This suggests that a high degree of operational security is built into al Qaeda's structure in the kingdom.

RE: U.S.A. & Israel Other areas of friction and concern include:

"There's been concern that Israel would pull a surprise on the United States with either an offensive against Hizbullah in Lebanon or a massive attack on the Gaza Strip," a diplomatic source said. "Washington doesn't want to be surprised and would rather know this information in advance and first hand."

The sources said the result has been increased U.S. satellite monitoring of Israel to determine military movements, import and export of weapons, weapons tests and construction of housing in Israeli communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They said the United States has also expanded the interception of signals communications from Israeli government and military facilities.

The U.S. effort was said to have been prompted by Israel's air attack on a Palestinian base outside Damascus in 2003. The sources said the U.S. intelligence community, despite the Bush administration's muted response, was alarmed by the Israeli attack and warned that this could mark a policy to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad.

The most recent demonstration of heightened U.S. intelligence collection on Israel took place last month. On Nov. 10, a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine entered Israel's territorial waters off the coast of Haifa and spent several hours monitoring Israel's Navy and other facilities. The sources said the U.S. naval intrusion angered Israeli leaders. They said that over the last few weeks, Israel quietly sent a tough message to the United States that demanded a halt in espionage missions inside Israeli territorial waters.

The Israeli message stressed that its military quickly identified and tracked the U.S. nuclear submarine, the sources said. But the General Staff refrained from ordering an attack on the asset of a friendly nation.

"The Israeli message hinted that the next time could be different," a diplomatic source, familiar with the episode, said.

The sources said intelligence relations between Israel and the United States have been strained since the 2003 war in Iraq. U.S. officials have complained several times of violations of Israeli pledges regarding such issues as defense relations with China and aggressive Israeli information collection in the United States."

A bit of perspective: these kinds of frictions aren't unheard-of between allies. Still, it's useful background to keep in mind as you watch Middle Easern events.

IRAN REPORTS

• Iran's Air Force has been alerted to defend Iranian nuclear facilities from SFOs - suspicious flying objects.

• The European Union and Iran will conduct trade talks, with American approval.

• The US is intensely surveilling suspected Iranian agents on US soil.

THE MIDDLE EAST

• Israel is buying two more nuclear-warhead armable submarines from Germany (Dolphin-class), bringing its total to five.

• Hamas makes significant gains in Palestinian municipal elections, challenging Fatah's grip on power.

• U.S. Marines arrested two senior members of Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq in the city of Ramadi.

• The assets of the Saudi Islamic Movement For Reforms have been frozen due to ties with al Qaeda. This is the same group responsible for the failed demonstrations in Saudi Arabia.

• Turkish-Syrian relations are thawing because both countries are opposed to any form of resurgent Kurdish nationalism. They've signed a free trade accord.

AMERICAN DOMESTIC SECURITY

• No more al Qaeda cells in the United States? Take two grains of salt...

• Interested Participant looks at the dangers of imposing a dress code on Federal Air Marshals.

AFRICA

• Hitting the Khartoum regime where it hurts, a brand-new rebel group seized a Sudanese oilfield.

ASIA & AUSTRALIA

• Maoist violence has claimed ten more lives in Nepal. The EU is demanding that the Maoists respond positively to a government offer of negotiations and dialog.

• Pakistan's ambassador to the United States boldly lays out what the U.S. must do to retain Pakistan as a partner in the War on Terror: more money, more weapons and forget about AQ Khan.

• The Baloch Liberation Army appears to have taken seriously the central Pakistani government's threat to pacify the region, and have launched an attack on federal Frontier Corps troops, killing four soldiers. The deaths are evidence of a continuing low-level tribal uprising in the Baluchistan province.

• Vague rumors of army coup plots continue to rile the Philippines.

EUROPE

• Al Qaeda is planning attacks on London's New Year celebrations, it emerges.

• Spanish authorities have arrested and are questioning four men for involvement in the gang that provided explosives to the Madrid attackers. Three of them were caught in a large-scale (hundreds of law enforcement agents) sting as they tried to procure more explosives for a future attack.

• According to court testimony, the bombing of the French oil tanker Limburg in Octobor of 2002 was carried out by a group of Yemenis with close ties to al Qaeda.

• France extends the investigation of the finances of the bin Laden family.

• Major violence and turbulence are being predicted if Kosovo's new prime minister is indicted by the Hague over his role as a Kosovo Liberation Army commander, as seems quite likely.

THE GLOBAL WAR

• John Robb defines the Systempunkt, the point of weakness exploited by "Global Guerrillas" (international terrorists), and demonstrates how the Systempunkt was found against contractor Contrack International in Iraq and forced the corporation to withdraw.

We try to close on a lighter note if possible.

• A Mexican state ruled by the PRI has outlawed indoor nudity in private homes.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

For ongoing tips, email "MondayWindsOfWar", over here @windsofchange.net.

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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• The aftermath of the bombing in Mosul has led to some tensions between the U.S. and Iraqi security forces, as an Iraqi general denied reports of Iraqi security forces unwilling to fight or even deserting. Given how important Iraqi security forces will be to Iraq's future, that is no small question.

• An Army Major claims there was no plan in place for the occupation and stabilization of Iraq following the war. If true, this is a damning (though hardly new) indictment of the Bush administration's handling of the war.

• The latest Carnival of the Liberated is available, including posts from ex-pat Iraqi bloggers.

RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY

• Zeyad reports on some of the privations in modern Iraqi life, illustrative of some of the problems the reconstruction still must overcome.

IRAQI POLITICS

• Over at Healing Iraq, an assessment of the coming elections and their potential pitfalls.

• Whatever the results of the Iraqi elections, there will be questions about the legitimacy of the election results. A number of questions are being raised even before the elections are held.

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• Public opinion in Australia has turned strongly against the war in Iraq. Only 32 percent of Australians believe Prime Minister John Howard's decision to support the war in Iraq was justified. Given the importance of Australia as member of the Coalition, this could have grim consequences for the future of the Coalition.

ETCETERA

• Phil Carter and Jim Henley are keeping an eye on new allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib. The shock may have worn off, but there are entirely too many outstanding questions about what happened at the prison that remain to be answered.

• The Belmont Club is all over the serendipitous presence of a photographer at the execution of Iraqi election workers, and asks just what reporters are willing to give in exchange for a story.

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. And if you have a tip for a future Iraq Report, email us at MondayIraqReport(at)windsofchange.net.

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His family is going to need a lot of help; I don't know first-hand their financial situation, but John won't be working for a while, and to help him and his family out, several assistance funds have been set up at Washington Mutual

Account: Martha Holschen Aid Fund # 1800767923
Washington Mutual Bank
Bank by Mail
P. O. Box 1106
North Ridge, CA 91328

But there's more. I've talked in the past about the lessons I've learned from the various martial artists I've been lucky enough to study under. One of the major lessons, to me, is the simple fact that the very best at martial skills seem to always also be incredibly good human beings.

John Holschen has all the military and martial skills I imagine it's possible to have. And when he stayed at our home for three days, he was unassuming, gentle, a truly calm and happy man. There is a kind of peacefulness that I see in these masters, and while the truth is that I'm a mediocre student who doesn't practise hard enough to ever approach their martial skills, I work hard every day on practicing their human ones.

A dozen passers-by stopped to help, including a young soldier from Spokane, an off-duty Snohomish County Sheriff's deputy, and those who comforted the crying Holschen children on the roadside.

"I understand that Mr. Swett is very uncomfortable with the idea that he might be considered a hero," Holschen said, breaking down as he noted that Swett came close enough to the blaze to sustain burns. "If he had not done that, we would be mourning the loss of more family members."

...

Juliann Odom, 22, of Bellevue, was driving the Ford Explorer that hit the Holschens' car, also injuring Keegan Holschen, 9, and Jake Holschen, 12, as well as a Toyota pickup with two men inside, who sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to local hospitals.

John Holschen said he was choosing not to make any conclusions about Odom's actions.

"Maybe she swerved to avoid another accident," he said. "My focus is on my family and on making them better."

He thanked friends and community members who'd tried to ease the burden on his family as he's been "on a bit of a racetrack, from the intensive-care unit, to the ward where my wife is, to my sons, who although their injuries were not at severe have been through a really rough time."

*post edited to remove something unnecessary that I wrote.

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Then I realized that it was way too much work to do well, and thought I'd toss it open as a collective research project. Let's sit down and look at the professional/political connections of a sample of the political blogosphere and see if this is really an issue - yet.

In terms of methodology, it was simple. I went to the NZ Bear Ecosystem and picked the top 30 blogs (magic number because it includes us). Then I went to Blogstreet and picked the Top 30 and Most Influential 30. I did this about 11:00 am on the 25th, in case that matters to anyone.

So we have three overlapping lists of 30 blogs each. As attributes, I thought we'd have three:

Political Tilt - it's not a fine-grained view, just a 'thumb in the air' kind of thing;
Blogger's Profession - what do the authors do for a living;
Political / Advocacy Associations - what are the ties between political parties or advocacy organizations and the bloggers?

I knocked off the obvious ones, but check my work and add your own notes in comments..

In the interest of disclosure, let's start with me.

I have a small management consulting business focused on managing broken projects (and other stuff as business comes in the door). My own political ties are overwhelmingly Democratic, but I have donated to and on occasion, voted for Republican candidates.

I have given advice to several campaigns about Internet presence, and am friends with three elected officials (all Democrats) and someone who runs a left-leaning campaign consultancy. I've never made a dime from politics nor from any kind of advocacy except some local and regional land-use advocacy.

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Iraq Post-op: Let's start with the quiet achievement represented by Capt. Mattson's role in the Iraq story. Opportunities like that are all around us, but few seize them. When someone does, few notice. The focus shifts to the moment itself, as it must. To do good when it matters, even if no-one is watching, won't bring you fame... just a wonderful life.

With a little bit of forethought and a habit of mindfulness in the New Year, we can spot opportunities both big and small to make that kind of contribution. What a simple, powerful, and keepable New Year's resolution!

Even once makes a difference.

Iran Post Stress: I'm told that our Iranian friend extends his profound gratitude to the crew of elves (Gary Metz, Emily, Jack Wheeler, Downeast Blog's Kerry Dupont, Michael L., and Winds team members Dan Darling, Joe & Armed Liberal) for their advice and assistance along the way.

It was really touch-and-go for a while, and there were times I thought this might end very badly - but Christmas Eve had a gift up its sleeve. Thanks, Santa!

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If you're new to the blogosphere, or just haven't checked out Den Beste's work before for whatever reason, you owe it to yourself to try a couple of sessions. If you used to visit his site, revisiting the regeneration module couldn't hurt. While we can't promise Jeri Ryan in a body stocking, we can promise a present you'll enjoy.

You have 2 options this Christmas. If you have a really, really big stocking, you can download the entire Krell Mind Machine as an 18MB ZIP file. Steven notes:

"My upstream bandwidth is 768 kilobits per second, which means each copy of this file will consume about 4 minutes of bandwidth, Please try to practice restraint and avoid bringing my server to its knees."

Or, you can opt for the incremental meld approach. Peruse his Essential Library, with its mirror copies of the media articles he deemed most important to understanding America, the world, and the war. Or tiptoe through the USS Clueless Best Log Archives page, which includes these entries:

• Diplomacy has nothing to do with "justice" or "fairness".
• The perpetual American revolution.
• A discussion of the prospects for development of a super-human intelligence.
• In response to a letter received from Tehran, my description of why non-extremist Muslims should be actively fighting against terrorism.
• A top-level briefing on the cause of the war, how we got involved, what our strategy is to win it, and how well that is going.
• On the advantages of cultural cross-pollination. (And why it's politically significant that Americans are especially good at it, especially compared to continental Europe.)
• I believe in atheism, but I know it can't be proved (because I used induction).
• I'm a "Conservative" because I'm a liberal.
• The guiding philosophy behind the founding of the European Union.
• Carrots and sticks and war: three articles about negotiations from a systems analysis standpoint.
• Everything that is truly important is worth fighting to defend.
• Why it's OK to make mistakes.
• How I write, which is to say, how it writes me.
• The horrors of war, and why we have to fight this one anyway
• Who our enemy really is, and what we'll have to do to achieve victory over them.
• The reason they hate us.
• On the significance of the American Citizen-Soldier
• Jacksonian foreign policy and world government.
• How I became an atheist
• Comments on the International Criminal Court:
  • as it relates to the US Constitution
  • the laws it will enforce
  • how its judges will be selected
• The most critical question in life
• The fossils of the Burgess Shale and World War III
• Knots in the web
• Two sides to terrorism
• The problems of (minor) fame
• Friends and enemies (And a reconsideration from a year later)
• How far will we have to go to win this war?
• It isn't my fault the world sucks!
• Are we alone?
• Ground war in Iraq
• American Holy Writ
• Apple: the big view
• Apple's Dilemma
• Compassionate racism
• Land mines
• Why are Americans suspicious of the motives of Europeans during treaty negotiations?
• Endgame: Why was the US experience in Afghanistan so much different than that the USSR?
• Press freedom in war
• Why we lost the Vietnam war
• Postmodern Literary Theory and Politics
• Isomorphism, the most important concept in Mathematics
• Amway, blogging and you
• The problems of building a habitat in space
• More on the US and NATO
• The marketplace of ideas and the triumph of the West
• I'm afraid, but I'm not uncertain
• Cultural relativism is chauvinistic
• There are no reasonable battlefield non-lethal weapons
• How I got interested in military history and military science
• The US and NATO
• The advantages of not being even-handed
• Ethical cynicism and war
• The difference between law enforcement and war

Merry Christmas to all, and to all some good bytes!

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As far as I can piece together, Sailer noted (as have others) that the demographics were working against the Democratic Party as the exurbs trend redder and grow faster. He may have wrapped that in some racially-tinged comment about "white births".

Tapped uncorked on him by pointing out that he's involved in the far-right vdare site, and slamming him as a racist.

He replied that pot=kettle, and that the above quoted article cited Tapped for racism.

Tapped replied by slamming the credibility - and existence - of the above article's author, and suggesting instead that it was written by someone who is involved in some messy lawsuits - involving accusations of stalking, partner abuse, and God Knows What Else.

There are just sooooo many problems here.

First, I can't for the life of me understand Tapped's reaction (in the form of the above post by Garance Franke-Ruta).

The guy (Sailer) made some political claims, they either can or can't be refuted, there's evidence on both sides - let's have a debate.

It's legitimate to point out that the guy has a history intellectually as a way of framing the argument. It's legitimate, but not dispositive, because at some point you have to get back to what facts we can find and argue about those.

Accusing him of racism does leave one open to accusations back at you - in both cases, it's throwing sand in the hopes that the reader will be blinded.

But Tapped steps far over the line in two ways - first, by the overt threat quoted above to act against Nevaer and anyone who has the temerity to reproduce the allegations; and second, in failing to confront the allegations and instead dredging up a messy-sounding but inconclusive legal contremps as a way of attacking the messenger and believing the issue will go away.

I've said in the past that I think these tactics are cheesy and worthy of public opprobrium when they are done by amateur bloggers.

To see it being done by a professional publication beggars belief.

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• Is a sudden change in North Korea right around the corner?
• Seoul is planning to crack down on "planned defections from the North." Repugnant as this may seem to some, there are legitimate issues that need to be addressed with defections. Moreover, many defectors often find life in South Korea isn't quite the dream they expected. And some defectors aren't what they seem to be. At the same time, however, high-ranking military officials might be abandoning ship.
• Some people do care about China's forced repatriation of North Korean defectors. But are they enough?
• Cell phones in North Korea? And PC cafes?
• The Japanese are pissed. And for good reason. Now Tokyo is brandishing sanctions and its own North Korean Human Rights Act. Of course, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun thinks this could all be just a big mix-up. Pyongyang says that Japanese sanctions=war, but Tokyo might be gearing up for that.
• The Japanese aren't the only ones getting kidnapped to North Korea.
• U.S. officials are talking about "regime transformation" -- as opposed to "regime change" -- in North Korea. AEI scholar Nick Eberstadt believes this is ridiculous Joseph has some good things to say about this debate.
• What do North Koreans think of their brothers from another planet? Might help explain the Kaesong Industrial Complex project.
• Sejong points to Korea scholar Bruce Cumings' last piece to demonstrate why history dictates that North Korea may have legitimate security concerns. Barry over at NKzone has a somewhat different take.
• Even the U.S. State Department looks like it has lost its patience with North Korea. For what it's worth, the North Koreans say they've lost patience, too.
• Famine in North Korea is the result of politics, not crappy luck.

South Korea

• Washington neocons have declared open season on South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who seems intent on putting Seoul on the fast track to diplomatic isolation. I mean, doesn't this say it all? The new South Korean ambassador to Washington is going to be a very busy man.
• One South Korean lawmaker is ensuring that there is no such thing as a defense secret between the U.S. and South Korea. GI Korea tells him to cut the "weak country" crap. Especially when South Korea could neutralize the North Korean artillery threat in 6-7 minutes.
• The Party Pooper, well, poops on anti-Americanism in Korea.
• Some Incheon residents (albeit it very few of them) want to give Douglas MacArthur the Saddam treatment.
• The torture mongerers are still alive and kicking in South Korea, but they are coming under increasing fire.
• Does the ABC series Lost make Korean men look bad?
• Just a few of the things that are harmful to the youth of South Korea.

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The 'scavi' (excavations) beneath St. Peter's are supposedly amazing. I say supposedly because I didn't find out about them until we are in Rome, at the Vatican. When we found out about them, I went to the 'office of the scavi' and asked about getting onto a tour that day, in either French or English.

The priest laughed at me. I didn't think they were allowed to do that...

Here's an article in The Atlantic about some of the controversies and politics around the excavations. reading it makes me want to go more than ever.

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IRAN

• How close is Iran to the bomb? Too close, that's for sure.

• Iranian drama: Israel harvests Arab children's organs.

• Debka reports that authorities in the United States have broken up Iranian cells planning attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets.

• Meanwhile, Iran arrests a Mossad/CIA/Halliburton (maybe not Halliburton) spy ring who passed information to Israel and the U.S. about their nuclear program.

• Iran is ready to defend their nuclear sites.

• A CSIS analyst says the Iranian military is no match for America's.

• Iran is to put to death what they call a 21-year-old prostitute, and whatever one else calls a 19 year-old with a mental age of eight.

THE MIDDLE EAST

• A good primer on Ansar al-Sunnah, the terrorist group thought to be behind the suicide bombing in an American military base in Mosul that claimed 22 lives.

• Yasser Arafat invested in kosher caterers and used the cash to destroy Israel. What a legacy...

• Weirder still - the PLO suggests that a party of terror-enablers, including Rachel Corrie's parents, poisoned Yasser Arafat.

• The GCC pledges to halt finance of terrorism. Given how little terrorist cash has been seized, even with the assistance of our friends in the Gulf, there's little reason to think much will change.

• Hamas says they won't surrender their weapons.

• From our own Joe Katzman: How do you solve a probelm like Mubarak?

• Egypt will build another 125 M1A1 tanks.

• The IDF warns that terrorists may tunnel beneath the security fence in Judea and Samaria.

• Middle East Newsline reports that the U.S. has increased intelligence monitoring of Israel.

• Shabak prevented a suicide-bombing honeymoon, planned by two Israeli-Arabs who were to strike the tragically famous Sbarro restaurant.

• PA PM Queria tells Tony Blair we don't need no reformation.

• Jordan has released a journalist of the Islamic Action Front, held for criticising government appointments. "The party strongly condemns our colleague's detention, which is in violation of public freedoms and the liberty of expression," [Party president Hamza] Mansour said. Uh-huh.

• In Qatar, two Russian intelligence operatives convicted of murdering a Chechen terrorist will serve their sentences in Russia.

• Saudi paper: U.S. harvests Iraqi organs.

• Two French journalists released: 'We played the 'French journalists' card. Also typical: [Defence Minister] Alliot-Marie said the captors had never asked for a ransom. Asked on television if Paris would say if it had paid them off, she nodded and said: "Why would we hide it? Who'd see anything wrong with that?"
  
  THE AMERICAS

• 'I married a terrorist' - ABC talks to an American lady who married an Islamist believed to have established one of al-Qaeda's first sleeper cells.

EUROPE

• A Morrocan-Dutch national will on trial in February, accused of plotting to blow up the Dutch parliament and Schipol Airport.

• Spanish police have broken up yet another terror cell.

• A Chechen messenger for Shamil Basayev was killed yesterday, carrying tapes of attacks carried out 2001-2002. Apparently based on the captured tapes, Russian authorities believe that Basayev is trying to win reward money from jihadi sponsors.

• Still in Chechnya, a captured terrorist claims he sheltered Basayev and other terrorists planning attacks on a military bus.

• A Russian commando says the Chechnya jihad will die with Basayev and Maskhadov.

• A London-based Russian youth group demands the extradition of Akhmed Zakayev, a man wanted by Russia and the U.S.

ASIA & AUSTRALASIA

• India has deployed Israeli-made drones in Kashmir.

• Abu Bakir Bashir delivered pro-Qaeda sermons; Bashir replied that Jemma Islamiya does not exist.

• Astonishingly, Indonesia's tourist trade is drying up.

AFRICA

• A-Q in South Africa? The Pakistanis say the two were caught in Gilani's house...

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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Nevertheless, this "totalitarian ideology," even with "only" 10 to 15 percent signed on (roughly 100 to 150 million persons worldwide), "regards itself as the only rival, and the inevitable successor, to Western civilization." To many people this is scary stuff. But such warnings are his specialty. Among his many disquieting predictions, he wrote, as early as March 1994:

From [an American] point of view, the Middle East increasingly stands out as a region that develops and exports problems, including political radicals, terrorism, drugs, unconventional weaponry, and conspiracy theories. We should recognize that this region resembles the Pacific rim less than it does Africa; and we should ready ourselves for the many troubles yet to come.

Funny, to a large extent, neither are mine.

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"WHY DON'T we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day. Vaunted "coalition" efforts to "break the back" of the "insurgency" have only strengthened it. The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war -- except that only one side is fighting. The structures of relief and repair are gone. Whole cities are destroyed, populations displaced. The hope of Iraqi elections is mortally compromised. "Coalition" members are dropping out. The mission of American force is to secure the country, but it can't secure itself. The performance of US intelligence has been consistent: Its strategic failures caused the war, and its tactical ignorance of the enemy is losing the war."

"On the other side, it is the proliferation of suicide-bombing that has come to seem normal. Soldiers commonly risk their lives for nation, honor, or buddy -- but they will not kill themselves with forethought, in large numbers, except for the most transcendent of reasons. The United States has given itself an enemy that shows by its central tactic that it is fighting for God."

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Award-winning journalist Gary Matsumoto has done a lot of research on this topic, and written a book whose conclusions are summarized here. Some excerpts follow.

From the book site:

"For the past 17 years, the Army has been working on a new anthrax vaccine that contains no anthrax, and is made with an ingredient that it does not want to name. That ingredient is called squalene. Squalene is an oil. Without it, the new vaccine will not work any better than the old one. In fact, for all intents and purposes, without squalene the new vaccine is the old one. What makes squalene so important is its proven ability to stimulate a strong response from the immune system. That is something the main ingredient of the new vaccine, the now ultra-purified protein secreted by the anthrax microbe—recombinant protective antigen—cannot do by itself. It is too weak.

Immunologists have a special name for substances used to boost feeble vaccines. They are called adjuvants. Adjuvants are arguably the most extensively researched pharmaceutical product in the last quarter century that you never heard of. I have used the word adjuvant three times in this paragraph so far and that is probably three times more than you have ever seen it in print before. This is partly because the most effective adjuvants, those formulated with oils, are too dangerous for human use. That is squalene's other proven ability, causing incurable disease.... As early as the 1930s, these oil additives were notorious for inducing illness. By the 1950s, scientists knew these illnesses were specifically autoimmune. Today that is their chief use in research—inducing disease instead of preventing it. Scientists studying autoimmune disease cannot wait around for its spontaneous appearance in a lab animal; they inject it with Freund's Complete Adjuvant to reproduce autoimmunity on demand."

Auto-immunity? Steven Den Beste could give the full explanation, but here's a short one:

"Autoimmune diseases are chronic and progressively debilitating ailments; some, like multiple sclerosis and lupus, can be fatal. They occur when the immune system loses its ability to distinguish what is "self" from what is foreign. Under normal circumstances, your immune system ignores the constituents of your own body; immunologists call this "tolerance." But if tolerance is broken, the immune system turns relentlessly self-destructive, attacking the body it is supposed to defend."

A vaccine using such substances? "How the hell could this happen," you may ask. A combination of reasons, it seems - some of which are legitimate and potentially defensible decisions, some that are less so, and some that don't strike me as defensible in any context.

Let's start with the attractive abilities of adjuvants:

"Despite their dangers, oil adjuvants have come to exert an irresistible, almost magical allure on researchers. If they could truly stimulate the immune system safely, oil additives could help defend mankind from diseases like malaria and HIV. For germs such as these, no one dared make a classic vaccine - the kind made from the germ itself - for fear of accidentally infecting someone with an incurable, if not fatal infection. By splicing off just little bit of such a germ - not enough to make anyone sick - and combining that shard with an adjuvant, scientists hoped to protect people from lethal microbes. If they could do it for HIV, they reasoned, they could do it for any germ in creation. This siren song was so powerful that it did more than induce researchers to indulge in cynical risk/benefit calculations; in some cases, it made them forget the risks altogether."

Over to 1991 on the eve of Gulf War 1, as the Pentagon weighed the relative risks:

"At the start of Gulf War One, our military leaders believed anthrax attacks against the troops on the ground were a real and potentially devastating possibility. When they looked in their pantry of vaccines, they found only a few doses of an anthrax vaccine that takes six shots over a long period to instill immunity to attack. Further, the pantry had no battlefield detection devices to even know if soldiers had been exposed. Casualties could be very high, the deaths would be ghastly, and press cameras were always at the ready. The military leadership ordered subordinates to find a solution.

Coincidentally, some military and civilian researchers had been working on a new, second generation vaccine for anthrax. One or two shots would do it. Immunity developed quickly and strongly. Soldiers would live to fight another day. It was safer to manufacture since whole anthrax particles were not used, only bits and pieces...."

It's not such an obvious decision when looked at in that light, but some aspects including the lack of informed consent are absolutely inexcusable. There was also old research not recalled from a similar situation:

"By all accounts, the great Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 wasn't really Spanish at all. It was American. In fact, it was an Army flu. The first victim, the "index patient," was an Army private named Albert Gitchell who worked as a cook at the Army's Camp Funston on the vast Fort Riley military reservation in Kansas. It is believed that U.S. troops heading to Europe brought this flu with them. Before it was over, more than 20 MILLION people had died of influenza around the world—the deadliest natural disaster in world history. Army scientists wanted to prevent another global killer from emerging from an Army post where new recruits might become an unintended hatchery for some vicious new flu strain that once again could wipe out millions of people. Trying out a new oil additive on troops seemed like a relatively modest risk in comparison to the benefits of a better flu vaccine.

....The Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (AFEB), which would be sponsor a large number of the experiments conducted on military personnel, would later recommend the injecting an experimental flu vaccine containing oil into every man and woman in the U.S. military without their informed consent. The risk of an outbreak of killer flu seemed too great to do otherwise. To run this experiment, the Army would contract none other than Jonas Salk....."

Nor was this the only instance.

"Long before the last study was completed, AFEB proposed the adoption of an experimental flu vaccine with oil for everyone in the military. In 1963 and 1964, AFEB recommended injecting every man and woman in the armed forces with the new vaccine. The board also recommended that Department of Defense also commence studies with oil added to tetanus and diphtheria toxoids, and polio vaccines....

Here is what they were not telling anybody. By 1964, the year when everyone in the military was supposed to get immunized with an oil-boosted influenza vaccine, the Army already knew the risks this vaccine presented for a very specific type of illness..... autoimmune diseases.

The final study on the Fort Dix [JK: 1951] troopers had data that none of the previous ones had: autopsy results..... a "significant excess of deaths" in soldiers given the oil-boosted vaccine, which the investigators related to "ill-defined vascular lesions of the central nervous system." They attributed this fact to the greater number of autopsies available for the soldiers given the oil-boosted vaccine. But there were hints of a problem with autoimmunity. Ten percent of the soldiers studied, who were injected with the oil-boosted vaccine, developed a "collagen disease," which is a term doctors used to use interchangeably with autoimmune disease. Still, the number of patients in this study was too low to extrapolate any reliable conclusions from the data. That did not prevent government and military doctors from doing just that. They concluded that the oily flu vaccine was safe. Nevertheless, what the government then did not do was telling. The FDA never licensed the vaccine, or the oil adjuvant, for human use."

Fast forward to 1991. Over to Marilyn Wright's summary:

"Someone had forgotten or ignored solid research showing squalene was very bad news for the lab animals injected with it. And now the same symptoms were showing up in veterans. And only veterans who got the shot got sick, whether or not they were exposed to ground conditions in Iraq. Some sick vets had never even left the U.S. It was the vaccine that was the common denominator.

In the meantime, the government and the manufacturer of squalene were moving forward with plans to develop other vaccines using the new wonder ingredient..."

One of the first strong indicators that something was amiss was data published in the February 2000 and August 2002 issues of Experimental and Molecular Pathology, which strongly suggested that Gulf War Syndrome is caused by a vaccine contaminated with squalene. Matsumoto has picked up the ball, and brought together information from many sources to move this story forward.

This is a story of corners cut and forced decisions amidst the pressures of war, of crippling side effects for some U.S. troops, and of recent moves to restart this vaccination program that are hard to see as anything but recklessness bordering on betrayal if Matsumoto's charges hold up.

Note my use of the word "if". There may well have been exaggerated stories in the past along similar lines, most notably in relation to Agent Orange. The reality of Gulf War Syndrome itself is open to debate among reasonable people. Nevertheless, there's a lot of research here whose conclusions seem to fit, and Matsumoto has said that he welcomes close scrutiny.

I say, bring it on. I don't have the necessary level of medical expertise to full evaluate this story... but I'd like to hear from people who do.

Our troops deserve the truth here - and the unalterable right of informed consent. They are free citizens serving by choice, not guinea pigs. If Matsumoto is right, that's exactly how they're being treated. And that would be truly inexcusable.

UPDATE: Phil Carter (author of Intel Dump) emails me to note that Jon Cohen penned a very critical review of Mastumoto's book in Slate last month. It's an excellent summation of the other side of the argument.

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• The Odds Against. Belmont Club notes the suspiciously good timing of AP photogaphers, who just "happened" to be there when the Iraqi "gunmen" (not terrorists, according to the media) executed a pair of election workers in the street. The obvious implication is that they were along for the ride with the perpetrators, as Eddie Adams was in Vietnam and the Paris Match photographers were in Iraq last year. Shades of Mike Wallace.

• Salon's Mark Follman has a reply piece titled The Associated Press "Insurgency" (must watch a short ad to view). Follman attacks Belmont Club's charavcterization, and makes some good points re: how this could have happened wthout collaboration, though I'd like something more definitive than a guess from his AP source. Belmont Club has his own reply to Follman's article.

• Roger Simon's call for an official response by AP strikes me as a reasonable request. His comments section also has some useful background information on past incidents like this, how stringers work, etc.

• In The Lidless Eye, which deals with the Mosul mortar attack, Belmont Club is even blunter:

"But the enemy ability to exploit the limits of American response and attack medical personnel with public relations impunity are examples of military advantages that arise from political restraints....It is necessary to link the war criminal behavior of the enemy with the studied blindness of 'sophisticates' towards their most heinous crimes. They are twinned; with the former made possible by the latter."

The role of the media in war, and the question of their collaboration with terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, is an issue that needs to be raised. Kudos to Belmont Club for beginning this debate so strongly.

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Unfortunately, some of those side effects have been permanent - and his condition continues to deteriorate, which means he'd have to take even more of those drugs to resume blogging. That isn't an option as Steven notes:

"....I posted for three and a half years, and made a small contribution to getting this nation through the worst part of the crisis. I cannot help any longer; you'll have to rely on other people now to carry the load. I gave it everything I had to give; there's nothing left now."

Yes, he did, at a time when we needed him very badly. If you don't believe that, just read David's comments section, and notice how many blogs started and minds changed because of USS Clueless.

If you know Steven Den Beste, you know he has scanned every medical lead there is to scan by now. He's very categorical about this: there's no cure on the horizon for him, not in time. He's also quite emphatic about not wanting pity, or suggestions, or offers of assistance or potential cures.

Sometimes I guess there's just not enough rocks.

David of Rishon Rishon responds by simply saying "thank you." I think that's the right response.

Thank you Steven Den Beste for the insights you brought.

Thank you for you diligent research, and the patient explanatory style that gave your readers a crash course in human affairs, international relations, and the war we now find ourselves in. You opened up the thinking behind your point of view in a way that few blogs ever have, and shared your intelligence with us all.

Thank you for always taking the time to answer your voluminous email inbox, an even more amazing feat given what we know now. The mark of a scholar and a gentleman.

Thank you for stepping into the breach after 9/11, and making deep and lasting personal sacrifices because you felt you were needed. You were - and knowing what we know now reminds us what a citizen should be made of.

Thank you for the role you played in making the blogosphere what it is today. It would have been a different place without you.

Just... thank you, Steven.

Best Comment: T.J. Madison (#9): "Nobody will ever be able to claim that he died 'with his music still in him.' And that's all anyone can really ask for."

Additional Thought: It's pretty clear from reading Steven's explanation that this is a fatal disease. I think we should start some kind of fund or other effort to keep USS Clueless online somewhere in perpetuity. It's way too valuable to lose, a valuable historical record as well as a resource site. In the meantime, you can get an official ZIP file of his entire archives (17.7 MB) if you want it.

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Biofuels/Biomass

• North Carolina's Golden LEAF Foundation - which distributes half (about $70 million annually) of the state's tobacco settlement money to tobacco-dependent communities - has decided to invest $5 million to begin construction of a new soy biodiesel plant in the state. The plant (based on a proposal by the state's Grain Growers Cooperative) is the first in the state, and the foundation hopes that soy biodiesel could become a major new industry for rural parts of the state (via Green Car Congress).

• Well, it was only a matter of time before those two got together - a patent is pending on a new biodiesel/ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) blend, called Cleaner Burning Biodiesel (CBB), which will achieve deeper emissions reductions in hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and even nitrogen oxide - which is actually emitted in greater quantities by conventional biodiesel blends than straight diesel. After 2006 all diesel fuel sold in the US will have to be ULSD, so I imagine this blend will be rather popular.

• Benson, Minnesota will be the home of the world's largest turkeyshit-fired power plant. Similar 'poultry litter' plants have been built in England, but this plant - which will generate an impressive 55 megawatts of electricity by burning 700,000 tons of dung every year - will be the first, though probably not the last, to be built in the US.

Fossil Fuels

• The Vice President of China's National Coal Association is calling on the Chinese government to allow coal prices to be set by the international market.

• Liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports are often cited as an important short- to medium-term solution to tightness in the domestic natural gas market. However, significant public resistance based on environmental and security concerns threatens to hamper US progress in installing needed LNG infrastructure. Enter all-star political consultant Mike Murphy, who will be directing a $1 million pro-LNG ad blitz funded by the LNG industry. LNG is GOOD, you will LIKE IT.

• Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered key atomic-level structural properties of advanced ceramics using the Lab's unsurpassed National Center for Electron Microscopy. A better understanding of the molecular structure of advanced ceramics will allow for the creation of much tougher ceramics that could be used to create gas turbine engines that would run at far higher temperatures than metal engines, allowing for much more efficient and less-polluting power plants (via Crumb Trail).

• Crumb Trail also links to this fascinating piece on the Flame Doctor System, a system that uses chaos-derived algorithms to monitor the flickering of the burner flames in coal-fired power plants. This information is then used to make instant adjustments to each burner to maximize the efficiency of power generation while reducing emissions of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide (both of which result from incomplete combustion) by 50 and 30 percent, respectively.

Hybrids/Cars

• Hey, hybrid heads - the ever-useful hybridcars.com has a handy new program for YOU: the Gas Mileage Impact Calculator, which you can use to compare the gasoline savings and emissions reductions from driving a variety of hybrid vehicles vs. a variety of conventional gasoline-powered vehicles. Add some meat to your MPG-obsessed boasting!

• Green Car Congress has an interesting post up on the California Car Initiative's efforts to hack the Toyota Prius to turn it into a plug-in hybrid. Not so difficult, really!

• Fuel Cell Works has reposted an excellent review of the present and future of hybrid cars from The Economist. Hint: it's even brighter than you think.

• What do you get when you add a parasail to a diesel cargo ship? Hybrid power, ocean-style. A simple, and fascinating (if unproven), idea, via Worldchanging.

• Worldchanging also has the scoop on a collaboration between a little company called Chorus Motors and a little company called Boeing to produce electric motors based on Chorus's revolutionarily small, yet powerful design. Initial applications will focus on airlines, but there could be obvious ramifications for automobiles as well.

Hydrogen

• Scientists at Emory University have broken through the "oxo-wall" by successfully creating multiple, stable bonds between oxygen and platinum. While metal-oxygen combinations are not at all uncommon over on the left side of the periodic table, metals on the right side (behind the "wall", in columns 9-12) form extremely unstable bonds with oxygen, and previous attempts to create metal-oxo species with gold, silver, iridium, rhodium, and platinum had all failed. The insights provided by this new breakthrough should have important ramifications for the fabrication of fuel cells and automotive catalytic converters, among other uses.

• A new manufacturing technique for PEM fuel cells is the first to use only injection-molded thermoplastics, instead of aluminum, gold-coated stainless steel, graphite or thermoset-graphite blends. The less expensive materials could lower the cost of manufacturing fuel cells by a full 50%.

• The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has made a significant breakthrough in the production of hydrogen, developing a process that uses the heat produced in a nuclear reactor to significantly lower the energy requirements for separating hydrogen from water using electrolysis. The process, called high-temperature electrolysis (HTE), can achieve 45 to 50 percent conversion efficiencies (compared to 30 percent for conventional electrolysis), making it the highest rate of hydrogen production that has been achieved so far. [cue soul-searching by conflicted enviros]

Nuclear

• Of course, you can't build a next generation nuclear energy/hydrogen production plant if you can't deal with your existing nuclear plants. Utilipoint has a good review of the ongoing dilemma posed by nuclear waste storage in the US.

• Meanwhile, outgoing US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham acknowledged that China - where nuclear energy is relatively unburdened by political/environmental challenges - will soon become a world leader in the use of nuclear power. Abraham heralded the development as an opportunity for increased cooperation on energy technology between China and the US, and says that the DOE is "preparing to move forward on a policy level." Great!

• Japan, struggling with its own nuclear waste, has begun testing a new reprocessing facility that will extract plutonium from spent fuel, enrich it, and combine it with uranium oxide for reuse in light-water nuclear reactors. The process is already used in Europe and Russia, but concerned environmentalists have slowed its deployment elsewhere.

• Speaking of Japan, the pissing contest between Japan and the EU over who will get to host the internationally-funded ITER experimental fusion reactor continues apace!

• Basic fusion research, however, is also continuing apace, despite the ITER impasse. Scientists from Columbia University (CU represent!) and MIT have created a device that can generate a minature magnetosphere, a magnetic field similar to those that surround the earth and other planets. Strong magnetic fields could be employed to confine plasma under pressure in a hypothetical future fusion reactor.

• Mineral samples from the surface of the moon indicate abundant quantities of helium 3 (a helium isotope that is extremely rare on earth) in the moon's soil and rocks. Small quantities of helium 3 could be used with deuterium (a hydrogen isotope) to fuel nuclear fusion reactions - 25 tons of the gas could provide enough electricity for the entire US for a whole year. While there are only 10 kilos of helium 3 on earth, there are an estimated one million tons on the moon, which could produce more than 10 times as much energy as all the fossil fuels on earth. Um, awesome!

Solar

• Asia's largest photovoltaic power station (with 1 megawatt capacity) has been installed in China's international horticulture and flower exhibition garden, in Shenzen.

• Michelin has announced plans for a large-scale solar photovoltaic project spread across four locations in Germany. Rooftop photovoltaic systems to be installed in Homburg, Landau, Bad Kreuznach and Bamberg will generate 10 megawatts of electricity and cover a total area of 200,000 square meters, at a total cost of about 50 million euros.

• The Australian Government released a white paper detailing the scope and guidelines for their potentially innovative new Solar Cities program. The Solar Cities program "will bring together governments, industry and communities in partnerships to test new sustainable models of electricity supply and use" over the next nine years, and will begin with a trial in Adelaide and at least other urban areas around Australia.

• California - the world's third-largest market for solar technology! - is considering a variety of strategies to make good on Governor Schwarzenegger's ambitious campaign promise to aggressively promote the use of solar panels in the state. Administration officials hope to have one million buildings equipped with solar panels producing 3,000 megawatts of electricity by 2018.

• Last month's New Energy Currents linked to a press release on a prototype solar dish-Stirling energy system being developed by Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems. This month brings us this, more in-depth piece on the Sandia Stirling project as well as a more general discussion of the history and mechanics of Stirling dish systems, which are simpler and currently more energy efficient than photovoltaics.

• Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a new approach to creating organic solar cells that are lightweight, flexible, and cheap. While current prototypes have only reached power conversion efficiencies of 3.4 percent, the cheapness and flexibility of the material would make it ideal for incorporation into small electronic devices - they could be powering RFID tags within two years.

• Near Near Future links to this New Scientist article on thin photovoltaic films that could be sewn into textiles, yielding, for example, a jacket that could simultaneously charge your cell phone - all in the near, near future of 3 years or so!

• Related: Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a new, cost-effective method of manufacturing metal-oxide films using polymer-assisted deposition (PAD). The PAD process grows the films - which are expected to play a major role in the development of flexible, low-cost photovoltaics, among other uses - in a water-based solution (making it ideal for coating irregular surfaces) and can be used to create films of simple or complex metal oxides.

• Related x2: Here's a good review of the efforts of three different startup companies to achieve nanotech-fueled breakthroughs in the manufacturing cost and efficiency of solar cells (via Trends I'm Watching).

Wind

• An application has been filed for the construction of a 'West Coast Cable' - a 1,600 (expandable to 3,200) megawatt submarine transmission line that would allow for the direct transmission of energy from Canada to California. The cable will run 3-12 miles offshore along British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California for 1,200 miles, and it is hoped that it will allow the enormous amount of "stranded" renewable energy resources of Canada's west coast (an area which has been estimated to have the largest wind resources in the world) to be tapped by energy-hungry Californians.

• Several US companies are working together on developing two 100 megawatt wind farm cooperatives in China that will produce both electricity and hydrogen. Details are sketchy, but it sounds interesting, right?

• The UN Development Fund has launched a new program in collaboration with the Kazakh government to begin aggressive development of Kazakhstan's ample wind resources. The article notes that there isn't much indigenous demand for wind power, owing to Kazakhstan's low population density and substantial oil and coal resources. An international emissions trading regime could change that, of course.

• Alt-Energy Blog posts on a wild and crazy Dutch design for a new, much more effective way to harness the power of the wind - THE LADDERMILL.

Related Policy Issues

• The big news this month was the nearly two weeks of meetings in Buenos Aires for parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - the treaty which spawned the suddenly-imminent (Feb. 16th!) Kyoto Protocol. A lot of ink and digits and invective from all sides has been spilled on this, but if you want a day-by-day review of the proceedings, the Earth Negotiation Bulletin's coverage is the place to go - their lengthy summary of the meetings and their history can be found here. Libertarian-types will appreciate Tech Central Station's extensive and mildly triumphalist coverage.

• This week's Business week looks at potential investment opportunities in renewable energy companies - if you are interested in making money off this trend, you are interested in reading this!

• The privately-funded National Commission on Energy Policy released a new report presenting its 'bipartisan strategy to meet America's energy challenges' - "Ending the Energy Stalemate" (PDF!) - to much media attention and much grumbling from the environmental community. The paper, which was drafted by a wide-ranging group of energy experts from industry, government, academia, and environmental groups, is well worth a read and full of realistic compromises that maybe, just maybe, will help produce a viable Energy Bill this year. Utilipoint has a good, reasonably non-partisan summary.

• Finally, you can't make a good argument without some good NUMBERS - the US Energy Information Administration has released its 2005 Annual Energy Outlook.

As always, leave any tips in the comments, or e-mail me at newenergy@windsofchange.net. Also please have an AMAZING holiday season/New Year! Stay alive in 05! See you then.

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Al-Qaeda Command and Control

• Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are still #1, Abu Faraj al-Libi has taken over from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the global operations chief, and Saif al-Adel is the grand strategist. All of the top four have a limited command and control due to a variety of constraints so a lot of the impetus for the attacks have been shifted to lesser lieutenants, but they're still at the top of the pyramid and the US most wanted list.

• There's been a solid string of captured couriers with audio casettes or letters from bin Laden to his subordinates and senior lieutenants since roughly August 2002, nearly all of which have been intercepted coming out of the Afghan-Pakistan border region. Recent information recovered from Fallujah has led US intelligence to believe that bin Laden is also in touch with Zarqawi through electronic means, though I have no idea as to exactly how.

• Claims that Zarqawi was at one point a rival to bin Laden are based on more than just Shadi Abdallah's interrogations in Germany but are instead one possible view of a variety of data, including how Zarqawi interacted with senior al-Qaeda members post-Afghanistan and electronic surveillance of both him and his top lieutenants in al-Tawhid wal Jihad. Another possible view of this intel is the official position of the US government, i.e. that he's a senior al-Qaeda associate in the mold of somebody like Hambali. Pretty much an academic debate now, as the most recent intel indicates that his group has folded directly into those of the al-Qaeda fighters who were already in Iraq.

• Abu Khabab, al-Qaeda's top WMD expert, has only chemical rather than biological warfare expertise. We are very fortunate on this point, though he and every body who went through Darunta camp (which he has attempted to create a successor camp to on at least 2 occasions) with him should probably be rounded up on general principle.

• There's still a lot of disagreement in the international intel community as far as how much control the al-Qaeda leadership actually has over the 40 or so groups that operate under its aegis, whether the al-Qaeda leadership = the militant Islamist internationale leadership, whether al-Qaeda is more a movement or ideology or brand name than it is an organization these days, etc. The US, Russia, and India, usually favor the broad definitions of al-Qaeda, while the Europeans tend to try to be nuanced in this regard, though France and Italy are shifting more and more away from that direction.

• The Shura Majlis has been expanded to encompass leaders of the Algerian GSPC, Islamic Army of Aden in Yemen, and a number of other affiliate organizations in an effort to shore up the group's global cadres using local or regional groups. I myself am kind of interested as far as why the GSPC was tapped ahead of the Chechens or JI, but this is apparently far more of a racial thing than anything else.

• Bin Laden's pre-election videotape was an odd beast and continues to raise all kinds of questions as to why he broke cover when he did after more than 2 years of maintaining a deliberate level of ambiguity in many of his statements as to whether he was dead or alive.

Al-Qaeda Training Facilities and Infrastructure

• Is now organized along regional node form, with most of the training infrastructure being run out of Georgia, Pakistan, Somalia, and Mindanao in the southern Philippines.

• Georgia infrastructure has been heavily eroded since the fall of the Shevardnadze government, though isolated pockets of al-Qaeda activity remain due to corruption or lack of central government control. Most of the senior Chechen Islamist leadership (Basayev's Killer Korps) is now on the run due to the Russians launching Operation Vengeance, a concerted effort to eliminate all of the key enablers of what happened in Beslan, a la Israel's response to Black September.

• Areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, Baluchistan, and Azad Kashmir have become de facto havens for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hizb-e-Islami. There's a lot of internal Pakistani politicking that severely hampers the fight against al-Qaeda. The US consensus is that Musharraf is doing everything he can against the international terrorists, but is being far more reserved about acting against local or regional groups like the Taliban or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). LeT has been basically subcontracted by al-Qaeda to run its infrastructure, propaganda, and recruiting efforts in South Asia while the central leadership remains underground. It's the whole attempt to distinguish between good/bad jihadi groups that is going to bite Musharraf in the ass sooner or later, but for now that's likely to be the Pakistani policy for the immediate future. Binori Town is still more or less al-Qaeda's officer training school and the insurgency in southern Thailand is the work of some of the most recent alumni. The main reason that al-Qaeda hasn't been more successful to date at subverting the Pakistani state or killing Musharraf is due to a mixture of incompetence, factional rivalries, and corruption among the local jihadi groups and political parties that al-Qaeda leaders such as al-Zawahiri seek to enlist as their foot soldiers.

• Somalia continues to be a complete hell-hole and as such is an ideal al-Qaeda haven. Ethiopian and US troops based in Djibouti have conducted military operations there since 9/11, but there is very little solid intel about al-Qaeda's activities except that they're there and are reasonably well established. Al-Ittihad al-Islamiyyah also isn't the only al-Qaeda affiliate active in Somalia, though it is one of the best organized. The group also has a whole network of regional, tribal, and marital alliances with a number of the local strongmen to help protect them in the event of a US invasion.

• In Philippine Mindanao, the Arroyo government is restrained due to domestic political constraints from acting against the MILF training camps that form the bulk of JI's training infrastructure. MILF relies on JI for both ideological and strategic reasons and membership in the two organizations often overlaps between one another, Abu Sayyaf, and even the kidnapping cartels Abu Sofia and the Pentagon Gang. The Philippines are becoming a regional problem - as long as those camps remain open to JI, they will always be able to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure no matter how much other regional governments do to restrain them.

• Attempts to reconstitute al-Qaeda bases in the Sahel region of North Africa are regarded as having been thwarted by the US-backed success of regional governments against the GSPC. Most African governments are only too thrilled to have America offer to train their armies for them and it has paid off in spades from our perspective. More worrisome is the rise of al-Qaeda activity among several of the ethnic groups in northern Nigeria, which the US has so far been unable to counter.

Al-Qaeda in General

• Al-Qaeda recruiting in Europe in particular has sky-rocketed since first 3/11 and then the Filippino withdrawl from Iraq, even more so than actually during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The main reason for this is that the group is now seen as having evicted at least two "Crusader states" from Iraq and as such is perceived among its "soft" sympathizers to have the momentum with it. Increasingly pessimistic Western commentary on the situation has also led many of these same "soft" supporters to believe that very soon the organization can defeat the US inside Iraq, thereby leading to the nucleus for the eventual restoration of the Caliphate in the Middle East. Second generation Muslim immigrants without any exposure to Islamist violence in the Middle East are far more likely to hold to extremely romanticized notions about al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism in general, as they have no real clue about what these guys do in the process of setting up their little utopia.

• The core of the 3/11 cell was made up of seasoned al-Qaeda leaders like Amer Azizi, Serhane bin Abdelmajid Fakhet, Jamal Zougam, Adnan Waki, and the grand boss of the whole plot Rabei Osman Sayyid Ahmed, but most of the cannon fodder were recruited from among the European immigrant community and told only what they needed to know to carry out the attack. This kind of local autonomy and organization meant that there was no chatter or forewarning from outside of Spain prior to attacks, which is one of the reasons why the Spanish initially suspected ETA as the culprit. A number of the Moroccan 3/11 plotters, Zougam among them, were also involved in the Casablanca bombings and had to flee from Morocco into Europe when King Mohammed decided to clean house.

• Spain may have given al-Qaeda their first victory, but Garzon, Spain's top anti-terrorism judge, is an apolitical kind of guy [Hispalibertas.com says: political] and hasn't let up on the fight against the organization. This apparently led to a plan by the remnants of the cell that carried out 3/11 to off him and destroy all the information he had on the group by staging a massive bombing of the national courthouse. I hope he has somebody starting his car every morning.

• The better al-Qaeda is perceived to be doing abroad, the more unrest Europe is likely to experience among its own Muslim populations at home. This unrest can be seen in such things as the assassination campaign that was intended to be initiated with the killing of Theo Van Gogh. For a variety of reasons, a majority of the estimated 1,000 members of the cell that were involved in the assassination campaign have yet to be arrested or even questioned by the Dutch authorities, in many cases due to political reasons that to be quite honest struck many of us at the conference as some kind of insane worship of Political Correctness above all else. Then again, there were upwards of 100 unindicted co-conspirators in the first World Trade Center bombing, and many of them are still active in our society at various levels.

• Al-Qaeda activity in the Carribean and Latin America appears, at least for right now, to be limited to Trinidad and Tobago, Margarita Island, and the Tri-Border Area and mostly financial rather than operational in nature. As it now stands, reports of the al-Qaeda/Mara Salvatrucha alliance are being discounted by US intelligence because of who the sources are.

• One of the things we're very fortunate about is that al-Qaeda is not quite as unified as media coverage or the group's own propaganda would lead one to believe - they can be divided. This is going to be quite important in the future as there is now a new branch to the organization - the al-Douri branch, led by none other than former Iraqi vice Revolutionary Command Council chairman Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.

• Al-Qaeda does have at least some kind of weaponized chemical capacity for cyanide and maybe mustard or sarin gas. All of the Darunta camp alumni were taught how to create at least the first of these, which is what Zarqawi was planning on using in Jordan (whether or not the method of dispersal was feasible or not is a matter of debate within the intelligence community - a lot of people are of the opinion that the blast used to destroy the Jordanian targets would have taken the cyanide along with it). Abu Khabab has worked on VX in the past, but he doesn't seem to have gotten very far. Among the poisons in the group's arsenal are ricin, arsine, phosgene, botulinum, and alfatoxin. The next round of al-Qaeda attacks on the US are likely to include at least some kind of chemical element to them.

• Al-Qaeda's alliance with al-Douri's Baathists has enabled them to enlist former Baathist scientists to their cause for the purposes assisting them in refining their chemical weapons capacity. Recent discoveries in Fallujah have indicated that the al-Qaeda/al-Tawhid insurgent forces as well as the Iraqi Jaish Mohammed (which, while composed largely of Baathists, has a number of Saudi al-Qaeda members acting as senior leaders of the organization), the latter of which has been the most ambitious in seeking to develop an offensive chemical weapons capacity.

• Adnan al-Shukrijumah remains the most dangerous and immediate threat to the US in the near future. He has also sought to accquire radioactive material from Canada at Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's behest (KSM was apparently the driver behind the whole radiological weapon idea) but has shifted back towards a more conventional means of attack, perhaps involving truck bombs. There are also a small number of American nationals believed to be currently serving in al-Qaeda.

• The surveillance data found on Khan's computer was extremely sophisticated to the point where there are some suspicions that at least some of this had to have come about through the aid of a foreign intelligence agency. Iran is at the top of that list of suspects, as VEVAK operatives operating under diplomatic cover have been busted on multiple occasions in NYC as early as January, but this is purely speculative.

• Everyone at the conference seemed extremely confident that we had thwarted a pre-election terrorist plot of some kind. No clue what, when, or how and Shukrijumah unfortunately remains in circulation.

Iraq/al-Qaeda

• Pre-war intelligence debate is still in the spin phase between neocons and their opponents; we won't know the truth for years about what intel was accurate, etc. The administration seems to have won the political battle on Capitol Hill with respect to the SSIC report, which cleared them of most egregious charges. Unfortunately, these charges are still being repeated uncritically by a press corps that feels they were used and abused by the administration to push the war, but at the same time lost the public relations fight. A lot of people were fed up with all of the politics, since the end-result has been to make the average individual who pays attention to this stuff extremely cynical or else view any and all news out of Iraq through a strictly partisan lens. It's unfortunate, because foreign policy positions are not (or shouldn't be) nearly as much of a right/left issue.

• As a result of the ongoing intrigue in DC, the average American who pays attention to this stuff is more or less in the same position as an intelligence analyst, but without the benefits. There's a lot of contradictory information floating around, most of it being leaked deliberately by people with an agenda to manipulate public perceptions. None of this would have been stopped had Kerry been elected, the sides would have just flipped. It's agenda rather than partisan-based, or so I am given to understand. I was told that the folks doing the leaking are taking the majority of Americans for fools as they seek to accomplish their agenda - perhaps they've never heard of the blogosphere.

• Nobody wanted to talk about what they knew about Zarqawi pre-war, except to confirm that he was in Baghdad and staying at the Olympic Hospital. That gem, like a number of other points of information, comes from the Jordanians rather than Chalabi, so all those blaming the INC for all the pre-war Iraq/al-Qaeda stuff are barking up the wrong tree. The INC's big selling point on that was apparently Salman Pak, though I'd be interested if anybody could confirm that much to me.

• The whole issue of foreign fighters, as I think I've noted before, is a lot more complex than most of the punditocracy likes to point out. These guys don't volunteer themselves upon capture and while there are linguistic differences in the Arabic that one can discern, it isn't as easy as it sounds to sort these guys out from the rest of the cannon fodder. Foreign fighters are also more likely to fight to the death than not, and identification of the enemy dead as Iraqi or foreigner is not exactly a top US priority at the moment. To further complicate the matter, there are also a sizeable number of native Iraqis serving in al-Qaeda and related groups and there are little if any differences between the Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish members of Ansar al-Islam. No doubt an anthropologist could better discern the differences between Iraqi and foreign elements of the insurgency, but as I said, body identification is not a top priority for the US at the moment, especially given the number of dead European nationals that such an accounting would turn up as well as for interrogation purposes (i.e. other countries tend to complain if their nationals are imprisoned or killed). As a result, those classified as foreign fighters are in many cases those who can be demonstrably shown to be non-Iraqi, such as possessing foreign identification, a passport, or in some cases such simple things as good dental work.

• The al-Qaeda alliance with the Baathists started up around February and it wasn't just al-Qaeda that made up the foreign fighters. LeT sent jihadis for example, as did the Jordanian and Yemeni branches of the Baathist parties. A lot of the tougher foreign fighters we're dealing with now are those that survived OIF and managed to retreat to the Sunni Triangle and blend in with the locals to continue the fight another day.

• Baathist attitudes towards al-Qaeda seem to have varied post-war, but in general the former military and Saddam Fedayeen were nicer to them than were the mid and higher-level Baathist Party members or the Mukhabarat members. The former saw them as another arrow in their quiver while the latter regarded them as a snake clasped to their chests. The latter's fears increased dramatically after Saddam's capture when sizeable numbers of Baathists started embracing Salafism en masse, with Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri even going as far as to convert to Wahhabism from his former Sufism. This led to an inter-Baathist schism that is still being resolved.

• After the fall of Saddam, a major split developed among the Baathists over who got to be #1 now that their glorious leader was in chains. One group, led by Colonel Hani Abdul Latif al-Tilfah al-Tikriti and commanding the backing of the Special Security Organization, the Tikriti and Majidi tribesmen, and a good chunk of the former Mukhabarat, the other is made up of al-Douri and commands the loyalty of the Special Republican Guard and the Saddam Fedayeen. The split had more to do with power than anything else and is now at a somewhat interesting point, with al-Douri having recently traveled from Mosul to Syria (where the al-Tikriti faction got to hang out in return for recognizing Bashar al-Assad as the biggest, baddest, Baathist around) to reconcile the two Baathist factions under one banner in an effort to derail plans for the new Iraqi elections in January.

• Al-Douri is related to Abu Wael, hence his prior ties to Ansar al-Islam and by extension al-Qaeda. Since both Baathist factions now recognize al-Assad as #1 under the terms of the reconciliation, Iranian aid to Iraqi insurgent groups is apparently being viewed by the Iranians through the context of their pre-existing alliance with Syria against Israel rather than their own hostility towards the Iraqi Baathists. The CIA wants Allawi to negotiate with the al-Tikriti faction as a means of drawing them into the political process and splitting them away from augmenting the already potent al-Douri/Zarqawi alliance.

• MEK isn't the INC, no matter what one thinks of them. They have their own agenda, but also some useful intel. The US and France defanged and detained them in an effort to convince Iran to cough up Saif al-Adel and Co, but that failed in large part due to the Iranian failure to provide any kind of acceptable confirmation that the individuals in question were anything other than under house arrest or that the people in the Iranian government who were offering such a claim would be able to wrest the al-Qaeda leaders away from their hosts in Qods Force.

Iran/al-Qaeda

• Nobody seriously doubts that the al-Qaeda Shura Majlis has reconstituted itself in eastern Iran under the protection of Qods Force, the issue is whether Qods Force is pursuing official Iranian policy or acting out on its own. If the latter, then weakening the central government would be the absolute worst thing for the US to do as it would strengthen the hands of Qods Force. The belief of the pro-engagement types is that engagement with Iran will strengthen the hands of the central government and encourage them to crack down on groups like Qods Force. The argument goes that the new generation of the hardliners, the same ones that are rapidly rising to positions of ascendance in the Iranian hierarchy, are going to be the least likely to compromise on such issues as aiding a group that is kin to the Sipah-e-Sahaba or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

• On a similar note, some members of al-Qaeda, especially those of South Asian and Saudi origin, tend to be extremely distrustful of the Iranians and Shi'ites in general, whereas the Egyptian members are the most supportive of the alliance and ecumenical in their outlook because of their own assistance from and to the Iranians against their own government back in the 1980s.

• Richard Clarke and Mike Scheuer seem to have dramatically different views of both Iraq/al-Qaeda and Iran/al-Qaeda despite the fact that the two men interacted on a regular basis as (purportedly) apolitical officials. I read through both Against All Enemies and Through Our Enemy's Eyes during the course of the conference and on the basis of those two books, one can get the distinct impression that the Iraq/al-Qaeda relationship is of the utmost importance and the Iran/al-Qaeda relationship only tenuous in nature or vice versa. If there's a way to harmonize how these two men who interacted on a regular basis came to such radically different conclusions on such a regular basis (Scheuer's faux denial notwithstanding), I myself cannot fathom it.

Anyways, hope you guys have found this of value, I may update later today if time allows.

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I'm going to start with the basics.

What do I think of the overall situation in Egypt?

I think Egypt (CIA Factbook entry) is a country whose cultural and political patterns, growing ecological deficits, and population growth make it a disaster waiting for a place to happen. The country's inefficiency and absurdly bureaucratic systems were used as a case study for 3rd World problems by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto (though there is a reform project on the horizon), and our own Cairo correspondent Tarek Heggy minces few words in his diagnosis.

Unfortunately, the growing signs that Hosni Mubarak plans to implement dynastic authoritarian rule under a fig leaf of democratic elections are not comforting.

This approach is likely to entrench many existing pathologies, and make Egypt's situation worse in the long run. LGF among others have chronicled the frequent promotion of hate against Jews and the West by Egyptian state media and related organizations, a tide that efforts like Tarek Heggy's can do little to stem.

That kind of safety valve may benefit Egypt's rulers, but it most certainly does not benefit the USA. It will not disappear until Egyptian politics puts the country's own problems front and centre - and that won't happen under the current quasi-dictatorship.

As you can tell, I'm disturbed by the situation and the trends. I'm not as harsh as some of my fellow neo-conservatives, as I think the "cut 'em off" approach is a shortsighted course of action at the moment. Which leads us to...

What Role does Egypt play in the geo-political picture?

Egypt may not be swimming in oil, but it's a very strategic country. It contains the Suez Canal, a key chokepoint of international trade for Asia as well as the Middle East. It has historically wielded significant influence within the Islamic world, though recent decades have seen it eclispsed by Saudi Arabia and Iran. In addition to its well known border with Israel, it also borders on Sudan and Libya, and has the potential to play a major role for good or ill in both of those countries' futures. See this U.S. State Dept. profile.

On the military front, Egypt currently has a large and well equipped army, thanks to over $38 billion of U.S. military aid it has received as a result of the 1978 Camp David Accord that brought peace with Israel and converted Egypt from a Soviet client state to a U.S. ally. This equipment includes locally-produced M-1 tanks, as well as F-16 fighter planes, Hawkeye AWACS radars, MLRS rocket launchers, Patriot and Stinger missiles, etc. French, British, Chinese, and even North Korean weapons can also be found in Egypt's armed forces.

How will that army and equipment be used in future? To enhance regional and global security, or to damage it? That depends in part on the wisdom of our choices.

America: Priorities and Limits

With the USA stretched a bit thin right now and DeSotoite economic reforms on their way shortly, I would argue that now is not a good time to provoke a major showdown with Egypt. As Dean Esmay has noted with respect to other problem allies:

"...politics and diplomacy are arts of the possible, not the ideal. We are not in a position at the moment to force democracy on Saudi Arabia, and can only take a carrot-and-stick approach to them. Strategically, Pakistan is almost as difficult for we would have no easy way to continue our vital work in Afghanistan if Pakistan were to collapse into civil war. It is thus my sincere hope that the reforms in Iraq and Afghanistan (and maybe, just maybe, Palestine) will over the next generation make it easier for us to encourage other regimes in the region to follow suit--or, luckier still, that it might happen without any major intervention on our part at all."

Dangerous or pivotal enemies before minor enemies. Enemies or potential enemies before neutrals or allies. Less stable allies before more stable allies. Priorities, priorities, even as we multi-task whenever possible.

Hey, I want a nice-sized house with cutting-edge ecological and structural features, a healthy budget for travel and enriching experiences, a computer setup that rivals Bill Gates, and the right sweetie to share it with. Since I couldn't have it all, I've started with the right sweetie. The rest is going to have to come later, and perhaps incompletely.

Sigh. The real world is implacable that way.

In a similar vein, America would like a lot of things in the Middle East. Since it didn't do a World War 2 style mobilization after 9/11, it has to choose and to settle.

Right now, we have more immediate and serious strategic problems than Egypt. Iraq was a more immediate problem, and still is. Iran is another, the #1 backer of terrorism worldwide who is sheltering al-Qaeda personnel and developing nuclear weapons. Afghanistan matters more insofar as it flows into the issue of Pakistan's stability, otherwise it's going about as fast and as well as we can expect. Some might even consider the Palestinian issue a bigger deal than Egypt (I disagree - I think it's just a symptom, and won't vanish until the Arab rulers who can't afford to lose their distraction of choice vanish - but if you think it's central, then...). Priorities.

Having said that, a showdown with Egypt's rulers may well be necessary for all the reasons explained above - in due course, at a time and place of America's choosing.

Do I think the USA ought to support the intellectuals' term limits effort in Egypt?

No, I do not.

I agree that the United States does need to support liberty in the region. As noted above, that's a critical component of winning the War on Islamist Terror without a resorting to Total War. It's also critical if Egypt itself hopes to avoid becoming an Islamist powderkeg. Consider:

• Societal and cultural failures in an honour/shame society that remembers past glory days and is dismayed by their current reality.
• The promotion of hate & conspiracy theories through government-controlled media channels as a safety valve.
• Deepening problems on multiple fronts.
• Dwindling hopes for addressing them through the political system.

Neoconservative root-cause analysis holds that this is a classic recipe for breeding Islamist terrorism. I agree. I also believe that some efforts to promote sustainable liberty in Egypt can and should begin right now.

Acknowledging this imperative doesn't mean the USA needs to forget the lessons of recent history, however - or allow itself be played like a fiddle by the Islamonazis (literally) of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto is:

"Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope"

This is not an organization committed to anything resembling democracy or liberty, nor are their fellow participants the Communists. If the history of the Cold War featured frequent support for tyrants against forces calling for greater freedom in their countries, it also featured even more frequent episodes whereby movements that claimed the mantle of freedom were usurped by Marxists and kleptocrat thugs. Those that won, by bullet and ballot, generally delivered nothing more than an exchange of one servitude for a more malevolent, efficient and bloody helping of the same.

Supporting such movements is not in anybody's interest, least of all the people in the countries involved.

Were I the USA, I would work quietly through the back-channels in Egypt, and make a key principle extremely clear to genuinely democratic forces there:

Disqualification. The participation of anti-freedom organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party in political umbrella groups or initiatives will be a death-blow to any hopes of U.S. support whenever it is present.

There's no question in my mind that Egypt's political stagnation needs to be loosened. Nevertheless, supporting greater freedom in Egypt does not require the acceptance of totalitarian "Trojan Horses" into Egypt's democratic movement. The USA is interested in genuine liberty, something these organizations are fundamentally opposed to. They also have a history of taking over legitimate democratic movements. Therefore, the USA should lend zero legitimacy to organizations and efforts associate with these bad actors, and oppose efforts by tainted movements or initiatives to garner support from other foreign powers.

Finally, the intellectuals' proposed solution strikes me as an ineffective approach. It isn't intrinsically obvious to me that term limits are necessarily the best solution to Egypt's issues - after all, they remain a source of legitimate debate and controversy in the USA itself. Even if term limits were passed, the probable result in Egypt would be the substitution of an organized oligarchy with rotating terms in place of the current family dynasty setup.

That kind of outcome isn't going to help anybody.

America & Egypt: Going Forward

The West's long-term objective in Egypt should clear: support freedom and liberty generally. The question, of course, is by doing what, and when, and how. We need to succeed without creating tensions in Egypt that lead to a crisis the Egyptian government can't manage, and the USA won't be able to step into.

The USA and other Western countries should lend support to educational and communications initiatives, therefore, as well as general concepts of liberty and very carefully-chosen political programs. We should also assist dissidents who are genuine supporters of liberty, via legal aid and diplomatic advocacy.

As the USA's hand in the region strengthens, some of the current constraints will fall away and pressure can be ramped up accordingly if required. Hopefully, by that time progress can move forward on the quiet foundations that more immediate Western efforts helped to lay down in advance. Efforts such as:

• Helping the coming economic reforms in every possible way via educational materials, subsidized Arabic translations of DeSoto's works, related joint aid projects, electronic infrastructure to share leading practices and successes, etc. would be the most important thing we could do for Egypt from both a geopolitical and a social justice perspective.

Delivering this assistance via non-standard NGOs would also be a capability-building plus - most existing NGOs will be hostile toward any approach involving property, even if the poor are suddenly made wealthier by owning their own land for the first time. If nation-building and narrowing the development gap a la The Pentagon's New Map are really part of the USA's future strategy, it will have to build an effective channel for these efforts. I hate to say it, but this sort of thing seems tailor-made for George Soros...

Then make sure the external political incentives align. Should Egypt meet certain economic reform goals and reach certain determined milestones, there should be a commitment to pursue trade legislation that would improve Egypt's access to certain markets.

• Translate key documents of liberty and western ideas into Arabic, pair them with Arab/Islamic scholars et. al. who have made eloquent arguments for economic and political freedom, and make these materials available cheaply and in various formats, Egypt and beyond. This can be private or public, but it needs to BE as in yesterday. I do not understand why that wasn't a substantial project by October of 2001. If The Bush Doctrine means anything, it should be.

Having parts of this project based in Egypt and Iraq, and having the materials published out of Cairo and Baghdad, would play nicely into echoes of past glory and dreams of renewed intellectual influence. It would also send an important signal about growing local "ownership" of these ideas.

• Promotion of new media alternatives like blogging across the Middle east, working with and through efforts like Spirit of America's "Viral Freedom Project". Big Pharaoh needs an army!

• Pressuring Egypt when it imprisons dissidents who are genuine fighters for liberty.

• Pressuring Egypt to steadily reduce the amount of hate it allows in its government media, on pain of facing penalties in military aid, and/or other sticks and carrots as might be effective. As it makes progress, Egypt has to be pushed to abandon the crutch of hate, thus forcing additional moves toward progress because its traditional safety valve options and excuses that permit failure are slowly being turned off.

• Promoting regional economic ties, including Egypt/Israel, Egypt/Libya, and even Egypt/Iraq if useful. This is already underway.

• I'm sure you can think of other ideas. If you'd like to critique, improve on, or add to the ideas above, the comments section is open.

The bottom line is simple: Egypt has to change. We have to promote effective pathways to liberty, using pressure and/or confrontation on our own timetable, all the while strengthening the real champions of liberty and weakening the poseurs and the malevolent.

It's a tall order. It won't always be satisfying. And it may take time. Fortunately, time is an option we can afford in Egypt. The only thing we can't afford, is failure.

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"The ethics of revolution... do not cancel the validity of those general norms which formulate requirements for the progress of mankind toward humanity. No matter how rationally one may justify revolutionary means in terms of the demonstrable chance of obtaining freedom and happiness for future generations... there are forms of violence and suppression which no revolutionary situation can justify because they negate the very end for which the revolution is a means. Such are arbitrary violence, cruelty and indiscriminate terror."

Norm's comments about the modern democratic left in the West and the moral truth of these observations are right on the money. They speak to the very malaise addressed both by Hanson and by leftists like Michael Walzer, whose seminal article "Can There Be A Decent Left?" put both his despair and his hopes into words.

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I drew attention to Martini Republic's questions about the independence of IraqTheModel without actually expressing any opinion myself one way or another, except to say that they are out of the Iraqi mainstream.

...the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters.

Contrast all this to the young woman computer systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend, who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.

This is the latest IRI poll of public opinion in Iraq, with data as recent as October 4. It also tracks time series back to April.

Here's what it says about the attitudes about the election (which the ITM brothers are wildly supportive of). 85.5% of the people (as of late Sept - early Oct) intend to vote:

"Most people I've talked to aren't going to go to elections. It's simply too dangerous and there's a sense that nothing is going to be achieved anyway."

"We have 9/11’s on a monthly basis. Each and every Iraqi person who dies with a bullet, a missile, a grenade, under torture, accidentally- they all have families and friends and people who care. The number of Iraqis dead since March 2003 is by now at least eight times the number of people who died in the World Trade Center. They had their last words, and their last thoughts as their worlds came down around them, too. I've attended more wakes and funerals this last year, than I've attended my whole life. The process of mourning and the hollow words of comfort have become much too familiar and automatic."

Check out the whole Powerpoint deck for yourself, and see what you think. But here's on final slide. 64.5% of the Iraqis polled think their life will be better a year from today.

The second point, because it's subjective, is going to be impossible to prove. But I'll explain my own views briefly, and I hope that you'll understand why my reaction to what Dr. Cole did was so negative - and why it would have been strongly negative even if he'd used the death of Kylan Jones-Hoffman to support a political point I agree with.

Basically, the trick in political thinking is to remember that it's about people. Many - even most - of us tend to get caught up in our ideas about what society is or should be, and fixate on that idealized notion. reality, of course, is messy and complex and seldom fits those ideals. So we try to nudge it a bit.

That's what people do; but the difficult part is to look through the idealized notions at the real individuals we're talking about. For me, a lot of it comes to the notion of empathy and acceptance; if you've read my writing for a while, you'll know that I push commenters and others I interact with to deal with each other with respect and some level of humane concern, and that when that gets denied - when we forget that the people we are talking to and dealing with are human and instead assign them to some abstract ideal category - friend, foe, or example - I think we lose something incredibly important both in ourselves and in our thinking about political issues.

I'm very aware of Cole's earlier writings when he heard about Jones-Hoffman's death. How hard would it have been to add a clause to his later post making the point he'd already made?

Now, it's a legitimate criticism of my point that I'm busting Cole hard over what could have been a simple slip in composition - a hastily-written post leading to a neglected point. That may be, but I'll suggest that when we write in haste what we really expose is what's at the top of our attention - and what was at the top of Cole's attention was his desire to tie Jones-Hoffman's death to US policy.

That moves Cole pretty far outside the locus of what I value - in opponents or supporters of my own positions. And that, simply, is the basic empathy and understanding that the large political forces we talk about have real, human impacts on people we know and on people we don't and never will.

Does that mean we should be paralyzed by the desire to 'first, do no harm'? No, because the reality is that as a consequence of new policies people are harmed as they are by keeping things as they are.

But it means that I don't only mourn the deaths of people on my side. And that I will continue to work hard to recognize that even the people I think are deeply wrong are human.

« ok, I'm done now

SOCIETY:

• The election campaign has officially kicked off on Wednesday, 15 December, the day voter registration finished across Iraq. In the words of the current Prime Minister Iyad Allawi who announced his candidacy at the head of his Iraqi National Accord movement: "We strongly reject the injustice and separation of the past and we are working towards national unity." Allawi called the election "the precious dream stolen by tyrants".
  


• With just over a month to go, preparation for the election day are picking up the pace: "At the offices of Iraq's election commission, workers scurry to field phone calls, greet sheiks and politicians, and prepare for the country's nationwide election Jan. 30. The pace borders on frenetic," says one report. "Registration of voters is under way. The registry is based on records of Iraqis who receive monthly food rations under a program that began in the early 1990s, when the nation was under U.N. sanctions. Today, rich and poor Iraqis alike still receive rations. 'Nobody could tell lies to Saddam. So it was a correct record. Whoever lied was killed,' said [Farid] Ayar, [the electoral commission spokesman]. Registration forms are delivered to citizens through food-ration agents linked to 542 distribution centers across the nation of 22 million to 27 million people."
  


• While the totalitarian obsession with record keeping has made it easy to register votes within Iraq, the International Migration Organization will be trying to ensure through its Out-of-Country - Voting for Iraq program that Iraqis living in fourteen foreign countries can also register over a one week period a fortnight prior to the voting. As part of the overseas vote effort, the Jordanian authorities have announced they will set up a center to count ballots from the estimated 100,000 Iraqis residing in the country.
  


• Here, meanwhile, you can find the updated list of over 220 registered parties and independent candidates (entities) which will contest the election. The registered entities are, in turn, expected to field some 5,000 candidates running on 83 candidates list: "Nine of the lists were submitted by alliances of political parties, 47 by individual parties and 27 by independents."
  


• One of the parties which will be participating in the poll is the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni party that until recently has been threatening to boycott the poll. You can also read this report about the aspirations of smaller parties, which hope to capitalize on the public distrust of established politicians.
  


• This is how the elections are expected to progress:
  

  "Campaigning begins... Wednesday [15 December] and must end 48 hours before polling booths open.

  "Iraq's election laws treat the entire country as a single constituency. A party or alliance will win seats in the National Assembly based on the percentage of votes its' list receives nationally. The system gives those candidates ranked high on the slate most chances to be voted in...

  "According to electoral laws, at least one in every three candidates on a single list must be a woman.

  "Once all lists of candidates are submitted, the electoral commission will begin printing some 60 million ballots - in three different colors - for the 275-member National Assembly, the provincial councils and a national council for Kurdistan, Ayar said. The symbol of each political party or alliance will appear on the ballot along with the name of each group's leader.

  "About 9,000 polling stations, with up to five booths in each, are expected to open on election day.

  "To be eligible to vote, a person must be an Iraqi citizen, entitled to reclaim citizenship or eligible for citizenship. Voters are required to show an ID to prove they were registered on voter rolls that were based on a food rations database, created in the 1990s. Heads of families collecting the monthly rations have been asked to check the details of their households.

  "Representatives of political parties, electoral commission staff and observers will monitor proceedings on election day. The commission has also invited the United Nations and several countries to send monitors."

• In case of violence proves particularly disruptive, the authorities are considering a proposal to extend voting over a two or three week period in order to give everyone the maximum opportunity to vote.
  


• As the campaign unfolds throughout Iraq, in Switzerland a large team of workers continues to compile Iraq's new electoral roll:
  

  "A team of Arabic and Kurdish speakers in this Swiss city are racing to compile a register of voters for Iraq's elections by the end of December... Manpower, a temporary employment agency [has been] contracted to help draw up the national register...

  "Amid escalating violence in Iraq, a huge exhibition centre in Geneva has become the unusual location for the compilation of the voter lists, which are vital to the success of the polls...

  "Iraq's electoral commission hired Manpower to recruit people with the right skills to correct names and dates in Arabic and Kurdish on a database of information about Iraqis who are eligible to vote. Despite safety concerns and difficulties in acquiring permits, the agency managed to hire enough staff and is now helping a group of companies oversee the compilation process in the exhibition centre, Palexpo...

  "Some 200 people hired by Manpower were Swiss, another 200 had permanent residency in the country and the rest had temporary permits... The workers are split between two eight-hour shifts from 6:00 am until 10:00 pm as they race against the clock to get the job done...

  "The electoral lists are being drawn up on the basis of food ration cards distributed by the United Nations under Saddam Hussein's regime, when the World Food Programme oversaw distribution under the UN's oil-for-food programme. Iraqis started registering in about 600 offices around the country on November 1 and have six weeks to come forward to be included on the electoral register. The lists are then scanned and sent to Geneva where they are corrected and entered on computer... They will then be returned to Iraq for use in polling booths.

  "The exact size of the Iraqi population and the number of voters is unknown. The last national census under Saddam Hussein's regime in 1997 said there were 23.8 million inhabitants in the country."

• Other foreign assistance for the election continues to flow in. Canada has offered to train election officials in Iraq and to help monitor the vote. Japan will be training 10 Iraqi electoral officials from Baghdad and Muthana province. Germany, meanwhile, is assisting with electoral education: "A new radio program is about to hit the airwaves in Iraq focusing on the upcoming elections scheduled for the end of January. It's radio for Iraqis, by Iraqis, with a little help from [the German broadcaster] Deutsche Welle." The report continues:
  

  "Even getting to this hotel conference room in Amman, Jordan was at times a life-threatening trek for some of the young Iraqi journalists. Those who came from southern or central Iraq had to make long detours around hotspots like Fallujah or Ramadi. Those from the north had to travel through Turkey and Syria to Jordan.

  "But they were willing to embark on the sometimes dangerous journey because they are all committed to one thing: making radio for their fellow Iraqis.

  "In this case, they'll be making Election Radio, a project funded by Germany's foreign ministry and coordinated by Deutsche Welle. Starting in mid December, the Iraqi journalists gathered in this hotel will be sending in reports from the ground daily to create a 30-minute program of current information over the upcoming vote in Iraq.

  "The 19 journalists taking part in the project come from all 18 of Iraq's provinces. When they return, they will start producing radio packages and interviews that have been discussed with coordinators at Deutsche Welle.

  "The reporters will then send their finished pieces in MP3 digital format to Berlin, where they are turned into the half-hour moderated program in Deutsche Welle's studio. The completed program is then sent back to Iraq, again by MP3, to local partner stations where it is broadcast."

• While Canada and Japan are training electoral officials, Denmark is providing training for some of the candidates:
  

  "About 100 candidates for Iraq's first popular election in decades traveled to Kuwait on Saturday for a seminar about the democratic process.

  "The men and women were bused from the southern Iraqi city of Basra for the two-day event organized by Denmark's government. Two of the candidates are running for the national assembly, while the rest are candidates for local offices.

  "The candidates will attend lectures by experts from the United Nations and Denmark about Iraq's election law, the role of political parties, campaigning and how the vote will be conducted."

• USAID, too, is contributing to training and capacity building in the run up to the election (link in PDF):
  

  "A USAID partner recently organized a conference on the electoral process for 46 participants from 27 parties. Representatives from the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) gave a presentation on voting and individual and party registration procedures. The two-hour Q&A period that followed the presentation provided answers to participants' questions on coalition-building, security concerns, governorate versus national registrations, election monitoring, IECI staffing, women candidates, out-of-country voters, ethnic balances in the city council, and numerous other technical issues relating to the election process."

• And in another program,
  

  "The first of three Iraqi election monitoring training academies was recently held in Amman. The five-day event brought together 26 Iraqi civic leaders from the Coalition of Non-Partisan Election Monitors for training on the specifics of Iraqi election law, best practices for monitoring, and how to develop and present a unified campaign statement. The academy also included special presentations from the United Nations on election preparations and regulations as well as a presentation from IFES on election violence mitigation. The final day included participatory mock exercises involving scenarios such as an error-plagued polling station. "The participants of the conference are now responsible for recruiting and training an additional 100 monitors. The new monitors will work under the leadership of the Iraqi Election Information Network (EIN), which will serve as the domestic monitor coordinating umbrella. Using this train-the-trainer method, EIN hopes to train 5,000 to 8,000 Iraqi monitors for the January election."

• And in a less material way, Muqtadah Al Sadr's uncle, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr, executed by Saddam in 1980, is providing Iraqi and Arab democrats and human rights activists with inspiration in their struggle for constitutionalism, democracy and the rule of law.
  


• While not surprisingly much attention has been recently given to training candidates and election officials, a seminar in the Czech Republic is aiming to help Iraqi judges in their task of rebuilding the country's independent judicial system:
  

  "The Iraqi judiciary is corrupt, inept and relies on barbaric methods to inflict violent punishments on those with the misfortune to enter its chambers. Wrong, very wrong.

  "If there is one thing instructors at the second training seminar for Iraqi judges learned at the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI) in Prague, it's that Iraqi judges were well-prepared to resurrect a democratic legal system.

  " 'When I met judges in Baghdad in 2003 and in Prague, they were much more sophisticated than I expected,' said Judith Chirlin, a judge at the Los Angeles Superior Court whose most recent case involved rock star Rod Stewart's cancellation of a concert tour in South America. (He lost).

  "Chirlin was one of five international legal experts at a two-week training program for 50 judges that kicked off Nov. 26."

• The seminar is organized by the Sweden-based the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC) with financial support from the Czech and British governments, and aims to provide Iraqi judges with additional education and support on topics such as human rights, DNA testing of evidence, ethics, media freedom, community outreach, and court procedures.
  


• You might remember from the previous installment the news about the establishment of Iraq's Commission for Public Integrity, the official body set up to investigate and fight public corruption using a public hotline for tips. This is how one report describes the Commission working in practice:
  

  "In a country where corruption has been part of the government culture for so long, it's tough to keep up with all of the complaints -- up to 10 per day. Posters on the street now urge people to report financial abuse. Once callers knew they would be anonymous, the calls came in fast and furious. Investigators have already opened 121 cases based on tips from the hotline. "One man looking at a poster said Iraqis are tired of the corruption, because they know it hurts them. 'This may be new for Iraqis, but I hope it will succeed,' said Abdul Karim Fakhri, 38, the manager of a supermarket. 'We want someone to fight this corruption'."

• From politics to education, the interest in computers and information technology is spreading among the young generation of Iraqis: "During Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted rule, owning a computer was theoretically allowed but remained the privilege of the elite and Saddam's cronies." Now in Baghdad, the Karrada Cultural Centre for Youth Computer Teaching has opened in a villa which once belonged to one of Saddam's bodyguards. Safa el-Din al-Sultani, who runs the centre, "admits that the centre would have not been established without the help of the US military and explains that the idea of teaching children sprung to his mind following the fall of the former regime in April 2003. 'The Americans welcomed the idea and they gave us 37 computers and ten play-stations,' he recounts. 'Iraq is considered to be an under-developed country. We have ignorance here and there are no centres to inform adults and youths about computers, which have become an essential element in our life,' he says."
  



"More than 130 Iraqi boys and girls, aged 8-14, from 17 different schools in the Karrada area attend a two-hour computer course every day, delivered by fresh university graduates who volunteer to teach the children... " 'The children are eager to learn. They want to know how to use computers, how to play games and how to draw,' says Mithal Alaa, 27, who studied at the Nationalist Computer Science Centre under the old regime. 'We teach these children for free. Most of them come from families who cannot afford to have a computer in there homes,' she said."

• Iraq's neighbors are also trying to help the next generation reach their full potential:
  

  "Shaikh Mohamed bin Issa Al Jaber, chairman of MBI International, signed an agreement with Taher Al Buka'a, Iraq's Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, to support a post-graduate study programme for Iraqi students. Under the agreement MBI will fund 60 post-graduate scholarships for Iraqi students from next year. The students will complete their education in universities in the UK."

• The government of South Korea, meanwhile, has contributed $200,000 to the International Fund for Higher Education in Iraq, established by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) and UNESCO with an initial donation of $15 million from Qatar: "Despite the instability in Iraq, the [Foundation] Committee has made great progress and achieved many of the objectives, he said. The Committee has provided opportunities for Iraqi faculty members to attend training programmes in European and Middle Eastern universities. Internet connection to Iraqi universities and supply of computers, science equipment and books are part of the agenda. 'Around 100 faculty members are currently undergoing training at various universities and the lab equipment and books are scheduled to be delivered in a fortnight,' [director of the Fund, Bader Abdullah] al-Darwish said. The Committee chairman pointed out that Sheikha Mozah has provided seats to a group of gifted Iraqi students at the branch campuses of Weill Cornell Medical College and Texas A&M University in QF's Education City."
  


• In media news, Iraq will be getting its first Arabic music FM station when the United Arab Emirates' based Channel 4 Radio Network commences transmission at 98.8 FM. The company "will manage the operations of the radio station, which will initially cover a population of eight million within a 100 kilometre radius of Baghdad. In time, the promoters expect to cover the whole of Iraq." In another development, "Telkonet, Inc., working in commercial powerline communications (PLC), announced that it will support the execution of a U.S. State Department sponsored program to establish the Baghdad Media Center. The program will run through the International Republican Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy. Telkonet will work with several U.S. and Iraqi partners to implement a fully operational media center in the Iraqi capital dedicated to expanding civil programs, educational opportunities and training initiatives throughout Iraq."
  


• Together with the growth of other freedoms in the new Iraq, Iraqi workers are also discovering freedom of association:
  

  "Iraqi labour unions making their global debut at a conference in Japan are seeking tips on their tough task -- how to make workers aware of rights suppressed for years by Saddam Hussein.

  "Five trade union leaders from Iraq attended the 18th World Congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which began on Sunday in the southwestern resort city of Miyazaki.

  "It was the first-ever appearance of Iraqi organised labour at a congress of ICFTU, which meets every four years. Saddam only allowed a government-run union and persecuted the underground labour movement.

  "Since the collapse of the regime, at least 10 independent trade unions have been set up in Iraq."

• Lastly, an innovative program is attempting to kill two birds with one stone: help improve the traffic management in Baghdad and integrate the disabled into the society:
  

  "At a busy traffic junction in the Bayaa neighbourhood of the capital, Akram Alewi raises one hand to stop vehicles, while directing another stream of cars forward with the other, a whistle in his mouth ready to pull up offending motorists.

  "It may sound like an every day scene, but there is one slight difference: Alewi has been confined to a wheelchair since 1986 when he lost both legs, fighting in the Iran-Iraq war.

  "The forty-year-old volunteer, one of a growing number, has been helping the municipality's traffic department since the end of the war in April 2003. 'Before the fall of the regime I worked at the same junction, selling cigarettes to add to my disabled person's pension. I got just 27,000 dinars (18 US dollars) every three months and I have five kids, so it was never enough,' said Alewi. 'I started off helping out the young traffic policemen after the fall of Baghdad, when everything was chaotic. There were hardly any officers and even when they were there, people didn't take any notice of them'."

• "Karim Abas, the traffic officer in charge of this area of Baghdad, says he encourages his new band of volunteers, 'They do a good job organising the traffic, people seem to respect them'."

ECONOMY:

• There is good news for Iraq's future within the international training regime, as the World Trade Organisation's 148 member states approve request by Iraq to open membership negotiations. "Iraq... which [is] struggling to emerge from conflict, now faces several years of negotiations with other trading nations to adapt [its] laws and trade flows to global trade rules before [it] can hope to join the WTO." Says Iraq's trade minister Mohammed Al Jibouri: "We believe that these measures [the WTO negotiations and writing off Iraq's debts] and other positive economic initiatives on the part of the international community will help bring stability and security to my country."
  


• Meanwhile, in a baptism of economic fire, "the Iraqi Central Bank has succeeded in maintaining the exchange rates of the Iraqi dinar against the US dollar and other foreign currencies, despite a huge demand for the dollar by the market."
  


• In Baghdad, there is an unexpected spin-off from the US election:
  

  "The good news and the bad news are the same in Iraq: America isn't leaving. A sign of how this resolve to stay the course is playing out in the minds of some Iraqis comes from the local real estate market. "An Iraqi businessman was negotiating several months ago to sell a prime piece of commercial real estate in central Baghdad. He had tentatively agreed on a price with a Kuwaiti investor, who planned someday to build an electronics superstore on the 3,000-square-meter property. But after President George W. Bush was re-elected in November, the Iraqi jacked up the price by 25 percent. The prospect that a re-elected Bush administration would stay and fight - and ultimately stabilize Iraq - had instantly made his property more valuable."

• Basra and its surroundings, meanwhile, are hoping that the January election will provide a similar stimulus for a local revival:
  

  "Iraq's south produces about two-thirds of the country's oil, but is today its poorest region. Now some federalist-minded local officials are tying hopes for revival to their country's shakily unfolding democratic process. 'We can develop Basra like Dubai or Hong Kong, that's what we want,' says Abdul-Hafiz al-Atti, Basra's deputy governor. It would help if the city received a cut of Iraq's oil revenues. 'Even 5 per cent is enough to compensate Basra for the last 35 years,' he says."

• The unemployment rate in Iraq fell from 28 per cent at the end of 2003 to 26.8 per cent during the first half of 2004. To help tackle this still unacceptable level of unemployment, a two-day conference sponsored at the Iraqi government's request by the International Labor Organisation "brought together more than 60 representatives of government, employers and workers in Iraq, as well as representatives of local authorities, civil society, UN agencies, the World Bank and international donors" who have been working on plans to reduce this economic and social problem.
  


• Meanwhile, the US authorities are trying to help Iraqi female business owners:
  

  "The Iraq Projects and Contracting Office (PCO) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held a conference for woman-owned businesses at the Baghdad Convention Center November 29 to outline procedures necessary to follow to learn about potential contracts in Iraq and for bidding on them. " 'This is a huge culture shift for most businesses in Iraq. We want to give owners and managers of woman-owned businesses an understanding of our processes and procedures so they will have an equal opportunity to bid on the various contracts for construction and services that we have available,' said Shirley Wilson, deputy director of the contracting office for the Gulf Region Division of the Corps."

• Similar seminars are being planned for Basra and Mosul.
  


• In oil news, the Southern Oil Company of Basrah recently took ownership of the restored water injection system at the Qarmat Ali Water Treatment Plant. This $225 million-project was necessary in order to continue extraction from the field: "As the oil is extracted, the reservoir loses pressure... To preserve the life of the reservoir, water is injected into the rock to replace the pressure created by the oil." The Missan province, also in the south of the country, is planning some major energy developments:
  

  "Relative stability in the southern city of Amara has encouraged private entrepreneurs to draw plans for the construction a refinery, a power plant and a liquefied gas factory.

  "The local branch of business and industry chambers in the city has set up a 'consultancy board to energize the role of the private sector,' said Ali Jaber. 'We are preparing for the construction of a refinery and have submitted a feasibility study to the Ministry of Oil,' Jaber, who leads Amara's business chambers, said.

  "Jaber said the city entrepreneurs were also planning other projects 'among them an electricity generation station.' Amara is the capital of the Province of Missan where some of the richest undeveloped Iraqi oil fields are situated."

• Continuing the focus on the south of the country, "Kuwait and Iraq have reached an initial agreement on a KD238 million ($809 million) deal to supply Kuwait with 200 million cubic feet of gas per day. 'We have agreed on the gas project, which is expected to begin in October after infrastructure is rehabilitated and upgraded,' Essa Al Oun, undersecretary at Kuwait's Energy Ministry said. The project will be divided into two phases, the first of which will supply Kuwait with 35 million cubic feet daily of Iraqi gas beginning October, followed by another 165 million cubic feet daily within the next two to three years, Oun said."
  


• In the Kurdish north of the country, meanwhile, Eagle Group of Iraq, the Kurdish oil entity, will benefit from the cooperation with Heritage Oil Corporation in developing the oil and gas potential in the region. For Micael Gulbenkian, Chairman and CEO of Heritage Oil Corporation, the new cooperative venture is like coming back home:
  

  "Because of my family's centuries-old links to Iraq and the region, I have been able to visit Iraq regularly during the last two years. My great grandfather and great uncle were closely associated with the development of the Middle East oil industry. In fact, the Gulbenkian family was fundamentally involved with the establishment of Iraq Petroleum Company in the 1920s and the drilling of the first well in Kirkuk in 1927. My father for decades since the 1950s was associated with the development of the Iraqi Oil industry and, by investing in numerous social and development programs played a very important role in the fields of education, health, arts and science for the benefit of the Iraqi people. I have been touched with the warm reception I have enjoyed within Iraq in general and the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan in particular. As a result of my family's historical connections in the area, this joint venture could have the ability to transform Heritage Oil Corp. in the short to medium term."

• Russia, too, is "ready to lend the country a helping hand in modernizing its installations and developing new fields."
  


• In transport news, more work is on the cards to give Iraq another international airport:
  

  "Iraqi and multinational officials are moving forward with plans to upgrade Mosul's Airfield to a Category I airport. The International Civil Aviation Organization designates Category I airports as those properly equipped to host international commercial flights. "On November 27 officials awarded a $10.3 million contract to construct a new air traffic control tower and install new runway lights and navigational aid equipment, all critical components that will help bring the airfield up to international standards. Renovations at the airfield's terminal have been underway since July. There are also plans to renovate the airport taxiway and update the weather forecasting equipment."

• And in the work on Iraq's railway network, as USAID reports (link in PDF),
  

  "the refurbishment of the rail track connecting Basrah with Umm Qasr port is 78 percent complete. 1,260 sleepers - the rail components used to reinforce the track - were recently delivered to the site and the mining, crushing and placing of foundation gravel is nearly done. In recent months USAID installed all 29 planned culverts and repaired ten railway gatehouses along the track.

  "Track reconstruction is being complemented with training for Iraqi Republican Railway (IIR) staff. The final training plan was selected from competing proposals last week. By teaching IRR staff best practices in track construction and maintenance, USAID is supporting the sustainability of Iraqi rail restoration.

  "Upon completion of the project in January, 2005, the weight-bearing capacity of the rail line and train speeds will increase significantly. Iraq needs safe and effective transportation networks, and rail remains the least expensive way to move grain, fuel and other bulk cargo around the country. The railway was barely operational prior to the conflict, suffering frequent derailments, accidents, and delays."

RECONSTRUCTION:

• There is plenty of - underreported - good news about the Iraqi reconstruction effort from USAID: "[Andrew Natsios, the administrator of USAID] said the United States has completed or is working on 7,000 assistance projects in Iraq, efforts that he said largely have been overlooked because of the focus on security problems... While foreign news media tends to focus on the insurgency in Iraq, 'the more mundane work that we do in reconstruction is not covered as well, or as much or at all, in some cases', [says Natsios]." Among the highlights of USAID's contribution to building the new Iraq:
  

  "- Reconstruction of the port of Umm Qasr, which was essentially closed for more than 20 years. Now 50 ships offload there every month.

  "- Substantial overhauls of the power grid have produced an increase of more than 10 percent in megawattage compared with the prewar figure. 'Right now, we have between 11 and 15 hours per day of electricity in almost all areas of the country that are electrified, and by the end of 2005 our expectation is we will be at 18 to 20 hours,' [Natsios] said.

  "- Rehabilitation of nine sewage treatment plants is expected to lead to an increase of treated waste water by 250 million gallons per day by the first quarter of 2005.

  "- More than 3 million children under the age of 5 have been immunized, and 700,000 pregnant women have been educated in neonatal care. In addition, high-protein biscuits and fortified milk have been distributed to more than 450,000 children and 200,000 pregnant and nursing mothers.

  "- Some 2,500 schools have been repaired as of March and 32,000 teachers trained."

• Natsios adds that the United States had already spent $3.6 billion of $18.4 billion approved by Congress for reconstruction, and currently projects accounting for an additional $9.4 billion are in the planning stages or had already been approved. "Our work in Iraq is the largest reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan," he says (note that most current sources put the money already spent at only $2 billion).
  


• Meanwhile, "U.S. officials announced... they would try to begin 150 more construction contracts in Iraq by the end of [December]. They have begun work on 363 schools, 16 military bases, 88 border posts, 41 clinics and 14 hospitals, among other projects, according to the Defense Department."
  


• Army Brig. Gen. Thomas Bostick, who heads the Army Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division, which together with the Project and Contracting Office administers and conducts most of the reconstruction projects, updates on the progress being made in reconstruction program:
  

  "Bostick explained $12 billion of [$18.4 billion] will go toward physical construction projects and the rest toward 'non-construction type' projects and supplies. He estimated that about $2 billion has been disbursed so far and expects another $2 billion more to be spent by the end of December.

  "Thus far, 57 healthcare centers and 343 schools are under construction, and 12 hospitals are being renovated, Corps officials explained. Other significant project starts include those to generate electricity and to treat water and sewage throughout the country.

  "In addition, about 75 kilometers of roads are also being built, and renovation work is continuing on railroad stations around the country. And there are 12 new police stations and 120 border posts under construction."

• The recent speed-up in reconstruction work is in part due to the change in tactics: "The United States has shifted to smaller, low visibility projects from the high-profile, more expensive ones originally planned and the approach is paying off, said Charles Hess, head of the Project and Contracting Office in Baghdad. 'We have taken all the smaller ones we planned and moved them to the front of the queue. We can get out there with these and have more impact,' said Hess, whose office is in charge of much of the U.S.-funded reconstruction work in Iraq...
  

  "As of Wednesday, Hess said, a daily average of about 100,000 Iraqis were employed on U.S.-funded projects and he expected this would peak to 140,000-150,000 by next summer. Dirt had been turned on 1,167 projects worth about $3 billion and 70 to 100 new ones were starting each week. Of the $18.4 billion, he said, $2 billion had been paid out and $9.6 billion legally contracted with companies to do work."

• From outside the United States, the World Bank has recently signed on a major reconstruction assistance deal:
  

  "The World Bank signed three contracts for Iraqi reconstruction and health projects worth 145 million dollars.

  "The deals for a 65-million-dollar Baghdad water and sanitation project, 25 million dollars for emergency health and 55 million dollars for private sector development were signed in Amman in the presence of Baghdad Mayor Alaa Tamimi.

  "World Bank representative Joseph Saba said the grants were part of the 400 million dollar Iraq trust fund administered by the institution."

• From June 13-16, 2005, a series of exhibitions, workshops and seminars is expected to provide networking opportunities for businesses and agencies participating in rebuilding Iraq: " 'Gateway to Iraq - Exhibition, Business and Investors Summit', a major event to support the reconstruction and economic development programme of Iraq, and to create awareness of the vast investment and trade potential in that country, will be launched in Dubai... The 'Gateway to Iraq' Exhibition will bring together under one roof regional and international companies, offering a range of products and services related to the reconstruction effort in Iraq, and also any company looking to join the list of suppliers who will be supporting the lead contractors in Iraq. Exhibitors will represent a broad spectrum of sectors and interests including Construction & Transportation, Water; Sewage, Oil & Gas, Electricity; Power Generation, Communications; Information Technology, Healthcare & Education, Agriculture; Food, and Non Governmental Organisations."
  


• Meanwhile, back on the ground, what a difference a few months can make in one of the country's worst hot-spots:
  

  "The outdoor markets are busy again and the gridlocked traffic is back. The bands of excited children who walked behind local militiamen heading to battle in the fall now clamor around machinery laying down new water pipes.

  "After spending much of the year as a battlefield between militiamen and U.S. forces, Baghdad's Sadr City district is now embracing peace and reconstruction. Anticipation is high for what the residents of the mainly Shiite district say is their overdue empowerment through elections Jan. 30.

  "Workers in orange jumpsuits are laying asphalt in dozens of potholes dug by the fighters to conceal roadside bombs meant to kill American soldiers. The clerics who replaced their turbans and robes with track suits to join the fight are back in mosques and seminaries."

• Meanwhile, some $120 million dollars has been committed to the reconstruction of Al Anbar province, which included Fallujah:
  

  "Marine civil affairs units are making damage assessments throughout the city and progress has been made in restoring some key infrastructure like water and power...

  "Officials say as the city is cleared of insurgents and unexploded ordnance, announcements will be made that heads of families will be allowed back district-by-district to inspect their homes and businesses...

  "Addresses on food ration cards issued before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq will be used to verify each family resides in the district being opened.

  "US navy Rear Admiral Raymond Alexander says military personnel will be in the city to hand out damage claims forms. 'If their house is damaged, we're going to let them turn in a claim. Their house may be gone, do they want to rebuild or take that cheque and go somewhere else?' he said."

• Navy Reservist from Wisconsin, doctor John Williams of Marshfield is now in charge of rebuilding the health infrastructure throughout the province.
  


• Iraqi Planning Ministry has received 5.7 billion dinars ($3.9 million) to develop projects to redesign and modernize the cities of Kirkuk, Hilla and Kut. Following the successful tendering process to redevelop the city of Najaf, foreign firms will also be welcome to submit their proposals in this latest round. "[Ministry official, Riyadh al-Wazir] said his department's plans included the drawing of new designs for most Iraqi cities. Most Iraqi cities lack modern sewage systems and suffer from chronic shortages of basic public amenities. Oil revenues in the 1970s and 1980s fuelled a reconstruction boom across the country but most of the development was haphazard and poorly planned. 'We want to give each city its special Iraqi identity,' Wazir said. Wazir said his engineers were drawing on experience collected by world organizations such as U.N. Development Program and the World Bank."
  


• Every dollar helps, and the Iraqi government will have a few more of those to spend on reconstruction as 100 million pounds recovered by the British government from the funds hidden away in the West by Saddam is returned to the Iraqi government.
  


• Reconstruction work is currently progressing elsewhere throughout the country. In the Kirkuk province several major projects have already been finished and several more are underway at a total cost of $8 billion. USAID, meanwhile, reports (link in PDF) that "the rehabilitation of a water treatment plant in northern Iraq that will provide clean water to 375,000 At' Tamim residents is 82 percent complete. The plant is more than 10 years old and suffered operational and structural problems before USAID's work began." And elsewhere
  

  "In south central Iraq USAID will soon begin to expand and refurbish a faulty 30-year-old water treatment plant in Karbala that has long experienced structural failures. Before the existing facility is repaired, compact water treatment units will be installed nearby to allow continued water service while the rehabilitation is completed. The Karbala project is scheduled for completion in July 2005. Repairing this plant is particularly important because it supports millions of visitors and religious pilgrims each year. The spring pilgrimage to visit a shrine located near the treatment plant is part of religious life for many Iraqi Muslims."

• In Najaf, meanwhile, USAID's Community Action Program
  

  "has developed 90 projects in 77 communities in Najaf governorate valued at $3.6 million. Initiatives have directly benefited 865,769 Iraqis in addition to 654,403 indirect beneficiaries. Recent Najaf projects include the construction of a health clinic that will serve a combined population of 52,500. The area is located near a shrine that is frequented by many religious visitors each year. A local municipality will donate the land for the clinic, which will be equipped with triage services, a waiting room, an x-ray room, a laboratory, a dental office, and examination rooms. "Community Action Groups in Najaf have also developed projects to build maternity wards near existing health care centers. One $17,000 project will construct and equip a maternity ward with examination and recovery rooms and a pharmacy, serving 84,000 Iraqis. A second $50,000 maternity ward will serve 80,000 people in three communities."

• A major plan to help Iraqi health infrastructure is currently underway:
  

  "The Iraq Project and Contracting Office (PCO) hopes to improve the healthcare situation in Iraq through its Buildings, Health, and Education Sector (BHE). The sector plans to renovate 19 hospitals and build 150 primary healthcare centers (PHCs) throughout Iraq by January 2006...

  "The PHCs will be 15,000 to 21,500 square feet in size and will have physician clinics, dental offices, radiography departments, vaccination centers, labs, pharmacies and classrooms. Some of the PHCs will also include an urgent care center and a birthing center.

  "The equipment provided will cover air conditioners to X-ray machines, patient beds, examination tables, microscopes, incubators, wheelchairs, scales, heart monitors, sterilizers, resuscitation units, defibrillators, pediatric blanket warmers, refrigerators, mammography units, water purifiers, ultrasound equipment, ventilators, stretchers, surgical instruments, dental chairs and dozens of other items.

  "Overall, the PCO will spend more than $700 million on healthcare-related construction and medical equipment in Iraq. This includes $225 million to construct PHCs; $149 million to renovate hospitals; $50 million to construct a pediatric hospital in Basra; $60 million for equipment for hospitals; $70 million for equipment for PHCs; and $165 million for training and general distribution of hospital equipment."

• The US is also funding the training of medical personnel - and not just doctors and nurses, but also "receptionists, medical technicians, orderlies, medical records clerks, medical maintenance personnel and others" throughout all 18 governorates. And in the northern governorate of Diyala, USAID and an international NGO are continuing to do a lot of good work to improve the local health infrastructure (link in PDF):
  

  "- Training 22 doctors in Ninewa, and 18 doctors and 36 nurses in Diyala'.

  "- Providing community outreach health services by establishing six mobile health teams that provided health services to 2,906 patients, provided antenatal care to 176 pregnant women, and vaccinated about 1,116 children and pregnant women in Diyala' Governorate.

  "- Rehabilitating a primary healthcare center in Mosul, which had been closed by the Ministry of Health due to lack of funding for rehabilitation. The center will be handed over to the Directorate of Health in Mosul and about 364 IDPs (52 IDP families) will benefit from its services.

  "- Undertaking a community outreach health promotion initiative using volunteer educators and reaching 3,049 returnee beneficiaries in Northern Iraq and 5,677 IDP beneficiaries in Diyala' Governorate. The NGO's strategy was to identify individuals among IDPs and host populations to provide them training and orient them on health promotion in their communities and villages.

  "- The NGO trained 20 community health volunteers in districts of Ninewa and Erbil, and 18 community health volunteers in Diyala'."

• Progress is also being made in improving the health of Iraqi children, who have suffered greatly under the sanctions regime throughout the 1990s so that Saddam could make a political point. Over three-million children under the age of five have now been immunized and children are also now receiving twice yearly doses of Vitamin A, which are expected to reduce child mortality rates by more than twenty percent.
  


• USAID is also helping Iraqi farmers through its Agricultural Reconstruction and Development Program for Iraq (ARDI). Some of the recent activities include (link in PDF): helping authorities build capacity to collect accurate agricultural data, conducting wheat seed manipulation programs to increase yields, expanding farming tracks, and renovating a veterinary clinic. USAID's Community Action Program, is also assisting: "An animal vaccination campaign has begun in 1,058 At' Tamim villages. With the facilitation of USAID's Community Action Program (CAP), 56 unemployed veterinarians will vaccinate 780,000 sheep and 500,000 chickens that are at risk of pox and Newcastle disease, a highly contagious bird disease that is endemic to Iraq."

HUMANITARIAN AID:

• Operation Iraqi Children, a brainchild of actor Gary Sinise and Laura Hillenbrand, author of the book "Seabiscuit: An American Legend," has become one of the most successful humanitarian actions directed at Iraq. The idea of helping Iraq's next generation came to Sinise during an United Service Organistaion tour in Iraq in November 2003: "I went to this school, and I saw what it did for the troops to go out there and visit these kids and to see these smiling kids... These soldiers had helped to rebuild the school. So when they showed up, the kids just ran out and threw their arms around the soldiers. And the troops are very protective of kids at the school. I just saw a lot of good will there that day, and I wanted to reinforce that in some way."
  

  "So he told the troops that he would gather and ship school supplies back to them so they could take them to the children.

  "In this endeavor to foster good will between U.S. troops and the Iraqi civilians, he and Hillenbrand started an OIC Web site. It was their way of showing people how they could help support the troops and the Iraqi children at the same time. And the response from the military and the public has been terrific...

  "The American public has also embraced the organization. 'We get stuff every week, every day from all over the country,' [Sinise] said. 'Now we're asking for blankets, which they need - (they) desperately need blankets over there. At night it's very, very cold.'

  "Sinise said donations of blankets, shoes and other winter items are being collected for shipment after the holidays because of the high volume of packages shipped at this time of the year.

  "The program wouldn't have become as big as it is without some help, Sinise said. That help comes in the forms of People to People International and the Veterans of Foreign Wars."

• Meanwhile, from Michigan, this smaller but also successful action:
  

  "Beanie Babies are on the ground in Iraq. The humanitarian effort Beanie Baby Aid -- launched by three Ironwood women to get the dolls into the hands of Iraqi children -- has been a success.

  " 'He says they're working,' said Tricia Doan, mother of Army Lt. Anthony Doan. Doan wrote to his mother, asking that she use his income tax return to purchase Beanie Babies for distribution by soldiers to children. She shared the idea with friends Pamela Mack and Lynda Van Rossum.

  "In one month some 5,000 Beanie Babies have been donated. Some 3,000 of them arrived in Iraq Wednesday [1 December], via Air Force cargo plane."

• More beanie babies were collected by students from St. Martin's Lutheran School in Annapolis. And cheerleaders from Saguaro and Horizon high schools and from the Desert Storm Elite gym in Scottsdale, Arizona, have also participated in the "Beanies for Baghdad" action. 800 teddybears, meanwhile, have arrived from North Dakota to the Forward Operating Base Speicher, with thousands more to come.
  


• Students from the Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School in Stoughton have been, in addition to baking and sending cookies to American troops stationed in Mosul, also sending school supplies to distribute to Iraqi children. Students at Glendover Elementary school in Lexington are putting together boxes with schools supplies for their Iraqi peers. And students from Franklin Middle School, Idaho, are participating in the "Operation Iraqi Children" by raising finds to buy school kits for Iraqi students.
  


• Students from the University of Maryland Baltimore County are also doing their bit for Iraqi schoolkids: "Students in the combined Lutheran and Episcopal Ministry at UMBC have joined together with students from the Johns Hopkins University Interfaith Center in collecting and donating school supplies to elementary school children in war-ravaged Iraq. Crayons, colored and regular pencils, paper, markers, notebooks, glue sticks and binders from UMBC were delivered to the Hopkins campus on September 27. The project was originated by Hopkins alum Alexander Kuhns, who graduated in 1997 and who is currently serving in Mosul as an Arabic interpreter for the U.S. Army."
  


• And First Lt. Timothy Jones has inspired Delaware County's Brownie Troop No. 9, of which his daughter Raven is a member, to also help Iraqi children: "Spurred by UNICEF figures showing the toll war is taking on Iraqi children, the Brownies are collecting clothing, blankets and soccer balls to mail to the children... 'They have already collected between 200 and 300 boxes and it continues to go on. I just thought maybe it's going to be 9, 10, 11 boxes something like that. I would never have imagined hundreds of boxes. It's great though. That's more children that's going to be able to receive something, some clothing or maybe a soccer ball,' [Jones] said."
  


• Humanitarian aid also continues to reach Iraq from its neighbors in the region. A fifth Red Crescent Society relief ship from the United Arab Emirates has reached the Iraqi port of Oum Qasar with 400 tons of relief aid, including 20 containers of medical supplies.

THE COALITION TROOPS:

• The Coalition troops are contributing in a significant way to the reconstruction effort, alongside numerous government and private initiatives currently in place: "The Iraq Project and Contracting Office (PCO) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced... that the U.S. government has surpassed the 1,000 construction start mark one month ahead of their year-end goal. The reconstruction team has delivered 1,051 construction starts to-date. 'We're thrilled to have achieved this goal in spite of insurgent activity,' stated PCO Director Charles Hess. 'At the same time, while it is an important mark, it's just a mark on the wall. There are going to be many more. As of today, we have 1,051 projects that have actually started construction, or "turned dirt." Our new goal is 1,200 by the end of the year'."
  


• The 1,050 projects include: schools (363), public health clinics (41), hospitals (14), railroad stations (58), border posts (88), port of entry (6), fire stations (20), police stations (17), military bases (16), water (67), electricity (58), oil (19), sewer (24), roads (66), and various other (194).
  


• The Army Corps of Engineers is specifically involved in a number of security-related reconstruction projects: "Iraq's border-post project is one of the first steps to protecting the country from the influx of insurgents. Construction continues on the borders between Iraq and Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. More than 90 border posts are either under construction or complete... Refurbishing police stations also remains a big focus of the reconstruction... At least 27 stations and 10 vehicle checkpoints have been identified for refurbishment in a province in southern Iraq. Police cadet training has started on a military base in south central Iraq, and work continues on the many police stations in the southern district. Teams have started to assess the needs in different areas, and a direct funding apparatus has been put in place to enable rapid construction of the facilities. Five fire station sites have been identified, and 13 more are being assessed in both the Maysan and Basrah provinces."
  


• Troops continue to work to provide vital infrastructure throughout Iraq. Soldiers from Task Force 1st Battalion, 77th Armor, for example, have recently renovated the Al-Ahabab water treatment plant that provides water for 2,000 local people. The plant hasn't been operational for years. In Sheik Jamil village, near Balad, soldiers from the 13th Corps Support Command Special Troops Battalion have open a new water filtration plant to serve 500 local residents. In Gazaliya, a city of some 250,000 residents, the 1st Cavalry Division's 91st Engineer Battalion has so far spent $1 million on fixing the town's run-down sewer system. The effort also helps to stimulate the local economy: "One of the stipulations in all our projects is that 90 percent of all unskilled labor must be hired from the local area because we try to give jobs to as many people as we can," says Lt. Col. Chris Martin, the battalion's commander.
  


• Meanwhile, a valuable project involving paving a major section of Iraqi transport network has been recently completed:
  

  "Iraq's first national highway running from its northern borders to the Persian Gulf in the south was completed Dec. 5 with the driving of a golden spike.

  "Main Supply Route Tampa, also called Highway or Expressway One, was completed by a combined effort of coalition and Iraqi forces led by the 115th Engineer Group of the Utah National Guard.

  "The golden spike ceremony was patterned after one in Utah 135 years ago when the world's first transcontinental railroad was joined in Promontory Point. The ceremonial driving of a golden spike completed the final link of the railroad on May 10, 1869, joining the U.S. Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

  "The golden spike ceremony for the Iraqi highway was performed by representatives of both Iraq and the coalition. Maj. Gen. Walter Natynczyk, deputy commander of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, hammered the railroad spike into the center of the pavement with a representative of Iraq's Ministry of Housing and Construction."

• The report explains by way of background: "Prior to the paving project, 143 kilometers of the 1,020-kilometer road were unpaved. The U.S. Army adopted the project in cooperation with Iraq in November 2003. Now, at least one lane of asphalt covers the center of Iraq from the northern borders of Turkey and Syria to the southern border of the Persian Gulf. The road construction had never been completed due to difficulties such as the war with Iran, the Gulf War, and issues Saddam had with people of the area, said the Iraqi ministry representative... Since there was no working asphalt plants to produce the materials needed for the road, Iraqis and Coalition Forces shipped bitumen, the naturally occurring tar used successfully for more than 6,000 years in the fertile crescent, and processed it and worked together to pave the road."
  


• A considerable amount of humanitarian work in Iraq is done through Civil Affairs Battalions attached the US forces. Here, for example, you can get a brief snapshot of all the good work that the 411th Civil Affairs Battalion, an Army Reserve unit based in Danbury, Connecticut, is doing in support of the 1st Infantry Division in Diyala province.
  


• The Coalition troops are continuing to support the Iraqi health system, from providing valuable supplies to training for medical personnel. In a typical action, "874th Forward Surgical Team (FST) of the 225th Forward Support Battalion, 2nd BCT received 13 Air Force 463L pallets of humanitarian supplies for local hospitals in the Kirkuk Province. The donated equipment came from a civilian hospital in Columbia, SC." The Public Health Team of the 411th Civil Affairs Battalion has been distributing supplies, including textbooks and medical equipment at the Kirkuk Teaching Hospital. Soldiers from Task Force 1-21 Infantry recently delivered medical equipment to the Kirkuk General Hospital. Soldiers of the Task Force Tacoma, meanwhile, have been helping a doctor in Balad:
  

  " 'We delivered the medical supplies to a local doctor who's not affiliated with the Government,' said Capt. John Ramirez, TF Tacoma, 81st Brigade Physician Assistant. 'He cares for a lot of the local people in the community right out of his house.' Ramirez said donating to this doctor was particularly important because he takes care of many Iraqis who can't afford to go to a local government hospital either because of distance or lack of money."

• In Baqubah, thanks to the teamwork between the local community and the 411th Civil Affairs Battalion publics works team, the local health clinic has been thoroughly renovated and is now operational.
  


• The troops also continued to support Iraqi schools and schoolchildren: near Baqubah, soldiers of the C Company, the 141st Engineer Combat Battalion, 1st Infantry Division distributed 200 backpacks filled with school supplies donated by family and friends back in the US. Soldiers from the 601st Aviation Support Battalion visited the Al Salam School and the Hemrin School near Tikrit with school supplies and other gifts for students. In villages outside of Dibbis, soldiers from Battery C, Task Force 2-11 Field Artillery, along with Iraqi police and airmen, distributed 165 donated school supply bags and refurbished desks at the Qaradara and Baihassan elementary schools: "The school supplies were part of an ongoing Operation Crayon mission that 2nd Brigade Combat Team has been carrying out since September." The Al Shebebea School in Owja has been recently renovated, thanks to the efforts of Alpha Company, Task Force 1-18 Infantry. And Hazaban Primary School in Suleymaniyah has received new kerosone heaters from the soldiers of the civil affairs unit of Task Force Danger.
  


• Soldiers are also engaging in humanitarian work to bring immediately relief to people's lives. In the Shia section of Baghdad, for example, "every day since the Mahdi Militia turned in their weapons in October, there have been dramatic decreases of hostile activity in Sadr City allowing the Soldiers of Task Force Lancer to assist with re-building the neighborhood. Day in and day out, Task Force Lancer has been conducting missions such as: giving out sheep, frozen chickens and humanitarian-aid bags; protecting kerosene and propane stations and escorting sewage trucks to remove pools of sewage from the streets." Says Staff Sgt. Chad Sandoe, 443rd Civil Affairs Battalion: "[Food items] are very well received... We have no problems with giving them out, because we get large crowds when we arrive. Soldiers also get into it by passing out candy, toys and school supplies they receive from donations back home to the kids. The big thing about it is that since hostilities have subsided, we are trying to give something that makes an immediate impact on the people. The major projects we are undertaking are not as visible and take time."
  


• Also in Sadr City, soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team "teamed up with local children and cleaned a trash-covered area in the middle of an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, converting the land into a park. Infrequent visits from the city's trash trucks and no trash bins for people to use had resulted in what was turning into a trash dump, threatening the health of those living nearby.
  

  "Seeing U.S. vehicles entering the area, local children ran to meet the soldiers and ask for candy, which soldiers often bring for them. This time, however, the soldiers distributed tools that the children could use to help in the cleanup. 'Kids always approach us and want candy, but this time we had something for them to do. We wanted to encourage the local children to help themselves by using the rakes and shovels we provided to help clean up,' [1st Lt. Gerald] Kubicek said. 'Since there were a lot of kids out there, we gave school supplies as a token of our appreciation after the work was done.'

  "Kubicek said getting the neighborhood energized was essential to the success of the project. 'We tried to draw the community together by getting different families to help us with this project,' he said. Since trash disposal had been the problem that made the field unusable in the first place, a trash pit was constructed so families have a centralized place for refuse.

  "The following day, a local contractor delivered two swing sets and other playground equipment, giving local kids a place to hang out and play soccer, the Iraqi national pastime. 'Now we have a nice, open park, two swing sets, and a place for them to deposit their garbage, instead of having it laying all over the place,' Kubicek said. 'We have a vested interest in giving something back to the Iraqi people. Projects like this one are a reminder that the American people are here to help'."

• But it's not all big projects and mass actions, as individual soldiers keep helping individual Iraqis. These are people like Doug Stenberg, staff sergeant with the 744th Transportation Company, a Hillsboro New Hampshire resident who never took "no" for an answer in his attempts to obtain proper medical attention to nine-year old Zaharra suffering from a cleft palate and a tumor on her upper jaw. Stenberg's persistence finally paid off after his superiors agreed for military doctors to perform for free an operation that would cost Zaharra's family $1,000. But Stenberg is not alone:
  

  "In a similar story last month, soldiers from the 197th Field Artillery Brigade, headquartered in Manchester, helped 14-year-old Lamia Kareem, an Iraqi citizen, get the surgery she needed to have a tumor removed from the side of her liver. "In another, Stephanie Riley, of Penacook, a chief nurse and major with the 157th Air Refueling Wing of the New Hampshire Air National Guard, spent extra time caring for a toddler who Marines found abandoned and injured in a field in Fallujah. Her husband, Shawn, volunteered to adopt the child but said the couple later found out 'it just would be a near impossibility' because there is no government structure in Iraq through which they could do it legally. Stephanie Riley helped transport the little girl to Germany for care. 'She was the sweetest little thing that just liked to be held, not afraid of anyone,' she said in an e-mail to friends and family. 'One of the many heartbreaking stories that has come out of the war'."

• Other Coalition partners are also continuing their humanitarian and reconstruction work throughout Iraq. "The Japanese Cabinet has made the decision to continue the activities of the Self Defense Forces (SDF) centering on humanitarian and reconstruction assistance by revising the Basic Plan on the measures based on the Special Measures Law on Humanitarian and Reconstruction Assistance in Iraq. Activities of the SDF such as water supply, medical services, as well as rehabilitation and maintenance of schools and other public facilities, have restored and enhanced the basic infrastructure for the life of local residents and also contributed to their job creation." The Japanese forces are based in the Al Samawah region.

DIPLOMACY AND SECURITY:

• Turkey and Iraq are increasing cooperation to deny the northern Iraq as a sanctuary to Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), considered to be a terrorist organization by Turkey, The United States and the EU.
  


• While everyone's attention continues to focus on the Sunni Triangle, the rest of Iraq is full of "dogs that didn't bark." Kirkuk is one of them:
  

  "When the government of Saddam Hussein fell after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, Kirkuk was predicted to be ground zero in an Iraqi civil war. Nearly equal parts Arab Muslim, Kurd and Turkmen, with a number of Iraqi Christians as well, the groups were expected to clash viciously for power, prestige and wealth, setting the stage for a battle that could quickly spread nationwide. "But instead, even as violence and insurgency rages all around it, Kirkuk has defied the odds, becoming one of the most peaceful cities in Iraq. Its economy is growing; its police force is considered a model for the rest of the nation; its City Council meetings are lively and attended by the public."

• Read how it all happened and the role that the US troops are playing in the city: "Unlike in most Iraqi cities, where soldiers live on outlying posts and enter city limits predominantly for patrols, several hundred troops in Kirkuk live in 'safe houses' in the city center. Neighborhood kids swim in their pool; the soldiers send their local interpreters to pick up food from restaurants.
  

  "Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment is one such example. The soldiers live in a sprawling compound in eastern Kirkuk. In nearly a year of living there, they have not taken a single mortar round or attack from a rocket-propelled grenade. "The soldiers know their quadrant of the city as well as any local. Every day they visit schools, talk with religious leaders, visit clinics to check that medical supplies are coming in."

• Throughout the country, Iraq's own new security forces are playing increasingly prominent role in maintaining order and fighting the insurgents and terrorists. The foreign assistance in training and equipping continues to be essential for the development of these domestic forces. During his recent visit to Iraq, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has officially opened NATO headquarters in Baghdad: "Several hundred instructors due in the country will be protected by a NATO force, with the aim of training 1,000 Iraqi officers a year. NATO agreed to send a military training mission to Iraq in principle in June, but struggled for several months to agree the details. It is now rushing to deploy up to 400 instructors in the country ahead of the crucial elections. Lindqvist said NATO at present had 20 instructors in the country and the rest were being trained for the job."
  


• At Forward Operating Base Paliwoda, Capt. Christian Cosner, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Task Force 1-77 Armor, reports on the progress of the training of the 203rd Iraqi National Guard Battalion: "The three companies we're responsible for had just graduated basic training when we first got here and since then, they've become a lot more competent at conducting their missions... They've made our presence here much easier in that they're able to go into the cities and converse with populace because they identify with the ING... They know the people and can gain their trust, which is a great way of gathering intelligence."
  


• Training of Iraqi police continues, too. 66 police officers graduated from special courses ran at the Adnan Training Facility, in the International Zone. "Officers spent two to three weeks negotiating the specialty skill courses intended to augment the standard eight-week police training all officers undergo prior to service and three-week integration training for prior service officers." Another 140 officers graduated from the same facility more recently. And 914 officers - including 52 female officers - graduated from Basic Police Training Courses at the Baghdad Public Safety Academy. In other police training news, FATS Inc has been awarded contract to provide high level training to Iraqi police involving advanced firearm simulation.
  


• Australia has been asked by the Iraqi authorities to extend its training of police and military personnel to also cover intelligence and security services. According to Australia's Defence Minister, Senator Robert Hill, "[Security] Minister [Qassim] Da'ud wants to train a group of new young leaders, possibly within Australia, in the field of intelligence and security, in order to subject them to alternative cultures and a new way of law enforcement that is different to the brutal techniques used by the Saddam Hussein regime... Minister Da'ud said one of Iraq's big challenges was to develop a new psychology within the intelligence and security units after three decades of dictatorship." Australia is also considering providing additional resources for training of Iraqi security forces. These will take the form of a 50-strong defence team to help train supply and transport personnel in the new Iraqi armed forces. "Defence Minister Robert Hill said this marked a shift in the Australian Defence Force's training role in Iraq from combat-operations training to providing specialist logistics skills. Senator Hill said the new 3rd Australian Army Training Team Iraq would replace Australians who have been training members of the new Iraqi army and navy and who will be back in Australia by February."
  


• Meanwhile, the equipping of the new Iraqi security forces continues. In November, for example, the rollout consisted of
  

  "more than 2 million RPK/PKM machine gun rounds; 1.2 million 9mm pistol rounds; 2.8 million AK-47 rounds; 450,000 12 gauge shotgun rounds including 200,000 slug rounds; 999,000 5.6mm rounds; 48 shotguns; 1,000 various-make 9mm pistols; nearly 1,000 RPK and PKM machineguns; 1,120 smoke and riot grenades; roughly 1,900 9mm Glock pistols; 5,400 AK-47 assault rifles; 20 Walther pistols; 78 rocket propelled grenade launchers; 16,000 sets of body armor; more than 7,400 helmets including 150 riot helmets; 44 French-designed Panhard M3 armored personnel carriers; four T-55 Russian-designed heavy tanks; 18 multi-purposed armored vehicles; and four Comp Air 7SL light reconnaissance aircraft. "The rollout also included nearly 200 vehicle and handheld radios; 150 night vision goggles; some 11,000 field jackets; 3,000 cold weather jackets; 2,200 mattresses and beds; 40,000 desert combat uniforms; 11,000 pairs of running shoes; 300 kneepads; 600 tactical vests; 1,000 holsters; 9,500 t-shirts; 1,200 binocular pairs; 1,000 handcuff sets; 20 blunt trauma suits; 1,450 compasses; 132 GPS positioning systems; 800 'MAG' lights; 750 whistles; 4,150 hats; 344 first aid kits; 2,000 canteens; 1,500 police shirts; 2,000 police uniforms; two 2-ton trucks; 14 ambulances; 10 Russian-made GAZ heavy transport trucks; 15 Chevy trucks; 20 Chevy Trailblazers; four dodge Durangos; and 52 Chevy Lumina police sedans."



• The British Defence Ministry also announced a 3.6 million pounds ($7 million) assistance package, which will include "438 AK47 grenade launchers with 18,400 rounds of ammunition, 5,666 9mm pistols with 850,000 rounds, just under one million assorted blank rounds for training and radio equipment."
  


• To increase security along the main highway linking Baghdad with Amman, Jordan, four airplanes will be used for surveillance, giving the security forces on the ground the eyes in the sky. On the ground, meanwhile, "in an effort to discourage insurgents from re-entering this former rebel stronghold, Soldiers from the 216th and 9th Engineer Battalions constructed three traffic control points around Ad Duluiyah in November."
  


• In recent security successes of the Iraqi and the Coalition security forces: the arrest of a bomb maker and two accomplices at Al Duluiyah; detention of 56 suspected insurgents in a joint US/Iraqi action at the village of Bi'aj near Syrian border, and another 66 in the town of Avgani near Tal Afar; the capture in a raid on a sports complex in the east of Baghdad of "several suspected senior level transnational terrorists, including key leaders, operatives, and financiers"; the arrest of 20 suspected insurgents in three Al Rashid District neighborhoods in Baghdad; discovery in in palm groves near Baqubah of weapons caches consisting of "10 mortar tubes, 50 artillery rounds, 193 mortar rounds, 162 rocket propelled grenades, 21 blocks of plastic explosive, 3,840 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition, and boxes of mortar, RPG and mine fuses and propellants"; detention of 22 suspects during a joint American/Iraqi operation in northern Iraq; uncovering by the Danish troops near Basra the largest arms cache found by them so far; the killing of Hassan Ibrahim Farhan Zyda, an aide to Al Zarqawi, and capture of his Zyda's deputies; and further arrests of suspected insurgents at Rasheed, south of Baghdad, following an unsuccessful attack on a police station. And the Iraqi and the Coalition forces continue to successfully foil insurgent attacks.

Terrorism, violence and insecurity continue to plague Iraq, and the pace of reconstruction and the economic reform try the patience of people who, having suffered so much, are starved for a better life. Yet amongst all this, there is good news coming out of Iraq. Soon, the Iraqis will have the opportunity to elect their government and thus institutionalize the process of reform taking place over the last year and a half. A few among them want to turn back the clock to before March 2003, other want to turn it back by hundreds of years, and they will stop at nothing to achieve their dream. Let us hope that the other dream - that of the silent majority of Iraqis - will in the end prevail.

As always, if you have any news tips for the future editions of this series, please email goodnewsiraq “at” windsofchange “dot” net.

« ok, I'm done now

IRAN REPORTS

• Iran continues to develop aspects of their nuclear program, which it promised to halt just this week. Meanwhile, Russia agrees to build seven more reactors in Iran. Thanks, guys.

• Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak states that "Terror and violence would be imposed throughout the Middle East" if the United States attacked Iran." More so than usual?

• David Ignatius says that Iran is about to hit the jackpot in Iraq. Iran is pumping money and agents into Iraq ahead of the elections and the favored electoral slate of Iraq's Ayatollah Sistani, the one that seems most likely to win an electoral majority in the elections, is headed by the cleric who leads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iranian-controlled group.

THE MIDDLE EAST

• Iraq's Defense Minister reacted strongly to the Shiite list's selection of pro-Iranian cleric at the top of the ticket. He also accused Syria and Iran of backing and directing terrorists in Iraq. From the same link, Iyad Allawi formally announced to join the elections backed by a 240-member slate, promising a unity government and to move beyond religious and ethnic fanaticism. The incoming transitional Iraqi National Assembly will have 275 members.

• The commander of U.S. and multinational forces in Iraq states that Iraqi insurgents are operating from Syrian territory and the Syrian government is not doing enough to stop them. He named the group of Ba'athist officials that are directing the insurgency and demanded that "that needs to stop".

• The Center for Security Policy looks at the dangers of making concessions to the Palestinians and the domestic and international forces arrayed against Israel.

• The recent case of Wafaa' Constantine, the Coptic woman who apparently left her husband for a Muslim work colleague and converted to Islam (who knows?), seems to have caused a lot of unresolved tensions between Copts and Muslims to come to the fore.

AMERICAN DOMESTIC SECURITY

• Hezbollah's TV outlet has been designated as a terrorist entity, and will not be able to be transmitted via American communications satellite.

• A recent poll indicates almost half of American would be in favor of restricting the rights of American Muslims.

AFRICA

• Rwanda's President is threatening that his troops will cross back into the Congo in hot pursuit of Hutu cross-border attackers and that Africa's bloodiest war may be reignited. He blamed France indirectly for not disarming Hutu fighters and has previously accused France of actually training them. The Congo has replaced its army commander in the region.

• The humanitarian situation in Darfur is on the verge of utter collapse. The wanton killing of two Save The Children workers by a drunken rebel commander and Khartoum's resorting to the arrest of aid workers (including four Dutch nationals) are a factor. The statistics from a UN report bear out the deteriorating situation and even understate it: food delivery has declined from 70% of those needing it to 57%. A very serious outbreak of dysentery in Western Darfur and UN agencies have issued a warning that Sudan is in the middle of a massive outbreak of polio, 3 years after it was declared polio-free. The genocide is accelerating.

ASIA & AUSTRALIA

• Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vows to crush foreign and domestic terrorists in the country, particularly in Baluchistan. That's some Christmas list.

• Recent high-profile arrests indicate that the Taliban may now be a spent force.

• Pakistani security chiefs are accusing the United States of providing bunk intelligence on al Qaeda whereabouts, calling US intelligence assistance "more harmful than helpful" and saying that less than 5% of US tips on terrorist concentrations panned out.

• Indonesian police discover bombs after heightening security measures in light of terror warnings. Australia said Wednesday that a major terrorist attack is imminent in Indonesia against Western interests.

• Pakistan has offered a bounty for former Gitmo prisoner Abdullah Mehsud for attacking federal troops and kidnapping two Chinese engineers.

• Interpol believes Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda's CFO and bin Laden advisor, is hiding out along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

• Thailand's Prime Minister is accusing Malaysia and Indonesia of being linked to some of the terrorists who are involved in violence in Thailand's south. He said that the terrorists are being trained in the northern jungles of a Malaysian state and that Indonesian religious students influence them.

EUROPE

• A French court sentences ten members of an Islamist cell to prison terms of up to ten years for their role in a bomb plot against a Christmas market in Strasbourg.

• As a part of the ongoing "Operation Nova", which in previous phases led to the breakup of several terrorist cells including one that was planning attacks on the National Court complex in Madrid, Spain has arrested two terrorists who were scouting out a nuclear plant and they are expected to be questioned by magistrates soon. One of the two men is said to be friends with Sarhan bin Abdilmajeed, one of the suicide attackers in the 3/11 attacks.

THE GLOBAL WAR

• Dean Esmay looks at the issue of recruitment in the United States Armed Forces. All services have met their recruiting goals except the Army National Guard.

• The CIA has been running a prison within a prison at Guantanamo Bay for extremely high value War on Terror detainees who might be interrogated for years, ones that CIA traditionally asked countries like Egypt and Jordan to keep incarcerated. The CIA has unique authorities thanks to a presidential directive to capture and hold certain classes of prisoners without publicly accounting for them, or the treatment they receive, in any way. The Red Cross has been allowed to visit all the detainees that CIA is keeping.

• A US security contracting company is recruiting Colombian combat veterans, active-duty and retired, for oil infrastructure security roles. An interviewed candidate points out that the company is being very careful and thoroughly vetting candidates for human rights violations.

We try to close on a lighter note if possible.

• Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is upset that he hasn't been rewarded enough for giving up his nuclear program (keeping his job and head apparently weren't reward enough). He declares that he's interested in Italy's top job after 35 years of running Libya. Says he: "My program is to give the power to the Italian people... To let the Italian people be independent, with no representation, no go-betweens, no government... to have the power in the hands of the people and nobody else, because any form of representation is a fraud. These are just a few points of my agenda that I would propose if I were to run for office in Italy," he concludes. "I let the Italian people judge.""

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For ongoing tips, email "MondayWindsOfWar", over here @windsofchange.net.

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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• A bomb exploded at the gates of Karbala's Imam Hussein Shrine, the most holy of Shia's shrines in Iraq. The blast killed a top aide to Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani and wounded Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalayee, who was the likely target.

• Who are the insurgents in Mosul? Stryker Brigade News has details regarding our best information at this time. Note the presence of Ansar al-Sunna, and also the "rent-out" phenomenon. Fortunately, Iraqi forces are getting better at dealing with them.

• Few will forget the excitement generated by a soldier's questioning Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last week. But bloggers of the year Powerline note that the soldier's unit had precisely 20 unarmored vehicles when he asked that question, and all of its vehicles are up-armored now. That story probably won't get quite as prominent coverage, though.

• They led the charge into Iraq and made the thunder run into Baghdad that will be remembered in the annals of warfare. Now the Rock of the Marne is returning to Iraq. Rebuilt as the first of the Army's 'units of action,' a new structure designed to be more flexible, 3d Infantry Division will test the new structure on the field of battle in January.

• From The Questing Cat, The Jersey Cowboy talks about an early Christmas present arriving at his FOB in Iraq. Meanwhile, The Questing Cat discusses the dichotomy between a soldiers life in Iraq and a soldier's life in the "real world", while on leave in Germany.

RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY

• The international airport in Basra is undergoing a USD $5 million rennovation and security screening upgrade project and will be ready for commercial air traffic by July 2005.

IRAQI POLITICS

• The Belgravia Dispatch examines some of the threats facing the coming elections and asks some tough questions about the strategy being employed in Iraq. Meanwhile the Belmont Club examines how the elections may affect Iraq's neighbors, and how they're approaching the elections.

• Campaigning has begun in earnest in Iraq. Prime Minister Allawi is one of the many running for various offices in the first national elections since 1969. It is reported there are nearly 5000 candidates for the various offices among 83-100 separate candidate lists.

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, responding to criticism begun in October about the UN's meager support for the upcoming elections, has stated the UN will increase its support of the Iraqi elections, if need be.

• It takes a rare kind of courage to observe an election in a country torn by violence aimed at halting the elections. Apparently more courage than can be found among the world's international election observers, who are opting out of overseeing Iraq's elections in January due to the risks. (Where's Jimmy Carter when you need him?)

ETCETERA

• Another mass grave has been found in Northern Iraq, which is believed to contain 500 bodies - likely Kurds. PM Allawi made this gruesome announcement to the Iraqi National Council on Tuesday.

• Ali at Iraq the Model is hanging up his blogging shoes in response to unspecified issues that likely spring from Juan Cole's asinine accusations. Here's the complete link compilation regarding this brouhaha.

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. And if you have a tip for a future Iraq Report, email us at MondayIraqReport(at)windsofchange.net.

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"This is easy to miss. Conventional assessments of TAZARA, which rely on large-scale, international and transregional indicators rather than small-scale, everyday traffic in goods and people, are typically unfavorable. But local traders, farmers, and workers use the railway in many ways to improve their lives, and an analysis of these railway-platform markets suggests that the standard assessments overlook something real and important. This is what I learned from studying TAZARA with a team of researchers from 1998 to 2003. We collected passenger-parcel receipts, interviewed passengers, and observed daily life in the railway corridor. We found that TAZARA has been an important resource for the development of a thriving entrepreneurial economy along the route from Kilsoa to Mbeya, in southern Tanzania. Today TAZARA connects local communities and provides farmers with the physical, social, and economic mobility they need to contend with rural Africa’s unpredictable economic conditions. And its successes—though unanticipated and hard to measure with any precision—may suggest some important lessons for economic development elsewhere."

Hopefully, the lessons re: appropriate technology, maintenance, thinking ecologically from the outset etc. are equally clear. Read the whole story and decide for yourself what it all means.

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Mullah received them and treated them well.

A week later, two young people knocked on Nasrudin’s door.

“Who are you?”

“We’re the neighbors of the man who gave you the duck.”

Mullah began to lament having accepted a gift so inconvenient as that duck. Still, he smiled and invited the guests in to eat.

Eight days later, a whole family showed up and asked Mullah for some hospitality.

“Who are you?” asked Mullah, a bit irritated by the invasion.

"We’re the neighbors of the neighbors of the man who gave you a duck."

Mullah acted as though he were perfectly pleased and invited them all in to the dining room. After a few minutes, he appeared with a huge soup kettle full of hot water. He happily filled his guests’ bowls with this liquid.

One of them spoke up for the group and asked: "What is this, noble sir Mullah? For Allah’s sake, we’ve never seen such a soup!"

"This is the broth of the broth of the broth of the duck that I’m happy to offer to you, the neighbors of the neighbors of the man who gave me that damned bird," Nasrudin calmly replied.

What is the duck, and what are the family members and neighbors really after?

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Religious Hate:

• The Metroplex Organization of Muslims in North Texas held a tribute last Saturday to “The Great Islamic Visionary” – and that would be Ayatollah Khomeini. LGF links to a World Net Daily piece with a roundup of the speakers and their backgrounds; one of whom claimed ignorance of the theme of the event – despite this poster announcing the event (which has conveniently disappeared from the main site). Should the youngsters question why this matters, Robert Spencer rewinds the tape to where the Ayatollah tells us how he really feels:

  “Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter [their armies].... Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur’anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”

  The ROPMA crowd may thus count Khomeini among their number.

• Via LGF, a fascinating article in Haaretz documenting the sectarian hatred and paranoia among Palestinian terrorists. Hamas Sura Council member Fathi Hamad was caught on tape complaining about the rising influence of Islamic Jihad:

  “An Islamic Jihad takeover would means the Shi'ites take over, and if that happens you will all be turned into heretics .... We must fight and clash with all those who are not Sunni and guarantee our faith remains pure.”

  And who is responsible for advancing Islamic Jihad? Israelis and Americans, of course!

  "Wherever Jihad fighters fought, Muslims, meaning Sunni Muslims like Hamas showed up, and then the hypocritical Sh'iites came and sat down on the chairs that became available. This is an American, Zionist, Arab Shiite plot," he said. [emphasis mine]

  Hammad goes on to complain about “press bias”, but notes approvingly one reporter:

  Hamad says on tape that Hamas man Faiz Abu Smala works for the BBC, "and that way he writes the story in favor of the Islam and Muslims."

  …the Islam and the Muslims - meaning, of course, Hamas exclusively. I support the idea that Islam is not a monolithic construct and I hope Fathi Hamad comes to agree.

• Ben Johnson defends the claim that the Muslim Students Association is a pro-terror organization in Frontpage, which publishes a recent dialog on the issue.

  The heart of Alqurashi’s grievance is his claim that we wrongly branded the MSA as a pro-terrorist organization. He quotes that group’s constitution’s statement that it exists to “serve the best interests of Islam and Muslims in the United States.” This is like saying the Ku Klux Klan is merely an “organization of White Christians dedicated to the truth and education.”

  This is some harsh rhetoric, but the substance is valid: innocuous sounding charter language is not a defense against close scrutiny, particularly where Saudi funded Wahhabi organizations are concerned. Johnson goes on to enumerate specific instances where one may reasonably conclude that MSA members or guest speakers are supportive of terrorist actions. But read the whole thing to decide for yourself.

• “After mosques, prisons are probably the most important recruitment centers for Islamists” states this article by JINSA (via Jihadwatch). The article discusses the problems posed faced by the prison system in Europe and elsewhere, including recidivism, radical proselytizing, and outright terror planning:

  The fact that Islamist prisoners are repeat offenders is not that surprising when one understands that they are ideological criminals that base their actions on a utopian ideology. Jihad, in their eyes, will eventually lead to a perfect Islamic world, in which Muslims rule by Islamic law. They strongly believe that their actions in support of jihad are not only religiously justified but are in fact a religious duty.

  The article recommends measures similar to dealing with organized crime, e.g. limiting contacts among known radical Islamists in the prison system. The spread of Islamic radicalism in prison is also echoed by this NYT article (again via Jihadwatch) on the situation in France

  Those who are detained or convicted for terrorist-related crimes are not always separated from the larger prison population and are often ready to act as spiritual guides at a time when mainstream Muslim chaplains are in severely short supply. Abdullah (prison rules prevented him from giving his last name) said that while he was at Fleury-Merogis, militants were active in the prison yard, preaching that Christians and Jews are enemy infidels.

  The population of the French prison system possibly 60% Muslim – it is illegal to keep statistics on this. I’d agree with the Times here in that neglect in this case is not benign.

• Robert Spencer writes in Frontpage about Coptic Christians in Egypt being forced to convert to Islam.

  Wafaa Constantine Messiha, wife of a Coptic priest in Egypt, was abducted by jihadist Muslims and forced to convert to Islam. The Mubarak regime has done nothing. This is no isolated incident: Wilfred Wong of the Jubilee Campaign, a Christian human rights group, notes that “the attempts to force Christians to convert to Islam in Egypt are on the increase and the methods are getting increasingly varied and well organized.

  Three thousand gathered in Cairo to protest this a few weeks ago. This is a story which deserves more attention.

  [UPDATE 12-19: Discarded Lies has a much more thorough treatment. The situation is muddled at best, the Frontpage treatment is likely overstated, and the Copts may also be applying pressure to Wafaa Constantine.]

• I see the picture, but I just can’t believe it. See for yourself.

  An Iranian man prepares his daughter, who is a member of a suicide commandos unit, by covering her face in the same style of Palestinian and Lebanese militants, during a ceremony where the first suicide commandos unit was inaugurated at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery just outside Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2004.

  Somehow I doubt this father is really prepared to lose his daughter like this – perhaps, per the Iranian disavowal of this group that I linked to previously, this is just an “idea limited to theory”. But hey, I suppose it’s the thought that counts.

• We’ve heard about the indoctrination of children in Pakistani madrassas. But what about web sites aimed at children which inveigh against loving your neighbor unless they are Muslim? This is from a site targeting kids called simply “Play and Learn”:

  Having even a little bit of love towards the unbelievers would never be a proper attitude for a believer.

  Unspinnable.

Idiotarian Seethings:

• Mark LeVine is a UC Irvine professor famous for suggesting that the West call a hudna (temporary truce) with the radical Islam. Robert Spencer explains why this guy, for all his erudition, makes no sense – and follows up with a retraction for what he gets wrong. While I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the term, I feel the “idiotarian” label is appropriate for LeVine, on accout of his eschewing all but the most perfunctory acknowledgement that the primary moral responsibility for terror lies with the terrorists.

• JK: A fault increasingly shared by Buchanan and the anti-war Right in America. Moonbat conspiracy theories. America as evil, oppressive and deserving of any misfortune. Rewriting of history, and denial of objective reality. Politics as rage, and vice-versa. If you think these things are confined to the left, think again.

• Via LGF we learn that several schools in northern Italy are forgoing their Christmas plays and nativity scenes. These Italian schools believe it is incumbent on them to exile the symbols and traditions of Christianity from public life in the name of reducing tension with Muslim immigrants. I’m afraid the effect will be quite the opposite.

• In an otherwise unremarkable article on Islam and Europe we find this gem from Islamic Human Rights Commission chairman Massoud Shadjare:

  "We do need infrastructure to limit extremism," said Shadjareh, "and this has to come from all sides. If the Dutch government had prosecuted van Gogh for his racism, he may have been alive. I'm not saying that anything, absolutely anything legitimizes a killing, but we also need to limit hate speech — on all sides. [emphasis mine]"

  Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda.

• Finally, no section entitled “idiotarian seethings” would be complete without linking this piece by Michael Moore. Don’t even think about reading the whole thing.

Race and Culture:

• Iranian TV is running Al-Shatat (“The Diaspora”), a kind of extended dance mix of every anti-Semitic conspiracy theory presented as historical fact. This ran on Hizballah TV last year (Al-Manar – see below for more). See the clips at Palestinian Media Watch (and look around the site while you’re there).

  The series revolves around the "Secret Jewish World Government," whose members meet and plan how to use their control and influence over the leaders of the world to direct all of history. The Jewish Government is shown plotting and causing the Communist revolution in Russia, the World Wars, encouraging the Nazi murder of Jews in the Second World War, and engineering the use of atomic bombs on Japan.

  BTW, Joe, have you gotten your check from the Mossad this month? Mine hasn’t come yet.

• Two weeks ago I reported that Hizballah TV channel Al-Manar had retained it’s license to broadcast in France. Now via LGF comes the news that Al-Manar has now been banned there:

  France's broadcast regulator, the Higher Audiovisual Council (CSA), put the case before the court after Al-Manar broadcast a statement November 23 by a speaker accusing Israel of disseminating AIDS (news - web sites) in the Arab world. The CSA had granted a license to the channel on November 19 on condition it respect French laws prohibiting racist comment.

  LGF also links to a summary of a new book on Al-Manar posted at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Commenting on Al-Manar’s new take on gangsta hip hop:

  Al-Manar officials assert that they strive to create music videos with the level of professionalism that they see on U.S. television networks, specifically MTV. The videos themselves tend to feature violent images and incendiary language. By the station's own admission, these elements are meant to foster suicide operations by inciting individual viewers toward violence. For example, Ayat al-Akhras, a young Palestinian woman, reportedly watched al-Manar incessantly before blowing herself up in front of a Jerusalem supermarket in March 2002, killing two Israelis and wounding twenty-eight others.

  The author suggests steps to deal with Al-Manar, including this:

  The United States should enforce existing laws that ban U.S. citizens and companies from working with SDGT entities and FTOs. In doing so, the U.S. government should close down al-Manar's Washington bureau (housed within the Associated Press's Washington bureau) and consider pressing criminal charges against the bureau's chief, Muhammad Dalbah. [emphasis mine]

  N.B.: SDGT stands for Specially Designated Global Terrorist; FTO for Foreign Terrorist Organizations. It appears some of these suggestions are being acted on. And lest this be cast as a “purely Israeli problem”, consider that Al-Manar aims plenty of vitriol at the U.S. as well:

  Al Manar brainwashes its audience, including its viewers in the U.S., that America's foreign policy is designed to "enslave the governments and people of the Middle East and their resources."Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, Hizbollah's spiritual leader, as well as Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Ayatollah Khomeini are often quoted on al Manar vilifying America, its leaders and its policies.

  Remember, Israel is only the little Satan.

• Via Drudge: Six garden beds in Melbourne, Australia have been planted with swastika floral arrangements, just in time for Hanukah celebrations.

  Holocaust Museum president Shmuel Rosenkranz described the flower fiasco as offensive to most Melburnians. "Any swastika anywhere would be of offence to anybody who lived through the Hitler era," he said.

  Exactly right. The story indicates that the “pattern” was “inadvertent” [pfffft – ed], but consider this artwork, also in Melbourne – coincidence?

• A diptych on attitudes in Europe: turns out nearly half of Britons are unaware of Auschwitz: Contrast this with this fact: most Germans think the IDF is as bad as the Nazis. I’m assuming (hoping) that the rate familiarity with Auschwitz is a higher in Germany than it is in Britain – which makes this equivalence all the more appalling. How do you say “projection” in German? More on the evolution of German attitudes on Jews and Israel here.

• JK: This issue came up in the comments, and Discarded Lies has a post too good to miss. It's entitled "We Have Nothing Against Jews."

  "We think that all peoples have the right to self-determination, except Jews, and including even the make-pretend "Palestinian people". But that does not mean we have anything against Jews as such.
  
  We hate it when people blame the victims, except of course when people blame the Jews for the jihads and terrorist campaigns against them. But that does not mean we have anything against Jews as such...."

  It's darkly funny, and it will come to mind often as you hear stuff just like this.

• There are a number of pretty dubious ideas out there concerning Islamophobia – but genuine Islamophobia surely does exist. What would it sound like? CAIR has demanded an apology from the Simon Wiesenthal Center for remarks made by Bruce Tefft, a former CIA official, in a panel discussion sponsored by an affiliated organization at the University of Toronto. Let’s look at Tefft’s statements:

  “Islamic terrorism is based on Islam as revealed through the Qu’ran.”

  Defensible, but also quite debatable and needlessly inflamatory. Discussion of the basis of terrorist actions in authentic Islamic traditions should be permitted, but I believe one is obliged to be careful.

  “To pretend that Islam has nothing to do with Sept. 11 is to willfully ignore the obvious and to forever misinterpret events.”

  Quite defensible, if “Islam” is taken to mean the whole of the tradition, which certainly contains very problematic elements.

  “There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, which is a totalitarian construct.”

  This is where Tefft falls down – Islamic tradition contains elements which hardly qualify as totalitarian. It does not require paranoia on the part of a moderate Muslim to hear Islamophobia in Tefft’s voice here.

A Hopeful Note:

• Three Muslim organizations have been found liable for damages in the shooting death of American teenager David Boim at the hands of Hamas. Daniel Pipes has the details:

  Arlander Keys, the judge in this case, established that “the Boims need only show that the defendants were involved in an agreement to accomplish an unlawful act and that the attack that killed David Boim was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the conspiracy.” This ruling places other civil cases, most notably the one linking Saudi royals to 9/11, on much firmer legal ground.

  Money is speech, but it is also action, and here the legal connection between action and responsibility has become a few shades clearer.

• A number of Hamas affiliated websites in the US have been shut down following inquiries by World Net Daily. While it is acknowledged that Hamas will likely be successful in reestablishing these sites elsewhere, it is important to keep the pressure on terror groups like Hamas by enforcing existing laws against terrorist organizations.

• Perhaps the inevitablity of Eurabia has been overstated: Consider this Times of London article surveying the reaction of various civil and government actors to the growing influence of political Islam in Europe.

  The left wing, which long shunned criticism of Islam as the stock-in-trade of Jean-Marie le Pen, the far-Right leader, now denounces the “totalitarian”, anti-feminist, antisemitic doctrines of the fundamentalists. Jacques Julliard, a leading left-wing commentator, said the Left’s longstanding tolerance had been used as “an agent for the penetration of Islamic intolerance”.

  A crack in the de facto alliance between the Islamists and the Left?

• Lastly, here’s something I didn’t expect: with the arguable exception of this article on Qaradawi, every single one of the Special Dispatches at MEMRI in the last two weeks have been positive or at least contained some positive elements (e.g. some “frank exchanges of views” in civil society in Iran and Syria). A statistic worth noting.

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ISRAEL

• In the realm of possibility, two steps forward, one step back… while some parties in both the Palestinian and Israeli camps indicate a willingness to move toward reconciliation, others will continue to fight for the impossible, no matter what the cost in blood or tears shed ultimately shed as a result of their squabbles.

• Ariel Sharon has declared the coming year to be an unprecedented opportunity for peace with the Palestinians.

• It would seem that some American Christian churches are willing to put their money where their mouths are - not necessarily good news for Israel or for peace and understanding.

• In last Saturday’s Good News post, reader Nikita pointed us to a wonderful website called Israel2c, telling us about such things as a new Israeli fruit hybrid called a pomelit has been shown to lower cholesterol, and a breakthrough by an Israeli researcher who has discovered the cause of bad breath.

THE PALESTINIANS

• Speaking of conjecture, where there's a terrorist, there's a conspiracy theory to justify his existance (or lack thereof) - there’s a buzz amongst the Palenstinians to discover what really killed Arafat? Besides old age, a failing liver? That portait up in the attic that finally saw daylight?

• The Palestinian National Conservatory of Music sounds a bright tone for Palestinian children throughout the Middle East.

• In an interesting callback to the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords, Jimmy Carter is slated to supervise the Palestinian Authority’s elections on January 9th.

SYRIA & LEBANON

• Lest we forget those who have suffered anywhere, there are always the duties of memory as served by photography to remind us - Josee Lambert, a Canadian photojournalist and human rights activist, has put together a book of her documentary work in Southern Lebanon appropriately titled, “They Called Them Terrorists.”

• Lebanon remembers that the enemy of my enemy is my friend - opponents of the Syrian-backed government unite in common cause, despite their mutually antagonistic history.

EGYPT & ELSEWHERE

• Egypt’s long-standing ban against public protests has been broken by an anti-Mubarak demonstration calling for an end to his 23-year reign as President.

• Not all liberal literates in Egypt have been silenced by the last decade’s rising tide of Islamo-fascism, as proved by one brave woman’s bid for the Presidency.

• A push to raise the economic possibilities in the region saw fruition this week as Egypt and Israel sealed a $500 million dollar annual trade deal the US has been pushing for.

• Despite many Egyptians’ anger over the release back to Israel of Azzam Azzam, the swap of the Israeli Druze for a group of Egyptian students is another sign of the warming trend between Israel and Egypt.

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It is generally accepted that US strategic communications since the beginning of WWIV has been nearly as impotent as our military has been effective. Those participating in the effort don’t disagree. A notorious recent study by the DOD's Defense Science Board, written by a panel drawn from both State and Defense, stated:

"Strategic communication is a vital component of U.S. national security. It is in crisis, and it must be transformed with a strength of purpose that matches our commitment to diplomacy, defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security…. To succeed, we must understand the United States is engaged in a generational and global struggle about ideas, not a war between the West and Islam. It is more than a war against the tactic of terrorism. We must think in terms of global networks, both government and non-government." (p. 2)

(NB: The original report is here if you wish to check my excerpts. Cites are to the pagination of the original paper report, not the large PDF file.)

Dilemmas and Disruption

In business and high technology, the notion of the "innovator's dilemma", advanced by Clayton Christensen, is now so well accepted as to be trite. For any not yet bombarded with this meme, it is a way of explaining the frequent failing of businesses that are otherwise well-managed to anticipate and respond to innovations that eventually end up damaging or destroying their own enterprise when in the hands of insurgent competitors. It observes that many technologies have characteristic adoption ('S') curves whose effect is to facilitate learning and scale economies by winning incumbents. A new technology will have neither the maturity nor scale economies to address the incumbent's existing market, or to appear significant in scale. However, it may find toehold markets where its immaturity and other drawbacks are overlooked due to other benefits. New competitors take hold and grow in this protected niche, igniting their own adoption and learning curves, which may eventually overtake the incumbents' own technology and market base.

When you see the phrases "disruptive technology" or "two curve problem", you are in the presence of this meme, which is often appropriate to a crisis situation precipitated by change.

Is strategic communications perceived to be at such a point? Judge for yourself from the language of the DSB report:

"The argument of this report, then, is that this dynamic must be changed. In essence, this means the U.S. must adopt the strategies and tactics of the insurgent, not the incumbent: waging a proactive, bold and effective U.S. strategic communication effort." (p. 50)

If there is a two curve problem lurking here, what is its nature? It will be no surprise at all to denizens of the blogosphere, who have first-hand knowledge of both the means and the results:

"Al Jazeera, CNN, and other television networks dominate discussion of the information and media environment. But a host of information technologies — in addition to satellite TV — are creating greater global transparency: cell phones, wireless handhelds, videophones, camcorders, digital cameras, miniaturized fly away units used by TV crews in remote locations, high resolution commercial space imaging, blogs, and email. Many are cheap; costs are declining. …. Transparency creates threats and opportunities – and changes in the strategy/tactics dynamic. Tactical events can instantly become strategic problems (digital cameras in Abu Ghraib). On the other hand, transparency can show strategic threats more clearly and enhance the capacity to undercut an opponent’s political will and ability to mislead (embedded media in Iraq)….. Information saturation means attention, not information, becomes a scarce resource. Power flows to credible messengers. Asymmetrical credibility matters. What's around information is critical. Reputations count. Brands are important. Editors, filters, and cue givers are influential. Fifty years ago political struggles were about the ability to control and transmit scarce information. Today, political struggles are about the creation and destruction of credibility." (pp. 19-20)

Narrowcasting. Internet. Digital media. Channel bypass. Attention economics. Brands. Trust. Yes, we've heard this before.

War and the Second Curve

An aside here: I'm fully aware that the report also made some pointed observations about US policy; after all, it's the use of those passages for thrashing the administration that has made the report notorious. I read them more as "Don't blame us if we can't sell inherently unpopular measures." Fair enough. In the context of a war, which is the attempt to impose or break will by force, there will be unpopular policies – else why the war?

The necessity of measures not saleable by persuasion is inherent. I'm concerned here with the framework within which strategic positions and particular measures which may be saleable are communicated. In the struggle to destroy Islamofascism without precipitating the Armageddon that Al Qaeda desires, our efficacy in communications may determine what fraction of our goals are met by force, and which by conveying that our ends are just, though our means may be necessarily inimical at times.

Now, what should the US government do about adapting its strategic communications, from both its military and civilian components, to the existence and apparently burgeoning growth of this second curve of communications technology? Let's start with a mini-quiz: Following are two passages, both about the uses of the deployed armed forces in a strategic communications context. One is drawn from the recommendations of the DSB task force, one is an outside writer. Your job is to detect which is which. No fair Googling. Passage one:

"Therefore, in the next war, while the media provide the global cosmopolitan perspective, the troops themselves may well provide the American one. The fact is that most grunts can’t stand to be portrayed as victims. The quietly mounting trend of American soldiers and Marines writing about their experiences and posting them on weblogs rather than having their experiences interpreted by transnational journalists is proof enough…. The parts are all in place for an explosion of this type of commentary. Almost all the troops have their own laptops and access to cybercafes at their bases. The American perspective does not whitewash problems or claim a situation is better than it is, but it does promote warrior virtues and submerge the cult of victimhood…."

Passage two:

"Among the assigned tasks was to define “lanes in the road” regarding Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy and PSYOP…. Major military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq—followed in each case by a very difficult post-conflict phase—produced unprecedented demands on already undermanned and under equipped PSYOP forces…. U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) received a significant plus-up in fiscal year 2004 (FY04) for PSYOP and Civil Affairs; $205 million for the next five years for PSYOP forces and equipment—including a trans-regionally focused PSYOP unit—and significant increases in both reserve and active duty force authorizations for Civil Affairs."

The language of government reports is distinctive, shall we say, so you have likely spotted the first as the interloper. In fact, it's a passage from Robert Kaplan's recent article in Policy Review. The real point is to spot the one that reflects second curve thinking. I submit that's also the outsider's work.

Kaplan's second curve piece talks about individual soldiers who are empowered, have already taken things into their own hands, and who are projecting their own ethos, a message writ both within the lines and between them. This portion of the panel recommendations (one of seven) talks about clear divisions of responsibility, focusing on official roles and resources. Which is more likely to produce an outcome both timely and responsive to the challenge?

Here's a hint: Spirit of America's Jim Hake reports Paul Wolfowitz as saying it takes him 21 days to get a memo approved, the same time it has taken SoA to get goods on the ground in Iraq.

I am not saying that the DSB's recommendations are unnecessary, but that they are insufficient. The panel ponders the business sector practice of brand management (e.g., p. 49) and market identification (e.g., p. 42) and suggests that the government should create an organizational consciousness and structure that reflects these best practices. If implemented, this will have a hope of bringing strategic communications practices up to the standards of cable television and magazine based marketing.

They will be doing this at the same time that larger companies are already moving away from these kinds of marketing due to media clutter, demographic flight, and consumer cynicism, other aspects of the same second wave of communications.

The DSB's program is a recipe for both improvement, and remaining behind the second curve. Forced to speak in terms of budgets and defined lanes and roles, it will be going up against self-organizing groups of Islamists – and Marines.

(Update: Dean B, in comments, recommends the AEI 'Hearts and Mind' forum of 12/8, which is exactly on point. Raw transcript here.)

Controlling the Second Curve?

The DSB does tip its hat to the private sector, more than once. Among its recommendations are the creation of a quango foundation for strategic communications that will dispense grants to a hopefully diverse and inspired collection of grant seekers, who are undoubtedly already considering what will go into their proposals (p. 69). Meanwhile, Jihad Unspun and Spirit of America both go on their way.

I wish the governmental effort well, but second curve events are already well underway and will proceed regardless, the point of my earlier post on citizens' diplomacy. See, for instance, Mudville Gazette:

"...ponder this: An American GI in Iraq just linked to and commented about an Iraqi citizen, who was linking and commenting on a post from an ex-pat from Poland now living in Australia and providing information to the world on the situation in Afghanistan. What does it all mean? That's entirely up to you..."

Quod erat demonstrandum. Can there be a productive interface between the two approaches?

Control or even modulation of the second curve is out of the question. One of the responses to my earlier post was Paul Musgrave's, essentially suggesting that we need to be more self-conscious about our rhetoric on the net. This is the global equivalent of "Keep your voice down, dear, the neighbors can hear you." Our global neighbors have long been able to hear us, but in a voice altered and muffled by the sensationalizing, but centralizing influences of mass media. Now they can also hear the full range and chaos of our political voices, from wingnuts to moonbats, some of which may confirm the worst of the suspicions cultivated by Islamists. And now we know they hear.

This is irreversible, because there is one thing in common, across the spectrum from Freepers to Miliitant Middle to Indymediots. They will not shut up, especially if commanded by government. In this, they are American. And there lies hope, because the organizing genius of the second curve is common purpose, loosely connected. It is how Al Qaeda is organized, and likely how we must respond.

We Hold These Truths...

This makes Armed Liberal's discussion regarding common ground between the hawks and the left all the more poignant. If we differ radically on our views on means, and even on the realities underlying those means, where is the common purpose? Other than loudness, what strategic message will emanate from America? In this, the DSB report stands on its strongest ground, with three message themes (p. 56):

• Respect for human dignity and individual rights
• Individual education and economic opportunity
• Personal freedom, safety and mobility

Or as an earlier, simpler age put it: "We hold these truths to be self-evident…". If we still do, we must hope that truth will come through amidst the unstoppable cacophony of our voices. When a real second curve problem comes along, the solution is not in rearranging bureaus, but in going back to deepest principles. Can we still agree that all men, American or not, are deserving of life, liberty, and their pursuit of happiness?

If so, regardless of our strident disagreements on how we get there, it may be the best strategic communication we can send, and the citizenry can do so more effectively than our government.

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(12-16) 00:15 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --

San Francisco supervisors want voters to approve a sweeping handgun ban that would prohibit almost everyone except law enforcement officers, security guards and military members from possessing firearms in the city.

The measure, which will appear on the municipal ballot next year, would bar residents from keeping guns in their homes or businesses, Bill Barnes, an aide to Supervisor Chris Daly, said Wednesday. It would also prohibit the sale, manufacturing and distribution of handguns and ammunition in San Francisco, as well as the transfer of gun licenses.

I listened to Fabian Nunez, Speaker of the State Assembly on the radio today, and he confidently asserted that California is and will always be a 'blue state'.

Hmmm. Bush lost by 9%, we have a Republican governor, and one of the two likely Democratic candidates (Rob Reiner) against him in '06 just backed out because his people doesn't think he could win.

And for the millions of moderate gun-owners like me, I wind up taking another step over toward the no-compromise absolutist side of the room. Nice work, fellas.

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Spirit of America ended up raising $90,492.29 total from the challenge; $31,213.73 from all blogging teams and $59,278.56 from a larger group of individual blogs.

• Minnesota's Northern Alliance of Blogs finished in first among the teams, raising $12,135.00 for the unrestricted fund.

• A late surge, or a very large donation, catapulted Iraq the Model past Little Green Footballs to win the individual blog title with $17,140.00.

As one might expect from our team's diverse political makeup, multilateral diplomacy played a significant role in Team Pajamahdeen's strong finish (indeed, it almost resulted in a win). Thanks are due to many people, particularly:

• All donors.
• Chez Nadezha and Pejman
• Jeff Jarvis, who got the ball rolling by leading Team Buzzmachine to our side, creating one umbrella group for the Arabic blogging project.

Team Pajamahdeen - Operation Viral Freedom would then go on to add:

• Michele Catalano of A Small Victory, from independent fund-raiser to team member. This also resulted in an unofficial Command Post endorsement.
• Team Leatherneck, led by Grim's Hall.
• Team HSPIG, led by Ron Wright of HSPIG.

"Citizens Media" is going to be an ongoing focus of our blog, and you can bet we'll keep covering Spirit of America's Arabic Blogging tool project as it progresses. Just remember this snippet from Tim Oren, as he blogs his meeting with Mohammed of Iraq the Model:

The Arabic blogging project has already been much discussed - a new detail is the hope to have enough bloggers and tools in place by the Iraqi elections at the end of January to live blog them nationwide. With the MSM reporters mostly hiding in Baghdad, this would be a guaranteed scoop for the Iraqi blogosphere. (And yes, there is something you can do to help out.) More important than bypassing the MSM will be the effects within Iraq. As Mohammed put it (from my notes):

"I am Iraqi. I can express myself - I can tell my own story. It's hard for people to be alone. If you can see others that share the same thoughts and dreams, you are stronger."

We hope all of this comes to pass. If it does, remember that you played a role in making it so. Thank-you.

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IRAN

• Iran will abide by their agreements with Europe.

• Jack Straw praises the deal made with Iran as showing the reality of the EU's common foreign policy.

• The mullahs will negotiate with the U.S. over their nuclear program.

• The Iranians want Russia to be more willing to get involved in their nuclear industry.

• A U.S. congressman is warning of an Iranian plot to crash an airliner in to a New Hampshire nuclear power plant.

• A rather optimistic (from the mullahs' perspective) look at how Iran would fight back.

• Al-Watan daily says the Iran is trying to increase its influence in the P.A. Quoting P.A. officials, the newspaper says that Iran has given Hezbollah $22 million to use to attack Israel.

• The situation in Iran is becoming so dire that converting to Judaism and making aliyah looks like an attractive option. Which is saying something when you consider the less-than-favourable view of Jews taken by the Islamic Republic.

THE MIDDLE EAST

• A-Shark al-Awsat claims that the U.S. will host talks between Israel and Syria in February.

• Despite an attack that killed five Israeli soldiers, the Israeli government will not delay the good-will release of over 100 prisoners.

• The P.A. will not condemn the attack mentioned above. P.A. media are praising the heroic martyrs as we speak.

• A fight between Hamas and Islamic Jihad is becoming more and more likely.

• Via Discarded Lies, a fascinating look at Israeli airport security.

• An attack on Gush Katif wounds 6 Israelis. On Tuesday, a mortar killed a Thai worker.

• The U.S. is denying that it made contact with Hamas.

• The U.S is looking at insurgent sponsorship in Syria.

• With thanks to Dave Schuler: Dean Esmay's Carnival of the Liberated.

THE AMERICAS

• The U.S. is adding Al-Manar, or Hezbollah TV, to its list of terrorist organisations. For more on Al-Manar: All Intifada, All The Time.

• Was Abderraouf Jdey the Anthrax Mailer?

• Apparently Canada's security net is full of holes.

• LAX is guarding against surface-to-air missiles.

EUROPE

• Russia announces some of the results of its investigations in to al-Qaeda's network within the country.

• Dutch police are looking at a Belgian link to the murder of Theo Van Gogh.

• The British Law Lords have decided that the detention without trial of suspected terrorists is illegal.

• The terrorists who plotted to blow up Strasbourg market have been sentenced to up to ten years in prison.

• Five suspected terrorists have been arrested in Spain, including one thought linked to 3/11..

ASIA & AUSTRALASIA

• A Buddhist teacher has been murdered by jihadists in Thailand.

• Five Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorists have been taken prisoner in Pakistan.

• An aide to Dawood has been arrested in India. The Crime Branch can't wait to get their hands on him, as he is thought to be involved in numerous terrorist attacks.

• A Pakistani minister says that Musharraf and the army have made Jaish-e-Mohammad, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi irrelevant.

• The Pakistanis have arrested who they believe to be responsible for the kidnapping of three UN workers in Afghanistan.

• In J&K, Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists have hung a villager from a tree.

• A Turkish engineer has been kidnapped in Afghanistan.

• Bashir's son claims that he isn't a terrorist.

• Willi Brigitte plotted with a man named Faheem Lohdi to attack electricity and military targets in Sydney.

• Aussie police think they may have uncovered a crude plot to attack New Year's Eve celebrations in Sydney.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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An IRI poll in September found that Muqtada al-Sadr was just about as popular as Iyad Allawi (45% and 47% favorability respectively). And Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the clerical leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, trumped them all.

Recent public opinion surveys conducted by IRI show Iraqis to be surprisingly optimistic about their future and much stronger supporters of democracy than many new reports would lead you to believe.

Over 51% of Iraqis polled felt that their country is headed in "the right direction," up slightly from IRI's May/June poll. More telling, the number who feel that things are heading in "the wrong direction" has dropped from 39% to 31% over the same time period.

Some of this confidence may be a result of wide public support for the Iraqi Interim Government. Prime Minister Allawi holds an enviable approval rating, with 66% rating him as either "very effective" or "somewhat effective." Likewise, President al-Yawer enjoys the support of 60.6% of Iraqis polled who say that they "completely trust" or "somewhat trust" him.

In a stunning display of support for democracy and a strong rebuttal to critics of efforts to bring democratic reform to Iraq, 87% of Iraqis indicated that they plan to vote in January elections. Expanding on the theme, 77% said that "regular, fair elections" were the most important political right for the Iraqi people and 58% felt that Iraqi-style democracy was likely to succeed.

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"If the government will let us peacefully return to our villages and our children, we will come," he says. "We are tired living on the run in these snowy mountains." His fellow tribesman, Sarwar Akhund, goes one step further: Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and terror kingpin Osama bin Laden, he charges, tricked followers like him into believing they were fighting a holy war against infidels, "when really they just wanted to consolidate their own seats of power." If allowed back into society, he pledges to "do whatever I can" to help kill or capture the fugitive leaders.

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For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

But it was hard not to be moved and uplifted by the voices raised in a song rooted in spirituality.

And, of course, that made me think of something.

The Messiah is powerful in ways that "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" could never be, because it is rooted not just in a religious tradition, but in the religious traditions from which our culture grew.

And then the values question unlocked itself in my head. Let's see how it flies when I get it typed out and you folks take a run at it.

Because the issue is that each of us is standing on lots of shoulders. We didn't get here by ourselves. We participate in, but did not create, our culture, society, and polity - in part, they had as much of a hand in creating us.

While we may not be happy with everything they did, we don't have to cut ourselves off from them; we can both acknowledge our debt and their shortcomings. the problem tends to come when we lean too much on one or the other. Today, liberals are entirely focussed on the shortcomings.

America is a racist project. We are the engine of environmental and cultural destruction. Blah Blah Blah.

Were the Founders racist? It's hard not to say 'yes'. Does that devalue what they contributed? It's impossible to say yes. Does Western consumerism pose serious social and environmental challenges? Damn straight. But as opposed to the alternative - the one with high rates of mother and infant mortality, child labor, and a 'simple but poor' lifestyle, people are voting with their feet all over the world.

Before I get all buried in historicity, let me try and make this a bit concrete.

I sat in Disney Hall last night as someone raised in a culture that has many roots, but which has its deepest roots in the world that produced Handel's music - a world of Christian devotion.

I can't escape that. I can reject it, but in doing so I lose some valuable things. There are some not-so valuable things in our shared history as well, and the reaction of our post-modernity has been to push ourselves away from them as fast and hard as we can.

"We're not this thing," we say. Not witch burnings, not slavery, not standing in front of Beziers saying "Kill them all, God will know his own."

But we are descended from them. And maybe - just maybe we can embrace our unlovable, prejudiced ancestors while acknowledging the better future we want to build - as our descendants will criticize us for faults we can't begin to see yet.

Those defects talk about where we - as a people, as a culture - have been. They don't talk about where we're going.

And that's why it doesn't bother me to be uplifted in song about a God I'm not personally close to, and why I don't get upset at the idea that there are people who are close to that historic God and whose views on issues today may clash with mine because they are closer to that old-school God.

Because this is all part of a path, a narrative arc from somewhere to somewhere else. And the joke about it is that we'll never know exactly where we're going, never know which of us is right, because none of us alive today will be alive to get there.

And maybe that does mean that I have more faith than I thought I did.

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We've been pretty successful with our Spirit of America fundraiser, and recently we've merged with other teams around one of SoA's important projects. The new Team Pajamahdeen: Operation Viral Freedom team includes liberals, conservatives and centrists with a common goal: help people in the Middle East harness the power of blogging via Arabic blogging tools and reliable hosting.

We've seen what blogs can do. As a Winds reader, you've seen it too. Join, or Donate, or even merge your individual blog or team with Team Pajamahdeen by sending a request to "support" over @spiritofamerica.net. The more focus and prominence we can bring to this vital project, the faster we can "let freedom ring!"

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Instead, Democrats should do a better job of linking their economic interests and moral outlook. In his 1992 campaign, Clinton wove personal responsibility and middle-class opportunity into a single narrative that promised to reward families that "work hard and play by the rules" and to oppose policies that entrench unearned privilege. He spoke of honoring work and family by ending welfare as a way of life and supplementing the wages of low-income workers. He called for national service as a way to balance the rights and duties of citizenship, and to replace the politics of entitlement with a new ethic of reciprocal responsibility. Four years later, Clinton's proposals for school uniforms and television V-chips struck a resonant chord with middle class families trying to shield their kids from pop culture. Since then, Democrats have had little success in challenging the GOP's claim to be the party of "family values" and its hold on married families with children. A heartland strategy should include a new progressive family policy that addresses both the economic and cultural strains on American parents.

Just as religious advocates of the "Social Gospel" infused early 20th century progressivism with moral fervor, Democrats should couch their social initiatives in the language of faith and morality. The sad truth is that since Clinton's departure, Democrats have had little to say about growing poverty and inequality in America. Surely, they are moral issues no less than abortion and gay marriage, and they give Democrats an opportunity to speak unambiguously of right and wrong.

Go read the whole thing.

I have one quibble (of course).

The article starts with an electoral calculation, and then makes the policy arguments that the author believes are needed to make that electoral math happen.

When I read his conservative equivalents, the impression I get is that they start with a strong sense of belief, from which flows policy, which is then vetted and tailored to be electorally palatable.

I think the Democratic Party does need to be a party of believers - they need to believe in some core values and the policies that flow naturally from them. It's a very different animal than donning a ghillie suit of beliefs to try and concoct a winning electoral strategy.

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Dost Mohammed's son, Akbar Khan, led the bloody revolt which drove the British out of Afghanistan and murdered all but one of the British forces, wives, children, and camp followers.

But Harlan had already left.

As a student of Dost Mohammed Khan's rule, Harlan firmly believed there was only one way to ensure peace in Afghanistan: co-option and bribery, using the existing system of chieftainships. "The government of the Avghauns by their own institutions would have been facile," he declared. "If the English had conciliated the heads of the tribes [and] arranged them around the king as sustainers of the government, which privilege they had a right to expect, they would have become willing hostages to the good conduct of their tribes." Instead, Shah Sujah was bent on vengeance. With the sanction of the British, he "imprisoned many who represented themselves for employment and honours [and] deputed the offices of state to a swarm of hungry expectants, who attended him during his 30 years exile." The invaders might easily have purchased acquiescence: "The English, who now well the value of gold, could have controlled the Avghans by fiscal diplomacy, without incurring the odium of invading and subjugating an unoffending people." -p 249

A county museum in Chester County, Pennsylvania revealed Harlan's manuscripts. He died, alone and poor, in San Francisco in 1871.

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Russia's Economy

• The economy is due to have grown at approximately 7% for 2004. However, Putin wants to double the GDP by 2012. Analysts see this as unlikely, even if oil exports remain at the same or higher levels. The Economy Ministry has laid out three likely scenarios for future development and growth. However, there are some who say the government is creating a political climate which will slow economic growth. Also a concern is the possible necessity of stopping oil exportation all-together by 2010 because of poor internal energy efficiency.

• As the economy grows, so do concerns of inflation. The Economic Development and Trade Ministry has urged the governement to take steps to reduce inflation to 5% by 2007.

• Russia economists note that a "middle class" is emerging and should be a majority by 2010.

Internal Politics

• Russian lawmakers want to incorporate small autonomous nations, which became so during the fall of the Soviet Union, back into Russia. South Ossetia and Trans-Dneister are prime examples of regions which have Slavic majorities and wish to break away from their current rulers and "rejoin" Russia. Some in those areas, however, have other ideas.

• Putin has signed into law a bill, which eliminates the direct election of governors. Under Russian law, the governor candidate must be put before the regional legislatures for "confirmation". However, if the confirmation fails twice, Putin has the power to dissolve the regional legislature and appoit his own acting governor. Critics maintain this undermines the definition of Russia as a "federation", which is mandated in the constitution. It is unlikely, however, that this law will be challenged in the Russian Supreme Court any time soon.

• Owners of Norilsk Nickle seem to believe they may be next on the Russian government's "Back-Tax Takeover" list, which brings in great amounts of cash for mother Russia, while destroying Putin's competition. Norilsk Nickle owners are cashing (caching?) out.

• St. Petersburg is planning to develop a city-within-a-city on 150 hectares of vacant land between the Peterhoff highway and the Gulf of Findland. What does it all mean? China Town!

Chechnya

• Ten years ago, Russian armored columns entered the Chechen capitol of Grozny after Chechen leaders, specificly Chechen President Djokhar Dudaev, refused to rescind a declaration of full independence from Moscow. The bid for independence has become something else entirely - we are now witnessing the Second Chechen War - but Russians and Chechens are still fighting and dying today. Not a happy anniversary.

International Relations & Security

• Sino-Russian relations have taken an interesting turn with the first ever joint military exercises between the two countries announced for early next year. As Russia and China share a border, the exercise may be a confidence vote of stability more than anything else, yet there must be some level of concern in western capitols by this development.

Paging Mr. Bond...

• Russia has increased their nuclear missile capacity and Putin says that Russia soon will have ICBMs capable of evading anti-missile defenses in flight. "No other country in the world has such weapons systems. It means that Russia has been and will remain one of the biggest nuclear-missile powers in the world. Some people may like it and some may not, but everyone will have to reckon with it," Putin stated. Russian news agencies underscore Russia will only proliferate to the level of "containment of aggression" against Russia and her allies - whatever that means. Silos in Russia are now being armed with Topol-M SS-27s as well as adding a new regiment to the Strategic Missile Forces.

• A former FSB Lt Colonel was sentenced to ten years in prison for spying for Estonia.

• A (very) Short History of Russia

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The assassin said that he felt that Jones-Huffman "looked Jewish." The fruits of hatred sowed in the Middle East by aggressive and expansionist Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza against the Palestinians and in south Lebanon against Shiites continue to be harvested by Americans.

(Some readers have written to say that the Iraqi assassin's association of all Jews with the misdeeds of the rightwing hawks in the Occupied Territories is outrageous. I, of course, entirely agree. It is the essence of bigotry to blame all members of a group for the actions of a few.)

It gets much worse.

Over on Smash's site, he also comments on the murder - and on the recent trial and conviction of the murderer in an Iraqi court. Smash has a cause to be paying attention here - he was Jones-Hoffman's roomate at Annapolis.

KYLAN didn't support the decision to go to war in Iraq. But he believed that once begun, it was crucial for us to finish the job. He had a running email dialogue with anti-war University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, right up to a few days before his death.

He doesn't have the simple decency to recognize - even in passing - the humanity of the murdered man. Why do that? It would get in the way of his ideologically sound point. Back in August, Kylan was a human being. Now he's a token in Cole's ideological game.

Cole is a true keeper of the totalitarian flame; with this latest, I have no trouble envisioning him ordering the camps being built. After all, those liquidated in them wouldn't really be human anyway.

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Mohammed and Omar (and, I'm sure Ali, who I did not get to meet) are ordinary men from Iraq, who are setting out to do extraordinary things. And if our efforts can help them in some small way, then that's bitchen'.

Speaking of bitching, Juan Cole picks up uber-troll Joseph "ALL CAPS" Mailander's paranoid rant suggesting that the brothers are somehow CIA disinformation - his evidence? They don't agree with him.

Note: there's an interesting blog post on the subject of astroturfing and blogs. Daschle v Thune figure in it - but so does Oliver Willis and Eschaton.

But, since I'm the guy who connected Spirit of America to the brothers - by contacting and then recruiting Kerry Dupont, who I found from a link on Jeff Jarvis' website in which she took on the project of getting them laptops - may I suggest that I have direct experience that contradicts this fantasy?

I had an interesting correspondence with Professor Cole after I criticized him for having engaged in SLAPP activity while reaching out to the blogging community to defend him against someone else's SLAPP threat.

And both the correspondence, and his bizarre logic here point out something that actually frightens me.

I regularly read a number of lefty antiwar blogs - I still consider myself a leftist, and understand that there are people who disagree with me about the war. I read these blogs - including Professor Cole's, MyDD, TPM, Eschaton and others because I want to learn. I want to check my assumptions and test my beliefs. I've changed my mind on things based on what I've read there, and believe that I'm likely to do so again in the future, which is why I'll keep reading them.

But as the comments flap with TalkLeft shows, and as Professor Cole shows in his assertion (couched in careful rhetoric so that he's not saying it, he's just - you know - passing it along) that Riverbend must be the voice of the real Iraqi citizens because she agrees with him while ITM must be disinformation because it doesn't - they're more interested in shaping information to meet their beliefs than their beliefs to fit information.

And, sadly, that's the germ from which totalitarianism springs. Because you need the power to shape information to keep your beliefs intact, which means you need power over people as well. And meanwhile, Winston Smith just sits there, trembling.

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We'll start with the U.N.'s essential failures in UNSCAM. These include corruption, but were not limited to it.

• Money For Blood (Dec. 01/04). Senator Norm Coleman (R-MIN) is not happy:

"Mr. Annan has named the esteemed Paul Volcker to investigate Oil-for-Food-related allegations, but the latter's team is severely hamstrung in its efforts. His panel has no authority to compel the production of documents or testimony from anyone outside the U.N. Nor does it possess the power to punish those who fabricate information, alter evidence or omit material facts. It must rely entirely on the goodwill of the very people and entities it is investigating. We must also recognize that Mr. Volcker's effort is wholly funded by the U.N., at Mr. Annan's control. Moreover, Mr. Volcker must issue his final report directly to the secretary general, who will then decide what, if anything, is released to the public."

As Coleman notes, this wouldn't do for Enron. It doesn't cut it for Annnan, either:

• Some Are More Equal Than Others (Dec 03/04)

"The fundamental problem with Traub's argument is that Oil-For-Food existed for the purpose of enforcing sanctions imposed by the Security Council as a whole. It was not a program whose goals could be chosen according to taste, "with the U.S. and Britain determined to prevent Iraq from importing items that could be used for military purposes and the French, Russians and Chinese equally determined to give the Iraqis the benefit of every doubt." It had one purpose only. Oil-For-Food either existed expressly to prevent Saddam's rearmament or it was nothing at all. For that reason, the Secretary General's failure "to sound the alarm over Iraqi swindling and for a slow and grudging reaction when the allegations first surfaced earlier this year" is not primarily about thievery and corruption, although it is about that: it was mainly about flouting international law; it was about subverting the will of the Security Council. It was about Kofi Annan becoming a law unto himself."

Next, Belmont Club offers an analysis of a recent U.N. panel's proposed "reforms":

• All Your Base Belong To Us (Dec. 02, 2004). So, why strike a reform panel?

"The BBC summarizes the background to the panel's work: The UN's "relevance has been brought into question not only by the Iraq war, when it was in the final analysis ignored by the United States. Before that, we had Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia and others where it failed to act in time, and now we have Darfur."

Yes, we certainly do. The solution? Why, more power given to the U.N., of course! Belmont Club does an excellent job parsing much of the realpolitik involved, as well as the U.N.'s ambition.

He followed that up with:

• Problem Number Four (Dec. 4/04). Ah, the Congo. But let's start with Belmont Club's 3-paragraph summary of the U.N.'s position regarding its crisis of legitimacy:

"Evans delivered an address called Shifting Security Parameters in the 21st Century which contains nearly all of the elements now being proposed to reform the UN. In this model the currrent threats to world peace are:

1. international terrorist organizations
2. WMD proliferation
3. failed states
4. an out-of-control United States

But to address the first three, the first step is to solve problem number four."

In that same piece, we move on to the Congo, where the U.N. actually has the responsibilities it wishes to usurp:

"Morale among the blue helmets is not high. Many regard their posting to Congo as the height of misfortune. Some are ashamed to be part of such an indolent force. During massacres in Ituri's main town of Bunia last year, some Uruguayan peacekeepers suffered nervous breakdowns after watching atrocities they had been ordered not to prevent. One reportedly told his psychiatrist that goats were talking to him. When asked what they were saying, he replied, “They're shouting: ‘Help me! Help me!' "

As Congo - The Roots, and the Trap argued in June 2003, this failure is not an accident. Just as Rwanda and Srebrenica were no accident. They are an inevitable consequence of the U.N. and transnational progressivist mindsets, hard-wired for failure in the face of any real evil or threat.

One would think this sort of thing might lead to self-examination, either among the U.N. itself or among its backers. The simplisme of such notions amuses....

• Throwing Kofi to the Dogs (Dec. 8/04)

"Why? Because it's the UN, a place where the normal laws of gravity are inverted, everyone is immune from everything, where nothing works yet everything is beyond reproach. That's why. Having grasped that one essential fact it is necessary to accept the corollary. Neither the departure of Kofi Annan nor his replacement will alter the strange physics of the place which arises from the first-class funding of third-rate causes of the worst possible sort. If that is the definition of Oil-for-Food it is also the definition of the United Nations.

One of the shadow costs of an obsession with the United Nations is the preemptive dismissal of diplomatic structures which have historically worked...."

Which may explain the stance the U.N. and its backers habitually take. Explain - but not justify:

• The Absence of Evidence (Dec. 9/04)

"Any objections that these answers are unsatisfactory are met by the claim that the questions themselves are illegitimate. "There has been no hint of impropriety on the part of the Secretary-General, who on numerous occasions has proven his honesty and integrity." It is impertinent to observe that Annan has proven nothing. Any further argumentation is met with the assertion that 'it is your fault anyway'. In Congressman Kuchinich's words "we want to highlight the shared responsibility by the United States for the alleged fraud and abuse that occurred in the Oil-for-Food Program." Any suspcion that the Jihad may exist is put down to "intolerance and hatred among some Americans" and "condescension".

The implicit assumption underlying this discourse is that "we" -- and not you -- ask the questions. The United Nations and no one else sits in judgement. That's final: it is International Law. As Robert Kaplan pointed out in The Media and Medievalism, the most powerful tool of totalitarianism is to don the guise of righteousness and assume "the right to question and to demand answers, the right to judge and condemn, and the right to pardon and show mercy." It is in the end an attempt to usurp the wellsprings of legitimacy. Do you hold it to be self-evident that you have the right "to assume among the Powers of the Earth" a separate and equal station? That's being a rogue nation. Do you presume that "that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". That is not in the Koran. It is illegitimate and utterly intolerant to impose such a view upon anyone, even upon yourselves."

Conclusion

The U.N. has been a haven of the corrupt and a tool of the hostile for most of its history - dominated by Third-World kleptocrats who demand for themselves what they will not grant their own suffering peoples, bought as required by the Arab League, and played largely for the benefit of the Soviet Bloc. So long as it remained irrelevant to serious politics, it status as a low-cost diplomatic nexus made it worth the triviality of its monetary fees. Belmont Club, who noted that "corruption at the United Nations was only tolerable for so long as it did nothing of consequence," had it exactly right.

Ah, but the U.N. has far grander ambitions now. Lofty ambitions of power untrammeled by its performance, and demonstrably unencumbered by notions of liberty, accountability, or humanitarian concern. Like Marxism before it, however, the U.N.'s dismal record of blood and failure is no mistake, and no accident. Despite apologists' untiring claims to the contrary, its record exist precisely because of its underlying concepts, not in spite of them.

What was once tolerable, is tolerable no more. What was once a simple waste is becoming something rather different: an active threat.

The U.N.'s weapons are theft and paralysis. Against it are arrayed the weapons of accountability and will. As Belmont Club notes above, the hostility is obvious, and the terms of the game crystal clear. Will the U.S. surrender, or prevail? The two sides cannot be bridged; the circle cannot be squared.

In the end, one side or the other must lose, and be changed thereby. For a while, anyway.

"He crouched down there, covering his eyes and cowering, for the fear had taken his mind. When he raised his head and looked again, the world re-existed. It was not in good condition, but it was there."
   -- Ursula LeGuin, The Lathe of Heaven

« ok, I'm done now

Our day was the antithesis of the photograph I show here. I can tell you that adoption is probably one of the most deliberate things you can do in life. It is no accident. It is a long process, of many trials. The process itself mirrors life, with its eddies and currents, misfortunes and luck. Adoption is like driving a car with foggy windows; you keep driving, and the gas pedal moves you forward. There's surprises along the way, and eventually you get somewhere.

I can let myself be weighed down by the world at times, perplexed at how best to ford its dangerous currents. Adoption is a weighty endeavor; but with the responsibility of parenthood comes a giddy sense of optimism when my new daughter's little eyes meet mine. It's as though she says not to worry, while also asking me to keep her safe. It's not obvious how to balance the sense of graveness and punch-drunkenness that comes with this little girl who pulls my nose.

'The Mother of Beslan' is a symbol of our time. This single photo is the equivalent of Michelangelo's Pietà for the 21st century. I can only try to feel this mother's butchered love screaming out for her lifeless child that she strokes so gently. Her pain blinds me. I cannot imagine her pain. We see in the photo the moment when a mother realizes her child is lost, and forever gone. We see two deaths, not one.

Beslan and massacres like it are often called tragedies. But they are not. Tragedy, in my mind, is a natural occurrence, a twist of fate. It is a tragedy when an illness kills a child, or when an earthquake destroys lives. Tragedies are sad, but there is no evil behind them - there is no moral component. The planned massacre of children in the name of a vindictive, bloodthirsty and sanguinary god is not a tragedy; it is a monstrous, sickening evil. It is a liquid, black ink that bleeds out of twisted souls who have lost their own humanity. The Beslans of this world are far, far beyond mere tragedy. Slaughtering human lambs on the altar of an insane cult is our darkest, most mortal foe.

If I were to nominate a person of the year, it would be this grieving mother who so moves me. She is a symbol of the darkness of this age we live in. Inhumanity's wages create a carnage of living dead as much as the lifeless bodies of children. Weep for her.

And yet, this age is not all darkness. My daughter sparkles, and toys with gravity. She's the long, hopeful road ahead. Extricated from the clutches of her own personal tragedy - born to a birth mother who could not love her - the miracles of this age collaborated to bring her to our home. The world is not all Beslan; there is hope and joy. It is bright, clear, and warm.

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REGIONAL AFFAIRS

• Given Russia's recent assertiveness in the affairs of its neighbors--most recently in Ukraine and Abkhazia--the Bush administration is rethinking its Russia policy. Though Central Asia and the Caucasus are not specifically mentioned, it would be fair to assume that a retooled Russia policy would have as its cornerstone the protection and strengthening of the sovereignty of the former Soviet states.

• The protests following Ukraine's tainted presidential election have caused a stir among democracy activists throughout Eurasia. Activists from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan all showed up in Kiev. This begs the question of democracy's chances in Central Asia. Conventional wisdom has Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as the prime candidates, though the recent protests in Uzbekistan indicate that it may be closer than we think.

TURKESTAN REGION

• Ruslan Sharipov, a former political prisoner now in the United States, offers a survivor's guide to Uzbekistan's penal system.

• Uzbekistan's election for the next Oliy Majlis, the country's parliament, is on December 26. Their ambassador to South Korea, wrote and opinion piece on his country's election that gives a taste of official Uzbek government opinion. Meanwhile, the public is fairly apathetic about all things parliamentary.

• Though more disturbing for Russia than Uzbekistan, it is worth noting that Russian Duma Deputies involved in monitoring the Uzbek election look forward to learning from Uzbekistan's election management.

• A less jingoistic glimpse of Uzbek official opinion, this time on the topic of Islam and Uzbekistan, comes in the form of an interview with Dr. Rafik Saifulin, an adviser to President Karimov.

• Barring Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan's opposition is the weakest in Central Asia. Their biggest problem may be that they are hopelessly divided.

• Though small and weak, these opposition groups have courage though. They recently staged protests in front of the United States and British embassies asking for support and calling for a boycott of the election.

• An Uzbek man has been arrested for distributing foreign radio broadcasts. This is especially odd because, if I recall correctly, Tashkent's enormous radio tower rebroadcasts these very same shortwave stations.

• Nezavisimaya Gazeta says that the OSCE has double standards when it comes to free and fair elections in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The latter gets heaps of criticism while the former gets off with not so much as a scolding.

• Working in Turkmenistan's government is risky business. The country's ambassador to Belgium defected a short time ago, but returned to Turkmenistan, where his family remained. There is speculation that threats were made against them to secure his return. The ambassador is now under house arrest as punishment for failing to stop a UN resolution condemning Turkmenistan's human rights record.

• Kazakh police have rounded up a Jamoat cell. Following the arrest, new details are emerging about its connections to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Al Qaida (and, in my minority opinion, Hizb ut-Tahrir).

• The headquarters of Kazakhstan's ruling Otan party in Almaty was hit by two small bombs. The government, which faces an opposition that is growing in stature despite efforts to weaken it, claims the attack comes from its political opponents. At least one local analyst thinks the bombs were planted by the government to justify a crackdown so it doesn't have to face protests like those in Kiev. I think I might be the only one who wonders if the attack was a hastily organized response to the wrap up of a Jamoat cell. The police chalks it all up to simple "hooliganism."

• riting on the wall looks at Kyrgyzstan's upcoming elections. A new law there bars from running for parliament anyone who has lived outside of the country during the last five years. The law appears to be specifically targeted at three popular ex-diplomats seeking office.

CAUCASUS REGION

• It has been one year since the Rose Revolution toppled Eduard Shevardnadze's government. EurasiaNet looks back at the successes and shortcomings of the Saakashvili government. If anything is certain, it is that the honeymoon is over.

• Increased defense capabilities is a high priority for Georgia in 2005. The United States plans to help out by launching a new training program to build on the successes of the Georgia Train and Equip Program.

• Meskhetian Turks, who in the last sixty years have been moved en masse from Georgia to Uzbekistan to Krasnodar in Russia, are adjusting well to life in America. The group in Lancaster, PA seems to be doing extremely well, though their family in Philadelphia (whom I work with) are having a few more difficulties.

• Though it fears the consequences with Russia, Azerbaijan is considering closer ties to the United States.

AFGHANISTAN

• Most claim that poppy cultivation is one of the largest problems in Afghanistan. Christopher Hitchens disagrees and argues that poppy cultivation can be an asset to Afghanistan's development.

• The threat of attack, thin mountain air, and a rough track were all just par for the course in Afghanistan's first marathon, held at Firebase Ripley. One Afghan who works at the base competed alongside the soldiers.

• Afghanistan is in talks to join the World Trade Organization.

• Mullah Omar's security chief has been captured .

• Newly-inaugurated President Karzai announced he will disarm militias before Afghanistan's parliamentary elections scheduled for late spring.

• After a three decades absence, Jowzjan's carpet festival has returned. Afghan carpet makers are trying to rebuild the market share they've lost after years of war.

MONGOLIA & THE REST

• Mongolia is using its good relations with North Korea to press for reforms.

• The Dalai Lama paid a visit to Kalmykia. Of course, a Dalai Lama visit is never just a Dalai Lama visit. Russia allowed him to visit the Kalmyks, despite the anger from China, to boost the popularity of the region's beleagured president. As for the Kalmyks themselves, visit their website to find out why I consider Europe's Buddhist Kingdom to be firmly Central Asian.

LIGHTER FARE

• Coming from my mouth, this might be strange, but Ted Rall, who occasionally does Central Asia cartoons makes me laugh and a good point to boot. There's a first time for everything, I suppose.

• Central Asia's very small blogging community is growing, especially amongst Peace Corps Volunteers in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Some of the best include Amanda of Crescat Sententia, Ryan Giordano, and Tim, who has a very important tip on staying out of trouble in Uralsk.

The next Central Asia & Caucasus briefing will appear in a month. In the meantime, keep up with regional affairs at The Argus. I apologize for the earlier wonkiness with the post.

« ok, I'm done now

To give credit where it's due, the project was originated by Sandy Trevor (now here) and was led throughout by Dr. Mary Flanagan (now here). (I'll send an e-mail inviting Mary to correct or elaborate in the comments). The MT technology used was a now-vanished rule driven engine called Transcend, by Intergraph. (Update/Correction: Transcend was first sold to Transparent Language and then resold to SDL which still supports it.) A contemporary trade press description of the project is here. Fair warning: Some of the systems created were patented (US Pat #5,715,466).

We first set up the machine translator to run on a technical support forum for the service's Mac based proprietary client. As commenters below noted, restricting the translation domain, particularly into a technical field with a lot of jargon, makes the translation more effective. The translator would run through the lists of posts every few minutes, and translate every new English post into French and German and insert them on parallel forums in those languages, also grabbing new ones originating in French and German and translating and reposting them in English. (Note we never had the non-English language pairings - all of these projects were 'stars' around English.)

This went pretty well, in spite of some squawking and mocking by a group of professional translators on the service, and we moved on to bigger things. Adding Spanish to the list of languages, we create four parallel forum bulletin boards which were collectively called the 'World Community Forum'. We seeded them with some guesses of topics that people would want to talk about across cultures - e.g., Sports, Politics, Travel. We were now venturing out of safe technical topics, and the technology was going to be challenged more severely. One of the joys of online services then, as with the Internet now, was the ability to just 'go live' with your experiments. And since the revenue model of the day was pay-per-connect time, we could even try to make money doing so. After running a few tests, we make the forums public, and started promoting them on the "What's New" part of the main CompuServe menu.

The World Community Forum was a roaring success. It attracted hundreds and soon thousands of visitors, went profitable within a few weeks, and soon was regularly appearing in the top 50 products list of the entire service. (You'd have thought the profits would have been added to my R&D budget, but noooo....) After some weeks of dealing with translation accuracy and with scaling issues - we'd brought the whole project up on a single server in a field office - there was enough time to run some analytics and dig into the conversation patterns and topics that were evolving in the forums.

The results were very interesting. While there was significant use of the translators, the majority of posts and responses were in the same language, even though we could tell from the idents of the users that many were posting from different native language territories. Digging into the texts, we found some of them ridiculing and trying to correct the machine translations, but that more were people deliberately using their second langauges. Germans tried out their schoolbook English on the Americans and Brits, and Americans used their rotten Spanish to try and converse with Latin Americans. And all sides cheerfully corrected each other's mistakes as the conversation flowed.

What had begun as a technology trial had in fact resulted in a marketing experiment. Just by the way we promoted the forums, we had drawn in those most interested in cross-cultural meetups, from a service that was already the most international of that time. Topic drift being multicultural, of course they proceeded to talk about anything that came to mind, largely foiling any ideas to use specific vocabularies in particular topic areas. (I clearly recall reading one thread in which German hausfraus and wives of US troops posted there had a lengthy and detailed discussion of their different approaches to drying and folding towels. Go figure.)

I take these results as optimistic for the idea of translated blogs as cultural bridges, in several ways. The known deficiencies of machine translation didn't kill the experiment. Real people were able to repair the dialog in almost all cases of error, and found some common cause in doing so. Providing the facility attracted motivated cultural 'bridgers' who in many cases supported each other in language skills directly, as well as carrying on enjoyable and wide ranging conversations. Few of them were on world saving topics, but a number of close friendships resulted.

'Translating' this experience from a closed, proprietary, and highly structured system into the loosely linked, open, and dynamic blogosphere is going to be a bit of a challenge. It's likely to become a social system as much as a technology infrastructure, so they need to start modestly and co-evolve. But this long ago and already paid for experiment suggests it is workable and worthwhile.

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IRAN REPORTS

• The U.S. Department of Defense completes a simulation for invasion of Iran.

• Iran refutes the accusations of interference in Iraq's upcoming election made by Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

• "Reformist" Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was heckled by pro-democracy Iranian students during a speech at a university in Tehran. Barbs hurled at Khatami include these gems: "Khatami traitor, Khatami, shame, shame."

• The Iranian Justice minister says Iran is trying members of al Qaeda, but the Intelligence minister says no. Who's on third?

• The Arms Control Wonk reports the Bush administration may be working to sabotage any agreement with the EU3 on Iran's nuclear program, as verification would be all but impossible.

• Is Iran's space program really a “Trojan Horse” designed to test the Shahab-3 missile for the nuclear program?

THE MIDDLE EAST

• Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attack on the United States Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Fayez Awad Al-Jihani, one of the terrorists who died in the assault, dismissed several years ago from Saudi Arabia’s religious police, known as the Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. This is the same organization responsible for the deaths of 15 schoolgirls in a fire in the Saudi city of Makkah in 2002.

• Israel and the Palestinian Authority have agreed to terms that will allow elections in February.

• It appears there is a move afoot in some Arab countries to make peace with Israel. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is asking Kuwait to open a diplomatic relationship to Israel, convince Syria to work towards peace with Israel and present a plan to the Gulf States Council for Cooperation which provides for a diplomatic and security agreement with Israel.

• The Jerusalem Post makes a strong case that the Intafada is over and credits the Israeli Defense Force with the victory. The article also notes the increasing influence of Hezbollah in Palestinian terrorism.

AMERICAN DOMESTIC SECURITY

• Congress passes the intelligence reform bill which places 15 agencies under one a single National Director of Intelligence, formalizes the National Counterterrorism Center and a host of other provisions.

• Benard Kerik withdraws his name from consideration as Secretary of Homeland Security. The immigration status of the former family nanny is in question.

• Concerns that al Qaeda are entering the United States via the Mexican border resurface after the arrest of a Bangladeshi Muslim, who was accompanied by members of an al Qaeda linked Central American gang.

AFRICA

• John Danforth, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, stated that attempts to halt the violence and easy the suffering in Darfur have failed. "We've tried everything, we've tried the carrot approach, we've tried the stick approach and we are getting nowhere." Perhaps he meant to say we've tried the United Nations' version of the stick approach...

ASIA & AUSTRALIA

• Some Taliban fighters have accepted Afghanistan's offer of amnesty and are surrounding their weapons. Trust but verify.

• Eradication of the opium trade has become a priority for the Karzai administration, and the United States and Britain are providing substantial aid to fight the rise in production. [JK: Good freaking luck...]

• A Pakistani General states operations in Southern Waziristan have foreign terrorists on the run, and estimate on 100 remain in the region. We'll see.

• Pakistan arrests Syed Akbar Agha, the leader of the Army of Muslims, who is responsible for kidnapping United Nations workers in Afghanistan.

• Pakistan has detained 14 suspects thought responsible for the bombing in Quetta which killed 11 people. They are believed to be members of the Baluch Liberation Army.

• Japan reaffirms its commitment to the war on terror by extending the deployment in Iraq for one year.

• Indonesian prosecutors are having a difficult time attempting to link radical cleric Abu Bakar to the bombings in Bali and Jakarta. Convicted terrorists such as Hambali and Idris refuse to finger Bashir.

EUROPE

• European al Qaeda are using expertly reproduced cash cards (ATM) to withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund their activities.

• France wants Imans to learn French and study law and civics. It seems far to many clerics are foreign born and do not understand or appreciate French customs.

• Stephen Schwartz looks at the dangers of Greece promoting a Wahhabi funded Mosque outside of Athens.

• Dutch police believe they have uncovered a plot to attack Amsterdam’s red light district. The suspect is believe to have ties to the murderer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

THE GLOBAL WAR

• Athena writes a fascinating and insightful piece about the pervasive effects of honor killings in the Arab culture.

• Chrenkoff reports on the shifting alliances in the Pacific. France continues its attempts to strike an alliance with China, and Australia and Japan may begin to conduct joint training exercises. This affects America's military posture in the war on terror as it must maintain forces in the region.

• Children are being abducted from nations such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, transported to Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal regions, and being indoctrinated into jihad.
  
  We try to close on a lighter note if possible.

• You're the leader of a Southeast Asian nation racked with Islamist violence. What do you do? What do you do? Enter Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The plan? Operation Origami Airdrop, a massive barrage of 130,000,000 paper birds. The results were less than spectacular.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

For ongoing tips, email "MondayWindsOfWar", over here @windsofchange.net.

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SOCIETY:

• With the excitement of the presidential election now behind, Afghan authorities and political parties are starting to plan for the parliamentary election scheduled for April 2005. The biggest task will involve drawing up the electoral boundaries. In time for the election, Afghanistan's historical census is now near finish. This joint project between the Afghan government and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has so far surveyed 30 out of the country's 34 provinces, with work in southern Paktika, Zabul and Helmand, and the newly established Daikudni province expected to be completed over the next month. Good and accurate information, of course, is necessary for the planning of the parliamentary election:
  

  There are a total of 249 posts in the new parliament. The provinces which have fewer than half a million population will be given nine posts. The provinces which have between half a million and one million people will get 15 posts. Those with between one and two million people will have 19 posts. The provinces with two to three million people will have 23 posts and those with more than three million will get 29 parliamentary posts.

• Meanwhile, an ambitious program is aiming to rebuild the country's devastated local administration:
  

  The Afghan government has launched a new US $312 million project financed by international donors to centralise and equip the country's fragile district administrations...

  The project, entitled the Afghanistan Stabilisation Programme (ASP), is expected to strengthen the authority of the central government beyond the capital Kabul.

  "Maintaining proper administration and proper buildings and complexes in districts will bridge the gap between Kabul and local administrations,” deputy Interior Minister Helaluddin Hellal [said]... after launching the main phase of ASP...

  There are 364 districts in Afghanistan's 34 provinces and due to years of devastating conflict the local administrations do not have buildings and other necessary public utilities, Hellal said.

• According to the head of ASP, Abdul Malik Sediqi, "six districts have already been covered in the pilot phase and it is expected that 150 districts will be finalised by the end of next year." "We have $36 million in hand and if we obtain the required budget, ASP will take three years to cover all the districts of the country," says Sediqi.
  


• From political reform to spiritual liberation, the Afghans are finally free to celebrate and enjoy religion like it should be:
  

  Three years after the fall of the hardline Taliban regime, residents of Afghanistan's capital are celebrating the Eid al-Fitr festival in upbeat mood...

  Wearing a newly tailored traditional Afghan shalwar-kameez trouser suit, electronic engineer Qadratullah said the country was “reborn” when the Taliban were toppled in Kabul in November 2001 by a US-led military campaign.

  "I am feeling quite good about what we have in this year's Eid. Compared to the past under the Taliban I feel that we have risen to heaven from the depths of hell,” added the 32-year-old as he marked the end of Ramadan.

  Under six years of Islamic fundamentalist rule, Qadratullah was lashed for failing to grow a beard and his wife was beaten for not wearing the all-enveloping burqa.

• The growth of the media is presenting many opportunities for Afghan women to reach out to each other:
  

  Sitting around a table with their burqas (top to bottom covering veil) on chairs, Arefa Zareh, a school teacher and her fellow women were preparing to broadcast the first trial programme of Quyash (the Sun), a newly established local women's radio station in the northern city of Maimana.

  Radio Quyash is now one of the four local women's radio stations and one of over 30 independent radio stations in the country. It counts as the only independent media outlet in troubled Maimana, the provincial capital of Faryab.

  The new station is expected to tackle the issues of poverty, illiteracy, forced marriages and the rule of the gun, which are among the major concerns of the local community in Faryab province.

• There are still numerous problems, like interference from local officials, or overcoming culture shock in the community, but the work of radio stations like Quyash is a good step forward for Afghan women: "Fawad Sahil, a radio programme manager for the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS), a Canadian NGO working on strengthening civil society and democracy... believes that establishing women's radio stations provides more women with the opportunity to become journalists, producers, technicians, fundraisers and decision-makers. In assuming these roles, they learn new skills, develop greater self-confidence and awareness, and become active participants in their own communities."
  


• And there is also a new radio broadcast for Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan: "The 10-minute-long programme, aired twice a week, tells Afghan refugees about the latest developments in Afghanistan, and provides updates on the [United Nations High Commission for Refugees] UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme. UNHCR is producing the programme with Radio Pakistan to give Afghan refugees the information they need to make a decision on whether to voluntarily repatriate to their country." Meanwhile, as the refugees are coming back after years of exile, the UN is trying to help them rebuild their homes:
  

  It is late autumn, but still mild enough for Akbar Nusrati to enjoy lunch in the garden of his newly reconstructed house. Until last month, this small patch of earth with its two apple trees was where Akbar, his wife and their three children ate, slept and washed - their only shelter a makeshift tent. With the frigid winter only weeks away, Akbar is grateful to be back in the home he and his family fled during Afghanistan's civil war 13 years ago.

  Following the fall of the Taliban in 2001, hundreds of other families from the village of Qarabagh, 50 km north of the capital Kabul, have also taken the decision to return after years living as refugees in Iran and Pakistan. For most, what they found when they arrived was rubble...

  The help, which is provided by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has enabled more than 5,000 families in Qarabagh to repair or completely rebuild their homes. In the Shomali Plain, some 14,000 families have received UNHCR assistance and more than 300 water points have been established.

  The UNHCR investment in Qarabagh is a fraction of its nation-wide programme to assist the more than 3 million Afghans who have returned since 2002.

• Not just on the radio, Afghan women are also make progress in the arts community:
  

  Barely three years ago, at a time when women in Afghanistan were not permitted even to leave their homes, the idea of a woman performing on stage - and in mixed company! - seemed inconceivable. Any woman who did so risked life and limb.

  All the more astonishing, then, that a theater festival opening in Kabul will include a play written by a woman (a teenage schoolgirl, to be precise), with real actresses, about the brutal suppression of women under the country's now-ousted Taliban government.

  “To those people who want to keep us away from the stage, I say: You have no right to interfere,” says 16-year-old playwright/director Naseeba Ghulam Mohammed, whose “Toward Brightness” is among the plays women will perform during the eight-day national festival. “In Afghanistan today, men and women are equal.”

• Another report tells a story of Afghanistan's new star and the resurrection of the country's movie industry:
  

  Two years ago, Marina Gulbahari was a street urchin begging for scraps from the tables of Kabul restaurants. If she was lucky, she might get a few crumpled notes or kebab leftovers wrapped in nan. If she was unlucky, the black-turbaned Taliban police would beat her. That was before she became the biggest name in Afghan cinema.

  Now, after a stunning performance in last year's critically acclaimed film Osama, Marina, aged 14, has become the face of Afghanistan's resurgent film industry at foreign film festivals, hailed as a precociously talented actress with an exciting future whose natural ability is drawn from her traumatic upbringing amid war and turmoil.

  Her emergence is the most extraordinary story of Kabul's film-making renaissance. From being persecuted by the Taliban, who burnt all the film stock they could, directors are again making movies. A new generation desperately short of cash and equipment but not of enthusiasm is buzzing with projects and ideas, determined to create a uniquely Afghan creative film genre.

• But Afghanistan is creating even more female film-making stars: "When 14 young Afghan women started a video project in Kabul, secretly documenting the history of women under the Taleban regime, they never imagined how far their work would take them... Now the public television network in the United States, PBS, has bought the rights and will show the film on its 349 affiliated stations." And in a display impossible to imagine under the Taliban rule, "on the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, hundreds of women rallied in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to promote their cause." Afghanistan, of course, remains a deeply conservative, rural-centered society and the struggle for equal rights and equal treatment still has a long way to go - at least, though, women can finally make a start.
  


• The education explosion continues throughout the country: " 'There has been a tremendous demand for education, since the rebuilding of Afghanistan began. It has continued to exceed all expectations.' says Keiko Miwa, an Education Specialist with the World Bank... based in Kabul. 'More than 3 million students enrolled in grades one to 12 in 2002, when only 1.7 million students were expected to enroll. In March 2003, the enrollment surpassed 4 million.' Today, more than 5 million students are enrolled in schools, according to Habibullah Wajdi. 'This is the most definitive expression for education in Afghan history'." Problems persist: security concerns are still keeping many girls away from school, and the growing demand for education puts strain on the existing resources, but the combination of enthusiasm at home and help from abroad is making a difference:
  

  Since April 2002, the World Bank has committed US$317 million in grants and an additional US$441 million in no-interest loans, known as 'credits' for development projects in Afghanistan... In addition, the Bank is administering six grants, totally US$27.6 million from the Japan Social Development Fund and a US$1.5 million grant for training teachers from the World Bank Post Conflict Fund.

• Meanwhile, Afghanistan has been able to rediscover its once thought lost heritage:
  

  More than 22,000 ancient cultural treasures from Afghanistan, feared lost or destroyed after decades of war and Taliban rule, have been taken out of dusty crates and safes in Kabul and inventoried for safekeeping, said a U.S. archeologist...

  The objects, including 2,500 years' worth of gold and silver coins and ancient sculptures, represent a 'Silk Road' of goods once traded from China, India, Egypt, Greece, Rome and ancient Afghanistan.

  “By the end of the Taliban's reign, most of us thought there was nothing left, just destruction and despair,” said National Geographic fellow and archeologist Fred Hiebert, who led an inventory project of the items.

  Many of the treasures were once on display in the Kabul Museum, which was shelled several times and lost its roof and door. Inventory cards were lost by fire and neglect, making it difficult to track down any of the items.

  “This project has been an enormous boost for Afghanistan - finding the treasures intact and then working with the outstanding team to inventory each one of them, preserving our heritage for our children,” said Afghanistan's minister of information and culture, Sayed Makhdoom Raheen, in a statement released by National Geographic.

• Read also this story of Omara Khan Massoudi, the director of the Afghan National Museum, and his long-standing attempts to preserve Afghanistan's cultural treasures from destruction. "Massoudi said that plans are now under way to protect and catalogue the remaining inventory in the museum. Afghanistan's ministry of information and culture is now creating a computer database to record all the artefacts in the museum's collection. The registration process began at the end of April. To date, more than 22,500 of them have been recorded. Restoration of damaged artefacts is also under way. Massoudi said the ministry has repaired about 50 items. Experts from France and Italy are also aiding in the effort."
  


• There is even more good news on the cultural heritage front: "A collection of pre-Islamic wooden idols chopped up by the Taliban in 2001 in their drive for a pure Muslim state is back on display in Afghanistan after painstaking repair in a project financed by the Austrian government. The near life-sized idols, some bearing at least a passing resemblance to the mysterious stone statues of Easter Island, went on display this week at the Kabul Museum, which was badly ravaged in Afghanistan's civil war and Taliban rule until 2001." And there is also hope for a much bigger find:
  

  French archeologists searching for the colossal Sleeping Buddha in Bamiyan province have uncovered what could be the long-missing statue's foot, raising hopes of a major new discovery from Afghanistan's ancient Buddhist past. Ever since the fundamentalist Taliban destroyed Bamiyan's 1,500-year-old Standing Buddhas in 2001 because they were 'un-Islamic,' attention has been focused on the hunt for the much larger Sleeping Buddha, described in the travel diary of the seventh-century Chinese monk Xuan Zang and depicted in cave paintings at the historic site in the Hindu Kush mountains west of Kabul.

• The Afghans are also re-discovering some simple pleasures of life:
  

  Through 25 years of war and drought, the hardy roses of Afghanistan never stopped growing. They climbed through the gardens of government buildings, the plush Kabuli villas of Arab fighters, and kept sprouting in the shattered remains of bombed homes long after their owners fled.

  But with Taliban rulers busy fighting for most of the late 1990s, gardens fell into neglect and disrepair.

  In the waves of joy that flowed from the collapse of the hardline regime in late 2001, Afghans rediscovered their gardens and a revival of roses swept the capital.

• With the ultra-fundamentalist Taliban gone, Afghan people are free to indulge in other previously forbidden pastimes. From Kabul, this victory of the sporting spirit:
  

  At a resort that became a battlefield, Afghans teed off... in their country's first open golf tournament in more than 30 years.

  As is still the way in Afghanistan, the first shot of the day at the Kabul Golf Club went to the local militia commander, applauded by his men with shouldered Kalashnikovs.

  But organisers say they hope their tournament, contested by 40 local caddies in a picturesque valley just outside the capital, will help bring a new era in which the only risks are from golf balls, not bullets, flying down the fairways.

  The club describes itself as the best and only course in Afghanistan and promises “golf with an attitude”. Hazards are unorthodox, from the bombed out club house below the dramatic first tee on a ledge high up the valley, to the odd spent shell or scurrying lizard...

  A lack of water means there is not a patch of grass to be seen and the greens are actually 'browns' made from oiled sand, yet the course has become popular with a few dozen hardy souls among Kabul's 2,000-strong foreign community.

• Says a club pro, Mohamad Afzal Abdul: "We still don't have a proper green and we still need more facilities... Some of our international members have promised to help us reconstruct our greens and donate equipment." And a former refugee Zabir Sidiq, who is rebuilding a restaurant and nightclub overlooking the course adds: "In the past there was a lot of killing going on here... Right now we are trying to fix up this area and give people some hope to understand a better life." Any Western golfers who would like to help?
  


• It's not just golf, though: "Afghan Atiq Sikander only took up bowling two years ago, but he dreams of building a bowling alley in his war-torn homeland. 'People used to play bowling in Afghanistan in the 1970s, but after all that has happened, probably eighty percent of Afghans now have never heard of bowling,' Sikander said. Sikander, 30, is the first Afghan to compete in the 40th American Machine and Foundry Bowling World Cup, to be held in Singapore from December 5-12... Although he holds an Afghan passport, Sikander has lived in Bulgaria for the past 16 years after moving there from Kabul with his family... [Now] Sikander wants to bring his love of the sport to his native country. 'War destroyed us. The Afghan people are eager to learn new things, but they do not have the facilities. I'm sure they will like bowling if they have a chance to play,' he said."
  


• Lastly, if you want to put a human face on the opportunities that are now open to Afghan people, read this truly inspirational story from "USA Today"'s Walter Shaprio:
  

  On a reporting trip to Afghanistan in December 2001, six weeks after the Taliban was routed, I met Jawad Sepehri Joya at a Red Cross rehabilitation facility in Kabul. Although he was just 16 and confined to a wheelchair because of polio, Jawad was not a patient. Instead, he was working at his part-time job programming computers for the Red Cross. And in near flawless English, this young man - who had never attended any school, who had been illiterate until 1998 and who had never left Kabul - earnestly confided that he wanted to go to college in America.

• Jawad is now attending Earlham college in Indiana on full scholarship. "Foreign students in America, particularly those few from war-torn lands, tend to be the children of privilege. But Jawad, the oldest of five, was instead shaped by Afghan adversity. His parents are illiterate Shiite Muslims, who moved to Kabul from the countryside after the 1979 Soviet invasion. His father, now retired, was a self-taught builder and architect. Nothing is more poignant than Jawad's story of how he contracted polio as an infant in 1986, long after this disease was eradicated in all but a few impoverished lands." Taken under the wing of an Italian doctor in Taliban-held Kabuk, Jawad was given clandestine lessons and taught himself computer programming. Now, a world away from the old life he "is taking chemistry and biology along with the required freshman courses at Earlham, [and] wants to be a scientist. But reflecting the forces that molded him, Jawad's conception of his future calling is characteristically expansive. As he stressed, 'I want to be a scientist who is very literate in social science, literature and art.' In short, a Renaissance Afghan."

RECONSTRUCTION:

• USAID reports on the latest successes in the work to establish sound, competitive economy in Afghanistan:
  

  Privatization of State Owned Enterprises will soon begin and construction of three industrial parks is near completion. Other accomplishments include:

  - Issuance of more than 6,000 Business Licenses and 13,000 Tax Identification Numbers in Afghanistan
  - Relicensing of three State Owned Banks, licensing of three local banks, and the licensing of four Foreign Banks
  - 80% of connected banks currently submitting daily reports
  - International Fund Transfer payments total 4,012 transfers for the year...

  Customs revenue generation figures indicate another significant improvement in Afghanistan's overall customs operations. Since March 2004, the beginning of the Afghan fiscal year, $76.4 [million] was generated in customs revenue - at a rate significantly higher than last fiscal year. Customs operations in Afghanistan are the largest contributor to the country's total domestic revenue Border operations are improving and progress continues with the commencement of Customs Mobile Units, which generate additional revenue.

• Speaking of banking, the Afghan authorities have issued a license for the establishment of an Iranian bank called "Aryan bank", soon to open office in Kabul (no neo-Nazi connotations there; Iranian people see themselves as direct descendants of the historical Aryan people of the second millennium BC). The number of foreign banks in Afghanistan has now reached eleven.
  


• Unemployment remains a big problem throughout Afghanistan, a legacy of widespread destruction, economic dislocation and illiteracy. To tackle this challenge, the International Labour Organisation will be opening new centers to assist job-seekers and provide training opportunities for those unqualified:
  

  The first [Employment Services Centre] was established in the capital earlier this year. Nearly 1,000 job seekers and 300-350 vacancies have been referred to the centre in the first three months of establishment. 'Out of these we have confirmed about 10 to 15 percent placement which is not so bad in the beginning,' the [ILO]'s chief adviser noted. The other eight centers will be established in the next 12 months in major cities of the country. ESCs are also expected to create a database on training providers for those out of work.

• And to spur the employment and economic growth through greater trade, the United States is pushing for the World Trade Organization to accept Afghanistan as a member.
  


• There is a lot of action on the transport infrastructure front to link Afghanistan with it neighbors. According to an estimate by the Pakistani Ministry of Roads and Transportation, some $2 billion will be needed to complete road and railway lines linking Afghanistan and Iran in the so called North-South transit corridor. The work on some key elements of the network is progressing well; the 122-km Dogharoun-Herat highway has already been completed and will be officially opened soon. Another highway, between Herat and Maimana will commence construction shortly.
  


• In another link, a 320-meter Milek bridge spanning the Iranian-Afghan border has been rebuilt at the cost of dlr 3 billion ($3 million) and recently reopened. "Eventually, if the road networks improve, this bridge will shorten the country's access to port by hundreds of miles," says former Afghan diplomat and politician from southern Kandahar, Abdul Jabbar Naeemi (600 miles, or 1,000 kilometers to be exact). Report notes that "Iran also paid 1.5 million dollars to build a four-kilometer stretch of road linking Zaranj to the bridge as well as Iranian road networks stretching south across Iran to the port of Chabahar." "This road will help the transportation of goods between Afghanistan's northern neighbours, Iran, and the subcontinent of India to the Persian Gulf and other Arabic countries," adds Afghanistan's reconstruction minister, Amin Farhang.
  

  Although there is a road running from Kabul in the east of the country to the main southern city of Kandahar, before the bridge was built most of Afghanistan's trade centered on the western city of Herat.

  That meant goods had to travel almost a full circle around the eastern edge of Afghanistan and back up to its western border in Herat before crossing to Iran for transport to the Gulf, or, be hauled south through Pakistan to Karachi.

  If plans to build a multi-billion dollar ring-road come to fruition, that could change.

  A further 200 kilometers of roads connecting the border town of Zaranj to the town of Delaram in western Afghanistan's Farah province is being constructed with Indian government help to create a ring road circling the country.

• To help with the construction in the corridor, "the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan package worth $301.2 million to improve road connections from Pakistan's Afghan border to the southern ports of Karachi... The project will improve access to the ports and the Pakistani market for landlocked Afghanistan and the republics of Central Asia... The project will upgrade 212 kilometres of provincial highways and about 700 kilometres of rural access roads. About 310 kilometres of national highways, including new access to Afghanistan, and infrastructure at two border points will be built or improved."
  


• The Asian Development Bank is also working to implement the proposed Customs Free Corridor (CFC) plan to promote regional trade between Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan: "During the first meeting of the working group representatives [of the] six nations discussed the idea of one customs regime for trade among [the group]... Pakistan is already facilitating trade to land-locked Afghanistan under the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA) and the launching of the Customs Free Corridor will further enhance the role in promoting trade with the said Asian countries. The bank is also financing different projects of roads for connectivity from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asian Republics (CARs) with the aim to enhance their volume of trade in the years to come."
  


• And to assist with the development of aviation infrastructure, "Afghanistan has been granted a $30 million soft loan from the Asian Development Bank to repair the war-torn country's regional airports... The concessional assistance will also include a staff training package for Afghanistan's Civil Aviation Center, which will produce about 180 graduates in two years."
  


• A major energy infrastructure project might finally be getting off the ground: "Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan will hold talks in January on constructing a long-delayed $ 2-2.5 billion pipeline to transport gas from ex-Soviet Turkmenistan, an Afghan official said on Wednesday. 'There are three problems to be addressed,' [said] Hakim Khan Taniwal, Afghan Labour Minister... 'Pakistan should say how much energy it needs. Afghanistan should look into the security of this pipeline. And Turkmenistan should confirm the reserves'." As report notes, positive developments across the region are making the pipeline more viable: "Hopes of stability in Afghanistan and signals from India this year that it might agree to import natural gas from nuclear rival Pakistan have revived interest in the project."
  


• There is also some valuable assistance from India to complete another major piece of infrastructure: "India Thursday selected state-owned Water and Power Consultancy Services Limited (WAPCOS) to complete the Salma Dam Project in Afghanistan. WAPCOS, a premier international organisation under the Indian ministry of water resources, will be required to complete the project within four years. The Indian government had last month sanctioned Rs.3.5 billion ($79 million) for reconstruction and completion of the project. When complete, the dam will meet the water requirements of Herat province and support a 42 MW hydropower plant."
  


• Speaking of water management, "the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a grant package totaling US$1.96 million to prepare a project to boost integrated water resources management and irrigated agriculture development in Afghanistan:
  

  ADB is contributing a grant of $1.2 million toward the $2.06 million total cost of the technical assistance (TA) and will administer a grant of $760,000 equivalent provided by the Government of Canada. The Government of Afghanistan will finance the remaining $100,000 equivalent. The TA and proposed project aim to improve water resource management at all levels in Afghanistan, from farm level to basin management. It will also rehabilitate, modernize and develop new irrigation and water resource infrastructure, lay the foundations of improved agricultural productivity, and ensure the integrity of watershed resources.

• Afghanistan's famous industry is planning to stage a comeback and regain the market share lost over decades of conflict:
  

  After a three-decade absence, the annual Carpet Festival, celebrating what’s believed to be a 2,500-year tradition,has shown its colours again in the northern province of Jowzjan.

  The festival, which was last held in 1974, returned to Jowzjan on November 22. It used to be held each autumn in either Jowzjan's Aqchah district or Andkhoi in neighbouring Faryab province, but was suspended during the years of fighting.

  Despite a driving rainstorm, more than 10,000 people came, including United States Ambassador Zalmai Khalilzad and Afghan commerce minister Mustafa Kazemi.

• As the report reminds us, "carpets are the country's third largest export after dried fruit and karakul, the lambskin used to make hats such as the one commonly worn by President Hamed Karzai. Over one million people are employed in the carpet industry in Afghanistan, including weavers, dealers, and businesspeople. Many of those involved in the carpet industry are of Turkmen ethnicity, and the majority of weavers are women." The challenge now is to regain at least some of the market which has been cornered by Turkish and Iranian producers. It will not be easy, but there are some successes already: "First, the US government agreed to import Afghan carpets without imposing import duties. And second, Ariana Afghan Airlines agreed to transport Afghan carpets abroad at cost," says commerce minister Kazemi.
  


• Tourism, too, is making a slow comeback. Afghanistan once used to be a large tourist attraction, but years of conflict have driven visitors away. "It is not a vacation spot for the fainthearted," writes one report. "Still, adventurous tourists are returning to this wild and exotic landscape."
  

  Hessamuddin Hamrah, president of the Afghan Tourism Organization, is confident that foreign visitors will come back. But since the fall of the Taliban, his agency has hosted only 35 tour groups, comprising 247 individuals from around the globe, mostly from Western Europe and Japan. 'We hope a lot of tourists will come,' he said, 'because it's really important to us for economic revival.'

  Admittedly, Afghanistan's reputation as a haven for terrorists - and as one of the most heavily mined places on the planet - has been a poor advertisement for tourism. “The news they hear from Afghanistan is bad,” Mr. Hamrah said. “But the security in Afghanistan now is not bad. ... We send groups out, they go there and come back very happy.”

  Lonely Planet, the bible of budget travelers, published a section on Afghanistan in the latest edition of its Central Asia guidebook - previous editions said simply: “Don't Go!” Other guidebooks plan to include information and advice about the country.

HUMANITARIAN AID:

• In the previous installment of the series, I mentioned the efforts of San Diego Rotary Club that resulted in their home town becoming a sister city of Jalalabad. The mayor of Jalalabad Abdul Razzaq Arsalai is now visiting San Diego to thank for many initiatives that are currently helping his city:
  

  Local group members have enlisted area schools and colleges to help Jalalabad schools, where teachers sometimes have no textbooks and base their lessons on decades-old notes... Rotary clubs in San Diego provided books and computers for Jalalabad's university, and an elementary school in the city has become a sister school to Doyle Elementary in La Jolla.

• Speaking of schools, read about this great initiative from Alaska and how it's making a huge difference for Afghan children, particularly girls:
  

  When the United States began bombing Afghanistan in late 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, a father named Ayub Azizi cheered the invasion. His wife secretly taught their four daughters during the Taliban's oppressive reign, a time when girls were denied an education. But the end of restrictions didn't solve another problem: how to rebuild schools that had fallen into disrepair, if they existed in places at all, after a generation of warfare that started with the Soviet invasion in 1973 [sic].

  Five young Americans, all in their early to mid-30s, responded by creating a non-profit organization, Solace International, that raises money to build schools for girls in Afghanistan. They found that their lack of bureaucracy helped them to be faster and more flexible in getting projects done.

  The group, which originated among a group of friends in Anchorage, Alaska, and uses Seattle as one of its bases, has completed six schools in less than two years at a cost of $25,000 to $30,000 each.

• Ray Riehle from Citrus Heights, California, tells me about the project he has been involved with lately:
  

  My brother, Ed, is a career Army Offices. He has been deployed to Afghanistan and is now working for Central Command. He has spent quite a bit of time traveling around the country but in his 'spare' time, he is working with orphans. There are 768 boys in Tahai-Maskan, a home for boys aged 8 to 18. There are 177 girls and 380 boys in Allaudi, a boys and girls home for boys up to 13 and girls up to 16. The kids are very poor, but their prospects are getting better every day. Ed's section is running the program. He is the Officer in Charge and the soldiers who are working at the orphanages are all volunteers. They are assigned to CFC-A, Combined Forces Command Afghanistan, based in Kabul.

• When back in October Ray asked his brother if there was anything he could do to help the troops, Ed had other ideas - he requested clothes and shoes, linen and school supplies for the orphans, and asked for any help to raise funds to build a better orphanage. Ray has so far raised $4,000 and is looking for more help with this ongoing project. Visit the website if you can help (SOZO International is the aid organisation acting as a conduit for funding).
  


• Others are helping on a smaller scale. In Lompoc, California, Mary Younglove has reached her target of sending 20 boxes with school supplies and clothes to distribute to needy Afghan children through her son Chuck who works with the American troops in Afghanistan.
  


• It's not just the Americans who are giving a helping hand to people of Afghanistan. Throughout Canada, an organisation called Women for Women in Afghanistan is raising funds through pot luck dinners, mostly to assist women in refugee camps through education initiatives. In Britain, meanwhile, "Berkshire Community College staff and students in October donated ten large boxes of school supplies to a village school in Afghanistan. Part of the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation, these supplies are in memory of north county resident Peter Goodrich, who was in the second plane that crashed into the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001."
  


• You don't have to be a grown-up to be able to help, either:
  

  While students were anxiously awaiting the end of the 2003-04 school year, two Bellevue girls were busy campaigning for donations to provide the one thing students in Afghanistan were in desperate need of - school supplies... In April, Meghan Frank, 13, and Mallory Ubbelohde, 13, from Logan Fontenelle Middle School, decided to prevent their classmates? school supplies from going to waste by coordinating a donation drive in their school, as well as other schools in the area.

• The idea to help Afghan children came to Meghan and Mallory while reading news stories about Afghanistan, cut out by Meghan's mother (Meghan's father, Capt. Kevin Frank, was stationed near Kabul). "The results were overwhelming, said Tracy Frank, Meghan's mom. The objective, when they started, was to send two shoeboxes worth of supplies. Just by word of mouth, things grew, and they ended up donating six boxes each for 12 Afghan teachers."
  


• Elsewhere, in New York state, another success story: "Build it and they will come. Short just $1,300, a local Sunday school class has raised enough money to fund a 'School of Dreams' for 100 children in Afghanistan. Students in the Lyall Memorial Federated Church Teen Sunday School are trying to wrap up the school fund-raiser, called 'School of Dreams,' which they began in the spring. The idea to fund a new school was sparked when the class looked through Christmas catalogs last year during one of its Sunday school classes. Teacher Maggie Blayney brought the catalogs for the class of 7th, 8th, and 9th-graders to hear what they would like for Christmas. Included in the assortment of department and clothing store catalogs was one called Samaritan's Purse. 'When I received it in the mail, it looked just like a normal catalog,' said Blayney. 'As the class flipped through the catalog, there was dead silence,' she said. Among things available for purchase was clean water for a family, hot meals for a week and farm animals. The class decided to build the school for $3,500, hoping to raise the necessary funds by Dec. 31. Blayney emphasized that participating in Samaritan's Purse was entirely the class's idea."
  


• And the young Afghan boy, whom you might remember from previous installments, Djamshid Popal is almost ready to return home after his successful life-saving heart surgery and recuperation in Canada.

THE COALITION TROOPS:

• One of the most important, if rarely appreciated, legacies of the foreign troops' stay in Afghanistan will be their effort to clean the country from the deadly legacy of past conflicts. To help them remove Afghanistan from millions of pieces of unexploded ordinance, the troops will soon have the helping hand - or arm - of 100 Talon robots. But not all assistance is so high tech: "They walk into minefields armed only with their noses and the promise of a good chew toy. They're undeterred by the junk that litters their work area. They go in unprotected. They have no Kevlar helmets or life-saving flak vests. The 19 mine-sniffing dogs that serve at Bagram Air Base probably don't realize how much the soldiers of the U.S. Army Reserve's 367th Engineer Battalion have come to rely on them." Dogs are a God-sent in this task, since they are able to sniff out explosives and don't get false alarms unlike metal detectors which react to any metal.
  


• In a country where health care system is only now starting to be rebuild, the military personnel is still playing an important role in providing medical assistance to Afghan people. These are people like Staff Sgt. Anthony Koertner, a member of the U.S. Army Reserves, who is serving as a nurse with the 325th Field Surgical Team. "We provide care to local Afghan nationals and our soldiers... The majority of what we see is mine blast injuries, but we see pretty much everything you can think of," says Koertner.
  



While the personnel at the field hospital help Afghan nationals who have been injured, they have offered a helping hand in other ways as well. One of the doctors at the hospital is working with local officials to help them improve their local healthcare system. Hospital personnel also work with patients as they come in to teach them better health habits. They've also helped children at school. “One of the things that I like is adopting a village,” Koertner said. “As far as schools go, the only requirement is they have their own pen and paper.” Hospital personnel help gather necessary school supplies, and also give donations of clothing to local children.

• But Afghanistan's culture and religious tradition mean that some of the American service personnel have a very special niche to fill: "At her base in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, Army Capt. Nicole Powell-Dunford is a flight surgeon, the person to go see if you are on flying status and feeling ill. She also relishes the chances she has to get off base and care for the people who live in the villages where the old ways and traditions endure. As a result, because she is a woman, she is the only doctor some Afghan women get to see."
  


• In the end, the reconstruction of the country will have to be a joint effort, and the troops are increasingly helping the Afghans to help themselves. "When we first arrived in Afghanistan, the people in the village would constantly come to us asking for schools and other projects to be done. Then we would take the request and make it happen," says Army Sgt. 1st Class Edith Horn, a member of the 412th Civil Affairs Battalion and head of the Khowst Civil Military Operations Center.
  

  Now, the CMOC is helping the people understand how to use tools in place throughout the country for those kinds of requests. The Afghan government is made up of ministries and departments that handle everything from road construction and repair to medical facilities and schools. “While most CMOCs and (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) are still handling the requests themselves, the people of Khwost are learning to rely on their own government,” [Horn] said. The process was slow to start, but now it has taken hold and the people seem very happy with the help and support they are receiving from the CMOC team.

• The troops are also reviving the "adopt-a-village" program: "Afghan children and adults swarmed Airmen bearing gifts recently, marking the revival of Bagram Air Base's adopt-a-village program. To create more room for the almost daily arrival of clothing, toy and school supply donations from people worldwide, the program restarted with three distribution missions in two days. With eight pickup trucks loaded with goods, Airmen convoyed to the mountain villages of Kharoti and Dorani, and to the town of Jangadam on the first day, and to the nearby town of Hasankheyl on the second day. Donations included 50 bags of clothing, a pallet of drinking water, 40 personal hygiene kits, 25 blankets, and enough notebooks, pencils, pens, crayons, glue and teddy bears for more than 100 children."
  


• On another occasion, "about 90 orphaned children stared at the soldiers who arrived from Bagram Air Base to make their coming winter a little easier. Separated into groups of girls and boys, the children of Parwan Orphanage in Charikar stood quietly in neat rows from smallest to largest. The soldiers moved among them, guessing their foot size and handing them each a new pair of shoes wrapped in plastic bags to keep out Afghanistan's endless dust. The 450 pairs will replace their worn-out, ill-fitting shoes and sandals before the Afghan winter hits with temperatures that can dip to 15 below zero." Case-by-case basis humanitarian aid is necessary, as Lt. Col. Lisa Bailey, a Dallas native, observes, "but there also must be long-term, sustainable work." Read the whole article on how the troops are trying to help via 14 Provincial Reconstruction Teams across Afghanistan.
  


• And the troops are also trying to help through sport:
  

  With a final score of 3-1, the Parwan youth soccer team recently defeated its coalition visitor, Team Eagle, at Parwan's home field in Charikar village. After 60 minutes of 'futbol,' the crowd of nearly 1,000 cheered and rushed onto the field to congratulate the home team on a solid victory.

  But a victory wasn't the only thing solidified with the match-up between the coalition team and its central-Afghanistan hosts. The match reinforced the coalition's good intentions and the progress that allowed personnel to spend a peaceful morning playing soccer in the local community.

  “It was beautiful. In the future, I hope this can happen again,” said Wahid Qanit, a youth soccer coach and interpreter for base operations on Bagram Air Base. And with all that is planned for the future, it should happen again. “I wanted to use soccer as a medium to reach out to the local community,” said 1st Lt. Joshua Walters, 2nd Battalion, 265th Air Defense Artillery Regiment and base operations intelligence officer. Walters also is a full-time high school soccer coach in his hometown of Tallahassee, Fla. “The idea is to use soccer to reach out to the youth,' he said. 'They are the ones who will be making decisions about the future of Afghanistan pretty soon.”

• Of course, it's not just the American troops helping the Afghan people - increasingly, the Afghan troops are playing an important part in the Coalition, and they, too, are starting to bring assistance to their own people:
  

  Afghan National Army soldiers with the 3rd Brigade from Pol-e-Charkhi are learning to appreciate what it means to do a little extra for their fellow citizens... One way they are doing this is at the Kabul Children's Hospital. The ANA's 3rd Brigade is sponsoring the hospital through many projects intended to get the hospital in better shape and enabling it to provide enhanced support for local children.

SECURITY:

• Afghanistan's militants are suffering a decline; according to security experts the Taliban still pose a threat and continue to enjoy some support in the ethnic Pashtun areas of the country, but "the Taliban movement suffered a serious psychological and military setback after failing to disrupt Afghanistan's presidential election... Experts said the movement was beset by leadership rivalries and internal divisions after a year of revived strength and cohesion. They also said the Taliban was increasingly being squeezed by a new Pakistani military offensive along the border, where many Taliban renegades were believed to be hiding... There are growing signs of a serious, three-way split within a once hierarchical movement dominated by a single religious leader."
  


• There are signs that at least some Taliban members are ready to take up the US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on his offer of amnesty:
  

  The US-led military in Afghanistan... said it had been contacted by Taliban members willing to lay down their weapons following an arms-for-amnesty offer by the US envoy to Afghanistan. US military commanders operating in south and south-eastern Afghanistan have been contacted by Taliban declaring their desire to “join the peaceful political process,” US-led military spokesman Major Mark McCann, told a news briefing in Kabul... He also said there had been “contacts with senior (provincial) government officials and military representatives here in Kabul.”

• While the efforts to combat the Taliban remnants continue, on a parallel track to make Afghanistan a safer and more secure place, the disarmament program is also moving ahead: "The multi million-dollar Afghanistan New Beginning Programme (ANBP), the official name for [the UN-backed Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration], is designed to disarmed more than 50,000 former fighters. So far, 22,000 members of Afghanistan's dozens of militia forces have returned to civilian life since the process begun in October 2003." Commander Zalmai, or Toofan (Storm) as he is also known, is one of the twenty success stories of the program recognized by the United Nations:
  

  The commander, who was one of the most powerful warlords in Kabul, with more than 2,000 troops at his disposal, now leans more towards economic development than battling rival militias. 'I am thinking of creating a paper factory in Kabul, we need a lot of paper for school text books and it will be good business,' said Toofan.

  He had been studying business when he left university to fight to remove the Soviets more than 20 years ago. He was also involved in the civil war during the 1990s and at one time controlled much of the suburbs south of the capital. The 50-year-old also played a role in ousting the Taliban as one of the leading Northern Alliance commanders...

  “All of my soldiers have been disarmed, so now I have no armed men except my bodyguards,” he said, adding that now he needed professionals to help him set up a factory. “Not all of the commanders are bad guys, we are very elegant and will prove our talent in the rehabilitation of Afghanistan as well.”

• On a smaller scale, disarmament touches many others and changes lives throughout the country:
  

  Eight-year-old Mohammed Imran thinks Jaweed, the local shopkeeper in this eastern Afghan village is “cool” because his shop is full of sweets. “Uncle shopkeeper is a cool man -- he has got lots of candies,” Mohammed told AFP as he hung around outside the store. But it wasn't long ago that local children were scared of Jaweed and people insulted the 28-year-old for being a gun-toting militiaman -- one of around 60,000 fighters loyal to local warlords and commanders across Afghanistan.

  Jaweed is one of almost 25,000 fighters who have laid down their weapons as part of a UN-backed Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration program which was launched in Afghanistan last May and is almost at the halfway point. After more than two decades of war, the country is awash with weapons and privately disarmament staffs think there may be as many as five guns per militiaman, most of whom owe allegiance to local commanders.

  But while only 25,000 guns have been collected, officials from the program hope that if they can break the link between local commanders and their poorly paid fighters and offer people an alternative livelihood, many like Jaweed would jump at the chance. “I'm happy with my new life -- very, very happy,” he said at his booth-like shop in Khushgunbad village some 15 kilometers (9 miles) northeast of Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province.

  The ex-fighters are given the choice of working in agriculture, training for the police force, national army or de-mining, or setting up a small business like the shopkeeper, who said was sick of toting a gun for a living. “I was tired of weapons, I wanted something different so I decided to become a shopkeeper,” said the ethnic Pashtun, who has fought to feed his family for more than a decade.

• You can also read an interview with Bubany Khairandesh: "[She] became a shopkeeper after a two-week business-training programme within the DDR process. The 35-year-old mother of five, who had worked as a military officer for more than 10 years in different Afghan army regiments, counts as the first female disarmed combatant." As Bubany says: "Being a female combatant is not very common in this country, also being a businesswoman is something very challenging in the conservative Afghan society. I personally enjoy having a challenging job."
  


• Over just one weekend, a fortnight ago, some 588 fighters gave up their weapons as part of the "New Beginnings Programme." The total of disarmed militiamen now stands at 26,569.
  


• The process of disarmament and "de-warlordisation" is already having positive security and economic effects throughout Afghanistan's regions:
  

  In northern Afghanistan, the national highway police are now manning security checkpoints once operated by armed militias controlled by of local commanders. The change has come as a big relief to those who regularly travel by road here.

  For years, travellers not only had to pay out 'fees' levied by the militias, but also faced the risk of being accosted and robbed - even beaten or killed - when they drove along the major highways between northern cities. But now uniformed members of Afghanistan's central police have replaced the militia gunmen, whom drivers referred to as “highway bandits”.

  Sarajuddin, driving a Toyota Corolla, said he has travelled the main road from Mazar-e-Sharif to Sheberghan for the last 13 years. He said motorists were regularly charged illegal 'road taxes' during the day - and ambushed and robbed by night - at checkpoints run by gunmen. “Those who controlled the checkpoints taxed passengers and drivers under pretexts such as ‘chai puli’ [tea money], ‘jeb kharchi’ [pocket money] and lunch costs, and if someone didn't pay, he would be beaten and robbed,” said Sarajuddin.

  “We didn't mind paying those taxes, but the most frightening thing was that the armed men who controlled the checkpoints by day became looters at night... and they would even kill someone if they didn't like him. For all those reasons, I haven't driven at night for the last few years.”

  For Sarajuddin, the deployment of national police meant that “last week I travelled safely with four passengers during the night.”

• As the Taliban threat recedes and the influence of private militias slowly wanes, the building of the national security forces continues apace. According to Bob Sharp, Chief of Staff of Office Military Cooperation in Afghanistan, the Coalition forces and the local authorities are on schedule to create the Afghan armed forces of some 70,000 soldiers by 2007: "There are almost 18,000 soldiers in the ANA. More than 15,000 trained soldiers in the field and about 3,000 in training... Of those 70,000 troops, 43,000 will be the ground combat forces and the rest will comprise the sustaining institutions such as the Recruiting Command, the Logistic Command, the Air Corps, etc."
  


• Here's a story of one American serviceman involved in the effort:
  

  Kirk Kobak took his turn as a volunteer assistant soccer coach at Prairie and Fort Vancouver high schools 12 years ago, but his biggest coaching job ever was in Afghanistan.

  Army Sgt. 1st Class Kobak and three other U.S. soldiers worked for eight months this year training dozens of Afghan soldiers to be army recruiters. They set up a recruiting system that has built the three-year-old U.S.-backed Afghan National Army from 7,000 soldiers in March to 17,000 now. Afghanistan's goal is 70,000 troops by 2007.

  Kobak said his four-man team worked 61/2 days a week training 263 recruiters and assigning them to 19 National Army Volunteer Centers across the nation. The goal is 35 recruiting stations, one in each Afghan province.

  “It was the greatest experience in my 21 years in the Army,” said Kobak, 39, who returned from his volunteer tour in Afghanistan to his Vancouver apartment just before Thanksgiving. “If I had it to do over again, I'd volunteer again,” he said. That's despite sandstorms, 120-degree heat, and rocket-propelled grenades frequently flying over the compound where he worked and exploding nearby. “It was like walking into a pizza oven,” said Kobak, who now works as an Army recruiter in Portland.

• Kobak's superiors were suitable impressed with his effort at to build the recruiting service for the whole of the Afghan army - he has since been awarded the Bronze Star. And speaking of the goal of 35 recruitment stations, the most recent one to open was one in Herat.
  


• With the Taliban and al Qaeda threat diminishing over time, more attention is now being given to other security issues in Afghanistan: "The Bush administration has devised a more aggressive counternarcotics strategy aimed at greater eradication of poppy fields, promotion of alternative crops and prosecution of traffickers. The plan, a mix of stronger carrots and sticks, attempts to bring more coordination, more money and more muscle to Afghan and international programs launched over the past three years that have not made much of a dent in the lucrative drug business."
  


• Other foreign assistance for the anti-drug campaign is starting to flow into Afghanistan, with Canada, Australia (the third largest humanitarian donor to Afghanistan with its A$83 million [$60 million] contribution so far), and Great Britain providing help. Great Britain is expected to provide $960 million over five years (until 2007 on the Afghan counter-narcotics efforts, and has already been instrumental in establishing the Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan.
  


• On a smaller scale, "Britain has pledged more than £3,5 million [$6.7 million] for a project to help Afghan farmers grow alternative crops in place of opium poppies, a UN agency said today. The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation said the project will encourage the production, marketing and processing of crops, including vegetables, nuts and dried fruits."
  


• Dr Iain Wright, the chief executive of the commercial arm of the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, an expert on agricultural land use, is touring Afghanistan "to meet partners in a pioneering project aimed at identifying a range of viable livelihoods for farmers in the country's poorest rural regions." In order to convince farmers to replace opium growing with legal agricultural use, Dr Wright is suggesting alternatives such as cashmere goats, which can bring quite significant financial returns.
  


• Afghan farmers are also encouraged to replace opium poppies with roses and "distil rose oil, a key component of perfume, by planting 40,000 Bulgarian rose plants. The oil-producing species were brought from Bulgaria by the German non-governmental organization Agro Action and the United Nations Development Program last month."
  


• In other recent security successes throughout Afghanistan: the arrest by Afghan police of 16 suspected Taliban militias accompanied by the seizure a large amount of arms and ammunitions in central Afghanistan during the Eid festival; turning in by Afghan civilians of a weapons cache near Shkin; and the find of a giant arms cache by Romanian troops (four cannons, 98 grenade launchers, and dozens of machine guns and rifles, found in two containers buried underground).
  


• And in recent security successes in neighboring Pakistan, which will have positive impact on Afghan security: the Pakistani armed forces have killed around 40 militants and demolished terrorist hideouts in an offensive along the Afghan border; meanwhile, "thousands of Pakistani troops backed by helicopter have succeeded in bringing all inaccessible areas of South Waziristan tribal area under its control in the ongoing operation against Al-Qaeda linked terrorists"; and the troops have dismantled a terrorist training camp and seized 1,700 kilograms of explosives and large quantities of arms in southern Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
  


• The US has also donated some valuable equipment to help Pakistani security forces track down terrorists in the border region: "the equipment delivered on Tuesday to the Frontier Corps manning the Pak-Afghan border includes 68 spotting scopes, 74 hand-held Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and 200 bullet proof vests."

As Afghan daily "Hewat" commented upon the presidential inauguration, "Hamid Karzai took the oath of allegiance yesterday as a president who entered the palace through the nation's direct vote, instead of via cannons, tanks, coups and uprisings. This was truly a great national festival. This was a festival of renewal of our strong national determination. This was a festival of a new chapter in our history. This was the festival of the renewal of the international community's solidarity and support for the Afghan nation."

This is only the beginning of the journey. Let all of us in the West, leading safe and comfortable lives which allow us to take so much for granted, don't disparage the little things that are today taking place on the other side of the world; a song that can now be sung, a girl who can go to school, a joke that can be told, a country road being build - or indeed a rose smelled again. These things may not sound like much to us, but for the people of Afghanistan they are all small steps leading them towards a better life and a normal future.

As always, if you have suggestions for the next part, please email goodnewsafghanistan "at" windsofchange "dot" net.

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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• Fighting flared in Fallujah again over the weekend, while seven Marines died two incidents in Anbar province.

• Greg Djerejian examines the so-called 'second front' in Iraq: the city of Mosul.

• Phil Carter takes a look at how the Army is adapting to lessons learned in Iraq; and where they're not yet making the grade.

• Zeyad is back, and he hopes to return to regular posting soon.

RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY

• Despite all the attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure, it appears they have failed to reduce Iraq's oil exports (although it seems logical to assume that Iraq could be exporting significantly more were these attacks not occuring). (Hat tip: One Hand Clapping.)

IRAQI POLITICS

• Spencer Ackerman is upset that the media isn't noting the primary objective of the leading parties: to get the U.S. out of Iraq.

• Some of Saddam Hussein's former aides are refusing food, although Saddam himself is still enjoying three squares a day.

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• How does France feel about Iraq? Very mixed feelings (link requires registration), according to Robert Blackwill, who says France's intellect is warring with her heart over America's Iraq war. Unfortunately, Blackwill is unsure which side will win out.

• A Sri Lankan truck driver held hostage in Iraq for six weeks is finally home. Dinesh Rajaratnam has returned to his native Sri Lanka with a warning to other Sri Lankans to stay out of Iraq.

ETCETERA

• SSG Johnny M. Horne Jr. was sentenced to three years in prison after what was characterized as a mercy killing of an Iraqi on August 18th. SSG Horne was the first of a number of American soldiers who may face charges for their actions in Iraq.

• When told doctors would have to cut through his wedding ring to save his finger, Lance Corporal David Battle didn't hesitate: he told doctors to take the finger instead.

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. And if you have a tip for a future Iraq Report, email us at MondayIraqReport(at)windsofchange.net.

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Yes, I am still working on the Baghdad Hobby Club project...and the need is still great. Most of the soldiers I began this project with are home safely and the club is filled with new faces still very interested in gaming, scale models, railroad, and radio control to pass their time in Iraq. The news on additional troops being sent means the club's stash of products will be in even greater demand as options for free-time activities are extremely limited. In addition, word about the Baghdad Hobby Club has spread - and soldiers from camps in other areas make a point of stopping by the club on their supply trips to Baghdad to pick up a few games or models to take with them to their unit. So now the Baghdad Hobby Club is serving far more than its 100 members, including many outlying posts as well.

The club is now under the direction of Sgt. Dean Flyte, who has informed me that the club is delighted to receive donations. Even though the holidays may delay their mail his comment was, "getting hobby stuff is always the best - no matter when it arrives!" Club members have indicated particular interest in military and fantasy gaming, but donations of any sort are welcome.

All donations should be packaged carefully for US Mail shipment (boxes weighing more than 40 lbs. will be charged extra). A customs form will need to be completed for each box indicating its contents (I usually write "hobby items" or "games") and estimated value. The boxes are shipped to an APO address (in New York City) and then the military picks up the boxes from there (that's why sending US Mail is most cost effective, Fed Ex and UPS will not ship to an APO address).

I'd recommend each donation include a shipping list (in case there are several boxes and they get separated so the club knows what to look for) and a nice note for the club members letting them know how you heard about their club and how much we appreciate their efforts. The club does post these notes, and I believe they can be just as important as the donations.

Send all donations to:
Sgt Dean Flyte
Baghdad Hobby Club
ISG/MCT#4/SCP-B
Camp Slayer
APO AE 09342

If you have a large shipment please contact me. There is a pending plan for a Medical Evac plane that operates out of Ohio to take the big shipments over.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Thank you for supporting our troops and the Baghdad Hobby Club!

Karey Koehn
Editor, Hobby Outlook Magazine
the nation's largest hobby publication
6200 South 58th Street
Lincoln NE 68516
(402) 434-5052
karey[at]hobbytown.com

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Winds' Roster

• Regular commenter Praktike has been given a Winds posting account.

• The Discarded Lies team has also been given a Winds posting account.

• We're adding briefing teams in order to make our Winds of War and Iraq Report features twice-weekly affairs. They will now run every Monday and every Thursday.

We're also looking to add more bloggers. Specifically...

• Glenn Halpern can no longer do the monthly Winds of Discovery round-ups of scientific discovery, inventions and policy (see example).

• We're looking to add a Military Transformation Uplink briefing covering new the equipment & technology, organizational changes, and tactical/doctrinal changes being driven by military transformation in the U.S. military - and beyond. This will take a solid grounding in military matters, and volunteering duos or even a team would be fine.

Winds' Design

You'll notice that I've declared defeat and reverted the typeface to its former status. Georgia didn't look good at the "x-small" size in use on our site, and clashed with the sans-serif fonts when the two were mixed.

Per suggestions last time, I have removed the light green background from the blog-posts and increased line spacing to 1.5.

I'm now going to leave the fonts, colors, etc. in the hands of whomever we work with on our blog's redesign, which will be from the banner on down. The feedback we got earlier will be forwarded to whomever we recruit for this task (we're looking).

As our hosting costs are rising, I'm also considering blogads. Very reluctantly, I might add, but I am considering them.

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(Disclaimer: I am not a technical expert on machine translation. I'm a technology investor and analyst, and I invite additions or corrections from real experts in the comments. That said, the earlier post referenced above was a partial record of a fairly detailed diligence project on the domain, and I'm recycling that research here. Details proprietary to any particular company have been deliberately deleted.)

Machine translation is actually a small business. It's forecast to be about $100m in 2007, which is tiny as high tech markets go. Meanwhile, the human translation market is about ten billion dollars. MT is 1% of that – pretty pathetic. The reason is simple. Machine translation is actually pretty bad, except when you have no alternative because of the volume of text you must handle. This small market size makes it difficult for would-be MT startups to get capital from people like me, since they have to persuade us that they can profitably take a large amount of market share from entrenched competitors, or radically expand the market. Hard sale, to say the least.

The result is that most new MT work is funded by military and intelligence agencies (not just the American ones) which require massive volumes of translation impossible to do with people. The language pairings required by these funders don't necessarily correspond to those the blogosphere might need; unsurprisingly there's a lot of interest right now in Arabic to English, but rather less on languages like Swahili or Malay that were discussed at the panel, and generally less on translating from English.

Machine translation technology is also in transition. Like a lot of natural language processing, it's moving from older rule based systems to corpus based techniques. Without details, that's using the increasing power of computers to find statistical patterns in language. What it requires is a huge amount of data to be analyzed before you get any useful output. In the case of a translator, what you need is hundreds of megabytes of parallel, equivalent text in both languages. Gathering that can be very expensive - and remember that these companies have trouble raising money. That leads to things like one project which started by using the proceedings of the Canadian parliament, because they are kept in both French and English by law.

Meanwhile, what about the other 99% of the market ($9.9billion worth) – the human translators? That market is largely controlled by translation bureaus, which are increasingly Internet connected, global networks of people with skills in particular language pairs. How do these bureaus differentiate themselves and compete? Their core assets – beyond their human networks – are large databases of parallel texts, which their translators can search for previous similar examples which make their work more efficiently. This part of their business is so important that the costs of software to support these databases, both internally developed or openly sold, is likely nearly as large as the entire MT market.

So, do you think these service bureaus are going to make their databases of translations open to the corpus based MT guys, so they can try and take market share? Right...

Now let me drag in (by reference) the open source movement and suggest how it might apply to creating mutual benefit for the blogosphere and the MT vendors and their other users.

First, where open source is not necessary or perhaps feasible is in the translation technology itself. Unlike something like an eVoting system, the input and output of an MT engine is readily inspected for error by many experts. Second, most of the deep experts in the domain are already busy – what we want to do is make it easier (read, cheaper) for them and their companies to develop more language pairs.

So, the asset that really needs to be open are the various collections of parallel texts, and perhaps a database engine that allows them to be gathered, stored, and retrieved. The terms of openness may need to include some variant of Creative Commons that allows these texts to be used to train MT engines which will then be sold, but only if the vendor agrees to some useful giveback to the blogosphere, such as availability of a limited functionality, XML enabled server (or service) that can be plugged into blogging or other community software for free.

And the blogosphere's contribution is obviously the translated texts. The good news is we have already have a lot of bilingual, motivated people with plenty to talk about, many of them drawn from the diasporas that were discussed at the panel. What's needed is to help them to organize translation of blog posts in a way that is immediately valuable to their communities, and over time bootstraps the translation repository so that we no longer have to be solely depend on their time and goodwill.

Since all machine translation techniques work better when the domain of discourse is known and used to categorized both the training data and text to be translated, there may be some advantage in at least creating hooks for the various categorization and taxonomy proposals floating around the blogging and open source communities.

OK, that's hopefully enough to launch the meme. Please tear it up, refine, and propagate. I need to do a little research that might yield more specific action items, which might yield a further post.

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