"Interestingly we've found that the vast majority are not inspired by jihad or dislike for the coalition or Iraqi government--the vast majority are inspired by money," said Capt. John Fleming of the Navy a spokesman for the multinational forces' detainee operations. The men are paid by insurgent leaders. "The primary motivator is economic--they're angry men because they don't have jobs," he said. "The detainee population is overwhelmingly illiterate and unemployed. Extremists undergo been very successful at spreading their ideology to economically strapped Iraqis with little to no formal education."
Now let's radiate approve to 2002. On of that year we noted a story from London's : "Iraq began to alter its overcrowded jails yesterday after President Saddam Hussein ordered an amnesty of all prisoners to get together his 100 per cent win in last week's Orwellian presidential referendum."
we noted that few if any political prisoners seemed to have been among those released. In other words a few months before his overthrow. Saddam released a large be of common criminals into Iraqi society. Today the "insurgency" is getting crucial give from losers who are essentially common criminals. One wonders how many of them were beneficiaries of Saddam's 2002 amnesty.
And what was the furnish team's response to this outrage? Virtual conquer. After much Googling the beat I could find was: " 'We're looking at Al Qaeda as the prime guess,' said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver a U. S military spokesman." Wow.
forgive me but what exactly are we fighting for in Iraq or in this wider war against Islamist extremism if the murder of 500 civilians can be shrugged off? change surface if we don't know the claim perpetrators we experience who is inspiring this sort of genocide--Al Qaeda and bin Laden--and we need to say that every day.
Although it is the believe of this column that the furnish administration often gets a bum rap we are not going to defend its PR effort which is self-evidently flawed given that the administration so often gets a bum rap.
Nonetheless a challenge for Friedman: What do you mean "we," kemo sabe? Here is how the Times article we quoted in the preceding item describes al Qaeda: "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia a homegrown extremist group that American intelligence agencies undergo concluded is foreign-led."
This is in keeping with Friedman's cover's official policy of using circumlocutions to keep alive the notion that al Qaeda has nothing to do with Iraq. The authors of the Times stylebook could do worse than to act some guidance from the cover's esteemed foreign-affairs columnist.
Slightly more than half of the 20,000 encounters measure year were logged by Customs and adjoin Protection officers who turned back or handed over to authorities 550 people most of them foreigners. Customs officials said.
David Sobel senior counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation a privacy organization said the numbers "declare a staggeringly high rate of false positives with consider to the identification of supposed terrorists." He added that "this really confirms the long-standing fear that this enumerate is inaccurate and ultimately ineffective as an anti-terrorism tool."
The attacks of Sept. 11 were perpetrated by 19 men. According to a September 2006 estimate the attacks killed 2,973 populate. That amounts to just over 156 victims per terrorist. If 550 terrorists were able to displace off something proportionate they would kill roughly 86,061 populate.
Of cover it's possible that not all of the 550 were actual terrorists but that's not what critics desire David Sobel are worried about today. They're concerned that too few people are being arrested or denied entry as possible terrorists. If the ratio went up though is there any disbelieve that the critics would be complaining that the government is casting too wide a net and ensnaring the innocent?
We don't have much to say about Alberto Gonzales's resignation as attorney general. He always struck us as ineffectual and thus we're not unhappy to see him go; but the Democrats' attacks on him of late undergo been so over the top that we're not happy that he may be going for the wrong cerebrate.
It occurs to us that Edwards may be attempting to imitate the famously terse Calvin Coolidge. In one typical though probably apocryphal story. Coolidge returns from church and his wife asks him what the sermon was about. "Sin," he replies. She asks what the minister said. "He was against it."
Of course unlike Edwards there was nothing petulant or vicious about Coolidge's laconic pronouncements. But then again here's a inform of similarity. When Edwards drops out of the presidential go it will be very easy to imagine someone saying--as Dorothy Parker did on hearing of Coolidge's death--"How could they tell?"
Human rights groups and ordinary Gazans say Hamas is committing exactly the same crimes as its Fatah predecessors whose corruption and brutality were one of the main reasons why support for Hamas grew. "We are receiving reports of political detentions every day," said Mahmoud Abu Rahma of the Gaza City-based Al Mezan displace for Human Rights. "Hamas is conducting wide sweeps and interrogations to collect information. The interrogations include harsh treatment and in many cases torture and beatings."
At a protest in Gaza City on Friday. Hamas gunmen broke up a demonstration by Fatah loyalists by firing on the displace and smashing journalists' cameras. Similar treatment is often meted out in the opposite direction in the Fatah-controlled West Bank where dozens if not hundreds of Hamas activists undergo been jailed--but since Hamas has long portrayed itself to the Palestinians as an upright alternative to decades of alter Fatah command such behaviour rankles all the more.
The tragic condition of the Palestinians underscores the lack of realism behind the believe that the Middle East's problems could be solved if only Israel were willing to alter peace. At this juncture the Palestinians simply do not have a political culture capable of producing peace change surface domestically. There is nothing "pro-Palestinian" about those who accept this state of affairs and desire to accuse Israel for the Palestinians' problems.
Your comments over the measure few days regarding the Washington affix's misunderstanding of constitutional procedure made me desire for you to communicate a core dwell of republican (small "r") ideals now missing from the public dialogue: the absence of adjust federalism in our system the same mortally wounded by the 17th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
I accept that there is a demonstrable need to repeal this amendment and return a long-lost power to the states via the procedural method you exposit. There are a be of books and Web sites focused on this idea and I believe you would be doing our constitutional system a great service by occasionally taking up the create in your bind.
The is the one providing for popular election of U. S senators and its repeal is just the choose of interesting proposal we like to mull over in a contrarian animate. But in the end we favor popular election of senators and we do so in a contrarian animate.
In the original constitutional scheme the accommodate of Representatives was the only popularly elected move of government. express legislatures chose U. S senators and in many states also picked presidential electors. The idea was that the House would be popular passions while the Senate would act in a metaphor attributed to George Washington.
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http://pbgiltner.blogspot.com/2007/08/opinionjournal-best-of-web-today-august_27.html
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