Blowback

Glenn Reynold writing at MSNBC wonders aloud whether a public opinion tipping point has been reached in the war on terror. But it's not the tipping point you think.

With the Cartoon Wars giving way to the ports imbroglio, Jim Geraghty, blogging from Turkey, wonders if we're seeing a tipping point in Western attitudes toward Islam. Geraghty collects a lot of quotes, and writes of "my sense that in recent weeks, a large chunk of Americans just decided that they no longer have any faith in the good sense or non-hostile nature of the Muslim world. If subsequent polls find similar results, the port deal is dead."

One of the keystones of President Bush's strategy has been to distinguish very carefully between Islam, the religion of peace, the mass of whose adherents we want on our side, and extremists with whom we are really at war. Geraghty is suggesting that public opinion now sees the clash as one of a more general nature: between "us" and "them". Although no one is suggesting the West is yet at war with Islam, twelve public figures have issued a Manifesto calling "Islamism" the new totalitarian threat of our time. Atlas Shrugs has the text of the declaration which says in part:

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

The Manifesto has been signed by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq, Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Irshad Manji, Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, Ibn Warraq.

This represents a substantial -- but not a total -- departure from the strategic idea of treating Islam as a religion of peace and focusing on a narrow group of miscreants within it as the true enemy. The Manifesto shifts the definition of the enemy from a group of people to an ideology. If Jim Geraghty is right the threat to the President's original strategic focus comes not from a single party or even from the his traditional opponents on the Left, but a kind of populist mood swing engendered by a cumulative disenchantment.

Gateway Pundit points to a new ad campaign being undertaken in Poland by an organization called the "Foundation of St. Benedictus" which calls attention to ordinary men and women being killed for religious reasons all over the world by a militant Islam. They are plastering posters on Polish public transportation. Some examples are shown below.

George Shahata, thirteen years old, killed by Muslims in Egypt	Nache Achi was killed by Muslim fundamentalists in Africa.

The Cartoon Wars are not dead; they are just mutating in form at an increasing rate.

Commentary

If the Left had not been so relentlessly politically correct it might have been able to shape the debate according to its avowed (or should I say "so-called") principles. But they gave that chance up in exchange for the cheap thrill of anti-Americanism. Now even they find themselves decrying the Dubai Ports World deal because -- although they will never put it that way -- President Bush is a fool to trust these people with the gateway into America. They may even be conscious of the tightening of the logical rope around their necks even as they pull on it. But though they've hit bottom they keep digging. The New York Times has announced that it will sue the DOD to force the federal government agency to turn over classified material in connection with its NSA surveillance stories. At one level they may think this is clever, but strategically it is (in my opinion) very, very stupid.

Time will tell whether the war on terror remains within the bounds of limited confrontation with rogue elements within the "religion of peace" or whether -- due to some conceptual fault in the campaign or the persistent obstruction by the politically correct -- it morphs into a more general confrontation between belief systems and civilizations.

Just stuff

I hope to convey my impressions of some books I am currently reading over the next two weeks. They are:

• The Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt
• Six Days of War by Michael Oren
• The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis
• No True Glory by Bing West
• Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett

This snippet from WH Auden cited in the Shield of Achilles seemed written for Ilan Halimi and those who killed and tortured him, and not incidentally for the Bing West's description of the Blackwater contractors whose bodies were desecrated by children as their elders egged them on.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes liked to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst one could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died ...

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil

Daniel Harrison writing in Blogcritics.org describes the growing competitiveness of the blogs with mainstream media in certain respects.

Nowhere have such examples been more prescient recently than last week in the field of journalism, when two high-quality, equally highly acclaimed weblogs published well-written, erudite and startlingly professional pieces of investigative journalism.

The first piece to break waves was a thorough report on a terrorist training camp inside New York State founded by Sheik Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, the Islamic cleric Daniel Pearl was attempting to interview when he was kidnapped. Daring, provocative, and written with the type of considerable elegance New York Times staffers would be envious of, The Politics of CP's "Jamaat ul-Fuqra Training Compound Inside the United States" was an admirable feat of journalism by the highest standards and even brought local insights and testimonies into the investigation, quoting one anonymous witness with catchy, breathtaking prose ...

Belmont Club readers will recall that both Gates of Vienna and the Politics of CP were involved in developing this story, which produced original investigative reporting and not a few nervous moments for the bloggers.

Vik Rubenfeld from The Big Picture has thoughts on unedited video as opposed to soundbite video.

These video interviews that Pajamas Media is doing are revolutionary. They're far more in-depth than the sound bites the networks hand out, and which MSM cherry-picks so as to bias the news in favor of their outdated and counterproductive preferred political policies. Astonishingly, interviews like those PJM is doing, make it possible for Congressmen to be seen and heard in some ways for the first time. ...

I was honestly surprised to see and hear these Congressmen speaking so well, so earnestly, and with so much of significance in what they said. It adds a lot to it to be able to see them. As soon as I saw these videos I realized that I'd been misled by a lifetime of listening to MSM's distortions, into thinking that all Congressmen were more or less blowhards who couldn't produce a straightforward, human, interesting thing to say.

Commentary

I'm not sure that in-depth blog reports or unedited video will ever have the mass appeal of slickly packaged print and video products which are simplified so that they can be digested at a glance or reduced into a single memorable soundbite. There's a real market in content-reduced information as the Reader's Digest well knew, and that segment will probably remain alive and well.

However, the low cost of entry into Internet publishing makes it possible for authors to create specialty publications which can effectively reach their audiences. Whether that's good or bad is the subject of debate. David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post argues that unfiltered content, no longer moderated by the Gatekeepers, may be a dangerous and loose cannon.

So why does the world feel so chaotic? Why is there a growing sense that, as Francis Fukuyama put it in a provocative essay in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, "More democracy will mean more alienation, radicalization and -- yes, unfortunately -- terrorism"? ...

Charles M. McLean, who runs a trend-analysis company called Denver Research Group Inc. (I wrote a 2004 column called "Google With Judgment" that explained how his company samples thousands of online sources to assess where global opinion is heading.) I asked McLean last week if he could explain the latest explosion of rage in our connected world -- namely the violent Islamic reaction to Danish cartoon images of the prophet Muhammad.

McLean argues that the Internet is a "rage enabler." By providing instant, persistent, real-time stimuli, the new technology takes anger to a higher level. "Rage needs to be fed or stimulated continually to build or maintain it," he explains. The Internet provides that instantaneous, persistent poke in the eye. What's more, it provides an environment in which enraged people can gather at cause-centered Web sites and make themselves even angrier. The technology, McLean notes, "eliminates the opportunity for filtering or rage-dissipating communications to intrude." I think McLean is right.

What do you think?

Personal computers

Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy discusses the utility of personal computer seizures versus network surveillance as a law enforcement tool.

Personal computer searches will maintain their critical importance in computer crime cases for two very practical reasons. First, no matter how much people store information remotely as a general matter, they tend to keep evidence of crime and digital contraband close to home. Second, it is quite difficult for the government to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt based solely on evidence obtained from a network. You never know who had acccess to the network, or when, or whether the account was hacked or stolen. As a result, nearly every computer crime case ends with a retrieval and search of the suspect's personal computer(s). Finding evidence of the crime on the suspect's personal computer is damning evidence, quite persuasive to a jury. As a result, even if lots of the action happens at the network surveillance level, most investigations still end up with a personal computer search.

Commentary

This controversy goes to the very heart of the notion of what constitutes a persons computer. Mr. Kerr might be right when he says that most people keep "digital contraband" close to home, but I suspect that for a growing number of people, their information stores are scattered over physical computing resources whose actual location they have no idea of. Consider a person who has one or more web e-mail accounts. That person's computer effectively uses a remote mail server as data storage. Consider this blog. The majority of a person's intellectual property may actually be stored on a remote server owned by the Google corporation.

In the extreme case, consider a person whose operates exclusively from coin-operated Internet machines or Internet cafes to transact his business. It's perfectly possible to do this, provided one is willing to take the risk that passwords may be captured by spyware on the client machine. Where is his computer? But on the other hand, if the network is to be considered a virtual computer, all kinds of Fourth Amendment problems associated with a "vacuum cleaner" approach to surveillance will be encountered.

Philippine Marine unit defies Arroyo: backs down

Breaking: The insubordinate Marine unit has stood down. At a press conference in the Philippines the insubordinate officer says he will not split the Marines. A variety of rumors are circulating to explain why the defiance took place and what persuaded the insubordinate unit to stand down.

Manila news has reported the following cryptic report:

The standoff created by the relief of former Marine commandant, Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda has been settled, the Corps' newly-installed chief said late Sunday night.

Brig. Gen. Nelson Allaga announced the development as a crowd gathered at the chapel in Fort Bonifacio in support of Miranda. Allaga told reporters that the "misunderstanding" that stemmed from a complaint made by Col. Ariel Querubin was patched up. He said the Marine leadership and Querubin have reached a gentleman's agreement to settle their differences.

"I’ve already conferred with my commanders and everything’s already settled. You [reporters] can go home now," Allaga said. The Marine commanding general said he is now the authority following the relief of Miranda. Allaga, however, declined to present Miranda to reporters though he was with Querubin during the address. The Marine general said Miranda was inside the headquarters. With regard to Querubin's initial refusal to recognize him as Marine commandant, Allaga said: "That's up to my discretion."

He then turned his back to reporters and refused to answer any more questions.

More:Xinhua is now reporting that the Philippine Marine Colonel who led the "protest"? "rebellion"? has been arrested.

Miranda's replacement, Brigadier General Nelson Allaga as new Marines Commandant ordered to take Marines Lieutenant Colonel Ariel Querubin into custody, as he told donzens of reporters that the situation at their headquarters is an "internal matter" of the Marines. ... The Marine Lieutenant Colonel was implicated in the alleged foiled plot to unseat President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, according to himself. Querubin also confirmed that he planned to join street protests on Friday and that he planned to bring along a "majority" of the 400-strong Marine officer corps. Querubin said he would join protests so that efforts to oust President Arroyo "will not turn bloody." Miranda tried to dissuade them from doing so, he said, adding "We were prevailed upon by General Miranda.

---

A Philippine Marine unit has defied President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's orders from positions within the main military base in the Manila area. There is no shooting so far but well known opposition figures are converging to where the rebels are gathered allegedly to provide political support.

For more information, go to Pajamas Media's coverage and Philippine Commentary.

The security force at the Presidential Palace has been augmented by police units. According to Manila news station ABS-CBN:

Members of the police Special Action Force (SAF) were deployed to Malacañan on Sunday night after tension erupted at the Philippine Marine headquarters in Fort Bonifacio, ABS-CBN News learned. Video footage from ANC showed SAF personnel alighting from a truck near the palace gates shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday. ... The deployment of additional forces came amid the tension at the Marine headquarters after the relief of Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda as commandant.

To illustrate the possible role of the Philippine Marines in the current coup crisis in Manila, readers can visit one of the coup plotter's websites. Remember the Tourist Guy -- the Internet legend who has posed everywhere and whose last photo was taken, smiling atop the World Trade Center on September 11? The coup plotters had their own version of the Tourist Guy in Philippine Marine Captain Nicanor Faeldon, who has a series of pictures which shows him posing, sometimes with a newspaper in hand, inside many major Philippine military bases after he escaped from jail on December 15, 2005, with the caption, "no one can stop me from entering these camps unless the corrupt generals themselves man the entrances", normally with some newspaper in hand to provide proof of date. He has equivalent pictures for Southern Command, National Police Headquarters, Central Command and at the General Headquarters Building.

Faeldon was recaptured on January 27, 2006. However, these instances indicate the depth of opposition to Arroyo.

Commentary

The Philippine Bishops have denied they are calling for support for the rebels holed up inside the metropolitan military base. This reflects the reluctance by many sections of Philippine society to endorse an extra-Constitutional solution to the crisis in that country. However, there are apparently a fair number of political figures who are convinced that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo must resign. One of these is former President Corazon Aquino who called on Arroyo to resign. Breaking.

The Nauroz offensive

Syed Saleem Shahzad, writing in the Asia Times (hat tip: Bill Roggio) says that the destruction of the Golden Mosque was a terrible blow to the Sunni-Shi'ite united resistance against the United States.

KARACHI - Spring is only a month away, and preparations for Nauroz (the Persian new year) are well under way. In Iran this year, however, Nauroz was due to come with a deadly dimension: the start of a new phase of a broad-based anti-US resistance movement stretching from Afghanistan to Jerusalem. ...

Security contacts have told Asia Times Online that several al-Qaeda members have been moved from detention centers to safe houses run by Iranian intelligence near Tehran. The aim of these people in Iran is to establish a chain of anti-US resistance groups that will take the offensive before the West makes its expected move against Tehran. ... Many believe that the US is planning preemptive military action against Iran.

With Wednesday's attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra in Iraq, home to a revered Shi'ite shrine, the dynamics have changed overnight. ... The potentially bloody polarization in the Shi'ite-Sunni world now threatens to unravel the links that have been established between Shi'ite-dominated Iran and radical Sunni groups from Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Commentary

I'm not sure whether to believe Mr. Shahzad. Zarqawi has long declared his intention to start an Iraqi civil war. The al-Qaeda or Sunni groups have attacked Shi'ite pilgrimages and holy places for two years running. Saddam Hussein launched a war against the Ayatollah in 1980. Therefore it does not necessarily follow that the Golden Mosque attack was in response to the Nauroz offensive. But it does raise the question: what is the Nauroz offensive?

Philippine crisis: the third day

The political crisis in the Philippines has taken an interesting turn. Former President Fidel Ramos, himself an ex-armed forces chief of staff, has said anyone taken into custody under what he described as the "pre-cooked" declaration of emergency worthy of the former dictator President Marcos would be regarded by posterity with honor.

"I am just saying [that] it's Marcosian because of the warrantless arrest and the proclamation itself," Ramos said. ... "The process of not giving it to the Cabinet for review means that that whole thing was pre-cooked," Ramos said. ...

With regard to the warrantless arrests, Ramos said it would be an honor to be arrested "under these circumstances." Ramos was informed of the arrest of retired police general Ramon Montaño by the general's wife. "I told her to tell Mon [that] it's a badge of honor to be arrested under these circumstances," he said, adding that he gave his assurance to Montaño's wife that he would help in the release of the police officer whom he described as one of his most able generals.

Ramos added that he was invited to Malacañang Friday but declined. "I said I am sorry. Wag na lang [No more]."

Commentary

A BBC survey of Manila newspaper headlines indicates opinion is still on the cusp. There is a reluctance to topple President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo through extralegal street demonstrations but there is also widespread suspicion of her motives. Fidel Ramos' moderate verbal opposition to the declaration of emergency still leaves the door open for a rapproachment betwen the two powers. It's a shot across Arroyo's bow with the unstated suggestion that the next volley may be fire for effect.

Still no KO by either side and the audience awaits the start of the next round.

Two reports from Iraq

Two interesting reports, one from Iraq the Model and the other from Healing Iraq regarding the situation in Baghdad.

The key messages from Iraq the Model are:

• the level of violence was not as bad as made out to be in the press, at least according to the government briefers.
• the curfew continues.
• neighborhoods are setting up checkpoints to screen outsiders

He has this interesting observation:

Sadr ... holds two meetings with Sunni leaders; one on the clerical level with the Association of Muslim Scholars and the other on the political level with the Accord Front. A couple of joint press releases were made after the meetings in which the two parties made calls for unity among Iraqis and condemned all kinds of attacks on mosques and civilians. In both cases the US and Iraqi authorities were blamed for the escalating situation. Ironically, these are the very two factions believed responsible for the greatest deal of the violence in the past few days!

Healing Iraq's also reports the government assertion that reports of sectarian violence while real, were exaggerated, but in a more skeptical tone. He remains skeptical of the Interior Ministry's neutrality, suspecting them of siding with the Shi'ites. This bit coincides with Iraq the Model: "Things are now quiet in the Sunni towns of Zubair and Abu Al-Khasib, south of Basrah. Sadr's followers continue to demonstrate, but in general, things appear to have calmed down there."

We also get a glimpse of what American forces have been doing:

Clashes between Interior ministry forces and insurgents at Khan Dhari, Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. According to the Defence minister, the force was providing protection for a funeral procession of the slain Al-Arabiya TV, Atwar Bahjat, heading to the Karkh cemetary. They came under fire and roadside bomb attacks near Harith Al-Dhari's residence at Khan Dhari, resulting in a firefight. The Association of Muslim Scholar's website, and Muthanna Al-Dhari's statements on Al-Jazeera TV, say the residents returned fire after they were mocked and assaulted by the Interior ministry force which arrived in 20 vehicles early in the morning, before the funeral procession. American forces in the area seem to have intervened, and later freed 2 of Dhari's cousins taken as prisoners by the Interior ministry forces.

(As far as I can recall Atwar Bahjat was a celebrity Sunni news correspondent who was killed, possibly by Shi'ite militias in the first hours after the Golden Mosque attack. The US forces are depicted as watching, intervening at least on this occasion.)

Moqtada al-Sadr seems to be trying to cover up his apparent involvement in the earlier. Healing Iraq reports this strange statement from the Mahdi in which their spokesmen say that the killers of the past few days have been too handsome to be them.

The Iraqi Rabita website reports an interview with a Mahdi militia leader today, quoted as saying: "Strange things are happening these days. It's true that our guys often act as a bunch of spiteful, criminal thieves going on sprees of sabotage, murder and plundering. But the people who were running the act were clean young men, elegantly dressed, in modern vehicles, carrying the latest weapons, unlike our guys who are usually unkempt ruffians. No one knows were they are now."

Here are pictures from Healing Iraq's site which illustrate the point.

Update

Pajamas Media has a  link to a podcast interview of Omar at Iraq the Model describing the situation in Baghdad.

Commentary

I'm guessing that Healing Iraq got his pictures from one of the websites he mentions as sources. His information about Sadr's backpedaling seems to square with Iraq the Model's ironic observation that Sadr is now churning out press releases denouncing violence which he is suspected of avidly participating in. And I'll grant that the uniforms worn by the militiamen shown above look like they came straight out of a box.

Sadr's about-face suggests he wants to distance himself from a failed enterprise. He is not, definitely not the kind of guy to go down with the Titanic after letting the women and children into the lifeboats. This suggests the civil war crisis has been beaten down for now. However, if those uniforms are new and Sad'r and the al-Qaeda (mentioned elsewhere in Healing Iraq's post) were practically ready to exploit the civil unrest from the start, then one might speculate whether the Golden Mosque attack was not part of a larger plot to spark up a civil war in Iraq. That's speculation but an interesting thought to hold in mind as more evidence comes to hand. Once again, input from the readers if they have any info (remember to quote the URL or type of source) would be much appreciated.

The second day

The key question that has to be answered regarding the Gloria Arroyo's declaration of the state of emergency in the Philippines is: to what end? The ostensible reason for her actions is to defeat extralegal threats (aka coups de etat) against the state. Her opponents offer the alternative reason: to ensure an increasingly authoritarian continuance in office along the lines of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

The state of emergency was aimed at meeting the following threat:

[a] "systematic conspiracy" by members of the opposition, communist groups and "military adventurists" is out to bring down her government

Which of these two paths -- to defeat a coup threat or cement herself in power -- will be clarified by events. There may be some uncertainty in the direction at first but the actual trajectory will be made manifest by Arroyo's own actions. Developments since the declaration of the state of emergency yesterday have been ambiguous. Blogger Ricky Carangdang notes the closure of the first newspaper.

Early this morning police raided the printing press and editorial offices of the Daily Tribune newspaper in Manila. ABS-CBN reporter Jorge Carino arrived at the scene just as the officers of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group were boarding their vehicles. They carted off copies of today’s edition. They did not show anyone a warrant. They did not explain their action. ...

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales and chief of staff Mike Defensor both admitted that the enforcement of 1017 could possibly include taking over media companies and public utilities, although Gonzales hastened to add that there was no such plan in the works. Defensor offered no such clarification. Also yesterday, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye was quoted as saying that Malacanang may opt to issue “guidelines” about how the media should conduct interviews with parties hostile to the government. Yesterday’s actions should serve as a warning to all independent media.

This can be interpreted as part of the process of dismantling the media arm of the "systematic conspiracy" but it can also be seen as the first ominous step to muzzling press freedom. A Philippine lawyer-blogger now reports arrests of opposition political figures.

Uncertainty hangs in the air as the crackdown on alleged coup conspirators in the wake of President Arroyo’s declaration of a state of national emergency yesterday begins as Rep. Crispin Beltran (PL - Anakpawis) was arrested this morning on the strength of a 1985 warrant of arrest. Rep. Satur Ocampo (PL - Bayan Muna) hemself managed to evade the clutches of police in the nick of time, even as two of his aides were nabbed instead.

Both Beltran and Ocampo are members of the political wing of the Communist insurgency; former operators whose nearest analogue would be Gerry Adams of the IRA. These arrests can be construed as a strike against the "communist groups" allied with the "military adventurists" threatening the Arroyo government. But more suspicious minds will note that Congressman Beltran had an outstanding warrant from 1985 which could have been served without the emergency powers. Nor is it clear why the government takeover of "media companies and public utilities", as expressed by a government spokesman, has any relevance to suppressing a coup de etat, unless one can imagine why the telephone companies and television stations should be taken over as part of a campaign to suppress a rebel group within a national army.

It is precisely the lack of a visible crackdown on the rebel officers -- only a handful have been arrested -- which is the most curious aspect of events so far. It is unclear why Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should require emergency powers to rein in the Army when its mutineers are under the "personal custody" of superior officers. When the full measure of existing law is not applied, as in the case of the 1985 warrant on commie Congressman Beltran, what is the need for emergency powers? For a legal parsing of the emergency proclamation visit Proclamation 1017. The key riff: 

The text and the title are totally unrelated. ... But Proclamation No. 1017 is not about a state of national emergency but is based, as clearly stated in the dispositive portion, on Section 18 of Article VII of the Constitution which refers to “lawless violence, invasion or rebellion”. Now, why in the world would Proclamation No. 1017 be titled Declaring a state of national emergency when it is about something totally different?

Maybe some of the lawyers in the blogosphere can have a go at it.

Commentary

There are two parts to facing the Philippine crisis. The first is to decide what red lines, if crossed, would constitute convincing proof of which motive -- the legitimate desire to defend a state or unbridled ambition -- is operative with Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The second, assuming the first part can be answered, is to decide what to do if the red line is crossed; what response is appropriate if it becomes apparent that the emergency process is not protecting the Philippine Constitution but dismantling it.

Zeyad reports from Baghdad

Zeyad in Healing Iraq has this post up:

Friday, February 24, 2006

Fierce streetfighting at my doorstep for the last 3 hours. Rumor in the neighbourhood is that men in black are trying to enter the area. Some armed kids defending the local mosque three blocks away are splattering bullets at everything that moves, and someone in the street was shouting for people to prepare for defending themselves.

There's supposed to be a curfew, but it doesn't look like it. My net connection is erratic, so I'll try to update again if possible. The news from other areas in Baghdad are horrible. I don't think it's being reported anywhere.

My father and uncle are agitatedly walking back and forth in the hallway, asking me what we should do if the mob or Interior ministry forces try to attack us in our homes? I have no answer for them.

UPDATE: Apparently, the attackers were fended off in our neighbourhood. The fight ended about 2 hours ago, about the same time electric power returned to our area. Now we are only hearing sporadic gunshots here and there. To have an idea of what was going on, listen to these small audio files I recorded using a cell phone.

News are conflicting. Some say the local National Guard unit (its commander is from our own area) helped repel the assailants. Others say the neighbourhood watch teams clashed with an armed group in several unmarked vehicles.

The same situation occured in both Adhamiya and Al-Khadhraa'. In Adhamiya, armed groups in black crossed the river in boats from neighbouring Kadhimiya and took over the Nu'man hospital.

In Khadhraa', a combined force of Interior ministry forces and men dressed in black are surrounding 2 mosques with several families inside, threatening to burn them down on the occupants. Baghdad TV (the Islamic party's channel) is updating on the situation through telephone calls from inside the mosque. The families are crying for outside assistance.

Other bits from here and there:

An armed group in 10 vehicles with no number plates entered the Al-Iskan Al-Sha'bi district in Dora, and attempted to enter mosque, but was turned back by the residents. Eyewitnesses claim that as many as 40 bodies and 5 burnt vehicles are still in the area. 3 attackers were also killed in Dora when they attempted to enter the Al-Kubaisi mosque.

Another group dressed in black in one Daewoo and two Opel vehicles passed the Interior ministry forces' checkpoint at Abu Dshir square, south of Dora, with no resistance and entered the Yassin mosque with explosives in tin containers. The keeper was killed and the mosque blown up.

a Shi'ite armed group carried Sheikh Ghazi Al-Zoba'i in a pickup truck around Sadr city, shouting that they have a Wahhabi terrorist with them, before he was lynched on the streets by the angry mob.

Government officials and spokespersons are deliberately suppressing any news of these ongoing attacks on Sunni neighbourhoods and mosques. The official Al-Iraqiya channel is playing a historical movie, while other channels are playing Shi'ite mourning and Quran. The Interior ministry says it only has reports of 19 mosques attacked and one cleric killed. Go figure.Healing Iraq

Commentary

Data for whatever it's worth. I'm looking for collateral information. If readers have any sources, please chime in.

Updated Commentary

Thanks to readers data is coming in, such as the update from Zeyad's site and analysis thereof. The value of collateral confirmation and building a timeline is amply demonstrated. Just a few comments:

• as per Whit, Fox is reporting a peaceful Baghdad with 10,000 Sunnis, Shi'ites marching for peace in Basra.
• it's probably good to treat Zeyad's report as a series of unconfirmed reports which are being reported verbatim. What can we say for sure or nearly sure?
  • Mosques are a focus of fighting
  • The fighting in his neighborhood has ended for now.
  • The authorities are trying to keep the lid on
  • Reported incident casualties are fairly low.
• What can we say as probable?
  • There are small groups racing around fighting actions against each other.
• What's a maybe?
  • Maybe some units of the National Guard are doing their job
  • Maybe some units of the Interior Ministry are in cahoots with militias

Overall what would be reasonable to conclude? There's some unrest, but Baghdad is not burning -- yet -- and the trends while still unclear are not clearly in the direction of all-out fighting.

Let's see if we can refine the picture. If there's more info, let's bring it in.

The dark side of the world

Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post describes the murder of Ilam Halimi in a City of Light where a dark illumination has begun to shine.

The story of Ilan Halimi's murder at the hands of a terrorist gang of French Muslims brings to the surface the various pathologies now converging to make the prospect of annihilating all Jews seem possible to our enemies. First, there are the murderers who took such apparent pleasure and felt such pride in the fact that for 20 days they tortured their Jewish hostage to death. ...

As Nidra Poller related in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, "One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang [of kidnappers], who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture." ...

It appears that Ilan Halimi's murderers had some connection to Hamas. Tuesday, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said that police found propaganda published by the Palestinian Charity Committee or the CBSP at the home of one of the suspects.

The French authorities now believe Halimi's murder was in some way connected to anti-semitism although they disregarded this possibility during the early stages of the investigation into his disappearance.

The police maintained their refusal to investigate the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnappers in spite of the fact that in their e-mail and telephone communications with Ilan's family, his captors repeatedly referred to his Judaism, and on at least one occasion recited verses from the Koran while Ilan was heard screaming in agony in the background.

The principal suspect, now in custody, is a West African man called Youssef Fofana, who styles himself the "Brain of the Barbarians".

(Hat tip: Debbie Schlussel) From Clara Beyler's excellent account of Halimi's murder on Israel's YNet:

For three weeks, the "Barbarians" detained and tortured Ilan Halimi. When he was found on February 13, he was naked, handcuffed after being dumped near railway tracks in a Parisian suburb. He suffered from severe burns covering 80 percent of his body. Traces of cigarette burns, iron burns, and various cuts (made by knives and scissors) covered his body. He passed away in an ambulance before reaching the hospital.

Police arrested about a dozen suspects so far. The gang leader's was finally arrested in the Ivory Coast where he went into hiding two days after Ilan's death. The "baits" used to trap Ilan, three women, are also among the suspects.

However, there must have been many witnesses to the crime, which spread over weeks. The shrieks and screams brought on by torture must have been heard by some of those living in the building where the horrific scenes were taking place. Yet not one soul, not even one anonymous caller, alerted the police in the suburb of Bagneux.

Commentary

In a perverted variation on the theme of multiculturalism, Mr. Fofana may have embodied the fusion of murderous traditions, by combining gang warfare, primitive practices and radical Islamic ideology into one lethal cocktail which the unfortunate Mr. Halimi was forced to drink. Michael Crichton often makes the point that in complex systems like global society, unexpected combinations are to be expected. This is true not only of the mutation found in physical diseases but in memes as well. Ideas, no less than organisms, continuously transform themselves. Notions of good and evil, now derided as hopelessly old-fashioned, were the old bulwarks of mental sanitation. They permitted the public to possess a sense of outrage, a reflexive fear of things that call softly and menacingly out of dark places. They could bring out the village with torches and pitchforks against the Forces of Darkness.

Good and evil was later identified through the mechanism of free speech. But until recently the existence of right and wrong itself was unquestioned. Debate had closure; there were goals worth striving for; causes worth fighting for; and beauties worth dreaming of. Today the sense of right and it's inseparable companion Free Speech stand on the edge of illegitimacy. The light is about to go out from want of air: Ilan Halimi -- and other canaries -- have expired in the coal mine.

Life imitates art

Minerva at Terrorism Unveiled has a detailed analysis of the failed attack on a Saudi oil production facility here. Interestingly, the Abqaiq oil production complex was the setting for a hypothetical scenario in a recent book authored by a former CIA analyst Robert Baer to illustrate a 'nightmare' attack on the energy heart of the West.

The Counterterrorism blog amplifies on the importance of Abqaiq as an economc target by quoting from Baer.

Former CIA officer Robert Baer describes this site as "the most vulnerable point and most spectacular target in the Saudi oil system." The huge facility processes around two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's oil output and is the single largest oil processing facility in the world. Oil industry experts on impact of successful attack: "If this has an impact on exports and production, it would be close to one of the things the industry fears the most" - "To have this happen in the world's largest oil-producing nation is what's really got people frightened." Oil markets are already touchy over Nigerian militants' continued attacks on that country's energy sector, a topic of Doug Farah's posts here and here.

Both Terrorism Unveiled and the Counterterrorism blog note that al-Qaeda, which both consider the likeliest perp, has long thought about the utility of an "oil weapon" against the West.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross wrote an article, "Al Qaeda's Oil Weapon," in the "Weekly Standard" last year, a longer version of his September 27 CT Blog post. ... On December 7, Daveed posted about Al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri's call for attacks on oil facilities in a video. "I call on the holy warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the Muslims, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam." Daveed reminds me that the December 2004 tape by Osama Bin Laden includes this order (MEMRI translation): "Focus your operations on it [oil production], especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this [lack of oil] will cause them to die off [on their own]." An early attack by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq was of an oil terminal there, killing 3 Americans

Commentary

My own thoughts is the attacks are less an "oil weapon" than an economic terror weapon. The scale of attacks which could physically halt or seriously interdict global petroleum flows would probably be past the capability of any terrorist group. However, by introducing psychological uncertainty into the oil market terrorists can spike the price, and hence the amount of money that the world pays the Middle East, to the cumulative tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a manipulation of the market by perps who do not hesitate to describe themselves as victims.  ""I call on the holy warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the Muslims", Zawahiri said.

State of Emergency declared in the Philippines 2

Former President Corazon Aquino has asked current President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to resign, according to Philippine Commentary, liveblogging from Manila.

...former President CORAZAON AQUINO, (flanked by the Senate President FRANKLIN DRILON, Reps. BUTZ AQUINO, Rep. ROILO GOLEZ, and about 10,000 prominent and not so prominent personalities) just called on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo "to make the supreme sacrifice and step down from office." Despite being threatened with dispersal earlier in the day, the celebration of the 1986 People Power Revolution in Makati City, at the corner of Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas in the heart of the Central Business District is ongoing as I post this

Philippine MSM news celebrity and blogger Ricky Carangdang has the most sober take on the overall situation I have found:

Today may have been the spark that rekindled people power. Of course its too early to tell for sure but I have the sense that this weekend will be more crucial for Arroyo than the weekend of July 8 2005 when the Hyatt Ten, Cory Aquino and the Liberal Party called on the president to resign.

And of course one can never underestimate Arroyo. She has survived greater crises than those that brought down Marcos and Estrada. I do not discount her ability to pull a rabbit out of a hat and save herself. I also do not discount the possiblity that the various anti-Arroyo groups could blunder somehow and lose the advantage they currently seem to have. As the sun sets and the weekend begins its a safe bet that many of us will not be getting much rest.

Nail-biting weakened for all the political players in the Philippines.

State of Emergency declared in the Philippines

The Philippine President has just declared a State of Emergency as Proclamation 1017 and says she'll crack down on any opposition. Unnamed persons are being arrested. A specific warning has gone out to former President Cory Aquino not to proceed with a rally in the Makati Business district which already has a permit. For updates see:

Pajamas Media

and

Philippine Commentary

Gloria Arroyo is apparently accusing a brigadier general in the "special action force", a man connected with the Philippine Scout Rangers and possibly a  USMA graduate named Danilo Lim of being the mastermind. Danilo Lim is under some kind of nebulous arrest as of this writing, in the personal custody (whatever that means) of Philippine Armed Forces Chief of Staff Generoso Senga. There are rumors that another coup leader is still at large, an unnamed officer in the Philippine Marines.

The Scout Rangers and the Philippine Marines represent the elite of the Philippine military.

There are several political groups which oppose Philippine President Arroyo but who do not particularly like each other. They had scheduled separate mass demonstrations today, on the occasion of the anniversary of the People's Power revolution of 1986. One group, led by the leftists were scheduled to assemble in Quezon City while the other, a group led by businessmen and associated with former President Aquino, were slated to meet in the business capital of Makati.

Macapagal vowed to prevent the demonstration in Makati which was to have been attended by former President Aquino and possibly former President Fidel Ramos. At this writing the Makati demonstrations, while not large, were proceeding in despite of pressure to disperse. The leftist rally in Quezon City apparently became a running street battle, but no firearms appear to have been involved, simply rocks, gas bombs and instruments of that nature.

Commentary

The situation has revealed some of the weaknesses on both sides. A source suggested to me that the absence of any arrests of plotters other than Danilo Lim, who is described as being in the 'personal custody' of the Chief of Staff indicates that the Philippine Army is hesitatant to move decisively; that it is still sitting on the fence. On the other hand, Corazon Aquino's rally in Makati was not  massively attended yet pushed on in the face of a direct prohibition by the sitting President. No kayo yet to either side.

The declaration of a state of emergency is said to have thrown the several groups opposing Arroyo into a coalition of convenience because it may be perceived as leading to a kind of martial law if not actually constituting martial law. The police have been given the power to effect warrantless arrests and restrictions are said to be forthcoming on the press but their implementation has not yet been forthcoming as of this writing, possibly because the police and army are afraid to cross some kind of Rubicon. The next few days will indicate which way the symmetry will break.

As it happens, the USS Essex amphibious group is currently tied up providing rescue and relief to the victims of the massive landslide in Leyte. This will be awkward should the amphibious group be needed to cover the remote, but nevertheless conceivable scenario of securing US citizens in Manila.

The crisis has caught a lot of parties with a foot in the air. The next few days should clarify the situation.

Is the storm building?

Ominious new about events in Iraq as reported by the Times of London:

•  At least 140 killed yesterday
• In worst incident 47 killed by gunmen at roadblock. Bodies discovered in Nahrawan, on outskirts of Baghdad
• At least 53 killed in Baghdad in 24 hours
• At least 25 killed in Basra. Overnight 12 prisoners removed from Basra prison and 11 killed
• Bomb aimed at Iraqi Army foot patrol kills 16 in Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad — 8 soldiers and 8 civilians
• Also in Baquba, gunmen kill one at Sunni mosque
• Bomb kills policeman, wounds four in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad
• 7 US soldiers killed in northern Iraq
• Convoy of Iraq’s Minister of Housing and Reconstruction stoned in Samarra
• Journalist for al-Arabiya TV killed with two members of her crew in Samarra
• Police and army leave cancelled
• Curfew hours extended in Baghdad and major cities from 8pm-6am
• Road to Abu Hanifa Mosque, most important Sunni mosque in Baghdad, closed by army
• Several thousand in Basra demonstrate near governing council offices
• About 1,000 demonstrate in Samawa, 170 miles south of Baghdad. Police guarding Sunni mosque in the town
• Leading Sunni group, the Muslim Clerics Association, blames Shia leaders for fuelling tensions
• Main Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, pulls out of talks to form a new government, blaming ruling Shia alliance for violence
• President Talabani, a Kurd, meets Shia leaders
  

Here's something that sounds particularly worrisome, from a different article in the Times of London:

From Dora in southern Baghdad, to Sha’ab in the city’s north, teams of Shia killers had moved apparently unchallenged through the city, attacking Sunni mosques, rounding up and killing Sunni men, sometimes cheered on by soldiers at Iraqi army checkpoints.

The conduct of those soldiers should give pause to those in Britain and America who believe that the new Iraqi Army will be an impartial force capable of keeping order in the country so that coalition troops can withdraw.

Wednesday night’s murder spree showed them to be partisan at best, complicit at worse.

So is the situation in Iraq deteriorating?

Commentary

If we look at the timeline and compare it to Iraq the Model's posts, these attacks happened on Wednesday. He claims things have calmed down and that a curfew is being imposed. The curfew is only now being reported on the MSM.

What we could be looking at is historical data coming in only now. The thing to watch is whether the trouble ramps up from here or whether the steps authorities have taken bring this under control.

Many of the incidents related by the Times of London stories are mirrored in Healing Iraq's post of February 22nd. For instance, he details the attacks on the Sunni mosques and describes militias prowling around outside his door, but on the 22nd.  On the 24th (recall Iraq is some hours ahead of US time. I am using ITM's post times as markers. His post of the 22nd was probably updated on the 23rd), he says:

Movement today was sparse. The government announced it a day off yesterday, while Sistani, the supreme religious Shi’ite authority, called for his followers to close their businesses for 7 days in mourning. Both he and Muqtada Al-Sadr have urged their followers to continue their ‘peaceful’ protests today, resulting in more retaliatory clashes and attacks against mosques in several areas of Baghdad. No one can really fathom the amount of damage since movement is very limited. We went out to buy supplies, food and fuel. Baghdadis tend to stockpile at any sign of a looming crisis.

There was not much to hear in our area, apart from the occasional thud and fire exchange, which are really usual everyday experiences for the last 3 years. There was no presence of security forces that I could witness. Friends from areas around Sadr city said pickups full of armed men in black were patrolling the streets, unchallenged by Iraqi security forces. Many people swear that the Interior ministry forces are explicitly siding with the Mahdi militiamen in their rampage of arson and plundering. Most of the mosques in Baghdad are now closed and surrounded by barbed wire.

Riverbend, an Iraqi woman blogger who is pretty much an anti-coalition, has this report from February 23.

No one went to work today as the streets were mostly closed. The situation isn’t good at all. I don’t think I remember things being this tense- everyone is just watching and waiting quietly. There’s so much talk of civil war and yet, with the people I know- Sunnis and Shia alike- I can hardly believe it is a possibility. Educated, sophisticated Iraqis are horrified with the idea of turning against each other, and even not-so-educated Iraqis seem very aware that this is a small part of a bigger, more ominous plan…

So that's a good-looking trend from 22nd to the 24th. The trouble seems to have run out of gas for the present, though it may pick up again. If anyone wants to help me play this timeline game to keep the situation board updated, please chime in.

A source with recent experience in Iraq says that in reading the London Times story it is important to bear in mind the difference between the IA (Iraqi Army) and the IP (Iraqi Police). The source says the IA is a more disciplined force and the Times may not have been able to tell the difference between the IA and the IP.

Storm clouds over Baghdad Part 2

More on the situation in Baghdad from Iraq the Model. The highlights are given verbatim below.

... extended curfews 8pm-6am ...Sistani ... calling for restraint ... but ... some Shia factions are not listening to him  ... ... Islamic Party and Muslim Scholars claim more than 120 mosques have been blown up, set ablaze or came under small arms and RPG fire ... the central morgue in Baghdad received some 80 bodies ...

In our neighborhood the Sadr militias seized the local mosque ... the sense in the streets and the statements given by some Shia clerics suggest that retaliation attacks are organized and under control and are focusing on mosques frequented by Salafi and Wahabi groups and not those of ordinary Sunnis. ... Looking at the geographic distribution of the attacked mosques, I found they were mostly in areas adjacent to Sadr city forming a line that extends from the New Baghdad district in the southeast to al-Hussayniya in the northeast ... The Association of Muslim Scholars is accusing the Sadrists in particular ...

...  Sunni political leaders ... refused to join the meeting saying the government has to condemn attacks on their mosques as well before they consider ending the boycott. Talabani responded positively ... and condemned all attacks on worshipping places of all kinds....

Baghdad looks more alive today but in a very cautious way, traffic in the streets is heavier than it was yesterday ... the good thing is that the Sunni have not returned the attacks and I hope the Shia have satisfied their vengeance by now...

Bill Roggio has a piece up called Looking for Signs of Civil War in Iraq, in which he lays out indicators to watch for if a full blown civil war is under way. Some of them are:

• The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance no longer seeks to form a unity government
• Sunni political parties withdraw from the political process.
• Grand Ayatollah Sistani ceases calls for calm, no longer takes a lead role in brokering peace.
• Muqtada al-Sadr becomes a leading voice in Shiite politics.
• Major political figures - Shiite and Sunni - openly call for retaliation.
• The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party and Muslim Scholars Association openly call for the formation of Sunni militias.
• Iraqi Security Forces begins severing ties with the Coalition, make no effort to quell violence or provide security in Sunni neighborhoods and actively participate in attacks on Sunnis
• Shiite militias are fully mobilized, with the assistance of the government, and deployed to strike at Sunni targets.
• Sunni military officers are dismissed en masse from the Iraqi Army.
• Kurdish officers and soldiers leave their posts and return to Kurdistan, and reform into Peshmerga units.
• Attacks against other religious shrines escalate, and none of the parties make any pretense about caring.
• Coalition military forces pull back from forward positions to main regional bases.

Update

Zeyad from Healing Iraq has more on the situation following the attack on the Golden Mosque.

Eyewitnesses and relatives from Samarra claim that American and Iraqi Interior ministry forces blocked the main street leading to the shrine at 9 pm on the night preceding the blast. It was opened again at dawn Wednesday and the troops pulled out of the area. The two blasts occurred at 6:40 and 6:45 am according to residents, while the official statement from Interior minister, Baqir Solagh has them around 7:50 and 8 am. The details on the operation are also very vague. Some sources say there was a force of 35 guards in the shrine, but there were only 4 or 5 that morning. The number of attackers has fluctuated between 4 and 15 armed men, one of them dressed in military uniform and the rest in black. PM Ja’fari mentioned yesterday that preliminary investigations pointed to ‘infiltration’ of the police, but he has not given any further details since. No word on the 10 suspects that were supposed to have been arrested yesterday either.

Another eyewitness from Samarra, who wrote to the Iraqi Rabita website, claims that 2 Iranians were arrested yesterday, and that the Al-Arabiya channel crew had filmed them. The Iranians were released when Solagh arrived at the scene. The Al-Arabiya crew was near Al-Dor, north of Samarra, surrounded by a crowd of locals, when a vehicle stopped and someone shouted: “We want the anchor,” and fired a couple of shots in the air to disperse the crowd. The Al-Arabiya anchor, Atwaar Bahjat (a very well known Iraqi journalist originally from Samarra), screamed for help but the team took her and the two cameramen. Their bullet-ridden corpses appeared this morning at the outskirts of Samarra; their footage tapes were confiscated. ...

What kind of nation are we? What kind of nation kills its intellectuals and academics, its doctors and healers, its women and children, its clerics and preachers? What kind of nation blows up churches and mosques, hotels and schools, funerals and weddings? We have left nothing sacred. Yet we have the insolence to accuse others of offending us, of vilifying us. I announce today that we have proved ourselves worthy of that vilification. Ten years ago, I denounced religion and disavowed Islam. I do not want to be forced to disavow my country and nation today, but with every new day, I’m afraid I am getting closer to it.

From the Big Pharaoh in Egypt:

Egyptian born Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi blamed the US and Israel for.............the bombing of the Shia shrine in Iraq.

"We cannot imagine that the Iraqi Sunnis did this," said the influential Sunni cleric Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian who lives in Qatar. "No one benefits from such acts other than the U.S. occupation and the lurking Zionist enemy."

Qaradawi, who lives in a mansion not very far from the US military base in Qatar, is a perfect example of how some US allies such as Qatar want it both ways. The presence of US bases on their soil and excellent relations with washington, and the presence of radical crazy clerics and TV stations that appease the fundamentalists.

Saudi Arabia is another similar case. Saudi rulers want good relations with the US yet in the same time their money goes into funding one of the worst brands of religion in the world.

Unfortunately, the US can't do anything about both cases. It needs oil from Saudi and military bases from Qatar.

Commentary

If the reader tries to match up the situation described by Iraq the Model against the checklist provided by the Fourth Rail it is only fair to conclude, I think, that while the situation threatens to slide into civil war it's not there yet.

If Bill Roggio was right in thinking that the al-Qaeda are behind this attack in order to provoke civil war (see previous post), they have really started on this new tactic a year and half too late. They wasted their time trying to defeat the US Armed Forces and that didn't work so well. Unfortunately the time they wasted has also provided the time for the Coalition Forces to train up hundreds of Iraqi battalions, establish a shaky but nevertheless functional national leadership core (as events are proving) and weakened Sadr. In war as in other things, timing is important.

The prospective warring parties also need a source of weapons and ammunition to really go at it. Wars need logistics and civil wars are no exception. In an ironic way, the cache-busting activities conducted by Coalition forces against insurgents, plus the campaign to seal the borders (with Syria at least) and the river lines has mowed a lot of the dry grass off the prairie. For example, just three days ago Captain Pool of the Marine sent Press Release 6-031:

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq –– More than 3,000 pieces of various types of munitions were discovered yesterday by U.S. Army soldiers conducting a reconnaissance patrol near Al Quratiyah, approximately 350 km northwest of Baghdad. This cache is among the largest discovered to date in western Al Anbar province. ... The cache of munitions ranged from 60 to 125 mm mortars and included various other projectile-type munitions ... This latest cache is the 118th found by soldiers from 4th Squadron, 14th U.S. Cavalry Regiment. In a similar find last October, soldiers here discovered about 1,000 122 mm artillery rounds, 40,000 armor piercing bullets, 1,000 .50 caliber rounds, detonation cord and various bomb-making materials.

The reason the caches existed in the first place is because those who planned on using them knew they would they would need them. Civil wars and insurgencies cannot fight on thin air and green grass. However, considering the rumors reported by the updates tinfoil hats are not in short supply.

Storm clouds over Baghdad

Iraq the Model adds this eyewitness account of the hornet's nest stirred up by the Shi'ite mosque explosion. His bullet points are reproduced verbatim below.

• President Talabani promises to make rebuilding the shrine his personal responsibility and to donate the required money from his own.
• Head of the Sunni endowment sheikh Ahmed al-Samarra'I announces that he will allocate 2 billion dinars (~1.4 million $) for the rebuilding of the shrine from the treasury of the Sunni endowment.
• Huge demonstrations in many of Iraq's provinces including Samarra and Mosul where thousands of people condemned the attack.
• The top 4 Shia Ayatollahs hold a meeting at Sistani's home to discuss the situation.
• The Association of Muslim scholars and the Islamic Party condemn the "criminal act".
• Retaliatory attacks on reportedly 29 Sunni mosques and the Accord Front warns from the consequences of such violent reactions.
• Jafari in a press conference calls for national unity and the leaders of the UIA hold a meeting. A press release is expected to come soon.
• The Iraqi TV opened the phone lines to receive the reactions of the audience to the attack and hosts Sunni clerics and politicians in an attempt to relieve the tension.
• Baghdad is in undeclared emergency situation, shops closed and streets nearly empty.
• Tight security around the shrine of Abu Haneefa in Aazamiya district of Baghdad, this is considered the top shrine/mosque for Sunni Muslims in Iraq.
• Masked gunmen attack Shia protestors in at least one neighborhood in western Baghdad and armed clashes in Ghazaliya and Hay al-A'amil.
• People exchange phones calls with their relatives and friends to check on them and discourage them from leaving their homes.

Update

Bill Roggio's appreciation of who the perps are is given below:

The likely culprit is al-Qaeda in Iraq, or groups underneath the newly created Mujahedeen Shura Council. Zarqawi has desired a sectarian war between Shiites and Sunnis since his entry into the conflict, as he clearly stated in his letter to Osama bin Laden. al-Qaeda in Iraq has gone to through great pains of late to deny this, and will very likely not take credit in such an overt attack on the Shiite faithful. Silence and uncertainly will play into their hand, and feed conspiracy theories on who committed such an act. But the nature of the target and the sophistication of such an attack undeniably points to al-Qaeda. The detained “commandos” will be thoroughly interrogated, and the FBI will likely be called in to determine the nature of the charges used to destroy the dome.

Commentary

The good news is that there are enough cools heads on both sides to try to keep the lid on. That fact alone attests to the accomplishment of those who have tried to build a unitary Iraq. The bad news is that the pressures -- stoked by parties unknown, though Iraq the Model suggests they are "foreign terror groups" -- may be too much to handle. The description above depicts a city going into voluntary and involuntary lockdown and implies, to me at least, the average Joe doesn't want the streets to run with blood.

This is going to be a test for the security apparatus of Iraq. My own hunch is that they will need to identify the perps quickly and hunt them down so that Iraqi society can confidently repose the task of justice to the authorities. The problem will be if the perps are across some nearby border.

Drums along the Charles River

Stanley Kurtz as the National Review describes the resignation of Lawrence Summers as the consequence of a clash within the Democratic Party. "These moderate Democrats want to bring the academy closer to the center of the country. But when push came to shove, the leftist faculty wouldn't play along." Summers was apparently offered a role in the next Democratic campaign, which suggests that he had to accede to the radicals or forfeit any chance of being a "bridge" figure in the campaign.

Alan Dershowitz meanwhile, dwells on the sheer underhandedness and illegitimacy of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences "coup de etat". Whatever the Graduate Schools thought of Summers, they are anxious to preserve their independence within the academic world, and the FAS action was akin to one party grabbing victuals from the table instead of waiting to be served by the waiter.

"The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which forced Summers's resignation by voting a lack of confidence in him last March and threatening to do so again on Feb. 28, is only one component of Harvard University and is hardly representative of widespread attitudes on the campus toward Summers. The graduate faculties, the students, and the alumni generally supported Summers for his many accomplishments. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences includes, in general, some of the most radical, hard-left elements within Harvard's diverse constituencies. And let there be no mistake about the origin of Summers's problem with that particular faculty: It started as a hard left-center conflict. Summers committed the cardinal sin against the academic hard left: He expressed politically incorrect views regarding gender, race, religion, sexual preference, and the military."

Commentary

If Kurtz is right, Summers decamped because he had his eye on managing a future Democratic campaign. But the manner of his departure may have stirred up a hornet's nest at Harvard. It will be interesting to see whether the other members of the Harvard community will let such a challenge to their prerogatives pass unnoticed or make a fight of it, not perhaps from principle, but out of a need to retain their traditional independence.

Disappointment in Samarra

The Stupid Shall be Punished posts on the destruction of the al Askariya mosque in Samarra, Iraq, probably as a result of sectarian violence.

Before	After

The Daily Telegraph has this report:

"Gunmen entered the shrine at dawn and planted bombs and blew it up," Abdullah al-Jubaara, deputy governor of Salaheddine Province which includes Samarra.

In a statement, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's foremost Shi'ite cleric, called for protests following the blast. He also demanded seven days of mourning over the destruction of the shrine, where two revered Shi'ite imams are buried.

Iraq's prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari declared three days of mourning after the attack, which he described as an attack on all Muslims.

A resident of Samarra said people had started to gather for a demonstration.

The complex is one of the holiest Shi'ite shrines in Iraq. Today's explosion is the third attack on a prominent Shi'ite target in as many days.

Most readers following Iraq the Model will know that the negotiations to form a government of national unity are going very slowly. Michael Totten in Kurdistan is suggesting that the Kurds are pulling up stakes and leaving the Sunnis and Shi'ites to duke it out.

Iraq may not survive in one piece. The overwhelming majority of Iraqi Kurds are packing their bags. Most have already said goodbye. Erbil (Hawler in Kurdish) is the capital of the de-facto sovereign Kurdistan Regional Government. Baghdad is thought of as the capital of a deranged foreign country.

In January 2005 the Iraqi Kurds held an informal referendum. More than 80 percent turned out to vote. 98.7 percent of those voted to secede from Iraq. Not only have the Kurds long dreamed of independence, when they look south they see only Islamism, Baathism, blood, fire, and mayhem.

Commentary

We'll know pretty soon whether there's enough will in Iraq to make it work even nominally as one country.

A tale of two academics

The Washington Post has further details on the resignation of Larry Summers from the presidency of Harvard.

The marathon power struggle with the powerful Faculty of Arts and Sciences -- which runs the undergraduate program -- has been closely watched by institutions of higher learning as a case study in the ability of college presidents to exercise management control in a historically collegial and decentralized environment. ...

"It says that one group of faculty managed a coup d'etat not only against Summers but against the whole Harvard community," said Alan M. Dershowitz, longtime law professor at Harvard and a Summers ally. "He is widely supported among students and in the graduate schools."

David Gergen, an adviser to presidents who now teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, likened the effort to oust Summers to a negative political campaign. "There were people quite determined that he should leave, and they pursued a long campaign to realize this goal," said Gergen, a friend of Summers.

By a 3 to 1 margin, undergraduates polled online by the Harvard Crimson newspaper this week did not think Summers should resign, with only 19 percent supporting his departure.

Commentary

From the website of DEFEND (Dissent and Critical Thinking on Campus)

The Churchill case is not an isolated incident but a concentrated example of a well-orchestrated campaign launched in the name of “academic freedom” and “balance” which in fact aims to purge the universities of more radical thinkers and oppositional thought generally, and to create a climate of intimidation. While the right-wing claim that the universities are “left-wing dictatorships” is specious beyond belief, it is unfortunately true that the campus remains one of the few surviving refuges of critical thinking and dissent in this country. This is something to defend and strengthen.

On Feb 22nd, Lawrence Summers announced his resignation as president of Harvard but remains a faculty member. On January 31, 2005, Churchill resigned as chairman of the Ethnic Studies department at the University of Colorado, but remains a tenured professor.

Shortly before Summers' resignation, the Harvard Crimson conducted a poll on the subject of whether Larry Summers should quit his post as university president.

By a three-to-one margin, undergraduates do not think that Lawrence H. Summers should resign his post as University president, according to a poll conducted by The Crimson this past weekend. Just 19 percent of undergraduates in the survey said that Summers should resign, while about 57 percent said he should not. The online survey polled 424 students and carried a margin of error of approximately 4.6 percent.

In the spring of 2005, Ward Churchill won a teaching award (in the 25-75 class size category), receiving 54 votes among the 2,085 students at the University of Colorado at Boulder who voted for its annual Teaching Recognition Award. The University of Colorado Alumni Association, which sponsors the award, announced that they would withhold the award from Churchill until the investigation on the charges that he committed research misconduct had been concluded. Given annually for 44 years, this is the first time the award was withheld from its winner.

 

 

Summers resigns Harvard presidency

Larry Summers has resigned as president of Harvard.

The resignation caps an increasingly rancorous stand-off between Summers and disaffected Harvard staff and came just one week before faculty members were to vote in the second no-confidence motion against Summers in 11 months. Summers, whose brusque management style has won both praise and contempt, sparked controversy last year when he said innate differences between men and women may help explain why so few women work in the academic sciences.

He has since apologized repeatedly for his remarks.

"The university has been in a state of paralysis. I've never seen anything like this before," Farish A. Jenkins Jr., a Harvard zoology professor, told Reuters.

Summers' resignation letter says:

I have reluctantly concluded that the rifts between me and segments of the Arts and Sciences faculty make it infeasible for me to advance the agenda of renewal that I see as crucial to Harvard's future. I believe, therefore, that it is best for the University to have new leadership. ... At a time when the median age of our tenured professoriate is approaching 60, the renewal of the faculty has to be a central concern. ... We cannot maintain pre-eminence in intellectual fields if we remain constrained by artificial boundaries of departments and Schools. "Each Tub On Its Own Bottom" is a vivid, but limiting, metaphor for decision making at Harvard. We will not escape its limits unless our Schools and Faculties increase their willingness to transcend parochial interests in support of broader university goals.

Update

I tuned into http://www.wbz.com/ on the advice of a Boston area alum. There's an interview with Summers and Alan Dershowitz. If you listen to Summers you get the sense that despite the bland press release he had been involved in the equivalent of a knock-down, drag-em out academic fight. Alan Dershowitz said (my recollection) 'most of the faculty, students and alumni supported Summers. This is a coup de etat (Dershowitz's exact words) by a small group within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences'.

More from The Harvard Crimson

Summers ultimately fell to mounting pressure from members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences calling for his resignation. They had assailed his leadership style as well as the resignation of Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby and his handling of the government fraud scandal implicating Jones Professor of Economics Andrei Shleifer '82.

In a statement made outside his Mass. Hall office earlier this afternoon, Summers addressed a group of about 150 people, which included a group of student supporters who chanted, "Stay, Larry, stay," and "Five more years."

"This has not been a simple day in my life," Summers told the crowd, many of whom reached out to shake his hand.

"Harvard's greatest days are in the future," he added.

Summers had been slated to face a no-confidence vote at next Tuesday's meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, in addition to a motion asking Harvard's governing boards to intervene in the conflict. Summers lost a similar no-confidence vote last March 218-185.

The Harvard Crimson News Poll By 3-to-1 Margin Undergraduates Say They Don't Want Summers To Resign

Commentary

Free speech is under increasing attack. One would have thought that newspaper caricaturists, professional historians and the president of the richest university in the world could express an opinion. The Mohammed cartoons, David Irving and Lawrence Summers show that even traditional opinion-makers, people whose stock-in-trade are ideas, must watch their back.

The Christian, the Muslim and the Jew

Despite the fact that they are probably the most described artifacts of 20th century, very little is known about how individuals died in Third Reich's concentration camps. This article tries to follow the fate of British women SOE agents who were executed within the concentration camp system. It's a little surprising to learn that British intelligence never officially bothered to find out. Discovering their fate became the private crusade of Vera Atkins, who was assistant to the head of the French Section of the SOE. And the answer after 60 years is that nobody really knows. One of the reasons perhaps, was that nobody wanted to know. Failure, no less than the dead, were buried after the war. SOE cryptographer Leo Marks, the son of a Jewish bookseller, believed the agency's codes were fundamentally unsafe and tried to convince his superiors to adopt a one-time code pad system. But his warnings were ignored and the SOE continued to drop agents, many of them women, into occupied Europe where too many of them were arrested, sometimes upon landing.

Since the British believed that women could more easily slip unnoticed through the Continental streets, they concentrated on recruiting dark haired women who could pass for French. One of them was Violette Szabo of French and English extraction.

Another was a Sufi Muslim Princess, Noor Inayat Khan. Her father was a mystic and she was one herself. "After studying music and medicine Noor became a writer. Her children stories were published in Figaro and a collection of traditional Indian stories, Twenty Jataka Tales, appeared in 1939."

Szabo's official fate is given in Wikipedia.

She was captured by German soldiers, most likely from the 1st battalion of the Deutschland regiment, around mid-day on the 10th of June, 1944, near Salon-la-Tour, while they were searching for one of their missing officers. In R.J. Minney's biography of her, she is described as putting up fierce resistance with her Sten gun. German documents of the incident record no injuries or casualties to German soldiers. She was transferred to the SD in Limoges. She was interrogated under torture, then sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp where she was forced into hard labour and suffered terribly from malnutrition and exhaustion. Violette Szabo was executed by the Germans on or about February 5, 1945 and her body disposed of in the crematorium. At Ravensbrück, three other female members of the SOE were executed by the Germans: Denise Bloch, Cecily Lefort, and Lilian Rolfe.

Noor Inayat Khan was arrested four months after landing. She was executed at Dachau.

The princess was taken to Germany and imprisoned at Pforzheim in solitary confinement (she was considered dangerous and uncooperative). Inayat Khan continued to refuse to give any information on her work or her fellow operatives. On 11 September 1944, Noor Inayat Khan, along with three other SOE agents, Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman and Madeleine Damerment, were moved to Dachau Concentration Camp. The other three women were lined up and forced to kneel, after which each was executed by a single shot to the head. Noor was shackled in chains for months and beaten until she was a bloody mess and then shot. Her last word was "Liberté"

Although it cannot be said for sure, Khan's place of execution is held to be at the pistol range in Dachau. "The traditional method of execution was a shot in the neck at close range, which was the method used by the Nazis to kill traitors, spies, saboteurs and resistance fighters at a pistol range in front of a wall north of the crematorium. ... A ditch was dug about six feet from the execution wall to catch the flow of blood." A picture of the blood ditch is shown below as it appears today.

Leo Marks, as a Jew, felt himself no less an outsider than these dark-haired, expendable women. He tried long, and finally successfully, to get his SOE superiors to discard their amateurish practice of enciphering agent messages using transpositions based on well known ('the easier to memorize, Old Boy') English poems -- systems Marks could break with ease. When the SOE balked at one time pads he insisted that if agents were going to use poem codes, they ought at least to be original. The code-poem he wrote and gave to Violette Szabo on her wartime mission is a memorial to a time when a Muslim, Christian and Jew could find it in their hearts to fight Hitler with one word upon their lips: Liberte.

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

Dachau, 1945

There's a fascinating site called Scrapbookpages which has pictures of the US 45th Infantry Division on its arrival at Dachau. One of the snaps shows soldiers finding large quantities of dead and dying prisoners at the camp, such as the one below.

 

"There's a big gate, and this German guy comes out of there. He must have been about six-four or six-five, and he's got beautiful blond hair. He's a handsome-looking bastard and he's got more Goddam Red Cross shields on and white flags....My first reaction is, "You son of a bitch, where in the hell were you five minutes ago before we got here, taking care of all these people? ....Well, everybody was very upset. Every guy in that company, including myself, was very upset over this thing, and then seeing this big, handsome, son of a bitch coming out with all this Red Cross shit on him.

Soon the advance scouts (of the 45th Division) were joined by other Allied soldiers and one of the German guards came forward to surrender with what he believed would be the usual military protocol. He emerged in full regalia, wearing all his decorations. He had only recently been billeted to Dachau from the Russian front. He saluted and barked "Heil Hitler". An American officer looked down and around at mounds of rotting corpses, at thousands of prisoners shrouded in their own filth. He hesitated only a moment, then spat in the Nazi's face, snapping "Schweinehund," before ordering him taken away. Moments later a shot rang out and the American officer was informed that there was no further need for protocol."

And then units of the 45th began to execute the SS Guards. Here's a picture taken as the SS Guards were being shot down. And the massacre continued until it was stopped by American officers.

Interested readers may want to visit Scrapbookpages to read the whole story which includes a detailed tour of the Gas Chambers and the entire camp. The entire point of the foregoing is to establish the fact that Jews were executed in Dachau and in such horrible numbers as to spark this spontaneous "war crime", if you want to call it that, occasioned by the sight.

Having established that Dachau at least existed, I still cannot sympathize with the Holocaust Denial Laws under which historian David Irving was convicted. The Times of London reports on his conviction and sentencing in Austria.

The sincerity of David Irving’s claim that he now believes millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis and that gas chambers did exist was challenged by his twin brother yesterday.

John Irving is so unidentical to the right-wing historian and Holocaust denier that he serves as chairman of Wiltshire Racial Equality Council.

Asked about his brother’s recantation before a Vienna court, John Irving told The Times: “If I said ‘E pur si muove!’ would it mean anything to you?” The quotation is often attributed to Galileo who was forced by the Inquisition in 1633 to retract his heretical belief that the Earth moves around the Sun.

The astronomer and philosopher was facing the death penalty but escaped with life imprisonment after disowning his findings. Under his breath, he is reputed to have murmured the now famous Italian phrase meaning: “Yet still it moves.”

These Holocaust Denial laws are the poorest defense of truth possible. They allow individuals like Irving, who have written bad history, to clothe themselves with the appearance of martyrdom. Galileo is supported by empirical evidence. Irving cannot even explain the photographs above. But laws establishing "official truth" create categories of the Unmentionable into which subjects like the Jihad, feminism, abortion and Global Warming -- all the assertions, half-truths and humbug of the world -- will presently seek refuge. The best defense of the truth of the holocaust is an uncompromising commitment to free speech. Unless free speech is protected then some of the very evils Hitler sought to foist upon the world will be reintroduced in the name of fighting his memory.