Posted on 08/07/2006 3:43:15 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Tehran & Damascus Move to Lebanon Lebanon-born Walid Phares is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Author of the recent book Future Jihad, he was also one of the architects of 2004’s United Nations resolution 1559, which called for the disarming of Hezbollah. NRO editor Kathryn Lopez recently talked to Phares about what’s going on in the Mideast, what happened to the Cedar Revolution, and this war we’re all in.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: What is “Future Jihad”? Are we seeing it in the Mideast now?
Walid Phares: “Future Jihad,” which has already begun, refers to a new and potent form of Islamic terrorism, characterized by a Khumeinist-Baathist axis. These are the two trees of jihadism, so to speak — the Salafism and Wahabism embodied in al Qaeda and the sort of jihadism led by Iran and also including Syria, Hezbollah, and their allies in Lebanon.
The alliance has not been in entire agreement as to strategy. The al Qaeda branch began its “Future Jihad” in the 1990s; its efforts culminated on 9/11 and have continued explosively since then. The international “Salafists” aimed at the U.S. in the past decade in order to strengthen their jihads on various battlefields (Chechnya, India, Sudan, Algeria, Indonesia, Palestine, etc.). “Weaken the resolve of America,” their ideologues said, “and the jihadists would overwhelm all the regional battlefields.”
As I argue in Future Jihad, bin Laden and his colleagues miscalculated on the timing of the massive attack against the U.S. in 2001. While they wounded America, they didn’t kill its will to fight (as was the case, for instance, in the Madrid 3/11 attacks). I have heard many jihadi cadres online, and have seen al Jazeera commentators on television, offering hints of criticism about the timing. They were blaming al Qaeda for shooting its imagined “silver bullet” before insuring a strategic follow up. But bin Laden and Zawahiri believe 9/11 served them well, and has put a global mobilization into motion. Perhaps it has, but the U.S. counter strategy in the Middle East, chaotic as the region currently appears, has unleashed counter jihadi forces. The jury is still out as to the time factor: when these forces will begin to weaken the jihadists depends on our perseverance and the public understanding of the whole conflict.
The other “tree” of jihadism, with its roots in Iran, withheld fire after 9/11. They were content to watch the Salafists fight it out with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention within the West, as terror cells were hunted down. Ahmedinejad, Assad, and Nasrallah were analyzing how far the US would go, and how far the Sunnis and Salafis would go as well.
The fall of the Taliban and of the Baath in Iraq, however, changed Iran and Syria’s patient plans. The political changes in the neighborhood, regardless of their immediate instability, were strongly felt in Tehran and Damascus (but unfortunately not in the U.S., judging from the political debate here), and pushed the Khumeinists and the Syrian Baathists to enter the dance, but carefully. Assad opened his borders to the jihadists in an attempt to crumble the U.S. role in Iraq, while Iran articulated al Sadr’s ideology for Iraq’s Shiia majority.
A U.S.-led response came swiftly in 2004 with the voting of UNSCR 1559, smashing Syria’s role in Lebanon and forcing Assad to withdraw his troops by April 2005. In response, the “axis” prepared for a counter attack on the Lebanese battlefield by assassinating a number of the Cedar Revolution leaders, including MP Jebran Tueni. In short, the attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah and the kidnappings of soldiers were the tip of an offensive aimed at drawing attention away from Iran’s nuclear weapons programs and Syria’s assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri. Hezbollah was awaiting its moment for revenge against the Cedar Revolution too.
What we see now is 1) a Syro-Iranian sponsored offensive aimed at all democracies in the region and fought in Lebanon; 2) Israel’s counter offensive (which it seems to have prepared earlier); and 3) an attempt by Hezbollah to take over or crumble the Lebanese government.
Lopez: So…did the Cedar Revolution fail?
Phares: Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the Cedar Revolution was failed. The masses in Lebanon responded courageously in March 2005 by putting 1.5 million people on the streets of Beirut. They did it without “no-fly-zones,” expeditionary forces, or any weapons at all, for that matter, and against the power of three regimes, Iran, Syria, and pro-Syrian Lebanon, in addition to Hezbollah terror. The “revolution” was for a time astoundingly successful; since then it has been horribly failed, and first of all by Lebanon’s politicians themselves. One of their leaders, General Michel Aoun, shifted his allegiances to Syria and signed a document with Hezbollah. Other politicians from the “March 14 Movement” then stopped the demonstrations, leaving them with the support of God knows what. They failed in removing the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and brought back a pro-Syrian politician to serve as a speaker of the house, Nabih Berri. Meanwhile, even as they were elected by the faithful Cedar Revolution masses, they engaged in a round table dialogue with Hezbollah, a clear trap set by Hassan Nasrallah: “Let’s talk about the future,” he said — with the implication, of course, that they forget about the Cedar Revolution and the militia’s disarming. While political leaders sat for months, enjoying the photo ops with Hassan Nasrallah, he was preparing his counter offensive, which he unleashed just a few days before the Security Council would discuss the future of Iran’s nuclear programs.
The Lebanese government of Prime Minister Seniora also abandoned the Cedar Revolution. His cabinet neither disarmed Hezbollah nor called on the U.N. to help in implementing UNSCR 1559. This omission is baffling. The government was given so much support by the international community and, more importantly, overwhelming popular support inside Lebanon: 80 percent of the people were hoping the Cedar Revolution-backed government would be the one to resume the liberation of the country. Now Hezbollah has an upper hand and the government is on the defensive.
The U.S. and its allies can be accused of certain shortcomings as well. While the speeches by the U.S. president, congressional leaders from both parties, Tony Blair, and Jacques Chirac were right on target regarding Lebanon, and while the U.S. and its counterparts on the Security Council were diligent in their follow up on the Hariri assassination and on implementing UNSCR 1559, there was no policy or plan to support the popular movement in Lebanon. Incredibly, while billions were spent on the war of ideas in the region, Lebanese NGOs that wanted to resume the struggle of the Cedar Revolution and fighting alone for this purpose were not taken seriously at various levels. Policy planners thought they were dealing with the “Cedar Revolution” when they were meeting Lebanon’s government and Lebanese politicians. The difference between the high level speeches on Lebanon and the laissez-faire approach from lower levels is amazing. Simply put, there was no policy on supporting the Cedar Revolution against the three regimes opposing it and the $400 million received by Hezbollah from Iran.
The Cedar Revolution was basically betrayed by its own politicians and is now essentially without a head. Nevertheless, as long as the international support remains, the Revolution will find its way and will face the dangers. The one and a half million ordinary citizens who braved all the dangers didn’t change their minds about Hezbollah’s terror. The resistance and counter-attack was to be expected. Unfortunately, thus far Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah have outmaneuvered the West and are at the throats of the Cedar Revolution. The international community must revise its plans, and, if it is strongly backed by the U.S. and its allies, including France, the situation can be salvaged. The good seeds are still inside the country.
More at link...
http://www.isria.info/FILES/2006/SEPTEMBER/09272006__10.htm
Congress Approves Sudan Sanctions By Dan Robinson Capitol Hill 26 September 2006 Legislation imposing sanctions against the government of Sudan and Arab militia responsible for killing tens of thousands of people in Darfur, has been approved by Congress. The House of Representatives approved a measure passed earlier by the Senate, as lawmakers urged intensified U.S. and international efforts to overcome Sudanese government resistance to a U.N. force for Darfur. The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act won House approval earlier this year and then went to the Senate, where it sat until just last week. That is when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Republican Senator Richard Lugar, removed from the bill a provision referring to state divestment from Sudan. Lugar and like-minded senators asserted the single paragraph would have doomed chances of getting the legislation to President Bush's desk before Congress adjourns at the end of this month.
The full Senate approved the change, sending the legislation back to the House, where lawmakers focused on challenges facing U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Andrew Natsios. Congressman Chris Smith is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Human Rights. "The special envoy's mandate should include all efforts to consolidate peace throughout Sudan, including by ensuring full implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement, and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement [for Sudan]," he said. Tom Lantos, ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, says the Darfur situation will require aggressive diplomacy. "Sustained and intensive diplomatic efforts at the highest levels are needed," he said. "The special envoy must not only engage the parties to the conflict in Darfur, he will also need to galvanize the international community to bring lasting peace to Darfur." The sanctions in the Darfur Act include freezing the assets and banning entry of Sudan government officials or members of Arab militias found to be complicit in atrocities and banning them.
It would also ban the U.S. from providing assistance other than for humanitarian needs to countries providing military aid to the government in Khartoum. Sanctions would remain in effect until, among other things, Khartoum takes concrete steps to disarm Arab militia blamed for killing and displacing tens of thousands of civilians. "We continue to say to Khartoum that they must stop the genocide, it will not be tolerated," said Donald Payne, a New Jersey Democrat. "President Bashir, the National Congress Party officials, Janjaweed [Arab militia] commanders and murderers, and others responsible for genocide must be held accountable and will be brought to justice." On the issue of divestment, lawmakers such as Congresswoman Barbara Lee say they are not finished, and have proposed separate legislation to keep international companies operating in Sudan from receiving U.S contracts. "We are coming back on divestment, because it makes no sense to allow companies with holdings in Sudan to continue to do this type of business," said Lee. "Pension funds should not have blood in their banks, and that is exactly what has happened."
The Darfur Act, which now goes to President Bush for signature, authorizes the president to support expansion of the 7,000 strong African Union peace force sufficient to protect civilians and humanitarian operations. It also calls for the U.S. and NATO to provide assets to help African peacekeepers deter Sudan government air strikes, along with logistical and a range of other support.
http://www.isria.info/FILES/2006/SEPTEMBER/09272006__11.htm
U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) News Release No. 959-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 26, 2006 Department of Defense Meet in London on Anti-WMD Trafficking Representatives from the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation met with 19 other nations supporting the Proliferation Security Initiative in London yesterday and today. The two-day international workshop will focus on enhancing the operational capability of PSI participants along with maritime industry partners to halt the international trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, and related materials. This workshop reflects the continued efforts of PSI governments and industry partners to work together against those engaged in WMD-related proliferation trafficking.
The goal is to disrupt WMD-related trafficking networks that support this dangerous trade, said David Cooper, director, nonproliferation policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, who leads the U.S. delegation in London. This workshop will identify how governments working with maritime industry, can intercept WMD-related shipments, while minimizing the disruption of legitimate cargo flows. Topics to be discussed include port governance, the roles of freight forwarders and shipping line owners and operators, the disposition of cargo, implications of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA), the government decision-making process, and how industry can further participate with PSI supportive nations. This is the third PSI government-industry workshop.
The first was the August 2004 Container Line Industry Workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark, followed by the September 2005 Air Cargo Industry Workshop in Los Angeles, California. The London workshop, hosted by the UK Ministry of Defence, includes representatives from the governments and industry of twenty countries Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The workshop is also a key component of the Operational Experts Group process that develops PSI operational concepts and ensures that PSI governments develop a cooperative relationship with industry experts. The PSI was announced in May 2003 in Krakow, Poland, as an effort for nations to use a variety of robust tools within national and international law to defeat the proliferation of WMD around the world. In June, senior political officials from nearly 70 countries around the globe met in Warsaw to recognize the third anniversary of the initiative and pledge their support for its Statement of Interdiction Principles. Today, more than 75 countries support the PSI. http://www.defenselink.mil/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=10014
http://www.isria.info/FILES/2006/SEPTEMBER/09252006__18.htm
India resumes military operations against NE separatist group IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Guwahati, India, Sept 24, IRNA India-ULFA-Military Operations India Sunday resumed military operations against an influential separatist group in the northeastern state of Assam after operating a 40-day ceasefire, threatening a fragile peace process in the region, officials said. An Assam government spokesman said soldiers of the 2nd Mountain Division in eastern Assam began anti-insurgency operations Sunday against the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) after the rebels killed a tea planter and a policeman in stepped up attacks and large scale extortion drive over the weekend. The central government has decided to call off the truce and resume military operations against the ULFA in view of the stepped up attacks and extortion drive by the rebels, S.K. Kabilan, Assam's top government official, said. He said the army has resumed operations in some parts of the state.
There is no immediate reaction available from the ULFA. New Delhi on August 13 announced suspension of military operations against the ULFA for 10 days to facilitate holding direct peace talks with the rebel leadership. The ceasefire was extended thrice and expired last Wednesday. The ULFA too reciprocated the governments goodwill gesture by announcing cessation of hostilities for an indefinite period. Holding of direct peace talks between the ULFA leadership and government peace negotiators were, however, deadlocked with New Delhi seeking a formal letter from the outfit stating that it was ready for direct talks, name of the outfit's negotiating team members, and specific timeframe for the dialogue. The ULFA maintains that the outfit was not in a position to take a decision and write a letter to the government without their five central committee leaders who are currently in jail and hence insisting on their release first. This is a real setback for the peace process and the government gave the ULFA enough opportunity to prove their sincerity. But the rebels frustrated the government by negating their gestures, Arindam Nath, a retired schoolteacher said. More than 10,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in Assam during the past two decades. 2162/2322/1412
http://www.isria.info/FILES/2006/SEPTEMBER/09252006__9.htm
Rice Warns of Punitive Steps If Sudan Refuses UN Darfur Force By David Gollust United Nations 23 September 2006 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is warning Sudan the international community could take punitive action against Khartoum if it continues to refuse to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur. Rice and her Danish counterpart, Per Stig Moeller, convened a 20-nation meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly Friday to try to build diplomatic pressure on Sudan. The meeting, which included among others U.N. Security Council member counties and Arab allies of Sudan, heard an appeal from Secretary Rice that time is running out for political action to head off a renewal of the kind of genocidal violence that ravaged Darfur two years ago. The Sudanese government, citing threats to its sovereignty, has resisted compliance with a U.N. Security Council resolution approved last month that would replace the current seven thousand member African Union observer mission in Darfur with a full-scale U.N. peacekeeping mission three times as large.
In a talk with reporters after the Darfur meeting at a New York Hotel, Secretary Rice said no one intends to impinge on Sudan's sovereignty. But she said Sudan has not fulfilled its responsibility to protect the weakest in its society and so there will have to be a U.N. force. Discussion at the U.N. of possible sanctions against Sudan, if it continues its defiance of the Darfur resolution, has made little headway. But without elaborating, Rice said there are various other measures available to punish Sudan, implicitly outside the United Nations framework. "There was a very clear indication by several speakers today that there are other measures at the disposal of the international community, should we not be able to get the agreement of Sudan in the way that we would like to get the agreement of Sudan, which is that they would accede to the desires of the international community to stop the violence and to stop the rape of women and children, and allow humanitarian workers to work," she said. Rice cited a new report by U.N. human rights monitors accusing Sudan's army of bombing Darfur villages, and reporting a new outbreak of sexual violence against displaced persons, activity she said that simply cannot continue. The co-chair of the meeting, Rice's Danish counterpart Per Stig Moeller, insisted that international pressure on Sudan can succeed despite Khartoum's adamant refusal thus far to accept the new force.
"It, of course, makes an impression (on Sudan) that every government, that all the world, is assembled in calling the situation unacceptable, the murders unacceptable. All countries in here find it unacceptable, Arab, African, Asian, European, America. This of course means something in Khartoum. Otherwise they will know that the world stands side-by-side to have other measures, if we cannot protect the people of Darfur through political means," he said. Rice and Moeller said the same grouping would convene again next month to assess progress, if any, on the issue. Time pressure for the peacekeeping upgrade in Darfur eased somewhat earlier this week when the African Union agreed to keep its force in Darfur until the end of the year, extending a mandate that was to have ended September 30th. The A.U. mission has been under-funded and lacks the mobility to patrol the entire Darfur region. The remote, arid western region has been torn by violence since early 2003, when Arab militiamen backed by the Sudanese military began waging a scorched-earth campaign against local Darfur rebels. More than 200-thousand people have died as a result of the conflict and more than two-million others have been displaced. Violence has continued, and even increased in recent months, despite a Darfur peace accord reached in Nigeria in May.
http://www.isria.info/FILES/2006/SEPTEMBER/09252006__19.htm
http://www.isria.info/FILES/2006/SEPTEMBER/09252006__19.htm
Russia, France, Germany favor diplomatic solution of Iran issue RIA Novosti 23/09/2006 16:05 COMPIEGNE (France), September 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia, France and Germany are committed to a diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue, the Russian leader said Saturday. Iran has been at the center of an international dispute this year over its controversial nuclear programs. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's watchdog, have been at the center of efforts to resolve the problem. "The sides have demonstrated joint commitment to a political and diplomatic resolution of the situation around the Iranian nuclear problem and the creation of conditions for long-term stability in other trouble spots in the world," Vladimir Putin said after a meeting with his French and German counterparts, Jacques Chirac and Angela Merkel. Chirac advocated the continuation of dialogue and Merkel said the international community should join efforts to influence Iran in order to achieve a political resolution to the problem.
The five permanent UN Security Council members - Russia, the United Kingdom, China, France and the United States - and Germany drafted a package of incentives to persuade Iran to suspend work on enriching uranium, which could be used in both electricity generation and weapons production. Tehran's response to these incentives was handed to the Iran-6 group August 22. According to media reports, Iran claims it will consider suspending its uranium enrichment program only after talks. Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, and the European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, are expected to hold talks on Iran's controversial nuclear program next week. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1696 July 31, demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment by August 31 or face possible economic and diplomatic sanctions. However, a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, said Tehran had refused to suspend the program and had blocked its inspectors from nuclear facilities. Russia, which signed the UN resolution, opposes the imposition of sanctions advocated by the United States. Washington is pushing for setting a deadline for sanctions, regardless of skepticism from Russia, China and even its western European allies.
Hey how are YOU?
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060927/ts_nm/minerals_diamonds_conflict_dc
Conflict diamonds may be entering the U.S.: GAO
Wed Sep 27, 6:38 PM ET
"Conflict diamonds" sold illegally to finance civil wars, may be making their way into the United States, despite an international pact to end trade in the gemstones, the Government Accountability Office said on Wednesday.
The United States, the world's largest consumer market for diamond jewelry, does not inspect rough diamond imports to certify their origins, a GAO report said. It added that because of spotty statistics on diamond imports and exports, the country is "still vulnerable to illicit trade of rough diamonds."
Over the last decade, sales of diamonds have bankrolled violent factions in countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. These unpolished and uncut stones became known as "conflict diamonds."
"Although many of these conflicts have now ended and the international community has taken steps to gain control of the rough diamond trade, the United Nations and other sources report that illicit trading of rough diamonds still exists and could potentially finance civil conflicts as well as criminal and terrorist activities," said the GAO.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060928/ap_on_re_us/school_evacuation;_ylt=AnMHQ49_etmCRgIgihZ6.xNg.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
Gunman kills hostage, self in standoff
By CHASE SQUIRES, Associated Press Writer 33 minutes ago
A gunman took six girls hostage at the high school in this mountain town Wednesday, using them as human shields for hours before he shot and fatally wounded a girl and then killed himself as a SWAT team moved in, authorities said.
The gunman, believed to be between 30 and 50 years old, was cornered with the girls in a second-floor classroom, and he released four of them, one by one.
Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said authorities decided to enter the school to save the two remaining hostages after the man cut off negotiations and set a deadline. He said the gunman had threatened the girls throughout the four-hour ordeal and had shielded himself with the hostages.
The man was not immediately identified, and the sheriff was at a loss to explain a motive.
"I don't know why he wanted to do this," Wegener said, his voice breaking.
The wounded girl was taken to a Denver hospital in critical condition, but was declared dead, a hospital spokeswoman said. She did not release the girl's name.
The last hostage was unharmed and talking with authorities.
After the suspect entered the building, hundreds of students at Platte Canyon High School were evacuated in a scene that recalled the horror at Columbine, just a short drive away.
Students said the bearded suspect wore a dark blue hooded sweat shirt and a camouflage backpack. The sheriff said the man threatened to set off a bomb he claimed to have in the backpack. The man was also toting a handgun.
Tom Grigg said his 16-year-old son, Cassidy, was in a classroom when the man walked in, fired a gun and began telling some students to leave and others — all girls — to stay.
"He stood them up at the blackboard," Grigg said. "He hand-picked the ones he wanted to get out."
The gunman told Cassidy to leave, but he said he wanted to stay with the girls, Grigg said.
"The guy flipped him around and put the gun in his face and said, 'It would be in your best interest to leave,'" Grigg said.
Authorities had what they described as "sporadic" negotiations with the suspect and urged him to contact them for more discussion. Officers eventually crept close to the building, and there were reports of an explosion inside.
Lynn Bigham, who said she was a family friend of the girl who died, said her friend had just turned 16.
"She's real bubbly. Every time you see her, she gives you a hug," she said.
The sight of students fleeing the high school in long lines, and of frantic parents scrambling to find their children, evoked memories of the 1999 attack on Columbine High School, where two students killed 13 people before committing suicide.
Students described a chaotic scene inside after the intercom announced "code white" and everyone was told to stay in their classrooms.
The high school and a nearby middle school were soon evacuated. Jefferson County authorities — who also handled the attack at Columbine — sent a bomb squad and SWAT team to the high school.
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ABC news on now, says they still do not know what the shooting is all about.
Still no ID on gunman............"police had a hard time figuring out who the gunman was or why he was in school"
Russia's prime minister to visit Cuba, meet with acting president Raul Castro
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/27/news/CB_GEN_Cuba_Russia.php
Russia's diamond monopoly Alrosa sets its sights on mining sector and beyond
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/27/europe/EU_FIN_Russia_Diamond_Ambitions.php
Russia in 'spy' row with Georgia
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5386656.stm
Russia Rejects U.S. Criticism of Its Religious Freedoms
Created: 27.09.2006 17:17 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:17 MSK, 12 hours 53 minutes ago
MosNews
The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday shrugged off a U.S. State Department report criticizing alleged discrimination against religious minorities in Russia, saying the criticism was unfounded, the Associated Press news agency reports.
The annual report to U.S. Congress on religious freedom worldwide released earlier this month said that authorities in Russia restricted the rights of some minority groups.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin responded Tuesday by rejecting the report as a “standard set of unfounded critical remarks.”
“Just like in previous years, the U.S. Department of State’s report is abundant in inaccurate and often grossly erroneous wordings, it juggles with facts, outdated information, and references to apparently unreliable sources,” Kamynin said in a statement carried by the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies.
Russian law enshrines Orthodox Christianity as the country’s predominant religion and pledges respect for Buddhism, Islam and Judaism called traditional religions but places restrictions on other groups.
About two-thirds of Russia’s 143 million people are considered Orthodox Christians, and the country has undergone a post-Soviet religious revival. After decades of state-sponsored atheism, destroyed churches have been rebuilt and many Russians have embraced the Church and its rituals.
The dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church and its centuries-old ties to the state have prompted concern among religious minorities, and some Russians who consider themselves atheist claim that religious symbolism is as omnipresent and oppressive as atheism was during Soviet times.
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/09/27/religioususa.shtml
http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm1224.cfm
Bin Ladenism Lives, and So Probably Does Bin Laden
by James Phillips
WebMemo #1224
September 26, 2006 |
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On September 23, the French newspaper l’Est Republicain reported, based on a leaked memo from France’s DSGE intelligence agency, that Saudi intelligence had uncovered information that Osama bin Laden had died of typhoid on August 23 in Pakistan. But a French security official quickly cautioned that the report is based on a single source, and a Saudi intelligence source told UPI on September 23, “We do not confirm bin Laden’s death. We don’t know.” For a variety of reasons, this report is likely false. But even if true, bin Laden’s death will have little impact on America’s prosecution of the war on terrorism.
The Facts on the Ground
The reported details of bin Laden’s death don’t add up. Typhoid, for example, is easily cured with antibiotics, and even if untreated it is fatal in less than 20 percent of cases, according to the U.S. government’s Center for Disease Control. And if Saudi intelligence officials did have information about bin Laden’s death, they probably would pass it on to American intelligence officials. That reportedly did not happen.
Considerable circumstantial evidence also indicates that bin Laden is still alive. No al-Qaeda messages discussing his death have been broadcast to the outside world, posted on radical Islamist Web sites, or intercepted by Western intelligence agencies. The bin Laden family has not been in mourning and reportedly has denied any knowledge of his death.
This is not the first time that bin Laden has been presumed dead. In 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf speculated that bin Laden had died of kidney failure, and recurrent reports in the Pakistani press speculate that bin Laden is in declining health due to kidney problems. But no solid evidence that bin Laden actually has such an ailment has been published.
Bin Laden, 49, last appeared in a videotaped message delivered to the Arab television network Al Jazeera on October 29, 2004. In that speech, released four days before the American presidential elections, bin Laden sought to discredit the Bush Administration’s strategy in the war against terrorism and incite Americans against their government. (See James Phillips, “Bin Laden’s October Surmise,” Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 602, November 4, 2004.)
Five audiotapes or Internet messages attributed to him have been released this year, including a June 29 recording lamenting the death of al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had been killed in a U.S. air strike earlier that month. Bin Laden’s reluctance to show his face may have more to do with security considerations than health problems. Video potentially provides more information about his location than audiotape.
The Pakistani government stands to gain from reports of bin Laden’s death because they deflect American pressure to do more to capture bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding along Pakistan’s rugged border with Afghanistan. The most recent report of his death conveniently takes pressure off of Pakistan just as President Musharraf is visiting the United States after his government signed a truce with tribal leaders who have been sheltering al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region.
Bin Ladenism Lives
If the report of his death turns out to be true, the loss of bin Laden would be a psychological blow to al-Qaeda, but not much more. Bin Laden is believed to function more as the front man, propagandist, and “chairman of the board” of the terror network rather than as its chief operational officer. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second in command, would probably be his successor.
Bin Ladenism will survive bin Laden. As a “martyr” for his cause, he will continue to inspire terrorist attacks against Americans for decades to come. To win the war on terrorism, the United States must not only hunt down the leaders of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, but also discredit and defeat the ideology that motivates their followers. This war of ideas will continue long after bin Laden’s death. (See James Phillips, “The Evolving Al-Qaeda Threat,” Heritage Foundation Lecture No. 928, March 17, 2006.)
James Phillips is Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev092706a.cfm
Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America
View Event | Streaming MP3 | Save MP3 | Send to a Friend
Date: September 27, 2006
Time: 12:30 p.m.
Speaker(s): Brigitte Gabriel
Author
Host(s):
John Hilboldt
Director,
Lectures and Seminars,
The Heritage Foundation
Details:
Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium
Brigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam. In 1975 she was ten years old and living in Lebanon when militant Muslims from throughout the Middle East poured into her country and declared jihad against Lebanese Christians. Lebanon was the only Christian influenced country in the Middle East, and the Lebanese Civil War was the first front in what has become the worldwide jihad of fundamentalist Islam theology against non-Muslim peoples.
Based upon her personal experiences, Garbriel addresses the West’s lack of understanding and ignorance of the ways and thinking of the Middle East. She identifies mistakes the West has made in consistently underestimating the single-mindedness with which fundamentalist Islam has pursued its goals over the past thirty years. Through the telling of her own story, she outlines the history, social movements, and religious divisions that have led to today’s critical conflict.
A compelling and captivating personal story with a powerful lesson about threats to freedom in our time. – R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-95
Brigitte Gabriel is a journalist and news producer who started her career as an anchor for World News, an evening Arabic news broadcast throughout the Middle East. She reported on the Israeli security zone in Lebanon and the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank as they unfolded. As a terrorism expert and the founder of the non-profit organization, American Congress for Truth, she speaks regularly on topics related to the Middle East on television and radio and lectures nationally and internationally.
"I do worry about the wrong people being attacked, as happened after 9-11."
Yes.
"Are you talking about the beating with the car jack at the walmart? Not too surprised that that one would disappear."
Yes. I suppose I, too, should not be surprised.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/WorldwideFreedom/hl967.cfm
Is Communism Dead?
by Lee Edwards, Ph.D., Frank Calzon, Paul Goble, Harry Wu
Heritage Lecture #967
September 26, 2006 |
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(Delivered August 2, 2006)
LEE EDWARDS, Ph.D.: It is a grave failing of our age that the full extent of Communism’s inhumanity to man is not known.
Who knows that the Soviet Union murdered 20 million people through mock trials, purges, famines, and the infamous Gulag?
Who knows that Mao Zedong and the other Chinese Communist leaders have slaughtered an estimated 50 million people through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen massacre, and the Chinese version of the Gulag—the Laogai?
Who knows that Fidel Castro has executed thousands of political prisoners since coming to power in 1959 and continues to silence any open opposition to his rule?
Who knows that the Communist plague has exacted a death toll surpassing that of all the wars of the 20th century combined?
This tragic oversight must be corrected. A Memorial to the more than 100 million victims of Communism must be built—and it will be. Groundbreaking for the Memorial, located on Capitol Hill just three blocks from here, is scheduled for next month. [Editor’s Note: The groundbreaking is scheduled for September 27, 2006.]
The Memorial will feature a 10-foot-high bronze replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue erected by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 and then destroyed by Chinese Communist tanks. The statue was based on our own Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
On the front pedestal of the Memorial statue will be the words: “To the more than one hundred million victims of Communism and to those who love liberty.”
On the back pedestal will be the words: “To the freedom and independence of all captive nations and peoples.”
These words will serve to remind visitors that one-fifth of the world’s population still lives, and not by their choice, under Communism.
You and I are blessed to live in a free society. We have never had to worry about a knock on the door in the middle of the night and the secret police dragging us from our home. We have never had to endure the horrors of so-called reeducation camps that break the bodies and minds of dissidents. We have never seen families, communities, whole cities, eliminated at the order of a cold-blooded tyrant.
But for many millions of people over the past century these horrors were a daily fact of life.
Once asked who were the victims of Communism, a former occupant of the Soviet Gulag replied, “Everyone who lived in the 20th century was a victim of Communism.”
As Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Gulag, wrote, mere statistics cannot reflect “the cumulative impact of Stalin’s repressions on the life and health of whole families.”
Consider: A man was tried and shot as an “enemy of the people.” His wife was taken to a camp as a “member of an enemy’s family.” His children grew up in orphanages and joined criminal gangs. His mother died of stress and grief. His cousins and aunts and uncles cut off all contact with one another in order not to be tainted. Fear weighed heavily on those left behind, even when they did not die.
Today, 50 years after Stalin died, the remaining Communist dictatorships perpetuate the Leninist legacy of fear and intimidation, as you will hear from our distinguished panelists this afternoon.
There is one aspect of the Leninist legacy that directly affects every American today.
It is a fact, documented by the terrorism expert Michael Waller, that the U.S.S.R. and its proxies armed and built the international terrorist networks of the 1960s through the 1980s. The states supporting international terrorism are mainly former Soviet client regimes, including Cuba, North Korea, and Syria under the Assad family. It is a fact that Soviet sponsorship of Yasser Arafat and the PLO allowed Moscow to gain influence over terrorist groups like Hezbollah.
If the Communist-coordinated terrorists had been squashed or had never existed, Dr. Waller concludes, in all likelihood the world would not be plagued by the present-day terrorism of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the other violent organizations that commit mass murder in the name of God.
Beyond dispute, the specter of Communism still haunts the world—even in America’s largest city. A popular nightclub in New York City’s East Village is the KGB Bar. The place is jammed nearly every night and especially on Sundays when writers read from their latest works under the club’s symbol— the Hammer and Sickle. How long, I wonder, would a New York nightclub last if its name were The Gestapo and there was a large swastika on the wall?
Clearly, there is an urgent need for a Memorial to the victims of Communism. And Washington is the right city for such a Memorial because this city offers so many reminders of the history of our nation and the world.
In the past decade, we have seen the dedication of a memorial museum about the Jewish Holocaust as well as a memorial to the veterans of World War II. There are fitting tributes to the men and women who died in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
The Memorial to the victims of Communism will be a key part of this historical picture and will help illustrate why we fought and won the Cold War.
Visitors to the Memorial will remember the Hungarian patriots killed by Soviet troops and tanks in 1956. They will remember those who struggled for more than a quarter of a century to escape the concrete and barbed wire of the Berlin Wall. They will remember the brave “boat people” of Vietnam and Cuba who risked everything to gain freedom.
We cannot, we must not allow history to forget those who died and are still dying under Communism.
Our Jewish brothers and sisters understand what is at stake. They understand that history must not be forgotten lest it be repeated. They keep reminding the world of the Holocaust, crying, “Never again!”
As Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, said last week here in Washington, “What is the alternative? Not to tell the story? To let truth vanish? To let truth disappear together with the victims?” There can be only one answer to such questions.
We must remember and we must memorialize the sacrifice of more than 100 million victims of Communism so that never again will nations and peoples permit so evil a tyranny to terrorize the world.
Lee Edwards, Ph.D., is Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at The Heritage Foundation, and Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
FRANK CALZON: I think it was Martin Luther King who said that all of us were likely to forget our enemies, but it is very difficult to forget some of our friends who remained silent when terrible things were happening. And that’s why I appreciate the invitation and the work of Lee Edwards, and I am particularly honored to be here with Harry Wu and Paul Goble to talk here today.
Cuba remains a Communist country. Despite Fidel Castro’s illness, little has changed. Cuba has the characteristics of both a traditional right wing and traditional Latin American dictatorship, and imposed upon that is the whole baggage of repression, despair, economic inefficiency of the Communist model.
The model we’re looking at in Cuba today is not new. There’s an island near Cuba—the Spanish called it Española (Hispaniola); the Dominican Republic and Haiti share the island. In both of those nations, in the 20th century, there were efforts to keep a dictatorship in place under a family. So whether it was Trujillo or Papa Doc, the idea was that once he either died or something happened to him, then somebody else in the family could step up and take control. Castro, like Papa Doc, is President for Life.
The model that Cubans would like to see— Cubans in Cuba and the almost 2 million Cubans who live abroad—is a kind of transition that the Czechs were fortunate to have. The idea of a peaceful, bloodless transition to democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights, multiple political parties. The transition that Fidel Castro and his brother Raul would like to have is the kind of transition that we saw in North Korea after the death of the dictator and the assumption of power by his son.
I am a little optimistic about Cuba because, while North Korea is right next to China, Cuba is 90 miles away from the United States, and perhaps the Cuban situation is a little bit more open than the North Korean situation.
This reminds me of a little story that Harry Wu told me in Geneva at one time. When I worked for Freedom House we were honored to sponsor a couple of events in which Harry talked about the despair, the repression, the yearning for freedom of his people. Harry used to say to me, “You know, Frank, look at it this way: the dictators open up their window a little bit and the flies fly in.” And he said, “We are those flies. We are the flies who get in there with the publications, with the letters, with the books, with the short wave radios, with a message of hope.”
I always feel that it’s terribly important for any of us who defend freedom, whether it is in Cuba or in Burma or in any part of the world, to acknowledge the fact that the struggle for freedom is universal. If you are in favor of freedom in Burma, then you have to be in favor of freedom in Tibet or in Cuba. You’re not simply against a dictator of the right or a dictator of the left, but like Harry Wu has said, and Vaclav Havel has repeated, and Lech Walesa has said, we are in favor of the human spirit. And that’s why the dictators think of us in the terms that they do.
A dictatorship of any kind always is based, not only in fear and terror, but in trying to label those who think differently as less than human. We saw that, of course, in Nazi Germany, and in some fashion we saw that in South Africa. Some people will remind me that something similar to that happened in the American South, not too long ago, where human beings were given a label. Those who fight for freedom in China, I’m sure, are depicted in very negative terms. In Cuba’s case, Cubans who disagree with Mr. Castro, are “lackeys of the United States,” “agents of the CIA,” “terrorists,” “bootlickers of the Yankees,” “Gusanos” (gusano is a worm that you step on). So, you can see that it is easier for someone to beat up some one who is different. Maybe that different person at one time was Jewish, maybe another time was Black. Today in Burma and China and Belarus and Cuba, the victims are folks who dare to say what most people around them are only willing to think. Their struggle, their fight, is not only important for them, but it’s important for all of us.
I remember visiting Havel in Prague many years ago. There was an important contract in play and the Chinese government was very upset about some things that President Havel had said. Some of the practical people in Prague were telling the Czech president, “You’ve got to be careful about what you say because this could mean losing millions of dollars for Czech companies.” Luckily, the Czech president felt that although commercial interests are important, the national interest of his people, of his nation, were well beyond whether a company had some profit or not.
In Cuba’s case, the idea of trading with Cuba continues to be a matter of discussion in Washington. I think there’s a little confusion about this whole discussion. Most people do not know that American companies can now trade with Cuba. American companies sell hundreds of millions of dollars in grain to Cuba. The restriction is that Cuba/Castro needs to pay for it. I think we all should be in favor of that, because if that restriction was not in place, then the American taxpayers would have to pay for that.
In Paris and in other places there are long lists of Castro’s creditors who have not been paid since 1986, before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. And what some American companies would like to see is for credits, export insurance to facilitate this trade, which as Condoleezza Rice has said, is not really trade with Cuba, it’s simply trade with Castro. When an American company trades, say, with Costa Rica, with Mexico, with Belgium, they trade with other folks like them. They have a company, have a business. In Cuba every business is through the government, through the state. As in the case of China, labor conditions are horrible. Most Cubans get paid around $15 a month. Some companies pay Castro $10,000 a year for a worker. And then Castro pays the workers there an equivalent of $10 or $15 a month.
I would like to urge you to go beyond the slogans and look a little bit into the discussion of Cuba, because most companies that do business in Cuba believe that they go there and they acquire a customer. Castro doesn’t believe that he is doing business. Castro believes that he’s purchasing influence so that anybody who deals in Cuba (I assume the same happens in China) then becomes a lobbyist, an advocate of the dictatorship here in Washington. This business interest then would go to the Congress and say, if you pass a resolution on human rights on this country, then our business interests will be in peril. That’s an aspect that we need to take into account.
Finally, I would like to suggest to all of you that while it is easy to take for granted the freedoms that you have, you want to do what folks like you are not allowed to do in places like China, or places like Cuba, places like Belarus, or Burma. To begin with I haven’t seen any of you looking back to see who’s sitting behind you, or if somebody’s waiting outside the door. When you get out of this meeting, nobody’s going to tell you that you’re going to be expelled from school, or your parents will lose their job.
This is what I would like you to do. After you leave here today, why not write a “Letter to the Editor”? I think if the Washington Post were to receive 50 letters today, at least one or two of them would probably get published. Why not send a note to your Congressman—you are probably from various states—saying, I heard Harry Wu at Heritage today and he spoke about the harvesting of organs. This is the unspeakable practice that takes place in China where people who are condemned to be executed are held until their heart or one of their organs is needed, and then they are killed so that one of those organs could be pulled out and give to somebody else.
That’s the nature of the regimes that we are dealing with. It is easy to talk in terms of geopolitics, or corporate profits, of not paying attention to these “nations” that were taken over by the Russians. They used to say that the captive nations were to remain captive forever—but they did not. We hope with your help the other captive nations, China, Belarus, Burma, and others, also will be free one day.
Frank Calzon is Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba.
PAUL GOBLE: President Bush is absolutely right in saying that we live at a time where freedom has been spreading to many places where it has never been seen before. But Ambassador Lev Dobriansky is also correct to note that this spread neither has been nor is now without much struggle and many reversals. Unfortunately, in talking about the Russian Federation of today, both reversals and the need to struggle against them are very much in evidence.
First, there are still three peoples named in the original 1959 Captive Nations Week resolution that remain dominated by Moscow despite the wishes of their populations: the North Caucasus, the Middle Volga (Idel-Ural), and the lands of the Cossacks. Not only do these areas remain under the thumb of many who often are the same people who ran things in Communist times, but they are in many cases being subjected to greater pressure today than they were a decade ago.
Second, if we are serious about the original definition of “captive” nations, there are now more of them—that is, more people living with less freedom and under the control of those they did not choose—than there were a decade ago. For all too many peoples in the Russian Federation today, there is less freedom of religion, less freedom of speech, less freedom of assembly, and less freedom to choose their rulers than there was even at the end of the Soviet period.
Third, all too often we focus only on the more than 100 million people that Communist regimes killed. We cannot and must not ever forget them. But we also need to remember the other victims, whose hearts, minds, and souls were destroyed by Communist dictatorships but who nonetheless continue to survive and in some cases to rule. We did not insist on decommunization of the former Soviet states as we did on denazification in Germany after 1945. As a result, most of these countries are currently run by people who might have been in power even if 1989 and 1991 had never happened. And many in the populations of these countries remain infected by the kind of evil that Captive Nations Week was intended to remind us of.
Consequently, it is too early to celebrate the triumph of Captive Nations Week. There have been victories. But we have not won through everywhere. All too often, we have declared victory—in the Russian Federation a decade ago and in Georgia and Ukraine more recently—and only later discovered that such triumphs, however sweet and valuable, were not only incomplete but hollow.
Ideologists near the Kremlin understand that, and consequently, they pay attention to this 48th commemoration of Captive Nations Week. It is time that we did as well—and shift from celebrating the triumphs of the past to facing up to the challenges we need to meet now and in the future.
Paul Goble is formerly with the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
HARRY WU: In a meeting with the Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal 10 years ago, he said, “The ideology of Communism is not a crime; however, its implementation is a crime.” We are here today to remember the victims of Communism and to remind the international community that its crimes are alive and well today. The evidence is ever present in China, Cuba, and many former Soviet republics. The rulers and time periods are different, but the ideologies, the tools of oppression, and the end goals are the same: to eliminate the enemies of the regime to retain power.
The first step is to decide who are the regime’s enemies, to publicly identify individuals to work toward their elimination. A common tool of oppression has been labor and death camps; major examples are the Soviet Gulag, the Nazi concentration camps, and China’s Laogai camps. Polish Jew Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” to describe Nazi Germany’s widespread massacre. The definition of genocide as put forth in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group,” not limited to killing, but also including mental harm and restrictions on people’s lives. Since 1951, genocide has been used to describe the events in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Communist regimes have generated their own brand of genocide that I call “classicide.” The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) actions are fundamentally the same as genocide, and the atrocities committed have not only been widespread and long term, the methods and styles used have been unusually brutal. These are facts that the international community cannot forget or ignore.
According to Revolutionary Communist theory, society is composed of two groups of people: the exploiting class and the exploited class. In China, although the CCP seized power in 1949, the Revolution was far from over. All people and things representing the old regime had to be thoroughly destroyed via a class struggle. From 1927 to 1976 the CCP began by grouping people according to economic status. In the countryside, you were either of the landlord and rich peasant class or the middle and poor peasant class. In the cities, you were either bourgeoisie and capitalist or working class. Those who had the misfortune of being members of the landlord or bourgeoisie classes, even children, were treated as second-class citizens.
In the countryside, many thousands of landlords and rich peasants were beaten to death during the “Land Reform Movement,” from 1927 to 1952. The CCP confiscated land and denied this group access to education and employment opportunities. In the cities, those in the exploiting class were stripped of their possessions. Those in the exploiting class were forced to do hard labor in order to “obey the teachings of the party, thoroughly remold themselves, and reform their thinking.” On August 18, 1966, in Beijing, Mao Zedong began the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution urging the junior cadres of the Communist Party, who formed the “Red Guards” to “make revolution.” The Guards began harassing people in schools and eventually took to the streets to eliminate what was left of the exploiting class.
One incident during the Cultural Revolution in Beijing’s Daxing County epitomizes the essence of classicide in China. After the Red Guards obtained records to find out every individual’s “class background,” they seized those from the landlord and rich peasant classes and slaughtered them one by one. A total of 168 people were killed including a 38-day-old baby. The massacre was sanctioned by the CCP and was carried out while the Guards were waving the little red book, Revolutionary Quotations of Mao Zedong. Afterwards, the Red Guards celebrated, declaring that Daxing County was now a “Red Proletarian Revolution Paradise”—meaning free of class enemies.
I mention this incident not merely because it was an extreme case that happened only once. On the contrary, what happened in Daxing County happened all over China to innocent people and children. Between August 18 and the end of September 1966, 1,714 of the “five black elements” were beaten, many to death, had their homes searched and their property confiscated, and were “swept out the door” and sent off to the Laogai. There are no statistics as to how many people were affected as the entire truth has yet to be revealed. Some research has shown that around the time of 1949, there were around 10 to 15 million members of the landlord and rich peasant classes nationwide. By the 1970s, after the Cultural Revolution, only 10 to 15 percent remained of this number. What is more alarming is that, as of yet, no one has been put on trial for these crimes.
From the CCP’s inception to the late 1970s, an individual’s class background determined his quality of life. When a criminal judgment was made, class background was a key deciding factor. For example, if someone to prevent starvation stole 20 kilograms of corn from a People’s Commune, his sentence would differ depending on his class. A member of the landlord class would be punished for a political crime of “damaging the people’s commune and being hostile to the socialist system,” while a member of the peasant class would have committed the mistake of “going down the wrong road because of being influenced by the exploiting class.” In the 1980s the CCP made new policies in an attempt to remove the labels of “landlord” and “rich peasant.” However, this gesture was meaningless as nearly all members of these classes, especially in the countryside, had been exterminated during the preceding 30 years. Moreover, although none of the major figures involved in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations was a member of the “former” bourgeoisie class, the CCP labeled the incident a “bourgeoisie disturbance.”
Like the Jews in Nazi Germany, the Tutsis in Rwanda, and the Muslims in Yugoslavia, certain groups of Chinese people never violated any criminal laws but were punished and murdered simply because they were considered a threat to the ruling party’s power. Systematic discrimination became a means to create a single-class society in Communist China, a society that the government could easily control. Therefore, the goals of “genocide” and “classicide” are the same and both are atrocities that violate basic human rights.
I witnessed this classicide first hand as a youth in China. I was arrested as a young student at the Beijing Geology College for speaking out against the Soviet invasion of Hungary and criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. In 1960, I was sentenced to serve in the Laogai for being a “counter-revolutionary rightist.” During the next 19 years, I was imprisoned in 12 different forced-labor camps around China, where I was forced to manufacture chemicals, mine coal, build roads, clear land, as well as plant and harvest crops. I survived beatings, torture, and starvation, and witnessed the death of many fellow prisoners from brutality, disease, starvation, and suicide. The slogan found at the gates of the CCP’s Laogai, “Labor makes a new life” is frighteningly similar to the Nazis concentration camp slogan, “Labor makes you free.” Today about 3 to 5 million people suffer in the Laogai camps. Yet little is known about the Laogai, which is comparable to the Soviet Gulag. Only by making the word “Laogai” public by printing it in every dictionary in every language can the injustices of the Laogai be understood.
Today, the enemies of the CCP have changed. They are no longer certain classes of people such as landlords or bourgeoisie. On the contrary, the government has embraced wealth, foreign investment, and capitalism. Rather, today the CCP’s enemies are freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. The CCP continues to stifle freedom of speech, expression, religion, and the press in order to maintain control. People who protest government policies are beaten and thrown in prison without trial. Internet Web sites and news sources are frequently shut down and censored. Executed prisoners’ organs are being harvested without consent and sold for thousands of dollars in China and abroad.
The world cannot ignore the reality of Communist China today. The world cannot forget the nations and the people held captive by Communism. Even if China became democratic tomorrow, we cannot forget its past and its people.
Harry Wu is Executive Director of the Laogai Research Foundation.
Is Communism Dead?
9/26/06
The United Nations Human Rights Council: Repeating Past Mistakes
9/19/06
How Chile Successfully Transformed Its Economy
9/18/06
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Thanks for the info Davey.
I looked at 6 pages here, there are things that I would have posted here on all of them, but I'm not ready as yet for intense work, so take a look, something for all of you.
http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=ush2-mail&ei=UTF-8&p=FBI&fr2=tab-web
[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3308421,00.html
From Ynet News, 26/9/06, by Roee Nahmias
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3308421,00.html
[emphasis
added] ...
Joint survey by Israeli, Palestinian institutes finds that over 60
percent of Palestinians think Gaza, West Bank terror groups should
imitate
Hizbullah tactics and bombard Israeli towns....
The recent war in Lebanon increased support for Hizbullah among the
Palestinian population in the territories, as well as among Israeli
Arabs, who
believe that Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah is looking out for their
wellbeing.
The boosted support for Hizbullah was revealed in a public opinion
poll
carried out jointly by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem's Harry S.
Truman
Institute for the Advancement of Peace and the Palestinian Center for
Policy and
Survey Research based in Ramallah.
According to the survey, which was carried out after the end of
fighting
in Lebanon, a solid 65 percent majority of the Palestinian public
believes
terror organizations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank should adopt
Hizbullah's
tactics and shell Israeli towns with rockets. Only 35 percent were
opposed to
such a move.
.... The war had no effect on Palestinian support for suicide bomb
attacks against Israeli civilians, and a majority of Palestinians
continued to
support them. According to the present poll's findings, 57 percent of
Palestinians supported suicide bomb attacks, while a similar survey in
March
2006 found 56 percent support.
The tactic of kidnapping of Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining
chips
won the support of three-fourths of Palestinians, while only 23 percent
opposed.....
Meanwhile, the UN blames Israel for "collective punishment" of the
"Palestinian" democratic will in this Ynet news report of 26/9/06
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3308494,00.html
...
United Nations Human rights envoy to the Palestinian territories John
Dugard has published a report Tuesday where he does not shy away from
sharply
criticizing Israel and the West for the situation in Gaza. "Israel has
turned
the Gaza Strip into a prison for Palestinians
and have thrown away the key," he said, adding that "in other
countries
this process might be described as ethnic cleansing."
In the report handed to the UN Human Rights Council Dugard wrote that
"life in Gaza has turned to be intolerable, appalling and tragic."
According to
him, 75 percent of Gaza's population is dependant on food aid for
survival, and
the destruction left from Israeli bombings is "intolerable."
Dugard also mentions the situation in the West Bank where there is a
danger of a humanitarian crisis because of the security fence which is
as bad as
in Gaza. The South African lawyer, who has been a special UN
investigator since
2001, repeated earlier accusations that Israel is breaking
international
humanitarian law with security measures which amount to "collective
punishment."
Dugard also attacked the United States, the European Union and Canada
for withdrawing funding for the Palestinian Authority in protest at the
governing party Hamas' refusal to accept Israel's right to exist.
...."Israel violates international law as expounded by the Security
Council and the International Court of Justice and goes unpunished. But
the
Palestinian people are punished for having democratically elected a
regime
unacceptable to Israel, the US and the EU," Dugard said....
Summary: the "Palestinian people" vote to murder Jews, and the UN
supports their "democratic right" to do so ...
--
Posted by Steve Lieblich to Jewish Issues Watchdog
<http://jiw.blogspot.com/2006/09/un-supports-palestinian-peoples.html
at
9/27/2006 01:19:00 AM
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=109566&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17
<http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=109566&ve
rsion=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17
Al Qaeda 'recruiter' arrested
ALGIERS: Algerian authorities have arrested an alleged Islamist,
suspected
of having ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network and accused of
recruiting
fighters for Iraq, the Arab-language daily El Khabar reported
yesterday.
The man, whose name was not disclosed, is also accused of helping
foreign
Islamists join the ranks of Algeria's extremist Salafist Group for
Preaching
and Combat (GSPC), the newspaper reported.
According to El Khabar, the man allegedly served an intermediary
between Al
Qaeda and armed Islamists from Arab countries. He is believed to have
headed
a Syrian-based organisation offering safety to Arabs volunteering to
fight
in Iraq.
The suspect was allegedly in permanent contact with an accomplice in
Algiers, who served as middleman with armed Algerian Islamists who
wanted to
join the Iraqi resistance, the newspaper said.
He is also suspected of being tasked by Al Qaeda to help a group of
armed
Tunisian Islamists join the GSPC's ranks, where they would be trained
to use
weapons and explosives.
The Tunisian Islamists allegedly then planned to return to Tunisia to
"open
a new war front against the Tunisian regime," the report added. - AFP
[unknown url]
More could be deemed enemy combatants by bill
Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:36 PM ET
By Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States could detain more foreigners
as
enemy combatants under legislation Congress will debate this week after
a
last-minute change in the bill, lawmakers said on Tuesday.
Democrats complained that Republicans quietly made several changes to
the
bill defining procedures for trying foreign terrorism suspects after an
agreement last week between the White House and a group of dissident
Republican senators.
"There are significant changes," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the
top
Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. He said the new elements
could
complicate efforts to push the bill through Congress before lawmakers
leave
this weekend to campaign for November elections.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key negotiator on the bill, said
enemy
combatants would now include those who provided money, weapons and
other
support for terrorist groups as well as those involved in actual
operations.
Graham of South Carolina said the term "enemy combatant" also would
apply to
those fighting a U.S. ally.
"We're making sure that an enemy combatant could be defined as
something
other than a front-line troop," Graham said. "We want to make sure that
giving material aid and support to terrorism would put you in the enemy
combatant category."
Graham said U.S. citizens could not be deemed enemy combatants under
the
bill, but several human rights advocates said the language was so broad
that
they believed Americans could be detained under it. The Center for
Constitutional Rights said even attorneys representing Guantanamo
inmates
could be deemed enemy combatants.
The Bush administration has declared the detainees held at the U.S.
naval
facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, most of whom were picked up in
Afghanistan, to be enemy combatants who can be detained indefinitely.
The bill to set up trial procedures for terrorism suspects -- which
Bush
needs after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his original plan -- is
slated to go to the House of Representatives floor on Wednesday.
In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans still were wrangling over
possible
amendments, and final action could be put off to later in the week.
Senate Democrats and the Republican chairman of the Judiciary
Committee,
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, were trying to restore habeas corpus
rights
for Guantanamo inmates to challenge their detention. The bill would
strip
those rights, which Specter said was unconstitutional.
Specter also filed a compromise amendment to limit detainees to one
habeas
corpus application.
Levin, who also is pushing to restore habeas corpus rights, said he
opposed
the new definition of enemy combatants. "You can identify anyone
anywhere as
an enemy combatant, and their rights would be severely restricted
whether or
not you captured them on a battlefield," he said.
"We want those who would threaten the United States to be held and
detained
as long as they are a threat to the United States. But we believe in
fundamental fairness too," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of
Illinois.
Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee had told Democrats
that
only technical changes had been made to the bill. His Democratic
counterpart, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, said Democrats would not try to
hold
up the bill, but were demanding a chance to offer amendments.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro)
Al Qaeda Tape Expected Soon
Ayman al Zawahiri is expected to release another tape soon in which he will discuss the Pope, President Bush, and Darfur.
From MSNBC:
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri will soon release a new message about the pope, U.S. President George W. Bush and Sudan's troubled Darfur region, an Islamic Web site said Wednesday.
A banner warning of the upcoming message was posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently airs al-Qaida videos. Wednesday's notice did not specify whether the new message was a video, audiotape or text, but al-Zawahri usually releases videos.
His latest came earlier this month, to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Qaida released a string of videos for the anniversary, showing increasingly sophisticated production techniques in a likely effort to demonstrate that it remains a powerful, confident force five years into the U.S.-led war on terror.
Laura Mansfield says that the following banner is on jihadists websites:
The Blotter is also reporting that Bin Laden is alive and may release a tape to prove it.
In a surprise phone call to the home of an ABC News producer in Pakistan, the top Taliban military commander, Mulla Dadullah Akhund, said Osama bin Laden is alive and that there is no truth to the rumors of his death from typhoid
"Sheikh Osama is all right. He is safe," Dadullah told ABC News' Rahimullah Yusufzai. Dadullah would not disclose the location from where he was calling.
In the past, Dadullah has issued statements to the effect that bin Laden and Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar are alive and leading the resistance against U.S.-led foreign forces in Afghanistan.
When pressed for evidence to show that bin Laden is alive, Dadullah hinted that there is a possibility of a tape being sent to media organizations to prove that the al Qaeda head isn't dead. Dadullah, however, declined to say as to when this tape would be made available.
I must admit, this makes me a little nervous. Why? Remember Hamid Mir's Ramadan warning? My post was a summary of Allahpundit's in which I highlighted the items I thought were the most important to Wizbang readers. Well, Allahpundit posted an update that I, unfortunately, didn't get to, which included Hamid Mir's conversation with al Qaeda Afghan commander Abu Dawood:
"We have a different plan for the next attack," [AQ Afghan commander Abu Dawood] told Mir. "You will see. Americans will hardly find out any Muslim names, after the next attack. Most of our brothers are living in Western countries, with Jewish and Christian names, with passports of Western countries. This time, someone with the name of Mohamed Atta will not attack inside America, it would be some David, Richard or Peter."
He said there will be another audio message from bin Laden aired within the next two weeks.
Mir reportedly interviewed Dawood Sept. 12 at the tomb of Sultan Mehmud Ghaznawi on the outskirts of Kabul. Dawood and the al-Qaida leaders who accompanied him were clean-shaven and dressed as Western reporters.
I don't know if a Bin Laden tape would further support Hamid Mir's report of a nuclear attack during Ramadan, but I do think it's worrisome. Allahpundit wonders: "Is the worry-meter about to go to code orange?"
Update: Stop the ACLU is also reporting on the new OBL tape and says this:
I'm wondering if these will be video tapes or audio. Around the circle we go again. Doesn't this cycle repeat itself often? He's dead and then he comes out to show he isn't. Don't grow complacent though, especially with the reports of an American Hiroshima. We've missed the signs in the past on numerous occassions and paid the price. We are still pointing fingers on that.
Personally I don't think he is dead, but a pre-produced vague tape doesn't reallly prove he isn't either. I wonder if he will come out with the tape in time for it to be considered a Rovian October surprise.
Update II: Ace makes an interesting point about a possible Bin Laden tape:
Osama makes/made a lot of tapes. If there is a new tape, I'll be listening for the possibility of multiple outs. For example, he knew of the SkyBomb plan quite a long time ago. It is no difficult trick to produce one tape exalting the SkyBombers for their success and another tape celebrating their failed attempt.
And, if he's dead -- or gravely ill, and not suitable for videotaping -- it's not hard to get the right pre-recorded tape to Al Jazeera.
The simple fact that Osama may vaguely reference a recent incident -- which would have been known to him long ago -- and correctly (though vaguely) notes the outcome of the event is not quite proof he's alive.
Sound farfetched? Tell that to Queen. As his death approached, Freddie Mercury recorded dozens of demo tracks of his (weakening) vocals for new songs he wrote in a hurry, so as to make sure his longtime bandmates would have at least one or two albums' worth of Queen songs with his voice, if they so chose.
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