AL QAEDA BEHIND INDONESIAN TERROR ATTACKS

New details reveal how deeply Al Qaeda has penetrated the “moderate” Islamic state of Indonesia: Official Ties al-Qaida to Indonesia Terror.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The al-Qaida terror network helped fund suicide bombings in Indonesia over the past four years through a courier system set up by the reputed mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, a senior police official said Tuesday.

Former al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was captured in 2003, was personally involved in setting up the courier system, in which money was carried from Thailand to Malaysia and finally to Indonesia’s Sumatra island, said Col. Petrus Reinhard Golose of Indonesia’s counterterrorism task force.

Golose said the money was used to help the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah launch attacks in the world’s most populous Muslim country from 2002-2005.

Jemaah Islamiyah is blamed for the 2002 nightclub attacks on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, attacks in the capital Jakarta in 2003 and 2004 that together killed 21, and triple suicide bombings on Bali in October that killed 20.

Indonesian authorities have claimed for years that al-Qaida helped finance the terror network, but never before provided the level of detail given by Golose, who was directly involved in the investigations of the bombings.

Golose said several members of Jemaah Islamiyah met directly with bin Laden in Afghanistan and signed agreements with him before launching the attacks, but he did not elaborate. He also did not say from where the al-Qaida funds originated or the nationalities of the couriers.

“Thirty thousand U.S. dollars was sent for the first Bali bombing,” Golose said, adding that “tens of thousands of dollars” was sent for the 2003 bombing of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.

Some of the leftover cash was used for the 2004 attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, he said. He said he was uncertain how much al-Qaida money was used for the latest attack on Bali, targeting three crowded restaurants.

Muslim groups are seething and raging at Michigan State University, where some members of the journalism department decided to stand up for the First Amendment: Muslim groups criticize MSU for online caricatures.

Muslim groups sharply criticized the online publication of controversial caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Monday by a Michigan State University instructor and a group of students.

“We need to differentiate between freedom of speech and respect for each other,” said Mahmoud Mousa, president of the Lansing chapter of the Muslim American Society.

“If it was about any of the great messengers of God, whether Moses, or Christ or the Prophet Muhammad, people would be offended at the same level.”

The caricatures are published on spartanedge.com, an online newspaper published by journalism instructor Bonnie Bucqueroux. ...

Bucqueroux’s comments on politics also are occasionally published by The Detroit News in the form of a weblog. The News has not published and does not intend to publish the caricatures.

“We believe that responsibility comes with freedom of speech,” said Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan.

“The right to free speech and free speech does not give us the right to print things or say things that are intentionally provocative, distasteful and have the potential to provoke hatred for any group, be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim or otherwise.”

DUBAI PORTS WORLD ENFORCES BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

According to the Jerusalem Post, Dubai Ports World, the firm that is poised to control major US seaports, participates in and enforces the Arab boycott of Israel—and US law forbids such cooperation: Exclusive: Dubai ports firm enforces Israel boycott. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The firm, Dubai Ports World, is seeking control over six major US ports, including those in New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Baltimore. It is entirely owned by the Government of Dubai via a holding company called the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCZC), which consists of the Dubai Port Authority, the Dubai Customs Department and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Area.

“Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced,” Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department’s Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview. “If a product contained even some components that were made in Israel, and you wanted to import it to Dubai, it would be a problem,” he said.

A-Din noted that while the head office for the anti-Israel boycott sits in Damascus, he and his fellow staff members are paid employees of the Dubai Customs Department, which is a division of the PCZC, the same Dubai government-owned entity that runs Dubai Ports World.

Moreover, the Post found that the website for Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone Area, which is also part of the PCZC, advises importers that they will need to comply with the terms of the boycott.

In a section entitled “Frequently Asked Questions”, the site lists six documents that are required in order to clear an item through the Dubai Customs Department. One of them, called a “Certificate of Origin,” “is used by customs to confirm the country of origin and needs to be seen by the office which ensures any trade boycotts are enforced,” according to the website.

A-Din of the Israel boycott office confirmed that his office examines certificates of origin as a means of verifying whether a product originated in the Jewish state.

On at least three separate occasions last year, the Post has learned, companies were fined by the US government’s Office of Anti-boycott Compliance, an arm of the Commerce Department, on charges connected to boycott-related requests they had received from the Government of Dubai.

US law bars firms from complying with such requests or cooperating with attempts by Arab governments to boycott Israel.

A MANIFESTO AGAINST TOTALITARIANISM

At Agora, a translation from Jyllands-Posten of a stirring manifesto against Islamic supremacism: Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali et al Slam Islamic Totalitarianism.

Together facing the new totalitarianism

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.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

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

And you can add my name to that list.

A CLASH BETWEEN THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE 21ST CENTURY

Arab American psychologist Wafa Sultan is a very brave lady, as she confronts a bearded cleric on Al Jazeera television and gives him a severe dose of righteous truth. (Courtesy of MEMRI TV.)

Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.

[...]

Wafa Sultan: My colleague has said that he never offends other people’s beliefs. What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the “People of the Book,” and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians “those who incur Allah’s wrath.” Who told you that they are “People of the Book”? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them “those who incur Allah’s wrath,” or “those who have gone astray,” and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?

I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others’ right to believe in it.

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: Are you a heretic?

Wafa Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural...

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran...

Wafa Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you.

[...]

Wafa Sultan: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don’t throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people’s beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.  Tuesday, February 28, 2006

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog

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BUSH LIKES BLOGS

Matt Drudge reported earlier today that the White House has carefully noted the rise of the political blogosphere, as reported by Bill Sammon in his new book Strategery. According to Drudge, Sammon quotes the president as "fascinated" by the rise of the new media and its challenge to the Exempt Media:

President Bush, for the first time, is hailing the rise of the alternative media and the decline of the mainstream media, which he now says “conspired” to harm him with forged documents.

“I find it interesting that the old way of gathering the news is slowly but surely losing market share,” Bush said in an exclusive interview for the new book STRATEGERY. “It’s interesting to watch these media conglomerates try to deal with the realities of a new kind of world.”

Daniel Glover at Beltway Blogroll notes that at least in the section quoted by Drudge, Bush never actually speaks specifically about blogs. Karl Rove, however, points directly at the Ra^thergate fiasco at CBS as the seminal event for political blogs as major influences on public opinion:

Rove considers Memogate a watershed in the rise of the alternative media.

“The whole incident in the fall of 2004 showed really the power of the 'blogosphere',” he said in his West Wing office.

“Because in essence you had now, an army of self-appointed experts looking over the shoulder of the mainstream media and bringing to bear enormously sophisticated skills,” he added.

Glover has a source that informs him that the President does have an active interest in the blogosphere and is pursuing greater knowledge. Meanwhile, CQ readers know that Karl Rove not only has a keen eye for the blogosphere but also checks in at CQ on a regular basis. I think most of the starboard side of the blogosphere will be buying Sammon's book to see if any blogs get a mention.

DID THE GERMANS AID THE WAR EFFORT?

The Guardian (UK) reports that a classified US military report states categorically that German intelligence provided the Coalition with vital information on Saddam Hussein's plans for the defense of Baghdad. This has long been rumored to be true, and the additional evidence has the Germans backpedaling at home:

Germany's government faced renewed pressure to order an inquiry yesterday after fresh evidence emerged that Germany supplied military intelligence to the United States in the run-up to the Iraq war.

A classified US military study states categorically that the Germans provided details about Saddam Hussein's plans for the defence of Baghdad. Since the spy issue first arose last month, the Berlin government has been repeatedly forced on the defensive. It issued a denial yesterday.

A copy of the US study was obtained by Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent of the New York Times, who has co-written Cobra 11: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, to be published by Pantheon in America and Atlantic Books in Britain next month. A New York Times report yesterday was based on the book.

The study, which reconstructs Saddam's military strategy, was prepared in 2005 by the US Joint Forces Command. It says that two German agents based in Baghdad gained access a month before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to a sketch, covered in clear plastic, showing the proposed defensive lines for Baghdad, and that a German intelligence officer based in Qatar handed it to US intelligence. The sketch is identified as a plan presented at a meeting of Saddam and his senior commanders in December 2002.

If one recalls, the question of liberating Baghdad weighed heavily on the minds of military planners. America anticipated a block-by-block battle, putting the millions of Baghdadis at risk while potentially costing thousands of American lives. This was one of the points on which critics of the invasion predicted a disaster for the operation. Some publicly predicted that Baghdad would never fall to invading forces and that even if it did, it would resemble Berlin in May 1945 once the battle ended.

If the Germans assisted us in the effort to spare all of that, then their role in the war should be re-evaluated by Americans. However, the Germans apparently would prefer not to have their role re-evaluated at all, as their own people are furious with this alleged breach of their proclaimed neutrality. They question the honesty of former administration officials such as Joschka Fischer, who publicly stated that they would not provide any such assistance to the US and in fact had not done so. Fortunately for Angela Merkel, the new Chancellor, none of these allegations reflect on her new government, and she may be tempted to order an inquiry into the effort for political purposes.

One hopes that the furor will die down quickly. If the report turns out to be true, German intelligence saved the lives of both Iraqis and Americans in Baghdad, and helped to keep the city from the extensive damage that an all-out defense may have caused. If true, we should all be grateful for that outcome.

SADDAM SIGNED THE DEATH ORDERS

Prosecutors in the trial of Saddam Hussein managed to move their case along in today's session, now that new court management has dealt with the disruptive tactics by the defense. Not that this shocks anyone, but the prosecution proved that Saddam himself ordered the deaths of 148 citizens of Dujail without trial as retribution for the assassination attempt on his life:

Prosecutors at Saddam Hussein's trial presented a document Tuesday they said was signed by the former leader approving the executions of more than 140 Shiites in southern Iraq after an assassination attempt in the 1980s. ...

The document was among several presented by chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi concerning the killings of Shiites from the town of Dujail in 1982.

A memo from the Revolutionary Court, dated June 14, 1984, announced that 148 suspects had been sentenced to death by hanging and listed their names. The prosecutor said the signature on the memo was that of the court's head, Awad al-Bandar, one of Saddam's co-defendants.

A document dated two days later was a presidential order approving all 148 death sentences. The paper was signed by Saddam, al-Moussawi said, displaying the document with the signature on a screen in the court room.

None of these people ever stood trial; none had the opportunity to challenge Saddam's death order. He simply wanted them dead and signed the order that gave him what he wanted. One hundred forty-eight men and women went to their deaths to slake Saddam's thirst for revenge. And this is just one incident from over twenty years ago.

Now that the former judge has been retired in favor of one that has much less patience with disruptions, the trial may actually prove beneficial to the Iraqis. Until now, Saddam has had free reign of the press, overshadowing the evidence and testimony provided at this trial, undoubtedly part of his strategy. Hermann Goering tried a similar tactic at Nuremberg, using his swagger and a surprising intellect to confound and frustrate the tribunal ... for a while. Georing eventually found himself drowned in a flood of meticulous Nazi paperwork and the witnesses that even the murderously efficient Gestapo could not entirely eliminate.

The Goering option now being closed, Saddam will have little influence over the course of this trial. His hunger strike failed when he got hungry, and his defense team returned when they discovered that the Iraqis would proceed without them. All that will be left will be Saddam's monstrous record of barbarity, and that will remind Iraqis what they can expect in return for an abandonment of democracy.

IRAN STILL DECEIVES: IAEA

The IAEA report on Iran states that the mullahcracy remains as deceptive as ever about its nuclear program despite the years of negotiations to resolve differences over its intent. They have stonewalled inspectors while ramping up development of its program, a finding that should get the attention of the UNSC next month:

Iran has accelerated its nuclear fuel enrichment activities and rejected demands of international inspectors to explain evidence that had raised suspicions of a nuclear weapons program, according to a report by a United Nations agency. That could make it easier for the United States and its European partners to seek punitive action in the Security Council. ...

The report laid out a long list of fresh examples in which it said Iran had stonewalled the agency, responding with incomplete and ambiguous answers and refusing repeated requests to turn over documents and information.

It called it "regrettable and a matter of concern" that Iran has not been more forthcoming after three years of intensive agency verification. ... The documents make reference to a secretive entity in Iran called the Green Salt Project, and seem to suggest that the project established "administrative interconnections" between Iran's uranium processing, high explosives and missile warhead design. If accurate, the documents would be the first to tie what Iran says is its purely civilian nuclear program to military activities.

Iran has responded to this by claiming that Western intelligence, especially from the US, consists of forged documents. The mullahs had previously pledged to release more information on Green Salt for months, but now claim the entire project never existed.

The IAEA under Mohammed ElBaradei has tried to appease the Iranians as much as possible in this report. It draws no conclusions, irritating the Western nations, but instead sticks to the component findings and leaves all conclusions to the reader. They seem inescapable; the Iranians have not only restarted the centrifuge process, but also have announced plans to expand the number from the 20 at present to 3,000 by the end of the year, and eventually 50,000. The fuel it has produced shows evidence that their purification process is aimed at weapons-grade production by the unusually small amounts of plutonium-240 it contains (a pollutant for weapons).

This appears to remove all doubt that Iran intends on producing a nuclear device for its Shahab-3 missile platform.

Interestingly but unsurprisingly, ElBaradei apparently has accepted defeat on Iranian nuclearization, according to the Times. He has told IAEA member states that Iran will not accept a freeze and that the IAEA doesn't have many options to force them to do so, which the Times says "enraged" the US. It should shock no one. As Saddam proved, international organizations have little influence over the actions of dictators. Iran has seen what effect the UN and its subsidiary agencies had on Saddam for over a dozen years -- they issued proclamations and resolutions and did nothing to enforce them when Saddam committed violation after violation.

The Iranians don't need a dozen years. They may only need a dozen months. They know that time is on their side, and the reluctance of the UN and in the international community to take any real action will give them that window.  Tuesday, February 28, 2006

www.captainsquartersblog.com

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SINGH ALONG

From Reuters: India-US nuke deal – its all on President Bush says PM Manmohan Singh.

India plans to list nuclear reactors that generate about 65 percent of atomic power as civilian to help clinch a landmark deal with the United States, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday.

Singh's comments came days ahead of President George W. Bush's visit to the country during which the two leaders are hoping to close tough negotiations on the controversial deal which aims to help India meet its soaring energy needs. ...

The United States insists a plan to separate India's civilian and military nuclear programs, on which the deal hinges, must be credible and transparent to prevent proliferation.

Singh said India would also not accept international safeguards on its experimental fast-breeder reactor program. Fast breeders use spent fuel from existing reactors to produce plutonium which can be used for both generating power and making bombs.

From Christian Science Monitor: What Bush wants in India.

President Bush and his policymakers like to stress how much 9/11 has changed America's foreign-policy objectives, but one goal the terror attacks did not alter is to build a stronger partnership with the world's largest democracy, India. ...

When Mr. Bush arrives in India Wednesday, he will emphasize that same theme - one he has sounded since he was a governor running for president in 2000. At the top of the agenda are a controversial US-India nuclear-power agreement, proposed last summer when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington; security and economic ties; and India's relations with Pakistan, a country Bush will visit briefly on Saturday. ...

[T]he proposed US-India civilian nuclear deal -- under which the US would share nuclear technology and fuel with India in exchange for India opening its civilian nuclear plants to international inspection -- suggests the kind of tension that is likely to roil the relationship in the future. The Bush administration sees the agreement as a way to reward India for "good nuclear behavior." The deal would also steer a booming economy away from fossil fuels, the White House says.

Robert Tracinski at TIA Daily has been providing excellent coverage of the importance of U.S.-India relations. Yesterday he recommeded the article below because it captures the effect of what he calls "America's import-export trade in the ultimate resource -- that is, the benefits brought to both countries by Indian immigration to the US."

From The New York Times: US-India Warmth Follows Indian-American Successes .

These issues are of intense interest to Americans of Indian origin, who are the country's fastest-growing ethnic group, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, whose data shows they are far better educated and wealthier than the average U.S. citizen. ...

According to figures compiled from census data by the U.S.-India Political Action Committee, Indian-Americans own 15 percent of Silicon Valley start-up firms, constitute 10 percent to 12 percent of U.S. medical doctors and control about 40 percent of the American hotel sector.

One in 10 Americans of Indian origin are millionaires, while the $60,093 median income of Indian-American families in 2000 was far above the U.S. average of $38,885. They post similarly striking educational statistics.  Tuesday, February 28, 2006

www.coxandforkum.com

*

Douglas Murray attends a conference of Islam critics in the Netherlands, and says “We should fear Holland’s silence.”

Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.

Those of us who write and talk on Islam thus get caught between those on our own side who are increasingly keen to prosecute and increasing numbers of militants threatening murder. In this situation, not only is free speech being shut down, but our nation’s security is being compromised.

Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors are under protection.

Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.

The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.  Tuesday, February 28, 2006

NYT: NO BIG DEAL IF IRAN GETS NUKES

The big push from the left is starting, to thwart any action to stop Iran’s Manhattan Project. In the New York Times, MIT political science professor Barry R. Posen argues that Iran is a rational actor, on the way to his conclusion that We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran.

Iranian nuclear weapons could be put to three dangerous purposes: Iran could give them to terrorists; it could use them to blackmail other states; or it could engage in other kinds of aggressive behavior on the assumption that no one, not even the United States, would accept the risk of trying to invade a nuclear state or to destroy it from the air. The first two threats are improbable and the third is manageable.

Would Iran give nuclear weapons to terrorists? We know that Tehran has given other kinds of weapons to terrorists and aligned itself with terrorist organizations, like Hezbollah in Lebanon. But to threaten, much less carry out, a nuclear attack on a nuclear power is to become a nuclear target.

Anyone who attacks the United States with nuclear weapons will be attacked with many, many more nuclear weapons. Israel almost certainly has the same policy. If a terrorist group used one of Iran’s nuclear weapons, Iran would have to worry that the victim would discover the weapon’s origin and visit a terrible revenge on Iran. No country is likely to turn the means to its own annihilation over to an uncontrolled entity.  Monday, February 27, 2006

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog

EXEMPT MEDIA MATH

Apparently the Washington Post and CBS have their difficulties with mathematics these days. Earlier today, the Post reported that the death toll in Iraq from reprisals following the destruction of the Askariya shrine in Samarra had topped 1,300. Later today, most news organizations agree with Iraqi and American officials that the Post's numbers were greatly exaggerated, as Editor and Publisher reports:

Sectarian violence that followed last week's bombing of a Shiite shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis in the past few days, many times the figure previously reported by the U.S. media and the military, The Washington Post reported early Tuesday.

Later, however, Iraq Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari called such high death totals "inaccurate and exaggerated," without mentioning the Post.

In comparison, The New York Times reported Monday that the recent violence "brought the country to the brink of civil war and left at least 200 dead." Others had produced similar figures.

On Tuesday, the Times increased that number to "379 dead and 458 wounded, the nation's Council of Ministers said today. At least 246 people in Baghdad alone were killed, the top two city morgue officials said." ...

The Associated Press carried this on Tuesday: "The Post cited figures from the Baghdad central morgue, but an official there told The Associated Press that as of Sunday night they had received only 249 bodies tied to the violence. The Post figure appeared high based on police and hospital reports from the major population centers at the time of the attacks."

The Los Angeles Times, after noting the different figures today, added another, from Haidar Safar, a Ministry of Health official in charge of compiling data from hospitals and morgues across the country. He said 519 Iraqis have died from violence across the country since the blast occurred.

A Knight Ridder report from Baghdad late Tuesday stated that an American military official in Baghdad said U.S.-led coalition forces had been able to confirm only 220 such deaths since last Wednesday’s bombing.

No one argues that any of these numbers represent good news, but the report of 1300 deaths (which I used in a previous post) makes all of these counts pale in comparison. The methodology used by the Post appears somewhat suspect; their reporters counted dead bodies in a Baghdad morgue and assumed all of the deaths that appeared violent came from sectarian vendettas following the bombing. However, the morgue itself says that it has seen nowhere near the number of bodies claimed by the Post.

How many people have died in the violence this week? Too many, of course, and until today's 68 bombing deaths, it had appeared that the violence had burned itself out. The cycle of retribution has limited itself to Baghdad, where the most radical of both sects concentrate in a relatively small area. It looks as though the Post simply got their astronomical number wrong, which detracts from the reporting and undermines its credibility. They need to demand better methodology from their reporters and, frankly, better editing in their offices.

The Post isn't alone today, either. CBS released a poll showing the George Bush has tanked in public opinion, dropping to a miniscule 34% coming into the midterm primary season. This would worry most politicians, but the CBS poll has a major sampling problem, as reported at The Corner and just about everywhere else in the blogosphere.

First, the poll samples adults in general, not voters or likely voters. That's not fatal, but it does tend to skew the data and make it less reliable as a predictor of voter action. However, what makes it completely unacceptable is the wide disparity between Republicans and Democrats in the sample. Even when weighted by CBS to correct for a 13-point Democratic advantage in the sample, the gap remains at nine points, and Republicans still wind up with less representation than independents. That nine-point gap skews the end results and makes this poll representative of ... New York, Massachussetts, and California, but not the rest of the nation.

In contrast, the more reliable tracking poll at Rasmussen shows that Bush's numbers have held steady at the mediocre level of the mid-40s. Today's result shows a 43% approval rating, down six points from its two-week peak. That seems a bit more realistic than CBS' numbers.

CBS has an explanation of its polling process at its blog, Public Eye, and the Anchoress has a long list of blog links debating the topic. Vaughn Ververs writes a calm and rational defense of the methodology, but in the end cannot explain two aspects of their sampling -- the huge disparity in the raw numbers between Republicans and everyone else, and the weighting that winds up with almost the same disparity as before.

If this is the best math that the Exempt Media can muster, our educational system needs a lot more focus on basics.  Tuesday, February 28, 2006

www.captainsquartersblog.com

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MUQTADA AL-SADR

From AP: Analysis: Iraq Crisis Propells al-Sadr.

The bombing and bloodshed that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war have propelled anti-American firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr to the forefront of Iraqi politics. The young Shiite cleric who twice defied America in 2004 now has emerged as a major threat to U.S. plans for Iraq.

Al-Sadr had already managed to carve out a strong position in Iraqi politics. His followers won 30 of the 275 parliament seats in the December elections, and his support enabled Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to win the nomination of the Shiite bloc for a second term as prime minister.

But the outbreak of Shiite-Sunni violence presented al-Sadr with an opportunity that he was quick the exploit. An increase in al-Sadr's stature is an ominous development for the United States given his opposition to U.S. influence, his links to radical groups and regimes in the Middle East and his militia that undermines state authority. ...

Just as important, al-Sadr's vision for Iraq is markedly different from that of the United States or the Westernized politicians such as ex-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi that the United States has tacitly supported.

Areas under the control of al-Sadr's militia provide insights into what an Iraq run by the Sadrists may look like. In Basra, al-Sadr's militiamen have reportedly bombed stores suspected of selling liquor or permissive entertainment material, according to residents.

They routinely berate women whose appearance they deem immodest.

More alarming are al-Sadr's links to some of the most radical elements in the Middle East, including the clerical regime in Iran and the hardline government in Syria, both of whom welcomed on visits this month.

On his visit to Syria, al-Sadr praised Hamas' victory in the Palestinian elections.

"I hope it is the beginning of an Islamic awakening and that it will be the start ... of Islam's triumph in other Islamic countries," he said.  Monday, February 27, 2006

www.coxandforkum.com

AL-QAEDA'S FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN IRAQ

The pros & cons of al-Qaeda funneling both novice and experienced jihadis into Iraq.

By Bill Roggio

In the wake of the destruction of the dome of the Golden Mosque and the ensuing unrest, al-Qaeda in Iraq is hard at work with a suicide bombing campaign designed to increase the sectarian divide within Iraq. Over 40 Iraqis are killed in a spate of suicide bombings, including an attack by a terrorist with a suicide vest at a Baghdad gas station which killed 23 and wounded over 50.

While the presence of foreign al-Qaeda in Iraq is often underplayed in the press, numerous veteran al-Qaeda operatives have been killed or captured inside the country. Most recently, Asharq Alawsat reports Abdallah Salah al-Harbi, one of the suspects in last week’s attacks on the massive Saudi oil facility in Abqaiq, was arrested attempting to cross at the Saudi border. Abu al-Farouq al-Suri (the Syria), likely an al-Qaeda cell leader was arrest in Ramadi. An perhaps the biggest catch is Saad Hussaini, who was arrested in Syria while trying to recruit and facilitate jihadis to fight in Iraq. The Counterterrorism Blog’s Olivier Guitta describes Hussaini as follows:

Hussaini is one of the leaders of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group GICM and is most likely the brain behind the Casablanca attacks in 2003 which killed 45 and the Madrid bombings in 2004 which killed 192. Hussaini is considered by many as one of the GICM founders and its European leader. According to Spanish press, Morocco and Spain have been looking for him for more than three years... American operatives tracked Hussaini down from Pakistan to Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia and finally Syria where he was arrested.

Counterterrorism expert Evan Kohlmann has recently release four al-Qaeda ‘biographies’ of ‘Distinguished Martyrs’ in Iraq. While it should be remembered the biographies are used as al-Qaeda recruiting tools, there is factual information contained within these bios. Abu Abdullah al-Turki was a veteran terrorist who trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and fought in Chechnya, Georgia and Turkey [where he was implicated in the terrorist attacks on the Jewish synagogues] prior to entering Iraq. Abu Khaled al-Suri was Syrian of Palestinian descent who was “among the select few who grew up following the Salafist beliefs.” Al-Hazbar al-Nahdi was a Saudi who was always sympathetic to the cause of jihad. Also included was a biography of Omar Hadid (a.k.a. Abu Khattab al-Falluji), who was a radical Iraqi Islamist long before the invasion of Iraq.