Why we are still getting it so wrong in the 'war on terror'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1884868,00.html
The ill-conceived and badly executed campaign in Iraq is directly
responsible for spawning a new generation of terrorists
Henry Porter
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
When Alexander the Great swept through Asia Minor in 337BC, he came to
the impregnable mountain fortress of Termessos, not far from the
modern-day Turkish city of Antalya. Termessos possessed a network of
huge underground reservoirs and storerooms and, realising he would not
bring the city to submission in a short time, Alexander ordered that
the olive groves which provided Termessos with much of its income be
levelled. It was an unusually spiteful act that was remembered for
centuries afterwards.
I was reminded of the story when reading Patrick Cockburn's The
Occupation, a vivid account of war and resistance in Iraq which is
published by Verso this week. Cockburn describes a visit to Dhuluaya, a
fruit-growing region 50 miles north of Baghdad, where, early on in the
occupation, the American military cut down ancient date palms and
orange and lemon trees as part of a collective punishment for farmers
who had failed to inform them about guerrilla attacks. This vandalism
will be remembered for generations because it was senseless and to the
Iraqi mind powerfully symbolises the malice of the occupiers.
I can barely Adam and Eve it, but creationism's catching on over here
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1884941,00.html
Nick Cohen
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
Not the smallest of the crimes of the Bush administration is to allow
an affectation of cultural superiority to sweep Europe. By now, you
must know the list of our alleged virtues by heart and the odds are you
accept our moral pre-eminence as incontestable.
The Christian right wants an end to abortion, a rolling back of
homosexual rights and the teaching of creationism to gullible children
in state schools. These primitive beliefs put Republicans outside the
bounds of civilised discourse to everyone who matters except Tony Blair
and he'll be gone soon. The rest of us can savour the antics of Baptist
churches and Deep South demagogues as one of our greatest voyeuristic
pleasures - the pornography of the politically literate. Every time a
film crew comes back with footage of tele-evangelists milking their
flocks, the seductive thought that there is no moral difference between
Christian fundamentalism and Islamism becomes a little more appealing.
Internet's new wave threatens to wash the high street away
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1884727,00.html
The fresh boom in online shopping and media has left traditional
retailers in a quandary about how to sell - or where to advertise, says
Heather Connon
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
It has been dubbed 'Web 2.0', or the internet's second wave. It is the
shorthand way of describing why we now go online. No longer are we
simply logging in to the services of AOL or Yahoo; now we are
harnessing the internet to interact with each other socially, download
(and upload) our own entertainment - and buy products and services in
ever greater amounts.
But for much of the business community, Web 2.0 could be shorthand for
double the headache. Virtually every company now has an established web
presence but, as internet culture sweeps on at a dizzying pace,
figuring out how to make money from it becomes even harder.
It's the 'digital natives' versus the 'immigrants' as kids go to work
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1884740,00.html
John Naughton
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
Lee Rainie probably knows more about the impact of the internet on
everyday life than anyone else on the planet. This is because he's
director of the Pew internet & American Life Project - a research
enterprise funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts with the specific remit
to study 'the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and
home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political
life'. The goal was to become 'an authoritative source on the evolution
of the internet through collection of data and analysis of real-world
developments as they affect the virtual world'.
Because of its stable and lavish funding, Rainie's project is achieving
its goal: it produces the most objective data on the net's impact.
(Most other data comes from commercial market research, the objectivity
of which is questionable.) And although the Pew project's focus is on
the US, many of its findings are relevant to other cultures - or at
least to those of other industrialised countries. So when Rainie muses
about cyberspace, it's generally worth paying attention.
Fears of crash put focus on the City's dark arts
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1884724,00.html
Concern is mounting that derivatives, hedge funds or private equity
firms could spark a crisis, writes Richard Wachman
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
It is the nightmare scenario everybody hopes will never happen: a
financial crash that brings capitalism to its knees, affecting us for
years to come.
Regulators such as Britain's Financial Services Authority are paid to
worry about such things, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that
the authorities are talking up the dangers posed by a possible bird flu
pandemic this winter, or the risks that banks take by lending money to
overindebted consumers.
The more we manage, the worse we make things
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1884733,00.html
Simon Caulkin
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
The only bad thing about going on holiday last month was missing the
chance to take part in a Today programme discussion on the state of
management: how has it changed over the past 40 years, and for better
or worse?
Good question. If I had been able to get a word in edgeways, this is
what I would have wanted to say: Yes, of course management has changed
- but behind a surface gain in 'professionalism', I fear for the worse
as much as for the better.
White House in crisis over 'Iraq lies' claims
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1884879,00.html
Watergate journalist's new book exposes how Bush has kept the US public
in the dark about the true costs of the 'war on terror'
Paul Harris in New York
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
President George Bush was braced for one of the toughest fights of his
political life yesterday as a fierce row broke out over whether he has
been misleading the American public over the worsening violence in
Iraq. The crisis also rippled across the Atlantic with claims that the
administration hid crucial Iraq intelligence from its British allies.
Sparking the crisis was a series of leaks from a hard-hitting new book
by the political journalist Bob Woodward, one of the two Washington
Post reporters who broke the Watergate scandal that engulfed the Nixon
administration three decades ago.
Democrats return fire in mid-term battle on terrorism
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1884880,00.html
Security fears have been a vote-winner for Bush, but now the opposition
feels it can prevail by focusing on Iraq and the President, writes Paul
Harris
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
For sheer brazenness, the attack advert against Senator Hillary Clinton
was hard to beat. As it condemned her national security record and
mixed images of her and al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, her Republican
opponent John Spencer intoned in a voiceover: 'I won't play politics
with our security.' f Of course, Spencer was doing exactly that. But
now the Democrats are hitting back. Senior party figures last week
launched unprecedented criticism of the war in Iraq. Former President
Jimmy Carter said President George W Bush has brought 'international
disgrace' to the US. Clinton's latest speech bemoaned the 'incalculable
damage' done by Bush's policies over the past six years.
The race for America's mid-term elections has entered its final stretch
and is taking place on one battlefield: national security.
US pushed MI5 into airport terror swoop
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1885053,00.html
Fight over suspect in Pakistan revealed as Musharraf quashes terror
claims
Jamie Doward and Mark Townsend
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
The US warned Britain that it was prepared to seize the key suspect in
the UK's biggest ever anti-terrorism operation and fly him to a secret
detention centre for interrogation by American agents, even if this
meant riding roughshod over its closest ally, The Observer can reveal.
American intelligence agents told their British counterparts they were
ready to 'render' Rashid Rauf, a British citizen allegedly linked to
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and who was under surveillance in Pakistan,
unless he was picked up immediately. Rauf is the key suspect in the
alleged plot to detonate explosives on up to 10 transatlantic planes
that was exposed in August and, according to the police, would have
brought 'mass murder on an unimaginable scale'.
Third Reich epic sparks bidding war
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1884823,00.html
Former aid worker's fascination with 'banality of evil' takes him to
the top of French bestseller list
Jason Burke in Paris
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
It is 900 pages of closely typed text, in French, with harrowing
details of torture, mass executions, the bureaucratic battles at the
heart of the Third Reich, incest, matricide and homosexual encounters -
and now it has sparked an international publishing feeding frenzy.
Tomorrow, the bar of Frankfurt's Hessicher Hof, the period hotel that
is the favoured luxury hangout of the publishing elite, will be packed
on the eve of the city's annual book fair - and there will be only one
topic of conversation.
Stanley Milgram
http://snipurl.com/xptf
Hannah Arendt
http://snipurl.com/xptq
Mosley's son to hail his father's Cable Street humiliation
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1885141,00.html
David Smith
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
Nicholas Mosley is still surprised by the reception he gets from Jews.
'Jewish people have always been terribly nice to me,' he says, a few
hours after writing an article for the Jewish Chronicle. 'I always
wonder whether they will be because they quite understandably aren't
always nice about my father.'
Sir Oswald Mosley, the charismatic leader of the British Union of
Fascists in the Thirties, dreamed of becoming Britain's Hitler. In a
poll for BBC History magazine, the virulently anti-semitic Mosley was
voted the worst Briton of the 20th century.
The Amis papers
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1884637,00.html
In the last month this newspaper has published two major Martin Amis
essays on 9/11 and the rise of extreme Islamism. These, and the release
of his new book, means Britain's most celebrated writer is in the
firing line again. Rachel Cooke travels to Long Island to hear him talk
about families, fame and the really big issue - women
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
By the time you read this, Martin Amis will be in London, bracing
himself for the reviews of his new novel, The House of Meetings. But I
have come to see him in the Hamptons, on Long Island, where he is, I
guess, bracing himself for all the bracing. He certainly looks quite
braced, like some twitchy frequent flier who is about to announce for
the fifth time today that, yes, he did pack his own bags.
He gave up reading reviews years ago - or so he insists. The trouble is
that if you are Martin Amis, you cannot avoid them. Publication day is
a carnivorous and gleeful public carnival; the bastards all want your
guts for garters. The reviews for his last novel, Yellow Dog, were
toxic - the worst of his life.
How we failed to learn the lessons of Suez
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1884543,00.html
Ian Black enjoys three illuminating studies of a Middle Eastern drama:
After Suez, Suez 1956 and Ends of British Imperialism
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
After Suez by Martin Woollacott
by IB Tauris =A316.95, pp166
Suez 1956 by Barry Turner
Hodder & Stoughton =A320, pp531
Ends of British Imperialism by William Roger Louis
IB Tauris =A324.50, pp1,065
Half a century on, the Suez crisis holds few surprises any more: a
handful of files declassified by the Cabinet Office this summer added
little to the familiar story of Anthony Eden's obsession with Gamal
Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian leader. Still, its distant echoes seem far
louder since the war in Iraq, a 21st-century foreign policy debacle
whose outcome is messier and more uncertain than that of the drama of
1956.
Wisely, veteran Guardian journalist Martin Woollacott did not set out
to prospect for new nuggets. Rather, he uses Suez as a peg on which to
hang some illuminating reflections about the West and the Middle East
and to follow British policy in an era dominated by the expansion of
American power, until both faltered at the gates of Baghdad.
Marjane Satrapi: Princess of darkness
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/article1770032.ece
Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian exile and a former punk and drug dealer.
She's also becoming the world's most important graphic novelist, whose
blackly comic autobiographical work is changing our view of everyday
life in Iran. Portrait by Charles Burns
The Robert Chalmers Interview
Published: 01 October 2006
I hate that man more than any other human being on Earth. If there is
one creature on the planet that I detest, it's that *****. He is
despicable. I loathe him. Because he's nothing but a *****, a fucking
*****."
Marjane Satrapi's thoughts have turned to our Prime Minister.
In Taking On Fox, Democrats See Reward in the Risk
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/weekinreview/01manley.html?ref=3Dweekinre=
view
By LORNE MANLY
The attacks on Fox News represent a new twist on the Democrats'
complicated dance with the cable news channel.
Why Not Talk?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/magazine/01wwln_lede.html
By NOAH FELDMAN
The case for speaking with our enemies.
The Inside Agitator
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/magazine/01dean.html?pagewanted=3Dall
By MATT BAI
Is Howard Dean willing to destroy the Democratic Party in order to save
it?
'A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia'
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/books/review/McCulloch2.t.html?ref=3Drevi=
ew
By THOMAS KENEALLY
Reviewed by ALISON MCCULLOCH
Thomas Keneally looks at Australia's origins as a land of petty
crooks and ne'er-do-wells.
I=2E F. Stone: Selected Writings and a Biography
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/books/review/Berman.t.html?ref=3Dreview&p=
agewanted=3Dall
Reviewed by PAUL BERMAN
Does the memory of the independent-minded, liberally leftist, reliably
humorous and wonderfully prolific journalist I. F. Stone have anything
to offer to us today?
Ruined Towns Look to Beirut, Mostly in Vain
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/world/middleeast/01lebanon.html?pagewante=
d=3Dall
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Nearly $900 million in international pledges remains untapped by the
Lebanese government, while Hezbollah and some foreign countries are
giving out cash payments.
Often Parched, India Struggles to Tap the Monsoon
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/world/asia/01india.html?ref=3Dworld&pagew=
anted=3Dall
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
A puzzle is crucial to securing India's future: how to harness and
hold on to its rich but capricious rains.
Of Party Dues and Deadbeats on Capitol Hill
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/us/politics/01dues.html?ref=3Dpolitics&pa=
gewanted=3Dall
By JEFF ZELENY
To move up the ladder, you must do more than win votes. You are, quite
literally, expected to pay your dues.
Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court's Rulings
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/us/01judges.html?ref=3Dpolitics&pagewante=
d=3Dall
By ADAM LIPTAK and JANET ROBERTS
Ohio Supreme Court justices routinely sat on cases after receiving
campaign contributions from the parties involved.
Detainee Memo Created Divide in White House
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/washington/01detain.html?ref=3Dwashington=
&pagewanted=3Dall
By TIM GOLDEN
After a broad overhaul was urged, officials often led by Vice President
***** Cheney were pitted against officials in the State and Defense
departments.
Powell Tried to Warn Bush on Iraq, Book Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/washington/01powell.html?ref=3Dwashington
By JOHN M. BRODER
A new biography of Colin L. Powell is among the latest accounts of the
divisions within the Bush administration over the Iraq war.
Chaplain Prayer Provision Cut From Military Spending Bill
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/washington/01chaplain.html?ref=3Dwashingt=
on
By NEELA BANERJEE
The provision would have permitted chaplains to offer sectarian prayer
at mandatory nondenominational events.
THE EDUCATION ISSUE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR200609290=
1628.html
By Paul A. Hanle
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page B04
I recently addressed a group of French engineering graduate students
who were visiting Washington from the prestigious School of Mines in
Paris. After encouraging them to teach biotechnology in French high
schools, I expected the standard queries on teaching methods or
training. Instead, a bright young student asked bluntly: "How can you
teach biotechnology in this country when you don't even accept
evolution?"
I wanted to disagree, but the kid had a point. Proponents of
"intelligent design" in the United States are waging a war against
teaching science as scientists understand it. Over the past year alone,
efforts to incorporate creationist language or undermine evolution in
science classrooms at public schools have emerged in at least 15
states, according to the National Center for Science Education. And an
independent education foundation has concluded that science-teaching
standards in 10 states fail to address evolution in a scientifically
sound way. Through changes in standards and curriculum, these efforts
urge students to doubt evolution -- the cornerstone principle of
biology, one on which there is no serious scientific debate.
California's Model for The Middle
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR200609290=
1436.html
By David S. Broder
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page B07
SACRAMENTO -- The likely victory of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in next
month's election could change the dynamics of California government and
the way both national parties think about this mega-state.
It has been a long time since a Republican presidential candidate won
California: not since George H.W. Bush in 1988. And it had been almost
as long since any Republican won major statewide office -- until
Schwarzenegger won the special election of 2003.
The Humanitarian War Myth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR200609290=
1435.html
By Eric A. Posner
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page B07
More than 40,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the
American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the rate at which civilians
die has been increasing in recent months. Many thousands of innocent
Iraqis have been detained, and some have been abused by American
troops. Many others have been tortured or killed by Iraqi police. Basic
services have been lacking in large portions of the country for three
years. Civil war looms, conjuring memories of the 16-year Lebanese
civil war, during which more than 100,000 people were killed out of a
population of fewer than 4 million.
Yet, if the United Nations were to have its way, the Iraqi debacle
would be just the first in a series of such wars -- the effect of a
well-meaning but ill-considered effort to make humanitarian
intervention obligatory as a matter of international law. Today Iraq,
tomorrow Darfur.
Why I'm Banned in the USA
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR200609290=
1334_pf.html
By Tariq Ramadan
Sunday, October 1, 2006; B01
LONDON
For more than two years now, the U.S. government has barred me from
entering the United States to pursue an academic career. The reasons
have changed over time, and have evolved from defamatory to absurd, but
the effect has remained the same: I've been kept out.
First, I was told that I could not enter the country because I had
endorsed terrorism and violated the USA Patriot Act. It took a lawsuit
for the government eventually to abandon this baseless accusation.
Later, I reapplied for a visa, twice, only to hear nothing for more
than a year. Finally, just 10 days ago, after a federal judge forced
the State Department to reconsider my application, U.S. authorities
offered a new rationale for turning me away: Between 1998 and 2002, I
had contributed small sums of money to a French charity supporting
humanitarian work in the Palestinian territories.
Profiles in Cowardice
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR200609300=
1027.html
On prisoner abuse and detention, President Bush finds enablers in both
parties.
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page B06
ONCE AGAIN, with a midterm election looming, President Bush stoked and
won a major legislative confrontation over a complex national security
question. Four years ago, it was the Iraq war resolution and
reorganization of the government's homeland security functions. In both
cases, hindsight suggests that haste and political pressure foreclosed
the kind of nuanced debate that might have served the nation well. The
same is likely to prove true of legislation passed last week on the
treatment, detention and trial of enemy combatants.
But the artificial emergency Mr. Bush created has served his political
purpose. His goal was to press opponents to cave to his will, against
their better judgment, or to create an issue allowing his party to tar
the opposition as soft on terrorism. In this case, thanks in part to
the Democrats' weak-hearted abdication, he got both.
Secret Reports Dispute White House Optimism
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR200609300=
0293_pf.html
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 1, 2006; A01
On May 22, 2006, President Bush spoke in Chicago and gave a
characteristically upbeat forecast: "Years from now, people will look
back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive
moment in the story of liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm
foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long
retreat."
Two days later, the intelligence division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
circulated a secret intelligence assessment to the White House that
contradicted the president's forecast.
Democrats Hope to Swing State Legislatures Their Way
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR200609300=
1025.html
By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page A05
Just as Democrats hope to shift the balance of power in Congress this
November, they are hoping to control more state legislatures.
Tim Storey of the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures
said there could be a seismic swing in the control of state
legislatures in favor of Democrats this fall because of an energized
Democratic base. Legislatures currently are controlled nearly equally
by Democrats and Republicans.
Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR200609300=
0282.html
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page A17
On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his
counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review
the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization.
Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and
other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that
al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of
fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so
compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White
House immediately.
Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the
car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical
way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director.
White House Lists Book's 'Five Key Myths'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR200609300=
0969.html
By Caren Bohan
Reuters
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page A17
The White House went on the offensive yesterday against a new book that
reports President Bush resisted demands to boost U.S. troop numbers in
Iraq and misled Americans about the level of violence there.
The book, "State of Denial," by Washington Post Assistant Managing
Editor Bob Woodward, went on sale yesterday, two days ahead of
schedule, after a storm of publicity.
'State of Denial'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15075326/site/newsweek/
It was Bush's decision. But Rumsfeld drove the dynamic on Iraq. How
the SecDef blew it. An exclusive excerpt.
By Bob Woodward
Newsweek
Oct. 9, 2006 issue - A movie of the George W. Bush presidency might
open in the Oval Office on January 26, 2001, when Donald H. Rumsfeld
was sworn in as defense secretary. A White House photographer captured
the scene. Rumsfeld wears a pin=ADstripe suit, and rests his left hand
on a Bible held by Joyce, his wife of 46 years. His right hand is
raised. Bush stands almost at attention, his head forward, his eyes
cocked sharply leftward, looking intently at Rumsfeld. Vice President
***** Cheney stands slightly off to the side, his trademark half smile
on his face. It is a cold, dry day, and the barren branches of the
trees outside can be seen through the Oval Office windows.
.
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