ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON THE COUP

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thought it would be useful for readers to have the opportunity to read an alternative academic view of the events of last week, given that the international media has given so much airtime and column inches lately to the outspoken political science lecturer Giles Ungpakorn. Giles, a few other academics and some of their students defied the military council's decree against political meetings last Friday, holding a small protest for the media which passed uneventfully.

Giles is the youngest son of the late Dr. Puey Ungpakorn, a very highly respected figure in recent Thai history who was a founder of Seri Thai ("Free Thai Movement", the WW II resistance against the Japanese), and later Governor of the Bank of Thailand as well as Rector of Thammasat University during the turbulent 1970's.

Giles Ungpakorn, usually described by BBC et al as a social activist, is also an advocate of revolutionary class struggle to overthrow the capitalist system, and a leading member of the radical-socialist Workers Democracy Party here (which is part of International Socialist Tendency). Not that there's anything wrong with that of course, but he's very far from the centre of gravity of the Thai people, and even from those who would identify as "progressives." Don't let anyone tell you that Communism is banned in Thailand these days, but also don't let them tell you that Trotskyism is mainstream in any way.

But before we get to today's letter to the editor, a brief sketch of latest happenings.

In the pre-dawn hours yesterday, a coordinated arson attack against schools in the northern province Kamphaeng Phet resulted in three schools burned to the ground, while rainy conditions foiled the attempt at three others. Torching schools had been a favoured tactic of the southern insurgent groups for many years (particularly in the early 90's), but this is a first for northern provinces. Suspicions that it was done by "those who have lost influence" are rife, but the military council (now to be known in English as "Council for Democratic Reform" - the word "Monarchy" in the earlier name was causing misunderstanding by foreign media - its Thai name is unchanged) stressed that fingers shouldn't be pointed without evidence, and police investigations are continuing.

Further attacks in the southern provinces Yala and Pattani took at least four lives yesterday, and this morning a "teacher protection unit" of the army's 39th Task Force was hit by an IED in Narathiwat province, severely injuring five soldiers. No respite for the deep south, after a drop in violent attacks following the coup. An interim Prime Minister is expected to be presented for His Majesty's assent this weekend, after which Gen. Sonthi could turn his attention to implementing his strategy for peace in the south.

Our old friend, Don Muang international airport, ended its operational life around 3am this morning with departure of a Thai Airways flight to Shanghai. Our gleaming new friend, Suvarnabhumi ("soo-wanna-poom") received its first international arrivals around 7am, but there were some glitches. Ground handling and other equipment said to number around 1.8 million pieces had to be moved from Don Muang to Suvarnabhumi overnight, an absolutely massive operation. The procedure took longer than expected, resulting in long delays for the first arrivals getting their baggage. A computer system crash prior to the first flights made for some outbound delays.

Suvarnabhumi is the world's largest air terminal under a single roof (138 acres), housing both international and domestic services, and has the world's highest control tower. I'm looking forward to my next flight (for a change). The Nation has put up a special section with lots of info on Suvarnabhumi (the name conferred on it by His Majesty last year, which means "Golden Land" in a rather poetic style).

The Nation also has a new special section on the fall of Thaksin that readers may find interesting, including background history and timeline, current developments, etc.

And now for another academic perspective of the coup, as published a few days ago in the letters page of the Bangkok Post. I found it a very articulate description of the situation, and reproduce it here in full. The writer is a noted economist at Thammasat University.

Thailand had been deeply divided for almost a year, with many parts of civil society - academics, journalists, health professionals, universities - repeatedly calling upon PM Thaksin to step down, so that allegations of wrongdoing could be properly investigated. He used every means to stifle these legitimate attempts, including dissolution of Parliament.

In my opinion, the troubles leading up to the coup are actually a sign of greater political maturity among the Thai people. More people are thinking about social issues, about civil society, and making huge sacrifices for what they believe is right. We are willing to accept some discomfort and bear some cost, to show that rampant corruption and conflicts of interest in the Thaksin government will not be tolerated.

It is sad to see foreign governments and journalists reacting to the coup in Thailand in a negative, albeit, predictable way. Words like chaos and turmoil are bandied about as if they had a standard set of phrases in their pockets. It almost seems that form is more important than substance, or that political correctness requires them to regurgitate the same rehearsed phrases.

Fortunately, people on the streets give a different testimonial, like Australian John Newman who runs Big John's Backpacker Hostel in Bangkok, who says: "People have been a little bit curious. It doesn't seem to be stopping anything at the moment. People have been out in bars drinking and taxis have been driving around. Everything is pretty much as normal."

Foreign journalists seem to equate the current situation with previous coups in Thailand. They say that coups should be a thing of the past and, of course, we Thais agree. But the current circumstances are unique. We understand that foreign investment could be jeopardised, but this is the least of our concerns. This coup is generically quite different from those in the past. It is not a self-serving power struggle. This coup should not be seen as an act of barbarism. It is intended to bring morality, rectitude, integrity and common decency back into Thai society.

The democratic checks and balances had broken down because of money politics on a scale hitherto unknown. So-called independent agencies had been compromised. The legislative process had been hijacked and the judicial process crippled. At no other time in Thailand's history had laws been made and amended to serve personal interests so blatantly. I am certain that the coup leaders felt that this really was the last resort, and that all other avenues for correcting the system had been blocked.

Democracy is not the mere casting of votes; it requires an institutional infrastructure that serves as checks and balances. For months people had strained to abide by the rule of law, it was painful. People from all walks of life had held peaceful demonstration after demonstration, presented huge amounts of evidence, and demanded explanations that had not been forthcoming. Thaksin dissolved Parliament just when the opposition won a by-election and had enough seats to initiate a censure motion against him.

He says that the people should decide. But there are very specific allegations of wrongdoing. Right and wrong cannot be decided by popularity. There must be due process, which has been repeatedly denied the people. It is precisely the belief in the rule of law that has motivated this coup, or at least support for it.

This coup is not like previous coups. It is Thailand's way of sacking a prime minister who has overstepped his mandate.

DR SIRILAKSANA KHOMAN

Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University

Labels: Thailand

- posted by Agam @ 4:38 PM 0 comments

 
AYAAN HIRSI ALI MEETS SALMAN RUSHDIE

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n May 4 this year, Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke to a roomful of people she'd never met, and apologised to them. The American Jewish Committee had invited her to receive its Moral Courage Award, at a time when she was practically being hounded out of her home and her adopted country. She told the assembly, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make, if you are Jewish.... I used to hate you." You can listen to the audio here.

In this, much smaller event (which I'm guessing was at the New York Public Library), she meets someone else she used to hate. The Somalia-born Hirsi Ali was a teenager then, going to school in Kenya, and had joined in demonstrations demanding death to Salman Rushdie, and burning his books.

Today she says she has grown up, and lost her fear of hell. "Forgive me for wanting to burn your book." She later tells him:

"What I learned from it was, I was trying to have a man killed whom I had never met, and I was participating in the burning of a book I had not read. So, actually what I was doing was demonstrating for ignorance."

She understands that simply sitting next to Rushdie (not to mention apologising to him) is enough to make a lot more people want to kill her too. She has achieved what Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma calls freedom from fear.

"It is not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

- Aung San Suu Kyi, "Freedom from Fear"

Watch the video full size on Google Video. Wai to Hot Air and sugiero, who has links including more interviews with this courageous woman.
- posted by Agam @ 12:06 PM 0 comments

 
GECKO NEWS

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our humble correspondent has an article today in the Guardian UK website Comment is free.

Labels: Thailand

- posted by Agam @ 7:43 PM 0 comments

 
THAIS HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS - BUT NOT FOR POLITICIANS

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nother opinion survey was released yesterday, conducted by Assumption University's polling unit. This one was not nationwide, covering only Bangkok and nearby provinces. The Nation newspaper posted a bulletin yesterday with some of the results: Next PM should be honest: survey

Assumption University's Abac Poll Research Centre asked 1,550 respondents in Bangkok and its nearby provinces between September 22 and September 23 what qualifications the next prime minister should possess.

Of the top 10 selected qualities, 9 of them were chosen by more than 90% of respondents. These were, in descending order, Honesty, Courage to think and act, Tolerance, Sacrifice, Broad knowledge and abilities, Does not take advantage of people, Politeness, Dedication, and Achievement.

Ranked 10th, with 24%: Business success and wealth. Take that, tycoons!

Bangkok Post followed up with a few more details on the Abac poll: New PM must be honest above all

On military officers:

92.1 per cent said they are dependable

89.1 per cent the military made them feel safer

87 per cent answer that the military worked for the people

On the results of the coup:

57.5 per cent believe unity will improve

25.6 per cent expect no change in political outlook

4.5 per cent believe politics will get worse

On politicians

34.5 per cent believe the coup will result in more honest politicians

20.4 per cent see no possible change

14.8 per cent said politicians will get worse.

Of course there will be suspicions in some quarters that these polls are rigged, unrepresentative, part of the conspiracy, yada yada. Both the Abac Centre and the Suan Dusit polling institute cited a few days ago have been around for years and have good reputations.

The CDRM's official website is online, under the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology site. There's an English section with some translations of material, but be warned that links to documents point to pdf files (not marked as such, and not apparent from the urls). Wai to 2Bangkok, and be sure to check his updates -- with lots of shots of the newspaper front pages, political cartoons and other pics, translations from the local papers, etc. Almost like being here!

There's a lot of talk that Thaksin moved some of his wealth abroad before leaving the country 10 days before the coup. AP reports that a Thai Airways official is now saying that he took a lot with him too. This story was on the CNN site, but it's an AP story. I don't see any CNN-written stories on their site in the past few days, just reports from other wireservices. Our rookie in Bangkok, Dan Rivers, doesn't seem to have written anything since the 20th as far as I can see.

Thaksin departed for Finland to begin a foreign tour on September 9, loading up his government-assigned aircraft with 58 large suitcases and trunks, the official of the national carrier said.

The prime minister's aircraft, named Thai Koofah, was then inexplicably left parked in Finland for more than a week as Thaksin continued on his trip on other transportation.

A second aircraft carrying 56 suitcases -- an Airbus 340-600 -- was dispatched from Bangkok to meet up with the prime minister just days before the coup, the Thai Airways official said.

Another official in the airline industry, requesting anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, confirmed the second flight, saying it left on September 17 -- two days before the military toppled Thaksin in a bloodless coup.

It was unclear why Thaksin needed a second aircraft when his own plane was already assigned to fly him to Europe and the United States.

The unnamed Thai Airways official said only Thaksin's aides were allowed to supervise the loading of the second aircraft.

"I want the (military) council to investigate this because we, the employees of Thai Airways International, believe that Thaksin exploited the company through his power as prime minister by using a company airplane to transport his assets out of the country," the official said.

A week before Thaksin left for Finland, allegations were made in the media that he had chartered two Russian aircraft to remove assets from the country. In January, he sold his telecoms giant Shin Corp. to the Singapore state investment company, for a tax-free profit of almost $2 billion USD.

Rumors of such an airlift by Russian aircraft have continued to circulate in the international airline community in Bangkok but could not be confirmed.

[...]

The head of the country's central bank, Pridiyathorn Devakul, has said the proceeds from the sale were probably still in Thailand.

"I estimate that no large amount of Thai baht has been converted into overseas currencies. However, I don't know whether the money could have been packed in suitcases and taken abroad," he said last week.

Thaksin's wife left the country this morning, bound for London with her housekeeper.

By the way, Mr. Rivers the excitable purveyor of boatloads of disinformation that fateful night, seems to have arrived here very recently. Last month he was in London interviewing Abu Abdullah, sidekick of the ex-Finsbury Mosque leader Imam Hook, er I mean Abu Hamza. AllahPundit had some edited video of the interview posted the day it aired, August 18. He was also reporting on the London terror bombing case that week with an interview with one of the suspects' lawyers. So in the interest of fairness to Dan, maybe he just happened to be on holiday in Thailand when the coup took place.

Labels: Thailand

- posted by Agam @ 8:30 PM 0 comments

 
COUP RUMOUR INDEX

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s I wrote last night, in a quick update of the previous post, Thai military leaders have cited unnamed foreign media, as having defamed the monarchy during early coverage of the events.

"At today's meeting top military leaders asked the foreign ministry to urgently retaliate against foreign reporters whose coverage has been deemed insulting to the monarchy," deputy spokesman Major General Thaweep Netniyan told reporters.

Thaweep, speaking at a press conference after a three-hour meeting of the generals, did not name the foreign media organisations or dispatches deemed offensive and did not specify how the regime would retaliate.

I wish I had a tape of those first few dispatches from Dan Rivers in Bangkok, aired on CNN via satellite phone. I don't blame anyone for getting facts wrong when the situation was unclear, and there are conflicting rumours flying around. I've made a couple of corrections myself this week. But what I heard from Rivers that night, was a little bit of reporting mixed with a lot of unfounded silliness that he seemed to be making up on the fly. I thought to myself, this guy is a greenhorn who clearly doesn't know much about Thailand, and what is he doing as CNN's Bangkok correspondent?

So when I saw the above report yesterday, I went digging through the CNN website to find their earliest posted article on the coup. A link referenced in the sidebar of one early story, with the headline Thai army chief leads coup while prime minister away came back "Not Found" --

"... or the server has been instructed not to let you have it."

Google searches found no such headline on the CNN site, although other websites had quoted the CNN story with that headline. It had also been flushed from the Google cache, although it still contained all the other early CNN stories. A slight variation of the missing url [09/19/thailand.coup.rumor/index.html?section=cnn_world] still existed, with the headline CNN.com - Coup chief cites intense conflicts - Sep 19, 2006. This story had been written the following morning.

I found a partial copy of the original article cited at Global Report: Thai army chief leads coup while prime minister away - VIDEO:

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- The chiefs of Thailand's army, navy and air force met with King Bhumibol Adulyadej [...] according to a televised statement early Wednesday.

The coup is being led by Thai army chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, who announced that the military and opposition Party of Democratic Reform were taking over while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in New York for a U.N. meeting.

Due to my own deep and sincere respect for His Majesty, I will not repeat the offensive phrase on this page. No such thing was reported in any televised statement here, early Wednesday or any other time. Neither has there ever been an opposition "Party of Democratic Reform", and General Sonthi said no such thing.

Another news website quoted the same CNN article in full, citing CNN's Richard Roth, Dan Rivers and Ellen Rose. Reports regarding the locally televised coup announcements would have come from Mr. Rivers I believe.

Other copies of the same headlined story, such as this one, opened differently:

Tanks and troops patrolled Bangkok early Wednesday after the chief of Thailand's army said the military was taking control of the country.

The coup against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is being led by Thai army chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin and Thailand's opposition Party of Democratic Reform.

The Netscape news site quoted CNN's opening paragraph this way:

Tanks and troops patrolled Bangkok early Wednesday after the chief of Thailand's army said the military was taking control of the country. The coup against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is being led by Thai army chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin and Thailand's opposition Party of Democratic Reform.

The network has done a good job flushing the offensive passage from its site, and evidently from Google's memory as well. There may well be other media reports involved in the statement yesterday by the CDRM spokesman, but I'm sure that this example is one. What it shows me is that CNN's Bangkok correspondent didn't understand the announcements he was reporting on, or he was being informed by someone who couldn't understand them. Beyond that, if he had a basic understanding of Thailand, he would have known that the now-excised passage was wrong -- language difficulties or not. He also should have known that transmitting it would have offended, not necessarily His Majesty (who has indicated in the past that he doesn't really need such protection), but the Thai people. Tom Mintier would have never made such a goof.

It may seem like a minor thing to outsiders, if you read the original at the links above. But think of what the words imply about the status of the generals in relation to His Majesty. All statements released by the coup leaders, from the first to the latest, have repeatedly emphasised that they are under the King. That passage did not reflect this, and would be extremely jarring for any Thai person to hear or read.

Here is the Google search for the original headline.

In other news, a small protest against the coup took place on Friday evening, but gathered little support. Numbers were reportedly anywhere between 20 -100, probably because the news media present outnumbered the protesters. There were no incidents and the meeting dispersed peacefully after about an hour.

The CDRM also announced a ban on wiretapping, and threatened to revoke the concessions of telecoms operators caught eavesdropping.

"It's the military coup leaders' order that wiretapping is banned and anyone -- wiretappers, masterminds, operators -- would face the harshest punishment of fines and jail terms," said Lieutenant General Palangoon Klaharn.

"The operator will face the most serious punishment, including the revocation of the concession."

A telecom company founded and later sold by ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Advanced Info Service, is Thailand's largest mobile phone operator and controls more than 51 percent of the 33-million-user market.

Evidently there was concern that Mr. Thaksin's people might be eavesdropping on members of the CDRM and passing information to him, although the spokesman said the measure did not target any particular operator.

Labels: Thailand

- posted by Agam @ 2:03 PM 0 comments

 
COUP UPDATE
***UPDATED***

S

orry for the lack of update yesterday, I've been a little busy. I'm fine, family is fine, Best Dog in the World is fine, etc.

Keep watching the pages linked in the last post to keep up with minute by minute developments (both the Post and Nation have breaking news pages for bulletins), and allow me to amend some of my premature claims in the last post. There is indeed censorship, some discussion boards have been closed down, as well as the 19 Sep. website mentioned earlier, and text messaging to tv programs has been stopped. The international news broadcasters have been back on the cable, and I didn't notice any cutaways last night on CNN, despite Mr. Dan Rivers' rather overly excitable and ominous reports.

MR Pridiyathorn Devakula has not been named interim PM, as I picked up from The Nation on Wednesday. He arrived from Singapore shortly after I posted, and denied the story. He is still mentioned as one of the leading names.* Surakiart Sathirathai, former deputy prime minister and presently a candidate to replace Kofi Annan as UN SecGen, is also in Bangkok and said he appreciated that the Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy (the council's preferred title, or CDRM) continued to support his candidacy.


A couple of notable quotes I saved yesterday -- from The Nation, Sopaporn Kurz had a good account of the foreign diplomats' meeting with General Sonthi and his top brass. Sonthi assured a continuation of foreign policy:

He [Sonthi] also believed that there will not be much effect to the Thai economy and insisted that Thailand's foreign policy remained intact. He said the ARC [CDRM] continue to support ousted Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai's bid for the next UN Secretary General as well as other bilateral economic agreements.

The press conference was in a relatively light-heart mood. There was no sense of tensions and all the army leaders appeared to be relaxed.

Outside the Army headquarter, there were several hundreds of people gathering to show moral support for the military. Almost all of them dressed in yellow T-shirt, showing their loyal to HM the King. Some were holding a sign saying "Thank you to the King's soldiers"....

A retiree Somsak Tangjitwisut, 71, said he came to the army headquarter with his six other family members to support Sonthi.

"I can't remember how many times I went to the coup in my life. But I'm so happy with this coup so much that I almost cry," he said with shaken voice.

I believe Khun Somsak intends, in what is translated as "how many times I went to the coup in my life," to say that he has opposed, protested and resisted coups many times in his life. He knows the ghosts of October.

Reported yesterday, and here cited in yesterday's Post, are the results of a survey conducted by the well regarded polling unit of Suan Dusit Rajabhat University. It was plain as day for me to report the atmosphere here in Bangkok as generally positive and upbeat -- not very surprising given that Thaksin was unpopular in the capital. But what of his often cited popularity in the provinces, and the equally often cited "rural / urban divide"?

1. Do you agree with the coup?

• Bangkok
  
  • Yes . . . . . . . . 81.6 %
  • No . . . . . . . . . 18.4 %
  
  
• Provinces
  
  • Yes . . . . . . . . 86.36 %
  • No . . . . . . . . . 13.44 %
  
  
• Nationwide
  
  • Yes . . . . . . . . 83.98 %
  • No . . . . . . . . . 16.02 %

2. Will the coup improve politics?

• Bangkok
  
  • Yes . . . . . . . . . 72.8 %
  • No change . . . . . 20 %
  • Worse . . . . . . . . 7.2 %
  
  
• Provinces
  
  • Yes . . . . . . . . . 77.27 %
  • No change . . . . 20.45 %
  • Worse . . . . . . . . 2.28 %
  
  
• Nationwide
  
  • Yes . . . . . . . . . 75.04 %
  • No change . . . . 20.22 %
  • Worse . . . . . . . . 4.74 %

The countryside is slightly more approving of the coup than the city, a huge surprise for me. The people are in love with "His Majesty's Soldiers", as I'm sure most interested readers will have seen in the pictures and video getting out. Yes, there are some heavy restrictions in place now, but the feeling here is for patience.

Two special pages which may be of interest to those looking for context and background, again from The Nation: Figures behind the coup, and a bit of history on Rise and Fall of Thaksin Shinawatra. More later.

* - correction: I originally wrote that Khun Surakiart was included in potential choices for Prime Minister, but this is incorrect. The former WTO chief Supachai Panitchpakdi, presently chairman of the UN Conference on Trade and Development is a potential candidate.

UPDATE: [23/09/06 - 22:00 local] Some journalists, particularly in the first hours of the coup, were blathering uninformed nonsense, as I think I've mentioned a couple of times already. I heard a lot of real whoppers in the first hour and a half before CNN's feed was stopped that night. I'm sure that must be part of the reason for this:

"At today's meeting top military leaders asked the foreign ministry to urgently retaliate against foreign reporters whose coverage has been deemed insulting to the monarchy," deputy spokesman Major General Thaweep Netniyan told reporters.

Thaweep, speaking at a press conference after a three-hour meeting of the generals, did not name the foreign media organisations or dispatches deemed offensive and did not specify how the regime would retaliate.

Insulting the king is a serious criminal offense in Thailand, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

I'll name one: CNN. More very soon.

Labels: Thailand

- posted by Agam @ 6:28 PM 0 comments

 
LIFE GOES ON

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s I cycled from home to the office this morning, it seemed that I and my passenger were getting more smiles than usual along the bustling soi. Given that my passenger on these short trips is the Best Dog in the World, who rides kangaroo-style in a frontpack, we normally enjoy our morning smiles, nods and the occasional "Naa rak!" ("cute!" - he's the cute one...). A nice way to start the day. The atmosphere this morning seemed more happy than usual, for what it's worth.

Today had been declared as a bank / civil service holiday, but everything else appears to be open as usual. It's just a regular morning in my part of the Big Mango, and people around here seem to be in a good mood. I think there is a lot of relief that the regime change took place last night without any shooting, and today is really a new day for the country.

General Sonthi spoke to the nation this morning, flanked by the armed services chiefs and national police chief. He reiterated the overnight announcements and emphasised his committment to return democratic power to the people as soon as possible. They have called foreign ambassadors for a reassurance meeting this afternoon (right about now, actually). The Bank of Thailand Governor, MR Pridiyathorn Devakula, is on his way back from the IMF/World Bank meeting in Singapore, and has apparently accepted the position of interim Prime Minister. Note: "MR" is not for "mister" but is an abbreviated honourific title indicating his degree of relatedness to the royal family.

Local television is back to normal -- some channels focussing on the news they couldn't report last night, while others are sticking with light entertainment. There doesn't seem to be any noticeable censorship in the reports, and newspapers hit the stands as normal. Bigger and fatter headlines, but otherwise normal.

The Nation has put up a timeline of events as it unfolded; the Post gives translations of the successive announcements overnight; and here's a wireservices photo gallery on the coup.

2Bangkok has just put up a series of photos taken this morning, which really convey the relaxed atmosphere (yeah, I know it says 'high tension' but... take a look). Also, keep up with his developing... page here. The brand new 19sep blog has lots of links, commentary and even audio. More at Bangkok Pundit.

Labels: Thailand

- posted by Agam @ 1:52 PM 0 comments

 
MILITARY TAKES CONTROL OF BANGKOK

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t may be too early to know whether tonight's coup d'etat has been successful, but it's looking that way. No violence has been reported so far, and BBC reports of an impending clash between factions seems to have been premature. That was my main worry after the announcement of the new regime last night at about 10:30. What we don't need is fighting in the streets tonight, and it seems that Taksin doesn't have the necessary support for that to happen.

So the city is calm (the heavy rain over the last few hours probably helped), and not "in chaos" as CNN put it with their website headline. All national networks have been running the same tv-pool feed -- music and pictures relating to His Majesty the King, with occasional brief announcements from the "Council for Administrative Reform." The broadcasts of CNN and BBC were yanked off the cable provider around midnight. But not before BBC ran a screen flash that "President of Thailand declares emergency" (!), and the reporter on the phone with CNN was just making up things on the fly. Not impressed with that at all.

The former prime minister is due to address the UN General Assembly in a couple of hours at 2300 GMT. I still have the AP Direct feed from satellite, which has been on the UNGA mostly tonight (and switching over to that big crowd at the Vatican at other times). So I should be able to see his address a little later, and that may help to clarify things. The latest word from his group in New York, is that he's still in control.

This coup is not really a surprise, and I expect that it will be generally well received tomorrow. The coup spokesman emphasised that they did not want to hold power for themselves, but would return it to the people as soon as possible. There was an earlier report that talks between senior statesman Prem Tinasulanonda, who is a Privy Councillor close to HM the King, and Taksin supporters had broken down yesterday morning.

Since a large anti-Taksin demonstration had been planned for tomorrow, there is an appearance of heading off something perhaps anticipated in connection with that. Last month, demonstrators were attacked by street fighters linked with Taksin's party. The ghosts of Octobers past (see down the page, on Sept. 1) have been on many minds. The coup announcements have stressed loyalty to the King and to democracy, saying that what was done was for the safety of the nation.

The proprietor at 2Bangkok.com has been keeping up with developments admirably overnight, and he includes some screenshots from tv as well. Almost like being here! The Nation posted an interesting synopsis just a few hours ago, on what has happened so far. At least they haven't shut down the newspapers, or the internet, yet. Breaking bulletins from The Nation here.

UPDATE: Yikes, that was Budapest I was seeing on APTN earlier, not the Vatican. Sorry about that. Those looked like Italian flags....

Taksin has cancelled his UN address, and is considering his future according to Reuters report. I think the danger of conflict has passed, and this coup will go down as one of the bloodless ones. There have been 18 coups d'etat since the constitutional monarchy was established in 1932. That dummy on CNN had been saying something like 48 coups since WW II...

Labels: Thailand

- posted by Agam @ 5:08 AM 0 comments

 
ORIANA, FREEDOM FIGHTER

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t was a long expected, but no less saddening event carried in the news last Friday, when we learned of the death of the Italian writer Oriana Fallaci. She had finally lost her long battle against cancer -- or as she called it, "the alien" -- at the age of 77.

She had fought with her words, the fascism that stalked the world in her youth, and with no less committment against the fascism that stalks it today. She was a woman of the Left who had no patience for the political correctness straitjacket which hampers honest debate of the current struggle, and was an outcast among many of her former comrades for this fearless honesty -- a position she was said to relish.

We could certainly have used another decade of her writings, but it was not to be. But even in the moment of her passing, it was as though she was making a point. I don't know if she was aware of Pope Benedict's words on that day, but she probably didn't see the illiterate rage which followed them. It would not have surprised her. The religious edicts calling for Benedict's death; the riots and destruction of churches in several countries; the Italian nun who trained nurses at a Kindergarten hospital, shot dead in Somalia; angry mass demonstrations from Karachi to Jakarta -- all directed toward a literate man making a rational point -- would not have surprised her. But they make us remember what a crucial voice we have lost, when we miss hearing it so immediately.

[The terrorist attacks Saturday night in southern Thailand's main city Hat Yai, are not thought (officially) to be connected with this current Muslim rage at the Pope, and is likely just another incident among the thousands of jihadi attacks in this country over the past two and a half years. But who knows? The local terrorists may have decided that Saturday was a good day to go, since Muslims in other countries were already raging. The series of bomb blasts killed four people, including a Canadian, the first westerner to be killed in the southern insurgency.]

Oriana Fallaci's friend Michael Ledeen recounts some fitting memories from her life, and also notes the current event context:

For the moment, she’s still very much with us. All you have to do is look at the news of the day, replete with the grotesque distortions of Pope Benedict’s thoughtful speech in Germany. Those distortions are driven by one her pet peeves: the politically correct fear of offending Muslims, any Muslims, even those who want us dead and decapitated. She and Benedict evidently hit it off quite well, truly the odd couple, she the lifelong atheist (albeit, in her delightfully paradoxical formulation, a “Christian atheist”)and he the lifelong theologian.

Apparently, Signora Fallaci and Pope Benedict had actually met recently, as a reader at Hot Air sent in a translated quote from an interview she had done earlier this year with Flemming Rose, the editor of the Danish paper which originally printed the cartoons which last set the Muslim world into a ferocious rage.

[M]ake no mistake: intellectually he’s very sharp. I believe, Ratzinger is going to protect Europe and to defend the West, but it’s no easy job he’s got, it’s difficult to be President or King to a country, it’s difficult to paint or write, but being Pope, mama mia, mama mia! But I believe in him. When I told him, I was an atheist, he said: ‘If you don’t believe in God, then behave as if he existed.’ That’s so brilliant!

AllahPundit also had an earlier piece with some great anecdotes from her life, and a glimpse at what lay behind her even more ferocious courage toward the end of her life. She lived to the full, the freedom she defended and, "I say what I want."

Wretchard at Belmont Club listened to her give a lecture more than twenty years ago at Harvard, and recently heard from a friend who had seen her in one of her last public appearances.

And this time I paid attention, not to a woman in the autumn of her beauty, but to a warrior in the fullness of her strength. At the time of her death Oriana Fallaci was facing a suit in Italy for daring to suggest that her country and culture were under threat from radical Islam. In her youth she did not bow to Hitler; and in her old age she hurled defiance at yet another tyranny.

I had heard that she could not return to her native Italy because of this political correctness court case against her (she lived in New York), but evidently she defied that as well, and departed this world from Florence.

Victor Davis Hanson finds few comparable with her on the "Left" (Hitchens, William Shawcross, a few others), and not too many on the "Right" either.

Candor, after all, can get one killed, exiled, or ostracized—whether a Danish cartoonist, a Dutch filmmaker, a Wall Street Journal reporter, or a British-Indian novelist. So here, ill and in her seventies, returned Ms. Fallaci one last time to take up the hammer and tongs against radical Islam—a diminutive woman of the Left and self-proclaimed atheist who wrote more bravely on behalf of her civilization than have most who are hale, males, conservatives, or Christians.

The spectacle of the past few days, with masses of raging Islamist illiterates demanding either revenge against Pope Benedict, or his abject admission of guilt and plea for forgiveness (preferably on his knees before the Ummah), should put the problem in focus. These masses have no idea what he said or what the disputed quote referred to, much less the point he was making. A handful of words were lifted out of his address -- the words of an ancient Byzantine emperor, which he did not endorse -- and missed his entire point. The point he was making included a prominent reference to the "no compulsion in religion" portion of the Qur'an. The only words quoted in the Arabic press to inflame passions were the ones the Pope himself labelled as "brusque," spoken by someone else some 600+ years ago when his country was under Ottoman attack, and somewhat understandably averse to the spread of Islam by the sword.

But no matter, apparently. Rage is the thing, and it appears too many Muslims are looking for any reason to indulge in it (or to be easily led around by some of their rage-pimp imams). If someone makes remarks about the existence of Islamist-driven violence, look for demonstration placards like those in London this summer, demanding the beheading of such people. It's an insult to Islam, you know. If someone says that someone else a very long time ago made remarks about the existence of Islamist-driven violence, he'll evidently get the same response. Even if he reminds, practically in the same breath, that such violence goes against the very word of the Qur'an. The rage-pimps are effectively saying, "We don't care what you say or how you say it. We'll get mad when we want to. Mention violence in any context with our religion, for whatever reason, and we'll burn and kill, and make fatwas against you." Way to prove the point, dumbass.

Hanson continues:

And by quoting from the emperor rhetorician Manuel Paleologus—whose desperate efforts at strengthening the Morea and the Isthmus at Corinth a generation before that awful Tuesday, May 29, 1453 all came to naught—the Pope failed to grasp that under the tenets of radical Islam of the modern age, context means little, intent nothing, learning less than zero. If a sentence, indeed a mere phrase can be taken out of context, twisted, manipulated to show an absence of deference to Islam, furor ensues, death threats follow, assassins load their belts—even as the New York Times or the Guardian issues its sanctimonious apologies in the hope that the crocodile will eat them last.

Ah yes, the demands for apologies by those who should know better. Tonight on MetroTV news from Indonesia, the first-selected story on the "Suara Anda" program (Your Voice), was the one called "Vatican Begs Forgiveness." Absolute nonsense of course, but maybe it'll quieten them down in Jakarta. Benedict regretted the misunderstanding, but he didn't apologise (as I hoped he wouldn't) for his true and logical words. He said it in a very generous and calming way, but it was basically a form of the "I'm sorry you're too stupid to understand what I was saying," apology.

Imams and Muslim "intellectuals" around the world defame Christians, Jews and unbelievers every day of the week (and twice on Friday), in clear language. Not all, of course, but it must happen a thousand times a day, somewhere. Nobody asks for any apologies, because that would be fruitless. Yet ask them to listen to reason and logic, and they have no idea what that is. So much easier to willfully misunderstand, become enraged, and prove the point that wasn't even being made -- but rather, a point that was made 600 years ago.

On Sunday, a Catholic Londoner attended Mass at Westminster Cathedral. You'll never guess what greeted worshippers as they came outside. The message was clear, unambiguous and intimidating, but don't wait for any apologies. In Canada's National Post, Father Raymond J. de Souza writes:

In response to this historical excursus in an academic lecture by one of the world's most erudite theologians, we are witnessing a wave of madness and malice, no doubt an embarrassment to millions of Muslims.

Roman Catholics are likely angry. Relations between adherents of the two religions simply cannot develop without all conducting themselves as mature adults.

It does a disservice to children to call the wild-eyed statements and deranged behaviour of the past days childish.

It is not only the obscenity of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist terrorist band suppressed in several Muslim states, demanding an apology from anyone, let alone the Holy Father.

It is not only the grandstanding Pakistani politicians passing resolutions condemning a papal speech few read, and even fewer understood. It is not only the extraneous charges about the Holocaust and Hitler by the agitated and excited.

It is that we have seen this before.

And before, and before, and before. De Souza includes a portion of Benedict's address at the end of his piece, including the context for the rage-inducing quotation. He had wrapped up his point with a further quote of Manuel Paleologus, saying:

"Not to act reasonably is contrary to the nature of God," said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures.

Wai to Blue Crab Boulevard.

Oriana Fallaci would have had a lot to say about this, but now her voice is gone. I feel that she would probably have been comforted to see her faith in Pope Benedict borne out. Go well, Oriana, freedom fighter.

[Links to others remembering Oriana Fallaci at PJM: IN MEMORIAM: ORIANA FALLACI, 1929 - 2006]
- posted by Agam @ 8:22 PM 1 comments

 
THAT MORNING

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or the last few days I've been watching, listening and reading, while remembering that morning. Remembering how I felt and thought before it, and what was different after it. Remembering the friends with whom I could talk about anything, and how that changed too. Looking again at that morning when we acknowledged a reality that had already been in place for a long time, but which we chose to avoid facing.

That morning my best Thai friend and I had been out for a Japanese dinner, and were walking home when the first plane impacted, for that morning in New York was September 11th's early evening in Bangkok. I went into my room, switched on CNN, and saw the unbelievable. I called S. to come look, and we watched the second plane plow through the south tower.

I never went to bed that night, and followed it all as closely as I could through the following days. At the time we had free access to CNN, broadcast in the clear over the Indonesian Palapa satellite. Palapa also carried CNBC at the time without encryption, which was soon given over to MSNBC coverage. A few weeks thereafter, both channels' free availability was withdrawn, but I surely appreciated it then.

I couldn't have imagined then that five years into the future, I'd be able to view much of that "as it happens" reporting on my computer, and much more besides. I was hoping to take advantage of the CNN "Pipeline" net feed (of the Sept. 11 "as it happened" broadcast), to be offered without charge on Monday, but apparently my own intertube isn't fat enough for that. But by the time I discovered so, on this Sept. 11 Bangkok evening, I had already been able to see much of it thanks to a generous YouTube user, and a tip off from Hot Air.

There are a lot of videos at that first link (each about 10 minutes), from CNN, FOX, two of the big three networks and BBC. This is a record of what these morning shows were doing at the moment the first news of the attacks came through. I was curious who was first with the story and how they reacted to the unimaginable, so loaded up the first part from each network.

The first impact took place at 08:46. As I expected, CNN had been first to air (CNN - Part 1) at 08:49, although in fairness, they also captured local coverage from a New York City station (which may have gotten it on air first). FOX ( FOX - Part 1 ) broke in at 08:52. The clock on CBS (CBS - Part 1) shows the same, but the clock on ABC (ABC - Part 1) is just a blur that I can't make out. NBC was not included in this set, which rounds out with last out of the box, BBC (BBC - Part 1) at 08:54 (calculated from a synchronous point late in the video when they turned on their clock, and in comparison with that point in the other videos). All within about 8 minutes of the actual event. Still, five minutes between CNN and BBC seems a lot when they all monitor each other's broadcasts. OK maybe not all, but you can be sure that CNN is monitored in the BBC studios.

Differences are certainly apparent in their responses too, as with our friends at the Beeb. The burning tower image is put suddenly on air, the newsreader tells us of an aircraft collision with the building, and "that's all we know, for the moment. And now here's the sports." I really hope our CBC and CTV programs back home that morning, didn't do that.

The collection goes up to parts 4 for CBS and ABC (around 40 minutes each), and 16 parts for CNN. The first, unbelievable collapse - and Aaron Brown won't believe it for a while yet - is at the end of part 7. Watch, as normally observant people refuse to believe their own eyes, holding out against reality that "we just can't see what's behind all that smoke. Something happened...an explosion of some sort...," while the massive cloud of debris that was a tower steadily fills up to overflowing, the canyons of Manhattan.

AllahPundit was busy compiling video clips on Monday, from the CNN re-broadcast of the day, and boiled it down to three YouTubes, as well as pointing to this never before seen amateur video taken from a highrise apartment very close to Ground Zero. This family released it on Monday, and it's gripping. To see what they saw, and to hear the very human responses of this family as their city is attacked so ferociously, is simply rivetting.

Jeff Goldstein wrote a wonderful essay on Monday, which I can't quote from because it's all just too good. But if any of my friends are still puzzled about what the heck happened to me, Jeff writes it so much better than I do. If you can spare the time, read his commenters as well on that one. One of them, Pablo, pointed out another outstanding essay at Instapun***K.com. I had a quote ready from this piece, but I just can't do it. If it's to be read at all, it needs to be read in all: Luxury.

There's an interviewer at Australia's ABC network who I imagine, when he hears he's slated to interview Christopher Hitchens about the implications of September 11, might tend to say to himself, "Oh man, do I have to?" He's got all of Richard Clarke's talking points lined up to do his fencing with the venerable Hitch, who quips late in the interview that, "Mr Clarke, I should add, since this is apparently the 'Richard Clarke Show,' was the leading ornament of the Clinton Administration that utterly failed to confront bin Laden at all." A bit later, frustrated at the repeated rebuttals to the Richard Clarke points, decides to try another tack.

TONY JONES: Alright, let's go beyond Richard Clarke and...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Are you sure you want to do this?

TONY JONES: Yes, of course. And we'll go to the...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: It's like letting go of your blanket.

Oww! Owwwie, ouch! A very substantive interview, and video is available on the page. Wai to Tim Blair.

And finally, the "controversial" Path to 9/11 was shown on television -- and in many parts of the world, apparently (Australia, New Zealand, UK at least), but not Thailand. The network had promised to make it freely available for download, but their website refuses access to it from outside the US. Once again, AllahPundit rides to the rescue. He compiled an edit from the attack scenes of the movie, and I have to say that from what I can see there, these sections were handled very well. I don't see any hint of hackery, mockery or sensationalist propaganda -- like those who tried to stop it had declared. It looks like a higher values effort, both in the production sense and on the sensitivity scale. Watch this and you'll see what I mean. One day I'll get to see the whole movie, I hope.

After I watched AP's clip yesterday, and showing it to S. last night, I scouted through last weekend's C-SPAN tapes today (I often record overnight on weekends, the only time it's broadcast here, to check later for gems). Deena Burnett (the wife of Tom Burnett, who phoned her from United 93 that morning) was there, giving a talk last week to a university audience. Her character is featured throughout that last video clip. Because of those phone calls (there were four), her husband and the other passengers on UA93 knew what happened in NYC and DC, and they decided to take a stand. They decided it was a good day to fight and die. In this newly recognised war, they were the first to do so. They delivered the first defeat to the enemy. And because of those phone calls, Deena -- and then all of us -- would also know it.

She spoke for about 45 minutes at St. Mary's College, including questions. It's in this program, about 1 hour 15 minutes into it (the file is three separate events, total three hours).

It was nice to know that she and her children are doing well. Five years after that morning.
- posted by Agam @ 7:36 PM 0 comments

 
THE PATH FROM A SEPTEMBER 10 WORLD

O

h, look at that. It's September 10th again, a reminder of what the world used to be. The fifth anniversary of the last day that we (many of us) could pretend that a growing threat to civilisation was nothing more than a law enforcement nuisance; the last day to ignore the fact that world civilisation's enemies were already at war with us all -- and had been for years.

And how is the five year milestone being marked, in the country which bore the calamitous attack? In thousands of thoughtful and honourable ways, undoubtedly. But also, it seems in some instances, with recriminations and partisan blame games. The kerfuffle over the ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11 seems to have sucked up most of the subject's attention last week, and for very good reason. The controversy itself is shining a bit of strong sunlight on some very willful hypocrisy.

The ABC movie, as we all know, has been fiercely attacked by the leading lights of the Democrat Party, the previous administration, and a plethora of radical proggy bloggers (proggers?), as a "right wing propaganda smear campaign," or variations of that theme.

The counter-campaign moved very quickly from having minor lefty figures demanding changes to the script, to hauling out all the big guns -- Bill Clinton, and most of his national security team -- to demand the movie be banned altogether. The radical proggers then fell back to organising mass emailings, "Google bombings" and other people-powered peoples' censorship actions. None of these folks had actually seen what was making them so upset. The film makers quietly defended their work, and their right not to be censored, on the film's weblog here.

Before continuing with this, may I suggest that an excellent memorial to that day which ended our sleep, and all those lost or harmed on it, may be found right here: >bt: Crystal Morning. Footage shot by David Vogler, edited by Evan Coyne Maloney. Don't worry, nothing partisan or political there -- just an honourable and honest memorial, one of the thousands of thoughtful ways I mentioned earlier.

Now back to September 10 world for a moment, and the ABC controversy. When I first heard about this, I thought the whole thing might be a satire. A fictionalised dramatisation of the years when fighting jihadi terrorists was something most of the public never even thought about, is met by a consolidated campaign (by the "progressive left"?) to edit, censor or outright ban the film. Somebody has to be joking, I thought. Don't they remember a guy several years ago, who made a "documentary" (and who later actually admitted that it wasn't a documentary at all, but simply agitprop that happened to win documentary awards) called Fahrenheit 911, who was feted by all the Dems' leadership on its opening night in D.C. and seated in the most honoured place next to Jimmy C. in their big convention?

Had they forgotten that Big Mike's movie, built mainly (and indisputably) out of some outright lies, more than a few carefully couched deceptions and an awful lot of hand-waving, was not threatened with censorship or banning but rather countered by facts and honest debunking? Moore was criticised for his work after his work was known, when his script could be analysed and not merely rumoured about by people with no idea. Nobody that I know ever demanded that he not be able to make his flick, or distribute it, or accept awards for his deception. Its veracity was debated with facts and logic, not with suppression. Now, all of a sudden the shoe's on the other foot, and the techniques employed to suppress a dramatisation not even claimed as a documentary, are very enlightening as to the actual ideals of those employing them.

At the Blue Crab Boulevard was the first place I saw this hypocrisy explicitly pointed out: Have You Noticed?

Have you noticed the difference here?

One group decries the accuracy, the other decries the existence. Who is in favor of silencing the opposition again? Who is in favor of curtailing the free speech of others?

Have you noticed?

Well, I sure noticed. I also notice that Gaius can say it a lot more succinctly than I can. The thuggish tactics were also noticed by AllahPundit, getting a little more verbose than usual:

So it’s not about getting them to correct the record anymore; if it were, they’d be asking for only those scenes to be changed or cut. They’re obviously after something more, and they either don’t grasp or don’t care how thuggish it makes them look — presumably the latter, since the fightin’ nutroots is forever begging them to be more venomous and intractable. It doesn’t even pay to call them thugs because they’ll either wear it as a badge of pride or dismiss it as invective designed to cow them into backing off. It isn’t, sincerely. I say it because they’re genuinely goddamned thugs, whatever their reaction to that term. And if I had to guess, I’d guess that the only point of this browbeating at this point is as a demonstration of raw political power. Either that, or it’s an exercise in Lakoffian “branding,” whereby they’re finally going to show America that they too can demand unconditional surrender from an enemy. Just like Harry Truman. Except with Mickey Mouse in place of Hirohito.

While this controversy was bubbling into a crescendo (and taking over from the nutroots' castigation of President Bush's recent speeches as having "politicised the terrorist issue"), a new al Qaeda video aired on al Jazeera, showing Osama bin Laden meeting with Ramzi bin al Shib (recently relocated to Guantanamo Bay, with Hambali and a dozen others) and two of the September 11 hijackers. This would seem to throw the 911 "truthers" for a loop as far as the "inside job" conspiracy theories go, but I anticipate some skillful tapdancing to keep the hope alive. Also featured on Jihad TV were two martyrdom testaments, declaring their suicide-homicide actions to be in retaliation for US policy in Bosnia. That was when President Clinton sent the US military to stop a mass genocide by Milosevic and the Serbs. A genocide of Bosnian Muslims. You're welcome...

But this was no time for Democrat partisans to reflect on al Qaeda's own latest (not the first) airtight confession -- there was a movie to stop, and broadcasting licences to threaten. The movie was rumoured to have dramatised incidents in which excellent opportunities to kill Osama were achieved, yet the administration backed off. President Clinton said it was a lie, and thought the movie should be pulled (taking a principled stand on truth-telling). Madeline Albright was livid, and Sandy "I feel something funny in my pants" Berger wasn't too happy either.

Behind Enemy Lines picks it up from there, quoting from the letter Mr. Berger sent on Sept. 5, 2006 to Robert Iger of Disney Corp. (owner of ABC):

In no instance did President Clinton or I ever fail to support a request from the CIA or US military to authorize an operation against bin Laden or al Qaeda.

The National Commission's final report is still available here, from which the blogger quotes:

On December 4, as news came in about the discoveries in Jordan, National Security Council (NSC) Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke wrote Berger,“If George’s [Tenet’s] story about a planned series of UBL attacks at the Millennium is true, we will need to make some decisions NOW.” He told us he held several conversations with President Clinton during the crisis. He suggested threatening reprisals against the Taliban in Afghanistan in the event of any attacks on U.S. interests, anywhere, by Bin Ladin. He further proposed to Berger that a strike be made during the last week of 1999 against al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan—a proposal not adopted.11

That "11" there represents a footnote, which reads:

11. NSC note, Clarke to Berger, Dec. 4, 1999; Richard Clarke interview (Jan. 12, 2004). In the margin next to Clarke’s suggestion to attack al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote "no."

Wai little green footballs, and nice catch for Secret Agent X-9, Behind Enemy Lines.

Blogger SeeDubya at JunkYardBlog dug up a Hardball interview with Michael Scheuer (head of 'Alex Station' - the CIA unit focusing strictly on al Qaeda at that time) from last year. He says,

Mr. Clinton‘s administration had far more chances to kill Osama bin Laden than Mr. Bush has until this day.

[...]

But we had at least eight to 10 chances to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in 1998 and 1999. And the government on all occasions decided that the information was not good enough to act.

[...]

When we were going to capture Osama bin Laden, for example, the lawyers were more concerned with bin Laden‘s safety and his comfort than they were with the officers charged with capturing him. We had to build an ergonomically designed chair to put him in, special comfort in terms of how he was shackled into the chair. They even worried about what kind of tape to gag him with so it wouldn‘t irritate his beard. The lawyers are the bane of the intelligence community.

Wai again AllahPundit, who has more on the missed opportunities -- including the words of one Mansoor Ijaz, who had actually negotiated some of those opportunities:

As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster…

Clinton’s failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger’s assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.

But we mustn't talk about that now, say Mr. Berger and the others in the Democrat establishment. Apparently it may detract from Bush Derangement -- the seemingly incurable syndrome afflicting millions. And especially important is not to remember the questions one may have had after Mr. Berger pleaded guilty to his mishandling of the classified national archive documents he accidentally stuffed into his socks and pants (and only upon his sentencing did he admit that he'd cut them up into teeny-tiny pieces with his very own scissors). Do not wonder what was in those documents, or why they had to get lost on the eve of the Sept. 11 Commission's public hearings in early 2004. Notes in margins, you know.

At this point, it's time for the Greatest Movie Line Ever. Watch it: it's a video, it's very short, and it's perfect. Wai Instapundit for that one, and a chance reading of a post of his from last year. Serendipity!

Well I've been poking at this over much of the day, and by now it's already Sept. 10 in North America. I don't know whether the Path to 911 will be seen over there this evening, or not. I'd heard that ABC would offer it as a free download (the broadcast was to be free of advertisements, befitting a hot potato I suppose). But in any case, this inter-tubes thingy comes through again, as Hot Air tips us off that the segments causing all the ruckus are available for viewing at Redstate. See it while you can, before the forces of suppression get it pulled. They're in 6 parts, Quicktime format -- and a text synopsis of each is made available too, if you can't watch the clips. But if my crappy connection can do it, I'm sure most can. It looks like they give a good portrayal of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Lion of the Panjshir Valley. Al Qaeda killed him with two booby-trapped journalists, five years ago yesterday.

Allah also catches Johnny Dollar with a short video of Michael Scheuer:

KASICH: Do you really believe, in the depths of your soul, that we could have had him? [bin Laden].

SCHEUER: [laughs] His innards, sir, should be splattered all over the desert of southern Afghanistan. There's no reason why Osama bin Laden is alive today, except that President Clinton and his national security advisors refused to press the button.

Does the conflation of those 10 missed opportunities which Scheuer refers to, into a single incident in a dramatised account, amount to dishonesty? Perhaps. Maybe it's worse than we thought, or are allowed to think. Accuracy is important in depictions of historical events, but that's never stopped Hollywood before. As for whether the script goes against the Sept. 11 Commission report, perhaps critics need to wait and see it first. Then decide if there's really dishonesty at work here. That would seem to be the reality-based way of going about it.

But after having viewed the 6 above mentioned clips from the movie (presumably encompassing the disputed material), it seems to me to comport fairly well with this portion of the Commission report.

Kandahar, May 1999
It was in Kandahar that perhaps the last, and most likely the best, opportunity arose for targeting Bin Ladin with cruise missiles before 9/11. In May 1999, CIA assets in Afghanistan reported on Bin Ladin's location in and around Kandahar over the course of five days and nights.The reporting was very detailed and came from several sources. If this intelligence was not "actionable," working-level officials said at the time and today, it was hard for them to imagine how any intelligence on Bin Ladin in Afghanistan would meet the standard. Communications were good, and the cruise missiles were ready."This was in our strike zone," a senior military officer said. "It was a fat pitch, a home run." He expected the missiles to fly.When the decision came back that they should stand down, not shoot, the officer said, "we all just slumped." He told us he knew of no one at the Pentagon or the CIA who thought it was a bad gamble. Bin Ladin "should have been a dead man" that night, he said.

I want to end this on a more positive note, by offering a column by Ralph Peters on why Islam is not our enemy, and why the irrational Islam-haters are ... an enemy within. Islamist fascism is a plague upon Muslims as much as it is upon non-Muslims, and we need to try and stick together. Peters has spent plenty of time in Muslim societies. As one who has spent lots of time in the most populous Muslim nation over the past 15 years, I think he's right. Those who want a war against Islam, which the war against Islamist fascism most certainly is not, are not our friends. They may be the enemy of our enemy, but they are not our friends.
- posted by Agam @ 9:53 PM 0 comments

 
IRAQI ELECTION DAY VIDEO

A

round the end of last year, I was greatly moved by this video, which had been sent anonymously to Michael Yon, and which I wrote about here. I wished for more people to see it, and uploaded it to YouTube but was not happy with the lesser picture quality that resulted. So I loaded it on Putfile, made the screencap montage for our sidebar, and linked it through here. The author of the piece remained a mystery.

A few days ago I was sent a message through YouTube, from the serviceman who created this inspiring piece. Please watch it now, if you haven't yet done so (apparently it expired on Putfile at some point - I've uploaded it again, sorry about that).

SPC Ronald Wright was (I'm glad to say) happy to see his work in the public domain, and has given me permission to quote from his email to me on how the piece came into being. I'm very happy to be able to update the earlier post to reflect the credit for his work on this inspiring piece of work. He writes:

I was currently deployed to Iraq when the December Elections came around. Being apart of 55h Combat Camera in the Army, we were tasked to go out to the polling sites and capture the day. I was asked to stay back with the Joint Combat Camera Imagery Management Team, so that we can process the imagery and expedite the information out of Iraq. I was also tasked with making a video for the commanding general (Brigidier General Vangiel at the time). As imagery was coming in all day, I was able to come up with a final product after sitting in front of my laptop for 18 hours. Little was I aware that 24 hours later the video was being presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I am very proud and honored to have been a part of such a great event in Iraq history, and to have been able to spread the news worldwide and touch so many hearts.

RONALD WRIGHT, SPC, USA
55th Combat Camera Company
Ft. Meade, MD
Email - ronald.wrightjr@us.army.mil

The credit on the video will now read:

All imagery is taken by joint Combat Camera units (Army, Air Force, and Marines).
The video was edited by SPC Ronald Wright, 55th Combat Camera Company.
The music is Aaron Copelands "Fanfare for the Common Man" played by the Marine band.

- posted by Agam @ 9:52 PM 0 comments

 
PLAMEWAR FIZZLES; FITZMAS CANCELLED FOR GOOD

S

o. More than three years after Joe Wilson outed himself in the New York Times as the "former ambassador" then being quoted anonymously by D.C. pundits and columnists in a media-driven war against the Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal, it all comes down to this. Nothing. All the innuendo, the whispering campaigns trumpeted in the establishment newspapers, the endless speculation in the fringes about imminent "frog-marches" from the White House and secret "sealed indictments" to be handed down any minute now ... have amounted to nothing more than a great farce.

Oh wait, it did amount to more than farce. It was also a concerted attempt to dishonestly depose an administration during wartime, and later, to affect an election to the favour of Mr. Wilson's friends.

For the better part of three years we've been told that the "outing" of Wilson's wife, a deskbound CIA analyst / top secret international spy named Valerie Plame, was tantamount to treason. It just had to be a dirty trick so devious that even Nixon would have been jealous, which would eventually prove that Cheney, Rove and even Bush himself were not more than dirty traitors with a vendetta against poor Joseph C. Wilson IV, who after all had simply spoken truth to power.

Except that he didn't. Wilson's status as a serial liar far too deeply in love with himself has been known for a long time already. And now that the "original leak" has been identified -- and was identified to the FBI before special prosecutor Fitzgerald even started his job -- as Colin Powell's right hand man Richard Armitage, well ... it's time for the Emily Litella gambit. "Oh. That's very different. Never mind."

Right from the very beginning, when Wilson was proclaiming he'd "debunked" the 16 words in the State of the Union address, which President Bush spoke almost 44 months ago, it was known that he'd done no such thing. Wilson's oral report to CIA upon his return actually bolstered the contention that Saddam was looking to acquire uranium in Africa, a position still supported to this day by available intel from several other western countries, and confirmed by a US Senate investigation as well as a British judicial inquiry. The 16 words were as true 44 months ago as they remain today.

Chris Hitchens was doing some important factual reporting on this story during its lifetime, and I had meant to write about his findings back in July when he published Case Closed. Well, better late than never. In that piece he lays out the evidence that Saddam's "nuclear envoy" had indeed been shopping for yellowcake in Niger. There was an awful lot that Mr. Wilson failed to notice during his tea-drinking adventures in Africa.

Read that first, before diving into Hitchens' latest on Plamegate's ridiculous conclusion. There was no conspiracy against Joe Wilson, but there certainly was one against the Bush administration, fueled by infighting between those within the various departments who were with him, and those who were against him. Wilson declared his jihad against Bush even before he put his name on that NYT op-ed, and I expect the connections between him, certain ex-officials like Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson of "Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity," and others still inside the government responsible for all the leaks of terrorist surveillance programs, will eventually come to light.

And Armitage? For all this time, the daily media innuendo circus proceeded apace while Armitage knew he was the one who originally spilled the Plame identity. Powell knew it, prosecutor Fitzgerald knew it (and Armitage him to keep mum about it), and they all kept quiet while others twisted in the conspiracy-minded public circus.

Some people owe some other people some genuine apologies, but I haven't heard any. Even the Washington Post, now scurrying to get off the train, and other proggy pundits and opinion makers who now distance themselves from the Plame-Wilsons, can't seem to manage a bit of introspection -- let alone a little old "sorry about that, chief."

I'm going to really enjoy watching this fiasco continue to play out, and I won't even say "I told you so."

Tom Maguire has been just fantasic on this story for its entire run, and I've learned an amazing amount from reading related articles on JustOneMinute over the past couple of years -- especially due to his dedicated commenters who cooperatively researched every aspect of the story, and whose discussions helped make the massive quantity of little details become a lot more orderly, and at least half-way possible to keep straight. They are, in the Plame-ology field at least, a real example of "distributed intelligence" in which the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. Army of Davids, even. Wai to Tom and his Minutemen and women, you guys are amazing (and Tom was the first one I know of who proposed Armitage as the probable "first leaker" quite a while back). Take a trip over there and you'll see what I mean. His second latest post (at this writing) has 247 comments (on David Corn's Hubris, heh).
- posted by Agam @ 6:20 PM 0 comments

 
AMERICAN JIHAD: 'CONVERT TO ISLAM OR DIE'

A

dam Gadahn, formerly a California kid named Adam Pearlman and presently probably the most well known American convert to the Islamist fascism ideology, appeared in a new jihad video made public last Friday. He was briefly introduced in this latest al Qaeda production by none other than Ayman Zawahiri himself, but the show was all his -- speaking to his audience (all of us non-jihadists, apparently) in English and hitting on most of the main progg/lefty talking points. Quite reminiscent of bin Laden's video missive just prior to the 2004 US election, young Adam (nom de guerre Abu Azzam) spins his idiotic diatribe with confidence, displaying the close attention his side pays to the western media, and the political debates therein.

Remember when Osama mentioned Michael Moore and Robert Fisk in such favourable terms? (When I say favourable, I mean relative to the other, bad kuffar, of course). Fisky gets another nice mention from Abu Azzam here, along with Geoge Galloway and Seymour Hersh. AllahPundit has the video highlights, and it really isn't that much sillier than the average Democratic Underground discussion. It looked to me as though he was striving to appear fully informed about all these American issues -- like those couple of anti-Rumsfeld generals on TV -- but it comes across more like, "Mention this, and then mention this and this and that too." Going down the bullet points, to achieve resonance in the right circles. I'm sure I heard him say "Seymour Hearst."

But the name dropping didn't stop with the good infidels, or invitations for them to "come to the light" and leave this democracy nonsense behind by joining the jihad team. No, he called out some of the jihad's most effective opponents, and called upon them to join the "true faith" as well. Mentioned by name in this category were Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Michael Scheuer (bit of a strange inclusion) and Steven Emerson. He even called George W. Bush to repent and convert, elsewhere referring to him sneeringly as "Dubya."

Daniel Pipes gives his answer here:

I note your offer for me to change sides in the current war. But I am faithful to my own religion, to my own country, and to my civilization. I will do my part to defeat radical, totalitarian Islam and to usher in the emergence of a modern, moderate, and good-neighborly Islam in its place.

Robert Spencer was also quick to publish his reply here:

Thank you for the invitation, Adam, and for your thoughtfulness in extending to me in particular a personal call. But I'm afraid I must decline. While I appreciate that I would be your "brother in Islam" if I became a Muslim and turned my "sword against the enemies" of Allah, I cannot and will not give in to violent intimidation, come what may, and I do not want to live in a society that bows to such intimidation.

I believe that societies that respect the equality of rights before the law of all people, including women and religious minorities, as well as the freedom of conscience, are superior to those that do not. I hope that such societies will be able to summon the will to resist you and your "invitation" in all its implications before it is too late.

Meanwhile, Adam, I have a preliminary invitation of my own for you: I invite you to accept the Bill of Rights, and enter into the brotherhood of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. My invitation does not focus on my religion, although I invite you to that also, but rather on a framework within which people of differing faiths can live in peace, harmony, and mutual respect -- provided that none of the groups involved cherishes supremacist ambitions to subjugate the others.

Nicely said. Wai Pajamas Media for those two pieces of infidel resistance. Michelle has more, including background links on Gadahn. Very interesting in light of the gunpoint "conversions" of the Fox News journalists by the "Holy Jihad Brigades" in Gaza, and their subsequent promise to kidnap more foreigners there, and to kill them unless they pay up or become faithful to Allah.

Muslims who truly believe that there is "no compulsion in religion" are welcomed to chime in at any time.
- posted by Agam @ 7:19 PM 1 comments

 
STEYN ON C-SPAN

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ark Steyn was on Washington Journal for an hour on Friday night, with a fellow who I think is one of the very best interviewers in the business today, Brian Lamb. Lucky for me (over here on the other side of the earth) that he was on for the entire second hour -- the only portion of the three hour program that gets relayed over here via AsiaSat on Friday evenings.

It's a great hour of discussion, including phone-ins of course, so there is some built-in guaranteed moonbattiness for him to play with. You can find the segment by going to the Washington Journal full listings page, scroll to the 9/1/2006 program, and you'll see it listed as a stand alone segment. Again, these C-SPAN archived programs are in Real Video format (live streams are available in Windows Media also, but not the archives unfortunately). If Real Player is installed on your machine properly, this link will open the video directly. C-SPAN archives are incredibly useful, which is my only reason for having Real Player installed.

AllahPundit pointed to this video on Friday, but apparently had many readers complaining of problems viewing from the C-SPAN site. So he clipped some of the highlights and added a more user-friendly video to his post, but it's just a few highlights, so try to see the whole show if at all possible. Mark was particularly excellent toward the very end of the interview, and I wish I'd taped it to make a partial transcript. If I have time this afternoon I'll do it from the web video and add it in an update.

UPDATE: Here is a part of Steyn's comments which made me think at the time, "Somebody needs to write this down." So here is a taste of it. In answer to his last caller, who queried him about the leftish dominance in the media (and particularly Hollywood). He wondered why what he called "traditional American values" so little represented in the media.

Mark Steyn: Well I think those people do live in a closed world. I think if you go to a dinner party in Beverly Hills and certain other parts ... indeed in certain college towns. If you go down I-89 from where I am and you go to a dinner party at Dartmouth College, Hanover New Hampshire, it's an entirely closed world view. You know these people are committed to diversity of race, diversity of gender, diversity of orientation. Everything except the only diversity that matters -- which is diversity of opinion, diversity of thought.

I'm happy to defend my position to anyone who wants to come and lob rotten tomatoes at it. But I can't understand anybody wanting to live in a world where their core beliefs are so fragile and delicate that you can't challenge them without people going, "Oooooooh, hate crime!" at you. And that's unfortunately the way a lot of the media think, and the way the broader popular culture thinks.

The reality is that, if you were a Hollywood producer and you want to make a film where great all-American heroes go out and stick it to the jihadists, you would make a gazillion dollars. But they don't want to do that because they'd rather make some film where the jihadist, the guy they think of as the jihadist, turns out to be some Bush-Cheney-Halliburton plant. You know that's unfortunately just that kind of groupthink, it's a very closed world, it's a bubble where they all talk to themselves all day long.

Steyn was invited to Sydney last month by the Centre for Independent Studies, for a "Big Ideas Forum," including discussion of western civilisation and whether there is a crisis of confidence in western culture, debate from different perspectives and a Q & A session. The entire proceeding is transcribed here.
- posted by Agam @ 3:51 PM 0 comments