Winds of War: 2003-08-18

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday.

TOP TOPICS

• David Adesnik channels Steven Den Beste's strategic overview format, offers 3-part set of thoughts on the development of US foreign policy over the course of the next 2-5 years: (Part i | Part ii | Part iii).

• Caerdroia's excellent piece on Homeland Security & distributed defense.

• A grim warning from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to President Bush that Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than U.S. intelligence believes has triggered speculation that Israel is seriously considering a preemptive strike against Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor.

Other Topics Today Include: Oil pipeline troubles; Kurdish sex slaves; Jihadi flypaper; Blue Force Tracker; Multiple blogs from Baghdad; Iraqi infrastructure reports; Rabbi's return to Nineveh; Science & Islam; Protests in central Iran; Argentina indicts Iranian officials; Womens' rights in Iran; Daniel Pipes' & USIP; An American Hogwart's?; Khaled El-Fadl; BBC perfidity; NK's weapons & SK's weakness; Israel's warning to Syria; Yemen heating up, Pakistan's jihadis not cooling down; Ding, dong, Amin is dead!

IRAQ BRIEFING

• Just when you thought nothing else could shock you... documents from Saddam's Mukhabarat show that a number of Kurdish women abducted during Saddam's reign were sold as sex slaves - to Egypt. Maye the anti-liberation crowd should try "No War for Justice!" on their placards next time.

• One of the outstanding new pieces of equipment to appear in Iraq was an item called "Blue Force Tracker." Trent summarizes its effect as "what one American soldier knows, they all know." Wasn't always true, but when it was, it made a difference.

• Score one more for the 'jihadi flypaper' theory, courtesy of the New York Times.

• Chief Wiggles, now blogging from Baghdad about his activities. Extremely worthwhile, as always. Where does the Army find guys like this?

• Phil Carter draws on his Army experience and fisks Paul Krugman within an inch of his life for a series of ill-informed articles on Iraq. Along the way, he has some interesting things to say about contracting out certain military functions.

• Another day, another raid, another bomb-making factory shut down.

• Tom Friedman had an interesting article yesterday: "Telling the Truth in Iraq." As Donald Sensing notes, however, some leading bloggers are wondering about Friedman's truthfulness.

• On Wednesday, 6.5M barrels of oil were sold to be delivered via the Kirkuk-Yumurtalik Oil Pipeline to Turkey. This weekend, that oil pipeline was sabotaged, and may take 2 weeks or more to put back in operation. This represents a shift toward softer targets by the fedayeen and jihadis of Al-Awda, and is to be expected. Harder to defend against... but given Turkey's economic interest in that pipeline, perhaps guarding it is a fit job for Turkish troops.

• Could be a long haul for the electricity sector. As in, a year or more. Part of the problem is that the grid et. al. were 1950s-vintage before the war. It's being built, not rebuilt.

• It isn't just sabotage plaguing the oil industry, says Baghdad Bulletin. It's smugglers, too.

• Baghdad Bulletin also has an article about rebuilding the education system. "...regime change is a necessary, but not necessarily a sufficient condition for democratic transformation."

• A Rabbi returns to the biblical city of Nineveh (now Mosul), as a military chaplain with the 101st Airborne. Inspiring and heartbreaking, all at once.

• ChicagoBoyz got a comment from another Chicago boy, who has been doing some sketches in Iraq. Go see Sgt. Jack Carillo's work! Meanwhile, Iraqi blogger "G. in Baghdad" has a photo collection.

• Salam Pax offers some wry insights, and links approvingly to another in-theater military blog called turningtables.

• Which "cards" have we captured so far? The CENTCOM list. And the visual version of "Ba'ath Poker."

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops. American, British and Australian. Anyone out there with more information, incl. the Poles and Czechs? [updated April 1, 2003]

IRAN REPORTS

• Abdolkarim Soroush, one of Iran's best-known intellectuals, argues that science cannot progress under totalitarian regimes. His greatest "crime" is to suggest that this is a legitimate Islamic view (Hat Tip: reader M. Simon). Interesting - Rev. Donald Sensing came to a similar conclusion", whose ultimate depth & poetry of expression is J. Bronowski's unbelievably excellent "Science & Human Values."

• Several dead in violent protests in Central Iran.

• How to fight censorship of blogs etc.? Hoder suggests Peer-to-Peer Newsreaders. Hell of an idea, actually.

• Khatami says reforms have stalled. what's Farsi for "Duhhhh!!!"?

• Over at Free Thoughts, Babak suggests some traps to avoid in improving democracy.

• Meanwhile, women's rights is becoming a divisive political issue in Iran. Better late than never. Iraniangirl isn't happy with the lack of results, though.

• Saturday's Asharq Al-Awsat contained a story detailing how Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, and Imad Mughniyah, a top Hizbullah leader, secretly left Iran only a few days ago, due to increased pressure from the Iranian government. Could be disinformation from the Iranians, but interesting nonetheless.

• Meanwhile, an Argentine judge on Wednesday ordered the arrest of eight Iranian officials implicated in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center that killed 85 people.

U.S.A. HOMELAND SECURITY BRIEFING

• Daniel Drezner recently ran a pair of pieces that looked at alternate sides of the Homeland Security/Liberty debate. In case you missed it, here they are.

• Charles Krauthammer discusses Daniel Pipes proposed appointment the the USIP, which may happen in a recess appointment by President Bush due to the shennanigans of Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Tom Harkin (D-CT), and Christopher Dodd (D-IA). Amazingly, the L.A. Times of all papers has published an editorial urging their fellow Democrats to approve the nomination. LGF has the only appropriate graphic for this.

• How I could I resist this blog headline: "DARPA -- an American version of Hogwarts school for wizards?"

• We've covered UCLA's Prof. Khaled Abou El-Fadl before, for his work on Islam and human rights. LGF has an interesting article that wonders if El-Fadl's moderate designation is appropriate. Some excellent scholarship at Bostom's link in particular. I think it is still appropriate, and what Bostom's article shows is that trying to argue from within the Islamic religious tradition is a challenging task unless literalism is abandoned.

THE WIDER WAR

• Read this piece from Robert in Kwangju, and you'll understand more about South Korea's behaviour and what passes for thought in much of its political class. You may not like it much, but you'll understand it.

• A pair of eye-opening reports in the Washington Post concerning North Korea's weapons program and exports.

• An equally eye-opening bit on the BBC from Oxblog's Josh Chafetz: "The disgrace of the BBC." Hard to beat as an analysis of the David Kelly affair and its aftermath.

• Israel TV Channel 1 reported Friday night that following last week's Hizbullah shelling in the north the Israeli Air Force dispatched fighter jets to Syria which buzzed the Latikia palace of Syrian President Bashir Assad in a warning to rein in Hizbullah.

• There may be less to that Saudi Council of Senior Clerics' denunciation of terrorism than meets the eye. As in, it doesn't include terrorism outside of Saudi Arabia.

• Things are heating up in Yemen between the government and the Islamist "Islah" party.

• In Pakistan, jihadist parties such as Jamaat are alive and thriving, more than a year after they were banned by the government of President Pervez Musharraf.

• We try to close on a lighter note if possible. Idi Amin is dead! For real this time! Why is that a lighter note? Here's why.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.