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7. oktober 2005
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In Dagestan, where the horrible Beslan school killings happened a bit more than a year ago, Islamic extremism has found fertile soil, writes Nick Paton Walsh.
The red, white and blue stripes of the Russian flag which flies over the school in Ghimri, a village marooned amid the mountains of Dagestan, is hopelessly outnumbered by the green of another emblem: the crescent and star of Islam.
Inside, Arabic is taught. Outside, women scuttle between the dusty moraines of litter and ramshackle houses, covered eye to ankle. The last time someone was caught drinking they were given 40 lashes. The rule of law is sharia.
Shamil, 18, crouching on a piece of discarded concrete, adjusts his Adidas cap and declares: "I want to take the path to Allah. We have to fight a jihad against the local police and non-believers." He adds: "We have sharia law here, and it should be stricter. Everything you need is laid down in the Qur'an."
In May three men shot dead a police chief who disturbed their attempts to blow up the 5km tunnel that links the village through the mountains. They fled into Ghimri; the village refused to give them up. "It's the police's job to get them, not ours," said the village imam, a moderate.
The growing autonomy of villages such as Ghimri is a symptom of how exposed Russia is to Islamic fundamentalism on its most southern and impoverished flank. Explosions, blamed on the "international terrorists" behind the Islamic separatist fight in neighbouring Chechnya, target police every other day.
The violence is steadily increasing between the ruthless Russian state and Islamic extremism. When young people grow up without hope for making a decent life for themselves, even the most perverse ideology can become popular.
Via Norwegian blog Document.no.
9:02:22 PM 
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From Haaretz:
According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
Now, you've probable read this very recently in blogs and mainstream news articles, after the claim was made in a recent BBC documentary.
The Haaretz article quoted above is from June 2003! I thought I was late when I blogged the claim on July 7 the same year, expressing skepticism.
Is the MSM running short on bad things to write about Bush, so they have to recycle old stories? That is a bit hard to believe these days.
The White House explicitly denies the story as "absurd."
8:08:48 PM
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The fine folks who hand out the igNobel, on the other hand, never disappoint. The prizes given for scientific studies that will not and should not be reproduced, but on the other hand gives you a good laugh, are maybe not as prestigious as the peace prize, but at least the last laugh isn't on us.
Some highlights, as I see it:
MEDICINE: Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, for inventing Neuticles -- artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness.
LITERATURE: The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters -- General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others -- each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.
CHEMISTRY: Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water?
And, last but not least,
FLUID DYNAMICS: Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu , Finland; and Jozsef Gal of Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh -- Calculations on Avian Defaecation."
That stinks!
Link via Skeptico.
7:42:55 PM
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I feared the Norwegian Nobel committee would be tone-deaf enough to give the peace prize to Mohamed ElBaradei. They were.
This year's Nobel Peace Prize, by many (not me!) considered the world's most prestigious award, will be shared between ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) he heads.
The best thing I can say about this prize is that it's not a complete disaster. IAEA does an extremely important job, and occasionally they manage to not mess it up completely. In much the same way, I will say that ElBaradei is far from being the worst UN bureaucrat in the world.
My big, big issue with ElBaradei is that he plays politics with a situation that is too serious to mess around with. His job is to work for non-proliferation, meaning nuclear arms should not fall into the wrong hands. For a pragmatist who cares about the possibly disastrous effects of a nuclear explosion in a densely populated area, 'wrong hands' is generally everybody who doesn't already have it, and in particular regimes and groups who have already demonstrated their contempt for human life using conventional means.
Yes, that means the Mullahs in Iran, among quite a few others.
ElBaradei is of course concerned about this, too. But he balances this concern with the utterly dubious idea that there is a deeply unfair divide between the nuclear haves and the have-nots, giving all the world's rogue regimes the perfect excuse for getting nukes.
"As long as countries feel insecure for whatever reason they still continue to try to proliferate and develop weapons of mass destruction," ElBaradei told Newsweek in May 2004. "We should not lose sight of the big picture, which is a system of global security in which countries should not try to develop weapons of mass destruction."
The solution, ElBaradei argues, is that today's nuclear powers should give up their nuclear weapons. At this point, while perfectly understanding the emotional appeal to 'fairness', I am nevertheless tempted to ponder what he had been smoking.
After the devastations of World War II, the world entered the nuclear age and the era of the cold war. As utterly unpleasant the thought of mutual assured destruction was, it was for a long time what prevented what otherwise almost certainly would have happened: a massive armed conflict between the western democracies and the Soviet-led communist bloc, causing so much destruction that WWII would have appeared to be a minor skirmish by comparison.
Nuclear weapons are already invented. If the west should give up these weapons, it would have been instantly subject to blackmail, or even a preemptive nuclear attack from whoever developed nukes first. And nothing, certainly not the IAEA, can guarantee that no rogue state (or even organisation) develops such weapons at any time in the future. The fact is, the west cannot give up its arms. India, Pakistan, Russia and China are not likely to give them up, either. We're stuck with nukes in this world for the foreseeable future.
I have heard otherwise sane people argue that it is "unfair" that the US, Britain and France have nukes, while for example Iran is denied obtaining these weapons. This absurd argument, which would mean completely abandoning the non-proliferation treaty, is what follows from the statement ElBaradei made about the haves and have-nots.
Now, if your definition of "fairness" includes making the world an indefinitely more dangerous place, giving any armed thug who could take over a country nukes, then there is either something completely wrong about how you define "fair", or we should just abolish the stupid fantasy that the universe is a fair place and concentrate on staying alive.
Mohamed ElBaradei is utterly unfit for the peace prize because he gave all the world's dictators with nuclear ambitions a perfect excuse when he framed the nuclear issue in typical leftist north-south terms. IAEA's job is simply so important it should be given to someone whose overriding objective is to prevent nuclear proliferation at whatever cost it takes, and leaves dreaming about a perfectly fair world to someone like the UN Secretary General.
Update: Bronwen Maddox, Foreign Editor of The London Times, agrees with me, and adds that ElBaradei has been a failure:
Giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Mohamed ElBaradei is a slap in the face for the United States.
That was surely the motivation; it is hard to see any other reasons for the award to him, shared with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In the past eight years, they have failed to detect covert nuclear programmes in at least three countries - and failed to get diplomatic purchase on the problems when others have finally brought them to light. That does not amount to a contribution to world peace.
It doesn't. Like the prize to Jimmy Carter in 2002, this year's prize can be singularly attributed to the anti-Americanism of the political classes of Norway. And that will continue to be the case as long as the Nobel committee is used as a retirement position for our politicians.
3:47:08 PM
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The beefed up security on New York City's subway system yesterday appears to be based on a credible and very specific threat.
Sources say that three insurgents who were captured in Iraq released specific information on a date, time, target and method of attack in the NYC subway system. [...]
This really comes as no surprise. France just interdicted a threat that was to bomb their metro system and the Italian authorities have recently been practicing what to do in case of an attack---and there is information that Italy is a major target as well. Keep in mind it's also Ramadan, the period of victories for the Prophet Muhammad (such as the battle of Badr), and it takes on a special significance for Islamist terrorists.
Some way to celebrate.
8:36:44 AM
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The Norwegian Nobel committee will announce the 2005 prize winner in a few hours. I just hope it will not be too embarrassing this year.
Local pundits think the prize this year will address nuclear non-proliferation or disarmament in one way or another. This has been the year of the 60th Hiroshima memorial, and the committee has actually given the prize to nuclear causes every ten year (75: Andrei Sakharov, 85: Int'l physicians for the prevention of nuclear war, 95: Rotblatt and Pugwash).
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei has been mentioned, and I fear the committee is tone deaf enough to give him the prize. A good prize would be awarding US senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn for their work aiding the dismantling Soviet nuclear stockpiles. That would surprise me (positively), given the anti-Americanism of parts of the Nobel committee. Considering the Hiroshima connection, the Japanese anti-nuke group Nihon Hidankyo may be a popular choice this year, an emotional instead of a useful prize.
Still, the press has been most interested in the possibility of giving the prize to U2 lead singer Bono. Giving it to a rock star and celebrity would probably help the prize itself more than any particular cause, whatever Bono has actually done.
Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari rounds up the pundits' favourites, for his work ending the conflict in Indonesia's Aceh province.
Or the committee may surprise anyone by giving it to a tree planter with a thing for racist conspiracy theories, like last year. It would not surprise me.
8:31:39 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.11.2005; 21:06:26.
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