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Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Think Again: Yasir Arafat
By Dennis B. Ross |  |
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In 1974, Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), declared before the United Nations that he came “bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun.” Nearly 20 years later, the world still does not know if Arafat is a statesman dedicated to peaceful coexistence with Israel or a resistance leader dedicated to armed struggle. As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters a tenuous new phase of peace negotiations, understanding Arafat’s true motives will be essential to fostering a lasting agreement.
“Arafat’s Goal Is a Lasting Peace With the State of Israel”
I doubt it. Throughout the Oslo peace process, everyone involved—Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, Egyptians, Saudis, and other Arab leaders—shared the belief that Arafat wanted peace with Israel. It seemed logical. After all, Arafat had crossed the threshold and recognized Israel, incurring the wrath of secular and religious rejectionists. And he had authorized five limited or interim agreements with the Israelis. Although Arafat held out until the last possible minute and strived for the best deal, he eventually made the compromises necessary to reach those interim agreements.
Unfortunately, such short-term progress masked some disquieting signals about the Palestinian leader’s intentions. Every agreement he made was limited and contained nothing he regarded as irrevocable. He was not, in his eyes, required to surrender any claims. Worse, notwithstanding his commitment to renounce violence, he has never relinquished the terror card. Moreover, he is always quick to exaggerate his achievements, even while maintaining an ongoing sense of grievance. During the Oslo peace process, he never prepared his public for compromise. Instead, he led the Palestinians to believe the peace process would produce everything they ever wanted—and he implicitly suggested a return to armed struggle if negotiations fell short of those unattainable goals. Even in good times, Arafat spoke to Palestinian groups about how the struggle, the jihad, would lead them to Jerusalem. Too often his partners in the peace process dismissed this behavior as Arafat being caught up in rhetorical flourishes in front of his “party” faithful. I myself pressed him when his language went too far or provoked an angry Israeli response, but his stock answer was that he was just talking about the importance of struggling for rights through the negotiation process.
But from the start of the Oslo negotiations in 1993, Arafat focused only on what he was going to receive, not what he had to give. He found it difficult to live without a cause, a struggle, a grievance, and a conflict to define him. Arafat never faced up to what he would have to do—even though we tried repeatedly to condition him. As a result, when he was finally put to the test with former President Bill Clinton’s proposal in December 2000, Arafat failed miserably.
Is there any sign that Arafat has changed and is ready to make historic decisions for peace? I see no indication of it. Even his sudden readiness to seize the mantle of reform is the result of intense pressure from Palestinians and the international community. He is maneuvering now to avoid real reform, not to implement it. And on peace, he does not appear ready to acknowledge the opportunity that existed with Clinton’s plan, nor does he seem willing to confront the myths of the Palestinian movement.
“Arafat Missed a Historic Opportunity When He Turned Down the Clinton Proposal”
Yes. It is true that Arafat did not “reject” the ideas the Clinton administration offered in December 2000. Instead, he pulled a classic Arafat: He did not say yes or no. He wanted it both ways. He wanted to keep talking as if the Clinton proposal was the opening gambit in a negotiation, but he knew otherwise. Arafat knew Clinton’s plan represented the culmination of the American effort. He also knew these ideas were offered as the best judgment of what each side could live with and that the proposal would be withdrawn if not accepted.
To this day, Arafat has never honestly admitted what was offered to the Palestinians—a deal that would have resulted in a Palestinian state, with territory in over 97 percent of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem; with Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of that state (including the holy place of the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary); with an international presence in place of the Israeli Defense Force in the Jordan Valley; and with the unlimited right of return for Palestinian refugees to their state but not to Israel. Nonetheless, Arafat continues to hide behind the canard that he was offered Bantustans—a reference to the geographically isolated black homelands created by the apartheid-era South African government. Yet with 97 percent of the territory in Palestinian hands, there would have been no cantons. Palestinian areas would not have been isolated or surrounded. There would have been territorial integrity and contiguity in both the West Bank and Gaza, and there would have been independent borders with Egypt and Jordan.
“The offer was never written” is a refrain uttered time and again by apologists for Chairman Arafat as a way of suggesting that no real offer existed and that therefore Arafat did not miss a historic opportunity. Nothing could be more ridiculous or misleading. President Clinton himself presented both sides with his proposal word by word. I stayed behind to be certain both sides had recorded each word accurately. Given Arafat’s negotiating style, Clinton was not about to formalize the proposal, making it easier for Arafat to use the final offer as just a jumping-off point for more ceaseless bargaining in the future.
However, it is worth pondering how Palestinians would have reacted to a public presentation of Clinton’s plan. Had Palestinians honestly known what Arafat was unwilling to accept, would they have supported violence against the Israelis, particularly given the suffering imposed on them? Would Arafat have remained the “only Palestinian” capable of making peace? Perhaps such domestic pressure would have convinced Arafat, the quintessential survivor, that the political costs of intransigence would be higher than the costs of making difficult concessions to Israel.
“Arab Leaders Stand Behind Arafat”
Reluctantly. I have never met an Arab leader who trusts Arafat or has anything good to say about him in private. Almost all Arab leaders have stories about how he has misled or betrayed them. Most simply wave their hands dismissively when examples of his betrayal of commitments are cited—almost as if they are saying, “We know, we know.” The Saudis, in particular, saw his alignment with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 1991 as proof of his perfidy.
But no Arab leader is prepared to challenge him. All acknowledge him as the symbol of the Palestinian movement, and no one sees an alternative to him. But no one is prepared to go out on a limb for him, either.
Many suggest that in the absence of broad Arab support, Clinton’s proposal was too hard for Arafat to accept. Furthermore, some argue, since the United States failed to secure the support Arafat needed, it bears some responsibility for his inability to say yes. That argument is more myth than reality. First, if Clinton’s offer was so hard to accept, why has Arafat never honestly portrayed it? Why not say he was offered 97 percent, instead of Bantustans or cantons? Why not admit he would have had Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of the state, instead of denying that?
Second, we did line up the support of five key Arab leaders for Clinton’s plan. On December 23, 2000, the same day that President Clinton presented his ideas to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, he called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and Jordanian King Abdullah II to convey the comprehensive proposal he had just presented to the parties. Shortly thereafter, he also transmitted the ideas to King Mohammed IV of Morocco and President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia. All these Arab leaders made clear they thought Clinton’s ideas were historic, and they pledged to press Arafat to accept the plan. However, when Arafat told Arab leaders he had questions, they backed off and assumed the position they had adopted throughout the Oslo peace process. They would support whatever Chairman Arafat accepted. They were not about to put themselves in a position in which Arafat might claim that President Mubarak or Crown Prince Abdullah or King Abdullah was trying to pressure him to surrender Palestinian rights.
There is a lesson here for today: Getting Arab leaders to fulfill their responsibilities—to be participants and not just observers—is essential. On existential questions in which concessions on the Palestinian side are required, Arab leaders will likely restrict their pressure to private entreaties. But that is not where real leverage is to be found. Pressure in public would be pressure as Arafat defines it. Arafat’s great achievement for the Palestinians has been putting them on the map, producing recognition, giving them standing on the world stage. He embodies the cause, and that is why Arab leaders find it so hard to criticize him in public. Yet he cannot afford the imagery that he and the Palestinian cause are separate. If Arab leaders would say that his being only a symbol and not a leader threatens Palestinian interests, then Arafat’s very identity would be called into question. That would move him.
“The World Must Deal With Arafat Since He Is the Palestinians’ Elected Leader”
Not necessarily. The United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations have adopted this position. An election in the territories in 1996 made Arafat the chairman of the Palestinian Authority. But the international community does the Palestinians no favor when it emphasizes Arafat’s popular election as justification for dealing with him. It is important to remember that anger on Palestinian streets before the eruption of the Al-Aqsa Intifada was directed against Israel and also against the corruption and ineptitude of the Palestinian Authority. Now that the dust is settling after Israeli military operations and massive reconstruction is needed in the West Bank,
Palestinians are demanding reform. They are demanding elections, rule of law, an independent judiciary, transparency, accountability, streamlined security services governed by standards (not by Arafat’s whims), and an end to corruption.
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Palestinians are not looking to oust Chairman Arafat. They simply want to limit his arbitrary use of power. Given the pressure he is under (from within, from among Arabs to stop manipulating violence and to assume responsibility, and from the international community), it is not hard to see why Arafat is trying to seize the mantle of reform. Yet he cannot be permitted to speak of reform and at the same time avoid its consequences. Otherwise, the momentum will be lost. True reform is an essential part of any political process designed to promote peace. The more serious the reform, the more the Israeli public will see that Palestinian behavior is changing—and the more likely Israel will accept the possibility of partnership again. If Arafat is allowed to escape pressure for genuine reform, the Israeli government will be under no pressure to resume political negotiations.
One could argue that the world must deal with Arafat because he is the symbol of the Palestinian movement, because he is the only address available, and because he is the only one who can be held responsible for Palestinian behavior. That would be a more honest explanation than saying he is the popularly elected leader of the Palestinians. However, Arafat’s role as a symbol is not the reason the U.S. government recognized him in the first place. The United States made the decision to deal directly with Arafat in September 1993 when, as part of the Oslo documents, he formally agreed to renounce terror, to discipline and punish any Palestinian violators of that pledge, and to settle all disputes peacefully. Suffice to say, Arafat has not abided by those commitments.
No one but the Palestinians can choose the Palestinian leader. But the rest of the world can choose not to deal with a leader who fails to fulfill obligations. Governments can tell the Palestinian public they recognize it has legitimate aspirations that must be addressed and that those aspirations can only be addressed politically, not militarily. But those aspirations will not be satisfied until Palestinians have a leadership—whether it is Arafat, a successor, or a collective body that limits the chairman’s power—that will fulfill its responsibilities on security and declare that suicide bombers are enemies of the Palestinian cause. When a Palestinian leadership lives up to those commitments, the Palestinians and the Arab world will have an American partner determined to help ensure that Palestinian needs are met.
“Arafat Can’t Control the Militants in the Palestinian Authority”
He can, but he won’t. Arafat has demonstrated in the past that he can prevent violence—most notably in the spring of 1996 when he cracked down on Hamas and also in the first year of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s administration, when Israel, for the only time in its history, had a year in which it did not suffer a single fatality from terror.
Yet from the beginning of the peace process, Arafat made clear he prefers to co-opt, not confront, extremist groups. This approach reflects his leadership style: He never closes doors. He never forecloses options. He never knows when he might want to have a particular group, no matter what its ideology or purpose, on his side. This strategy has certainly been true of his dealings with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In 1996, he suppressed extremists because they were threatening his power, not because they carried out four suicide bombings in Israel in nine days. Even then, the crackdown, while real, was limited. Arafat did not completely shut the door on either group.
In the past, whenever Arafat cracked down or threatened to do so, the militants backed down. But that stopped in September 2000 with the eruption of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Those who say Arafat cannot carry out his security responsibilities because Israeli military incursions have devastated his capabilities fail to recognize that Arafat didn’t act even before Israelis destroyed his infrastructure. In the 20 months leading up to May 2002, he never gave unequivocal orders to arrest, much less stop, those who were planning, organizing, recruiting, financing, or implementing terror attacks against Israelis. Whether one thinks—as the Israelis believe recently captured documents demonstrate—Arafat directs the violence or that he simply acquiesces to it, the unmistakable fact is that he has made no serious or sustained effort to stop the violence.
If nothing else, it is time for Arafat to use his moral authority to make clear that armed struggle only threatens the Palestinian cause—that those who persist in the violence are not martyrs but enemies of Palestinian interests and needs. Let him make such declarations consistently, rather than repeating the pattern of the past as when he called for a cease-fire on December 16, 2001, only to call for a million martyrs to march on Jerusalem shortly thereafter. Pressing Arafat to speak out consistently does not relieve him of the need to act. Nor does it relieve the Israelis of finding a way to meet their legitimate security needs without making the Palestinians suffer. Ultimately, keeping the territories under siege is self-defeating. This approach only fosters anger and a desire to make Israelis feel comparable pain. The Israeli military has succeeded in creating a necessary respite from terrorist attacks. Now Israel should seek a political path that builds on that respite and gives Palestinians an interest in making it more enduring.
“The Time Has Come to Impose a Peace Deal on Arafat and Sharon”
Absolutely not. Nearly two years of conflict, the spiraling violence, the deepening sense of gloom, and the seeming inability of the two sides to do anything on their own give credence to the argument that now is the time to impose a solution. If an imposed solution were possible and would hold, I would be prepared to support it. But an imposed solution is an illusion.
No Israeli government (not Ariel Sharon’s, not Ehud Barak’s, not Benjamin Netanyahu’s, not Shimon Peres’s) has accepted or will accept an imposed outcome. It goes against the Israeli ethos that a partner for peace must prove its commitment by directly negotiating an agreement. Paradoxically, the very terms Israeli governments might find difficult to accept if imposed would probably be acceptable if Israelis believed they had a real partner for peace. Those who argue for an imposed solution claim no Israeli leader can make the hard decisions, such as giving up settlements, most of the West Bank and Gaza, and the Arab part of East Jerusalem. Yet Barak was prepared to do so; and before the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the Israeli public was ready to support him. In a recent trip to Israel, I found a far-reaching consensus—encompassing the left and the right in Israel—for acceptance of a Clinton-like solution, provided the Palestinians are truly prepared to forsake terror, violence, and the right of return to Israel.
Trying to impose a solution that the Israeli government will not accept—and the Sharon government will surely not accept Clintonesque ideas in the current environment—will only result in strong resistance. Even if the United States could pressure the Israelis to reluctantly accept an imposed outcome, would it endure? I doubt it.
Arafat would certainly go along with an imposed outcome. He has always preferred such an option. It would relieve him of the responsibility to make a decision. He can outwardly acquiesce, saying he has no choice. But inevitably, Palestinians will oppose at least part of an imposed outcome. Will new issues—what we might call Palestinian “Sheba farms”—suddenly emerge? Recall that Israel withdrew from Lebanon in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 425 and that the U.N. secretary-general certified this withdrawal. Yet Hezbollah now claims that the Sheba farms area of the Golan Heights is Lebanese and that lasting “Israeli occupation” justifies continued armed resistance, including Katyusha rocket attacks. Will there not be a Palestinian equivalent of this situation after an imposed solution? And given Arafat’s poor track record, how can anyone expect he would defend the existing peace agreement against such newly discovered grievances?
If one overriding lesson from the past persists, it is that the Palestinians must make decisions and bear the responsibility of those decisions. No enduring peace can be reached until the Palestinian leadership levels with its public, resists the temptation to blame every ill on the Israelis or the outside world, assumes responsibility for controversial decisions, and stands by its decision in the face of opposition.
An imposed solution will only delay the day when all sides, but especially the Palestinians, have to assume real responsibilities. Consequently, an imposed solution would be no solution at all.
Ambassador Dennis B. Ross is director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He was the lead negotiator on the Middle East peace process in the first Bush and both Clinton administrations. | |
Posted at 11:18 pm by Psychomike
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Life After Arafat
Palestinians' choice of a new leader, if they can agree on one, will determine the future of the peace process.
Jeff Fleischer
November 06 , 2004
While reports of Yasser Arafat’s medical condition have varied in the past few days, the seriousness of his illness and the likelihood of his imminent death mean the Palestinian Authority is arriving at a crossroads. For the first time since the peace process began, someone other than Arafat will be heading the Palestinian cause, and how that vacuum is filled will determine the future of statehood.
So far, the transition away from Arafat has occurred without major incident. On Wednesday, the PLO executive committee transferred more authority to Ahmed Qurei, giving the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority some of Arafat’s responsibilities for administrative, financial, and security concerns. At this point, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas is in line to succeed Arafat as head of the PLO, and is expected to handle political negotiations once he is allowed to. (Under the law, no such negotiations can occur while the president is abroad, and Arafat is still the president). In the event Arafat dies, the Palestinian Basic Law requires the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council would fill his role on an interim basis until a new president is elected. As the Council on Foreign Relations notes, "the current speaker is Rawhi Fattouh, a little-known politician who experts say is unlikely to exert much power if he ascends to the post," leaving Qurei and Abbas to handle the most high-profile decisions.
There will soon be an election to replace Arafat, but little about it is certain (Arafat never named a chosen successor). A general Authority election, including one for the presidency, was already scheduled for the spring, and that will be moved up. Qurei and Abbas -- both experienced politicians from the first generation of Palestinian leaders -- are expected to run, and both have gained some international currency with their calls for reform within the leadership. But as the CFR points out, "neither Abbas nor Qurei -- both of whom have long operated in Arafat’s shadow -- is considered a popular figure among the Palestinian people."
One danger for the future of Israeli/Palestinian relations is the probable entry of more radical elements into the electoral fray. One likely candidate is PLO foreign minister Farouk Kaddoumi, who stayed behind in Tunis when the rest of the PLO leadership relocated to the West Bank and Gaza in 1994. The Jerusalem Post reports Kaddoumi issued a warning this week "to ambitious Palestinian officials, who are jockeying for power" (ostensibly meaning Abbas and Qurei), and wants to succeed Arafat himself. That would be disastrous for peace prospects. Kaddoumi views the two-state solution of the Oslo accords as a "betrayal," has voiced support for Hamas, is ambivalent about statehood and reportedly has close ties to Syria and Iran.
Another possibility is Marwan Barghouti, who the Council on Foreign Relations calls the most popular politician other than Arafat, according to polls. He’s a member of Arafat’s Fatah party, and is a generation younger than the aforementioned men. The problem here is Barghouti was convicted in May for three terrorist attacks, and is serving five consecutive life terms (plus 40 years) in Israeli prison. Not only would he have to govern from prison if elected, but his long record of anti-Israel violence (he has been acquitted of 33 other murders because of a lack of evidence, and was a leader of the first intifada) would be a severe barrier to any sensible negotiations.
There’s also the possibility that an Islamist group like Hamas could take power. As al-Jazeera reports, Hamas official Ismail Haniya has already requested the formation of a "collective" Palestinian leadership to replace Arafat until elections are held:
"We will not allow any chaos or disunity to occur and the best way to realize this goal is by formulating a united national leadership that would lead the Palestinian people to the safety shore and prepare for elections in which all Palestinians would participate."
What Haniya’s plea doesn’t mention is that the current Palestinian leadership has nothing to gain by inviting Hamas into such a coalition, other than sparking Israeli anger and/or giving Hamas leaders governing credibility they could use in the coming election. Hamas has become an increasingly powerful political force, particularly in Gaza, and a split vote among more moderate candidates could provide an opportunity for Hamas. While Hamas officials told al-Jazeera the organization
No matter who becomes the new Palestinian leader, he won’t have the same often-teflon authority Arafat commanded as the "father of the nation." There’s a danger that Palestinian leadership could undergo the same wild back-and-forth swings from pro-peace prime ministers to hardliners that have marked Israeli leadership since a right-wing extremist assassinated Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
There’s also the issue of how Israel and the Ariel Sharon government respond to the transition of power, as Sharon has long argued he has "no partner for peace" with Arafat at the helm. Sharon’s plan of withdawl from the occupied territories could be affected, with speculation that Israeli conservatives will use the transition as an excuse to push for delay -- and that the Isralei left will see it as an opportunity to push for a full peace plan instead of the withdrawal détente. As policy analyst Ze’ve Schiff argues in Ha’aretz:
"Arafat's demise will certainly increase the pressure on Israel to put off the disengagement plan from Gaza and northern Samaria. The reality after Arafat requires the opposite response -- to keep or even escalate the disengagement timetable.
"Even more important, Arafat's departure opens a possibility to turn the disengagement from a unilateral Israeli move into a fully coordinated one with the new Palestinian leadership. Israel does not know whether the new reality will cause a deterioration and anarchy in the territories. Such deterioration could strengthen Hamas and turn it into the only Palestinian address."
To this point, Sharon has ordered members of his Cabinet to avoid public speculation on Arafat’s health. As noted here this summer, Israel officials have already studied a list of worst-case scenarios for what might happen after Arafat’s death. Now that the moment seems on its way, and the whole world is watching what happens next. Israel (and the United States) have refused to deal with Arafat in recent years, and should take the transition as a fresh opportunity to negotiate a fair, peaceful two-state solution. Palestinians’ choice of leadership will play a large part in whether that’s possible.
Posted at 03:04 pm by Psychomike
What Osama bin Laden Wants
what does Laden want?
 Last held by the Ottoman Prince abdul Mejid II, the Caliphate has been empty since its abolishment in 1924. Caliphate ( khalifa) literally means "Successor of the Prophet", but the position of primary Caliphate is that of ruler of a unified Islamic nation. It is the goal of Al-Qaeda and the various terrorist organizations working either under the umbrella of Al-Qaeda or in concert with it to fill this void. And if Al-Qaeda has their way, the position will be filled by a Wahabbi Caliphate, Osama bin Laden.
In order to understand that the militance and radicalism perpetuated by groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic Front of Salvation is not representative of modern-day Islam, one must come to understand that just as there are different "denominations" of Christianity, there too is such in the Islamic religion. Just as the Catholicism that fueled the Crusades was not indicative of all Christian believers at the time, the fanatical Islamists do not represent all Islamic believers.
The radical Islamic beliefs followed and taught by Al-Qaeda are considered part of Islamism. Islamism is a broad term encompassing all forms of Islamic fundamentalism. Included in these movements are the Shi'ites, certain Wahhabis (in particular in Saudi Arabia), certain Deobandis (in India), the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Hamas, the Hizbulla, Islamic Jihad, Jama'at Islamia and Sunni Islamists. Al-Qaeda represents a conjoining of the Saudi Wahabbis, via Osama bin Laden, and the Sunni Islamists.
Unlike the tolerance and coexistence which can be found in the modern -day Islamic world, Islamists believe that Islam requires a theocratic political structure which dictates all aspects of life. They believe in an Islamic state in which all are governed by Sha'ria, which is Islamic law, with strict observance of the Qur'an and religous observances. They believe there should be no foreign presence ( nonbelievers) within this Islamic state, and that this unified Islamic nation should be ruled under a re-established Caliphate. In order to re-establish the unified Islamic nation and the Caliphate, Jihad is necessary to free the believers of Islam currently ruled by "non- Islamic" rulers. (To be clear, a "non-Islamic ruler" is defined as any ruler who is not currently ruling his country in accordance with Sha'ria.) Any country previously under Islamic rule should be brought back under Sha'ria and the Caliphate by Jihad. This Jihad, they believe, is mandatory and actually can be viewed as a sixth pillar of Islam, according to the Islamists.
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The ultimate goal of al-Qaida is to establish a Wahhabi Caliphate across the entire Islamic world, by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems "non-Islamic" (ie non-Wahhabi Islamist).(3)
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The organization's main immediate goal is the overthrow of what it sees as the corrupt and heretical governments of Muslim states, and their replacement with the rule of Shari'a (Islamic law). Al-Qaeda is intensely anti-Western, and views the United States in particular as the prime enemy of Islam. Bin Laden has issued several "fatwas" or religious rulings calling upon Muslims to take up arms against the United States.(4)
In order to understand the regions that could fall into the category of "previously ruled by Islam" it is necessary to examine the boundaries of the prior Caliphates.
First the Arab Empire of c. 750:
And the Ottoman Empire of around 1580:
But it should be noted that substantial regions of India also can be considered previously under Muslim rule and therefore fall into the regions targeted in a Caliphate-driven Jihad.
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“If the disbelievers occupy a territory belonging to the Muslims, it is incumbent upon the Muslims to drive them out, and to restore the land back to themselves; Spain had been a Muslim territory for more than eight hundred years, before it was captured by the Christians. They [i.e., the Christians] literally, and practically wiped out the whole Muslim population. And now, it is our duty to restore Muslim rule to this land of ours. The whole of India, including Kashmir, Hyderabad, Assam, Nepal, Burma, Behar, and Junagadh was once a Muslim territory. But we lost this vast territory, and it fell into the hands of the disbelievers simply because we abandoned Jihad. And Palestine, as is well-known, is currently under the occupation of the Jews. Even our First Qibla, Bait-ul-Muqaddas is under their illegal possession.” - Jihaad ul-Kuffaari wal- Munaafiqeen
As pointed out by Dr. Nayyer Ali in an article written in June of 2004 in the PakistanLink, the Jihadis have evolved from the heroic fight against invading Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980's through a phase of "fighting the corrupt regimes" in the 1990's that targeted the Egyptian government, the Saud Family, and the rulers in Sudan. By the late 1990's the focus of attention of Al-Qaeda, the prominent jihadist force in the region, had become "the presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia, the sanctions on Iraq, and the occupation of Palestine."
But according to Dr. Ali, after 2001 the jihadist movement transitioned to nihilistic tactics aimed at any one who opposes it, including westerners, Shias and moderate Muslims. They have been consumed with the teachings of Khomeini, Mawdudi and Qutb and the goal of re-establishing the Khalifa which will rule with Sharia.
In an August, 2002 review of Peter Bergen's Holy War Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden Parshotam Mehra states:
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Bin Laden has two principal grouses against the USA. First, the very mention of the name, he admitted, provoked "disgust and revulsion." To start with, by aligning itself with the Saudi regime, Washington had committed "an act against Islam." He was determined to unseat the Saudis and, by implication, beat down the Americans.
That was not all. The USA was responsible for all those killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. It was against these acts of "aggression and injustice" that he had declared jihad. The end-goal was to drive Uncle Sam away from all Muslim lands.
Bin Laden was convinced that the end of the Cold War and the eclipse of the Soviet Union had made the USA "ever more haughty and arrogant." Not that this deterred him in the least. His answer to globalisation was the restoration of the Khalifa and the caliphate. Which, ominously, was to begin from Afghanistan with the swath of green eventually spreading all the way from Tunisia to Indonesia. [Emphasis added]
At any given time, the Khalifa may be chosen in three ways:
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1. By selection. The Khalifa is selected by a group of the best, most Islamically knowledgeable people in the society (not by a general vote of everyone). This groups is called the Majlis-Ash-Shura (Arabic for "consultative council"). The members of the Majlis-ash-Shura are chosen from experts who are learned in Islam, and they in turn choose the Khalifa.
2. By nomination. The current Khalifa may nominate his successor, the next Khalifa (as Abu Bakr did with Umar). The people have to accept him just as in the first case.
3. By force. If the current Khalifa forces some one on the people to be the next Khalifa, but that person is righteous, the people must accept him as long as he remains righteous. Similarly, if there is no Khalifa (again, the situation today), it is permitted for someone to forcibly seize power and declare himself the Khalifa if he guarantees to abide by his responsibilities under Islam.(8)
It is worth pointing out that bin Laden has assured himself two of the legitimate avenues to Caliphate by establishing his own maglis al shura (Consultation Council) within Al-Qaeda, thereby insuring the council's choice to either be himself, or some one approved by him and/or the leadership of Al-Qaeda. But lest this peaceful plan should fail, there is always force.
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It is part of Islamic tradition that the title of Khalifa may be attained by conquest if the incumbent is not fulfilling his duties -- or if there is no incumbent. Under shari'a law and hadith, the umma (the consultative assembly of the elders of Islam) is required to recognize as Khalifa anyone who is able to fulfill the duties of the position and demonstrates the sanction of Allah by mobilizing the Dar -al-Islam in successful jihad. Jihad, here, is interpreted broadly; a war of consolidation that united a substantial portion of the Dar-al- Islam under a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy would do it.
In other words, since 1924 the position of Caliph has been waiting for a Man on Horseback. Or, for you science-fiction fans out there, a Muad'Dib. The Ayatollah Khomeini could never quite make this nut; first, because he was not a plausible warlord, and second because he's part of the 10% Shi'a minority branch that disputes the Khalifal succession. The next Caliph, if there is one, will have to belong to the 90% Sunni majority.
Osama bin Laden has behaved precisely as though he intends to fill that role. And in doing so, he has frightened the crap out of the rulers of the Arab world. Because he's played his religious and propaganda cards very well in Islamic terms, barring the detail that he may well be dead and buried under rubble in an Afghan cave.
On 9/11, bin Laden took jihad to the symbolic heart of the West more effectively than any Islamic ruler has managed since the Siege of Vienna was broken in 1683. By doing so he caught Arab rulers ( especially the Saudis) in a neat theo-political trap. They have been encouraging hatred of Israel and the West, and hyping the jihadist mythology of fundamentalist Islam, as a way of diverting popular anger that might otherwise focus on their own corrupt and repressive regimes. But Bin Laden has trumped and beaten them at this game. He has acted out the Koranic duty of jihad in a way they never dared -- and in doing so, seized the religious high ground.
The sheikhs and ayatollahs now have a dilemma. If they support jihadism, they must either start a war against the West they know they cannot win or cede their own legitimacy to the Caliph-claimant who is leading the jihad. But if they come out against jihad, bin Laden or his successor can de-legitimitize them simply by pointing to the Koran. The possibility that the semi-mythical "Arab street" would revolt behind local Khomeini-equivalents hot to join al-Qaeda's jihad is quite real.(9)
But we need not rely on the words of authors, analysts and pundits concerning the claims of bin Laden's goal being al Khalifa. We can rely on the words of the jihadists themselves.
In Bin Laden's Sermon for the Feast of the Sacrifice published by MEMRI on March 5, 2003, the following statements are made by bin Laden himself:
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Prayers and blessings of peace upon our Prophet Muhammad, who said:'I was sent with a sword in preparation for the Day of Judgment when God alone will be worshipped with none beside him. He assigned me a livelihood under the shadow of my spear and he assigned humiliation and lowliness to those who disobey my command. He who makes himself resemble a community of people, is one of them.'[8]He also said: 'Expel the idolaters from the Arabian peninsula.'
quote:
One of the most important positive results of the raids on New York and Washington was the revelation of the truth regarding the conflict between the Crusaders and the Muslims. [The raids] revealed the strength of the hatred which the Crusaders feel towards us, as the two raids peeled the lamb's skin off the back of the American wolf and revealed the hideous truth. The whole world awoke from its slumber, and the Muslims were alerted to the importance of the [Muslim] principle which states that positions of alliance or hostility may be taken [only] for the sake of Allah. The spirit of religious brotherhood among Muslims was likewise strengthened, which constitutes a great step forward along the road towards uniting Muslims under the banner of monotheism in order to establish the rightly-guided Caliphate, God willing.
This speech, in fact, is rife with reference to the "Nation of Islam" and to the previous Caliphates.
But bin Laden is not the only Islamist leader to bluntly state the intentions of Al-Qaeda to establish the Caliphate. An article on the modern day meaning of "jihad", written by the Islamist Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, who is leader of the Al-Muhajiroun movement, rejected the Al-Qaeda definition of jihad as calling for the "violent removal of 'impious regimes' in Muslim countries" along with the jihad against all that is Western, declaring this definition un-Islamic.
Sheikh Bakr states:
quote:
"The question of whether Jihad can be used to remove existing regimes is a relatively new issue which must be addressed. The Muslim Ummah has never before been in a position where we are divided into over 55 nations each with its own oppressive kufr [infidel] regime ruling above us. There is no doubt therefore that the vital issue for the Muslims today is to establish the Khilafah [caliphate]. Allah (be He praised) makes it clear in the Qur'an that there is no compulsion in the Deen ["religion", i.e. Islam] hence we do not fight the Kuffar [infidels] to become Muslims."
"There is also ample proof from the sayings and the actions of the Messenger Muhammad (may Allah pray for Him) that non-Muslims have sanctity for their lives unless they are at war with the Muslims either determined by the Khalifah (Caliph) in his foreign policy or ( as in today's situation) they are violating the sanctity of Muslim land, honor or life. Much advice has also been given by the Messenger Muhammad (may Allah pray for Him) on Jihad which makes it clear that this duty is pro-life as opposed to anti-life, such as not killing women and children, not killing the elderly or monks, not targeting the trees or animals, etc..."
"Hence, although foreign forces occupying Muslim land are legitimate targets and we are obliged to liberate Muslim land from such occupation and to co-operate with each other in the process, and can even target their embassies and military bases, there is no divine evidence for us to fight against Muslims who are part of the regimes in Muslim countries as a methodology to establish the Khilafah. Rather, we urge our Muslim brothers in Islamic Movements who are engaged in this violation of the Shari`ah to look at the evidences and follow that which is based on Yaqeen (indisputable legal knowledge) and may Allah (be He praised) guide us all to the best."
MEMRI summarizes:
quote:
Significantly, Sheikh Bakri argues that the well-known Islamic concepts of Dar Al-Islam versus Dar Al-Harb no longer apply. This means that the implicit obligation of Muslims to wage war on Dar Al- Harb ("The Abode of War," i.e. territory ruled by non-Muslims) is no longer applicable. Sheikh Bakri argues that the concept of Dar Al- Islam implies the existence of a Khilafa (Caliphate) and that because there is no Khilafa nowadays (since the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in March 1924), there is no Dar Al-Islam and, consequently, no Dar Al-Harb.
Sheikh Bakri's contentions bear the importance of the establishment of the Caliphate to legitimize the jihadis' efforts.
In an interview with Al-Hayat in January 2004, Nabil Sahrawi (a.k.a. Abu Ibrahim Mustafa) who holds a leadership position in the Salafi Group for Da'wa and Fighting in Algeria, stated:
quote:
'The rulers of the Muslim lands today are a gang of apostates [and] criminals, the most evil creatures created on the face of the earth, whose crimes are known to all, and they are a paradigm of treachery, deceit, misleading, and repression. How many commitments have they given their people, only to then fill their graveyards and prisons with them? They have replaced Shari'a law, and they rule Muslims with the laws of Europe and America. They have shed blood and violated the religious prohibitions. They have wasted the property of the Muslims on forbidden things. All that interested them was their bellies and their enslavement to the West. They are not [protected] by any pact. Anyone who wants a lesson [on the results] of dialogue with the apostates, let them learn the lesson of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the lesson of the Islamic Front of Salvation in Algeria … and so on.
"The Salafi Group for Da'wa and Fighting is fighting the regime in Algiers because of its unbelief and apostasy… Fighting the apostates takes precedence over fighting others from among the original infidels, and the punishment of the apostates is harsher than that [of the original infidels], both in this world and in the hereafter. Pacts must not be formed with these rulers; they must not be given security; there must be no reconciliation with them, and there must be no truce with them. We will accept from them either repentance or the sword…"
When asked of his group's connection with Al-Qaeda, Sahrawi offered the following:
quote:
Our connection to Al-Qa'ida and the other Jihad organizations in the world is based on two things:'
"First, the operation of the Salafi Group for Da'wa and Fighting in the realm of preaching and Jihad is an operation integrated with that of the other groups, because as noted in the [organization's] charter … the Salafi Group for Da'wa and Fighting is a phased means aimed ultimately at establishing a group of Muslims – the Caliphate – and it sees this as a sacred goal that all Muslims must strive to attain…
"Second, one of our goals is also to educate the Muslims about the principle that loyalty to Islam and to the Sunna must take precedence over loyalty to all the other frameworks… The Muslim is the brother of the Muslim, even if their countries are distant from each other. Every Muslim is entitled to the support [of other Muslims]… We support those who support Allah, His Prophet, and the believers, and we act with hostility towards those who act with hostility towards Allah and His Prophet, even if he is from among the closest of the close."
In the 2001 trial concerning the indictments against top Al-Qaeda leadership, including Osama bin Laden, during the testimony of the state's witness Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, the following information was divulged about the intent and teachings of Al-Qaeda:
Testimony under direct examination from February 6, 2001:
quote:
Q. Were you present for any conversations where Usama Bin Laden stated what he was going to do after the Russians left Afghanistan?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell us what Usama Bin Laden said he was going to do after the Russians left Afghanistan?
A. He thinking about making group.
Q. Can you explain to us anything else you recall about what he wanted this group to do?
A. To be ready for another step because in Afghanistan everything is over.
Q. And did he explain at that time what that other step was?
A. They say we have to make Khalifa.
Q. Can you explain to the jury what a khalifa is?
A. Khalifa mean we need one Muslim leader for the whole Muslim in the war.
Q. Continue with what else you recall Usama Bin Laden stated he wished to do after the Russians left Afghanistan.
A. He say also we want to change the Arab government because there's no Muslim government in the war, so we have to make Muslim government .
Testimony under cross-examination from February 13, 2001:
quote:
Q. Isn't it true, sir, that Jihad can only be in defense in the cause of Allah? I mean, there are other reasons; that's one of them?
A. Jihad is so many different roles. So one of the Jihad to make Jihad, being make the whole country Muslim.
Q. Is another of these reasons when led by a spritiual leader to accomplish these goals?
A. Khalifa.
Q. Now, you went to a camp in Khost, isn't that right?
A. Yes, Khost area.
Q. And there again, they talked to you, various people talked to you about religious issues, didn't they?
A. Yes, in Farouq camp.
Q. And one of the things they talked to you about was something I think you referred to as a khalifa, right?
A. Khalifa. Al khalifa, yes.
Q. And "khalifa" means that all of the Muslim world should be united into a single -- I'm going to use the word country, but it really means a single entity?
A. You're right.
Q. And you believed that, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. You believed, for example, that whatever country you were from, in your case, the Sudan, wasn't as important as the unity Muslims should have for one another?
A. I don't understand that.
Q. Well, Sudan is a nation, right?
A. Yes, it's country.
Q. Egypt is another nation?
A. Another country, yes.
Q. Somalia is another country?
A. Yes.
Q. But when you talk about khalifa, what you say is all Muslims should be joined together?
A. You're right, under one man.
Q. Under one man, a khalifa?
A. Yes.
Q. And that was one of the goals of al Qaeda, wasn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. And it was a goal you accepted?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. At some point the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan, were they not?
A. Yes.
Q. And that was a tremendous victory for Muslims around the world?
A. Yes.
Q. But after that victory there were a number of men who for years had been fighting in Afghanistan and had no cause left to fight, isn't that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Those were called the mujahideen?
A. Yes.
Q. And those people, those mujahideen, had been fighting for so long that that was the only thing they really knew how to do, wasn't it?
A. You're right.
Q. So it was at that time, at the end of the war in Afghanistan, that Bin Laden decided to start al Qaeda?
A. Before him, another people.
Q. But it was around the time the war ended in Afghanistan, wasn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. And he began that in part to work towards this khalifa, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, you were one of the very first people involved with Bin Laden, weren't you?
A. Yes.
Q. So, for example, at one time Salim gave a speech in which he quoted from the Koran where it said there should be no other religions in our islands, do you remember that?
A. In Arab islands.
Q. What do you mean by that?
A. In Arab islands: Yemen country, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Muscat, Jordan, Palestine, this is Arab islands.
Q. And he meant, did he not, that the khalifa should take those Arab countries and make sure that they were completely Muslim, Arab countries for the Muslims, right?
A. It's for Prophet Mohamed. He say Prophet Mohamed says they not allowed to let two religions in Arab islands.
In a rather low-profile CNN article in June, 2004, the results of a poll conducted with more than 15,000 Saudis were reviewed and the summary statement was:
quote:
Almost half of all Saudis said in a poll conducted last year that they have a favorable view of Osama bin Laden's sermons and rhetoric, but fewer than 5 percent thought it was a good idea for bin Laden to rule the Arabian Peninsula.
Indicating the still present effort to promote bin Laden as the modern-day Caliphate for the region.
References
1. http://www.fact-index.com/c/ca/caliphate.html
2. A Concise History of Islam and the Arabs
3. http://www.fact-index.com/a/al/al_qaida.html
4. Inside Al-Qaeda
5. The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism
6. What Do the Jihadis Want?
7. A walk through tunnels of hate
8. The Muslim Khalifa
9. What Al-Qaeda wants
10. Bin Laden's Sermon for the Feast of the Sacrifice
11. Islamist Leader in London: No Universal Jihad As Long As There is No Caliphate
12. Interview with Algerian Terror Leader Associated with Al- Qa'ida: The Islamic State Will Arise Only Through Blood and Body Parts
13. http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/pdfs/binladen/060201.pdf
14. http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/pdfs/binladen/130201.pdf
15. http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/pdfs/binladen/indict.pdf
16. Poll of Saudis shows wide support for bin Laden's views
Posted at 12:07 pm by Psychomike
Monday, November 08, 2004
Shocker :Poverty Not Cause Of Terrorism!
 |
| Alberto Abadie: 'In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but ... when you look at the data, it's not there. This is true not only for events of international terrorism ... but ... also for the overall level of terrorism, both of domestic and of foreign origin.' (Staff photo Jon Chase/Harvard News Office) |
Freedom squelches terrorist violence
KSG associate professor researches freedom-terrorism link
By Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office
A John F. Kennedy School of Government researcher has cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom.
Associate Professor of Public Policy Alberto Abadie examined data on terrorism and variables such as wealth, political freedom, geography, and ethnic fractionalization for nations that have been targets of terrorist attacks.
Abadie, whose work was published in the Kennedy School's Faculty Research Working Paper Series, included both acts of international and domestic terrorism in his analysis.
Though after the 9/11 attacks most of the work in this area has focused on international terrorism, Abadie said terrorism originating within the country where the attacks occur actually makes up the bulk of terrorist acts each year. According to statistics from the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base for 2003, which Abadie cites in his analysis, there were 1,536 reports of domestic terrorism worldwide, compared with just 240 incidents of international terrorism.
Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation's wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences.
"In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but in fact when you look at the data, it's not there. This is true not only for events of international terrorism, as previous studies have shown, but perhaps more surprisingly also for the overall level of terrorism, both of domestic and of foreign origin," Abadie said.
Instead, Abadie detected a peculiar relationship between the levels of political freedom a nation affords and the severity of terrorism. Though terrorism declined among nations with high levels of political freedom, it was the intermediate nations that seemed most vulnerable.
Like those with much political freedom, nations at the other extreme - with tightly controlled autocratic governments - also experienced low levels of terrorism.
Though his study didn't explore the reasons behind the trends he researched, Abadie said it could be that autocratic nations' tight control and repressive practices keep terrorist activities in check, while nations making the transition to more open, democratic governments - such as currently taking place in Iraq and Russia - may be politically unstable, which makes them more vulnerable.
"When you go from an autocratic regime and make the transition to democracy, you may expect a temporary increase in terrorism," Abadie said.
Abadie's study also found a strong connection in the data between terrorism and geographic factors, such as elevation or tropical weather.
"Failure to eradicate terrorism in some areas of the world has often been attributed to geographic barriers, like mountainous terrain in Afghanistan or tropical jungle in Colombia. This study provides empirical evidence of the link between terrorism and geography," Abadie said.
In Abadie's opinion, the connection between geography and terrorism is hardly surprising.
"Areas of difficult access offer safe haven to terrorist groups, facilitate training, and provide funding through other illegal activities like the production and trafficking of cocaine and opiates," Abadie wrote in the paper.
A native of Spain's Basque region, Abadie said he has long been interested in terrorism and related issues. His past research has explored the effect of terrorism on economic activity, using the Basque country as a case study.
Abadie is turning his attention to the effect of terrorism on international capital flows. Some analysts have argued that terrorist attacks wouldn't have much of an impact on the economy, since unlike a war's widespread damage, the damage from terrorist attacks tends to be relatively small or confined to a small area.
In an era of open international capital markets, however, Abadie said terrorism may have a greater chilling effect than previously thought, since even a low risk of damage from a terrorist attack may be enough to send investors looking elsewhere. Posted at 08:30 pm by Psychomike
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Arafat Has Been Dead Since Friday!
Paris Tells Palestinians to Remove Arafat
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
November 7, 2004, 12:42 AM (GMT+02:00)
French president Jacques Chirac’s patience with the Palestinians’ desperate maneuvers to cover up Yasser Arafat’s demise has run out. DEBKAfile’s Paris and Washington sources reveal exclusively that Friday, November 5, exactly a week after Arafat was admitted to the Percy military hospital near Paris, the French president put in a call to the White House and informed President George W. Bush that it was all over.
Paris and Washington both then swung into action.
An American delegation, organized at top speed by US Middle East diplomats, called on Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia in Ramallah on Saturday, November 6,
and asked him how Washington could help expedite a fitting end to the episode. The visit was more a token of support than a practical offer of help.
In Paris meanwhile, Suhah Arafat sacked the PLO ambassador Leila Shahid, the Palestinian spokesperson who issued almost daily bulletins after Arafat arrived in Paris.
What happened next was that Christian Estripeau, spokesman of the French military health services, informed Mrs. Arafat that he would issue no more bulletins on Arafat’s condition; neither would Percy hospital. She was given to understand that the hospital had kept her husband artificially alive as long as it intended to. The conversation followed a decision by a top-level conference of French officials, attended also by the president, to disengage from the pretence that Arafat was still alive. They realized it was no longer tenable without compromising the military hospital’s ethical position and medical credibility.
They also decided to settle the Arafat problem before November 12, because that is when Ramadan ends with “Orphan’s Friday” and moves into the three-day Eid al Fitr festival, during which no business of any kind can be contracted with Muslim authorities. If the Palestinian leader can be buried by Wednesday or Thursday, the French government reckons, the days of mourning can be wound up in time for Muslims to celebrate the festival and get started on the post-Arafat era.
Howwever, French efforts to unload Arafat by mid-week have been stymied by the lack of any accredited authority willing and able to organize the funeral or even determine the Palestinian leader’s final burial place. No Arab or Muslim leader will attend a funeral in Gaza or Jerusalem because it would entail transiting through an Israeli international port as well as risking his life in a Palestinian terrorist battle zone such as the Gaza Strip.
An earlier suggestion to overcome this difficulty, by Arab and European leaders attending a lying-in-state ceremony in Paris before the coffin’s transfer to Cairo, fell through. According to DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources, three governments - France, Egypt and Jordan – refused to allow any part of the final ceremonies on their soil. Paris then asked the Tunisian president Zeit bin Ali for permission to hold the central ceremony in his capital, so that European, Arab and Muslim leaders could pay their last respects in safety. The coffin would then be flown to Cairo and on to the Gaza Strip for burial.
The Tunisian president agreed. The Egyptian government firmly declined, as did Jordan.
In Ramallah, the power vacuum is widening.
Prime minister Ahmed Qureia and his predecessor Mahmoud Abbas are losing ground in their attempts to assume the interim reins of government.
1. Saturday, Qureia went to Gaza City to try and negotiate a temporary halt in terrorist attacks with the heads of 13 Palestinian factions – at least until after the funeral. They turned him down. Hamas demanded that first a unified Palestinian leadership be established with a place for itself.
2. The Gaza-based Palestinian Authority secretary Tayeb Abu Rahim Qureia humiliated Qureia at Saturday’s session of the Palestinian national security council by declaring angrily that nothing in the Palestinian constitution provided for the prime minister to step in as acting PA Chairman in Arafat’s absence. That prerogative, he said, belongs to another Gazan, the Palestinian legislature’s speaker, Fathi Rouh.
3. Then, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s politburo chief, Farouk Kaddumi, who turned up in Paris Thursday, questioned Abbas’s constitutional credentials to stand in for Arafat as chairman of the PLO central committee. Kaddumi claimed that he was the rightful chairman and Abbas, who is listed as one of two deputies, must report on his every action to Kaddumi as his subordinate.
http://www.debka.com/article_print.php?aid=932 Posted at 07:13 pm by Psychomike
By israelinsider staff November 6, 2004
Former White House speechwriter David Frum has joined the growing chorus of pundits, medical experts, and intelligence operatives who claim Yasser Arafat is likely suffering from AIDS.
Frum, a key figure in Republican politics and the man who coined the terms "axis of evil," writes in National Review Online that Arafat's undisclosed illness is well-known, but has been kept under wraps by the mainstream media.
"Speaking of media bias, here's a question you won't hear in our big papers or on network TV: Does Yasser Arafat have AIDS?" asks Frum, who also writes for the National Post.
"We know he has a blood disease that is depressing his immune system. We know that he has suddenly dropped considerable weight -- possibly as much as one-third of all his body weight. We know that he is suffering intermittent mental dysfunction. What does this sound like?"
Earlier, John Loftus told John Batchelor on ABC radio on October 26 that Arafat is dying from AIDS. Loftus said the CIA has known this about Arafat for quite awhile and that as a result the US has encouraged Sharon not to take Arafat out because the US has known Arafat was about done. It was deemed better to have Arafat discredited as a homosexual.
Although homosexuality is rife in the Arab world, it is at least officially considered a sin and a crime, and regarded--especially in fundamentalist circles--as a mark of great shame and depravity.
Intelligence on "the tiger" romping with bodyguards
Frum pointed to KGB evidence linking Arafat to homosexual activities, citing a 1987 book by Lt.-Gen. Ion Pacepa, the deputy chief of Romania's intelligence service under Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
In his memoirs "Red Horizons," Pacepa relates a conversation in 1978 with Constantin Munteaunu, a general assigned to teach Arafat and the PLO techniques to deceive the West into granting the organization recognition.
"I just called the microphone monitoring center to ask about the 'Fedayee,'" Arafat's code name, explained Munteaunu. "After the meeting with the Comrade, he went directly to the guest house and had dinner. At this very moment, the 'Fedayee' is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He's playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena."
Munteaunu continued: "I've never before seen so much cleverness, blood and filth all together in one man." Munteaunu, wrote Pacepa, spent months pulling together secret reports from Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian intelligence agencies as well as Romanian files.
"I used to think I knew just about everything there was to know about Rahman al-Qudwa," Arafat's real name, "about the construction engineer who made a fortune in Kuwait, about the passionate collector of racing cars, about Abu Amman," Arafat's nom de guerre, "and about my friend Yasser, with all his hysterics," explained Munteaunu, handing Pacepa his final report on the PLO leader. "But I've got to admit that I didn't really know anything about him."
Pacepa wrote: "The report was indeed an incredible account of fanaticism, of devotion to his cause, of tangled oriental political maneuvers, of lies, of embezzled PLO funds deposited in Swiss banks, and of homosexual relationships, beginning with his teacher when he was a teen-ager and ending with his current bodyguards. After reading the report, I felt a compulsion to take a shower whenever I had been kissed by Arafat, or even just shaken his hand."
"If true, Arafat would have a great deal to conceal from his people and his murderously anti-homosexual supporters in the Islamic world," writes Frum, suggesting that Arafat was airlifted to France for medical treatment because he "could trust the French to protect his intimate secret."
The medical evidence adds up
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath Monday said that all types of cancer had been ruled out, and the latest news is that French doctors have ruled out poisoning.
Medical observers note that a low blood platelet count is a sign of a weakened immune system, and indeed last week there were reports of a complete collapse of Arafat's immune system. Other than the ruled-out cancer, the low count could be attributed to bleeding ulcers, colitis, liver disease, lupus, or HIV. It is believed that ulcers and colitis have already been ruled out.
Arafat has lost a considerable amount of body weight. Hopital d'Instruction des Armees de Percy, southwest of Paris, is known to have some of France's best HIV/AIDS doctors. Other medical experts note that Arafat's activities in recent weeks and months suggest the dementia that accompanies late-stage AIDS.
Medical authorities not connected directly to his case are suggesting that he may have HIV/AIDS. One doctor reported to an Israel Insider source that his suspicions have been growing for more than a year.
"I began to see tell tale signs of kaposis sarcoma. His Parkinsonian tremor was more than just a Parkinsonian tremor and he was also showing signs of weakness. The rumor about homosexuality/bisexuality has been around for decades. So I put two and two together when they started talking about his health over a year ago. The talk of a mysterious illness in this day and age should be a tip-off. He has some of the best physicians in the world attending to him. He can be diagnosed clinically, without perfoming any tests. All the doctors surrounding him know what he has. All this cloak and dagger about tests is a ruse. They understand the implications of divulging that he has HIV. If I were Suha I would be getting a little concerned."
If Arafat has AIDS, that would also explain Suha's reticence to allow the release of significant information about Arafat's condition, and the almost ludicrously tight-lipped reports of the French hospital spokesman, and the refusal of anyone connected with Arafat to hold a press conference in recent days.
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Diplomacy/4348.htmPosted at 02:05 pm by Psychomike
Saturday, November 06, 2004
How JFK Stole An Election
The historic, and fixed, 1960 election
This astonishing website threw even me for a loop. The article pretty much devastates JFK. Or at least the carefully crafted image. I did a google search on some of the claims however, damn if they all didn't come up right. Here is an amazing story.
QUOTE:
On Election night 1960, nobody knew at midnight if Kennedy or Nixon won, and when Kennedy remarked that he had it made, his father, Joe Kennedy, told him he still had time to change his mind -- not all the votes were counted yet in Cook County, Illinois. Gangster Sam Giancana was telling Judith Campbell, also referring to Cook County, that he had elected her boyfriend. Chicago's Mayor Daley also claimed credit for electing Kennedy.
Kennedy's close win over Nixon in 1960 has long been a bone of contention, and books have been written proving that Kennedy stole the election, or had the election stolen for him by his and his father's mob connections plus Lyndon Johnson's connections. Other prominent historians have ridiculed the idea and disputed the evidence of fraud.
When those on either side make impassioned arguments, make sure they provide legitimate figures on the relevant states involved in the fraud. (It is hard to get straight figures in partisan articles, even on how many people voted, and various articles give different figures.)
Here I use government archive figures that Kennedy won 303 electoral votes from 23 states and a popular vote of 34, 221, 344, or 49.72%, and Nixon won 219 electorial votes from 26 states and a popular vote of 34, 106, 671, or 49.55%. The charges of fraud have most often been raised against Cook County, Illinois, and Duval County, Texas, but also West Virginia.
Often you hear someone in authority say, "Even if the vote was crooked as charged in a couple of places, Kennedy still would have won on the electorial vote." During C-Span's 1999 Presidential Series, Historian Melvin Small apeared on C-Span's Nixon day with John Taylor of the Nixon Library on November 19, and his remarks will enter history because of the power of C-Span, which is usually authoritative and is relatively unbiased in an otherwise poisoned media.
Small told the new generations of Americans that Kennedy would have won even if the disputed votes had been crooked, but look at the figures. Subtract Texas electoral votes (32) and Illinois electoral votes (27) from Kennedy's 303 electoral votes and you get 244. Add those votes to Nixon's 219 and you get 278. In an honest election in 1960, Nixon would have won 278 to 244. Repeat, Nixon would have won.
Joshua Leinsdorf of the Institute of Electoral Analysis, widely quoted on the Internet (see Ask Jeeves), also insists in large type that Kennedy won fair and square, and supplies a large range of irrelevant figures dealing with comparisons of which presidential candidate led or trailed the rest of their parties in various states, and historic voting patterns, utterly beside the point and resulting in obfuscation. He pretended that the issue of fraud was focused on Illinois and -- hold tight -- Hawaii! He notes the difference was a handful of votes in Hawaii. (He does not mention Texas.) Leinsdorf confidently asserts, "Even if you take Illinois' 27 electoral votes and Hawaii's three votes away from Kennedy and give them to Nixon, Kennedy still would have won with 273 electoral votes, four more than needed."
Hawaii was not an issue. Texas, where Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have started his career in Congress by winning the cemetery vote in that very same Duval County, was an issue.
Historian Melvin Small is not the most aggressive of Nixon detractors, and he remarked on C-Span that most historians are Democrats (like most newsmen). One of his egregious mistakes was to declare that it was not Nixon who called the Defcon 3 nuclear alert in Black September 1973, but Henry Kissinger, because Nixon was out of commission due to the news media's Saturday Night Massacre in 1973, when Israel's fate was up for grabs. That false story had been trumpeted by The New York Times, all alone. According to Small, then, Kissinger saved Israel's existence, not Nixon. Small conceded that Alexander Haig disagreed with him in an interview.
See Nixon and the Jews for a more complete story, but here I must remark that Secretaries of State do not have the authority to order nuclear alerts. Joint Chiefs of Staff do not obey orders from Secretaries of State, they like to hear the president's voice on orders of that nature.
The Great Kennedy Disaster
A Con Game with Media Cooperation
"...handsomest, best-dressed, most articulate, graceful as a gazelle ...omniscient, omnipotent."
The martyred John F. Kennedy may have been the most beloved of American presidents, and affection for him in the 1960s and 1970s was close to total. Even detractors had to admire him for his grace under pressure, his cool ease in public, his quick wit and flashing smile, also when stoically enduring pain. If someone less attractive had been the rival of Richard Nixon, Nixon might not have had to resign; occasional surliness was not the best act to follow Kennedy.
The media's infatuation with and national devotion to Kennedy is both a blessing and a curse; the "value of his inspiration" made historians as weak in the knees as it did journalists, while perverting history. Meanwhile, his practical scorecard as president is surely the worst since the republic was founded. When he was president we had military superiority, and had it been otherwise, the catastrophes he flirted with might have struck harder than they did.
The main outline of his presidency has been covered in an outpouring of books, starting with Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s A Thousand Days. Theodore Sorensen's Kennedy, and Roger Hilsman's To Move a Nation -- all by authors tied to Kennedy's career.
Many episodes in these books are landmarks in American history and folklore: (1) the Bay of Pigs debacle in April 1961; (2) the assassination of dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic in May; (3) the bug-out from Laos, and (4) get-acquainted summit with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June and (5) the subsequent Berlin Wall August 13, which lasted 28 years; (6) the retreat to Vietnam of the former Laos defense line against communism's Asian expansion; (7) the aversion of President Charles de Gaulle to Kennedy and to his Undersecretary of State George Ball, which took France halfway out of NATO and U.S. troops out of the vital Com Z (the Communication Zone to Germany); (9) the Cuban missile crisis (a lone victory, but at the cost of alienating Turkey, which lost status along with its Jupiter missiles, and guaranteeing Fidel Castro's lifelong control of Cuba); (10) the partial nuclear test-ban treaty (a dubious partial victory), and finally (11) Kennedy's orders to dispose of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, America's shameful betrayal and summary execution of an ally.
His legacy was, he both got us into Vietnam and ham-strung our war effort there.
Everyone in my generation remembers where he or she was when the news struck that Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. I was watching German television in Bad Godesberg, and to my surprise I cried out, "They've killed him!" and burst into tears. My wife came out of the kitchen and said, "But you didn't even like him." "Now he'll never have a chance to make it good." I blubbered. My wife draped her black lace Spanish mantilla around his portrait at the Embassy Club, and it stayed there until Lyndon Johnson's portrait replaced it. We were not Kennedy-haters.
Brave he was, with the reckless courage of those who have nothing to lose and will bluff with a deuce in the hole, and he won over the crew of the lost motor torpedo boat PT 109. Yet when faced with alternative solutions to heavy-risk decisions, he always delayed past the last minute, then chose the most moderate move, not necessarily the best. In the choice of invading Cuba, obliterating its offensive weapons by bombing, or blockading it, he chose a hesitant blockade, finally selecting a ship that could not be carrying contraband arms, and so late that the crisis had reached nuclear-war stage.
Richard Reeves recalls that James MacGregor Burns, an early Kennedy biographer, wrote a spoofing article in New Republic on the theme, "He is not only the handsomest, the best-dressed, the most articulate, and graceful as a gazelle. He is omniscient; he swallows whole books in minutes, he confounds experts with superior knowledge of their fields. He is omnipotent."
Thirty years after Kennedy's death, Reeves published President Kennedy, Portrait of Power, (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1993), this time with time-released documents and the first peeks into archives of the defunct Soviet Union. The new material enabled Reeves to get into direct quotations, which, combined with his many interviews, present a closer look at Kennedy. What he found did not dampen Reeves's affection for Kennedy, nor end his belief that Kennedy was a great, if unusually profane president, but it left him shaken by Kennedy's aggressive recklessness like a James Bond dry martini, not just stirred.
A mild example: At the 1960 nominating convention Adlai Stevenson withheld his support, and JFK told him,
"Look, I have the votes for the nomination. If you don't give me your support, I will have to shit all over you. I don't want to do that, but I can, and I will if I have to."
Under observation by an army of doctors for most of his life, three physicians competed, not always amicably, to keep him alive during his presidency: his official doctor, a Navy officer; Dr. Janet Travell, who injected novocain into his back muscles to deaden pain for two hours at a time, sometimes several times a day, and Dr. Max Jacobson, who gave him amphetamines, so he could be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for public display. On his own, Kennedy took Demerol, a controlled pain killer that Jackie got from a Secret Service guard. Reeves also mentions that Kennedy had a persistent, unspecified venereal disease.
Constantly drugged or not, Kennedy was able to control the press like no other president. He was boosted into Congress by an article in Life by John Hersey, republished in Readers Digest, describing his wartime heroics. Arthur Krock of The New York Times helped JFK write his first book from his Harvard thesis, While England Slept (just as Krock earlier wrote a book for his dad, I'm for Roosevelt), but Krock later cooled on JFK because Kennedy treated him with contempt.
Once elected President, Warner Brothers in 1963 released PT-109, with Cliff Robertson playing the hero. Kennedy okayed the wildly false script, and wanted Warren Beatty to play him, but Beatty declined. The film was a smash hit, and the History Channel replayed it in October 2000. At half-time host Sander Vanocur asked Oxford historian Steve Gillon if it was the historical truth. The professor said there was little resemblance to real life, and the furious firefights greeting Kennedy's arrival in the South Pacific never happened. (Try to imagine Hollywood creating a movie that made Navy Lt. Cmdr Nixon a hero in the South Pacific.)
Someone at The New York Times called him to warn that a Tad Szulc story was ready to go on the impending Bay of Pigs infiltration (which was the talk of Miami, where Szulc got the story -- and no doubt of Havana). Kennedy yelled treason and called Orville Dryfoos, then publisher. The story was not killed, but it was modified, softened, and played down with a small headline. (Try to imagine Nixon calling a publisher to try to kill a story, on the grounds that it was treason. Absurd.)
Eisenhower had not signed off on the CIA's Cuba invasion in training when he left office. Kennedy, who was planning to replace Allan Dulles as CIA director with Richard Bissell, insisted that Bissell change the planned landing site from Trinidad beach, and Bissell fatefully chose the Bay of Pigs, where Castro had a following. Kennedy told Bissell to choose a date, but then cut off air support, including from the Cuban invaders planes, after James Reston bawled him out at lunch. When the botched plans failed, Kennedy angrily fired Dulles and Bissell.
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., from the Harvard faculty that Kennedy brought to Washington, wrote a memo offering the bureaucracy cover to lie under the title, Protecting the President: "When lies have to be told, they should be told by subordinate officials."
Kennedy threw out Dwight Eisenhower's systematic, organizational-chart operation, and instead had everyone refer to him. His chart was a wheel, with all spokes to himself. His brother Robert Kennedy played a role like a chief of staff, fielding everyone's calls until the president appointed him Attorney General. Bobby continued to interfere with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and others, diluting responsibility.
The president believed that Berlin was the most dangerous place in the world, and that nuclear war could start there. (I was reporting from Berlin then, and that never occurred to me or any other reporters there.) When Kennedy shook West Berliners' confidence, first by his behavior in Vienna, then by going sailing on August 13 and appearing to abandon them -- the mass-circulation Bild headlined, Die Westen Tut Nichts! (The West Does Nothing!) -- he sent General Lucius Clay, of Berlin airlift fame a dozen years earlier, to boost their morale. Clay did, for example by visiting the exclave Steinstuecken by helicopter and by engineering a tank confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie at the Wall, forcing the Soviets to bring out their hidden tanks for fear that East German Vopos might make a fatal misstep. Kennedy ordered Clay to stop confrontations.
Above all, what Reeves found in his 30-year retrospective, although he does not present it wrapped up neatly, is that Kennedy brought presidential lying to an art form. (As noted earlier, his close friend Ben Bradlee was eventually offended by the constant deception necessary to hide his heavy consumption of women, including at least two White House secretaries).
In running for office, Kennedy adopted from Roger Hilsman and others the "missile gap," the theory that Soviet space achievements meant that they had a lead in ICMBs to deliver nuclear warheads. After he became president, Defense Secretary Robert McNamera announced that there was no missile gap, and Kennedy contradicted McNamera, insisting that the phoney issue he had run on still existed. Kennedy knew he was lying, and Eisenhower, who had told Kennedy his 32 Polaris submarine missiles were invulnerable to the Soviets at that epoch, could have exposed that particular lie, but did not undercut the new president. The press didn't mind Kennedy lying.
In Vienna, Khrushchev would beat him over the head with his missile gap, getting Kennedy to agree the two superpowers were equal, which Khrushchev then used to boast to his Warsaw Pact allies. Some harmless campaign lies have consequences.
One of his greatest lies was his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in West Berlin when, by contrast, he had secretly welcomed the Soviets permitting Walter Ulbricht to build the Wall. The roar of West Berliners cheering the speech must have been heard as far as Warsaw and Prague, but those cheering were thoroughly duped. Kennedy, believing that Berlin was the flashpoint of nuclear war, had told intimates that the Wall was a good solution, and access to Berlin was not worth a war. Kennedy sent James P. O'Donnell to Berlin with General Clay, and O'Donnell became a lifelong friend; by then we agreed on Kennedy.
Kennedy's private remarks giving up on Berlin could have started a rush to cooperate the Communists by holdouts in nations like Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, but the news media, including many who knew how damaging his statements were, as they demonstrated by knowing which remarks to hide, protected him, as did those who knew of his womanizing.
Kennedy went to Berlin partly to show that he still could, after a warm welcome in West Germany (except from Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who bawled him out publicly), but mostly to signal Khrushchev that the crisis there was over. On the plane to Berlin he still was working on his speech, built around the repeated punchline, "Let them come to Berlin!" When he delivered it, he got carried away and added, "There are those who believe, or say they do, that you can do business with the Soviets. (Switching into German) Lassen sie nach Berlin kommen!" Roars and applause. Dean Rusk, on the City Hall platform, held his head in his hands. It was the opposite of what Kennedy had come to say; he was there to try to do business with the Soviets. Alarmed, Khrushchev answered Walter Ulbricht's call to come to East Berlin quickly, but by the time he got there the furor had died down, and Khrushchev's speech was a tame offer to negotiate the partial nuclear test ban tready.
Few had expected war during the Wall crisis; people did not flee the city, and a "Berliner" is a kind of donut, as a Frankfurter is a weenie. "Ich bin ein Frankfurter" would have been more accurate, yet he got away with it.
Kennedy induced his United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson to tell unwitting lies, some risky, as when he held up photos of B-26 bombers "of Cuba's air force" defected to Miami (actually CIA planes from Nicaragua, complete with bullet holes from 45. pistols fired by CIA men). Exposure of that particular lie could have been fateful for the United States at that moment.
Vienna in June; the Wall in August
When Kennedy met Khrushchev in Vienna, I was there, flabbergasted that my partner from the Daily News who covered the White House was planning to rely on his Soviet Russian contact from Washington. Unreported at the time, Khrushchev told Kennedy at their first meeting that he had elected him. "How?" Kennedy wanted to know.
Khrushchev:
"We cast the deciding vote when you beat that son-of-a-bitch Nixon. We waited to release the spy pilots until after the election, so Nixon couldn't claim that he knew how to deal with the Russians."
Reeves' book has quotes from the records that we reporters could not dig out at the time, since James Reston of The New York Times was the only reporter the chastened Kennedy would see. Khrushchev: "The United States has delusions of grandeur. Megalomania... The USSR will sign a peace treaty unilaterally, and all rights of access to Berlin will expire because the state of war will cease to exist." We reporters got nothing specific from U.S. spokesmen in Vienna, who lied blatantly to us, generally reassuring us that Kennedy stood fast and all went well. Kennedy was nervous and apparently in pain at their last handshake. At the final joint news conference, we assumed that Pierre Salinger was lying because Soviet spokesman Mikhail Kharlamov rose at the end clasping his hands over his head in a boxer's victory salute, which I featured in the story I sent. I believe the rewrite desk edited it out.
Three decades later, Reeves reported that among his team, Kennedy was saying, "He treated me like a little boy." Charles (Chip) Bohlen: "A little bit out of his depth." Averell Harriman: "Shattered." George Kennan: "Unsure of himself." Paul Nitze: "He's dancing. All he's doing is dancing."
The sorry truth was that Kennedy had no understand of who Khrushchev was (he had arranged the sudden execution of his rival Lavrenty Beria, and in 1958 I heard him tell Hungarians in Tatabanya, "You counter-revolutionaries, stick up your heads, and we'll knock em off" -- translation from the Russian courtesy of AFP's Vincent Lateve, born Russian). Kennedy did not know what he was doing in one foreign policy disaster after another, full of drugs, forever playing to the crowds, ordering his spokesmen to alter official transcripts. His vulnerable behavior -- the Soviets read rightly the blatant lies he planted in our press -- wound up by practically inviting Khrushchev to put medium-range nuclear missiles on Cuba to even the nuclear delivery odds. .
When Kennedy proposed to Khrushchev dropping his separate peace treaty and doing a moon shot together, Khrushchev replied no, not until we have agreed on disarmament. He planned on signing a treaty with East Germany in December.
Kennedy:
"Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be war. It will be a cold winter."
The version given the press omitted the key words, "there will be war," which must have amused the Soviets. It was one of the breathtaking lies in his administration's press dealings, and he got away with it.
Reston of the Times, the only newsman to see Kennedy in Vienna after the summit, covered for him and held the cover for years, even while repeatedly writing anniversary columns about it. Reston asked, "How was it?" and Kennedy replied,
"Worst thing in my life. He savaged me....So we have a problem. I'll have to increase the defense budget. And we have to confront them. The only place we can do that is Vietnam. We have to send some more people there."
Reston knew we were going into Vietnam before any other newsman, and kept the secret.
Kennedy already was the godfather of the Army's Special Forces, or Green Berets, and the Air Force, realizing it, quickly created a rival force, Jungle Jims. (When people tell you that Kennedy would have pulled out of Vietnam before it got so bad if he had lived, remind them of his romantic fixation on his Green Berets.)
In March, before Kennedy's Cuba debacle, Ulbricht had warned Khrushchev at a Warasaw Pact meeting that he might face revolt in East Germany unless West Berlin could be closed off, or better, seized. Khrushchev forbid any aggression until he could take the new president's measure. Ulbricht earlier had nagged Khrushchev into delivering his Berlin ultimatum to Eisenhower in November 1958, but Khrushchev had not dared to do more than harrass West Berlin's access routes. After the Vienna summit, Khrushchev gave Ulbricht the go-ahead to build the Wall.
On August 3 an extraordinary meeting of the Warsaw Pact chiefs met in Moscow to plan Berlin's demise. Transcripts of the meeting found by archivist Zoia Vodopianova and translated for the Cold War International History Project at Georgetown University show that Khrushchev expressed contempt for Kennedy's knuckling under at Vienna.
"As for me and my colleagues...we think that the adversary proved to be less staunch than we had estimated...We expected there would be more blustering and so far the worst spurt of intimidation was in Kennedy's speech (of July 25, 1961)... Kennedy spoke to frighten us, and then got scared himself!"
Khrushchev told the summit he invited Kennedy's emissary John J. McCloy to his vacation home on on the Black Sea, where he raked McCloy over the coals.
"I told him to let Kennedy know...that if he starts a war, then he would probably become the last president of the United States of America. I know he reported it accurately. In America they are showing off vehemently, yet people close to Kennedy are beginning to pour cold water like a fire bridade."
Khrushchev said he felt empathy for Kennedy in his situation, "because he is too much of a lightweight both for the Republicans as well as for the Democrats." (See http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/khrush.htm Khrushchev's Berlin speech.)
Nikita Khrushchev was not an oracle, but he could diminish respect for the United States throughout East Europe when his audience included Ulbricht, Janos Kadar, Antonin Novotny, Wladislaw Gomulka, Georgi Georgu-Dej and Todor Zukov.
Disposing of Diem
In the matter of South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem, Kennedy entered office as president already toying with the idea of dumping our ally. Teddy White visited Vietnam after finishing, The Making of the President 1960, and wrote Kennedy that the situation looked hopeless to him. White has the distinction of being the first newsman to suggest, "Should we incubate a coup against Diem?"
Planning to take out Diem, Kennedy prepared for it by appointing Henry Cabot Lodge -- whom he had defeated to win his Senate seat and who was no help to Nixon's ticket in 1960 -- ambassador to South Vietnam. He was sending a Republican in to be the hit man, just as he sent Republican Lucius Clay to Berlin in case the city should fall. Kennedy saw Republicans as patsies, and Clay later made a bitter remark that Kennedy didn't bother to thank him for giving up his high-paying corporate CEO job to go to Berlin.
Kennedy chose a moment when the Secretaries of State and Defense and the CIA director were all out of Washington to launch his coup against Diem with the famous Cable of August 24 (the key document in the Pentagon Papers) to Lodge, and the responsible Cabinet officials all had subordinates sign off on the cable for them, so the coup in popular media lore came to be blamed on George Ball, Michael Forrestal, Averell Harriman, and Roger Hilsman, not on Kennedy.
Of all of the Kennedy deceptions the most dangerous was his proposal to Khrushchev, secret for thirty years, that the United States and the Soviet Union join forces to atom bomb China's nuclear facilities before they achieved the bomb.
Reeves reported that Kennedy secretly exchanged about 30 letters with Khrushchev, some hand-carried by GRU Colonel Georgi Bolshakov and Pierre Salinger, and solicited Khrushchev through W. Averell Harriman to join the United States in taking out China's incipient nuclear facilities before China had an A-bomb. On December 12, 1993, Reeves told Brian Lamb on C-Span,
"Kennedy tried to get Khrushchev to consider a joint American-Soviet air strike at China to destroy their nuclear capability. It literally was lined up. It was going to be done like a firing squad, that is, neither the Russian crew nor the American crew would know that they had the real weapon. One weapon would be a dud, one weapon would be real, as they do on a firing squad so every man can think he didn't fire the fatal shot if he wanted to. Khrushchev turned him down."
The astonishing revelation made no waves, and I read no follow-up to the startling report or the cockamamie scheme, and it is not prominent in President Kennedy, Portrait of Power. It might have been catastrophic, and bred enmity forever between the United States and China. (It was exactly the opposite to the China policy Nixon later adopted.)
Kennedy's policy aimed at waiting for the Soviets to mellow, and he welcomed the Berlin Wall no matter what it did to Germans (from which many in the East still can't shake loose.) Kennedy's dad preceded him as a famous double-crosser, as FDR's ambassador recommending that we abandon the British to what Joseph Kennedy saw as the inevitable Nazi victors.
Reeves' book is full of information, but it's a strange one, intended as praise of Kennedy, whom the author ranks in the top quarter of all American presidents, for his inspirational value, not for his uncertain policies. Reeves never spoke with Kennedy, but is a Friend of Bill and a promoter of our feckless president. He worked on Profile more than six years, produced an 800-page tome, and tucked away almost as an aside in the brief Chapter 48 -- which deals with Kennedy's triumph in negotiating a limited nuclear test ban treaty with Khrushchev -- Kennedy's plan thirty years earlier to atom-bomb China and turn a billion Chinese against the United States permanently.
On Page 510, Reeves writes: "Again and again, in private, Kennedy said that his greatest fear was Chinese nuclear weapons, and he had an almost romantic attachment to the idea that somehow, the Americans and the Russians could combine to block China's nuclear programs."
Reeves also wrote an odd column in 1999 opining that, with Kennedy, we should have celebrated the building of the Berlin Wall, rather than celebrating its destruction. So much for Germans in the East, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Ukrainians and others whose fates depended on Germany's achieving unity.
Life Before the Prsidency
The best book for understanding Kennedy is The Search for JFK, by Joan and Clay Blair, Jr. (he was chief editor of The Saturday Evening Post during Kennedy's presidency), and it does not even include his presidency and its disasters. A dozen years after his assassination, the Blairs still admired the inspirational Kennedy and accepted John Hersey's account of his wartime heroism, but they doubted that he won the Pacific war all by himself. They studied his life from his graduation from Choate to Harvard in 1936 until his victorious run for Congress, a total time span of only 12 years, yet they did much to illuminate the unknown Kennedy.
At the end of prodigious research, including finding and interviewing all survivors of PT 109, they concluded that Kennedy should not have been president, largely because he had Addison's disease, which Kennedy denied. His denial was false, but no one pressed the issue while he was alive. Sir Daniel Davis, the physician who saved the new Congressman's life at a London clinic in 1947, told Pamela Churchill (a traveling companion at the time) that he would not survive one more year. His New York operation on October 21, 1954, involving two spinal fusions, was described in the November 1955 issue of the American Medical Association Archives of Surgery with his identity protected. The male patient, 37, had Addison's, managed with a program of DOCA pellets (desoxycorticosterone acetate) of 150 mg implanted every three months plus oral cortisone of 25 mg daily. His adrenal glands were gone by the time he was president six years later, and with them emotional stimulation, accounting for that cool detachment.
Kennedy was deathly ill in 1935-36, with recurring ulcers, jaundice and hepititis, delaying his entry to Harvard after a brief false start at Princeton. He did not want to marry, and finally married Jacqueline Bouvier when he was 36. Contrary to myth, he was not Boston Irish through his youth, but reached manhood living in his father's mansion in Bronxville, where his dad left Rose and seven kids to move alone to Hollywood, and have a famous affair with Gloria Swanson. Jack in his New Yorker phase was a society swinger and Stork Club regular dating Powers models, who got laid at 17 with a white girl in a Harlem whorehouse.
His dad, a big donor to FDR and friend of Navy Secretary James Forrestal, got him into the Navy without a physicial examination, which he could not pass, going directly into Naval intelligence in Washington D.C. as an ensign after having been drafted and rejected for the Army.
Joe Kennedy, who made a fortune in the roaring 20s in the stock market and got out before 1929 to go to Hollywood. When Roosevelt repealed Prohibition, Joe already had sewed up the Haig and Haig concession, and was the man to see for Scotch. His friend Arthur Krock conceded that he was amoral, and Harry Truman said he was the biggest crook in the country, even though he was a Democrat.
The Blairs did not set out to map the trajectory of Jack's consumption of women, but they found women or their remains wherever they looked, all of them beauties, starting with Olive Cawley when Jack was at Choate. At Harvard he was serious with Frances Ann Cannon, who dropped him to marry John Hersey. He spent Mardi Gras in New Orleans with Jane Suydam, and might have married Charlotte McDonnell, but her family disapproved. Harriet Price was a steady, and for a time Nancy Burkell. Angela Greene, actress and Powers model, was a regular during and after the war. Florence Pritchett, fashion editor of the New York Journal-American married Earl E.T. Smith, who became Eisenhower's ambassador to Cuba and wrote The Fourth Floor. Barbara Cox, Babs Beckwith (another Powers model), Elizabeth Drake, known as Cis, was close to Kennedy, as was Phyllis Brooks. In Hollywood he chased hard Olivia de Haviland, Peggy Cummins, and Marilyn Monroe, who was introduced by agent Charles Kenneth Feldman. When he covered the founding of the United Nations for Hearst newspapers, reporter Kennedy also found Anita Marcus. Bootsie Cassini was the ex of Igor Cassini before she married William Randolph Hearst Jr. In London Jack formed a lasting friendship with tennis star Katherine Stammers. In Boston campaigning for Congress, a companion was Dodo Potter, and there were reports he married Durie Desloge, which the Blairs believed to be untrue.
When Joe Kennedy got Jack accepted into the Office of Naval Intelligence as an ensign, assigned to Washington, he quickly took up with Inga Arvad, a Danish pastry who was working at the Washington Times-Herald, run by Cissy Paterson and a fiefdom of the Chicago Tribune, the two newspapers FDR disliked most. Kennedy's favorite sister Kathleen (Kick) worked at the Times-Herald, as did Arthur Krock's wife.
Inga-Binga, as he called her, was not a bimbo. Krock, a director of the Columbia School of Journalism, had recommended the student to the Washington newspaper because of her colorful past. She already had been Berlin correspondent of the Copenhagen newspaper Berlingski Tidinger. She had won two beauty contests, in Paris (hosted by Maurice Chevalier), and Berlin (hosted by Hermann Goering). Hitler invited her to his box at the 1936 Olympics, and pronounced her the perfect Nordic beauty.
Inga had acted in Berlin movies and married Hungarian director Paul Fejos, who took her to the Far East to make a documentary on the Komoro dragon. In Singapore she met the world's richest Swede, Axel Wenner-gren, who sold munitions to Germany and was asked to help influence the Soviets into a nonaggression pact. At one point the U.S. intelligence community believed her loyalty was suspect.
Ten days before Pearl Harbor, Inga, who already wrote a gossip column, made the subject of her column Jack Kennedy, "a boy with a future." Navy intelligence officers are supposed to keep out of gossip columns. Jack did not kn | | |
