From http://OpinionJournal.com

Best of the Web Today - January 8, 2002
By JAMES TARANTO
Unlucky 1,300  http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/08/wafg108.xml

A U.S. Army special-forces team code-named Tiger 03 "was credited yesterday with the deaths of 1,300 Taliban and al-Qa'eda fighters and the destruction of more than 50 tanks and other pieces of heavy weaponry," London's Daily Telegraph reports. The Telegraph interviews several members of the unit--their full names are omitted pursuant to Army regulations--who describe working with the Northern Alliance:

*** QUOTE ***

Tiger 03 used its targeting expertise for the first time on Oct 28, on a Taliban defensive position near the deserted town of Zard Kammar in the north-east of Afghanistan.

A B-52 bomber following an infra-red designation beam dropped a full load of 2,000lb bombs in a direct hit on the Taliban bunkers.

"It lifted the whole top of the hill two feet in the air," Kevin said. "Mark", an engineering specialist with the unit, said: "People were lining up and clapping when we got back to the [base].

"They were slapping us on the back. It seemed like the more accurate the bombing, the better they fed us."

*** END QUOTE ***

"None of us expected to survive," says Kevin, "but it went just about as perfectly as you could hope."

Taliban Bank Run  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11095-2002Jan7.html

The Washington Post describes a scene at a Kandahar bank:

*** QUOTE ***

The mullah arrived at the Kandahar branch of Afghanistan's central bank during regular business hours, asked to see the manager, who was another mullah, and presented a check signed by a third, Mohammad Omar.

It was Oct. 16, nine days after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan, and this dirt-poor country was once again embroiled in war. The mullah, a senior member of Omar's Taliban leadership, stayed only as long as it took to justify the abrupt withdrawal, open the safe in the basement and stuff $5 million in U.S. dollars and Pakistani rupees into a big burlap sack, two bank employees said today. The sack was then carried into a waiting Toyota Land Cruiser.

None of it has been seen since.

*** END QUOTE ***

Now we know how Mullah Omar was able to afford that nice motorcycle. But he may soon learn that there are substantial penalties for early withdrawal.
Yes, Ministers  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020108/ts/attack_dc_1284.html

While Mullah Omar is still on the lam, three top Taliban have surrendered. "A spokesman for Kandahar governor Gul Agha said the ousted ministers of defense, justice, and mines and industry had given themselves up to authorities in Kandahar, the former southern stronghold of the Taliban," Reuters reports. You've gotta love those Orwellian ministry names. Under the Taliban, after all, there was no justice, very little industry and, as we've learned since Oct. 7, even less defense. They do have mines, though--at least assuming the minister's title refers to the exploding kind.

Oh, to Be in England  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001570027-2002012248,00.html

"Fourteen British Muslims are being interrogated in secret by US intelligence agents who believe they were some of Osama bin Laden's most prized recruits," the Times of London reports:

*** QUOTE ***

Some being held captive in Afghanistan described how the British contingent had a private meeting with bin Laden just before the suicide attacks in America.

One of the men said that they first had selection tests in Pakistan, and then, shortly before September 11, they were moved to Khowst camp inside Afghanistan without any reason being given.

The man, who is being held in a Kabul prison, said that they were singled out for specialist training because they could only speak English and were taught sabotage and bomb-making techniques.

*** END QUOTE ***

Appeasement for Fun and Profit  http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/08/wchir08.xml

President Jacques Chirac of France is "embroiled in new scandal" after "documents were printed allegedly showing that close aides received kickbacks from a ransom paid to release French hostages held in the Middle East," the Daily Telegraph reports:

*** QUOTE ***

M Chirac was prime minister in 1988 when five French hostages held by Islamic Jihad in Lebanon were released. . . . M Chirac and his then interior minister, Charles Pasqua, always insisted that no ransom was paid to free the hostages. But last month the affair was revived after an anonymous memo from the French intelligence service, DST, was sent to an investigating magistrate.

The note was published for the first time yesterday by the newspaper Le Monde. It not only suggests that the interior ministry ordered the ransom to be paid, but alleges that officials kept a substantial slice of it for themselves.

The ransom deal--thought to be almost &pound;2 million--was allegedly brokered between a Lebanese businessman and an aide to M Pasqua at the French interior ministry.

*** END QUOTE ***

Our Friends the Saudis  http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020114/usnews/14saudi.htm

U.S. News & World Report has another damning article on Saudi perfidy and corruption. Noting Riyadh's reluctance to cooperate with America's investigation of the Sept. 11 atrocities--though 15 of the 19 perpetrators were Saudi--the magazine explains:

*** QUOTE ***

One reason, high-level intelligence sources tell U.S. News, is that at least two Saudi princes had been paying, on behalf of the kingdom, what amounts to protection money to Osama bin Laden since 1995. In November of that year, a bomb at the Saudi National Guard headquarters in Riyadh killed several American military advisers who worked closely with the force. One source, a former senior Clinton administration official, said that the two princes, whose names have not been disclosed, began making payments to bin Laden soon after the bombing. The official added that Washington did not learn of the payments until at least two years later. "There's no question they did buy protection from bin Laden," he says. "The deal was, they would turn a blind eye to what he was doing elsewhere. 'You don't conduct operations here, and we won't disrupt them elsewhere.' "

*** END QUOTE ***

The Saudis deny the charge. The magazine adds that "the Washington-Riyadh relationship is marred by another problem":

*** QUOTE ***

Over the past decade, the United States has sold Riyadh $33.5 billion in military hardware. That's more than Israel and Egypt combined have received. U.S. companies have also done billions of dollars in commercial business with the kingdom. According to well-placed Saudi sources and a review of several little-known lawsuits, Saudi agents and royalty often demand enormous commissions to accompany these deals. Ordinarily, the payment of such fees to secure contracts would constitute a violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But prosecutors say bribery is one of the toughest charges to prove.

*** END QUOTE ***

South Asian Alliances  http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jan2002-daily/08-01-2002/main/main2.htm

Foreign powers are taking sides in the continuing India-Pakistan dispute. Pakistan's News International reports Beijing is strengthening its longtime alliance with Islamabad:

*** QUOTE ***

In a historic, but, unannounced development, the Peoples Republic of China sharply reduced a marked imbalance between the Indian and Pakistan Air Force by sending five ships--in a space of only 10 days late last month--loaded with cargo ranging from cartons of unassembled brand new combat aircraft and a variety of air force-related weapons and equipment to the port in Karachi, senior Pakistani officials confirmed.

Separately the Chinese government made a speedy delivery of spares and related equipment for Pakistan's strategic assets through Korakram highway, a little before the snow created major obstacles on this crucial communication line between Pakistan and China before Christmas. Pakistan's extensive missile defence system has been raised with an active support of the Chinese government.

*** END QUOTE ***

India, meanwhile, is getting strong support from Israel. "The world is not divided between East and West," Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres  said Monday  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1729673309  after meeting with India's Home Minister L.K. Advani. "The world has a new division now, the countries that harbor terrorism and the countries that fight terrorism." Israel and India formed a joint antiterrorism commission in July 2000.

Paki Man Fever  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/08/international/asia/08INDI.html

Yesterday at the White House, President Bush discussed the Indian-Pakistani conflict: "I don't believe the situation is defused yet," he said, "but I do believe there is a way to do so, and we are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis there's a way to deal with their problems without going to war."

The New York Times (link requires registration) reports that "Mr. Bush raised some eyebrows by using the term "Pakis." It is considered an ethnic slur in Britain, which has a large Pakistani immigrant population."

Well, whose eyebrows exactly did Bush raise? The Times doesn't say. A clue, however, can be found in this Reuters dispatch:

*** QUOTE ***

Asad Hayauddin, spokesman at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said he did not consider what Bush said to be an insult.

"I would give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was said in passing. In all fairness, I would say it's not a racial slur," he said.

He did, however, receive a number of phone calls from reporters seeking the embassy's reaction.

*** END QUOTE ***

The whole "controversy," in other words, seems to have been an invention of the White House press corps.

At Least Dingell Didn't Have to Take Off His Scarf  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13332-2002Jan8.html

The Council on American Islamic Relations, which the Associated Press describes as "a civil rights organization," is "demanding Northwest Airlines apologize for allegedly forcing a Muslim high school student to remove her head scarf at an airport security checkpoint." CAIR makes the usual complaint of "racial profiling":

*** QUOTE ***

"For a Muslim woman to be forced to take off her headscarf in public is a violation of rights," wrote Hodan Hassan, a spokesman for the civil rights group. "These women believe covering their hair in public--essential to being modest--is a mandate from God."

*** END QUOTE ***

Once again, these guys are simply demanding special treatment for their coreligionists. If Muslims are so put-upon, how does CAIR explain what happened to Rep. John Dingell? The Washington Post's  Lloyd Grove  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11250-2002Jan7.html  reports that "after his artificial hip set off a metal detector Saturday afternoon, the 75-year-old Michigan Democrat was ordered to pull down his pants at Reagan National Airport as he tried to board Northwest Airlines Flight 1417 to Detroit." Dingell was taken to a side room and ordered to strip down to his boxer shorts.
Grove reports Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, a former congressman, called Dingell to apologize. Dingell recounted: "I said, 'Norm, I'm not asking for an apology. And I know we don't want any more events like September 11th. I don't want any special treatment. I don't want to be treated any better than anyone else, but I don't want to be treated any worse either.' "

If only CAIR had Dingell's attitude.

Speaking of Pants . . .  http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/page1/ledger/157de09.html

Here's the funniest headline we've seen all year: "Switch to Pants Proves Trying for Afghan Men."

Good Sense Watch  http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/JF02/blaming.html

Sixties leftist Todd Gitlin has an excellent piece--in Mother Jones, of all places--denouncing the blame-America-first left:

*** QUOTE ***

In the wake of September 11 there erupted something more primal and reflexive than criticism: a kind of left-wing fundamentalism, a negative faith in America the ugly.

In this cartoon view of the world, there is nothing worse than American power--not the woman-enslaving Taliban, not an unrepentant Al Qaeda committed to killing civilians as they please--and America is nothing but a self-seeking bully. It does not face genuine dilemmas. It never has legitimate reason to do what it does. When its rulers' views command popularity, this can only be because the entire population has been brainwashed, or rendered moronic, or shares in its leaders' monstrous values. . . .

Generals, it's said, are always planning to fight the last war. But they're not alone in suffering from sentimentality, blindness, and mental laziness disguised as resolve. The one-eyed left helps no one when it mires itself in its own mirror-image myths. Breaking habits is desperately hard, but those who evade the difficulties in their purist positions and refuse to face all the mess and danger of reality only guarantee their bitter inconsequence.

*** END QUOTE ***

Homelessness Rediscovery Watch

*** QUOTE ***

"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."-- Mark Helprin  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/mhelprin/?id=65000507 , Oct. 31, 2000

"Notice that [President Bush] didn't say 'over my dead body' will the homeless--many of them actually employed in low-paying jobs--sleep in the snows of Minneapolis because the 'faith-based' as well as government shelters are short on funds."-- Robert Scheer  http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-000001714jan08.column , Los Angeles Times, Jan. 8, 2002

*** END QUOTE ***

Cartoon Journalism  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64846-2002Jan4.html

In a column on comic strips, Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler may have revealed more than he meant to with this aside: "Many reporters and editors don't pay much attention to the comics, except perhaps 'Doonesbury,' the Garry Trudeau strip that parallels the news and the journalistic pursuit of it."

Right Said Paula  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ap/20020107/en/cnn_zahn_1.html

Over the weekend CNN aired a promotional ad for anchorwoman Paula Zahn. The ad's narrator asked: "Where can you find a morning news anchor who's provocative, super-smart [and] oh, yeah, just a little sexy?" Yesterday CNN executives yanked the ad. "It was a major blunder by our promotions department," said CNN chairman Walter Isaacson.
 
What's weird about this story is that the controversial part of the ad was the one claim that is indisputably accurate--that Zahn is "just a little sexy." The real outrage is that CNN would try to peddle her as "super-smart." This is, after all, the same Paula Zahn who, in her Fox News Channel days, managed to make a mockery of the Gary Condit story (!) by credulously presenting a  parade of "psychics."  http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95000866#fox

Bottoms Up  http://web.northscape.com/content/gfherald/2002/01/05/news/RB105COL.htm

Up at the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald, they're giving themselves a well-deserved pat on the back for winning the award for  bottom news story of 2001  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001644#bottom . Actually, we only nominated the Herald's  story  http://web.northscape.com/content/gfherald/2001/01/20/local/SF120HOSP.htm , on a two-year-old girl getting an appendectomy, as the story with the greatest world-wide insignificance. But since there were no other nominations, the Herald takes the prize. Herald columnist Ryan Bakken interviews the story's author, Steve Foss, now an assistant city editor at the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune:

*** QUOTE ***

Initially, he was defensive, especially when one of the Herald's reporters (not me) e-mailed his dubious award to his Duluth reporting staff. You know, the people who write stories Foss assigns.

"I'm so happy the Wall Street Journal keeps its eyes on something like this. It made my day," Foss said, sarcasm dripping.

Foss' second impulse was to plead guilty.

"I had heard an appendectomy for a 2-year-old was unheard of and that she'd die if she didn't get one," Foss said. "Well, it didn't turn out to be completely what I'd heard. But it was one of those days where we needed a story, so . . ."

*** END QUOTE ***

Bakken notes that the Herald won a Pulitzer Prize four years ago for its coverage of a catastrophic 1997 flood. He quotes Foss: "This isn't a bad example of what happens at a community newspaper. You write some paltry stories and you can win a Pulitzer as well. At a community newspaper, you go from paltry to Pulitzer and everywhere in between."

Well, lots of people have Pulitzers, but the bottom news story of the year--now that's something the Herald can really be proud of. It puts the paper in a class by itself.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to S.E. Brenner, Damian Bennett, Raghu Desikan, Rohan Ragnaraj, Robert LeChevalier, Nick Eckert, David Noromoyle, Doug Levene, Allan Toole, Milton Prell, C.E. Dobkin, Susan Chamberlin and Stephen Lee. If you have a tip, write us at  opinionjournal@wsj.com  mailto:opinionjournal@wsj.com , and please include the URL.)

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Also on OpinionJournal:
- Nancy de Wolf Smith  http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001698 : A report from liberated Kandahar (link requires registration).
- Tunku Varadarajan  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=95001699 : Good riddance to the New York Times' "A Nation Challenged."
- Tom Bray  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/tbray/?id=95001697 : Bush is against tax hikes. But what's he for?
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