"When asked about the Iraqi guard suspected of filming and releasing the contentious images, Faroon said, "Maybe a guard also filmed it secretly, but I did not see that." He said he was misquoted by The New York Times, which reported Faroon identified al-Rubaie as one of the two Iraqi officials he witnessed filming the hanging. The paper, which removed the story from its Web site, said it will print a correction in Thursday's paper. Al-Rubaie attributed the error to a mistranslation from Arabic to English."

An obituary of Nahida Fadli Ad-Dajani (for you Lama)

Flash. Ahmad Fatfat (of the Fatfatism fame) promises that he will continue to support Ping Pong sports in Lebanon.

Husam `Itani: an excellent response to Jumblat's recent fulminations.

My post on Saddam's execution translated into French: "Pas de larmes pour Saddam."

Hizbullah issued a statement about the visit by its delegation to Saudi Arabia. According to the statement, the King of Saudi Arabia "expressed his interest" in Lebanon. Yeah. What interest. What is next? Hizbullah is going to praise the king for his services to the Palestinian cause?

Is this not Orwellian? Is this not Orwellian????? "NATO said yesterday that it killed too many Afghan civilians during fighting last year against resurgent Taliban militants, but that the Western alliance was working to change that in 2007."

"He became active in the conservative wing of the Democratic Party and was one of the first intellectuals to be called a neoconservative." (But people who studied with him at Stanford told me that he was quite critical of Israel...in private).

"A soldier from the 101st Airborne Division is scheduled to plead guilty next Tuesday to a reduced charge for mercy killing in connection with the death of three unarmed Iraqi men shot by American infantrymen last spring, according to lawyers for other defendants in the case." Mercy killing? Was Saddam's gasing of the Kurds also mercy killing? Did Charlie Manson's victims die in mercy killing?

In US media, Israeli fish get more and better coverage than Arab humans.

From NYT: "Yet the Bush administration again finds that it has little credibility to lecture anyone on the basic dignity due to detainees. The Washington Post reported yesterday on an internal F.B.I. investigation that revealed a pattern of deliberate taunting of the religious beliefs of Muslim prisoners at Guantánamo." They fail to point out that the NYT (and not only Judith Miller and John Burns) supported Bush's abuses and wars every step of the way. But like Thomas Friedman, they now act as if they did nothing to help provide justifications and rationalizations for Bush's wars.

"Tens of thousands of conversations were recorded. Some 230 phone calls form the core of the government’s case, including 21 that make reference to Mr. Padilla, prosecutors said. But Mr. Padilla’s voice is heard on only seven calls. And on those seven, which The Times obtained from a participant in the case, Mr. Padilla does not discuss violent plots."

"«Dans une société où le contrôle policier est tel qu'il faudra bientôt une paille pour respirer, la persécution des islamistes depuis vingt ans et la campagne actuelle contre le hidjab (voile) ont généré une véritable haine»" (thanks Marie)

" The file also offers insight into the hallucinations and other symptoms of withdrawal that Rehnquist suffered when he was taken off a prescription painkiller in 1981. A doctor was cited as saying that Rehnquist, an associate justice of the Supreme Court at the time, tried to escape the hospital in his pajamas and imagined that the CIA was plotting against him."

"But other neocons have moved back into the mainstream of steering Iraq policy. A key part of the new Iraq plan that President Bush is expected to announce next week -- a surge in U.S. troops coupled with a more focused counterinsurgency effort -- has been one of the chief recommendations of these neocons since the fall of Saddam Hussein."

"In a highly unusual move, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California has rescinded an award to an Islamic activist in her home state because of the man’s connections to a major American Muslim organization that recently has been courted by leading political figures and even the FBI." (To my international readers: Sen. Boxer is considered THE most liberal Senator in the US). But look at how the lousy pro-Saudi organization defends itself: "Ayloush and other CAIR officials have asked how Boxer’s concerns about possible terror links can possibly be true when two senior FBI officials are openly attending its fundraisers and seeking the group’s help in reaching out to the Muslim-American community*. Awad, the group’s executive director in Washington, said that CAIR also has conducted “sensitivity training” courses for FBI and Homeland Security agents as well as local police officers around the country."
*See the item about "reaching out" below.

Notice that Ajami and Friedman use the same expressions: "He also mastered, by all appearances, the rules of his neighbourhood." What rules of neighborhood? Like the Arab neighborhood is different from say the European neighborhood? And has any neighborhood produced more wars and killings than the "advanced" European neighborhood? Also, he says: " The Arabs needed swagger." What does that mean? Bush was praised for his swagger in his first campaign but American voted for Bush; Arabs never voted for Saddam. And " Grant the man from Tikrit his due; he had a keen sense for the mood of the crowd and of “the street”." Oh, no. I would not even grant the man that. Saddam never inspired mass support, and was never a mass idol. As one Palestinian once explained to the Washington Post: we support Saddam because he chants for Palestine. And if the monkey chants for Palestine, he will get our support. And Saddam, unlike Nasser, spent millions to cultivate his image in the Arab world and to buy off journalists. He would not have to do that if he had the "street" support. This native informant also says: "But the Shi’ites were strangers to the Arab courts and to the intellectual class alike." What is that about? Shi`ites were strangers to the Arab courts as were other Arabs. And the intellectual class, during the secular days, included Shi`ites before the rise of the fundamentalist movement supported by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sadat's Egypt, Israel, etc. And the intellectual class in Iraq itself included many Shi`ites. And notice that he spares no effort to recycle the dreaded superficial cliches of Western generalizations about Arabs: " Assad’s caution may have been the temper of the man. Conceivably, it was also the caution of his community of Alawites, an esoteric faith of the insular Syrian mountains." Is it not amazing that people still take this man seriously when he offered the administration (read Cheney's famous speech in which Ajami was quoted back in August 2002--available in the archives of this site) the assurances that Arabs--not only Iraqis--would welcome an occupation of Iraq?

"Lastly, al-`Arabiya reported on its website that a “Kuwaiti Businessman” had offered to pay “any sum necessary” to acquire the rope with which Saddam was hanged. According to al-`Arabiya, the businessman was told that the rope is currently in the possession of Muqtada al-Sadr."

"FBI agents witnessed possible mistreatment of the Koran at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including at least one instance in which an interrogator squatted over Islam's holy text in an apparent attempt to offend a captive, according to bureau documents released yesterday."

"How Bush and Blair's choices have led to disaster in Iraq, culminating in a chaotic execution that is fuelling civil war"

"Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer thinks that Israeli banks are too kind to the rich and too hard on ordinary families."

"During the cold war the Olsens were targeted by a congressional committee investigating subversive (ie communist) activity. Jack was barred from union work and Tillie, tracked by the FBI, moved from job to job."

It is illegal to understand Palestinians in Israel: "An Israeli woman whose attempts to better understand Palestinians led to a campaign of vilification and charges of treason was released yesterday after serving more than two years in jail."

White Man Worries Watch. White Man is worried. White Man is worried about white farmers in Zimbabwe.

ABC of US Policy in Somalia:
"QUESTION: I was confused about what the U.S. position was looking back about Ethiopia going in, because when we had a briefing with Assistant Secretary Frazer I got the sense that she was not supportive of the Ethiopians going in, it's time for diplomacy and all that, and yet the guidance from the State Department subsequently seemed to endorse it.
MR. MCCORMACK: Here's the situation. It was a complicated situation in which you had a number of different external forces in Somalia -- and I'm not talking about the Ethiopians here -- who were funding and supporting the Islamic Courts for their own purposes, either through arms or through money, infusions of money, or allowing personnel -- people from outside Somalia -- to flow into Somalia in support of the Islamic Courts. We supported a negotiated solution between the Transitional Federal Institutions and the Islamic Courts. The Transitional Federal Institutions are the ones internationally recognized. It is -- it has been up until this point a relatively weak set of institutions that has not been able to extend its control over all of Somalia, but we supported nonetheless negotiations and political dialogue between the Courts and those Transitional Federal Institutions. Over time, the Islamic Courts demonstrated behavior that was inconsistent with those -- with that policy of trying to see those sorts of negotiations. We tried to get together the parties in Khartoum but the Islamic Courts walked out because they felt -- it appeared that they believed that they could gain an upper hand through use of force, through taking over territory, basically backing the Transitional Federal Institutions into a smaller and smaller corner. So the Ethiopian government initially made some moves, moved their forces into position to try to support politically the Transitional Federal Institutions and to make it clear that the Islamic Courts could not win through the force of arms what they couldn't win via the negotiating table."

Tunisia is a tightly controlled police state--I mean a "moderate and friendly" police state, to use the lexicon of US foreign policy. But what is happening there with the clashes between police and armed men? There is not much about what really happened over the last two days. If any of my readers in Tunisia or elsewhere has information, please share.

Angry Quiz. Why did the Jordanian government send a state minister to attend a rally for Saddam Husayn this week?

Here I am complaining about those in the Arab world who are expressing sympathy with Saddam, and I then I see this: "[US military spokesperson] Caldwell said Saddam remained "dignified" up until being handed over to the Iraqi guards." Saddam dignified?

Qat-addicts-for-Bush. I am glad to announce to those who enjoy the Qat that it is back in the streets of Mogadishu after the Ethiopian invasion. Enjoy. You have to give him that: I mean, between Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Somalia, the Bush Doctrine has been really good for drugs and its cultivation and production.

"U.S. forces had no role in Saddam Hussein's hanging, but would have handled it differently, a U.S. general said on Wednesday as Iraqi authorities questioned a guard over a video of officials taunting Saddam on the gallows." Oh, yeah. With the same skill, competence, sensitivity, imagination, that the war and occupation have been handled. Oh, yeah. But I could not stop thinking today about that line on the front page of the New York Times today about the US government not interfering in Maliki's deicion to execute Saddam out of "respect for the sovereignty" of Iraq. US fighters jets three years after the fall of Baghdad continue to bomb towns, cities, and villages in Iraq but the US continues to "respect the sovereignty" of Iraq. I find that plausible, don't you?

Walid Jumblat says that Hafidh Al-Asad was a "civilized criminal" who "respected his own word before Arab and international opinion." That makes you wonder. Was Walid Jumblat a civilized or uncivilized war criminal? I wonder.

Today in Beirut, soldiers of the Lebanese Army clashed with people from the Internal Security Forces (a Hariri militia in Lebanon). Only Al-Akhbar newspaper printed the news (from what I have seen so far).

(Mis)Fortune Telling in Lebanon. I have written before about a Lebanese fortunate teller (and a well-known charlatan) by the name of Michel Hayik. And on Michel Hayik, all Lebanese seem to agree. They avidly follow his "predictions" on Lebanese TV stations. And if you really want to bore me please tell me about his "predictions". His appearance on LBC-TV on New Year's Eve caused a big stir. His claim to fame was that he had "predicted" prior to Hariri's assassination that something may happen in the Solidaire area. Well, Hariri was not assassinated there, but for his fans it was sufficient. So now people say that he predicted Hariri's assassination. He names 30 or more politicians in Lebanon as being in danger, and when one gets killed people take that as a sign of his powers. So he predicted a few days ago that something may happen at the Lebanese House of Justice, so the Lebanese government added security measures in the area--I kid you not--based on that guy's "predictions"? Have you seen that episode of the Twighlight Zone about the napkins' dispenser which also tells fortune? Well, Hayik does not even dispense napkins. But Walid Jumblat added a new twist: he accused the fortune tellers in Lebanon of being part of the Syrian-Iranian conspiracy that he is facing. I kid you not.

"After Israeli forces occupied East Jerusalem in June 1967, Kollek reached out to Arab residents in an effort to bridge religious and cultural divides that persist in this city of 700,000 residents." Oh, yeah. He sure reached out to Arabs, especially when he ordered the destruction of the Arab Maghribi quarter (to expand the prayer area for Jewish worshippers), and the eviction of its residents, and when he institutionalized the discriminatory and segregationist policies of the municipality. But he did reach out to Arabs, just as the apartheid regime of South Africa reached out to blacks.

Why does he not get a copy of the Qur'an signed by Ann Coulter too? "The first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, attacked for planning to use the Koran at his swearing-in instead of a Bible, will use a copy of the Muslim holy book once owned by Thomas Jefferson, an official said on Wednesday."

Ian Williams is my favorite writer on the UN...until yesterday. I watched him defend Annan on AlJazeera and I was not pleased.

I should write something on the passing of W. M. Watt. It may not be politically correct to say this but I have learned a great deal from many classical Orientalists, and he was one of them. I always liked how he writes, and how he utilized his knowledge and language skills: and he tried to write with sensitivity although I have always felt that his early work on Muhammad's life was rather apologetic. He wanted to deflect Western biases but he went too far sometimes as he tried to explain Muhammad's marriages, for example, accepting the apologetic Muslim view that they were all based on political considerations (which of course is not true; Muhammad's marriage to Zaynab Bint Al-Jahsh was not motivated by "political considerations" for example). I always favored Rodinson's biography of Muhammad to Watt's. But something happened to Watt at the end of his career. When you read his later work, especially Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity, he sounds very uncharacteristically angry at Muslims. I was shocked when I read that book because it did not read like the Watt that I have been reading over the years. You felt that he was fed up with Muslims, or that he was finally coming out with his real views. I don't know personally which one is the real Watt. But I for sure have learned from his scholarship, including his first book ever on free will and predestination in Islam (1948). I still recommend that book to my students. I never met Watt, but feel that I knew him.

"The point about Saddam Hussein's flawed trial is developed by Angry Arab. He dismisses Iraq's current legal and political processes as fatally compromised by the presence of "the American occupiers". And Saddam's trial "was in fact as cartoonish and as politically managed as trials in neighboring Arab countries"."

Thomas Friedman on listening to Jingle Bells while watching a Disney movie during the holidays: "I have to admit I got a lump in my throat watching that scene and listening to that stirring melody."

Who else but NYT's John Burns and administration officials would write such propaganda language: "But when Mr. Maliki decided to go ahead with the hanging, the Americans said they made no further attempts to stop it, having concluded that they could advise the Iraqis against the execution, but not prevent it if the Iraqis persisted, out of respect for Iraqi sovereignty."

"Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Egyptian-born law professor and Islamic scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, tries to live the moderation he teaches: adopting stray dogs, for example, although many Muslims believe that Scripture condemns dogs as unclean." So that can make a Muslim a good Muslim, in Western eyes? Well, Hitler was kind to animals. And I adopt stray alligators but you don't see me bragging, do you? (thanks John)

""As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors," declares Israeli Brigadier General Oded Tira. "We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure." (thanks Uffe)

"Arab Media: Shia-Sunni Tensions Rise" (by dear friend, Amer)

I like this headline from the Iraqi newspaper, Az-Zaman: "As-Sanyurah challenges the Opposition by imposing new taxes."

It is clear who shot the cellphone video of Saddam's execution. There were only two "officials" with cellphones in that room. Muwaffaq Ar-Rubay`i and Sami Al-`Askari. And both of them shot the footage on their cellphones having smuggled the cellphones in.