Skip introduction & navigation

Web Design | Views & Rants | Reviews | Contact | Links | About

I finally bit the bullet and started the weblog. I can’t guarantee it will be updated every day, but I will update it as frequently as possible.

Saturday 6th October 2001

Afghan anti-aircraft guns fired on a high-flying aeroplane today.

One of the hijackers on the aeroplane which targeted the Pentagon seems to have been involved in the earlier attack on the USS Cole, and possibly also in the attacks on US embassies in Africa. Also, more information from Europe to link another hijacker with bin Laden.

Although the Florida man who has died of anthrax was a case unconnected with terrorism, it is clearly a matter of concern that the laboratory which should be producing anthrax vaccine for the USA has not managed to produce a single dose.

Tony Blair bestrides this narrow world like a colossus — and is making enemies in the Labour Party.

I noted before that criticising the Shrub can get a journalist fired in the USA now; more surprising is that a columnist can get dropped by the National Review for being too gung-ho.

I may have mentioned that I think the guff about New York’s skyline is irritating and irrelevant. This is what someone who is there, who is bereft, says:

I heard people talking about the skyline. How they miss the skyline. To tell you the truth, I could give a shit about the skyline. I thought those buildings were obnoxious to start with and frankly, it freaked me out when I would ride the elevator up to Windows.

I need to know that my guys died right away. I need to know that they weren’t trapped and scared or in pain. I want proof that they died in that incinerator that is still smoking, even today.

Rumour Central: there’s been some mention here already of some of the rumours which circulated on the Net since September 11th, including piles of shite from the Nostradamus factories and crap about fonts. On of the most obnoxious rumours, though, was that 4,000 Jews had not turned up for work at the WTC on September 11th — so, obviously, Israel was behind the attack. (Actually, just pause for a moment and reflect on the bizarre worldview which can encompass an Israeli plot executed by Saudi nationals...)

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here because it was both so widespread (even showing up in Pravda) and so obviously complete bollocks, but there’s an interesting article in Slate which follows the course of the rumour, concluding:

With the Web as a weapon, a lie spreads quickly and easily. With the Web as a corrective tool, the same lie becomes much easier to bat away.

OK. We’ve seen the rap band who had a record cover showing the the WTC blowing up; the comic book which showed an attack on New York; now we have the FBI investigating a schoolkid who supposedly said on September 10th that World War III would start the next day in the United States and the United States would lose. Well, it isn’t completely stupid for the FBI to investigate, as the boy could conceivably have overheard something. But would you want a teacher like that anywhere near your children?

It’s been often said lately that the suicidal terrorists are not typical of Islam, which is a peace-loving and tolerant religion. Here is an eloquent statement of this by Yusuf Islam:

I came to Islam in my late 20s, during my searching period as a wandering pop star. I found a religion that blended scientific reason with spiritual reality in a unifying faith far removed from the headlines of violence, destruction and terrorism. One of the first interesting things I learned in the Koran was that the name of the faith comes from the word salam — peace. Far from the kind of Turko-Arab-centric message I expected, the Koran presented a belief in the universal existence of God, one God for all. It does not discriminate against peoples; it says we may be different colors and from different tribes, but we are all human and “the best of people are the most God-conscious”.

Today, as a Muslim, I have been shattered by the horror of recent events; the display of death and indiscriminate killing we’ve all witnessed has dented humanity’s confidence in itself. Terror on this scale affects everybody on this small planet, and no one is free from the fallout. Yet we should remember that such violence is almost an everyday occurrence in some Muslim lands: it should not be exacerbated by revenge attacks on more innocent families and communities.

Along with most Muslims, I feel it a duty to make clear that such orchestrated acts of incomprehensible carnage have nothing to do with the beliefs of most Muslims. The Koran specifically declares: “If anyone murders an (innocent) person, it will be as if he has murdered the whole of humanity. And if anyone saves a person it will be as if he has saved the whole of humanity.”

I’m not at all sure that I have ever knowingly agreed with Mark Steyn before, but there are some very sharp points in his article in the current Spectator — even though he is firing at some of his usual targets, that doesn’t mean his comments aren’t perceptive:

If there’s one thing that’s clear since 11 September, it’s that the familiar identity-group labels aren’t the ones that really define us. What matters about Mark Bingham, one of the brave men who overpowered the hijackers of Flight 93 and thus saved potentially thousands of lives, is not that he was gay or even that he was a Republican but that he was a great American hero. What matters about the Revd Jerry Falwell, who declared that the mass slaughter was God’s judgment on gays, feminists et al, is not that he’s a social conservative (as I am) but that he’s a heartless jerk.

That said, a large swath of the Left has settled into an endless dopey roundelay, a vast Schnitzlerian carousel where every abstract noun is carrying on like Anthony Quinn on Viagra. Instability breeds resentment, resentment breeds inertia, inertia breeds generalities, generalities breed clichés, clichés breed lame metaphors, until we reach the pitiful state of the peacenik opinion columns where, to modify the old evening news motto, if it breeds it leads. If I were to say ‘Mr Scroggins breeds racing pigeons’, it would be reasonable to assume that I’d been round to the Scroggins house or at least made a phone call. But the ‘injustice breeds anger’ routine requires no such mooring to humdrum reality, though it’s generally offered as a uniquely shrewd insight, reflecting a vastly superior understanding of the complexities of the situation than we nuke-crazy warmongers have. ‘What you have to look at is the underlying reasons,’ a Dartmouth College student said to me the other day. ‘Poverty breeds resentment and resentment breeds anger.’

’Really?’ I said. ‘And what’s the capital of Saudi Arabia?’

…As Salman Rushdie wrote of 11 September, ‘To excuse such an atrocity by blaming US government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individuals are responsible for their actions.’ And the fact that only one side is denied this essential dignity of humanity tells you a lot about what the peace crowd really think of them.

…And so faced with the enormity of 11 September the pacifist Left has done what it always does — smother the issues in generalities and abstractions — though never on such an epic scale. On that sunny Tuesday morning, at least 7,000 people died — real, living men and women and children with families and street addresses and telephone numbers. But the language of the pacifists — for all its ostensible compassion — dehumanises these individuals.

…The President gets teary in the Oval Office, the Queen chokes up at St Paul’s, David Letterman and Dan Rather sob on CBS, New Yorkers weep openly for their slain firemen, but the dead-eyed zombies of the peace movement who claim to love everyone parade through the streets unmoved, a breed apart.

What a pity they don’t make Ealing comedies any more. The absconding court jester and the missing $26 million would seem a story crying out for such a treatment.

As, for that matter, may the England v. Greece story. Everyone (in England anyway) seemed to be predicting an England walkover. How pleasing that as I write the score is 2-1 — in Greece’s favour. Oh, happy day! (OK, I won’t be surprised if they equalise — but that is still nothing like the 3-0 scoreline people were talking about yesterday.)

I meant to post this a few days ago, but it’s still worth looking at. Here’s a question: if you held a conference on [any subject of your choice] and the environment, would you not expect there to be quite a lot of environmentalists at the conference, and quite a lot of environmentalists speaking? Apparently not if you’re a Sacramento church organising a conference on spirituality and the environment. Watch out for the next attempt, to be called “The Joy of Raping the Planet & the Environment….”

The balkanisation of the Web? That’s one view of what might happen if the W3C’s proposals on Web patents come to pass. There is already a call for Web developers to cooperate to fight the proposals. The core of what is causing the row is that the W3C is apparently willing to have patented — and thus requiring royalty payment — technologies be adopted as Web standards. They are proposing a licensing scheme called, confusingly, RAND. Here’s an accessible description of it:

As proposed the way it would work is that the W3C would change its Recommendation (e.g. standards-adoption) process, inserting a stage at which W3C members would be “required” to disclose any patents related to the technology for which a Recommendation is being sought. The same companies would also have to disclose their licensing scheme for the patented technology. This scheme would have to apply equally in cost and implementation to all applicants, and agreement terms beyond the payment of fees would be limited.

Sound bland enough? Here’s the rub:

However, many of the Web’s most experienced participants have little faith in the willingness of some W3C Members (Microsoft Corporation comes immediately to the minds of most) to abide by both the letter and spirit of any licensing scheme permitted by the W3C. There are numerous other objections to the idea, such as the fact that inclusion of a patent process would close standards when all Web standards to this point have been entirely open.

Or, more strongly:

Aside from these substantive changes in policy, the W3C should also stop using the term “reasonable and non-discriminatory”, because that term white-washes a class of licenses that are normally neither reasonable nor non-discriminatory. It is true that they do not discriminate against any specific person, but they do discriminate against the free software community, and that makes them unreasonable.

I suggest the term “uniform fee only”, or UFO for short, as a replacement for “reasonable and non-discriminatory”.

Zeldman, as always, says what he thinks:

W3C, pull your heads out of your labs. The entire world is on tenterhooks, praying for peace and security while preparing for global devastation. This is hardly the time to expect web users and developers to contribute intelligently to the discussion of vaguely-worded documents with potentially far-reaching consequences. By all standards of decency, W3C should have put RAND on the shelf.

Disappointed with the speed of uptake of Linux? Linus Torvalds isn’t.

Thinking of another operating system entirely: read this, and then tell me you’d even consider using Windows XP. Pay particular attention to this paragraph:

Every Windows XP PC must go through a process called “activation,” either at the factory or by the user, that allows Microsoft to gather and store a profile of each computer, and block each copy of XP from being used on a second computer. An activated copy of XP tracks which PC it is on, and can shut down if your hardware configuration changes too much.

I noted the appearance of the Nimda “Internet worm” on September 19th, but Dan Gillmor is (quite justifiably I think) getting fed up with these things being described as Internet worms: This is not an “Internet worm… — and the headline writers and reporters covering the story need to get it straight. This is a Microsoft worm, and it once again gets spread through the opening of Outlook e-mail attachments.

The downsides of alcohol.

Friday 5th October 2001

And pigs might fly: the Taleban say that if the USA gives them hard evidence, they’ll put bin Laden on trial.

A thousand US troops are being deployed in Uzbekistan. But Islam Karimov is not prepared to allow US special forces to be based in Uzbekistan, and is only allowing the troops in for humanitarian reasons.

The UK government has published information demonstrating bin Laden’s responsibility for the slaughter in America. The document notes that the USA had already given warning to the Taleban:

15. The United States government had made it clear to the Taleban regime that Al Qaida had murdered US citizens, and planned to murder more. The US offered to work with the Taleban to expel the terrorists from Afghanistan. These talks, which have been continuing since 1996, have failed to produce any results.

16. In June 2001, in the face of mounting evidence of the Al Qaida threat, the United States warned the Taleban that it had the right to defend itself and that it would hold the régime responsible for attacks against US citizens by terrorists sheltered in Afghanistan.…

18. Despite the evidence provided by the US of the responsibility of Usama Bin Laden and Al Qaida for the 1998 East Africa bombings, despite the accurately perceived threats of further atrocities, and despite the demands of the United Nations, the Taleban régime responded by saying no evidence existed against Usama Bin Laden, and that neither he nor his network would be expelled.

19. A former Government official in Afghanistan has described the Taleban and Usama Bin Laden as “two sides of the same coin: Usama cannot exist in Afghanistan without the Taleban and the Taleban cannot exist without Usama.”

See also Tony Blair’s statement to Parliament yesterday.

Pakistan has accepted that there is a strong case against bin Laden. Some say, though, that the UK’s document raises as many questions as it answers.

A man in Florida has pulmonary anthrax. Not terrorism, it’s said — I believe that, if it was terrorism I’d expect more than one case.

Bush’s proposed anti-terrorism law is coming under fire from right and left. On the other hand, at least one “secrecy watchdog” is censoring itself, at least temporarily.

Mock terrorists tested US nuclear security. They didn’t find any.

People being nicer to each other in America! Yes, it’s news.

Why did a Russian aeroplane explode over the Black Sea? Terrorism? Mechanical failure? (But it wasn’t an Aeroflot plane…) U.S. officials suggested, however, that the airliner was shot down by an errant surface-to-air missile fired by Ukrainian forces during military exercises taking place more than 200 miles away. 200 miles? According to other accounts, only 250 kilometres separated the exercise area from the crash site. Vladimir Putin has accepted Ukrainian assurances that the exercises were unconnected with the crash:

“The weapons that were being used during this exercise could not reach the area where our Tu-154 was flying,” Putin said. “What I told you as of this moment is based on what our Ukrainian partners have told us and we don’t have any reason not to trust them.”

Putin said Russian naval officers were observing the Ukrainian exercises and “we have no reason to disbelieve either them or the Ukrainian military.”

What puzzles me is the USA’s eagerness to have it not be a terrorist act:

Washington quickly attempted to quash speculation of a new terrorist attack. Unnamed US officials claimed that the aircraft was brought down by a long-range air defence missile fired during exercises by Ukrainian armed forces.

“We want to get away from this notion that it was a terrorism act,” one official said. “It could well have been a training accident, it could have been the Ukrainian military conducting a live-fire test. It could be a tragic accident.”

Surely it can’t be that the US don’t want their righteous anger diluted by Russian fury at an attack on one of their jets? Is an act of terrorists a strike against the whole civilised world — but only if it happens in America?

There are reports of holes which look like bullet holes in fragments of the jet which have been recovered. A criminal inquiry is under way. The Russians have asked for American and Israeli help to retrieve the black box.

What was the cause of the explosion in a chemical factory in Toulouse on September 21st? Le Figaro points the finger at Islamic terrorism:

Hassan Jandoubi était lié à la mouvance, dite « afghane » de l’activisme musulman à Toulouse. Le corps de cet employé, vétu de plusieurs épaisseurs de sous-vêtements, avait été retrouvé dans les décombres de l’usine AZF. Désormais, aucune hypothèse n’est écartée, y compris l’origine terroriste.…

Le médecin légiste signalait même aux policiers un fait surprenant que nous avons déjà évoqué: le cadavre de Jandoubi était vêtu de deux pantalons et quatre sous-vêtements (deux slips et deux caleçons), une tenue qui pourrait évoquer le rituel des « martyrs » islamistes à qui leurs commanditaires promettent « 70 vierges pour l’éternité ». Né à Toulouse, il y a 35 ans, Jandoubi était originaire du quartier de Bagatelle, qui jouxte le Mirail, au sud de Toulouse. Connu des services de police toulousains, il était notamment soupçonné d’avoir participé pendant plusieurs années à un trafic de voitures de luxe entre l’Allemagne et le sud de la France. D’après sa compagne, Jandoubi n’était pas un religieux pratiquant, n’observant même pas le ramadan.

[English]

Sur l’autre main, as it were, Le Monde reports:

Un rapport d’étape des deux experts désignés par les juges d’instruction Didier Suc et Joachim Fernandez, chargés de l’enquête sur l’explosion à l’usine AZF de Toulouse … qui a provoqué la mort de vingt-neuf personnes le 21 septembre, conclut à la thèse de l’accident.… Ce document a été remis, jeudi 4 octobre, aux juges; il confirme les conclusions du premier rapport, qui avait été adressé par la police judiciaire au procureur de la République Michel Bréard, le 28 septembre, et avait provoqué l’ouverture de l’information judiciaire pour “homicides et blessures involontaires”.

Selon les experts, l’explosion a eu lieu au centre de la masse des 300 tonnes de nitrate d’ammonium entreposées depuis plusieurs années dans l’usine chimique, rendant ainsi peu plausible l’hypothèse de l’attentat. Selon une source judiciaire, d’autres éléments d’enquête confortent la thèse de l’accident. Ainsi, un témoin aurait été présent sur les lieux de l’explosion, trois minutes avant la déflagration, et n’aurait rien remarqué de suspect. Les enquêteurs observent par ailleurs que le nitrate d’ammonium en décomposition peut devenir une substance explosive puissante.

[English]

As for the reports elsewhere linking one of the bodies to certains kamikazes islamistes:

Selon nos informations, ni la police judiciaire ni les juges d’instruction n’ont … accordé de crédit à cette hypothèse.

[English]

Several layers of underwear does seem a tenuous hook on which to hang a suspicion of Jandoubi’s being an Islamic terrorist. But Le Parisien insists:

Alors que le procureur a évoqué « à 99% » la piste accidentelle, on découvre aujourd’hui que les renseignements généraux de Toulouse creusent de leur coté une piste islamiste. Les RG, « en marge de l’enquête officielle conduite par le SRPJ », ont en effet transmis mardi soir à la haute hiérarchie policière un rapport de cinq pages dans lequel ils recensent des éléments « troublant » concernant le « profil » d’un des manutentionnaire décédé dans l’usine. Dans ce rapport, les RG, pour la première fois depuis l’accident, demandent que ces éléments soient « officiellement » transmis au « service enquêteur ».…

[English]

The terrorists may have used coded communication via the Internet to plan the attacks. It isn’t explicitly pointed out in the article, but all the talk of banning encryption and monitoring Net traffic is completely irrelevant when this type of approach — which I’d have thought was the most obvious approach for a clever terrorist — is used.

How stupid is Sharon anyway? Yep, compare the US’s treatment of Israel with the British treatment of Czechoslovakia in 1938 — that’s a really good way to ensure the USA keeps looking on Israel with favour, isn’t it? At least the British prime minster who’s been a complete fuckwit this week is no longer in power.

India is getting fed up with being lumped in with Pakistan all the time:

Specifically, [Indian sources] pointed to legislation relating to waiver of the so-called democracy sanctions, and said it was “gratuitous” to mention India in the context since it has been and continues to be a democracy.

“Besides, we are supporting the war on terrorism not out of any sense of expectation or reward,” one Indian source said in a needling reference to Pakistan’s reasons, which is thought to be made under duress and for a financial bail-out. “We don’t need sops. We are in it for the long haul and because we have been hurting from nearly two decades of terrorism,” the source added.

A galaxy has been detected by gravitational lensing; the galaxy is only 500 light years across and 13.4 billion light years from Earth. It may be one of the “building blocks” of modern galaxies.

Record labels — they never learn.

At last! Convincing proof that the moon landings were faked. These pictures can leave no doubt….

Tuesday 2nd October 2001

Al Gore has resurfaced, making a speech calling on all Americans to give Bush their unwavering support. From the other end of the political spectrum, a call to the President to extend the war to deal with Iraq, and maybe also Iran and Syria and give full backing to Israel against the Palestinians. Oh, and a huge increase in the defence budget would be good, too.

Salon.com looks at the conflicting forces at work in America as it tries to come to terms with what happened last month. Only strong, open debate can forge an effective response to terrorism:

The country is undergoing a cram course in geopolitics, comparative religion and military strategy that is long overdue — as well as a deeper soul-searching that is inevitable after this type of trauma. All of this brings with it a certain amount of intellectual and political friction, which is necessary and good for the country.… What we need more than anything right now is careful deliberation and spirited debate. We need, in short, for our democracy to come fully alive.

Unfortunately, the calls for herd-like conformity are on the rise. In the last week, self-appointed sheep dogs from across the political spectrum have begun yapping at our heels, pushing us to all think alike and move in the same direction.

The Pentagon, for the first time since the Cold War, is working out how to reorganise the US military to defend mainland America.

Writing in Slate magazine, William Saletan notes some odd conjunctions in the new state of things, and wonders what the long term implications of the war on terrorism will be:

President Bush says we’re fighting for democracy, pluralism, and civil liberties. Terrorists “hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government,” he declared in his speech to Congress last week. “They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.” Bush concluded, “This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.”

It sounds good, but it doesn’t add up. A coalition of governments that believe in all these principles can’t include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Jordan. According to the U.S. State Department’s latest Human Rights Report, all three countries restrict freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, and movement. Jordan is a monarchy propped up by security forces that have committed “extrajudicial killings.” The Saudi royal family “prohibits the establishment of political parties” and enforces “a rigorously conservative form of Islam” through “religious police.” Egyptians “do not have a meaningful ability to change their Government.” Egyptian security forces “arbitrarily arrest” and “torture” people in the name of “combating terrorism.”

Another Slate contributor echoes his concerns in an article called The New New World Order:

Just like the Cold War, the War on Terrorism puts us in bed with some extremely unpleasant regimes, whose unpleasantness will throw our claim to be fighting for “progress and pluralism” into doubt.

What worries me about the New New World Order is something different: how cleanly and easily it explains the world and how like an academic article everything suddenly appears to be. Like the Cold War, the War on Terrorism will tell us everything about Abroad that we need to know: Who are our friends, who are our enemies, where our priorities lie. Like the Cold War, the War on Terrorism seems to appease both the idealism of Americans … and the realism.…

Yet as Saletan wrote, even the War on Terrorism is going to get morally complicated further down the road, just as the Cold War did.… What happens if we really do unseat the Taliban? I’m afraid we might be forced to engage in some nation building in Afghanistan, too. What if we destabilize Saddam? We’ll have to think about how to replace him, to ensure that we aren’t suddenly confronted with someone worse.

It doesn’t end there. Who exactly are the enemy?

George Bush spoke of a war against “terrorism with a global reach.” I assume that means “terrorism that can reach the territory of the United States.” We are not, presumably, at war with the IRA, the Basque separatists, the Tamil Tigers, or Hamas. Not for the moment. But what if it turns out … that the terrorists we are fighting have made common cause with some of the terrorists we are not fighting?

The New Statesman can be an interesting read — although the web site is a bit crappy — but this week’s issue contains one of the most egregious pieces of sexist claptrap I’ve seen in a while:

While Tony Blair strides about blazing moral certainty in his recruitment drive for endless war, we are being asked to accept that something immensely complex can be reduced to something incredibly simple.

This troubles many women of all political persuasions. We can discuss at length whether women are more naturally peace-loving because they give birth; or whether it is the single-minded mentality required to wage a war, which calls for a huge suspension of disbelief, that is alien to many women; or, finally, whether women just can’t get excited about the media narratives, with their Boys’ Own tales of SAS superiority and countless spies.

She doesn’t stop there:

If women on the whole are more wary of the consequences of war, perhaps it comes down to simply this: we are used to doing more than one thing at a time and used to thinking more than one thing at time. The choice that we are being asked to make here is a very limited one — war or no war.

This is offensive tripe, and it doesn’t even have the redeeming feature of being right. All the gung-ho people I’ve heard (television excluded) are women. I have yet to come across a man who is incapable of seeing the shades of grey. It also has to be said that most men I’ve encountered are more than capable of recognising that the “war” which is being discussed — unless this is a superb piece of misdirection by Bush & Blair — is not a full-scale, total war along the lines of The two World Wars. Which is not to say there isn’t a risk of a major war — and again, I’ve yet to encounter a man who doesn’t see that as something to be avoided if at all possible. (And, of course, most men I know — most women, too, of course — are wholly capable of recognising that it isn’t enough for one party to want to avoid war if the opponents are intent on having one.)

Suzanne Moore’s article is in most respects nothing more than statements of the bleeding obvious. Perhaps she had a mental vacuum and thought a touch of sex stereotyping would make up for the lack of anything worthwhile to say. That doesn’t mean the NS should have printed it.

Scientists in the UK say that workable fusion power is close, possibly within the next few decades.

Sunday 30th September 2001

Today’s Sunday Telegraph has an interview with the former bodyguard of the Taleban leader. It opens with the instructions of the commandant of the Afghan secret police to new recruits:

“You must become so notorious for bad things that when you come into an area people will tremble in their sandals. Anyone can do beatings and starve people. I want your unit to find new ways of torture so terrible that the screams will frighten even crows from their nests and if the person survives he will never again have a night’s sleep.”

Forced to join the Taleban, he saw and took part in such cruelty that I swore an oath that I will devote myself to the Afghan people and telling the world what is happening.

From his time as bodyguard of Mullah Omar, the Taleban leader, he gives this description:

“He’s medium height, slightly fat, with an artificial green eye which doesn’t move, and he would sit on a bed issuing instructions and giving people dollars from a tin trunk," said Mr Hassani. “He doesn’t say much, which is just as well as he’s a very stupid man. He knows only how to write his name ‘Omar’ and sign it.

“It is the first time in Afghanistan’s history that the lower classes are governing and by force. There are no educated people in this administration — they are all totally backward and illiterate.

“They have no idea of the history of the country and although they call themselves mullahs they have no idea of Islam. Nowhere does it say men must have beards or women cannot be educated; in fact, the Koran says people must seek education.”

He goes on to describe the closeness of Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden — they would fish together with hand grenades — and says, We laughed when we heard the Americans asking Mullah Omar to hand over Osama bin Laden. The Americans are crazy. It is Osama bin Laden who can hand over Mullah Omar — not the other way round.

Tony Blair has seen incontrovertible evidence of Osama bin Laden’s link to the September 11th attacks.

The trial of eight Western aid workers charged with preaching Christianity has resumed in Kabul.

The Saudi government has refused to allow the USA to use air bases in Saudi to launch attacks on the Taleban.

The abbreviated Labour Party Conference starts today amid an unprecedented level of security. Up to 8,000 anti-capitalist/anti-war protesters are expected in Brighton.

Sixty-two Israeli students have refused to do military service in the West Bank and Gaza, saying they do not want to take part in the crimes the state of Israel carries out. In Washington, a planned anti-globalisation march became a peace protest. The peace protest was met by a small group of pro-government demonstrators chanting All we are saying, is give war a chance.

The peace protesters seem to be under the impression that the USA is out to flatten Afghanistan, but G.W. has rejected military plans for large-scale aerial bombardment of targets in Afghanistan.

How to deal with terrorists like Al Qaeda? Are secret military tribunals the answer?

Claims that the USA gave the Taleban $43 million is a reward for anti-drugs efforts are not true, according to the Boston Phoenix which quotes Colin Powell as explaining the money was aimed at alleviating famine and was channelled through the UN and NGOs.

Christopher Hitchens: I have no hesitation in describing this mentality, carefully and without heat, as soft on crime and soft on fascism. No political coalition is possible with such people and, I’m thankful to say, no political coalition with them is now necessary. It no longer matters what they think.

Not all Muslims or all Arabs are terrorists. Nor are they implicated in the horrendous events of Tuesday. Police protection for individual Muslims, mosques and other institutions must be increased.

However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with Terrorist Tuesday is to wilfully ignore the obvious and to forever misinterpret events. Without Islam the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Usama bin Laden and his followers make little sense. The West needs to understand them in order to be able to deal with them and avoid past mistakes. We are confronted with Islamic terrorists and must take seriously the Islamic component.

That is straight talking that many people flinch at, even some who would agree with it. But those words were not written by an American politician or journalist, they were written by a man born into the Islamic faith, who goes on:

Westerners in general, and Americans in particular, do not understand the passionate, religious, and anti-western convictions of Islamic terrorists. These God-intoxicated fanatics blindly throw away their lives in return for the Paradise of Seventy Two Virgins offered Muslim martyrs killed in the Holy War against all infidels. …

The world is divided into two spheres, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. The latter, the Land of Warfare, is a country belonging to infidels which has not been subdued by Islam. The Dar al-Harb becomes the Dar-al Islam, the Land of Islam, upon the promulgation of the edicts of Islam. Thus the totalitarian nature of Islam is nowhere more apparent than in the concept of Jihad, the Holy War, whose ultimate aim is to conquer the entire world and submit it to the one true faith, to the law of Allah. To Islam alone has been granted the truth: there is no possibility of salvation outside it. Muslims must fight and kill in the name of Allah.

As for the idea that Islamic fundamentalism is like any other fundamentalism, Ibn Warraq has this to say:

There are enormous differences between Islamic fundamentalism and any other kind of modern fundamentalism. It is true that Hindu, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalists have been responsible for acts of violence, but these have been confined to particular countries and regions. Islamic fundamentalism has global aspirations: the submission of the entire world to the all-embracing Shari’a, Islamic Law, a fascist system of dictates designed to control every single act of all individuals. Nor do Hindus or Jews seek to convert the world to their religion. Christians do indulge in proselytism but no longer use acts of violence or international terrorism to achieve their aims.

Only Islam treats non-believers as inferior beings who are expendable in the drive to world hegemony. Islam justifies any means to achieve the end of establishing an Islamic world.

This is a thought-provoking article, and a valuable one: as well as its content, it demonstrates the breadth of opinion within what the rest of the world often perceives as a monolithic Islamic Weltanschauung. At one point Warraq calls for the recognition of the Qur’an for what it is: a problematical human document reflecting 7th or perhaps 8th Century values which the West has largely outgrown. This is, of course, not a surprising view to the West, which has mostly (some of our own embarrassing fundamentalists aside) accepted that the Bible is a collection of historical documents reflecting the values of periods raging from about 2000 BCE to c. 150 CE. However, in Islam

Few Muslims have shown themselves capable of scrutinising their sacred text rationally. Indeed any criticism of their religious tenets is taken as an insult to their faith, for which so many Muslims seem ready to kill (as in the Rushdie affair or the Taslima Nasreen affair). Muslims seem to be unaware that the research of western scholars concerning the existence of figures such as Abraham, Isaac and Joseph or the authorship of the Pentateuch applies directly to their belief system. Furthermore, it is surely totally irrational to continue to believe that the Qur’an is the word of God when the slightest amount of rational thought will reveal that the Qur’an contains words and passages addressed to God … or that it is full of historical errors and inconsistencies.

Woody Allen spoke about the effect of the WTC attacks on blockbuster movies; Gary K. Wolfe talks about how they will affect the vocabulary of SF.

Don’t envy New York firemen? Then read this.