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World Affairs by Tad Trueblood
Articles
The "Qassam War" in Gaza
October 7, 2004--Because of the "Qassam War" the hoped-for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is starting to look like an expanded occupation, wreaking havok with Prime Minister Sharon's plans.
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Allawi draws a bright line between visions for Iraq’s future
September 29, 2004--Iraq's Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave a masterful speech before the U.S. Congress last week. In his words, we see a clear, bright line between despair and hope, a dark past and a new future.
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Iraq's thin blue, and deadly, line
September 22, 2004--Over 700 Iraqi police officers have reportedly lost their lives since Saddam’s dictatorship was overthrown, making this one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. The men in Iraq's fledgling security forces make up the thin blue line that increasingly determine Iraq’s future.
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Is world peace breaking out?
September 8, 2004--Many of us are emotionally attached to the idea that war is on the rise in the world. Nevertheless, according to several scholarly groups looking at emperical data, war is actually down. Peace is up!
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Hypothesis: Islamic terrorists are losers
September 14, 2004--I'm floating an idea, a hypothesis that I'm not sure even I believe. But here it is for challenge: Islamic terrorists, led by bin-Laden and al-Qaida, have already lost their war against the West. Moreover, they lost it at the very moment of their greatest “triumph”.
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The rising price of crude: What's in your wallet?
August 25, 2004--One of the most concrete examples of how seemingly remote global events have local and individual effects is the rising pump price at your corner quickmart. Gasoline prices are propelled largely by the per-barrel price of crude oil, which has been rising fast.
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Khomeinism vs Quietism and the Battle for Najaf
August 19, 2004 -- The stakes in Najaf are more than just control over the sacred shrine of Imam Ali. If Najaf again becomes the core of Shiism, the effects could be far-reaching.
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Our coming showdown with Iran
August 11, 2004 -- Given time, international support and an example of functioning, sovereign and representative government in Iraq, there would be a good chance that the Iranian people would find a way to throw the mullahs out of power. But with Tehran’s Islamo-fascists pushing hell-bent towards the A-bomb, it appears there is not enough time to let internal dynamics run their course in Iran.
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Death and atrocity ride with the Janjaweed in Darfur, Sudan
August 4, 2004 -- Typically they come in the morning, around breakfast, as a village is still awakening. For generations, desert raiders have been preying on farming communities in the Sahel, but these modern marauders in Sudan's Darfur region are more deadly. They are the Janjaweed, armed with automatic weapons and they bring cruelty, hate, rape and murder with them.
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Arafat hangs on, Palestinian factions vie for power in Gaza
28 July, 2004 -- Just as in nature, politics abhors a vacuum. Even while physically isolated, Yasser Arafat wields his influence among Palestinians, but his grip is slipping. A bewildering array of rival Palestinian factions are now vying for power in the troubled Gaza strip.
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Live wires: Saddam's Iraq was a real threat
July 21, 2004 -- Today’s news headlines virtually scream, “War was unjustified” and “There was no threat”. Horse pucky! The combination of Saddam’s WMD aspirations and programs, and Iraq’s multiple ties/links/connections to terrorist killers bent on mass murder of Americans did indeed pose a threat that demanded decisive action.
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Charge that Bush cooked the intel books is shown to be half-baked
July 15, 2004 -- The Senate Intelligence Committee's report, released last Friday, clearly shows that the failings of the intelligence community--led by the CIA--in regards to Iraqi WMD were serious, even staggering. But it doesn’t pin blame for the WMD intel failure on the President. In fact, the Committee’s report explicitly exonerates the administration from charges they pressured, manipulated or “politicized” the intelligence.
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Israel's coming battle with "facts on the ground"
July 7, 2004 -- The die-hard Jewish settlers in Israel's occupied territories now comprise the largest obstacle to reaching some kind of Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and pose a terrible quandry for Sharon. It’s one thing to resolutely face your traditional adversary across the negotiating table or a battlefield. It’s quite another to square off for a fight against your own people.
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Praying for Corporal Hassoun
June 30, 2004 -- As you go to work this morning, or wash the car, or get the boat ready for this weekend, think about what it means that a young Lebanese-American, a fellow Utahn and a Muslim, may be called upon to give the last true measure of devotion for this country. Then offer up a prayer for Corporal Hassoun.
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Antics with semantics: Commission plays games with Iraq-al-Qaida relationship
June 23, 2004 -- Semantic games have crept into the Commission's latest Staff Statements, which infer that there was no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al-Qaida. I've been hoping that partisan politics wouldn’t entirely taint the 9/11 Commission's judgments, but that hope was in vain.
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Liberia slowly returns from the depths of chaos
June 16, 2004 -- The U.N. deserves credit for progress in Liberia. And support from the regional security organization ECOWAS has been key. But in the end, it made a big difference to have the unilateralist might of the United States behind the efforts there.
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Of walls and will: Ronald Reagan's greatest moment
June 8, 2004 -- Reagan fired the imaginations of millions when, on 12 June, 1987, he demanded that the Berlin Wall come down. At the time, that speech was portrayed as a frivolous, even foolish PR stunt. But history shows otherwise.
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Sharon the Warhorse pushes for withdrawal from Gaza
June 2, 2004 -- The political fate of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hangs in the balance as he tries to find a way to extricate Israel from Gaza and set the stage for a secure Israel. He may not survive the attempt.
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The "Tillman Factor" and the steeling of America
May 26, 2004 -- With the loss of over 700 young men and women in Iraq, regular Americans from all walks are realizing that we cannot turn from this fight and dishonor the sacrifices that have already been made. This is our war now, not George Bush's.
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Crisis in Sudan: Multilateralists, please step forward
May 19, 2004 -- Here's a perfect opportunity for those decrying American "unilateralism" to show the value of a collective, internationalist approach to security challenges. In Sudan today, the U.N. can actually fulfill its charter and prevent another genocide in Africa. The great multilateralists of Europe can step up on their own. And Arab leaders can defuse an internecine conflict where Muslims are killing Muslims.
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Jordan's close call shows potential al-Qaida-Iraq link
May 13, 2004 -- The revelation of an attempted chemical attack in Jordan by al-Qaida ally/operative Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi flies in the face of the now-familiar refrains of "Iraq didn't have WMD," and "there is no evidence of an Iraq-al-Qaida link," and the oh-so-popular, "Saddam posed no threat."
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The shame of Abu Ghraib stains us all
May 5, 2004 -- In the wake of Abu Ghraib, the only way for the U.S. military, the Defense Department, the Bush administration and this nation to regain some semblance of self-respect is to aggressively and publicly track this scandal down, identify those guilty of abuses and those who should have been responsible and punish them severely and swiftly.
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Seige of Palestine fuels the cycle of hate
April 28, 2004 -- When Americans read about Israeli teenagers blasted to bits by homicide bombers, it is nearly impossible for most of us to understand Palestinians, much less sympathize with them. This is doubly true since 9-11, when we watched some Palestinians dance in glee while our countrymen died.
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The "Quiet War" rages on
April 21, 2004 -- What beautiful mountainous country, wracked by decades of civil war, terrorism, poverty, narcotics trafficking, and rival warlords, is struggling to regain a national future with the help of U.S. troops and funding? Nope, I'm not thinking of Afghanistan (although that’s a good guess). Try a little closer to home.
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Pre-September 11 Presidential Daily Briefing is no Smoking Gun
April 14, 2004 -- The Whitehouse has released the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6, 2001, which discussed the threat of an al-Qaida attack on America. Upon close inspection it is clear that this briefing holds no smoking guns implicating President Bush or anyone else as having had some foreknowledge of 9-11. Nothing here is “actionable intelligence”, and some of it was proven to be inaccurate.
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Make-or-break in Iraq: al-Sadr's Shiite uprising
April 7, 2004--The outbreak of a violent uprising among radicalized Iraqi Shiites led by Muqtada al-Sadr is a watershed event. Both the insurgent Shiites, and the American-led Coalition are engaged in a make-or-break struggle that will determine Iraq's future.
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Not your father's NATO
March 31, 2004 -- A wimpy, eleven-syllable organization with longhaired troops and a Madison Avenue logo has proved more resilient than it seemed. The authoritarian Warsaw Pact crumbled and was swept into history’s dustbin, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has expanded its membership and mission.
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Israel's death struggle with Hamas
At this juncture, it does seem as if the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon has given up on any peace process in favor of head-on confrontation with Palestinian radicals. On Monday, the Israeli military struck and killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in a highly controversial action. But to understand why this action was chosen, we need to take a look at the target and the nature of the organization he founded.
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The scorecard in Iraq (part 3): Risky business
March 18, 2004 -- It wasn't simply Iraq's covert WMD programs that brought us to war. It was the danger that Saddam's depraved and twisted regime might share such materials or technology with al-Qaida or its affiliates.
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Examining the scorecard (part 2): Mistakes on WMD
March 11, 2004--Mistakes were certainly made concerning claims that WMD stockpiles would be found in Iraq. Mistakes by intelligence services and the administration. I made my share too, and here we look at my own scorecard in that regard. But does it mean that the war in Iraq was wrong?
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Examining the scorecard in Iraq: Where do we stand?
March 3, 2004 -- The 20th of this month will be the one-year anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. It seems fitting to spend some ink going over current events in Iraq, looking forward to key developments, and looking back to see where this particular writer has gotten things wrong and right. For the next few columns, then, I’ll be examining the scorecard.
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A one-state solution for Israel?
February 26, 2004--The “one-state solution” is gaining currency among Palestinians, within some sectors of Israeli society, and in the worldwide diasporas of both Palestinians and Jews. Many now assert that a two-state solution is no longer possible, and that the only viable way for Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews to live in peace is to forge a single, inclusive state.
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Spearhead of Jihad
February 18, 2004 -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is arguably the most dangerous terrorist in the world today, a rising dark star among a new generation of holy warriors. His recently discovered letter to Osama bin-Laden provides a chilling view into the current mind and plans of one of our deadliest enemies.
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To vote or not to vote? Democracy and the Ayatollah
February 10, 2004 -- For many of the 15 million Shiites in Iraq, power flows from the mouth of a 73-year old man, who rarely leaves his small, sparsely furnished apartment. The Grand Ayotallah Ali al-Sistani has emerged as the most influencial cleric in Iraq--and just possibly the most important man in the country.
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On being wrong: Testimony from David Kay you haven’t heard
February 5, 2004--David Kay’s testimony before the Senate last week was a bombshell. When he said we were wrong about Iraq’s WMD, it set off shockwaves that will ripple all the way to election day. But what did Dr. Kay actually say?
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Jolly Roger flies again: Piracy and terrorism in the Strait of Malacca
January 28, 2004--Could pirates and terrorists team up to stage a dramatic attack in one of the world's most strategic choke points? According to several maritime trade associations and international security organizations, Islamic terrorists in Southeast Asia could be contracting or teaming up with pirates to attempt a large-scale attack, either on a ship or port in the Strait of Malacca.
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Living in the Age of Extremism
January 21, 2004--We may be seeing the emergence of a new political spectrum in the 21st century. At the far end, there is a sort of twisted “rainbow coalition”--red, green, black and brown--along with the Islamic terrorists, that share a proclivity for violence and a rabid opposition to the process of globalization.
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Revolution at the top of the world
January 14, 2004 -- Since 1996, Nepal has been wracked by a guerrilla war pitting rebels from the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) against the police and the army supporting King Gyanendra. In August, the guerrillas called off a cease-fire that had been in force for 7 months. Since then, they have reemerged from the rugged western districts of Nepal to challenge the government right in the streets of the capital.
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Light on a hill? The deepening Israeli identity crisis
January 7, 2004 -- As the new year dawns, more and more Israelis are struggling with the yawing gap between what they think their country should be and what they see it becoming. Sharon's hard-line policies are increasingly under fire.
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Patience, persistence pay off big in Iraq & Libya
December 24, 2003 -- So many times in life, patience and persistence add up to the big moments. Steady investments in time, effort and resources yield blockbuster results. The work of two junior U.S. Army intelligence analysts in Iraq, slowly unraveling the network hiding Saddam, is a great example.
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French journalist fired for not toeing the anti-American line
December 30, 2003 -- You would think journalistic freedom (or freedom of the press, as our Founders called it) would be a pretty strong component of a western, democratic society born of the enlightenment. You’d also think that any newspaper in such a society would naturally be a champion of journalistic freedom in general, and of journalists in particular. Well, think again, mon cheri.
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