August 13, 2005

FROM MEMRI:

Chief Iranian Nuclear Affairs Negotiator Hosein Musavian: The Negotiations with Europe Bought Us Time to Complete the Esfahan UCF Project and the Work on the Centrifuges in Natanz

This Site is on the Same Wavelength as This Week’s VDH Article

Earlier this month, on August 4th, I posted a quote from Al Qaeda deputy leader Aymen al-Zawahiri:

"Our message is clear: You will not be safe until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and wealth and stop supporting the corrupt rulers," al-Zawahiri said.

I commented: 

He says we have to stop "stealing" their oil before Al Qaeda will stop killing civilians.  In our view, we are actually paying for their oil. I guarantee that oil prices worldwide would be a lot lower if this were not the case. So he's saying we have to stop buying oil before Al Qaeda will stop attacking. Even OPEC doesn't want us to stop buying oil from Arab nations. This makes it evident that Al Qaeda's official statement is that even if we withdrew troops from Iraq, Al Qaeda would still continue attacking.

In his latest article, Victor Davis Hanson makes the identical observation:

Take the August 4 declaration of al Qaeda’s second in command, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. He promises even “more destruction” for London, and tells us precisely why.

Many in the West assume that those mass murders were payback for the United Kingdom’s presence in Iraq, even though its troops are mostly confined to non-Wahhabi areas in the south.

But no, the Dr. instead lists a number of grievances beyond Iraq that justify his terrorist cadres murdering innocents. One complaint, for example, is “Stopping the robbing of our oil and resources.”

VDH adds much more:

Throughout this war we have an understandable, if ethnocentric, habit of ignoring what our enemies actually say. Instead we chatter on, don’t listen, and in self-absorbed fashion impart our own motives for their hatred. We live on the principles of the Enlightenment and so worship our god Reason, thus assuming that even our adversaries accept such rational protocols as their own.

So they talk on and on of beheading, suicide bombing, another holocaust, and blowing thousands of us up, while we snooze, now and again waking in the midst of a war to regurgitate Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, flushed Korans, the abusive Patriot Act, and the latest quip of Donald Rumsfeld.

VDH provides many quotes in which the Islamofascists plainly say what they mean. Read the whole thing.

Decisions on New Iraqi Constitution will Influence World Events for Decades

An open letter from Freedom House to Condi discusses the importance of achieving a constitution for the new Iraq that will promote Democracy:

Dear Secretary Rice:

As the deadline for the public presentation of Iraq’s new constitution nears, Freedom House is very concerned that the emerging constitution will seriously undermine the prospects for democracy and the safeguarding of human rights in the new Iraq.  After all the American blood and treasure that has been expended to bring freedom to Iraq, it would be worse than a shame if the new constitution were to enshrine the triumphalist vision of a minority within a particular sect, rather than reflect a national consensus on a democratic framework; it will have been a waste.

According to diverse accounts, the drafting committee’s current text abandons the salutary provisions on human rights and civil liberties contained in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). The key provision that overrides all others is dangerous enabling language to the effect that “Islam” would be the fundamental source of law in Iraq – rather than a source of law. This seemingly innocuous language threatens to subordinate rights otherwise guaranteed by international treaties, on gender equality and religious freedom in particular, to highly contestable, provisions in Sharia. Indeed, it would subordinate the entire constitution to an extra-constitutional and undefined “Islam” that is itself subject to various interpretations.

Of all the things happening in the world this week, the decisions regarding the new Iraqi constitution are surely among those which will have the most effect on the world in coming decades.

It appears likely that Condi and the GWB administration are not inactive with regard to this decision, but are being careful to avoid an appearance that they seek to force an outcome at gunpoint, given the presence in Iraq of our armies.  

NEWSFLASH: REDISTRICTING REFORM PROPOSITION 77, IS BACK ON NOVEMBER BALLOT IN CALIFORNIA.

The California Republican Party has just  released this email:

Today the California Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 77, the Voter Empowerment Act, should be allowed on the November 8th Special Election Ballot. 

...SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The California Supreme Court ruled Friday that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to change the way legislative districts are drawn should be placed back on November's special election ballot.

The 4-2 decision overturns a state appellate court ruling that removed the measure because of a wording dispute.

In its ruling, the San Francisco-based court said it was unconvinced there were different meanings in the versions of the measure that were submitted to the attorney general for review and shown to registered voters for their signature to place it on the ballot.

"We conclude that it would not be appropriate to deny the electorate the opportunity to vote on Proposition 77 at the special election to be held on November 8, 2005, on the basis of such discrepancies," the majority wrote.

This blog has been following this story. Redistricting reform is essential.