December 02, 2005
Lessons of a Belgian Woman’s suicide-attack in Iraq
So Murielle Degauque is "the latest European, and the first woman, to join the lengthening list of bombers," in Iraq, according to the (London) Independent. Her bomb attack killed only herself, but her trajectory from working-class Belgian to Islamist suicide-bomber deserves a closer look, partly because what her life portends about Europe’s future and partly because it provides still more evidence that racial profiling ("search all Arab males") will not stop terrorist attacks. Let’s take the last one first. In my new book, Disinformation, I devote a chapter to debunking the idea focussing on searching all Muslims or Arab males or any particular profile will defeat hijackings and bombings. Instead, radical groups simply recruit people who do not fit the profile. French prisoners, white Australian hotheads, Berkeley, Calif.-converts, Indonesian students and Filipinas married to Arab men have all been recruited to al Qaeda, the Taliban or other Islamist terror outfits. If Ms. Degauque brought her bomb into an American airport instead of against an American patrol in Iraq, she would not have seemed suspicious. When you are looking for Arab males, you tend to ignore Belgian females. It makes more sense to profile on the basis of documented relationships (sharing a bank account with a known terrorist, et cetera), than on a clutch of skin-deep categories.
Now what does Ms. Degauque transformation from party animal to terrorist teach us? One, the riots in France and Belgium are just the beginning. As Europe increasingly becomes a recruiting ground for terrorists, the EU should expect some attacks on their continent. Two, Belgian intelligence is not very effective in tracking radicals in their midst. Remember that the two terrorists (and one of their wives) who used a bomb-rigged camera to kill anti-Taliban leader Ahmed Shah Massoud on Sept. 9, 2001 carried Belgian passports. Belgian intel does not seem to have stepped up its efforts in the past four years. Paul Belein wrote in the (London) Spectator about the laissez-faire attitude at Belgian intel several years. Despite a parliamentary investigation and a high-profile resignation, little has changed. Add to that, that Degaugue mere and pere were not surprised when police arrived to tell them that their daughter died in Iraq. They knew why the police were there before they even said bonjour, as the Independent article says. Even after her husband died at the hands of U.S. forces in Iraq, Belgian intel did not question her or her parents. There are, of course, domestic political reasons in Belgium for the dangerous laxity. The excellent Brussels Journal.com adds some important information:
"The American authorities informed the Belgian authorities of the woman’s identity a few weeks ago, but Brussels kept it secret. Yesterday evening the Franco-Luxemburgian network RTL announced the news. Last night, the Belgian police arrested 14 people. Nine of them are Belgians, mostly of foreign origin, three are Moroccans and two are Tunisians. They are said to belong to the same network as the woman suicide bomber. Today a 27-year-old man was arrested in Paris. He is suspected of belonging to a group that takes Jihadists from Belgium to Iraq."
Well, better late than never, mes amis. Three, Degauque began her drift into terrorism in a fairly standard pattern: marriage to a Muslim man of North African descent — dramatically changing her behavior and appearence to conform to Islamist doctrines, isolating herself from family and friends and becoming emotionally and financially dependent of a man with terrorist connections. Finally, and this may have been the catalyst, the death of her "benefactor" — which provided a powerful revenge motive. The "right to revenge" seems to be an key doctrine in radical Salafi circles, especially among women. The woman who failed to detonate her bomb in Amman, Jordan on Nov. 9 lost three brothers and an husband to anti-American activity. We know that al Qaeda prefers to recruit people who have lost a close relative to allied military or intelligence services. Allied forces should encourage moderate imams to speak out against the so-called right to revenge.We must learn to spot the signs of terrorist transformations of the Degauques of the world or we will pay for our ignorance with the blood of innocents.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:41 AM
November 30, 2005
This isn’t Disinformation
The head of Fox News Channel’s documentary unit, Brian Gaffney, recently e-mailed me to say that the network will air a one-hour special entitled "Winning Iraq: The Untold Story" on Saturday December 3 at 9 p.m. (EST). It will re-air at midnight. Gaffney writes: "We sent Greg Palkot and a production team all around Iraq for six weeks. They met Iraqis from across the country and came back with a really inspiring hour — one that’s a lot different from what most Americans see each night on the evening news." All of my sources on the ground tell me the same thing: we are winning the war on the ground and losing on the airwaves. The media simply doesn’t cover US and Iraqi military operations, which are almost invariably successful. Have you heard about Operation Namur (Arabic for Tigers), which is taking the fight to terrorists in Ramadi this week? Or Operation Steel Curtain last week? Or the campaign in Tal Afar in September? So far the media only sees fit to report the enemy’s strikes, not those of the allies. Here’s hoping that Fox’s special begins to redress the imbalance.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:57 AM
November 14, 2005
Time’s Decline
Time magazine still has some fine reporters, but the editorial standards of the newsweekly seem to have declined in lock-step with its circulation. But, as this story makes plain, Time is now relying on enemy spokesmen in Iraq (calling them insurgents, not anti-democratic terrorists) as if they are simply another interest group. In an otherwise vanilla story about the Amman wedding attack, Time cites an enemy propagandist (oh sorry, there I go speakly directly, I mean, "insurgent source") saying that he and they had no foreknowledge of the attack. Do the editors not realize that al Qaeda and Ba’athist enemy forces have entire propaganda units to fight the media war and that that is the only war the enemy is winning? Where do they think those al Jazeera video tapes come from and why do they think that they are produced? Why play into the enemy’s hands by quoting them as if they are simply one point of view among many?
Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:45 AM
November 01, 2005
The Iraq you don’t know
Iraq is booming and not just with bombs. Michael Rubin, who has
travelled widely in Iraq free of U.S. military minders, writes in National Review Online:
"In August 2005, new business registrations have topped 30,000; this figure does not include the number of start-ups which still ignore Iraqi-registration rules.
"Ordinary Iraqis are financially better off now than they were at any time in the past two decades. According to World Bank and International Monetary Fund estimates, per capita income has doubled since 2003. Iraq’s per capita gross domestic product is today almost twice that of Yemen and nearing that of Egypt and Syria, hardly a sign of failure in a country in which, just three years ago, antiwar groups insisted children were starving en masse. Statistics aside, the Iraqi economic boom is apparent to anyone who visits an Iraqi market. Not only are appliances and luxuries in the stores, but customers are actually purchasing them."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:08 PM
August 23, 2005
The Syrian Democrats
For those who like to look over the horizon, I recomend checking out this blog by the Reform Party of Syria. The last Ba'athist dictatorship is tottering, and the democratic resistance, small and embattled though it is, has been heartened by the liberation of Iraq, the other Ba'athist thug government.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:33 PM
Telling Jokes from Iraq
Michael Rubin, the AEI scholar, has a great eye for detail—and a good ear for jokes. Humor can reveal a lot more about the mood of Baghdad than say, ABC News. Here are two telling jokes that he recently heard in Iraq.
- A Japanese, American, and Iraqi are killed by a roadside bomb and go to hell. After several days in hell, each expresses a desire to call home. Satan gives the Japanese a phone. He calls Japan and talks to his family for five minutes. After the call, he is given a bill for $5 million. "Why so large?" he asks. Satan responds, "Well, Japan is a long way from hell." The American then calls home and speaks for ten minutes. His bill? $10 million. Last, the Iraqi asks to call home. After several tries, he finally gets a line. He speaks to his friends and family for an hour and a half. His bill? $2. "Why only two dollars?" he asks. "For Iraq we only need a local line," Satan responds.
- Ibrahim Jaafari goes to his office on his first day as Prime Minister. He walks into his office, and sees a rooster, a dog, and a donkey. "Why are you here?" he asks the rooster. "There is so much work to be done in Iraq, that my job is to wake you early so you have enough time to do it," the rooster responds. "What about you?" he asks the dog. "Security is a huge problem in Iraq. My job is to make sure you are protected from terrorists." "And you?" he asks the donkey? "I don't know," the donkey responds. "They dumped me in this office, the same as you."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:09 PM
August 13, 2005
Watch Fox Tonight at 9 PM
I just got an e-mail from Brian Gaffney, the former Dateline producer
who has been making some fabulous documentaries for Fox News Channel.
Remember the Oil-for-Food one a while back? That was his. Tonight's
will be even better. If it culled from hundreds of hours of never-before broadcast battle footage from Fallujah, if my memory of an earlier conversation is correct. It is called &qout;Company of Heroes." Here's Gaffney's Blackberry summary: "it's on the marines who led the charge into Fallujah and their families back home." Watch it. You won't be disappointed.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:46 PM
August 11, 2005
The Iraq Withdrawal We Really Need
Bring home the troops? Maybe. But what about the thousands of contractors in Iraq? asks Michael Rubin. As usual, he makes some smart on-the-ground observations in Iraq. Worth reading.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:00 PM
June 24, 2005
Euros for Iraq's terrorists?
A gaggle of European leftists have moved from vocal opposition to the war in Iraq to actually funding the anti-democratic terrorists, what they so charmingly call "the resistance." Nevermind that their money could be used to kill American and European troops, that Iraq is the only Arab democracy, or that al Qaeda opposes every human right the Left once cherished. Raising funds in the heart of NATO for America's enemies... It is hard to believe.
Check out this leftwing European web site (English edition). Launched in November 2003, here is their call for 10 euros (about $13) per person to help finance our enemies:
- We therefore invite all the anti-imperialists who oppose the American Empire without any ideological and religious precondition to start an international collection of funds supporting the Iraqi national resistance movement: we ask every person to donate 10 euros. The Iraqi national resistance front in formation will decide upon their utilisation.
- Committees, political, social and cultural organisations as well as individuals who endorse this proposal are asked to contact us. Our aim is to build an international popular campaign in support of the Iraqi resistance which also implies the creation of the appropriate international body.
The effort has already raised several million euros, according to this week's U.S. News and World Report. Some of this money has actually gone to fund weapons, according to one organizer. Here's the money quote:
The groups are an odd collection, made up largely of Marxists and Maoists, sprinkled with an array of Arab emigres and aging, old-school fascists, according to Lorenzo Vidino, an analyst on European terrorism based at The Investigative Project in Washington, D.C. "It's the old anti-capitalist, anti-U.S., anti-Israel crowd," says Vidino, who has been to their gatherings, where he saw activists from Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Italy. "The glue that binds them together is anti-Americanism."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 09:07 AM
June 15, 2005
Zarqawi's car bomb maker arrested
Wanna buy a car bomb? $18,000. And remember, these are "friend prices." Those other jihadis, they pay more. Ask around the baazar. Terrorists who know shop here... Jassim Hazan Hamadi al-Bazi, also known by his al Qaeda name, Abu Ahmed, made and sold a variety of bombs and weapons for our enemies in Iraq. Now he is in Iraqi custody—and many lives have been saved as a result. Check out this story in Britain's Guardian newspaper. Dare I say it? One more sign that we are winning.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:35 PM
Iraq's Version of Reality TV
Longtime readers of this site will remember a post about a popular Iraqi television show called "Terrorists in the grip of Justice," which featured battered terrorists in Mosul and elsewhere confessing to their murderous deeds. It was reportedly highly popular and has seemed to mobilze public opinion against the anti-democratic terrorists. Now Christopher Hitchens, who I bumped into at a dinner for the son of the late Shah of Iran, has written about the Iraqi show for Slate. You heard it here first, but Hitchens' piece is worth a read.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:14 PM
Why We Will Win in Iraq
Why can't the American military protect itself from roadside bombs and snipers of the Iraq's anti-democratic terrorists (whom the media charmingly call "insurgents")? Part of the reason is bureaucratic inertia. The military bureaucracy—which is essentially the motor vehicle department with heavy artillery—has not moved beyond the idea that the only way to armor vehicles is by welding on plates of steel. While heavy, these plates can only stop a handful of AK-47 rounds in the same spot before a deadly hole opens up. There has to be a better way, a lightweight solution that stops hundreds of rounds in the same spot. Meet David Warren, a former Marine with more than 20 patents to his name. (Full Disclosure: Warren is married to my sister, Susanne.) He has developed a new technology which promises to revolutionize the way we safeguard our soldiers. Hopefully, the military bureaucracy will listen...
As for the enemy, I think they have underestimated America. They are not just fighting our soldiers, but an army of inventors back in homeland.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:24 AM
June 09, 2005
Press Bias, Fisk and Thucydides
This article by Keith Windschuttle is very interesting. He comes close to asking a question that has been on my mind ever since my first trip to Iraq in 2003. Why are reporters reporting the last war? It used to be generals who were accused of fighting the last war, but campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq were utterly new and weren't even similar to each other, let alone Vietnam. Windschuttle also makes some interesting points comparing Fisk's descriptions of bin Laden to British colonial descriptions of Arab leaders and details how press coverage has been skewed.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 02:07 PM
June 03, 2005
How Saddam helped CNN and vice versa
Check out this account of CNN founder Ted Turner, at a conference attended by CNN employees:
Before the war, Iraqi journalists attended the annual conferences in Atlanta, Turner said."We made friends with the Iraqi television people like we've made friends with everybody in the room," he said, pointing to the crowd.
In 1990, as war clouds gathered, "We had the position where we were liked over there and we were also known as being fair, and the Iraqis kind of chose us—if there was going to be anybody broadcasting out of there."
Turner also credited former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan for
ensuring the network had the technical capability to broadcast from
Baghdad when no one else could."Basically, by making friends all over the world, which included the Iraqi television people and (Deputy Prime Minister) Tariq Aziz—the secretary of information or whatever he was—we got access that others didn't, and when the war started, we were broadcasting and nobody else was.
"You know, by being nice, sometimes it works out real well. On the other hand, being nice to Gerry Levin didn't."
Turner was referring to the Time Warner chief executive who signed off on the merger with AOL in 2001. Levin has since left the company.
"I'd rather put myself in the Iraqis' hands than in some Americans'," Turner said.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:22 PM
May 28, 2005
Zarqawi surrounded in a village home?
Zarqawi reported taken refuge in Abu Shallal, a village north of Baghdad, according a report from the
Posted by Richard Miniter at 02:14 PM
May 19, 2005
Our friends, the Pakistanis
So Pakistan's Minister for Religious Affairs defends suicide attacks in Mesopotamia, expecting only a knowing nod from the world's press and a what-else-would-you-expect-? shrug from the State Department—but he got more than he bargained for. The Iraqi National Congress is demanding an apology. It is about time that the appointed officials of allied nations got with the program. As Bush likes to say, "You're either with us or with the terrorists." For a front-bench minister in the Musharaf government, this shouldn't be a hard choice.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:30 PM
May 15, 2005
Is Zarqawi knocking on Death's Door?
Don't bet on it. I was asked about this on Fox & Friends, the Fox News Channel's morning program, today, and I suggested that this report may well be disinformation. This is precisely the story that terrorists and those trained in intelligence like to use to throw American and allied forces off his trail. (It is akin to the reports that bin Laden is on dialysis.) In the Sunday Times (of London) version of the story, the doctor who allegedly treated in Zarqawi is not named and medical records have not been obtained. A single blood sample should settle the matter. Still, this could be the good news that many Iraq watchers are waiting for...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:02 PM
May 10, 2005
Clash of ideals, not civilizations
I found Bernard Lewis' latest remarks irresistible. Let us hope he is right. "To speak of dictatorship as being the immemorial way of doing things in the Middle East is simply untrue. It shows ignorance of the Arab past, contempt for the Arab present, and lack of concern for the Arab future. Creating a democratic political and social order in Iraq or elsewhere in the region will not be easy. But it is possible, and there are increasing signs that it has already begun."
Author of What Went Wrong and other books on the Middle East, Bernard Lewis is Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:41 PM
May 03, 2005
Media Failures
Everyone frets about "intelligence failures", but no one worries about "media failures." We should. The myopia of the media could cost America and its allies the war in Iraq, by presenting an unbalanced picture that undermines public support for the war.
There are three types of media failures: a story bias, a location bias, and a source bias. These are systemic biases that cut across all media from CNN to FOX to the broadcast networks. These three biases taken together are often mistaken for an ideological prejudice (aka "liberal bias"), media failures are caused by a structural bias that is largely invisible to both the press and the public.
Story bias
The press rightly covers the so-called insurgency's bomb attacks. (No one calls them what they are: anti-democratic terrorists.) But they do not prominently cover the American military's many counter-attacks. The same day that car bombs rocked Baghdad, the U. S. Marines successfully repulsed and defeated an "insurgent" invasion originating from Syria. So when the enemy scores, it is a story. When the allies prevail, it is not. This leaves the impression that Iraq is a quagmire and our soldiers are simply hapless victims who can't lay a glove on the terrorists. By artificially limiting what is considered a story, the media misses the big picture.
Location bias
The story bias is reinforced by the location bias. It is no accident that the general tone of the coverage changed when the major newspapers and networks stopped participating in the "embed" program. (The embed program is not dead; a U. S. Army Ranger officer told me in Baghdad that the military is actually begging journalists to participate.) So most reporters are simply not seeing (or collecting video) of American and allied military operations. They all but ignore them. And journalists who are not embedded rarely accompany allied forces.
The other element of location bias is that the press rarely wanders outside its walled compound. Of course, safety is the reason. Mark Bowden brilliantly describes the isolation of the press in the latest Atlantic Monthly. Many of my friends and colleagues who work in Iraq have complained about how isolated they feel. They rarely interact with ordinary Iraqis or see Iraqi police operations as they unfold.
Source bias
Finally, there is a source bias. Many networks use "fixers," Arabic speakers who bring local officials and community leaders to be interviewed (either "on background" or on the record). For better or worse, these fixers essentially decide who is interviewed. This is a standard enough arrangement, but is can easily lead to abuses. A broader diversity of sources would help the press present a more complex and balanced picture.
As a result of this source bias, the American media has overlooked key emerging figures such as Mithal Jamal Hussein Al-Alusi, a liberal Iraqi politician, or the outgoing Iraqi Minister of Human Rights, who holds press conferences that the English-language press doesn't bother to attend.
If the CIA only covered one side, failed to leave its guarded redoubts and only interviewed selected sources, Congress (or ironically, the press) would crow about intelligence failures. Yet when the press makes identical mistakes, it gets a pass.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:07 PM
April 25, 2005
Marla
One Saturday in Iraq, on a busy stretch of road far from U.S. checkpoints, anti-democratic terrorists murdered an acqaintence of mine—Marla Ruzicka.
We met at the home of Eli Lake, a New York Sun reporter who regularly scoops the bigger media on national security and middle-eastern affairs. A few of us stepped outside to smoke and talk about Iraq, where each of us had been. She seemed incredibly intrepid; a short blonde who didn't like guns journeying into war zones to help the people that the cameras ignore.
She was anti-war and dedicated to helping people in Afghanistan and Iraq, facts that even Time manages to get right.
But the larger signifigance of her murder, which was missed by Time, is noted by the Belmont Club, a consistently interesting and intelligent blog. She was killed by a roadside bomb, the kind where the killer chooses a victim at distance and triggers the blast.
In the Vietnam era, liberals decried "push button wars." Now, when they are carried out by an enemy that many grandly call the "insurgency," they shrug.
In our one real conversation, she said that she was going back to Iraq. She was going back to help; she was a brave humanitarian. She was 28.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:35 AM
April 06, 2005
So much for that theory
Critics have long maintained that the "neo-cons" went around the pros in the intelligence community to lay the foundation for the liberation of Iraq, a move they find unforgiveable. Well, the latest commission to take a look at the issue—and had access to intelligence documents—has put that to rest. Bear in mind, the majority of the commission were Democrats (including a judge appointed by President Carter).
Posted by Richard Miniter at 09:57 PM
March 25, 2005
Torturing Terrorists on TV--in Iraq
Okay, this is almost too strange to be true. But a new program has appeared on Iraqi television called "Terrorists in the Grip of Justice." In the episode talked about in the link above, a Syrian intelligence officer—or someone who plays one on tv—confesses to supervising terrorist attacks on Iraqis. But the popularity, even the existence, of this show suggests that Abu Ghraib was not so shocking on the "Arab street."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:24 PM